The Artifact: Natasha Burrows Series Book One

by Phillips, Michelle

  “We are talking about a heavy dose of arsenic here, handling it brings you into contact with unstable sulfuric arsenic salts. I wouldn’t hold it and then go putting my hand anywhere near my mouth.”

  “Look here at this,” she said pointing whilst rapidly taking shots like a fashion photographer. “He is holding a tablet in his hands.” She leaned forward to take a clear shot of the tablet held within the petrified brown claws of what were once hands.

  The light of the camera flashed, over and over again, reflecting off the walls making the skulls look like they were staring intently at them. She realised now, quite ominously, that all the skulls were pointing inwards, looking directly at the tomb. They were being watched from the afterlife by hundreds of hollow eye sockets.

  “Is it...this is one of them, isn’t it?” Xavier asked uncertainly.

  “It is either one of the ‘gods’ or its offspring. I cannot tell you which. I can tell you however how it died.” She pointed to its neck “It’s head was cleaved from its body. A fitting end for a snake” she mused.

  “And what it that, by its side? Is that solid gold?”

  She looked at an object wedged beside the body. “That looks like an Egyptian white crown, much like the Atef crown.” She looked closer at the crown and noticed what looked like a golden ball on top. The crown was massive, made for a much larger head than a human's.

  “Trust you to notice the gold again” she laughed, her laughter echoing gently throughout the cave. She reached out her hand, and pulling at the top cautiously tried to remove the crown. The crown would not budge, but the golden ball broke free in her hand. All of sudden she heard a rumbling sound and the tomb started to sink downwards into the floor.

  “What have I done?” she cried, looking around frantically. “I’ve triggered something by trying to take that crown. Its pressure weighted.” Standing behind her, she was expecting Xavier to make some witty comment about how it was her that had triggered the death trap and not him, but instead he had doubled over in agonising pain.

  “What’s wrong?” she cried, putting her arms around him to steady him.

  “I think… I think” he collapsed to the ground clutching his chest.

  “What do I do?” she cried looking at him struggling to breathe. “Help me please, tell me what to do.”

  He smiled at her weakly, cupping her face in his hand “I’m sorry” he said.

  “For what?” she cried in anguish. “What can I do?” she pleaded her eyes laced with tears.

  “Nothing, that old anaconda got me good” he said “I’m bleeding internally, I’m afraid I’m dying.”

  “No, no, no, no” she cried, “not here, not now.” She felt absolute terror accompanied by mounting waves of anguish and frustration. They were stuck, not only hours into uncharted forest, but underground in a cave that could only be accessed by swimming through a dark water passage fully encompassed by rocks. There was no doctor, no help, nothing. Xavier was as good as dead.

  She heard a gushing noise of water, and noticed the tomb had dropped several inches and water was now bubbling up through the crevices. She turned back to him, tears falling down her cheeks.

  “Xavier, you can’t be like this. You can’t do this now. What do I do?” she begged. “Xavier! tell me what to do.”

  “You know what to do” he said smiling at her, the saddest smile she had ever seen. “Leave me” he said “get out of here while you still can.”

  “I can’t” she begged. There was the sound like a thunderclap followed by the crashing and splashing sound of rocks falling, and she looked across to see the entrance where they had swum in, engulfed with limestone and shards of stalactites. The ceiling had come crashing down, thundering like a thousand drummers beating, utterly and completely blocking their only way out.

  She looked back at him and he could now see the fear on her face.

  “There is no way out” she screamed, she realised in that instant they were both going to drown in this cave of the dead.

  “Tasha” he said putting his hand up to her face, as the water started to lap around his feet. “Your are the most beautiful woman I have ever met” he said “but more importantly, you are the smartest.”

  “The most beautiful” she sniffed, “now I know you really aren’t well.”

  “I do not lie” he said looking at her intently “you are crazy and stubborn, fiery and speak your mind, practically all of the time, but you are also incredibly strong, fierce and intelligent. You made me crazy from the moment I met you.”

