Curse of the Druids Read online

“Yes, and no. It wasn’t always an heir to the throne who was favored.”

  “Favored?”

  “According to legend, yes.” Her smile became pained.

  “Then you better not let me near it,” I teased. “Hell, I might just scare the little faeries carrying the damned thing away from you, too.” I laughed.

  “Nick!”

  “I know, I know…. It should be enough that your intentions for the amulet are noble. Right?” I said, firing up the charm and praying it wasn’t too late to put the genie back in the bottle. Especially, since her body’s closeness had me completely aroused and I realized all too late I was about to blow some extra comfort in our bed. Marie tightened the sash around her loosened nightgown, hiding the goodies, as if she could read the regret in my expression. “I get it, babe. Really I do. Your ambition is to lay claim to the amulet in the hope it will become a permanent addition to your dad’s display at the last museum he served as curator. To preserve it for many generations to enjoy, and keep it in the safest museum available, since you trust the staff.”

  Not all bullshit. I believed it mostly was Marie’s true intent. Hell, she had prattled on about it since we left Egypt in June, bringing up the relic and her desire to claim it more than “Bubba” Blue talked about shrimp with Forrest Gump in that movie some years back. Even Ishi was annoyed; telling me privately this must be Marie Da Vinci’s attempt to win the Noble Peace Prize.

  “Don’t pander to me, Nick!” she warned, pulling away and reaching for a bathrobe that had been neatly laid on the bed prior to our arrival. The candy store was shutting down. “You think it’s foolish, don’t you? Like I should send it to auction for the highest bid?”

  “Well… yeah, I guess so,” I admitted, determined to sound sincere, despite the dire desperation that crept into her countenance making it hard not to chuckle. “Especially if any of the unusual properties of legend turn out to have an ounce of truth to them. I’m not saying supernatural aspects… maybe there is some natural phenomenon causing this thing to seem like it disappears. Regardless, whether natural or supernatural, there’s no telling how many millions a piece like it could go for on the open market. And that’s beyond the myth of Merlin and King Ambrosius, and the fact it is located somewhere near Stonehenge—”

  “Which no one can ever know about!” she blurted out.

  Well, wouldn’t you know the side of her that is just like me decided to show up for the dance after all? Yep, that brought the smirk she loathed.

  “Well, honey, it’s gonna be a little tough to keep secret, unless you tell the museum in L.A. you found it at a yard sale in someplace like Bucksnort, Tennessee,” I said, accepting the fact I wouldn’t be getting anything beyond a cold shoulder that night. “Perhaps you can still sell it for top dollar to the museum, like I’ve done in the past. They might give you a hefty sum for it, if you offer to give a sizeable cut to charity.”

  “I don’t care about the money!” she insisted, and as is often the case with her, the bubbling rage went ‘poof!’

  She sauntered back to me while I tried unsuccessfully to understand where her displaced anger had vanished. Smiling knowingly, she loosened her robe and then her nightgown. Heat from the lustful look-over she gave me quickly took precedence, and I scarcely recalled what we argued about. Apparently, the brewing war of words was over… but then I’ll never pretend to fully understand the way a woman thinks.

  “Regardless of whether you believe in the magic of the amulet, just remember it’s not all about kings and queens who benefited from its cloaking ability,” she said, huskily. “The druids managed to get even more out of it, according to what Papa told me long ago, and that you keep forgetting. They were able to have communion with something beyond our earthly realm—gods, goddesses, or alien beings. Consider this, my love: If it turns out this is true and we find the amulet, what would happen if it ever ended up in the wrong hands? An unscrupulous dealer like Yassir Ali, or a murdering millionaire like my Uncle Leo—or some other crazed power monger—would have a field day at the world’s expense!”

  There she goes again… sounding convincingly noble.

  But Marie had a point. Several good points, actually. And, considering we had deposited our gold into three Swiss bank accounts in equal amounts for the three of us, Ishi, Marie, I were set for the rest of our lives. It was no longer about the money… well mostly, it wasn’t. It was much more about building a legacy we could be proud of. Something fitting for a looter with a conscience. Three looters with scruples, I should say.

