Siren's Call (29 page)

His words sent a chill skittering up Kenneth’s spine. “Are you saying there are bodies here?”

“The way that rear entrance has been marked and sealed off, yes.” Jake pointed. “It’s an absolutely incredible find.”

Kenneth’s stomach squeezed. By the gleam in the archaeologist’s eyes, they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.

He drew a long breath. “So now what do we do?”

Tessa dropped her hands, letting them dangle at her sides. “We stand around like morons,” she said, the barest trace of a smile parting her lips. “Until Jake tells us to get our shit together.”

Kenneth barely suppressed his chuckle. “I guess he would know.” He had to admit he had no idea what to do next.

His partner was definitely the man of the hour.

Busy with his examination of the chamber, Jake pointed to some of the hieroglyphs etched into the walls. “Can you read any of this?” he asked Tessa.

Tessa shook her head. “My mother spoke Mer to us when we were kids, but I’ve never seen the language written like this. It looks like nonsense to me.”

“I doubt you would be able to read an ancient version of the text even if you were completely familiar with the Mer language,” Jake commented.

Tessa swallowed. “How ancient are you talking about?”

Jake considered the chamber. “Judging by the construction of this place, the Mer were a highly advanced civilization for their time. Two influences I’m definitely seeing are Greek and Egyptian—which makes sense since the location of the ruins lie between these two major powers. The script style certainly fits the timeline, too, as this way of recording their history was widely used by many ancient cultures.”

Kenneth looked, too. None of it made any sense to him either. “So what you’re saying is that we’re looking at their version of a book?”

Jake nodded. “Absolutely. This will be the most exciting find of the twenty-first century, I’m sure.”

Tess walked to the nearest wall. She reached out, tracing a few of the etchings with the tip of her finger. “So what’s all this supposed to mean?”

Jake examined the etchings. “These usually depict a deity or other important person. As you can see, many of these drawings show a woman with a great aura of energy around her.” He pointed. “Look at the halo. I would venture to guess she is very a significant figure.”

“Atargatis?” Tessa ventured. “As creator of all the Mer, she would be a figure of power.”

“It’s possible,” Jake mused. “The same woman appears several times in these hieroglyphs.” He shrugged. “No telling for sure until we learn a little more about the language and find a way to produce a credible translation.”

Kenneth strolled over to the wall. Most everything Jake said went over his head. Trying to look intelligent, he studied the symbols and drawings etched into the stones. “I’m not an expert, but doesn’t it seem like these pictures show some of the things Tessa has?”

Jake barged in for a closer look. “Where do you see that?” he demanded.

Kenneth jabbed a finger. “Here, look at this. What does she appear to be wearing?”

Tessa moved closer for a better look. She hadn’t really examined the drawings closely. It might have been her imagination, but it looked like a soft glow lit the drawings from behind. She blinked hard, clearing her blurry vision. “It looks like a sort of collar,” she ventured.

Jake nodded. “Close, but think again.”

Kenneth answered. “The choker.”

Jake’s hand moved to another portion. “Right. And this hovering ball must be the orb.” He looked from Tessa to the wall, and back again. “You certainly seem to have several of the items that represent a powerful female in this society.”

The archaeologist moved on to a third depiction of the queenly figure. “But here she seems to be holding a scepter of some kind. Look how the rays beam out of it. What appears to be a sky and mountains are cracking open.”

“Didn’t see anything like that in your treasure box,” Kenneth said.

Tessa’s mouth turned down into a small frown. She shook her head. “If Mom ever had anything vaguely resembling a scepter, I never saw it.”

Jake sighed heavily. “Too bad. It seems to be a very powerful piece.”

Tessa held out her hands. “Sorry. You’re shit out of luck. If I had something like that, I’d know it.”

“What about your aunt?” Jake shot back. “Is it possible she might have it?”

Tessa’s brow wrinkled. “Now that you mention it, I do vaguely recall her and Mom arguing over what they called the ‘family jewels.’ My grandmother settled it by saying to divide everything.”

“So it’s feasible the scepter might have gone with your aunt?”

