The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2 A Post-Apocalyptic Epic (10 page)

Then, in a strained silence, they strapped on their armor. Cyn prayed in a corner as Jack sharpened his sword. She would have prayed in the closet to keep out all distractions, but Jack had said once that he thought it wa
s“
weird
,”
and that it made him feel alone. She had
n’
t done it again.

They then laid out their gear, checking each item. Jack had new items. After the fiasco in Truon
g’
s shop, they each carried two bottles of Holy Water and two of Holy Oil. He had started filling his belt pouches when Cyn cleared her throat; she held a silver necklace in her hand, dangling from it was a simple cross.

“
It ca
n’
t hurt,” she told him after he had looked at it skeptically.

He slid it over his head and immediately cringed
.“
It burns
!”
he cried, earning him a punch in the shoulder that made his arm go numb.

Then they were in Metzge
r’
s room waiting on the video feed from the drones. There were three of the little birds up: two hummed at about a hundred feet and a third was invisible at a thousand. They ran on state of the art batteries that could keep them on station for two hours at a time; there was a second trio waiting to take ove
r—
Metzger did
n’
t want a break in coverage.

So far what they were seeing was a whole lot of nothing. The infrared cameras showed only lonely pyramids and a quickly cooling desert. Nothing whatsoever moved. There was
n’
t even a real archeology team on site to make things complicated. July was a hard time to spend in the
Barunli Desert
where the last recorded rainfall had been seventeen months before.

How anyone had ever lived there even in ancient times was beyond Jack
.“
What do you think, Cyn? Everything the same
?”
She had actually been to the Meroe Pyramids once before on a dig with her mother.

She was squinting mightily at the image
.“
Can you center on number thirty-six? That one there
.
”

Metzger gave an order over a secured sat-phone and a minute later, the image changed, focusing on one of the odd little pyramids. They were nothing like the Pyramids of Giza, which were not just huge but also amazingly symmetrical. These were sharp angled and much taller than they were wide and some looked strangely positioned as if they were on the verge of tipping over.

“
Okay,I guess the
y’
re good,” she said, leaning back. “I do
n’
t see any signs of a new dig
.
”

Jack agreed. It was all disappointingly normal
.“
Well, we ca
n’
t blame the Sudanese if Robert has bugged out.”

Metzger added: “And nor can we blame Milt
.
”

“
Milt
,”
Jack said, rolling his eyes
.“
Is he really coming along? Is he even trained
?
”

“
Yes. You read his jacket. H
e’
s not State, h
e’
s CIA. Maybe h
e’
s a little on the older side but he still knows what h
e’
s doing. Besides, the CIA demanded to have eyes on the ground for this operation
.
”

Cyn stood and stretched, looking relaxed
.“
Luckily, it does
n’
t seemas if this is much of an operation. No new digs, no overturned graves, means no big fight
.
”

She was relaxed; Jack was disappointed
.“
Just in case, we still go in as planned
,
” he ordered. They left the hotel soon after, stepping out into a surprisingly cool night and a second later,climbed into the same Volvo that had dropped them off. The driver was different; he was beefier, and he smelled of gun oil. He came with them as they entered the train station, carrying Jack and Cy
n’
s bags as if he were a porter.

Other teams boarded the over-night train in discreet twos and threes, making sure to spread out so that no two groups shared a car. The trai
n’
s engine began to grunt and cough and soon there was a lurch. Jack had his eyes closed and his mind open. Next to him Cyn sat rigidly upright.

“
Nothing
,”
she whispered.

“
Yeah
,”
Jack agreed. The people on the train were people with the usual amount of evil and good radiating from them. None stood out, and most definitely, none were demons. Metzger stood, tucking a newspaper beneath one arm and walked the length of the train: it was the all clear sign.

An hour into the ride, the train slowed. A conductor came through speaking in Arabic. Jack knew he was saying:
Sorry, track repair. I
t’
ll be just a few minutes
. It was their cue. The driver who had accompanied them stood, grabbed their bags and left the train. His name was Ringo and no matter how much Jack pressed him, he would
n’
t admit to a last name. He was an American of Sudanese heritage and he had a gift for languages; he spoke six as if he was a native and three more, though haltingly.

He had volunteered for the mission and was absolutely infatuated, not with Cyn, though he appreciated her as any hot-blooded man would, but with Jack. There was a disquieting lust for power within him that reminded Jack of his own. The difference being that Ringo was good to the core and Jack could only fake it.

