by Cherry Adair
“There’s another soul door over here,” Thorne called, his voice carrying across the chamber.
Isis followed the red glow. “You think it’s also a real door to the lower level?”
“I’m searching anything that might be feasible. Can you hold this?” He handed her the torch and Isis held it up high as he ran his hands over the surface from the lintel at the top, then down. This door showed an image of what Isis was sure was Cleopatra, sitting in front of an offering table. Scribed into the stone was a reed mat with a loaf of bread on it, as well as bowls of petrified food. She held in her hand a goblet covered with gold.
As Thorne meticulously felt and tapped on every inch, Isis let her artist’s eye search, too. Looking for anything out of place, anything that might indicate a latch, or—
Her breath snagged.
All the embellishments surrounding the center panel were in bas-relief with exquisite coloration and intricate detail. The tiles and stone glinting in the flickering light, the gold giving off a rich glow. Except for the small winged god used as decoration on a chalice in Cleopatra’s right hand: Isis, wings spread, was the only object in sunk relief.
“Thorne, give me my amulet!”
“Find something?” He dug in his pocket and handed her the tiny chamois pouch.
For a moment Isis curled her fingers around the bag as she said a little prayer to her patron goddess. Opening her eyes, she carefully pulled the little cord and tipped the bag onto the flat of her hand. “Look,” she whispered, her fingers clumsy as she fit her amulet into the image on Cleo’s goblet. “A perfect fit—”
As if in a coin slot, the amulet started sliding down, out of sight. Isis lunged to grab on to the fine gold chain as the charm disappeared.
The center panel of the false door screeched open as stone grated across stone.
SEVENTEEN
Thorne judged the narrow opening to be about seventeen inches wide and ten feet high. Beyond it was dense black space. A rush of cool, dry, ancient-dust-smelling air drifted around them.
Isis’s fingers tightened on his upper arm. “Am I imagining this?”
“Surreal, isn’t it?” Thorne wedged the backpack into the gap, then pushed his arm through the opening, holding the torch aloft. Isis crowded behind him, her hand on his back as she tried to see around him.
She studied the area. “Who used this? An alien?” Her fingers curled into the back of his shirt. “I wish I hadn’t said that. People believed aliens did help build the pyramids…”
“I doubt aliens need stairs,” Thorne told her dryly, passing the torch deeper into the void.
“Stairs? Seriously?” Her slender fingers dug into his upper arm, her excitement contagious. “Woo-hoo!”
“Don’t get excited. We have no idea where they lead.”
“I’m guessing down,” Isis suggested, resting her head on the back of his shoulder as he assessed the situation. Thorne loved the feel of her soft breasts pressed against him. He liked the way she held on to him as she peered inside the opening, and the tickle of her soft curls brushing the side of his face. He loved the smell of cinnamon combined with the musk on her skin. And he admired the hell out of a woman who’d been put through some damn terrifying times and still maintained a sense of humor.
“I hate to burst your bubble, darling, but they could just as easily end abruptly midair, with a forty- or fifty-foot drop.”
“Buzzkill,” she muttered, half teasing, half serious.
Thorne smiled, brushing her nose with his fingertip. “Or they could take us all the way to the lower level and a well-marked exit.”
She slid her palm up his back, resting her hand between his shoulder blades. Had anyone else done the same gesture, Thorne would’ve spun around and taken his opponent out before shoving them unceremoniously down into the darkness. With Isis it was merely an indication that she trusted him, believed in him, was there with him. It was an odd sensation.
“Let’s go with that option.”
“We’ll see…” The stairs were carved from solid bedrock. Hazardously steep, the tread, at least from this angle, looked too narrow, the risers perilously high. The stairwell was almost as narrow as the door opening. It would be a restricted, dangerous descent, with no guarantee that there would be a similar door at the bottom. Or if Isis’s amulet would open that one as well as this. Or, Thorne considered, what would happen if the amulet was removed from one door to carry down to a possible second?
