Story Orgy Creature Feature: Mum's the Word #storyorgy #mmromance #creaturefeature

Good morning friends and readers!
Welcome back to Story Orgy. Welcome back- I'm catching up with Izzy and Owen slowly, but it should be clear by now that this story is going to go on a whole lot longer than originally planned. It was supposed to end on October 26th, at which time the whole of Story Orgy was switching to a holiday theme and writing some good old fashioned feel good holiday stories. That didn't quite work out, as you can tell. I have a few more posts to go before we get this all squared away and move on.
Ready to see what happens next?

Mum's the Word 

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Izzy handed the badge holder back to Gregoire… whose real name appeared to be Gregory Noire, which wasn’t much better than his assumed identity. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were law enforcement I would never--”

“Throw a cannonball at a cop?” Hearing the clear, crisp voice, Izzy was amazed that he’d ever thought the man a foreign national. “Good to know.”

“I can’t really take credit for the cannonball.” Izzy demurred. “You actually knocked that shelf over all by yourself.”

“Because you hit me in the head with something else!”

Shrugging, Izzy glanced around the room. “So, there’s no Cigar Store Indian here either. Is that what you’re really looking for?”

“Today it is. I didn’t figure we’d find it though. Same as with all the other moderately valuable items. It’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Stolen.”

“There isn’t really going to be any new grand reopening of the museum for the alumni association, is there?” He’d thought after the weeks of fruitless seeking, through box after box of worthless trivia, of the growing certainty that there would be no archaeological glory, that disappointment had become something he knew well.

But it seemed that he’d been holding some secret hope, some spark of a dream that had been nurtured by their recent findings. And that small spark had been enough to warm the fire of his ambition and if not fan it to a full flame.

Noire’s words were a bucket of ice water thrown rudely in his face.

“No. There is not.”

Frustration spilled over into rash speech. “Then what are we doing here? Why are Owen and I wasting our time in this museum?”

“You can’t guess?”

“Why should I?”

“Your professor Gamez was the most likely suspect. While I was investigating his thefts, I needed to keep an eye on his two proteges in case they were a part of the scheme.”

Flinching under a tidal wave of emotions, anger, resentment, fear, Izzy’s lips moved, but no sound came out. The university thought he and Owen… “Professor Gamez?” He asked, shocked. “You think the professor stole artifacts?” Even as he couldn’t believe it, neither could he find any other solution.

“There is no doubt at all.”

“But these things could have been taken any time. The museum has been closed for decades.”

Noire shook his head relentlessly. “No. The last complete inventory was done in 1994, when the previous museum head retired and Gamez took over the position with his promotion to full professor. since as you noted, the museum was not open to the public nor used to teach classes any more, there was exactly one set of keys which remained in his possession.”

Izzy shook his head in disbelief. “It’s not possible,” he murmured. “Other people…”

“The losses are too extensive, Izzy. A professor here and there, or a student who might have come in for research? They just didn’t have the time or the opportunity to hunt down the most valuable artifacts, no. There was only ever one suspect in this case.”

“Professor Gamez.” Incredible. He’d known the professor so long, and never suspected the amiable man was capable of such… dishonesty.

“And his two teaching assistants.” Izzy tacked on bitterly. “I can’t believe--”

“Oh, believe it.”

“And the university let you… just… we don’t really have jobs for this semester?” That hurt more than finding out the professor he’d defended was a criminal. He’d counted on this job, on getting caught up with all his bills and being able to quit working at the senior citizens home. Looked forward to lattes before class and steak… not every night but once in awhile.

If you’d asked him even two years ago what food he could eat every day and not grow tired of it, he’d have said pizza. Now? He was heartily sick of every kind of cheesy tomato pie you could imagine. “I think that’s pretty shitty thing to do. Owen and I have never done anything dishonest.”

Noire’s brows rose, “Except take home boxes of docuemnts that aren’t supposed to leave the museum?”

“Except that.” Damn Owen had really screwed them over with that move. “And we did return them promptly.”

“Exactly.” Noire had the good grace to look slightly ashamed. “I’m not sure about your jobs. I’m pretty sure at this point that you two had nothign to do with the thefts. But as for your employment, that’s up to the university.”

