Читать книгу Her Kind Of Trouble - Evelyn Vaughn - Страница 14

I made a desperate scramble at the metal railing as I fell over it. But I was too surprised, and it wasn’t enough. The impact against the back of my legs, against my grasping hands, gave way to weightlessness.

Then, with a splash, I vanished beneath the surface of the toxic harbor—and quickly closed my eyes. Sinking downward, before my frantic strokes and kicks stopped my descent, I wouldn’t have seen any goddess relics even if they waited right there in front of me.

Some champion!

Only after I managed to struggle upward, boots and soggy skirt and all, and my face broke the waves into the air, did I open my eyes to the sunshine—

And behold, far above, the bitch who’d pushed me.

Catrina Dauvergne of the Musée de Cluny, Paris.

The woman who’d once stolen the Melusine Grail from me.

The willowy, tawny-haired Frenchwoman was not smiling.

That made two of us.

Once I managed to drag myself up the chrome ladder and back onto the deck, I took two dripping steps in my attacker’s direction, my hand fisting. Maybe women don’t normally default to violence as quickly as men, but this was by no means quick. This had been simmering for weeks.

Rhys shouldered himself between us. “I forgot to mention her being here, Maggi. I’m so sorry.”

He would be. “Move.”

“I will not.” Protecting people brings out the tough-guy in Rhys, even when they didn’t deserve protection.

“Yes, Pritchard,” agreed Catrina in smooth French. “This is not for you to interfere.”

“But it is for me to interfere,” insisted a new voice, that of Monsier d’Alencon—also in French. The French seemed to be running this particular show, after all. “Explain yourselves.”

I wrung out my skirt into a splattering puddle; it clung like wet tissue. “You want me to explain?”

My French, unlike my Arabic, is fluent.

“I wish someone to explain so that I know which of you two—or three—” his gaze included Rhys “—to dismiss.”

Catrina and I glared at each other. But this was a choice expedition, remember? Newsweek. National Geographic. Cable. The threat of expulsion carried weight. I could read her hatred in her narrowed gaze. She’d once accused me of playing archeologist, raiding medieval sanctuaries and stealing the Melusine Chalice instead of leaving it in situ—not that I’d had any choice! She, on the other hand, had pretended that she would put the chalice on display in the Cluny, where it might empower countless visitors with its proof of goddess worship, only to then sell it onto the black market.

Either way, Catrina and I each had enough on the other to permanently ruin both our chances of involvement with either Cleopatra’s Palace or the Temple of Isis everyone hoped to find there—and, worse, to end Rhys’s internship, which he’d gotten through the Sorbonne. I was comfortably employed, waiting only for the fall semester to start. Catrina, I assumed, still had a job with the Cluny, unless she’d quit to live off her ill-gotten gains. But after he’d left the priesthood, archeology was the only profession Rhys had found that spoke to him.

No way would I ruin this opportunity.

No way would I allow Catrina to do so.

“I apologize,” I said slowly—to the project director. “Catrina and I are old friends. Sometimes our little jokes get out of hand, don’t they, Cat?”

Catrina Dauvergne might be disloyal, dishonest and vindictive—but she was not stupid. “But of course, Magdalene,” she said tightly. “Now we are even for the little joke you played in Paris.”

Bitch.

D’Alencon glared from one of us to the other while I stood there dripping—so much for making a professional first impression. “There will be no more jokes on my time, yes? It is how injuries happen.” And, blessedly, he turned back to other demands.

“This is not over,” Catrina whispered menacingly.

“Not even close,” I answered—and deliberately turned to Rhys, who had some explaining to do about forgetting to mention this woman’s presence.

But first I needed to know… “Just how toxic is this water?”

Catrina laughed, disgustingly pleased—but turned back to her other duties.

As it turned out, the East Harbor of Alexandria was so polluted from raw sewage that the divers who went in regularly were supposed to wear cautionary headgear and dry suits, though not all of them took that mandate to heart. Locals still swam in the stuff. Brief exposure was unlikely to infest me with parasites or turn me radioactive. And in the meantime…

In the meantime, my introduction to the scope of the project quickly distracted me from any inauspicious beginning.

