Hello my friends! Sorry this took so long to post! As recompence I have brought a longer chapter! I hope you enjoy! Until we meet again!
I silently watched the trees go by as Nate, Sully, and I drove through a jungle. When Nate said we were going to France I had been hoping we would be a little closer to the city. Visit some cathedrals like Notre Dame, maybe see the Eiffel tower. But no, we wound up in a jungle. No little shops or cafes, no cobblestone streets, no live music, just foliage as far as the eyes could see. The jeep stopped and I lifted my head from my hand.
"End of the line, I guess," Nate said. Sully glanced at him. He held up a finger in warning. "Don't." Sully merely chuckled. We exited the jeep and I set my hands on my hips as I surveyed our surroundings. I was glad to be out of my dressy clothes and back into my usual outfit of fitted cargo pants, three-quarter sleeve henley, and boots. I also felt better having my gun back in its proper place in my thigh holster. "Looks like we are going the rest of the way on foot." Sully continued chuckling. Nate raised a questioning brow as he unfolded his map. "What?"
"Leave it to you to find a friggin' jungle in the middle of France," Sully teased.
I smiled in amusement. "It's a talent. Shame though, I was really looking forward to some crepes."
"I got you your ice cream, didn't I?" Nate pointed out.
"Yes, but now I want crepes." Nate rolled his eyes and folded up his map.
"Well, we're definitely headed in the right direction. Chateau should be this way." Sully sighed heavily and Nate clapped him on the shoulder. "Not too far. C'mon." Sully hummed, unconvinced.
"Not too far?" He said skeptically as we trudged through the jungle. "With you two, I never know if that means a quarter mile or twenty. Like that time you got us lost in Peru."
Nate laughed. "You really want to bring up Peru?" I chuckled lightly as I recalled our rather eventful time in Peru.
"You are not still holding that over me?"
"I was fifteen, Sully," Nate replied indignantly. "Shoulda known when I met ya that Alex and I would be in prison within a year."
"You were headed that way all on your own, if you recall," Sully countered. "Besides, I got you out, didn't I? I always get you out."
"Why do you think we keep you around?" I teased with a grin.
"Glad to know I'm good for something." I chuckled and followed Nate as he jumped down into a shallow ravine.
"C'mon, through here," Nate said. I ducked under a low hanging branch and stopped beside him. A short ways away on the other side of a ravine stood the Chateau. "There it is. Just like in Lawrence's notes. Gotta have more faith in me, Sully." He peaked over the edge of the ravine. "Course I don't remember this ravine being on the map."
"Ah, they must've just put that in," Sully joked.
"And they couldn't bother to put in a bridge?" I whined.
Nate raised a brow at me. "I thought you were avoiding bridges."
"I would just make sure to cross before you," I told him.
"Right, well in the absence of a bridge, we're going to have to find another way around." We looked around a bit for another way across. I found a ledge and waved the other two over.
"A bit narrow, but it should do. Just uh, don't look down," I warned. We inched our way across the ledge and continued forward.
"I don't know, kid. You sure we're in the right place?" Sully asked, shooting a skeptical look up at the castle. "This doesn't seem old enough to be a Crusader castle. Looks more Renaissance to me."
Nate shot a teasing smile over his shoulder at the elder. "You haven't been reading my books again, have you, Sully?" Sully chuckled.
"Most of what's left is Renaissance," I supplied. "According to Lawrence, the original castle was built in the 11th century and the rest was added later." I stopped as we came across a log stretching across the ravine. "Y'know, when I said bridge, this was not what I had in mind."
"I'll go first and test it for you," Nate offered.
"No, cause you'll just wind up breaking it." I carefully climbed onto the log and slowly made my way across. I let out the breath I had been holding once I was safely on the other side. I turned back to my boyfriend who was patiently waiting on the other side. "Now you can come over." About half way over, the log rolled slightly, causing me to suck in a breath.
"There, see, perfectly fine," Nate said as he jumped down. "C'mon, Sully. I loosened it for ya."
"Yeah, that's the problem," the elder complained. He worked his way across. We walked up the path towards the castle. Sitting on the side was a rusted out car that looked like it was from the 20s.
"Look, Sully, your first car," Nate teased.
"Oh, man, that's a 1927 Auburn," Sully said a bit wistfully.
"Yeah? What's this, mr. Wizard?" Nate asked as we passed by a weird statue.
"Lawn art." I let out a laugh.
"Pretty tacky," Nate mumbled.
"Guess they didn't have HOAs in the 11th century," I joked. We rounded the corner and finally got a full view of the castle. Even in its crumbling, overgrown state, it was still beautiful. I could only imagine what it must have looked like back in its day.
