Curse of the Pharaoh: A Brock Stone Adventure

Naga’s handler whistled and the snake raised up, flattened its head, poised to strike. Cheers faded to a confused murmur when Trinity showed no fear of the snake. She had been raised in the American south, which was home to a variety of snakes, including deadly rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cottonmouth moccasins. In their youth, she, Stone, and Alex had spent enough time wading through creeks and tromping through the woods that she had no particular fear of wild animals — only a healthy respect. She raised her knife and eyed the cobra like a puzzle that needed solving.

“Have at it, girl!” a florid-faced Englishman bellowed. “And if you could give us a little wiggle while you’re about it.” The men around him laughed.

The cobra swayed, its eyes locked on Trinity as she circled.

Men stamped their feet and urged Naga to attack. Others flung bottles and glasses into the arena, some aimed at Trinity, others at the snake. Stone thought he understood. For the spectators, half the fun was the terror of the female ‘gladiator’ and Trinity was not playing the part.

Finally, Naga struck. Trinity had kept her distance, and the snake’s attack fell short. A cobra could strike roughly a third of its length and could not change directions in mid-strike. Trinity was well aware of this, being a regular visitor to the National Zoological Park in Washington, and she circled just beyond its range. The cobra struck and missed again.

Stone reached the weapons hanging on the wall just as the snake made another attack. This time Trinity did not dance away. Confident she was out of range, she held her ground. As Naga struck, she drove her knife down into the snake’s flattened hood. It was not a killing blow, but it pinned the snake to the floor of the pit.

Balthus let out a cry of rage and sprang to his feet. The woman he dandled on his knee tumbled to the floor.

“Give me another gladiator now!” he shrieked. “I want this woman dead!”

Interlude 4

April, 1926

Six Years Ago

The Place de la Concorde sat on the Rive Droit in between the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe. The public square was dominated by the Luxor Obelisk, a towering monument to Rameses II that had been gifted to the king of France by Egyptian leader Mehemet Ali in 1830. The three-thousand-year-old monument stood seventy-five feet tall and marked the spot where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed.

Rose arrived right on time, gliding out of the darkness like a wraith. She looked Stone up and down, taking his measure.

“You’re my muscle?” she said.

“I suppose. I wasn’t given any instructions beyond who to meet and where.”

“And you’re an expert in Ancient Egyptian?” Rose asked.

“I have studied it. I hope that will be enough for whatever it is we are supposed to do.” Stone cocked his head. “What is it we’re supposed to do, exactly?”

Rose shrugged. “Recover something.”

“You don’t know either?”

“Your superiors say it will be obvious, and these clues should get us there.” She reached into her coat, took out a folded sheet of paper, and handed it to Stone. Several lines of disjointed French were scrawled across the page in a sloppy hand. Capitalization was arbitrary and punctuation absent. “This is the written account of a local man, one who lives underground. Lost his mind years ago. This man found something down there that your people apparently want but he couldn’t find it again. These are his recollections of how he got there. I haven’t gotten past step one.”

Stone took another look at the paper. The first line read, Travers la mer.

“Across the sea?” Stone said.

Rose shrugged. “I haven’t come up with anything. I thought the sea might mean the Seine but there are countless bridges spanning the river.”

Stone mulled over the clue, considering the possibilities. Travers could also mean “through” or “by way of”. His eyes drifted to the Egyptian obelisk looming overhead, and an idea came to him. He had been instructed to familiarize himself with Ancient Egyptian. Could the answer lie there? He carried with him a small historical dictionary of Ancient Egyptian. He took it out and thumbed through to the letter M. There it was!

“Mer ancient Egyptian for pyramid. Is there a pyramid in the city? One we could pass through, perhaps?”

Rose’s eyes brightened. “Yes, there is. Come with me.”

It was a short walk to Parc Monceau, a twenty-acre greenspace just north of the Arc de Triomphe. Rose led him along a curved pathway past a Roman colonnade to a miniature pyramid made of bricks.

“They call this the Egyptian Pyramid,” Rose explained. “It was designed by Phillippe d’Orleans, cousin to King Louis XVI. Phillippe was a Freemason and fascinated by all things Egyptian, especially the Hermetica.”

Stone nodded. Hermetica were books of Egyptian magic that had been popular throughout the medieval period and into the Age of Enlightenment.

“Let’s take a look inside.”

The way inside was barred by a padlocked door. Stone broke the lock and they crawled inside. The interior was empty.