“Of course,” Izzy muttered. “Owen has been gone a logn time.”

“He has, hasn’t he?” Noire stood up, smudging the blood smear on his head as he brushed at it. “We’d better go find him.”

“He’s not stealing anything.” Izzy felt compelled to defend his friend. “I know he isn’t.”

“Then what’s taking him so long? If he’s not doing something he shouldn’t be then he’s taking the longest piss in medical history.”

“He’s looking for a mummy.” Izzy confessed, feeling like an idiot for not realizing what Owen meant sooner.

“A mummy? The one referred to in the box of correspondence you took home?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not here.” Noire said flatly. “That was one of the first things we looked for. It’s a sizeable piece of stone and easily recognizable.”

“You knew it wasn’t here?” That explained why he’d had little interest in the box of documents.

“We knew. It was a red flag for the university.”

Noire opened the door and allowed Izzy to pass in front of him. Instead of heading toward the staircase and the restrooms, Izzy shined his light toward the end of the hall. It was dark, and looked much the same as when they’d left it earlier in the day.

“The restrooms are up here.” Noire pointed out.

“Owen’s not in the restroom.” Izzy confessed. “He left to check out a secret door we found earlier today.”

“Secret door?”

“Down there,” Izzy gestured, sending light scattering up the walls and around the end of the hall.

“He’s not there.” Noire must have extraordinary night vision because he shot past Izzy into the darkness without a second thought.

“Seriously?” Izzy followed more slowly, shining the beam of his flashlight into the side corridors as he went checking to see if Owen had wandered off somewhere else, even though a growing sense of foreboding told him that the secret room behind the secret door had swallowed Owen whole and left Izzy here with the law and no idea…

“Come on Izzy. I can’t believe our initial searches missed this.”

If you enjoyed my post, click on over to the rest of the Orgiasts and read more! 

Hank Edwards

Havan Fellows 

EM WOODS

Story Orgy Creature Mum's the Word Part 13 #mmromance #creaturefeature #storyorgy

Good morning friends and readers!
Welcome back to Story Orgy. I'm late by over a week with this post! Late seems to be my middle name for this whole story. Ready to see what happens next?

Mum's the Word 

Chapter Thirteen

Oct 26: "So...it has come to this?"

“So it has come to this has it?”

Owen stirred groggily. The voice was familiar… his eyes opened reluctantly. His whole head throbbed, worse than the time he’d downed an entire fifth of whiskey freshman year. But he hadn’t gotten drunk… not in a long time. Certainly not since he and Izzy had been on such a tight budget all summer. Then why did he…

The memory of the blow to the head returned quickly along with the general impression of getting the shit kicked out of him by a mummy. Which couldn’t be right, and might just be a sign that he’d finally reached his limit in terms of how many B movies a man could watch without going completely insane.

“What…” His tongue seemed swollen and unwilling to do its work. Owen could sympathize, but felt imminent danger too keenly to allow any slacking. “What’ s going on?” He tried moving and discovered that it wasn’t possible. His toes wiggled, his fingers clenched, but his ankles and wrists seemed to be bound with something.

“I might ask you the same question, but I really don’t care to hear the answer.” Because the speaker stood between Owen and the candle, he appeared to be all shadow, a bulky, masculine shadow.

“Professor Gamez?” The identity of the speaker dawned on him in a rush. “You’re not supposed to be here.” He’d been banned from the campus following the allegations of sexual misconduct the year before.

“I’m not the only one. Those idiots think they did me a disservice by firing me? Ha.”

A cautious glance at his feet revealed that the duct tape he and Izzy had left in the hallway after rigging the door that afternoon had been put to good use. “You could have fought for your job.” Owen wiggled. It was the best he could do. The duct tape ripped hair out of his wrists. The pain of that allowed him to focus more, to get out of the throbbing in his head and think more clearly.

“Fought for my job? Teaching idiotic teenagers about Howard Carter and demolishing their dreams of becoming Indiana Jones? Whatever for? No. No. I was nearly done there anyway. I just needed a little more time.”

