Owl and the City of
Angels
Chapter 1
Tomb Raiding Isn’t
All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Noon, about two
stories underneath Alexandria
I brushed another chunk of two-thousand-year-old
dirt off the horse femur. It was lying in a shallow alcove in the Hall of Caracalla,
part of the catacombs that ran underneath Alexandria. I readjusted my baseball
cap and cleared the sweat off my forehead before glancing up at the man
crouched on the other side of the mummified horse remains. Mike, the dig
supervising postdoc I’d been saddled with, was a couple years older than me and
suffered the poor posture and starters’ beer gut rampant amongst grad students
everywhere. Especially the ones who spend more time than wise hunched over a
computer and/or things buried in the ground.
Annnddd Mike was still engrossed with the front end
of the skeleton . . .
I swore silently. Great. Just fantastic. Out of all
the dig sites on my list, leave it to me to pick the one in the middle of a
heat wave with stifling stale air and the overattentive postdoc. I’d been stuck
in Egypt for three days now on a job that should have taken hours. If Mike
would just leave me alone for fifteen minutes even, I could find my way into
the lower levels, grab my Medusa head, and get the hell out before anyone
double-checked my paperwork.
“Shit.” I dropped my brush and braced against the
wall as the entire burial chamber shook; the catacombs ran under a main artery
of the city, and every time a heavier-than-average truck passed overhead, the
whole thing trembled. On the bright side, the truck meant it had to almost be
lunchtime. Maybe I could convince Mike to take a long break . . .
Artifact or not, three days in this tomb with Mike—the
one postdoc in the entire IAA who doesn’t shunt his work on to grad students—and
I was well past my breaking point . . .
Come on, Owl, keep
in character: you’re Serena, a young, impressionable grad student trying to
wrangle a decent dig for her PhD, not an antiquities thief with personal space
issues . . .
Mike shifted, leaning further over the horse’s
skeleton.
Curious, I glanced up and caught where he was
looking—not at the horse skull.
Oh, screw staying in character. Captain would be
getting restless, and this job was taking too long anyways.
“I swear to God, you stare down my shirt one more
time, I’m going to break your nose with my pickax,” I said.
Mike sat up and feigned shock—or maybe it was shock
at getting caught. “What? I swear, I wasn’t—”
I glared. “Mike, I’m tired. My sinuses are filled
with enough dust to last a week, and the only thing I want right now is a cold
beer, which is now impossible because the beer fridge broke yesterday—meaning I’m
stuck with warm beer, only half an excavated horse, and you staring down my
shirt.” I derived some satisfaction as the shock on his face faded to a
resigned white pallor when he realized I wasn’t buying his protest.
“I refuse to take my frustration out on the skeleton,”
I continued. “The horse can’t help that it’s caked in two thousand years’ worth
of dirt—and the beer is technically still drinkable. Guess which of the three
things pissing me off right now that leaves? I’ll give you a hint, Mike. It’s
the one acting like a dick.”
He shifted and wiped the fresh sweat off his face
with a dirt-covered palm. He gulped, “I’ll—ah—how about I go grab us water and
lunch?”
I glanced back down at my horse femur. “You do that,”
I said, and went back to brushing sediment off the bone until Mike’s last
footstep was followed by the gate clanging shut behind him.
Finally. I pulled my cell out of my pocket and
dialed Nadya. From now on no more sneaking in as a grad student . . . For
whatever reason, these days the IAA was upping security just about everywhere.
Where normally I’d only worry about the dose of sedative needed to knock out an
overly attentive postdoc like Mike, now I had to contend with security checking
up on us at random intervals. Understandable, considering the boom in demand
for antiquities, but that didn’t mean it didn’t still piss me the hell off . .
.
The IAA, or International Archaeology Association,
is the organization that governs every single university archaeology department
on the planet. They’re also the self-appointed authority responsible for
keeping all supernatural elements under wraps, and they aren’t shy about enforcing
it. Creative bastards too. They’d not only tanked my career but also driven me
half off the grid.
Which was another reason I needed to get a move on.
Come to think of it, if I’d just let postdocs like
Mike stare down my shirt while I’d been in grad school, I’d probably have had my
PhD and a cushy museum job by now . . . I’m sure there’s a life lesson to be learned
in there somewhere.
Nadya picked up after the second ring. “Alix? What
is taking you so long?”
“Not now,” I said, keeping my voice low on the off
chance the echo carried. “I’ve got ten, maybe fifteen minutes until Mike gets
back. Do we know where the hell the Medusa head is yet? And I don’t mean ‘it’s
in the crypt’; I mean exact location down to the room corner if you’ve got it.
I really don’t want to have to break in here at night.”