  She looked at him, letting his words sink in. “Hang on a minute” she exclaimed, “the dismalites. It's all about the dismalites. I noticed them when we came in. There has to be another entrance, for them to access this cave.”

  He looked at her admiringly “see, what did I tell you?” He gasped suddenly blood starting bubble forth from his mouth. Turned his head coughing up blood and spit, the colour of it staining his teeth and mouth.

  “Xavier” she screamed “No! Please don’t leave me.” She put both her hands on his chest sobbing. He slowly raised one hand placing it over hers. Her hand contained the golden ball that she had retrieved from the crown.

  She looked down and noticed as he clasped his hand over hers, as the flesh of his hand came into contact with the ball, it came alive, it lit up, sparkling. She dipped her head closer to it, becoming mesmerized by the swirling galaxies it contained within.

  The ball glowed brighter and brighter, so bright that it might be the sun. She turned to avert her eyes, and as she did so, she noticed a glow come across Xavier, from his head to the tip of his toes. A pale white glow that enveloped his entire being, and his body slowly raised itself from the ground, suspended in mid air. The universe unfolded around them, beneath and above them in every direction, expanding like a movie set to fast forward.

  She gasped almost choking as she felt the sting of the ball heating up under her hand. She almost let go, but something inside her told her not to let go, to keep on holding tight for fear of being lost like a speck of dust, swallowed whole by the universe. She watched as the light of a thousand stars enveloped him, galaxies seeming to swirl and whirl around him in elliptical orbits, stars and planets all glowing and circling his body on angles juxtaposed to each other and then nothing. The orb suddenly stopped glowing and Xavier's levitating body dropped slowly to the ground.

  “Xavier!” she called out, reaching out to gather him up, lifting his torso higher to keep his face above the water. His eyes opened slowly and seeing her looking down at him he smiled. She looked at his chest and the bruising had gone, he was perfectly healed. Tears of joy and wonderment streamed down her cheeks, and he laughed at her wiping them away.

  “We have to get out of here” she cried looking around. By now the water was up past knee level. She looked around frantically searching for the opening, another way out. It struck her in that moment, the oddity of the fact that all the skulls were looking inwards, towards the tomb. That is, all except a row to the right of the stone coffin, that faced downwards to the floor.

  “Over there!” she shouted ecstatically. “The skulls, they show the way out.” She hurriedly stumbled across the floor of the cave, littered with broken shards of stone and bone. She hastily ripped the skulls out of the way, exposing a small hole in the wall, large enough for a person to squeeze themselves through. “Come on” she cried out to Xavier, bending down to crawl into the hole head first. It was a small tunnel, she could see it had been hand quarried out of the stone, big enough just for a person to squeeze themselves through and up. It was pitch black and headed upwards.

  She clambered against the rocks, scraping and bruising her hands and knees, slipping and catching her nails against the sharp rock. All the while ignoring it steadfastly refusing to stop, now abruptly aware of the gurgling sound of water below her. She could hear Xavier following close behind her and was aware of the impending danger closing in on them from below.

  She could see a
dim light ahead, it wasn’t much, but it was enough to give her hope. It spurred her on and she pushed harder, grappling like a fighter with the slippery rock face until he managed to thrust her way upwards in one final push. She exited the hole and realised she was back in the first cavern. She had exited the wall onto a small platform at the rear of the cave, hidden behind a multitude of stalactites, undetectable if you didn’t know it was there.

  She realised it must have been where they had lowered the coffin into the cave behind, she was grateful they hadn’t bothered to close it off afterwards. She saw the stairs ahead of her. It was heading towards dusk and the light was dimming inside the cavern.

  “We have to swim” she called to Xavier behind her. Without a second thought she leapt into the lake below, and started swimming towards the staircase.

