01 Babylon Rising (32 page)

Keep going, fellas. Just a few more verses
. He concentrated on the haunting sound and felt his focus slipping. He willed the hands of his watch to move faster. Then, just as his head began to throb and his grip on the real world began to loosen, he heard a clatter of dust and rocks and craned his neck to look behind him.

What he saw made his heart jam in his throat.

Framed in the hole in the tunnel wall where he had last seen Isis, a ghastly apparition now appeared, as if the heathen chanting had summoned up a demoness. Lit from below by the flashlight, her corpse-white face seemed to be emitting an unnatural glow of its own as it floated unsupported in the darkness.

For a crazy moment be wasn’t sure if it really was Isis, then reality took hold again and he sprang forward. As he’d hoped, the three men were now on their feet, gesturing toward Isis in horrified silence. They didn’t seem to notice as he stumbled past them toward the pole and the glowing Serpent, but who knew how long they’d buy Isis’s circus act? He bent down to grasp the shoulder of the unconscious girl.

She was not restrained in any way and she was as stiff as a stone angel.
Let’s hope she’s not already playing that role
, Murphy thought. If she was still alive, then they must have drugged her into this unconscious state, and it could be a mistake to try to bring her awake suddenly, but whatever the consequences, Murphy figured they would be better than being slaughtered by the Serpent worshipers.

After two firm shakes of her shoulders, the girl’s eyes shot open and she started to scream at the sight of Murphy. He was counting on Isis keeping the men completely distracted, but to be certain be covered her mouth with one band while be put his other to his own to try to mime
quiet
. The girl’s eyes were nearly popping out of her head with fear, with no sign of any drug aftereffects, but she managed to nod that she understood Murphy’s gesture for silence.

He rose and turned toward the pole holding the Serpent’s body. Its fiery glow in the reflection of the blazing torches was mesmerizing. He reached up and with trembling fingers began untying the hemp cords securing the bronze segment to the pole. Murphy held it in his hands and marveled at the weight of it, which seemed to perfectly match the feel of the tail.

His study was cut short abruptly as a shout arose behind
him from the three sacrificers. Their attention had been torn from Isis by the sight of the girl running toward the hole in the wall. They stopped gesturing toward the escaping sacrifice when one of them spied Murphy holding their icon. They dropped their interest in either female and turned toward him with the full fury of their spoiled evening about to explode upon him.

They advanced on Murphy, grunting with rage, knife blades raised, and showing none of the signs of their trancelike sluggishness of a moment before.

Murphy was out of ideas. He couldn’t run. That would leave Isis at their mercy. And there was no way he could take on three knife-wielding maniacs and hope to win. He had done his best; there was nothing else he could do. He hoped Isis would have the presence of mind to run back the way they’d come while they were butchering him.

He tried to suppress his fear and began to pray. In a few minutes he would be seeing Laura again.

He was shaken out of his reverie as the chanting started again. But it was different now. Higher-pitched. A woman’s voice. He looked over the shoulders of his attackers and realized it was Isis. She was pointing an imperious hand in his direction and pouring out a stream of gibberish in a strangely commanding voice. At least it sounded like gibberish to him. The three men had stopped in their tracks and were looking back in her direction, mouths gaping, as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

While their attention was diverted, Murphy made his move, but as he rushed past them a hand lashed out and he felt
a stabbing pain in his side. He fell to one knee, expecting the next blow to slice through his throat. Then a sound halfway between a scream and a growl cut through the darkness and he heard the three men fall to the ground.

Isis was revving it up now, barking furiously and waving her thin arms in wide circles. Whatever she was saying, they seemed to have gotten the message. Throwing caution to the wind, Murphy scrambled past her and into the tunnel. He grabbed her arm and she turned a furious look on him as if she were outraged that a mere mortal had dared to manhandle a goddess.

“Come on, goddess, snap out of it,” he whispered. We’ve got to get out of here before your fan club realizes they’ve been had.”

Isis laughed contemptuously but allowed him to steer her back the way they’d come. “I don’t think they’ll be going anywhere for a while. Not unless they want to end up as food for the scorpion men.”