“Time?” Owen rubbed his wrists together, trying to loosen the tape enough to squeeze his hands through. “But…”

“Time to cover my tracks, and to make sure that there wasn’t anything else left.”

The professor moved, and the candlelight flickered over features that Owen had once considered friendly, genuine. He didn’t know whether it was his current situation or a new clarity of vision that revealed a less than amiable aspect of his favorite… former favorite… professor’s appearance. his eyes appeared to be dark and cold, his lips were twisted in a derisive sneer.

“Cover your tracks?” The truth… or a possible truth… dawned on him in a flash. “You’ve been stealing the museum’s artifacts?” Selling antiquities on the black market… or even eBay was probably quite lucrative. Especially if the professor had been hand picking the most valuable items for his entire tenure.

Which explained why Izzy and Owen hadn’t found anything of much interest in all the storage rooms they’d swept and inventoried. Gamez had most likely been removing all reference and records related to each item he’d taken as he’d taken it, leaving piles of the sorts of things that people all over the country probably had in their own attics. Like arrowheads, family journals, and civil war memorabilia.

Of course, taking all the bloody arrowheads would have been just as good a money making scheme, and probably less noticeable. More time consuming though, Owen conceded. Why make your money two dollars at a time when a single Egyptian artifact… with provenance, might bring you a hundred thousand dollars?

“Stealing? The museum had no right to those things.”

“Most of them were donated by alumni,” Owen pointed out. Right now he really wished he’d adhered to Izzy’s demand that they stick together. The tape on his hands was getting less sticky, and his wrists smarted where the hair had been ripped out.

“Who misappropriated them from their land of origin.” The professor picked up a shoe box that Owen recognized as the one he’d taken home the other day. So Gamez had the Egyptian artifacts too.

“That doesn’t make you stealing them right.”

The professor picked up the candle, illuminating his face in full for the first time. “Ah… your nursery school morality is so… useless. Two wrongs don't make a right, do they? Well, Owen, it’s been nice chatting, but I must be off.” He blew out the candle and disappeared into the resulting darkness. “I’d wish you well, but… I’m afraid that’s probably not going to work out for you in the circumstances.”

At least, that’s how it seemed as Owen’s eyes struggled once again to adjust to the change in lighting.  It didn't take as long this time, and if he’d paid attention in biology class he might have known why. Instead, he was just left with gratitude for the fact.

If he could reach the swiss army knock off in his pocket, he’d be able to escape easily. If he didn’t… then it sounded like Gamez’s threat had a solid basis in reality. No one knew this door was here, just him and Izzy.

Izzy.

Izzy would come looking for him, and find the hidden door for sure.

Unless he was off somewhere making out with the sexy professor he’d been making eyes at all semester.

“Izzy!” He shouted, jerking at his bound wrists. “Izzy!” Somehow the idea of rotting in this hidden room while Izzy and the Professor went about their lives, wondering occasionally what ever happened to Owen, why he’d disappeared while taking a piss in a museum that had been as looted as Tut’s tomb, really pissed him off.

Because.

Izzy was his, wasn’t he?

And Owen as an only child with few possessions, had never really learned to share.

If you enjoyed my post, click on over to the rest of the Orgiasts and read more! 

Hank Edwards

Havan Fellows 

EM WOODS

Story Orgy Creature Feature: Mum's the Word Part 12 #storyorgy #creaturefeature #mmromance

Good morning friends and readers!
Welcome back to Monday with Story Orgy. Ready to see what happens next?

Mum's the Word

Chapter Twelve

Oct 19: It was all he expected.

The creep factor in the hallway increased a thousand fold after Owen left. And how that had even happened, Izzy couldn’t quite explain. Big blue eyes… Head jerks… then “I’m going to pee”, and voila.

Izzy was left holding the flashlight for a man who wasn’t seeming quite so sexy any more. One who had apparently decided that with Owen away, Izzy was…

Available?

Now why would he think that?

Because you met him at a bar?

Flirted with him in the library?

Made eyes at him and --

“Urg.” He choked on his own thoughts and self-consciously inched away from the professor.

“Did you say something?” Micahn Gregoire looked up from the door he’d been trying to unlock.

