Read Online Tear of the Gods by Alex Archer - Free Book Online
Authors: Alex Archer
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure
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Jackson.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Good enough.” Shaw turned and headed back up the stairs, but stopped before he’d gotten more than a few steps away. He turned to face Jackson once more.
“This woman, the one with the sword. Do we know who she was?”
Jackson nodded. “An American archaeologist named Annja Creed.” He took a photo out of the file folder in his hands and passed it to Shaw. The picture had been taken on-site and showed Annja’s still and bloody face.
The other man stared at it for a few seconds, then passed it back.
“She was a pretty thing, wasn’t she?”
10
Annja came to with a start.
She was on her back, staring up into the sky. Light was just starting to peek over the horizon, which meant she been out for several hours, maybe more. Her head hurt something fierce and when she tried to move it she was nearly overwhelmed with a wave of dizziness that threatened to return her to the darkness from which she’d just come. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth and fought it off.
The ground beneath her rolled gently, reminding her of how it felt to drift on an inflatable raft in a swimming pool, but in her pain and confusion she didn’t pay it any mind.
Until she tried to sit up.
She put her hands down flat on either side, barely registering the cold, clammy feel of whatever she’d placed them upon, and tried to lever herself into an upright position. When she did, the surface she was laying on shifted dramatically beneath her, tilting to one side and dumping her face-first into a thick pool of muck.
In her surprise she panicked, flailing her limbs, feeling the muck pulling at her, dragging her down, but then her feet hit the bottom and she realized she wouldn’t drown if she could just get control of herself.
She stopped thrashing, planted her feet firmly beneath her and stood up straight, bringing her head back above the surface. She gasped in a lungful of air and then breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that the muck only came to her waist.
Her relief was short-lived, however.
As she looked around, the dim morning light revealed that she was standing in the middle of an active bog, surrounded by the partially submerged corpses of her former colleagues!
What had happened the night before came rushing back—the sudden appearance of armed intruders at the dig site, the demands to surrender the torc, the deadly gunfire when the archaeologists had refused to do as requested and her own struggle to get as many of her fellow scholars to safety in spite of it all.
The last thing she remembered was staring down the barrel of a gun and her last-ditch effort to get out of the way of the bullet….
Her head throbbed, a not-so-subtle reminder that she apparently hadn’t moved quickly enough.
She brought a hand up toward the side of her head, wanting to know just how bad the wound might be, but stopped herself when she saw the thick coating the peat bog had left on her limbs. There was already enough of it dripping from her head; rubbing it deeper into an open wound didn’t seem like a bright idea.
Despite the early hour, it was already light enough for Annja to see the bullet wounds and dark splotches of blood that stained the bodies around her. These weren’t strangers; she recognized several of them. She recognized Paolo Novick from his curly gray hair. The bright yellow of an NAU sweatshirt identified another body as that of Sheila James, one of the graduate students who’d come overseas just last week. There was Matthew Blake and Dalton Ribisi and… She turned away, shaking off the feeling of despair that threatened to overwhelm her. Several of the dead lay with their eyes open, staring into nothingness, and Annja had the sudden urge to reach out and close them, pulling the blinds on the windows of the souls that had long since fled.
Knowing how close she’d come to her own death, and seeing the deaths of others she cared about, set a red-hot fire burning in her
“Understood, sir.”
“Good enough.” Shaw turned and headed back up the stairs, but stopped before he’d gotten more than a few steps away. He turned to face Jackson once more.
“This woman, the one with the sword. Do we know who she was?”
Jackson nodded. “An American archaeologist named Annja Creed.” He took a photo out of the file folder in his hands and passed it to Shaw. The picture had been taken on-site and showed Annja’s still and bloody face.
The other man stared at it for a few seconds, then passed it back.
“She was a pretty thing, wasn’t she?”
10
Annja came to with a start.
She was on her back, staring up into the sky. Light was just starting to peek over the horizon, which meant she been out for several hours, maybe more. Her head hurt something fierce and when she tried to move it she was nearly overwhelmed with a wave of dizziness that threatened to return her to the darkness from which she’d just come. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth and fought it off.
The ground beneath her rolled gently, reminding her of how it felt to drift on an inflatable raft in a swimming pool, but in her pain and confusion she didn’t pay it any mind.
Until she tried to sit up.
She put her hands down flat on either side, barely registering the cold, clammy feel of whatever she’d placed them upon, and tried to lever herself into an upright position. When she did, the surface she was laying on shifted dramatically beneath her, tilting to one side and dumping her face-first into a thick pool of muck.
In her surprise she panicked, flailing her limbs, feeling the muck pulling at her, dragging her down, but then her feet hit the bottom and she realized she wouldn’t drown if she could just get control of herself.
She stopped thrashing, planted her feet firmly beneath her and stood up straight, bringing her head back above the surface. She gasped in a lungful of air and then breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that the muck only came to her waist.
Her relief was short-lived, however.
As she looked around, the dim morning light revealed that she was standing in the middle of an active bog, surrounded by the partially submerged corpses of her former colleagues!
What had happened the night before came rushing back—the sudden appearance of armed intruders at the dig site, the demands to surrender the torc, the deadly gunfire when the archaeologists had refused to do as requested and her own struggle to get as many of her fellow scholars to safety in spite of it all.
The last thing she remembered was staring down the barrel of a gun and her last-ditch effort to get out of the way of the bullet….
Her head throbbed, a not-so-subtle reminder that she apparently hadn’t moved quickly enough.
She brought a hand up toward the side of her head, wanting to know just how bad the wound might be, but stopped herself when she saw the thick coating the peat bog had left on her limbs. There was already enough of it dripping from her head; rubbing it deeper into an open wound didn’t seem like a bright idea.
Despite the early hour, it was already light enough for Annja to see the bullet wounds and dark splotches of blood that stained the bodies around her. These weren’t strangers; she recognized several of them. She recognized Paolo Novick from his curly gray hair. The bright yellow of an NAU sweatshirt identified another body as that of Sheila James, one of the graduate students who’d come overseas just last week. There was Matthew Blake and Dalton Ribisi and… She turned away, shaking off the feeling of despair that threatened to overwhelm her. Several of the dead lay with their eyes open, staring into nothingness, and Annja had the sudden urge to reach out and close them, pulling the blinds on the windows of the souls that had long since fled.
Knowing how close she’d come to her own death, and seeing the deaths of others she cared about, set a red-hot fire burning in her
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