“Who are you?” Xander demanded, struggling to fight the growing urge to collapse.
She smiled slightly and slammed a knee between his legs. He let out a stream of curses and his eyes clamped shut, stars flashing in the darkness. She pushed and his body simply fell back. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to. His muscles had turned to jelly.
“Sorry about that,” he heard her say, her voice echoing strangely as he curled up on the ground.
He forced his eyes open and watched her boots as she ran to the railing of the boat. With one last effort, he tried to push to his elbows, but his body seemed to be acting against his will. He collapsed onto the floor again.
As his vision faded, he watched her climb onto the railing. Suddenly there were several of her, merging into one, then turning into multiples again.
“Watch your back,” her voice echoed and then she vanished over the side of the boat.
“Stop,” he croaked into the floor, noting the strong smell of fish. His pulse raced, thudding louder and louder, until it was all he heard. Then everything went black.
CHAPTER 16
At the distant sound of a goat’s bleating, Leila’s eyes fluttered open. Golden sunlight streamed through the tent entry, dust dancing in its beam. The open slit allowed in enough light for her to look around and her gaze fell on the indented cushions in the opposite corner where Amina had slept.
With a sigh, Leila sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. A lost tomb filled with gold. A map. A warning. The Ptolemies. The Medjay. It all swirled in her mind. They’d stayed up for hours, talking about the possibilities of finding the tomb, Amina going to med school, Leila adding another huge discovery to her resume… but then Amina had brushed it all off as silly talk.
It wasn’t like Leila could just go running off into the desert to find a tomb, anyway. She had to go home, back to Xander. She should already be en route, not here, letting herself get distracted by old journal pages. That was that, though. Today, she’d get a message to him somehow and be on her way.
She ran a hand through her hair, cringing at the greasy film coating her fingers. Hopefully she didn’t smell as bad as she felt. Once on her feet, she straightened her dress and ducked out of the tent, then took in a deep breath of the crisp air. The sun was still low but the morning was bright and enlivening.
A few yards to the right, Amina sat cross-legged with a rock in her hand, grinding what looked like a handful of herbs on top of a flat stone.
“Good morning,” she said in a sing-song voice as Leila approached.
“You need any help?” Leila sank down next to her onto the rug. She propped herself up on her palms, the coarse fibers of the rug scratching at her skin.
Amina shook her head. “This will only take a minute.”
Leila watched as the woman crushed the herbs, set the rock down, and scraped the pulverized remains into a bowl. She grabbed another handful from a small sack on the rug beside her, then began grinding again. An unfamiliar scent tickled Leila’s nose and she rubbed away a threatening sneeze.
“I have an idea,” Amina said in a low voice, her eyes darting left and right.
Intrigued, Leila leaned forward.
“I’ve been thinking about the map,” Amina went on, the grating of the rock hiding her words. “I want to find the tomb.”
Leila’s pulse quickened. “Really? What about your grandmother’s warning?”
“What about it? Curses aren’t real.”
“How would you get there? What about your brother?”
“I’ve got it all figured out. My idea is this. We go to Saint Catherine. It would be the closest town to the tomb. From there, you can meet up with your family and we can finish translating the map.”
“Saint Catherine. You’re right,” Leila said quickly, then realized she sounded a bit too excited. She wasn’t supposed to get distracted again. Too late for that. “The monastery there is ancient. And it has the oldest working library on the planet. It’s over a thousand years old.”
“You’d like to visit this place?” Amina’s dimples reappeared with a smile.
“Would I like to? I’d love to.” Leila shifted her weight. It would be an amazing experience. But she couldn’t run off on an expedition while Xander had no idea if she was alive. She had to go back to him before anything else. “But I really need to go home.”
“I won’t be able to find the tomb on my own,” Amina said, her eyes pondering the grinding rock in her hand. She tossed it in the air and caught it in her palm. “You’ve translated so much of the document already, it would make sense if you could finish it. I could try to do the rest myself, but I have no idea what I’m doing. You, on the other hand, do know. The journal may still tell us exactly where the tomb is, so we won’t spend years searching the mountains for it.”
“I want to help you. Really. Maybe we could go to Cairo first, then drive to the monastery?”
“We’re closer to Saint Catherine.”
Leila licked her sandy lips. Xander wouldn’t be upset if she ended up there instead of Cairo, but it was roughly a nine-hour drive from the capital to the mountain village.
If she could find some way to get a hold of him now, use a satellite phone, send a letter, or something to let him know she was okay, then she could help Amina. Besides, whoever had tried to kill her would notice if she made it back to Cairo. She would be safer lying low in Saint Catherine until she was reunited with Xander. Then they could catch a flight out of Sharm El-Sheikh back to London and out of harm’s way.
“It might work,” Leila said. “But before I commit to anything, I really need to get in touch with my boyfriend. He has to know where I am.”
“We’ll get a message to him somehow.” Amina patted Leila’s hand. “We’ll ask around in a bit and see if anyone has a phone.”
Leila’s heart thudded happily at the thought. Xander. To hear his voice again. Her throat tightened.
Amina resumed her work, scraping the rest of the herbs into a bowl. She held it out for Leila.
“What is this?” Leila took the bowl and held it under her nose.
The scent was grassy and earthen, like a mowed yard after the rain. The tickling in her nose returned, and she jerked the bowl away from her face.
“Sidr leaves.” Amina grabbed a stick from the ground and pushed herself to her feet. “Mix some of the powder with water and rub it into your skin and hair. It will get nice and foamy.”
Once Leila was on her feet, Amina hobbled toward the tent.