  She pulled herself roughly out of the water, tearing her pants on the rocky ground, but she continued unperturbed. Xavier followed along closely behind her. She reached the ladder and grabbed the rungs, starting to climb. Xavier called out to her from below.

  “Don’t you want the safety harness?” he asked.

  She looked back down at him, the adrenaline forcing her on “No,” she said decidedly determined, “I can do this.” She climbed like a person possessed, ignoring the movement of the ladder under her feet, until she reached the precipices summit and pulled herself over, panting the last of her energy spent. Xavier followed and rolled himself next to her, and they lay for a brief moment together looking at pink and gold billowing clouds like fairy floss rolling across the sky.

  It was sunset, and the piercing call of red howler monkey troops punctured the silence from the treetops, a sober reminder of the coming of night. The animals of the night were coming out en force and the monkeys were asserting their canopy territories. They had an extra large larynx that allowed them to produce calls that could be heard over a kilometer away.

  “What was that?” Tasha exclaimed jumping up.

  We have to set up some kind of shelter to protect us” he said “and a fire, quickly.” They scoured the forest for wood they could use, anything to build a barrier between them and what the night might hold. Tasha started on a fire. She thanked her father for all those girl scouts lessons. She built two fires, just in case one goes out, she thought. She stood some sticks up and made a makeshift barrier with some banana and palm fronds to cover the fires from rain, which she knew could happen at any time in the jungle.

  “Come” he said beckoning her to take her place beside him in the makeshift shelter. She did not argue. For all they had been through now, lying side by side with him seemed to be a trivial thing, nothing to get herself rent up about.

  She laid down next to him, looking him in the eyes.

  “You… you almost died today” she said pulling the golden orb out of her zipper pocket and gazing at it resting in the palm of her hand.

  “I know, I don’t know what that thing is, but, you, and it - saved my life.”

  She looked at him confused “I didn’t do anything.”

  “To the contrary” he looked at her in the eyes, intensely, deeply his eye smouldering like molten lava, “you didn’t leave me.”

  She blushed feeling the blood rise to her cheeks, suffusing uneasily across her face, and the nervous flutter of her heart “I … I couldn’t, I couldn’t leave you to die alone, like that.”

  He chuckled “you are the most foolish, confusingly frustrating woman…”

  He didn’t get to finish his sentence, she planted a soft kiss on his lips. “What was that for,” he asked incredulously “I thought you hated me?”

  “Hate is a strong word” she said “I thought you were a chauvinist, a womaniser, but I actually feel….”

  “What?” he arched his eyebrows, “pity for me now?” He lifted himself up angrily.

  “Well, you have to admit, the night I first met you, and that woman,” she said referring to the jealous bartender. “I figured you got around.”

  “What? So you decide who I am now? You know I was single before I met you, my decisions were my own?”

  She laughed, “and you are not still single now?”

  “God woman,” he growled pushing her back onto the ground. Feeling the heat of him against her she forgot about all her bruises, scrapes and stings. She reached her hand to place it on his throbbing chest. He pushed her legs apart and leaned himself between her thighs, rubbing himself against her through the thin cotton cloth of her pants.

  “Don’t” she said reaching her hand to slap him across the face. He grabbed her hand lowering it to the ground, holding it tight. He grabbed her other hand and forced it up behind her head and continued rubbing his ample length against the inside of her thigh.

  “You can’t just take what you want” she said to him, unafraid, looking him in the eyes. He moaned softly and rolled off her, his manhood standing erect in his pants. He was frustrated but at the same time he felt a little ashamed by his behaviour. It was not like him, not to be able to keep control of himself.

  “You are killing me” he said softly.

  “To the contrary” she said stiffly, “I saved your life, remember?”

  Typical woman he thought silently to himself always has to have the final word. He wished at that moment he could put something in her mouth to shut her up.

  He sighed and rolled over away from her, trying to quell his sexual frustration. He was attracted to her since the moment he met her. Her slender athletic figure wrapped up in that designer suit. Her long curly blonde hair unfathomably tamed into a bun like a school marm, hazel eyes shining and the freckles on her pointed nose.