The IAA guards were only half the problem; I was
more worried about the vampires. Just because Alexander and the Paris boys hadn’t
crawled out of their hole in three months didn’t mean they weren’t skulking
around looking for me. This was the third job back-to-back in North Africa. If
Alexander had gotten word about the Morocco catacombs and my impromptu pit stop
in Algeria, he’d have feelers out in every city along the Barbary Coast and
right on through to Istanbul.
There was a pause on the other end. “Alix, we can
abort the job and come back in a month—after things cool down,” Nadya said.
I read between the lines. The Morocco catacombs hadn’t
been the problem. It’d been the Algerian private collection. Let’s just say
helping myself to a couple Pharaonic pieces hadn’t gone well with the owner . .
. or the Algerian police.
I shut down that train of thought. Out of principle
I couldn’t have bypassed Algeria—even if I’d wanted to, and provided Rynn, Mr.
Kurosawa, and Lady Siyu never found out . . .
“Nadya, if you get me the exact location, I can grab
the Medusa head and still be out of here before anyone’s the wiser.”
“I couldn’t find the exact location—notes on the
Russian archaeology server were spotty—but it should be somewhere under you.”
“Under me? There’s an entire flooded catacomb
underneath me.” The underground rooms and chambers spanned three floors, all
decorated with images of the Greek Medusa, the protector, mixed in with the
Egyptian pantheon. A spiral staircase connected the first two floors, winding
its way from the burial dining hall past the carved Medusa heads to the second-level
burial chambers, and then on to the flooded third. Since no one had figured out
how to reroute the rainwater away from the dig site and drain the last level,
the third level had been cemented off decades ago. Considering the state of
Egyptian sewers after the recent string of revolutions, opening up excavations down
there was a moot point.
“I am not a genie, Alix—I do not make maps appear
out of thin air—and Alexandria was your stupid idea.”
“Hey, not fair—”
“Mr. Kurosawa told you to get either the Moroccan death mask or the Caracalla Medusa head, not
both,” Nadya said.
I shut up. It had been my bright idea to hit both
jobs . . . and stop in Algiers. And no, it’s not greedy; it’s good game
planning and time management. Speaking of time management, I checked my watch.
Two minutes had passed since Mike had left. Half an hour was his usual lunch
break . . . Now all I needed was the
map. Considering the upped IAA security at the catacombs—and everywhere, for
that matter—I hadn’t dared bring one on me. Hard to explain a treasure map
stuffed in my backpack at a random spot search . . .
“Nadya, you’ve got my laptop ready?”
“Give me a minute.” I heard Nadya
fiddling with my laptop, followed by a stream of Russian curses a moment later.
“Alix, I can’t make head or tail of the login screen—call the elf and get him
to do it for you.”
By “elf,” Nadya meant Carpe Diem, my World Quest
buddy . . . and actual elf. The real deal, supernatural version. Yeah, I hadn’t
been too happy about finding that little fact out either. I had enough
supernaturals to deal with in my life right now, including my boss, Mr.
Kurosawa, and my on-again-off-again boyfriend, Rynn. Off again if he ever found
out about Algiers . . .
There were a couple good reasons why I didn’t want
to call Carpe; near the top of my list was the fact that though he might be my
World Quest teammate, deep down at the bottom of his sorcerer’s black heart he
was just another goddamn thief. Giving him access to my inventory was more
temptation versus trust than I cared to test—I know I’d have a hard time not
pilfering his game inventory. There was one other reason though that topped
that one. “Because every time I talk to Carpe he starts whining about that
stupid book.”
“I thought that was in Egypt,” Nadya said.
“My point exactly—look, it’s easy, log into my World
Quest game and pull up my maps inventory. The red one, top-right corner.”
I heard more swearing on the other end as Nadya
typed. “Found it. Egypt, no?”
I shifted the phone so I could rummage through my
backpack for my GPS. “Yeah. Under that there should be a list of cities. Pull
up Alexandria and go to the Caracalla’s tomb. Left corner will have a legend
shortcut search. Enter Medusa head.”
In fact, there were many Medusa heads in the Caracalla catacomb, but only one
that would register as worth stealing in World Quest. I’d had the map in my
inventory for a while now but had never really considered going after the World
Quest version—not worth the time or effort loot wise. But, if I knew World
Quest and the developers’ penchant for historical accuracy bordering on
obsession, the location would be dead on.
And no, there is no ethical debate about using my
video game to make my day job easier. Consider it an out-of-game exploit.
“I found it,” Nadya said, and gave me the
coordinates to plug into my GPS. Hunh, it really was right underneath me, give
or take twenty feet.
“You’re by the horse burial, yes?” Nadya said. “There
should be another burial chamber directly below you—a circular chamber, about
twice the size of the one you’re in now. The map shows the Medusa head on the
north side above a sarcophagus.”
