Siren's Secret

by Trish Albright

  “Oh, Samuel.” Olivia felt fresh tears begin. How could he possibly love her now?

  “Promise me you will believe in yourself no matter what,” Stafford said.

  “How can I?”

  “Promise me,” he insisted. “Most especially now.” He pressed her face into his chest, and squeezed her arm hard.

  Olivia stood back, uncertain. Then Moreau took the cone and called to some guards. “I’ll check on you two later. In the meantime,” he said, his voice cold, “let’s see if those snakes are interested in company. I’m certain I can get that door open again.”

  Two guards grabbed her arms, and Olivia struggled furiously. “They’re asps! And they’d be bloody better company than you!”

  Olivia fought as she was forced through the small entrance to the lock room.

  With a final glance back, she saw Stafford fall against the wall in a bloodless faint.

  Samuel opened his eyes and adjusted his body into a more comfortable position. The last guard had just scrambled out of the main chamber.

  He loved Olivia. And he trusted her. He wished she could say the same.

  Carefully he turned his head to the exit. The guards had taken all the torches except two installed nearest the doorway.

  Granted he was a little disappointed Olivia hadn’t proclaimed her love, but she really had no experience with these things. It would take a bit more work. Jewelry, perhaps.

  The unfortunate guard near him still squirmed, attempting to free himself, sweat on his face as he struggled. None of the guards had seemed sympathetic to their plight … still, he pitied the man.

  Samuel watched the man in the dimming light, waiting, making sure no one else remained.

  Finally, Samuel straightened, pulling his arm free.

  The guard was dumbfounded. His eyes widened, and he started to shout in Arabic.

  Samuel drilled his left fist through the man’s face, and he bounced into the wall, his arm stretching back, his feet staggering until he fell unconscious.

  Samuel would not risk Olivia’s life with cries of warning.

  In his hand he held an ancient wood and metal box. “I sure as hell hope this is worth it.” He opened it, taking the objects out for study. “All right. This makes no sense to me.” Likely only a woman would understand.

  He secured the small box in his pocket and went to rescue his love.

  The last of the guards were climbing the explorers’ makeshift steps to the door of the maze room. He hid behind the giant turn wheel and made a light howling sound. The men startled. One of them said something about evil spirits and hurried up the steps. The last one looked around. Samuel caught him unawares and snapped his neck, snatching his weapon. The next guard came to investigate. Samuel drove the other man’s bayonet through his throat.

  Leaping up the stairs, he saw the group halfway across the maze floor carefully following the marked path to avoid the shooting spears from above. A guard led the procession, followed by Moreau, then Olivia, then several more guards behind her. She turned instinctively and stopped in her tracks, spotting him the same time as the guard next to her did.

  The guard raised his gun and Olivia pushed him off the path, then distracted the group with her most bloodcurdling scream.

  “A mummy! A mummy! We’ve awakened the dead! Run! Run!” Another scream.

  Samuel startled as much as the other men, looking over his shoulder—just in case. The woman was either crazy or brilliant.

  Guards scrambled to get across the maze. Gunshots hit the walls near him. One guard stumbled to his death.

  Even Moreau tripped, caught in the rush.

  Samuel watched, momentarily bemused.

  Brilliant.

  Then he spotted Olivia crouched into a ball, men jumping over her. One made it. She started to stand and Samuel shouted in dread until she adeptly knocked another guard off balance.

  Definitely brilliant.

  Four guards remained with Moreau. Using the musket he’d acquired, Samuel aimed at the guard near the door and shot. The man fell. There would be no escape. He took the other gun and aimed for Moreau.

  Just as he fired, Moreau ducked into the dart chamber.

  Damn.

  He turned to Olivia. Still curled in a ball, she inched around on her safe square and stood. He didn’t like the looks of things. The remaining three guards scrambled to escape and were getting closer to her.

  Olivia assessed her options.