I’d arrived too late in the day to make suiting up for a dive practical. But more than in the relatively shallow waters of the harbor—which is maybe twenty-five feet at its deepest—most of the work was being done by computer, and much of that was on shipboard. The following few hours became an enjoyable blur of information about latex molding techniques, aquameters, nuclear resonance magnetometers and sonar scanning. The archeologists really weren’t collecting artifacts from the sea and transferring them to some museum. They were mapping them, photographing them, sometimes raising them long enough to make molds, and then leaving them exactly where the assumed earthquake and/or tidal wave had once left them.

In situ.

I was so enthralled by the catalog of watery finds—sphinxes, statues, algae-covered pillars—that I almost forgot why I was there. Almost. Then Rhys reminded me that we had a dinner engagement for which I should probably clean up, and I remembered my real goal.

Isis.

Goddess grails.

And a supposed Grailkeeper whom he’d met, who’d said she would share the rhyme she’d learned about the location of the Oldest of the Old’s chalice. Hopefully in English.

Considering that someone had tried to run Rhys down a few days ago, not long after he’d spoken to this woman, he wasn’t the only person to suspect she might know what she was talking about.

The Hotel Athens, where most of the expedition was staying, had slotted me into a plain but neat third-story room, which I would share with a fortysomething Greek scientist named Eleni. It had two twin beds, one plain wardrobe, and a window overlooking trolley-car tracks with overhead wires that sparked whenever a trolley passed. As with many midrange European hotels, the bathroom and shower were down the hall.

I dressed as conservatively as before with the exception of sandals—my boots would take a while to dry. Since this was a social call, I decided to wait on rigging up a harness for my still nameless sword and instead left the weapon under my pillow. But I put my essential belongings—cell phone, money, matchbook—in a modest leather fanny pack, to keep my hands free. My passport had its own special pouch under my long-sleeved shirt. I pulled my hair back in a long brown braid.

And, after some deliberation, I put Lex’s damned ring back on. Things can get stolen in hotel rooms.

I hadn’t even been in the Arab Republic of Egypt for a day, but already I assumed that Mrs. Tala Rachid would be wearing a head scarf at least, maybe even a veil.

I assumed wrongly.

The vibrant, sixtysomething woman who greeted us when we arrived at her beautiful villa looked more Greek than Egyptian. She had beautiful black hair slashed with gray at her temples, which she’d drawn off her swanlike neck into a modest bun. Her knee-length blue dress would have been appropriate for the museum soiree I’d attended a few nights back. And, sure enough, she wore the sign of the vesica piscis on a beaded chain around her neck.

“Circle to circle,” I said softly, upon our meeting.

“Never an end,” she greeted—the correct response—and extended her hand to shake mine. A small blue cross, tattooed inside her wrist, peeked out from beneath the sleeve of her dress. “I’m pleased to meet you, Professor Sanger,” she said warmly, her accent exotic but her English impeccable. “Or should I call you Doctor?”

“Neither, please,” I insisted, trying to hide my surprise at her appearance and poise. She was, after all, a Grailkeeper. “I’m only a postdoc, it takes a while to earn tenure. And doctor still makes me think of medical professionals.”

“As a medical professional, I appreciate your modesty.”

Now I stared. “You’re…?”

“Dr. Rachid,” she confirmed, gesturing us into a luxurious parlor. “As was my mother before me—and her mother was a midwife. There are still some of us on this side of the world, Mrs. Sanger.”

Missus? Oh…the ring.

“Maggi is fine. I didn’t mean offense.”

“Of course not.” Gracefully, she managed to seat us before settling onto a sofa herself. She kept her knees together, her ankles crossed. Her posture was excellent. “My career is admittedly less common here than in the West. But even the Muslim women can practice as doctors.”

The…? “You’re not Muslim?”

“I’m a Copt,” she clarified, extending her wrist again so that I need not sneak a peek at the tattoo I’d only glimpsed before. Definitely a cross. “Coptic Christian.”

