Owl and the City of Angels

by Kristi Charish

  Still intact above the waterline were paintings of the usual Egyptian pantheon suspects: Horus, Isis, Anubis, Osiris. The entire chamber was overly elaborate for the time period and depth, even for an emperor.

  As my flashlight illuminated the north wall directly across from me, I picked out the second sarcophagus sitting in a raised alcove, Latin words carved into the wall above it, and underscored with hieroglyphs.

  Caracalla.

  Pass go and collect two hundred dollars.

  Next, I checked the hole in the ceiling I was partially responsible for. There was no way I’d reach it standing on the sarcophagus—too high. Climbing was out—the walls arched inwards towards the ceiling. I was trapped until Mike and the rest of the dig team came looking for me.

  Well, at least with the collapsed floor I wouldn’t have to explain what the hell I was doing down here.

  I spotted my backpack a few feet away from where I’d landed on the sarcophagus. Flashlight in mouth, I made my way towards it. Get bag, get Medusa head, figure way out . . .

  Unfortunately the sarcophagus had different plans. Years of dampness had covered the domed lid with a slick slime. A hand’s reach away from my backpack, my knees shot out from under me. “Oh you’ve got to be kidding—damn it!” I said as I slid off and landed in knee-deep, stale water.

  Soaked and smelling worse than I had any right to, I pushed myself up and noticed a hole in the side of the sarcophagus—a small one, but a crack nonetheless. I swallowed. Sarcophagi and tombs in general don’t bother me—they come with the territory; it’s when they’re broken open in a sealed-in room that I start to worry.

  OK, Owl—here goes the hard part . . . I edged my flashlight beam through the crack to see if there were any remains left inside . . .

  I yelled as two rats shot out. One dove headfirst into the water, but the second leapt off the stone lid and landed on my head. I shouted again and tried to pull the rat off, but it held on to my hair for dear life. I shook my head in an attempt to dislodge it, but that only gave it the bright idea to dive down my cargo jacket. I batted my body until the rat fell into the water, squeaking once before swimming off after its friend. I shook my head; I’d seen a lot of rats on dig sites, but I’d never had one try to use me as a hiding spot. I chalked it up to rat cabin fever and turned my attention back on the sarcophagus.

  Empty.

  My calves steadied in the water. Empty was good.

  I checked the submerged floor for uneven breaks or outright holes before wading through the knee-deep warm water towards Caracalla’s sarcophagus. Halfway there the stale water deepened past my waist. The floor must have shifted over the past few thousand years. From the blue-white light cast by my submerged light stick, I got a better look at the green-and-blue Medusa-decorated floor, which was even more impressive up close. Days like this, what I wouldn’t give for a few hours and a decent camera . . .

  I also noticed there wasn’t a passageway out in sight, with the exception of the one in the ceiling directly above me.

  Caracalla had been sealed in. Couldn’t blame whoever made that call. With the exception of an IAA fiber optics camera, I was probably the first evidence of humanity to set foot in this chamber in almost two thousand years. Two thirds of the way across, my flashlight beam caught gold, and a glint reflected off the lid.

  Bingo.

  The water shallowed out as I approached the platform. The sarcophagus was raised high enough off the floor that I’d have to climb on top to reach the Medusa head. The left corner of the stone pedestal was cracked where it met the water, but otherwise it looked sturdy enough.

  It was by chance that I caught the submerged tiles switch from pictures depicting Medusa heads to a Roman numeral five inches from my foot. I checked the rest of the floor between me and the pedestal; laid out in a four-by-eight grid was a series of Roman numerals, each one different.

  Shit. A Roman numeral code? But how many numbers, and what was the sequence? More importantly, what happened if I screwed it up?

  Time to call Nadya.

  “Alix, what the hell happened? The entire city shook.”

  Leave it to Nadya to bypass all pleasantries . . . “Just a minor ­cave-in—I’m fine, in fact it might have bought me some time.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Let’s just say the good news is I don’t have to explain to anyone what the hell I’m doing down in Caracalla’s tomb since the floor collapsed underneath me. You should see the artwork—”

  “Alix, just the Medusa head!”

