The raptor cocked its head toward Marco. He threw the rock, making a direct hit between its eyes. It let out a shriek, wings stuttering in midair.
With a sickening thump, it landed directly on Professor Bhegad.
The old man’s cry was silenced by the impact. Torquin and the guards raced toward him. The thing fluffed out its wings, clipping Torquin in the jaw. He fell backward like a rag doll, taking the other guards down with him.
But the raptor’s eyes were on Marco, who was taunting it, racing toward the nearest building. “Run!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Get to shelter!”
The creature leaped into the air, uncovering the crushed, motionless body of Bhegad. Spreading its wings, it dropped toward Marco, talons extended.
“No-o-o!” Cass yelled. He leaped out of the cart, brandishing a sharp-tipped stick. “We just rescued him, you overgrown chicken!”
Marco jumped aside with the skill of a ninja fighter. The creature crashed to the ground, its talons gripping a clod of grass.
Cass plunged forward, his momentum carrying him directly into the attacker. The stick drove into its side, releasing a gusher of greenish-black fluid.
The creature made no sound. Its head swiveled downward to see the wound. Then, with calm efficiency, it stood, took two steps, and leaped into flight.
On its way up, it grabbed Cass by his backpack.
As we watched in stony shock, the raptor soared into the darkening sky, with Cass in his underwear, swinging helplessly below.
CHAPTER THIRY - SIX
MEANING OF THE SEVEN
“GET HIM!” MARCO raced across the quad, his feet barely touching the ground. He leaped, extending his arm upward.
His fingers just grazed the bottom of Cass’s shoe.
As Marco fell empty-handed, Cass’s pleas for help echoed dully.
I raced to Marco’s side with Aly.
The beast gained altitude with each mighty flap of its wings. Cass’s legs hung like a puppet’s. We stared in horror as they receded into the distance, slowly becoming a silhouette.
A sharp crrack rang out. Torquin was on one knee, sighting with his rifle.
“Don’t shoot!” Bhegad pleaded hoarsely. “You could hit the child!”
Bhegad.
In the horror of Cass’s capture, I’d neglected him. He’d been crushed by the creature. I knelt by him, cupping his head with my right hand. “Are you all right?”
Bhegad struggled to sit up. Mustering all his strength, he called out: “My tracking device is gone, Torquin. Have someone run a trace on the boy!”
Torquin barked an order to one of his goons. Behind him I could see Aly and Marco, still frozen, eyes to the sky. Aly was sobbing.
Bhegad’s eyes flickered shut. I helped him lie down, scanning his body for wounds. I saw no bleeding, but his leg was twisted like a rag doll’s and his face was gray.
“I get doctor,” Torquin said.
“Yes…thank you…” Bhegad said through his teeth. “And summon all three of the Select—now!”
As Torquin ran off, Bhegad looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. “We—we thought…they had all been killed,” he said.
“All what, Professor?” I asked.
“The griffins,” he replied. “The guardians of the Loculi. Massarym…slaughtered them. But in a rift…in time…there’s no telling how far back…”
His head was sagging.
I didn’t know what to say or do. I was stiff with shock, weighted down with guilt. This monster was here because of me. Because of my curiosity, Cass was gone.
“I’m so sorry…” I said.
“Get him…” Bhegad moaned.
“How?” I begged.
I looked up to see Torquin running our way with a tracking device. Aly and Marco were close behind him. “Professor,” he said.
He knelt, holding the device in front of Bhegad’s face. Behind him, a medical team began laying a stretcher near Bhegad. Aly and Marco knelt silently beside me.
“Of course…” Bhegad said, squinting at the screen. “It is on a quest to find a Loculus. The object it was born and bred to protect.”
“Then why does it have Cass?” I asked.
“For food,” Bhegad replied.
Aly gasped. Marco held her close.
“But…the griffin cannot…digest human flesh raw…” Bhegad continued. “Hid its prey in caves…cocooned it…macerated it with saliva…. You must go after it…”
“Prepare jet?” Torquin said.
“Yes,” Bhegad said. “And Torquin…you will take the Select with you.”