“I don’t know for sure.” Tessa made a knee-high gesture with her hand. “You have to remember, I was this big when all this was going on.”

Jake set to postulating out loud. “If your family as a collective truly held all the items shown around this deity female in the hieroglyphs, do you know what that could mean?”

Tessa threw up her hands. “That some thieving ancestor of mine knocked her in the head and stole her stuff?”

Pressing his palm against the wall, Jake shook his head. “I believe it would mean you could be a direct descendant of this person. And judging from the details, I’d say she was a queen.”

Hearing his words, Tessa suddenly went very pale. “No shit.”

Noticing her lag, Kenneth slipped a worried hand around her waist. “What is it?”

Accepting his support, Tessa gratefully leaned into him. Such a revelation was incredible. Who could believe it?

If he’s even right
. Jake’s speculation had been known to be liberally laced with a lot of bullshit.

Tessa pulled in a weary breath. “When I was a kid, no older than five or six, my grandmother would tell me and Gwen stories about a great queen named Nyala.”

Jake stared at her through narrow eyes, as though he suspected she’d deliberately withheld vital pieces of information. “What kind of stories?”

She laughed shortly. “About how we were descended from Nyala, how she was the last to wield a vast and terrible power. I always thought they were just fairy tales.”

“That matches up with what we have here,” Jake observed after a brief pause. “Hypatia’s account calls the females of Ishaldi a warlike race. And most accounts in legend brand the Mer as unfriendly toward humans.”

Tessa rolled her eyes. “That’s not true.”

“In a way, it is,” Jake countered. “Every country in the world has some story about mermaids and most of them are the same.”

“Yeah, I know. We lure ships onto rocks and drown the crew.” Tessa gave a quick thumbs- up sign with one hand. “Yeah, that’s exactly what we want to do. Drown you humans and take over the world.”

Jake returned her glance with one of his own. “Don’t kill the messenger, please. I’m just referencing what I’ve learned from my research. It’s nothing personal.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Tessa shot him a scornful look. “I’m not so sure about that.”

The two set to bickering, slinging a series of personal insults back and forth.

Kenneth winced, stepping between them. “Let’s get back on track,” he suggested. “What if Tessa is somehow descended from this queen?”

Tessa gave him a quick jab with her elbow. “Stop it. Those were just stories. I’m not royal.”

Tucking ruffled feathers back into place, Jake shifted back into know- it-all mode. “Think about it, please. The powerful objects depicted in these hieroglyphs would only be entrusted to a person of very high rank, most likely someone the people considered royal.”

Kenneth looked down at Tessa. Even though she wasn’t doing anything, he could feel the energy emanating from her. A lot of power boiled beneath the surface of her skin.

A chill skittered through him.
All she has to do is think it, and it’ll happen
. . . It vaguely occurred to him there might have been a time on this earth when humans had a reason to fear the Mer. He’d learned enough from Jake to know most legend had some basis in fact.

He quickly squelched the negative thoughts and focused on what the moment meant for Tessa.

“What if it’s no fantasy, Tess? Who else would have held such important symbols of power but a sovereign? As incredible as it sounds, you might be a descendant of royalty.”

I
t took every bit of willpower Tessa possessed not to snort a laugh back in Kenneth’s face. “Come on. Don’t be stupid.” She made a gesture, circling her finger near her temple. “Both of you have lost your minds. The air must definitely be thinning if you think that’s true.”

Both men stared back at her, two sets of eyes holding absolute conviction.

“I think it’s true,” Kenneth said, a note of wonder in his voice.

“I’d second that,” Jake added. “The pieces we’ve put together certainly make the scenario seem plausible.”

As much as she wanted to deny it, Tessa had a nagging feeling the guys hadn’t lost their minds. Based on the stories she’d heard in her childhood about a powerful queen, the idea wasn’t so far-fetched. It was entirely possible her grandmother wasn’t weaving fanciful tales for her granddaughters; rather she was passing on some kind of an oral history.

Still . . . Believing she was one of the highborn felt utterly ridiculous. “It just can’t be.”

