“She does that a lot these days,” said Peyton, shrugging his shoulders. “You get used to it after a while. I think she’s bored. Teenagers. Set her lose in a mall already.”
“I picture her perched on a railing somewhere stalking something. This will have to be a problem for another day. In the meantime, you don’t tell Brownstone about what we find or about Lily. Capiche?”
“Don’t worry about it. Got to finish checking into the Australia job anyway.”
Shay gave him a curt nod and sighed. Brownstone liked his life simple, but hers was getting more complicated by the second.
Australia would help. All her running around investigating aliens and killing gangsters had messed with her head, not to mention opening her up to Brownstone. She was drifting from her original plan, and it was time to return to the path with a tomb raid where she could deal with normal threats—just mundane everyday annoyances like Ice Witches and ghosts.
Chapter Three
Shay stared down at the piles of weapons, knives, and other supplies on the tables in Warehouse Three. Peyton had called and told her to meet him at that location. He apparently believed she’d be ready to head out the minute he explained the job.
“Missing a little something?” Shay inquired.
Peyton looked offended. “Like what?”
“Lily for one.” She pointed at him. “Fashion sense, a close second.” His current combination of madras shorts and a Wham T-shirt was killing her. Apparently, it was Casual Day at the office.
“Girls dig this look.”
“That look gets you girls?” Shay shook her head. “Blind girls, maybe.”
Peyton averted his eyes. “Well, a certain kind of girls. You know, confused ones with daddy issues.”
“Oh, strippers.”
The man groaned and shrugged. “Lily is probably hanging from the rafters. Give her a second, she’ll make a grand entrance. I’m surprised she hasn’t begged you to go on the mission.”
“I noticed that too. I’m not going to beg for trouble, just this once.”
“And instead leave trouble here with the Chameleon.”
“Don’t do that.” Shay grinned. “But I was really talking about the lack of serious electronics in the equipment loadout.”
“Ah, that.” Peyton shook his head. “The Chameleon doesn’t forget.”
Shay rolled her eyes. “I swear I’ll pull my gun on you if you talk like that again.”
“You’re no fun, you know that? Anyway, the lack of electronics is a feature, not a bug. That’s why I wanted you to come here instead of wasting time doing the briefing at Warehouse Two.”
Shay crossed her arms. “Okay, get down to it.”
“I’ve cross-checked the client, and he’s offering a million per artifact for the recovery of three different artifacts.”
“That sounds like a lot of work.”
Peyton shook his head. “The good news is all those artifacts should be at the same site in Australia.”
“Australia isn’t exactly small.” Shay gestured for him to continue.
“You ever hear of the Mahogany Ship?”
“Yep. They say that before Captain Cook or even the Dutch sightings, an earlier ship made landfall in Australia.”
Peyton nodded eagerly. “That’s the executive summary. From what I’ve been able to find, it was Portuguese. Our client has provided a map and some information to get you to the ship.”
“If it’s so easy, why does he need a tomb raider?”
“Because it’s in a weird part of the Outback. Even the aborigines have avoided it for centuries. They claimed the area was cursed, but mostly it seems to have some sort of weird energy field that disrupts electronics and even messes with non-electronic compasses. Also, there are more than a few legends about nasty monsters, and…a few sightings that are a lot more recent. I’m not talking poisonous snakes, but things like drop bears.”
Shay searched her memory, but the name didn’t ring a bell. “’Drop bears?’”
“Basically, think giant carnivorous koala bears that jump down from trees to maul you.”
“Great, and the Aussies aren’t cleaning this shit up?”
Peyton shrugged. “The monsters stay in the cursed area, and it’s in the middle of a desert in the center of the country, and small, relatively speaking. With all the trouble with electronics, I guess they figure it’s just not worth the trouble.”
Shay rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Wait, so I’m not going to be able to drive around? This will take fucking forever.”
“Can you ride a horse?”
“I’m not an equestrienne, but I can manage.”
Lily sprinted up to the doorway of the office. “You can handle it.”
Peyton eyed her, looking her up and down. “Look who’s being super supportive. Where have you been hiding?”
Shay watched Lily keep a faint smile on her face. That girl is hiding something. No time to dig it out of her. That would take days, if then.
“Lily’s right. I can handle it.”
Peyton gave a shrug and clapped his hands together. “Then it’ll work out perfectly. They might have trouble flying or driving in the area, but it shows up on satellite well enough. At least the terrain. Not so much the ship.
“Maybe the ship isn’t there?”
“Nope. It’s just, there’s weird distortion in the images. The client insists it’s there.”
“How am I supposed to navigate in the middle of the desert without any of my electronics?”
Peyton smiled. “I’ve got a course plotted for you from oasis to oasis.” He rubbed his hands, an eager gleam in his eye. “I’ve got it all printed up. Old-school maps, none of this fancy tech stuff.”
“Says the man who pretty much lives behind a computer,” said Shay.
He put a hand up to the side of his mouth and whispered to Lily. “This is how the grownups got around back when CDs were all the rage. Had to look down while driving.”
“What’s a CD?”
“Exactly.”
He shrugged. “I’m the research assistant and handsome, stylish hacker. Not the tomb raider.
Shay scoffed. “Explain one thing to me.”
“What?”
“How does
