“It’s an Old Kingdom curse.”
“Yes, yes. Very powerful those.” He turned back to the door.
“Powerful?” Rowan mouthed to Yael.
“We will need to cancel this out before we enter.” Dr. Campbell dug around in his pockets.
“You need to do what?” Rowan demanded.
“Neutralize the spell. Won’t take too long.”
“But there’s no spell. There’s nothing to worry about. I just need to finish taking photos.”
Dr. Campbell threw a handful of dust at the slab just as Kayla reached out and touched the hieroglyphs. A bright light blasted through the trench, and Rowan had to blink a number of times before her vision cleared.
What the hell? Did he throw gunpowder or something on the door?
But the stone slab was unharmed.
“What did you do?” Dr. Campbell demanded, spinning to face Kayla.
A low wail sounded. “My hand.” She held her wrist tightly, hand open and palm raised to the sky, like it was diseased.
“What happened? Did you hurt yourself?” Rowan stepped forward, but Yael grabbed her bicep to hold her back.
Dr. Campbell frowned, worry stark on his face. “I need to have a look at it.”
“No, no, it hurts.”
Dr. Campbell ushered Kayla up the stairs at to the ladder, where he and Yael helped her out of the trench.
“What happened?” Rowan asked.
Yael crossed his arms over his chest and glared. “The curse.”
Chapter 35
It was plain to see that Rowan thought the fuss about the curse was hysterical nonsense. But Kayla was growing paler and paler the longer she sat there, staring at her hand as if it had betrayed her. And Yael couldn’t blame her. The flash of light that had accompanied her brief stroking of the doorway meant the curse had been activated seconds before Campbell had neutralized it. Unless they did some serious magic mojo, the little demon was doomed.
He’d never heard of a curse reversing itself once it had found a target.
“I couldn’t stop myself,” Kayla whispered to Campbell, her head bowed.
The curse-breaking demon tsked. “You should have known better. I had almost deactivated it.”
“It was like it was calling to me, ‘Touch me, touch me’. I couldn’t resist.”
A seductive whisper would have been hard for a Succubus to refuse, even one as deadly as Kayla.
Kayla was sat in one of the portable chairs, in the shadiest part of the shelter. On the other side of the marquee, Rowan paced, watching her friend with concern. The wind continued to pick up strength, whipping Kayla’s loose hair around her face, and constantly plucking at Rowan’s hat. Good thing Yael didn’t need any headgear.
“Here, drink this.” Campbell handed Kayla a steaming cup.
“What is it?”
“Coffee.”
It had an odd odor to it, but Yael wasn’t about to comment on that.
The Succubus took it, sipped gingerly at the liquid and pulled a face. “This isn’t coffee.”
“It’s coffee laced with something stronger.” Campbell gave her a stern glare and she drank the liquid down without further protest.
Yael grabbed his backpack from the marquee floor and rummaged through it, keeping an eye on Kayla. He had no idea how long the curse would take to work, and consequently no idea how much time they had to break it.
Rowan crouched down next to him, her lemongrass scent rich in the dusty air. “This is ridiculous. They are worried about something that isn’t real. We should just get back to work. It would take their mind off things.”
Yael’s hand closed on a plastic bag of puke-colored powder, keeping it hidden from her gaze. “Do they look like they don’t think it’s real?”
“There is no scientific basis to support the theory that curses are—”
“Don’t be a jerk.” He shut his backpack and Rowan wheeled away from him, shock and hurt clear on her face.
Normally, Yael loved Rowan’s sharp mind. But this…blindness…to the life around her, it was grating. The spell he held had been made by her vey own grandmother. He was an angel. The comrade she condescended about was a demon.
Maybe she believed none of that was real, but it was getting harder not to be convinced.
She threw her shoulders back. “I am not being a jerk.”
“Kayla is clearly upset about touching the curse. She thinks it’s real enough to worry about. And you want to tell her it’s nonsense and to get over it?”
He could see the struggle in her mind: be the good friend and be supportive, or potentially enable a dangerous thought pattern that was based on nothing more than fantasy.
Rowan sat on the ground. “It’s not healthy to play into someone’s delusions.”
“No, but when nothing happens and the curse doesn’t eventuate, she’ll realize that it wasn’t real. Until then, you could help her by being supportive rather than condescending.”
Of course, it only wouldn’t become active if they managed to neutralize it.
“I am not condescending!” Rowan glared at him then sighed. “Even though that sounded super-condescending. Fine. You’re right. This is a problem I’ve had with my family my entire life. I need to respect people’s beliefs more. It’s just hard when they’re so wrong, you know?”
She stood and went over to Kayla, squatting down next to her and chatting, trying to draw her attention away from her hand.
Rowan had no idea about the real world, but Yael knew that was largely due to the thorough job angels did at keeping their existence on the down-low. There were stories and religions and what not, but they required belief, not hard proof. For some reason, it was how God had wanted it, and so that was how it was done. But it didn’t make his kind any less real, or the demons that lived in Hell less vile.
“So, I heard someone touched the curse.” Azrael’s deep voice was quiet, and Yael half-turned to his fellow Dart. The damned fallen angel was too good at sneaking up on people.
