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She pointed upward, demanding. Her meaning was clear.
In case my meaning wasn't clear enough when I shook my head, I answered her repeated gesture with a
ruder one of my own. Then I jabbed a finger at her and pointed insistently upward. If she would just give
me a little privacy&
She rolled her eyes and turned to Rhys, my diving buddy, in open-armed entreaty. He'd swum closer, to
see what was up, but simply looked confused.
He couldn't know what I'd just sensed.
Catrina made a hand signal that might get her into a fight in some countries. It was the symbol for
horns thumb and pinky raised, other fingers fisted. For a moment I thought she meant some kind ofIsis
reference but then she held the hand to her cheek, like a telephone.
Oh.
When her finger jabbed upward again, Rhys nodded. I understood better, too. I had a telephone call on
the ship.
Well, it could wait. I retrieved my lantern, wanting nothing more than to aim it toward the end of the
columns where I thought I'd glimpsed something promising. I didn't dare do so in front of a certain
French grail thief.
Although really, I'd started to forget Cat had stolen the Melusine Grail and put it on sale on the black
market. She did still work for theCluny. She didn't seem rich.
With a kick of her swim fins and a cloud of sand, Catrina dived in front of me again, clearly frustrated
now I could see that even before she released a burst of bubbles with some kind of exclamation. She
mimed the phone again. She pointed up top.
Glimpsing something solid between me and the mirrored surface, I recognized another diver, Niko. He
made a wide arc with his forearm, a symbol every diver should know.
Emergency!
Had the images of Cleopatra andIsisand ancient times put me into some kind of a trance? If so, Niko's
signal broke it. Suddenly, finding the goddess grailright now seemed significantly less important. I could
locate this spot again it wasn't as if the harbor floor wasn't being thoroughly mapped. I could repeat the
invocation if necessary, since most of it had come from basic common knowledge of goddess cultures
and& and instinct.
What if something had happened to my parents? My cousin Lil or her family? More likely, considering
the people he ran with what if something had happened to Lex?
I didn't wait. With a sand-billowing kick of my own, I shot upward, closely followed by Rhys and
Catrina. I surfaced first, the other four heads bobbing out into the sun-washed waves after me, and made
for the Zodiac.
Suddenly my throat clutched, tight. As if I had to scream, like the goddess Melusine.
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It was as sure a sign of danger as Niko's hand signal had been.
Considering how my dive hood muffled all noise, it was also the only warning I got. I grabbed Rhys by
one wrist and dived, trying to go deep
But he'd been taken by surprise, and slowed us down.
A push of current spun me. Something dark blocked out the sun. I saw Catrina careen off to one
side without a hood, she'd apparently heard the danger. But Rhys-Even as I recognized the too close,
bottom-up view of a speedboat, cutting past our diver-down buoy and right over Rhys and me, I knew
Rhys hadn't gone deep enough.
Boat and diver collided.
Rhys's wrist was yanked from my hand.
A rush of bubbles exploded from his ruptured dry suit or, goddess forbid, a tank. As the boat continued
away, not even slowing, a smear of blood darkened the white wake behind it.
Rhys's carefully weighted body began to slowly sink.
No!
I reached him first, encircling him with my arms, kicking desperately for the surface. Once there, I lifted
his head out of the water, pulling free the regulator that at this point was as likely to suffocate him as help
him. In a moment Niko was there, helping support Rhys's shoulders. I couldn't think. I didn't dare feel.
For a moment, as I saw Catrina cutting away through the water to the Zodiac, I thought she was just
being a coward and that it figured.
Then she swam back with a life vest, which wasn't half-bad thinking.
Somehow we got Rhys to the boat, first the Zodiac and then the cabin cruiser, where a concerned
crowd had already prepared a litter frame and lowered it over the side for him. As they pulled him up,
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