by Addison Fox
With every ounce of willpower, Brody held his tongue at the not-so-subtle insinuation his own work wasn’t scholarly. Before he could change his mind and say anything further, a shout rang out from the adjoining burial chamber.
Brody was on his feet and running toward the entrance. A shout like that meant one of two things—a discovery or an injury—and he was determined to be in the thick of either one.
What he hadn’t expected was the sight that greeted him as he cleared the outer chamber and moved into the burial chamber.
A long section of wall was exposed, pulling his attention immediately. The team had trained as much light on the wall as they could, line after line of hieroglyphics clearly visible, even from across the room.
Brody’s gaze had barely moved through the first two lines when the truth of the matter became crystal clear.
The team had just discovered the Great Prophecy of Thutmose III. As he looked around at the jubilant faces of his fellow archaeologists, a whisper of truth skated down his spine.
They had no idea what ungodly hell they’d just unleashed.
Stomach twisting with each successive glyph he translated, Brody read through the rest of the hieroglyphics engraved on the tomb wall.
The Prophecy of Thutmose III was not just any prophecy. Although humans had transcribed their musings for thousands of years, convinced their prescient writings had the power to foretell the future, most were nothing more than mental scribbling.
Unlike those diabolical few who’d sought to channel power through the use of sacred objects, the vast majority of humans had no problems believing the tales they made up in their own minds.
These writings, however, were vastly different. Rather than incoherent, mad scribblings of an odd dream or two, these hieroglyphics had a very specific purpose. Carved by Thutmose’s high priest, they foretold of the power of the famed Summoning Stones of Egypt.
While the world had become enamored of the stones more than twenty years ago when Russell Harrison had first discovered them, no one—least of all Russell—had any idea of the true power the stones held.
Hell, all the Warriors had was a boatload of speculation and millennia of experience that suggested five matched, inanimate objects discovered in the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh couldn’t possibly lead to anything good.
So they’d watched and waited, with Quinn keeping tabs on the stones just as he did with a variety of other discoveries from all over the world. Brody understood only roughly half of what their Taurus mumbled about his computer programs and algorithms and the time-space continuum, but it really wouldn’t have mattered if he understood each and every word. Their six-foot-five resident geek kept tabs on all of it.
Then, two months ago, all that monitoring paid off. Quinn’s computer programs started going ape-shit and Brody found himself heading for Egypt.
But now, it was all clear.
Brody read the prophecy again, but the meaning was still the same. The prophecy explained how to use the stones and how to channel their power. These writings were the missing puzzle piece for which the world had been searching for two decades.
Now that they’d found it, Brody could only hope he and his brothers could dismantle the stones’ power in time to avert disaster.
Ava Harrison shot up in bed, a scream reverberating through her chest. Cold sweat ran a line down the center of her back and her sheets tangled around her legs like a mummy’s funeral wrappings.
Her breath caught in her tight throat and vague colors—swirling reds and blacks—hazed her vision. Her fingers scrabbled at her windpipe as if the useless motion could force her body to breathe again.
Through sheer will, she held herself still, desperately waiting until the air circulated through her chest.
Seconds felt like hours as her chest cavity calmed, as air slowly trickled its way down her throat.
Panic receded into the darkness, along with the swirling haze of shapes in front of her eyes. The vague outline of her room came into focus as her pupils adjusted to the lack of light.
She slowly took in the outline of her sturdy dresser under the window; the hulking shape of her armoire as it stood sentinel by the bedroom door; the small glow that illuminated the open doorway from the kitchen light she always left on when she went to bed.
As the familiar returned, with it came the memory of her dream: images of her father, so robust and healthy, so full of life as he grinned at her and wrapped her in his strong arms; smiles just for her; smiles that told her she was the most important thing in the entire world to him.
The dream always started that way; something so warm—so special—that let her know once upon a time she was loved.
Deeply.
The image of his smiling face changed then, moving her from the warm cocoon of sleep to the horror of terrifying memories.
The images came to her. His large body—the body of a man who spent more of his life outdoors than behind a desk—lying in a pool of blood. Those warm brown eyes, so like her own, boring into hers as he begged her to keep his secrets as he gasped for life. The horrifying knowledge that he was well and truly gone when the ambulance medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
Ava wrapped her arms around herself, willing the shivers away and the memories back to the place that lay heavily guarded inside her heart. What made this nightmare different from all the others she’d had over the last twenty-three years?
As she rolled over, sleep taking the corners of her mind, an image of a large, oversized Egyptian relief flitted through the edges of her consciousness.
As large as a wall, the piece pulsed with life. With promise. With prediction.
Did she know this piece? Had she studied it somewhere? She closed her eyes, hoping the effort would help her to see the piece more clearly in her memories.
Before she could pull the piece into full focus and translate the rows of hieroglyphics, sleep had claimed her once again.
Brody watched the swishing hips of one very annoyed woman as Marguerite sashayed off to her tent. He wondered why he wasn’t more upset at his ruined evening. It certainly wasn’t for lack of interest.
Or was it?