Yael nodded in the direction of the two huddled archeologists. “Kayla.”
“She is pretty handsy,” Dru muttered.
Azrael elbowed her.
“What?” Dru scowled and rubbed her ribs. “She’s a Succubus. They like to have sex. So they’re handsy. Get it?”
“Too soon.” Azrael shook his head.
Yael was surprised. The dark-haired angel usually let Dru get away with murder. Literally.
For a demon, Kayla isn’t too bad, Azrael telepathed him. And what if Rowan had touched the curse instead of her?
Yael grimaced. Rowan had touched the curse; he’d caught her doing it. But there had been no flash of light, no sense of impending doom. Nada.
Maybe it will accept her.
“Don’t you think it’s funny that the only people who remember that the tomb has been exposed are you, me, and Rowan?” Yael asked.
“What tomb?” Dru demanded. “The first one?”
“The second.”
“There is no second tomb.”
“Where did Kayla touch the curse, then?” Yael asked.
Dru frowned so hard he thought her eyes would cross. “The first tomb.”
Yael crossed his arms over his chest. “My point exactly.”
“So, you think only angels and humans can remember the tomb because there’s a warding spell on it?”
“It has some pretty strong concealment spells in place—ones even modern technology can’t penetrate. But not all humans do remember: Mustafa and the workers forget about it as well.”
Azrael looked thoughtful.
“What tomb?’ Dru asked again. “Seriously guys.”
Normally he loved to rile the cambion, but now wasn’t the time. “The one Rowan and I have been working on.”
“You mean the empty trench?” Dru withdrew a knife and played with it. Yael had noticed she did that whenever she thought things throu
gh. Or was angry. Or amused. Or just because.
Yael stood, bag of powder still in hand. “Yes, but it’s not empty.”
“That’s—”
“One Hell of a concealment spell,” Azrael murmured.
Dru nodded.
So she believes him and not me.
Well, he was her lover and Yael had made his dislike of her clear.
“Campbell,” he said, drawing the portly archaeologist’s attention.
“Yes, Mr. Death?” Ahh, the polite formality of someone who hates you, but doesn’t want to offend you. Yael was well versed in it from his childhood.
“Here.” He covertly handed the baggie to the demon, like they were doing a drug deal.
“What is it?” Campbell clutched it out of reflex.
“It’s a curse-neutralization spell, courtesy of Theodora Broome.”
“How did you get it so quickly?”
“I already had it.”
“So, it wasn’t made specifically for a demon?”
“No, I’d say a human.”
“I may be able to work with this,” Campbell said.
“Good.” Yael turned away, only for Campbell to grab his forearm. He took a deep breath as the sudden urge to rip the demon’s limb off swamped him. He is not the enemy.
Not right now, anyway.
Funny how he thought he’d come to accept working with the demons, but apparently he was still ready to destroy them at the slightest provocation.
Campbell let go of his arm, as if he could sense the fallen angel’s seething anger. “Why are you helping her?”
He thought about that. Why was he?
And it was simple, really.
“Because, Rowan won’t take it well if she dies.”
Chapter 36
Poor Kayla had looked terrible last night. Her normally tan skin had been pale, and her irrepressible zest for life had gone. She really had been worried by the curse. And that made Rowan worried, too.
Psychosomatic illness. Where one believed they were sick and so they became sick.
Her gran had said people came into the shop with it all the time, and it was about relieving the mental stress, so that the physical symptoms went away. It’s part of why Rowan had believed her grandparent to be a charlatan, selling people placebos. But right now, she would have happily shoved a dozen sugar pills down Kayla’s throat if it meant her friend would feel better.
She’d checked on Kayla at least three times last night, much to Yael’s irritation at having to re-check everything in the room again and again. Now it was morning, Kayla had decided to stay back at the compound to get a little more rest. Surprisingly, Dr. Campbell had decided to stay with her, and that had seemed to help her friend more than anything else.
Maybe they have a thing going on?
It was hard to picture, bright and bubbly Kayla with the portly and whiskered Campbell, but who knew what direction attraction could take?
It’s time to get your head in the game.
Yes. Kayla would be fine. She was being cared for and there was a hospital nearby if she was truly sick.
Plus, Rowan had important work to do, like opening the tomb.
She reached over to the edge of the trench and grabbed a small crowbar she’d placed there. She grunted at the weight of it. Normally, she would have needed another three or four workers to help her pry the slab away, but she didn’t want to make anyone else panic about being cursed. No. She’d get the lay of the land first, and when she needed help, she’d ask Yael.
The way he excavated, he was probably as strong as two men, anyway.
Now was the perfect time to open the tomb because he, Dru and Azrael were off doing something with the site’s guards. She didn’t know why, but she had the feeling he would stop her if he knew what she was up to.
Approaching the stone door—Who am I kidding? I am not going to budge this at all—she spotted at a tiny gap between the slab and the tomb wall.
Had someone broken in here overnight?