The staircase could be just another thing the ancient Egyptian tomb builders had come up with to trap would-be raiders. Both doors could be traps, sealing them inside a tube of solid rock for eternity.
Or they could be what they seemed.
He backed up and so did Isis. “Well?” she asked hopefully.
“I only saw about a dozen feet, but it’s hellishly steep. There’s no guarantee that after trekking down six or seven flights, there’ll be a door at the bottom.”
“Let’s go down and see.” Isis abruptly paused, her eyes narrowing. “No. You wait here. I’ll go. I’m smaller than you are, and my leg isn’t killing me.”
At her words, Thorne’s heart did a double clutch of fear. “No way.” Jesus, the woman would be the death of him. “No. Absofuckinglutely not.”
“If the bad guys show up here,” she said in tones of calm reason, “I won’t be able to stop them slamming this door closed and trapping you down there. It makes more sense for me to go. I’ll be quick.”
“Not just no, but hell no,” he told her flatly, adjusting the weight of the torch as he weighed the pros and cons of taking the risk—something he’d do if he were on his own—or returning to where they’d started and start chucking rocks until they were free. “I don’t like it.”
Isis ignored him as she fingered the length of delicate chain hanging from the slot. “Let’s see if the opening closes if I take… thiiiis… out.” As she eased it out slowly, they held their breath. The portal didn’t close.
“Which means I’ll probably need it at the bottom. I’ll take the torch, okay?” She clasped her fingers below his on the piece of wood. “Connor, don’t be macho about this.” She gave a little tug when he didn’t hand it right over. “Me going down makes the most sense. Admit it. I’ll be very careful, and we can talk all the way down. I’ll tell you what I see. Please? I’m getting tired, and God knows we’re both dying of thirst. Besides, I want to see if that step machine at the gym worked worth a damn.”
Every damned thing in him didn’t want her going down there. He gave her the torch. “Take your time. Feel every step before you put your weight on it. Use one hand on the wall… Jesus, I hate this.”
Standing on her toes, she brought her free hand up to cup the back of his head. “I know. You’re being very brave.”
“Have I told you…” He didn’t finish the thought, merely slipped her glasses off, holding them in one hand, and used the other to tangle his fingers in her thick hair. Then said, “. . . what a pain in the arse you are?”
“Not out loud.” She smiled against his mouth. “Give me a nice kiss to hold me until I get back.”
“I’d rather give you a naughty kiss to hold me.”
“Six of one…” She pressed her slightly open mouth to his, slanting her head as she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck. She slipped her tongue into his mouth and Thorne met it with his own. There was precious little lubrication, they were both so goddamned thirsty. But it didn’t seem to matter. The more their tongues and teeth mated, the more they kissed, the more moisture they generated. She hummed her appreciation, her fingers gripping his neck more tightly. Without opening his eyes, Thorne used the hand in which he held her glasses to deflect her wrist so the torch she held didn’t burn off his eyebrows. Oblivious to where they were, she pressed her breasts against him and parried the thrust of his tongue with her own.
It was Thorne’s turn to murmur deep in his throat, and he felt the sweet curve of her lips against his. Slowly he eased bac
k. “We need to get the hell out of here, love. I don’t want you to go, but I can’t fault your logic.”
Her eyes gleamed. “I’ll keep that hot shower and big bed in mind. It’ll keep me motivated.”
Thorne touched her wrist, angling the torch toward the ground, then gave it another squirt of hand cleaner so that it flared. He used the hem of his T-shirt to clean her glasses, then slid the earpieces through her hair and positioned the frame on her nose.
“Okay, Tomb Raider Librarian, don’t take any foolish chances, do you hear me?” He spoke against her mouth. “Talk to me every step of the way. I want to hear what you’re seeing and what’s happening. If anything feels off, you haul your arse back up here.”
“Yes, sir. Got it.” She started sliding sideways, then came back and gave him a quick, hard kiss. “We’ll be out of here just in time for breakfast.”
She left, taking the light and her warmth with her.
