Valkyrie's curse copyright 2012 Ellie Mack
PART II
Scott woke from the sound of crows cawing outside, and groggily looked at his watch. “Oh shit!”
He glanced over, Helena curled into him on the cot. He
softly kissed her forehead and eased his arm from around her, carefully lifting
to not disturb her. He wanted so badly
to have her wake in his arms so he could kiss her, but he needed to get the
site mapped before the professor and his team showed up.
He made his way to the latrine and the showers. The shock of
the cold water woke him up instantly. Ducking into his tent to change, he
grabbed one of his thick bulky sweaters to pull over his tee. The morning air was chilly, he could see his
breath but by early afternoon it would be sunny and warm.
Brad was already up, and had made coffee. “’Bout time you got up. I wondered if we were going to make it before
the bigwigs showed up.”
Scott grunted in his general direction and filled his 20
ounce thermal cup with coffee.
Brad chuckled to himself, tucking several of the prepackaged
muffins in his multi pocketed vest, along with granola bars, two apples, and
several candy bars.
“Geez man, you feeding an army?” Scott shot at him.
“Nope, it’ all for me.” Brad sipped his coffee then grabbed
a couple bottles of the juice. “And I ain’t sharing so you better get your own.”
Brad tucked a few things into his backpack, opening a Cliff
bar to munch on now. He grumbled to
himself as he picked through the assortment to find something he liked. He’d prefer to stick around till the cook
brought the eggs and bacon, but knew they were cutting it close as it was.
The four wheeler was already loaded with their equipment and
the grid markers. The two men climbed in and took off to the dig site. Brad had
his tablet and the GPS locater to pinpoint
their marker locations.
The site was a half mile from their camp. Scott munched on his bar, and drank his
coffee while Brad drove. When they reached the site, the two worked diligently
together. It took them a little over an
hour to put every marker in place and fire up the system. There were a few tweaks to get it
operational, but Brad and Scott had worked together setting up the grids
before. They worked in sync well with
each other with minimal conversation, each knowing their part.
By the time they returned to camp, the cook was just
clearing out the cold breakfast foods. “Wait!” Scott jumped out of the four wheeler before
it had completely stopped and ran over to Joe. “Hey man, we didn’t get to eat.
What’s left?”
Joe motioned to the tray of sausage links and a little mound
of scrambled eggs. Scott immediately
scooped them up, an popped his paper plate into the microwave. There was nothing like real food in the
morning. He ate quickly then helped Joe clean up before he made his way to
Helena’s tent.
He cleared his throat before he spoke “Hey, you up? Are you
decent?”
“Yeah I’m up. Come on in.”
He ducked through the flap to find her sitting on the cot
brushing her long hair. “Thought you’d
be here when I woke up.”
“I wanted to, but we had to get the grid set up before
everyone showed up. “
“Right” She sounded
annoyed. She worked quickly braiding her
hair into a single plait.
“Are you upset with me?”
He moved closer to her, kneeling in front of her searching her eyes. “I
thought you’d rather we were ready for the professor.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “Scott. It’s not that. Did we?”
He grinned widely. “Not yet.
Do I still stand a chance?”
She leaned forward hugging him. She kissed him lightly. “You
must think I’m terrible. I didn’t think
we did, but I remember pulling you in with me this morning. Sorry.”
He kissed her, gently but growing more demanding. “Helena. I don’t think you’re terrible. “
The sound of vehicles rolling in were shortly followed by
the chattering of the undergrads as they offloaded from the busses. “Well, looks like it’s show time. Maybe we could pick up later?” He kissed her forehead as he stood, and
handed her the tablet. “Let’s greet the
crew, shall we?” He extended his hand,
lifting her from the cot.
Brad and Joe had directed them to their tents to stow their
gear and bags. Helena and Scott made
their way to the mess tent and waited for the undergrads. They straggled in a few at a time until the
large tent was filled with the twenty
undergrads. Scott opened with the
intro as Brad passed out the research folders to each of them.
They went over procedures, clean rules, and answered
questions. By the time they had covered
everything, Dr. Montgomery and his entourage pulled into camp. Helena dismissed
them by telling them to go get set up in their tents and study their folders.
Helena, Scott, and Brad accompanied Dr. Montgomery, Dr.
Sheffield, and their assistants to the dig site. They briefed the professors on the finds so
far, on their thesis compared to the previous findings, and what they had
accomplished so far. Dr. Sheffield was impressed at the three dimensional
grid display on the portable tablet.
The small group stayed through the evening meal, although
they didn’t eat much. Before leaving, Dr. Montgomery pulled Helena aside. “NIalls will be staying to keep an eye on
things. If you need to contact me for
any reason, just go through him.”
She tried to hide her disappointment at his lackey being
left to watch over them. Really she
should be used to it by now, it was the same with every dig she’d been involved
with. They always had to have their man
in camp. It was infuriating, but it was
part of the price of getting paid.
By the time the camp settled in, in was ten at night. Scott followed Helena into her tent, turning
her around immediately and kissing her.
He had been wanting to kiss her all day,
had wanted her in his arms ever since he had slipped out of her cot that
morning. They eased down on the cot
together, kissing , caressing, each getting to know the other in a new intimate
way. He eased his hand under her shirt
cupping and squeezing her breast.
