“Your next project,” Hesha clarified.
“Sorry. I was planning to keep plugging away at this for a few hours more, then begin swabbing down another canvas.”
“No papyrus tonight?”
Liz stretched herself, and regarded the huge mass in puzzlement. “I see hieroglyphs in my sleep, at this point. I need a change…and there’s just something satisfying about digging into this. Put something together over there,” she gestured at the long table, “take something apart over here.” Elizabeth clicked her tools lightly into one hand, and shrugged a little. “I can work on the papyrus, if that’s what you’d prefer?”
“Please, do what you like. The paintings are coming along well enough.” He waited, half-expecting her to draw the encounter out longer. For the moment, though, she seemed more interested in Vegel’s boulder than in him. Good, he thought. Thompson must have been mistaken. He rose abruptly, slapped the dust off of his clothes and skin, and turned to go to his study. Elizabeth didn’t even look up, and Hesha stalked out of the room in a perversely dissatisfied mood.
Friday, 9 July 1999, 10:43 PM
Laurel Ridge Farm
Columbia, Maryland
“Hesha?” Liz asked without looking up from the papyrus.
The Setite stopped in surprise, glanced at his silent, stocking feet, and replied, “Yes.” He sat down across the table from her, and picked up his own set of tongs. “You’re making good progress tonight,” he remarked.
“It’s an easy section, I think.”
Hesha compared her several nights’ work—this piece was no simpler than the others; it must be that she had begun to memorize the hieroglyphs. And she’d slept more soundly the night before, though she could hardly be expected to know that. But Elizabeth seemed rather elated—pleased with herself to an incomprehensible degree.
He watched her deftly lay five scraps together to make a single feather sign, and though the next glyph was uncommon, her eyes looked to the notes spread out over the glass for only the briefest instant before finding it. There was something odd about the way she was sitting, as well…he began manipulating shards on his own half to disguise his curiosity.
Chair angle as normal…her hips curved into the seat in the same way…slight twist of her back to keep her long neck and delicate shoulders positioned comfortably over the work…but her shoulders were wrong. Hand with the tweezers—no, the other hand—instead of loose, relaxed fingers flipping through Vegel’s transliterations, her fingers were closed in a near-fist, flattened against the table top. Her pulse was quickening the longer he sat with her…what was in her hand? He felt Elizabeth’s eyes on him, and bent earnestly over the work.
“I have a present for you,” she said eventually. Hesha looked up into the sweetest cat-canary smile he’d ever seen, and the amber lights in her eyes were absolute sparks. “Open your hand, and close your eyes, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Pardon?”
“Here.”
She turned her left hand over, and lying on the palm was a metal ring. It was a shining dark brown, completely untarnished, and Hesha had never seen it before. He took it warm from her body and peered at the sculpted surface through his old-man glasses.
“It’s the crackerjack prize out of Mr. Vegel’s rock,” said Elizabeth. “The wisdom of Sisyphus, so to speak.”
“Ourobouros,” whispered Hesha.
“Bronze,” she said eagerly, “Though why it hasn’t greened away completely I can’t imagine. I intend a pH study of the surrounding material.”
Hesha hardly heard her.
Bronze, yes, though he had a better guess as to why the metal had been preserved. No inscription…no marks on the interior of any kind. He turned his attention to the design—two snakes, both self-devourers, twined around each other in opposite directions. The heads and tails met together on what must be the top of the piece, and the interweaving bodies formed a tight knot.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
She laughed. “If you like snakes.” She leaned back in her chair. “Seriously, though, I agree with you.” Elizabeth watched him stare at the little ring and decided to let him alone with it. She reached for her tongs again and began picking at the scattered scraps.
The Setite ran his fingers around and around the outside of the ring.
“Have you tried this on?” he murmured to his companion.
“Yes,” she admitted. “Briefly, to see what the approximate size was. I’ve full measurements and excavation data written down in the ‘boulder log’ that Mr. Vegel had been keeping.”
No traps, then. Still, he would have to examine it more carefully to make sure it was truly safe. He’d keep a close watch on the woman, too…there was a chance the thing was active in some way, and any after-effects would be informative.
