set off. ‘So who are you going to call?’ Macy asked.
His smile this time was somewhat warmer. ‘An old friend.’
19
Nina jerked awake, a fierce cramp burning in her arm. For a nightmarish moment she thought the antivenom had worn off, letting the Gormar’s toxin continue its work, but as she scrambled to sit up she realised it was only the result of her uncomfortable sleeping position on the hard floor.
She rolled her shoulder to ease the stiffness. The wallowing nausea had subsided, leaving just a hangover queasiness. Examining her wrist, she saw that the swollen sting had gone down, though it was still an angry red.
‘Nina? Are you all right?’
She looked round to see Kit sitting against the wall of his cell. ‘I’m . . . not great,’ she admitted. ‘But better than I was.’ A glance told her that the guard had been replaced by another man. ‘How long was I asleep?’
Kit checked his watch. ‘Quite a while. It’s after eleven in the morning.’
She had been out for something like fourteen hours while her body did its best to expunge the poison from her system. ‘Jesus. How long have you been awake?’
‘About an hour. I didn’t want to wake you.’
Another look at the guard. This one apparently understood English, his eyes flicking between them as he followed their conversation. ‘We’ve got a new watchman – did I miss anything else?’
‘No, he was there when I woke up. I’ve been spending the time wondering how on earth I ended up in this situation. It seems destiny works in strange ways.’
Nina made a sarcastic sound. ‘You think being tortured with scorpions was our destiny?’
‘I prefer that to it being nothing more than bad luck.’
‘Huh. I kind of see your point. Just hope that our destinies don’t end in here.’
‘So do I. But . . . I do think that things happen for a reason, even if we can’t always see it at first. There is order in the universe, but it has to be maintained – whether by the gods, or by our actions. Part of our purpose is to keep that order.’
‘Interesting,’ said Nina with a faint smile. ‘I’m not used to philosophical discussion in the morning. But then, I do live with Eddie.’
Kit grinned back through his puffy lips. ‘Not bad for a humble policeman, no?’
‘So is that why you became a cop? To maintain order?’
He nodded. ‘In some ways. Growing up in India, I saw a lot of corruption, a lot of greed that caused others to suffer. I wanted to do what I could to stop it – to make sure that people who took more than they deserved were punished.’
‘Sounds like a good motivation to me.’
The Interpol officer gave her an appreciative look, then sighed. ‘It did not always make me popular. Even among my colleagues.’
‘Yeah, I know what that feels like,’ Nina told him sympathetically.
‘But then, this is what I mean about destiny. If I had been the kind of cop who looked the other way when I saw others taking bribes, I probably wouldn’t have been “encouraged” to move from regular police work into more specialised areas like art theft. And if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been offered a position at Interpol, which means I would not have investigated the Khoils, I would not have met you and Eddie . . . and I would not be here right now.’
Nina raised her eyebrows. ‘And you’re still upbeat about it? If I’d thought about the course of my life like that, I’d be going “Oh God, where did it all go so wrong?”!’
He smiled. ‘I’m a very upbeat person. And I don’t regret my decisions. Even though at the moment they seem to have brought me to a rather dark place.’
‘You’re not kidding.’ She tapped the bars. ‘Any ideas how we can get out into the light?’
‘A few. Unfortunately, they all begin with us being outside these cells.’
‘That’s not as helpful as I was hoping for.’
‘I’m still working on them.’
The door opened and a pair of soldiers trooped in. ‘Work faster,’ Nina urgently told Kit as they unlocked her cell and entered. ‘All right, okay!’ she protested as she was pulled to her feet.
They took her back upstairs, ascending a broad marble staircase to the mansion’s upper floor. Nina screwed up her eyes, dazzled by the brightness of the morning sun through panoramic windows as she was led through a luxurious lounge with a giant TV on one wall. Beyond, a large