Wraiths of Time Read Online Free Page B

away. Inside was a small bundle wrapped in yellowed material.
    â€œDon’t!” Tallahassee caught at Carey’s elbow. “The radiation!”
    He did not even look at her. Instead he dropped the lid with a clatter to the desk and caught at the bundle. Dr. Joe attempted to snatch it away, his expression one of complete amazement.
    Dr. Carey eluded him, just as he had jerked free from Tallahassee. He was tearing at the wrapping of the bundle frenziedly. The material peeled off in bits, as if the stuff had been weakened by age. What he held, after a second or two of fighting the covering, was an object about a foot long. And the shape was familiar to them all. This was an ankh—that very ancient key to all life which every representative of an Egyptian god or goddess carried in one hand. It had been carved of some crystalline-appearing substance and showed no fracture or erosion.
    Dr. Carey dropped it to the desk top.
    â€œWhat? Why?” He was wiping his hands up and down the front of his coat as if something he feared and hated clung to them. And now his face was pinched and drawn. “Why?…” he repeated in a voice higher than usual as if he needed an answer from them as to the reason for his actions.
    At that moment there was a burst of thunder which seemed so close overhead that the roof itself might have been shattered. Tallahassee cowered and screamed, she could not help it. A second later the lights went out, and they stood in darkness.
    â€œNo! No! No!” Someone was crying out—the sound growing fainter with every denial.
    â€œDr. Joe.” Somehow Tallahassee found her voice. “Dr. Joe!” She tried to get around the table and ran into a chair, nearly losing her balance. Then she stood still.
    There was light in the room. But it did not come from any bulb, any lamp she knew. It rayed out from the ankh on the table. The thing glowed.
    And that glow drew her—just as she knew again that the presence she had sensed earlier was back, stronger than ever.
    The ankh arose from the desk top. It was moving—and it was drawing her along after it. She tried to call out, to catch at the chair, at the wall, at anything that could serve as an anchorage. But there was nothing she could do.
    â€œDr. Joe!” This time her plea came as a faint whisper, the ability to say more had left her. That—that presence controlled her better than if someone had laid hands upon her shoulders and was pushing her ahead.
    Frightened as she had never been before in her life, Tallahassee followed the floating, ghostly ankh one reluctant step at a time. They were in the outer hall now, she and the thing she could not see but well knew was with her, willing her to some task.
    Here there was no light, either, but that given off by the ankh. However, it seemed to glow the brighter, so she could see the stairwell. Holding to the banister she went down and down, always that compulsion pushing her.
    She found herself praying, not even in a whisper, because she could no longer voice even that much, but in her mind. This—this will that held her—it was a nightmare. This thing could not be happening—it could not! Yet it was.
    They reached the fourth floor, the ankh swung into the hall there. Dimly, through her fear, Tallahassee realized where they were going—toward the three rooms that held the Brooke Collection. She had somehow surrendered part of herself. This was happening and apparently there was nothing she could do to prevent it.
    â€œTallahassee!”
    Her name echoed hollowly from the stairwell behind. Dr. Joe! But he was too late—too late.… Too late for what, a part of her mind asked dully?
    There was another roar of thunder but under it something else which pulsed even as the thunder died. Drums—the calling drums. Tallahassee forced her hands up over her ears, but she could not shut out that faint, demanding vibration of sound. And now there was