Hello. While Christianity in Rome wasn’t sanctioned until the fourth century, it had flourished in Egypt from its very beginning—yet another reason that we’d passed the first monastery. Early writings such as the Gnostic Gospels had also been recovered here.

Rhys said, “The Copts, though a minority now, are the Egyptians who can most directly trace their lineage back to the Pharaohs.” Like Cleopatra?

“And to priestesses of Isis?” I guessed, with a shiver of comprehension. “That’s how you can help us find her chalice.”

Most of the Grailkeepers I’d met, myself included, had learned special nursery rhymes as children. Those rhymes held within them the riddle to where their mothers’ mothers’ mothers had hidden their ancestral grails. Maybe it was the dry heat, or the faint scent of tropical flowers in the air, but I could easily imagine this woman’s ancestors protecting holy relics in the court of Pharaohs.

“Precisely,” said Dr. Rachid. “The truth of the cup’s location has been in my family for centuries.”

“Then the divers are looking in the right place?”

She nodded, but her smile was mysterious. “One could say that. But before I share what I know…I’m afraid I must ask you for some assistance.”

I looked at Rhys, whose brows furrowed. “You said you wanted to meet her,” he protested. “You didn’t say anything about favors.”

“I apologize, but I had to make certain she is as competent as you told me.” Dr. Rachid nodded, seemingly to herself. “And clearly she is.”

My throat didn’t tighten with any premonition of danger, but my bullshit meter was sure in the red. “How could you possibly tell my level of competence just by shaking…my…?”

Oh. My hand. Whatever force the Melusine Grail had imbued me with, Dr. Rachid seemed to have sensed it.

I probably should have asked if she, like Munira at the bazaar, thought I was some kind of champion—but damned if I could force the question out. It was too overwhelming an idea, way too big a responsibility to handle while jet-lagged. Instead, if only to avoid that particular elephant in the corner, I asked, “What kind of assistance?”

“Ah.” She ignored me to stand as her maid showed another woman, holding a notebook, into the room. “Jane. I’m so pleased you’re here.”

“Tala.” If the woman’s red hair, spattering of freckles, and blue jeans hadn’t given her away as a Westerner, the blunt edge of her East-London accent would have. I guessed her to be about my age, maybe a little older. “Father Pritchard, it’s good to see you again.”

I arched a look at Rhys. Father Pritchard? And here I thought he’d stopped practicing.

“I’ve been volunteering as a counselor when I have time off,” he explained, low. “I do have training, because of my previous work, and…”

And old habits were hard to break—especially habits one should keep, like helping others. I could get that, and tried to tell him with my smile that I understood.

In the meantime, Jane was asking, “Tala, where’s Kara?”

“She will be down shortly,” insisted our hostess. “Jane, this is Father Pritchard’s friend, Magdalene Sanger. The one I told you about? Mrs. Sanger, this is my daughter-in-law, Jane Fletcher.”

“It really is Ms. Sanger.” I offered my hand. “Or just Maggie. The ring is a bluff.”

“And I’m an ex-daughter-in-law,” Jane corrected, though her grip on my hand was friendly enough.

“My ex-stepdaughter-in-law,” clarified Dr. Rachid, just to confuse matters more. “It is on her behalf that I request your assistance.”

Rhys frowned. “Dr. Rachid, Jane, I understand how desperate you are, but this is hardly fair to Maggi. This is a…a…”

“A bait and switch?” I suggested. “You get me here by promising the secret of the Isis Grail, then demand that I earn it first?”

“Please, call me Tala.” Our hostess’s dark eyes showed no contrition at all. “And is not the secret of the Isis Grail worth earning?”

Intellectually, I knew the drill—how many of the heroes in myths and fairy tales first have to prove themselves in a series of trials before they get rewarded with the golden apple, the kingdom or true love? But in reality…

In reality, my head was swimming. I’d never set out to be a hero. I just wanted to collect the goddess chalices before the Comitatus could destroy them.