"The knight who owned this castle, Lord Godfrey, returned from the Crusades in the 12th century," Nate explained. "According to Lawrence, all that's left of the original castle is the square keep in the gardens. If Godfrey brought any secrets back from Arabia, that's where we're gonna find them." We walked through the front gate and up to the large door. I tried the door, but it was stuck tight.
"Yeah, there's no way we're getting in that way," I announced.
"I bet I can climb up through that hole," Nate suggested. I turned and followed his gaze to a large hole in the wall a couple stories up.
"I bet you can," Sully replied.
Nate eyed Sully. "Let me guess, you're gonna sit tight, smoke a cigar again."
"Yeah."
Nate rolled his eyes. "All right, don't burn the place down." I watched Nate clamber up the side of the wall while Sully lit his cigar next to me.
"Why do you think Drake went through so much trouble to hide his voyage?" I asked Sully.
Sully puffed his cigar thoughtfully. "Maybe he didn't find what he was looking for and didn't want anyone else to find it. Sort of a 'if I can't have it, no one can' thing."
"Maybe…" I replied. Somehow, that didn't seem to fit. Something seemed off about this expedition. I had a bad feeling something was going to go wrong. I was jerked out of my thoughts when I heard a distant crash inside the castle. I rolled my eyes. "It's barely been five minutes and he's already breaking things."
"C'mon, we can get in this way," Sully said, indicating a window on the ground floor. He shook the window, but it was padlocked from the inside. "Hey, kid - up here. It's chained shut."
"All right, back up. I'll shoot the lock off," Nate said.
Sully and I backed up. "Make sure that's the only thing you shoot off."
"I said, 'lock'." Nate shot the padlock and the chain fell away. Sully and I carefully climbed through the window. "Okay, we gotta make our way through the chateau to the gardens. That's where we'll find the old keep."
"First we have to figure out how to get there," I said. I glanced around the room. The room we were in was huge. The room was falling apart, not really surprising considering its age. Despite this and the vegetation that had taken over, I could imagine what it must have looked like when it was newly built. Nate stood beside me as I admired the room. "This place must've been beautiful back in its day."
"Yeah, it's a shame," Nate agreed.
"Maybe someday we could find a historic place to settle down in," I mused.
My boyfriend sent me a knowing smirking. "With a secret room?"
I nodded. "Gotta have a secret room."
Sully cleared his throat. "If you kids are finished daydreaming, I could use some help over here."
"Sorry, Sully," I said sheepishly. Nate and I walked over to where Sully was standing by a large beam blocking a door. We tried shifting the beam, but it was too heavy.
"We gotta get some leverage," Nate said.
Sully gestured to the platform above our heads. "Think you can get up there?"
Nate eyed the sketchy looking platform skeptically. "I can try."
"There's a staircase over there, or what's left of one," I announced. "If we can find something for you to climb, you can use the stairs to make it the rest of the way."
"How about this?" I turned to see Sully walking over to an old wardrobe. "Help me lift this up." Together, he and Nate set the wardrobe upright, giving Nate a way up to the platform. Using the walkway and chandeliers, Nate made it back over to the door.
"All right, here we go." Nate lifted the beam just enough for Sully and I to open the door.
"Got it. We're in," Sully announced. We walked through the now open door into the next room. "Question is, in what?" I shrugged, being as clueless as him.
"Be right down," Nate called. A moment later, he joined us. "Is that a popcorn machine?" I noticed the small red machine Nate was talking about.
"Anyone up for a movie night?" I grinned.
"We'll talk about a movie night after we find that tower," Nate said. We moved through the various rooms of the chateau until we finally made it to the front of the castle. At the top of the stairs was a large window. I peaked out and noticed a square tower with a familiar symbol on the side.
"Hey, Nate!" Sully called as he came to stand next to me. My boyfriend joined us. "Square tower… looks pretty old."
"That symbol matches the one from Lawrence's notebook," I added.
Nate grinned. "That must be it." We found an open window and climbed through, crossing the gardens and into another room. The next room looked like it had once been a library. The walls were lined with old books. In each of the four corners of the room stood a golden suit of armor, each carrying a different weapon. I approached one holding a giant shield.
"Isn't this the same symbol that was on the tower?" Sully asked. I turned to see Sully by the fireplace. Sure enough, above the mantel was the same symbol.
"Yeah, that's gotta mean something, right?" Nate said eagerly.
"Maybe a secret passage?" Sully suggested.
Nate frowned skeptically. "In a fireplace? Kinda on the nose, don'tcha think?"
Sully nodded in agreement. "Yeah, too simple." I went back to inspecting the suit of armor. There was something about it. I tugged on the base experimentally and it moved slightly. I pushed harder and the entire platform turned.
"Hey, these things rotate!" I called. "Did Lawrence make a note about these?"
"Let me check," Nate said. He flipped through Lawrence's journal and stopped on a particular page. "Yeah, here, see." He held out the notebook for me to see. There was a picture of each of the knights. "Four knights, with an axe, a shield, a sword, and a morning star."
