Chapter 1
"The 'last' great pharaoh from the New Kingdom is widely regarded to be Ramesses the third, an Twentieth Dynasty pharaoh who ruled Egypt several decades after his ancestor, Ramesses the second. He against the Sea People, who attacked Egypt eighth years after Ramesses the third came into rule, and defeated them only to start more feuds with the Libyan's in his sixth and eleventh years on the throne. These battles diminished Egypt's treasury and became a large factor in Egypt's gradual decline."
DING DING DING
Students stood to their feet and hustled out of the class for the weekend, scattering papers and dropping pencils and creating a general mess of the classroom. The teacher sat down at her desk and swept back a few strands of light brown hair before slipping off her glasses and rubbing her tired green eyes. She sighed and started straightening books and papers on her desk. It had been a long week.
A tall man with pitch black short hair combed back and gelled and piercing blue eyes slipped in the door and watched her clean for a few minutes until he cleared his throat to command her attention. She ignored him.
"Autumn."
"I saw you enter."
"I know." The man stepped forward and reached out to touch the woman's shoulder.
"I will not hesitate to break you, Joseph." The man froze. Autumn sighed and slipped her thin glasses back on. "I was really hoping for a quite weekend."
"I'm sorry to rain on your parade then, but-" Autumn got to her feet and turned to face the tall man, hands on hips and weight shifted over one leg.
"Give me the file on what you want and leave. I'll take care of the rest."
Joseph bite his lip and held the file out with a frown. "Ok, but Autumn-" The woman ripped the file from his hands and spun on her heel, sitting down once again. "Out." She commanded. The man obeyed reluctantly. Autumn shook her head slowly and fingered through the file with long lanky fingers.
"A masquerade ball? In New York?" she sighed, throwing the case on her desk. "Guess I'd better pack now."
Crickets. Damn annoying, loud obnoxious crickets, chirping away as if they owned the place and disturbing the peace. The peace and her sleep.
Rain sat up in her bed and sighed. It's not like she'd normally be sleeping at this hour anyway. She should be out on the job with Lukas she should be in her black, skin tight body suit with mask over her face and caramel fingers trailing over a diamond. She should be hearing the sound of sirens howling in the night, just minutes late of finding her and her brother. She shouldn't be in her bed awake and restless. She rolled over in bed, curly kinky, black hair frizzy hair sticking straight up. She looked at the alarm next to her bed. Three thirty in the morning. With a sigh she sat up and grabbed her laptop off the dresser and turned it on, the white light chasing away the tendrils of darkness and temporarily blinding Rain. She blinked deep brown eyes and squinted at the screen. A little chirp came from the computer.
Rain opened her email to see one unread folder smiling up at her from her brother. She scanned over the message, a small smile breaking her plump pink lips.
"A masquerade huh?" She laughed quietly to herself. "I'm in."
"No, no no!" A tall busty woman shook her head and clenched her jaw, taking a clay pot from a worker and walking to a large marble stand, setting down the piece of history carefully and turning to glare working crew. "This does not go in the Native American display! Do you even know what you're doing? Look at the murals painted on the side. Anubis is the Egyptian god of the dead. He had absolutely nothing to do with Native Americans."
The man seemed almost to cower away from the stressed woman. "I-I'm sorry Miss Jones. I-I-I didn't know, I-I'm new here..."
Miss Jones corned the man and stood inches from his face, towering over him. "Next time, use that handy little thing we like to call here, your brain. If it even exists..."
"Amy Jones! Are you scaring the employees again?" A broad shouldered man with sandy blond long hair and wearing a tailored suit stood in the doorway, grin spreading on his face. The agitated woman turned away from the employee and faced her manager.
"Well if someone had given me more time to prepare for a surprise archeological masquerade ball, I might not be so stressed. Maybe."
The man laughed and shook his head. "Calm down, Amy. You got two days."
"I need a full week to prepare for a party this big, James. If you had half a brain you'd see that. And just to be fair, I didn't think archeologists had balls." The bitter smile playing on the woman's lips combined with the evil gleam in her blue eyes gave away the hidden insult. James furrowed his eyebrows for a second before picking up the real meaning in her words.
"Wait a second, just because I am the head of the archeology center doesn't mean I don't have-"
"Whatever floats you're boat, dearest." Amy turned away from the man and began to walk away, saying over her shoulder. "Now, unless you're going to be any use to anyone here, I'd suggest you leave."
"Oh come on hon! Babe! Toots!"
"Fat chance ass hole!" The woman turned around and chucked a beer bottle at the man behind her, hearing it crash somewhere in the distance.
"Marcella, sweetie..." The tan girl swung around on her high stiletto heels, dark hair flowing behind her and carmel colored hair lights glowing in the moonlight. She stomped on his foot, digging in her pointed heels, kneed him between the legs and smacked the man all in sequence, faster then any of the on lookers could blink.
"Call me sweetie again and you won't ever make love with another woman again. Not that you're that good at it anyways..."
The man slide to the ground as the dark eyed girl jumped on the black motorcycle in front of the house and rode off into the distance. She reached in her helmut and clicked on her bluetooth as she sped down the highway, racing between the cars as the slowly crept down the road. Rush hour. Great.
"Call April O'Neil." She commanded. A ringing sounded in her ears.
"Hello?"
"Hey sis. Coming over. Be there soon." She clicked the bluetooth again to turn off the device and slowed to a stop at the red older sister was going to kill her, she was sure, if not just for the dozen new tattoos she had acquired since she saw her almost a year ago. But what other options did she have?
April stumbled into the lair and crashed on the couch, running slim hands through her red hair.
"April? You ok?" Leo wondered from one of the back rooms, clicking on the living room light and sitting next to the girl. "I thought I heard someone come in..."
"No." The reporter buried her head farther into the couch and groaned. "Casey want's me to go with him to some big archeology masquerade ball that his sister is setting up."
The blue clad turtle rose an eye ridge. "And this is a problem why? A masquerade ball sounds right up you're alley, April."
"It is! But Casey's sister is going to be there. Have you met Casey's sister?"
"No...is she that bad?" April sat up and tossed her hair back over her shoulder.
"No. She's that perfect. Look up the word perfectionist in the dictionary, maybe even uptight and conceited, and you'll find a picture of her."
"Oh." Leo kind of grimaced and patter his friend on her slim shoulder. "I'm sorry. Could we help in any way?"
"Could...well could you maybe..." April rubbed her neck with her hand and looked at Leonardo with hopeful eyes. "Could you come with us? It is a masquerade, so you could probably stay well hidden, I have about 5 extra tickets so Splinter could tag along too and you guys beng there would be such a help to me...please?" Leo let out a sigh.
"April..."
"Please Leo?" There was a few seconds of silence as the eldest turtle thought it over.
"I'll talk to Splinter about it. In the mean time you can stay here for the night if you li-" A sudden ringing interrupted Leo's sentence. April slipped her cell phone out of her pocket and gave the turtle an apologetic look.
"Hello?"
"Hey sis. Coming over. Be there soon." The line clicked dead before April could get another word in. She pulled the phone from her ear and chucked it to the other side of the couch, burying her head in the couch once more.
"This day just keeps getting better."