And yet…. Damn it. From either curiosity or kindness—or both—I couldn’t ignore the pain in Jane Fletcher’s eyes, either.

“It couldn’t hurt to tell me what’s going on,” I said, slowly. Reluctantly, even.

Dr. Rachid—Tala’s—smile was, as ever, gracious. Jane raised a fist to her mouth in a failed attempt to smother a hopeful, desperate laugh of relief. But it was Rhys, blue eyes more solemn than usual, who worried me.

And I’d thought I was in over my head when I fell into the Alexandrian harbor!

“Have you ever fallen in love with the wrong man?” asked Jane.

The only man I’d ever loved, besides my father, had been living a secret life the whole time. The only man who’d come close to distracting me from him was sitting right here—and he was a priest. I chose to say nothing and just looked interested.

“I did,” she assured me, opening her notebook. The first page showed a color copy of a wedding photo. “Him.”

I looked. “Sinbad!”

“What?” Rhys looked, as well. “You are right, Maggi. It’s the man from the airport.”

Airport, hell. “And the bazaar!”

He looked at the other ladies. “This is Hani Rachid?”

Tala and Jane exchanged worried looks. Then Jane proceeded with her tale, flipping to more photocopied pictures and then newspaper clippings as if to prove her truthfulness.

She’d been working as a flight attendant. Hani Rachid had attended college at Oxford, the epitome of tall, dark and exotically handsome. Even now, Jane’s gaze softened as she described their courtship. “He was wealthy, and protective. He showered me with gifts and compliments. And he was such the gentleman. He waited until we were married before he would…well…” A small frown marred the bridge of her nose. “I think my virginity meant more to him than ever it had to me. He later told me that if I hadn’t been pure on our wedding night, he would have killed me. I laughed at the time, but…”

He wasn’t the man she’d thought she’d married, at all.

Relieved of the need to win her, Hani had become dominating and chauvinistic. His disdain for the law became increasingly apparent. Not long after the birth of their daughter, Kara—that picture, of course, was adorable—their marriage imploded. Jane divorced him and, because he threw such a public fit of temper over that, she got custody. Infuriated that he could only have supervised visits, Hani moved back to Egypt.

“He visited Kara twice a year, and he did quite the job at controlling his resentment, but I could tell he hated being monitored with her. And then—” Here Jane hesitated, desperation darkening her eyes. “Then, a year ago, I got called onto a flight while he was visiting. My father thought there would be nothing wrong with letting Hani take Kara out for ice cream…but they never came back. Of course my parents were frantic. The first thing I did, when I found out, was call the airlines…”

I had the strangest feeling I’d heard this story before—probably because she wasn’t the first person it had ever happened to.

“He’d taken her home with him,” Jane said, voice breaking. “She was only eleven years old, and he stole her away to Egypt—and nobody in this godforsaken country will give her back!”

A human interest article, including pictures of a too young looking Kara, and copies of letters to and from different officials confirmed this.

“Egypt’s laws do not allow a child to leave the country without her father’s permission,” Tala explained simply, when Jane’s voice deserted her. “Unless my stepson signs papers—but of course, he will not sign. He has become increasingly angry, increasingly rebellious. His business activities…” But she shook her head.

Unsure what else to do, I took one of Jane’s trembling hands in mine.

She inhaled deeply, strengthened either by the goddess energy or just the caring, then raised her face and continued. “At least tradition frowns upon Kara living with Hani, as long as he remains unmarried that is. She lives with Tala, and I spend as much time here as I can afford, more than he does! But it’s not the same as having her home, and I’m afraid…”

Whatever she was afraid of, she couldn’t make herself put it in words.

“After the divorce,” Tala said, “my stepson became involved with other men urging the return of old-world values. Particularly the domination of women. He is not,” she clarified, “a Copt.”

As if any particular religion wholly prevented male domination.

