Trigger Warning: Please be aware that this chapter contains vivid descriptions of wounds sustained in torture.
I'm in love with a killer.
Myka felt ill, the color in her face paling. Her shoulder blades bit into the wall and she could retreat no further. Myka hid behind nothing as she sat, back against the stone, the safety draining from her eyes just as they saw it leaving H.G.'s.
Myka knew one of the reasons why she cared for H.G. was because of her wild need to protect the people she loved. She had proven herself by providing shelter, clothing, and food for her child. Against her better judgment her name and history was kept from the only woman who refused to be protected by falsehoods. Persistence reigned supreme with fists a blur, cradling arms, and a poisonous tongue. Myka had never felt safer in those arms. The necessity to safeguard her daughter and her best friend was entrenched in H.G. like the blood flowing through her veins.
Yet there was a price to be paid for such a trait. H.G. could be blinded by her passions just like she could when submerged in a 'groundbreaking scientific discovery.' Her passions were so consuming that the magnitude of their effects evaporated. No rules or mores could deter her from the ultimate goal. They were but mere suggestions meant to be flung away, destroyed, and ignored. To H.G. they were insignificant footnotes, much like the consequences of killing a human being.
Footsteps rushed in. Pete and Steve screech to a halt at the smell of gunpowder and the scene of two dead men.
"What… happened…" Steve started, unable to grasp the obvious question. He couldn't take his eyes off the bodies.
"Myka!" Pete raced to the woman's side, helping her up from the ground. "We heard a gunshot. Are you hurt?"
She recoiled slightly as the agent patted her down. His eyes sprinted over the length of her body, checking for evidence of a gunshot wound. Myka took a step back, cupping her elbows into the palms of her hands. Her brow furrowed. Since a child she was uncomfortable with being on display and especially unsettled by physical contact (even if it was from family or Pete Lattimer). It couldn't be dismissed that the need to shrink in on herself was also because she had just been through a harrowing ordeal. Myka did not want to be touched right now.
"What's wrong?" Pete asked because he wasn't the dolt people made him out to be. Most of the time.
"Pete…" Myka's voice broke. She looked to the ground, breathed, blinked, and then lifted her head.
His eyes followed the teary gaze to her.
"I don't understand." Pete frowned at Myka before looking back at H.G. and the gun still smoking and held on Lallement's body. His eyes met the professor again. "Myka?"
"I think you need to give us a minute." The grogginess in her tone did not deter the command. "Both of you," she addressed to Steve.
"We'll give you a few," Steve said, vaguely. He tore his eyes from the scene and dragged Pete away.
Again, Myka and H.G. were alone in the chamber. Though not entirely alone.
She was careful in evading the blood pools, only the toes of her boots touching the dry areas of the floor. A shiver almost sent her off balance. She didn't dare look down at the man still secured to the fallen chair.
"Can I have that back?" Myka thought she was going to pass out. Her heart was thrashing inside her ribcage and if it didn't slow down, if she couldn't take a calming breath Myka feared she would die of a beating heart. Her hand ventured for the gun, slowly, nonthreateningly. "Helena?" she prompted, voice quaking.
As if in a dream, H.G. turned from the body and floated past the professor without a word or a glance. She dropped to her knees beside her dead ex-husband and bowed her head, paying her respects (to her lover or his killer's fine work?). The gun clattered to the floor, forgotten.
What appearances refused before were finally brought to the forefront in vivid detail.
Lewis' form was a visceral example of what the human body could not endure, an example H.G. couldn't stomach to put to paper in novel form. She was not one for the horror genre – more one for the fantastical. And the mortifying wounds that scored through Lewis's body were fantastically brutal. His eyes remained as lifelessly inert as his figure. The lightly tanned skin of a dislocated shoulder molded over unset bones. Burns penetrated several layers of skin, blistering and pink. Blood and pus had ceased its flow and dried into smears and caked crumbles, however, long, gaping lacerations to his were still pooled with shimmering fluid. Post-mortem bruising from his crash to the floor spread through his side and arm in a shade of plum.
