“Oh, I’m trying to find my place in the world after college,” I say. “I just graduated in June.”

  “No way!” The wine has given her energy, and everything I say seems to excite her. “I graduated last year.”

  “Do you have a career yet?”

  She scoffs. “Are you kidding? I’m an artist. I take whatever job I can get.”

  “Including being a tour guide at the Acropolis.”

  “Well, that’s a passion of mine, obviously.” She stumbles over the cobblestones, but I catch her before she falls. This night is playing out more like a slice-of-life romance than anything. I can’t imagine her as part of a deadly cult. I just can’t.

  “If you’re an artist, what do you paint?” I ask.

  “Paint’s not my medium,” she says with a grin. “You’ll see.”

  Her place is over the shops in a bright, yellow building with wide-open windows. For the briefest moment, I feel like a fool. I’m going to be alone with a member of a dangerous cult, and I’m actively working against her. What if she already knows? What if all this is just her way of getting me out of a crowd so she can eliminate the problem I pose? Maybe I’m not as subtle or seductive as I think I am.

  As soon as I step inside her apartment, my fears subside. It looks like any young woman’s place. It’s painted warm colors and has lights strung up everywhere. Her kitchen, which I can see from the front door, is small but cozy with antique cabinets, copper pots, and herbs hanging from the ceiling. “Your place is nice,” I say.

  “Thanks.” She touches my arm as she walks past. “It’s little, but it’s home. Come see my studio. That’s the impressive bit.”

  Delia leads me to another room that appears to be a combination bedroom and studio. It’s as big as the rest of the apartment put together. There’s a large bed in the middle, a tub in one corner, and art absolutely everywhere. Shelves line the walls, and a well-loved workbench is the centerpiece. She’s right. Her medium isn’t paint; it’s everything. Miniatures of every structure on the Acropolis adorn her shelves alongside objects that look to have emerged straight out of ancient Greece. “What’s all this?” I ask.

  “Reproductions.” She picks up a trident and hands it to me. “They can’t be faithful since the originals have never been found, but I do my best.”

  The trident is heavy, made of corroded iron and brass. It looks like something the House of David would have lying around their lab. “Is this supposed to be Poseidon’s?”

  “Yes.” She rushes to another shelf and picks up a helmet, which she trades me for the trident. “And this is Hades’s helmet. The original made the wearer invisible, or so they say.”

  I turn the helmet over in my hands. If someone handed this object to me and told me it was an ancient Greek artifact, I would believe them without question. “These are really good,” I say, and I mean it. She’s truly talented.

  “The hard part is aging them. I’ve had to study the way various materials decay over time and how the process changes depending on the environment.”

  I hand the helmet back to her and study the rest of her work. “But these are mostly mythological objects. Can you really call them reproductions if they never existed in the first place?”

  “Oh, they existed all right,” she says. “People just hid or destroyed them because they were too powerful.”

  For a moment, I’m stunned she would say something so outlandish. She seems like such a reasonable woman. But then I remember she’s closer to the truth than most people ever will be. There’s a reason the House of David exists.

  “Do you want another glass of wine?” she asks while I examine the rest of her work.

  “Sure.”

  Her shelves are filled with replicas of artifacts, lost icons, and miniatures of crumbling marble statues. In one corner, she has a steel model of Athena’s olive tree. I swear, if I saw it in a shop somewhere, I’d buy it.

  Just as she returns with two glasses of wine, I see a piece that stops me dead. I recognize it at once, though I’ve never seen a depiction quite like this. It’s the aegis, the artifact the House of David has come to Athens for. I’m locked onto the piece, and Delia notices.

  “That’s the aegis,” she says.

  I want to tell her I know, but I’ll get more out of her if she thinks I’m ignorant. “What’s an aegis?”

  “It’s a goatskin with Medusa’s head sewn into it. Sometimes it’s depicted as a shield, but I think it was probably a skin. Anyone who wears the aegis will be invincible in battle. Their army can’t lose.”

