Montario held the lamp in front him as he ran towards the professor and away from the light.
Turn around, you damn fool!
As he approached the professor, he saw the old man pressing a shoulder against the wall as he sat on the floor, his face hanging, the man exhausted.
He held the lamp high. “Profess—” He cut himself off.
What had been trailing them now entered the circle of brightness. Its head probed the light’s fringe, darting in and out to test the severity of its intensity. For the first time they were able to gather a good look at their predator. Its hide was rough and pewter-gray, its eyes golden-yellow with black vertical slits for pupils, and its claws were curved and wickedly keen, obviously designed to rip and tear.
It came into the light, its head lowered, approaching the professor with caution, its tongue lashing in and out, tasting the air, its olfactory senses telling it that its prey was wounded.
In self-preservation Professor Moore held his hand out and whispered, “Run, Montario.”
His aide watched with paralytic terror as the thing advanced toward them.
“Montario, run!”
The sudden cry galvanized the creature into a state of agitation. Suddenly its frill expanded around its head and vibrated intensely. Its mouth opened with threads of viscous saliva connecting its upper and lower jaws. And then it lunged forward, snapping the professor out of the circle of light.
The old man was there one moment, and gone the next. The only indication that the professor had been there at all were his fading cries as the creature dragged him off into the darkness.
As Montario’s mind tried to register the reality of the moment, he cast the light against the empty space where the professor had just been.
He was now the last of his group.
When certainty finally hit him that the professor was gone, Montario headed for the light, hoping that the old man’s heart gave out before the creature pitched him into whatever corner it used to consume its prey.
With his fingers tracing the outline of the book inside his pocket, he ran.
As he dived through the exit hole he was hit by a wave of inhospitable heat, the sun white hot, then turned to face the amoeba-shaped opening that proved to be an invite to deadly consequences.
Immediately he drew distance by crawling along his belly against the sand before turning on his back.
Above him, he watched the birds circle overhead in perfect loops against a uniform blue sky and listened to the soughing of a wind that sounded like soft whispers.
And then he thought about the professor by tracing a finger over the book in his pocket.
It was still there.
After looking at the lamp as if it was something alien, he tossed it aside. It rolled down the hill of desert sand and rock, before coming to a full rest at the bottom. He got to his feet, looked over the harsh, brutal desert landscape, and began to walk south.
He glanced over his shoulder often to make sure that nothing was giving chase.
And when nothing was, he found himself totally grateful.
CHAPTER ONE
Alyssa Moore was petite and athletic with strong arms and legs from years of plying her trade by swinging pickaxes and lifting spades of dirt at archeological dig sites. With raven hair, almond-shaped eyes and cocoa skin that she inherited from her Filipina mother, the only disposition that she inherited from her father was his ambitions. By the time she was twenty-six she was a senior archeologist with New York’s Archeological Institute of Ancient Antiquities, the AIAA, which happened to be a venue managed by her father, the inimitable Professor John Moore.
As a representative from the AIAA and working on behalf of the German Archaeological Institute of Istanbul, she was taking digital photographs of bas-relief carvings along stone pillars belonging to the ancient temple of Göbekli Tepe, the amphitheater of the oldest known civilization dating back 12,000 years.
In 1995, an archaeologist by the name of Klaus Schmidt began to excavate the hillside he considered to be an unnatural feature in the landscape, and ended up unearthing T-shaped pillars that surrounded twenty rounded structures. What was so startling was that the limestone columns were created from tools of Neolithic times, most exclusively by primitive flint points. Further examination of the site — that were suggested by layers of stratification — clearly revealed that several millennium of activity had taken place as far back as the Mesolithic period some 12,000 years before, which is 8,000 years before the Greeks and Egyptians had set the standards of creating the first civilizations.
But Göbekli Tepe changed all that, becoming man’s new cradle of societal development.
Alyssa took photos from every angle of a carved relief of a lizard projecting out from the pillar. Its head was looking downward, a large tail curling around its body. It was one of several depictions of animals such as boars, snakes, foxes, lizards and bears — indications that Göbekli Tepe was at one time surrounded by lush landscaping capable of preserving such fauna more than twelve thousand years ago.
When she was done she traced the figure of the lizard with her fingertips. For whatever reason, it was the main figure on the pillars. It was also depicted in pictograms and cuneiforms along the temple walls.
“Ms. Alyssa.”
Noah Wainscot was a British archeologist formerly of the Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain, and now a senior member of the AIAA going on his fifteenth year. Normally he was a man of high cheer always portending that this would be ‘the day’ that would bring something wondrous in that ‘one true discovery’ that would put the AIAA over the top, always the voice of hope.
But today he appeared grim.
“Ms. Alyssa, have you a moment?”
She immediately read his face; saw the depressing features instead of the laugh lines that often bracketed his mouth. “For you, Noah, I have all the time in the world. Why? What’s up?”
“Allow me to say that Mr. Montario is back from the expedition.”
“Is he all right?”
“He’s fine,” he told her. “He’s somewhat dehydrated, is all.”
She picked up the tension in his voice. “Where is he?”
The senior archeologist hesitated a moment before answering, as if searching for the right words. “I’m afraid there’s some bad news,” he said. “Mr. Montario would like a word with you.”
“About?”
Noah shifted from one foot to the other, obviously uncomfortable. He was as old as her father, sixty-two — a supportive colleague who was every bit as paternal towards her as her father was. He was kind and gentle, and spoke and acted with aristocracy even though there was no trace of nobility coursing through his veins.
And then her face fell with the looseness of a rubber mask. “It’s about my father, isn’t it?
Did something happen to him?”
“Please, Ms. Alyssa, all I can say is this: you must be prepared,” he said, pulling her into an embrace. “I’m afraid what you’re about to hear is not going to be good news.”
She pressed her face against his shoulder and, smelling the sweat of his labors, wept.
By the time Alyssa arrived at the hospital, Montario was sitting on the edge of the exam table. His face was red and raw with the skin of his nose and cheeks either blistering or peeling back. His lips were cracked and swollen, the thin slices on his lips appearing as razor cuts.
The moment he saw Alyssa, he attempted a smile but when he parted his lips his pain became electric, the sudden shock forcing his smile into a tight grimace.