The Honey Mummy (Folley & Mallory Adventure Book 3) (4 page)

The palm-sized bee might have gone unnoticed but for its color. Cleo crouched amid the rubble and smiled down at the carnelian that peeked beyond the ordinary brick and stucco that had been tumbled by British assault.

“Hello, pretty,” she said.

The British attack on Alexandra was still evident five years later depending on where one wandered. As debris was yet cleared away, as buildings were reclaimed and repurposed, the ancient Alexandria was still giving itself up bit by bit. The Sirocco branch of Mistral had been contacted after the discovery of the carnelian bee along with a few other items that couldn’t be easily explained. Cleo hoped that she along with her team, could assemble the puzzle of what was here, of where the items had possibly come from.

She did not mind the heat of the day, letting the sun bake against her back while she sketched the position of the bee amid the rubble and streets. It was not the bee’s original position, to be sure, but she believed some context was better than none when it came to projects such as this. She didn’t want to look back years from now and wonder how she had come to find it.

Once done, she slipped her book into her duster’s jacket and drew on her work gloves, to begin moving the bricks one by one. A worker had spied the carnelian and had wisely left the debris alone, fearful of what he might destroy if he continued moving it. Cleo thought she owed that man a thanks, a bottle of wine, a
something
. These days, it was far too common for the old to be swept away in light of the incoming new—especially given the British occupation. Most did not care for Egypt, beyond what they had learned of Napoleon’s conquests and defeats, or Nelson’s great victory.

When at last she could extract the bee from its resting place, she did so with a soft breath, blown upon the stone itself to ease away the last of the debris that clung to it. The fine lines etched into wings, and a proud face, made themselves known as the dust lifted away. Through her gloves, she discerned the line of a broken hinge and carefully turned it over, wondering if it had been part of a necklace, a bracelet, or even an ornament upon a crown.

“What else is here?” she asked herself and surveyed the modern street around her. It was certainly not a place she imagined one would discover treasures of the ancient world.

Once the carnelian bee was safely settled into a muslin lined box, she stood, and clapped her hands together. A cloud of dust rose from her gloves, then dissipated, giving way to the sight of her team walking the streets, taking careful note of what they found. What they found only served to intrigue Cleo more; there was evidence of a temple in the area, but where? Did only fragments remain?

The evening found them settled in the awkwardly-named Twelve Palms Hotel—eight of the twelve palms victims of the British bombing. Cleo was pouring herself tea where there came a knock upon her door. She was not expecting anyone, and certainly not the tall black man she found in the hallway once she had opened the door. She stared longer than was polite, as he removed his hat and brushed a hand over hair that could have used oil to tame itself into order. Beneath his coal black coat, his waistcoat was the blue of the Mediterranean, and this sent a chill down Cleo’s spine; he was unusual, in addition to being unexpected. But when her eyes fell upon the metal Mistral pin that decorated his coat, she reconsidered.

“Agent,” she said, but did not yet step back to allow him entry.

He withdrew a slim leather case and spread it open, to show his Mistral identification, and when Cleo noted that he was from the Paris office, she stepped back to allow him entry, knowing from experience that he would not be turned away.

“Michael Auberon,” he said. “You can call me Auberon, Agent Barclay.”

He strode into the room and Cleo closed the door behind him, watching as he drew his coat off and placed it over the back of the sofa. She exhaled and plucked a second teacup from the cupboard on her way back to the tea service, determined to be polite to a fellow agent, an agent who had possibly come to take her work from her. She sat and poured and did not lean back into the chair, because she knew, just knew, that he had come to take what she had been given.

“Agent Auberon,” she said. “If this is about the discovery—” Cleo broke off, expecting him to interrupt, but he did not. Surprised by this, she found herself on unfamiliar ground. He watched her, in no apparent hurry. “I want to see this through.”

Auberon nodded, and folded his identification into his waistcoat. “And you shall,” he said. When Cleo offered him the tea, he nodded and she poured. “You know how Paris can be, Agent. They prefer someone on scene, in the middle of things, but I’ve no intention of impeding your progress here. If I’m able, and if you would have it, I would be happy to help. From what I’ve overheard, some wonderful things have been discovered already. Unexpected items, to say the least, given what we know of the region.”

Cleo relaxed at this, wondering if she had been sent an ally after all. Talking with Auberon long past the point the tea had gone cold put her further at ease and by the time he left, she was more than eager for the next days’ work, pleased when she found him already on the site, marking a survey line.

His presence lent her stability and confidence in the dig; while she might have complained that her team appeared more willing to listen to instruction from him, Auberon never overstepped his boundaries and never took the reins from Cleo’s hands. While their mornings were always early, to avoid working in the worst heat of the day, they came to spend the evenings together, talking over tea and dinner, and sometimes music. Often, there came to be dancing on the cracked alley patios of the cafés that everyone warned them away from, but where they found the best food.

