Wrath of the Ancients

Book 1: Nemesis of the Gods

by Catherine Cavendish

Genres: Occult & Supernatural; Historical Fiction; Horror

Synopsis

DESTINY IN DEATH Egypt, 1908 Eminent archeologist Dr. Emeryk Quintillus has unearthed the burial chamber of Cleopatra. But this tomb raider’s obsession with the Queen of the Nile has nothing to do with preserving history. Stealing sacred and priceless relics, he murders his expedition crew, and flees—escaping the quake that swallows the site beneath the desert sands . . . Vienna, 1913 Young widow Adeline Ogilvy has accepted employment at the mansion of Dr. Quintillus, transcribing the late professor’s memoirs. Within the pages of his journals, she discovers the ravings of a madman convinced he possessed the ability to reincarnate Cleopatra. Within the walls of his home, she is assailed by unexplained phenomena: strange sounds, shadowy figures, and apparitions of hieroglyphics. Something pursued Dr. Quintillus from Egypt. Something dark, something hungry. Something tied to the fate and future of Adeline Ogilvy . . . WRATH OF THE ANCIENTS Praise for Catherine Cavendish’s Wrath of the Ancients “Cavendish has constructed such an elaborate plot—combined with painstaking research into Egyptian mythology—that the fantastical events taking place seem to literally ‘come alive’ on the pages before you.” —horrorafterdark.com “Cavendish offers up an atmospheric gothic horror tale that effortlessly blends together history and the supernatural to create an unsettling horror story that will appeal to almost any horror fan.” —thehorrorbookshelf.com

Release date: October 24, 2017

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 178

Sample

Prologue

Taposiris Magna, Egypt, 1908

Emeryk Quintillus squinted up at the vivid blue Egyptian sky. Not even a wisp of a cloud marred its azure perfection, and the sun beat down, baking the sand in its relentless, searing heat. The merest hint of a breeze whipped up a small shower of desert sand, coating his long, dark jacket in a pale layer of dust. He brushed it off and took out his Hunter watch from his waistcoat. Midday. Not long now. He replaced his watch in his pocket. Nearby, his horse whinnied and thrashed its tail.

All around Quintillus, a small army of Egyptians dressed in traditional galabeyyas sang while they carted away buckets of sand and stones, working in relays as they had done this past three months. The dig had gone well, far surpassing what their employer had anticipated. Soon, if his calculations were correct, they would find the culmination of his life’s work—the tomb archaeologists the world over had been searching for this past two thousand years.

Quintillus inhaled the dry air that caught in his throat and burned. He seemed oblivious to the discomfort. His surroundings were of far greater interest. The vast, ruined temple of Taposiris Magna—with its soaring stone pylons—had witnessed burials, ceremonies, battles, and destruction, but now it was about to give up its greatest secret. And, so far, the news had been good. Long-buried artifacts—small alabaster statuettes, coins, all from the right period—all depicting that enigmatic face.

Around him, the laborers sang their work songs. Different—but somehow reminiscent of—the ones he had heard black slaves sing in the cotton fields of Mississippi long ago, in another lifetime. Quintillus reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and removed a black leather-covered cigar case. He opened it and selected his habitual long, thin cheroot. A shot of blue flame from his silver lighter ignited the tobacco, and he inhaled. In his distinctive black stovepipe hat, with his long dark hair flowing over his shoulders, he presented a curiously eccentric figure in the white heat of the desert. He made no concessions either to location or temperature and appeared never to experience extreme heat or cold. But then, there was much about Dr. Quintillus that he chose to keep to himself.

A sudden whoop startled him. The Egyptians were shouting. Waving and excited. Now. It must be now.

The familiar rotund figure of Max Dressler scurried as fast as the heat and his out-of-condition physique would allow. Unlike his employer, he was dressed for the desert, complete with pith helmet. He came closer, panting and wiping the sweat off his face and neck with his oversize handkerchief.

Quintillus tossed the remains of his cigar onto the sand while the man recovered himself sufficiently enough to speak. The archaeologist could afford to be patient for a few more minutes, after so many years of searching.

Max Dressler’s breathing returned to something approaching normal and his face drained its vivid red hue. The handkerchief flapped like a white flag while he gesticulated toward the deep shaft of the dig. “We’ve…found…her.”

Dr. Quintillus’s lips twitched in the birth of a smile. “You are sure?”

