like ancient Rome and Greece, from which it was just a short mental hop across the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt.
Ancient Egypt, with its mummies and tombs and elaborate burial rituals and pantheon of animal-headed deities.
“Carson”—I grabbed his arm in excitement—“it’s got to be a clue. Do you know who the ancient Egyptian god of mummification was? Anubis. The jackal-headed god.”
I saw him connecting the dots, too. “So you’re thinking this is related to the Oosterhouse Jackal?”
“If Alexis left this here,” I said, “it’s too much of a coincidence—”
That was as far as I got before Mrs. Hardwicke appeared so suddenly and so brightly that I shrieked and dropped the flashlight. Carson caught it before it hit the ground.
“Someone is coming,” said the shade, her form shivering with urgency and emotion. “And I’ve seen one of them before, with Alexis.”
“One of them?” I asked, and Carson looked at me sharply. I kept my gaze on Mrs. Hardwicke. “How many are there?”
“Three,” she warned. “And they know you’re here.”
11
“THEY MUST HAVE followed us,” Carson said when I told him we were about to have visitors. “Let’s go.” He shoved the plastic mummy into his pocket and doused the light, leaving us in the gravestone-cold darkness of the mausoleum.
I didn’t immediately fall into step. “Just close the door and lock it,” I hissed. “We have the only key.”
“Are you sure about that?” He grabbed my hand. “Besides, I’m not a lock-myself-in-a-room-with-one-exit kind of guy.”
He had a point, so I went with him.
The doorway was full of moonlight. Carson stopped at the edge, pressing against the wall, and I did the same. “How far away are they?” he asked.
Mrs. Hardwicke’s shade had drifted with us. “Just down the hill,” she answered, and I relayed that in a whisper.
“Stay low and keep to the shadows,” he murmured, and slipped outside. I followed, grabbing the heavy door on my way and closing it carefully, silently, behind us.
Not quite silently enough.
“Did you hear something?” asked a voice from just down the hill. Way closer than I expected.
“Let’s pick up the pace,” said his companion, and the crunch of shoes on frozen grass sped up.
Carson shoved me out of sight behind an aboveground crypt. I hit the dirt with a grunt, then gave another one as he landed on top of me.
“This is getting to be a bad habit,” I wheezed.
“You’re not much of an escape artist,” he whispered, his breath tickling the back of my neck. “Now shut up.”
The ground was really cold and hard and Carson was hot and heavy, which might be nice in some circumstances, but not just then. I moved so that whatever was digging into my hip dug into a less sensitive place. I thought it was the flashlight, but I wasn’t quite sure. It only just then occurred to me to wonder if Carson was armed.
“Hold still and think camouflage,” he whispered as the footsteps came closer. I could feel them through the ground. We were hidden from the guys’ approach, but one glance to the side and they’d see us.
Mrs. Hardwicke appeared, but all I could see was a pair of gorgeous suede pumps a few inches from my nose. “This is really quite disgraceful, young lady.”
I ignored that, less worried about propriety and more concerned with dying stacked like a deck of playing cards. Do you recognize these guys? I asked her silently. Do you know their names?
“Not their names,” she said. “They’re in some sort of brotherhood.”
Brotherhood? Like … monks?
“More like a fraternal order.” It was strange to hear the granite confidence of Mrs. Hardwicke’s tone crumble with worry. “I don’t like them. They made Alexis nervous.” Then she said, “Here they come.”
My tension must have warned Carson, because he tightened his arm around me. My heart gave a girly sort of flutter at the protective gesture before I was distracted by the sensation of something settling lightly over us, a net of static that played across my nerves like the electric tingle of a ghostly remnant.
“There’s no sign of anyone,” said one of the guys. He sounded youngish—not high school young, but not hardened, either. Maybe twenties? “You really think she told them where to find it?”
“She” must be Alexis, and “them” must be her father, maybe Carson. Now if the guy would just say what “it” was, then lying on the freezing ground would be totally worth the frostbite. But his pal was all business. “Shut up. Team Maguire must be around somewhere.”
Carson tensed, and I