Ravyn felt a little woozy so she rested an elbow on the counter and closed her eyes while waiting for the nausea to pass. She’d had colds before and had even had a touch of pneumonia a few years back, but she’d never had the flu—which is what Lorna Meg had assured her she had a few days ago. Whatever it was, it was past time for it to have done its damage and moved along. She was sick of feeling sick all the damn time.
“Ohhh,” Happy said.
He reached out and grabbed wire-framed glasses from the paper cup sitting near the cash register, then slipped them on his face. Why he hadn’t done that before he’d started reading whatever had him so intrigued in that book, she didn’t know, but she really needed him to hurry up. Her stomach was churning and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold the nothing in her stomach back much longer.
“I don’t believe it,” Happy said just as a chill eased down her spine.
It was a slow movement, as if someone was dragging an ice cube down the center of her back, and she pushed herself up to stand straight. Seconds ago she’d been sweating, and now that chill from her spine was spreading through her body.
“What don’t you believe?” she asked Happy, but she was already surveying the room.
To the left was a darker area than to the right because there was no window on that side. No window meant no exit, if she needed to make one. To the right were the two windows that faced the street. A second-story drop but she wasn’t thinking about jumping out of a window. Was she? That depended on the feeling that was growing inside her, the suspicion that someone was coming, or was perhaps already here.
“Where’d you say you got this?” he asked her.
Ravyn shook her head. “I didn’t say.” Even though she was certain he knew, she never told Happy that she stole anything or who she stole it from. Those were details that could get both of them in trouble, so they’d had a silent agreement to never divulge them. But today he was asking and she couldn’t help but wonder why.
She watched as he ran a finger along the words in a book with tattered end pages. He flipped a page and it made a crackling sound. There was a picture on the next page.
“There,” he said and turned the book around so she could look at it right-side up. “That’s what this is.”
Her vision was a little blurry, had been for the days since she’d been sick, but Ravyn closed her eyes, waited a few seconds and opened them again. The words came clear this time.
“Tutankhamun.” She recited the first word she saw. “What does this have to do with my money?”
“It has everything to do with why I’m not giving you any money,” he said. “Read on.”
But his directive was too late. “What do you mean you’re not giving me any money? That’s what we do, Happy. I bring in items and you pay me for them. That’s our business arrangement.”
Happy shook his head, his lips turning down into a frown that was a direct contrast to his name. “Not this time, Ravyn. I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” She’d raised her voice, something she’d never done with Happy before because he was probably old enough to be her grandfather. “This knife is the real deal. There’s a picture right here in one of your ancient books, so that should mean something to you.”
“It does mean something to me, Ravyn. And if what that book says is true, which I believe it is, it’s gonna mean a whole bunch of something to you too.”
“What are you talking about?” She shook her head because his words were beginning to sound like they were coming through a tunnel as her ears clogged up again. “I just want my money so I can get back home. I won’t bother you anymore if that’s what you’re trying to say. But please, give me my money now. I’ll take whatever you offer.”
But if he offered her something insanely low, she might be forced to threaten a man she’d come to feel quite fondly about.
“I can’t. Not just because of the...the—” he paused, looked down at the book, then shook his head as he glanced back up at her “—but because it won’t let me.”
“What?” Now her head was throbbing and she was thoroughly confused. “What won’t let you? Happy, you’re confusing me and you’re giving me a horrible headache.”
He gasped and backed up so far, he slammed against another one of his shelves, sending books tumbling to the floor.
“It has begun.”
“What has begun? What the hell is wrong with you?” And what was wrong with her? Not only were her teeth chattering now, but Happy seemed to be swaying from side to side.
“The curse,” he whispered so low she barely heard him.
“The what?”
“He said ‘the curse.’”
Ravyn whipped around to see the same guy who’d been on the roof, at the club and just about everywhere else she’d been in the past few weeks standing four feet away, dark shades covering his eyes, hands pushed into the front pocket of his pants.
She instinctively reached into the waist of her jeans to pull her knife free, but her fingers tangled in the jacket Cree had insisted she wear and before she could summon more strength to untangle them, the guy was right in front of her, grabbing both
