Curse of the Druids

by Aiden James

  I expected Marie to squawk about our careless bulldozing, but like us, she hurriedly sifted through corpses and filth as if looking for the iPhone she frequently misplaces. Within two hours, we had finished our initial investigation.

  No sign of the Ambrosius Amulet.

  “Maybe it’s hidden in the walls, between the bricks, no?” said Ishi, wiping the sweat from his brow with his cleanest forearm.

  The tomb was nowhere near as cold as the outside temperature had been upon our arrival. All of us were sweating from the exertion and high humidity inside. Exerting and breathing the air’s foulness, too. We were idiots for leaving our better surgical masks in the Viano, and being too damned lazy to go get them once we picked up the pace of our sifting work.

  ““We just haven’t looked hard enough in this place… or the amulet’s not here,” I said, snickering. “Maybe the map is a fraud.”

  “It’s not a fraud, you dumbass!” Marie reached in her coat and yanked the map out. “How can you not believe in alternative explanations that deal with the supernatural, Nick? Especially after everything we’ve dealt with? Did you not watch a pyramid lift off from an Egyptian desert and soar into the sky? And did you not see a living deity that was half human and half lioness? Or, do you suppose this is one long opiate-fed dream state you’ve been stuck in for the past six months? Hell, maybe I’m not real either!”

  Yeah, you’re real all right—a real peach when you don’t get your way, which makes you a royal b—

  “Don’t say it, Nick! Don’t say it, or I swear to Christ I’ll….”

  “Maybe it’s just a treasure map, Boss—”

  “Shhhh!”

  “What in the hell was that?” whispered Marie, after I motioned for her and Ishi to remain quiet.

  She pointed nervously to the hole leading out of the mound. The sunlight from earlier barely reached inside the opening, as the winter sun continued it’s westward journey across the sky. But I seriously doubted it would aid us in any way from the men owning the voices we heard. Voices speaking in the Masri dialect of Egypt.

  Shit!

  “That? Oh that, my dear, is the sound of underestimating our Egyptian buddies’ determination to find us!” I hissed, motioning for her and Ishi to join me in quietly moving out of reach of a potential flashlight’s beam. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

  Chapter Eight

  We stood in one spot for the better part of an hour. Meanwhile, the men and their excited voices moved around the mound. Not like Apaches getting ready to count coup, it was more like bloodhounds getting close, and then somehow becoming distracted by a second scent. The men spoke in hushed voices nearby, as if about to discover the small breach that Ishi had widened a few hours earlier. However, every now and then, the same voices sounded as if from farther away. Perhaps drawn to the Bluehenge ruins or some other diversion in the large field west of the monument, and just north of our present hideout with the illustrious dead.

  As the sunlight faded from view, so did the crypt’s sparse comforts. Without warm blood pumping from our amulet hunting exercise, we soon were freezing, weary from the mental drain of sorting through artifacts we couldn’t keep, and hungry. Not to mention the ever-present stench, along with the first genuine urge for a cigarette in months. I had successfully kicked the habit, or so I thought. Maybe it was the stress. Or, perhaps it was the anger that had been steadily building since my admonishments to get the hell out of England had been largely ignored. No, check that. Completely, ignored.

  Not the optimal time for this admission, but I needed a smoke and a strong drink. Not necessarily in that order.

  “How long do you think they’ll be here?” whispered Marie, more irritated than frightened.

  I honestly believe if our visitors had barged into the crypt with kamikaze gusto, she would’ve freaked. Marie might’ve even foregone her squeamishness and jumped in the bony arms of a long dead warrior occupying a top shelf. But the longer the Egyptians took, the more stupid they seemed to her. It mattered not that I could personally guarantee our uninvited buddies were just as dangerous as ever.

  “God only knows,” I told her. “They’ll be here until they get tired of looking for us…. Why are you asking, anyway? Do you need to take a pill?”

  “I need to pee.”

  “Oh… sorry, babe. You’ve got two choices as I see it. Either hold it, or go back there in the corner and find a place between Princess Bubbles and Pontius Pilate.”

