'Round Midnight

The Diamond Eye: A Sam Stone Story Pt. 2

"You still haven't said why you won't go yourself."

"Im-portant business keeps me from traveling at this time. I must remain here in Chicago for a few months - but I assure you that if you take this case your every expense will be taken care of."

And we would be looking for your father and his friend, correct?

Well yes...also....the diamond eye.

A diamond?

No mister Thompson, Thee Diamond. It belongs to the statue. In the last record my father recorded reports that the statue was missing its left eye. The left diamond...

Could be with your father...isn't that what grave robbers do?

My father is no grave robber! He is an antiquarian. A respectful and well known man in his field of study!

Apologize Sam...that wasn't very nice.

Well I'm sorry - it just weirds me out whenever someone digs up a body or something.

I'm sure that's the only thing he does.

Hm....What I was going to say, Ms. Stone is that the left eye is very rare, it is very unique and very special.

How so besides it being missing?

"You don't understand how rare. Here is a little story for your bed times. My father told me that the eyes of the angel are the most sacred artifacts on the earth. The angel itself is sacred but the eyes are even moreso."5

The right eye, when worn in place of your right eye allows you to see perfectly into the past from all ends of a situation. While the left eye allows you to see perfectly into the future to whatever end.

Bullshit. Just tell me that they are priceless no need for the fairy tale.

"If its fairy tales you want you should listen - In 1738, a queen heard about the angel's eyes and sent one hundred of her finest soldiers in search of them. A war ripped through her country while her best men were away. She had nearly lost everything, if not for her allies help, that war would gone down in history as one of Europe's most bloodiest and brutal campaigns."

Did the queen ever get the diamonds?

"Ah...she received the left. The right could not be moved. Upon her receiving the diamond she ordered that her priests, Catholics, send for mystics from all over the country to help use its power. She met with many that had no clue how to extract the eye's power. As a matter of fact, the only thing they could do was tell her that it worked."

"How did they know that?"

"There was an account of 75 mystics in that time, all having nightmares about the diamond eye, the very same ones that tried to use their individual powers and gods to make the diamond work. All accounts were the same and this went on for weeks until the eye was sent away."

"The queen...did she have the dreams as well?"

"She had the worst of all. Accounts in her journals tell of what she did before the diamond was sent out of the kingdom. She tells of how she dreamt herself drowning in a pool of blood with an angel standing nearby watching her as she sunk with no aid. When he did decide to retrieve her from the blood, he pierced her left eye with his sword and tossed her lifeless body to the ground where she saw and felt herself rot into the earth beneath her.

But she did not take these dreams as warnings to stay away. She felt it was a clue to rebuilding her power. After the mystics had had their dreams and ill feelings with the eye - she took it into her hands and held it up to the light and as it refracted a large rainbow on her throne room while her court stood and watched- she took this as God's promise that her kingdom would be great once more and a thought came to her. She thought she needed to wear the eye as her own. So she took matters into her own hands. During a night of a great and terrible storm and infighting amongst the members of the Queen's court about her erratic behavior - she stood fireside of her throne room and gouged out her eye with a letter opener and placed the diamond into the socket."

"Oh my-"

"Yes. She saw nothing she wanted to see."

"Well what did she see then?"

"Her death, just as she had seen in her dream. Her vision was a culmination of her worst fears and anxieties realized in one horrific moment."

"So then the eye is just a diamond and nothing more."

"A beautiful and expensive nothing as it were. We all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what she beheld was terrifying."

"But she believed it would work for her - they were all having dreams."

"Mass hysteria or perhaps they were adopting the notions of the queen so as not to make her feel any worse than she did or ...to even keep their heads. She was a mad Queen even before her obsession with the eye - she had had children banned from her castle because she believed that am unchristened child held a dark spirit. There was no way of telling who had been christened so she banned them all. No one in the kingdom dared say otherwise for fear that they'd lose their heads. Ironic isn't it?"

"That's so wrong."

"So now you are looking for the eye for what purpose?"

"To join it with the statue, of course."

"Of course."

"Our plan is to have an exhibit featuring this as well as other angelic statues with special stories and an even more unique history. Of course...the statue and eye don't mean as much to me as my father."

Sam lifts Countess up by the elbow and began to lead her towards the door.

"Well....okay. Thank you for the most interesting say I've had. This will surely go on the books but I'm afraid I'll have to decline. Lady, call the police and place a missing person's report and maybe get yourself a social life - that museum and all that dust isn't healthy."

"But I have Miss Stone...they are no help. I have even gone to Interpol."

"Sam! Come on! This is perfect!"

"Yeah, a perfect waste of time. We're not expeditionists nor are we thieves!"

"What are you afraid of?"

"Nothing - I just don't want to get involved in this madness. It's over-seas, who knows what kind of trouble we could get into. Have you ever dealt with Interpol?"

"No."

"Me neither and I want to keep it that way."

Tony pulls her to the side where they talk in hushed voices.

"Look Samantha, we're hurting for some cash around here - we could use this, besides if we do our jobs and do them right, we won't get caught. We'll just slip in and slip out like so much sand..."

Sam takes a glance back at Countess to find her going over the mementos and books on the shelves.

"Sand gets wet and then you're stuck!"

"Come on..."

Sam thought it over. She couldn't pass this up - and she really wanted to. It was nothing but a search and rescue mission with a little adventuring on the side. Something we can handle sure enough. We've worked on much more with a lot less. Tight lip folk are all this city has to offer and we just happen to come across a woman who was singing like a sweet little canary. She'd make the job easier by putting us up and paying for our expenses while we did what we were being paid to do. We saw the lady to her car and left for lunch on the countryside.

On days like this you run away from a city where the air is too thick and the trouble is even thicker. Even if it's after a wild goose.

"You are something else you know that? First you talk me into traipsing halfway around the world and then ....you tell a story like nobody's business. I'm kinda proud of you right now kid."

"Why thank you ma'am."

"You think they'll stick around to see what happens?"

"Well...that depends on us now doesn't it?"