I had to smile. The kid wasn’t stupid.
“Can you keep your mouth shut?” I pulled a twenty out. This was risky, but the kid struck me as smart and picked up fast.
Kato looked at the twenty and then at me.
“No one is going to get hurt, I just want to know who I’m sharing a bathroom with before I get there.”
After a second, Kato took the bill from my hand. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about the students. What are they like, what do they do for fun? You know, stuff.”
“Which one you want to know about first?”
“Start with the smartest, move down the line from there.”
I could let myself relax in the breeze for an hour. Tonight I’d be working.
6
SANUR
I peeked over my shoulder at the redheaded kid passed out and snoring on the couch. Balancing my flashlight in my mouth, I kneeled down in front of the locked office door and pulled my makeup bag out of my purse.
Lock-pick kits are almost universally illegal—unless you’re travelling somewhere like Syria. Go figure, countries don’t like people to visit them with state-of-the-art lock picks. Mine double as makeup brushes and won’t trip a metal detector. I pulled the eye shadow brush out, twisted the black lacquer end off, pocketed it so Captain wouldn’t eat it, and inserted the titanium pick into the door lock.
The lock clicked open and I twisted the door handle carefully, so as not to make too much noise. Piece of cake. I stepped through.
“Ow! Son of a . . .” I bit back the last word and flicked the light switch on. Captain darted across my feet and hopped up on the windowsill on the other side of the office. Someone had left their dig kit in front of the door. Figures, lazy grad students . . .
Captain chirped and batted at a giant moth fluttering its blue wings against the window, trying to make its way in.
I glared at him. “You could have warned me instead of chasing after a butterfly—”
I stopped as I heard shuffling footsteps in the living room. Shit. I turned my flashlight off and peeked around the door. The redhead was sitting up and rubbing his forehead. Double shit.
I ducked underneath the desk and had to cover my mouth as I stubbed my toe again, this time on the kit pickax. Goddamn it, I hate messy archaeologists.
It was Saturday night, and most of the dig students had headed into Kuta to party with all the other foreign tourists. Only two had been at the hostel when I’d arrived, and they’d been more than happy to drink my beer. Note to all you broke students out there: never trust generous offerings of beer from another broke student. There’s a string attached. I’d added a little something—something that Nadya used to use on troublesome bar patrons in Moscow, way back when she’d been bartending her way through university, long before we met. Strong enough to put you to sleep, but nowhere near strong enough anyone would suspect you’d drugged them.
The girl from Britain, Kylie, had made it up to her room before passing out, but the American kid, Mark, who Kato said stayed up too late watching sports on YouTube, had curled up into a ball and passed out on the couch.
I heard Mark pad across the bamboo floor. I made out his silhouette in the moonlight as he ducked his head around the office door and flipped on the light. My heart started to pound. Shit, shit, shit . . . maybe I could claim I’d passed out under the desk . . . couldn’t find my bed . . .
I didn’t breathe, though I’m sure my heart was making plenty of noise all on its own. His face scrunched under the fluorescent light as he checked the handle, turning and twisting it three times and jostling the lock. Thank God I’d had the good sense to do a decent job and not rush the lock pick. Pays to be careful.
He stepped through.
Worst-case scenarios involving a Balinese prison flashed through my head. The great Owl, caught stealing from a pack of broke archaeology students. Fantastic way to go down, with no flames whatsoever. I stared good and hard at the pickax right within hand’s reach, but somehow I doubted that adding murder to theft was going to help my bargaining power in the Balinese jail cell. Besides, I’ve never hit anyone before—I’m nonviolent, and I wasn’t about to start with students.
“Mroow?” Captain bleated about as loudly as I’d ever heard him. The student swung his head towards the window.
“Hey, were you making all that noise in here?” The redhead yawned and headed over to pat Captain.
Jeez, the kid shouldn’t even have been standing, let alone asking my cat questions.
He went to pick him up, but Captain darted through his legs and out the door. The redhead yawned again and shuffled back out of the room. I heard the lock click back into place behind him.
