by Alan Baxter
“How do you know?”
“There’s a single set of new footprints going in.” He pointed, keeping his voice barely audible. “See how the dust is all disturbed and several sets of prints go back and forth.”
“Yes.”
He moved his flashlight. “Now, look here.”
Another set of prints, pressed into the dust recently and not yet disturbed or scuffed over. They went forward, but no similar prints came back. “I think whoever made these is still in there.”
He doused his light and ran his fingertips along the rough wall to sense the way forward. Behind him, Rose put one hand on Crowley’s shoulder. He enjoyed the closeness and the warmth of her touch, but nerves rippled through his skin nonetheless.
After creeping forward several meters, the passage turned sharply to the right and a weak light illuminated the walls. The stones were covered in hieroglyphs, every inch crawling with tightly carved ancient writing, deep black in the shadows of the thin orange light. Ahead the passage opened out into a chamber, lit by flickering candles.
The massed hieroglyphics continued into the room and covered every wall but one. That wall was dominated by a massive image of Anubis. His face was twisted in a snarl, black ears standing tall out of his complicated striped headdress. He held his hands out to either side, his left holding a two long white feathers, his right a bleeding, dripping heart. Behind him a set of scales was etched in simple geometric lines.
Crowley and Rose stopped dead at a soft scuffing noise. They couldn’t see the entire chamber yet, but something had moved inside. Crowley slowly released a held breath and took another step forward to see properly around the corner. More candles flickered around a stone altar in the center of the large space, atop which stood a set of golden scales, glittering in the dancing candlelight. Kneeling before the altar was a man in a khaki shirt, tan jodhpurs and brown boots. Crowley smirked. All the man needed was a pith helmet to complete the ensemble. Thankfully there was no one else in the room and Crowley could tell from his position that he was bigger than whoever knelt in worship. Never assume any potential enemy is easy prey, the Army had taught him that only too well, but this fellow appeared largely harmless.
Crowley cleared his throat and the man nearly jumped out of his skin. He leaped up, spun around in a half-crouch, eyes wide. His dark skin glistened in the low light with a subtle sheen of sweat. “Good God, you startled me!” He had a deep voice, a distinct upper-class British accent. He took a deep breath, quickly recovering himself. “What are you doing?”
Rose stepped up beside Crowley. “We got separated from our tour group.”
The man took a few menacing steps forward, his face set in a grim expression. He opened his mouth to speak, then paused, looked more intensely at Rose, then shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “I suggest you rejoin your group immediately,” he said, injecting authority into his voice. “You shouldn’t be here.” But the authority he tried to convey was empty, shaking with nerves the man was finding it harder and harder to contain.
Crowley stepped up to him. “We need help with something first.”
“I have no idea how I can help. You need to…”
“Got a name?” Crowley interrupted. He’d dealt with this type before and it wouldn’t take much to deflate the man’s artificially inflated bravado.
“Leonard,” the man said, clearly intimidated already.
Crowley almost felt sorry for him. He jabbed a thumb back towards Rose. “We’re looking for my friend’s sister.” Leonard grimaced, opened his mouth to speak, but before he could deny knowing anything again, Crowley said, “I saw the way you looked at her. For a moment, you thought you’d seen her before.”
Leonard slumped. “A woman called Iris was here a week or so ago. Sisters, eh? Makes sense. The resemblance is remarkable.”
Crowley nodded, though he disagreed. He supposed if you’d only seen each woman briefly the resemblance was stark, but he knew Rose well enough to see that her similarity to her sister was superficial. They were clearly family, but really didn’t look that much alike. Regardless, the family look seemed to be assisting them in their search so he was glad of it. “And what did Iris want?”
“She said she was a doctoral student doing her thesis on Anubis. That she’d heard about this chamber.”
“What, exactly, is this chamber?” Rose asked.
