“What about any sites off the record?” Sayer asked.
Zaman shook his head. “None, meaning any excavating they plan to do is without permits and therefore illegal.”
“Meaning,” I added, “anything they plan to do, they don’t want anyone to know about.”
The curator’s mouth formed a firm, straight line. His brow crinkled deeply. “The situation grows more concerning every day. I’ll organize a team of my people to investigate.”
“Do you have the package?” Sayer asked.
“Yes, yes,” the curator said.
He lifted a strap from across his chest attached to a long cylindrical leather satchel from over his head. Sayer took the cylinder and popped the lid. He took a peek inside before holding it close to me so I could see. Inside was a falcon-headed canopic jar. He didn’t remove it and risk exposing us.
The magic buzzing around the jar felt as familiar to me as my own magic. Nefertari’s life force within me knew this object. “That’s it,” I confirmed to Sayer.
“How, may I ask,” Zaman said, leaning closer to us, “do you know without fully examining the artifact?”
I started to reply, but Sayer interjected.
“Something to do with her queen’s blood,” he said vaguely.
“Ah,” the curator huffed. He didn’t appear satisfied at all.
Sayer replaced the cylinder’s cap and got to his feet. “We’ll be seeing you, Zaman. Thanks for this.”
The curator frowned. “Do let me know if there’s anything more you need!”
I rose to follow Sayer toward the front of the restaurant as he swung the satchel over his head and secured the straps. In the corner of my eye, I swore I glimpsed the German woman from the airport who had looked at me. When I tried to find her face in the restaurant crowd again, she was curiously gone.
“He’s a slippery one,” I remarked when I’d caught up to Sayer.
One corner of his mouth crunched into a frown. “And, unfortunately, useful.” Sayer stopped in his path and turned to me to speak in a low voice. “There are several German SS soldiers outside.”
I looked past him and noticed two men in Nazi uniforms standing on the edge of the street. They weren’t speaking, and their gazes were watchful. I glanced across the café to see if I could spot their female companion but failed to.
“We should wait,” I said to Sayer.
He nodded. “We don’t know what they know or want, or if they’re looking for something. Someone. But don’t be nervous.”
“I’m cautious,” I corrected.
“Good,” he said. “Act natural.”
He watched my back for another moment before looking to his right and raising his hand. He called something in French and I frowned. I needed to learn more than one language quickly if I wanted to make life easier for myself. I couldn’t rely on someone else to do all my communicating while in Egypt.
“How many languages do you speak?” I asked Sayer, half amused, despite the tension in the atmosphere.
He looked at me side-long with a tilt of his head. “Barely, well, or fluently?”
A harsh breath of surprise rushed from me.
“Egypt has been much more diverse than anywhere in Europe for thousands of years,” he explained. “And when another country occupies yours, learning their language might save your life. Often the language of the indigenous people—and their way of life—is made illegal by colonizers, to make settling easier for them. It is how languages and cultures die. They are consumed.”
“I see,” I said. “You seem to be the person everyone goes to for translations of any kind.”
He shrugged, rolling my compliment from his shoulders. “I happen to have a knack with languages—as Nasira is a talented fighter. You are too. You think differently than we do, I imagine because you had to in order to survive.”
My mouth pinched with a frown. “I still have so far to go to catch up.”
“Be kind to yourself,” he told me. “You’ll learn what you wish with time and hard work.”
I looked toward the exit and could no longer see the Nazis. “I think they’ve gone.”
He followed my gaze. “See? Nothing to fret about.”
The cashier reached over the counter and took Sayer’s money before planting two squares of baklava in his hands. My eyes shot wide with excitement, filling with the sight of my prize. I greedily accepted the baklava and devoured half of it in one bite. It was gooey, and the flaky bits added the perfect contrast, its flavor honey sweet and a little salty. I savored the taste and texture, and the moment I swallowed, I started to stuff the second bite into my mouth.
“Are you all right?” Sayer asked, barely able to contain his amusement.
