Chapter 20: 20. Keep Looking

"I can't believe how foolish I was to think it would be so easy," Eva sighed as she looked around.

I had to restrain myself from trying to hug her, knowing my arms would just pass through her. I shook my head, "You weren't foolish, you were hopeful. So was I."

Marianne agreed, "Me as well Eva."

Our demon sighed again as she cast another sad look around where the three of us were standing.

We were on a footpath in the middle of a large perfectly-trimmed lawn. In front of us stood some sort of renaissance palace, there was a similar set of buildings behind us on the right, and beyond that was a large wooded park. The whole site was surrounded by trees and there were a number of gardens and paths connecting all the individual structures and sites.

It was all really pretty and kind of interesting, but unfortunately it was also extremely not what we were looking for. Eva was so excited to see her lover she had us come straight here from the airport, we hadn't even been to the hotel yet. All our things were in the trunk of the rental car, which was parked in a lot about half a kilometre west of where we were standing.

And needless to say, when we got here it wasn't anything like Eva was expecting. Just like when we tried to find her daughter's villa on Santorini, our demon friend knew exactly where her lover's home once stood. This was one of the hills overlooking Naples. It wasn't the tallest hill in the area, but it was nearer the heart of the city and the sea than some of the others.

"What is this place anyways?" she asked sadly. "It looks like something fancy."

Marianne had some information on her phone, it was all in Italian but she translated it for us. "It's the Royal Palace of Capodimonte. It was built by a Bourbon king about three hundred years ago, but now it is an art museum and a public park."

"What's a Bourbon king?" I asked. "I'm picturing someone who owns a few distilleries in Kentucky."

My girlfriend stifled some giggles, but Eva had no point of reference so my joke fell flat with her.

Instead our demon just sighed again, "The last time I was here my lover's home sat atop this hill. There were some small fishing settlements along the coast down there, and settlers from Mycenae established a larger village over in that direction. Everything is so different now, even the landscape itself has changed."

"The shoreline was closer back then but it's further away now," she added softly as she looked to the south. "The hills are mostly the same though. My daughter used to love flying with me all around the area. She'd get into trouble and my lover would scold her, then our child would take flight and I'd give chase. I'd pretend to almost catch her, before letting her escape again... I long to fly with her once more."

The pain in Eva's voice left tears in my eyes and yet again I had to fight the urge to pull her into my arms. I silently renewed my promise to myself that if I was ever able to hug her, I'd hold her for a week solid.

Marianne looked as sad as I felt and Eva sounded. After a few quiet moments she suggested, "Why don't we take you to the hotel Eva? The three of us can talk more there, and perhaps we can come up with another plan?"

Our demon slowly turned and looked around the area one more time, then her shoulders slumped as she nodded. Without a word she started walking back the way we came. My girlfriend and I quietly followed along as the three of us returned to the car.

I'd been proud of myself for doing all the driving around Crete, but Naples was another thing entirely and I was very happy Marianne was taking care of it. I wasn't great at navigating since I couldn't read most of the road signs, but at least I could handle the street names. And the GPS in my phone did most of the hard work anyways, so it didn't take that long before we arrived at our hotel.

That was almost like being in another palace. It was right on the waterfront, we had a view of an island with a castle on it barely three hundred meters south of the hotel. Our suite itself was pure luxury, with a king size bed against one wall, a sofa, chairs, and coffee table by the opposite wall, and enough room to set up a dance floor in between. The bathroom alone was bigger than some of the smaller hotel rooms we'd been in, with a huge tub and separate shower, two sinks, toilet and even a bidet.

Rather than enjoy the opulence, the three of us sat together on the large comfortable sofa to talk. Marianne and I needed to lift Eva's spirits, everything else could wait till later.

After a few minutes of silence my girlfriend spoke up with a suggestion, "Eva, why don't you use the same searching magic you told us about when we started our drive around Crete? You said that magic would let you find any demonic traces around us, right?"

"I did that when we were at Capodimonte," our demon replied with another sad sigh. "As soon as I realized her home was long gone, I searched with magic, but I found nothing."

Marianne nodded, "Then we'll do what we did at Milos, and at Crete. We'll tour the area. You said she wouldn't move very far, so starting tomorrow we'll just drive around. We can cover all the ground around the Gulf of Naples tomorrow, and if that doesn't turn up any clues we'll try expanding our search on Wednesday."

"We don't need to start and stop like we did at Crete," she added. "Granted we might want to take a break now and then, but let's just focus on the search for the next few days. Maybe till Friday? Then we can reassess at that point."

Eva was quiet for a few more seconds before she finally nodded, "Ok Marianne. Thank you, I appreciate your concern and your help."

I gave our demon a hopeful smile as I said, "We'll find her Eva. I know we will. We'll find both of them."

"Thank you Lexi," she replied with a sad smile of her own. "I'm sure we will."

She didn't sound so convinced, and I sighed. I held out my hand as if to hug her as I said, "Eva I really wish I could hug you. I owe you so many hugs."

"Perhaps someday Lexi," she replied quietly. She glanced at my wrist and asked my girlfriend, "Now that we're away from Crete Marianne, is it safe to dispell the illusion on my bracelet?"

