15

Pyramids

7:00 p.m., OK, so not really pyramids, but close

When people think ancient Egypt, the Nile by the border of Sudan isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. More like Cairo; maybe the Valley of the Kings if they watch TV specials.

They’d be making a big omission. The Nile was the backbone and lifeblood of ancient Egypt and didn’t recognize the arbitrary borders we use today.

We were just north of the Sudanese-Egyptian border in a deserted section of the Nile. We were about twenty kilometers or so south of the Abu Simbel river temples, a pair of temples carved into the Nile cliffs during the reigns of Ramses II and Nefertari in the twelfth century BC. And no, I don’t mean Nefertiti. Different queen. Interesting story about Nefertiti though; she and her husband tried to put a supernatural masquerading as a god into power. The other Egyptians didn’t like that very much . . .

Off topic . . . The point was, the river temples are glorious—­designed as monuments to stand the test of time, attracting hordes of tourists even today.

This temple, the one I was about to break into, had been built by Ramses II’s court sorcerer and vizier, Passer. Whereas the river temples had been designed as monuments, Passer, the High Priest of Magic, had designed this one with the idea of never being found—he’d gone to extreme lengths, even having a fake body buried in his name elsewhere.

You know, it’s the ones who get lost to history you need to worry about . . . Like deadly poisonous snakes camouflaged in tall grass, the last thing you want to do is stumble into one. The fact that the IAA had set a two-kilometer perimeter around this place should be warning enough to stay away.

“Move, Captain,” I said as I scooted up closer to the edge of the sandstone out-crop twenty feet up from the river and lifted my binoculars to scan the cliff face on the opposite side of the Nile. There were four inconsequential sandstone pillars carved into the rock face flanking a rectangular entrance camouflaged by a recessed piece of sandstone. If you didn’t know exactly where and what to look for, the entrance of Passer’s tomb appeared like just another solid piece of the cliff, the door and pillars bleeding seamlessly into the rest of the sandstone.

Oh this was a bad idea . . .

I shielded my eyes against the light reflecting off the water’s surface. The sun was almost below the horizon now—just a little bit longer. Nice part about this section of the Nile, the water didn’t smell . . . and there were no crocodiles. Considering what we were planning, that was probably a good thing. I pulled my cargo jacket closed. I was into the chills part of my fever now.

“Well, Carpe, you were right about reaching the temple by nightfall,” I said. Sitting a little ways away from the edge of the embankment, he glanced up from his laptop and frowned at me. Apparently elves weren’t used to the kind of treatment we were in the habit of showing people who crashed our plane.

“Now all you need to be is right about how to handle the sorcerer’s mummy and we might actually get out alive.” Personally, I was hoping not to run into the mummy at all. From the map Carpe had given me, there were an awful lot of side tunnels and passageways to hide in.

With my luck, the mummy would walk in right while I was lifting the damn book.

“What do you think?” Nadya said, sliding in beside me and nodding at the hidden temple entrance. Both she and Rynn had taken to ignoring Carpe. It seemed about the only way to prevent us from dissolving into threats of physical violence.

“Considering there’s a skeleton crew of IAA guards who are patrolling from further back than we are, I say the going is about as good as we’re going to get.”

I noted Nadya had my infrared binoculars out already, anticipating the need for them shortly—in the next hour or so, give or take the sunset. “You ever been here before?” I asked.

She shook her head. “You?”

I shook my head. Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t that stupid. The more inconsequential the temples looked, the bigger the monsters . . .

Rynn came up on my other side, also shooting a glare at Carpe before crouching down next to me. “There’s next to no one here,” he said. “There’s the watchtower a kilometer downriver, but that’s all I could find. Not even the IAA wants to piss off the sorcerer’s mummy.”

Fantastic . . .

Rynn frowned and nodded towards the temple. “Why do you think he designed it this way?”

The last of the sun set behind the sand. Time to get going before the chills got much worse. “Same reason this place looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere,” I said, squeezing his shoulder as I stood up. “To keep the thieves out.”

I slid my backpack on and helped Nadya roll out the yellow dinghy we’d salvaged from the plane. I whistled for Captain. He popped out from under a rock, already wearing his harness. I wouldn’t worry about the leash until we were ready to cross. I doubted there were vampires hanging out by the bank, not with Passer. It was the water I was worried about; Captain wasn’t a huge fan of water.

Carpe glanced up from his laptop, perturbed. “I still think I should come with you—”

“No!” Nadya and I both answered as we unrolled the dinghy.

He looked awful dejected for someone who’d just downed our airplane.