But that wasn't enough. H.G. controlled her gag reflex at how four of the ten fingers had been 'dealt with.' Fingers was putting it lightly as everyone was without it's nail counterpart and the tips of the four were scattered in congealed plasma. The whole thing wasn't necessarily messy. There was a precision to each wound, an exacting justification behind every puncture between a pair of ribs. It was the work of a master. It was the necessity of a madman. Lallement wanted his treasure, his birth right and no earsplitting scream would discourage him from cutting deeper. The red curdling in various orifices was a testament to how far the Frenchman went, and how successful the techniques were utilized in gaining information.
H.G.'s roved over Lewis, from his matted blonde hair to his bloody toes. Her nostrils flared around the smell; rancid, reeking, the burnt flesh giving off a unique scent of sweet charcoal. It was nauseating, but her lips were pasted shut. She swallowed to keep down the bile burning a hole in her stomach. H.G. wore herself away over an inner struggle. She fought to reflect her way to distraction.
H.G. hated so much and with such intensity that it warped her justifications. Why did she feel Lallement had to die for her to live? Why couldn't he be handed over to the authorities and laid to rot in a prison far from Christina and from Myka? Did judgment coincide with a bullet from a gun? H.G. had not the answers to these questions. She did know something, though. She had no more hatred left. So large and cavernous a space was filled with the inevitable: fear. There was no guarantee that she would have lived. If the weapon had simply been tossed to the side Lallement could have secured his own coup d'état (it was his chamber, after all, and undoubtedly fixed with booby traps and the like). No one could know if Lallement made it all the way to incarceration. He was a wealthy, illustrious man who had bribed the French police on more than one occasion. What could stop him this time? Surely not a law or uniform.
H.G. was not about to leave it up to chance. Taking matters into her own hands was the only foreseeable option.
I ended it once and for the benefit of all.
But if I ended it why am I so filled with dread?
It is not as she expected, the aftermath. No relief, no lifted weight from her shoulders, just shock that a man's life ended by her hands. The blow of Lewis' death was equal strength. He may have been a monster, but she loved him at one time. Lewis may have ignored her as his wife, but he had made her laugh once. He may have scorned her as a woman, but he had given her every resource available to her imagination.
Eyes roving over the wounds and dried blood, H.G. could no longer hold a stick to the anger fostered for Lewis.
He did not deserve the fate that was handed to him and she would think of him no more. The first time they met, their wedding night, the hardships she endured as his wife, and his betrayals as husband and decent chap she fell for would take up no more space in her memory. Lewis Webb was no more a part of H.G.'s life than he was in the land of the living.
It all came to a head there. All faults were realized. She loved a monster, she kept her daughter from loving grandparents, she lied to Myka…more mistake than anything, she refused to believe that their friendship meant more than either of them realized. The worst part: she knew and didn't do anything about it. That night in the park, when they breathed fog and heard the faint melody of jazz, before Mrs. Frederic showed herself, H.G. had planned to tell Myka. And oh, did she have plans for them: the truth, for starters, and tales of her past, Christina's father, how her heart came to a sudden halt at the sight of an awkward professor and her spilt coffee. There would be a kiss, and gentle touches if H.G. played her cards right. There would have been dinners, operas, lemon meringue for one but shared by two. Together they would put tuck in a little girl for bed, Myka would stay the night, and they would share in what was meant to be. Things would change, their friendship would blossom, making room for more, and they would learn the most wondrous things about one another. 'Emily Lake' would become 'Helena Wells' and Myka would love as she was loved in return.
But in her nervous state and with the entrance of an old, unwelcome friend, H.G.'s ambitious plan fell to pieces. It broke down, bit by bit; each meticulously crafted idea for idea, much like H.G. was coming apart, tear by tear, mistake for mistake, on her knees of the chamber floor.