“Greek, don’t you think?” she said, noticing that his close scan of the prize was finished. “I can’t remember any identical designs, but I thought that the two-snake motif might be helpful in tracking down the period and the purpose. Herculean cult object, or perhaps prophetic paraphernalia. Teresias and the snakes in the stable, you know. There’s an outside chance of medical symbology, but I think that if the sculptor had meant a caduceus, he’d have made a caduceus.”
Hesha slipped the ring into his breast pocket. “Good work,” he said abruptly.
“Just luck,” replied Elizabeth, modestly.
Hesha wondered.
Saturday, 10 July 1999, 9:28 AM
Laurel Ridge Farm
Columbia, Maryland
Ronald Thompson woke with his jaw clenched tight. Damn good dream, ruined. Didn’t dream often. Forgetting it already…
Goddamn alarm.
He flicked open the panel without quite leaving the soft cocoon of his bed. It was an interior breach; Vegel’s apartment to Vegel’s crypt again. He swore in the foulest language he could think of, and tossed a robe over his grizzled chest. The door was fixed…yes, the door was fixed…she must have subconsciously triggered the actual latch…probably the door had never been loose in the first place…well, this time he’d wedge it shut from the stone side, and no matter how much her sleepy fingers played with the catch, there’d be no more midnight—mid-morning, curse it—alarms.
He pounded down the old house stairs, down the basement stairs, and across the wood floors of the basement rooms. His step grew lighter as he approached Elizabeth’s end of the complex, and he laid his hand gently on the knob of her door.
Instantly, the alarm’s tone changed. From a persistent, low G, it rose and clamored an octave higher—his earplug throbbed with the shuddering note. He drew back his grasping fingers, as if to stop the noise, but he knew the sound. There had been a second breach somewhere. Hand and knob were coincidence; he threw the door open and found Vegel’s apartment abandoned. He switched on the lights, and saw that the door into the crypt was shut.
“Asp,” he whispered into Elizabeth’s intercom. “Turn on the mike and follow me.” Thompson stepped quietly to the secret panel, disengaged the alarm, and opened the way to the crypt. The tone in his ears died completely and unexpectedly.
“Where is she?” he asked the empty room.
“She’s not on your damn screens,” said his earplug.
Thompson finished looking through the irregular curves and obstacles in the vault, and his stomach turned. There was only one room in the complex that couldn’t be seen from the security bunker.
“Run the log back, Asp.”
There came a series of keyboard sounds, a low whistle, and Raphael’s voice, soft and purring over the circuit. “Her door at 9:28:17. It shut at 9:28:39. She probably…bumped into it. His door at 9:29:27. It shut automatically ten seconds later. Sorry, Ron. I know you liked her.”
Thompson sat down heavily on the end of the stone bench. “Damn.” He looked at his bare feet, his flimsy, plaid flannel robe, and repeated, “Damn. Damn. Asp, pick up the hook, the light, my fire boots, and the kit. Bring ’em down here.”
Ronald Thompson stood on the threshold of his master’s tomb. He was shod in thick, thigh-high boots. His pajama bottoms were tucked tightly into the boot- tops, and the tightly belted, cut-down remnants of his robe had been tied down around his waist. He held a long, hooked stick in his left hand, and his right index finger was poised above a palette carved in the hands of a scribe. Behind him, the Asp stood ready and silent.
Thompson pressed the latch, and the door to Hesha’s sanctum swung open. He pressed a second carving, and the door settled slightly on its hinges. It would stay open now, as it had not for Elizabeth.
The Asp turned on the floodlight. It was curiously baffled and shielded; only dim illumination shone through its cloudy lens. It was enough for the two men watching; their eyes were accustomed by now to the semidarkness of Vegel’s chamber. When the sluggish head of the snake nearest the door began to move, Thompson prodded it gently with the blunt end of the hook, and the viper slithered away into a hole in the wall, seeking its den in sulky temper.
Thompson stepped forward, and the Asp nudged the lamp along behind him. There were two short corridors ahead of them. They took the left, and trod gently along the right edge of it. At the first turn, they passed around a shallow pit, and seven sleepy sets of double-lidded eyes watched them from its depths. At the second turn, for no apparent reason, they waited a full minute, standing close together on the same solid stone.
