Chapter 3: Paintings
"Sam, Sarah, hurry up!" Nina shouted from the top of the hill. We had made it to Italy no problem. There was a taxi car waiting to take us to Florence, and from there, to Monteriggioni. We had asked the driver to let us out around the outer wall so we could walk in.
Throwing on our borrowed backpacks, we walked slowly into the town, ignoring the signs that we couldn't read anyway. It was a beautiful run down town; too bad it was closed to the public for renovations.
I dragged Sam and Nina to building at the other end of the town called the Villa Auditore. By the time we got there, I was tired and could tell Sam was too. Nina, on the other hand was growing more and more excited. As we tried to sneak into the building, we saw a few security guards walking around, talking to each other. I looked around for a place to hide but couldn't find one.
"Over here you guys," whispered Sam. She was pointing to an open window two stories high.
"How the hell are we going to get up there?" Nina asked.
I nudged her with my elbow as I cupped my hands together and motioned for her to step on them. "On the count of three, run and jump ok?"
"One…two…THREE!" Nina ran towards me and as she placed her foot on my hands I pushed her up. She managed to cling to the window ledge and pull herself in. "You next Sam."
Once Sam was in, I faced a problem. How was I going to get in? I could hear the guards just around the corner. I panicked and didn't even think, taking a running start, I jumped up the wall and my hands found a hold on the window. With the help of Nina and Sam, I managed to get into the window. Just as my feet got trough, one of the security guards came around the corner. I couldn't understand what they were saying but it sounded like they hadn't notice us.
As we looked around, I thought I could sometimes see people out of the corner of my eye. Nina and Sam kept looking around as though they saw them too. We looked around the second floor, but found nothing of interest; so we decided to move down to the first floor.
There seemed to be more to look at here anyway. There were rooms with paintings in them that had collected a lot of dust, and some rusted old amour. I found a sword hidden under a blanket in the corner of the room with the sheath still with it. I hooked it around my waist jokingly and posed. Nina just rolled her eyes at me; Sam was still looking around the room with the paintings.
"Who do you think painted these? Leonardo da Vinci?" Sam asked.
"Well they are really pretty, see if they are signed by someone," Nina called over from the other side of the room.
Sam and I looked more closely at the corners to see if we could see a signature. In the bottom right corner there was the faded signature of Leonardo Di Vinci.
"Wow, now I know where you get your artistic abilities Sam," I said to her. The paintings were amazing. Not being a big art fan, I almost never really went to museums, but I would go to see these. There were ones with women in robes, scenery, and weird machines.
Digging through them, I had found one that caught my attention. This one portrayed three figures in white robes, somewhat resembling the ones the people were wearing at the hotel two days ago. All three had the same wrist contraption, and seemed to be somewhat close.
The one on the left was tall and stood with a cocky attitude; the one on the right seemed confident in his stance but was slouching a little. However the one in the middle seemed somehow familiar. The other two seemed to be standing over this one, in what could be a protective manner.
I was just looking closer, trying to think of where I had seen that stance before, when I heard a smash from the next room. Startled, I ran over to the door and saw Nina standing by a knocked over amour display. She seemed to be listening to something. Sam came over and listened to. To our horror, we could hear the guards coming in, and talking in aggravated voices. We ran into what looked like an old office and quickly searched for a place to hide, finding none.
As I was about to suggest we move to another room, I saw an image flash in front of me and into the wall behind the desk. Sam and Nina looked at me and I knew they had seen it too. I rushed over to the wall and saw that there was a crack in the corner. Putting my fingers in the crack, I started to pull on the wall. Nina and Sam came to help and soon we had a big enough crack to fit though. Pushing the wall shut behind us, we moved slowly down the stairs, using the flashlight Nina had pulled out of her backpack.
Eventually we found the bottom and gasped as we looked around. There were statues of people, and tombs of some sort. We looked for some kind of light source and found that there were torches. Sam found some matches in the backpacks and soon the room was dancing with the light from the flames. I walked over to the middle one, where there was a gate; I squeezed in between two broken bars and looked around. There wasn't much to see. As I turned to squeeze back out I saw a cloth poking out from a hole in the corner. With some skillful maneuvering I managed to pull it out.