Hunh, Captain was paying off his kibble tonight. I’d have to make sure I threw in an extra chicken treat.
Once I heard the kid head upstairs I breathed a sigh of relief. I waited until I heard his door close before sliding into the co-opted rattan beach chair and booting up the dig laptop.
“Time to see how good these guys are.” I punched in Benji’s codes and watched as the dig site files loaded onto the screen.
I called Nadya. She didn’t pick up until the eighth ring.
“What the hell took you so long?” I said. I could hear fuzzy talking and music in the background. Nadya must still be at the snack bar.
“What do you think? They think I’m Alix Hiboux. They’ve been trying to pick me up all night, though they thought I should be much shorter.”
I snickered. I could just picture the two grad students trying to hit on the statuesque Nadya. If it weren’t so important, it would have been funny. “What did your two fans give you?” I said.
“Good news or bad news first?”
“Good news.”
“You were right about the Sanur catacombs. Aeto and Shinobi both say the tablet they showed is from there.”
I did a silent cheer. I subscribe to the saying “The harder I try, the luckier I get.” That doesn’t mean I turn my nose up at blind luck.
“Now the bad news.” I heard Nadya cup her hand over the mic and muffled Russian yelling before she came back on. “Shinobi is certain there were two tablets, not one, and guess where the second one is?”
I closed my eyes. “The Basuki catacombs,” I said, the excitement drained out of my voice.
“The tablets have complementary inscriptions that work as a codex, or alphabet, for the rest of the cavern inscriptions, or that was their best guess. They think you’ll need both sets to even attempt a translation.”
“Well, don’t they have the other set?”
“That’s what really worries me. Their project was stopped right after they told their supervisor about the second set of inscriptions in Basuki. All the material was seized by the International Archaeology Association. Guess who pulled the project?”
I closed my eyes. “Nuroshi.”
“Alix, that was what Nuroshi was smiling about. Not only did he think you didn’t have the dig location, he knew you only had information on one tablet. The little troll is planning on taking your money and sending you on a wild-goose chase. You need both tablets to do anything.”
Shit. Nuroshi was a thief, but he’d never tried to screw me quite like this before. He’d always kept it to extra, hidden fees—very Japanese. Try renting there, you’ll see what I mean.
“Does anyone else have any idea you’re there?” Nadya said, interrupting my train of thought.
“Oricho, Lady Siyu, Rynn, and Benji, but that’s it,” I said, and did the quick calculation in my head. Rynn knew to keep his mouth shut, and I didn’t think Lady Siyu or Oricho planned on blabbing where I was tracking down their boss’s stupid egg scroll.
“Good, let’s keep it that way.”
Something nagged at the back of my mind. When I figured out what it was, I felt a cold chill go up my spine. “Nuroshi doesn’t have enough pull to shut down an entire international dig on his own. Who’s pulling his strings?”
“I’ve still got enough time to make the Sanur catacombs tonight and the Basuki site tomorrow morning. I’ll still be on a plane before anyone—including Nuroshi—is the wiser.”
Nadya swore again. “And call Rynn, he came in asking about you. Said you hadn’t returned his messages. He said if I heard from you to tell you it’s important.”
I hadn’t returned Rynn’s last text because I hadn’t bothered opening it. I was working, and at his best Rynn is a distraction. “I’ll message him later. If he bugs you again, tell him I’m working.”
Nadya snorted. “I’m not your social planner. Tell him yourself.”
I was about to hang up the phone when I remembered that Benji hadn’t had the gate codes.
“No wait, Nadya, don’t hang up yet—ask them if they have the gate codes.” I heard her muffled voice in the background. It wouldn’t matter if I had the maps and dig site locations. I wasn’t going anywhere without those codes.
“The codes are the least of your problems. Both said they’ve got armed guards stationed around all the sites right now. Problems with tourists and thieves taking things.”
