Scoundrel:. Zoe Archer
the oldest parts of Athens, as attested by its narrow, winding streets that seemed to have no reason to exist other than to drive foreigners to madness. White buildings stacked one atop the other like demented sugar cubes. As Bennett sped down these cramped and twisted streets, he deftly sidestepped donkeys laden with baskets of pistachios. The German captain bellowed behind him. Women and men shouted from windows and doorsteps, eager to join in the fun.
This wasn’t exactly what the Blades had in mind when dispatching him to Greece. A cable had reached Bennett in Bucharest, where he had been returning a Source to its homeland. The Star of David medallion had been used in Mongolia to summon a Golem in a pitched battle between Blades and Heirs. Bennett and several other Blades, including a now-initiated Thalia Huntley and her husband Gabriel, had defended an ancient Asian Source against the Heirs. It had been a tight, tough fight, but the Blades had been successful in their mission. That camel’s turd and Heirs operative Henry Lamb had been killed, and his crony Jonas Edgeworth fled back to England and his father. The Mongolian Source was now well protected in a monastery deep in the Gobi Desert.
Bennett wasn’t so well protected. The German neared and lunged for him. Nimbly, Bennett ducked under the man’s arms, falling behind the captain. Momentum carried the German forward, nicely helped by Bennett’s boot planted square in the middle of the man’s arse.
Bennett raced past a group of men gathered in a square. One of them held a long walking stick to aid in traversing Athens’s uneven streets. Without breaking stride, Bennett grabbed the stick from the man’s hand and raced on, ignoring the man’s outraged yelp.
Down a set of steep stairs. He paused at the bottom, pivoting on the balls of his feet. The captain ran toward him, panting. With a smooth and easy motion, Bennett hurled the walking stick like a spear at the furious husband, and it smacked the man straight in the chest. The German bent over, gasping, as he lost his air.
“Javelin,” Bennett said with a grin. “That’s event number three.”
But the captain was determined, and, even as he turned purple, forced himself to straighten up and continue his pursuit. Bollocks. Bennett sped on.
He was a good agent for the Blades, serving as their resident cryptographer. Bennett could unlock nearly any code or cipher, but when he had to, was more than willing to get into a scrap or two. There was something so deeply satisfying about going toe-to-toe against a man, rather than an encoded Aztec manuscript.
If he didn’t shake this German, there’d be one hell of a fight. He doubted any of the Orthodox churches he passed would offer him sanctuary. A black-clad priest on a church step shook his head and beard at him. Clearly, the holy man knew that Bennett had broken nearly all of the Ten Commandments. At least Bennett honored his father and mother. He didn’t make too many graven images, either. Two out of ten wasn’t so bad.
The cheerful din of a daytime taverna announced itself before Bennett saw it. Men sat at tables outside, drinking ouzo and nibbling on plates of octopus, palavering. Deftly, Bennett seized one of the empty plates and, glancing quickly over his shoulder, launched the plate at the German’s head. It was sheer bad luck that the captain stumbled over a basket in the street, and the plate missed him by a bare inch to shatter on the wall behind him.
“Opa!” shouted the men at the taverna.
“Discus, that’s four,” Bennett muttered. “Damn it. It’ll be a complete pentathlon after all.”
He rounded a sharp corner, then quickly sprang up to grab the lower bars of a balcony’s railing. Bennett pulled himself up, but did not climb inside. Instead, he turned around, heels balanced on the edge of the balcony, hands gripping the railing behind him. Not a soft-bellied, weak-armed nob or an Heir, hiding behind a gun or hired muscle. Working for the Blades kept his body strong. Thirty-two years old, and as fit as he’d been during those two years he spent at Cambridge, before he found his true calling as a Blade.
Judging by the smile of the young woman who was currently sitting on the balcony, she also appreciated his athleticism. She started to speak, but Bennett shook his head and winked. She adjusted her kerchief, giving him a better view of her bosom.
The German stormed down the street, then stopped, looking about in confusion. He didn’t see Bennett hovering above him. Then came another lilting melody of Teutonic swearing, a delightful combination of seafaring and Germanic oaths, as the man whirled around, searching for Bennett.
Light as a cat, Bennett launched himself from the balcony and onto the back of the persistent captain. A less bull-like man would have fallen to the cobblestones, but the German only staggered under Bennett’s weight. Bennett looped one arm around the captain’s neck and held it fast, bracing one arm with the other. The German snarled and choked, spinning around and pawing frantically at the strong arm pressed tight against his throat. Bennett did not relinquish his hold. The captain ran backward and slammed him into a wall. Stars swam in Bennett’s eyes, but he didn’t let go. Another slam. And another. Bennett held tight. Surely Hercules had an easier time of things with that Erymantian boar.
The captain’s movements began to slow, his fingers weakening as they tried to pry Bennett loose. Then the German stumbled and sank to his knees before, at last, growing limp. Carefully, Bennett released his hold. The captain slid in a soundless heap to the ground. Turning him over, Bennett contemplated the man’s red face before pressing his ear to the captain’s chest.
“And that’s wrestling,” Bennett murmured. “A true pentathlon. Mother would be so proud.”
“Is he dead?” asked the young woman from the balcony in Greek.
“A beauty sleep,” Bennett answered, also in Greek.
Standing, Bennett dragged the captain’s limp body into an alley. He took a wash line and used it to quickly truss the German up like a chicken. Ready for Sunday dinner. Once the captain woke, it would take a goodly bit of maneuvering before he got free.
Bennett dusted himself off before slipping from the alley. With a wave for the woman on the balcony, he headed west, toward the old market in Monastiraki. He had the manifest, but there was more investigation to be done.
A pity that the captain had to return before Bennett could savor the fruits of his seduction of the man’s wife. Elena had held such gymnastic potential.
Cuckolded husbands and thrilling chases aside, he was here in Athens for serious business, and he meant to succeed in his objective. As much as he enjoyed female company, his true purpose was and always would be to find and protect the magical Sources. But when the two coincided, well, that was just good fortune.
To Victoria Regina Gloriana London Edgeworth Harcourt, more familiarly known as London Harcourt, it was a wonderful chaos. After Lawrence died, she had spent her requisite year in full mourning, and then gone through the gradual steps through second and half mourning, which meant that, almost three years later, she was finally free of her somber prison. Now she was out into the larger world. And what a marvelous world it was. Not once in her whole life, not even on her bridal journey, had she left England, but now, to find herself in Athens, in the magnificent anarchy of the Monastiraki marketplace—she felt alive with every part of her being.
Vendors in booths and tents sold every item imaginable. Walnuts, olives, embroidered waistcoats, incense, icons, chips of marble from ancient columns, miniature plaster replicas of the Parthenon, postcards. The hot afternoon air swirled in the square, scented with roasted lamb and frank-incense, and filled with a patois of Greek, English, and German. Someone plucked on a bouzouki and wailed a love song. Amidst the mix of traditional Greek dress and more modern Western fashion, English tourists were easily distinguishable by their white cotton parasols, London among them. A lady, she was constantly reminded by her mother, protected her complexion, especially from the burning Attic sun. Certainly, her chic straw hat provided no shelter.
“We should be getting back to the hotel.”
London looked back at her exhausted maid, Sally, with a small measure of pity. The whole of the day, London had been dragging the poor woman back and forth across Athens. Already, they had visited the Gate of Hadrian,