Water

By Ryan Hartung

Book 3 – Water
Displeased at being swindled out of Hades' Sphere, Colt and his team secretly begin searching for the next artifact. Colt wholeheartedly believes the Lightning Staff can lead them to Poseidon's treasure, buried somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean in the lost city of Atlantis. While Vladimir is recovering from touching Hades' Sphere and a conglomerate of Eastern nations begin the hunt for Demeter's treasure, Colt and his American friends must navigate through the crumbling maze of Atlantis to find the treasure they seek.

Hundreds of years in the making, a full worldwide war between the East and the West is brewing. The cataclysmic divide between the richer western nations and the poorer East has reached a breaking point. Shadowed behind the veil of impending war is new evidence suggesting the Greek and Roman gods of legend might have been real after all. Though hidden for many millennia, mighty weapons embodying the Greek god's magnificent powers are beginning to be found. Each country fully understands the tremendous importance of finding the remaining god-like treasures before the rest. The race is on as each half of the world battles to gain possession of the enormously powerful ancient artifacts. The world's fate is in their hands.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ryan Hartung
• Release date: Sep 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781942123026

Ryan Hartung

Dr. Ryan E. Hartung spent most of his life growing up in rural Nebraska. After earning his Ph. D. in organic chemistry from the Ohio State University he then made a quick stop with his family in the garden state before finally settling in Tucson, Arizona. Ryan continues to live in Tucson with his wife Elizabeth, his two daughters Amber and Keira, their dog Ginger and currently untamed hamster Brave. He is the author of the World's Divide series of novellas among other novels.

Book preview

I hope you enjoy this book. Reviews are always appreciated, and help both authors and readers.

Chapter

1

L et’s grab a drink since we have a couple of hours to kill, Pavel suggested to Dmitry, feeling the dryness in his mouth. He was glad to be back in Russia, where people drank mainly vodka, not fruity wines. Dmitry shook his head in agreement and left his laptop where it lay on a chair, in Vladimir Pavlov’s hospital room.

Drink one for me boys, Vladimir yelled after them, finally starting to regain some of his lost strength. His breathing and stamina were quickly returning to normal, while many of his other illnesses were recovering more slowly. Regardless of how fast his body was healing, he felt lucky to be alive, lying in a warm bed, and done traveling for the moment.

If having been thrown into the Bobcat’s metal scoop and bounced around like a basketball on rocks and cement hadn’t been painful enough, Vladimir had found himself wishing for death on the plane ride home. The air had been turbulent, and the plane was hardly equipped with the proper medical supplies to help him begin the recovery process. Without morphine or even a good bottle of vodka, the only recourse he had was to swallow handfuls of aspirin to ease his body’s pain during the seven-hour flight back home. Natalya watching over him had been the only redeeming aspect of the flight. Barely able to lift his hand, he had relied on her gentle care, and he would forever be in her debt.

After landing in Moscow, where an ambulance was already waiting for him, two doctors whisked Natalya and he away to the closest hospital. While Vladimir began receiving treatment for his numerous ailments, delivered to him by the very artifact President Aleksandrov had sent him to retrieve, another high-ranking official was debriefing Pavel and Dmitry on their highly successful mission.

Although he had temporarily lost his health, the trip to Italy had been well worth it. The Russian beauty Natalya refused to leave his side. She told everyone involved that Vladimir was the key to unlocking the mysteries of the black and green sphere, which meant for the meantime the two were inseparable. Although Vladimir believed she was truly being protective of the artifact, he found himself hoping she was also staying for a different reason.

Besides the relational aspect of the trip, there was also the artifact’s retrieval. Since no one had informed Russia’s journalists of the discovery, the news of Vladimir’s team finding of the Hades’ Sphere was not yet public knowledge. However, some of the highest ranked officials in The Communist Party had already been rewarding Vladimir and the others with words of praise.

It’s time for your bath, the large unattractive Russian nurse informed her patient with a booming deep voice as she entered Vladimir’s hospital room. Take that thing off you neck so we can get started. Vladimir imagined his Italian counterpart Leonardo Sava, whom he had infected with boils while in Italy, being in a similar situation back in Naples. Maybe he was enjoying his hospital-mandated sponge baths, but Vladimir was not. For one part, there was nothing attractive about his Russian nurse. Her large frame and sour demeanor emasculated him each time she was around, especially so when he was forced to be naked, which was too often for his liking.

