it had been occupied. The dry, cool air seemed thick with ominous portent. If he had been a more superstitious man, he might have said it felt as if it had been waiting for discovery, as if—after so many years—it finally had exhaled. But superstitious or not, he wouldn’t have said the words out loud. Unless you’d had too much tequila, he thought. Tequila makes you say stupid things.
He comforted himself with the knowledge that tequila could make almost anybody say stupid things.
“Spooky as hell down here,” Jada whispered.
Sully chomped on a fresh cigar. When he’d smoked the stub of the other one—or lost it—Drake had no idea. But Sully didn’t light up—not down here. They were surrounded by stone, but there was no telling what they might encounter. Drake figured he didn’t want to drop burning ashes on ancient papyrus or the bandages of a mummy.
“How much time do you think we have?” Drake asked Welch. “If your boss gave Henriksen the full tour, I mean?”
“Twenty minutes,” Welch said. “Thirty if we’re lucky.”
Barely time to get back up the stairs and through the labyrinth to the breach in the wall. No one addressed the renewed urgency, but they hurried a bit faster along the corridor. The slight draft Jada had noticed before persisted. It might be no bigger than a mouse could fit through, but there was an opening down here.
And “down” was the operative word. The floor slanted downward, and the four of them followed. Flashlight beams danced on the painted walls and the floor and the unadorned ceiling. Drake shone his straight ahead and saw that they were coming to an opening; a moment later, he realized it was some kind of junction.
“How far does this thing go?” Sully asked.
“It could be quite extensive,” Welch replied.
“You know how these things work,” Drake added. “Whatever they were hiding down here, the Egyptians loved their secret passages and halls.”
“So far it’s just straight ahead,” Jada said. “Not much of a maze.”
“Interesting, isn’t it?” Welch asked. “Part of the labyrinth and yet not part of the labyrinth.”
Unlike a reflection of a reflection, the corridor did not go on forever. They’d followed it for perhaps fifty yards when it opened into a small anteroom that resembled the one above, and they found themselves looking at the entrances to three separate worship chambers. Each had the triple-octagon symbol engraved in the lintel above the doorway, and each had the trio of steps leading down.
“This is different,” Drake muttered. “The lady or the tiger—or the other tiger?”
“I don’t think we should split up,” Welch said quickly.
Jada laughed. “Yeah. Bad idea.”
“No need,” Sully said, flashing his light into the leftmost doorway. “They’re not much bigger than the worship chamber upstairs. Altar. Same layout.”
Then he stopped and glanced back at them. “Except there’s a door on the other side.”
Drake hurried to the central doorway and stood on the threshold, flashing his light across the small chamber. “Here, too.”
He quickly scanned the room with his torch, agreeing with Sully’s assessment. The layout was identical to that of the worship chamber upstairs. He figured the dimensions would be the same. But as he let the light linger a moment on the altar, he froze, brows knitting.
“Hey, Sully? Does your room over there have the same paintings, hieroglyphics, and stuff as the chamber upstairs?”
Sully flashed his light at Drake’s face. “Yeah, why?”
Drake squinted, putting up a hand to block the brightness as he turned to look at Welch and Jada. “This one has the same altar. An octagon.”
“The shape of the labyrinth’s design, I suspect. It’s a circle, but within the circle, the perimeter of the maze is really an octagon,” Welch explained.
“Yeah, great. Daedalus knew his shapes. Call Elmo. What I was saying is that this one doesn’t have Egyptian writing.” Drake flashed his light into the room and held it on the altar as they all moved to see inside. “It’s Greek.”
The look on Welch’s face was almost comical. He went from surprise to childlike glee in an instant, pushing past Drake and hurrying down the few steps into the worship chamber and flashing his light around in fits and starts.
“This is remarkable,” he said, pausing every few seconds to take a closer look at the writing on the wall or the paintings on the base of the altar.
As Jada, Sully, and Drake followed him into the room, Drake saw that it wasn’t exactly like the chamber upstairs, after all. There were several shelves cut into