Sarcophagus? Out of reflex my heart sped up. I don’t
have the best track record with sarcophagi. To be honest, I was more worried
about the highway caving in above us than any lingering supernatural residents.
The IAA wouldn’t have let Mike down here without a half-decent sweep, and up
until a few decades ago the entire catacombs had been flooded. Any
supernaturals should be long gone.
Still . . . “Any
red dots on the map?” I asked. Red dots on World Quest maps denoted in-game
monsters.
“No—nothing.”
I let out my breath. No red dots, no monsters.
“OK, Medusa head, north side, chamber below me.” I
made certain my phone compass still worked underground and checked the time.
Twenty-five minutes tops before Mike returned from lunch. I could explain away
a five- or ten-minute absence, but I’d have to be fast. If things went as
planned, we’d be back on a flight to Vegas by early evening.
Get to work, Owl,
and get the hell out.
I scribbled on a sticky note—bathroom
break—and stuck it by the horse femur, then ducked through a narrow passage
to a side burial chamber—one where I’d scouted out loose tiles the day before
during one of Mike’s washroom runs.
I kneeled down, pulled some heavier tools from my
backpack, and set to work lifting the corner tile. Within a moment I pulled it
free and shone my flashlight down. The light reflected off stagnant water and
an exposed stone surface. I cracked the first light stick and dropped it down.
As it struck the water and sunk to the bottom, the
tiles decorating the floor flared into existence. Greens and blues that hadn’t
seen sunlight in almost two thousand years depicted a mosaic of Medusa heads
arranged in circles that wound their way in and out of the light stick’s glare.
I gave a low whistle. Not every day you get to see
something that untouched.
On a positive note, I gauged the water at only a few
feet deep. The exposed stone surface I’d picked up with my flashlight, however,
was a more disconcerting matter; a second sarcophagus . . .
Emperor Caracalla, the guy who built the catacomb, was
the head of the Roman Pharaonic cult of Alexandria in the second century AD.
His lifelong obsession was getting his hands on the Egyptian burial spells that
would grant him a Pharaoh’s ticket to the immortal afterlife. As part of his
spirit quest, he massacred twenty thousand Alexandrians, slaughtered a
perfectly good set of chariot horses—one of which I’d spent the last three days
excavating—and assassinated his own brother. A real all-around, outstanding
citizen . . . Shame he never did find the right Egyptian burial spells.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what—or who—Caracalla
stuck in the second sarcophagus.
I took another breath. The IAA cleared the place,
and World Quest had no monsters listed in here . . . and Caracalla at least had
the good taste to bury himself with a gold-and-emerald-encrusted Medusa head . . .
I set a climbing hook into the stone pillar above
the hole and secured my rope, doing my best to think about the Medusa head and
not the second sarcophagus.
I started lowering myself down the hole, when my
phone started to buzz and chime in my pocket. I frowned. I was sure I’d turned
the damn ringer off—in fact, I know I had . . . I glanced at the number. Son of a bitch . . .
“What the hell do you want?”
“You missed game time,” came Carpe’s voice, closer
to feminine than masculine on the sliding gray scale of male vocal texture.
Goddamn it—he must have been monitoring my or Nadya’s
phone. “I’m working—” I started.
“You’re in Egypt,”
he said, his voice thick with accusation.
I closed my eyes; I didn’t have time for this. “Carpe,
I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, I’m not getting your goddamn
book!”
“You’re doing this out of spite because I didn’t
tell you I was an elf.”
Ha. Far from it. In fact, I wished to hell he’d
never told me. “No, I’m not refusing out of spite, I’m refusing on grounds of
self-preservation.”
“It’s a quick trip past the pyramids, you could be
back in a day—”
“I don’t care! I’m more interested in my neck—specifically
that at the end of the day it’s still attached to both my head and body.”
“Alix, it’s a matter of life and death—”
Knowing Carpe, I doubted that very much. I started
to lower myself through the hole. If I lost reception, all the better. “No, if
you keep this up, I’m going to take out hits on you in World Quest—then it will be a matter of life and
death.”
I heard the rumble overhead before I felt the
chamber shake around me. I swore.
“Owl? What’s that noise?” Carpe said, his voice
wary.
“Got to go,” I said, and shoved the phone back in my
pocket. I grabbed the edge of the floor with my free hand and held on to the
rope with the other. I wasn’t risking my neck going against a real mummy just
for Carpe’s stupid spell book . . .
As the growl of the truck above faded into the
distance, the chamber didn’t stop shaking. I felt the hook holding my rope give.