H.G. may have had confidence in mind, fully conscious that her theories were correct and scientifically attestable, but the snootiness she exerted in her abilities was lacking when the heart was involved. Credit was not afforded to the lengths H.G. would go to protect Myka. The only time egotism and self-flattery were rejected was when she loved Myka like no one could. There was no room for faith in the ability to love and be loved, especially after so monumental a sentence carried out at the squeeze of a trigger. It occurred to H.G., then, that what she wanted was not what was deserved.
Myka… oh Myka…
Whether by repulsion or timidity, Myka kept at a distance. She stood some ways back, mentally berating her shaking frame and physically stemming it by bracing her arms to her sides. She waited, for H.G. to stop the fragmented, barely-there sobs, for H.G. to come to her senses, for some force to take her by the arms and shake her into reality. Myka couldn't be the one. Not now.
Myka looked on her trembling friend but didn't dare go near, not to comfort, not to shake. H.G. needed this moment, this solitude after the storm. This sobbing pile on the floor was eight years in the making and it all had boiled over with the catalyst of a single lead bullet.
With one small hiccup H.G. wiped all evidence from her face and rose to her feet. Her expression morphs to surprise as if she didn't expect Myka to be there, as if she was never there at all. The shock abated and slipped back to sadness, her eyes widening at how the professor looked like an island. She approached Myka in two quick strides and by the time the woman's face was in her hands her pale features softened a different way.
Myka, still frightened for her life, stood still as the stone columns that encircled them.
"I frightened you," H.G. gathered. It wasn't difficult to deduce. The woman's emerald eyes had never been so wide, so glassy, her stance never this rigid. The long, lovely throat H.G. had dreamed of stroking and placing her lips to bobbed to undeveloped sobs. The realization invaded her heart with such precision, such ferocity H.G. wanted to tear the thing out. "I am still frightening you."
It startled Myka so that her lashes fluttered and she inhaled sharply. Suddenly, at the sight of those brown, deep pools, the ones imprinted on her memory, the ones that were filled with gentle authenticity, her heart eased of its thrashing.
"No," she sighed.
She shook her head, convincing the both of them. Soon she was finally able to touch H.G. She reached out and spread her hands on the arms in front of her. It was a reassurance. One couldn't touch what one feared. If Myka could latch onto H.G. without a flinch or a recoil then there was no need for suspicions or nasty doubts.
The message was received and the response instantaneous. Wrists were grabbed – hard – and pried away. Myka whimpered, not out of pain but of stubborn faith. The ruthlessness in H.G.'s eyes, the kind of performance a thespian put on, snapped Myka to action. She understood why it was happening and struggled to return the captive hands to their proper place around arms that needed the security. Her wrists jerked and twisted in H.G.'s sturdy iron fists. Nails dug in prompting a gasp.
H.G. wasn't just wrestling with Myka's arms, she was wrestling with her pity and her all-consuming need to save a broken woman. Yet she knew how determined a woman like Myka was. She knew when a goal was made it would be set after with integrity, with intelligence, and with passion. Through an unspoken demand, H.G. was trying and failing to push away the bucking heart of the professor.
"You have to go!" H.G. snarled. "I can't have you around me!" She even winced at the way the command sounded in her mouth. Sending poor, dear Myka away like she were a stray dog prohibited by her apartment complex. Her next words were barely caught by her own ears. "Especially now."
"That is not up to you!" Myka shouted back.
"I can't go back."
"Yes, you can."
Her jaw muscles relaxed. Clenched teeth eased off its grinding. "Myka," pleaded H.G. softly, one last time. "Please."
Wrists still secured, Myka pressed her body close enough that her breath would warm the woman's face. "Stop playing the martyr, Helena. It doesn't become you."
"I don't want you." H.G. tried poison but it only worked on herself. If she was trying to be selfish, Myka wasn't hearing it. She wasn't even listening. "I don't want you here." H.G.'s grip was weakening, the toxin of her own making spreading through her system.
