The streets of London were unusually quiet. As the sun began to dip under the horizon, lamps flickered on in the growing dusk. Pedestrians carried on to their destinations quickly, feeling the chill of the evening advancing. The sky was blooming with color; a tantalizing array of orange and gold slowly giving way to the deep hues of night as the sun finally set. What was in the earlier hours a mild wind was turning brisk. Winter was definitely coming.

Two men stood by an old building, closed off for renovation. One was older, the other considerably younger. The latter gave the feel of a cocky sort; back and boot against a weathered wall, leaning slightly with an almost bored expression. The older gentleman noted this look with a chuckle, striking a match to light the cigar hanging from his mouth. As the streets grew more desolate their conversation picked back up.

"I still don't see why you wanted to come here," The young man mused. "I told you what I needed, and this is sort of in the completely wrong direction."

"Nate," The man said around his cigar, "If we did absolutely everything your way, we'd have been dead already."

He waved a hand dismissively, "Nah... Sully, I keep telling ya, you've got to have a little faith."

"I've got faith that you're goddamn lucky."

"Well, there's that too." Nate said with a grin. His hand went to the cord around his neck, fingers toying with the silver ring knotted to the twine. "Luck's a good thing to have."

Sully flicked the ash off his cigar. "Missing her already, huh?"

Nate looked down at his hand with a smile. "Guess so. Traded one ring for the other, never thought that would happen…"

"It certainly hasn't made you a homebody."

He snorted. "Ha, Elena neither. I'm glad her boss wanted her on some new assignment. I know she wanted to be involved, but I told her it was too risky."

Sully cocked an eyebrow. "And since when does she listen to you?"

"Well she's not here, is she?" Nate retorted.

Sully said nothing to this immediately, which made Nate recap is previous conversation with her.

"If you're going somewhere, I want to too."

"Elena, come on," Nate leaned back in his chair tiredly. "We nearly lost our heads getting out of there, and I'm not putting you back in that kind of situation."

Her voice was scathing. "As I recall that wouldn't be the first time."

"That doesn't mean I want to retry!" He protested, standing up and pointing to himself. "I don't know about you, but I happen to like my head!"

"It's doesn't seem to be doing you much good right now…"

"Oh ha ha."

Elena's hands sat on her hips, eyes studying Nate wordlessly. When she spoke again she was patronizing. "You know you're going to need me."

"Look, if I need you, I will call you." At her disbelieving look he smiled. "Really."

"Whatever Nate. If I didn't have a ton of research to do right now I'd fight you more on this." She walked up to him, grasping his biceps lightly. "Just… be careful, okay? You and Sully."

"We will, Elena." He leaned down slightly to kiss her forehead. "I promise."

Nate turned his head slowly in Sully's direction. "She's the one meeting us here, isn't she?"

"No."

"Oh sure, I believe that." He shook his head angrily. "She couldn't just let it go, and you- you just let her win you over. Again."

"Now hold on, she's not." Sully threw an arm up in protest, the other tossing away his cigar stub. "Now I admit this contact is through her, but she promised she wouldn't get any more involved than that."

"Okay, okay. First of all," Nate stood straight, fully turning to Sully in irritation, "She never means that. Ever! Never ever. Second, this means she knows what we're doing."

"Kid, I don't even know what we're doing. You still haven't given me a full explanation."

"Then what does she know?" Nate asked cautiously.

Sully sighed. "I had another contact. They bowed out at the last minute. Involuntarily, I might add." He glanced at his watch, looking back at Nate. "So I called her. Look, before you get all mad, I don't want her involved in any of our shenanigans either. I just didn't have enough to go on based on what you told me. So I asked her to set up a meeting with someone we might be able to requisition a plane from." His eyes narrowed slightly. "That aside you still owe me some answers."

The paper aforementioned had been torn from the hands of a long forgotten silk trader, and after that the tent of a rebelling group in the wilds of Thailand. The latter part had ended up quite difficult, almost resulting in his and Elena's death, had the opposing party not attacked and caused a distraction

"Okay." Nate rubbed a hand over his face. "Are you familiar with the Ramayana?"