  He had tried to ignore it. He knew he was terrible at relationships, epically incompetent in fact, and he avoided them at all costs. But the day he met her he realised he had finally found someone whom he was willing to give it another try with, someone who stimulated him both sexually and mentally.

  She lay her mind and thoughts eons away from his, gazing at a million stars. They were so much brighter, so more vivid than she had ever seen them before, without the lights of civilisation they shone brightly like beacons in the sky.

  She wondered which one was was home to the visitors, and why had they never returned to claim control over humankind once more. She glimpsed a falling star and made a quick wish, a wish that both she and Xavier made it out of this jungle alive.

  She didn’t know why she pushed him away. She was afraid of relationships, afraid of getting hurt, and she knew a man like that would be capable of tearing her heart in two. She was attracted to him there was no doubt about it, but she had no intention of rushing into a physical relationship with him. Plus, she couldn’t see how he could be in the mindset to have sex after what just happened to him, but he was male, she guessed, that explained it all.

  Instead of thinking about it, she did what she did best, pushed it back into the recesses of her mind. She was an expert at that, she did that whenever she started thinking about her father when she was young. She shoved the memory right back down, repressing it so she didn’t have to deal with it. Memories were inconvenient things, they popped up anywhere, anytime. If you didn’t have the ability to repress them, you could end up self medicating just to keep them at bay. She learnt that the hard way from her mother.

  She decided instead, to take a look at the tablet, and to stop thinking about him. She hunched over the camera screen, trying to look at the photos she took of the tablet that rested in the mummified hands of the alien body.

  She was curious, she looked at the hieroglyphs on the tablet. Was it instructions or a warning? The first symbols were a warning. Her heart jumped up to her throat, immediately wondering if there were going to be monumental consequences for what they had done today. She read on, holding her breath.

  According to the text, they believed the orb could do great good, or great harm, it was dependant on the purpose of the one who wielded it. She sighed a small sigh of relief, that hopefully there would be no repercussi
ons for their use of the orb.

  She read further. According to the writer - she looked at the glyph again, it wasn’t really the one traditionally used for aliens, but that was the closest she could translate it - the aliens used it to terraform planets for their purposes and to build and grow life. The power of a thousand galaxies, capable of being used for both creation and destruction.

  There were some who believed that it could be used to protect humans in case the aliens ever returned, but others were afraid of it, knowing what it did the last time it was used. It turned out, the orb was being held by hybrids who sought to control Earth and subdue everyone in it.

  So they turned their efforts to trying to destroy it, but where were unable to. They also feared the release of energy from this action would destroy the world, unleashing the power of the cosmos. So with the aid of a hybrid, they took it and buried it, to keep it out of the hands of… she struggled with the next glyph but it was akin to the word….. Snake, so they would never find it and be able to use it to subjugate humankind.

  She sat puzzling over the last words. It was basically saying that some of the hybrid offspring had survived the deluge and were in search of the orb. It mentioned the Egyptian, who was sent from Egypt, taking the only map to the orb with him. He was sent to take it far, far away from those in Egypt who sought for it.

  She rested her head down, feeling exhausted and fell asleep. She was so tired she slept till morning, undisturbed by the rambunctious racket emanating from the pandemonium of nighttime in the rainforest.

  She woke in the morning, the sun was already high in the sky and Xavier was already awake, and ready to go. She could barely open her eyes and her body ached in places she never knew existed.

  Xavier thought he might as well launch straight into it. “I’m sorry about last night” he said abruptly trying not to look her in the eye.

  “It’s all right” she said “I understand” but really she didn’t quite. She had strong feelings for him running around in her head and her heart, but she didn’t have a handle on them. She wasn’t interested in a playboy who was just going to break her heart, but she did understand the attraction that they were both feeling. “You had a life and death experience, it would have an effect on anybody.”