  “All right, all right.” I transferred the phone to my shoulder to get a better look at the layout with my flashlight. “Listen, off the top of your head, have you ever heard of a Roman numeral booby trap associated with Caracalla’s tomb?”

  “I don’t see anything on this map, but the Romans were fond of math problems. Is there an equation nearby?”

  I scanned the area, but nothing stood out. I also didn’t see any major levers or plates—nothing that would indicate poison darts or giant rocks.

  Oh hell, I was never good at math anyways . . . I tossed my bag onto the sarcophagus. “Never mind, Nadya—I’ve got it.” I shoved my phone, which was still on, in my pocket, backed up to the edge of the shallows, took a running start, and leapt right before my foot touched the first Roman numeral.

  I landed halfway on, halfway off the sarcophagus. I was ready for the slime this time and dragged myself up before I slid back into the water.

  I pulled my phone back out of my pocket and balanced it between my ear and shoulder. “OK, I’m on the sarcophagus—”

  I heard Nadya swear. She was not a fan of my run-and-jump method of avoiding traps. “Just be careful with the head piece. It’s high carat.”

  The purer the gold, the easier to dent. That noted, I started to work on the surrounding rock with my chisel. I winced as the chisel hitting rock echoed around the room.

  “Alix, quietly! I can hear you banging over the phone.”

  “I can’t do it any quieter,” I said as I hit it again. The sarcophagus stone chipped as I struck it, and I cringed at the damage. Normally I’d use something more elegant, like acid or some other solvent, but I was short on time.

  “Come on, you stupid decoration—get out of the damn stone,” I said, and wedged my chisel further into the groove. The gold Medusa head lifted a quarter of an inch.

  Two or three more strikes and I’d be able to work it out . . .

  Something larger than a rat scraped against the stone wall, and I got a whiff of something astringent and rotten at the same time.

  A chill ran down my spine. I spun in the direction the noise had originated in, careful to watch my footing on the sarcophagus.

  Nothing moved as my flashlight illuminated the shadows, and the noise didn’t repeat. I chalked it up to my own personal brand of paranoia.

  Still, I picked up the pace on the Medusa head. A minute later it popped free. I switched the phone to my mouth so I could use my chin to hold the head while I fetched the duct tape out of my bag. Trust me, duct-taping an artifact to your stomach sounds a little gutter trash as far as thieves go, but I’m a hell of a lot less likely to lose it that way than if it’s stuffed in my bag or pocket—especially if I have to run.

  Which, if things went as planned this time, wouldn’t happen . . .

  Oh God, I hope to hell I don’t have to run this time. I had enough of that in Algiers . . .

  “Alix, do you have it?” Nadya’s voice came over the phone.

  “Uh—ye-ah—” I finished securing the Medusa head to my stomach and retrieved the phone from my mouth. “Yeah, got it—” I scanned the ceiling and wall on this corner of the chamber, looking for a way out I might have missed. Nothing . . . Shit. “Look, I’ve got to find a way out of here—I’ll call you back as soon as I’m out of the dig site,” I said, then hung up
the phone and stuffed it in my front cargo pocket before she could argue.

  Maybe I could figure out a way to get back out that hole in the ceiling . . .

  I grabbed my bag and, after one last pat on the duct tape, leapt off the sarcophagus past the Roman numerals. I swayed as I hit the water and overcompensated, stumbling forward to avoid falling back on the grid . . .

  Something solid brushed up against my leg.

  I swore, more from surprise than anything else—I hate running into things in the dark. I aimed my flashlight to remove the dark factor.

  The front half of a fresh rat corpse brushed up against my khakis. Son of a— Out of reflex, I scrambled back.

  I felt the tile sink under my foot.

  “Oh shit.” I stood perfectly still as the room grumbled, the sound of stone grating on stone. Now what the hell had I just triggered? No holes in the wall, no trapdoors underneath me . . . I glanced up and caught the stone slab sliding open above.

