Her Kind of Trouble by Evelyn Vaughn Read Free Book Online

trust.
    "You are both strong women," Rhys clarified, to my relief.
    That seemed the safer analogy.
     
    Speedboats bounce. At least, they do around other boats, as in the partially enclosed
harbor
of
Alexandria
. Salt spray flew into my face, sunlight glared across the water, and I loved it. This no longer felt as foreign as Egypt . It felt more familiarly like the Mediterranean —which, just beyond the crescent of land enclosing the harbor from either side, it was.
    You may have read about the discovery of Cleopatra's Palace in
Newsweek
or
National Geographic
, or seen a special about it on cable television. I had, even before I'd started my search for the goddess grails…or learned that Cleopatra herself had claimed to be the reincarnation of the goddess Isis.
    "That's common knowledge to Egyptologists," Rhys assured me, shouting over the engine of the motorboat we rode toward the anchored cabin cruiser where the main archeological team worked. "Pharaohs were gods on earth, or so they and their followers believed—hence that little tiff between Moses and his foster brother, before the exodus? Cleopatra VII was simply maintaining an important tradition passed down from millennia of rulers."
    "Cleopatra
VII
?" Had there been that many?
    "She's the one you're thinking of," Rhys assured me.
    "Seduced Julius Caesar, then Mark Antony, heavy-on-the-eye-shadow, death-by-asp Cleopatra."
    "The very same. It's well-known that, amid her palace complex, she had a temple to Isis . But we now assume that the same earthquake which destroyed the Pharos Lighthouse submerged the palace complex as well. It was long after that nasty death-by-asp business, though."
    I looked from the approaching cabin cruiser back toward the coastal city of Alexandria , which, from the water, vaguely resembled an especially dusty, disorganized Venice off the Grand Canal … except for the chunks of cement blocks at the water's edge, to fight erosion. Then I turned to the medieval fortress that guarded the harbor entrance from the sea, and tried to imagine how this ancient city would have looked a thousand years before even that had been built. "And where there is a temple to Isis … "
    "It stands to reason there may be a reliquary," agreed Rhys. "And where there is a reliquary… "
    "There could be relics like a goddess grail." I shivered happily at the thought. Another font of female power, just waiting for us under the salty water. If only I could collect enough—however many that might be—then they could finally be revealed to a world in need of their balance and power.
    The man we'd hired to ferry us out to the cabin cruiser steered well around what I recognized as a diver-down buoy. He cut his engine and levered the motor up out of the water for safety. Momentum carried us the rest of the way to the ship. When I saw the name of this floating headquarters—
Soeur d'Aphrodite
, or
Aphrodite's Sister—I
felt all the more certain of the lightness of this visit.
    Aphrodite, whom the Romans called Venus, isn't just a goddess. She may well be another face of Isis .
    "Several significant archeologists have been leading the effort to explore these sites since their discovery," explained Rhys, grabbing hold of the ladder on the side of the ship as we coasted in beside it. "Whenever they can get permission. This is one of the few places in Alexandria where the scholars aren't having to fight developers for rights to the land. There is even some talk about creating an underwater tunnel system specifically so that tourists can view the finds—once the government manages to lessen the toxicity in the local seawater. After you."
    He had my laptop case again, so all I had to do was I gather up the excess of my torn cotton skirt, twist it, and luck it into the waistband before I climbed up. If anyone had a problem with seeing my knees, they'd just have to get over it. I wasn't about to risk falling into water Rhys had just announced was toxic. Once I swung onto