Serpent's Kiss. Alex Archer

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      W ITH CAREFUL DELIBERATION , Annja checked the scale representation of the burial pit she’d drawn. So far everything was going easily, but she suspected it was the calm before the storm.

      The drawing looked good. She’d also backed up the sketch with several captured digital images using her camera. In the old days, archaeologists only had a pad and paper to record data and findings. She liked working that way. It felt as if it kept her in touch with the roots of her chosen field.

      She stared at the body she’d exhumed. From the flared hips, she felt certain that the bones had been a woman. She resolved to have Jason make the final call on that, though.

      Lightning flickered and thunder pealed almost immediately after. The storm was drawing closer.

      “Annja.”

      Glancing up, Annja spotted the elfin figure of Professor Lochata Rai, the dig’s supervisor. Lochata was only five feet tall and weighed about ninety pounds. She was in her early sixties, but still spry and driven. She wore khakis and looked ready for a trek across the Gobi Desert.

      “It is time for you to rise up out of there. The rain is coming,” the professor said.

      Annja looked past the woman at the scudding clouds that filled the sky. Irritation flared through her at the time she was losing.

      “We must cover this excavation pit,” Lochata said. “Perhaps it will not rain too hard and we won’t lose anything.”

      “I know. This really stinks because we just got down far enough to take a good look at what’s here,” Annja said.

      Lochata squatted at the edge of the pit. She held her pith helmet in her tiny hands over her knees. “You’re too impatient. You have your whole life ahead of you, and history isn’t going anywhere. This site will be here tomorrow.”

      “I keep telling myself that. But I also keep telling myself that once I finish this I can move on to something else.” Annja stowed her gear in her backpack.

      Lochata shook her head. “You expect to find something exciting and different?”

      “I hope to.” Annja pulled her backpack over her shoulder and climbed the narrow wooden ladder out of the pit. “I always hope to.”

      “I do not.” Lochata offered her hand as Annja neared the top. “Finding something you did not expect means you didn’t do your research properly. It also means extra work and possibly having to call someone else in to verify what you have found.”

      Annja understood that, but she also liked the idea of the new, the undiscovered and the unexpected. Lately, her life had been filled with that. She thought she was growing addicted to it.

      Once on the ground outside the pit, Annja stood with her arms out from her sides as if she were going to take flight. The wind blew almost hard enough to move her. Perspiration had soaked her clothing.

      “Drink.” Lochata held out a water bottle and smiled. “Hydrate or die.”

      Annja smiled back and accepted the water. The rule was a basic one for anyone who challenged the elements. She opened the bottle and drank deeply.

      The dig site was in the jungle fringe that bordered the Indian Ocean. Kanyakumari lay as far south on the Indian continent as a person could go. They were forty miles west of there on a cliff twenty-seven feet above sea level. The ocean stretched to the south under the whirling storm clouds. Whitecaps broke the dark-blue surface.

      “What are you thinking?” Lochata asked.

      Annja grinned self-consciously. She didn’t like to get caught daydreaming. The nuns who’d raised her in a New Orleans orphanage had worked hard to train that distraction out of her. It hadn’t worked.

      “I was just thinking about how many ships have been through those waters,” Annja admitted.

      “Ah, СКАЧАТЬ