Free The Isis Covenant by James Douglas

eternity of torment
.’
    ‘
Out. All of you, out.’ Bassus darted a suspicious glance at me as he left the temple, and in that moment signed his own death warrant. ‘Leave the priest and his son, but remove the rest
.’
    An hour later, when the screams had faded, I emerged into the light to find every man staring at me and the burden I carried. I wiped my bloody sword on a cloth cut from the priest’s green robe
.

X
    IT WAS ANOTHER week before Jamie found the time to visit the Egyptian section of the British Museum. At first it seemed simple, but the more he studied the printout of the file Detective Danny Fisher had sent him the more he realized that something was wrong. The all-seeing eye was a common enough symbol in Egyptology, featuring in amulets, pendants and sculptures, but there was something different about this eye. He spent most of the morning in the museum’s great domed reading room studying dusty tracts and scholarly works. Well after lunchtime, with hunger gnawing at him like a starving rat, he eventually found what he was looking for and an intriguing pencilled cross-reference attached to it. The only problem was, what did it mean?
    He searched for the volume the note referred to, but it wasn’t on the shelf where it should be. The tome was so obscure it didn’t seem likely someone else had borrowed it, more likely it had been put back in the wrong place. Still it was worth checking.
    ‘I’m looking for a book called
Myths and Legends of the Ancient World
. The computer says it should be on the shelf, but it seems to be missing?’
    The girl behind the counter frowned and checked her own computer before turning to an old-fashioned ledger. She shook her head. ‘I thought so. The database hasn’t been updated yet. This title was reported missing three weeks ago. Stolen. You’d be amazed how often it happens.’
    He thanked her, hiding his frustration, and turned away.
    ‘Oh, hang on,’ she called. ‘Yes, I thought I was right. We actually have another copy of
Myths and Legends
, only it’s in our foreign-language section. Would that be of help?’
    When he was certain he had what he was looking for he returned the books and walked across the Great Court and through the pillared entrance onto Great Russell Street. Normally, he would have taken the Tube to Bond Street, but instead he decided to walk back to the office to give himself time to consider what he’d found. His route took him across Tottenham Court Road, and a few minutes later he reached Oxford Street. The quickest way was straight on, but somehow the thought of forcing his way through hordes of damp shoppers didn’t appeal, so he turned down towards Soho Square and then west, letting his feet find the way. It wasn’t until too late that he realized he was being followed. Two of them, in jeans and what the kids called ‘hoodies’ – thick sweatshirts, with all-encompassing cowls that hid their faces. The one on the right was in blue and the other dark brown. Jamie cursed himself for not taking the more obvious route and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Idiot. How could he have lowered his guard like this?
    He glanced back a second time and confirmed his first suspicion. Young men, lean and hard, their fitness apparent in the way they carried themselves. If they’d been muggers they would have walked with a certain amount of aggressive swagger and tried to distract him with some sort of diversion. These men were like Cruise missiles locked on to their target. They were less than twenty paces away and keeping in step with quick, purposeful strides. Fight or run? He looked around for an escape route, but they’d caught him in the perfect place, a narrow street of bars and nightclubs whose shuttered fronts wouldn’t be opened for hours yet. Run then; he was certain he could stay ahead of them until he reached the relative safety of one of the busier streets. But even as he made the decision he saw it was too