After a few seconds to think it over she replied, "I suppose so Eva. People may still question it if they see Lexi walking around with a solid gold bracelet on her wrist, but it's less likely that people here will recognize it as a Minoan antiquity."

Our demon nodded and the crude copper bracelet blurred for a moment, before returning to its original gold splendour. I noticed that seemed to bring Eva's mood up slightly, which made me happy.

"You're glad to have it back?" I asked. "I am too."

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She responded sadly, "Until we find my family, it is the last thing I have to connect me to them. A gift from my lover, to commemorate the birth of our child."

Her tone and mood picked up a little more as she added, "And now it's also the object which brought all three of us together. It marked the initial bond between you and I Lexi, plus it made Marianne curious enough to want to get to know both of us better."

"That's true," Marianne agreed with a smile. "I sat down to talk with Lexi because she was cute, but if not for the bracelet I probably wouldn't have been so insistent in getting to know you both."

"This is where I want to do a group hug," I said with a grimace. "The hug deficit is going to be enormous when we're finally able to cash them in."

Eva gave me a wan smile then decided, "I'm going to rest again now. I'll see you both in the morning. Thanks again both of you for trying to cheer me up."

She vanished before either of us could respond, and I felt her fade a moment later.

My girlfriend sighed as she pulled me into a hug, "Poor Eva."

"Yeah," I nodded as I hugged her back.

I wasn't actually that exhausted even though we'd spent most of the day travelling, but after the disappointment at Capodimonte neither Marianne or myself were in the mood to do any sightseeing or anything like that.

We ended up relaxing a while more before we visited the hotel's rooftop restaurant. We had a gourmet meal at an outdoor table with a view overlooking the whole Gulf of Naples. We could even see Mount Vesuvius in the distance to the east. Unfortunately it was hard for either of us to enjoy the amazing meal while Eva was so down.

After dinner we headed back to our room and had a quiet early night.

Tuesday morning Marianne and I were up early, we were dressed in comfortable clothes and ready for a long drive. Eva joined us while we had breakfast at the hotel's buffet, and the three of us quietly discussed our strategy for the day.

My girlfriend looked at a map on her phone as she suggested, "We can start by driving around Naples itself, then I was thinking we could head south to Salerno? And from there maybe inland a little ways, to Battipaglia or north up to Avellino, before heading west again to end the day back here."

"You said she wouldn't stray too far from here right?" I asked Eva. "So if she had to leave Naples for some reason, she's probably in one of the nearby towns?"

Our demon nodded, "All right. It's a good plan, and a good start. I'll be using my magic to seek any trace of her, so when we get close I'll know where we should focus our attention."

As soon as we were done breakfast the three of us set out in the car. Our collective mood wasn't anywhere near as good as it had been when we first left Heraklion for our road trip on Crete, but we all did our best to stay optimistic.

We started with a drive through and around Naples itself, then ended up leaving the city in the opposite direction from our original plans. We sort of followed the coast west past Pozzuoli, then north to Castel Volturno where we turned inland. Our route took us past a number of towns and villages as we headed east, then around Nola we finally turned south.

We stopped at one of the towns along the way for a light lunch and so me and Marianne could stretch our legs and take a break from the car. After an hour though we were back on the road again.

Following lunch we continued south as we drove past Vesuvius on the inland side. Then our path started to turn to the south-west, which at long last brought us into Salerno.

At that point we turned to the west, then we finally started making our way back north. We drove past Vesuvius again, but this time we were on the west side, following the coast of the Gulf of Naples.

During the drive we talked quite a bit, about anything and everything. Most of the time it was my girlfriend and I, but every now and then Eva chimed in with questions or observations.

Unsurprisingly a lot of the conversations were about the local geography and history. Eva could fill us in on some of the prehistorical details of the area, though her knowledge was limited to the sorts of things she picked up while visiting her lover. Otherwise Marianne had some information about the area from Ancient Greek and Roman times.

Her knowledge also covered more recent historical events as well, as I found out while we were passing through Salerno. She commented, "This was the site of a major Allied invasion during the second world war. Actually both Salerno and Naples suffered heavily during the war. If I remember right, Naples was one of the most heavily-bombed cities in all of Italy."

I was trying to figure out how to respond to that when Eva spoke up.

"Second world war?" she asked in a wary, anxious tone. "As in the entire world was at war? Twice?"

My girlfriend and I exchanged a glance, then she responded "Not the entire world, but it was a difficult time in our history. That was some eighty years ago now, and the world has moved on."

Our demon could tell neither of us wanted to get into details about that, for one thing we'd been trying to help her feel better and I knew world wars weren't a happy subject. So we quickly found something else to discuss instead as we continued our drive.

By the time we got back into the city I was feeling weary, and I was positive Marianne was outright tired. Neither of us felt like a fancy gourmet dinner though, so the three of us found a nice little restaurant near our hotel where my girlfriend and I tried our first genuine Italian pizza. Or at least it was my first.

We shared a pizza Margherita and a bottle of wine, then finally returned to the hotel for another quiet early night.