With a little difficulty, Thorne lowered himself to the floor, his hips wedged in the narrow opening, his legs inside the stairwell. “See anything interesting?” His voice echoed slightly off the roughly hewn rock. The red glow of the torch danced on the walls, casting macabre shadows as she walked.
“Nope. Just a straight shot so far. But you weren’t kidding about it being steep. The actual tread is shorter than my foot, by—I don’t know—I think this is only about six-ish inches. What’s normal?”
“Ten.”
“The riser is way high. Who did they think would be running up and down these stairs, short-toed people with long shinbones? I told you aliens were involved.” He smiled, leaning against the wall, his legs stretched out. God, it was good to sit down. His thigh had been begging for mercy for hours. Clamping his fingers around the worst of it, he tried to massage out the vicious knot. Isis had not complained once. Not about any of it.
“I don’t think they were thinking of people continually running up and down.” He raised his voice so she could hear him. “They were thinking of thieves.” Thorne realized he was braced for her scream. For her cry as some fucking ancient booby trap snared her. For her frantic yell for help. What the fuck had he been thinking to allow her to go down there alone? Down there at all.
“Make sure you extend the torch so you can see as far ahead of you as possible. And test every step before you put your weight on it.” He sounded like—like someone worried for someone else’s safety. Other than Garrett, Thorne hadn’t been worried about anyone else to this extent in his life. His heart beat a staccato rhythm as he listened to her footfalls scrape across the stones.
“Anything interesting?” After this he wasn’t letting the woman out of his sight. He was not a man to make small talk, or ponder the workings of a woman’s mind. He’d never given a flying fuck what made a lover tick, other than in the most basic sense, and yet here he was, listening to every footfall, every harsh breath, eyes straining to see what he knew damned well he couldn’t see in the darkness.
“Hmm. No marking on the walls.” Her voice echoed up the shaft. “Just rough stone—taking a jog to the right here. Uh-oh, the stairs are narrower on one side than the other…”
“It’s a winder so they didn’t have to carve out a landing.”
“Straightening out for a while. Crap. There’s a winder going left now.”
Thorne didn’t like it. He could no longer see even the lightest glow from the torch, and though her voice was clear, it was fainter.
“Talk to me.”
“It’s kind of hard to be going down three million teeny stairs and chat at the same time, Thorne.”
“Humor me.”
She continued the running commentary—loudly for a few minutes—and then all he heard was the grit of her rubber-soled shoes on sandy stone resonating up to him. “Isis?”
“Oh, crap. It ends at a wall.” Even with the echo, and from this distance, Thorne heard tears in her voice.
He got stiffly to his feet, his leg protesting directly into his cerebral cortex as if someone had taken a sharp knife and sliced him from skull to ankle. Oh, yeah. Someone pretty much had. “Take a breather and come back. We can—”
“Hold your horses…”
He wiped damp hands on his jeans and sucked in a breath, holding it so he didn’t miss any sounds she might make.
She gave a whoop of excitement. “But no. Not a wall. Hang on…” He heard a teeth-jarring high-pitched screech bounce off the narrow walls, then Isis shouted up. “Smell that? That, Mr. Thorne, is the stink of a million bats and freedom! I’m coming back up there—”
His shoulder slumped against the opening, and he let out his breath. “No. Stay put. I’ll come down.”
“I have the torch—”
“I’ll find you.” Anywhere, anytime. Every time.
He started down the stairs. On the seventh tread, the door above him ground closed, the sound resounding in the stairwell. The darkness was absolute.
“Oh, God. What was that? Are you okay?”
Thorne laughed. “I’m on my way to see these bats for myself.”
He followed the stink of bat shit, and the sound of Isis’s voice down the stairs.
ISIS COULDN’T SEE MORE than a couple of feet in any direction. She wrapped her long scarf over her head and face, but she could still feel the air move with the beat of the bats’ wings overhead.