"I will not let you do this to yourself, or to Christina. Have you thought about her at all? And how this pity game would affect her? Have you considered me and how I might feel?"
"I can't not think of you even if I make the attempt. That is why I'm doing this."
"You are selfish, Helena, and you need to be reminded how your actions hurt others."
Myka's hand was tight and warm in her own as it tugged her towards the exit. "What are you doing?"
In the darkest corner of the chamber a hidden egress became visible. They scaled the stairway until their boots meet grass and their lungs breathed fresh air. H.G., blinking under the afternoon sun, ripped her hand away when they were but a few feet from Lallement's manor.
"Myka! Answer me!"
Without replying, the professor dug into her back pocket and came out with her cell phone. She tapped it a few times before handing it over to H.G. "You have five seconds until your daughter picks up. I suggest you think fast as to how you're going to explain to her why her mother isn't coming home."
"Are you out of your bloody mind?!" H.G. practically dived for the phone, making frantic efforts to end the call.
Myka couldn't help the tug at her lips as her plan's performance unraveled just as expected. "Isn't that something I should be asking you?" She asked seriously. "Ever since we met I've become familiar with your careless need to think after the fact. You are reckless, Helena. You speak without cause, you act without weighing the costs… It's unexpected and exciting, I will admit, but it's also the only thing about you that scares me because it means you blindly throwing yourself into oncoming danger.
"Actions have consequences. The rasher the action the more severe the result. There are people in your life that care what happens to you. They care about what you say, how you act, and what delusion you are suffering from. So get off your cross and come back down to Earth. Sometimes, sometimes, Helena, the hardest of hearts needs to be protected by the most fragile, not the other way around.
"So when you say you aren't coming back with me you better mean it next time. If you really think you are such a danger to me and your daughter – the only people in your life who know who you are – then say so now," Myka finished with an arm wave.
If you don't want me then make me believe it.
"And if my threats withstand?"
Myka was about to say something, but paused at the unexpected reply. Her mouth opened and closed. "It doesn't matter," she floundered, her head tipped to the one shoulder shrug. "I'd drag you kicking and cussing to South Dakota anyway." Green eyes squinted as she struggled to catch up with her own declaration.
"Charming," H.G. muttered. Her eyes were slits but her mouth was smirking.
"So? What's it going to be?"
H.G. sucked at her bottom lip, eyes dropping to ground in thought. From inside her jacket pockets, fingers drummed against her thighs. She searched through the dewy blades of grass taking a page out of the Book of Bering. She weighed her options and peered down each road a choice would pave. She imaged a scale and a decision resting on each one. Finally, after adequate consideration she determined how either side would affect her future as well as that of the people she loved.
H.G.'s chin rose. She met Myka's eyes.
"I knew you would," the professor gathered with a grateful smile. A breath she wasn't aware she was holding went out in a little sigh.
H.G. shared an equally proud grin. "And I know that you would think you knew."
Myka's head tilted back as she laughed with gusto. H.G. stared, grinning, unable to pry her eyes from the endearing display.
"You are remarkably pleased with yourself, aren't you?" H.G. asked, lobbing the phone back.
"She wouldn't have answered anyway. It's 11am there and Artie probably has her banging out Balakirev on the piano."
H.G.'s nose scrunched in repulsion. "I don't even know you," she quipped indignantly.
Myka chuckled, her eyes sparkling like rare treasure in the sunlight.
"Using my daughter was not the honorable route to change my mind."
"When did you start caring about honor?"
"Since you used my daughter to change my mind."
"So it worked?"
H.G. wasn't charmed by the professor's proud grin. No, not at all.
"Unequivocally, darling."
In an unspoken agreement they walked side by side back to the manor entrance. Each kept their hands buried in the depths of their pockets. Each pair of eyes followed in the direction of a flock of birds, a particular beautiful patch of garden, or the provincial design of chateau arches. Each smiled for no reason but the fact that they could.
