No Such Thing As Werewolves (3 page)

“Why is that year significant?” He asked, pausing for a full three seconds as he scanned the room. Curiosity lurked in a few corners, but no one ventured a hand.

“That’s the approximate date the Great Pyramid of Giza was built,” Blair said, taking a step toward the front row. He began to pace. “You’ve seen it in movies. It’s the most well-known wonder of the ancient world, a masterpiece that has endured for millennia. It’s visible from space, forty-five stories tall, and has fascinated every culture from ancient Greece through the United States. Today you’re going to learn how and why Pharaoh Khufu built it.”

Several hands shot up, the most enthusiastic in the front row. It belonged to an Asian girl with long black hair and a pink backpack. Jesus, these kids were young.
 

“Yes, Miss…”

“Samantha. You can call me Sam,” The girl said, all but bouncing in her seat. Probably her first semester. The boys were just as bad, worse if their voices cracked during questions. “You said it was built by a pharaoh, but how do we know that? I saw this show, and it said that the Pyramids were built by aliens. It makes sense. I mean, how did cave men move those giant stones? They would have needed, like, cranes and stuff.”

Every semester, it was the same. A misguided student, or six, parroted the drivel they’d read on Google or seen on Netflix. Not that he could blame them. If the Internet said it, it must be true, right?

“Was it the one with the guy’s hair that gets crazier every season? Looks like a bird that got on the wrong side of a hurricane,” Blair said, fanning his fingers out in parody of the host’s incredible hair.

“Yes,” She said, eyes widening as she straightened in her seat. “That’s the one. That guy is crazy, but like, brilliant, too.”

“Yeah. Here’s the problem with that show. It’s bullshit,” Blair said, crossing his arms. Had he just gotten chalk on his sleeve? Damn it. “We know who built the Pyramids. We know when. We even know how. That’s what—”

A cell phone went off, obnoxiously loud. He seriously doubted anyone else was using the
Game of Thrones
ringtone, which meant he’d just broken his own phone rule in class. He glanced at the desk drawer. If he answered it that would legitimize students doing the same for the whole semester. He ignored it.

“That’s what we’re going to discuss today. I promise by the end you’ll agree the only thing alien on that show is that guy’s hair,” he said, pausing for a few polite chuckles. The phone stopped. Thank God. “I’ll begin by passing out—”

There it went again, somehow more obnoxious. Snickers rippled through the class. He was losing them. “You know what, guys?
 
I don’t know about you but I could use some coffee. Let’s take a fifteen-minute break. Go grab a Starbucks and get back in here.” The stampede began.

Blair walked over the desk, jerking the drawer open and fishing out his phone. He almost dropped it when he saw the caller. It was Bridget. He was paralyzed, a deer about to be run down by a careless driver. Fuck. He sagged into his worn leather chair.

“Hello,” he said. Somehow the phone had found his ear.
 

“Blair?” a trembling voice asked. He recognized it immediately. How could he not? “Listen, I know this is out of the blue, but my God, you’ve got to see what we’ve found. It’s enormous, bigger than Giza, older than G
ö
bekli Tepe, at least thirteen thousand years from the sediment covering the structure. How soon can you be here?”

“Bridget?” he asked, chair creaking as he leaned back. He removed his wire-frame glasses and set them on the desk. He’d need his full attention or she’d have him agreeing to some crazy plan before he even knew what she was talking about. “I haven’t heard from you in almost three years, and our last conversation wasn’t exactly friendly. I don’t even know what country you’re in. Slow down and explain.”

“Peru. Blair, we’ve found a pyramid unlike anything ever discovered. It’s
at least
thirteen thousand years old. Thirteen, Blair,” she said, pausing long enough for the implications to sink in. “The hieroglyphs don’t match any recorded style. They’re not Incan, and they’re more advanced than the Mayans’. Steve is completely baffled.”

“Ahh,” he replied, surprised by the depth of his bitterness. Blair rose from his chair, pacing back and forth as he watched the last student trickle from the room. “So that’s why you called. Steve ran into more than he could handle, and you need me to bail him out. Then, assuming I can somehow help, he takes all the credit. Again. Is that it?”