Jane turned to a newspaper article in Arabic—I recognized only her picture. “I tried to smuggle her onto a ship, to get her out of the country, but I suppose he’d been watching for me to do it. He has contacts everywhere. Suddenly the police were there, and they dragged Kara out of my arms and arrested me, and she was screaming…” Jane shuddered and squeezed my hand, as if for strength. “Egyptian jail was horrible! I’m still surprised Hani dropped the charges. I could be in prison right now.”

“It would have been even more of a scandal,” Tala explained, “for a man to need the law to control his wife.”

Jane’s chin came up. “Ex—wife.”

“Especially a man who has so little respect for the law, unless he is using it to his own ends,” Tala continued, which wasn’t encouraging.

“Anyway,” said Jane, “that’s how I met Father Pritchard. I needed someone to talk to, someone who bloody well spoke English, and he was volunteering as a counselor at a clinic here, on his off time.”

“When she learned I was working with the divers, looking for the Temple of Isis, she mentioned the possibility of finding a goddess cup,” explained Rhys. “Of course I was interested, so on her next visit she brought Dr. Rachid—”

“Tala,” insisted our hostess. “And I must take full responsibility for bringing you into this, Maggi. When I hesitated to tell Father Pritchard my ancestral secrets, he suggested that I might be more comfortable confiding in another woman. He spoke so highly of you that…Well…there had been rumors.”

Okay, coward or not, I couldn’t ignore that. “Rumors of what? About me?”

Rhys looked as honestly confused as I felt.

Tala motioned to a maid, who’d waited quietly in the corner, and the young woman immediately left. “Rumors that the time has come, my dear. That the goddess chalices are calling out to be found—and that a champion has been chosen to do just that.”

There was that word again! “Chosen by whom? Assuming there were such a rumor—and I never heard anything about it until I got to Egypt—why would you think I’m that champion?”

I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. Wouldn’t I have been notified about something this important?

Tala’s composure did not waver. “Because, Magdalene Sanger, you are the one who answered the call.”

Before, that had only been because armed men had broken into mine and my aunt’s offices! Only because it was our own family’s grail they’d been after. And now, only because Rhys had a lead—and because someone had gone after him. Nobody goes after my friends. Unless…

What if that had been someone’s ploy to get me here?

“Look,” I said, perhaps more abruptly than was polite. “I’m very sorry for your troubles, Jane, and I hope that you and your…your former stepmother-in-law are able to resolve them. But the fact that I’ve found one single, solitary grail hardly makes me someone who can help you. I’m neither British nor Egyptian. I don’t have an ounce of legal or diplomatic experience. I’m a professor of comparative mythology, not a soldier of fortune!”

“Yes, but—” In the midst of her protest, Jane stopped and brightened. “Kara!”

“Mama!” exclaimed a high voice—and a little girl in a white dress launched herself across the room and into her mother’s waiting arms. Kara Rachid was small for a twelve-year-old, even smaller than she’d looked in her pictures. She had olive skin, curling black hair, and huge dark eyes that reminded me of a puppy’s. Her skinny arms held her mother tightly. “When did you get to Alexandria? How long can you stay, this time?”

In the meantime, the maid had reappeared with a tray of ornate cups that reminded me of Greek kylix, though they were of course smaller than those standard offering vessels. They had wide, shallow bowls with a handle on either side, set on a narrow base. They fit this fine house, I thought, as much as I was willing to notice. They fit this woman.

The maid lay the tray on a cocktail table, and Tala brought the drinks to us. “Touching, is it not?”

I scowled. “This is manipulation.”

“I loved my husband dearly,” she said, her voice low beneath Kara and Jane’s happy reunion. “And I love my granddaughter. But I do not trust my bully of a stepson. Rescue Kara, Magdalene Sanger, and I will help you find the chalice of Isis. Refuse…”

She left the rest of the threat unspoken—but pointedly clear.

“I don’t appreciate ultimatums,” I warned, taking the cup she offered only to soften what I meant to say next.

She raised her eyebrows, unperturbed. “Who among us does?”

Annoyed, I took a sip of the wine—delicious.

But the next thing I knew, I was lying on some kind of rough wooden flooring, surrounded by absolute, echoing darkness.