Her Kind of Trouble (18 page)

In a perfect world, I would have found the cup that very afternoon.

Instead, two afternoons later found me suiting up in the Zodiac for yet another dive with no more information than before. I'd talked again to Tala, who held firm that unless I helped Jane and Kara, she would not share her ancestral secrets about the Isis Grail. I'd lost track of how many dives I'd made. Even d'Alencon commented on my extraordinary commitment for an observer.

"Remarkable," mused Catrina dryly as she, too, wriggled into a dry suit. "Is it not?"

She'd been her usual annoying self, worse through the close confines of sharing a room, for the previous two nights. She claimed to have discussed my relationship with Rhys on her boat ride to shore with Lex, and although I had nothing to hide, I felt uneasy imagining the lies she could have told. She talked about how sexy she found both Lex and Rhys, in a blatant attempt to make me jealous.

And if she said the words
in situ
one more time, I wasn't sure I could be held responsible for my actions.

"Then again," she continued now, "we archeologists are all, in our own way, observers. Ours is not to collect the artifacts we find but instead, whenever possible, to leave them in
situ
—"

I pulled my hood up so I couldn't hear her anymore, tightened my mask, adjusted my regulator—and slid backward into the Alexandrian harbor. Since Rhys hadn't expected me to accelerate my departure, I had to wait—letting myself sink farther and farther from the light of the surface—before he appeared in a splash of bubbles above me.

As soon as he righted himself, and gave me a thumbs-up, I turned and kicked out in the direction of some algae-encrusted columns we hadn't yet explored. But I may not have been in the right frame of mind to discover a powerful talisman to feminine power. I was too damned frustrated.

In situ, in situ, in situ
. The problem was, I agreed with it—as a theory. Too many archeologists and dilettantes have, in the past, stripped sites of anything that might make a buck, ruining the locations' value for serious scholars or future generations. From what I'd heard while taking meals with other project members—and I'd been here half a week, now—this destruction had been especially bad in nineteenth-century Egypt.

Rhys and his colleagues bemoaned the fact that so many of the digs in
Alexandria
were already emergency salvage operations. In order to build necessary high-rise buildings to keep up with the population explosion, construction companies would dig down to the bedrock and, in so doing, uncover some ancient cemetery or villa or temple. It was all the archeologists could do to convince developers to postpone construction long enough for them to dig out and record the discovery before it vanished forever under an apartment or office building. The land was too valuable to be declared any kind of historical site.

In those cases, they
had
to move the artifacts.

But in other places like the pyramids, the
Valley of the Kings
, and even Cleopatra's Palace, archeologists had more choice. Some scholars were arguing that even the pyramids and tombs should be closed to the public, since just the moisture from peoples' breath was damaging some of the art. And for Cleopatra's Palace, there really was hope for an underwater system of translucent tunnels, so tourists for generations to come could see these remains just as we'd found them.

In situ.

So why would I resent so noble a goal?

The
Isis
Grail, that's why.
What the hell was I supposed to do once I found it
?

With the Melusine Chalice, my family grail, the decision had been made for me—I'd had to take it or leave it to its destruction. In fact, it was the subsequent damage of the abbey where I'd found it, by Comitatus members who'd been after me and were angered by my escape, that prompted the worst of Catrina Dauvergne's disdain. It would be great to prove her wrong, once and for all. Except…

If I found the Isis Grail amid this underwater trea-sure of relics and left it alone, how would that help , other women? How would it help
anybody
?

Until now, my plan had been to gather and hide goddess cups until the Grailkeepers had enough to create a powerful display. Hopefully too powerful to be destroyed as other, individual grails had been.

But that would mean taking a relic that these scholars—good people, people who were
doing me a favor
—intended to leave in situ. Damn it.

Rhys and I reached the spot where we'd left off exploring on our last dive, a tumble of fallen columns and ancient building blocks, splotched green and velvety brown with algae and surreal in thick green shadows. I swam a tight circle around them, shining a halogen diving lantern into the crevices, peering after its light in hopes of seeing something curved and, well…chalicelike.

Conflicted.

Maybe I could tell Director d'Alencon about the Grailkeepers and the Comitatus. He might sympathize enough to protect the grail on his own until I'd collected enough cups to practically protect themselves.

Then again, if he was somehow connected to the' Comitatus, he might lose or destroy the cup all by himself. I couldn't forget that attempts had been made against Rhys and against the project. It seemed to argue that
someone
around here was Comitatus.

Damn, but I hated paranoia. In fact—

The sensation was subtle at first, but powerful enough that my head came up. It felt like a…a beckoning.

Like magic.

Rhys must have noticed my sudden distraction. His blue eyes concerned in the shadow of his mask, he touched his thumb and forefinger into a circle. His ex-pression was what made it a question instead of an answer.
Okay
?

I nodded, held up one hand for time—and scanned the underwater ruins, trying to recapture the tickle of sensation I'd just felt. Immediately I sensed my own misgivings blocking me. We were already studying the area with sonar and magnetometers—I'd been studying the revised charts almost every evening. What made me think pure instinct would do the trick? And yet…

Feminine instinct—any instinct—couldn't be completely disregarded, either. Logic only worked when everything was logical. The strange world in which I floated invited something different. Ancient. Infinitely powerful.

I turned away from Rhys and shone my light across the green-and-brown mottled columns and I tried to envision them standing again. I tried to envision priestesses in white and gold, perhaps the great Cleopatra herself with her kohl-lined eyes and legendary vitality, wearing the horn-and-disk headdress of
Isis
. A reincarnation of the goddess…

What would she do, to call Her? Would she spread her arms, like this?