Leonard looked around, proud as though the space were his own property. “It’s only recently been discovered. The translation of the hieroglyphs is incomplete, as there are some that are previously unknown, but it seems to have been a place of worship for a cult of Anubis.”
Rose pulled out her phone and began photographing the walls.
“You can’t do that!” Leonard said, his voice high in outrage. He strode forward, reached for her phone, but Crowley quickly closed the gap between them and grabbed his wrist.
Leonard gasped, looked at Crowley’s strong fingers wrapped around his flesh as though it were an absolute atrocity. “Unhand me!”
Crowley kept his hold as Rose took detailed photos of the entire chamber.
“What did you and Lily… Iris talk about?” Crowley asked as Leonard began to shake with an impotent rage.
Leonard looked from Crowley’s grip to his face and back again. He shook his arm ineffectually.
Crowley tightened his grip, grinding the man’s wrist bones slightly. Leonard yelped.
“What did you talk about?”
Leonard let out a sharp breath of annoyance. “She asked about this chamber. When it was discovered, what we had learned, stuff like that.”
“And?”
“And if there were any new insights about Anubis based on the discovery. She wanted to take photos too, but she respected my wishes when I asked her not to.”
Crowley smiled crookedly. “Yeah, well I’m sort of an ass, I guess. Anything else you can tell us about her visit?”
Leonard shook his head, upset at his treatment.
“Was she with a man?” Crowley asked.
“She was, actually. Quiet chap, hair tied up on top in some ridiculous style. Didn’t say a word except to thank me when they left.”
“Did they say where they were going next?”
“No, and I didn’t ask. I just wanted them to leave me to my work.” He drilled Crowley with a piercing gaze, making the point that he required the same of him and Rose.
Rose finished taking her photos and came to stand beside Crowley. “The hieroglyphs that have been translated. Do they say anything about the Anubis Key?”
Crowley shot her a look, couldn’t believe she had blurted it out like that, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
“No,” Leonard said, much too quickly in Crowley's opinion. “I've never heard of it.”
Crowley decided he had had enough of the man’s obfuscation. The fellow could be forgiven for not being particularly receptive to the treatment he had received, but things were more important than this guy’s pride or whatever he felt had been compromised. Crowley twisted the man’s wrist over, used his other hand to lift and turn over the elbow, quickly putting the unfortunate bloke into a painful arm lock.
Leonard howled, struggled briefly but quickly stopped when that only made the pain worse.
“A woman is missing,” Crowley growled. “Her life is at stake. You’re going to tell us all you know. You can do it voluntarily or I can... persuade you.”
Leonard let out a frustrated half-sob. “All right, all right. They did ask about the Anubis Key, but I honestly don’t know what it is. I heard the name years ago, but when I dug into it, I concluded it was nothing but rank foolishness. The sort of thing nutters believe in. I told the woman so.”
Crowley nodded, considering. But he wasn’t fooled. In a flash, he released the arm lock, drew his knife and pressed its keen edge against Leonard’s throat as he backed the man up against the wall. Rose gasped as Leonard staggered into the hard stone and froze there, eyes wide.
> “You’re holding something back,” Crowley said, his voice brooking no further misdirection. Anger surged through him and he knew it was reflected on his face. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Leonard sagged. “They found the bone room.”
Chapter 17
The Bone Room, beneath the Black Pyramid, Dahshur, Egypt
Rose couldn’t help grimacing at Crowley’s treatment of poor Leonard. The man had every reason to be annoyed at their questioning, at their invasion of his space and his work. But she had to admit that Crowley’s methods worked. She was pleased Crowley always seemed judicious with use of force, always intimidation first rather than outright violence.
“What’s the bone room?” she asked.
Leonard swallowed against the knife edge. “I believe there were sacrifices performed here and the victims’ remains were left in a room just over there.” He rolled his eyes toward the huge mural of Anubis.