"Have you ever wanted children of your own?" H.G. asked on a whim. She already knew the professor's love (or lack thereof) for her students.
"No," her lips pursed before splitting into a smile which emitted a giggle, "but if I knew my child would turn out like Christina then yes, there would be no doubt in my mind."
H.G.'s next stride placed her at a closer proximity, a shoulder brushing with Myka's. "It is more challenging than you might think."
"Is that supposed to comfort me?"
"Not at all," H.G. replied matter-of-factly. "It is supposed to terrify you." She laughed openly and happily to the blue sky. In some ways motherhood felt like a harbored secret, a treasure that had its advantages and its disadvantages. Keeping secret the tricks of the trade was like being a member of an exclusive club, but lately H.G. longed to share it with someone.
"You are an amazing mother to Christina. She is lucky to have you in her life."
"She is lucky to have you as well," H.G. added pointedly.
"You raised her well. She is wonderful," Myka explains naturally. She frowns, then, disappointed that there was literally no word in the English language to describe the magnitude of how she felt towards the young girl. "I really like her."
I really love her.
It was a surprise to both when H.G. took her hand and delved their fingers together. There was no practiced manner to it. There was no pause or protest. Not even a single awkward twitch. It felt like they had been doing it forever. It so much of a surprise that their hands held and their hearts jumped behind their cages.
"I read somewhere… in a book," emphasized a sparkling eyed H.G., "that every good woman is, by nature, a mother."
"This wouldn't be one of those stuffy Victorian books filled with conventionally one-dimensional women now would it?"
"It was a book," stood the assertion, "and it is a veiled compliment, darling." H.G. throat lavished forth her signature chuckle, the one that made it seem like she knew something the universe didn't. "Please accept it."
Myka did with a shy smile. They walked in companionable silence.
"There you guys are!" Pete exclaimed.
The agent and his ex-FBI partner met them at the graveled entrance. They both wore an odd combination of disbelief and contentment.
"We managed to capture two of Lallement's men," Steve informed, "and question them for information."
"Well, the missing piece of the Rosetta Stone was destroyed in a struggle," Myka said, casting a furrowed glance to H.G. who chewed her lip in silence. "Did you ask them about the artifact? Is it still out there?"
"Yeah, we asked them about that." Hands planted to his hips, Pete looked to Steve and then back to the women agents. Drawing in a deep breath, he held it in suspense before coming out with it. "You won't believe this."
The land of inhospitable sands and persistent history had attracted the attention of archaeologists from all across the globe. It tested their physicality and their will, and challenged everything they might have known about ancient civilization. It would continue to draw in adventurers, scholars, geologists, grave robbers, dignitaries, soldiers, knights, eccentrics, and novelists until every last relic was pulled from the sands. The last treasure of Egypt… the idea was incomprehensible considering the landscape. Naturally formed sinkholes proved fatal to scuba investigation. Heavy rains eroded rock structures dating back thousands of years. Dust storms called khamsins could last up to 50 days and, with enough velocity, sweep large quantities of dust and sand over anything that gleamed.
That said, there would always be some historically relevant artifact buried below. Finding it became an obsession amongst the world's explorers. An obsession so dangerous, so wondrous it was known as Egyptomania. Egypt would always be a beacon to the knowledge seeking. Myka Bering was no exception.
"I just can't believe I'm here!"
Led by the nose to the invisible pearl of wisdom, Myka walked through the funeral banquet hall of the catacombs in an aimless pattern, clutching the stack of books and papers to her chest. She stumbled a few times but never once tore her eyes from her surroundings. To a stranger, she could have been pegged as a bespectacled, harebrained professor concerned with 2,000 year old papyrus and dead people.
But that was exactly what she was. Shamelessly, she was every bit the doctor of philosophy she appeared to be and just as indifferent to how people judged her as such. Myka was too wrapped up in the splendor to hear the sneers of "typical tourist," the worried glances from her companions, or the obstacles before her feet.
