Chapter 4
My backside hits the sand hard, sending painful jolts up my spine. I throw my arms out in an attempt to stop myself from falling over, forcing my pack off my shoulders.
Jesus H. Christ.
Coughing and sputtering, my lungs burn, desperate for air. I squeeze the scorching desert beneath me and open my eyes—and immediately toss a sand-crusted arm over my face. After being inside the dark temple for so long, the sweltering sunlight burns my corneas.
I sit there a moment, waiting for them to adjust. My chest heaves, dragging hot air in and out.
The stale aquifer water continues to spill out after me, drenching my back.
Once I’ve caught my breath, I roll to the side to avoid it and end up coating myself in more sand.
But I don’t care, because I realize that I did it.
I fucking did it. I retrieved the Amulet of Amun and somehow managed not to die in the process.
Leaning back, I laugh and whoop. “I’m alive!”
Eyes better adjusted to the sunshine, I reach for my throat—finding the gold chain still around my neck.
I grin and pull out the Amulet of Amun. I recall the way it warmed against my chest right before the mechanism clicked, allowing me to escape.
Yet, it doesn’t look any different. I must’ve imagined it, from the lack of oxygen going to my brain.
I grasp the scarab tightly in my palm, and I swear it pulses from my touch. “Thank God.”
A creak sounds behind me, and I glance back at the second trap door I’ve fallen through today as it closes shut. As much as I wish all that history hadn’t been destroyed, I’m glad to be out of there. There’s no price you could pay me to go back in.
No longer in danger of drowning, I thank Osiris, too, that he spared me even after I desecrated his tomb. Sure, I got out on my own, but if the gods happen to be real, there’s no reason to anger them by being ungrateful.
Struggling to get up from the wet sand and soaked to the bone, I glance down at the glass face of my nonna’s watch, a Rolex Oyster.
Her colleagues at the university gifted it to her when she had her thirty-year anniversary last year, allowing me to borrow it for this expedition specifically because it’s waterproof.
Rolex gave the first one made to British endurance swimmer Mercedes Gleitze, who wore it during a swim across the English Channel in 1927 that she called the “Vindication Swim”.
As I hold it up to my ear, I know for certain it does what they say it can, the seconds ticking away without a hitch.
I pluck my pack from where it sits half-buried in the wet sand and pull my arms through the straps, ready to be done with the Temple of Seti I. Especially since it appears to be quite done with me.
Peering around me to piece together where I ended up, I don’t recognize anything. I wasn’t inside the ancient tubing for very long, which means I’m at the temple still. I just need to get to the car. I pat my pocket, thankful to feel both the car keys and my switchblade inside.
I follow along the ruined mudbrick wall, exhaustion threatening to weigh me down.
Once I turn a corner, a long line of palm trees appears, trailing off into the rippling distance. I must be at the southern edge of the temple. Something dark and metal shimmers at the end of them. I rub the water out of my eyes to make sure I’m not seeing things.
The car.
I sprint toward it as best I can with my injured knee, praying Claude is still knocked out cold inside the temple.
Despite my haste, though, I feel as if I’m running through quicksand.
I clamber for purchase on the uneven ground, my hands scraping on the rugged edges of the temple walls and drawing blood.
My legs haven’t gained full mobility yet and my right knee stings like a son-of-a-bitch.
I continue on, knowing I can’t afford to waste another moment trying to recover my strength.
Not when Claude could wake at any moment.
Eventually, I pass the front of the temple and spot the car glimmering in the heat of the day like a mirage.
In fact, I could swear there are two of them.
I blink again, but the image doesn’t change.
The waters of the Osireion could have hallucinogenic properties.
That must be why I thought the amulet was acting strangely.
Should bode well for the long drive back to Cairo.
I’m nearly there, relief and adrenaline numbing the sharper aches—when a man in a beige uniform with a pistol in his hand steps out from behind the closest car and directly into my path.
“Halt!”
I stumble unwittingly at his command, falling backward. My rear end hits the ground hard enough that my soaking wet bag slides off my shoulders again and plops onto the sand behind me. Grunting, I blow the small, damp hairs out of my face. What now?
Before berating him, I grasp the amulet and shove it back beneath my shirt, hoping whoever this man is didn’t notice it.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, wincing while I brush the sand out of the shallow wounds on my hands. “Doesn’t anyone say hello anymore?”