Helena tensed. It
wasn’t that she didn’t want him, what would he think of her? What would be his response to the scars on her
body from the surgeries?
Scott sensed her tensing and decided that perhaps it was too
much too soon. “He pulled back from the kiss. I guess I’m rushing you. Didn’t mean to.” He slid his hand out from under her
sweatshirt, then stood. “I better let
you get some sleep. We’ll uh,” He scratched his head puzzled about her
behavior, wondering how he’d misinterpreted her signs so poorly. “We’ll talk in
the morning. Good night Helena.”
He ducked through the opening and was gone. Helena sat there frozen. What just happened? His hand had been nowhere near her scars. She shook her head wondering how she screwed
that up. She lay back on the cot staring
at the seam of the tent for several minutes before deciding she couldn’t sleep
now. She grabbed her flashlight and
walked to the work tent. The grid that
Scott and Brad had set up was perfect.
The date from the radar equipment showed a maze of tunnels, and three
chambers adjoining. There were two
trails leading exactly east and west from the central chamber. The first tunnel that was discovered by Sune
Lundquist was partially exposed. From
previous explorations they had braced the tunnel, cleaned it out to the point
of a stone wall. The wall had many
Viking runes on it. Brad was their
language expert and he was working on the translations. So far he had picked out the words moonlight,
key, Nefflheim, and Valkyrie. From age
the runes had been weathered some, but as it was protected in an underground
tunnel it would just take some more detailed work to decipher.
The stone wall was a massive thing extending four feet to
either side of the tunnel. The tunnel
leading down was at a fifteen degree decline.
The group had a narrow window to work in before the rainy season, as
there was evidence that the water collected in front of the wall to a depth of
seven feet at times.
She flipped on the monitors, amazed at the design. From an aerial view it was very close to a
Triskel. The tunnels were perhaps a
little straighter stretching the design out into an oblong pattern. A movement caught her eye. When she glanced over at the monitor there
was a man in the tunnel. He held a torch
as he carefully stepped through the corridor.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my dig?” Had Dr. Montgomery left someone to sabotage
them? Was it Nialls? She looked closer. The man had long blond hair, and a mustache,
resembling a younger Hulk Hogan. She’d never seen this man before. He must be there to steal artifacts, or
sabotage their dig. Either way she wasn’t going to tolerate it. “ Oh no you don’t. this is my dig mister.”
Helena grabbed the rifle and handgun and set them both in
the small cage of the four wheeler and took off in a shot. The tires spat gravel as she gunned the
engine. She spun to a stop, taking her
flashlight from her belt. Where was he? She shone her light in the direction of the
tunnel, and two coyotes scurried away.
She strapped the gun over her shoulder and tucked the handgun into its
place on her belt. “I’m not in the mood
to be playing games with saboteurs.” She
rang Scott, but he didn’t answer. She
rang the local authorities and got an answering machine. She left a hurried message, “ This is Helena
Morris from the University of Wisconsin, in coordination with the Denmark
association of Archaeological research.
We have an intruder at our site, white male, long blond hair,
mustache. He is on the premises
now. I’m going in.”
It wasn’t the smartest thing she could do by any means. It would be best to wait for some of the
guys, but she was ticked. This had been
her dream project for years, discovering a site that had to do with her family’s
heritage.
She stomped over the clumpy grass to the entrance of the
tunnel, shining her light down the tunnel as she squatted down. “Hey.
I know you’re in there. Come on
out now.” She waited for a few minutes
with no response.
She said a little louder “Hey! I know you can hear me in there. I saw you on the monitors. This is a closed site. You need to get out of there now.”
She waited. ‘Right! He just had to be difficult.’ She stepped down into the tunnel, her flashlight in her
hand, cautiously moving forward. She
passed the first set of aged timbers supporting the tunnel. Flashing the light
behind her, then back in front of her she eased forward slowly. Her foot caught on a stone in the floor and
she tumbled headlong down the incline, ramming her hand into the next set of
timbers.
“Ow! Ow! “ She groped on the floor for the flashlight
that had been knocked from her hand. There
was a large cut on the back of her hand, blood trickling down. Two of her nails had been broken, and the
skin just above her cuticles had been scraped, blood welling it the spots. She stood, placing her hand against the
tunnel walls for support. She took two
cautious steps forward and her flashlight died.
No matter how hard she beat the thing it wouldn’t work. She clicked it on and off, but nothing. “Of course!”
Easing forward even slower in the dark, she felt along the
damp, cold wall of the tunnel. Her hand
hit the next timber support, and it moved.
As it shifted, a huge chunk of dirt fell from the ceiling, along
with the sodded grass from above. A few meager rays of bright moonlight
filtered in showing her clearly the stone wall less than five feet in front of
her. ‘Where did he go? She hadn’t passed him. Maybe he ran out before she had arrived. That would be about her luck.’
She glanced around, seeing nothing but the wall, and turned
to leave. AS she did, she lost her
footing in the dirt and clumps of grass and stumbled back toward the wall. Frantic she turned to catch herself, landing
palms first on the stone wall. Only it
just disappeared and she fell through it, landing at the feet of the man she
had seen.
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