Chapter 12 - Walking the Dog

Ike shoved the phone into the pocket of her fleece jacket and, à propos of nothing, remembered she needed to nudge Shalon about the windbreaker. Not that she needed the thing, not underground. No wind here, only the odd draught. Also, she was warm enough, thank you. Hot even, with perspiration running down her spine.

At her feet, Boris growled, his whiskered muzzle pointed towards the door of the toilet.

Ike kneeled and hugged the warm furry body. "I know, my little friend," she whispered. "Somebody's out there. Please don't yowl, bark or do whatever else you have on your doggie brain. It will get us into trouble."

The Corgi looked up at her, adoration in his brown eyes. Warmth flooded Ike's heart, and she fondled an oversized ear. The affection of a canine was always on display, together with its tongue. While cats might excel in the aloofness department, a feline was unlikely to sink its fangs into an attacker's calf on command. A dog would, a skill that might prove useful in the immediate future.

"Right, sweetie. Take and action."

Ike jumped up from the floor, pulled the door towards her and listened into the crack. Then she slipped into the landing that gave access to the toilets, Boris padding after her. To her right, steps covered in stained linoleum led upstairs into the belly of the ministry. To her left yawned a breach in the brickwork, once painted white, now coated with the grime of decades and powdered with reddish dust.

From her vantage point, she could make out the top of the makeshift wooden stairs that let down into the catacombs. Black electric cables snaked their way out of the hole, along the opposite wall and followed the steps, out of sight.

The landing was empty, but be it disturbed air molecules, be it seventh sense, something told Ike an unknown presence had been around not that long ago. Boris pointed his nose at the breach and made sniffing sounds.

Ike followed his example, only more quietly.

Lemons or roses. Or both. Mixed in with the strong overtone of root cellar and rotting potatoes she had noticed during her first visit.

Could it be, the nightguard was into strong aftershave? Only, the scent didn't strike Ike as male, it was way too flowery for that.

Boris snuffled along the floor and strained on his leash. His ears quivered like antennae, tuned into sounds too subtle for her to make out.

He whimpered.

Not a because he was afraid or alarmed. Just a little noise, telling Ike he had noticed something or someone and wished her to be aware. Well, that was how she read her canine companion. He had only been with her for two weeks and, as a freshly minted dog owner, she was still on a learning curve.

She slipped closer to the steps and listened, the leash cutting into her hand. Somewhere down below a whispered conversation took place.

Hushed, subdued, the murmur told Ike two things. Firstly, she had indeed spotted somebody flit past the milk glass of the toilet door. Secondly, there seemed to be several somebodies.

Another unpleasant fact knocked on mental doors. The way the access to the catacombs was constructed, the mysterious newcomers blocked Ike from warning Brigitte, Viktor and Graziano. Perhaps, they had already noticed a third party arriving. Maybe not.

Next problem. She might get down the stairs and into the underground corridor unseen. Might. As yet, she had no idea where these people might have parked themselves. For their voices to reach her, the perfume fans could not have penetrated far along the corridor. Which meant they ere likely to spot Ike latest when she landed in the underground passage.

Assuming she could slip past that lot, what would she do next? She wasn't familiar with a place Graziano had likened to the Minotaur's maze. This afternoon, the tourists had clomped down the stairs, turned right into the corridor before following Viktor into the domed room and its marble walls. The passages continued on the other side, but she never had time to visit.

Another whimper from Boris. It dislodged a thought from the pile in her head.

"Okay, so you and your fellow Corgis herd cows, correct? Can I convince you to branch out?"

Once more, the dog looked up at her, panting.

"I'd like you to act as a tracker dog. See if we can reach our friends via a different route."

There was only a slight problem: she had nothing for him to sniff after. No stinky socks from Viktor, no used hankie from Brigitte. Given half a chance, her canine companion would most likely follow the latest exciting scent that had him straining at the leash and lead her straight into the arms of the unknown intruders.

Ike tossed the idea aside. But a niggly little thought kept telling her the dog might be useful.

It was their nature.

She should have brought her manual on Corgi handling along. If only the darn thing weren't so heavy. It was a first edition, a hardback tome written by the established authority on Corgis back when petrol-guzzling American chrome monsters were all the rage. She could have gone for something lighter, something more modern, something paperback.

She hadn't. Ike hated paperbacks for the same reason she despised e-readers.

They weren't real books in the sense she couldn't dive into them.

Readers create their own little world for every book they take up, enjoying their version of Auntie Eve's quaint B&B, medieval castle or sunburned desert, and casting their own characters as they read along. Ike was the only person in the world who could immerse herself in the world as seen by the author, complete with olfactory and sensory effects.

Did she journey in her head or physically travel into a writer's creation?

She didn't know. She couldn't watch herself during a dive, and she had never trusted anybody with her secret. Not her mother—too much imagination. She would have written a cheesy poem in a hurry and invited her daughter to dive inside. Not her father—too much the scientist, too little imagination. Certainly not Ben, the tosser.

All Ike knew about her gift, she had learned by herself.

Like the drawbacks.

For a successful dive, it took a hardback edition, as close as possible to the original. Even reprints too far removed from the first published book didn't work so well. Only those early editions allowed her to experience the world the author built when writing the story. Showed her what part of the story was based on reality, what imagined. Allowed her to dive into long-dead worlds. Or those that never were.

In paperbacks, the vision blurred, and the scene faded into a white mist. Diving into an E-reader was like hitting a concrete wall on the run.

It hurt.

Hence the fixation on first editions and hard copies.

In a world where thoughts got stored in the cloud, her kind of magic was doomed.

Plus, it made for an expensive hobby, one that turned travelling into a hardship even if she only ever carried one or two of her treasures with her. Without them, she felt naked.

Not that she did a lot of diving these days. Too much pain.

Without her gift, however, she would never have realised Boris's true nature.

For Rome, she had brought along a well-thumbed collection of Etruscan and Roman myths and fables. It weighed a ton, meaning she had to leave her beloved Duck boots behind. The Corgi guide was an afterthought. It now lay in her room back at the Stella del Monte where it was of no use to her.

Ike shook herself. She would have to improvise. Now was neither the time nor the place to think of book dives. The hushed whispers had gone and with them, presumably, the intruders.

Showtime.

"Come, Boris," Ike said and made for the breach.

Do let me know if you have questions or comments on my novel. Constructive suggestions and feedback are always welcome! And thank you for reading. In doing so, you give my writing a purpose.

Picture by Cole Keister from Unsplash