The Dream-Hunter: A Dark-Hunter Novel (Book 10)

Chapter One

Santorini, Greece, 1996

"my kingdom for a gun."

Shaking his head at Geary's hostile words, Brian calmly opened the car door for her as she approached their small taxi that waited in the heart of the crowded Greek thoroughfare. "You don't have a kingdom."

She paused on the sidewalk to glare at him. Given the fury in her system, she couldn't believe he'd dare point out the obvious to her. She'd been known to verbally let serious blood when only half this riled. Truly, the man had no sense of self-preservation. "And I don't have a gun--looks like I'm shit out of luck all the way around, huh?"

Still, he was his ever present calm self--which didn't really help her mood. For once, couldn't he get ticked off, too? "I take it you didn't get the permits . . . again."

She could have done without that "again" part. Really. "What was your first clue?"

"Oh, I don't know. That stomping stance as you walked down the street, clenching and unclenching your fists like you're already choking someone, or maybe it's that way you're looking at me like you could claw out my eyes when I haven't done anything to piss you off."

"Yes, you have."

She could tell he was fighting a smile. Thank goodness he had the good sense to keep it hidden. "And that is?"

"You don't have a gun."

He snorted. "Come on now, you can't shoot every Greek official who gets in your way."

"Wanna bet?"

Brian stepped back to let her enter the taxi first. At six three, he was a good-looking man in his mid-forties. Very distinguished and intelligent. Best of all, he was independently wealthy and more than capable of financing their latest venture in futility without complaining too much.

Unfortunately, he wasn't into bribing public officials.

Was it too much to ask that she find a corrupt financier? Surely Brian should have some vice, and at the moment she couldn't think of a more self-serving one than that.

"So what do we do now?" he asked as he joined her in the car.

Geary sighed, wishing she had an answer. Her team was waiting on her boat at the docks, but without the permits that allowed them to excavate the mounds she and Tory believed to be a city wall, all they could do was dive over the surface of what they'd found and do nothing more than admire it.

Sad comfort that. It'd been the best lead they'd had in years. "I want another silt sample."

"You've already tested and retested those."

"I know, but maybe it will help to convince them to give us the permits." Yeah, right. She'd been given the run-around particularly good and the words from her latest visit still rang in her ears.

"This is Greece, Dr. Kafieri. There are ruins all around us and I will not allow you to begin tearing up the floor of the Aegean, which is a busy shipping area, when all you can give me is another this-is-Atlantis story. Really. I've enough treasure hunters trying to pilfer our national history for their own gain. I don't need any more. We here in Greece take our history most seriously and you're wasting my valuable time. Good day."

It was enough to make her want to bang her head on the man's desk until he either relented or had her committed. This wasn't about treasure, but trying to tell that to him had been as futile as trying to fly with wax wings.