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“It’s called Project Orpheus. I need you to meet me in his penthouse at one.”
Liv spits toothpaste into the sink and rinses her mouth. “On my way.”
The night rolls around, and Nick is fixing his hair in the van’s side mirror. He plays some checkers on his phone while waiting for Liv.
“Stupid game.” He whispers to himself. After her arrival, the two catch up with Nick avoiding any of the gruesome details of last night. Liv is quieter than usual, having a calm air to her. She smells good too, well rested. Nick makes a note of that. They lean against the van, watching the cars pass by, waiting for Anton.
“So what’s a Praetor? The other agents keep calling Anton that. It’s a rank, right?” Liv asks.
Nick rubs the sleep out of his eye, “It’s a politician. Oversees SI teams. A couple at a time. They answer to Jurists, sometimes to Tribunes if they screw up really badly. Most SI never come close to qualifying for Praetor.” Liv nods. Nick is jumpier than usual. He darts at noises in the street. No longer cool nor collected. Liv makes a note of this, and wonders what happened at the club really.
Anton crosses the street towards Nick and Liv. The air around him is spiced with expensive cologne. His hairline is damp and his lips are dry. He smiles, keeping his cool as best he can. As he walks, the concrete clicks with the heel of his dress shoes.
Anton fixes his collar and looks at Liv. “Evening.”
The three enter the lobby elevator and ride it up.
In the grandeur of the dead man’s penthouse living room, Anton and Liv observe their brother and mentor’s mind fray like a rag over gravel. He asks them not to interfere, choosing instead to dig through it all himself. He always was a fan of the classics.
Liv’s whispers reach Anton as he leans in. “Did he get any sleep since last night?”
“He got home around nine. I know I didn’t.” Anton observes Liv fixed on Nick tearing the place apart. A softness between them. She cares. Anton picks up on it; smells it like a shark.
Through a tight jaw Anton whispers. “I think he just feels guilty.”
“I bet. Letting Dex get injured like that, must be all he’s thinking about.” Liv says. Anton likens Liv to a lamb, eyes wide and neck gently tied as it’s led to the meat house.
“Is that what he said? Did he say how Dex got injured?”
“No. Just that it was a long night.”
After five minutes of digging, Nick figures out the system Tanzer employed. His old life as a record-keeper at Weston comes in handy. He has his classics—mostly Roman— divided by ages rather than alphabetically. The Augustan age is on the lower shelf near his feet. It contains the author he’s looking for.
“Vergil…” Nick digs through the books of the great oak bookshelf. “Horace…” He whispers under his breath, before calling out to Anton, who watches the madness from a distance, “You see what I’m seeing?” Anton shakes his head tentatively. Nick’s voice barely reaches past his unshaven chin. Holding up a book by Ovid, proud of his find. The pieces inside Nick’s head are beginning to align, ready to fit but not quite yet. “Eurydice, trapped in the shaded meadows of Asphodel.”
“Or…” Anton continues his conversation with Liv. “…maybe he just can’t wait to get this case over with.” He says. Liv picks at her cuticle as she recalls how Nick greeted her earlier tonight, eyes like two cherries and lips parted as if ready to bite.
“Maybe.”
“You know…” Anton squeezes a fist in his coat. “You’re all he talks about.” He reassures Liv, now turned to him, with raised eyebrows. “Constantly; Liv, Liv, Liv. If I didn’t know him any better I would have thought you grew on him.” Liv swallows a ball of air.
What if she did? “Nah.” She says.
“I haven’t seen him this happy in a while, though. Sure he’s a miserable bastard.” Anton looks at Nick digging through the book. He signals to Liv to walk a half-circle around the living room to avoid Nick’s orbit. “But for the first time in these years, I feel the old Nick is back, part of him at least.”
“Really?”
“Really. Seems you lit a fire under his ass.” Liv keeps Anton’s words and holds them close.
“Orpheus went down to the underworld.” Nick calls out. “Hades and Persephone allowed him to leave with Eurydice, under one condition.” The two look at him. Nick totes the book around like a prop. “That Orpheus leads her out back into the world while never looking back. At the very end, when he can already see the light, he checks back to see if she’s following him. And at that moment, she gets pulled back to the depths.” Nick’s eyes maneuver around the room, searching the walls and shelves. “In most instances, he becomes a recluse, rejecting any form of human contact. His grief came in the form of a song. He refused the advances of any woman or god, except Apollo.” Nick pauses to recollect the myths. “Made Dionysus angry. Along with his followers, the Maenads.” Nick looks at the picture he missed the first time. The one hanging in the reading nook. “They tore him limb from limb.” His eyes study the picture. “And they danced around his head.” Nick taps on the picture. He had paid it no mind during their last visit. The Maenads prancing around Orpheus’ weeping head like a maypole. He picks it off the wall.
