Free Curse of the Druids by Aiden James

The police can get you now for trespassing.”
    “True,” I said, handing him twice the fee tallied by the meter in the dashboard, in hopes he didn’t alert anyone to our requested drop off point. “We’re meeting some old friends who will pick us up in a while. Just want to have a look around, is all.”
    Marie and Ishi rolled with the ruse, and our driver merely shrugged and shook his head watching us exit his car. Then he sped off, as if afraid he might incur some jail time for staying too long in the park’s forbidden zone.
    Maybe we should’ve waited until Freddie and his checkered cab disappeared from view. But seeing a handful of people mulling about, just beyond Bluehenge’s eastern border, was enough to get us hurrying to the mound site. Hard to say if any of these folks noticed our presence, or not. Despite Marie’s worry they were associated with Yassir Ali, I felt confident they were merely tourists and would ignore us.
    “The van is gone!” Ishi announced, once we reached the hill of dirt that had camouflaged it poorly the day before.
    “Shit!” hissed Marie. “Now what do we do?!”
    “Well, we don’t panic,” I said, scanning the area for anything obvious—human or landmark—to help me decide what to do next. Obviously, I was wrong and the ‘Plan B’ that should’ve been discussed earlier was being hatched in my head right then. I scanned the area to buy time. Other than a pair of deer feeding near the tree line by the Bluestone site, I didn’t detect any other living creature in our immediate area. But I didn’t see any other obvious landmarks either. “We should fan out and see if we can find anything that looks remotely like the image on your map, Marie.”
    She had handed the map over to me in the taxi, and so far, nothing other than the mound we had previously explored looked like a suitable location to match the map’s target. Even so, all three of us spent the better part of an hour combing much of the area while keeping watchful eyes out for snipers and anyone else potentially hostile. We didn’t stop until we reached the restrictive barbwire marking where archaeologists were still piecing together an immense puzzle nearly as old as Stonehenge itself.
    “Maybe we’re not intended to find the amulet,” suggested Ishi, sounding defeated. “Maybe we should come back again some other time.”
    “Maybe,” echoed Marie.
    My heart damn near skipped a beat, but I knew better than to allow even a hint of joy to manifest in my expression. Especially, since it could be construed as gloating by my gal pal.
    “We can come back in a few months,” I assured her. “After things have cooled down in the search for our whereabouts—”
    “I want to check the mound one last time!” she interrupted me, turning her gaze longingly to the slight ridge by the riverside.
    Are you frigging serious?!
    “I don’t want to waste the day down inside there, babe,” I said, as gently as my agitated state of mind would allow.
    “Just give me fifteen minutes—tops. That’s all I need… I promise!”
    Before I could say anything else, she was already on her way to the mound. Ishi ran after her, and I pursued them both, scanning the area one last time as I ran. The tourists remained where I had last seen them. I prayed that they, and anyone else who might be in the area, truly ignored our presence near the mound.
    The rocks I had placed by the hole in the mound’s side were still there, and looked undisturbed. Marie and Ishi pushed them aside, and then she climbed into the crypt first with him right behind her. Her surprised squeal of “Oh my God!” almost made me lose my balance as I followed Ishi inside the hole.
    Honestly I expected a snake, eel, or maybe a note from Yassir Ali advising we had been duped and he and his men were on the way back to Egypt with the Ambrosius Amulet. But that last part would’ve been impossible. Impossible, because I was staring at the damned thing, glistening