Serpent's Kiss. Alex Archer

supervisor. Lochata was only five feet tall and weighed about ninety pounds. She was in her early sixties, but still spry and driven. She wore khakis and looked ready for a trek across the Gobi Desert.

      “It is time for you to rise up out of there. The rain is coming,” the professor said.

      Annja looked past the woman at the scudding clouds that filled the sky. Irritation flared through her at the time she was losing.

      “We must cover this excavation pit,” Lochata said. “Perhaps it will not rain too hard and we won’t lose anything.”

      “I know. This really stinks because we just got down far enough to take a good look at what’s here,” Annja said.

      Lochata squatted at the edge of the pit. She held her pith helmet in her tiny hands over her knees. “You’re too impatient. You have your whole life ahead of you, and history isn’t going anywhere. This site will be here tomorrow.”

      “I keep telling myself that. But I also keep telling myself that once I finish this I can move on to something else.” Annja stowed her gear in her backpack.

      Lochata shook her head. “You expect to find something exciting and different?”

      “I hope to.” Annja pulled her backpack over her shoulder and climbed the narrow wooden ladder out of the pit. “I always hope to.”

      “I do not.” Lochata offered her hand as Annja neared the top. “Finding something you did not expect means you didn’t do your research properly. It also means extra work and possibly having to call someone else in to verify what you have found.”

      Annja understood that, but she also liked the idea of the new, the undiscovered and the unexpected. Lately, her life had been filled with that. She thought she was growing addicted to it.

      Once on the ground outside the pit, Annja stood with her arms out from her sides as if she were going to take flight. The wind blew almost hard enough to move her. Perspiration had soaked her clothing.

      “Drink.” Lochata held out a water bottle and smiled. “Hydrate or die.”

      Annja smiled back and accepted the water. The rule was a basic one for anyone who challenged the elements. She opened the bottle and drank deeply.

      The dig site was in the jungle fringe that bordered the Indian Ocean. Kanyakumari lay as far south on the Indian continent as a person could go. They were forty miles west of there on a cliff twenty-seven feet above sea level. The ocean stretched to the south under the whirling storm clouds. Whitecaps broke the dark-blue surface.

      “What are you thinking?” Lochata asked.

      Annja grinned self-consciously. She didn’t like to get caught daydreaming. The nuns who’d raised her in a New Orleans orphanage had worked hard to train that distraction out of her. It hadn’t worked.

      “I was just thinking about how many ships have been through those waters,” Annja admitted.

      “Ah, yes.” Lochata’s eyes glittered. “The Romans, the Egyptians, ships from China’s Ming Dynasty.”

      “Vasco da Gama was the first European to sail the Indian Ocean,” Annja said. “He was looking for a trade route around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.”

      “The British took over after that,” Lochata said. “They brought their ships loaded with cannons and fought wars to control the area. The Dutch East India Company fought trade wars with the French and others.”

      “It isn’t just history out there,” Annja said wistfully. “Sinbad sailed those seas, as well.”

      Lochata laughed. “My, my. Bringing up fictional characters. You are the romantic, aren’t you?”

      “I try not to be,” Annja said. “But if you think past this moment, if you see into the past, it’s hard not to be.” She paused as she watched the storm-tossed waves. “A lot of those ships didn’t make it across the ocean. Storms took them, they were lost in sea battles and sometimes ships just went down.”

      “Or perhaps sea monsters got them,” Lochata said laughing.

      “I don’t believe in sea monsters.” Over the past few years, Annja had learned to believe in a lot of things, but she hadn’t yet crossed paths with a sea monster.

      “Perhaps not,” Lochata said. “But the sea is a cruel mistress. She takes what she wants. She breaks the weak and the foolish. And she gives back only what she wants to.”

      Surprised, Annja looked at the older woman. “I didn’t know you were a poet.”

      Lochata smiled and shook her head. “Not me. My husband. He’s been in the merchant marine since he was a boy.” Concern touched her dark features. “I worry about him a lot these days, but he won’t give up the sea. A few years ago, things were not so dangerous out on the water. There are too many pirates out here now. They take what they want, and they kill and destroy.”

      Annja didn’t say anything. She knew the professor was right. Before leaving her home in Brooklyn, she’d researched the area’s past and present. The Indian Ocean pirates plying their trade were every bit as dangerous as the Shakti followers who had sacrificed so many innocents to their cruel goddess.

      “We need to get everyone together,” Lochata said as she gazed at the storm clouds above them. “I think this is going to be a bad one.”

      The wind picked up and rattled through the nearby trees.

      “I thought monsoon season was over,” Annja said.

      Worry tightened the lines of the older woman’s face. “It should be. I think this is something else.” She looked at Annja and smiled. “You don’t believe in curses, do you?”

      Considering everything she’d been through since she’d found the final piece of Joan of Arc’s legendary sword, Annja wasn’t sure how to answer the question. Receiving the sword had changed her perspective on a lot of things.

      “Not really,” Annja finally said.

      “Neither do I,” Lochata agreed. “But we’ve been disturbing the final resting places of the dead. That’s taboo in almost every culture.”

       2

      “You’re in India?”

      Annja held the satellite phone to her ear and strained to hear. “Yes, Doug. India.”

      Doug Morrell, her producer, was twenty-two and excitable. He asked questions, but he only heard what he wanted to hear.

      “India, as in half-a-world-away India?” Doug asked.

      “Yes.” Annja stood in the main tent and gazed out at the jungle. She and Professor Rai had gathered the dig team together.

      Normally a break in the dull routine of digging would have been welcome. However, now they were all trapped in the leaking tent and hoping it would stay erect against the gale-force winds.

      A torrential downpour slammed the surrounding jungle and reduced visibility to little more than a few yards. Beyond that everything turned gray and disappeared in the dark night. Annja could barely hear Doug over the crackle caused by lightning strikes and the heavy rain pounding against the canvas.

      “What are you doing there?” Doug asked.

      “I signed on to do a dig with Professor Lochata Rai.”

      “Uh-huh. So what’s he digging up?”

       “She.”

      “Okay. What’s she digging up?”

      “Professor Rai got permission from the Archaeological Survey of India to look for a Shakti sacrifice site.”

      “Did you just say sacrifice? ” Doug’s voice rose.

      “I did.” Annja regretted telling him that detail at