Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 03 - Cairo Caper (16 page)

The chilly breeze kept whipping through the burial shaft, strong enough to make the torches flicker but, so far, not blow them out. I kept my left hand on the left wall. It was a stunt I learned for finding my way in mazes. As long as I kept the same hand on the same wall I could find our way back. Or was it the opposite hand on the opposite wall?

Well, so far the burial shaft had been easy, not maze-like at all. Okay, maybe a little. I was so focused on Roger that I might have missed a twist or turn or two or three. But I was pretty sure I hadn’t. Pretty sure.

The rough surface abraded my palm so I started lifting my hand and plopping it on the wall. I continued down, plop, plop, plopping until I plopped my hand on a scarab, an actual live bug. Yuck! I shook my hand till I thought my fingers would fly off. The light from the torch wasn’t bright enough to show the nasty things on the rough walls so I worked my hand into my sleeve and plopped a little harder, hoping to mash them before they could run up my sleeve. I shuddered to think of it.

I heard Fiona fall twice. I didn’t stop for her or look back. Petri would take care of her. I yelled Roger’s name over and over and over. How could he have come this way in the dark? And why? I soldiered on. Lightheadedness set in. Was the air bad or was I yelling too much? I was getting dizzier. I plopped my hand against the wall but the wall wasn’t there.

Ass over teacups
never made sense before, but as I tumbled down a steep smooth slope, chased by my torch, it became abundantly clear. I was down the rabbit hole with fire cascading behind me. Yikes! My long skirt bunched up to my waist as my torch bounced over me and showered my butt with tiny sparks. I brushed them off frantically. Oh, oh. Now I was catching up to the torch.

I yanked my skirt over my butt, rolled on my back, and tobogganed my body to the side of the torch, grabbing it as I slid by. I was in something that, in the poor light emanating from the torch, looked like a natural watercourse. Maybe it was part of an ancient underground river or tidal flow. I started to slow. The tube was leveling out. Then there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Not the white light that people say they see when they’re about to croak, but a spooky blue shade. I slid out of the tube and smacked into a Smart Car-sized boulder. I groaned and stared at the ceiling of what appeared to be a natural chamber about the size of a planetarium. I didn’t want to move. I had more sore places than I had places. I hauled myself up and propped my elbows on the rock.

A pool of water glowed blue and illuminated the grotto. The color transmuted from dark to light to silver with swirls of black and purple. Hieroglyphics covered the gold-flecked walls.

A mural depicting a team of priests preparing a body for embalming extended twenty feet along a nearby wall. One of the priestly figures was inserting a hook in the nostril of the dead man, and removing his brain as it was held to be a useless organ. They were pretty much right on. Most people never get around to using theirs.

Canopic jars painted in vivid reds, turquoise, and orange stood waiting for the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines. Somewhere I’d read that the ancient Egyptians thought the heart was the source of all wisdom and so they left it in the embalmed body.

I lifted my torch above my head illuminating the far side of the cavern. Roger sat at the edge of the pool in his lotus-thinking position with his hand outstretched dangling the Multi-phasic Unidirectional Density Diviner over the water. My legs buckled. The walls closed in on me. I choked out his name but he didn’t respond. I wobbled around the pool and knelt beside him.

He didn’t move. I wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe he was in a trance or merely in archaeological deep-think. I placed my hand on his cheek and he turned to me. His eyes began to focus.

“Roger, it’s me. Are you okay?”

He nodded.

“How did you get here?”

“My left foot.”

“Which one?”

“My left-left foot, the one with the medallion. The torches went out and it dragged me here.”

At the mention of the medallion, I felt a thump on my leg like a cat head butting me and my chest was pain free, no fire ants, no hot pizza cheese, not even mild sunburn.

“I thought maybe the MUDD would indicate the tomb is beneath this pool, but so far nothing.” Roger paused and looked me up and down. “You’ve had a rough go. Why’s your hair wet?”

“It’s a long story.”

A loud bellow assaulted my ears. It was either a wounded moose or Darcy. I jerked my head around, praying for a moose.

Darcy, thundering down the steps, robes flowing, hair perfect. “Oooooohhh, there you are. I was so worried…”

She slammed into me and reached for Roger. “… that you would find the tomb without me.”