  She would fight. Remembering Alex’s maneuver, she pressed her foot quickly to her left and activated a spear.

  She reached and pulled.

  Then pulled again.

  The guard drawing near laughed. She swore, yanking more urgently with two hands. No luck. The spear was stuck.

  She stepped carefully backward while opening her poison pouch. Grounding herself, she waited … and waited. Then, squirt!

  The guard flailed in pain, yelping, making her feel like an expert marksman.

  The injured guard blindly turned toward his comrade, taking cover as she advanced, spraying until empty.

  Samuel watched, alarmed. Hell. He was trying to save her, and she’d become a one-woman army. Granted, she gave him easy targets. “Olivia! Get down.”

  She didn’t.

  One man swung and knocked her sideways. “Olivia!” Terror engulfed him as she fell off her tile, twisted, and reached for another safe square.

  She missed.

  He thundered an oath that reverberated about the chamber. The guards knew they were in danger. They were right. Samuel activated spears and skewered the bastards.

  Olivia didn’t move.

  Thank God.

  A wooden spear grazed the tip of her nose, its arrow lodged against her hand.

  “Moreau!” Olivia shouted from her twisted position. “We have the disc!”

  Moreau called off the guards.

  “You do have it, don’t you?” she whispered to him.

  He held up the box. Moreau gave him time to get across to Olivia. He hurried to the center of the maze, leapt over squirming bodies, and grasped her free hand. “I’ve got you.” He helped her straighten into a standing position, while she touched her nose repeatedly as if to make sure it was still there. The she grabbed him around the waist and squeezed.

  “The treasure, Moreau. Come and get it,” Samuel said.

  “Open it and show me.”

  Damn. It’s already empty.

  “Sorry.” Samuel shook his head, holding the box.

  “Very well,” Moreau said. “I think you’ll be more amenable after a few days in the dark with no food. Or better … a few weeks.” He held up the funerary cone and waved good-bye as several guards pushed the large stone door back into place, leaving them utterly alone in the tomb—save for deadly asps and a soon-to-be one-armed guard.

  Olivia didn’t say a word. He had to give her credit for that. She just stared at their only way out as the light dimmed around them.

  “Indeed. A grave end.” Then she turned and slugged him in the gut. Not hard. Just enough. “That’s for torturing me the way you did.”

  “Aren’t you happy now?”

  “At being trapped with you for eternity?”

  “Hardly that long.”

  “You’re right. The lights will be out in a few hours, and the smell of dead flesh will put a damper on my appetite. Probably the asps will find their way to us.” She laughed.

  “Are you all right, Olivia?”

  She nodded. “Just glad you’re not really going to die or have to walk around with one arm. The image would have plagued me terribly.” She grabbed the hand in question and brought it to her lips. “You were very brave, Stafford. Thank you for trusting me.”

  She released his hand before he could appreciate the moment.

  “But really, Stafford. ‘I only hope your life will be better for knowing me’?” She tilted her head. “That was a bit much. True,” she admitted. “But overly sentimental.”

  She
jumped into the lock room. “Come on. There has to be another way out.” He took a torch from the maze room and followed.

  “I don’t suppose that part about loving me was true either,” she said.

  She had her back to him. Samuel stopped. She was giving him an out. It hurt.

  “I don’t suppose,” he said.

  She paused almost imperceptibly, then continued, scrambling out the passage. He followed.

  “Will you show me the treasure?” she asked.

  “Me too,” a faint voice said.

  They turned to see the guard staring at them, eyes eager.

  “How did you know the circle was the right choice?” he asked her.

  “I didn’t. I made up the part about the circle representing the sun. I have no idea what it represents.”

  “You’re kidding.” Samuel’s stomach turned.

  “No,” she quickly explained. “I mean, I thought I was right, but because I had an odd feeling—”

  “A feeling? I thought you had to think logically. ‘Perlustrate the evidence.’ ”

  “Actually it was more like a vibration.” Olivia contemplated.

