Serpent's Kiss

“Yes,” she replied. It was the simplest answer. Annja knew, as with all Hindu gods, Shiva was much more than one thing.

“This human-sacrifice thing has potential. We haven’t done a piece on a god of death in months,” Doug said.

“I’m not doing a story,” Annja said. “I’m here to work a dig.”

“I know, I know. I was just wondering if there was a way we could get a twofer.”

“I’m not interested in a twofer. I came out here to work.”

“Hey, don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

Annja swallowed a sharp retort. She couldn’t complain about the television show. Chasing History’s Monsters had been good to her. Real archaeology didn’t pay a lot. To be part of Lochata’s dig Annja had had to pay her own way over. The community meals were free and the cot was a loaner. She had to buy her own bottled green tea.

The television show offered the glamour and glory. It also came with a paycheck that enabled her to do things like this dig.

“Okay.” Annja stared out at the dark sky. She couldn’t see the edge of the cliff. The crash of the surf against the rocks below remained audible.

“Okay what?” Doug asked.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Annja Creed stalks mysterious cult that carries out human sacrifices.”

“This particular cult’s been dead for hundreds of years. Probably more than a thousand.”

“They gotta have descendants, right?” Doug asked.

“Possibly, but I wouldn’t know how to get in contact with—”

“I’m looking at a news story that says these Shakti cultists have been up to their old tricks in different parts of India.”

“Old tricks?” Annja asked.

“Creative license on my part,” Doug said. “Makes them sound more devious and threatening. Ups their coolness quotient, trust me. Anyway, there are Shakti cultists springing up. No human sacrifices have been found yet, but that may be because they’ve hidden the bodies. Or buried them.”

Annja could tell Doug was selling himself on the idea.

“Maybe you could take some footage of the local jungle as you make your way through a forgotten trail.”

“If it was a forgotten trail,” Annja said, “I wouldn’t know about it.”

“Of course you would. You’re a world-famous archaeologist.”

Annja smiled a little at that. If Doug hadn’t been trying so hard to flatter her, she might have enjoyed his efforts. But she’d known him long enough to be aware that he seldom did anything without an ulterior motive.

“How much longer are you going to be there?” Doug asked.

“A few more weeks.”

“See? You can work in a piece on human sacrifices,” he said.

“I’m busy. When you work a dig, you’re putting in eighteen-to twenty-hour days.”

“Don’t you have a day off?”

“When I do, I like to have it as a day off.” So far there hadn’t been one of those. Annja watched one of the students run back through the jungle from the cliff area. The young woman’s boots splashed across the drenched ground. Panic pulled her face tight. She was one of Professor Rai’s students and knew the area well. If she was frightened, there had to be a reason.

“Doug,” Annja interrupted as he launched into a guilt-inspiring speech, “I’m going to have to call you back.” She closed the phone and put it into her pocket. She knew Doug hated being hung up on and wasn’t surprised when he called right back. Annja ignored the ring tone and lunged out into the driving rain.

Lochata ran out to meet the student and reached her before Annja. The older woman grabbed the younger one by the shoulders and forced her to calm enough to talk. They spoke rapidly in their native tongue, and Annja didn’t understand a word. The student kept gesturing toward the cliff.

Her boots heavy with the mud that had collected on them, Annja joined the professor and student. Rivulets ran down the bill of Annja’s baseball cap, and she was drenched at once. She reached into the otherwhere and felt the sword. The hilt felt familiar in her hand and she took comfort in it.

From the reddened state of the student’s eyes, Annja knew she was crying. But the tears mixed in with the rain so quickly they disappeared at once.

“What’s wrong?” Annja asked.

Lochata gathered the young woman into her embrace for a moment, then spoke soothingly to her and pushed her toward the main tent. Immediately the professor headed toward the cliff. “She says the sea has withdrawn,” Lochata stated.

“Withdrawn?” Annja matched the older woman’s stride.

“Receded.”

“An outgoing tide will do that.”

“She says this is more than just the tide.” Lochata’s face looked grave.

Annja studied the irregular line of broken rocks at the foot of the cliff. They had been at the dig site for five days. She’d walked out to the cliff on several occasions to take a break from digging through the hard-packed earth and stared out at the ocean.

She’d never seen the rocks or that much of the sea bottom before. As she watched, the water seemed to draw back even more.

“The sea’s never done that before,” Annja said.

Lochata’s face drained of color. She turned to face Annja. “Tsunami,” she said, and the hammering thunder overhead almost swept her words away.

Fear shook Annja.

The horrifying images of the December 26, 2004, tsunami had shocked the world. And the devastating waves killed a quarter of a million people. She grabbed Lochata’s arm. “Run!” She pushed the older woman into motion.

Despite her age, the archaeology professor proved fleet-footed. She ran through the dig site and avoided the pits the team had dug in their search for the sacrificial well.

Together, they ducked through the trees and scrambled through the bushes. Lochata stumbled and would have fallen twice, but Annja caught her and kept her vertical. Then, just when the tents became visible, the ground shook so hard that Lochata and Annja both lost their footing and went down.

Mud coated Annja’s clothing and the right side of her face. She wiped it out of her right eye and tried to ignore the burning sensation it caused. She pushed herself up and hauled Lochata to her feet.

Unable to stop herself, Annja looked back toward the sea. In the distance, barely discernible through the haze of fog, a giant wall of water raced toward the coast.

For one frozen second, Annja stood locked in place. Even with everything she’d seen with Roux and Garin, she wasn’t prepared for the tsunami wave. It was a huge, rolling curl of ocean that was closing on the shoreline quickly.