"Maybe we've got to turn each knight so it's facing the right way," Sully suggested.
"Yeah, but what's the right way?" Nate wondered. I took the notebook from Nate to study it closer. I glanced between the knights on the page and the ones in the room. I noticed each knight had a picture of the axe or shield beside it.
"I think the knights need to be facing either the axe or the shield," I said.
"Let's give it a go then," Nate said. We turned each knight until it was facing the proper way. We heard the sound of some gears then a door in the fireplace opened.
"Well, well, a secret passage," Sully said smugly.
Nate shook his head with a fond smile. "All right, gotta hand it to you, Sully." We hurried over and the boys each took a side. "Okay… I'll push, you pull. On three. Ready?"
"Wait. One, two, pull? Or one, two, three, pull?"
"Just pull."
Sully nodded. "Got it." They opened the door wider. Nate lost his balance and toppled in, breaking through the termite-eaten floor and into a cavern below.
"Nate!" I called. I carefully peaked over the side. It was a long drop. "You alright?"
"Yeah, I'll live," Nate called up. I breathed a sigh of relief. One of these days he was going to give me a heart attack. "There's no way I'm getting back up there. I'm gonna head this way. Just meet me on the other side."
"Ok, but please be careful," I urged. "C'mon, Sully, let's find another way around and hope he doesn't hurt himself." Sully and I were walking back through a courtyard when we were ambushed by some of Marlowe's men. Sully and I quickly took cover behind some broken pillars. "Looks like the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys caught up," I growled.
"They seem upset," Sully stated casually as he fired from behind his chosen pillar.
I ducked as a few bullets punched holes near my head. "Can't imagine why." I had to quickly change covers as a few suits snuck up behind us. I was about to shoot one when he dropped dead.
"Sorry I'm late!" I heard Nate call.
"I was beginning to wonder if you were going to show up," I teased.
"Well, better late than never!" He replied.
"Would've preferred sooner rather than later," I shot back.
"Would you two quit fooling around and just shoot!" Sully scolded.
"Looks like Marlowe brought a goddamn army!" Nate said. I had to agree as I shot yet another thug.
"How the hell did they find us?" Sully wondered.
"They must've followed us. It's the only way."
"She's got resources, I'll give her that," I begrudgingly admitted. Once the area was clear, we jogged up the nearby steps towards the tower. The last thing between us and the tower was a wooden door.
"Sully, give me some help with this door," Nate requested. Sully came alongside Nate and they shoved their shoulders into the door. The door gave way on the second try. The tower was empty. I set my hands on my hips.
"Well, which way now?" Sully inquired. I noticed a hole in the floor.
"Looks like the only way is down." We dropped through the hole in the floor onto a wooden level.
"Hey, look at this," Nate announced. He approached a corpse lying off to the side. It appeared it had been there a while. I frowned as I noticed the corpse was wearing a suit.
"Che diavolo?" (what the hell) I exclaimed. "It's one of Marlowe's men."
"It was. But that's impossible, they just got here," Sully said, frowning in confusion.
"Yeah, but what could've happened to him?" Nate wondered.
"I don't know, but I really don't want to meet whatever did that," I said firmly. Climbing down a nearby ladder, we entered another room. This one had what looked like a bunch of tiles with symbols on them on the floor. I walked further into the room and nearly jumped out of my skin when my foot sank beneath me.
"Hey, the tiles depress when you step on them," Sully commented.
"Thanks for the heads up, Captain Obvious," I grumbled, letting out a deep breath in an attempt to slow my heart.
Sully walked over to the corner of the room. "I'll stand over here so I don't step on any by accident."
"Did our friend Lawrence make any notes about this?" I asked as I stepped off the tile.
"Let me check." Nate pulled out the notebook and leafed through the pages. I decided to sit this one out and watch and Nate worked out the puzzle. He stepped on the wrong tile a few times and had to start over.
"This gonna take long? Cuz if it does, I'm going to smoke a cigar," Sully said.
"I'm doing my best, Sully," Nate replied indignantly. Finally he made it through and a door on the other side slid open.
I gave Nate a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks, dear." The next room was pitch black. Nate asked Sully for a light and the room was illuminated in a warm glow. I gasped in delight. We had appeared to have stumbled on a laboratory of some sort. There were shelves, books, and pieces of paper with scribbles everywhere. There was also a weird symbol on the wall and stone table in the middle of the room.
"Seems to be an alchemist's lab," Nate mused. He looked around a bit. "Wait a second… does this place remind you of anything?"
"Yeah, Marlowe's creepy hideout, now that you mention it," Sully answered.
"I still wish we could have poked around there longer," I sighed. I curiously flipped through some papers laying on a table. The old paper crinkled beneath my fingers as I handled the delicate material.
