Blood Cursed (Rogue Angel) by Alex Archer Page A

chance to document the research on film shouldn’t be overlooked. I just worry about the crew’s safety.”
    “This skull will prove sensational. Much like the Venetian and Bulgarian finds did. I could get a paper, or an article, out of this, maybe National Geographic ’s interest. Though the link to vampires is slightly off. The word vampire didn’t exist in the time period I suspect this was laid in the ground. Of course, no matter what you label it, it all meant about the same in terms of revenants and horror.”
    “Right. But blutsauger has been in use a while. And mullo . I should look that up.” She reopened her laptop, and made sure Skype was off. She didn’t need a play-by-play of Doug’s flight to the Czech Republic. “ Revenant would be the best word for a dead being that rises from the grave.”
    “I vant to suck your blood.”
    She glowered over the edge of her laptop at Luke’s horrible impression of Dracula, and quirked a brow. “Just what I need, two grown men wearing capes and fangs.”
    Annja focused back on the Google search. Not all links led to vampires. She’d forgotten mullo was also the name of a Celtic god associated with the planet Mars.
    “If we’re going to film,” Luke said, “do you want to hold off on cleaning the skull?”
    Annja thought about it. “I suppose. Action shots of me dusting bones are no money shot, but they do serve to show archaeological process. Necessary to balance the sensationalism on the show. Doug will bring a video camera with him. But let’s figure out the time period, if we can.”
    “Without radio carbon dating, we can merely guess. I’m no anthropologist, but I’d place it mid–nineteenth century, only because I have a suspicion about the brick.”
    “Much more recent than originally suspected.” Annja considered the skull. “Were they still placing bricks in mouths in the 1800s?”
    “By then I believe they’d graduated to running pipes down through the ground and into the coffin. By affixing a cord or twine to a bell, if the dead were suddenly to come to life, the ringing bell would alert everyone.”
    “I thought that was to get help in the event of being buried alive―” she rolled her eyes “―not a vampire alarm.”
    “True. And by then, embalming had grown popular for the very purpose of keeping the dead, well, dead.”
    “And look where it’s taken us. To hundreds of thousands of graveyards filled with chemicals contaminating our planet.”
    “How can an archaeologist like yourself possibly prefer cremation?”
    “Let’s just say that when I die, I hope it’s fighting for my last breath as the lava flows over me. Or gasping for air five hundred meters underwater.”
    “You want to go out in a blaze of glory.”
    “Nothing wrong with that.”
    “Indeed.” Luke stared at her a moment. Suddenly, he suggested, “Well, then, how about wild roses and thorns to keep the blokes down?”
    “Why do you know your vampire mythology, Luke? I hadn’t taken you for a vampirologist.”
    “A man glances over all sorts of esoteric information in the process of research. And I have read up on the Romanis. So many delicious beliefs and social customs with the Gypsies. It’s difficult not to run into the undead while reading up on the people.”
    She clicked on mullo and read details they already knew about the legend of rising from the dead to seek vengeance.
    “Do you know how to get rid of a mullo? ” she asked Luke, who now tapped the brick with a dental pick he’d pulled from his geek badge. “You hire a dhampir —”
    “The son of a vampire and his mortal bride,” Luke filled in. “I believe the Marvel comic book hero Blade was a dhampir .”
    She looked up quickly. “Please don’t mention comic books to Doug.” He seemed confused by that, but she ignored him and went back to her research. “Hmm...there’s no mention of bricks in mouths in the mullo legend. The Gypsies would drive steel or iron into a corpse’s