“Look, Carpe—it will be much better for us if you stay out here and work on World Quest. Worst-case scenario, if we get into trouble, you’ll be more help out here anyways.” And that had some truth to it. Considering Nadya and I had only been studying the tomb map for a couple hours—and I wasn’t at my performance best—it was a distinct possibility we’d need Carpe to do some online tomb reconnaissance on the fly.

I was also less tempted to punch him over a headset.

“Just stay online,” I said, tapping my earpiece. “And do whatever the hell Rynn says.”

Nadya lowered herself over the ledge to the riverbed, while Rynn held me back.

“Keep your line open to channel one—I’ve got the elf on channel two.” There was a reluctance and warning on the end of that statement.

I snorted. “Don’t worry, the elf is on a need-to-use basis. What about our ride into Syria?” We’d missed whatever checkpoint Rynn had set up with his contact.

“They’re aware of the situation. Not happy about the elf, but they’ll come to us.”

“What are these guys exactly?”

Rynn had been sparse on the details except that they could handle themselves.

“About the only people coming out on top of the Syrian civil war. The Jinn.”

“At this rate I’ll be amazed if we make it to the City of the Dead before I dissolve into a hallucinating pile of human wreck.”

“We can leave the elf here and go now, Alix, just say the word.”

I glanced to where Carpe was sitting. I wondered how good elf hearing was.

I shook my head. “I need the World Quest map too much—and Nadya and I should be able to handle this.” Initially I’d considered taking Rynn, but as useful as he’d be dealing with the mummy, the traps and inscriptions were another matter. Just because Rynn was supernatural didn’t mean he knew everything, and Egypt wasn’t his forte. “Just make sure the elf is working on my map. He seriously got elves to rescue the chickens?”

“Oh yes. Nothing about picking us up, mind you—”

Like some warped, twisted version of Buddhism . . . “Just try not to shoot him before he finishes the job.”

“What if he double-crosses us?” Rynn said that a little too fast for it to be spontaneous.

“How could he possibly screw us over even more?”

Deadpanning, Rynn said, “But just think. What if his elven friends need help rescuing all those chickens?”

I shook my head and glanced over at Carpe, still typing away on his damn computer. “The worst part is I don’t think you’re joking.”

Out of all the moments in the last couple hours, Rynn picked that one to snake his arm around my waist and kiss me. Not our usual “there were people around” version but the kind he usually saved for behind closed doors . . . or if there isn’t anyone around we particularly care about seeing us. That’s happened a couple times . . . and no, I’m not the instigator, Rynn is . . . not that I’m complaining.

This was definitely one of those. In fact, it caught me so off guard I opened my eyes partway through.

Rynn’s arms might have been wrapped around me and his face might have been pressed against mine, but he sure as hell wasn’t watching me. He was looking at the damn elf, and not nicely. I caught Carpe glance away as soon as he saw me look.

Oh for Christ’s sake . . . I pushed Rynn away, breaking off our kiss. “Seriously?” I said, nodding towards Carpe.

Rynn shrugged but didn’t offer up any defense.

Yeah, not getting off that easy. “Out of all the nymphs and attractive bartenders hanging around the Japanese Circus, you’re jealous over the damn elf? Seriously, are you sure I’m the only one hallucinating?”

He shrugged, but there was a ghost of a smile on his face. “The bartenders work for me and you don’t like the nymphs. You talk to the elf on a daily basis.”

“No, I talk to you and Nadya on a daily basis. I play World Quest with Carpe, and it’s a couple times a week, not every day. And he crashed our plane and is holding my map hostage!”

Rynn wasn’t fazed one damn bit. His smile widened as he waved at Carpe, who glanced back down at his screen, though I could have sworn his face was red. “Besides,” Rynn added, “I really hate elves.”

I shook my head and grabbed Captain, encouraging him into the backpack. “I’m not even going to dignify that one.” I grabbed the rope and followed Nadya down to the bank.

Rynn jealous over the backstabbing elf—who I was tempted to punch. Again. I mean, Carpe wasn’t horrible to look at—in a kind of yoga-retreat way. He was slighter than Rynn, which made sense, with the perma-computer chair and vegetarianism—not that Rynn was a super athlete or anything . . .

Jesus, what was I doing, comparing Rynn and Carpe?

“What was that about?” Nadya asked once I touched down on the bank.

“Nothing, except I think the curse is rubbing off on Rynn. He’s ­jealous—of Carpe.”

Nadya didn’t say anything, instead becoming engrossed in the inflation of the yellow raft.