“Uh… no. Sorry.”

“Perhaps you could shine the light a little closer. This lock… The key doesn’t seem to match.” Finding the right key for most of the doors hadn’t been any trouble because they were meticulously labeled.

Izzy directed the beam over the professor’s shoulder, annoyed that the action required that he move closer. Standing this close to Owen had stirred his senses, but having caught a chilling expression in the professor’s eyes earlier, the professor’s proximity just made his skin crawl.

“Ah…” Door released as tumblers fell into place audibly. The professor rose, grabbed Izzy’s arm and tugged him into the room, closing the door behind them in one abrupt, shocking movement. The flashlight tumbled from his grip to land somewhere on his left, beam directed uselessly at the wall beside him. “Where’s your friend?”

“He… uh…” Izzy glanced around frantically. The room was dark, his flashlight beam was still aimed low… “Went to the bathroom.”

“Good.” The professor breathed, stooping slightly to whisper directly into Izzy’s ear. “I don’t trust him. That boy is up to something. He’s not like us, Izzy.”

“Uh…” Izzy jerked backward, running immediately into the wall. “He’s--”

“What were you two really doing here, Izzy?” Gregoire crowded closer rudely, in a movement that could have been interpreted as sexy by a viewer, but for Izzy, looking into those thinly slitted dark eyes, there was no mistaking it for anything but what it was. A threat.

“Oh…” He wiggled a little, trying to escape and to come up with some believable excuse for their presence. “We were just passing.”

“Just passing?”

Izzy stopped moving. Surely… the professor’s accent had disappeared. He now spoke crisply in a completely unaccented English. “Just passing.” He placed both hands on the professor’s barrel chest, braced his back on the wall and shoved.

The professor fell back but recovered himself smoothly. “I don’t believe you. You’re a terrible liar, Izzy.”

Stifling the cowardly impulse to pretend he hadn’t noticed that slip in the man’s accent, Izzy gathered his courage and spoke. “You’re a pretty good one though.”

“Ah.” All pretense of amiability and flirtation were stripped away, as though that one word had been a disguise that the man shed. “I had rather hoped you hadn’t noticed that. Too bad.”

Wincing, Izzy wished the door would open up behind him and free him from this position, trapped between the door and a suddenly not so veiled threatening presence. “I can’t believe you’re a fraud.”

Where the hell was Owen? Pissing shouldn’t take this long!

“Fraud?” Gregoire stepped back, giving Izzy just enough room to duck under his arm and dart across the room to a place that might not have been any safer, but at least put some distance between him and the unknown. “That’s not how I’d put it.”

“Well, how would you put it?” Izzy demanded, covertly seeking something to use as a weapon if Gregoire got too close again. Seemed like since this was a museum storage room there should be potential weapons everywhere… knives, axes, pipes, candlesticks, ropes… But here in his own personal hell of a Clue game, there were only black shadows and vague shapes, which from his personal experience most likely contained correspondence or trinkets.

“Oh for the love of Mike. Quit looking for something to clobber me with.” There was the sound of something scraping on something, a little quiet thumping… then the overhead light came on, blinding Izzy with its dim glare.

He blinked rapidly, unwilling to trust Gregoire when he couldn’t see him. Reaching behind him and praying that he’d come up with something useful, he grabbed the first thing he could wrap his hand around. His heart pounded furiously, and it seemed to take forever for his vision to adjust. His ears strained to catch any more signs of movement, any indications that Gregoire was coming closer, moving in for the kill maybe.

“Sorry about the lights.”

Said lights glinted on something metal as Gregoire extended his arm. Izzy didn’t stop to think, just reacted. It might be a gun or a knife, either way… He swung his own weapon over hand, pegging Gregoire in the face with whatever it was.

“Aurgh.” The man staggered, reached for a shelf to upright himself, and instead sent it toppling towards himself. Izzy scrambled backward, eyes finally adjusting to the darkness in time to see the shelf full of what looked to be civil war battlefield relics topple.

fascinated, like watching a game of Mousetrap in slow motion, he watched one cannon ball roll down, chasing a canteen and a leather satchel as the slid toward Gregoire, who had regained his balance, somewhat.