It was in late February they solved the puzzle, the riddle of the carnelian honeybee in the middle of an otherwise ordinary and modern Alexandrian street. Their work traced a slow and steady path away from the harbor, to a stretch of road that looked like any other. Cleo presumed it to be another dead end, just as the road crumbled to dust beneath her feet.

She could compare the experience to nothing she had known before. She had slipped down countless sand dunes, but this was nothing like that; the world was solid beneath her feet and then, gone. The afternoon sun vanished, a vast underground space opening around her. It was wholly black and humid, and when she landed—hard on her left side—she was drenched in sweat, her hair plastered over her eyes.

“Cleo!”

The terrified scream came from Auberon high above. She lifted a hand, but could not see it in front of her face. The hole she had fallen through looked small—she could not guess how high it was, but Auberon’s shadow was even smaller. The sunlight that pricked through the hole was inconsequential to where she now found herself.

She crawled forward, one hand held before her. The ground grew damp, then puddled, and her outstretched hand pressed against a column, which under her questing fingers revealed itself to be a statue, with a foot and a leg, and the pleated
shendyt
that could have belonged to anyone in Egyptian history. She examined the statue with both hands, the stone remarkably smooth under her touch, then its base, where she traced hieroglyphics, and discovered the impression of a bird or a…

“Honeybee!”

But at this word, the world around her crumbled again. She did not fall this time, but rather the world tumbled down on her. The ancient statue buckled and fell under the weight of the collapsing cavern.

“Cleo!”

The statue broke at the knees, pressing Cleo forward and down. She could not stop it, and knew this—every bit of her training told her no, no—but she raised her hands even so, pressing against the limestone even as it crushed her down. She screamed only once, as the statue came to rest across her arms; as it pinned and broke her and took from her almost everything she had known.

The warehouse stood amid countless others identical in façade and form, if not what was collected within. At first glance, one could not tell any of them apart, so alike were their brick and wood faces; Virgil, who had spent a good many hours roaming buildings of ill-repute when seeking opium, found nothing suspect but for the flickering lantern near a door guarded by a man dressed in a flowing linen toga. The evening was warm enough the man was barefooted, bare brown arms gleaming in the lantern light. Virgil raised an eyebrow at this as he, Eleanor, Cleo, and Auberon disembarked from the carriage that had carried them to the docks.

“The rumor proves true,” Cleo murmured to Eleanor and withdrew the invitation she had been sent. “I wonder if they will have Cleopatras inside.”

“You hope they have a thousand Cleopatras, you mean,” Eleanor said with a mischievous smile that tugged at Virgil’s awareness. He reined it in as best he could.

The invitation Cleo held was heavy cream paper, handwritten with an ink the color of a mummy or its wrappings; the gold sealing wax that had secured it was still attached and Virgil noticed now how the wax had been dribbled across the invitation innards themselves. It gave the impression of something old, yet valuable still. The wax sparked in the lamplight as they neared the entry.

Cleo showed the attendant the invitation, but even before she did, Virgil noted the way he had stepped back, giving the door a little push to swing it inward. They were known and expected, then, and this set Virgil further on edge. It was not so surprising, given they had an invitation, however the guard had barely glanced at it, more interested in Cleo herself. Virgil disliked that he had not been able to assess the location prior to their attendance; anything might catch them unawares. He preferred locations he knew, filled with people he knew, so he took in all he could as they passed through the door and it closed behind them.

It appeared to be no more than a warehouse; the alcove they passed through gave way to a four-storied space, every level packed with crates. The ceiling high above was glass, long panes set within wrought iron, ankh-adorned frames. The ankhs were as tall as Virgil himself, throwing shadows over everything below, cloaking the contents of the warehouse in a shroud of apparent immortality. The lowest level of the warehouse was set up for the auction, a space of chairs arrayed before crated and boxed goods; wide doors stood open beyond this space, a ship still docked outside. Virgil wondered if they were unloading even now; it was not unheard of to have last minute additions that would garner larger prices from an eager crowd.

Beyond the dozen or so women dressed as Cleopatra and wandering the floor, he found the crowd somewhat unremarkable and plain. It was as most any other auction would be, a collection of dusty older men, likely curators or fortune hunters, looking to buy what they could not themselves discover. Parting with money was easy for these chaps; doing the actual work of discovery was too dear. There were a good many of these men, in carefully pressed suits and ties, and a woman who sat with her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Her dark eyes darted from people to objects and back again, as if she were making a concerted effort not to run from the room.

