Shay frowned and did a quick mirror check. Nothing but snow and trees. “I get it. It’s hard to leave your old life behind, even if you should.”
“Did you leave an old life behind?”
“Not like I’ve always been a tomb raider.”
Lily stared at her for a moment. “And what did you do before you were a tomb raider?”
Shay shook her head. “I’ll tell you someday when I feel like it, but today isn’t that day. Today, we just concentrate on not getting melted.”
The tomb raider and her trainee fell silent, lost in their thoughts of the past.
Shay tromped up the hill through the snow. They might not be having to crack out pitons and rope, but waist-high snow wasn’t exactly fun to trudge through. Their vehicle was a distant black bump down the side of the mountain.
Lily groaned. “If this is reminding me of anything, it’s that I’m a true Southern Californian.”
The tomb raider laughed. “I’m still not sure which annoys me more, being very cold or very hot. I’ll say one thing, though. It’s not as bad as Antarctica, and I’m not just talking about that damned witch.”
“Just saying, maybe next time you can take a nice tomb raiding job in Hawaii or the Bahamas.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
A dark opening loomed several hundred yards above them.
Shay grinned. “We’re almost there.” She patted Lily’s backpack. The box rested inside. “The trick will just be getting it into the box, and then we’re home-free, and will be much, much richer.”
“I’m not touching it. Just so you know.”
“Neither of us are. Hard to spend money when we’re dead.”
Shay hissed when a stiff wind coated them with snow. “At least in the cave, there won’t be as much wind.”
The minutes passed as the snow crunched underneath their boots until they stood at the entrance of a surprisingly smooth and warm cave. Icicles hung from the entrance, but the snow and ice extended only a few feet inside.
Lily squinted and pointed to several silver pools littering the front of the cave. “What the heck are those? Mercury?”
Shay moved over toward one of the pools and kicked a pebble into it. The pebble sank without producing any ripples. A chill ran through her body, and it wasn’t from the cold wind.
The tomb raider clucked her tongue. “Poor bastards.”
“Huh?”
Shay pointed to the nearest pool. “Too thick to be mercury, and it’s not warm enough to be melted silver or anything like that. I’m pretty sure those are what’s left over from some of the other people who tried to take the egg.”
Lily grimaced. “At least we know we’re on the right track.”
“That we do.” Shay took a single step forward and frowned. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she looked over her shoulder. “Something’s not right. Damn it.”
Lily looked behind her. “What? I don’t see anything but trees and snow.” She shook her head. “And I’m not sensing anything. Can’t see the future right now.”
The tomb raider fished binoculars out of her backpack and started scanning the area. “I trust my instincts. I know when I’m being watched.”
“Wait, like a premonition? You’ve never mentioned that before.”
Shay shook her head and continued to scan. “Nothing like. It’s just experience. Probably just keying in on some subtle sense thing.” A flash caught her attention, and she jerked her head in that direction. Two men in parkas stood in the trees about a half-mile away. One had binoculars to his eyes.
She adjusted her binoculars. She couldn’t make out a lot of fine details, but she did recognize the emblem on their coats.
“The assholes even have custom coats. You’ve got to be kidding me. Fucking arrogant jerks.”
Lily frowned. “Who are you talking about?”
“Hollingsworth Retrieval Specialists. They are tomb raiders based out of England. They aren’t completely ruthless murderers, I’ll give them that, but they also don’t know when to give up. The assholes probably thought they could just wait over there and swoop in and take the egg.” Shay lowered her binoculars and looked at Lily. “Seeing anything yet?”
The girl shook her head. “No visions.”
Shay let out a dark chuckle. “Maybe fifteen minutes from now we’re cute little silver pools, too.” She stuffed the binoculars into her backpack. “Time to go make the future happen.”
“What about the English guys?”
Shay shrugged. “If they want to come and actually play, then we’ll worry about them. For now, we’ve got an egg to find.”
Twenty minutes into the cave, it had grown warm enough that Shay wanted to take off her coat. She wasn’t sure if it was a geothermal or magical effect but decided a little unzipping and unbuttoning would be enough. It’d give her better access to her weapons anyway.
Their wrist lights cut into the darkness as they moved deeper into the cave, but thus far, the closest thing to exciting they’d encountered was some moss.
That is, until the cave shook and gave a deep rumble.
“That’s not good,” Lily observed. “Is this mountain a volcano?”
“Beats me.” Shay shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Even I don’t have such bad luck that it’d erupt the second I show up. Let’s just find it and get the hell out of here, then we won’t have to worry. Visions yet?”
Lily shook her head. “Still nothing.” She frowned. “Damn it. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up over it. Most of my jobs, the only thing I have to go on is background data that Peyton or I dug up.”
A couple more minutes brought to them a fork, the round tunnels just as unnaturally smooth as the rest of the cave. Shay doubted this was a natural cave, but she didn’t care about magical civil engineering projects, just the egg they were designed to protect.
A stronger tremor shook the cave.
Shay gritted her teeth. “Any clues?”
Lily pointed to the left fork. “It’s that way.”
“Nice. That simplifies things.” Shay jogged down the tunnel.
Lily hurried after