“No room!” Torquin snapped. “Trapped us. In cave!”
“Of course there’s room,” Bhegad replied. “Do not…let your anger get the better of you…”
As the medical team began to lift Bhegad, he begged them to stop. Turning to us with half-lidded eyes, he said, “The Heptakiklos carvings…done by Karai…each tells where a Loculus was hidden. I know…where the griffin is going…”
“The griffin is headed to the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World?” I said in utter disbelief.
“Yes—yes, my boy!” Bhegad was breathing sporadically, trying to focus. “Built by finest minds of the time…funded with lots of money. Secret passages…storage…hiding places…state of the art. Perfect for the Loculi. We should have suspected…”
“But they don’t exist anymore, Professor Bhegad!” Aly insisted. “Haven’t the Wonders all been destroyed—except for the pyramids?”
“Follow the griffin…” Bhegad said. “Cass’s tracker…headed toward the Mediterranean…”
His voice was fading. The medics were lifting the stretcher, starting for the Karai Institute hospital. I ran along with them. He seemed desperate to tell me something. “Promise…bring back…”
“We will!” I shouted. “We’ll find Cass and return him!”
“Bring…back…” Bhegad repeated.
His eyes finally fluttered shut. But not before uttering two last words.
“…the Loculus.”
CHAPTER THIRTY - SEVEN
RHODES
“BANKING LEFT,” TORQUIN said. His fleshy face distorted into some strange, frightening expression that must have been his smile. He was piloting the tiny, four-seater jet as if it were a dive-bomber. The plane dipped downward so hard I was convinced I left my brain behind.
“Glurrrp…” I held my hand to my mouth and breathed deeply.
Torquin’s antics had their advantages. They distracted me from thinking about Cass. He had been with the griffin for two hours. I worried he was going to lose his life before we found him. All I stood to lose right now was my lunch.
“Gate. Cave. Nasty trick…” Torquin murmured for about the tenth time.
I shared a baffled glance with Marco and Aly. “Yo, Sasquatch,” Marco said, “read my lips: They didn’t close the gate on purpose! It was a mistake. Understand? Or should Aly translate that into Cro-Magnon?”
Torquin banked again, rolling the plane a full three-sixty. “Banzai.”
“Will you stop that?” I shouted.
The plane leveled. I tried not to look down. Below us was the Mediterranean Sea. The choppy gunmetal water seemed to stretch to the horizon. I focused on the tracking device, which Torquin had mounted to the cockpit. Cass’s signal had passed east over Italy. A running line of LED text at the bottom, which had read SARDINIA and then SICILY for a long time, now changed to CORFU. “Where is the griffin is taking him?” I asked.
“Could be anywhere,” Aly said. “All the Seven Wonders were in Mediterranean countries.”
Torquin didn’t answer for a long time. His eyes were glued to the signal. The names began to change more rapidly as it now passed over solid land—SPARTA, CORINTH, ATHENS.
It emerged off the eastern coast of Greece, into the Aegean Sea. My eyes moved ahead. I traced out the trajectory—not where it had been, but where it seemed to be going. I focused on a tear-shaped island off the coast of Turkey. I leaned closer
to read the label.
“Rhodes…” I said.
“That’s the site of one of the Seven Wonders,” Aly said, peering at the device. “The great Colossus of Rhodes! Supposedly the biggest statue ever built. It straddled the entire harbor, holding up a light for all the ships.”
I nodded, thinking back to a homework assignment that seemed centuries ago. “I made a replica of that. A G.I. Joe figure, wrapped in a toga. I put a toy flashlight in one hand and a pad labeled GREEK DICTIONARY in the other. I brought him to class on a Stratego board and stood him up in the Aegean Sea.”
“I must have been absent that day,” Marco said. “But weren’t the Seven Wonders all nuked, like, eons ago? Cincinnati Red isn’t going to like that.”
The plane lurched. The wings dipped to the left. We were hurtling down toward Rhodes.
“Sto-o-o-op!” Aly yelled.
“Dude, I am about to get immortal puke all over your plane!” Marco said.
