Page 3 of Achille's Earth Angel
‘Listening for something murky, something emerging from the gloom.’
She shivered, although she couldn’t name a reason as to why, she wasn’t cold. It was just the way they had suddenly vanished that had left her doubting her own eyes, and perhaps, in some cobwebby corner of her mind, a desire to believe they were real.
Being an avid researcher of Greek mythology, the tales of the gods had always fascinated her. Especially the story of Achilles and his tragic, short-lived life of war and lost love. Being the modern young woman that she was, of course she didn’t believe in the reality of the Greek gods. People just needed something to believe in.
It was her opinion that the stories and legends of the gods were just that, something to give the people of those times hope. Something to worship and pray to in times of good fortune, and someone to blame when they weren’t so fortunate. Not so different than today’s reality, when it came right down to it.
Finally, Ange turned and headed back towards her cottage, her thoughts drifting to the legends surrounding Briseis. History recorded that she was the wife of King Mynes of Lyrnessus, who was an ally of Troy during the war. When Achilles killed her husband in battle, he took Briseis as a war prize. Others say that Agamemnon hadgivenher to Achilles as a war prize. Either way, she had been reputed to be beautiful. It was also recorded that Achilles may have asked her to marry him. No one seemed to know what happened to her after the legendary Achilles was killed though.
Once she reached her little cottage and was back in cell range, she called the authorities. What good it would accomplish, she didn’t know. Ikaria wasn’t known for a heavy police presence since crime rarely occurred on the island. She gave them a description of the man who had assaulted her and let them know that he ran into the sea. They told her that if a body washed up, she would be asked to identify whether or not it was her attacker.
Closing her cell phone, she took her key out of her pocket and slipped it into the lock. A wave of sadness washed over her when she stepped into the airy cottage and gazed into the sky-blue eyes of her father, Leonidas Galanos in the portrait on the wall over the sofa. Eyes just like her own.
She’d been teaching her students about the mythological figure named Ikaria, after which her island was named, and how he’d flown too close to the sun and fallen into the mountains of the island when she’d received the call. Her father had died peacefully in his sleep at the age of ninety-seven. A feat in itself.
Musing, she stood in front of the painting. The gods had named the island Ikaria in memory of Ikaria and his father Daedalus. Daedalus had built wings for him and his son so they could escape the minotaur’s maze. Ikaria had been warned not to fly to close to the sun because the wax holding his feathers together would melt. He’d ignored the warning and fallen to the earth. Ikaria’s flight had since symbolized the desire to be free to the people of the land, an idealism which had encompassed them in wars in the past, and still embodied itself in the hearts of the people today. None more so than her father.
Sighing, she turned away. She’d only arrived from Athens yesterday, and hadn’t begun the task of sorting through her father’s belongings yet. She needed to figure out what to do with his herd of goats, and whether or not to sell the cottage and return to Athens.
Leonidas had been a simple farmer like so many others on the island of mostly self-sufficient residents. They made their own wine, grew their own organic gardens, processed the milk of their goats into cheeses, and ate goat meat and fish. It was a simple life. A part of her would like to return to the life she’d grown up with, part of her didn’t. She was conflicted.
It was at times like this that she really wished her mother had lived. Alissa Galanos had died giving birth to her and she didn’t have any memories of her at all. Her father told her stories of their courtship and how much he’d loved Alissa, but that was all she had. Leonidas had never remarried.
Alarm suddenly shot through her when she heard her doorknob rattle, the sound making the hairs on her neck prickle. The fact that no one came in made her fiercely glad the habit she’d picked up in Athens of automatically locking a door behind her was ingrained. Here on the island, no one locked their doors.
Holding her breath, she waited for someone to knock, but the knock never came. Finally, picking up one of the golden candlesticks from the side table by the sofa, she cautiously crept to the door and looked through the peephole. Heaving a sigh of relief, she realized it must have been the gusty wind that sometimes burst through this corridor. With a giddy chuckle of relief, she opened the door to look around. Fear choked her when she spotted the wet footprints all over the flagstones in front of her door, and leading back down the flagstone between her garden fences to where they stopped at the top of the knoll which would drop away to the grassy area between here and the sandy beach.
Bare footprints, larger than most, going both ways.
Instantly her mind flashed to the big stranger who had attacked her on the beach. Could he have come back? Quickly she slammed the door and then ran around checking the windows and the patio sliding door on the east side of the house. No foot prints anywhere. She heaved a sigh of relief as her trembling fingers smoothed escaping tendrils of hair behind her ears.
Padding into the kitchen to put the teapot on for some nice chamomile tea, the name Epaphras sprang to mind. Achilles had called him Epaphras. But how could he have known that? Unless he knew the man, which could mean they were actually working together somewhere on the island. This thought immediately pissed her off. How dare the three men play games with her? That had to be it though, what else could it be?
***
ACHILLES STARED BACKat Ange, wanting so badly to reach out and run his palm down the smooth side of her face that he could taste it.
He wanted to taste her!
His fists were balled at his sides, his heart still hurting from her taunt about Briseis. He was a work in stone at the moment, unable to move.
“Hey, relax,” Hercules soothed with a chuckle. “At least she thinks you’re handsome, although I have no idea why she would think that. Not when I’m right here.” Hercules punched him in the shoulder, trying to loosen him up. “At least your girl seems smart enough, she didn’t try to follow us any further. You can get lost in this mountain range.”
Achilles finally shrugged and turned to face his tormenter. “She’s not my girl,” he snarled. He stalked away and back to the bank where they had been taking in the sun on the River Styx.
“Okay, so she’s not your girl.” Hercules finally joined him, panting again. “But you wish she was, I can tell.” He ducked when Achilles took a swing at him. “Hey, watch it. You almost took my head off.”
Achilles picked up a heavy stick and charged him again. “I’m going to take your head off so your mouth will stop talking,” he growled.
The two men scuffled and fought in an anything-goes fight, neither one gaining an advantage over the other. Achilles was a great warrior and very skilled, his skin impenetrable from being dipped as an infant in the River Styx. Hercules was the strongest man ever known and could lift twenty men the weight of Achilles without breathing hard. When Achilles suddenly froze in mid-swing with his club and dropped it to the ground, Hercules wasn’t prepared. He had thrown his heavy club forward to block Achilles and when there was nothing to block it, the club hit Achilles square in the face.
“Mother of Zeus,” Achilles swore as he was bodily knocked backward twenty feet.
Hercules hurried forward and grabbed his hand to help him up. “What did you do that for?” he complained. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Achilles shot him a scowl. “I’m not hurt, you idiot, you can’t hurt me. Your reflexes need work though, you’re as slow as honey dripping in the wintertime.” Suddenly he stiffened and then turned to run back the way they had come. “Epaphras is back and he’s after Angelina.”
“Not again.” Hercules swore and headed after him. “Why don’t you just let him have her since you said you didn’t want her.”