"Guys, this was John Dee's lab," Nate said.
Sully frowned. "All the way out here? In France?"
"Well, he must've traced the clues back to the Crusades, just like Lawrence did."
"Hey, look at this." Nate and I wandered over to where Sully stood at the stone table.
"Huh, Sabaean script again," Nate commented, running his fingers over the symbols in the stone. "But what are these symbols? Looks like he was trying to work something out. There's some sort of message written here in Enochian script." He nudged my side with a teasing smile. "Maybe you can decipher this one."
I raised a brow. "What makes you say that?"
"Didn't you try learning Enochian after watching that show about the brothers and their trenchcoat wearing friend?"
"I did," I replied. "And I can understand stuff from the show well enough, but these symbols are encoded. Need the cipher disk to decode them."
"Well then, do you want to do the honors?" Nate asked, holding out the cipher disk. I smiled and took it from him.
"The altar guards the entrance to the underworld," I translated.
"Castiel would be so proud," Nate said.
I shot him a surprised look. "You do pay attention!"
Nate shrugged. "On occasion."
I chuckled. "Ok, back to the problem at hand. What is John Dee Talking about?"
"Well, he did use magic to conjure spirits," Nate suggested.
"Yeah, or the altar could be hiding a secret passage," Sully pipped up.
"Oh." I rolled my eyes fondly. The three of us pushed the stone altar aside, revealing a hidden passage. Nate grinned. "Crafty old bastard."
"Why thank you," Sully said.
"Not you - John Dee."
I snorted as Sully deflated a bit. "Oh."
"Well, you're crafty too."
"And old," Sully added.
"Guess this makes you two for two, Sully," I said. "You're on a roll." The three of us climbed down the ladder and into what looked to be a cave, though it was hard to tell in the dark.
"Oh, here we go," I heard Nate say from off to my right. "Sully, gimme a light." A moment later, light illuminated the room from Nate's torch. "Oh, much better."
"Y'know, one of these days you're really going to have to start carrying your own matches," Sully told him.
"What are you talking about?"
"Why do you think we keep you around?" I teased, patting the older man on the shoulder.
"Comic relief."
"That too." We walked down a narrow passage until we came to a large wooden door with a heavy wooden beam across it.
"Oh my…" I muttered.
"Looks like they really wanted to keep something out," Nate said.
"Or in," Sully added. We exchanged uneasy looks. "Here give me a hand with this." We help Sully lift the beam and open the heavy door. The next room was large and lined with little alcoves, each with a skeleton. Also along the wall were two different emblems of some kind, a third being too worn to read, and the fourth having broken. "Looks like the family crypt," Sully noted. "Your pal Godfrey must be down here then, huh?"
"With any luck, if he knew anything about the 'Atlantis of the Sands' he took it with him to the grave."
"So, let's find the grave." I eyed the main wall with interest. It was covered in various symbols, each of the emblems resting in the four corners. In the center of the room sat a set of wheels. I ran my hand over the wheel with the emblems on it.
"What is this?" I wondered aloud.
"Medieval game show?" Nate suggested. "Pretty elaborate."
"Anything in the journal?" Nate flipped through the pages till he came to a partial page.
"Looks like he was trying to solve this, but he never quite finished."
"Guess that means we'll have to," I said. "How far did he get?" Using the emblems on the walls and the symbols we found mirrored on the ground below each emblem, we managed to solve the puzzle and opened a slide beneath the main wall.
"Good job, kids," Sully praised. He wandered to the slide that had opened and peered in. "Ah, looks inviting." We slid underneath into another crypt. At the end stood a stone sarcophagus. "Lord Godfrey, I presume."
"The one and only," Nate confirmed. "Here hold this, will ya? Alex, help me out." He passed his torch to Sully and together we pushed the stone lid off the coffin. Nate reached in and grabbed something. "Look, it's some sort of amulet. Something written here." He rubbed at it to clean it off. The amulet was a half circle, the edge appeared to have been broken in half. Nate pulled out his notebook and set it on the edge of the coffin.
"Gonna do this right on top of Lancelot, huh?" Sully said.
"Uh...huh," Nate replied absentmindedly. He finished his sketch. "It's Sabaean script."
"Well, that would be from ancient Yemen, all right."
"Yeah, exactly where Francis Drake would've landed back in the 16th century," Nate agreed.
I took the amulet from Nate and inspected it. "Could be the name of a city?"
"Yeah, from 3000 years ago," Sully scoffed. "Without the rest of that inscription, we still don't know where to look."
"Well, let's just hope the other half is in Syria," Nate said as I passed the amulet back.
"And that Cutter and Chloe can find it," Sully added.
"Well, we got what we came for, no use hanging around any longer," I said. We left the crypt only to find that Talbot and two of his men were waiting for us.