by Tanya Huff
“Oh, you’ve been a lot closer to ancient Egypt than that.” Vicki smiled. She never thought she’d be grateful he’d cultivated the woman. “What about your friend, Dr. Shane?”
“Rachel?”
“If there’s anyone left in the city who’ll know,” Vicki pointed out, handing him the phone. “It’s her.”
Celluci shook his head. “I don’t want to bring more civilians into this. The danger . . .”
“Tawfik is at his weakest now,” Henry said quietly. “If Dr. Shane can’t help us stop him before he completes his power base, then you won’t be able to keep her safe, not from what’s likely to come.”
“Rachel? It’s Mike. Mike Celluci. I need to ask you a couple of questions.”
She laughed and doodled a sarcophagus in the margin of the acquisition report she’d been spending the evening with. “What? Don’t I even get dinner this time?”
“Sorry, but no.”
Something in his voice drew her up straight in the chair. “It’s important?”
“Very. Did the ancient Egyptians have specific dates when the priests of dark gods would perform important ceremonies?”
“Well, there were very specific dates set during the calendar year for the rites of Set.”
“No, we’re not looking for their version of Christmas or Easter . . .”
“Hardly that, Set is a dark god.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s not Set we’re concerned about. If one of the lesser dark gods needed to hold an unscheduled rite, when would it happen?”
“It might help if you gave me some idea of why you needed to know.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you.”
Why did she know he was going to say that? “Well, it could happen any time, I suppose, but a dark rite would most likely be held during the dark of the moon, when the eye of Thoth is out of the sky. And probably at midnight, when Ra, the sun god, has been out of the world for the longest time, and will still be gone for an equal amount of time.”
“Where?”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Where would the rite be held?”
“Does this god of yours not have a temple?”
“The rite involves creating a temple.”
Involves creating a temple? Present tense? Police work in Toronto was stranger than she thought. “Then the rite would have happened wherever the priest wanted the temple to bet.”
From the sound of his voice, his teeth were clenched. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Thanks, Rachel. You’ve been a help.”
“Mike?” The pause before he answered told her she’d barely caught him before he hung up. “Will you tell me why you needed to know this when you’ve finished whatever you’re working on?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“On who wins.”
Rachel laughed at the melodrama as she settled the receiver back on the phone. Perhaps she should see Detective-Sergeant Celluci again; he was certainly more interesting than academics and bureaucrats.
“Depends on who wins,” she repeated, bending back over the report. “He even sounded like he meant it.” The sudden chill that brushed against the fine hair on her neck, she credited to an overactive imagination.
Vicki turned to look out the window and frowned. “It’s the dark of the moon tonight.”
“How do you know?” Celluci asked. “Maybe the moon’s behind a cloud?”
“I start my period two days after the dark of the moon. It’s Tuesday. I start Thursday.”
Hard to argue with. “Yeah, but the dark of the moon happens once a month,” Celluci pointed out.
“Tawfik said soon.” She wrapped her arms around her body and winced as the motion pulled one of her multiple bruises into a painful position. “It’s tonight.”
“We’re in no shape to take him on tonight.”
“You mean I’m not. We don’t have a choice.”
Celluci knew better than to argue with that tone. “Then we still have to find him.”
“He must have told you something, Henry.” The city stretched out below her, offering a thousand possibilities. “What else did he say?”
“Nothing about the location of a temple.”
“Wasn’t there something about a mountaintop?” Celluci asked.
“In a manner of speaking. He said, ‘With no need to hide, I will shout Akhekh from the top of the highest mountain.’”
“Well, we’re a little short of mountains in this part of the country. High or low.”
“No.” Both of Vicki’s hands pressed flat against the glass as she suddenly realized what had caught her attention. “No. We aren’t. Look.”
Her tone pulled both men to her side without questions. Her eyes were wide, her breathing labored, and her heart beating so hard, Henry was almost afraid for her.
“What are we looking at?” he asked softly.
“The tower. Look at the tower.”
The CN Tower rose at the foot of the city, a shadow against the stars. As they watched, a section of the revolving disk lit up as though a giant flashbulb had gone off inside. It only lasted for an instant, but the light left an afterimage on the eye like a film of grease.
“It could be anything.” Not even Celluci believed the protest, but he felt he had to make it. “There’re often lights on the tower.”
“It’s him. He’s up there. And I’m going to bring him down if I have to bring the whole goddamned tower down with him.”
Up above the observation deck, two of the red airplane safety lights hovered strangely close together.
Almost like eyes.
Sixteen
“What the hell are you doing?”
Henry slipped the BMW into neutral. “I’m stopping at a yellow light.”
“Why?”
“Detective, contrary to popular belief, a yellow light does not mean speed up, there’s a red light coming.”
“Yeah? Well, contrary to what you seem to believe, we haven’t got all night. Rachel said this thing’ll go down at midnight and it’s eleven thirteen now.”
“And being pulled over for a minor traffic violation with a wanted felon in the car would slow us down a lot more than obeying the rules of the road.”
“Why don’t I drive?”
