Her eyes opened wide as Ali ran up quickly behind him. “Oh, Hunter! They have her, they have her and…oh, my God!”
THE GOD WAVED HIS HAND, and the cloaked figures went away. He was amused then, smiling at Kat, as if she had caught him at some college prank that he thought incredibly clever, and he certainly did want her to know how he had gotten away with it.
“So. You weren’t surprised to see me. When did you figure it out?” he asked her.
“When I realized that you looked just like your mother,” Kat told him.
“Amazing. No one ever saw it before. Of course, you realize, I didn’t know that she was my mother until a few years ago,” Alfred said with a shrug.
“What I don’t understand,” Kat said, desperate to keep casual conversation going because she was so terrified of what would come after, “is why all the subterfuge between you and her. Obviously, you’ve been working together. And how…how did your mother—your father’s first wife, I mean—accept your father’s mistress’s child as her own?”
“That, well…my father was Lord Daws. Just as I am Lord Daws. She enjoyed being Lady Daws. When she couldn’t produce a child, I suppose she was given an ultimatum. And when you have power and position and money, well…there’s no end to the way records can be changed and what people will do. Now, of course, you! Ah, Kat—Lady MacDonald, sorry! Let’s see, how you stumbled into this is quite amazing. I figured that someone would save good old David that day—he was beginning to suspect too much about me, so I had to give him a really good warning. You see, all he was really supposed to do from the beginning was steal the blasted map. But you dived in and saved him! When my mother found out who had done it, and that Lord Avery wanted to see that you were rewarded, well! I thought she would have apoplexy on the spot. She was doing so well, working so hard to sell your father’s work—and, of course, in the meantime seeing that all our Egyptian treasures were sold!—and there you were, ruining the whole thing, making your father’s work known! Personally, at first, I found it exceedingly amusing. Naturally, too, if you were willing to sell your soul for David, I was happy to help send you on the road to hell, and give David another reason to remember what he owed me. Ah, Kat. We were aware, immediately, of course, that the expedition Lord Avery, Lord Carlyle and Sir Hunter were planning would bring them dangerously close to our operation. We did, at last, manage to steal the wretched map. And they might have stumbled around a great deal more… Who in God’s name ever would have imagined that you could re-create something so ridiculously well?” He sighed. “I am sorry. You are a most unusual young woman. Pity that your life will have to end as it will.”
“Why?” Kat demanded. “You were your father’s only heir!”
“Alas! I do love to gamble. Sadly, I went through that first fortune rather quickly. But my mother…um, well, she’s been involved in a few slightly illegal affairs before. And, as long as the world didn’t know our real relationship and believed that we despised each other, most of the time things went very well.”
“How long has your mother been involved in the Egyptian black market?”
“This, all this? Well, it’s really been a lovely setup. We only started last season. The point of it is, you see, you have to share. Now, mind you, you don’t have to spend a fortune, you just have to keep the money flowing. There are so many poor people, Kat! And when you make them believe that you are turning the world over to them, well…you become a god. Oh, and it is much more fun being a god than a mere lord, by the way.” He laughed, pleased with himself.
“And Margaret?” she whispered.
“Margaret. Ah, she is a creature of sweetness and beauty. Innocent, pure! Loved by all. And that’s exactly why she’ll make such a lovely sacrifice.”
Kat’s heart skipped a beat. She realized that he didn’t know yet that he no longer had Margaret.
“You would really murder Lady Margaret? Lord Avery would tear the world to pieces to find you. He wouldn’t rest until you were…drawn and quartered.”
“That punishment was outlawed eons ago, Kat!”
“He would see it reinstated. Hunter will kill you, you know,” she told him.
“How? I was attacked today, just the same as all of you.”
It was her turn to laugh, and he didn’t like it, but she couldn’t help it. “Alfred, do you really think that others won’t see what I saw?”
His expression turned surly. “So what?”
“She’s here, isn’t she?” Kat asked. “She’s not in France. She pretends to be abroad selling art, but she comes here.”
“Clever girl, Kat, so very clever!”
The words were spoken from behind her. She knew the voice. She spun around.
“Lady Daws,” she said. The woman was there. Like her son, she was dressed in white. She wore a headdress adorned with gold, taken straight from a likeness of Nefertiti, Kat was certain. She was stunning and elegant in her attire.
Regal.
Deadly.
“You know,” Kat said, still trying for a casual tone, “Eliza is the one who is very clever. She has known that you are truly pure evil from the start.”
“Eliza!” Lady Daws said with disgust. “Well, poor girl! She’ll be so distraught when she hears about your death in the desert that she’ll probably have some terrible accident herself. I really don’t want her around when I marry your father! Oh, look, Alfred! She’s so red, so angry, about to combust! Oh, this is better than any physical torture I could devise! Yes, my dear, I think I will marry your father. He’s going to be quite famous. Who knows? Had I realized that he might have become such a wealthy man, I might not have needed to throw myself into this elaborate scheme. But then, well…actually, it is fun out here. Having people worship you. And the money that comes in for the pieces…it’s simply astounding.”