  If only I believed I’d never want to loot for profit again. Could be bullshit, but as they say, time would tell….

  As far as believing in the supernatural was concerned, I still held my doubts. Not dismissing the recent experience of watching an ancient pyramid blast out of a forgotten Egyptian desert and soar into the sky until it disappeared from view on its way to outer space. That alone said anything is possible. But the further we moved away from that event, the less real it seemed.

  Though I’m not always a gentleman, I made it up to my lovely better half that night, making sure she forgot about her angst and my contribution to it. And true to my desire to be the man she needs, I’ll reveal no further details of how I made sure Marie was smiling peacefully as we cuddled close that night. It took me longer to fall asleep, however. Picturing the next day’s events, I wondered whether it would lead to the answer she sought, or a dead end.

  Chapter Three

  Morning came quicker than I would’ve liked. So said my eyes that were mostly red in the bathroom mirror, despite the excitement that simmered behind emerald irises. That alone told me there would be plenty of adrenaline for the day’s expedition. Hell, we all were ready. After breakfast at the inn, we prepared to launch our journey to Stonehenge… until we found out the damned place didn’t open until 9:30 am.

  “And to think I could’ve slept in,” I joked, upon learning we’d have to wait an hour to head out to our first stop of the day. “Looks like the place is a little more complicated to get to than we assumed, huh?”

  “No one’s stopping you from going back upstairs and catching up on your beauty sleep, Nick.” Marie shot me a loving look that defied her curt tone. “Ishi and I can handle this, since it looks like we can’t get any closer than twenty feet anyway. The monument’s presence should still be amazing, but definitely not near the experience I had as a young girl, when Papa brought me there. The coolness of the stones as I touched them… there’s a feeling of energy that can only be fully appreciated when you can use all of your senses. I hate that you guys will miss out on it.”

  She frowned and shoved the Stonehenge brochure she had just picked up from the registration desk inside her purse.

  Great. Now I felt even more cheated. If we were to alter our visitation plans and return to England in the spring, we could come back when the one-hour tours inside the circle took place. Sort of like a petting zoo time for gargantuan boulders that might even have names for all I knew.

  But losing an entire day could put us at risk. My hunch was we needed to pinpoint our likeliest digging point as soon as possible. The fact that Stonehenge had become much more commercialized than the Honduras jungles, Maldives, and a southwestern Egyptian desert threw a major wrench into our plans. If the recently discovered Bluehenge was also commercialized, we’d be royally screwed.

  “What about the other sites?”

  “The day manager said Woodhenge is easy to get to, and free of charge, but he also said it wasn’t much to look at,” she said. “Bluehenge is presently off limits, since it is still being excavated.”

  Even better. This was like throwing a cold wet blanket on a druid weenie roast. Our presence in England had just become a colossal waste of time.

  “So, I guess we either break all the local laws of the land trying to get to the amulet, or we can find something else to do, huh?”

  “Well, it depends,” said Marie, anxiously. “I had a chance to compare the m
ap of Papa’s with the big map on the wall above the brochure section. I could be wrong, but it looks like the mound is to the west of the Bluehenge site by less than a quarter of a mile. If it is, we might still be in luck.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, Nick. I told you I wasn’t going to give up easily!”

  “Only one way to find out if the amulet’s there or not. Right?” Count on Ishi to tilt the balance of the struggle to Marie.

  Before I agreed to anything, however, I demanded a look at the big map she mentioned.

  “See? There’s a thick embankment of trees growing along the river… right there!” She pointed to a location on the aerial photograph covering the wall in the alcove that also housed two large shelves filled with brochures for a number of tourist attractions in the area. We waited for other guests to vacate the alcove before comparing the wall image to the ancient leather map in her purse. “Doesn’t the small ridge on the wall look similar to the mound drawn next to the River Avon?”

  It did. In truth, this was my first good look at the map in her possession. I expected something barely decipherable, as well as her interpretation of what was there to be greatly influenced by her desire to be right. I prepared myself for the many ways her disappointment could be expressed when I burst her bubble. Thankfully I was wrong.