“Beyond question, Herr Doktor. The sarcophagus carries her cartouche.”

“And is he buried with her?”

Dressler’s extra chins wobbled as he shook his head. “He may be in another chamber, but he is not there. Not at her side.”

Quintillus’s smile became a broad grin, lighting up his bearded face. “So they were wrong. Then let us go and meet our queen.”

Dressler stepped aside. His master strode past him. The narrow, steep stone steps presented no difficulties for the tall scientist, but Dressler struggled down them. Quintillus ignored him, his mind focused on one mission.

At the bottom, the recently excavated chamber reeked of kerosene from the hurricane lamps, which illuminated it and cast deep shadows in the corners. The stillness hung heavy. It seemed to be waiting for something to break it, and the temperature was many degrees cooler down there than on the surface. Quintillus’s leather boots crunched sand on top of stone. His footsteps echoed off the stone walls.

Maybe a dozen skeletons, their ruined ancient robes hanging off them, lay haphazardly on the floor—the bodies of the queen’s faithful servants. Quintillus ignored them and made straight for the sarcophagus at the far end of the tomb. Propped up against the wall behind it stood an exquisite gold coffin lid, with the queen’s perfect image inlaid with lapis lazuli, emeralds, and rubies. Savoring this precious moment, Dr. Quintillus gazed at it, excitement mounting inside him, his blood pumping hard.

He approached the sarcophagus. The stench of the long-dead body reached him. Max Dressler, a few steps behind, smothered his nose and mouth in his sweat-drenched handkerchief, but Quintillus barely noticed the odor of decay and mortification. He leaned over the coffin and peered down at the blackened mummy.

Quintillus bent down to kiss the ancient queen on her cold, dry lips. Dressler retched.

“She is remarkable,” the doctor said. He straightened. “Her state of preservation is better than any I have seen.”

Dressler removed his handkerchief to speak. “But, Herr Doktor, how can you bear to…to…” He replaced his handkerchief as another retch overcame him.

Quintillus smiled. “How could I not kiss the greatest queen who ever lived? All my life I have waited for this moment.”

Dressler shook his head, clearly too overcome to protest further.

Dr. Quintillus gazed back down at the queen. She had been tightly bandaged, although, by now, the material had blackened and frayed with age and the preservatives used to mummify her. Her arms were crossed over her breasts. In the dim light, something glinted. The doctor reached in and gently eased her hands apart. Just enough for him to remove a small gold statuette. He recognized the image immediately. Set. Egyptian god of desert, storms, war, and chaos, who had murdered his brother Osiris and hacked his body to pieces. He turned the statuette over in his hand. The sculpted figure was of a male human from the neck down, but its head was unlike any known animal. It resembled a jackal, but one with a much longer snout. Its ears were rectangular, protruding out of the top of its head and the creature carried a staff in one hand and an ankh in the other.

The statuette felt cold to the touch, but Quintillus’s palm tingled where it lay. He dropped it into his right-hand pocket.

Dressler gasped. “Did you feel that?”

“What?”

Dressler’s eyes were wide. Frightened. “A breeze. No, it’s gone now, but I could have sworn…”

“You have a vivid imagination, my friend.” Quintillus had felt it, too. Exactly as he had expected. The god still guarded the queen. The discovery he had made all those years ago, which had led him to Taposiris Magna, yet again proved its worth. Now his new work could begin.

Quintillus returned to his queen. Her cheeks were sunken, dried out, hollow. Her eyes shut. Clumps of black hair lay around her head. Impossible to tell now whether she had been a beauty, but to the doctor, she was the most enchanting creature he had ever seen.

He checked his pocket watch. Twelve thirty. He could delay no longer.

“The men are all still here?”

“Oh yes, Herr Doktor. I have obeyed your instructions most faithfully. They have been told if any of them leave now they will not be paid.”

“Good. You have done well, Dressler.”

“Thank you, Herr Doktor.”

Quintillus removed a small silk bag with a drawstring from his jacket pocket and held it open in his left hand while, with his right, he probed under a frayed and worn wrapping covering the mummy’s breast. Feeling around he pulled out a handful of gray dust and carefully poured it into the bag. He repeated the gesture of collecting and depositing a dozen or more times until he was satisfied he had sufficient for his needs. Dressler watched as if he couldn’t tear his eyes away. His mouth hung slightly open at the curious sight. Let him. Quintillus had no reason to explain his actions to anyone. Least of all this unimaginative little man.