“Ron,” began the Asp, “She’s dead by now.”
“If she’s dead, where is she?”
“In the right-hand passage.”
“I didn’t hear anything from there. Did you?” Raphael subsided. He drew forth his own hook-and-loop without comment, and dislodged a curious neighbor from a ledge close by.
They started forward again and arrived safely at the last landing of a narrow, winding stair. The Asp put the lamp into his partner’s outstretched hand, and turned to watch the steps behind them. He didn’t see into the chamber; the ceiling of the stairs was low and steep, and he was on rear guard before the opening door finished its slow arc.
Thompson saw.
He saw the faint, tall curves of barely lit paintings fading into blackness. He saw the shadows of nearer mysteries, ranged along the walls. He saw, at the edge of the light, the closed sarcophagus. He saw his master’s still, night-dark form stretched out upon it, bare to the waist. He saw a woman, draped in folded white cloth that clung tightly to her body. He saw her dark hair, plaited and knotted into a thick headdress. He saw shining gold flash dully at her neck, her wrists, and ankles. The girl—the queen—the goddess—she took up the black hand of the man before her, and wordlessly bid him rise.
Thompson stood in the doorway in shock; it was so much a scene from a painting of Vegel’s—and he knew it was a trick of the light. The illusion faded—the chance resemblance died as the woman went on moving, and he saw the truth.
Elizabeth stood over Hesha’s dead, cold corpse, holding a lifeless hand to her cheek. She was crying in half-formed sobs, quietly, but as if her heart would break. Her eyes were closed, and if there were words in her mourning Thompson could not hear them.
He took a step down, and the lamp came with him. The linen gown was a plain white nightshirt, wrinkled and twisted until the creases looked like pleats from a distance. Her hair was tangled. As he moved, it looked less and less like the high-born lady’s wig and more like fever-locks. Her jewelry was not gold, but living copper….
And the floor was covered—covered so thickly that the light gray stone showed through only in tiny patches—with the same deadly, molten metal: hundreds upon hundreds of copperhead snakes. Thompson looked out across the sea of brazen backs and shuddered. “How many shots are there in the kit, Asp?”
“Two.”
“You stay here, then.”
“That was my plan.”
Thompson crept slowly across the stone floor of the crypt, making a clear path before himself with the hook. The Asp moved onto the bottom step and adjusted the lamp to help the walking man—Thompson could sense the assassin’s eyes on his back. The light did odd things to the shadows, and the edges of the darkness moved with the bodies of its inhabitants. The old cop could feel, instinctively, the closing of the way behind, and wondered how in hell he could ever bring a body out with him— whether dead, sleeping, or in the panic and shock of snakebite.
“Wait, Ron.”
Thompson swiveled through his shoulders, hips, and knees. He didn’t dare move his feet. Uncomfortably, he looked up at his partner. Raphael’s hands held a thin cord: the drop line for the lamp. A tiny knife cut it free.
“Here, catch. Tie it to your waist.” He knotted his end to the kit and anchored the plastic box behind the door’s slack hinges. “I’ll bring down stronger rope and some gloves. You’re going to need them.” And the Asp disappeared up the stairs.
Thompson watched him go resignedly. He made a neat bowline around his hips and concentrated his attention on the floor.
Hook, clear, step. Step.
Hook, nudge, angle, hook again. Clear. Step.
Step. Halfway, now.
Step wide. Hook away the heavy body that blocked the straight way.
Step again. Step—
—and Thompson’s boot slipped on an old, flattened, silvery skin. It rasped silkily under the rubber cleats and threw him. He jerked wildly to catch his balance—the hook swung free from his right hand, and it clattered against the stone. The other foot slammed down near the head of a small, skittish creature, and the vibrations of the whole incident traveled throughout the room. When the frantic movements stopped, there were hardly any snakes in sight, but three adults had their bodies coiled ready. Thompson left his feet and the hook where they were, and dropped into breathing that almost wasn’t—tight, shallow motions of the ribs that made the head and sides ache but which caused very, very little noise. One by one, the challengers relaxed and laid themselves down. Thompson straightened his legs and ankles, raised the hook with the smallest, weakest fingers of his left hand—the only two that had kept the tool from crashing altogether—and began again.
