The Artifact: Natasha Burrows Series Book One

by Phillips, Michelle

  “Alright then” he looked a little unsure but wasn’t going to push the point. “Where is the orb?” She opened her bag of toiletries and pulled out the orb, which now looked like a rather large ball of soap.

  “Well that’s clever” he said looking at it.

  “Uncle was right, so far since we’ve laid hands on this orb, death has surrounded us.” As melodramatic as it seemed this was not far from the truth of it.

  “My only concern is the metal detectors & x-ray machines at the airport.”

  She wrinkled her brow “we don’t even know what this thing is composed of. Why? What were you going to suggest we do with it?” her eyebrows were arched in a sardonic way, in a manner that suggested she was daring him to answer.

  His look was a little sly “I was going to suggest, um, that it was a Ben Wa ball.”

  “Ben Wa what? You mean… like in Fifty Shades of Grey?”

  “Uh, huh. They can come in silver or gold.” Her eyes narrowed at him, she was thinking he knew a bit too much about the whole subject. “Think about it, it's not like they are going to want to touch it….

  “Oh hell no. You’re not suggesting I ‘wear’ it?”

  “No, nothing like that” he assured her.

  “Knowing my luck it will explode on me” she said sarcastically. “How about we go with my plan and if it doesn't get past the x-ray machine, we’ll try yours.” He nodded and grabbed her Osprey hiking backpack up from the lumpy spring coil mattress.

  “I saw a large waste bin out back of the hotel, we’ll dispose of the clothes there and keep moving.”

  They hailed a taxi outside the hotel to the airport. Compared to the farmer's truck it was heaven, even if a coil from the back seat had worked its way through the leather and was pressing solidly against her derriere. They purchased two tickets back to Caracaus, with the intention of heading on from there to Rome.

  Xavier had checked his bag, and was carrying hers as hand luggage. The moment of truth was arriving fast. Tasha held her breath as he dropped the bag on the conveyor belt and it meandered under the x ray, the belt squealed unceremoniously and lurched the bag through the scanner. “Here’s your bag sir,” the woman said politely handing him his bag as he exited the metal detector.

  He directed a small glance at Tasha and continued walking on the plane.

  “Well whatever that orb thing is, the x ray mustn’t have picked it up.”

  “Of course not” she sniffed “damn thing is cursed, once you have it, it never lets you go.”

  “What? Is there something you are not telling me, was there a curse written on the tablet, on the sarcophagus?”

  “No, nothing like that” she shook her head. She was miserable, inconsolable from losing two fathers in one lifetime.

  They took their seats on the plane. The low hum of the engines started and the plane taxied along the runway vibrating and rattling as the engines picked up to a roar. Tasha grasped her bag tight not willing to place it in the overhead compartments.

  “You know I'm looking forward to going to Rome with you.” Xavier was trying to make small talk to ease her fear of flying. “There are so many great places to eat. After the jungle I could handle a large pepperoni pizza smothered with mozzarella, or a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. Noticing she had gone quiet he turned to see that she had actually fallen asleep from the vibration of the plane.

  He chuckled to himself as her head slumped to his shoulder and he placed his arm around her. She murmured slightly and nuzzled her head into his chest. He let her sleep in his arms, the first deep uninterrupted sleep she had in days.

  Tasha awoke with a start.

  “Wh .. where am I” she mumbled incoherently.

  “We have landed.”

  She lifted her head off him suddenly embarrassed. “Did I .. ?”

  He finished her sentence. “You sure did. Someone has lost their fear of flying thats for sure.”

  She stumbled up groggily, wiping a small amount of drool from the corner of her mouth. “Let's go then,” she felt weirdly violated by the fact that she had just unknowingly slept in his arms. They made their way off the plane. “Look I know you said you would come to Rome with me, but you don't have to.”

  “Are you serious?” Xavier looked at her incredulously. “And miss out on all that pizza?” She regarded him with a sense of gratitude.

