Free The Mona Lisa Sacrifice by Peter Roman Page A

cold wind moved through me, my memory of that moment with Penelope in that Paris graveyard was gone. That’s why I can’t remember the details now. I remember having the memory of her, I know what happened, but I can’t bring back the memory itself. So I try not to think about it too much.
    Alice closed her eyes for a moment. “That’s lovely,” she said when she opened them again. “I’m keeping it in a secret box in between a dream of Anaïs Nin’s and a book idea that Fitzgerald thought up while drunk but forgot about when he was sober.”
    “Keep her safe,” I said. It was all I could manage.
    Alice nodded and put her top hat back on. “The British Museum,” she said.
    “What about it?” I asked.
    “The gorgon’s head. It’s in the museum,” she said. She considered the ceiling. “Don’t you think it’s odd that museums don’t have muses?” she said.
    “Where in the museum?” I asked.
    She smiled at me. “Why, where it’s supposed to be, of course.”
    “All right,” I said. I wasn’t going to get anything else out of her. I kissed her on her cheeks, in the French way.
    “Until next time,” I told her. “Hopefully it won’t be as long a wait.”
    “You can’t have things worth waiting for without the wait,” she said.
    She turned and walked off into the stacks, disappearing behind a display of Tintin comics. I went back out into the street. I had a train to England to catch.
    Back outside, I tried to summon up the memory of Penelope again. I knew it had something to do with us in Paris, something I desperately wanted to never forget.
    But it was gone. It was as gone as she was.

PENELOPE
    Penelope has been dead for decades. There’s nothing left of her now. No body, no grave anywhere, marked or unmarked. Even her photos are all gone. All that remains of her are my memories.
    Penelope and I in the forgotten graveyard in the forest where we met, the morning mist burning away between us as we looked at each other across the simple crosses shoved into the ground.
    Penelope and I at the bow of a ship in the Pacific, watching the sun set until we were alone in the darkness. Our own little world.
    Penelope and I sitting on a blanket under a row of cherry blossom trees beside the Kamo River in Japan during the annual hanami, toasting the other people around us with sake. The lights of the lanterns better than any stars.
    And now another moment of her life—of
our
life—was gone.
    Someday I’ll have nothing left to remember her by. I hope that’s the day I die and stay dead.
    But I won’t rest until I find Judas and kill him.
    Kill him like he killed Penelope.

HOW NOT TO STEAL A GORGON’S SKULL
    I took the train to London. It was quick, but not nearly as scenic as the ship crossings of earlier centuries had been. Once we were in the tunnel under the ocean, there was nothing to look at but my own reflection in the window, and I’d had enough of that view some time ago. I settled for reading the back page of the paper that the man across from me was browsing. It had the latest update on a politician caught bedding someone he shouldn’t have been bedding, and ads for the home furnishings of your dreams. The usual fare. At least the train was warmer and drier than taking a ship.
    I thought about what Alice had told me. I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about trying to find Victory’s head in the British Museum, let alone destroying property of the state. As far as I knew, the Royal Family still had a bounty on my head for the Avebury incident. I’d sooner deal with vampires than the Royals. At least vampires still had traces of humanity left in them. Hopefully I’d be able to get in and out of the country before anyone even knew I was there.
    I closed my eyes and tried to nap. It’s a habit from my days in various armies around the world. No matter what cause you’re dying for, one thing always remains the same for soldiers: get your sleep while you can because you don’t know when