  “That’s so not funny, Nick!”

  “Shhh… they’ll hear you if you’re not careful.”

  The fading chatter outside suddenly stopped. Ishi started to say something, and I reached over and covered his mouth, not considering he might retch from my grime-covered glove. Thankfully, he didn’t heave a load onto us, instead pushing my hand away from his mouth and using the inside of his sweatshirt to clean his lips.

  But at least he didn’t lose his cool and say something regrettable. Had he done so, who knows what would’ve transpired next? Assuredly a series of events no one would ever know about, considering the likelihood we’d soon be holding harps or some shit in the afterlife. Check that. Maybe Marie would be harping it while the two rogue antiquities thieves would be getting their asses roasted somewhere beneath the earth’s surface.

  Someone new approached, the booted footfalls stopping in front of the hole. My heart thudded loudly to where I thought Marie and Ishi could hear it prepare to burst from my chest, but their terrified expressions told me they were just as panicked. The unseen feet shifted, as excited voices approached.

  Was the dude motioning for his pals to come take a look at the major fissure that sure as hell was unnatural and manmade?

  Gravel and perhaps a mud clod fell through the hole, likely kicked by this individual. The owner of the first voice we heard moved closer to the entrance, the words sounding increasingly animated until they abruptly stopped, perhaps in mid-sentence. Silence followed… for damned near ten minutes. Then, the footsteps hurried away, followed by the sound of a pair of car engines revving up, doors opening and slamming shut, and the fading music of high-performance automobiles speeding into the distance.

  None of us moved a muscle for another five minutes, worrying that an assassin might’ve been left behind to take us out when we emerged from the crypt. A valid fear.

  “Let me take a look,” offered Ishi, slithering over to the hole he had created earlier that day. Brushing aside the debris that had fallen into the mound since our arrival, he carefully climbed up and stuck his head through the opening.

  “Well?” Marie asked, when he didn’t offer a report of what he saw going on outside. “What do you see, Ishi?”

  He slid back down into the crypt, shaking his head.

  “As far as I can tell, they’re gone,” he whispered.

  “Then I guess we can be on our way,” I advised, gathering our gear. “Unless you prefer to wait on Merlin to make the amulet suddenly appear, our work here’s done.”

  “Wait…maybe we should take one last quick tour, just to be safe!” Marie sounded frantic.

  “I thought you had to pee.”

  “I do, Nick… but it can wait another minute or two.”

  She scurried toward the left end of the mound, alternating her flashlight’s beam between the top shelves, and occasionally sifting through remains she had either missed before or assumed Ishi and I had carelessly passed over. When satisfied the Ambrosius Amulet wasn’t hidden among the corpses we had rifled through dishonorably, she returned. Nature’s call must’ve become undeniably strong, as she scurried out of the mound without waiting for Ishi or me to lead the way.

  I sent Ishi to make sure Marie didn’t fall into trouble, so to speak, and then I found a few sizeable rocks to hide the breach. The pair were waiting for me near where the Mercedes was parked, exercising caution in regard to the van’s security risk. They hadn’t touched it, and neither would I. It was too damned dicey.

  Warily, I approa
ched the car while keeping a watchful eye out for a sudden attack from an unseen assailant. My hand touching the Bowie knife twitched in anticipation. But there wasn’t a soul around, as I expected.

  “Should we check underneath for explosives again?” Ishi dropped to his knees to peer under the Viano until I stopped him.

  “It likely is, and they had time to be clever about it,” I said, scanning the ground for signs that small mines had been used this time. There weren’t any… at least not obviously visible. “We’re going to have to leave the van here.”

  I moved over to Marie, offering her a loving grin before grabbing her heaviest bag to sling over my shoulder.

  “Oh, so you think that taking my stuff from me will make me see things your way, huh?”

  She wasn’t responding well to the hike we were about to take. I had anticipated as much.