Vicki leaned forward. “Why don’t we compromise? Mike, shut up. And, Henry, speed up. Neither of you are proving a damned thing.”
They left the car on Front Street and pounded up the stairs and onto the walkway that led over the railway tracks to the base of the CN Tower. Although Henry could have quickly outdistanced the two mortals, he matched his speed to Vicki’s; just in case.
Without the crowds of people that filled the area during the day, the acres of concrete had a surreal, deserted look and even rubber-soled shoes echoed. Flashing their messages at empty space, neon advertisements blazed along the path to the tower—for the restaurant, for the disco, for the Tour of the Universe.
“Actually only takes you to Jupiter,” Vicki panted as they passed under the last sign. “Half a solar system. Some universe.” She ran with one hand touching the wall for both guidance and support and didn’t bother worrying about not being able to see her feet. The path was smooth and obvious, and after what she’d been through, she wasn’t going to let a little lack of light stop her.
“If he’s up there,” Celluci yelled as they flung themselves down the stairs at the other end of the walkway and rounded the comer to the main entrance. “I bet he’s locked the elevators at the top with him.”
“No bet.” Vicki threw herself against a glass handle with no more effect than if she’d been the wind. “Not when the son of a bitch has locked the doors at the bottom.”
Henry wrapped both hands under Vicki’s and pulled. With a crack that echoed up the tower and back from the Skydome, the handle snapped off.
“Shit!” She glared at the tinted glass door and then at Henry. “Can you break through it?”
He shook
his head. “Not without some kind of weapon. That’s three-quarter-inch solid glass. Even I’d break bones first.”
It almost seemed as though the tower designers had thought ahead to such a possibility; nothing in the immediate neighborhood could be used to shatter the door. Even the various levels were joined by solid masses of poured concrete, no metal banisters, no steel safety rails.
“Don’t bother,” Vicki snapped as Henry squatted and attempted to pry up a paving block. “We’re wasting our time trying to get in here when Celluci’s most likely right about the elevators.”
Henry straightened. “We have to get him tonight, now. Before those people are sworn. We have to stop his god from gaining enough power to create more of him.”
“I know. We take the stairs.”
Celluci shook his head. “Vicki, that door’s going to be locked, too.”
“But it’s a metal door with a metal handle—not likely to pull off in Henry’s hand.” She was moving before she finished speaking, limping around the reflecting pool and up to the back of the tower. “I am not,” she snarled as they arrived at the entrance to the stairwell, “going to have this place turned into the world’s tallest freestanding Egyptian fucking temple. Henry—!”
The heavy metal door bowed on his first pull, layers of paint cracking and dropping to the ground, a battleship gray avalanche of paint flakes. The second pull ripped it free of its hinges and dragged the very expensive security system out through the door frame nearly intact.
It made surprisingly little noise, all things considered.
“Why no alarms?” Celluci demanded suspiciously, frowning at the tangle of ripped wires.
“How should I know?” Muscles protesting, his strength tested to its limit, Henry leaned the door against the tower. “Perhaps Tawfik’s providing burnt offerings and he doesn’t want to set off the sprinkler system.”
“Or it’s silent and there’s a fleet of patrol cars on the way.”
“Also possible,” Henry agreed.
“Then maybe you’d better stop wasting time talking about it.” Although the ambient light did Vicki little good, it provided contrast between the concrete giant and the jagged black hole that was their only entrance. She charged toward it only to be brought to a rocking halt by Celluci’s grip on her arm.
“Vicki, wait a minute.”
“Let go of me.” The edge on her voice threatened to remove his arm if he didn’t.
He took the chance. “Look, we can’t just go charging up there without a plan. You’re letting your emotions do the thinking for you. Hell, we’re letting your emotions do the thinking for us. Just stop and consider for a second—what happens when we get to the top?”
She glared at him and twisted free. “We take out Tawfik, that’s what happens.”
“Vicki . . .” Henry moved forward into her line of sight. “We probably won’t be able to get close to him. He has protections.”
Her eyes narrowed. “If you’re still afraid of him, Henry, you can wait down here.”
Henry took another step toward her, his silence nearly deafening.
“I’m sorry.” She reached out and touched him lightly on the chest. “Look, how hard can it be? Mike’ll shoot him from the doorway. I doubt he has a protection up against that. You do have your gun?”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“It does have a certain simplicity that appeals,” Henry admitted. “But I doubt he’ll let us get that close. He’ll have warded the temple area and the moment we cross those wards . . .” His voice trailed off.
“So you distract him and Mike shoots him,” Vicki ground out through clenched teeth. “As you said, simple. And surprise is essential and we are wasting time!” She started for the tower again and again Celluci stopped her.
“You wait down here,” he said. He’d already nearly lost her once this week. He wasn’t going through that hell again.
“I what?”
“You’re in no shape to face natural opposition let alone supernatural. I doubt you can even make it to the top; you’re at the end of your resources, you’re already limping, you’re . . .”
“You. Just. Let. Me. Worry. About. Me.” Each word emerged as a separate, barely controlled explosion.