  “Even stranger.”

  “Stafford, strange is talking to fish.”

  “I don’t talk to fish.”

  “Very well, you eavesdrop—which is both strange and rude. The vibration is real, empirical evidence. Only it seems no one else can feel it. For some reason my body is attuned to the magnetic forces in the tomb. It is the only thing that can explain the peculiar sensation I get sometimes. As if I’m being pulled off balance.” She paused in thought. “I thought perhaps if I held the artifact in front of each insert, I would feel a pull at the correct one. But I was wrong.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes. The first two both had a pulling sensation. It was the last one that made me wobbly. Not what I expected. Additionally, I noticed, as you also may have, that the couple on the sarcophagus wore rings. Since that was the only circular item I could think of, and the librarian’s treasure, according to her writings, is love, I thought a personal item might represent love. Therefore, based on my magnetic testing and logical deductions, I concluded that the circle, or ring in this case, was the most likely choice.

  “Most likely?”

  “I had two other theories, but the odds were lower.”

  “Right.”

  “Will you show me the treasure now?”

  Samuel obeyed, opening the box and pulling out a smooth round magnetic stone that fit in his palm. On top he placed two finger rings.

  “Another magnet—not the astrolabe disc,” she said. “Iron, not precious metals.” She picked up the rings. “Iron rings were worn by slaves. As a sign that someone was owned by another. How odd.” She walked to the sarcophagus and showed him the engraving where the couple’s hands touched.

  “These were theirs. A symbol that each was owned by the other?” he asked.

  “The magnet must have a purpose.”

  “To hold the rings,” Samuel said. He demonstrated.

  “No.” She took the magnet and started sliding it over the surface of the sarcophagus. “Nothing.”

  She stared at Samuel confused. “There must be something else. There are always at least two ways out of anything. No architect or engineer builds himself into a corner. And we’re in the corner, so there has to be something else …” She got on her knees and explored the floor. “Another fake wall, or stairs, or something.”

  “Well, that’s a wall.” Samuel pointed toward the trapped guard, who nodded agreement. “And we’re on the middle level. So I’m going to guess either up or down.”

  Olivia felt a magnetic pull near the edge of the room. She brushed off dust from the floor and placed the magnet over a complementary shape. It clicked.

  She waited. A loud vibration began in the room, and the sarcophagus began to move.

  “Down,” she said, grinning.

  He kissed her and jumped on board. “Brilliant. Definitely brilliant.”

  She frowned. “Wait.”

  Olivia pulled the magnet free.

  “What is it?”

  “I have to do something else.”

  She ran to the astrolabe room. It was a beautiful room, and the story on the walls could be transported and kept in a museum for all to see. Even the splintered art stacked on the floor could be saved.

  Olivia grabbed a fading torch near the entrance and brought it to the room. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  “Are you sure?” Samuel asked, when she handed him a heavy tool left by the workers.

  Olivia closed her eyes, knowing that with this act she would be a destroyer of knowledge, instead of a proclaimer of knowledge. Everything she had ever wanted was in front of her. About to be obliterated by her own hand.

  “Yes. The location to the pieces, at least where they were sent, is here. And the story warns that when they’re assembled, a time of great change will overcome the world.” She memorized the images before her. “I don’t know if it’s true, but enough people have died for this secret. Let it end.”

  Samuel gave her one last look, then swung. And then again. He demolished the engraved limestone until it was unreadable.

  When he was done, Olivia set the torch to the pile on the floor, the ancient wood catching flame with ease. A mystery forever lost.

  Destroyed.

  By her.

  Tears came again, despite her resolve, not just from the heat and smoke.

  She turned from the past. “Now we can go.”

  Samuel offered his hand. “Nice work, Lady Olivia.”

  Olivia clicked the magnet in place and they lay on the sarcophagus in each other’s arms.

  “Here,” Samuel put on the large ring and slid the small ring onto her finger. “You hold on to this one.”