“He doesn’t even know I’m calling. Leave him out of it, just for a moment. Don’t you want to be a part of this?” she asked, plunging forward with the conversation like an implacable wave, as always. “Think of it. This could completely redefine our understanding of—”

“Let me stop you there,” he interrupted, cradling the phone with his ear while he shoved the day’s quizzes into his briefcase. “I’m not interested, Bridget. I have tenure. I live in Wine Country. Things are good for me here. Besides, I don’t want to play Indiana Jones anymore. The pay is shit and the hours suck. I like sleeping in a real bed. You know what I like even better? Not having to see you on a daily basis.”

“I deserved that,” she said after a long pause.
 

Her contrite tone didn’t
seem
feigned. She must need his help badly. “Blair, you’re too young to be a stuffy professor. Don’t cheat yourself out of this because you’re angry at me. This could make your career. Think of what we could learn. This could be your chance to—”

“I mean it, Bridget. I’m not budging on this one,” he said as firmly as he could manage. It was difficult to deter her once she had decided she wanted something.

“I understand your reservations. I get that. Things didn’t end well, but please don’t let my mistakes make you miss this. You’ll never forgive yourself once you understand what we’ve found. It’s beyond amazing,” She said, tone suffused with her usual passion.
 

There was a long pause that stretched until he thought maybe she’d hung up. “Besides…I’m scared. I’ve never seen Steve like this. He’s obsessed, more than usual. He won’t eat, and he barely sleeps. All his time is spent down in the temple’s central chamber.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Really,” Blair answered dryly, grabbing his keys and trotting up the stairs to the door. He almost flicked off the lights before remembering the students would be returning in a few minutes. He left them on, slipping into the cool evening. “If you want to send me some pictures, I’ll take a look. That’s the best I can do. I’m not flying six thousand miles to bail Steve’s ass out. Again. I have forty tests to grade.”

“All right, all right. I’ll leave you be, for now. Just remember that I don’t fight fair,” Bridget replied, giving one of those throaty little laughs he’d so loved when they first met. It sliced through the intervening years.

The phone beeped its melancholy disconnect. Blair threaded past clusters of students as he crossed the lawn, toward the south lot. A handful of cars still dotted the parking lot. At least he wasn’t the only one desperate enough to teach night classes. The extra pittance mattered more than he’d like to admit.

He fumbled in his pocket for his keys, opening his Ford’s door with a reluctant groan. Blair tossed his briefcase in the back, dropping onto the sheepskin seat cover he’d added to hide the battle scars. If only he could do the same to this thing’s tragic paint job.

Damn Bridget for knowing him so well. The oldest known pyramids in the Americas had been built, what, 2,600 years before Christ? Around the same time as the Egyptian ones, though the ones at Norte Chico were little more than large mounds. In both cases, the structures had been the center point of an entire culture. The implications of one existing six millennia earlier were monumental. That meant that there had been an older culture that had left almost no trace of its existence.
 

Who were they? Why had they disappeared? What had knocked their descendants down so hard that recovering even a fragment of their culture had taken eighty centuries? It was just the sort of mystery he’d always dreamed of solving. Discovering a common parent culture meant leaving a legacy that would endure as long as mankind continued to record knowledge. More than that, it might answer his own questions. What had come before the Egyptians and the Sumerians? Who built G
ö
bekli Tepe? Why was it buried?

He smothered his enthusiasm. Was it worth leaving Santa Rosa, knowing he’d have to deal with Bridget and Steve? No, no it wasn’t. He turned the key, and the Ford revved to life. “Fuck her and fuck Steve.”

His phone buzzed in his jean pocket. Blair fished it out, thumbing the home button and checking the notification. He swiped the screen and peered at the image that sprang up. It had been taken from the bottom of a ravine and angled steeply upwards along the slope of a jet-black pyramid. Calling it massive was like calling a Siberian tiger a kitty cat.