It turned out to be a bag with a small painting in it and an item wrapped in dirty cloths. The paint was faded but I could tell it was a woman and a man standing next to each other. The face of the woman was worn away, but I could tell that she was wearing some sort of wedding dress. The man seemed happy too, but you could only see it in his eyes. The one main thing about the man that stood out was that he was handsome. The painter had done a really good job painting him. He was tall with short-cropped black hair and black eyes. His shoulders were wide and his only arm was around the woman's waist.
"….Wait what?" I said out loud. "Hey guys look what I found, a picture of a married couple but the guy has one arm. Also I found this ball thing." As I held it out to pass to Sam, who had reached to grab it, I let the painting slip from my fingers and fall. Sam caught it and held it up by the flashlight for a better look.
"This was also painted my Leonardo," Sam stated. "It has his signature here. It seems to be a wedding painting, you're right. I wonder who that is, he is very handsome."
For some reason, her saying he was handsome, annoyed me a bit. I ignored the feeling however and moved onto the other object in my hand. I unwrapped the dirty cloth and examined the thing. It was some kind of golden ball that had strange lines and shapes on it. I could feel a kind of pulsing energy from it. It felt like I had an intelligent item in my hand, as if it could think and was analyzing me.
It started to glow in my hand, and both Nina and Sam came over to see what I had. They were speaking to me but I wasn't paying attention, I couldn't. I had this amazing thing in my hand and I didn't want to let it go, it felt like it belonged with me.
As I was thinking that, a bright bluish light flashed and the thing melted in my hand. I was just about to freak out when a shooting, burning pain shot up my arm. I fell to the ground screaming in agony. It felt like my arm was being burned off, like I was holding a curling iron but I couldn't let it go.
My blood was boiling in my arm, it was so painful I almost couldn't register Nina and Sam screaming and trying to grab a hold of me, but they couldn't because I was rolling around trying to put out the imaginary fire.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the burning seemed to recede into my hand and cool down. Once the pain was manageable, I looked at my hand, and gasped at what I saw. Burned into the palm of my hand was a triangular shape spear symbol with a circle in the middle. When I looked closer, I noticed that the circle had the same designs as the orb I had been holding.
"Holy shit Sarah, are you ok?"
"What the hell is that?"
"What happened?"
"Are you ok?" Nina and Sam were asking too many questions for me to handle. I nodded to show that I was ok but I was too shocked about the new tattoo on my hand to really think about anything else. I stood up and looked around. I felt some kind of presence, but I couldn't find it. It was like someone was in this room with us but I didn't see anyone.
"You are not imagining it, child of the Assassins."
I looked at Sam and Nina to see if they had said that but they shook their heads.
"You cannot see me yet, for I still do not have the power to show myself in this time. You three were chosen. Child of the Assassin, Child of the Art, and Child of the Aid. You each have an important role to play in this world. Be prepared for they are not easy, and you will need each other and the friends you will make to help you gain the truth."
I tried to speak but I couldn't utter a sound. I couldn't even move. I tried to fight it but the more I did, the more painful it felt. Once the voice stopped speaking, the world around me started to fade into white. It seemed like I was in my dream again, but I could see Sam out of the corner of my eye and knew that I wasn't alone this time. I had just started to stop fighting when I heard male voices coming from below me. They were getting louder and soon I could understand them.
"…does it work is what I want to know. I brought it here for you, to see if you could get anything out of it Leonardo," said a young male voice.
"I will see what I can do my friend, but I am not sure how to start. Ezio, are you sure you want to play around with this? I have heard rumors that this Apple is a dangerous item." This voice seemed slightly older than the other, but full of energy, despite sounding nervous.
I could tell we were getting closer to them, but I didn't know exactly where they were.
"Try maybe throwing it against a wall? That might work," joked the man named Ezio.
"I think not," Leonardo said in a dry voice. "Let me see…why don't I try…no nothing…what about…no…..AH here we go."
As he said those words, I felt a sharp tug on my legs and then a falling sensation. Just as I was about to scream, my back hit the corner of something and next thing I knew papers were flying everywhere. I looked to see that Nina had fallen by some kind of couch and that Sam was looking colorful in a puddle of spilled paints.
I looked up into beautiful shocked blue eyes in a face framed with long blonde hair, just before I heard a voice say excitedly:
"Wait a minute, this thing makes girls appear?...Do that again Leonardo."