She winced with each of Thorne’s heavy steps as he navigated the stairs. Her leg muscles were quivering with exertion, and she didn’t have a sliced-and-diced thigh. “Almost to the bottom!” she yelled. Having no idea how far down he was, just wanting to be his cheering section.
Her head swam and Isis sat down before she fell down. No water, no food, no more adrenaline. The slog down the stairs had taken all her reserves. She plopped her butt down on the sandy marble floor, her back against the threshold to make sure the door stayed open. She peered into the unrelieved darkness, resting her elbow on her undrawn knee and cupping her hand over her nose and mouth.
The room felt large, and dear God—the smell. Her eyes and nostrils stung, burning from the acrid stench of ammonia.
The space was filled with the cacophony of squeaks, scratching, and wings flapping of assorted rodents occupying the ceiling high above. “Please stay there, and please don’t crap on me—again.”
Pushing to her feet when she heard Thorne’s approach, Isis winced. God, it must be so painful coming down all those uneven stairs sideways, the only way his feet would fit on the treads. Wanting to race up to meet him, she stayed where she was, arm extended into the stairwell to light his way. If the upstairs portal had slammed shut without her amulet, she wouldn’t budge until Thorne reached her side.
The smell made her eyes water, and she figured if she couldn’t see what she’d been sitting on, or walking on, ignorance was bliss. She was already filthy, and in a few minutes Thorne would be just as stinky and dirty as she was. Small comfort after what they’d been through, but, hey, she’d take it.
From a distance she heard a sharp sound of a horn, or car alarm—but when she tried to separate it from the sound of the bats crying and flapping overhead she figured it was just her imagination and wishful thinking telling her they were near civilization.
“When you turn that last left-turn jog, watch the next few steps; they’re even narrower and steeper. There you are!”
Surprising herself, she burst into tears as soon as she saw him. Dashing the tears from her cheeks, she flung her arms around him and hugged him so tightly he let out a strangled laugh. “Did you think the aliens beamed me up to their spaceship?” he teased, hugging her back. He held her by the shoulders, then used his thumb to wipe away a tear from her chin. “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”
“Under normal circumstances…” Isis sniffed, slipping her hand into his because she loved the way he curled his fingers around hers. She handed him the torch, which was now less than two feet long, the tip charred and crunchy, the glow almost out.
“Which,” she adde
d, “I’d like to point out, these are not—having those flying rats swooping overhead and using my head as a toilet would freak me out. However, these are not normal circumstances, and I don’t give a damn as long as they stay way up there, and leave us the hell alone. What are you—Oh, God, it was almost better not being able to see this.” She squinted into the sudden brightness after what felt like years in the dark.
Somehow Thorne had unerringly found a large spotlight in the darkness and managed to switch it on. He did have eyes like a cat.
Self-consciously she put a hand to her head, then dropped it. Her messy hair was the least of her problems. She looked around. “This looks like some kind of antechamber,” she said with a frown as she took in the beautiful wood chariot with their elaborate paintings and gold wheels, the twenty-foot-high statues—and the boxes and boxes and boxes of already crated artifacts. Of course. “Looters. Do you think it’s safe to have a light on? What if they come back?”
“They were finishing up their haul when we arrived. I suspect they’re long gone. But judging by the stuff they’ve packed up, they’ll be back. I suspect with all the activity happening on the rim of the valley that they’ll wait for nightfall, and loot under cover of darkness.”
“Bastards. We’ll call a press conference, let everyone know—”
He tightened his grip on her hand. “Take a breath. There are channels we have to go through, and we’re not going off half-cocked. The people have already tried to kill us, and kidnapped us. We still aren’t sure who’s involved. I’ll make some calls. Let’s get outside and assess the situation, okay?”
She nodded. “I guess so. I can at least call my father and tell him about this.” Would he even understand? She hoped so.
“Take a look back there before we go.” Thorne gently took her upper arm, turning her around.
There was no sign of the door they’d come through just moments before. It was now shut, leaving not so much as a sliver indicating it was there at all. But that wasn’t what stole Isis’s breath as she turned fully to face the way they’d come.