Blair turned off the car. Nothing in the Americas—hell, nothing in the world—rivaled it. From the context, he guessed the height at more than three hundred meters, over twice as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza. The structure was carved from obsidian or maybe polished slate. Did they even have obsidian in the Andes? Even if they did, how had they gotten it there? The seams between the blocks must be incredibly fine for them to not show up in the photo.

“Clever Bridget,” he said, slouching into his seat. She definitely
wasn’t
fighting fair, but he wouldn’t take her bait. It was an amazing discovery, but not amazing enough to deal with her cheating ass again.

His phone vibrated. This time the picture was darker, probably a shot of an interior wall. It showed highly stylized hieroglyphs with more complexity than anything ever exhibited by a Mesoamerican culture—or African, for that matter. That wasn’t what caught his eye, though. The glyphs could have been painted yesterday. They were a riot of colors the equal of anything Photoshop might churn out.
 

The dense script contained thousands of symbols. That would make deciphering their alphabet impossible. Blair couldn’t even hope for a Rosetta stone. Modern societies shared no common language with a culture this old. No wonder Steve was baffled. Blair opened his recent calls and tapped Bridget’s name. The first ring hadn’t even finished when she picked up.

“How soon can you be here?” she purred.
 

“I can’t just walk out on my job, Bridget. I have rent,” he replied.
 

“If that’s the hang-up, I think we can reach an agreement. How does a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for eight weeks of work sound?” She said. He could practically hear the smile.
 

“That kind of money is too good to be true. Way too good,” he replied, but he’d already made his choice. Sometimes, you walked into the trap even though you knew it was there.
 

“I know, but it’s true. If you’re in, I can have the funds wired as soon as you sign your NDA and contract,” she said. “We’ll even arrange for a call from the president of Peru to arrange a leave of absence. So what do you say?”

“If you’re on the level? I’d say I’m in,” he replied, turning the car back on. This was going to be the most memorable mistake he’d ever made.

Chapter 3- Runaway Bride

Liz’s hand shook as she tamped out the cigarette in the chipped ashtray. She stood up, eyeing the phone on the table like a black widow that might attack at any moment. The bamboo floor creaked as she paced the short length of the drafty cottage, threatening to give way beneath her at any moment.

Why was she so afraid? Trevor was her brother. He’d never judged her. Quite the opposite. He’d always been supportive. Maybe she was just afraid of disappointing him. He’d always thought so highly of her, and she was about to cop to the most chicken-shit thing she had ever done.

She darted over to the table, seizing the phone and swiping the screen. A moment later, the phone was ringing as it clicked past Peru’s local network and winged its way all the way to sunny San Diego. Trevor picked up on the first ring.

“Yeah?” he said, distracted. She could hear fingers flying across a keyboard.

“Trevor, it’s Liz,” She replied.
 

There was a pause. “Wow. Ok. Hold on a sec, Liz. I’ll be right back.”

Sound ceased. She’d been put on mute. She waited, almost as terrified about him coming back as she was about the fact that he might not.

“I’m back. I just had to tell David to watch something for me. We’ve discovered a solar flare—a big one. Maybe the biggest anyone’s seen in our lifetime,” Trevor said, reverting to the excited kid Liz had grown up with. He was always dreaming.

“That’s awesome, Trevor. Tell David I said hey,” she said, relieved to talk about another topic, any other topic.

“I will,” he said. His tone was different now, more somber. Uh oh. Here came serious Trevor. “Liz, you know Ernesto’s been calling me, right? Like six times a day. The guy’s in a complete panic. He thinks you’ve been kidnapped. Where are you?”

“I’m in Peru. I left him a note,” Liz said, maybe more defensively than she’d intended.

“A note? Liz, it says ‘I can’t do this.’ That’s it. Not even goodbye or a signature. He’s not even sure it’s your handwriting.”

“Yeah, I know it was shitty,” Liz said, walking to the window. She opened the shutters, staring out at the muddy road leading up the mountain. It was going to rain again soon.