  She really didn’t want to finish the journey alone. “Let's go get those tickets” he said with a smile. Even wild horses wouldn't be able to drag him away from her now.

  “Quick, put your head down” Xavier pulled her towards him. She ducked her head quickly, she had learnt in the jungle it was a good idea to do whatever he said. “Wait” he pulled her closer bringing her head against his chest.

  He leaned his head down nuzzling his face into the nape of her neck, his lips brushing against her soft skin. She could feel his warm breath against her skin, it gave her goosebumps and she shuddered slightly.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “Looks like dumb and dumber are catching the plane back to Ciudad. They haven’t seen us.” He swung his arm around her waist and guided her around a corner, pushing her back against the wall, his body pressed against her.

  Even after a couple of days in the jungle, she still smelt like vanilla and violets. He lingered a little and then stood back off her. “They are buying their tickets now. We’ll have to wait a few minutes until they board the plane.”

  “They can’t be very bright. Wouldn’t they check the incoming passenger list.”

  “They normally would” said Xavier with a wink, “but I paid them to change our names on the list, Mrs. Blake.”

  “Mrs.?” she raised her eyebrows. “Well that was one hell of a honeymoon Mr. Blake. Do you try to kill all your new wives that way?”

  “Only the ones I really like. Come on, looks like they are gone.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  She decided to do a bit of research when she got on the plane. Her uncle had spoken about the Indian Chief Rolling Thunder of the Comanches, a tribe from the Great Planes, who gave an account to a Native American researcher, in 1857. He spoke of a race of ten-foot white giants that existed innumerable moons ago. They are rich, powerful and built fortifications that crowned the summits of mountains. They were cunning, warlike and had wrested the land from its ancient possessors. When this race forgot justice and mercy, the Great Spirit wiped them out.

  It appeared he wasn’t alone. The Starnake people of the Navajo also had a similar legend about white giants with mining technology, enslaving the lesser tribes. They were either extinguished or went back to the heavens.

  But what interested her perhaps the most was the 1964 account of Pedro de Cieza de León in the “Chronicle of Peru.” He spoke of the indigenous Manta people, who were in Ecuador at the time, prior to the Inca Conquest. They told a story of giants arriving by boats, monstrous looking their eyes as big as plates. It seems they had deviant sexual habits.

  She put down her laptop, rubbing her eyes. The timing of that could quite likely have coincided with the hybrids hiding the orb. But with talk of sexual proclivities, she was officially out. Her eyes were starting to water and she had a headache.

  She decided to take a rest and she fell asleep again on the plane to Rome. This time she made sure she leant against the window. Her sleep wasn’t easy, time it was disturbed and she found herself having nightmares about drowning in underwater caverns, skeletons hidden beneath the treacherous waters pulling her deeper downwards as she silently screamed, bubbles of air escaping from her lungs. Her lungs burnt with pain as the last air left them, replaced with cold lifeless water. She struggled and twisted trying to escape until she felt numb and still, sinking, disappearing silently into the darkness, looking upwards longingly to see the last fading light disappearing from view.

  The darkness seemed infinite, but then through the waters she was pulled, pulled through and out the other side, the world reversed and she lay, cold
and comatose, her eyes fixed open the sky a purple azure hue. A young girl stood over her, her long flowing hair glowing like golden strands of spun silk, and she spoke to Natasha a soft lilting voice like the song of birds on a summer's day. He words were muffled like Natasha still had water clogging her ears, but she realised it was a different language one she had not heard before.

  She looked around and saw buildings in the distance, magnificent crystalline towers floating on clouds of green and blue, upside down trees hanging from beneath the clouds their tops brushing the grasses below.

  “Wh.. where am I?” she stammered. “Am I in heaven?”

  “No” tittered the girl giggling elfishly “that’s what I have been trying to tell you.” All she had to realise is that she could understand the girl, she hadn't understood before that it was that simple. “You are not from around here are you?” she smiled. Tasha looked up and saw two reddish suns in the sky, and what looked like the white outline of three moons surrounded by white rings. “I think it's time you went home” said the girl.