Step.
Step, hook, clear, step.
He was at the sarcophagus. He touched her shoulder, and she muttered something incomprehensible. She slept still, somehow, and her color was healthy—she hadn’t been bitten. Thompson hoped the miracle would go on, and prayed that miracles were contagious.
“Ron.”
Thompson looked to the stairwell. “Yeah.”
“Pull in your line.”
Thompson took the straight end of the cord and began to draw it after him. A cardboard box sledged along behind it. More rope trailed from the box. It made a godawful racket, and more snakes fled from the monster. He grinned maniacally as his three opponents struck at and then scattered from the strange and hideous thing that hurt their teeth.
There were gloves in the box, and Thompson put them on. He clipped a strong rope around his waist, and would have hooked Elizabeth into it….
But when Thompson looked down into the eyes of the old, old copperhead that had draped itself around the woman’s neck and chest, he knew that the creature would never willingly let him do it. Where his gut had turned before at the danger, his mind turned now at the knowledge that the ancient reptile thought and fought in the same idiom that he did.
With one eye on the “collar,” he reached for the young, slender, gleaming form of a bracelet. In the blink of an eye, he had the little one behind the neck, and he threw it far into the dark places of the tomb. He shuffled his feet to bring himself closer, and the hatchling from her other wrist joined its cousin. The head of the collar turned toward him, and it blinked golden eyes resentfully.
Thompson sighed. He hooked clear a large space on the floor around them, and bent—slowly—to kneel at Elizabeth’s feet. The
anklets were larger, older yearlings. He took a deep breath and reached for the left one. Above him, the collar hissed, and he stopped in mid-motion. Nerve lost, he leaned back on his haunches and flexed his hands inside the gloves.
When he—and the collar, too, he hoped—least expected it, his right hand darted out of its own accord. The instinct was good. He could feel the delicate jawbones clamped between his fingers, and he unwound it from her leg in a quick, smooth motion. He leaned back to throw, and the other anklet struck him just beneath the knee.
“Fuck,” he cried, and nearly dropped the serpent he was holding. Impatiently, he flicked his wrist and sent the thin body flying into space. He heard it land, too close and audibly angry.
Thompson fairly tore the second anklet away. As he stood, he felt Elizabeth’s legs for other snakes, and found one curled like a garter about her thigh. It fled higher, and he had to raise her gown to the level of her hips to catch the thing—it would have bitten her belly, but his thumb got in the way. The leather wasn’t thick enough, and this time he could feel the extra sting of venom in the wound.
The collar hissed again. From his awkward crouch, Thompson strained to see what it was doing. His head rose above the level of the sarcophagus just as something struck him in the side—from its markings, he knew it to be the first anklet, the one he hadn’t thrown far enough. He stopped cursing. Nothing seemed adequate.
In a frenzy, Thompson hooked the space around them clear again. Without trying to dislodge the giant snake, he took Elizabeth’s arm and began leading her away from Hesha. The collar hissed a warning.
Thompson kept walking.
The collar hovered over Elizabeth’s jugular, wavering challengingly. Elizabeth herself stumbled. She was still weeping, and the pale streaks ran down her face, her neck, and onto the dull body of the snake.
Thompson took a firmer, higher grip on her arm.
The collar, blindingly quickly, moved to take the open target. Thompson was ready, and he threw himself away from the girl the moment he was sure the copperhead was really coming for him, not for her. Thompson felt the huge, curved fangs enter the meat of his forearm, well above the glove. His arm tore open. Blood flowed freely onto the stones. The old serpent lost a tooth inside its victim, but the momentum of its strike and Thompson’s lunge wrested its grip from Elizabeth’s neck. Thompson regained his feet, tossed the unconscious woman over his shoulder, and ran headlong for the stairs.
Clan Novel Setite: Book 4 of The Clan Novel Saga Page 11