Pete and Steve's interrogation of Lallement's men found that the wealthy sociopath had been holding out on them. He had told Myka and H.G. that the Rosetta Stone was still lost in the world when it was not – at least, not to him. Before his demise, Lewis Webb had given up the location of the artifact. It was revealed under duress, of course, so no one could know if what he spoke rang true or he just wanted the pain to stop. The information shared with the two agents was a ruse to throw the team off. Lallement knew where the stone was the whole time and tricked them.
"So what location did Lewis give up?" Myka had asked.
Steve replied, "Egypt."
"Yeah," Pete rolled his eyes, unimpressed, "that narrows it down."
"Considering it could be anywhere on the planet," H.G. said, "Egypt does reduce the field a bit."
Going on unreliable witness testimony and with Myka's stack of research in tow, the team purchased four economy seats on the first flight to Alexandria (courtesy of a low Warehouse budget). Artie was the hardest to sell on the information. According to his years of experience there was "no conceivable way" the stone had been collecting dust this whole time in "Egypt," he spat into the receiver crossly. It had crossed too many borders and oceans and been handled in the most foreign of hands that the likeliest place it resided was the most probable. According to Artie, Egypt was not a probable possibility. Not by a long shot.
In yet, there they were in the great metropolitan city of Alexandria with nothing but false hope, spotty research, and their boss' gruff consent. Alexandria, once the gate between the Eastern and Western Worlds. Alexandria, the intellectual powerhouse and epicenter for debate among the greatest philosophers man had seen. If wisdom was power, the ancient city of Alexandria would have been the world's most influential city.
Out of the four, Myka was the most optimistic. She was knowledgeable of the Ptolemaic Kingdom as well as Roman Egyptian history which made her a reliable consultant to track down the artifact. H.G. was their resident tour guide and McDonald's GPS extraordinaire (much to Pete's relief). The Englishwoman, having traveled through much of Europe, Asia, and parts of the Middle East as a rebellious young adult, knew all the hotspots in Alexandria and Cairo, not to mention where not to go in the dead of night without a companion. Pete was the average skeptic and whiner of the bunch. Between his complaining about not stopping for a 'McFalafel' and consistently reminding them of Artie's doubts, he was, for the most part, a willing team member. And poor Steve Jinks, the greenest of the Warehouse agents, just went with the flow.
Myka tripped yet again, but just seemed to walk faster, spurred on by the endless engravings in the wall. The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa is not only a famous archaeological site but one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Tourists were drawn to this underground site in Alexandria to behold the merging of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian culture. Statues were crafted with the head of a male Greek and the body of an Egyptian in the standard one foot forward, stiff posture style. Even a sculpture of the falcon-headed god Horus was depicted in Roman military attire. Cut into solid rock, the catacombs consisted of three levels which contained a circular staircase, coffins, carved recesses, sculptures, pillars, and glyphs carved into every surface.
Myka laughed, her smile growing wide enough for cheeks to sting. She was consumed with excitement. It was pure history at her fingertips, and she was drawn in like a lost ship towards a lighthouse, much like the majesty of Alexandria's Seven Wonder of the Ancient World.
If Myka was consumed with excitement, H.G. was bewitched. She wanted to kiss Myka so badly it struck a pain in every molecule of her body. She had never seen the professor exude such happiness. Since burrowing through couch forts at six-years-old it was a dream of Myka's to explore the ruins and submerged palaces of the desert land. H.G. had been through quite a number of those endless tirades wherein the professor revealed her closeted Egyptomaniac side.
If being on the receiving end of those rants had been enchanting, witnessing the dream come alive was an experience forever ingrained in her memory, even if the dream was second-hand. Seeing that beaming face and hearing that bellowing laugh felt like nirvana, and H.G. wanted to know what it tasted like, how it tickled and sang against her lips. She wanted to inhale enough of it till it swirled, danced, and merged with her life force.