“Seriously? Not you too.”

Nadya shrugged. “Well, you do spend a lot of time on World Quest.”

“And in the bar, and on dig sites.”

“Not the same thing, and you know it.”

I snorted. Rynn worried about Carpe. If it wasn’t for the fact that I didn’t have a headache, I’d be willing to bet I’d hallucinated it. I hunkered down with Nadya and Captain to wait for nightfall and our signal to cross.

Well, considering the IAA in the tower hadn’t spotted us yet, maybe our luck was on the up. On a lark, I checked Hermes’s card to see if the message had changed.

Don’t hold your breath.

I shoved it back in my pocket. Great, just fucking fantastic . . .

The nice thing about the desert is it gets dark fast. With only the artificial light from the IAA tower, the stars were out and bright. I like looking at stars. I don’t get the chance in Las Vegas and Seattle with the city lights.

On a positive note, the night had cooled down, but my fever was running hot again.

“It is dark enough to go now, no?” Nadya whispered beside me.

“Have to wait for Rynn’s signal. Does us no good to get across and have the IAA waiting for us with guns when we stroll out,” I said, and added, “though it’d sure be nice if he’d hurry up on that.”

“I heard that,” Rynn said into my headset. “Take a look over at the tower, carefully. They watch that river for boats.”

“Don’t get spotted, we got it the first time.” I rolled onto my back and edged out from underneath our hiding spot—a river-worn stone ledge. I focused my goggles until I could see the tower and its front door. “All right, I see the tower.”

“Now watch the door. There will be guards entering the lighthouse any minute.”

Like clockwork, I watched as the two guards did indeed round the tower and enter through the front entrance.

“They’re in,” I said.

“That’s the guard change—there should be two coming out any minute. Once that happens, go. I can drop the infrared camera and give you about twenty minutes without raising any major alarms.”

“How the hell do you plan on doing that?” The IAA was notorious about sounding alarms for next to nothing.

“Easy, the generator is outside. I’ll run a power surge through it—out here, with the temperature fluctuation, a blown fuse isn’t far-fetched.”

“Rynn, I hate being the voice of reason here, but depending on the IAA not to act—”

“Will work because I’m watching the tower and the elf is tracking their communications.”

“I thought Carpe was breaking into World Quest.”

“With proper motivation, the elf can do two things at once,” he said.

I decided not to ask what motivation Rynn used. Still pissed about Carpe hijacking and crashing our cargo plane . . .

The door to the tower opened and two guards walked out.

“Rynn, they’re out.”

“Go.”

Nadya and I shoved the dinghy into the river and leapt on board. I winced as the boat splashed into the water—more noise than I would have liked. The boat started floating downstream, and I kept my eyes on the tower to see if we’d been seen . . . nothing except the flicker of flashlights and the tower disappearing from my immediate sight . . . come to think of it, we were leaving the tower behind awful fast.

Shit, we were being dragged downstream.

Nadya swore and tossed me a paddle. “Go, before they get back online.”

We’d figured that between the two of us, it’d take ten minutes to get across, leaving five to ten to stow the bright yellow boat and make it inside. We hadn’t taken into account battling the current.

I started paddling. Captain, figuring there was now water involved, bellowed from inside my bag to be let out. “No, your claws will puncture the boat—then you’ll really be wet . . . ow!” I tried to dislodge Captain as his claws sunk through the canvas into my back.

“Keep paddling,” Nadya said. “We’re veering to the left, and the current is dragging us off target.”

I swore and got my paddle back in the water, fighting the current as Captain the wonder cat found new ways to torture my back.

The sound of sand scraping against the rubber raft told us we’d made it. We both leapt out of the boat and dragged it onshore. I got my backpack off.

“How much time?” I said, out of breath . . . we had to have four or five minutes left, right?

“You’ve got three,” Rynn replied.

“Shit—” Not only did we have to run back to the entrance, which we hadn’t planned on, but we also had to hide the damn boat and paddles first. Tying it up wasn’t an option. They’d see it once they got the cameras back on. Letting it float upstream was tempting, but I wasn’t willing to test that current or swim across with Captain puncturing my head. I pulled the air tube and started compressing like mad.

“Up there,” Nadya hissed, pointing to another sandstone ledge. I tossed her the paddles while I pushed the rest of the air out.

“You’ve got two minutes left, move.”

Damn it, why won’t air pockets leave? Oh hell, it was good enough. I rolled the dinghy up as best I could.

“Alix, the boat!”

I tossed the deflated raft to Nadya, who shoved it deep into a ledge.

