“Hey, now, that’s not funny.”
Shay removed her gun from her purse and slapped it on the table. Peyton and Lily snapped their heads in her direction.
Frowning, the tomb raider rested her hand lightly on the gun and smiled. “Just remember, no one gets access to or told the location of any of the warehouses without my explicit permission.” She narrowed her eyes at Peyton. “I don’t care how nerd-sexy they are.” Her gaze slid to Lily. “Or if you trust them with your life. Even good and trustworthy people can give up information they don’t want to, depending on the situation.”
Peyton swallowed. “Always nice to be reminded who’s the cat and who are the mice.” He tilted his head at the satchel she had over her other shoulder. “What’s that?”
Shay frowned. She didn’t like her threats dismissed so easily. She looked down at the satchel and noticed the vacuum bag containing the book on the Dwarka was poking out of the top.
“It’s a book on Old Dwarka. It’s in Sanskrit, but I have an app with the translation, so I can read it line by line and sync it with the illustrations. You’d be surprised what kind of useful information you can find in illustrations.”
Peyton shrugged. “They do say a picture is worth a thousand words.” He chuckled. “And yet again, you’ve brought me major background info before I could really get going.”
Lily peered at the bag. “This is the job you were talking about earlier? Where is it?”
Shay opened her mouth, but a fog horn blasted from Peyton’s computer. He rushed back into the office and sat down to check the computer.
“Please tell me you’ve got good news,” Shay called to him. “I don’t really want my day ruined by having to go threaten or kill someone. It’s been a good day.”
Peyton grinned and shook his head. “Nope. Not that kind of alarm. Job alarm. Somebody needs a tomb raider of your quality, or at least your pay range.”
Shay snickered. “Okay, now I like what I’m hearing. It’s about time. Been fun to play around with Alison, but I need to bring home some treasure before I get rusty.”
“One second.” Peyton frowned and quickly skimmed the information in the alert.
Shay crossed her arms and tapped her foot. Lily bounced back and forth on one foot, excitement on her face.
Guess I’m not the only one who wanted a little tomb-raiding excitement. Guess ultra-parkour still isn’t as interesting as tomb raiding.
Peyton blew out a breath and nodded “Okay. The TL/DR is that they want you to recover the Necessaire Egg.”
Lily frowned. “Is this egg guarded by a demonic chicken?”
Shay snorted. “Good question. Is it?”
Peyton shook his head. “No demonic chickens, at least in the initial alert. I haven’t had time to confirm all the details. Anyway, it’s one of the seven lost Imperial Faberge eggs of the original fifty-two made for the tsars. It’s a jeweled egg decorated in diamonds. It was made to hold women’s toiletries, which were also decorated in diamonds, by the way.”
“Masters and mistresses of bling. Got it. Those tsarinas knew how to rock a bathroom. How much is the job paying?”
A grin split Peyton’s face. “They’re offering twenty million for its recovery.”
Damn. That would more than pay for all my recent warehouse upgrades and then some. Still, something smells off here.
Lily whistled.
The tomb raider frowned. “That’s a big payday, even for one of those. Sure, it’s worth a lot, but most haven’t sold for anywhere near that much. There’s something else going on here. Hiring a tomb raider for that much to grab lost jewelry is overkill.” She pointed at Peyton. “A little test of your skills. Find out what you can in the next hour, and we’ll reconvene to figure out if demonic chickens are involved and what else is going on.”
Peyton nodded. “And what are you going to do while I’m doing research?”
Shay smiled. “Eat some pizza before your damned cat steals it all.”
It didn’t take an hour. Twenty minutes later Peyton called Lily and Shay back into the office.
The hacker shot them both a shit-eating grin. “I’m too damned good for this world. I’m the king of all researchers. Omniscient, in practical terms.”
Lily rolled her eyes.
Shay shrugged. “Show, don’t tell, Peyton.”
Peyton clapped his hands. “So, here’s the deal. The egg was commissioned as a gift by Tsar Alexander III for his wife, Maria.”
“Yeah, rich royal gives an expensive gift to his wife. That’s not a shocking revelation. It’s definitely low on the list of revelations granted by omniscience.”
He grinned like he was Osiris catching a mouse. “Yeah, but did you know there were rumors that his wife Maria had an Oriceran heritage?”
Shay blinked. “No shit, really?”
Lily nodded. “Wonder how many royals had that kind of thing. Maybe that was why they were so obsessed with their bloodlines.”
Peyton shrugged. “Don’t know, but the thing is, her husband died in 1894, and she lived until 1928, including through that little unpleasantness known as the Russian Revolution. There are more than a few rumors that some dark magic was involved in her lifespan, but the thing we care about at the moment is that she allegedly infused some sort of magical energy into the egg. Quite a lot. People who have tried to access the energy ended up…well, they had bad endings. To this day, allegedly no one knows how to access the energy of the egg.”
Shay nodded. “Okay, now this is sounding more like my kind of job. So, I’m guessing they at least have some clue where it is, or you have some clue where it is. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so smug and happy.”
He nodded. “It’s Argentina, where all the bad white boys have gone to retire throughout the ages."
She smirked. “Maybe I’ll get to kill a few Hitler clones while I’m down