“Shit, I hate amateurs.” I have a strong aversion to being shot at, so I’d have to find another way in. “I’m sending you the new maps. See if they can point out any changes I need to know about, and call or message me back. And don’t worry about the entrance, I’ll think of something.”
I hoped.
I glanced down at the Sanur dig site map I’d interposed on Google. The only unguarded way into the catacombs was the cliff tunnels. The moon was reflecting off the crystal water. I looked back down at the Google map and zoomed in on the shoreline outside the catacombs. I flipped the image around so I got a nice “street” view of a small cave opening beneath the cliffs. I referenced it to the latest catacombs map, focusing on a small tunnel the guys hadn’t bothered exploring yet. The inscriptions had been washed off by rising water, so it wasn’t high on the priority list.
Oh, this was too good to be true.
“Hey, Nadya, I just figured out a way around those gates. Your windsurfing board is about to come in real handy.”
Saying Captain wasn’t happy was an understatement. In fact, if I was any judge of cats, I’d say he was furious.
I zipped up my black wet suit and picked up his carrier. I’d had to trick him in after he’d realized I was heading out without him. He gave me a baleful meow.
“Too bad,” I said through the carrier screen and held up the perfume bottle I’d used to drug the beer. “The sooner I get out there, the sooner I get back. You can agree to keep quiet, or the next meow out of your mouth, I’m dumping this down your throat. It works on cats too.”
He settled down, grumbling, and I darted out the door with the windsurfing board while the going was still good. 1:00 a.m. I had plenty of time to get to Sanur and back.
I wasn’t confident enough to windsurf in the dark, even with the full moon, but stand-up paddleboarding was well within my capabilities. I took to the water and headed down the coast. In forty-five minutes I’d reached the cliffs of Sanur, and fifteen minutes later I found the caves. There were four almost perfectly cylindrical openings, the nearest of which was seven feet above me with the tide out. From the Google pics and my angle, I guessed all four of them were large enough for me to crawl through without too much trouble . . . provided they didn’t narrow halfway up. I found three jagged rocks jutting out from the water that were close enough together to stow Nadya’s board and the paddle I’d borrowed from the hostel shed. The tide was still ebbing out, so I shouldn’t lose them to the currents.
I scrambled up onto the largest and flattest of the rocks and pulled my cell phone out before sliding my backpack off. Thank God for waterproof casing. I checked the time. Ten past two. I had four hours before I had to get back. By the time the students woke up, it’d look like I was just out for a morning surf, and I’d be there in time to tag along to Basuki. With any luck, by early evening I’d be back on a plane to Tokyo with two full sets of inscriptions. If I had any real luck, I’d be able to piece together a codex and come up with a translation for the egg chamber. If I was really lucky, I’d find mention of the egg itself.
No messages from Nadya were waiting for me; I’d been hoping to confirm my route through to the site, but it could wait until I was back in cell phone range. It had to come back in a little ways up—I couldn’t imagine this troop surviving a whole dig day without mobile games and email.
I slipped my spiked sneakers on and removed a flashlight, climbing rope, hooks, and drill from my Gore-Tex pack. A girl like me never travels unprepared. I hear grappling hooks are a popular tool in movies—I wouldn’t know, I spend most of my spare time in World Quest. What I do know is that grappling hooks are a great way to get yourself killed—either by gravity or guards who hear the insistent tapping of your failed attempts at catching the ledge. No one hears my fancy hook drill. That’s what sets me apart from amateurs . . . like the tourists playing Indiana Jones for the day and ruining Bali for the rest of us.
I climbed up the rocks, balancing my flashlight between my teeth. The cliff jutted out over the water, so I had to use five hooks to reach the first cavern opening. The edges of the opening were polished and smooth to the touch, so much so I wondered what kind of water flow could have eaten through the cliff like that. I was surprised geologists hadn’t gotten in on the action.
The opening was high enough for me to crouch without getting claustrophobic. I pulled myself in over the lip and was happy to find that the cavern flattened out before heading in an upward trajectory into the cliff. It reminded me of a dried-out waterfall.
