by Jonas, Gary
“I think I know where you’re going with that. I’ll keep an eye on them,” she whispered. “If they try to surprise you with snakes or throwing things, I’ll warn you via the clock face.”
“I’m counting on that.” I knew they’d try something. Wizards are always assholes. I wished Esther were here. She would be able to warn me much easier than Kelly.
The magicians spread out so they could all aim in at me. I turned around to look each magician in the eyes. Wizards hate that. Then I addressed the audience. “If things get out of hand, take cover. I promise that if I call on my thunder, I will only kill magicians.”
I saw Tut grin at that, and I suspected he wasn’t a big fan of Aye either. Maybe he’d caught the son of a bitch drooling over his wife.
With the ground rules set, I stood in the center of the circle with one hand on the butt of my Glock. I faced Aye and I pointed at him so Kelly would know he was my twelve on the clock face. I knew he wouldn’t try the indirect attack because wizards are pussies and prefer to cheat when they don’t think you’ll see them. I had magicians at two, four, six, eight, and ten o’clock in addition to Aye at twelve.
The magicians launched their direct attacks. The magic washed over me harmlessly.
“You may begin whenever you’re ready,” I said because I knew it would piss them off.
I could see ten and two o’clock in my peripheral vision. They aimed their staffs at me, and I could see the energy flowing through them and flying at me. I feigned a yawn, again to piss them off. Wizards don’t have exclusive rights to being assholes.
The indirect attack probably wouldn’t come from six o’clock because that would be too obvious, so I expected it from four or eight. I expected them to go with a cobra because by saying it, I’d put it in their minds. It wouldn’t be long, so I kept my ears open to Kelly’s voice and ignored everything else.
“Eight!” Kelly yelled.
I drew my Glock as I spun. A staff flew toward me and started writhing in the air as it shifted into a snake. It didn’t look like a cobra, so I suspected it was an asp. I did a shoulder roll toward six o’clock so the snake would land away from me, and I fired three shots into the magician at eight o’clock. Two of the shots hit him center mass, and the third was a headshot. He collapsed to the sand.
The sound of the gunshots scared the hell out of the audience. I turned to look for the snake, but once the magician died, the snake transformed back to a wooden staff.
The other magicians broke off their attacks and rushed to the side of their fallen comrade.
“He’s dead,” one of them said.
“I warned you that I’d kill anyone who made an indirect attack.”
Aye glared at me. “Your magic may be powerful, but you are not invincible.”
“News flash, genius. Nobody is invincible.” As I spoke, I walked up to him and stared deep into his eyes. “That includes you.”
While I doubt he understood the term news flash, the rest of it clearly translated well enough. He held my gaze, trying to look unimpressed, but I could see sweat on his brow. I gave him a smile and turned away as if he meant nothing to me.
I retrieved my spent casings because I didn’t want some Egyptologist to dig them up in a few thousand years and have to try to explain them away. I knew I should take the bullets as well, but I didn’t want to go digging around in the skull, or in the bloody mess that used to be the magician’s chest.
Horemheb grabbed a composite bow and nocked an arrow, aiming at me.
“Horemheb, no!” King Tut said.
Horemheb kept the weapon drawn. The bowstring quivered but I also saw Kelly poised to leap in front of me if he let the arrow fly.
“Lower the bow,” Tut said.
Horemheb hesitated. “He killed one of your magicians.”
“After giving fair warning,” Tut said. “This was to be a demonstration, not an execution.”
“These two are not gods.”
“We never claimed to be,” I said as I pointed the Glock at the general. “Lower that bow or I’ll call on my thunder to strike you down.”
Tut glared at Horemheb. “If you do not lower the bow, I will send you to the quarries. I will not say this again.”
Aye rushed over to Tut, his face red and his eyes blazing with fury. “My king, this man should die for what he’s done.”
Tut laughed. “I have more magicians, but none of them can call upon thunder to slay an enemy.”
“We should kill him before he kills us.”
“We should enjoy the rest of the day.”
Horemheb shook his head but finally lowered the bow. I holstered the Glock and gave him a nod.
Tut addressed a few of his men. “Handle the body of the magician, and we shall convene here later for a chariot race.” Tut nodded toward me. “You and your wife shall participate.”
I’d never been in a chariot, and I doubted Kelly had either, but as I’d just killed one of his magicians, I didn’t think saying no was an option, so I said, “We would be honored.”
Aye fumed and stormed off.
Kelly moved over to stand beside me. “Maybe you should read a Dale Carnegie book when we get back.”
“What do you mean? Tut just invited us to a race.”
“Not him. Aye and Horemheb.”
“Oh, come on, Kelly. Tut is cool with it, so I’m not worried about those idiots.”
“Well, if I remember my Egyptian history correctly, both Aye and Horemheb become pharaohs after Tutankhamun.”
“Good for them but if you’re okay to travel, we’re leaving tomorrow anyway. Our guy isn’t in Thebes, so we shouldn’t be here either. We’ll go along for this chariot race this afternoon, enjoy some dinner, catch some sleep, and head out early in the morning.”
