Relentless - By Cherry Adair Page 0,104

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.

The wall before them—a hundred feet high, by that and more wide—was a solid sheet of gleaming hammered gold. Bas-relief gods and goddesses, birds and soldiers, sparkled with jewels and semiprecious stones. In the very center, about halfway up, a twenty-foot-tall couple stood, hands clasped as they looked over the vast chamber.

The carving was more three-dimensional than everything else on the wall, and so lifelike Isis wouldn’t have been surprised if they stepped down off the wall where they had stood joined together for thousands of years. Wearing the royal raiments of Isis and Osiris, they were surrounded by the sun god Ra and the seven venomous scorpions.

Isis brought Thorne’s hand, clasped in hers, to her heart, and swallowed a lump in her throat. “Cleo and Mark.”

Bittersweet tears welled, making the gold wall shimmer. She wished her father could see this. “I have to take pictures.” Unsnapping the catch of her case, Isis took a rapid succession of images, barely taking time to frame her shots.

The perimeter walls had, until recently, been packed with artifacts. And while there were still thousands of things to catch her eye, it was clear that at least half of the items, if not more, had been dragged out. Streaks of dust on the floor where boxes had been pulled, and put onto some sort of wheel cart for transportation out of the tomb, told the story. She got dozens of shots of those, too.

A stack of gilded and bejeweled chariot wheels were braced against the far wall along with ritual couches, beds, chairs, and tables. Isis figured the assorted furniture was worth a queen’s ransom, all of it just piled one on top of the other as if this were an ancient Egyptian thrift shop. Intricately carved ivory chests embedded with gemstones awaited pickup by the front entrance.

And a fifty-gallon barrel with a spigot on it. “Dear God. Is that water? Thank you, modern times.” She tugged at Thorne’s hand, hauling him over to the plastic container. “You go first.” She expected him to dip his head under the spigot to drink, but he surprised her by cupping his hands.

“Pour,” he said, catching the stream until his hands were full. “Drink.” Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Isis drank from his cupped hands, a surprisingly intimate thing to do. Before her thirst was quenched, she lifted her head. “Your turn. There’s plenty.”

She held the spigot until they each slaked their thirst. “I’ll never take water for granted again,” she said.

Satisfied, she waited her turn and splashed room-temperature water on her face. Thorne took her elbow as she used her T-shirts to dry off.

“We’ve got to go. Who knows when they’ll be back?”

“They’ll know we were here. Does that matter?” She walked beside him, taking pictures as they crossed the space.

“We’ll be long gone. It’s a good thing you’re getting shots of this—no time for cataloging,