Shit. I threw my weight against the edge of the hole
as the rope slipped through my fingers and disappeared into the shadows of the
pool below. With a last look down at the pool I started to pull myself up. That
had been way too close —
A snap echoed through the chamber as the stone tile
I was holding onto cracked.
My legs were still suspended over the crypt. I held
my breath and carefully pulled myself up. I could still climb out and get the
hell out of this mess… I kept thinking that even as the tile snapped cleaned
through.
“Son of a—” The rest of that sentence was distorted
in the echoes off the shallow water as I fell.
Pain shot up my side as the ornate lid of the stone
sarcophagus broke my fall, knocking the wind out of me. I lay there for a
moment, my ears ringing as I mentally checked that everything was working and still
where it was supposed to be.
Well, look at the bright side: at least the
sarcophagus stopped me from plunging into the stagnant water. It smelled so
much worse down here . . .
Back still smarting, I pushed myself up to seated.
By the weight, I knew my flashlight was still tucked inside my jacket, so I
fished that out first and turned on the high beam to quickly survey the burial
chamber and get my bearings. The entire room was roughly sixteen by sixteen
feet, maybe bigger, and consisted of rounded, arched walls and a vaulted
ceiling. All four walls were decorated with carved and painted Medusa heads, a
common protection symbol Pharaonic Romans buried themselves and their goods
with. For some strange reason, out of all the Greek and Roman gods out there,
the Pharaonic Romans had focused on Medusa as a protector. Thank God Gorgons
were isolated to the northern side of the Mediterranean—something about a deep-seated
fear of water. They don’t actually turn you into stone, in case you were
wondering. That’s a myth. They cover their victims with ash and a glue like
substance that cauterizes flesh on impact before solidifying—think Pompeii.
Still intact above the waterline were paintings of
the usual Egyptian pantheon suspects: Horus, Isis, Anubis, Osiris. The entire
chamber was overly elaborate for the time period and depth, even for an
emperor.
As my flashlight illuminated the north wall directly
across from me, I picked out the second sarcophagus sitting in a raised alcove,
Latin words carved into the wall above it, and underscored with hieroglyphs.
Caracalla.
Pass go and collect two hundred dollars.
Next, I checked the hole in the ceiling I was
partially responsible for. There was no way I’d reach it standing on the
sarcophagus—too high. Climbing was out—the walls arched inwards towards the
ceiling. I was trapped until Mike and the rest of the dig team came looking for
me.
Well, at least with the collapsed floor I wouldn’t
have to explain what the hell I was doing down here.
I spotted my backpack a few feet away from where I’d
landed on the sarcophagus. Flashlight in mouth, I made my way towards it. Get
bag, get Medusa head, figure way out . . .
Unfortunately the sarcophagus had different plans.
Years of dampness had covered the domed lid with a slick slime. A hand’s reach
away from my backpack, my knees shot out from under me. “Oh you’ve got to be
kidding—damn it!” I said as I slid off and landed in knee-deep, stale water.
Soaked and smelling worse than I had any right to, I
pushed myself up and noticed a hole in the side of the sarcophagus—a small one,
but a crack nonetheless. I swallowed. Sarcophagi and tombs in general don’t
bother me—they come with the territory; it’s when they’re broken open in a
sealed-in room that I start to worry.
OK, Owl—here goes the hard part . . . I edged my
flashlight beam through the crack to see if there were any remains left inside
. . .
I yelled as two rats shot out. The first dove
headfirst into the water, but the second leapt off the stone lid and landed on
my head. I shouted again and tried to pull the rat off, but it held onto my
hair for dear life. I shook my head in an attempt to dislodge it, but that only
gave it the bright idea to dive down my cargo jacket. I batted my body until
the rat fell into the water, squeaking once before swimming off after its
friend. I shook my head; I’d seen a lot of rats on dig sites, but I’d never had
one try to use me as a hiding spot. I chalked it up to rat cabin fever and
turned my attention back on the sarcophagus.
Empty.
My calves steadied in the water. Empty was good.
I checked the submerged floor for uneven breaks or
outright holes before wading through the knee-deep warm water towards Caracalla’s
sarcophagus. Halfway there the stale water deepened past my waist. The floor
must have shifted over the past few thousand years. From the blue-white light
cast by my submerged light stick, I got a better look at the green-and-blue Medusa-decorated
floor, which was even more impressive up close. Days like this, what I wouldn’t
give for a few hours and a decent camera . . .
I also noticed there wasn’t a passageway out in
sight, with the exception of the one in the ceiling directly above me.
Caracalla had been sealed in. Couldn’t blame whoever
made that call. With the exception of an IAA fiber optics camera, I was
probably the first evidence of humanity to set foot in this chamber in almost
two thousand years. Two thirds of the way across, my flashlight beam caught
gold, and a glint reflected off the lid.