Her momentum almost knocked me in the pool. My upper body cantilevered over the edge. I threw my non-torch hand back to try to prevent gravity from finishing the job. Roger clamped on it and pulled. I saw Petri and Fiona running down the steps.

Darcy grabbed at the MUDD. “So this is your secret device.”

We were a three-person pile with me on the bottom hanging over the pool, the MUDD moving over my head as Roger pulled back to protect it. Darcy’s hand banged into it and knocked it straight up.

In one of those emergency-situation tricks of perception, it seemed like it was falling in slow motion. I might be able to snag it with my teeth. The MUDD came closer. I opened my mouth. Closer still. It was almost to me. I lunged and snapped my teeth. It splashed into the pool. I obviously didn’t have a future as a performer at SeaWorld.

Petri and Fiona piled on, trying to haul me to safety without losing their torches. If we ever got untangled, I was going to do some serious damage to Darcy or die trying. Like some bizarre act from Cirque du Soleil we rolled away from the pool in one big ball. We tried to unknot without setting anybody on fire.

Roger was the first out. He leaped to the edge of the pool and teetered there, staring into the water.

I stumbled next to him. “How deep’s the water? Maybe we can scoop it out?”

He shook his head. “Three thousand years ago this was an embalming pool used to dry bodies out. There’s no telling what that fluid is by now but it isn’t water. I’m sure it’s toxic, if not lethal. Don’t touch it. Don’t let it splash on you.”

The ground thumped. Darcy trundled by and jumped into the water. “You’re a bunch of weenies,” she yelled. “And weenies never win.”

She doggie paddled, gazing into the luminous liquid. “I’ll find that gadget and then Cleopatra’s tomb will be mine, all mine, all mine I say.”

The only thing missing was a muahahaha. She was even nuttier than I thought. She made a victory fist then sank until her blonde hair floated on the surface. The fist changed to a desperate wave. A loud slurp came out of the pool. Darcy was sucked under.

We stood speechless and motionless. After a few seconds the surface of the pool heaved. Had she survived her suicidal plunge or was her semi-synthetic body exploding to the top?

The pool released a giant air bubble that sounded remarkably like a belch.

“Oh shit!” Roger said. He squeezed my hand. The water slowly swirled giving off an inky, iridescent glimmer like a mirror in the dark. I thought I saw shadows down deep.

I finally squeaked out, “What can we do? How do we save her?”

He shook his head, his eyes never leaving the pool. “She’s not coming back.”

I pulled my hand from his. “We have to try. There must be a way.” I knelt and leaned over the edge.

He pulled me back and held me to his chest.

Petri and Fiona stepped next to us. She buried her face in his chest. He patted her head.

Darcy might have been mad as a hatter, but she didn’t deserve to die. “We have to find her body and bury her… if she’s down there.”

“Perhaps in time when the temple has been explored and we understand this pool…” Roger said staring at the surface.

I closed my eyes and willed a second belch, one that would throw her out of the pool. We had our differences, and it was her greed that drove her into the pool but… I pictured her at the bottom clutching the Multi-phasic Unidirectional Density Diviner and grinning.

A stench wafted into the chamber. I opened my eyes. The pool had not bent to my will and returned Darcy. I peeked over my shoulder, seeking the source of the smell, and expecting the worst. I wasn’t disappointed.

Chapter Twenty-nine

The stench had a familiar face. And the stench itself was familiar. Dead flowers and toilet deodorizer. The eau de choice of my unfavorite conman Tickemoff, still wearing his home-brewed perfume. Toilet water had a different meaning in his line of fragrances.

He dashed into the grotto tripping over his galabia and banging his mandals on the edge of the pool. His eyes twirled like pinwheels in a sandstorm.

I punched Roger in the shoulder. “Seems like the tomb is about as secret as the medallion and the MUDD, Doctor Jolley.” I turned to the little hustler. “How did you find us?”

“Transmitter in small lady’s pocket. No charge. I stay close because I know you need Tickemoff help soon. All tomb raiders need. Very pretty lady named Lara, Lara something, need my help last year, maybe year before. Hard to remember. All tombs run together after a while.”

Fiona fumbled in her jacket and came up with a small compass. She passed it to Petri who used his pocketknife to remove the back, exposing a small electronic thingy about the size of a small square of chocolate.

