The comforting silver and gold eyes I always envision, bolt to the forefront of my mind, but confusion trounces, rather than calm.
You’ve defended yourself lots of times growing up, I tell myself. You can do it again.
But this guy’s different. He isn’t just some stupid, lumbering bully I can humiliate by tripping him, making him fall on his face for others to laugh at.
I pull up short when he stops before the scroll I’ve deciphered, then squats, as I reach the doorway. I pant as I turn back toward him, knuckles white, as I grasp the flashlight.
“It had to be this scroll you translated, of course it did. It couldn’t have been any other.” He scrubs a hand over his scruffy face. “I’m sorry, my lady.”
Is he speaking to the scroll? He’s still staring at it.
What is his deal with staring?
He reaches for the papyrus.
“No, don’t touch it.” I raise a hand. I might be in dangerous straits, but I can’t bear to see him get his oils all over the priceless artifact. “Use my gloves.”
Still squatting, elbows braced on his thighs, he looks up at me and one corner of his mouth rises in a crooked grin as I peel off my rubber gloves and toss them to him. They fall short, halfway between us.
Of course they do. I exhale heavily.
“Protocol?” He gives me a look that says he thinks I’m a cute little thing to insist, as he stands.
I fume. Will men not take women in this field seriously?
“You’ll destroy that scroll with your filthy paws.” I put bite in my reply.
His brows rise. “No need to get nasty. I was merely confirming what I speculated.”
“What’s that?”
His silver and gold eyes roam up and down me, again, but this time he’s taking in every part of my bedraggled hair, dirty pants and coat, and soaking boots, just as I did to him. I want to fidget under his scrutiny, but I force myself to stand still in the doorway.
It’s not cunning or hunger I see in his eyes, but curiosity, and worry that he’ll attack me ebbs; all the same, I know he’s dangerous—I suspect he’s a bit of a rogue when he wants to be, guys like him always are. The thought makes me smile.
What’s a guy like him doing in a place like this?
“You’re an archeologist,” he says, relaxing his posture as he crosses his arms, then draws his pointer finger back to his lips and resumes tapping.
“Guilty as charged.”
“Then you would understand how important it is that these scrolls are protected and preserved,” he says.
“I would, which is why I don’t want you handling them. They need to be in the best condition possible, for the world to experience this amazing slice of history.”
He shakes his head. “No, you don’t understand. These scrolls can never see the light of day.”
I laugh. “You’re funny. This is the biggest find in decades, and I plan to take credit for it.”
We lock gazes. Determination shines in his eyes. “No,” he says. “You won’t. And I’ll be the one to stop you.”
Chapter Five
I scoff. “You? Stop me?” I set my jaw. “Like hell.”
His expression turns fierce and he thrusts up a hand, silently telling me to stop. “You don’t realize what you’ve done. In speaking the words of that riddle, you brought to life the being whose secret that is.”
I bring fists to my hips and my voice rises. “What are you talking about?”
His leather duster shifts as he drops his arms and very slowly, as if questioning a small child, says in that silky baritone voice of his, “You know how to read hieroglyphs, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I throw my shoulders back, proud of my accomplishment.
“You read that riddle aloud, didn’t you?”
How does he know that? I shift, biting my lip. “Maybe.”
He gives me a long look. “Answer Lady Sphinx. Often talked of, never seen, ever coming, never been.”—my mouth drops open—“Daily looked for, never here, still approaching, coming near. Thousands for my visit wait, but alas, for their fate, though they expect me to appear, they will never find me here. What am I? Tomorrow.”
“How do you know that?” My jaw drops.
“Doesn’t matter. You read the scroll aloud, didn’t you?” His look turns piercing, and I swallow hard.
“So what if I did?”
“In so doing, you breathed life into the words when you spoke them.”
I furrow my brow. “Uh. Okay.”
He shakes his head. I’m clearly as thickheaded as he thinks. “Breathing life into words brings back into existence the being whose words they were.”
“What are you talking about?”
He runs a hand through his onyx hair. “These scrolls are special. They contain secrets from millennia past. If the secret is ever spoken, the being, whose it is, returns to life in the present to defend the secret that’s exposed.”
How in the world does he know what’s recorded on that scroll? But more, he’s spinning quite a story, reanimating “beings.” Yeah, right. I barely stifle a laugh.
I tilt my head. “You believe speaking these ‘secrets’ returns beings back to life today, why exactly?”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “Because it’s true.”
“You’ve seen it happen? Dead people coming back to life?”
“Not just people, all manner of creatures.”
Right. Sure. He’s talking necromancy. While a fun topic for my favorite fantasy reads, it doesn’t happen in real life. The guy’s a loon.
What to do, what to do.
Dropping my hands, I ask, “Supposing you’re right, what would be the problem with that?”
He snorts. “Many of these creatures are not, shall we say, safe.” His gaze returns to the scroll, and he starts tapping his lips with his finger again, as if contemplating his next move.
Dangerous, reanimated, talking creatures. I shake my head. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. It’s crazy. He’s crazy, and he’s making me crazy.
Calm down, Pell.
I take a long breath and let it out slowly.
The guy’s a bit “off,” but he seems earnest. I just need to get both of us out of here before a colleague comes looking for me, because I’ve been gone so long, and discovers my find.
Okay, fine, I can play his little game. I make my voice sweet. “So, what ‘creature’ do you believe I brought back to life?”
He looks over at me as he starts pacing. “A sphinx.”
I raise an eyebrow. “A sphinx?” I’ve no idea how to even begin to respond to this. He believes they actually exist?
“Yes.” He halts but doesn’t drop his gaze.
I’ve never done improv, but it seems now is as good a time as any to start. “I see. Any sphinx in particular?”
He massages his temples as if I’m giving him a headache. “The sphinx that lived in Room One of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre in Paris. Beautiful creature, but deadly. She’s one of the largest sphinxes outside of Egypt and bears the inscriptions of pharaohs Ammenemes II, Merneptah, and Shoshenq I dating back to 2600 BC.”