The large nurse was glaring and tapping her thick foot on the floor’s cracked tile, as Vladimir had yet to get moving.

I don’t have all day, and you’re not my only patient. Give your girlfriend your shinny trinket, so we can get started, she roared. Vladimir glared back at the hefty woman, while reluctantly following her orders. He pulled the sphere, which was glowing its usual deep emerald green, along with its bright golden chain off his neck. Vladimir marveled at his symbiotic nature with the relic. Where just days ago, when he had first touched it, the artifact had nearly killed him, but now he swore in some ways they were one.

As he readied to drop the ancient artifact, Natalya cupped her hands in anticipation under the large necklace and waited for Vladimir to let go. The instant his fingers released the chain; the entire relic lost its magnificent color and became as dull as though it had been buried in sand for centuries.

Natalya’s eyes lit up at receiving the muted ancient relic. She had been thinking about correcting the large nurse for mistaking her as Vladimir’s girlfriend, but upon receiving the sphere, the trinket quickly pulled her mind elsewhere.

Natalya fingered the orb in her hands, which now resembled a perfectly round ball of onyx on a dusty old chain. The links were a lackluster greyish brown, while the sphere’s eerie green glow had faded to nothingness, as had the flowing emerald clouds normally deep inside the sphere’s inner core. The relic’s seemingly unreal luster in Vladimir’s hands was mesmerizing, while it appeared dull as dirt in hers.

Vladimir slowed in his undressing, watching Natalya with growing admiration as she studied the device.

Ahem, the nurse snorted and in no mood for his wasting of her time.

Vladimir sighed and removed his shirt. Hundreds of small white flecks of skin fell to the bed from his quickly healing leprosy. On his chest, already areas of healthy skin were emerging through the cracked, white leprous surface, where only a day ago the disease had been raging.

At seeing Vladimir starting to undress, Natalya got up to leave. The nurse had already turned on the water for his bath and was waiting for it to turn warmer.

Why are you getting up? You are his girlfriend, no? Stay while I give him his bath; he won’t mind, she said with a devious smile.

Natalya arched an eyebrow at the older woman, wondering who she thought she was. Maybe she should inform the rude nurse that she was Natalya Lipov, daughter of the well-known Russian politician Anatoly Lipov and advisor to the President. Maybe that would shut her up.

You can leave. Just leave the artifact on the bed, Vladimir commented to Natalya in opposition to the nurse’s overreaching suggestion.

Just wait outside the door. I’ll have the nurse bring you back in when we’re done.

In truth, Vladimir wasn’t shy about his body, but the artifact was his to guard. If she had been anybody but Anatoly Lipov’s daughter, he would not have allowed her to touch his precious treasure in the first place.

Natalya furrowed her brow at the suggestion, now back in Russia, she was still subject to his commands. When they were out in the field, he was her leader, and she would follow any command he gave with obedience, but back in mother Russia, her political standing outweighed his military ranking.

No, I do believe I’ll stay, she said, asserting her authority and stared into his tired blue eyes.

Vladimir sighed again and carefully bent over to push the white sheets off his thin, light blue hospital pants. Although her unwillingness to leave annoyed him at the moment, her stubbornness demonstrated she had a strong will, which for Vladimir was quite appealing.

Vladimir drug his aching legs off the bed, letting them dangle toward the floor. Gingerly, he placed one foot on the cool tiles and followed it with the other. The soles of his feet were as chewed up as the rest of him but were also getting better. Although it was the leprosy that had ravaged most of his body, the open lesions on the soles of his feet hindered his standing. He remembered not so many days ago, even the slightest pressure pushing against the bottoms of his feet made him almost want to pass out from the searing pain. He was healing.

He stood shirtless in front of the two women, not seeing a reason to get fully naked until the water in his bath was warm and ready.

Well, what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? the nurse chided. Get those hospital pants and underwear off and get in the tub. It doesn’t have to be full for us to start.

Vladimir sighed again and continued to do as the plump nurse directed. A smile briefly washed across his leathered face as he wondered if this was how the men under his command felt most of the time, only receiving his orders, but never giving them.

He remembered arriving at the hospital a few days ago, thoroughly weakened and barely able to move. Seeing the state he was in, the doctors had immediately wanted to insert a catheter, but he refused their orders and through his gritty determination was he able to show them that although close to death that he could still pee on his own. Now, as he dropped his pants and underwear, he was now more grateful for that past decision than he could have ever imagined.

Never in a million years would Vladimir want a woman he might