  I dove out of the way before the first cannonball-shaped stone hit the water in front of me, making a loud clicking noise as it struck the tile floors beneath. I let out an involuntary yelp as the second cannonball hit my shoulder. I heard more slabs begin to slide open above.

  So much for keeping my head dry. I took a deep breath and dove under the surface towards the broken sarcophagus on the other side of the room. The stones pelted the water around me, but soon I was in the deeper section and out of range.

  As soon as I reached the shallow end I stood up and pushed wet hair out of my face before glancing back at the stone trap . . . Damn, that had been awful easy. On the one hand, I should be thanking my luck; on the other hand, as a general rule, my luck sucks in situations like this.

  I heard another scrape along the far wall and aimed my flashlight, hoping to catch whatever had made the noise. I had a sinking suspicion it was whatever had bitten the dead rat in two. Like before, whatever it was clung to the shadowed recesses my flashlight couldn’t penetrate.

  The sooner I got out of here the better. I crawled back up on top of the cracked sarcophagus. The hole was only nine feet away, but high enough that I couldn’t reach the edge. I angled my flashlight along the wall, searching for foot- and handholds, but I only found a carved depiction of Anubis, which wasn’t recessed enough for me to get my toes in, or pronounced enough to hold my weight. I turned the flashlight as I heard the scraping noise for a third time, swearing I caught movement just outside my light stick’s range . . .

  I heard a door slam shut a few floors above me, followed by hurried footsteps. “Hey, Serena?” Mike called.

  Five minutes early, but under the circumstances . . .

  I shone the light back through the hole and waved the beam around for good measure. “Down here, Mike.”

  His face appeared over the hole.

  “The floor gave way when the building shook,” I yelled up. More or less the truth. “I need you to throw a rope or something down,” I added, keeping the far side of the room in the corner of my eye.

  “Just wait there, I’ll go get help,” Mike said, and disappeared from view.

  The thing in the corner moved again, and this time I caught a glimpse of what looked like an arm. Yeah, not a chance in hell—

  “No!” I yelled, maybe a little too desperately. When Mike’s perplexed face returned, I added, “I don’t think the room is stable—do you have your rope up there?”

  “Found it,” he said.

  I hoped that either Mike didn’t notice the climbing hook, or, if he did, I could talk myself out of it. “Tie it to something sturdy and lower it down.”

  I heard Mike moving in the cramped space above me.

  The “thing” hiding in the corner grunted, and this time I was ready—I managed to hit it in the face with my flashlight beam.

  An embalmed head, showing too much decay to be recognizable, looked up at me with empty eye sockets. What had to be the mummified remains of Caracalla snarled at me, displaying a rotting mess of sharpened black teeth.

  “Make it faster, Mike,” I yelled. Leave it to me to find the one IAA dig site with a mummy still in it . . . What the hell was the IAA doing nowadays? They were supposed to clear supernaturals out before hapless researchers like Serena and Mike showed up.

  Caracalla said something . . . or I think it tried to say something; its vocal cords weren’t exactly in the best shape. I mean it when I say the Romans messed up the Egyptian incantations. On top of that, I might be a genius at translating written languages—I can read and write ten, three of them dead—but I can’t speak one of them to save my life.

  Caracalla’s mouth twisted up into something reminiscent of a smile, and he began to wade through the water towards me.

  I scrambled as far back as I could until the carved Anubis idol dug into my back.

  “Mike, I mean it, get me the hell out of here—now,” I screamed. There had to be something around here to throw . . .

  Caracalla reached the end of the shallows and stretched one of his black arms towards me before submerging under the water.

  Son of a bitch, they could swim? Mummies weren’t supposed to swim . . .

  “Almost there,” Mike said as the end of my rope slipped over the edge.

  I searched the water for Caracalla as I waited for the rope . . .

  Crack.

  Above me, a fracture line appeared in the floor near the hole. Mike swore.

