by Kevin Hearne
Keep going! We have to make it to the river!
We can’t stop or we’re dead.
We had built up something of a lead on the horde, but they were closing fast and yowling victoriously now that they could see we had slowed. There were no more cats in front of us. They had all engaged us earlier, and now they were either pursuing us from behind or licking their wounds.
The tiny little bells grew louder. They were almost upon us and my body wanted nothing so much as a sensible jog, but I kept pushing. Thirty meters. Twenty.
There was a railing ahead that marked a ramp down to some private docks, where a few small pleasure craft were anchored. The docks were fairly long, so there were some shallows, which was good for me. The cats would be on me before I could get there, however, and that was bad.
The bells from hell were right behind me now. I switched the dagger in my left hand to my right, awkwardly holding on to both in one hand, and then slapped my left hand onto the back of my neck and held it there. I wasn’t swatting mosquitoes; I was trying to stay alive. Not two seconds after I did so, the cats began to jump onto my back and claw at my legs. The scabbard of Fragarach, strapped across my back, gave them some extra purchase on my torso. They made angry kitty noises and tore through my shirt, trailing blood underneath their claws, but they couldn’t sit on my shoulders and bite through to my spine with my hand protecting the back of my neck. They tried to chew through anyway, biting and scratching everything they could, while I twisted and stumbled forward in an effort to make the water. Oberon briefly interposed himself and gave me a wee bit of space to turn the corner on the ramp. I dove and rolled, being careful with the knives, but not being careful at all about delivering some punishment to the cats hanging on me. They fell off under the impact, breath knocked out of them. Oberon’s bulk as a rear guard prevented any more from jumping on me while I was down, and I got up, a bloody, exhausted mess, and staggered toward the docks.
Come on, buddy, I said, a dagger in each hand again. Into the river we go.
I couldn’t get a full breath. I was too slow. Three more cats jumped on my back and more ran under my feet as I tumbled into the Nile. The water stung and cooled my cuts at the same time. The cats clung tightly and tore more of my flesh away—entering the water hadn’t deterred them at all. More were jumping in; I heard and felt the splashes. I didn’t know where Oberon was.
And then my foot touched the silt of the riverbed, the tattoo on the sole automatically renewing my connection to the earth. The energy of the Nile welcomed me, and I welcomed it as it rushed to replenish my spent energy and provide even more for healing or whatever else I needed.
I exploded to the surface, and the turbulence of it—combined no doubt with the current—tore away the few cats that had followed me in. Where I was standing, the water was just beneath my rib cage. Oberon paddled nearby. Cats were leaping into the river after me, falling short, and then discovering that they couldn’t swim for shit—that is, they may have been able to keep their heads above water, but they weren’t going to give me much of a fight. I was protected by the hull of a boat on my left, but there was a dock to my right. A few of the smarter cats scampered down it and leapt at me from there, but now that I could face them and not have to worry about overwhelming numbers from every direction, I could bat them away into the Nile and let them deal with the problem of swimming.
Go back a bit to where you can stand with your head out of the water, I said to Oberon. As cats go by, dunk ’em.
Oberon said, and proved it. His head and neck were safely above the water.
Don’t worry, I’ve got this now. The few that were trying to swim my way were having a tough time fighting against the current. Those that made it to me couldn’t leap or get any leverage whatsoever, and a brief scratch or bonk on the head sent them floating downriver. The ones jumping off the dock at my face were slapped out of the air, and once they hit the water they didn’t trouble me again.
Cats filled the dock and the shore, and the noise was getting ridiculous. Despite the hour, people would soon come to investigate and take pictures with their cell phones. I didn’t want that.
“Bast!” I called over the din, speaking in Coptic. “I can return the book of your mysteries! I can give it back to you right now! It’s in excellent condition! We don’t need to do this! Please don’t make me harm any more of your people! Let’s talk!”
