Now that Jean had calmed down from seeing the woman that not too long ago he considered pure evil, Grandis explained who had hired her. Jean sat on Nadia’s palm with all his attention directed to Grandis. If any one was threatening Nadia, then it was his duty to learn as much about them to protect his one true love.
“Alright, I have all your attentions. I don’t know how helpful what I know will be, I only met one guy and I never saw his face. But I can tell you one thing, this guy gave me the heebie jeebies.” Grandis shuddered a bit as she remembered a particular thing about the masked individual that had been bothering him since she first laid eyes on his masked face.
“What do you mean?” Jean asked. What ever it was that was disturbing Grandis had to be major to get the redhead to be reacting in such a way, just from his memory.
“I should start at the beginning, I was traveling around Europe with Hanson and Sanson. We were on the run from this new organization called Interpol for a certain international treasure that we liberated.” Jean didn’t but the coy act, he knew that Grandis had a way of twisting the truth around to serve her own means and that she would never say she did something wrong unless it was pretty damn obvious that she was mistaken.
“Translation, you stole someone’s jewels and this Interpol started to track you down.” Grandis blushed profusely and made an embarrassed motion by shrugging her shoulders.
“Well kinda. You have to understand how the diamond-stealing ring works. Everything I steal is insured and the people only lose their bragging rights when the stones are plucked by me. No one gets hurt and no one dies, that’s how a real thief operates.”
“The Blue Water wasn’t something that I bragged about and I’m pretty sure that coming at me in a plane wasn’t harmless,” Nadia said narrowly. Grandis looked between Nadia and Jean, both teens were throwing nasty stares at her and she started to get flustered, being scrutinized was not something she was used to.
“If you let me get back to the story, then I can explain why I was so hell bent on getting the Blue Water.” Seeing that no one was looking at her crossly, Grandis continued with her story.
“So me and the boys are touring around Europe, we see the art, drink the wine and have a blast. Until one day, a dark fellow in a hood comes up to me in the street and says he has a job. By now I’ve blown all the money from my previous hoist on dresses and wine, so I thought why not, I need the money. The man takes me to an abandoned junkyard and tells me about an acrobat that has a rare gem in her possession. He tells me details about you that seem a little freaky, like when you got out, where you eat, what you wear. I really knew something was wrong when the guy even told me when you bathed.”
Nadia blushed and Jean looked furious. How could someone be spying on Nadia for so long and not be spotted? For an instant, Jean would swear that he was being watched, but that was impossible, they were a hundred feet in the air with no one around.
“So you took the job from this perv?” Nadia was feeling violated after hearing that this guy knew her so intimately. It was like finding out that you were being stalked by a crazy killer; not the best feeling at all.
“Actually I told him to take a hike, But before I could leave he showed me this,” Grandis reached into her pocket and pulled out a coin, not any coin, a gold doubloon.
“Holy, I’ve only seen these in text books,” Jean said. He walked to the edge of Nadia’s hand to get a closer look at the ancient coin, there was no mistake, it was a doubloon.
“Jean, what is so important about this coin?” Nadia couldn’t see what the significance of a single gold coin had to do with her Blue Water.
“Nadia, doubloons haven’t been in circulation for over a two hundred years. The only place you can find a coin of this type is in a museum or at the bottom of the sea.” Grandis being an expert in all things worth large amounts of money knew plenty about the rare and super expensive coin in her hand.
“Why at the bottom of the sea?” Nadia felt that she was the only person here that had no clue about the significance of this hunk of gold. It was at times like this that she wished her reading selection didn’t just include trashy romance novels.
“Lots of Spanish galleons crashed during the seventeenth century, sending millions of these babies scattering all over the sea floor. I think that my mystery employer was ether a very wealthy man or had access to a undersea ship.”
“An undersea ship?” Jean said in disbelief, he had read every single mechanical book he could get his hands onto, but had never heard of anyone building something that could travel under water. The idea peaked his interest actually; if he could build something like that then he would be rich and have enough money to take care of Nadia for the rest of their lives. That was something he had to think about for later.
“It’s just a theory. So, he shows me the coin and I’m ready to go, when my thieves instincts flares up. Something about the situation seems rotten. I ask him if he knows so much about Nadia and the Blue Water, why doesn’t he go get it himself? He tells me in this ever so annoying tone, that this deed is bellow his attention and he can’t risk being found out before his planes reach fruition. After getting that bull, I’m tempted to just leave that guy alone, I don’t care how many doubloons you have, when I want a clear answer I get it. As I turn to leave, he tells me that if I refuse to do the job, I’m dead. Now, I’m used to death threats, but this guy was different, something about the casual way he told me he would end my life reminded me the same way a man comments on destroying an insect. When you kill something weaker and smaller like a bug, you couldn’t care less about it unless it stains your shoes. I was certain that if I left, the next time I would be seeing this guy would be when he puts a bullet through my head.”
“So you only took the job so you wouldn’t get killed?” Nadia felt sorry for Grandis, she was put in a situation that was beyond her control, which was something no one deserved to go through.
“Yah well death threats are part of the job. I’m going to tell you two things now that you better heed, this guy isn’t to be messed with I can take you to where I was supposed to meet him to drop off the Blue Water, but going their is bound to get you nothing but trouble.” Grandis said all this in a very grave tone.
“And the second thing we have to remember?” Nadia was wondering what other tidbit of help Grandis had to offer.
“His name is Gargoyle.” Grandis let the last tidbit sink in to both teen’s minds. Their enemy had a name and it is Gargoyle.