Cronin's Key (21 page)

“It’s almost six at night,” Jodis said.

Alec shrugged. Yes, he’d worked nights as a cop, but in the days since he’d kept company with vampires, his nights truly
were
becoming his days. Still not moving from Cronin, Alec stretched his arm out to collect his coffee and sipped it over Cronin’s shoulder. “So, what did I miss?”

“Cronin, apparently,” Jodis said with a smile.

Cronin chuckled against Alec’s shoulder, but he slid his arm around Alec’s back to keep him right where he was.

Bes and his two coven members took their leave from the kitchen, and Johan followed them out. Alec pulled back a little so he could see Cronin’s face. “Are we still making them… uncomfortable?” he asked. “I thought my pheromone levels would have dropped a little bit after last night.”

Cronin laughed into Alec’s chest and ducked his head, clearly embarrassed. Eiji snorted. “Or they’re worse,” he said with his usual smile.

Jodis laughed quietly, but she shook her head. “They’ve not fed for a few days,” she explained. “It’s not your pheromones they find distracting. It’s your blood.”

Oh.
“Are they, um… should I go somewhere else…?”

Cronin looked up at Alec, still smiling. “They’re fine. They’ll go out when the sun has set.”

Alec stared into his dark, dark eyes. “You look so good today.”

Cronin laughed again, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his fangless teeth perfectly white. The sound of him laughing filled Alec’s chest, as if he could feel Cronin’s happiness. “I could say the same about you,” Cronin said, leaning up so he could kiss him.

Alec grinned into the kiss, but before it could get too serious, Eiji tapped them both on the shoulder. Cronin growled and Eiji rolled his eyes. “Oh, calm down,” Eiji said. “I know you two are just getting acquainted and I know how all-encompassing that is, believe me. And when this whole mess in Egypt is over, we will leave you alone so you can maul each other twenty-four hours a day for months on end—and you will—but right now we have more important things to deal with.”

Alec finally pried himself away from Cronin. He put his coffee to his lips to hide his smile. “Twenty-four hours a day for months on end, huh?”

Cronin fought a smile. “It’s okay, Alec. We can clear your schedule.”

Alec raised his eyebrows and snorted out a laugh. He looked disbelievingly at Eiji. “Did you hear that? I believe that was a budding sense of humor!”

Jodis chuckled, a light melodic sound. She put her hand on Alec’s arm. “I don’t think he was joking, Alec.”

Alec looked at Cronin with challenge in his eyes. “Even better.” All jokes aside, Alec knew there were serious matters to tend to. He drained his coffee cup and put it in the sink. “I guess we should get started, huh?”

“I said
after
the mess in Egypt,” Eiji cried. “Not now. We don’t have time for you two to start anything.”

Cronin chuckled. “I believe Alec meant we should get started on the plans for Egypt.”

“Oh,” Eiji said flatly. “Sorry.”

Alec clapped Eiji on the shoulder. “No need to apologize. I happen to like the way you think.” He smiled at the smaller Japanese vampire. “So, Egypt? You guys have a plan, right?”

Alec sat on the sofa as the others recounted what they’d come up with, and the plan really was very simple.

Create a diversion for the legions of
returned
vampires, enter the hive—preferably undetected—and take out the Queen.

Simple? Well, in theory.

In reality, it was filled with unknowns, improbables, and un-fucking-likelies, but Alec knew they had little choice.

Many vampires from around the world were prepared to join forces to take Queen Keket down. There had been video conference calls with coven leaders in London, Italy, Buenos Aires, and India, and a thousand vampires with tactical experience were ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.

The plan was to send in platoons of
good
vampires to take out the
bad
ones, SWAT-style as Alec described it, before Cronin would even consider leaping Alec onto Egyptian sands.

Cronin didn’t like the idea at all and was rather vocal about it, but Alec’s role as the Key—however unclear it seemed—would be to end the Queen herself.

Johan showed Alec the maps of the Great Pyramids he’d drawn with Bes’s help, and, more specifically, the underground tunnels. “It is these tunnels that permit transport and movement,” Johan said. “There are many, they intercross and dissect. It is important that you know where to go. If you get lost or trapped…”

Alec studied them, taking in each tunnel, the direction they ran, which ones were a dead ends, which ones lead somewhere, and the chambers that joined them. “I will remember them,” he said. He tilted his head as if confused.