Eleanor leaned into his arm and whispered, drawing his attention to another woman. This woman stood near a crate, examining its handwritten label. Virgil knew her, but could not immediately say how or where he might have met her. He guessed her Egyptian by birth, though her dark hair had been spun into finest silver, braided into a bun atop her head. She wore a dress that looked somehow out of place, even as it looked properly at home; outdated, but in this room filled with treasures of the ancient world, what did such a phrase even mean?

“Do you know her?” Virgil asked Eleanor and would have sworn she laughed, even though only her brow lifted.

“I do and so should you,” Eleanor said. “She was with the Defenders in the canyon, and later with my mother.”

Virgil’s throat tightened and he could not help the way his arm came around Eleanor, as if the silver-haired woman meant to spirit her into the distant past once more. Virgil didn’t know enough about the Defenders of the Protectorate to not find them suspicious; they loved Egypt without question, but used extreme means to see her protected. Silver-haired Akila and her people of the canyon served Egypt in this time and in the distant past Eleanor’s mother now called home. Akila had wanted to take Cleo and study her arms, had wanted to keep them all prisoner in her canyon home so they wouldn’t unravel the mystery of Anubis’s rings.

“Oh, well.” He rocked from heel to toe and back again. “I am certain she isn’t here for any nefarious purpose,” Virgil murmured to Eleanor, positively meaning the exact opposite. “Quite likely, she has come for the company.” He nodded toward a cobwebbed old man who looked as though he’d been unearthed just that morning. “Or indeed the refreshments.” Of which there were none, for the tables were occupied with crated treasure after crated treasure. “Or the delightful night air.” He picked out salt water and rotting wood and, if one lingered long enough and had the nose of a wolf, dead fish.

Virgil took comfort in the way Eleanor’s elbow jabbed him hard in the ribs. He grunted, but did not remove his arm from around her.

“And see there,” she whispered.

Virgil
did
see the way Akila moved away from the crate she had studied and toward a row of chairs, one of which was already occupied by George Pettigrew. Pettigrew was dressed in a fine black suit, his coat open to reveal the pearl white of both shirt and tie. An onyx oval winked from the perfect knot of his tie, keeping all pinned and tidy. He was younger than Virgil expected, chestnut hair caught back in a low queue. He wore a short beard, but Virgil could not discern if it was intentional or simply that the man had been too busy to properly groom himself. Virgil recognized the rumpled disarray of him in this regard, and didn’t care for it. Neither did he appear any older than Virgil; being that the man had ties to Howard Irving, Virgil had presumed Pettigrew would be older as well, well-travelled and versed in acquiring things that were not his own. Virgil wanted him to be less a potential peer and more a definite adversary.

“Surely another coincidence,” Virgil said, not meaning a single word of it. “The odds of Akila—a time-traveler who has sworn to protect Egypt against all enemies—settling in right next to George Pettigrew—a known associate of the late Howard Irving, himself known for procuring and using Egypt’s finest treasures for his own
nefarious
doings—”

“You keep using that word,” Eleanor said around a laugh, but there was underlying uneasiness within it. How could there not be?

“Eleanor.” Cleo sidled up to them, nodding toward Akila as she bowed her silver head toward George Pettigrew in a greeting. “Have you seen—”

“Oh, we have indeed,” Eleanor said.

Cleo remained behind Virgil and Eleanor, and Virgil could not help but wonder if she was hiding—Akila had wanted to examine her, after all, in ways that were likely uncomfortable on the whole.

“If she comes within arm’s reach of either of you,” Virgil said, “you shall bite her around the neck, drag her to the ground, and not cease biting until she is still.” On this matter, he was only partially joking; the woman’s appearance could mean nothing good for them on any front.

“I can’t help but wonder if she uses the rings to travel,” Eleanor murmured as more people filtered into the auction and the chairs.

“Virgil.” Auberon joined their tight knot, nodding toward Akila as she now regarded the auction catalogue all attendees had been given. “Have you seen—”

“You’re late to the party, old man,” Virgil said, but was moderately reassured by Auberon’s presence. Should hell claw its demonic way from one of the assembled sarcophagi, they stood a better chance of putting it down with Auberon. Virgil’s confidence in his friend and partner had only grown these past few months; he had no doubts about him, not even with Cleo Barclay in such proximity. Auberon would never let such a thing cloud his performance.

“Ladies, gentlemen, if you would please find your seats, this evening’s auction shall presently begin.”

They did not want to appear overeager, though Virgil could sense the excitement that tightened Eleanor’s hand as she gripped his own and led him to chairs in the row behind both Akila and Pettigrew. Cleo and Auberon fell in alongside them, and Virgil tried very much not to squirm out of his necktie as the auctioneer began to get the auction underway.

It was not so uncommon, the trafficking of items out of Egypt in this manner; many of Mistral’s own archives had likely been procured in this way. It still made part of him sick, perhaps the part that knew and respected the work Eleanor Folley did to preserve such items. He had learned in his own work that context was vital to an artifact’s provenance; to take the items and scatter them only diluted history as a whole.

