“The Obsidian Covenant”
The temple floor gave way beneath me—another damned pressure plate. I caught the crumbling ledge, my satchel of Ptolemaic artifacts swinging wildly. “Jones! The ankh!” shouted Elsa from above, her torchlight dancing over hieroglyphs that shouldn't be moving. The sandstone serpent uncoiled with a grinding shriek. “Yeah, noticed that!” I jammed my boot into its stone gullet, feeling ancient gears snap. The artifact burned through my shirt like dry ice. Somewhere behind us, Schmidt's goons started shouting in guttural German. Elsa tossed the rope. “Stop showing off and climb!” The walls began bleeding mercury. Archaeology was cleaner in textbooks.