Anton and Liv approach him, waiting for his assessment. “So?” Anton asks. “Secret lever or something?” The spot on the wall reveals nothing. Nick flips the picture over and studies the back. It’s plain, save for a small, faded inscription in Greek. His fingers trace the faint lines, his furrowed brows over his dry red eyes.
“What does it say?” Liv leans closer.
Nick reads aloud, from his phone’s translation, “Those who sing for the dead must first mourn their own.”
Anton stands behind Nick, arms crossed. “Let me see that,” Anton says, plucking the painting from Nick. He inspects the brushstrokes, tilting it toward the light. “This is… odd.”
“What’s odd?” Liv asks, stepping closer.
Anton points to the edges of the canvas. “The Maenads. The style looks like late 18th-century Romanticism. See their movement, exaggerated emotion. But look here,” he taps the background, “the trees are painted with sharp strokes. That’s much more modern. These are two paintings.” Nick raises an eyebrow.
Anton nods. “Look at the layering. A second canvas underneath this one. Someone stitched them together. Amateur job, too.”
Liv leans closer, squinting. “To hide something?”
Anton shrugs and hands the painting back to Nick, who tilts the painting toward him, studying the back. “No seam. No screws in the frame.”
Anton looks at the bottom corner of the frame. “And this…” He flips the painting to reveal a faint etching in the wood—barely visible, even under the light. A series of small lines arranged in a triangle. “This symbol shouldn’t be here. It’s a restoration mark, added later.”
“Restoration mark?” Nick asks.
Anton nods. “It’s a kind of shorthand used by conservators to document elements in a piece without altering its appearance. This one’s pointing to the lower edge of the canvas.”
Nick places the painting flat on the table and examines the bottom edge. His fingers search until they catch on something—a small, recessed switch. He presses it, and the frame clicks softly.
“What did you do?” Liv asks, stepping back.
The entire painting shifts forward with a quiet hiss, revealing a digital lock blocking a small compartment. The bulky frame for such a small painting makes sense now. The lock has a miniature keypad.
“Fantastic.” Anton says. “Back to square one.”
“Wait.” Nick takes out his notebook and flips back a few pages. Liv knows what he’s looking for.
“November 29th, 2010.” Liv says, recalling Naomi’s numbers.
“11-29-10.” Both say in unison. As Nick enters it, Liv’s mind pops like fireworks. They exchange a look. Anton cannot tell what the look is.
Liv can see the appeal of detecting. As the last digit clicks into place, Nick is relieved to see the lock open. He can’t help but ask himself further, “why did Naomi have this?”
As they wait for the painting to give up yet another secret, they are surprised by a sound in the wall. Magnetic fastenings and hidden mechanisms begin to whir and shift.
“Painting of a dead Orpheus housing Project Orpheus. Bit pessimistic.” Nick mutters, pulling it out and flipping through its pages.“ With a false wall to boot.” Nick answers. The whirring and shifting finally reveals a gigantic mirror behind the bookcase. ‘How cliché’ thinks Nick. They all look to an ornate, floor-to-ceiling mirror reflecting the three of them.
“Anton?” Nick turns to his brother, who is already approaching the mirror.
Anton studies the carving at the top of the mirror’s frame. “Rococo. French. It doesn’t match the style either. And look here—” He crouches to point at the bottom edge of the frame, where tiny hinges are set into the floor.
Nick presses his shoulder against the mirror and gives it a push. It doesn’t budge. He notices a faint outline at the bottom of the frame and kneels down to run his fingers along it and feel the groove of a switch. “And for my next trick…” He backs away as the mirrored wall slowly swings open.
Liv looks at Anton. “Big art history buff?”
“Everyone needs a hobby.” Anton says as the three enter the chamber.
Six hands clumsily touch the wall for the light switch. “Anyone got it?”
“Got it.” Liv says as a low, antiseptic sapphire light shines down. The room is humble and hermetic, split into two major parts, bordered off for the most part by a long metal table. The walls are dark gray concrete. Nick knocks on the parts of the wall not covered in black foam soundproofing, noticing blinking black devices on two sides of the room. He checks his cell and gets zero bars.
“Signal blockers.”
“Not only that, look,” Anton points to metal plating under some of the soundproofing, “Electromagnetic shielding.”
“Thought you said you weren’t a contractor.” Nick jokes.
“I just pay attention.” Deeper into the left room, an archival library, smaller than a broom closet, sectioned off by thick glass. Above the door is a dehumidifier and pressure gauge. Inside it are tomes stacked on sterile metal shelves. A single book the size of a small treasure chest sits behind tempered glass on a display case. Nick enters the chamber and snickers at his luck when he sees the page range jump from 45 to 389.
“Entire sections missing.” Nick says,