MYKENE

    

    “Paracalo.”

    He called the waiter and ordered another Metaxa, draining the glass in front of him. “Meh pagukia?" asked the man. With ice?

    “Sketoh," said Chase. Add nothing.

    There was a white elastic strip around the tablecloth holding it down against the evening wind and somebody had penciled in TOO MANY FOREIGNERS IN GREECE along the front of it. That was true enough, thought Chase, though whoever had written it was probably a tourist himself-the English was just too perfect. The sign above him, for instance, read RESTAURANT BAR HOMER. HERE WE HAVE GREEK SERVICE. ALL GRILLDED.

    That was more like it.

    He watched the waiter move off toward the bar.

    He was drinking more than he should, he knew, three empty glasses lined up in front of him and he didn’t know why except that he needed it. The power of a place took a while to roll off you. Sometimes a long while.

    He kept coming back to the candles.

    He presumed they were left by an earlier tour group though he had seen no such tour group. And that only explained the least interesting thing about them.

    How could he have missed fire?

    He’d read somewhere that black holes in space had the capacity to suck in light like a vacuum cleaner but that was space and this was a cave in the countryside of Greece.

    So how could he have missed them?

    By the time they’d guttered out and his eyes finally adjusted to the dark he’d found himself alone in what turned out to be a roughly circular cavern about twenty-five feet deep by twenty feet wide with high pale limestone walls. For a while he’d inhabited the silence like a ghost.

    Like a very humble ghost. There was awesome power in the place.

    It calmed him.

    Then it frightened him.

    He’d felt it before. In Mexico once, and once in England. And worst of all on a foggy New England afternoon, the very last day of his childhood. Times he didn’t like to remember and wouldn’t remember now.

    He felt too much. Too often.

    Murder in the eyes of a man in the streets of Toronto. A hotel fire in San Francisco that killed two children and a fireman. The imminent deaths of his favorite aunt, a teacher in the eighth grade, his father.

    Stop it, he thought.

    It was always the same but always different too in the way that anything elemental was, like water in a stream or like fire. You recognized the familiar power. It was the configurations that surprised you.

    He recognized the feelings too-the tuning-fork intensity, the sense of having access for a moment to some impossible vantage point where you could see worlds turning, growing green or barren, imploding or exploding, mountains formed and seas going dry. It was wonderful and terrifying. And it was meant to be watched with humility if it was meant to be watched at all.

    Even the elation of it, even the joy, was painful. It could drive you crazy if you let it.

    You had to lighten it, make it livable.

    Like you’re doing now, he thought. Sitting here drinking.

    So that in a way he’d been glad when the tourists arrived. They couldn’t see him. They’d stood in the post-and-lintel doorway and held their lighters and matches inside but they wouldn’t go in. Instead they’d done the sensible thing and gotten the hell out of there. He’d sat back on his heels and watched them, feeling like a spook, feeling almost like laughing out loud. They’d dissipated his tension and he was glad for that but he’d resented them too. Nothing spoke to them. Nothing ever would. He was alone in that. There was room to love this gift of his but room to hate it too. It defined him and made him one of a kind, and lonely.

    There was another reason for resenting them too. The cave had broken off with him once they’d arrived, stopped communicating. He was jealous of that communication. It was what had called him here.

    And now he’d have to go back again.

    Which, he thought, is the main reason you’re drinking.

    The waiter set down the Metaxa. Chase thanked him and raised the glass. The waiter nodded. The amber liquid felt hot and smooth.

    He thought about going back in.

    There were only two options, really. One was to wait until morning and beat the tourists but beat them early this time so that he’d have at least a half an hour or so before they arrived. It might be enough time.

    The other was better, and more threatening. Even slightly embarrassing. Something a kid might do.

    He could go tonight and jump the fence.

    If he did he wouldn’t have to worry about tourists-just the police-but from what he’d seen police were in short supply here. He hadn’t seen a single uniform since arriving.

    Still it was risky.

    He supposed a Greek jail could be nasty. But his connections were international so that even in a worst-case scenario, jail wouldn’t be much of a problem for long. It wasn’t that. It was something much simpler.

    It was night.

    He’d be jumping the fence at night, walking the dromos alone, entering the tomb. The prospect worried him. Places got stronger at night, they often did. And in daylight, this one was strong enough.

    He could still hear it humming like the droning of a thousand bees.

    He’d see.

    He’d have another Metaxa. Then he’d see.

    You should call Elaine, he thought.

    But you won’t. Not now. Not yet.

    He lifted his drink and, impassive, watched his hand tremble. It wasn’t much to speak of, just a slight tremble sending honey-colored ripples in concentric circles over the surface of the brandy. It was enough to remind him though and to intrigue him. And he thought he knew what his decision would be.