3 Blood Lines Read Free Page A

later, the seal, broken cleanly in two, halves held in place by the preservative, lay on the cotton pad.
    As one, the Department of Egyptology remembered how to breathe.
     
    He felt the seal break, heard the fracture resonate throughout the ages.
    He remembered who he was. What he was. What they had done to him.
    He remembered anger.
    He drew on the anger for strength, then he threw himself against his bonds. Too much of the spell remained; he was now aware but still as bound as he had been. His ka howled in silent frustration.
    I will be free!
    “Soon,” came the quiet answer. “Soon.”
     
    It took the rest of the day to clear the mortar. In spite of mounting paperwork, Dr. Rax remained in the workroom.
    “Well, whatever they sealed up in here, they certainly didn’t make it easy to get to.” Dr. Shane straightened, one hand rubbing the small of her back. “You’re sure that his lordship had no idea of where the venerable ancestor picked this up?”
    Dr. Rax ran one finger along the joint. “No, none.” He had expected to be elated once work finally began but he found he was only impatient. Everything moved so slowly—a fact he was well aware of and shouldn’t even be considering as a problem. He scrubbed at his eyes and tried to banish the disquieting vision of taking a sledge to the stone.
    Dr. Shane sighed and bent back to the mortar. “What I wouldn’t give for some contextual information.”
    “We’ll know everything we need to when we get the sarcophagus open.”
    She glanced up at him, one raised brow disappearing under a curl of dark hair. “You seem very sure of that.”
    “I am.” And he was, very sure. In fact he knew that they would have all the answers they needed when the sarcophagus was finally opened although he had no idea where that knowledge came from. He wiped suddenly sweaty palms on his trousers. No idea . . .
    By the time they finished removing the mortar, it was too late to do any further work that day—or more exactly, that night. They would see what their stone box contained in the morning.
    That night, Dr. Rax dreamed of a griffinlike animal with the body of an antelope and the head of a bird. It peered down at him with too-bright eyes and laughed. He got up, barely rested, at dawn and was at the museum hours before the rest of the department arrived. He intended to avoid the workroom, to use the extra time for the administrative paperwork that threatened to bury his desk, but his key was in the lock and his hand was pushing open the door before his conscious mind registered the action.
    “I almost did it,” he said as Dr. Shane came in some time later. He was sitting in an orange plastic chair, hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles were white.
    She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Good thing you’re too much of a scientist to give way to impulse,” she told him lightly, privately thinking that he looked like shit. “As soon as the others get here, we’ll get this over with.”
    “Over with,” he echoed.
    Dr. Shane frowned, then shook her head, deciding not to speak. After all, what could she say? That just for a moment the Curator of the Department of Egyptology had neither sounded nor looked like himself? Maybe he wasn’t the only one not getting enough sleep.
     
    Five hours and seven rolls of film later, the inner coffin lay on padded wooden supports, free of its encasing stone for the first time in millennia.
    “Well,” Dr. Shane frowned down at the painted wood, “that’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”
    The rest of the department nodded in agreement; except for Dr. Rax who fought not to step forward and throw off the lid.
    The coffin was anthropomorphic but only vaguely. There were no features either carved into or painted on the wood, nor any symbols of Anubis or Osiris as might be expected. Instead, a mighty serpent coiled its length around the coffin, its head, marked with the cartouche of Thoth, resting above the breast of the mummy.