The cats all stopped moving at once, save for the ones already in the river. They simply sat wherever they were and stared at me. There wasn’t a noise except for a few splashes and the sound of Oberon panting.
Oberon, don’t do anything more. Let the cats go for now.
A low female voice rose from the docks. I didn’t see any cat move its mouth, but it came from one of them.
“Hrrr. Show me the book.”
My leather satchel was under the surface of the river, and I pulled it out now, putting the daggers inside.
“The book has been in the water?” the voice cried. “It’s useless!”
“No, no!” I said. “It’s protected. It’s in a waterproof wrapper. I will show you.” Pulling out the oilskin parcel with Nice Kitty! inside, I unbound the oilskin and stuffed it back into my satchel. I held Bast’s book of mysteries carefully by my fingertips, trying to demonstrate my great respect for it. I still didn’t know which cat was Bast—or if she was simply speaking through one of them—so I spoke to the cats on the dock in general.
“Unlike so many other old treasures, this book has resisted the ravages of time,” I said. “I have kept it sealed away from the air. Every word is still readable. Think of it, Bast! Given to the right people, this book could revive interest in you like nothing else! You would receive prayers again, grow powerful. Your influence could spread beyond Egypt, and you could enjoy the worship of millions!” This was unlikely and wishful thinking, but I knew it was thinking she would very much want to believe. As if to emphasize my point, the muezzin began to buzz throughout Cairo, calling all Muslims to prayer. Bast knew what that meant: Another god was getting the worship that used to be hers. I kept selling.
“These other gods have their holy books translated into every tongue, and now humans bow to them around the world. You could do the same with this. How many of the other Egyptian gods could manage this? None. In truth, Bast, I have done you a great service by preserving it so well.”
“Hrrr. Give it to me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
From the back rank of the cats, a slight shift of shadowy movement attracted my eye. It grew taller; it was a shorthaired black cat with yellow eyes and a small gold hoop earring high up on its left ear. It continued to grow and change until I was looking at a woman with a cat’s head. The woman had clothes on where the cat didn’t, and I thought that sort of trick could revolutionize fashion. She had one of those giant golden necklaces draped over her shoulders, like one sees in the art of the pyramids, but she didn’t have a headdress. From underneath the gold necklace fell a white linen dress, belted below her breasts with a rich blue sash. Her arms, while bare of clothing, were covered in soft black fur and the occasional golden circlet; she had human fingers but very feline claws instead of fingernails on the ends of them. The muezzin finally stopped blaring and we could speak without shouting.
“Hrrr. You will give it to me now, human.”
“Call me Atticus. I’d like something in return.”
Bast’s eyes widened at my presumption. “Ridiculous! You stole it! Return it now and take your punishment!”
“No, that’s not how we’re doing this. Remember, I’m doing you a favor by returning it. You thought I was dead and your book lost forever until I showed up today.”
The yellow eyes now narrowed to mere slits. “You are not a normal human.”
I dipp
ed my head in thanks. “It’s kind of you to say so.”
“Why are you in Egypt?”
“In one of life’s great ironies, someone has stolen a book from me. I have come to steal it back.” And prevent him from harming the earth, I didn’t say.
Bast’s cat face lost its suspicion and seemed amused. “Hrr! Hrr! Hrr! Was it an Egyptian book stolen by an Egyptian?”
“Yes.”
“Then there is no crime. It is justice! Do you know who stole it?”
“A man named Nkosi Elkhashab.”
Bast blinked. “You mean the crocodile priest?”
Crocodile priest? That would make him a follower of Sobek, the god of the Nile. Suddenly the nature of his magic was clear. Water softened and carved away the earth on a regular basis. No wonder my bindings had dissolved. No wonder his aura was muddy brown.
“Yes, that’s the guy. Do you know where he is?”
“Is this information what you wish in return for my book?” Bast said.
“No.” I shook my head. “I want your permission to travel Egypt freely and your word not to reveal my presence here in any way to any other being.”