Bingo.
The water shallowed out as I approached the
platform. The sarcophagus was raised high enough off the floor that I’d have to
climb on top to reach the Medusa head. The left corner of the stone pedestal
was cracked where it met the water, but otherwise it looked sturdy enough.
It was by chance that I caught the submerged tiles switch
from pictures depicting Medusa heads to a Roman numeral five inches from my
foot. I checked the rest of the floor between me and the pedestal; laid out in
a four-by-eight grid was a series of Roman numerals, each one different.
Shit. A
Roman numeral code? But
how many numbers, and what was the sequence? More importantly, what happened if
I screwed it up?
Time to call Nadya.
“Alix, what the hell happened? The entire city
shook.”
Leave it to Nadya to bypass all pleasantries . . . “Just
a minor cave-in—I’m fine, in fact it might have bought me some time.”
“Where are you?”
“Let’s just say the good news is I don’t have to
explain to anyone what the hell I’m doing down in Caracalla’s tomb since the
floor collapsed underneath me. You should see the artwork—”
“Alix, just the Medusa head!”
“All right, all right.” I transferred the phone to
my shoulder to get a better look at the layout with my flashlight. “Listen, off
the top of your head, have you ever heard of a Roman numeral booby trap
associated with Caracalla’s tomb?”
“I don’t see anything on this map, but the Romans
were fond of math problems. Is there an equation nearby?”
I scanned the area, but nothing stood out. I also
didn’t see any major levers or plates—nothing that would indicate poison darts
or giant rocks.
Oh hell, I was never good at math anyways . . . I
tossed my bag onto the sarcophagus. “Never mind, Nadya—I’ve got it.” I shoved
my phone, which was still on, in my pocket, backed up to the edge of the
shallows, took a running start, and leapt right before my foot touched the
first Roman numeral.
I landed halfway on, halfway off the sarcophagus. I
was ready for the slime this time and dragged myself up before I slid back into
the water.
I pulled my phone back out of my pocket and balanced
it between my ear and shoulder. “OK, I’m on the sarcophagus—”
I heard Nadya swear. She was not a fan of my run-and-jump
method of avoiding traps. “Just be careful with the head piece. It’s high
carat.”
The purer the gold, the easier to dent. That noted,
I started to work on the surrounding rock with my chisel. I winced as the
chisel hitting rock echoed around the room.
“Alix, quietly! I can hear you banging over the
phone.”
“I can’t do it any quieter,” I said as I hit it
again. The sarcophagus stone chipped as I struck it, and I cringed at the
damage. Normally I’d use something more elegant, like acid or some other
solvent, but I was short on time.
“Come on, you stupid decoration—get out of the damn
stone,” I said, and wedged my chisel further into the groove. The gold Medusa
head lifted a quarter of an inch.
Two or three more strikes and I’d be able to work it
out . . .
Something larger than a rat scraped against the
stone wall, and I got a whiff of something astringent and rotten at the same
time.
A chill ran down my spine. I spun in the direction
the noise had originated in, careful to watch my footing on the sarcophagus.
Nothing moved as my flashlight illuminated the
shadows, and the noise didn’t repeat. I chalked it up to my own personal brand
of paranoia.
Still, I picked up the pace on the Medusa head. A
minute later it popped free. I switched the phone to my mouth so I could use my
chin to hold the head while I fetched the duct tape out of my bag. Trust me,
duct-taping an artifact to your stomach sounds a little gutter trash as far as
thieves go, but I’m a hell of a lot less likely to lose it that way than if it’s
stuffed in my bag or pocket—especially if I have to run.
Which, if things went as planned this time, wouldn’t
happen . . .
Oh God, I hope to hell I don’t have to run this
time. I had enough of that in Algiers . . .
“Alix, do you have it?” Nadya’s voice came over the
phone.
“Uh—ye-ah—” I finished securing the Medusa head to
my stomach and retrieved the phone from my mouth. “Yeah, got it—” I scanned the
ceiling and wall on this corner of the chamber, looking for a way out I might
have missed. Nothing . . . Shit. “Look, I’ve got to find a way out of here—I’ll
call you back as soon as I’m out of the dig site,” I said, then hung up the
phone and stuffed it in my front cargo pocket before she could argue.
Maybe I could figure out a way to get back out that
hole in the ceiling . . .
I grabbed my bag and, after one last pat on the duct
tape, leapt off the sarcophagus past the Roman numerals. I swayed as I hit the
water and overcompensated, stumbling forward to avoid falling back on the grid
. . .
Something solid brushed up against my leg.
I swore, more from surprise than anything else—I
hate running into things in the dark. I aimed my flashlight to remove the dark
factor.