  “Well, how about that? We might be in business after all,” I told her, admittedly pleased.

  She exchanged a high-five with Ishi, and by nine o’clock we were on the road to the Stonehenge complex. Due to the recent forty-four million dollar renovation to the main park, it would be a new experience for Marie, as well. The dreary sky came with a forecast calling for temperatures ten degrees cooler than yesterday’s wintry chill. By the time we reached the main exit for Stonehenge, sleet pelted the Mercedes’ windshield in repeated waves.

  Just before reaching the exit, Marie veered onto what looked like a frontage road with a sign advising unauthorized vehicles to keep out.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked, more than a wee bit surprised. Ishi gasped behind me once he realized Marie had taken the illegal detour. “I thought we were going to visit Stonehenge?”

  “I’m heading to Bluehenge, instead,” she said, smiling naughtily. “Relax, guys. The clerk named Kenneth at the main desk in Cricket Field told me the area was closed off and deserted until spring. But the road should still take us up to the River Avon. We just can’t get near Bluehenge itself… which should be fine if our assumption that the mound sits to the southwest of the site proves correct.”

  “You mean your assumption,” I corrected her.

  “A short while ago you were comparing maps with me, buster, and could’ve stopped me if you thought it was wrong to proceed,” she said, chuckling. “But you didn’t, Nick. That’s because you’re just as excited to find the mound as I am. Or, would you like for me to turn around, and we can waste the next few hours mingling with tourists while we only get within a stone’s throw of the Stonehenge monument?”

  “I would rather find the mound, Boss!” said Ishi, poking his head between us. “But I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “You won’t go to jail, buddy,” I assured him. “Only Marie, if you’ll join me in telling the Bobbies it was her idea, one hundred percent!”

  “Very funny,” she said, turning her attention to the deteriorating road ahead. “Oh-oh…. Shit, I hope we don’t get stuck!”

  We were approaching the fenced-off site for Bluehenge, which didn’t look like much at first glance. Then again, from what I understood about the site, all that remained were the ancient stone footings to the inner blue stones of Stonehenge, once part of this location. At least that’s the prevalent belief within the scientific community in regard to the role of Bluehenge in the complex that included Stonehenge to the north and Woodhenge to the east.

  When we reached the end of the road, Marie pulled the Viano behind a pile of dirt tall and wide enough to camouflage the vehicle. Then we exited the van and grabbed our surveying and digging gear.

  “Sorry again that you guys missed out on physically experiencing Stonehenge,” said Marie, as we began our trek toward the mound barely detectible next to the river. “According to Papa, in some ways the energy and significance of the area around this mound is better... stronger.”

  “Perhaps,” I agreed, while surveying the area as we approached the river. No sign of anyone else around. So far so good.

  Marie was right… there was something about the place. I could literally feel it. I remembered reading something about frequent druid sacrifices held in the region, although less than a few dozen skeletal remains to serve as proof. Yet, some experts believed that thousands of human sacrifices were dissolved into ashes long since scattered across the Salisbury Plain.

  “What’s up?” Marie asked me, when I absently slowed my pace.

  “Just adjusting to the wind chill,” I told her, zipping up my coat to cover my neck. I pointed to the mound’s end closest to us. “So this is it?”

  “Yep,” she said, stepping down to within ten feet from the river’s edge. “It hardly looks like anything, I know, which is surely why no one has bothered to investigate it or protect it. At least in modern times.”

  True. If she hadn’t previously advised us that the hundred-foot ridge upon the embankment was once used to bury noblemen and their wives during Rome’s brief occupation of the area, I would never have believed it. Not only that, I would never consider anything of value was buried inside what could easily be mistaken as part of the original embankment.

  “I guess we can start digging, huh Nick?”

  Ishi grabbed his shovel, extending it fully as he moved to the head of the four-foot wide ridge.

