"HOW LONG DO YOU THINK they have being here, exactly that way?"
"Five hundred years, give or take." Rosa replied Aya. "To think they buried themselves in with her is a cause for both worry and faith. I don't know which is best to consider. One on end, I admire the monks decision to commit life and death. On the other end, it's pretty stupid to suffocate to death for one who is already gone. I wonder what they were thinking in the final moments of their death."
"—probably that their knees hurt so much," said Rafel, and everyone laughed.
"Ugh! Please can we get to the sarcophagus. The air is ripe."
Ravenna held up a gloved hand to her nose. Sekhmet admired her etiquette a moment. The young lady was often randy in her ways, not boyish, just wild. Lifting the lid on the jewelled tomb showed the others just how much [Divine] strength Sekhmet had coursing through her veins.
She tossed the hard granite and silver like a paper weight. Everyone peered in.
"Good God!" Rosa exclaimed. "In all my life, I have never seen such a beautiful mummy."
Rafel would've laughed, but he too was perplexed. The body of Tomasina was in perfect animated state. Not even a speck of dust on her shined forehead. She had pure, porcelain skin, and she was a brunette; her waves of dark brown still in a tidy coiffure of the homely fashion common in her century. She was like she lived—and was half expected to open her eyes any second.
She didn't.
Tomasina was dead as a doornail, but looked like sleeping beauty.
Unlike her abbots, her skin wasn't gray or wrinkled, and she smelled like the eternal moonflowers at the sides of her sarcophagus, buried with her. She had a garland of peach petals in her hair. Her hands were folded over her belly. Her gown was long and white; it did out the toes. And her ghostly face seemed like she was about to smile.
In her hands was a staff of pure gold. . .and the Book.
"Hah! Finally! I'm sorry, Saint Tomasina, but we'll be needing this. Thank you!" Ravenna gingerly raised the dead girl's hands, plucking the long, leathery tome underneath. "Is there a ritual to this thing?" She looked around.
Everyone's gaze landed square on Rosa.
"What? Oh, because I'm the Detective? I have all the answers now?" Rosamunde chimed. They all kept staring. "I don't know," she quickly added. "We found the Book together, you know.
I'M AS INTRIGUED AS YOU ARE."
Ravenna was flipping through the empty pages. She said, "you sure this is the GREAT and MYSTERY Book of Souls? The pages are blank. There are no words. No fucking symbols either!"
"That's because you aren't a demon." Rafel's dark voice echoed in the dank tomb. "You do not trade in souls."
Sekhmet tipped her head to Rafel. "Do not be rude, Ravenna. Give the book to His Eminence."
Aya Naamah held the ball of light closer, the glow illuminating their faces in sinister cast. Ravenna did as instructed, bowing, "I'm sorry, my liege. I've forgotten myself to discovery. Here you go." She held out both hand, offering the Book of Souls. Aside the unnatural heaviness, the tome seemed like any other library book.
Rafel collected the book but didn't open it.
He said aloud, "I promised a certain fair Detective I wouldn't use the Book until I was strong enough. My nurse hasn't cleared me yet." He smiled, and Sekhmet blushed. All the women returned it. He had a contagious spirit. "Come on! Let's leave the Saint to get rest.
As for her matronly hips and Abba-esque thighs, the wrapper could not keep it hidden. Her assets played with the eyes, teasing, and corrupting. They all caught peeks from the narrow slit reaching up to her left hip and hints in her body movement. Her curves were beyond this world. Her skin was as handfuls of the sun at dusk, spills of light too buxomy and ripe to look away.
This superhot, gorgeous body of hers was pressing in mounds to Rafel's divine hardness.
Keep the adventure going on m_vl-em|p-yr
When one looked at them, it was impossible not to think of sex; to imagine them together, the friction of his gold virility pounding her wanton flesh.
Aya and Rosa indulged their eyes to the fullest.
Blue was appreciatively cracking down bones tossed to him when Ravenna appeared again from the side arch. She walked out with her hands behind her back. And when Rosa's pupils widened at the mystery, she produced from her back a lute.
Gently, she held it out to Rafel.
"For mi'lord," she said. Rafel noticed her accent was thicker when she was showing emotion. "Look what I found. Play us something, will you? Please?"
Rafel shook his head, but Sekhmet had already taken the bait.
"You play the guitar?"
"I dabble." Rafel avoided her bright eyes.
Aya giggled. "Oh, posh! He's being cute. He plays the piano too. He's. .
.really good with his hands."
All the women shared a look, and as Rafel bent his head they burst out laughing.
"—ha! Oh my God! I haven't laughed this hard since that party Dionysus threw back a century. You guys are amazing company. Well, go on, Apollyon, play us a song!" Sekhmet urged him with her eyes. In the face of four breathtaking babes, who was he to refuse?
Rafel licked his lips and collected the fine guitar Ravenna handed out. It was an exquisite make; a Spaniard treasure, with lively gold strings. He tuned and plucked one, and the ladies drew closer.
"If I play, you have to dance."
"We will, my Lord," Aya couldn't contain her smile.
Rafel started a high spirit folk tune they all knew too well, and in seconds, he had the girls jumping on the feet, gigging and wiggling hips to every belt of his baritone and strum of his fine guitar. They sang with him:
"O'er the hills, the squirrels play. O'er the trees, the bluebirds sing! And we'll be coming 'round the mountain side. . . WE'LL BE COMING 'ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN WE COME!
WE'LL BE. . ."
On and on they sang and danced. And eventually fell breathless to the floor, sweaty and glued to each other. Ravenna rubbed her head in Aya's thigh and gazed up Rafel.
She whispered, "I wish we can stay like this forever. I don't wanna leave."
It was Sekhmet who broke the companionable silence. "We don't need to."