The front half of a fresh rat corpse brushed up
against my khakis. Son of a— Out of
reflex, I scrambled back.
I felt the tile sink under my foot.
“Oh shit.” I stood perfectly still as the room
grumbled, the sound of stone grating on stone. Now what the hell had I just
triggered? No holes in the wall, no trapdoors underneath me . . . I glanced up
and caught the stone slab sliding open above.
I dove out of the way before the first cannonball-shaped
stone hit the water in front of me, making a loud clicking noise as it struck
the tile floors beneath. I let out an involuntary yelp as the second cannonball
hit my shoulder. I heard more slabs begin to slide open above.
So much for keeping my head dry. I took a deep
breath and dove under the surface towards the broken sarcophagus on the other
side of the room. The stones pelted the water around me, but soon I was in the
deeper section and out of range.
As soon as I reached the shallow end I stood up and
pushed wet hair out of my face before glancing back at the stone trap . . . Damn,
that had been awful easy. On the one hand, I should be thanking my luck; on the
other hand, as a general rule, my luck sucks in situations like this.
I heard another scrape along the far wall and aimed
my flashlight, hoping to catch whatever had made the noise. I had a sinking
suspicion it was whatever had bitten the dead rat in two. Like before, whatever
it was clung to the shadowed recesses my flashlight couldn’t penetrate.
The sooner I got out of here the better. I crawled
back up on top of the cracked sarcophagus. The hole was only nine feet away,
but high enough that I couldn’t reach the edge. I angled my flashlight along
the wall, searching for foot- and handholds, but I only found a carved
depiction of Anubis, which wasn’t recessed enough for me to get my toes in, or
pronounced enough to hold my weight. I turned the flashlight as I heard the
scraping noise for a third time, swearing I caught movement just outside my
light stick’s range . . .
I heard a door slam shut a few floors above me,
followed by hurried footsteps. “Hey, Serena?” Mike called.
Five minutes early, but under the circumstances . .
.
I shone the light back through the hole and waved
the beam around for good measure. “Down here, Mike.”
His face appeared over the hole.
“The floor gave way when the building shook,” I
yelled up. More or less the truth. “I need you to throw a rope or something
down,” I added, keeping the far side of the room in the corner of my eye.
“Just wait there, I’ll go get help,” Mike said, and
disappeared from view.
The thing in the corner moved again, and this time I
caught a glimpse of what looked like an arm. Yeah, not a chance in hell—
“No!” I yelled, maybe a little too desperately. When
Mike’s perplexed face returned, I added, “I don’t think the room is stable—do
you have your rope up there?”
“Found it,” he said.
I hoped that either Mike didn’t notice the climbing
hook, or, if he did, I could talk myself out of it. “Tie it to something sturdy
and lower it down.”
I heard Mike moving in the cramped space above me.
The “thing” hiding in the corner grunted, and this
time I was ready—I managed to hit it in the face with my flashlight beam.
An embalmed head, showing too much decay to be
recognizable, looked up at me with empty eye sockets. What had to be the
mummified remains of Caracalla snarled at me, displaying a rotting mess of
sharpened black teeth.
“Make it faster, Mike,” I yelled. Leave it to me to
find the one IAA dig site with a mummy still in it . . . What the hell was the
IAA doing nowadays? They were supposed to clear supernaturals out before
hapless researchers like Serena and Mike showed up.
Caracalla said something . . . or I think he tried
to say something; its vocal cords weren’t exactly in the best shape. I mean it
when I say the Romans messed up the Egyptian incantations. On top of that, I
might be a genius at translating written languages—I can read and write ten,
three of them dead—but I can’t speak one of them to save my life.
Caracalla’s mouth twisted up into something
reminiscent of a smile, and he began to wade through the water towards me.
I scrambled as far back as I could until the carved
Anubis idol dug into my back.
“Mike, I mean it, get me the hell out of here—now,” I screamed. There had to be
something around here to throw . . .
Caracalla reached the end of the shallows and
stretched one of his black arms towards me before submerging under the water.
Son of a bitch, they could swim? Mummies weren’t
supposed to swim . . .
“Almost there,” Mike said as the end of my rope
slipped over the edge.
I searched the water for Caracalla as I waited for
the rope . . .
Crack.
Above me, a fracture line appeared in the floor near
the hole. Mike swore.
“Mike, out of the way—” Son of a bitch— I
jumped back into the knee-deep water as a slab of stone, followed by a
screaming Mike, crashed into the sarcophagus. The rope followed him down last,
sliding off the slippery stone surface and disappearing underneath the water.
Damn it. I headed over to where Mike sat in the
water. “Mike, are you OK?” I said, shaking his arm, hoping nothing had broken.