H.G. saw Myka bump through tourists without eye contact or so much as an 'excuse me.' A curly strand of brunette come loose from the poorly knotted bun with every turn of her head. H.G. chuckled, trying to keep up. God, did she want to kiss that delighted mouth.
"Do you have a destination in mind," H.G. drawled happily, "or are you set on wearing out the floor?"
"I… I-It's just so amazing!" stuttered the professor, eyes growing behind her reading glasses. Her aimless pacing eventually stopped and she threw up her hands in a manner of blissful frustration. "I don't know where to begin!"
"It is captivatingly stunning, isn't it?" H.G. asked rhetorically, eyes never leaving the green irises of the professor. If there was ever cause to break the eye contact it was how perspiration glowed in the fire light. From her studiously wrinkled forehead to her upper lip, the salty stuff sparkled like pinpricks. Yet nothing could enslave H.G.'s attention and dry her mouth to Sahara-level aridness like the bend of Myka's neck. Her fingers tingled to reach out and draw down its golden sheen. Her imagination grew to support the hypothesis of what hollow the sweat would gather in and which canal it trickled down.
Captivatingly stunning was hardly the appropriate description.
Quite a seduction, really.
The question was posed a second time, Myka's forehead bunching further in worry.
"What?" H.G. shook the sluggish expression from her face.
"Have you been here before?"
"Oh," H.G. breathed out a lengthy sigh. Though the recurrent tightening in her loins abated, the heat failed to leave her cheeks. "I don't think so." She frowned as the memory escaped her. "My recollection of Alexandria is quite hazy. I was 19 the last time I visited. The only cares of a ne'er-do-well 19-year-old are cheap bars, the most smashing discothèques, and, of course, an easy lay."
Myka jaw dropped an inch before snapping it shut. "Y-you keep in contact with these guys?" she inquired, blinking erratically.
"Whoever said they were all men?"
If H.G. only had a camera… The look on Myka's face was beyond comical. Add to that the bookish spectacles and H.G. had herself sufficient blackmail material (or a dog-eared photo that took up permanent residence in her wallet). But, alas, no camera.
Myka swallowed audibly. She had a prickling sense that H.G.'s preference in sexual partners was not new information. H.G. had always been free spirited in talking social politics and about both of their schools' involvement in various Chicago LGBT festivals. In addition, there were the casual touches that hinted a deeper meaning and lingering glances that could be described as smoldering. And however much H.G. might enjoy the company of a beautiful woman, it occurred to Myka that never in their time together had H.G.'s attention strayed, not at Frank's Café, nor to the smiling flight attendants on the flight to London, or even the caravan of bikini-clad tourists of Alexandria pointed out by Pete.
There was also that 'almost kiss' in H.G.'s hotel room in London. There was also the way H.G. was looking at her then that drew Myka's hand to the back of her neck and turned her cheek which flamed under the gaze.
I'm being seduced by a British adventuress in the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa.
Claudia is never going to believe this one.
Pete and Steve finally caught up to the pair, totally oblivious to having interrupted the air between them. Not even the distinguished expert in 'Bering and Wells subtext detection,' Pete Lattimer, caught H.G.'s expression which could have led to her taking Myka against a stone relief right then and there (if they had not been so rudely interrupted, that was). At the shuffles of feet and loud smacking of lips around a 'McFalafel' (finally), H.G.'s guise slipped as soon as it sparked to life, ergo Pete's ignorance of a missed opportunity.
"Oo gash ged anwhersh?"
"Pardon?" the women asked in unison.
Pete's hand went up to gesture them for patience as he swallowed his precious falafel. He cleared his throat and patted his belly. "Mm, Egyptians knew what they were doing when they decided to pair fried chickpea patties with special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions between a not-so-sesame seed pita."
He made a little gasp when he spotted some remnant sauce lingering on his fingers and went to lick it up. Myka's face, decked with a downturned and disgusted mouth, drew slowly back on her neck, but this wasn't noticed until the seventh digit was cleaned. He froze, finger still between his lips. "Om, yeah that's right. You guys get anywhere?" he asked finally.