  “Mike, out of the way—” Son of a bitch—I jumped back into the knee-deep water as a slab of stone, followed by a screaming Mike, crashed into the sarcophagus. The rope followed him down last, sliding off the slippery stone surface and disappearing underneath the water.

  Damn it. I headed over to where Mike sat in the water. “Mike, are you OK?” I said, shaking his arm, hoping nothing had broken.

  He shook his head. “Fine—yeah . . .” His voice trailed off, and his eyes widened as he stretched out his hand, still shaking from the fall, and screamed.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Caracalla stood a few feet away. This close it really resembled a walking corpse rather than an Egyptian mummy. If it’d been a proper mummy, maybe I could have reasoned with it, but this? Not exactly the top of the supernatural food chain . . . though somehow fitting, considering how big an asshole he’d been.

  Mike regained his voice. “Oh my God, it’s a mummy—a real mummy—” In a surprising show of agility, he jumped out of the water and wedged himself up against the sarcophagus—behind me.

  “Hey!” I grabbed his jacket and pulled him back out so he was standing beside me. “Not cool, Mike,” I said, and slapped him hard on his injured shoulder. I didn’t care if this was his first supernatural; hiding behind coworkers was not cool.

  Mike ran his fingers through his hair as he attempted to regain something resembling composure. If anything, I was impressed with how well he kept his balance on the narrow ledge, reminding me of a beer-gutted, facial-hair-wearing ballerina.

  Don’t ask me why that visual came to mind; it’s amazing what adrenaline does.

  “The handbook . . . the handbook says something about this,” Mike said.

  I rolled my eyes. The IAA student handbook was next to useless when it came to supernaturals. One chapter on ghosts and a few phrases in ancient languages—most of which seemed to loosely translate to “please don’t eat me.”

  I’m paraphrasing, but you get the picture.

  “We’re supposed to try and reason with him until the IAA gets here,” Mike continued, turning panicked eyes on me. “Quick, Serena, offer him something.”

  I glared. “It’s living in a pit full of water, eating rats. I don’t think there’s anything we can offer it that we’d be willing to part with.” Though a small part of me was wondering whether I’d be willing to part with Mike. It was a very small part, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it was th
ere.

  I have to give Mike credit; he didn’t give up. “Greetings, Emperor Caracalla,” he said, clearing his throat.

  Oh this was going to be good . . .

  From the growl Caracalla let out, my guess was he thought about the same. I kept searching for something I could use as a weapon.

  “There are some nice people on their way to get you out,” Mike continued, shaking in fear.

  The mummy growled again, flashing his black teeth.

  Mike stepped back into the sarcophagus. “They’ll feed you all the rats you want—promise!”

  Oh for crying out loud. “Grow a backbone, Mike.”

  Mike whirled on me. “I’m trying to negotiate,” he said.

  “You’re making an idiot out of yourself. Now help me find something to skewer it with before that sorry excuse for a mummy decides we look better than the rats.”

  Mike snapped out of his fear-induced panic and focused on me.

  “That’s more like it—hey!” I said, as his eyes went wide with excitement and he gripped my arm with both clammy hands. He wrapped his arms around my waist and neck in a reverse bear hug, placing me directly between him and Caracalla.

  “What the hell?!” I pried at Mike’s arm wrapped around my throat, but it didn’t budge. Stronger than he looked when terrified . . .

  “Here! Emperor Caracalla. Let me go, and you can have her—”

  “Are you out of your mind? Since when the hell is toss your dig mate to the mummy in the manual?”

  “Extreme measures. I’m making it up as we go along right now,” Mike told me. Louder and to the mummy he said, “Wave once if you are amenable to my terms, great Caracalla.”

  Oh you got to be fucking kidding me.

  I could have sworn Caracalla laughed . . . then again, it was hard to tell. It could just as easily have been growling.

  Time to stop playing Serena, the grad student. “Hey Mike, remember what I said about breaking your nose for looking down my shirt?”