“What the hell?” The man wiped at his forehead, examining a streak of blood on his hand, unaware of the impending attack. He glanced from the blood to Izzy, frowning. “Why did you… What did you throw at me?”

Izzy pointed to the floor, shrugging. He didn’t know what it was. Whatever it had been, it had his undying gratitude, because the professor no longer appeared to have a weapon. He must have dropped the gun or knife when Izzy’s mystery object struck him.

Gregoire’s head followed Izzy’s finger, and the first object from the shelf struck him in the back of the head, followed in rapid succession by the rest, ending with the cannon ball which had gained enough momentum that when it contacted Gregoire’s skull it did so with a loud, resounding crack.

Gregoire crumpled to the ground with a faint moan and lay silent. Izzy relaxed enough to realize he’d been holding his breath.

“That was truly fortuitous.” He glanced up at the ceiling and addressed a deity he’d never been really sure existed, but had been dragged to church enough by his suburban parents to feel too guilty to completely ignore. “Thank you. I…”

“Oh…” The man on the floor stirred and Izzy decided prayers of gratitude could wait.  He had to get out of here and find Owen and then really get the fuck out of here.

He kept as much distance between the fallen professor and himself as he could, but the man was in front of the door, so he had no choice but to step over him. It was midstep, with one foot poised over Gregoire’s knee that he saw what must have been in the man’s hand. A gleam of gold on the floor a few feet away caught his eye.

His heart sank and Izzy returned to his original position, bending down to scoop up the leather and metal. He knew though, that he was in a boatload of trouble even as he squinted to read it.

Gregoire was a cop. Undercover.

And Izzy had assaulted him.

If you enjoyed my post, click on over to the rest of the Orgiasts and read more! 

Hank Edwards

Havan Fellows 

EM WOODS

Story Orgy Creature Feature: Mum's The Word part 11 #storyorgy #mmromance #creaturefeature

Good morning friends and readers!
Welcome back to Monday with Story Orgy. Ready to see what happens next?

Mum's the Word

Chapter Eleven

Oct 12: "Death changes everything."

One promisingly tall lump turned out to be a vacuum cleaner stacked atop a drum set. Another was a dressmaker’s mannequin dressed in a beaded, glittery dress and sporting what Owen’s inexperienced eyes interpreted as a fortune in square cut diamond jewelry.

But none of the twelve rooms down the left side of the hall revealed a cigar store Indian. Nor, to Owen’s immense regret, did they find a mummy or even a sarcophagus hidden in any of the dark corners.

“We should have done this this morning,” He muttered to Izzy. “A quick run through for large objects--”

He froze, staring down to the central hallway over Izzy’s shoulder. A glimmer of light off in the far corner, where it should only be darkness.

“Owen?”

The professor had moved across to the opposite side of the hall and a door there.  The fairy light in the hall winked out, then back again. “Izzy… take the flashlight and follow the professor.”

“What?”

Owen nodded down the hall. Widened his eyes, tried with everything he had in him to convey without words that he wanted to check out the mystery door again. Sadly, Izzy only seemed receptive to psychic conversations that were sexually oriented.

“Gentlemen.”

“Yes professor.” Izzy scurried… actually scurried to the professor’s side with the flashlight.

Owen huffed in disgust. “I’ll be right back. I have to go to the restroom.” He didn’t wait for either of them to respond. Stepping out of the circle of the flashlight’s glow gave him second thoughts. But not enough.

“What? No.” Izzy protested, but Owen shook off his reaching hand.

“I’ll be right back. If you find something I’ll help carry it.”

Let Izzy keep the professor on track opening doors that led to rooms full of dusty nothings. Owen was convinced that if there was anything in this building worth finding, then it was worth hiding behind a fake door in a wall hidden behind junk. And clearly someone else thought so too.

But who?

He slipped as quietly as possible down the hall in the dark, out into the wider central hallway. The light in the back was more visible now, a defiant fuck you to the darkness… a siren call to his curious nature.