No one even thinks we found anything…
There were no other signs of chipped rock or forced entry. Maybe she had just missed the fact that the slab had not been flush against the wall when she recorded it earlier. She wedged the crowbar into the small gap and pushed. With barely a groan, the door swung outward, as if on well-oiled hinges, and she jumped out of the way, to avoid being clobbered by it.
The scent of dust, decay and ozone hit her in the face, a tomb’s version of halitosis.
She waved a hand in front of her face, as if that would disperse the stench.
That was too easy.
No tomb she’d worked on had ever opened so smoothly; at best, her effort ought to have shifted the rock an inch or so. Something strange is going on. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and she traded the crowbar for a flashlight. Switching it on, she swept the beam into the tomb’s maw, illuminating a darkened corridor, shredded cobwebs, and flickering motes of dust.
This is it.
She went to step inside, but paused. If that door had swung open so easily…she grabbed the crowbar and jammed it into the soil, pinning it against the open door. There. That should hold it.
Stepping inside, her skin came alive, like she was being bitten all over by tiny mosquitoes. She rubbed at her forearm, then her legs. Was there a light on up ahead?
Fully inside now, she tripped over, landing hard on her knees. The flashlight flew from her hands, lighting the walls up in a crazy spiral disco. Flashes of blank stone, flaring streams of smoke, and the silent scream of an abandoned skull blurred together as she tried to make sense of what had happened.
“What—?”
The grating sound of metal against stone made her spin on protesting knees, and she screamed as the door swung shut.
No.
How had that even happened?
She lurched to her feet and slammed into the back of the door, pushing as hard as she could. Nothing.
For something that had opened so easily before…
It was jammed shut.
She took a deep breath of the musty air and turned back to the passageway. There. Her flashlight lay by…a skull.
A skull? It was unusual to find non-mummified remains within a tomb. She walked down the sand-covered passageway and crouched next to the flashlight. Her knees throbbed; she must have skinned them when she spun round. The light shone on her legs, revealing patches of wet blood.
Great.
She turned the beam to the human remains, then reeled backwards, dropping the flashlight again and landing on her butt with a thud.
No. Not possible. Nope. That thing was not real.
She scurried forward and picked up the cranium, turning it over in her gloved hands, unable to process what she saw.
It was human, but it wasn’t.
There were the typical skull components; mandible, maxilla, zygomatic bones, but things got weird around the suture line between the parietal and frontal bones.
There were horns. And they didn’t look glued on. Also, the incisor teeth were far too long for a normal human’s, and the nasal bones were wider than average.
It has to be a fake. But in the glow of the flashlight, the bone appeared real.
She returned the skull to its position on the ground. The papery sound of stone moving over stone made her turn to the doorway, as dust rained from the ceiling. Coughing, Rowan bent forward, trying to get the sand out of her mouth.
Opening watery eyes, she grabbed the flashlight, spotting a strange rock as she did so. With her free hand, she picked up the stone.
Rose quartz.
It was attached to a broken leather necklace, which snaked over her hand as she handled the rock up. She bit the inside of her cheek, amazed at the stone’s size—it barely fit in her fist—and her hand vibrated, like she had the tremors. Where had it come from?
The stone door gave an almighty screech, and
more dust rained down on her, a cool and gritty shower. The floor shook, like there was an earthquake. Rowan folded in on herself, the stone clenched in her fist. A sharp flash of pain seared through her palm, but she ignored it, gritting her teeth and hoping the ceiling wouldn’t cave in on her. When the shaking finally subsided, she sat back, staring at the open doorway.
Yael glared back at her from the opening. “Get out of there.”
She didn’t need to be told twice. Scrambling to her feet, she fumbled her way out the passageway, sucking in the fresh air outside the tomb. “I just found—” But when she opened her hand, there was nothing there.
I dropped it. Damnit! That piece of quartz was no doubt an artifact of some importance.
Yael grabbed her shoulders, his eyes dark. “You found what?”
“Nothing, I must have dropped it. There was a strange skull in there, and the door closed, even though I jammed it open, and I’d only just stepped inside—” Her voice cut off at the look on his face.
He was furious.
“You went inside the tomb on your own. We couldn’t find you anywhere. No one knew where you were. It took Azrael, me and Dru to pry open that door. If you hadn’t been there…” He was breathing heavy, and his body was rigid.
“I just opened the door and stepped in—everything was fine until the door swung shut.”
Her answer didn’t appease him. If anything, he seemed even angrier. “You. Are. An. Idiot.” He shook her shoulders with each word, making her head rattle.
“Me? But—”
“Kayla’s dead.” His words came out harshly.
Rowan swayed, shock slamming into her. “What? When?”
“She died this morning.”
No. That wasn’t possible. Rowan had seen her this morning. “But how?”
“She drowned.”
*
Back at the compound, Rowan stared at the white-shrouded gurney that was being wheeled out of Kayla’s room. A woman she didn’t recognize, wearing a black business suit, followed the trolley. Not the doctor she would have expected.
Rowan turned to Yael, who was a silent, angry presence at her side. “I have to see her.”
“No, you don’t.”
Rowan ignored him and strode toward the gurney. Yael moved to grab her arm, but she slid away from him before he could make contact. Then she ran to her friend, faster than she’d ever run before in her life.
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