Tick smiled. “Latest technology. Transmits for nine or ten days, depending on barometric pressure. Working deal to sell to CIA.” His smile disappeared and he shook his hands nervously as if drying his nails. “You must leave now! Everyone is how you say… vacuuming? Many, many green locusts are coming. A giant cloud will bury temple!”

That one had me stumped. I thought a couple more seconds. “You mean
evacuating
.”

“Yes, yes, evacuuming. Must hurry.” A thin spray of spit flew from his lips.

“Give it a rest, Tick.” Roger said, wiping his face. “We’re not tomb raiding. We’re finding and protecting…”

Roger’s voice trailed off. He stared at the hieroglyphics on the wall behind Tickemoff. He stepped around the peddler and held his torch closer to the writing.

I had a bad feeling about Roger’s actions. I braced myself and asked, “What do you see?”

“It’s just a myth.”

I punched his shoulder. “Tell me!”

“These hieroglyphics claim Cleopatra from the afterlife will summon a mighty plague of locusts if her tomb is threatened. Nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about? After all the strange things that have happened and now this guy comes to warn us about a cloud of locusts and you think it’s nothing to worry about.”

I nabbed Fiona’s pith helmet from her head and mock-swung it at Roger’s bean.

He blocked my hand, took the pith helmet from me then said, “I’ve got this one,” and banged it off his head.

Tickemoff shook his head. “All will be buried in the swarm. Many will die.”

“Bull puppies,” Roger said.

“If it’s so dangerous, why did you risk your life to come here?” I asked.

Tick gave me a smarmy smile. “Two words. Friend. Ship.”

I could think of two words also. Bull. Ship. He had an angle.

“Those insects will
not
come underground,” Roger said with all the authority he could command.

A giant metallic-green locust cruised in and landed on Roger’s head.

Tickemoff flicked the disgusting insect off Roger, narrowly missing me. Of all the ways I’d imagined dying, being bugged to death was not one of them. My heart was doing the drum solo from
Wipeout,
my knees the cymbal accompaniment.

“I can make you a good deal but we must run now!” Tickemoff said.

A good deal. “What kind of good deal?”

“Deluxe limousine guaranteed to get you out of locust swarm.”

I only had to admire my red tennis shoe to remind me of how little I trusted the slippery conman, but death by locust was extremely unappealing.

Roger looked from the Tick to the pool. We’d gotten this far but without the MUDD we were screwed as far as finding Cleo’s tomb went. But hanging around waiting for the MUDD to surface would only get us locusts, tons of disgusting locusts.

He argued with himself. “Locusts carry a chemical on their bodies that can react with sunlight and cause a toxic reaction in humans, painful swelling and hallucinations. But if they flood the shaft we could smother. Locusts are cannibals. If we leave now, we can come back once they’ve eaten each other. Toxicity out there or smothering here?”

Another locust buzzed by.

I shuddered. “Roger, let’s get the hell out of here.” Then I remembered I’d gotten here via the rabbit hole. “Can you find this chamber again?”

He threw his arms up. “I have no idea how I got here.”

Petri looked at Fiona. She shook her head. He said, “We were too busy trying to keep up with Darcy to notice where we were going.”

Tickemoff rubbed his chin. “I draw a map for you, for good price, for very good price.”

The Tick’s face gave away his confusion. I was sure he sneaked down here, guided by the transmitter he planted on Fiona, without any real idea of where he was.

I went down the rabbit hole, but if it paralleled the steps, I could get us out with my old maze trick. “I know the way,” I said with a lot more confidence than I felt, but how else were we going to get away from the repulsive locusts?

“Lead us out of here,” Roger said.

I put my right hand on the right wall and reversed our descending process, hoping no side tunnels like Habib’s would lead us astray. Several more locusts flew by. The advance guard was here.

We had another problem. How could we find our way back? I pulled my Revlon Forty-Eight Hours Luminescent Lipstick from my purse and marked a dot every few feet along the wall.

My old maze trick was slightly flawed. I had a few decisions to make as we climbed out. But the locusts showed us the way. They were coming in a sparse but steady flow. Whenever I was undecided about our path, I went upstream against the loathsome bugs. By the time we reached the main transversal passage, I felt like Daniel Boone and my lipstick was decimated.