I pulled my rope up and removed the two hooks in range on the cliff face, in case I needed them up ahead. I inched up the cave tunnel on all fours until I reached a spot where it inclined steeply enough for me to stand. I shone my flashlight up and watched the beam bounce off the loose network of tunnels, moonlight filtering in through small openings far above. The tunnels were connected, all right. Score one for amateur geologist me.
With my flashlight I checked how far the tunnel ran upwards before changing direction towards the catacombs. From the looks of it, it was a good eight or nine feet. I sighed, put my flashlight back between my teeth, and primed another hook in my drill. Good thing I had four hours and chalk.
Forty-five minutes later I still hadn’t reached the catacombs. On a positive note, I hadn’t gotten stuck. All the tunnels had a surprisingly uniform width and smoothness, like polished stone. What they did do was branch off every which way. Even with a compass I still managed to make three wrong turns and spent half my time backtracking and erasing my colored chalk marks and notes. I’d started off with a generic “this way back,” but after the fifth wrong turn, my notes deteriorated to “you idiot, you made another wrong turn, didn’t you?”
By the time sixty minutes was up I was worried I’d made yet another time-consuming wrong turn. The tunnel widened and opened into a cavern tall enough to stand. I pulled out my phone; still no reception. I opened the map I’d taken from the team’s laptop and checked my point the old-fashioned way. They’d never made it all the way out to the water, only speculated like everyone else that’s where the tunnels lead, but they had noted smooth caverns at the bottom of the catacombs with old pictograms on them. I edged over and started to check the cave walls inch by inch. I was just about ready to start backtracking yet again when I found a cluster of pictographs. It took me another few minutes to match the exact ones on file, but finally I was in the right place. And I had a trail of chalk to lead me back to the water. Figured that a fifteen-minute walk took me just over an hour.
The cavern was roughly the size of a small apartment with two offshooting alcoves. All I needed to do was figure out which one led to the catacombs. I walked around, careful not to loosen any rocks with my feet, and checked
where the catacomb entry point should be on the map.
What the . . .
I shone the flashlight directly on a set of pictographs wedged underneath one of the outjutting rocks. Unlike the white relief images the archaeologists had documented, these were done with a vibrant red paint and depicted a woman surrounded by snakes. Lots of snakes. It looked new . . . and wet. On a hunch I leaned my face as close as I dared and sniffed. The unmistakable metallic scent of blood overwhelmed me. I covered my mouth and nose against the unpleasant smell and took two steps back. Even though they looked and smelled fresh I doubted the images were recent, since as far as I could see, the students had stopped short of reaching this section of tunnels. From the undisturbed cliff face, I found it just as unlikely anyone had come from the water. It dawned on me this was ritualistic magic, the kind that stands the test of time.
I closed my eyes. I’d really hoped I could avoid supernatural shit tonight. Checking out the tablets and getting the hell out of here were now my top priorities. Snakes and ritualistic magic are not a good combination.
I turned my attention back to the alcoves. Both led upwards and back into the cliff. They both ran so close together in the same general direction that I couldn’t tell which one was more likely to take me where I needed to go—not without the PhD students’ notes. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have . . . and hope to hell you don’t stumble into some ancient booby trap. I really didn’t need to get lost again. I shook my head and drew another arrow on the floor with my chalk. Well, on the bright side, if the map distance was accurate, I was only ten minutes away from the catacombs.
I decided to go left, mostly because I’m left handed. Four feet in, the light dimmed and I needed my flashlight once again.
A pebble skittered and clicked down the cave wall, then rolled to a stop by my feet. I froze. Adrenaline took over my senses, priming them to react as I listened for other sounds—like the hiss of pressurized acid or other assorted ancient booby traps. I don’t put much faith in coincidence. For the first time, I noticed the faint taste of mold in the air, like stale water left in a rock pool too long. There’s something really eerie about getting an image like that out of the blue.
Owl and the Japanese Circus Page 9