The teams were no longer discreet. There was no point. They hurried to the cars waiting out in the desert. Not even pausing to sort themselves out, they piled in and drove off. Fifteen names were read off by Metzger and the radio crackled repeatedly wit
h“
Check, check, check
.
”

It was an hour drive to the Pyramids. At the fifty minute mark, Ringo said
:“
I
t’
s time
.”
He stopped the car in the middle of the road; there was no traffic and likely there would
n’
t be any for the next month, save for the stringy goats that passed as livestock in that horrible part of the country.

Luggage was broken into and the men armed and armored themselves. Once they were decked out, Jack went among them, keeping his eyes from their faces. If any of the men died that night, he knew that their faces would invade his dreams, haunting him with guilt.

He kept his eyes down and checked their gear. For the most part, they were fine, except for one man who carried a stupid amount of knives. Jack counted eight
.“
Why
?”
he asked and then did
n’
t wait for an answer and moved on, shaking his head. Against demons, one knife was too man
y
; knives were just about useless against the undead.

Then it was time to go.

With tension building, they drove until the pyramids could be seen as sharp shadows jutting up over the dun-colored sand. Then Jack and Cyn exited the vehicles alone. They split up, cutting
a“Y”
with their prints in the sand for about fifty yards.

Jack knelt, and touched the ground, a grimace on his face. There was nothing here. The ether was as neutral and bland as the sand. They had missed Robert.

Chapter 9

Meroe, Sudan

Cynthia Childs

Jack unbuckled his kevlar vest and tossed it behind him, where it sat ignored and likely forgotten the moment it left his hands. He walked forward to the pyramids, as though pulled by a string. Cyn could see the disappointment in him, but then a strange look overtook him, one that was rare and one that was only a memory for her.

It was the rapture of discovery. He was, at heart, an archeologist and here were the famed Meroe Pyramids. Jack slid and slithered down the shifting sand dunes and bounded along the ancient red stones until he came to the first of the tombs. He touched it cautiously, as though he knew shouldn’t but just couldn’t help himself.

This was who he was meant to be.

Jack was
n’
t supposed to be a sorcerer. He was born to be an archeologist, a man dedicated to finding history and uncovering it, exploring it, understanding it.

There were over two-hundred pyramids at the site and yet Jack stayed at the first, going round and round it, exploring every inch, measuring it with his eyes, breathing in the limestone and, unlike any other archeologist on the planet, feeling with that magical part of him for the least echo of soul.

For an hour, he explored this one, not very large pyramid, constantly touching the hand-worked rock with reverence and with love. Finally, Metzger came up and asked: “What sort of clues are you finding?”

“Clues?
”
Jack asked, confused.

Sitting in a pile of her armor and gear, looking as though she were reclining at a beach, Cyn laughed. “Jack has forgotten all about clues and monsters and all that, Captain. What you’re seeing is a different version of my cousin. This is the Jack Dreyden that was supposed to be.”

“Supposed to be?” Metzger looked from Jack to Cyn and then back again, his face growing red. “Jack, we have over two-hundred people taking part in this mission, some of whom have been sitting on pins and needles, thinking that at any moment a demon was going come busting out of that pyramid.”

Jack was looking at Metzger as if only just seeing him and was slow to catch up to his words. “Oh, sorry. Have them relax. There are no demons here. Maybe tell them that this is my process, you know, what I need to do to stay sane.”

“We’ve talked about this before, Jack. No one thinks you’re sane. The agency even brought in those shrinks, remember?”

The psychiatrists had been a mistake. They had been the government’s way of trying to fit something they couldn’t understand into a neat little box with a stilted and officious sounding name so that it could be regulated and perhaps taxed. 

“I remember the shrinks,” Jack said. He was still in his happy place and didn’t growl the words out like he normally would have. “Then tell the men that this is my process for staying functional. It’s one thing to read about these pyramids and see pictures, but this is so much better. You can breathe in the age! And you can almost taste the sweat and blood of the slaves who died creating these wonders.”

“Metaphorically speaking,” Cyn added. She was more in tune with death than Jack and she couldn’t feel a thing; five-thousand years had swept away all the ghosts. “I think it’ll be good to give Jack a few more hours on this. Why don’t you have the men split into smaller teams and inspect the other pyramids? Have them look for any signs of digging or excavating that appears fresh. Tell them not to worry, there’s no danger here.”