“Time?” I said to Rynn.

“A minute. And you need to run.”

Damn it . . . “Come on,” I said to Nadya, and scrambled up the ledge. A head rush hit me as I pulled myself up—but if it was the curse or the exertion I didn’t have time to sit back and contemplate.

Nadya scrambled up ahead of me and broke into a dead run for the entrance.

I swore and took off after her, forcing my legs to keep up with ­Nadya’s longer stride.

“Run faster, Alix.”

“I hate running,” I said.

“Don’t care, and it’s thirty seconds now,” came Rynn’s voice.

I let Captain out of my backpack. “Work off those cat treats,” I told him, and kept running.

Nadya reached the entrance first and slid behind the recessed rock wall ahead of me. With my goggles I could just make out the entrance/optical illusion.

I grabbed Captain by the harness before he could overshoot and pulled him in after me.

I collapsed against the wall beside Nadya. “Let’s not do that again,” I managed to squeeze out between breaths.

“Do not say that, you will jinx it,” she said.

While the two of us recouped, I flipped on my flashlight and started to look around.

What had been absent in decoration outside Passer’s temple was made up twofold inside. Like the river temple entrances, this one was lined with statues of the Egyptian pantheon, but it distinguished itself with a more cavernous room. If this hall was any indication, the entire complex had been built as if someone really did intend to spend a few thousand years living here. I couldn’t tell for sure with my flashlight, but if I had to guess, I’d say the hieroglyph reliefs beat the river temples in number and intricacy as well. “You seeing what I’m seeing, Nadya?”

She nodded, taking in the expansiveness the same way I was. “The outside might not be much, but this puts the Ramses and Nefertari river temples to shame.”

Carefully, using the map as a guide, we headed into the next chamber. My flashlight showed this one had the same high ceilings as the first, but it stretched out into the cliff side farther than my flashlight beam reached. Statues of the Egyptian pantheon had been used to shore up the ceiling, in lieu of more traditional pillars with hieroglyphs.

I wondered how much of Ramses and Nefertari’s budget had been diverted Passer’s way.

“Main chamber,” Nadya said, glancing down at my map.

The map showed four exits from this room. The one at the back led to the burial room—where all the treasure was—and the left and right ones led to the living quarters and workroom, respectively. All the traps listed on the map were on the way to the burial chamber—no big surprise there. We’d try the workroom first, then treasure and burial rooms, then the living quarters. “Hopefully Passer follows the designed living layout and we find the book in the workroom minus him,” I said.

Nadya snorted but didn’t argue the search plan. Captain stayed close. When there aren’t any vampires, he’s a surprisingly attentive cat.

Flashlights out, we wound our way through the pillars. I counted the gods I recognized off the top of my head: Horus, Anubis, Aken, Ammit, Osiris, Nebthet . . . “Every Egyptian god of the underworld is on display,” I said to Nadya.

My earpiece clicked as someone switched the line on. “Passer was known for his obsession with the underworld—particularly the goddess Ammit,” came Carpe, of all people.

Ammit was the crocodile-headed god of the underworld. No hell for those judged unworthy, just the eating and vanquishing of the soul. I did not need to know about Passer’s obsession with the soul-eating crocodile goddess right now, thank you very much. “Not helping,” I said, wondering how he’d gotten online. Must have switched to line two by accident. I went to switch back to line one, only to find it was already on line one.

“I thought you two were discussing Egyptian gods,” he replied.

“Carpe, what the hell are you doing on Rynn’s line?”

“It’s quiet out here and I wanted to see what was going on. I thought I could help.”

Oh for Christ’s . . .

“This is not one of Alix’s video games,” Nadya said.

“Yet I’m the one who knew about the crocodile goddess. And I call bullshit about relevancy, Alix. The obsession is totally relevant and hints at the types of traps you’re likely to encounter—”

OK, point made, but I wasn’t about to acknowledge it. “Put Rynn back on and go back to getting the map of Syria—need I remind you, the only reason we are here.”

Carpe and I were going to have a little talk when we got out of here about the difference between video games and real life—

I swore as pain spiked through my head . . .

Nadya was staring at me, an intense look in her eyes.

“If Rynn and Carpe are going to fight over you, you could have the decency to tell them to do so in private.”

Wait . . . what? “I think you are grossly misunderstanding the dynamics here—” Besides, the bickering had more to do with Rynn hating the elf, and Carpe being . . . well . . . Carpe, the backstabbing elf.

Nadya snorted, and her lip curled up in a sneer. “I suppose you could just keep leading them on. That does fit with your cruel streak. Rynn will win, by the way—he’s more devious than the elf, and when push comes to shove isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.”

