Page 50 of Ancient Obsession

The halls of the Earth Sciences building smelled of chemicals and industrial cleaners, all layered over the hint of dry, dusty stone. People in a wide range of genders and ages filled the hallways, moving between classes or lingering to catch up. They threaded a path through the crowd and stopped outside the door that led to the control room. Oliver reached for the handle, then stopped.

“Do you think Dr. Brennan will be in there?”

“Ugh. I hope not. I don’t want to be verbally scorched again.”

“Yeah, same.” Oliver took a steadying breath before he tried the door. It was locked. “Maybe she left?”

“Or she’s freaked out about two of her team members being murdered and locked herself in,” Robin said. “One way to find out.” They reached past Oliver and knocked.

After a brief silence, a low voice on the other side of the door asked, “Who is it?”

“Hi, Vera, it’s me, Robin. I was with you the other evening when the coffin was opened. Oliver’s here with me, too.”

“What do you two want? I’m working.”

“Vera,” Oliver said. “We’d like to talk with you. We won’t take up a lot of your time, I promise. Can we come in for just a few minutes? You can leave the door open if it makes you feel better.”

Nothing happened. Oliver was about to give up and walk away when the handle went down and the door opened. Vera had her phone up and pointing at them.

“I’m recording this to my iCloud account. If anything happens, people will see it.”

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Oliver assured her. “We both have some questions about that stuff that got on all of us. We just want to talk with you.”

“Okay, come on in.” Vera backed toward the control panel, keeping her phone up. “But stay on that side of the room.”

Oliver allowed Robin to go first. Before he followed, he gave the outer door handle a quick try. It was still locked. When he entered the room, he tried the inside handle and it moved easily. If Amenmose had risen from the dead, he could have let himself out of the room. That was a terrifying thought.

The door to the inner room was shut, but Oliver could see the coffin through the observation window. Shadows gathered inside it, making it appear spookier than if the mummy still lay inside.

“I’ve figured out a few things,” Vera said.

“Whatever you know would be great to hear.”

“Yeah, like, are we infected with something now?” Robin said.

“No, not infected. But we are…I guess marked is the best way to put it.”

“Marked?” Oliver repeated. “In what way?”

Apparently sensing they weren’t as much of a threat as she’d feared, Vera stood her phone up against the control panel, still recording them. She picked up her own journal, a match to Dr. Brennan’s and Samira’s. After leafing through pages, she stopped to read a moment.

“It’s a spore of some kind, most likely fungal, but I’m not familiar with it, and I’ve been unable to find a match for it in my research. I know Egypt traded with several different regions, and many of their body preservation techniques used oils and a variety of imported plants and fungi that were ground up and mixed in.”

“That’s what was inside that pouch?” Robin asked.

“Right. It was a highly concentrated dose. If I had access to the body itself, I could test a small sample of the bandages and see if it’s present.”

Oliver considered revealing he’d found a piece of bandage. Would Vera go to the police and turn him in? It might be worth the risk, but he wasn’t sure he could trust her.

Before he could act on his decision, Dylan entered the room. He stopped just inside the door, narrowed eyes shifting from Robin to Oliver.

“What the fuck are you two doing here?”

Panic raced up Oliver’s spine. “We’re just talking with Vera, that’s all.”

Dylan approached and stood close. Heat rolled off his muscular body. He smelled of a mixture of scents geared specifically toward men: evergreen body wash and some kind of sporty deodorant. His eyes were dark and intense as he towered over him. “You’re not part of this team. You have no business being here.”

“Hey, we got hit with that cloud of stuff, too,” Robin said. They waved toward Oliver. “And if it weren’t for Oliver, that lid would have damaged the mummy.”