During her photographing, Rose had realized it was a carving rather than a painting as she had first suspected. Intricately, expertly crafted, beautiful with detail. Every barb of every vane on each feather, the blood vessels of the dripping heart, the fur of Anubis’s face and the individual precious stones of his headdress, all rendered in exquisite detail. But she saw no room. Obviously it was another secret chamber.
“And my sister found this room? What did she find inside?”
“I don’t know, but they left quite excited. I’ve been trying to figure out what it was that caught their interest so thoroughly.” Leonard paused. “I wanted to keep the room to myself until I understood it. I can’t keep this place a secret much longer.”
Crowley looked in the direction of the carving. “Show us.” He lowered the knife but kept it in plain sight, held casually but ready in front of his chest.
Leonard retrieved a small set of steps from beside the altar and carried them to the Anubis carving. He set them down, climbed up so he could reach the top crossbar of the carved scales. A small hole, hidden from the casual eye in the darkness of the carving, disappeared into the rock at the point where the crossbar ended, the left scale hanging from it. Leonard slipped his finger into the hole and pulled down.
A grating sound echoed in the chamber and a rectangular block of stone, encompassing Anubis’s lower half, slid down into the floor. It revealed another chamber beyond.
Leonard climbed down and led the way inside. The floor was strewn with skeletons, bones piled high against the walls. Rose gasped, put one hand over her mouth. There were a lot of bodies crammed in here, clearly eons ago. A narrow path had been cleared down the middle of the room, the pale stone of the floor dark against the yellowing bones.
“Your sister and her friend spent a lot of time down at that end,” Leonard said, pointing to the far side of the cleared area. “I’ve looked it over a dozen times. All I see are some squiggly lines, but they aren’t any writing I’ve ever seen and they certainly aren’t hieroglyphs.”
Rose hurried to the other end of the chamber, followed by Leonard and then Crowley. Leg bones - femurs, tibias, and fibulas - were stacked like cord wood to either side, dozens of skulls lying atop them as if on display.
Leonard directed the beam of his flashlight on a section of wall. “This is where your sister and her companion found the markings.”
Rose crouched, twisting sideways to not block the light Leonard held. There were strange lines carved into the sandy stone, sinuous, snakelike, with no obvious pattern. She pulled out her phone once more and snapped a few pictures.
She looked back over her shoulder. “What do you think, Jake?”
Crowley came to crouch beside her, brow creased in consternation. “I’m not an expert in this stuff, but I’ve never seen anything like it. And I assume Leonard is an expert and he says he has no idea what it is. Unless he’s holding out on us again.”
“She did say something about an airport,” Leonard said, his voice low and musing.
“An airport?”
“Yes. She said, ‘It’s the same design as at the airport!’ Then she said to her friend, ‘I bet this is proof they moved it from here to America.’”
“Moved what?” Rose asked.
“I don’t know. When I asked her what she was talking about, she clammed up. It was like she’d forgotten I was there for a moment and become careless.”
Rose ground her teeth. “Clearly Lily thought it was important. What else did she know that made this discovery so exciting?”
Rose leaned forward, looking more closely. “I wish I had paper so I could make a rubbing of it, to get a life size representation. Do you have any theories at all on what this is?” she asked, turning to address Leonard.
But a flash of movement interrupted her and Crowley slumped to the floor, clutching his head. Leonard loomed over her, wielding a heavy leg bone, and swung it down. Pain burst out and everything went dark.
Chapter 18
The Bone Room, beneath the Black Pyramid, Dahshur, Egypt
Crowley heard Rose’s cry and the sound of running feet even as he struggled to maintain consciousness. Damn that idiot Leonard; people watched too many movies. A genuine knockout could cause a person extreme brain injury. And even with the glancing blow he’d received, almost dodging Leonard’s wild swing, the pain was blinding. He put a hand to his head, felt wetness and heat. His vision swam, nausea briefly surging as he rolled onto his knees. He prayed Rose hadn’t been hit harder, her skull cracked like an egg.