Quintillus pulled the drawstring tightly shut and dropped the little bag back in his pocket.

He kissed the queen once more. “Good night, Cleopatra, my queen. I return you to your rest.”

A sigh echoed off the walls.

Dressler was visibly shaking. “You must have heard that, Herr Doktor.”

“Heard what, my friend?” Quintillus had to leave, but to give any indication of the urgency of their need to depart would only spook this man and he must have his willing cooperation a little while longer. Until his work here was complete.

Dressler stared at him, seemed about to say something and then shook his head. Once again, he mopped his face with the sodden handkerchief. He stepped back to let Quintillus pass.

Both men blinked rapidly in the fierce and unrelenting sunshine. The noise of the Egyptian workers had risen to a cacophony as they celebrated the greatest archaeological find in a century or more. Soon they would be rich. Their fathers and mothers would be rich. Their sons and daughters would wear fine clothes.

Quintillus understood every word. His Arabic was fluent, even down to the colloquial Egyptian dialect. He smiled in their direction, lit another cheroot, and took a few, fragrant puffs.

“Order them down to the chamber,” he said to Dressler who seemed to have largely recovered from his edginess in the tomb. “Tell them they can pay their last respects to their queen.”

“At once, Herr Doktor.”

Dressler ferried the men down the steps, ordering them in his faltering Arabic. One or two protested, but the little man shoved them forward, with surprising physical strength. Dr. Quintillus smoked his cheroot and waited until they were all down there. He beckoned Dressler back over and the little man scurried the few yards across the sandy stone.

“Herr Doktor?”

“Seal the tomb.”

“But, Herr Doktor—”

“Do it.”

“Yes, Herr Doktor.”

Now perhaps his assistant would realize why Quintillus had ordered the massive slab to be sited in such a way that one man could set it off down the steep incline he had ordered to be dug next to the steps. All Dressler had to do was release the lever. He did so and the slab thundered down the incline. Too late, the workers realized what was happening. Their terrified screams reached the surface. A juddering crash cut them off. The slab had sealed the entrance of the chamber.

Max Dressler returned to Quintillus’s side. Panting. His face had turned puce with a mixture of fear and the effort of his labors. His eyes were wide and bloodshot.

Dr. Quintillus stubbed out his cigar butt and reached into his jacket once more. He pulled out a little silver pistol.

Dressler whimpered. “Herr Doktor?”

A shot rang out and the small man crumpled to the ground, shot through the heart. Quintillus rolled his body to the edge of the incline and kicked it. Within seconds, Max Dressler lay against the slab.

The archaeologist stepped back. Under his feet, the ground trembled, then shook. He mounted his horse. The animal was spooked and Quintillus spoke soothingly to it, calming it, stroking its ears. The rumbling grew louder and the ruined temple shook. Slabs fell from the walls. A pillar collapsed concertina-like in a cloud of dust and sand. The entrance to the chamber was now buried deep under a ton or more of stone.

Dr. Quintillus smiled. He had fulfilled his purpose here. The queen at rest again, with an army of new servants to keep her company. In his pocket, the statuette shifted.

“Don’t worry, my friend, all will be as it is meant to be.”

He urged his horse into a gallop and headed back to Alexandria.

Chapter 1

Holland Park, London

On a chilly January day, with a stiff breeze blowing around her, Adeline Ogilvy stood in front of the black door to the offices of the Sinclair Agency and smoothed down her straight navy blue skirt. She removed the glove on her right hand and checked below her smart new hat for any stray hairs. Finding none, she examined her fingers. Nails short, of course. How any woman could type with long nails had always been a mystery to Adeline. Shame about the little red mark where she had caught her finger under one of the typewriter keys. It would soon heal, but it would have to happen when she was being considered for a new, longer-term position. In Vienna, too.

Adeline had always dreamed of visiting the elegant Austrian capital ever since her Viennese grandfather used to regale her with tales of his childhood there. She had been a fascinated little girl, sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the blazing log fire in his tiny cottage. To please him, she always called her grandfather “Opa” in the Austrian way.