  “No, wait” cried Tasha but it was too late.

  Natasha awoke with start to find Xavier looking at her.

  “H.. h..how long was I asleep?” she stuttered.

  “About nine hours.”

  She raised her eyebrows “That long? I .. I wasn’t calling out or anything.” She rubbed her eyes removing the sleep that had collected in their corners.

  “No, but you looked a little disturbed for the last couple of hours. You were murmuring a bit and shaking your head.”

  “Ohh...” she put her hands to her face and rubbed her temples, “I was having a bad dream.” She skipped over the words lightly, not drawing too much attention to them, not really wishing to discuss the dream. “How much longer?” she asked turning to look down the aisle for the flight attendants.

  “Two hours to Fiumicino airport.”

  “You didn’t sleep?” she asked.

  “No, I thought one of us should be awake, you know for the orb. We probably should have a nickname for it or something, a codename,” he mused.

  “I’m sorry, you should have woken me up.”

  “It’s ok, I slept quite well in the jungle.”

  “God I don’t know how” Tasha groaned. “Probably all that goop you drank.”

  “I asked the flight attendants to save your dinner, it's not great, but it is vegetarian.” He signalled to a flight attendant who came rushing. “Can we get her dinner now?” he asked.

  “Sure” said the woman giving him her best smile.

  “Huh, ok, can see you haven’t been wasting much time.”

  “Hey, how is it my fault the ladies love me.”

  “Glad to see the orb - I mean secret codeword “squirrel” didn’t make you lose your debonair-ish charm.”

  He looked at her carefully “I’m sorry if it offends you. I didn’t realise that it mattered to you who I flirted with?”

  She blushed “I guess not.” (She was a goddamn fool, why did she let him get to her like that.)

  “You know” he regarded her thoughtfully, his consternation easing, “most of the time I don’t even know I’m doing it, I’m not doing it to be - pardon the French - a dick, it's just a force of habit. I found it's easier to get things I want this way, it's more pleasant than having to threaten or bribe people.”

  “What if it's a guy?” she chuckled.

  “Sometimes it works even better” he said raising his eyebrows chaotically.

  “Did you mean what you said in the jungle, about your father?” She started eating, grateful for the warm food. “It must have been hard for you?”

  “Well I wouldn’t like to say that I’m the only one with a complicated family, but I think mine probably takes complicated to a whole new level.” He tried to avoid her eyes and kept his answer to the bare minimum.

  “What was your mother like?”

  His eyes flashed at her, the deep blue interrupted by a glint of something unquantifiable. “My mother well,” he said looking nostalgically at her “she was beautiful like you. Beautiful but fragile.”

  She felt herself flushing under his steady gaze. “Where is she now?”

  His face lowered and darkened a little “she died.”

  “I’m sorry” she said looking down at her food, toying with it a little.

  “Don’t be, it's not your fault. Some things are just harder to get over than others. She was an incredible woman, I thought the only one who would ever really be able to understand me” She nodded understanding. That is until now he thought.

  The seatbelt sign came on. “Looks like we are here.” Tasha felt like she could have cheered. The flight attendant rushed to gather up her tray and the captain's voice came of the intercom. They exited the plane, making their way slowly through customs at Italy's International Fiumicino Airport.

  “Is it always this busy?” she asked looking in every direction.

  “I’m afraid so, and I think it will only get worse in Vatican City. We can choose to follow the Treni signs for the nonstop “Leonardo Express” trains to the main railway station Stazione Termini, or we can catch a taxi.”

  “Wouldn’t a taxi be faster?”

  “Depends on the queue and the traffic. The traffic in Rome is really quite bad. I would suggest the train. The expression they use here is, Tutte le strade portano a Roma, or as they say in English, all roads lead to Rome, but the result is one hell of a traffic jam.”

