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brown eyes watched and weighed Karen’s impatient movements.
    ‘‘Yeah, but right now mine sucks.’’ Karen paced back, picked up her cup, and poured herself some tea. ‘‘So I take it we’re digging close to the place where the villagers buried their heart?’’
    ‘‘The heart of evil. The mountain will protect it against the machines, the men—and you.’’
    Karen had trained herself not to be sensitive. With a father like hers, to be sensitive was to ask to be hurt. But right now, as the problems multiplied and she lost her apparently feeble hold on sanity, this felt very personal. She lifted her resentful gaze to the mountain and rose to her feet. ‘‘We’re almost finished with the site prep, damn you, and I swear—’’
    Mingma leaped to her feet. ‘‘Don’t, miss, don’t swear, don’t provoke the—’’
    An inhuman scream pierced the air.
    The two women raced to the edge overlooking the job site.
    The men were running, scattering like rodents away from a trap. One man fell getting out of his excavator. He crawled a few yards, looked behind him in obvious terror, scrambled to his feet, and fled.
    Phil was yelling at them, gesturing wildly, trying to herd them back to work.
    They paid him no heed.
    As Mingma watched the panic, her face was still, carved from stone. ‘‘So. It has begun.’’

Chapter Four
    "S tay here.’’ Karen started down the rough path.
    Mingma caught her arm and swung her back around. ‘‘Don’t, miss. Don’t go down there!’’
    But duty called, and Karen always answered. ‘‘I have to.’’
    ‘‘Run with me. If you come now, I can save you!’’ Desperation filled Mingma’s eyes.
    ‘‘It’s all right. I’ll be fast.’’ Karen shook her off.
    Mingma unlooped the string of bells and wound them around her own wrist. ‘‘Miss, I must leave. Please come with me!’’
    ‘‘Go on, then. It’s okay. I’ll catch up with you!’’ Karen scrambled down the rugged path as quickly as she could, hearing the chime of the holy bells as Mingma fled in the opposite direction.
    As she reached the first pile of rubble, Phil met her. ‘‘For shit’s sake, it’s just an old burial. A mummy, it looks like.’’
    ‘‘An archeological find?’’ Karen’s heart sank.
    An archeological find was the bane of commercial construction. It meant work had to stop while they called in the authorities to determine its importance and excavate the remains.
    ‘‘If we don’t tell anybody, we can dispose of the body and keep building—’’
    She gave Phil a withering look. ‘‘Like nobody’s going to hear those men screaming their heads off.’’
    ‘‘I can shut ’em up,’’ he said sulkily.
    ‘‘But can you make them return to work?’’ She walked toward the still-running backhoe and turned it off. The situation was obvious now. The operator had lifted one of the huge boulders out of the way, and there, nestled in a hollow, was a cloth-wrapped bundle.
    The skull was clearly visible, and that must have set off the panic. ‘‘Turn off the rest of the machines,’’ she told Phil. ‘‘We can’t waste the gas. It’s too hard to find and way too expensive.’’
    As Phil obeyed, she went and knelt beside the body.
    It was the body of a child, maybe five years old, curled up and resting on its side in a hollow in the stone, with its hand tucked under its cheek as if asleep. The high, dry, cold air had dried its skin, stretching it across the bones, giving the body personality.
    It had been a pretty child. Its fine woven clothing was still intact, with only a few holes and frayed edges, and Karen could see faded colors that decorated its robe. A hammered gold necklace hung around its neck, gold earrings pierced its ears, and a bracelet wrapped its . . . her narrow wrist. Another cloth lay under the body and protected her from the cold stone.
    A beloved child. An important child. A child interred with love and care—and brutally sacrificed.
    For among