  “Maybe we should be very careful where we dig, in case the remains are close to the surface?” Marie suggested, after Ishi’s first stab into the side of the mound secured an overflowing shovel-full of mud, plant roots, and other debris. In truth, part of the mound extended below the ground, which as I mentioned made the mound almost undetectable at first glance. The lower portion Ishi dug into was likely the middle of the mound, despite rising several feet above that point.

  “If you’ve got a week to spend out here, sure,” I said, shaking my head at the sudden arrival of her conscience, when all we had talked about recently was grave robbing for an amulet. “But, in these conditions and with a recent run of questionable luck, do you really want to risk a clean get away? I say we stay focused on finding the amulet and save our moral misgivings for the next dig.”

  Harsh, but it had to be. I doubt it was the spirits of the about-to-be-disturbed dead reaching out to me. But a creepy sensation had just hit me, of being studied by something or someone unseen, lurking within the fenced-off Bluehenge area. Prudence told my heart we needed to be quick here. To not linger needlessly, since being discovered by either the Lord of the land, police, or some other menace—natural to the land or invasive from elsewhere—could ruin our efforts in one fell swoop.

  Meanwhile, Ishi vigorously attacked the mound’s head. “It might take a while to get inside this thing,” he announced, after his tenth shoveled mud-load landed on the ground next to the riverbank. “I hope this is the best spot to dig…. Maybe we should have surveyed the entire thing first, no?”

  He raised himself above the ridge, shaking his head as he considered the rest of the structure’s length.

  “Maybe….” My heart began to race as my voice faltered. A dark vehicle sped down the frontage road toward the Bluehenge site.

  “Shit! Do you think they’ll see the van?” asked Marie, in panic, as we scurried to the riverside of the mound, furthest away from the road. Not much leeway, and a misstep would drop us into freezing water. “Maybe everyone’s misgivings about coming here were right!”

  “What in the hell? You mean my misgivings!”

  Indignant as I felt, I needed to keep cool, since my anger could easily give us away. If my voice bellowed any louder, we’d be di
scovered for certain.

  Hard to say if it was a police car or some other security vehicle. No lights were flashing. Regardless, our little maneuver off the beaten path hadn’t gone unnoticed, as we had hoped.

  Fortunately for us, no one stepped out of the vehicle that looked like a modified jeep once it reached our area. After a maddening minute or two of the engine idling, the driver backed up and turned around, without discovering the Viano.

  “Well, this sure doesn’t look good, does it?” I said, grimacing as I urged Marie and Ishi to creep back to the van with me. “Guess it’s time to rethink our plans—after we get the hell out of here!”

  Chapter Four

  “I’ve never seen such dark soil in a place where there are no volcanoes,” said Ishi, soon after we were on the highway back to Salisbury. “And the soil’s consistency… well it was not like I have seen before.”

  “Legends tell us that the druids frequently cremated their dead,” said Marie, after flipping off a slowpoke driver once able to safely pass them. Her voice was calm, but I could tell she was seething inside. Despite all of her earlier optimism, she now shared the pressure of trying to locate the amulet before time ran out on us. “Burial mounds usually don’t share that soil consistency… but maybe they built the damned thing after they had burned quite a few bodies. Maybe the area’s elite didn’t want to be cremated.”

  Or, maybe this was just a strange coincidence that meant absolutely nothing, with no ties to anything of archaeological note. Of course, I kept my initial thoughts private. Better to consider the pile of horseshit such comments can land me in before foolhardily jumping in.

  “What do you think, Nick?” asked Marie, glancing at me knowingly, despite her eyes once again camouflaged by her shades. The sun had broken through the cloud cover, bringing a sudden cessation to the sleet and rain.

  “I think it could be volcanic, since you are incorrect, Ishi my man. There are nine dormant volcanoes in the UK, and one—Mount Michael—was active in 2005. But, regardless of the source for the rich soil we’re dealing with, we need to be very careful in our approach going forward,” I said, offering an awkward smile to Ishi, who frowned and pulled out his iPad, working furiously to confirm what I just told him. “We’ve already agreed to come back here tomorrow, but we need a better back-up plan in case these guys show up again. Some kind of believable ruse.”