I held my hand to pause him until I’d finished. “Yes, I am more than all right. That was fantastic.”
“Will you cry again?” he teased.
“I might.” I noticed he’d tucked the other baklava square into a small paper container. “Aren’t you going to eat yours?”
Instead, he handed me the tiny white box. “You’ll appreciate it more than I will. This might’ve been part of the reason I rushed our meeting with Zaman. Don’t tell Cyrene we wasted valuable seconds.”
I scoffed and secured the package in an interior pocket of my jacket. “Baklava is hardly wasted time.” Then I smiled. “Thank you. So, what do you suppose we should do about the Germans?”
“Pray they won’t get in our way,” he told me. “Let’s get moving.”
We left the café, and once we found our motorcycles, we fastened our helmets and goggles. Sayer double-checked the satchel’s strap across his chest before starting his bike. Though I didn’t know exactly where they were, our friends stood by in the surrounding blocks. The souk seemed as busy as it had during the middle of the day when we’d driven through Cairo, and the city’s nighttime lights had set the sky aglow. Voices, music, and diesel engines still roared in full swing. Once we were past the souk we could hasten our pace.
Excitement stirred me; I couldn’t wait to get home and help translate the jar’s inscriptions. We only needed one more after this and once we found the queen’s heart, we’d have everything we needed for the resurrection.
My goggles didn’t provide the best visibility and I wished I had a free hand to wipe away the dark smudge over the lenses. When I tilted my head, I realized the smudge wasn’t on my lenses, but in the road.
The darkness in the street detonated, slamming into the sides of motorcars and smashing them into other machines. Chaos erupted around us and I jammed my breaks so hard the bike nearly flipped over its front end. Sayer skidded to a stop next to me and he tore his goggles from his face. Shadows unfolded like blooms, their petals flowing toward me in their liquid creep. A kriosphinx’s form emerged, and people began to scream. The beast’s eyes glinted in the motorcycle’s headlight.
“From above!” Sayer bellowed.
A second kriosphinx leapt from a roof and landed behind us, shaking the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust. We were surrounded.
“Ziva!” Sayer shouted and yanked the satchel over his head. “Take it and get out of here.”
I stared at him, shocked. “No! I’m not leaving you behind!”
He ignored me and shoved the satchel into my arms. “Yes, you are. They want this and you. Don’t let them have either. I’ll slow them down. Ziva, go!”
The kriosphinx raised its head, and its wailing, high-pitched bugle pierced the night, stirring ghosts and demons and all things that inspired unquiet dreams. The hair on my skin prickled and my bones turned to butter.
Furious, I tightened the strap, gave Sayer one last desperate look, and punched the gas. The bike screamed, fishtailing and spraying rocks before finding the ground and rocketing me through traffic. I zipped by the first kriosphinx and as it lunged toward me, Sayer’s taw spell swept it up off its feet in a cloud of dust and through the air. I heard its body crash into something, but I didn’t look back.
&nb
sp; Our path replayed in my mind and I remembered where Tariq and Nasira were positioned. I could only hope I’d find them and pass along the artifact to them. Someone had to get it to the Pyramidion. I had to go back for Sayer.
The street ahead darkened and lamps burst, showering glass, before going black. Shadows moved within the shadows, and I gritted my teeth with anger. I leaned deeper and drove faster, hoping I’d slip by the kriosphinx before it blocked my path.
A man emerged from the swarm of netherlight, and surprise took me by the throat. I hit my brakes and leaned back, bracing myself for impact. The bike tipped onto its side and gouged into the dirt, pinning my leg and dragging me as it skid. I cried out with pain, holding the handlebars as hard as I could so I wouldn’t be torn apart. When the machine came to a rest, I untangled myself from the wreckage, pulling my leg out from beneath the engine. Blood soaked through my torn jeans. I wiggled my toes inside my boots and was sure nothing had broken. I pushed myself up, staring at the immortal in the street, and I limped a few steps back.