  The piece is gruesome. The face stitched into untreated leather is misshapen and monstrous. From the Gorgon’s head, ribbons of snakeskin writhe outward and become a kind of fringe. The whole piece looks like it’ll fall apart in my hands if I hold it wrong. “This is incredible. It looks so real.”

  “I believe the aegis really existed. They say Alexander the Great wore it in battle. Can you imagine what the right people could accomplish with something like this?” She sips her wine a little too fast, and I can tell it’s getting to her, as is the excitement of someone appreciating her work and beliefs.

  I mutter, “I can imagine what the wrong people could accomplish with it, too.”

  “But that’s why we have to make sure the right people get it first.” She’s positively glowing with excitement. “No more wars. No more violent invasions. We would have one army to protect the entire world, and no one would dare stand against them.”

  Now her cultish behavior is bubbling to the surface. “But who would you trust to police the whole world?” I ask.

  She leans in eagerly. “That’s what the choker means.”

  And here it is. “Really?”

  She slips her arm behind my back and stands on tiptoe to whisper into my ear. “We know where the aegis is. The whole world’s about to change, Rion. Get ready. A new age is coming.” She finishes her wine, sets her glass on her nightstand, and sits on her bed, patting the spot next to her in invitation. I sit beside her and wait for her to tell me more. All her secrets are lined up on her tongue, desperate to escape. I can practically see them. “My community is trying to reestablish ancient Greek culture. We believe in democracy, freedom, enlightenment, and peace. We think it’s a shame the world has moved away from those ideals, don’t you?”

  I nod because I know it’s the answer she wants.

  “We believe the human race peaked during the age of great philosophers, and we’ve all been spiraling down ever since. The only way to stop this tragedy we know as modern life is to bring the world together through a single, powerful religion—one with many gods that celebrates diversity of belief—our ancient pantheon. With the aegis, all this becomes possible. My community has been looking for it for years, and we finally got a lead.”

  “That’s amazing!” I say. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Be happy for yourself, too. This’ll be a game changer for everyone.”

  I’m thrilled, but not for the reason she thinks. She’s giving me everything. I kiss her and tell her how powerful her ideas are, how beautiful her new world is going to be. She tugs her dress up and straddles my lap. She’s gorgeous, and I’d be lying if I said the prospect of spending the night with her didn’t excite me. But every time I close my eyes, all I see is Phoebe, and I feel like shit for using this girl who doesn’t seem at all evil. She’s just an idealist. She’s just naïve.

  She’s just pushing my shirt off my shoulders and grazing my skin with her teeth.

  I take her by the arms and hold her back. “Delia, I… I can’t get into a relationship right now. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” I draw the line at employing sex to get information. I won’t use a woman like that.

  She just laughs. “Don’t be ridiculous, Rion. You’re an American—I don’t want a relationship with you. I just want to have a little fun while I can.”

  I’m not sure how to take this. It’s both insulting and flattering. Shouldn’t I be pleased I’m the one she’s chosen to have fun with? Then I realize… She’s talking like she’s going to war tomorrow, like she might not survive. She pushes me onto my back, and I have to fight to focus on the task at hand. “Delia… Delia, wait. What do you mean have fun while you can? Are you sick or something?”

  She lets her body fall on top of mine and nibbles my ear before whispering, “We’re going to excavate tomorrow night. It’s going to be explosive and beautiful. You’re lucky you got to see the Erechtheion while it was still standing.”

  I try to laugh while I take in this information. “How are you going to excavate, though? They’ll never let you up there.”

  Her voice lowers even more, and I have to strain to hear her. “Our source has given us the means. He wants us to have the aegis. He believes we’ll use it for good, for justice and a better world. That’s why he gave us these.” Again, she touches the serpent at her neck. “The snake represents the spirit of the first king of Athens. It’s a reminder of our power, our roots.”

  “And you trust your source that much? One man gets to choose who rules the world?”