Henry laid a hand on her shoulder. “You know he’s right. I distract Tawfik and he shoots him; you didn’t include yourself in your simple plan.”
“I am going up there to watch him die.”
“You are putting yourself at unnecessary risk,” Celluci growled. “And what happens if we fail? Who’s left to take a second shot?”
Vicki yanked her arm out of his hands and shoved her face up close to his. “What? Did I forget to mention plan B? If you two screw up, I’m there to pick up the pieces. Now either give me your gun and I’ll shoot him myself, or get the fuck up those stairs.”
“She has the right to be there,” Henry said after a second that lasted several lifetimes, and it was obvious from his tone he liked it no more than Celluci did.
Vicki turned on him. “Thank you very much. You could have been at the top of the goddamned tower by now!” She stomped into the stairwell and groped for the first stair. Then the second. The emergency lights were a distraction so she closed her eyes. Two down, one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-eight left to go.
“Vicki?”
She hadn’t heard Henry come up behind her, but she could feel his presence just back of her left shoulder. She didn’t want to listen to apologies or explanations or whatever he had to say. “Just go.”
“But you’re going to need help getting to the top. I could carry . . .”
“You could worry about Tawfik and not about me. Get moving.” Through gritted teeth, she added, “Please.”
The presence moved past, touched her lightly on the wrist, just at the spot where the vein lay closest to the surface, and was gone.
“He’s right. You’ve barely got that drug out of your system not to mention the overt physical abuse. You won’t make it to the top without help.”
She glared at the vaguely man-shaped bit of dark on dark. “Fuck you, too, and stop worrying about me.”
Celluci knew better than to say anything further although she heard him snarl something under his breath as he brushed by.
She tried to match his speed, and anger actually kept her to it for a while, but the distance between them gradually grew. Finally, the sound of single footsteps blended into a staccato background to the pounding of her heart.
Ten steps and a landing. Ten steps and a landing. It was going to take her a little longer than nine minutes and fifty-four seconds this time. Her lack of vision made no difference—after establishing the pattern, her feet were well able to find their own way—but with each movement the last two days made themselves felt on her body. Everything ached.
Ten steps and a landing.
Her lungs began to burn. Each breath became purchased with greater denominations of pain.
Ten steps and a landing.
Her left knee felt as though a spike had been driven up under the bone.
Ten steps and a landing.
Lift the right leg up, pull the left leg forward. Lift the right leg up, pull the left leg forward.
She peeled out of her jacket and let it lie where it fell.
Ten steps and a landing.
Unnecessary risk, my ass.
Ten steps and a landing.
Of course I wasn’t part of my plan. Did they actually think I wasn’t aware of the shape I’d be in at the top of this thing? I’m going to be lucky if I can stand.
Ten steps and a landing.
“She has a right to be there. ” Jesus H. Christ.
Ten steps and a landing.
Damned right I’m going to be there. And I’m going to spit on Tawfik’s corpse.
Ten steps and a landing.
She’d read an article once about an American Medal of Honor winner who’d been hit twenty-three times by enemy fire and still managed, despite his
injuries, to run across a bridge to save another member of his unit. She’d wondered at the time what he’d been thinking of when he did it. She suspected now that she had a pretty good idea.
You can fall down when this is over, not before.
Ten steps and a landing.
Leg muscles began to tremble, then jump. Every step became an individual battle against pain and exhaustion. She stumbled, lost the rhythm, and slammed her shin into a metal fronting.
Eight, nine, ten steps, and a landing.
With so much of her weight pulled ahead by hands and arms, the gauze wrapped round her split knuckle sagged—wet with sweat or blood, she neither knew nor cared. When it became more hindrance than help, she ripped it off and dropped it.
Ten steps and a landing.
Lesser angers burned away until only the anger at Tawfik remained. He’d drugged her and jailed her, but worst of all, he’d perverted something she believed in. That stretched between them like the rope she’d hang him with and she dragged himself toward him on it.
Ten steps and a landing.
Henry felt the wards as he crossed them, a faint sizzle along the surface of his skin that jerked every hair on his body erect. He had no idea what information they conveyed back to Tawfik, whether general or specific, but either way time now became critical. He raced up the last two flights of stairs. Far below he could hear Celluci laboring, and below that, Vicki’s crippled progress. Their heartbeats echoed in the stairwell, their breathing so loud it sounded as if the whole structure inhaled and exhaled with them. It seemed he’d be on his own for some time.
Only one in four of the fluorescents were on in the hall that wrapped around the central pillar of the tower and Henry, exiting out of the dim confines of the stairwell, gave thanks. Very often the level of light that mortals preferred placed him at a handicap and tonight he’d need every advantage.
Silently, he moved around the sweeping curve, following the hum of chanting. The background murmur in at least a dozen voices, consisted of nothing more than the name Akhekh repeated over and over with a kind of low-key intensity that worked its way beneath the surface and throbbed in bone and blood. Senses extended, Henry wasn’t surprised to hear one single, all encompassing heartbeat where there should have been a multitude.