As the team worked the prophecy from its resting place in Thutmose’s tomb, the details of his mission grew increasingly clear. And his interest in banging yet another willing woman faded in the rush of adrenaline and professional curiosity.
The prophecy pointed to someone who had the power to use the Summoning Stones, so now all he had to do was find the one person in the world who fit the description: a Chosen One, predestined with the innate knowledge of how to use the Summoning Stones.
One person in a sea of six billion? Sure . . . easy.
Dr. Peter Dryson dropped down next to him, in the lawn chair Marguerite had recently vacated. The man held out a fresh beer in offering. Brody took it, settling himself in for one of the polite nuances of his job.
Small talk.
“What’d you do to piss her off, Talbot?”
Brody couldn’t stop the wry grin that creased his cheeks. “Passed on the merchandise.”
“Careful with that one. She won’t forget it.”
He watched as Marguerite ducked into her tent and let out a small sigh. “I suppose not.”
They sat in companionable silence, the desert air cooling around them as night descended on the Valley of the Kings. Brody spoke first. “You do realize you made your career today, don’t you?”
“I don’t fucking believe it, Talbot. To think that’s been here all along.”
“It’s quite an accomplishment, Peter. This will ensure your dig next year in the valley.”
“To hell with next year. I’m so damn excited about this year.”
Peter practically vibrated as he drank his beer, the enthusiasm emanating off the man in waves. Just muscled enough—and well-rounded enough—not to reek of geek, Dryson had led the team to the goal of finishing the work Dr. Russell Harrison had started twenty-three years ago in his
excavation of the tomb of Thutmose III.
“Harrison’s brother been all over you yet?”
“Wyatt?” Peter took another large swig of beer and nodded. “White on rice, man. He’s so intent on getting the relief for that damn exhibit for the Natural History Museum and we haven’t even gotten it out of the tomb yet.”
“Think he’ll get it?”
“Definitely. Museum’s got a lot of pull all by itself. Add to that the fact they’ve got an exhibit in progress that has artifacts from the same tomb and the Harrison money behind them. Slam dunk.”
Brody’s discussion that morning with Quinn came back to him. His quick port back to New York had proven rather interesting as Quinn got him up to speed on his latest background check of the Harrison family. Quinn’s words still echoed in his ear.
“The Harrison family is in this.”
“In what?”
“This whole business. The reopened dig at Thutmose’s tomb in Egypt. The Summoning Stones. The upcoming exhibit at the museum. They’re involved with Enyo—I know it.”
Brody’s initial reaction was always to underestimate Quinn’s seemingly paranoid ideas. Even as his rational mind told him it was absurd—wealthy New York blue bloods up to their eyeballs in supernatural artifacts and in league with the goddess of war—Brody had to admit their Taurus wasn’t off the mark very often. And to be fair, this one looked good on the surface, but it didn’t take much digging to see past the smoke and mirrors the Harrison money had created.
Twenty-three years ago Russell Harrison had discovered the famed Summoning Stones of Egypt—five stones, now housed in five major cities around the world, that had captured the imaginations of people around the globe.
What was their purpose? And how did five equally perfect, flawless stones made of an iridescent material no one had ever seen before come into being?
Then Harrison had been murdered, his estate wrapped up so tightly in layers of red tape, even a Greek goddess couldn’t get through. It had shut down the archaeological team and perplexed the world’s scholars, who believed Harrison’s work should continue.
Owing to a small loophole the ever-wily Harrison had been smart enough to write into his contract, no one had been able to touch the dig site. The world’s scholars had argued for years, but the tomb had lain untouched as the courts and professional institutions and the Egyptian government worked their way through the mess.
And then, three months ago, everything had changed. The spigot opened as quickly as it had been shut off and the restrictions on the tomb’s excavation were lifted. A team of scholars were assembled for the dig and they were off to the races. The same week came the announcement of the next major exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.
Mysterious Jewels: a walk through the history of the world’s most famous pieces, with the Summoning Stones of Egypt as its centerpiece.
And wouldn’t you know it, Dr. Ava Harrison was its curator.
Brody was pulled from his thoughts by the pop of another can of beer and Peter’s rumbling voice in the waning evening light. “Any guess what it means?”
“What what means?”
“The relief. My first assumption was that it had to be funeral text. But I’m starting to wonder about that.”
It wasn’t a funeral text, but Brody kept the thought to himself, curious as to what had changed Peter’s mind.
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s the placement. The wall isn’t that far from where Harrison found the Summoning Stones. I think the prophecy’s tied to the stones. Almost like instructions.”
Brody kept his tone even. “Interesting theory. Do you really think Harrison would have missed the relief, though?”
“If he’d had time. But think about it, Talbot. Harrison found the stones. There was a huge outcry of interest and then less than a week later he was killed. Forget further discovery—he never even saw the tomb again.”
“True.”
“And you have to admit, it’s weird. I always wondered what got him off the dig site and to New York.”
“You think it was more than a mugging? The papers said it was just an unfortunate incident gone bad.”
