Page 75

She stood there with her own hand out in warning. Stay back.

Julie was not surprised.

The queen's knees were bent, her eyes slits. She seemed to be fighting a terrible sense of disorientation.

But Julie could sense something else. A presence she could not identify. Many of them, in fact, and her heightened senses told her they were underfoot. Somehow underneath this very stone floor. This presence seemed to be coming to life at the sounds of commotion from above.

Suddenly, Cleopatra stood upright. But at just that moment, her body pitched forward as if she'd been struck from behind by a great and terrible force. She bucked forward, her arms flying out blindly in front of her. She seized the upraised arm of the statue.

At first, Julie thought it was Cleopatra's pure strength that had bent the statue's outstretched arm like a lever. But there was a great grinding sound from all around them suddenly. The floor beneath Julie began to move. Instinctively, she backed up and away. The stone that had been underfoot a split second before shifted dramatically to one side.

Impossible to make sense of it. It was all happening so fast. And Cleopatra was wholly unaware. Perhaps she couldn't distinguish between her spinning mind and the very real changes in her physical environment.

She rose upright suddenly.

"Stop!" Julie cried. "Cleopatra, stop!"

Did she even hear?

There was no telling, for just then, Cleopatra stepped forward and disappeared through the hole that had opened in the center of the floor.

*

She fell, expecting the plummet to end at each terrifying second. Clawing for the mud walls on either side of her. They were too far outside her reach.

Falling and falling, until she crashed into some sort of hard metal surface. No pain, but a kind of dazed bewilderment. Then just above her, scraping sounds and a metallic whine. The darkness became impenetrable as a lid was drawn shut over her.

She writhed and flailed, summoning all the strength she had. This was a coffin! She was trapped within a coffin! The lid was held down by a strength as formidable as her own.

Was she the only one who heard her screams? Was she the only one deafened by them? Trapped, confined, unable to move.

And then, motion.

This sarcophagus--what else could it be?--was being carried away, jostling from human movement. Her screams went with it, far beneath the earth, unheard, she feared, by all those except the ones who had just taken her captive.

*

Ramses had not expected this kind of fight out of the man. These wild punches, this desperate clawing.

Who was he? From where did his rage come? He was mad and stinking of alcohol. He made Ramses afraid of his own strength. If he wasn't careful, he would break bones or shatter the man's skull by mistake. And he didn't want that at all. But if the man didn't stop fighting!

His goal was to pin the rogue against the wall, thereby making his own strength known. Then the rageful drunk would have no choice but to answer his questions.

But it was not to be.

The man slipped free of his grip suddenly, his steps turning into a drunken dance as he ran away.

Someone was waiting for the man at the end of the hall.

She was tall and slender, and her skin was as black as a Nubian's. Her gold turban matched the color of her flowing dress, which was complemented by a shawl of yellow and gold brocade; its intermingling of color made it look like a form of armor. Her neckline was exposed, and despite the jagged gold plates that composed her necklace, this expanse of visible skin made her seem terribly vulnerable to the madman's careening approach. But she held her ground with utter confi

dence.

Would she move out of his way?

She did not.

Instead, just at the moment when the drunken fool seemed ready to plow her off her feet, she reached out and seized the back of his neck. He froze under her powerful grip.