Kat knew that she had to control her temper. “Isabella, I never thought that you were actually in your right mind, but I hadn’t thought you to be insane.”
“Insane? Do you realize what I have managed to do?”
“Do you realize that your little pyramid is toppling, that you have taken this all too far?” Kat said softly. “You’re going to get caught.”
“And how is that, dear? Do you think that your bumbling archeologist friends are really going to find this place?”
She was so smug. Just then, several hooded figures streamed into the room. They fell on their knees before Isabella.
Kat didn’t understand what was being said, but she did get the gist of it. They had discovered, at last, that Lady Margaret was gone.
Isabella spun round in a rage. She strode toward Kat, seizing her throat. “Where is she?” she shrieked. “Where is she?” Kat caught the woman’s wrists and sent her knee into her abdomen. She knew she was going to pay for it, but fighting back for that brief moment was sweet. Cloaked figures rushed forward. A hand swung, catching her on the cheek, hard. So hard that she stumbled to her knees.
Someone caught her arms. She was dragged up and then struck again.
The world swam…
She was vaguely aware of Isabella screaming that they must find Margaret.
Her hair was caught, her head dragged up. She saw Isabella’s furious eyes.
“Hardly pure, and certainly, a wretched little witch,” the woman hissed. “But you’ll make a fine enough sacrifice! In fact—” she brought her face close “—I shall revel in the killing!”
MARGARET WAS SCARCELY coherent, but eventually, Hunter was able to understand that she had been beneath the earth.
“There are dead people…corpses, bones…”
“Margaret! Where?”
She waved a hand over the dune.
Hunter stood, looking at Ali. “There’s a hidden entrance to…something! I’ve got to find it.”
“By the trees, Hunter,” Margaret said. “There’s a palm…I tripped on the fronds, coming out. It’s there, I—I think you lift the palm fronds.”
He started to walk away,
but Margaret roused herself again, this time to grab his arm. “No! They’ll kill you before you get to her…there are scores of them. They’re at some kind of prayer and…I think…soon…I was to be killed. Hunter! You can’t just walk in there. You can’t fight that many people!”
He looked at Ali, knowing that she was right, that he couldn’t save his wife if he was dead.
Time was ticking away.
He saw the cloak she had cast aside. “This is what they wear?”
She nodded. “I have to get in there,” he said, kneeling down by Margaret. “And Ali has to get to the camp, to get help. Margaret, you’ve got to have courage. We must find a safe place to leave you.”
“No!” she cried, grabbing him.
Ali looked at Hunter. “She can ride with me.”
“She’ll slow you down.”
It was true. But it was true, as well, that he was afraid to leave her.
Just when he thought there was no option, another horse appeared coming over the sands. A single rider.
“Who the devil…?” he murmured. And then he smiled. “It’s Arthur! Ali, I’m going in. You must have Margaret ride with Arthur and you get to the camp first. Bring Brian, Abdul and the others. Make sure they’re armed. And get back as fast as you can!”
He ran up the dune, swept up the red cloak and hurried across the sand once again. There! The palms…and in the sand, just as nature would have left them, the fronds.
SHE AWOKE IN DARKNESS. Trying to move, she felt something heavy on her wrist. She touched it, puzzled.
Then the world seemed clear. She had taken Margaret’s place in the tomb with the corpses of the priest Hathsheth’s many wives.
The thought, in the darkness, washed over her like a wave of black panic. She fought it, gasping for breath, desperate to calm herself. Carefully, she rose. She was clad in something sheer, with metal everywhere, and something on her head. She touched the heavy door and pressed. It was bolted. And she knew that it was a heavy bolt.
She started to turn around, hoping that there was another way out. Yet she was loathe to leave the door, knowing what lay in the room.
Again, she found that she was desperate to catch her breath. And for a brief moment, she was afraid that she, like Margaret, would dissolve in tears and fall to the floor.
She had never found life so precious, so miraculous, as it had been in the weeks past. All because of…Hunter. And because, in his arms, she had discovered what it really was to know love.
Hunter. Good thought, solid thought. He would come after her.
He had no idea where she was!
Ah, but Margaret was out roaming somewhere in the desert. Unless, of course, they had found her again.
Someone will come! she thought desperately.
But then again, someone might not. She had to find her own way out of this situation. And if that meant walking to the back of a pitch-black room filled with ancient corpses, then so be it!
And so she started back. She had to set her hands before her and feel her way. Her skin crawled. She wavered, touched something. It crumbled beneath her fingers.
Bone.
She paused, inhaling and exhaling slowly. She came to a wall. A dead end.
“No!” she half whispered, half moaned, aloud. She became desperate, following the wall, banging along it. Nothing.
Then, suddenly, the door opened.
None other than Isabella Daws herself had come for her. “Kat, it’s time. Think of it this way—all the people here believe that you will join the gods, that you’ll be a wife to them. I mean, that’s a rather lovely way to look at it, don’t you think?”
The woman was framed in the doorway. Kat imagined that at the least, they might have another really fine fight before it all ended. She moved forward again, reaching to her side for one of the bones, a solid one, she hoped. She meant to smash it right across Isabella’s face.