“I thought you didn’t speak their lingo,” Murphy said as he hustled her down the tunnel.

“It came to me eventually. A dialect of Terammasic. Dead for a thousand years supposedly.”

“And you just happen to speak it?”

“I learned it at the university. Just for fun. It’s such an oddity, I thought somebody ought to keep it alive.”

“And what were you yelling at them? It got their attention all right.”

They’d passed the fork and were rapidly approaching the junction where they’d entered the tunnels. Murphy couldn’t hear any signs of pursuit.

“I just reminded them they owed their miserable existences to the creation goddess, and if they touched my familiar dog-spirit they’d be sorry.”

Murphy boosted her onto the first rung. “Your dog-spirit? That’s the best you could think of for me was your dog-spirit?”

“I was going to call you my snake-spirit, but I didn’t think you look believably evil.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Murphy, I can go back and tell them you’re a Biblical archaeologist if you’d prefer.”

“On second thought, dog-spirit is just fine,” Murphy grunted.

She slithered over the top and took the belly of the Serpent from him as he scrambled after her. Together they heaved the stone slab back into place and sat back against the wall, the bizarre world they had just left now banished like a terrifying dream.

“What do you think happened to that poor girl?” Isis said after a while.

Murphy held up a scrap of cloth. “It looks like she made it out. This is a bit of the dress she was wearing that was caught on a jagged edge of the handholds.” He stared at Isis. With her eyes closed, her face still looked ghostly in the moonlight. “Nice work down there, Dr. McDonald. Quite a cabaret act you pulled off.”

She bolted to her feet and started brushing the dust off her pants. “It was nothing. My father always said I was a reincarnation of some goddess or other. I guess it comes naturally to me.” She seemed embarrassed now, as if Murphy had seen her
naked and they could never just be friends again in the same way as before. “Come on, let’s get back to the hotel,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I could do with a large glass of scotch.”

Murphy didn’t reply, and Isis wondered if he disapproved. She was about to tell him that she would drink a whole bottle if she felt like it, thank you very much, after what he’d put her through, when she noticed that his eyes were closed. Then, as she watched, he slid slowly down the wall until his head was resting in the dirt.

It was only then that she noticed the blood.

“
MISS KOVACS IS
here, sir.”

Shane Barrington had been looking forward to her arrival at his office. “Send her in. And I do not wish to be disturbed.”

The woman who stood in the doorway seemed subtly different from the Stephanie Kovacs who’d first walked into his office a month earlier. She still dressed in that provocative-but-don’t-mess-with-me way, stilettos and a short skirt offset by her buttoned-up jacket and black turtleneck, and her carefully disordered hair and subtly applied makeup reinforced the image of an attractive woman who had more important things to do than look good. Her stride was still confident, assertive, stopping just short of aggressive as she walked to the single chair in front of his desk and sat down.

But her eyes told him she had undergone a dramatic change since they had last met. Instead of shining with that
morally superior glow her viewers had come to love, they were dull and vacant, as if something behind them had died. They were the eyes of someone who’d sold her soul.

“Stephanie. Thanks for dropping by. I wanted to thank you personally for the work you’ve been doing.”

She looked at him warily. “I’m sorry the church-bombing story didn’t pan out. The FBI were hot for it at first, but now they’ve gotten all cautious. And Dean Fallworth is just a blowhard. Nothing he gave me was enough to nail Murphy the way you wanted. Believe me, I—”

Barrington waved a hand dismissively “It’s okay, Stephanie. You did well. We just wanted to free up some of Professor Murphy’s time, plant some seeds in the public’s mind. You’ll be uncovering more revelations about our evangelical friends in time.”

Stephanie regarded him with the weary indifference of someone who’s already lost the most important thing she has. “You said ‘we.’ I’ve been wondering who’s really behind all this. You don’t strike me as the type who gets hot under the collar about religion, Mr. Barrington.”

He smiled. “Ever the fearless investigative reporter. I guess that bloodhound’s nose of yours never stops sniffing. Even when I’ve got you chained and muzzled,” he added, enjoying the sudden blush that colored her cheeks.

