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The Black Pyramid, Dahshur, Egypt
AS THEY ENTERED the dim passageway, something still tickled at the back of Crowley’s mind. He paused and Rose bumped into him from behind. She laughed and began to speak, but Crowley whipped up a hand to quiet her.
“What is it?” she whispered, voice tight with tension.
Crowley pointed to the ground, finally realizing what his subconscious had been digging him about. “I think there’s someone up ahead.”
“How do you know?”
“There’s a single set of new footprints going in.” He pointed, keeping his voice barely audible. “See how the dust is all disturbed and several sets of prints go back and forth.”
“Yes.”
He moved his flashlight. “Now, look here.”
Another set of prints, pressed into the dust recently and not yet disturbed or scuffed over. They went forward, but no similar prints came back. “I think whoever made these is still in there.”
He doused his light and ran his fingertips along the rough wall to sense the way forward. Behind him, Rose put one hand on Crowley’s shoulder. He enjoyed the closeness and the warmth of her touch, but nerves rippled through his skin nonetheless.
After creeping forward several meters, the passage turned sharply to the right and a weak light illuminated the walls. The stones were covered in hieroglyphs, every inch crawling with tightly carved ancient writing, deep black in the shadows of the thin orange light. Ahead the passage opened out into a chamber, lit by flickering candles.
The massed hieroglyphics continued into the room and covered every wall but one. That wall was dominated by a massive image of Anubis. His face was twisted in a snarl, black ears standing tall out of his complicated striped headdress. He held his hands out to either side, his left holding a two long white feathers, his right a bleeding, dripping heart. Behind him a set of scales was etched in simple geometric lines.
Crowley and Rose stopped dead at a soft scuffing noise. They couldn’t see the entire chamber yet, but something had moved inside. Crowley slowly released a held breath and took another step forward to see properly around the corner. More candles flickered around a stone altar in the center of the large space, atop which stood a set of golden scales, glittering in the dancing candlelight. Kneeling before the altar was a man in a khaki shirt, tan jodhpurs and brown boots. Crowley smirked. All the man needed was a pith helmet to complete the ensemble. Thankfully there was no one else in the room and Crowley could tell from his position that he was bigger than whoever knelt in worship. Never assume any potential enemy is easy prey, the Army had taught him that only too well, but this fellow appeared largely harmless.
Crowley cleared his throat and the man nearly jumped out of his skin. He leaped up, spun around in a half-crouch, eyes wide. His dark skin glistened in the low light with a subtle sheen of sweat. “Good God, you startled me!” He had a deep voice, a distinct upper-class British accent. He took a deep breath, quickly recovering himself. “What are you doing?”
Rose stepped up beside Crowley. “We got separated from our tour group.”
The man took a few menacing steps forward, his face set in a grim expression. He opened his mouth to speak, then paused, looked more intensely at Rose, then shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “I suggest you rejoin your group immediately,” he said, injecting authority into his voice. “You shouldn’t be here.” But the authority he tried to convey was empty, shaking with nerves the man was finding it harder and harder to contain.
Crowley stepped up to him. “We need help with something first.”
“I have no idea how I can help. You need to...”
“Got a name?” Crowley interrupted. He’d dealt with this type before and it wouldn’t take much to deflate the man’s artificially inflated bravado.
“Leonard,” the man said, clearly intimidated already.
Crowley almost felt sorry for him. He jabbed a thumb back towards Rose. “We’re looking for my friend’s sister.” Leonard grimaced, opened his mouth to speak, but before he could deny knowing anything again, Crowley said, “I saw the way you looked at her. For a moment, you thought you’d seen her before.”
Leonard slumped. “A woman called Iris was here a week or so ago. Sisters, eh? Makes sense. The resemblance is remarkable.”
Crowley nodded, though he disagreed. He supposed if you’d only seen each woman briefly the resemblance was stark, but he knew Rose well enough to see that her similarity to her sister was superficial. They were clearly family, but really didn’t look that much alike. Regardless, the family look seemed to be assisting them in their search so he was glad of it. “And what did Iris want?”
“She said she was a doctoral student doing her thesis on Anubis. That she’d heard about this chamber.”
“What, exactly, is this chamber?” Rose asked.
Leonard looked around, proud as though the space were his own property. “It’s only recently been discovered. The translation of the hieroglyphs is incomplete, as there are some that are previously unknown, but it seems to have been a place of worship for a cult of Anubis.”
Rose pulled out her phone and began photographing the walls.
“You can’t do that!” Leonard said, his voice high in outrage. He strode forward, reached for her phone, but Crowley quickly closed the gap between them and grabbed his wrist.
Leonard gasped, looked at Crowley’s strong fingers wrapped around his flesh as though it were an absolute atrocity. “Unhand me!”
Crowley kept his hold as Rose took detailed photos of the entire chamber.
“What did you and Lily... Iris talk about?” Crowley asked as Leonard began to shake with an impotent rage.
Leonard looked from Crowley’s grip to his face and back again. He shook his arm ineffectually.
Crowley tightened his grip, grinding the man’s wrist bones slightly. Leonard yelped.
“What did you talk about?”
Leonard let out a sharp breath of annoyance. “She asked about this chamber. When it was discovered, what we had learned, stuff like that.”
“And?”
“And if there were any new insights about Anubis based on the discovery. She wanted to take photos too, but she respected my wishes when I asked her not to.”
Crowley smiled crookedly. “Yeah, well I’m sort of an ass, I guess. Anything else you can tell us about her visit?”
Leonard shook his head, upset at his treatment.
“Was she with a man?” Crowley asked.
“She was, actually. Quiet chap, hair tied up on top in some ridiculous style. Didn’t say a word except to thank me when they left.”
“Did they say where they were going next?”
“No, and I didn’t ask. I just wanted them to leave me to my work.” He drilled Crowley with a piercing gaze, making the point that he required the same of him and Rose.
Rose finished taking her photos and came to stand beside Crowley. “The hieroglyphs that have been translated. Do they say anything about the Anubis Key?”
Crowley shot her a look, couldn’t believe she had blurted it out like that, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
“No,” Leonard said, much too quickly in Crowley's opinion. “I've never heard of it.”
Crowley decided he had had enough of the man’s obfuscation. The fellow could be forgiven for not being particularly receptive to the treatment he had received, but things were more important than this guy’s pride or whatever he felt had been compromised. Crowley twisted the man’s wrist over, used his other hand to lift and turn over the elbow, quickly putting the unfortunate bloke into a painful arm lock.
Leonard howled, struggled briefly but quickly stopped when that only made the pain worse.
“A woman is missing,” Crowley growled. “Her life is at stake. You’re going to tell us all you know. You can do it voluntarily or I can... persuade you.”
Leonard let out a frustrated half-sob. “All right, all right. They did ask about the Anubis Key, but I honestly don’t know what it is. I heard the name years ago, but when I dug into it, I concluded it was nothing but rank foolishness. The sort of thing nutters believe in. I told the woman so.”
Crowley nodded, considering. But he wasn’t fooled. In a flash, he released the arm lock, drew his knife and pressed its keen edge against Leonard’s throat as he backed the man up against the wall. Rose gasped as Leonard staggered into the hard stone and froze there, eyes wide.
“You’re holding something back,” Crowley said, his voice brooking no further misdirection. Anger surged through him and he knew it was reflected on his face. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Leonard sagged. “They found the bone room.”