Page 122 of Tomb of the Sun King

“Were you really trying to brain me with theAmerican Journal of Philology?” the face hissed irritably in a voice Neil recognized.

“Connie?!” he blurted out. “But how on earth did you—”

“Oh, that was my jiu jitsu,” Constance said cheerfully. “I have been practicing that maneuver for some time, so I’m chuffed I finally had a chance to put it to practical—”

She cut off as Dawson’s snores hitched. The fuzzy shape of the professor raised its head from the table.

Neil froze. Constance went still as well… with her thighs braced around his torso, Neil realized with a dawning sense of both heat and dismay.

Danger gnome, he thought furiously as his body threatened to respond. Stolen socks. Scorched textbooks. Just a menacing… curvy… chest-straddling…

He choked back a groan, and Dawson’s head drifted back to the desk with a mutter about commencement addresses.

Constance’s hand clamped around Neil’s arm, and she levered him upright, demonstrating a strength Neil never would have expected a woman of her stature to possess.

“Well?” she prompted in a harsh whisper once he was on his feet. “We haven’t got all evening.”

“Tablet,” Neil blurted in reply, blinking at her blurry form as he waved vaguely in the direction of the table.

Constance quickly studied the surface. She snatched up the tablet, shoving it into Neil’s arms—then bent down and plucked something from the floor.

She pushed it toward his face. Neil instinctively flinched back until the familiar weight of a pair of wire frames slipped over his ears.

The room came into focus in a sprawl of papers across the desk, a sleeping professor—and Constance’s irritated glare, framed by thick black locks that were making an admirable effort to escape from their pins.

“You’re… I’m…” Neil stammered, blinking down at her. “We’re… Why…?”

“It’s a bloody rescue, you nitwit!” Constance hissed.

Then she planted a leg on the table, whipped up the froth of her white gown, and exposed the smooth, muscular curve of her calf.

Neil’s mind went blank of everything butleg—until Constance slipped a dagger from her garter.

He fumbled the tablet, nearly dropping it to the floor.

“Stay behind me and keep quiet,” Constance ordered, grabbing him by the sleeve and hauling him through the door into the dark, silent hallway. “There’s a rowboat tied to the landing platform at the stern. We’ll use that—unless you can swim?”

“We did summer occasionally at the lake, and I went for the odd… Hold on—why would we need to swim?” Neil demanded in a tight hush.

“It would be a stealthier means of escape than the launch.” She made the conclusion sound as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world.

“You want us to throw ourselves into the Nile?” Neil protested, barely remembering to keep his panicked voice low. “What about crocodiles?”

“We can deal with the problem of crocodiles if it arises,” Constance replied with a dismissive wave.

“How does one simply deal withcrocodiles?” Neil burst back incredulously.

“You are talking too much!” she hissed in reply.

She grabbed his arm, dragging him down the hallway. The opening to the landing was a rectangle of softer darkness against the thick gloom.

A figure stepped into the middle of the space—an Al-Saboor with his right arm wrapped in a sling, a cigarette glowing from between the fingers of his left.

He stared at them with surprise. Neil stared back.

Another Al-Saboor popped into the opening beside him, his face framed by a pair of enormous ears.

“El aganeb beyehrabo!” he called out sharply.

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