I put down the halogen light, its beam pushing out across unimportant rocks and sand and darting fish, so that I could mimic the position that I imagined. She might spread her arms wide, like a bird's wings—
Isis
is often shown wearing brightly colored, human-size wings. She's also shown kneeling, one knee up, one knee down. With my ankle weights already at work, it took little effort for me to reproduce that posture, too.

And then the priestess would say something as an invocation, something faintly along the lines of…of…

Isis
, Oldest of the Old, Goddess of Ten Thousand Names, Lady of Compassion and Healing and Magic.

Isis, I invite and welcome Thee into the remains of Thy temple, once grand, now hidden as so much of Your light has been hidden.

Isis, though You may find me unworthy, let me prove my worth. Show me where Your servants have hidden Your chalice, the cup into which You once poured Your powers and Your secrets. Reveal unto me, a daughter of goddesses, what it is I seek, so that Your divine strength may help many. Lift the veil of time and
—

Only when I was interrupted, startled by the movement of someone coming at me from the murkiness, did I realize just how deeply I'd imagined the invocation. For a moment, it had been as if I really was back in time, back before the natural disasters that had sunken this palace, this temple. For a moment, I could imagine the Pharos Lighthouse—one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—still on its promontory, lighting the way for sailors at sea. For a moment, I could imagine the original Library of Alexandria still stood, not yet destroyed by fear and ignorance.

I don't mean to say that
I was there
. I knew I hadn't left this spot, that I was wearing fins and a mask and an air tank. But the shiver of power that had begun to ripple through me, at merely
thinking
an invocation of the goddess, gave me chills despite the dry suit. Something deep in the water beckoned me, something powerful, as surely as the Pharos Lighthouse had beckoned generations of ships to safety.

But that flash of movement, of another diver swimming out of the murkiness, caught my eye just as I started to turn toward the sensation's source. I tried to turn back—was that mere rubble I saw, or something more promising?

Before I could even check it out, Catrina Dauvergne had swum in front of me, waving with annoyance. I could tell it was her not only from the almond-shaped eyes behind her mask but because, like several of the other divers, she no longer bothered with the hood or gloves when she suited up.

Maybe she figured that as much as she smoked, a little toxicity in the water wouldn't make much difference. Either way, her hair fanned out around her head in weightless buoyancy. Her Virgin Mary medal glittered absurdly around her throat.

She pointed upward, demanding. Her meaning was clear.

In case my meaning wasn't clear enough when I shook my head, I answered her repeated gesture with a ruder one of my own. Then I jabbed a finger at her and pointed insistently upward. If she would just give me a little privacy…

She rolled her eyes and turned to Rhys, my diving buddy, in open-armed entreaty. He'd swum closer, to see what was up, but simply looked confused.

He couldn't know what I'd just sensed.

Catrina made a hand signal that might get her into a fight in some countries. It was the symbol for horns—thumb and pinky raised, other fingers fisted. For a moment I thought she meant some kind of
Isis
reference—but then she held the hand to her cheek, like a telephone.

Oh
.

When her finger jabbed upward again, Rhys nodded. I understood better, too. I had a telephone call on the ship.

Well, it could wait. I retrieved my lantern, wanting nothing more than to aim it toward the end of the columns where I thought I'd glimpsed something promising. I didn't dare do so in front of a certain French grail thief.

Although really, I'd started to forget Cat had stolen the Melusine Grail and put it on sale on the black market. She did still work for the
Cluny
. She didn't seem rich.

With a kick of her swim fins and a cloud of sand, Catrina dived in front of me again, clearly frustrated now—I could see that even before she released a burst of bubbles with some kind of exclamation. She mimed the phone again. She pointed up top.

Glimpsing something solid between me and the mirrored surface, I recognized another diver, Niko. He made a wide arc with his forearm, a symbol every diver should know.

Emergency!

Had the images of Cleopatra and
Isis
and ancient times put me into some kind of a trance? If so, Niko's signal broke it. Suddenly, finding the goddess grail
right now
seemed significantly less important. I could locate this spot again—it wasn't as if the harbor floor wasn't being thoroughly mapped. I could repeat the invocation if necessary, since most of it had come from basic common knowledge of goddess cultures and…and instinct.

What if something had happened to my parents? My cousin Lil or her family? More likely, considering the people he ran with—
what if something had happened to Lex
?

I didn't wait. With a sand-billowing kick of my own, I shot upward, closely followed by Rhys and Catrina. I surfaced first, the other four heads bobbing out into the sun-washed waves after me, and made for the Zodiac.

Suddenly my throat clutched, tight. As if I had to scream, like the goddess Melusine.

It was as sure a sign of danger as Niko's hand signal had been.

Considering how my dive hood muffled all noise, it was also the only warning I got. I grabbed Rhys by one wrist and dived, trying to go deep—

But he'd been taken by surprise, and slowed us down.

A push of current spun me. Something dark blocked out the sun. I saw Catrina careen off to one side—without a hood, she'd apparently heard the danger. But Rhys-Even as I recognized the too close, bottom-up view of a speedboat, cutting past our diver-down buoy and right over Rhys and me, I knew Rhys hadn't gone deep enough.

Boat and diver collided.

Rhys's wrist was yanked from my hand.

A rush of bubbles exploded from his ruptured dry suit or, goddess forbid, a tank. As the boat continued away, not even slowing, a smear of blood darkened the white wake behind it.