It wasn’t just busy work. Robert had been there after something, probably something very big, something significant, but that didn’t mean Jack was the only one with eyes. The men fanned out and soon there were teams at every tomb. Sixteen of them were discovered to have suspicious marks and what appeared to be fresh digging nearby.

Fifteen of these were false alarms; the scrape of pry bars or the claw marks of hammers were all old, sometimes centuries old. Dutifully, Cyn checked each mark to make sure it matched the records her mother had established during six months of sweat-stained work, three years before.

Only at one of them were the signs fresher. “That’s
Beg, North, Number 22
,” Cyn said when Metzger pointed. She knew the one. She knew all forty-four tombs in the northern cemetery.
Beg 22
was only interesting because it was set off away from the others.

It was the tomb of Natakamani, a King of the Kush who had ruled right around the birth of Christ. There was little that was known about him, but what was known didn’t suggest he had any magical power or really much normal power, either. Historically, he was rather insignificant.

“So why 22?” she asked herself, going around the pyramid, letting her fingers trail on the stone. Like most of the other tombs, it had been “re-sealed.” Everything of value had long ago been stolen and to protect what was left, heavy granite stones had been cut and fitted in the doorways. Human hands alone couldn’t have moved them.

It didn’t stop people from trying. Every few decades, someone would make the attempt...but the marks on the granite of
Beg 22
were new.

And there was blood. “Get Jack,” she said over her shoulder to Metzger. The blood was dry, probably a few days old. It was the blood of a virgin. A shiver ran up Cyn’s back. She hated that she knew this.

Jack came up while she was still staring at the blood; there wasn’t much, only a smear on the inner aspect of the antechamber doorway. These pyramids differed from their Egyptian counterparts in that before their entrances were two rectangular “columns.” The blood was found here and only Cyn’s ability to sense things of a deathly origin allowed her to notice it at all.

“Virgin?” Jack asked, touching the blood. The interior was darker than the night and he didn’t see her nod. It didn’t seem he needed to. “And the significance?”

“Who knows? Could be the whole ‘pure blood’ angle that the ancients were all on about or it could be coincidence.”

Taking a flashlight from Metzger, Jack peered in close at the blood and even went so far as to sniff it. He then shrugged. “Maybe it’s coincidence, but we should never count on that with Robert. Ok, step back will you?”

Cyn and Metzger edged back into Milt, Ringo and two other soldiers crowding the entrance. In silence, they watched as Jack went around the small antechamber with a growing sternness darkening his features. Lights were pointed where he demanded and every inch of stone was inspected.

“No,” he said, his eyes going back and forth from the scrape marks on the granite to the blood. “One of these doesn’t fit.” He then looked down at the dirt at his feet, before toeing it with the tip of the dusty boots he always wore. “Come here, Cyn. What do you think? Can you feel anything?”

She went to the dirt and touched it with her bare hand. “Yes, there’s something down here.” More blood, it called to her. They went down on their knees and began scraping back the sand and the loose rocks. When nothing was immediately uncovered, Metzger ordered in two of the soldiers, who produced shovels and began to dig.

“Careful,” Jack warned. “Even this dirt has value to an archeologist.”

“Are we here to fight demons or to find artifacts?” Milt asked.

Cyn heard the sarcasm in his voice, but Jack took him seriously. “I’d like to think both. Let’s hope we get lucky.” He was grinning at the idea and seemed confused that he was the only one.

A foot and a half deep, they uncovered the first of the “base” stones that supported the approaches to the pyramids; they were wide and immensely heavy. There was blood on them. Cyn and Jack hurried forward and began blowing away the remaining sand with puffed cheeks.

There was a circle of a dozen glyphs drawn in the blood of a virgin. Jack and Cyn knelt hunched over it, their eyes bright with eagerness. Metzger stood over them with his light blaring and behind him were six other men. “What’s it say?” Ringo asked, a tremor in his voice.

Jack looked back with narrowed eyes. “Maybe we should clear the room. Some things are best kept secret.”

When Metzger glared the others back out into the night, Cyn asked: “If things are meant to be secret, why did Robert leave this?”

“Possibly because he didn’t think the spell worked,” Jack answered, after scratching beneath his chin. “It’s an opening spell and clearly nothing opened when he thought it should have. The seal on that door is caulked with cement and it’s not even cracked. Even the pry bars didn’t scratch it.”