Back in the corner behind the debris pile they’d investigated that morning, the long thin line of light provided a basis for his investigation. The tools… that was limited to a knock off Swiss army knife he’d thought to bring along. Owen removed the cool bit of metal and plastic from his pocket, and opened it to the thin screw driver blade. Reaching up high, he wedged the blade into the crack and pried it forward. The panel didn’t move.

There had to be a latch somewhere. Even though there was no handle. Leaning close, he studied the crack, looking for the telltale spot of darkness that would give him access.

On the other side, he couldn’t help but notice shadowy movement. It was enough to give him pause, but not enough to stop him. He’d deal with the movement… if and when he got the door open.

Halfway down the wall the screwdriver hit the latch with what sounded like an incredibly loud clink. With the latch released, the door swung inward before he could catch it. Owen stepped into a space more dimly lit than that line of light had indicated.

The sense of motion was explained when he identified the light source as a candle flame. One of those large, thick wax candles with three wicks stood on a wooden crate in the center of the small space. The ones he’d seen before had been scented like vanilla and other perfumey things, but this one was odorless. There wasn’t anything else in the room though. Just that crate, the candle and the flickering flame.

At first he was disappointed, but when his eyes adjusted and he was able to see behind the candle glow into the dim shadows, he was able to pick out something that made his heart race. Almost directly opposite was another door. Other than the shadow there’d been no attempt made to hide this one. It was just as much heavy wood and industrial fixtures as any of the dozen they’d already opened that night.

Only this door boasted a tarnished brass name plate reading Horace Gould Department of Archaeology.

The name was familiar from the letters they’d found.

He glanced over his shoulder. The faintest noises from hall c indicated that Izzy and the professor were still searching room by room. How much time did he have?

Did it matter?

Owen entered the room, one hand holding the door open. He couldn’t leave it open. While it would be good to have Izzy follow him, no way did he want Dr. Gregoire discovering the former head of the archaeology department’s office.

The inside of the door had no handle either.

No matter. He could use his knife to open it again. Cautiously, he let it close and picked up the candle. Too bad he’d given his flashlight to Izzy. The door to the professor’s office wasn’t locked. The knob turned easily and the door made no noise as it glided toward him.

In retrospect that should have given him pause, but by then it was too late.

The candle…

The oiled door hinge…

All of it spoke to him too late.

The pain exploded in the back of his skull seconds after he stepped into the old office, but not before the candle flame flickered over brilliant colors, jeweled enamel and gold.

A sarcophagus. The sarcophagus changed everything.

He’d found it.

The second blow drove him to the floor.

A third struck brutally below his rib cage. Owen sucked in a breath and tried to roll away. He crashed into something, setting off a train reaction of small thuds and earned himself another painful blow. This time his vision blurred.

Out of focus… surely that was a white tennis shoe not a gauze wrapped foot swinging in for a third blow?

He didn’t have time to convince himself before it all went dark. But it had to be a shoe.

It had to be. 

If you enjoyed my post, click on over to the rest of the Orgiasts and read more! 

Hank Edwards

Havan Fellows 

EM WOODS

Story Orgy Creature Feature : Mum's the Word Part Ten #storyorgy #blogstory #mmromance

Good morning friends and readers!
Welcome back to Monday with Story Orgy. Ready to see what happens next?
This week we're going to have an ABUNDANCE of Mum's the Word posts to get caught up...

Mum's the Word

Chapter Ten

Oct 5: It was the smallest of regrets.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Izzy hovered behind Owen, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “What if someone sees us?”

The parking lots were empty, the hedges dark lines hiding the campus.  Anyone could walk by… walk right up to them. They wouldn’t even have to get too close in the bright moonlight to identify Izzy and Owen.

“Why not?” Owen wiggled the heavy exterior door.

That’s all it took to open it, thanks to the strategically placed square of duct tape on the strike plate that Owen had used to tape the latch down.

“Because… law and order are necessary for the successful function of society.”

“Fine.” Owen nodded. “I get it. You wait here and I’ll go see if I can find anything.”

Izzy didn’t even bother glancing around to see if anyone was watching them. “Absolutely not. We stick together.” He repeated the words he’d said that afternoon, but in the light of the full moon, with a chill fall breeze ruffling his too long hair… and in the midst of breaking and entering, it sounded desperate.