Torquin grinned evilly. “Gate. Cave. Nasty trick.”
The plane went into a roll. My seat restraints dug into my body. We were all screaming now. The tracker, which was attached by one clip, went flying.
It cracked against the ceiling and went dark.
Torquin quickly righted the plane. He glanced at the useless device and flinched. “Oops.”
“Face it, Samson—you have to tell Professor Bhegad,” Marco said, leaning in toward Torquin, who was in the front passenger seat of a Greek taxicab. “He can FedEx you another device!”
“I don’t think the Karai Institute has a FedEx office,” Aly drawled.
“Worst-case, you let the KI do the tracking remotely,” I said. “They can report Cass’s location to you!”
Torquin was punching the buttons of the broken tracking device with his stubby fingers. “Fix.”
I couldn’t believe this.
Exhausted, I glanced out the window at the highway. We had spent the night on the airport tarmac, sleeping in the plane. We’d tried to convince Torquin to contact the KI about the tracker, but he had refused. He didn’t want to admit to Professor Bhegad what he’d done.
We had to humor him like a kindergartner—while Cass was in the talons of a flesh-eating beast.
Aly and Marco were looking at me helplessly.
Think. It’s the one thing you’re good at.
Hotels and restaurants raced by us on one side of the road, a beach on the other. It was hard to believe we were finally in the real world again, with streetlights, highway traffic, restaurants, houses, cell towers, people in normal clothes doing normal things. The taxi’s car radio was blaring ads in Greek and a news report mentioned “Nea Yorki.” We were home.
Yet somehow, all this reality made everything feel more unreal.
There had to be a way to find Cass. The griffin was programmed to find and protect its Loculus. Which meant that somehow, the magical sphere still existed. Even though its hiding place, the Colossus, was gone.
If we could find the Loculus, we would find Cass.
As we approached the port, I looked closely out the window. The sides of the harbor curved around in kind of a pincer shape, like two fingers about to snap. Fishing boats were returning with their morning catches, and people were already eating early breakfasts in a sprawling line of outdoor cafés.
It was supposedly the biggest statue ever built. It straddled the entire harbor, holding up a light for all the ships…
“Is this the main port?” I asked the driver. “Where the Colossus of Rhodes once stood?”
“Neh—yes!” said the driver with pride. “You know about Colossus? Greatest Wonder of all world. The big ships? They pass under legs. My brother Niko’s restaurant has view of harbor. Best food in Rhodos—”
“Wait. Passed under its legs?” Marco asked skeptically. “With those big old sails? That thing would have to be ginormous—like, carry the Statue of Liberty in its toga pocket.”
“Is why we call it Colossus!” the driver declared.
“So if the Loculus fell out when the statue was destroyed,” I said, “it would be underwater.”
Marco squinted, shielding his eyes against the morning sun. “I don’t see His Redness swimming out there, looking for it.”
Torquin looked up from the broken tracker and pointed toward the road that lined the harbor. “Stop there.”
“You like diving?” the driver said. “I bring you to my uncle Foti’s shop!”
“Drive.” Torquin went back to fiddling with the tracker. He crossed his legs, revealing a massive bare right foot.
The driver raised an eyebrow. “My cousin Irini? She has shoe store—”
Torquin brought his fist down on the dashboard, hard. The driver swerved toward the harbor.
In a moment he stopped on a cobbled road overlooking the water. A waiter, setting a table, waved to us from a nearby white stucco café. Soft bouzouki music came from inside, along with the crackle of frying foods. The smell made my mouth water. Torquin had given us some euros for pocket money. A bite of food would be great if we could do it without wasting time.
The driver held a business card out toward Torquin. “Call twenty-four seven. Taki at your service. You pay now, please.”
Ignoring the card, Torquin handed the man some money and walked away. Taki counted it quickly. “No tip?”
“Talk too much,” Torquin growled.
Aly glanced at him in disbelief. “He can’t get away with that.” Taking Taki’s card, she jumped into the front passenger seat. “Torquin, that was rude. I’m not moving until you give this man a tip!”