He shook his head. “Fine—yeah . . .” His voice
trailed off, and his eyes widened as he stretched out his hand, still shaking
from the fall, and screamed.
I glanced over my shoulder. Caracalla stood a few
feet away. This close it really resembled a walking corpse rather than an
Egyptian mummy. If it’d been a proper mummy, maybe I could have reasoned with
it, but this? Not exactly the top of the supernatural food chain . . . though
somehow fitting, considering how big an asshole he’d been.
Mike regained his voice. “Oh my God, it’s a mummy—a
real mummy—” In a surprising show of agility, he jumped out of the water and
wedged himself up against the sarcophagus—behind
me.
“Hey!” I grabbed his jacket and pulled him back out
so he was standing beside me. “Not cool, Mike,” I said, and slapped him hard on
his injured shoulder. I didn’t care if this was his first supernatural; hiding
behind coworkers was not cool.
Mike ran his fingers through his hair as he
attempted to regain something resembling composure. If anything, I was impressed
with how well he kept his balance on the narrow ledge, reminding me of a beer-gutted,
facial-hair-wearing ballerina.
Don’t ask me why that visual came to mind; it’s
amazing what adrenaline does.
“The handbook . . . the handbook says something
about this,” Mike said.
I rolled my eyes. The IAA student handbook was next
to useless when it came to supernaturals. One chapter on ghosts and a few
phrases in ancient languages—most of which seemed to loosely translate to “please
don’t eat me.”
I’m paraphrasing, but you get the picture.
“We’re supposed to try and reason with him until the
IAA gets here,” Mike continued, turning panicked eyes on me. “Quick, Serena,
offer him something.”
I glared. “It’s living in a pit full of water,
eating rats. I don’t think there’s
anything we can offer him that we’d be willing to part with.” Though a small
part of me was wondering whether I’d be willing to part with Mike. It was a very
small part, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it was there.
I have to give Mike credit; he didn’t give up. “Greetings,
Emperor Caracalla,” he said, clearing his throat.
Oh, this was going to be good . . .
From the growl Caracalla let out, my guess was he
thought about the same. I kept searching for something I could use as a weapon.
“There are some nice people on their way to get you
out,” Mike continued, shaking in fear.
The mummy growled again, flashing his black teeth.
Mike stepped back into the sarcophagus. “They’ll
feed you all the rats you want—promise!”
Oh, for crying out loud. “Grow a backbone, Mike.”
Mike whirled on me. “I’m trying to negotiate,” he
said.
“You’re making an idiot out of yourself. Now help me
find something to skewer it with before that sorry excuse for a mummy decides
we look better than the rats.”
Mike snapped out of his fear-induced panic and
focused on me.
“That’s more like it—hey!” I said, as his eyes went
wide with excitement and he gripped my arm with both clammy hands. He wrapped
his arms around my waist and neck in a reverse bear hug, placing me directly
between him and Caracalla.
“What the hell?!” I pried at Mike’s arm wrapped
around my throat, but it didn’t budge. Stronger than he looked when terrified .
. .
“Here! Emperor Caracalla. Let me go, and you can
have her—”
“Are you out of your mind? Since when the hell is
toss your dig mate to the mummy in the manual?”
“Extreme measures. I’m making it up as we go along
right now,” Mike told me. Louder and to the mummy he said, “Wave once if you
are amenable to my terms, great Caracalla.”
Oh, you got to be fucking kidding me.
I could have sworn Caracalla laughed . . . then
again, it was hard to tell. It could just as easily have been growling.
Time to stop playing Serena, the grad student. “Hey
Mike, remember what I said about breaking your nose for looking down my shirt?”
“Shhh! Quiet. I read that Caracalla liked his women
meek and docile.” To the mummy he added, “She’s a little rough around the
edges, but not too bad once you clean the dirt off.”
I shook my head and readied my foot. “Just wanted to
let you know trying to trade me to a mummy deserved a hell of a lot worse than
a broken nose, that’s all.”
Mike howled as my foot connected hard with his
precious bits. He let go and doubled over, eyes wide in shock.
“And you also get a broken nose.” I grabbed Mike’s
head—already conveniently doubled over—and connected his nose with my knee.
Mike’s eyes glassed over for a brief moment before he sunk to the floor and
passed out against the sarcophagus. I turned back to Caracalla, still
approaching through the water. As tempting as it was to offer the mummy Mike, I
wasn’t willing to cross that line. It was just safer for everyone involved, especially
me, if Mike was left out of the negotiations from this point on.