He turned and slumped back against the wall, one palm pressed hard to the throbbing, bleeding cut on the side of his head. He blinked, vision beginning to clear, and saw the chamber door closing and then everything was blackness.
He scrambled in his pocket with his free hand and managed to find his phone and get the light on. Rose groaned and shifted next to him, pulled herself up to a sitting position.
“You okay?” He was pleased to hear his speech wasn’t slurred.
“That son of a bitch!” Rose sounded more angry than hurt and that was a good thing.
“Were you unconscious?”
Rose drew a deep breath in through her nose, rubbed her head just above her left eyebrow. “No, I saw it coming and ducked. But he clipped me and knocked me down.”
Relief flowed through Crowley. “Sounds like we were both lucky.” He didn’t feel lucky; his head throbbed with pain and a deep headache pulsed up from the back of his neck, but his bones were intact and his brain remained undamaged. Rose’s too, thankfully. “He even mocked us, suggesting Lily had got careless in his presence.”
She moved her hand and he winced at the egg forming there.
“He got you good, though. You sure you weren’t unconscious?”
She smiled weakly. “Yes, I’m sure. Why are you so concerned?”
He returned her smile, blinking against the pain that didn’t seem to be subsiding. “Life isn’t like the movies, that’s all.”
They took a few minutes to gather themselves and Crowley relaxed when the hammering pain began to reduce to a dull ache. The blood dried and he thought maybe he would get away without stitches. The headache he expected to persist for a while though.
He turned to Rose. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
He gestured around. “This! I took my eye off Leonard, stopped paying enough attention.”
“You were distracted by this discovery. We both were.”
“Sure, but it’s my job to stay alert. To protect you.”
Rose laughed and that stung a little. “Thank you, Sir Crowley, but I prefer to see it like we’re in this together. Looking out for each other. We both messed up this time. We both underestimated Leonard.”
Crowley paused, but had to agree. It was a better way to look at things. “Okay. So let’s both agree that we don’t take our eyes off people in situations like this again.”
Rose squeezed his shoulder. “Let’s hope there aren’t situations like this again.” She looked around, suddenly concer
ned. “And let’s hope that’s not because we’re stuck in here forever to become more bones for the pile!”
“Yeah. There must be a way out.”
Rose stood tentatively, found her phone and switched on its light. “Must there? Maybe the only access is via that mechanism outside. After all, these poor sacrificed souls wouldn’t need a way out.”
Crowley chose not to think too hard about that rather too likely possibility. “Let’s look for a way out.”
They moved carefully, ensuring they didn’t upset the neatly ordered ossuary. Crowley thought it stood to reason that any exit mechanism would be free of skeletal remains, but the small chamber afforded little in the way of unoccupied space.
“How long do you think these bones have been here?” Rose said.
“Thousands of years, I would imagine.” Something caught Crowley’s eye and his heart did a double beat of shock. “Or not.”
Rose looked back towards him. “What?”
Crowley moved to one side, played his light over one stack of old bones to see better the next pile. A flash of color among the dark stones and pale remains. “There’s a body here,” he said tightly.
Rose laughed. “No wonder they call you Jake Sherlock.”
He smiled despite himself. “No, I mean a recent one. Concealed under this pile.” He pulled the bones aside, as carefully as he could, to reveal the corpse of an older man. He had the appearance of a local as best as Crowley could see, though his skin was dried tight to the bone, eyes wide open, teeth bared. His clothes were shabby, threadbare, but the body was weeks old at best. “Not all of the dead are ancient, it seems.”
Rose hurried over. She muttered a low curse, pointed at the man’s chest. His shirt lay torn open, stained dark brown with copious amounts of dried blood, a gaping hole in his chest.
“His heart has been cut out.”
Anger washed through Crowley. “The Anubis Cult. Alive and well, unlike this poor bugger.”
“You think they’re performing occult rituals?” Rose asked.