Opa told her about the sad old Emperor who had lost his son and heir when Crown Prince Rudolf committed suicide in 1889. Later, when she was in her teens, Opa had tears in his eyes when she went to visit him one day. When she asked him why, he said it was because he had learned that the beautiful Empress Elisabeth had been stabbed and killed by a crazed assassin. “Who will look after the poor Emperor now?” he asked, his accent more pronounced than usual.

Opa had been dead these past ten years, but Adeline had always hoped that one day she would see his beloved Vienna. If this appointment went well, she would have the chance to not only visit but live there, for three months. Maybe she would even get to see the Emperor taking his daily constitutional in the Schlosspark, accompanied by his special friend, Frau Schratt. Opa had never mentioned her, of course.

Adeline replaced her glove and reached up to the polished brass door knocker. She gave it two smart raps and a couple of minutes later, a smiling young woman in a maid’s white cap and apron over a black dress, looked enquiringly at her.

“I am Mrs. Ogilvy. I have an appointment with Miss Sinclair.”

“Very good, madam. If you would like to come inside.”

The hall smelled of lavender and beeswax, and the comforting aroma continued into the office. At her arrival, the proprietor—Miss Emily Sinclair—stood up from behind her oak desk.

“Ah, Mrs. Ogilvy, how nice to see you again. You are keeping well, I trust?”

“Very well, thank you,” Adeline replied.

Miss Sinclair motioned her to sit on a leather-upholstered chair opposite her and sat back down. She was a woman Adeline gauged to be maybe twenty years older than herself, making her around fifty-five. Her iron-gray hair was neatly caught up in a smart, easily managed bun and she wore pince-nez on a gold-colored chain around her neck. Whenever she needed to read anything, as she did now, she would perch the pince-nez on the end of her nose.

Miss Sinclair raised her eyes from the papers she had been studying and let the pince-nez drop around her neck. She smiled, transforming her normally pinched look. “Thank you for coming to see me so promptly, Mrs. Ogilvy. I mentioned in my letter, this is a most unusual position and I wouldn’t normally offer it to a married woman, but you are simply the only person I have who fits the stipulations of the client.”

Adeline clasped her hands in her lap, feeling her wedding ring through the leather of her gloves. She took a deep breath. “I am actually a widow, Miss Sinclair. My husband was killed two years ago in a road accident.” She didn’t go into detail about the runaway dray horse that had trampled James to death.

Miss Sinclair switched off her smile. “Oh dear, I am most dreadfully sorry, I had no idea.”

Adeline smiled. “No need to apologize. I haven’t been working for you very long, and the subject has never come up.”

Miss Sinclair visibly relaxed and the smile returned. Back to business. “You are aware, the position necessitates that you live in Vienna for a period of not less than three months, starting as soon as possible. I’m afraid you will find it most awfully cold there in January.”

“I’m sure I shall survive. I’ll make certain to take plenty of warm clothing.”

Miss Sinclair smiled. “That’s the ticket. You will be living in the house of the late Dr. Emeryk Quintillus. It is his commission that you will undertake, as the executors of his considerable estate have instigated this contract. By all accounts Dr. Quintillus was a most unusual man. No one even appears to know precisely where he came from originally.” She perched the pince-nez on her nose and glanced back down at her notes. “He spoke a number of languages fluently—including English and German, both of which he managed with no trace of an accent, although it’s likely he came from neither country. Nor was he born in Austria. He also spoke Arabic, Classical Greek… Oh, and Hungarian, so maybe he came from there.” She shrugged. Her clear, hazel eyes met Adeline’s blue ones. “Anyway, he was an eminent historian and archaeologist, specializing in Egyptology. I understand he made some significant finds over the years.” She peered down at the sheets of paper in front of her. “Quite a number of years actually. More than you might think from his photograph, which was taken a few months before he died. In 1910.”

Miss Sinclair handed over a sepia photograph.

Adeline took it from her and inhaled a sharp breath. “Oh my. He certainly had an individual style, didn’t he?” The bearded face peered at her. The hooded eyes seemed to be guarding some secret. He was dressed in flamboyant style with a long dark coat, stretching down below his knees, a waistcoat that looked like it might be made of velvet, a white shirt with an elaborate dark cravat, and hair worn unfashionably long that extended way past his shoulders. On his head, a taller-than-usual top hat, reminiscent of the trademark stovepipe version worn by Abraham Lincoln, added to his eccentricity. The slightest of smiles played around his lips, adding to the impression of someone hiding something. There was somethi. . .