The Mummies of Blogspace9: Chapter Twenty-Seven

July 3, 2011
Lima, Peru
Cavalcante          http://www.diggirl.blogspace9.ex 

Bruce, honey, I’m still here in Lima.  I can’t believe Cyrus is dead.  More than that, I can’t believe he was one of them.  I planned to head back up to the project yesterday but I still can’t wrap my mind around all of this.  Cyrus was my friend and mentor.  I trusted him with my life.

If I am reading this whole situation correctly, Cyrus was corrupted years ago, and he’s been using us to find that gold.  And honestly, I think Leon is right.  At this point, I want to find the goddamn gold. 

I told you when we started that the pyramid was haunted.  I just never anticipated all this supernatural crap – the mummy’s curse, and all.

So what do you think, Bruce?  Want to finish this and get rich in the process?  With Kim and Cyrus gone, we have fewer soldiers on the ground, but hey, that’s fewer people to worry about when we divvy up the hoard.

 

July 3, 2011
New York, NY
Duran                   http://www.harqubusier.blogspace9.ex

 Not that I have much interest in your predicament, but I have a considerable amount of money invested in shipping enterprises, and as such, I am notified when maritime traffic is disrupted. 

This morning, a freighter called Parador Joya departed the port of Chicama, Peru bound for Los Angeles.  Immediately after departure, the ship filed a change of destination and rerouted to Malaga, Spain.  Captain Tomas Alarcon reports his holds are empty save “one bale cotton, and one female passenger of extraordinary beauty.” 

Sailing an empty cargo ship across the world is an expensive proposition.  It was paid upfront from a numbered account in Seville.  I could tell you that I am unsure who that female passenger is, but that would not be the truth.  I can’t explain exactly how I know, but suffice it to say that I can sense her presence.  It is quite unsettling.

I fear my dear insane friend Cuellar is correct.  Your colleague is on her way.

 

July 3, 2011
Seville, Spain
Cuellar    http://www.perdido.blogspace9.ex

 

I can smell her.  She gives rise to my spirits, engorges my heart.  My mood is greatly elevated, buoyed, I might add.  My soul, if I still had one, would be lifted.

 

July 3, 2011
Rota, Spain
Hanson       http://www.historyismine.blogspace9.ex

Settle down, boys.  Enough with the mummy porn.  I get it; you’re both hot for Kim.  If you want to be helpful, Duran, you could keep an eye on that ship for us so that we can intercept it.  I intend to rescue Kim.  And Cuellar, tell me more about Sebastiano.  You’re the only one alive who knew him.  Sorry, I guess alive is the wrong word, but you know what I mean.

Laney, I hear you.  Wish you were here, but I’m set on seeing this through.  I’m too angry to let go at this point.  I’m going to finish this.

I’m sitting here in a miserable little ice-cream shop in a bad part of Rota.  It’s miserable because ice-cream shops should sell ice cream and this one does not.  The only thing they have today is beer and sardines and crusty bread, all of which were served at the same temperature.

Sacromonte got me out of Seville before the police showed up.  I changed my identity once again, and boarded the next bus to Rota.  I didn’t know what I expected to find there, but I knew it was the key to this mystery.  I was thinking about Father Sebastiano as the bus trundled over the low hills of Andalucia. 

According to Leon’s last post, we know Sebastiano completed his Malleus Momias.  Furthermore, he acquired a shaman’s tumi, a tool necessary for destroying the mummies.  Sebastiano even describes putting a mummy down.  And yet ultimately he failed. 

What became of Sebastiano remains unclear, but we can say with some certainty that he was unsuccessful in his bid to destroy the walking mummies of Peru.  They’re clearly still walking around, traveling to Spain, even blogging.  So what happened?

I had been rolling the words ‘Archivo Rota Soledad’ around in my head for so long that I began thinking of them as the broken archive of loneliness.  But’s that’s not it at all.  It’s an archive in Rota.  It has to be.  As it turns out, Rota is a resort community on the Bay of Cadiz.  A little past its prime, it has a low-rent feel to it.

So I wandered through the old town, passing boarded up restaurants and bars not yet open for the day.  The beach was nice; that’s apparently where all the tourists flocked.  Germans mostly, by the sound of them, they drank frosty cans of San Miguel beer.  

I still didn’t know what ‘Soledad’ referenced until I wandered into the poor end of Rota and found myself staring up at a street marker that read ‘Soledad.’

It was a short street, spanning the distance from a derelict gas station to a filthy dock where two plastic rowboats marinated in coastal swill.  Four doorways opened onto the street. 

One opened to a shop that sold sardines wholesale.  The second led to a retail sardine shop that dabbled in marine hardware.  The third was the ice-cream shop where I’m sitting.  And the fourth was a private residence that looked entirely out of place – not a sardine in sight.

I saw a face in an overhead window.  I knocked but nobody came to the door.  That’s OK, I can wait.  I’m going to sit across the street until someone opens the door.  I’m in no hurry.  I have beer and bread and sardines, along with….  Hold on.  The door just opened.  I don’t see anyone, but the door just opened.  I’m going in.

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