Naturally, he doesn’t respond.
I don’t need him to. What I do need is for him to tell me who the hell he is and what he’s doing at the Temple of Seti I.
Squinting into the bright sun, I stare up at my aggressor. He’s not much older than I am. Dressed in the beige uniform of a British soldier—still pristine, unmarred by war—his slicked-black russet hair is tucked beneath his cap. Light eyebrows border dark green eyes set atop rounded cheeks.
He doesn’t hold my attention for long, though.
Behind him stands a tall Egyptian man, who I’d wager is closer to my age than the soldier. His tan pants and white button-up shirt fit his form well. Too well.
Short ebony locks of feathered hair frame a strong jaw and full lips.
Bright brown eyes tucked beneath dark eyebrows hide behind small, circular spectacles perched on a nose that’s been broken at least once.
The top button of his white shirt, tucked into tan linen pants, is popped open.
A gun rests in the holster on his right hip.
There’s something about him… Despite the soldier’s gun still in my face, I can’t take my eyes off him.
I glance down and flutter my lashes, pushing the thought away. It’s been a long day.
“Cheers on the one-word syllable,” I tell the soldier, climbing to my feet and brushing the sand from my bum. I’m not looking forward to finding wherever else it may have gotten into. “Had you not said anything, I might’ve kept going.”
The soldier blinks at me but once again doesn’t respond. I grimace. Damn Brits—no sense of humor.
The second young man comes to stand next to him.
He’s taller than I first thought, a head more than my own five-feet-six-inches.
His brown eyes—deep and rich, like aged leather—are kind behind the pristine, black-rimmed lenses.
They’re soft, unlike the other sharp angles of him. He clears his throat.
“That’s quite enough, Williams,” the man says, his voice deeper than expected. He surprises me further by speaking with a British accent similar to the soldier’s, if not more polished.
The soldier immediately lowers the gun and places it back in its holster.
The second man pushes his glasses up his nose, his gaze flicking across me with mild curiosity. I fold my arms over my chest, suddenly aware that my cream-colored button-up is practically sheer from my unplanned swim in the Osireion.
Meeting my eyes again, the man runs a hand through his hair. “Apologies for that. My name is Bes Belzoni. I’m an emissary from the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo.”
The hell you are.
He holds out his hand for me to shake. I don’t move. Not falling for that again.
“I was fed the same line earlier today, and it nearly got me killed. So, forgive me if I don’t trust you.”
“And who fed you this line?” the young man—Bes—asks.
“The man waiting for me at Luxor,” I clarify, working to douse my temper.
“A man who also claimed to know my nonna and offered me the curator’s name.
Unless you can provide me with something more substantial than that”—I start to bend toward my pack, grateful I left the gun near the top—“I fear our conversation is coming to a close.”
In response, Bes reaches into his pocket. My pulse stutters at what he might procure, when he offers me a slip of paper. I pause. A telegram, maybe.
I snatch it from him and move out of arm’s length again. He raises his hands wordlessly.
Unfolding it, I read the message to myself:
My granddaughter Amelia will be waiting at the airfield in Luxor on August third around nine hundred hours. She will no doubt be suspicious of you but I hope showing her this telegram from me will help.
The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are heaven’s lieutenants.
Lucia Fiore
I snicker. That’s Nonna, alright. The Shakespeare quote, while terribly antiquated, is one we’ve used before in letters to each other when she’s been away, to ensure their authenticity.
That doesn’t mean this Bes fellow obtained the telegram because he works for the museum.
I raise a brow at him. “You could’ve stolen this.”
One side of lips tip up and he scoffs. “Your tita was right about you, at least.”
He reaches into his shirt pocket next, taking out a thick, cream-colored card and offering that to me as well.
I scrutinize what I deduce to be a museum identification card, the edges of the thick paper worn.
The heading at the top reads, in French, “Service des Antiquités de l’égypte, Musée du Caire”, with what I imagine to be the equivalent in Arabic scrawled underneath.
Handwritten in ink below that is his name—Bes Belzoni—and title—magasinier, or storekeeper.
I skip over his department, searching instead for the museum director’s signature and the circular ink stamp of the crown.
I find both exactly where they should be.