Losing the look of superiority, Jake’s eyes assumed the cast of wonder. “Except for the scepter, you have most of those items in your keep, Tess,” he said, interrupting her sinister contemplations. “Your mother and her mother before her and even your great-grandmother all worked to carefully preserve those pieces.”

Deep inside, Tessa felt her stomach loop into tight knots. Tension tightened her shoulders even as a feeling of nausea crept up from her stomach. “What for?” she demanded. “These things aren’t of any real value. The stones aren’t even precious.”

“But they are a part of your Mercraft, correct?”

Tessa nodded. “That’s true. But what am I supposed to do with them?”

“Command your people,” Jake said. “Holding such objects would make you the figure of power.”

Tessa lifted her hands, pressing her fingers into her temples. All of a sudden pressure was ranging behind her eyes, beating against the confines of her skull. “All this is starting to give me a headache,” she said with a sigh.

Jake ignored her exhaustion. Leaving the hieroglyphs behind, he walked toward the arch. Lifting his arms, he pressed his palms against the solid layers of opaque crystal, sealing it shut. “This is a quite interesting way to seal a tomb,” he remarked. “It’s like the stone has been woven into webbing. I wonder how we’d get through it.”

Tessa’s hands dropped. “You mean, like, open it? Now?”

Jake glanced over his shoulder. “No time like the present.” Stepping back, the archaeologist eagerly rubbed his hands together. “The logistics are going to be difficult given the depth we’re dealing with, but we’re going to have to figure out a way to get equipment down to begin recovery.”

Kenneth shot him an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious.”

Jake immediately cut him off with a huff. “I’m very serious. It’s what we do. Remember?”

“You don’t even know if that’s what it is,” Kenneth shot back. “Right now all you’re doing is guessing.”

Jake just stared, affording Kenneth all the interest he’d give an insect he was about to crush. “Hands-on research is part of the recovery,” he snapped nastily, pointing toward the sealed area. “If we find a chamber of any kind, we open it. If there are bodies inside, we pull them out.”

Kenneth immediately rejected the idea. “The dead should rest undisturbed. What you’ve found so far is enough.”

Jake turned to Tessa. “Explain to this moron the meaning of
search and recovery.
If we find it, we bring it up.”

Tessa put her hands on her hips.

Though she understood the side Kenneth was taking, she’d also worked enough recovery missions with Jake to understand the intention behind archaeological expeditions. The mission was simple: Uncover and record the findings.

An unbidden chill swept down her spine. Sometimes the findings included remains. The coast of Maine was littered with wreckage from ships and airplanes that had gone under when misfortune struck. The last wreck she’d worked on with Jake wasn’t a ship, but a WWII fighter. Surviving family members had been elated when the wreckage was located and identified. And though the bodies of the crewmen trapped inside had been reduced to bones, she’d worked to bring them to the surface with the few personal effects she could locate.

Closing her eyes, Tessa inhaled a deep, calming breath.
Should it be any different with the Mer?
Her throat worked as she swallowed back the bile rising from her stomach.

Licking dry lips, she turned to face the two men. “I think it should be opened.”

Jake’s icy blue eyes lit up with the fervor of a fanatic finding true religion. “Excellent decision. We’re on the edge of a historic discovery.”

Kenneth didn’t look as convinced. “It feels like sacrilege to me.”

Tessa rubbed her hands across her face. “Why don’t we argue one step at a time?” She eyed the crystal seal. “Right now we have no guarantee we can even get the thing open.”

Kenneth snorted. “Oh, give Jake a hammer and he’ll get through.”

Jake scoffed back. “I am not a philistine. Our mission is to preserve and protect, not bash and carry. The less damage we do, the better.”

Kenneth threw up his hands in frustration. “I don’t like it, but I suppose the two of you will outvote me on this one.”

Tessa cleared her throat. “I’m not siding with Jake when I say I want to keep going with this,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “But this is a significant find and we can’t ignore its value. The Mer deserve to have their place in history, too.”

Kenneth’s expression was wary. “I understand that,” he said. “I just don’t understand the hurry.”