Marco shot her a thumbs-up. “Nice one, Norma Rae.”
Torquin turned. He muttered something under his breath that I’m glad I didn’t hear. Then he tossed a few coins at Aly, who handed them to Taki.
“You good girl,” the driver said, beaming. “I tell Niko give you free breakfast.”
As she got out, I saw her putting something into her pocket. I gave her a curious glance.
She put her fingers to her lips and walked toward the harbor.
CHAPTER THIRTY - EIGHT
THE TROUBLE WITH TORQUIN
“THE COLOSSUS SITE should be somewhere just past these restaurants…” Aly said, walking briskly along the wharf.
Marco and I trudged behind her. We had gathered a bunch of brochures at a tourist stand and read them over eggs and toast at Niko’s—well, Marco, Aly, and I read them. Torquin had been busy pounding on the tracking device. By now he had mangled it so badly it couldn’t possibly be repaired.
It was a hot morning. Sweat was already pouring down my forehead. I had to talk to Aly. Alone. To find out what was in her pocket. And why she was keeping it secret.
As we passed a boat rental place, Torquin stopped. “Boat. Here. Into harbor.”
Aly turned, a glossy brochure in hand. “Wait. According to this, the Colossus was never over the water at all. Modern scholars believe the Greeks couldn’t have built a stone statue that size, straddling a huge harbor. It would have collapsed of its own weight. Even if it were made of bronze, it would have been logistically difficult to anchor its feet on the two harbor points.”
Torquin stared at her blankly.
“Pay attention, dude,” Marco said. “There will be a quiz later.”
I looked out over the water. If a griffin had been here at the harbor, we’d know it. People would be freaking out. Cops would be all over. So it couldn’t have been here.
But searching the entire island of Rhodes could take days. It was almost fifty miles long. We didn’t have that time. Even if Cass was alive, he was due for a treatment at midnight tonight. If we didn’t get him back in time for that, he was doomed.
“They think the Colossus actually stood on the western shore,” Aly said. “Right about…here.”
We cleared the last café. To our right, a stone wall lined the harbor. To our left, the road wound up a slight hill, to where Aly was pointing.
Her face fell.
My eyes followed the path of her finger to a building that housed a supermarket and a bank. Outside the supermarket, a clown was handing out balloons of all different colors to a group of bored-looking kids.
Marco watched one of the balloons float off into the cloudless sky. “There goes our Loculus.”
Torquin let out a sarcastic snuffling sound. “We look in dairy section?”
Aly stormed away, walking up the street. The city of Rhodes was hilly when you got away from the wharf. We passed a bike shop on a triangular corner, where a clerk eyed us curiously as we passed. “Aly, wait!” I called out.
I jogged ahead to keep up with her. Now we were about a half block ahead of Torquin and Marco, who were locked in some kind of argument.
“Don’t be angry,” I said.
Aly looked back, then leaned in to me. “I’m not angry. I just needed to get away so I can use this.”
She pulled a cell phone out of her pocket, keeping it shielded from the sight of Torquin and Marco. “When I jumped into the taxi after Torquin stiffed the driver, I took this off the front seat.”
“You stole the phone!” I pointed out. “That’s worse than stiffing him!”
“I borrowed it.” Aly turned a corner onto a narrow side street of boxy apartment buildings. Moms and dads were emerging through front doors, blowing kisses to their kids who waved from the windows, in the arms of black-clad grandmothers. “I have Taki’s business card. I’ll call the taxi company. We need him to drive us around anyway, right? I’ll return the phone and tell him it was a mistake. Look, Torquin isn’t going to let us near a pay phone. This is our only chance. I just want to make contact with my mom, tell her I’m okay. It’ll take me a few seconds to block the caller ID. Then, after I’m done, you can take a turn if you want.”
My heart jumped. Dad probably thought I was dead. I would be able to hear his voice for the first time since I left.
I looked over my shoulder. Marco and Torquin hadn’t made the turn yet. Aly took my arm and ran toward a dark alley between buildings.
My mind was racing. I imagined the call. I pictured what Dad would say. How we would both feel.