Cyn stepped closer to the granite slab inspecting it. “There’s nothing magical about it. I’m not feeling a thing.”

“Yes, there’s no magic to the door or to the ring of glyphs,” he agreed, suddenly grinning. “You see why, right?”

She had read over the glyph the same as Jack and everything seemed as it should. Slower now, she re-read the poly-hieroscript. “Mother of Demons, accept this sacrifice, open the way and unlock the gates that bar...Oh, wait I see it now. Robert wrote ‘lock’ instead of ‘unlock.’ Wow, what a blunder. I guess it is just a matter of forgetting that one wave under the glyph, but still a costly mistake.”

“I wonder if it was. Let me see your mother’s notes on
Beg 22
. As far as I remember there wasn’t anything here to steal and I’m sure everything has been cataloged and I’m not feeling anything at all behind the slab. There could be a secondary level of rooms below the burial chamber, though I highly doubt it. This tomb has been pawed over a hundred times. Even that damned Italian came through here with his dynamite.”

“Maybe...maybe, but there could be more of those odd glyphs that we found at the Waldorf and like Bob had back in Akron. Perhaps in puzzle form to keep the spell secret? Should we look? We have this opening spell. It would be nothing for you.”

She was excited and so was he. They were practically giddy with the delight of discovery. “Let’s do it,” Jack answered. “We should get geared up before we go in, but first things first. We shouldn’t ever leave this sort of thing out.” From his belt, he pulled out his bottle of Holy Oil. He doused the ring of glyphs and then lit it on fire. It burned blue at first, then sunk to gold and then died away so that only a pleasant smelling smoke lifted into the air. The blood was now charred and unreadable.

He then took her by the hand and led her outside into the cooling desert air where the crowd of soldiers and priests stood waiting on them. For some reason seeing them there cleared her head and doused her initial excitement at opening the pyramid. She found herself looking back at
Beg 22
, feeling odd, as if she was missing something.

Jack was also looking back, his face no longer lit by eagerness. His shoulders suddenly slumped. “You know what? I think it’s clear that this is a trap of some sort,” he said.

Metzger, who was in front of the rest of the group, took a step back, eyeing the pyramid warily. “But you said it was clear. You said there isn’t anything magical about the place.”

“Maybe I was wrong. Or perhaps there’s a bomb in the tomb, or it could be something else entirely.” He squinted at the pyramid for a moment, thinking, and then turned to Cyn and spoke in a confiding whisper: “I thought the glyph was a typo, but now I’m not so sure. The scratch marks on the door make no sense. There were too few to indicate that anyone was really trying to break in, not to mention we are dealing with a necromancer who could call up an army of undead to tear down the walls, so why use pry bars at all? And the blood sitting out where we could see? He had to have felt it and smelled it. Why didn’t he hide the evidence of his passing?”

“You’re right,” Cyn agreed. “Robert’s been nothing but a ghost for a year and a half and now he’s just leaving clues lying around? No way. And leaving a nearly complete spell sitting just beneath the dirt? I think you’re right, Jack, this is a trap, one meant for us. The only question is what do we do about it?”

Despite their whispers, Metzger heard everything. “Perhaps you’re being paranoid. How would Robert even know you’d be coming? The only way we know he was here is by a string of circumstances that he couldn’t have controlled. To start with, Robert couldn’t know what Truong was going to do with the glyph he’d been given. And then…”

Cyn laughed, a sound that was part pain and part mirth. “Are you kidding me? Robert should have killed Truong. Here was a bloke who ‘supposedly’ tracked him down; that should have been reason enough to kill him, but Robert not only lets him live but also gives him a glyph to bring a demon through the void? No bloody way. Robert would never do that simply out of the goodness of his heart. He’s jealous of anyone with power and really, I don’t think he has goodness left in his heart. We should’ve seen it before.”

“Exactly,” Jack agreed. “Which begs the question: what do we do about it? Whatever is in there can’t be simply ignored. We are supposedly the experts.”

“But we’re not bomb experts,” Cyn said.

That wasn’t entirely true. All of the men among the
Raider Squads
had been trained in the military and at least a third of them were demolitions experts. Three were chosen among them to inspect the pyramid. They found no trace of a bomb and no evidence that the tomb had been broken into.

With Cyn sitting comfortably in the sand, nearby, Jack went round and round the tomb for an hour until he finally laughed. “What’s the first thing we know about Robert? Above all, he’s a necromancer. The answer to this riddle lies with the dead.”