RAYNA NOBLE
Rayna got an early start the next morning, ending up at the New York office of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, staring at a logo with an image of an eye and the motto We Never Sleep emblazoned beneath it. She entered the building and moved down a short hallway to a room with a number of desks spread out. Most of the desks were unmanned at the moment, but a few men stood around, talking and drinking coffee beside a counter on the right.
A young man entering the building behind her said, “Can I help you, ma’am?”
Rayna started because she hadn’t heard him come in.
“Sorry if I scared you there,” he said with a grin as he removed his hat. He wore a nice suit, and his lips beneath his mustache curled into a grin.
“It’s all right,” Rayna said. “I need to hire a detective.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place.”
“Are you a detective?” she asked.
He pointed to a gold badge on his chest that read, Pinkerton National Detective Agent. “That’s what they tell me,” he said. “My name is Lincoln Parker.” He extended his right hand, and she took it in her own.
“Rayna Noble,” she said.
“You want a cup of joe?” he asked as he led her into the rows of desks.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Well, I need one.” He stopped at a desk and pointed to the chair beside it. “Take a seat. I’ll be right back.”
She sat down and watched him walk to the counter. He nodded to the men and said something Rayna couldn’t hear, and they all laughed. Rayna looked around and saw four others in the office. A stack of papers sat on top of Lincoln’s desk, but she didn’t try to get a look at them. She glanced back toward the door and saw several more men entering the office.
Lincoln returned with a cup of coffee. He set it on the desk, moved a stack of papers to the side, and sat down in his own chair. He gave Rayna a smile. “Now how can I help you today?”
“I’d like you to find a missing person.”
“I can do that. Who am I looking for?” he asked.
“A man named Henry Winslow.”
He grinned. “Did Janet send you over here to pull my chain?”
“Tell her it was a nice try, but I have real work to do.”
“Do you know Henry Winslow?”
“Of course. He was a famous stage magician who led a life of crime, but he kicked the bucket the day before yesterday.”
Rayna shook her head. “What if I told you he faked his death?”
“His body is down at the morgue, Ms. Noble.”
“A body is at the morgue, Detective Parker. That doesn’t mean it’s his.”
“While I’ll grant you that I haven’t personally seen the body, I don’t think the police would have messed up that bad. This Winslow character didn’t exactly keep a low profile.”
“I believe he’s alive, and I’m willing to pay you to find him.”
“It’s your dollar, Ms. Noble. You’ll pay us in advance for one day, but I’ll prove to you that he’s dead before lunch.”
BRAND EASTON
“The last time I was on a train, I was with my mother,” Brand said as he and Esther boarded the Pennsylvania Railroad train. “I was ten years old.”
“I can’t imagine you as a child,” Esther said.
“Me either,” Brand said.
His father had walked out on the family years before, and as he didn’t have any siblings, it was Brand and his mother against the world. He hadn’t thought about his childhood since his mother was murdered and he’d been bounced around from foster home to foster home until he ended up in the care of a man who worked at DGI. After Brand was caught fighting for the umpteenth time, his foster father asked him if he enjoyed fighting. That was a stupid question. Brand had lost exactly one fight in his childhood, and it was to the man who murdered his mother. That fight had been in the sleeping compartment of that train when he was ten.
Brand didn’t often think about the past. He came to terms with it a long time ago. He agreed to become a Sekutar warrior so he could learn to fight and kill. Even before he finished his training, he left the DGI training facility for a week to track down and kill his mother’s murderer. He returned to DGI and took the punishment they dished out for being AWOL.
When his foster father asked him why he didn’t wait until he’d completed his training and could no longer feel pain, Brand replied, “Because I wanted to feel every punch I landed on that son of a bitch.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
Brand had given his foster father a smile that chilled the bones. “Very much so.”
As Brand moved through the cars to his compartment, with Esther trailing him, he thought about that last trip with his mother. How they’d dined on steak and lobster and how she’d let him taste her wine. He remembered the man who joined them at the end of the meal. He had not been invited, and he had been far too familiar with his mother, but Brand, being a boy, wasn’t in a position to do anything. His mother handled the man with a slap to the face, and Brand was so proud of her.
A slap to the face wasn’t good enough when the man showed up in their sleeping car.
“Are you all right, sir?” an old man asked, snapping Brand out of his memories.
Brand looked at the man, realizing he was a porter.
“The man asked you a question,” Esther said when Brand hesitated.
“Yes,” Brand said, making sure to look at the porter and not at Esther. “Just looking for my compartment.”
“No problem, sir. Let me see your ticket, and I’ll show you the way.”
Brand handed the man his ticket.
The man nodded. “You’re nearly there. Follow me.”
Brand did as the man said, and two minutes later, he was in his own compartment. It was a Pullman car with wide berths set up high for sleeping, though they looked about as comfortable as sleeping on a two-by-four. The porter explained that if Brand wanted his boots cleaned, he could simply set them outside the door and that, if he chose, he could take meals in his car too.
“I’d rather have company for eating,” Brand said.
