PART FOUR - BODRUM
- 7 -
Gabe froze as the door to the cellar began to open. Saphy slammed herself back against the wall on the side of the door that was beginning to open. She motioned dramatically at Gabe for him to do the same, a frown on her face beneath the flame coloured hair. As the entrance to the room opened, all Gabe could do was try and conceal himself behind the swinging door.
There were two of the Hospitaller guards dressed in the black robes with white crosses, both with hoods up. The first guard stepped into the room and saw the open, empty cells and gave out a startled grunt. Turning round, he instantly spotted Saphy backed against the wall.
However, in doing so he turned his back completely on Gabe, seeming to forget that there were supposed to be two people in the room. Grasping the first heavy thing to hand, the camera he still held, Gabe's only thought was to hit the guard as hard as he possibly could, to knock him down in one go.
Raising the camera above his head, he swung with his full strength, bringing the weight of the camera down on the unsuspecting skull of the hooded guard. There was a sickening crunch, a crack in both head and camera, and the guard slumped at Gabe's feet.
Just at that moment, the second guard crossed the threshold to see his partner lying prone on the cellar floor. He looked up with surprise, but the split second he had spent processing what might have happened to his companion was enough for Saphy, desperate and violent, to seize the advantage.
Wearing her biker boots once more, she stamped down hard on his foot causing him to stagger forward. Not allowing him the chance to regain his balance, she planted her sharp knee right into his groin causing him to double over with pain. Gabe now jumped in, bringing the now split open camera down on a second head. Another crunch, another thud, and the second guard sprawled out next to the first.
Gabe looked down in disappointment at his broken camera. It had got them this far, had helped them solve a few clues. But, more importantly, it had always been how he defined himself, something to cling onto, something to hide behind.
"Never mind that now," Saphy said, "We've got to get out of here. Help me get these guards into the cells. Take off their robes."
With one last look at his shattered camera, Gabe cast it aside. After that kiss, he felt like a different person anyway, felt like a new start. Perhaps he didn't need the camera's safety blanket quality any more.
It took a while to drag the heavy bodies of the Hospitaller guards across the cellar, but they were fortunate in that the Hospitallers in the rest of the building seemed happy that those two guards would be enough to look after their less capable prisoners and, therefore, nobody came to check on them.
Finally, they were able to leave the two of them in their cells and Saphy did her best job of locking them in. Gabe and Saphy were now dressed in the Hospitaller robes, Gabe still in his white prisoner smock underneath, Saphy in her biker boots poking out of the bottom of the robe.
"Keep your hood up," said Saphy, raising hers to hide her bright red hair, "And we should fit in. All we need to do then is walk steadily and calmly until we find a way out. Do nothing to attract attention and we'll be fine."
With their black hoods raised, everything around seemed darker and harder to see. Gabe could understand now why the guards had not immediately noticed them when they had walked into the cellar, the hoods may have been good for anonymity but they clearly weren't designed for good peripheral vision. He decided just to focus on what was in front of him and keep walking.
Above the cellar the building was a maze of identical grey corridors. Picking a likely route, or at least one that was as likely as any other, Saphy set out along one of these and Gabe followed close behind. Occasionally, they would pass other figures in black robes, their faces covered by cowls just like Saphy and Gabe. The Hospitallers asked no questions and Saphy and Gabe were only too pleased not to have to respond.
After what was, in reality, a few minutes, but felt like plenty more, it appeared they were going nowhere. They continued to pass identical looking dark wood doors that hid who knows what secrets. But, finally, what appeared to be an exit came into sight, a large set of double doors with a push bar. Both Saphy and Gabe could sense that beyond that door lay the city of Bodrum and their chance for escape. Before they could get to it, however, there was a room where one of the doors was slightly ajar.
"Do not assume we will not have our ways of extracting whatever information we desire from you," the familiar creeping voice of Raymond Gerard, the Grand Prior, drifted from the room. This is what they would have to pass to reach the exit.
Saphy made a move to slip quietly past the semi-ajar doorway, but Gabe could not help but let his curiosity take over. If Gerard was about to learn some answers from the naiad then he wanted to hear them too. Against his better judgement, and Saphy's angry gesticulating, Gabe moved closer to the doorway, peering through into the room beyond, listening in on what was happening within.
