Apollo's Curse by Brad Vance

Author:Brad Vance [Vance, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN – TO THE QUEST!

The next day was the gondola race, and I wanted to snag a good spot to see it. The race started at 9:30, which I thought shockingly early for a European event, but it was the Feast of St. Mark and there were no doubt a million other things going on the same day.

The sun was in splendor, and I found a good spot in the wide open space where the Rio de l’Arsenal canal met the lagoon. I could hear the Roman gladiator music in the distance, bum buh duh da dah, horns sending the boats off on their way. They passed me by at what seemed like a leisurely pace for a race, every boat brightly colored – burnt orange, lavender, sky blue, deep sea blue, algae green, sunset red. And the gondoliers wore white pants, and shirts that exactly matched the colors of the boats, as if they were the sails of strange, alien multi-masted ships.

Most boats flew varying sizes of orange and red flags with the lion of St. Mark. How they’d actually race without crashing into each other I couldn’t imagine – it was like watching cars in a roundabout, when you wondered how everyone managed not to die.

I thought I saw him.

I was sure it was him.

I’d found Paul!

He was one of five men in a gondola, red boat and red shirts and white pants. So it was true, at least one of the many legends about him, he really was a gondolier.

But then I was back in the hotel in Vegas again, remembering that moment, that knowledge I’d had then, that even if I could forget how his face looked then, I’d never forget the way he looked from behind.

And my spirits fell, because I knew it wasn’t him. His doppelganger, the same broad shoulders and narrow waist and black hair and long legs. But not him.

The strangest thing was, this man turned towards me, just enough that I could be sure from his face that it wasn’t Paul. And he smiled. And gave the slightest of nods in my direction, and then he was back to work, poling away.

It’s weird. That nod gave me…peace. Like I finally knew I was on the right track, that this wasn’t, after all, a fool’s errand. I’d seen the White Rabbit go down the hole, and I would follow, with or without the assistance of Jackson da Vinci.

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