"The Hindu epic? Sure, I've heard of it. Never known it to perk your interest, Nate."

"I know. I went with Elena to Thailand; she was doing a documentary about the struggle of the local guerillas in some remote part of the country. Everything was fine until the encampment we were at found something." He started toying with the ring again. "They brought a large roll of cloth back from the jungle, and later Elena and I found out there were remains inside."

Sully's nose crinkled in response. "Their doing or someone else's?"

"Someone else for sure, what was left of the bones was very old. I didn't get the chance to see where they found them, but they put it in a tent. Seems once they looked more closely everything got intense. Elena asked what it was at first and they got very defensive, treating us like we were spies." He sighed. "We ended up tied to a post on the outskirt of their camp, and the entire time I knew I had to look."

"Naturally." Sully nodded for Nate to continue.

"We got loose, and I convinced her to give me a moment to try and see what they found. I thought she made it further than she did…" He shook his head. "When I did manage to sneak in, there were papers, cloth, bones… just scattered in this tent, as if they were looking for something. There were papers I recognized as a trader's journal and a few excerpts of the Ramayana. I could tell from a few sketches." Nate reached into his back pocket, pulling out a piece of paper. Unfolding it he continued. "After we were caught, then the chaos after, I managed to snag a few papers. None of them had anything of real interest… save for one. I had the whole page translated." He flicked the paper in his hand with his finger, looking around to ensure the street was quiet. "Ready for this?"

"Yeah, get on with it."

"Listen to this. 'It was no greater horror than being lost, I thought. We stumbled upon the grove shrouded by the dark. We found the way we never could have seen. We will have no chance to leave. Vishnu guide us away from Bhogavati.'"

Sully's expression was quizzical. "Isn't that a mythical place?"

"That's just it. Bhogavati is considered the lowest city of the patala, the netherworld of Hindu mythology. You would think something would have been mentioned of the other six…"

"Well, maybe there was on the papers you couldn't snag. But what about this makes you so gun ho?"

Nate smiled. "This is an excerpt from the Ramayana. 'Next you will see Kunjar Parvat. Here Vishwakarmaa built a place for Agastya Muni. This place is one yojan wide and 10 yojan high. Here there is Bhogavati city where snakes live, that is why it is impossible for human beings to go there. Here lives the king of snakes - Vasuki Naga. Many terrific snakes guard him. This place is studded in numerous gem stones. Go in this place very carefully and search for Sita.'"

Sully's mouth curled into a smile. "Studded in gemstones, huh? That would be a pretty penny indeed." The smile fell slightly. "I could do without the snake idea. Got to tell you though, most of what you said does not ring a bell to me."

"Think of the snakes as embellished. I'm going to." He said distractedly. "Well, there's one thing you ought to know. Do you know what a yojan is?"

"Measurement, I'd guess."

"You bet. One yojan is somewhere between five and eight miles, Sully. Can you imagine the amount of gems we could snag? Hell, the size of them alone might just make one worth our time!"

"Easy now, Nate. This is still something with a lot of potential for trouble. Most of which is going to be the people you pissed off. And I'm willing to bet they've probably got a better idea where to start."

Their conversation ceased when a man caught their eye, walking slowly towards them not far away. Sully checked his watch again, muttering an incoherent curse. "Better late than never I guess." He eyed Nate with a grin. "We'll look further into this. In the meantime, keep that paper in your pocket, huh?"

"Sure thing. Really think this might pan out too?"

"I'm hoping so. My tabs are stacking up, kid."

The contact simply gave them an address and walked off. Once he disappeared from sight they meandered off the street and down an alley, stopping at the door of a tavern. Nate motioned to open the door when Sully clapped a hand to his shoulder. "Hey, you're putting that away, remember? Hope you're not that careless if we do this; don't need your jungle buddies catching wind."

Nate stuffed the paper back into his pocket with a smirk. "Won't matter if we figure this out before they do."