“OK, pretty sure that’s not a compliment—”

Nadya didn’t let me finish. “I still haven’t forgotten what happens to your friends. I’ll run before I’ll let you lock me in a tomb,” she said as she quirked her head to the side. “Maybe I should lock you in here instead.”

A chill ran down the back of my neck, and in spite of my fever I clenched my fists. That was way the hell out of bounds. “Not OK bringing up Marie, not now—”

The pain flared again, forcing me to shut my eyes and clasp both sides of my head until it dissipated. Nadya was watching me with concern. Captain sniffed my shoes and mewed.

“Why would I bring up Marie?” Nadya said.

Nausea hit me as a metallic taste filled my mouth. I covered my mouth to stop myself from puking. Hallucination number two—and I was starting to see a pattern. “Nothing, just the curse rearing its ugly head.”

She frowned but nodded. “We should keep moving and find this stupid book before it happens again.”

I couldn’t have agreed more.

We reached the entrance passageway to Passer’s workroom. The ceiling was lower, only six feet compared to the ten of the main chamber. Nadya and I both checked for traps—twice—before stepping inside.

If you were an ancient Egyptian wielding a substantial amount of power, one of the benefits of a temple like this over a pyramid was the fact that it was harder to find—and had more ways for potential thieves to get lost. Contrary to popular belief, there was not a lot of room inside pyramids. Lots of crawl spaces though, but you were more likely to find a dead end you couldn’t turn yourself around in than treasure.

Temples offered more variety—and booby traps.

Nadya swore as she tripped over a raised tile. I stopped her before she could take another step forward and shone my flashlight down. It was a four-by-four plate depicting a particularly gruesome funeral ceremony, where a man was having his soul devoured by none other than Ammit. I scanned ahead. The floor up until the next room was covered in the larger plate tiles—three per row. Out of the first six, four depicted scenes of the underworld; a deceased’s soul being weighed against the feather of Maat followed by said deceased’s lackluster soul being eaten by Ammit, the jackal-headed Anubis fighting with a god I didn’t recognize, and finally one of Osiris rising from his bier. Two of the tiles—on opposite ends, a row apart—did not fit with the narrative. A picture of the cat goddess Bast, a sun god and protector of the pharaoh, at the far right of the first row, and the scarab beetle Khepry, bringer of the dawn, on the far left of the second row.

I crouched to check the edges. Sure enough, they were mobile. “How much do you want to bet you step on the wrong tile a trap goes off?”

Nadya swore. “I thought the elf said there were no traps this way.”

“I think it was an educated guess more than anything else.” I switched to line two. “Hey Carpe, plate trap, aisle one on the way to the storeroom. I need to know what it does.”

“Oh now you want my help—”

“I can still turn around,” I interrupted.

“Just a sec,” he said, followed by manic typing on the other end. “Ahh, either the floor collapses, plummeting you to your death, or the roof collapses from above.”

“Well, which is it?”

“I don’t know. I’m translating from old architect notes.”

“So go into World Quest and find out,” I said.

“I can’t do that. It isn’t ethical—”

“Ethical? You already broke World Quest. Teleport your avatar over to Egypt and find out what the trap does.”

“The Syrian City of the Dead is an exception. I bartered that for the book, which I already told you is a matter of utmost importance—life and death. It was an ethical exception I was willing to make.”

“So is this, you good-for-nothing elf! And might I point out if we die, you also don’t get your book?”

“So not the same. Besides, you already know it’s a trap—block crushes you from above or the floor drops. Don’t step on the wrong tile—I have complete faith in you. Now get back to finding my book, and I’ll get back to getting your map,” he said, and the line snapped dead.

“Goddamn son of an elven bitch—” I didn’t have nearly enough insults for elves. I switched back to line one.

“What are you doing?” Nadya asked.

“Getting Rynn to ‘persuade’ it out of him,” I said. The line snapped open. “Hey Rynn, feel like beating up Carpe?”

But Rynn wasn’t on the other line. It was Carpe. Again.

“Yeah, hacking Rynn’s comm system is nothing compared to World Quest. Suck it up, princess.”

“Put Rynn on right now or I’m—goddamn it!” The comm line snapped dead.

No concept of the real world . . . “I swear, if we get out of here, I’m going to give Carpe a black eye to go with his nose.”

“Not if I get to him first,” Nadya said.

No point in dreaming about ways to do bodily harm to Carpe now. I looked at the pictures again. Either the two sun gods were safe, or it was the other way around and the underworld gods were safe . . . time to test my theory.

