The Bone Conjurer. Alex Archer
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full of curly salt-and-pepper hair, a quick glance would place him onstage, guitar in hand. Closer observation—perhaps a genial handshake, as well—would discover he would have to play backup for Mick Jagger, for the lines creasing his face.
Annja recalled he actually did play guitar—sometimes during class—which only made the girls swoon all the more.
An excellent teacher, most students claimed to learn more from one semester of Practical Archaeology than they did all year during some of the more advanced classes. Danzinger frequently guest taught at universities across the country, and Annja had been lucky to have him for a semester herself in her undergrad days.
She remembered him fondly, and she’d had the requisite crush on him, too. But she’d never dated him, as some of her classmates had.
She peeked inside the open doorway to the anthropology lab and found him bent over a high-powered microscope. Curly hair spiraled down the side of his face. A tatter-sleeved T-shirt revealed thin yet muscular arms. He was wearing brown leather pants so worn they looked like the cow wouldn’t take them back. And bare feet.
“Annja, don’t stare, it isn’t polite.”
She entered the lab, swinging the box containing the skull like a bright-eyed schoolgirl dangling her purse as she watched the football star walk by.
Plopping the box on the lab table with a clunk helped to chase away the silliness in her. So she had her goofball moments. Sue her.
“Fancy little box.” Professor Danzinger pushed from the counter and gave her a wink. He moved in an erratic, over-caffeinated, no-time-to-sit-still motion that made her wonder if he didn’t moonlight in a band on weekends. “Is that the newest fashion in purses for hip, young archaeologists?”
“No, I prefer my backpack. And it’s not mine. It belongs to the thief who gave it to me.”
“Ah, a thief.”
“Alleged thief.”
The professor leaned a hip against the counter, propping an elbow and crossing his legs at the ankle. He signaled beyond her. “Where is he?”
“Dead. His body is floating somewhere in the Gowanus Canal.”
“Too bad. Drowned?”
“No, bullet.”
That got a lift of brow from him. She respected him too much to make up a story, and he was one of those who could take anything a person said as if it were merely a weather report. “Truth earned respect” was one of his favorite mantras.
“Annja, you do have an interesting assortment of acquaintances. I seem to recall a nervous junior movie producer tagging along with you last time we met. Doogie something or other?”
“Doug Morrell. Television producer, and jumpy hyperactive is his normal state. I’d hate to see him on caffeine.”
“He produces your show?”
“It’s not my show, but yes, he does.”
“I saw the show a few months ago. Who’s the bimbo?”
“Why? You interested?”
Flash of white teeth. “Always.”
“Good ol’ Professor Danzinger. Always on the make.”
“Sleeping with the professor won’t get you an A, but it does promise a night to remember.”
She felt a blush rise in her cheeks. Annja glanced about the room, unconcerned for the stacked femurs or plaster casts of hands and faces. Just don’t let him see my red face, she thought.
Danzinger, blessedly nonchalant, nodded toward the box. “So let’s take a look, because I know my flirtations will get me nowhere with you.”
“Oh, they might,” she said, trying to sound blasé.
“Really?” He tugged the box toward him and leaned over the counter, bringing him closer to her. So close she could smell the spicy cologne and wonder why she never did invest in the extracurricular extra credit the professor had offered.
“Probably not,” she decided with a sigh. “I’m much too busy most of the time. And running about like a mad woman the rest of the time.”
“No time for a love life? Annja.” He shook his head. “What did I teach you about taking time for yourself?”
“The enslaved soul dies. Or something like that.”
“Close enough. You need to take care of yourself, is what it boils down to. All work and no play, well, you know how that one goes.”
She did. But somehow, even when Annja finagled a little vacation time, it managed to become work. Or adventure. Or both—with bullets.
She had to laugh at her life sometimes. It was either that or scream.
The professor pried off the box top and let out a whistle. “Standard skull enhanced with decorative gold. You seen one, you’ve seen a million. Small though. Newborn. What’s so special about this one, Annja?”
“I’m not sure.”
She was surprised at his dismissive assessment of the skull. Though his focus was on sociology as opposed to anthropology, which went a little way in explaining his lacking interest.
“As I’ve said, someone has already been killed for it. The guy I got this from was able to tell me he was afraid someone wanted to take it away from him before he was shot.”
“Such a life you live. Puts my world-crossing shenanigans to shame.”
She doubted that one. Annja did dodge a bullet or two more often than most. But she had nowhere near as many notches on her bedpost as this man.
The professor fished out a magnifying glass from a drawer by his hip and studied the gold creeping along the sutures. “Cross pattée. Teutonic? The gold was added much later than this baby died.”
“You think? What’s your guess on age?”
“Haven’t a clue. Though Teutonic is thirteenth century—formed at the end of the twelfth. That means little. We don’t have the supplies in the lab to properly date it. We don’t have a department dedicated to archaeology, as you know. Though perhaps Lamont might have the carbon-14 equipment. They do dendrochronology—dating tree rings—so they could probably take a look at this skull.”
Annja knew all the earth and environmental science people were located at Lamont.
Danzinger turned the skull upside down to peek inside the hole on the occipital bone at the skull base where the spinal cord normally ran through.
“There’s something inside. Carvings?” he asked.
“What?” Annja was caught off guard.
“You didn’t notice the interior designs? Looks like carvings. I’ll need a scope.”
He tucked the skull against his rib cage and wandered to a cabinet on the wall. Rooting around like a mechanic who sorts through a toolbox, he produced an articulated snake light from a scatter of tools and returned to the lab table with it.
The end of the snake light had a USB connection. He plugged it into his computer. It opened a program that, Annja realized, streamed video from the light.
“It’s a little camera on the end?” she asked.
“Cool, huh? Isn’t technology a marvel?”
He poked the device inside the skull. Carved designs appeared on the computer monitor.
“Wow.” Annja inspected the image. His movements were jerky and she could only make out lines here and there. “Stop. Let me look at this. You think those were carved? But how? That would take a pretty precise instrument to work through such a small hole, and these are very elaborate carvings.”
“Unless