  She sits up and cocks her head at me. “But he isn’t just a man. He’s an angel, a ghost, a miracle with a shining white face.”

  That’s when I finally lose what little composure I had left. I sit bolt upright and push her off me. “Whiteface?”

  She laughs like I’m overreacting. “Oh, you’ve heard of him?”

  “Delia…” How much can I tell her? How much do I dare? “Don’t go through with it. Please. Jesus. That man’s not who you think he is. He’s only using you.”

  “Don’t be silly.” She pushes at me playfully. “He treats us like family. He really cares. You Americans are way too cynical, you know that?”

  I want to scream at her. I want to tell her she’s working with a terrorist, but I don’t dare. She’ll take it personally. She’ll stop trusting me and tell her group she’s given too much away. They may change their plans, and the House will no longer have the upper hand.

  My salvation arrives in the form of a phone alarm. It’s telling me I have to get up early and I’d better get to bed. It doesn’t apply tonight, but Delia doesn’t know that. “What’s that?” she asks.

  “An alarm I set. I’m sorry, but I have to go. I wish I could stay longer.”

  She pouts a little but quickly moves on. There are more important things in her life than me. “I hope to see you again soon,” she says. “Call me the day after tomorrow. If everything goes well, I’d love to take you out again. If everything doesn’t…” She hesitates, grabs the aegis she’s made, and hands it to me. “Keep it.”

  I try to hand it back to her. “Oh, no. I couldn’t.”

  “I mean it.” She pushes it into my chest. “I want you to remember me. If things don’t go well, I want to know I made an impact on at least one person’s life.”

  “Well, thank you.” Touched, I give her a tight hug. Deep down, I know I’m betraying her, and it isn’t going to be easy to follow through. She’s not a bad person. She only wants a better world—peace and freedom and all that. Any of us would do questionable things for such enormous stakes.

  At her front door, I pull her close and give her a passionate kiss. It’s a good end to the date, I think. She deserves that, at least. “I had a good time, Delia,” I assure her. “If all goes well for you, we’ll do this again soon.” She blushes, and I wink at her. I hope I’ve given her one good memory before I destroy all her hopes and dreams.

  * * *

  Our final day of the mission begins innocuously enough. I might even call it tedious. From his own reconnaissance, Joshua learned the cult intends to use remote detonation in their initial attempt to excavate the Erechtheion. Their system is computerized, which is good news for us on the one hand, and on the other, it’s bad.

  The good news is I can easily disable their detonation program as soon as we find their computer. Sarah thinks it’s close, likely in one of the vans parked in the Koukaki area.

  The bad news is this group is not wealthy and not technologically advanced. If they were working on their own, they’d probably be using dynamite with long fuses. As it is, Seditio must still be involved. They have to be funding this. And Whiteface is likely guiding the operation from afar, watching and monitoring. If what Eden has told me about Seditio’s monstrous clown is true, his involvement is the very worst news any of us could get.

  There’s no way this is as straightforward as it seems, but we have no choice. We have to act on what we know. The excavation is tonight. We’re out of time.

  Sarah and I wander down the street, banging on the doors of every windowless van we see. Anytime someone slides open a door, we giddily ask them for directions to the Acropolis. “But where’s the entrance exactly? We’ve never been.”

  Joshua and Ying Yue have already made their way there.

  At about 7:30 p.m., we come to a large van with too many bumper stickers and blacked-out windows. I bang on the back door. At first, no one answers, so I knock again. Persistence pays off when a person in a scarf and goggles finally opens the door. Sarah stiffens beside me, and I harness the one thing I have that she doesn’t—charm.

  “Hey, wow, that’s a cool costume!” I say in broken Greek. “You guys going to a convention or something? I love conventions. Hey, we’re just out here looking for the entrance to the Acropolis. I mean, we know it’s up there.” I laugh and point at the giant outcropping where the Parthenon is clearly visible. “So embarrassing, but we don’t know which road we’re supposed to take to the entrance.”