“What is it?” Cronin said, standing beside him.

Alec shook his head. “Nothing.” He’d always known there were tunnels through the pyramids and underneath them—he’d seen countless documentaries on such things—but he’d always wondered about their significance.

“And we think she’s taken over the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid, the largest in Giza?” Alec questioned.

“It would appear so,” Bes answered.

“Do we know, or do we assume?” Alec questioned. “Forgive my doubt, but working with fact is far less likely to see us killed.”

Bes nodded once. “Talk was, yes, she has claimed the Great Pyramid as her own. But only rumor. I have no physical proof.”

“Osiris is buried at the Great Pyramid,” Cronin added. “It would make sense.”

“And the three main pyramids of Giza are not linked by these underground tunnels?” Alec questioned, looking again at the maps Johan had drawn.

“Not to each other, no,” Bes said. “At least as far as has been documented by vampire or man.”

Alec thought for another moment. “It would make better sense if they were.”

“Better sense for what?” Johan questioned. There wasn’t contempt in his tone, only curiosity.

“For movement, transport, like you said,” Alec said. “If these three locations”—he pointed to the three large pyramids on the map—“were joined underground, the way we have roads and highways aboveground. If these have been critical components for vampires over thousands of years, surely it makes sense that they can get from one to the other without encountering daylight.”

Bes shook his head. “Forgive me, Alec, but joining those tombs would be the last objective any vampire would want. These were tombs of evil creatures. Not to be kept safe, but to be kept buried forever. No one wanted them found, let alone joined. Creating underground roads for these evil ones to make easy travel was not ever planned.”

Alec smiled at him. “
We
wouldn’t want them joined, no. But I’m pretty sure Queen Keket would. She’d have herself an underground city full of all her
returned
servants.”

Cronin considered this. He looked at Alec. “Do you think it possible there are new tunnels that join the pyramids?”

Alec shrugged. “I don’t just think it’s possible. I think it’s likely.”

“It’s not
im
possible,” Bes allowed. “Why do you think this?”

Alec’s answer was simple. “Because it’s what I’d do.”

Bes studied the map, and his brow furrowed as if he was going through hundreds of mental catalogues. “If it is true, the connecting tunnels must run from the subterranean chambers, obviously. How deep they go and how many sub-branches there are, I cannot say and we cannot map.”

“We’d be going in blind,” Alec said, not taking his eyes from the map. “But hypothetically speaking, if she’s been making vampire drones for four or five years, could she have them digging out tunnels? Like the old pharaohs who’d force slaves to build pyramids, she’s making them build tunnels.”

Bes swallowed hard and concentrated on the maps. “It would explain the numbers that are claimed to be underground. They don’t come to surface of a night, as in the ancient days; they are her slaves. We have only seen a few that managed to escape.”

“If there are new tunnels that we don’t know about,” Cronin said, “then she has the advantage.”

“She’ll not be expecting us, and that gives us the advantage,” Alec said. “She’s sending out Seekers to bring me to her. She won’t be expecting me to turn up unannounced.”

Cronin growled. “Because it is not a sane plan.”

Alec smiled at him. “Which is why it’s the best plan we’ve got. It will be the last thing she expects.”

“I don’t like it,” Cronin said.

“Neither do I,” Alec admitted. He took Cronin’s hand. “None of us chose this. None of us wished for this, but we’re facing it anyway, and we need to deal with it. We need to be as educated and prepared as possible.”

Cronin grumbled but he didn’t argue, which Alec took as a win. He squeezed Cronin’s hand. “Will you read through those textbooks with me?”

Cronin nodded and spoke quietly. “Of course.”

“Hey,” Alec said softly. He lifted Cronin’s chin and kissed him, reassuring him. It was such a private moment, despite the audience. Alec didn’t miss that Johan smiled sadly before looking away.

* * * *

Alec sat on the sofa, burying himself in texts and talking to Bes and the other Egyptian vampires, trying to find out everything he could. What he determined was not all pharaohs were gods, not all gods were vampires. The most notorious vampires of Ancient Egypt, however, were Osiris, Anubis, Isis, Ra, and Ammit, a vampire “goddess” who apparently decimated many thousands of humans in her time.