I pulled my pick out of my bag and carefully pressed the wooden handle down on the tile showing Bast.

Nothing happened.

So far so good. I pressed harder, with more confidence. Still nothing happened.

I said a fast prayer to no one in particular and stepped on the tile. Safe.

The next one was a little harder, since it required me to jump to the other side of the hall. I leapt and landed on the scarab beetle—wavering, but otherwise safe.

Now for the next row. This time the lineup was the four sons of Horus—depictions of the sacred organ jars, underworld if I’ve ever seen it. Sekhmet, another cat god, was next—definitely sun. My flashlight beam danced over the third one. A gazelle.

“Nadya, what the hell does the gazelle represent?” I whispered.

“The goddess of the Nile, Satet.”

“Satet? That doesn’t make any sense. Satet’s another sun god.”

“Sekhmet is also a god of war, maybe that’s the distinction.”

Maybe . . . Still, I’d rather know for sure. I reached for my comm to contact Carpe. Instead, my head reeled as another surge of pain struck—a bad one, like right before I started hallucinating. I did not want to be standing on the death plates. “Think fast, Nadya, which one?”

“Ah, Satet, the Nile. It’s safest—”

All right, Nile it was. The Nile tile was diagonal to the scarab beetle I was standing on, so the jump was easy.

I landed on the tile and breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened. I turned my flashlight on the next row. Horus this time, Kuk the frog and serpent god of darkness, and Isis—

The ceiling started to shake.

How the hell had the Nile been wrong? It occurred to me as the first bit of ceiling crumbled that the order had been switched—two sun, one underworld. “Shit, it was the four sons of Horus.” More ceiling crumbled, and I heard the first bang above. Something was coming down a chute, and I had no plans on being here when it landed.

“Nadya, fast—Horus, Kuk, and Isis—”

Another bang against granite sounded above, shaking the temple hall. Well, that was that answered. Ceiling it was . . . Oh hell, screw picking the right tile.

I bolted across Isis, running straight for the end. The ceiling behind me collapsed, and the floor shook as something heavy struck it.

I hit the fifth row of tiles, but instead of something crashing from above, the tile cracked under my feet, spilling me onto my knees as it buckled inwards. Passer hadn’t used one or the other trap, he’d used both.

I did the only thing I could—roll over the cracking tiles and dive for it. The wind was knocked out of me as I collided with solid wall.

“Alix!” Nadya yelled across the pile of stone and pit between us. Considering I’d just collapsed a major artery of the temple, there was no point staying quiet now.

“Yeah—alive,” I said, wincing as I pulled myself up, my head protesting the movement. I aimed my flashlight down the hall. No mummy. “And I can see the workroom from here.” All I had to do was check for the book, then figure a way back across. “We brought rope, right?” I asked.

“If you didn’t, I’m sure I have some lying around. Never want to be caught without rope. All sorts of lovely uses,” came a familiar voice with a dry texture and faint British accent.

Caracalla, the Roman mummy I’d dealt with back in the Alexandria catacombs, stepped out of the shadows. I aimed the flashlight at his face, but unlike in the catacombs, Caracalla didn’t jump back. The bone I’d rammed through his head was gone, replaced by a pair of dark sunglasses. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of sewer. I’d forgotten just how much he smelled . . .

He made a clicking noise, almost like a laugh. “Now what a pleasant surprise, you turning up here. I was promised that might be the case, but I never dreamed so soon.” His mouth widened into a grin. “Seems I made quite a lucrative deal.”

This had to be a hallucination. There was no way Caracalla was here. This was Passer’s tomb, the court sorcerer of Ramses II, for Christ’s sake. Caracalla was a minor mummy from the Ptolemaic age of Egypt—he barely counted as a real mummy.

I swallowed hard and backed towards the workroom as Caracalla took another step towards me. “Where’s Passer? This is his temple.”

Caracalla torqued his head to the side, but the sinew was so dry it was an unnatural movement.

“Him? Ahh, I suppose you would expect him to be here. I’m afraid you are a few days too late. Funny story, after you destroyed my tomb, the IAA swarmed in. I decided it was getting much too crowded and was time to move house, so to speak. As luck would have it, I stumbled across a rather curious benefactor, one who offered me—well, you, to be perfectly honest. Skeptical though I was they’d be able to deliver you, he did throw in this lovely new tomb—much more spacious, no flooding, none of the noise.” Caracalla took another step forward. “As for Passer, when I arrived I found him sleeping in his crypt. I believe he gave up the will to exist many years ago. I’m proud to admit I helped him along.” His eyes glowed red and he took another step closer, blocking off the pit—not that I planned to try and jump it.