As matters went, the majority of the auction was predictable, the larger and more desirous items left until the last moments. Virgil took careful note of who was interested in what; while Akila and Pettigrew both bid on smaller items—headrests, chests, broken tablets—neither made a true stand or pressed their fellow bidders. They were content to bid and pass, and Virgil wondered if they were waiting for the sarcophagi or something else.

When the lot of rings came to the floor, the sense of dread Virgil believed well behind him curled around his throat. The rings were not those of Anubis—surely they would not open a portal to the past through which Eleanor or any of their party would be lost. And yet, he supposed it was rather like a person who looking upon the ocean for the first time after having nearly been drowned by it. It was hard not to have a reaction to something known to cause harm.

“A modest collection of rings,” the auctioneer said, as his young assistant displayed them upon their padded tray. This young man made a slow circle through the assembled chairs, pausing beside Virgil and Eleanor.

Even under the meager warehouse lights, the rings shone. Virgil swallowed the lump in his throat. Four rings, exactly as before, though these were unlike those Eleanor had reclaimed for Anubis.

“Two rings of gold—take note of the green jasper and glass and the delicate way they have been shaped into one of the smallest scarabs we have encountered, if you would. A third ring of nephrite, and one of corroded iron,” the auctioneer continued, detailing the markings, the likely age, but not where they had been found.

The iron ring, however, Virgil noted with a twinge, was similar to that left with Eleanor’s notebooks in the archive. Her hand tightened hard around his at the sight of it, and he wanted to tell her absolutely not, wanted to prohibit any bids by her hand, but he imagined himself in her neatly laced boots, and what
she
must be experiencing at the sight of the rings—fear mingled with that ever-present curiosity—and he knew he could say none of it. She would not deny him were their positions reversed, and he would not deny her, so he returned the squeeze of her hand, and stroked a firm line against her fingers with his thumb. They had been brought here for a reason; if this was it, they would see it through as they always did.

It wasn’t strange that Eleanor bid, but Virgil wondered at the way Akila did not. Pettigrew joined in the bidding, turning to flash Eleanor a rakish grin at one point, and bowing deeply when he at last conceded to her bids. If Akila did not want the rings, what was she after? She had not turned to look at them, and Virgil wondered if she had recognized Eleanor’s voice, if she had spied them enter the auction at all.

Virgil found he could not relax even once Eleanor had won the rings. Someone had set this entire play in motion by leaving the ring in the archive; there was a plan at hand, but being that Virgil didn’t control it, he disliked every aspect.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the centerpiece of this evening’s auction, the sarcophagi found in the heart of deepest Egypt and come to you wholly preserved and as perfect as anything we have ever had the chance to encounter. Such care was taken with these, you shall see there is no chisel mark upon them that was not placed there by their original artisans, and artisans they were indeed, please gaze upon these ancient wonders.”

Eight men wheeled the sarcophagi into better position for viewing—each sarcophagus rested upon a cart, and even with two men assigned to each, Virgil could see them struggling to move the massively heavy objects. He had trouble wondering how they had been carted from the desert at all, but men properly motivated by profit might be moved to do any number of vile things, he knew. One was the most remarkable sarcophagus he had seen, carved from serpentine. Veins of light green stone shot through fertile valleys of the darker hued stone; this, Virgil knew, would garner an amazing amount. Strangely however, the sarcophagus bore no mark upon it; no name, no insignia. It had only its stone to speak for who had once rested inside.

Eleanor’s hand tightened around his again, and he threaded his fingers through hers, leaning into her shoulder.

“Oh, Virgil. They look wholly preserved,” she whispered. “But not as old as I expected.” She leaned in, to get a better look at them and Virgil looked too, but he was sure that she noticed something entirely different from what he did, given how much more she knew about such matters. “But” –and with this she settled back into her chair, turning to Cleo— “Ptolemic?”

Cleo remained standing, peering past Akila and Pettigrew toward the sarcophagi. Being shorter, she had difficulty until she bent down to peer between their arms. “One looks to be cartonnage,” she said. She sat back down and nodded to Eleanor. Virgil took her expression to be one of surprise, though he recognized it better on Eleanor’s own face. “Much younger than I would have thought, but…not outside the realm.”

“And Ptolemic means when, exactly?” Virgil asked.

“Dating from Alexander the Great’s time to the Cleopatra everyone knows best, the seventh,” Eleanor said. She leaned back into her chair. “I would have thought…well, I don’t know what I thought—it’s surprising, I suppose. We have rarely seen such things at auction, Virgil. It’s not ancient, but it’s nothing to sneeze at, either. If we can acquire them—”