  “Ok, lead the way” she said silently pleading to herself. (Did he really have to speak in Italian, it made her weak at the knees). They wove their way through milling travellers, all trying to push their way through to get where they wanted. “I’m not going to lie to you, there are lines for everything in Rome.”

  “Oh great” she looked completely unenthused. “I’m mildly agoraphobic you know.”

  “You are kidding” he smiled and feigned mock astonishment. “I would have never guessed.” She punched him lightly on the arm in jest, clutching her bag closer to her chest.

  “Also, just to break it to you, the Termini Station, isn’t the best. It’s confusing, there are people selling crappy stuff everywhere, and it kinda smells bad. It’s mostly known for pickpockets during the day and hookers by night. Like where we have just been, it's a jungle, dangers everywhere but of a different kind.”

  “Huh. I never thought of it that way. Gosh, they don’t make it quick and easy for tourists to leave the airport” she moaned, she felt like they had been walking for half an hour.

  “Why should they?” he laughed, “that would only encourage the buggers. Here, this is the train.” He pointed to a queue of people lined up for the train. “It begins!” he announced with Gusto trying to cheer her up.

  After what felt like an age, they were finally seated on the train. “You’ve obviously been to Rome before, how do we get to the secret archives?” she asked Xavier.

  “I have been to Rome, but not to Vatican City, it’s all new to me. In the past I know it was no simple matter to view the documents of the Secret Archives, but I think Dan Brown helped out a bit in that regard.”

  “How?” she looked at him quizzically.

  “Due to the interest his books generated in the Archives, they thought it would be best to open it to people for limited viewings. You have to prove you are a serious enough scholar and they give you credentials which are renewed every six months. Scholars must request which specific documents they wish to review, they can only request three per day. So you can’t browse the contents of the archive and just pick what you want, you have to select from the articles in their list of catalogs. And to make matters even more difficult they are handwritten in Italian or Latin.”

  “Makes sense, I guess with that kind of archaic system you could leave practically anything out of that catalogue on purpose.”

  “On top of that the catalogs are apparently quite imposing, considering the archives contain 52 miles of shelving in an underground concrete-walled bun
ker. That's approximately 80 kilometres in metric, of shelving containing documents dating back to the eighth century.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know you were an aficionado on the secret archives.” She was astonished by how much he knew.

  He laughed “I was going to dazzle you with my brilliance, but I have to be honest, you know there was free WIFI on the plane and I had nine whole hours to kill.”

  “Even still, your retention rate is very high.”

  “Is that the professor in you talking, Miss? Did I pass?” He winked at her mischievously and she just wanted to kiss and slap his face at the same time, knocking the cheek right out of him. (Damn he’s as hot as a seat on the sun.)

  “Since you’ve done the spadework on this one, how do we actually get into the secret archives?”

  “Ah, yes well” he crossed his legs and placed his fingers together forming a pyramid on his lap. “To enter the archives, scholars enter through the Porta Santa Anna, passing the Swiss Guards and through the Cortile del Belvedere, where they finally present their credentials.”

  “Ok, so we know where to go, the rest, I guess, we'll just have to wing” she didn’t sound supremely confident.

  “So what exactly did your Uncle say? I was a bit preoccupied trying not to crash a plane.” The image of her uncle dying, covered in blood flashed before her eyes and she winced, covering her face. “Are you alright?” he leant placing his hand on her shoulder.

  “Yes, it's ok” she wiped a tear from her eye “I just had a flashback, it's hard to clear that kind of memory from your mind. I also think I have had a permanent headache since that gun went off.”

  “I understand.” (And there he was being understanding and kind again.)

  “He said that we needed to ask for the Egyptian Book of The Dead.”

  “I remember that part, that was back at the camp.”

  “Ok, sorry, I’m getting everything messed up. He gave me the ring, the one you need to get access to the archives.”

  “But did he say how?”

  She swung her head from side to side slowly. “No, he didn’t.”