Now, left with only the mummy to deal with, I had a
chance to better scan the room for options. By some unknown miracle, Mike’s
rope had fallen near the sarcophagus in the shallows. I hopped down from the
pedestal lip and felt under the surface for the rope, never letting the mummy
out of my sight as he paced the edge of my side of the shallows. “You stay on
your side, I’ll stay on my side . . .” I said, more of a hope than a threat.
Caracalla glanced up toward the hole in the ceiling
before spreading what was left of his lips in macabre mimicry of a smile.
Great, just fantastic. The mummy had the wherewithal
to figure out there was a new exit.
My fingers brushed against the nylon rope. I wrapped
it around my wrist and searched my bag for my grappling hook. In general, I
stay the hell away from grappling hooks. You’re more likely to eviscerate
yourself or fall to your death than orchestrate a timely escape. Having said
that, I was desperate.
I tied the rope end off fast and reeled the hook
back for a throw. It bounced harmlessly off the ledge and fell back down in an
arc. Right idea, wrong execution . . .
I shoulder-checked Caracalla in time to see him
reach into the water. I got a good look at what he retrieved: a jagged, broken
bone—femur was a good guess . . .
And human.
“Hello—anyone?” I yelled, hoping someone else had come
back down to see what had happened to me and Mike. “Need some help down here,
like right now.” But all that came back was the echo of my own voice warped by
the water in the tomb—that, and another truck running overhead.
The mummy made a grating, laughing noise that
reminded me of a monster on a bad amusement park ride.
Come on, you stupid
rope, come on. I
threw it again and was rewarded with a catch.
Caracalla dove under the water.
Son of a bitch. Why the hell hadn’t I ever read
anything about swimming mummies? I might be able to shimmy up the rope, but not
before I could pull Mike out. Maybe I should just leave him for Caracalla . . .
but I dismissed that thought and repeated my newest mantra: I am better than
Mr. Kurosawa and also the IAA.
I shone the flashlight over the surface but didn’t
spot Caracalla. Damn it, what the hell was I supposed to do with a swimming
mummy?
I retrieved my phone and made the call I’d gone out
of my way to avoid making since setting foot in Egypt.
I called Rynn.
To give him credit, he picked up on the first ring.
“Alix.”
No detectable anger, no accusations . . . this was
good. “Hey Rynn, listen, I’m in a bit of a jam—what do you know about Egyptian
mummies from the Roman era? The ones who look more like rotting corpses.”
There was a brief pause. “What the hell are you
doing in Egypt?”
“Yeah, about that—I decided since I was already on
the continent, I might as well hit both the Moroccan and Egyptian jobs. Last-minute
decision, and I didn’t have time to call.” I winced at the white lie. I’d had
the time to call, just not for the argument that would have followed.
“We agreed you’d tell me what jobs you were doing.”
Rynn tried to hide his frustration, but I’d gotten a lot better at picking up
on it lately.
“And I’m telling you now—” I started.
“Before something tried to kill you!”
“Well, we also said you weren’t supposed to become
Mr. Kurosawa’s new security.”
“I told you that’s temporary—”
“Well, so is Egypt!”
Rynn sighed. “Roman mummies don’t do well with
bright light. UV is best. Has to do with degeneration of the retina.”
OK, that was useful. I patted my jacket until I
found my UV flashlight. Never leave home without. I aimed and shone it on the
surface. “He’s under the water—how do I find him?”
“Just keep the flashlight on the water. He shouldn’t
resurface.”
I switched the setting to flood, illuminating the
whole room. “Rynn, I know you hate the whole thieving thing, but man, if you
saw half the stuff in here . . .”
“Keep me on the phone until you’re out of whatever
hole you’ve crawled into.” Rynn kept his voice professional. He usually did on
business, but there was genuine concern under the irritation.
I was guessing Rynn also needed me on the phone to
get a signal on my whereabouts—considering the circumstances, I didn’t think
that was half as bad an idea as I normally would. “All right, what do you want
to talk about?” I said, and began tying the loose end of the rope around Mike,
making sure it would hold.
“I think the fact you’re in Egypt is a good start.”
“There’s not much to tell. I saw an opportunity to
get both pieces on Mr. Kurosawa’s list, so I took it.”
“We agreed to do it my way—”
I tested the rope one last time to make sure it
would hold me as I climbed up. “Yeah, but your way means I end up aborting the
job halfway through because it’s too dangerous.”
“No fucking offense, Alix, but considering the
circumstances, I’m the only one in this conversation with a point. And this is
the second time you’ve done this.”
My first instinct was to tell him this conversation
would end as soon as he quit Mr. Kurosawa’s security job, but my thought
process was interrupted as bony, clawlike fingers reached through the water and
dug into my khakis.
Shit.
“Got to go. Work is rearing its half-rotting head,”
I said, and tossed my pack and phone onto the sarcophagus before Caracalla
pulled me under.
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