  Sarah finally chimes in with one of the few Greek sentences she knows. “My brother didn’t bring a map.”

  The man in the scarf and goggles sighs and leans back to ask his partner a question. And Sarah takes her moment. She shoves her way into the van, and I follow behind her. Everything she does is calculated. In order to avoid taking on two men at once, she pushes past the man who opened the door and leaves him to me. Her efforts are focused on the second man, who sits at a makeshift desk in front of a small wall of computers. I twist the first man into a headlock while she grabs a syringe from her arsenal and stabs it into the second man’s neck with a precision I doubt I’ll ever have.

  “Night-night,” she says as he slumps in his chair.

  The first man kicks and struggles, but he’s getting nowhere fast. It’s obvious none of these cultists were trained in hand-to-hand combat. They’ve come woefully unprepared for a fight. Sarah injects the man in my arms when I manage to hold him still enough. Soon, he’s sleeping on the floor beside his companion.

  “Okay, computer boy,” Sarah says. “Do your thing. I’m your lookout.” She hops out of the van and slides the door closed while I sit in front of the computers. Their system is shockingly simple. This group is seriously lacking in sophistication.

  After I’ve disabled their detonation program and added a bug so they won’t be able to use it again, I take a moment to examine the bodies of the cultists Sarah incapacitated. I remove their goggles and scarves. It’s just as I suspected. They’re young, late teens or early twenties maybe. More disturbing than their apparent youth are the two serpent-shaped chokers around their necks, identical to the one Delia wore. These were supplied by Whiteface, if what she told me is true. But why? What would a psychopath with a powerful organization behind him want with some kids who got over-excited in Greek mythology class?

  Outside the van, I find Sarah leaning against the side of a building, reading a map upside down like a lost tourist. I give her a thumbs-up.

  “So we’re clear?” she asks.

  “Yep. They won’t be using that program for a while. I locked them out of their computer, too, so they’ll have to hack their way back in. Should buy us a ton of time.”

  She falls into step beside me as we head toward the Acropolis. “How much time?”

  “Enough,” I answer. “I don’t think these people even know what they’re doing. They’re too green.”

  Sarah knits her brow and mutters, “Odd.”

  “Right?”

  “I don’t like this.” She frowns. “There are too many unknowns.”

  “But we don’t have any more time for reconnaissance. It’s now or never.”

  She heaves a sigh. “Tally-ho, I guess.”

  We arrive at the Acropolis just as they’re getting ready to close up. They’re not keen to let us in, but Sarah hands each worker a wad of cash, and they suddenly don’t care about getting home on time anymore. Sarah and I meander around the place like tourists, snapping photos and watching for anything out of the ordinary. The setting sun ignites the whole hillside with golden light. Ancient marble columns reflect the light like pillars of fire. It’s all so beautiful. I wish we weren’t here for such an ugly reason.

  It doesn’t take long to find the trouble we’re looking for. From the path alongside the Parthenon, we see a commotion at the Porch of the Maidens. The closer we get, the worse the situation looks. The cultists are there, scarves and goggles covering their distinguishing features, and they’re armed to the teeth. They appear to have taken hostages and are holding them at gunpoint on the porch while they lay their explosives. They have no idea I’ve disarmed their bombs, but their guns are still in fine working order.

  A crowd of tourists watches the show as though it were put on by professional actors. This is why the cultists took hostages. They knew they’d be observed. I can’t imagine how they think they’ll get everyone out safely before their planned explosions. Maybe they don’t. Sarah jerks her head in the direction she wants us to go. We walk past the Erechtheion and circle around to the west side. On the north side, more cultists are planting explosives in the fissures said to be the mark of Poseidon’s trident.

  Watching them work nauseates me. They really are planning to destroy an irreplaceable piece of ancient history in order to get some kind of unbeatable army. How do they think they’ll feel if, after they’ve demolished everything, they find there’s nothing there? I doubt they’ve even considered the possibility that they’re wrong.