Something flashed in her eyes—irritation or amusement, or maybe a bit of both. “It’s not a catch; it’s an opportunity to expand on the work you’re already doing. If you pull it off, you’ll be making a hell of a name for yourself, and you’ll get your degree.” When he said nothing, simply waited, she leaned forward, giving him a glimpse of the steel in her eyes and the edge of a lacy bra beneath her camisole. “I want you to prove that the Nightkeepers are real.”
“You—” he started in surprise, then broke off as he got it. She hadn’t tanked his defense to embarrass Anna. She’d done it because she’d wanted his research. Embarrassing Anna had been a side benefit.
Son of a bitch, he thought, not sure if he was disgusted or impressed, or a bit of both.
Legend had it that the Nightkeepers had lived with the Egyptians up until Akhenaton had gone monotheistic. If that particular legend were real, proving the existence of the Nightkeepers wouldn’t just blow the doors off the field of Mayan studies, it could rewrite a big chunk of Egyptology. And even better—as far as the Dragon Lady was concerned, no doubt—proving the Nightkeepers were real would invalidate a big chunk of Anna’s anti-end-time publications, putting a serious cramp in her forward momentum at the university, maybe even providing enough ammo to get her tenure pulled.
Bitch, Lucius thought, his anger cranking hard and hot. But beneath the anger was a stealthy slide of, Hmmm . . .
Anna had never supported his research on the Nightkeepers. Was she his priority, or was the research?
The Dragon Lady continued, “Tell Anna you need some time off to figure things out. I’ll fund your travel as necessary, and you’ll report directly to me.”
“I won’t do it,” he said, but it sounded weak even to him.
“There have to be things you’ve wanted to try, but couldn’t because she wouldn’t sign off on them, things you figured you’d do once you had your own grant money.” She paused. “What if you could do them now?”
I can’t, he repeated, only what came out of his mouth sounded an awful lot like, “I shouldn’t.”
“Come on; name it. If you had to pick one line of evidence to follow, and you had decent travel money, where would you go first . . . Belize?” That was where the Nightkeepers who’d survived Akhenaton’s religious “purification” had supposedly wound up, where they had—again supposedly—
hooked up with the Olmec, who had just begun to develop a cultural identity that would become, with the Nightkeepers’ help, the Mayan Empire.
In theory.
But Lucius shook his head. “No, actually. I’d start in Boston. There’s this girl—” He broke off, afraid that he’d come off sounding like an idiot, like he was crushing on someone he’d talked to on the phone for, like, twenty seconds, just long enough to take a message. A girl who hadn’t returned any of his calls in the months since.
But Desiree—she’d gone from Dragon Lady to first name in his head all of a sudden—said only, “What about her?”
He let out the breath he hadn’t consciously known he’d been holding. Which made him he realize something else, too. He was actually considering taking her up on the offer.
It was disloyal as hell, yes, and he owed Anna better. But really, that low, mean voice inside him said, how much do you owe her? She’d shut him out, withdrawn, left him behind. It’d been her fault they’d had to reschedule his defense; if he’d turned in his thesis last fall, on schedule, he would’ve sailed through. But he’d been forced to reschedule because she’d done her little disappearing act, leaving for a few weeks at the start of the fall semester and returning a pale, strange version of herself.
If she’d stayed put and soldiered on, he’d have his Ph.D. and probably some new funding by now, enough to follow the clues that Anna pooh-poohed at best, derided at worst. She’d never wanted to even entertain the possibility that the Nightkeepers had existed, never mind discussing whether they still did, and what it might mean on the zero date. And it wasn’t just a closed discussion in her book; it’d never been a discussion at all. To her, the Nightkeepers were nothing more than a bedtime story.
But that doesn’t make it okay to go behind her back, he told himself, feeling as though there were two sets of feelings at war within his head: one that said he should trust that Anna would appeal Desiree’s ruling on his thesis, and another that said he hadn’t been able to trust Anna to do anything for him ever since she’d turned away from him, cut him adrift.
Rubbing a thumb across the raised knot of flesh on his opposite palm in a gesture that’d become habitual since he’d acquired the scar in a night of drunken stupidity, he told himself that friendships waxed and waned, that it was only natural for Anna to pull away from a relationship that’d perhaps gotten closer than she was comfortable with once she and the Dick had reconciled. The only relationship she really owed him was one of thesis adviser to student, and she’d never shirked that duty. Or had she? She’d steered him safely through his project, true, but had she kept him too safe?
Desiree was right that the person who proved that the Nightkeepers truly had existed would be able to write his own ticket.
As the scar began to ache with the beat of his heart and the sluggish pound of anger through his veins, Lucius started to think Anna hadn’t been helping him at all. She’d been holding him back.
“The girl in Boston?” Desiree prompted, and the victorious glint in her eyes said she knew she had him.
“Sasha Ledbetter,” Lucius answered. “She’s the daughter of a Mayanist named Ambrose Ledbetter.
Back in the mid-eighties he wrote a few papers on the end-time, one of which included a description of a Mayan shrine that nobody’s ever seen except him.” He took a breath, held it. And took the leap straight onto Woo-Woo Avenue. “I think it was a Nightkeeper temple. If I can get a look at it, if I can translate the hieroglyphs, I can prove the Nightkeepers existed. I’m sure of it.”
She nodded. “So why not call him directly?”
“He disappeared last summer while doing fieldwork in the highlands. At this point he’s presumed dead.”
Desiree’s expression sharpened. “And you think you can get his notes from the daughter?”
“I think it’s a good place to start,” Lucius answered, not willing to tell the Dragon Lady that he couldn’t explain why; he just knew he had to see Sasha. When he’d heard her voice on the phone, something had shifted inside him. He didn’t know why or what it meant. He knew only that he had to find her, had to see her.
Desiree said nothing, simply opened her center desk drawer, pulled out a black plastic square, and slid it across the desk toward him. “Then go.”
He stared at the credit card, at his own name imprinted on it. “Since when does the university hand out no-limit AmEx cards?”
“It’s drawn on one of my private grants,” she replied, in a voice that said, Don’t ask.
Apprehension shivered through Lucius. The part of him he recognized as himself knew he should stand up, walk away, and never look back. But that darker part of him, the part that said nobody had ever given him a major break before, that he deserved this one now, told him to take the card and book the flight.
A thin whine started up in his ears, making his jaw hurt, and the world went a little fuzzy around the edges. What was he supposed to be worrying about? Oh, right. Betraying Anna by accepting Desiree’s offer of some grant money. But really, could Anna honestly object to his taking on a side project? It wasn’t as though she’d been using him lately. Anna hadn’t been doing much of anything in the way of research ever since Neenee took off. And, come to think of it, that lack of academic production probably hadn’t helped his thesis defense any.