He got up and went to a smoked-glass cabinet. “Let me get you a drink.”

She shook her head. “Not while I’m working.”

He laughed. “Come on.” He took out a dark bottle and began untwisting the wire holding the cork in place. “A glass of champagne.”

“Champagne? Are we celebrating something?”

“I hope so, Stephanie. I very much hope so.”

He eased the cork into a napkin with a muffled pop and poured two glasses. She accepted hers expressionlessly.

“So what’s the toast?”

He raised his glass toward her with a dark smile. “To marketplace domination, of course.”

They clinked glasses. “I’ll always drink to that,” she said wryly.

He put his glass down and leaned against the desk. She was uncomfortably aware of his closeness.

“It could soon be a reality, Stephanie. Barrington Communications is the most powerful communications business on the planet, as you know. But that’s just the beginning. Soon there could be so much more.”

She looked at him skeptically. “What are you going to do, run for president?”

“I’m talking about
real
power, Stephanie. The sort you can only dream about.”

She took a sip of her champagne. “Well, here’s to you, Mr. Barrington. But I don’t understand what this has got to do with me.”

“Please, call me Shane.” He stood and walked to the window. “Power and wealth can bring you many things, Stephanie. But I’ll be honest, it can be lonely at the top. There have been women, of course, since my divorce, but when you have as much money as I do, it’s hard to find someone you can really trust. Someone you can really share with. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

She was beginning to think she understood completely.

He’d bought her soul, and now he wanted the rest of her. Her first instinct was to panic, but then she started to think about it. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad deal. If she was going to sell out, she might as well get the best price. Barrington seemed to think he was going to be king of the world. She could do worse than be his queen.

She walked over to him and together they looked down over the city. After a while an image from her recent bout of Bible study came into her mind. Satan and Jesus on the mountaintop. Hadn’t he offered Him the kingdoms of the world if He would just bow down and worship him?

She leaned her head on Barrington’s shoulder. Well, she was smarter than that. Mr. Barrington … Shane … wouldn’t even have to ask her twice.

ISIS WATCHED DR. AZIZ
disappear into the elevator, bulging black bag tucked under his arm, and closed the door behind her. At the last count she spoke a dozen varieties of Arabic as well as another ten distinct Near and Middle Eastern languages, adding up to who knew how many millions of words. But she was beginning to realize that only one really mattered.

Baksheesh
.

For a few dollars, the young man at the front desk had been happy to call Dr. Aziz, assuring them he was “very discreet.” And the doctor himself, for another reasonable consideration, had been delighted to patch Murphy up. As she ushered him out, he’d given Isis an old roué’s gold-toothed grin. “No police, no police!” he said, putting a finger to his lips.

Whether she could trust either of them not to play both ends of the street and bring the cops running, she didn’t know. If it came to it, she and Murphy hadn’t done anything illegal, had they? As far as she knew, they hadn’t killed anybody, and as for taking the belly of the Serpent, it was hard to say whom it really belonged to. She was beginning to think Hezekiah had had the right idea: It would be better if no one had it.

She leaned back against the door, her body suddenly heavy. “You’ll live, apparently. He’s given me some nasty-looking painkillers which I think are probably for horses, but seeing as you’re stubborn as a mule … Murphy?”

His eyes were closed and he looked very pale, but she thought she could see the slow rise and fall of his breathing. She approached the bed and felt an impulse to touch him.
Just to make sure he’s really alive
, she told herself.

His skin was cool but she could definitely feel the blood pulsing just above his collarbone. “Good night, Murphy,” she whispered. “Pleasant dreams.”

Returning to her own room, she lay on the bed and closed her eyes for a few minutes, letting the confusing rush of emotions swirl around her head. Eventually she took a long breath, blew it out slowly, and sat upright. Work. That was the only way to regain her equilibrium.

She poured herself a glass of Famous Grouse, arranged a dozen sharpened pencils next to a stack of yellow legal pads, then placed the belly of the Serpent in the pool of light cast by the desk lamp. It was going to be a long night.