“How’s that for a half-rate mummy?”

Of course an insult thrown out in the heat of the moment came back to bite me . . .

“Now now dear, what’s wrong? ‘Cat have your tongue’ is the saying I think they use?”

The headache was back full swing . . . what was the chance I was actually dealing with Caracalla? “You’re a figment of my imagination,” I tried.

“Doubt that, but let’s test the theory.” Caracalla might have grinned—it was hard to tell with part of his skull torn up. Regardless, he swiped at me with his hand. Exposed finger bones sharpened into daggerlike points grazed my jacket.

He was real. “Nadya, we have a problem,” I said as I ducked a second swipe.

Running out of dodging space, I did the only thing I could—­flashlight in hand, I ran for the workroom.

Unlike the reliefs carved elsewhere in the temple, the workroom was decorated in painted hieroglyphs uncannily preserved by lack of light and exposure. There was a slab of rectangular black granite in the center large enough to fit a human. I darted around the other side, putting it between me and Caracalla. I got a look at a few of the painted scenes—jars, organs; like an instructional on mummification.

“I see you found the preparation chamber,” Caracalla said. He darted to the left, then right, trying to make me run within range. Nope, not working—I was happy to wait him out behind the slab of granite.

“I never saw the point of waiting until people were dead to start the process. So much more personal and intimate when the subject is still alive.”

With the lull in Caracalla’s feinting around the table, I had a breath’s worth of break to change my comm channel. “Rynn, need help—”

It wasn’t Rynn who answered though. “Let me guess, you want him to force me to break into World Quest?”

I swore as Caracalla darted around the side after me. “Carpe, put Rynn on now!”

“Not until you promise—”

“Now! Or as soon as this mummy kills me, I swear to God I’m coming back for you.”

There was a soft click, not the electric snap that signified Carpe hanging up. “Alix?” came Rynn’s voice about the same time I found an unused urn under the table and launched it at Caracalla’s head.

“Mummy.” It was all I managed to get out before Caracalla resumed his chase.

“Tell me what’s happening.”

I ducked as Caracalla threw a discarded piece of tablet. “Fewer questions, more help—” I said.

“DMSO cocktail tranquilizer, left pocket of Nadya’s backpack—it will work on Passer.”

“Nadya?” I yelled as I dodged a piece of broken tablet thrown at my shoulder.

“I’ve got it—I can’t see enough to shoot though. You’ll need to come my way.”

Time to figure out who was smarter: me or a two-thousand-year-old mummy.

I darted left, then right—further into Caracalla’s reach than was safe. He took the bait and chased around my end. I dropped to all fours and slid under the table . . . My fingers brushed parchment—a leather-bound book.

Maybe this wasn’t a complete waste after all. Hoping it was Carpe’s spell book, I grabbed it before bolting back into the hall as Caracalla growled behind me.

“Get ready,” I said to Nadya as I bolted for the hall.

Caracalla was still growling, but I didn’t bother checking over my shoulder. I didn’t want to see how close he was.

“Alix, I need you closer—and use your flashlight, I can’t see a damn thing.”

Use your flashlight on the mummy chasing you while running . . . Yeah, that was going to go well . . .

I skidded to a stop a foot away from the pit and aimed the flashlight at Caracalla.

“Duck,” Nadya yelled.

I dropped to the floor and heard the pop of the tranquilizer gun. Three yellow-tailed darts lodged into Caracalla’s face and chest.

He plucked out a dart from his forehead and examined it. “Hmmm, interesting weapon,” he said, sniffing the concoction pooling at the tip with what was left of his nose.

“Rynn, it isn’t working.”

“Did you miss?”

“No, there are two darts sticking out of his chest. Caracalla isn’t even fazed. He’s just more curious than anything else.”

“Wait—Caracalla? Are you hallucinating again? This is Passer’s ­temple.”

“Apparently Caracalla took out Passer and moved in after I trashed his tomb, because apparently someone suggested I might be stopping in. Know anything about that, Carpe?”

“Hey! I don’t sell people to mummies!” Carpe said.

“You hijacked our plane, not a giant leap,” I said.

“You think I enjoy stealing airplanes and getting punched by friends who now hate me?”

“We are so not friends anymore,” I said, keeping my eyes on Caracalla.

“Enough,” Rynn said. “As much as I hate to say it, the elf wouldn’t have sold you out to the mummy.”