“Hrrr.” This time when Bast smiled, it looked predatory. “That is acceptable to me. I walk away with my book, and you walk away to be destroyed by Sobek’s chosen.” She held out a gray hand, palm up, to receive the book.
“Let me hear you swear it first, please,” I said.
Bast hissed a little with impatience. “In return for the book in your hand, you may freely wander Egypt and not be bothered by any of my people. I will not reveal your presence here to anyone—”
I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head to signal she’d messed up. She knew it.
“—Very well, or to any god or animal. Now, give.”
Happily, I waded forward and gave her Nice Kitty! Bast would hand it to some human scholar with woeful personal security and I would steal it back and destroy all records they made. The world really didn’t need a reborn cat sex cult.
Bast flipped briefly through the book to make sure it didn’t contain cartoons or something. She purred in pleasure for a moment and then remembered I was watching.
She hissed in earnest this time, then said, “May Sobek devour you.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Well, may harmony find you, Bast, and I am sorry for any pain I’ve caused your people.”
She ignored me and walked away in the manner for which cats are renowned. She and the book faded into the gray light of dawn, and the horde of cats began to disperse in her wake.
What about the Druid?
When you’re finished, let’s go find a place that will let us drip dry on their floor.
My shirt was shredded and my cuts hadn’t fully closed up yet. I refilled my bear charm with all the magic it could hold and then activated my healing. The ugliness would fade over time. My priority now had to be getting some local cash, a set of dry clothes, a temporary cell phone, and then some food and an Internet connection.
People began to appear on the streets after morning prayers, and I asked them for directions to the nearest bazaar. A few blocks’ walk to the north, the flash of a credit card, and some spirited haggling provided me with almost everything I needed. I got directions from there to an Internet café—such places were more ubiquitous then, in the years before the iPhone.
Once I got Oberon settled with some sausage and carefully camouflaged under my table, I logged in to my email and found a nice dossier on Nkosi Elkhashab waiting for me from Hal’s private investigators.
Hal had highlighted something for me: Elkhashab had been dirt poor until he’d joined the Ministry of Antiquities after college. He showed no signs of abnormal behavior until about a year into the job, when he suddenly began to buy real estate far above his income bracket and then lots of expensive goodies with which to line the walls. There was no indication he had another job, so the question on everyone’s mind—Egypt’s as well, for he’d been investigated—was, where did he get the money?
Elkhashab’s story was that he had been selling his “art” to wealthy collectors abroad. His art consisted of some uninspired splatter paintings—the efforts of a person who looked at Jackson Pollock’s work and said to himself, “I could do that.” But the Ministry of Antiquities suspected, and I had no doubt they were correct, that the purchase price included rare Egyptian treasures, and Elkhashab was smuggling those abroad via different channels to his wealthy “art collectors.” He was titling his pictures along the lines of “Small Bust of Sobek, Twelfth Dynasty,” so that the ministry would know precisely what he was slipping past their guard. They never caught him, but they did fire him on general principles.
Twenty years later—he was now in his mid-forties—he still made a living via his art. Some of it was probably legitimate; he was commanding such high prices for his work that rich people thought there must be some value to it. But the ministry felt that the smuggling continued. They theorized that he had found a tomb somewhere in the region of Al Fayyum, near what the Greeks called Crocodilopolis, and he was selling off its treasures piece by piece. He was under electronic surveillance around the clock.
Most disturbing to me was the fact that Elkhashab had two residences, not one. There was one in Cairo and another in Al Fayyum, about eighty miles southwest. I could hardly lay in wait at both places, so I’d have to call that number at the bottom of Hal’s email and take an educated guess that the dirty deeds would most likely be done in Al Fayyum.
“Greetings from an old wolf in America,” I said in response to a gruff greeting.
“Who’s this?”
“A friend of Hal Hauk’s in Arizona.”
The tone of Cairo’s alpha changed abruptly. “Oh, sure, I know Hal,” Yusuf said.