A trill of laughter and a high pitched shriek from the left finalized his decision. He scurried after Owen, letting the door close behind him.

Momentum carried him forward, tumbling into Owen, who caught him. The flashlight he’d had in his hand clattered to the ground. “Sh.” Owen put a finger to his lips, silencing Izzy’s instinctive apology.

Immediately his imagination kicked into overdrive. Heart racing, Izzy strained his ears to hear whatever had triggered Owen’s warning. All he heard was the pounding of his own heart… the heavy panting breaths his rapid entrance had caused. “What did you--” His whisper was cut off by Owen’s finger on his lips.

“Sh.” Owen leaned forward, bathing Izzy in his closeness. “There’s someone here who’s not supposed to be.”

Brushing away the seductive influence of whatever Walmart shower gel Owen had selected this week, Izzy focused on a kernel of anger, blowing it into a full-fledged flame to ward off his fear. “Very funny. Haha. It’s us. We’re not supposed to be here.”

“That’s--”

“Well, we’re here now.” He pushed ahead, bending to pick up the flashlight Owen had dropped. Poised halfway between the ground and standing he froze. The beam of the light caught on something… glinted off something. About twenty feet down the hall.

“Owen?” he whispered. “Give me your hand.”

Obligingly Owen's hand closed on his shoulder and he felt a moment of relief. That touch was familiar. But if Owen was here… Taking a deep breath for courage and feeling his stomach lurch in protest...Izzy continued his upward path.

The glint disappeared.

The beam of light picked up a lean line of something.

Legs. Pants.

Glinted off a bit of metal

Belt buckle.

Outlined a shirt.

Dark with buttons.

“Who is that?” Izzy whispered to Owen.

“I don’t know.” Owen whispered back.

“Why is he just standing there? Can’t he see us?”

“Or hear us?” Owen added. “Why whisper? There’s no way that person doesn’t know we know they’re here. And--”

“Very good. As you say.” The professor’s voice preceded a burst of light that blinded Izzy.

Fortunately the man’s foreign accent was easily identifiable. “What are you doing here Professor Gregoire?” He asked, rubbing his eyes. Not that it helped clear his vision.

“I might ask you the same thing Izzy.”

“We wanted to keep working tonight.” Owen squeezed Izzy’s shoulder hard, and Izzy bit his lip. “It’s going much slower than we thought.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie. In fact, as Owen would no doubt point out, it was very much the truth. They just weren’t here to work to further the professor’s goals.

“And I thought I told you--”

“That you weren’t available tonight.” Owen finished smoothly. “Did your plans fall through?”

Gregoire’s eyes narrowed to thin slits and his lips tightened. “Just so. Since my plans… as you say, fell through. I thought I’d come and put in a few hours of work. I found reference to a wooden cigar store Indian, and thought it might make for an interesting display on the history of tobacco in the new world.”

“A cigar store Indian is pretty big.” Owen, satisfied apparently that Izzy was going to keep quiet, let go his grip on his shoulder. “It’s a good thing we came by. We can help you move it.”

The professor’s expression darkened. His gaze traveled from Izzy to Owen to the door behind them.

Was he going to ask how they’d gotten in?

“Yes. Unfortunately, the documents I located didn’t specify the location of the artifact other than to say that it was stored in the C wing.”

“That explains that then,” Owen nodded. “We didn’t get to that one yet. It’s over here.” He grabbed the flashlight from Izzy and aimed it down the hall. “Let’s get started. Izzy and I’ll check the rooms on the right, you take the ones on the left and we’ll have the cigar store Indian before you know it.”

“I only have one set of keys.” Gregoire rattled the key chain.

“Then we’ll have to work together.”

Izzy followed Owen to hall c, and Gregoire met them there, a sour expression on his face. Had he thought the professor handsome? It seemed impossible now. It was with the smallest regret that he let the professor student fantasy fade.

“You two--”

“Good thing we showed up, huh?” Owen overrode the professor just as he had Izzy earlier. “This will go so much more quickly.”

If you enjoyed my post, click on over to the rest of the Orgiasts and read more! 

Hank Edwards

Havan Fellows 

EM WOODS