  “No… you’ll still see everything like you do,” I replied, finding it hard not to chuckle at her indignation, while her vulnerability tugged on my heart. “I’m just trying to make sure you are nowhere near this thing when it goes ka-boom.”

  “I don’t need you to constantly protect me, you know!”

  “Yep,” I said, without looking back as I headed toward the main highway. “You both are free to take the car back to town. If it doesn’t send you airborne the moment you start it up, you’re more than welcome to pick me up along the way.”

  I actually made it a fair distance before I heard Marie’s and Ishi’s footfalls as they ran to catch up with me. It was kind of nice not having to say anything as they kept pace, silently brooding about our lack of transportation.

  I wasn’t sure how hitchhiking worked in England—especially along the road to one of the country’s biggest tourism draws. And, of course, Marie worried we might be detained for questioning if a policeman were to see us thumbing for a ride. Fortunately, after a number of snubs a cordial old farmer from the area named Willie Tibbets picked us up.

  “I know you want to get on the first plane out of here, Nick,” said Marie, when we returned to our room at Cricket Field, and after I had checked for hidden explosives and surveillance devices. There were none, and we hadn’t seen any evidence that the guys seeking our whereabouts knew we were registered. “But I’m asking you to give this one more night. We can talk about it later, if you’d like, but if you stay with me here tonight, and still feel like leaving in the morning, then we’ll go…. I promise.”

  Her words sounded sincere, and I could tell this was breaking her heart. The last chance to make amends with her father, who was no longer alive. A promise born of devotion, even if it was misplaced loyalty, was the hardest kind to renege on.

  “Okay,” I told her, as we began the painstaking transfer of all of our luggage and equipment to Ishi’s room. “I’ll give it until tomorrow morning. You’ve got tonight to change my mind. Deal?”

  She nodded shyly, as if she already conceded I would have us out of the country on a flight to America by noon the next day. And, here I thought she would waylay me with her seductive charms to get me to see things differently.

  “I can see those wheels turning in your head, darling,” she said, a knowing smile appearing on her face after glancing up into mine.

  “That obvious, huh?”

  “Yes, always that obvious.” She laughed. I started to say something smartass, but she stopped me by pressing her forefinger against my lips. “Maybe if you play your cards right, and Ishi is the one out cold from a few drinks, we’ll see. But before anything like that happens, I think it’s time I tell you both a little more about why this means so much to me. The same reason it meant so much to my father.”

  “I thought you already told us,” I said, regarding her suspiciously.

  “I’ve never been dishonest with you,” she said. “I told you more than what you needed to know….”

  “But?”

  She regarded me as if suddenly unsure how to proceed.

  “I will share the rest of what is important tonight, after dinner and we’ve settled in Ishi’s room,” she advised. “Until then, please trust me. Believe in me, Nick, that what I tell you this evening will make you seriously reconsider wanting to leave here anytime soon.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Okay, so what’s going to make us change our minds about leaving this place?”

  We had just returned to our room after dinner with the other guests in the main dining room. It seemed the safest option, as venturing out on the town was too risky at this point. And, surrounding ourselves with plenty of witnesses familiar with our presence in the B&B would make for a very messy execution if Yassir Ali’s men figured out where we were staying in Salisbury.

  Marie smiled weakly in response to my question. Ishi and I sat on the edge of his bed, while she stood before us, leaning back against the room’s only dresser, a stately antique from the end of the Victorian age.

  “Have you ever wondered why there is a similar theme or design linking the three sites in the Salisbury Plain—if we count Woodhenge and Bluehenge as separate locales? And what about similar sites located throughout the world? You mentioned this yourself, Nick, on the plane ride to London, that throughout the United Kingdom, as well as elsewhere in Europe and even in eastern North America, you’ll find comparable oblong boulders positioned similarly. Most formations are circular in construction, but not all of them. Even so, I assure you that they are all interrelated, one to another as an unbroken string.”