Steve rolled his eyes.
"I was just looking for the appropriate cartouche," explained Myka.
Until Helena started doing that… that… sexy staring…
She squinted, wracking her brain to find the right word. "…Thing!" she exclaimed aloud.
The team winced to the resonating echo before staring at her, wondering if she drank from the tap.
"Cartouche thing," Pete repeated, narrowing his eyes and then nodded. "Very eloquently put, Doctor." He slapped her back in friendly recompense.
Half horrified, half exasperated, the professor simply gave a firm nod back. She pressed her books tighter to her chest and resumed the search.
Her heart beat a little faster as she closed in on the prize. Drawing the frames higher on her nose, Myka's face scrunched so close to the wall her breath wafted up dust. She deciphered the hieroglyphs with a keen eye and brushed grime from the occasionally incomprehensible pictograph. Every once and a while she would page through a book or finger through papers until she found the information key to unlocking the ancient language before her.
"Is that the 'cartouche thing'?" asked Pete, squinting next to her. He examined it for a grand total of five seconds before glancing to her. He had on the most conflicting expression of boredom and insight. He was trying so hard.
To Myka, he looked constipated. "Are you okay? You don't look good."
"What? Yeah. This is just my face."
"Myka," H.G. called from across the banquet hall, "come here. I think this will interest you."
The professor approached the engravings and peered where H.G. was pointing. It was a horizontal oriented cartouche and inside it where symbols. Each character stood for a letter of the alphabet and together they formed a name.
"Oh my god."
"More like, 'oh my gods,'" Steve said.
"This is…" Myka gaped, finger wagging at the inscription.
H.G. gathered where the professor was going with her fascination. "Indeed."
"The stool, the loaf, the lasso, the lion, the mound –"
"The two reeds and the folded cloth."
"You can read Ancient Egyptian?" Myka asked. Never had the Englishwoman mentioned that in their conversation.
With a tip of her head, H.G. let a smirk reign free. "I am full of surprises, darling."
"Alright, alright," Pete griped with a roll of his eyes, "what does it say?!"
"It's Ptolemy Epiphanes, the fifth ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty." Myka read on until she found what she was looking for. "And according to this inscription we now know the exact location where the Rosetta Stone was crafted."
Steve, wholly impressed by the woman's expertise, gawked before the foreign language. "Really? It says that?"
"Truly," H.G. responded, her finger following along with her eyes as she read the glyphs herself.
"Well, why hasn't anyone before us used this information to find the stone?"
"Because according to public knowledge it is already found," Myka supplied to the ex-FBI agent. "There's no reason to hunt for the location if the stone is on display at a museum."
Pete pointed with his finger, eyes narrowing. "Which it isn't."
"You remembered," Myka applauded.
"I listen."
"In extreme cases. Anyway," Myka said over Pete's protest, "even if the secret got out no one would think to search the place where it was manufactured. The priority would be where it was found."
"Why wouldn't we do the same?" Steve asked tentatively.
"Because the town of Rashid itself is a museum that attracts tourists from around the world. Trust me, it's not there."
"Yeah," Pete groaned, "but how do you know it's not there?"
Myka paused. How did she know, indeed. Even if her research wasn't tried and true she knew her teammates would give her the benefit of the doubt. What worried Myka was her worldly inexperience putting these good people in harm's way.
The professor raised her chin and answered, "Intuition and years of tireless research."
"Troves have been discovered on less," H.G. provided with a shrug and a glint of faith in her eyes.
She believed even before Myka did.
Note: The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa is an actual archaeological site, however the presence of Ptolemy V's cartouche is fictional. The Rosetta Stone was sanctioned three centuries prior to the catacombs' construction, so there would be no possible trace of Ptolemy V there. However, for plot's sake I had to cut corners. I didn't want to change the location to suit the time period because Kom el Shoqafa is so unique to Alexandria which is mere miles from Rashid.