“In that case, sir, the dining car is the next car back,” the porter said. “Should you need anything else, Mr. Easton, just let me know.”
“Thanks,” Brand said. “I appreciate it.”
As the porter moved on, Brand closed the door.
“Distracted much?” Esther asked.
“Just lagged from the time travel, I think,” Brand said.
“You have plenty of time to adjust.”
“Yeah. I need some rest. I know you can’t leave, but can you give me some peace and quiet for a while so I can relax?”
“I can give you fifteen feet of space,” Esther said and stepped through the compartment wall.
Brand sighed. Having Esther within fifteen feet all the damn time was going to get really old really fast.
He sat down in his compartment and stared out the window. The view was different, but it still reminded him of that final ride with his mother all those years ago. He frowned. Actually, he realized, it was many years from now. He closed his eyes and forced the memories aside. He didn’t want to remember a time when he’d been weak. Especially now that he was no longer a Sekutar. It was a reminder he didn’t need.
CHAPTER NINE
JONATHAN SHADE
That afternoon, we went back out to where we’d had the so-called demonstration. The magician’s body was gone. There were a few people there to watch, but most citizens were too busy working to take the time to enjoy a chariot race. The chariots and horses were already in line on the gravel road.
Kelly had slept for several hours, and she assured me she was feeling better, but her mouth and her eyes told different stories.
Ankhesenamun walked over to Kelly and me when we arrived. “As foreigners, you may not be familiar with chariots. As such, I have a charioteer assigned to instruct you.”
“I thought we were here to observe,” I said, hoping to find a way out.
Ankhesenamun gave me an understanding smile. “You have earned the right to participate. You came to our land already able to speak Egyptian, so you are well on your way to earning citizenship. If you accept our culture, you can soon be full-fledged citizens. My husband likes you, though I suspect that may be partly due to the fact that Aye despises you.”
I wanted to respond that Aye was an asshole, but I wasn’t sure how the translation would work, so I tried to stick with words that would easily translate and convey the meaning I intended. “I won’t shed any tears over how Aye feels about us.”
“About you,” Ankhesenamun said. “He respects your wife.”
“As well he should,” Kelly said.
Ankhesenamun laughed. “I like you,” she said.
We walked over to the chariots, and a slender man bowed to us. “I am Yafeu and I am to instruct you in the art of the chariot.”
Yafeu went over how to drive the chariot and how to control the two horses that would pull us. I elected to drive the team because we were also supposed to fire arrows at targets using a composite bow. Kelly could fire the arrows, where I could not. If we were going to war, I’d also have to hold a shield, but this was merely a race with some target practice, so the shield was not required. I took the reins to the horses in my hands and drew a deep breath to calm my nerves.
Tut climbed into his chariot with a Nubian driver. He held his composite bow aloft and called everyone to get ready. There were six chariots in the race. Each had a team of two horses, and each chariot had a driver and an archer. Kelly balanced herself with ease and placed a hand on my lower back.
“We don’t need to win this,” she said. “Just try to keep us close enough that we don’t look foolish.”
“There’s no way we’re going to win this. I just want to get us back in one piece.”
“There is that.”
Tut gave the signal for the race to begin.
I urged our horses into motion, and I nearly fell backward as the chariot jerked forward. Kelly’s hand on my back helped to keep me in place.
“Balance,” she said.
> I positioned myself better and guided the horses forward. The other chariots charged ahead of us, sending plumes of dust in arcs behind the wooden wheels. The floor of the chariot was made of leather straps, which gave us a bouncy ride, but it was probably more stable than a wood floor. The sound of the wooden wheels crunching on the gravel drowned out all other noise.
We fell into last place right from the start, but I kept us as close as I could. Kelly watched the other archers, and as they fired arrows at their targets, she followed suit as we approached. When she let the first arrow fly, it sailed over the target.
“Shit,” she said.
In spite of the bouncy ride and having to adjust to an unfamiliar bow, when we came upon the second target, she fired and the arrow struck the wood just to the left of the rings. From that point on, she hit every target she aimed at, so I was doubly impressed. The arrows weren’t dead center, but at least she didn’t miss. If she’d had a week to practice, I’m willing to bet she could have been one of the best archers in their army.
It was hard to breathe with all the dust and pebbles flying back at us. I squinted to try to keep my eyes clear as I guided the horses over to where we’d be out of the dust plumes. Once I could breathe again, I gave my best yells, snapped the reins, and got the horses to go faster.
We bounced along in last place, but we started to gain some ground.
Kelly kept firing arrows and striking the targets.
We rounded a corner, and the maneuverability of the chariots impressed me. I thought we were going too fast and that we’d crash for sure, but even though one wheel left the ground, it dropped back to the gravel and we righted ourselves.
King Tut held the lead position the entire race. I wasn’t sure if people knew better than to beat the pharaoh or if his driver was simply the best. As we took the final corner and roared toward the finish, I cracked the reins, and we shot past one of the chariots. At least we wouldn’t be last. Kelly shot another target as we passed another chariot. I felt I was getting the hang of it. We surged past the next chariot, and there were only two more ahead of us.