Hollywood Scream Play Read Free Page A

women bless me to Allah, I toss the gun at the girl’s mother, along with the ammo cache that I found in the back of the rebels’ car. “God’s gift is not me, but your own lives. Keep moving,” I command them.
    Then I dart back out into the dark desert night.
    I have no doubt they’ll make it. The mother smiled when what was left of her captor’s head hit the sandy asphalt.
    I would have reached my destination quicker, but a skirmish between some tribe and another band of marauders forces me to loop out so far from the target coordinates that it takes me another twenty minutes to get back on course.
    When, finally, I enter the narrow mouth of the canyon, I yank off my helmet and scan the valley before me for anything that resembles an excavation.
    Then I see it: the ruins surrounding Bilqis’ tomb.
    In the dawn’s early light, the outline of the ancient mounds resemble a sleeping old woman, fatigued and limbs akimbo. For the past three millennia, the hot breath of the desert has been blowing sheets of sand against her crumbling flanks.
    Silence shrouds every corner of the ruins. Good, I’m alone. But just in case someone else comes calling while I’m inside, I hide my bike behind a copse of scrub trees.
    Now that two thousand years of dust has been moved from a hole some sixty feet wide and 100 feet deep, a massive tomb, built on the backs of a thousand Sabaean slaves, is nakedly exposed.
    Wraiths of dust, caught in the dawn’s early light, waltz lazily around the clay pillars flanking its entrance. Carved onto each is a likeness of the queen of Sheba. On one, the canes she holds in each of her hands are topped with the heads of lions. Her straight-on stare is blank, her eyes filled solid with clay.
    On the other pillar, Bilqis is in profile. Her eye—a slit, really—is dark, fathomless.
    I take a switchblade from the back of my boot. Following our client’s instructions, I stab the empty-eyed silhouette once, quickly and deeply.
    When the blade connects with a clasp buried deep within the eyehole, a tiny trap door at my feet slides open. It’s just large enough for me to drop down into it.
    Okay, no. My shoulders are stuck.
    “What’s taking so long?” The impatience in Jack’s voice is enough incentive to shift my arms. They are squeezing my breasts to the point that I’ve given myself the kind of cleavage I’ve only dreamed of.  Hmmm . I should pose like this more often—
    And that does the trick. I fall through the opening—
    Onto some sort of slide that takes me on a ride in pitch darkness.
    Finally, I skid to a stop. With trembling hands, I flick on my flashlight. The shadows swallow its glow. Still, I angle its beam around the room. Despite its massive size, the room is empty, except for a rectangular stone box—six feet in width, three feet in depth, and only three feet wide.
    “The queen of Sheba’s sarcophagus!” Jack’s awed whisper echoes in my ear.
    The lid has been nudged to one side, but only by a few inches.
    I take a deep breath as I give it a shove. It is hinged in such a way that it slides open easily—not with a creak, but with a whisper.
    The body inside is tiny, almost childlike. It is wrapped in weathered strips of cloth.
    The scepter is clutched in her sheathed hands.
    I shudder. Jack must see my head shaking because he says, “I know this sounds callous, but if we’re going to get out of here anytime soon, you’re just going to have to go for it.”
    “I know.” Still, I feel creepy.
    Like a grave robber.
    I try to uncoil Bilqis’ stiffened fingers from the scepter, but she won’t let go. Soon I’m in a wrestling match with her. To give myself some leverage, I step up on the ledge of the pedestal beneath the sarcophagus, grab the scepter with both hands, and jerk it back, as hard and as fast as I can.
    I’ve torn it loose.
    But one of her hands is still clutching it.
    Gently, I pull it off, and place it back on her chest.
    I swear, I don’t like the way she’s