But two heavyset men stepped before Isabella just as she grabbed up the femur her fingers fell upon. And though she crashed it against a male arm with all her strength, she did little harm. The bone crumpled to dust on contact.
She was rewarded with Isabella’s delighted laughter.
The fellows dived for her, one on each side, going for her arms. She struggled insanely. And she began to scream.
KAT!
The sound of her scream nearly caused Hunter to give himself away. He had to keep calm, had to wait until he could see her, get to her. And then…
He had to fight. And pray.
There were dozens of them now, men dressed in the red capes and cowls, and all of them chanting ridiculously. They were swaying and chanting, heads bowed, before the great chair, where Alfred, looking like a ridiculous boy dressed up for a masquerade, was sitting.
Before him, on a slightly lower dais, was an altar. Ancient white stone, set with restraints at top and bottom. Hunter had been working his way up to the front since he had slipped in with the group, but now, with Kat screaming and being dragged in, wriggling and writhing and fighting like a tigress, he knew he had to make his move more quickly.
Past body after body. They seemed to have put themselves into some mesmerized state. No one seemed to notice as he inched closer and closer to the front.
Lady Daws, head high, slight smile in place, as if she truly believed herself to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian queen or, indeed, a goddess, led the way. However, Kat was not lending sanctity to the proceedings.
She was resplendent, as well, with a brilliant gold corset covering her breasts, a narrow, white gauze skirt held to her hips with gold, and gold entwined into her hair. Bracelets adorned her wrists and ankles.
“Are you all insane?” she shrieked. “This is murder, not a sacrifice!”
Her words were powerful and strong, but unheeded. The chanting did not miss a single beat.
“Omm…”
He pressed past the last of the fellows—zombies!—standing before him. As he did, Kat was dragged up onto the dais. It did take two of the men, one on each side, to get her there, he noted, and since her legs were flailing—and she was managing to throw a few good kicks into the faces of the men who would restrain her—a sharp command was called out. Instantly, the fellow by Hunter’s side jumped to the fore, grabbing a shapely, flailing leg.
Hunter sprang quickly to his side. He caught the other leg.
He needed her to see his face. He captured her ankle and pretended to slide it into the restraint, praying that no one would notice—and that she wouldn’t kick anyone else until he was ready.
The sound of the chanting suddenly changed.
The first two men who had secured her wrists moved back.
Kat madly worked at the restraints, still screaming, calling them all blind fools, idiots, murderers and worse.
Then there was a drumbeat.
Alfred stepped from his god’s chair. Isabella approached him, holding a pillow high. There was a long-bladed knife shimmering in the torchlight upon it.
Alfred swept up the knife. Isabella stepped back regally.
Alfred approached the table. He raised his arm.
And Hunter could wait no longer.
SHE WAS ABOUT TO DIE, and she had never known that such hatred could seethe in her heart. So many things should have touched her mind with greater fervor! Her love for her dear father, and fear for him in the future. Eliza! Lord Avery, who had been so good, Camille, Brian…
Hunter.
And it did seem that his face swam before her eyes, that the ache in her heart was largest because she loved him so very much, because…
We should have had a life. I should have had a chance to tell him that I have been falling in love with him bit by bit since we met, that I realized far too quickly that it was he I loved, wanted…
Another drumbeat!
Alfred was smiling and ready to kill, to delight in stabbing the knife straight into her heart!
Then…
She realized that a foot was free just as
one of the figures cast aside his cloak.
Hunter.
Alfred half turned. Hunter slammed his fist into his face so swiftly that Kat could hear the snap of the bone in his nose. He went down.
A roar went up.
Instantly, Hunter moved to free her from the restraints.
“Hunter!”
She screamed his name in warning as Lady Daws, snarling in fury, threw herself at him. He turned, slamming her with an elbow that sent her flying back against the wall.
“Hurry, hurry!” she pleaded, one wrist free, one foot free, desperately working at the knot.
A huge fellow bellowed and started for Hunter. He reached into his waistband, produced a pistol and shot him.
Silence reigned for a second, long enough for Hunter to free her of all the restraints at last.
She jumped up behind the dais, ready to face the oncoming crowd.
Hunter had his hands full. He emptied the pistol and drew a sword. She saw the sacrificial knife fallen by the side of the altar and made a dive for it. She came up to find a massive man about to strangle her.
She winced as she drove the blade home.
Men were falling before Hunter and her, one after another. She was back to back with him, ready to defend herself, to fight with him.
But no matter how they fell, more came. Bleakly, she realized that they were going to die.
“Hunter!” she cried softly.
“What? I’m a little busy!”
“I…” Her knife was stuck in an arm! She threw a punch. She heard an oomph.
“You what?”
“I love you!”
“What?”
His sword made a wild swing and he turned toward her.
“Hunter, watch out!”
He swung back just in time.
“I’m serious. I’ve known it a very long time…I…Oh!”
Someone grabbed her from behind. Burly hands came around her.
A gun exploded. Then more shots were fired. A cry sounded, loud and clear.
“Stop or die!”
She knew the voice that had stilled the room. It was Brian Stirling, Earl of Carlyle.
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