wrung out my skirt into a splattering puddle; it clung like wet tissue. “You want me to explain?”
My French, unlike my Arabic, is fluent.
“I wish someone to explain so that I know which of you two—or three—” his gaze included Rhys “—to dismiss.”
Catrina and I glared at each other. But this was a choice expedition, remember? Newsweek. National Geographic. Cable. The threat of expulsion carried weight. I could read her hatred in her narrowed gaze. She’d once accused me of playing archeologist, raiding medieval sanctuaries and stealing the Melusine Chalice instead of leaving it in situ—not that I’d had any choice! She, on the other hand, had pretended that she would put the chalice on display in the Cluny, where it might empower countless visitors with its proof of goddess worship, only to then sell it onto the black market.
Either way, Catrina and I each had enough on the other to permanently ruin both our chances of involvement with either Cleopatra’s Palace or the Temple of Isis everyone hoped to find there—and, worse, to end Rhys’s internship, which he’d gotten through the Sorbonne. I was comfortably employed, waiting only for the fall semester to start. Catrina, I assumed, still had a job with the Cluny, unless she’d quit to live off her ill-gotten gains. But after he’d left the priesthood, archeology was the only profession Rhys had found that spoke to him.
No way would I ruin this opportunity.
No way would I allow Catrina to do so.
“I apologize,” I said slowly—to the project director. “Catrina and I are old friends. Sometimes our little jokes get out of hand, don’t they, Cat?”
Catrina Dauvergne might be disloyal, dishonest and vindictive—but she was not stupid. “But of course, Magdalene,” she said tightly. “Now we are even for the little joke you played in Paris.”
Bitch.
D’Alencon glared from one of us to the other while I stood there dripping—so much for making a professional first impression. “There will be no more jokes on my time, yes? It is how injuries happen.” And, blessedly, he turned back to other demands.
“This is not over,” Catrina whispered menacingly.
“Not even close,” I answered—and deliberately turned to Rhys, who had some explaining to do about forgetting to mention this woman’s presence.
But first I needed to know… “Just how toxic is this water?”
Catrina laughed, disgustingly pleased—but turned back to her other duties.
As it turned out, the East Harbor of Alexandria was so polluted from raw sewage that the divers who went in regularly were supposed to wear cautionary headgear and dry suits, though not all of them took that mandate to heart. Locals still swam in the stuff. Brief exposure was unlikely to infest me with parasites or turn me radioactive. And in the meantime…
In the meantime, my introduction to the scope of the project quickly distracted me from any inauspicious beginning.
I’d arrived too late in the day to make suiting up for a dive practical. But more than in the relatively shallow waters of the harbor—which is maybe twenty-five feet at its deepest—most of the work was being done by computer, and much of that was on shipboard. The following few hours became an enjoyable blur of information about latex molding techniques, aquameters, nuclear resonance magnetometers and sonar scanning. The archeologists really weren’t collecting artifacts from the sea and transferring them to some museum. They were mapping them, photographing them, sometimes raising them long enough to make molds, and then leaving them exactly where the assumed earthquake and/or tidal wave had once left them.
In situ.
I was so enthralled by the catalog of watery finds—sphinxes, statues, algae-covered pillars—that I almost forgot why I was there. Almost. Then Rhys reminded me that we had a dinner engagement for which I should probably clean up, and I remembered my real goal.
Isis.
Goddess grails.
And a supposed Grailkeeper whom he’d met, who’d said she would share the rhyme she’d learned about the location of the Oldest of the Old’s chalice. Hopefully in English.
Considering that someone had tried to run Rhys down a few days ago, not long after he’d spoken to this woman, he wasn’t the only person to suspect she might know what she was talking about.
The Hotel Athens, where most of the expedition was staying, had slotted me into a plain but neat third-story room, which I would share with a fortysomething Greek scientist named Eleni. It had two twin beds, one plain wardrobe, and a window overlooking trolley-car tracks with overhead wires that sparked whenever a trolley passed. As with many midrange European hotels, the bathroom and shower were down the hall.
I dressed as conservatively as before with the exception of sandals—my boots would take a while to dry. Since this was a social call, I decided to wait on rigging up a harness for my still nameless sword and instead left the weapon under my pillow. But I put my essential belongings—cell phone, money, matchbook—in a modest leather fanny pack, to keep my hands free. My passport had its own special pouch under my long-sleeved shirt. I pulled my hair back in a long brown braid.
And, after some deliberation, I put Lex’s damned ring back on. Things can get stolen in hotel rooms.
I hadn’t even been in the Arab Republic of Egypt for a day, but already I assumed that Mrs. Tala Rachid would be wearing a head scarf at least, maybe even a veil.
I assumed wrongly.
The vibrant, sixtysomething woman who greeted us when we arrived at her beautiful villa looked more Greek than Egyptian. She had beautiful black hair slashed with gray at her temples, which she’d drawn off her swanlike neck into a modest bun. Her knee-length blue dress would have been appropriate for the museum soiree I’d attended a few nights back. And, sure enough, she wore the sign of the vesica piscis on a beaded chain around her neck.
“Circle to circle,” I said softly, upon our meeting.
“Never an end,” she greeted—the correct response—and extended her hand to shake mine. A small blue cross, tattooed inside her wrist, peeked out from beneath the sleeve of her dress. “I’m pleased to meet you, Professor Sanger,” she said warmly, her accent exotic but her English impeccable. “Or should I call you Doctor?”
“Neither, please,” I insisted, trying to hide my surprise at her appearance and poise. She was, after all, a Grailkeeper. “I’m only a postdoc, it takes a while to earn tenure. And doctor still makes me think of medical professionals.”
“As a medical professional, I appreciate your modesty.”
Now I stared. “You’re…?”
“Dr. Rachid,” she confirmed, gesturing us into a luxurious parlor. “As was my mother before me—and her mother was a midwife. There are still some of us on this side of the world, Mrs. Sanger.”
Missus? Oh…the ring.
“Maggi is fine. I didn’t mean offense.”
“Of course not.” Gracefully, she managed to seat us before settling onto a sofa herself.