“Who did?”

“Someone else who wants the book. I wasn’t screwing around when I said this was life and death. And you seriously think I enjoy coercing my friends into doing things they don’t want to do, Alix?” Carpe added.

“Yes!”

“Knock it off, both of you. I didn’t pack anything for Caracalla,” Rynn said.

He added something else after that, which I’m sure would have been useful, but my attention was on the mummy, who tossed the dart to the side and started towards me again.

“I’m curious, now that you’ve given it your all, I wonder what will you try next?”

“Alix!” I turned in time to catch the rope Nadya threw. I wound it around my arm, testing the anchor to a statue. It held.

Now or never. I shoved the book in my jacket and leapt off the edge of the pit. I grunted as I hit the wall on the opposite side. Nadya started pulling the rope up while I climbed.

“Clever,” Caracalla said. “But you forget one important detail.”

“What? That you’re a half-rate mummy?”

“I can jump.” He took three strides back before leaping over the pit, landing a few feet away from us.

I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut. . . . I backed up in one direction while Nadya backed up in the other. Catching the movement, Caracalla turned his attention on her.

Yeah, not happening. I picked up a piece of granite and chucked it at his head. “Hey, half-rate mummy, over here!”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that monsters are predictable. They don’t like being insulted. Caracalla turned back towards me and closed in. Not that I had a plan or anything.

I tapped my comm. “Rynn, any ideas you have about defeating this guy would be awesome about now.”

But before Rynn had a chance to answer, Captain barreled out in front of me, hackles up and hissing a storm at Caracalla. Yeah, monsters are predictable. Cats not so much.

“Captain, not a vampire!” I started.

Captain, in the throes of attack cat, wasn’t having any of it.

I searched for a rock, anything to throw at Caracalla before Captain reached him.

But as Captain hissed and spit, Caracalla backed up . . .

Now, Maus have no effect on mummies whatsoever. Mummies being scared of cats was a myth, based on some nonsense of cats being guardians of the underworld. Scourge of vampires everywhere, yes, but guardian of the underworld Captain was not.

Through a combination of whatever was firing through Captain’s walnut-sized brain and whatever the hell Caracalla believed Captain could do to him, the effect was the same. Caracalla was backing up towards the pit’s edge.

Well, when opportunity presents itself . . . I kicked Caracalla in the sweet spot, grabbed my cat by his harness, and pushed Caracalla over the edge.

Nadya stared at me, jaw open.

“Start running. I have a sinking suspicion he might crawl out.”

We tore back towards the entrance and I pressed the communicator. “Rynn?”

I thought I heard his voice, but there was static. Shit, must be the part of the temple we were in. I pressed line two and tried Carpe—no answer either. Figures, he waits until I need to talk to him not to answer.

A small, cautious part of my brain thought we should make sure the coast was clear of IAA before bolting out in the open. Most of my brain agreed full heartedly we did not want to be in this temple when Caracalla crawled out of the pit . . .

I crossed the entrance a few paces ahead of Nadya and Captain.

Meaning I hit the trip wire first.

I landed flat on my face. I was aware of Nadya pulling up short behind me, cursing in Russian, and heard the click of safeties that told me multiple guns were pointed in our direction.

Damn, I hate the IAA . . .

I ignored the ringing in my head and pushed myself onto my forearms, hoping to get a good look at how many agents were pointing guns at us.

It wasn’t the IAA, or local Egyptians—not even Sudanese. Too tall and not the right ethnic background. If it wasn’t for where we were, I would have sworn we were surrounded by a group of Somalians.

What the hell would the Somali be doing staking out a tomb?

I pushed myself up to kneeling and looked to see who was in charge. Captain was nowhere to be seen. Here’s hoping he stayed hidden until Rynn and Carpe showed up.

One of the men, the shortest of the lot and the only one not pointing a gun at me, stepped forward, a fixed smile never leaving his face.

“You have something of mine. How fortuitous. And here we thought we would have to retrieve it ourselves.” His English was good and the accent suggested he’d been educated in London. He crouched down to pick up the spell book that had spilled out from my jacket.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked.

His smile widened. “Why, the Owl, of course. Antiquities thief extraordinaire.”

You know I often find myself saying things couldn’t possibly get worse.

I need to stop that. I also need to come up with a filter. “Oh you got to be fucking kidding me. You’re the assholes pretending to be the Owl?”

I didn’t get much more past that. A gun butt to the head will do that to you.

Well . . . at least for once it wasn’t the supernaturals taking potshots at me.

This time it was Somali pirates.