All of these ancient vampires were mummified and entombed within the various burial chambers of the Great Pyramids.

Cronin sat with Alec, studying and profiling, answering questions, and forming as much intel as possible, not on Queen Keket, but on the vampires she wanted to resurrect. As Alec had said before, it would tell him more about Keket in figuring out why she wanted the vampires she did than the study of her would discover.

Osiris was the first. Known as the god of the dead for very good reason, he was the most notorious Egyptian vampire of them all, and Alec had no doubt Keket wanted him for his power. If she could master him, she’d be unstoppable.

Anubis was the vampire who removed Osiris’s heart, embalmed him, and sent him to the afterlife. Would she resurrect the only vampire who could kill Osiris? If he became too powerful, a threat to her rule, would she end him for a second time?

Isis made more sense for Keket to return, Alec thought. For one, she was female, and not a sexual threat. Isis, it was claimed by some, was responsible in part for the death of Osiris, along with Anubis. She was often depicted with wings, and Alec wondered if her vampiric talent was the ability to fly. Lord knows, nothing was impossible at this stage.

There was also Ra. He was the god of the sun, which was odd, because as a vampire, he never saw the light of it. In most all hieroglyphs, he was shown to have a round dinner-plate-sized disk on his head, and he also held an ankh. There was little else known about him, including where exactly he was buried.

Ammit was a particularly nasty vampire, who was known as a devourer of millions and for her divine retribution. Alec shuddered at the thought of that combination. If Keket hadn’t resurrected this particular vampire already, she’d no doubt be on the short list.

There was so much to take in, so many what-ifs, and still, so many questions. “Why didn’t the Ancient Egyptians just stake these guys in the heart? Seriously, then none of this would be happening.”

Cronin shrugged. “We don’t know. It was a long time ago. Maybe they thought embalming was the right thing to do, and in all honesty, who would have thought we’d encounter someone who wanted to resurrect them?” He smiled at Alec. “And who knows what we’ll be doing in three thousand years.”

Alec snorted. “Probably thinking those twenty-first-century people were a bunch of idiots.”

Cronin laughed. “Probably.”

After a while, Alec needed to stretch out, his body aching from sitting still too long. He lifted Cronin’s arm and leaned against him, tucking himself into his side, stretching his legs out on the sofa. He simply brought Cronin’s arm back down over his chest and kept on reading, only looking up at Cronin when he chuckled.

“Comfortable?” Cronin asked, a smile in his voice.

“Very,” Alec said.

Alec was pretty sure Cronin didn’t do a great deal of reading, more transfixed with the feel of Alec against him and the smell of his hair, and the occasional kiss to his temple. He didn’t mind, though, he didn’t mind one bit. Alec couldn’t describe just how good it felt to be lying with his back against Cronin, but also how right it was.

As much as the whole fated idea grated on his sense of independence, he certainly couldn’t deny its power.

Alec had to force himself to concentrate on the books he was supposed to be reading. He carefully picked up another book. The pages were thick; they felt like papyrus, the writing on them hand scribed in cursive ink. The cover and binding were frail. Alec remembered Cronin saying these books predated censorship, so he guessed it was dated before the twelfth century. He held it as gently as he could. “I’m taking it this is a first edition?”

Cronin laughed. “Something like that.” Cronin took the book and turned it in his hand. “This one I got from a library in Bohemia. There was a funny little librarian man who kept it guarded in a vault. He was well-read in the paranormal. I had no doubt he knew what I was.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Of course,” Cronin said. “Uh, I, um, well… It was a civic duty to my kind. Couldn’t have him telling anyone that vampires were real, could I?”

Alec snorted out a laugh. “Of course not.” It was a little hard to feel sympathy for a man that died a thousand years ago. Alec felt a soft rumbly purr come from Cronin’s chest, and Alec sighed deeply. He took the book from Cronin, their hands brushing, touching, and neither of them moved as Alec turned page after page, reading all he could. He was sure Cronin could read each page in just a few seconds, but he never complained as Alec went at a human pace.

After the third book, Alec sat up and opened all three books on the coffee table to certain pages showing hieroglyphics. He pointed to one in particular. “This is the ankh, yes?” Alec asked.