  “Wait!” The guard implored them in English and Arabic.

  “If we make it, we’ll send a doctor,” Olivia said.

  She closed her eyes and huddled against Stafford. To their amazement the tomb was lowered via a great pulley system into a room below. Darkness enveloped them.

  “I hope there aren’t any asps,” Olivia said.

  “Me too.” Stafford adjusted the torch and pulled her closer.

  “This is nice.”

  “Being lowered deeper into the ground on top of a stone casket?” he asked.

  She snuggled closer to him, one arm around his waist, the other holding the sarcophagus. “No, Stafford.” She leaned up and kissed his chin before closing her eyes, exhausted. “This.”

  Olivia didn’t move until they landed with a splash. Her father had mentioned the lowest levels were flooded. Samuel raised the torch. The room seemed empty.

  “I have to admit,” Olivia said. “I hoped this would be a treasure room.”

  Samuel nodded. “Me too.”

  They laughed.

  Samuel held the torch out at arm’s length and circled it around the space. “There’s a bit of water. Hold this.” Olivia accepted the torch while he picked her up from the sarcophagus and carried her several yards to higher ground. Then he pointed her in the direction of the giant pulley system. “I think we are under the librarian’s tomb. You can see all the magnificent devices he dreamed up to torture you with.”

  “She.”

  “She?”

  “Of course, Stafford. What did you think? A man’s treasure would be love?”

  “Actually …”

  She’d already walked away, enthralled with the giant-sized mechanics around her. “It could take years to study this,” she said, holding the torch out in awe. She turned to him. “We’re going to be famous, Stafford!”

  He grabbed the torch from her. “We’re not out yet. Let’s go.”

  They found stairs against the wall of the strange workroom.

  “These must exit near the surface.” Olivia sucked in air, from the exertion of so many steps. At the top, they reached a small landing. The exit was stuck. She held the torc
h while Samuel put his shoulder into it. Nothing.

  “Maybe there’s a magnet or something.”

  He pushed again. “We’re out of …”

  Olivia’s hand reached under his arm and pressed something into the wall. “I think that’s the lock.”

  The door budged. Then flew off. Thousands of years of dirt and dust around the door assaulted them.

  “Careful,” Samuel choked, his voice lowering. “It’s still dark. Let me see where we are.”

  He squeezed her hand for encouragement, and no sooner had he stepped into the next tunnel when a bullet struck him.

  Then a second.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Samuel dropped the torch as bullets hit his arm and shoulder.

  He breathed in, a surge of strength building after the shock of bullets. He pushed Olivia out of the way.

  Moreau. And his men. They’ve intercepted us.

  The noise of the door had no doubt alerted Moreau.

  “We found the treasure, Moreau,” Olivia taunted. “But I will never give it to you if something happens to Stafford. Let us go and you’ll have it all.”

  Moreau took a gun from a guard and aimed. “I don’t negotiate, my lady.”

  Samuel slammed Olivia against a wall, covering her, as another shot grazed his leg. He steadied himself. “Olivia,” he whispered, agonized, into her ear. “I’m going to attack.” His breath came hard. “I want you to run. Hide. Someplace safe until I can get help.”

  “No,” she said, her voice hushed and angry.

  Moreau and his men were getting closer.

  “Olivia, my love, please. I’m weak with you here. You must get away.” He didn’t wait for her response. He turned around, his back to her, still protecting when the guards rushed them.

  He charged back.

  Samuel relieved the first victim of his weapon, running him through with his own bayonet. Next he fired the musket, eliminating another guard. He felt the pain in his shoulder and arm, but ignored it. The third man realized he could run or die. He ran. Then he died.

  Moreau still had a gun trained on Olivia. Several more guards, alerted to the danger, swarmed them—not a single friendly face to be found.

  “Come with me, Olivia,” Moreau said, motioning to her. “Or your hero dies.”