Peter shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s awfully coincidental. Harrison’s called back home to New York three days after his biggest professional achievement. And then a day later he’s conveniently murdered via a mugging. It’s never played well for me.”
It hadn’t played well for any of them.
The lion tattoo on the upper part of Brody’s right shoulder swished its tail with impatience as his thoughts ran wild with Peter’s speculation. Although Brody had ultimate responsibility within his team for recovery, management and, if possible, destruction of hazardous ancient artifacts, his Warrior brothers all had a take on the situation that was tied to their own areas of expertise.
It was why Quinn was keeping such a tight leash on the Harrison family via his security systems. It was also why Rafe, their cerebral Cancer, had an eye on the Harrison finances and why their stubborn Ram, Grey, had his finger on the pulse of the world’s underground activity via his nightclub, Equinox. When money flowed illegally, news of it inevitably caught Grey’s attention.
Nope. Coincidences were for movies. In real life, as he’d had millennia to learn, coincidences meant connections.
And connections meant a problem, especially when the common thread was Zeus’s beloved daughter Enyo, the goddess of war, the dark to his boss’s light and an all-around grade A bitch.
Recognizing Peter was waiting for some degree of validation, Brody nodded. “Makes sense. Which means it probably makes sense to watch your back around Wyatt.”
“Especially after what happened to Ahmet.” Peter rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Even with the tightened security, it still freaks me out. I have a fiancée waiting for me at the end of this dig and she’s going to be seriously pissed off if something happens to me.”
“She’s awfully understanding to let you come here.”
Peter smiled, his broad grin well past love struck and heading round the bend toward sappy. “She gets me.”
Brody held out his beer can and clinked it with the besotted fool. “A rare trait indeed.”
“Speaking of Maggie, I need to go give her a call. I’ll catch you in the morning, Talbot.”
“Later.”
As Brody watched Peter walk across their camp, his stride far more enthusiastic than Marguerite’s had been, a small shot of envy lodged in a dark corner of his heart. It was a telling thing he didn’t dare dwell on for fear of what it might actually mean.
To head off for a conversation with the person you loved. Not a one-night stand. Hell, not even sex.
Conversation.
Companionship.
Courtship.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself. “You’re seriously losing it.”
Annoyed at himself—for the thoughts and the gaping emptiness he didn’t even want to acknowledge—Brody took off for his own tent across the camp.
By mutual agreement, the men had set up farther away from the women, placing them in the center of the camp with the men in a watch formation around them. Brody had nearly cleared his tent when a frisson of electricity snaked up his spine.
The lion tattoo on his shoulder came to life immediately, mane shaking and tail twitching. Brody bent and retrieved the Xiphos from his calf before moving at a fast clip past the rest of the tents.
As his steps took him farther and farther toward the back of the pyramid—and the same area where he’d found Ahmet—the waves of static electricity grew stronger. Brody felt it in the air, like the heaviness just before a lightning storm. But this storm portended something far more sinister—far more evil—than a simple burst of rain.
Sharp, pointed stabs of energy ran the length of his body in increasing intensity, prickling his skin and sinking into his muscles. And as Brody cleared the far side of the pyramid and moved along the back side, he saw them.
Destroyers.
Two oversized, muscle-bound assholes had Peter up against the pyramid wall, their supernatural slaps of voltage twisting his body in malevolent jerks as sharp waves of electricity rocketed through him. Although they had the form of men, Destroyers’ bodies were really just shells, housing concentrated, evil, superconductive energy.
Brody leaped at the first one he could reach, his only goal to remove the Destroyer’s deadly aim from his colleague. He caught sight of Peter’s lolling tongue, a clear sign he didn’t have much time.
Brody caught the first Destroyer unawares. Actions swift, he pulled on the Destroyer’s hair, exposing the guy’s neck to the swift punishment of his Xiphos. Oily ooze spewed from the wound, as the body began to disintegrate, falling to the ground like an abandoned husk.
He felt his tattoo prickling with anticipation, but he held it in check. He wanted to avoid suspicion from Peter if at all possible. Yeah, Talbot, right on that one. He’s got two guys slamming serious voltage through his tissues. He’s so focused on your aura.
Abandoning his mental argument, Brody shifted his focus from the expanding pile of oozing grease at his feet. The pounding waves of electricity had momentarily stopped as the second guy snapped to attention, his focus shifting from Peter to Brody. With that shift, the Destroyer threw a wicked fireball, the harsh wave of energy so named for its impact on the body. Brody took it full force, a grunt passing his lips before he could keep from crying out, the fire of a thousand suns singeing his nerve endings.
The force of the blast had Brody on his knees as the Destroyer let go of his hold on Peter. Char marks covered Peter’s khaki shirt and his skin had a bluish tint to it as he lay lifeless next to the base of the pyramid.
Brody got to his feet, spitting a mouth of dust and sand. “Bring it on, asshole. See if you can fight someone who actually knows how to kick your sorry ass.”
The Destroyer hissed at him. “Defending your weak little friends, as always. This one squealed, screaming his woman’s name. See if I don’t go after her next.”