“He told me you and your boys may be able to help me out.”
“Help with what?”
“Watch an address in Cairo for me for twenty-four hours and report all comings and goings.”
“You don’t need my boys for that kind of work.”
“The resident is a sorcerer and may try to slip by unseen.”
“I stand corrected. You need us.”
The incredible usefulness of werewolves—and also the reason why you don’t want to get on their bad side—is that they’re immune to almost all magic. Think you’re invisible? Nope, not to a werewolf’s eyes. Think you have an impenetrable magic ward protecting all your goodies? You don’t if a werewolf walks across it. Like the honey badger, the werewolf takes what it wants. Sure, you can pick a fight with a werewolf if you have some silver, but you’d better have enough for the whole pack. And if other packs get word that you go around killing werewolves … well. Let’s just say that nobody tries to mess with werewolves anymore.
I made arrangements with Yusuf and gave him my number in case Elkhashab showed up. He’d send the bill to Hal and everyone would be happy.
In America—before the widespread use of GPS devices—if you wished to go somewhere you’d never been before, you hired a taxi. If you were brave, you asked your father-in-law. In Egypt, you waved some money around in the bazaar, and plenty of people would happily volunteer to take you where you wished to go. We got picked up by a family of three, who were delighted to spend some time driving us around, especially since I paid for all their gas and then some.
I am not ashamed to say that, spread out in the back of an old pickup, Oberon and I napped on the way down.
Al Fayyum—spelled many different ways and sporting many different names through the centuries—is most likely the oldest city in Egypt. Herodotus described a labyrinth of surpassing magnificence there, better even than all the other wonders of Egypt, and evidence of his tale remains, but it’s a bloody wreck because some ancient Roman choad ordered the place quarried. Still, despite this def
ilement and many others, Al Fayyum has yielded its fair share of archaeological finds. The Ministry of Antiquities had good reason to suspect Elkhashab of finding something in the area: Chances were if you dug deep enough, you’d find something no matter what.
There’s an inland salt lake there called Lake Moeris, or Birket Qarun, and it was on the eastern edge of this lake that the old cult of Sobek flourished. In Crocodilopolis, they used to keep a real crocodile swathed in bling and fed on a diet of soft pink fleshy things. It was the lap of reptilian luxury back in the day. The new lap was on Elkhashab’s property, if Bast’s word could be believed. More of an estate than a house, ringed by a wall made of river mud and gated, it was east of the old site of Crocodilopolis and north of the ancient labyrinths.
Al Fayyum was not nearly so paved as Cairo, so I had little trouble accessing my magic there. Oberon and I took a leisurely stroll around Elkhashab’s estate, making no effort to conceal ourselves. I was looking at the walls in the magical spectrum to see what kind of wards Elkhashab had put around it. Bizarrely, he didn’t have any, except on his gate. That told me he had to have something frightful waiting on the other side of the walls that couldn’t be seen from the gate.
I did a pogo leap up to take a peek at the top of the wall. No wards there either. So I leapt up again, slapped my hands on the top, and pulled myself up for a good look, not caring who saw me do it.
He had something frightful waiting behind the walls, all right. It was a damn moat. A deep and wide one. And it was filled with hungry crocodiles. I had to admit that was pretty badass.
A few of the creatures spotted me and shifted, hoping to get a nice bite if I cooperated and leapt down to provide them breakfast. I toyed with the idea of calming their tiny reptilian brains and swimming right by, but it was too great a risk. There could be a big monster hiding under the black water that I wouldn’t catch, and then he’d certainly catch me.
Elkhashab had laid out his estate like a lion or tiger exhibit at a zoo. Inside the walls, the earth rose sort of like the mound of a volcano, so that the inside of the wall was much taller than the outside and impossible to jump over. By filling that with water and reptiles, he’d also made it impossible to jump over to safety from the outside. His house therefore rested on an island accessible only by the narrow strip of land leading from his gate.