  I nodded thoughtfully, as did Ishi, though I assumed he thought the same thing as I did. As in ‘here we go with the latest serving of mumbo-jumbo horseshit’. A look of recognition brought a smirk. It tugged at the edges of her lips, and she fought admirably to keep her smile at bay. If she had given in to our potential ridicule then—as she had in the past—we might never be the wiser about her daddy’s amulet secrets. Forcing her expression to remain stoic, she continued.

  “You told me you saw the one in Massachusetts as a kid, Nick. Right?”

  “Yeah… that’s true,” I conceded, unable to suppress the dimpled grin she lovingly teases me about. “But it could’ve been put there by anyone. There’s no proof it has anything to do with the sites in England and elsewhere. Hell, carbon dating doesn’t match up that well either, from what I understand.”

  “Inconclusive,” she said. “Inconclusive with some estimates not far off from its much bigger brothers across the Atlantic.”

  “Forgive me, Marie, but if it the dating is inconclusive, how can you be sure the site is related to any other site elsewhere in the world?” asked Ishi.

  “And why in the hell does it matter?” I added, not happy we were wasting time discussing what had begun to sound and feel like a ruse to get us off track. “I thought you were going to lay some big amulet revelation on us. What in the hell does this talk of various Neolithic stone formations around the world have to do with it?”

  “Because each one is part of an energy chain—a chain that once empowered five amulets,” she said.

  Whoa! Both Ishi and I sat up straight. He was all ears and wore a look of pubescent fascination, as if ready to embrace the second coming of Don Quixote. Meanwhile, the news was forcing me to make a decision as to whether I wanted to become a royal asshole and laugh out loud at this latest bullshit. After all, how in the hell did one sacred and rare amulet suddenly become five? Other than multiplication by desperation on the part of Marie—our damsel in distress doing whatever she could to not finish this mission solo?

  “According to Papa, the Ambrosius Amulet was one of five sacred amulets created to join humankind with the higher souls, or deities if you prefer,” Marie continued, for the moment ignoring me. Ishi had become her mark, and I thought back to how she once had marked me in that dingy little bar in Honduras the day I was hired to find her daddy’s jaguar treasure trove. “It didn’t take all five amulets working simultaneously to reach these higher beings. Three amulets were sufficient to pass revitalizing energy among the masses—
strong enough to heal the sick and infirm. Four amulets could bring about greater feats, such as healing the dead and transporting dozens of people and several immense objects—like the stones that make up Stonehenge—to new locations hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of miles away.”

  “So, what could five amulets get a hallucinogen-loving druid back in the day?”

  Believe it or not, I resisted the sarcastic delivery one might picture… barely.

  “Hard to say, Nick,” she said evenly, reinforced by a pained expression on Ishi’s face imploring me to go easy on her. “Based on an old Pict legend Papa shared with me at his last museum post in Los Angeles, communion with the true Almighty was said to be possible when all five were brought together in the alignment of a pentagram.”

  “Satanic witch shit, huh?”

  “No, druid knowledge that obviously surpasses your sheltered Methodist upbringing,” she said. I had struck a deeper nerve, though her trembling from growing anger was barely detectable to the naked eye. “I won’t pander to your ignorance on the subject of pentagrams, Nick, but if you would do some homework, you’ll be surprised to find that they were accepted by the Christian church until the period of inquisitions placed the stamp of Lucifer on them…. But, know this: in its original uses among the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Greeks, and others, the symbol was a pure one associated with the pursuit of knowledge about God.”

  “Nick, you’re blowing it for me, man!” Ishi eyed me angrily as he said this. “Let her tell the story. Who cares if it’s not all true? I mean—sorry Marie, I mean no offense. But like all legends, some shit’s true, even if most of it isn’t.”

  He had a point.

  “Sorry, babe,” I told her. “But does this mean we’re going to have to hang around here until we find all these amulets?”

  “No, we’re only looking for one,” she said. A slight chuckle escaped. Ready to forgive? I hoped so. “The Ambrosius Amulet comes with the most legends and carries the greatest power, and could profoundly change our lives.”