His face was concealed behind a solid gold mask, its expression lifeless, merciless, and inhuman. He crossed his arms, his power pulsing. His form was that of a man’s, but he was a monster. The mask evaporated in a plume of gilded smoke to reveal his face, but he seemed no more human than before. He was beautiful in the way Anubis was beautiful, too frighteningly perfect to be earthly. Netherlight flickered bronze on his rich umber skin and his keen, deeply shadowed and penetrating eyes blazed molten gold.
“We meet at long, long last,” the god said. “You must be the Medjai they call Ziva. I am Set.”
My courage was a flailing creature; I grappled for it and gripped it tight.
“Taw!” I cast out my arm, and with it a blast of wind shot toward Set. His face disappeared behind the gold mask again and he waved a hand as if shooing a fly. My magic seemed to evaporate into thin air. Anger stirred my soul, anger at those who had killed my friends, and I welcomed the strength. If the gods would torment me and strangle my heart with pain, then I would use it against them.
I summoned everything I had within me, remembering the sight of Nasira weeping for her mother, remembering my own mother’s tearstained face before she went to die. “Khet!”
The spell burst from my hand and rocketed toward Set, spiraling around him, drowning his form in violent light and rolling flame. I peered through the blinding spell, freed my asaya, cracked it open, and lunged for him. I screamed as I leapt, whirling my staff with all my strength, my boots pedaling in the air as though it would carry me higher. I swept my asaya with a taw spell, giving it a lightning pace, and brought it down through the flames.
Set’s masked face appeared within the fire, his molten eyes blazing hot like twin suns, and he raised his hand. Magic smashed into my body, hitting me like a truck at full speed. I shrieked and was hurled across the street—a tossed, lifeless doll. My back cracked into a wall, caving in stone and tearing the wind from my lungs, and I crumpled to the ground. My mouth gaped, dragging for air, and I forced my body to unfold from its tight knot. Dirt bit into my palms as I pushed myself to my knees. My muscles and bones screamed at me to stop, but if I obeyed, I would die, and I wouldn’t allow that to happen.
The satchel, I realized in horror. My hands shot up, questing. It was gone. My eyes darted around me, searching for where it had fallen.
The god of chaos marched toward me, the last of the dying flames from my spell smoking at his shoulders. Light flashed across his mask, the gold gleaming and blindingly bright, before the shadows in the street turned that cold face colder. “If you grovel, then I might not feed your hands and feet to my kriosphinxes.”
I lifted my chin and prayed the keen sharpness in my gaze pierced his arrogance. “You will find to your sorrow I kneel to no one.”
“You will kneel to a god,” Set snarled, the amber rings in his eyes flashing raw gold in dark rock. “Do not allow your ego and that royal blood in your veins to fool you into thinking you are anything but mortal. Magic will never belong to you.”
The god of chaos’s power pulsed against the ground, tendrils of it snaking toward me. A leather scabbard hung from his waist, a hilt of gold within his reach. I looked past him and spotted the satchel tossed beneath a car crushed into another. As long as Set didn’t drop to the ground, he likely wouldn’t notice it. I had to distract him long enough for me to retrieve the satchel, grab my bike, and get out of there.
I rose to my feet shakily with pain, but once I was up, I found my strength. He was more wrong than anyone I’d ever met. This magic had been passed to me through thousands of generations just to be mine. It was fated to be mine.
“Neit,” I snarled, and sparkling water formed in my left hand. I closed both my palms around the staff of my asaya and pushed my spell harder. The magical water formed a current up and down the weapon’s length, ready to give my strike the force of a raging river.
I charged at Set, arcing my asaya high toward his neck, and as I brought it down, he tore his sword from its scabbard. His blade clashed against mine and my neit spell slammed into him. His feet slid backward beneath the power. A shockwave reverberated through the earth, rattling the buildings. I landed, withdrew my weapon, and slashed, lower this time. He met my blade again and an animal growl rolled in his throat. His power rushed me, pushing me back several steps. My neit spell faded and I settled back on my heel to regain my balance. He was the god of chaos—he could’ve liquefied me, but he didn’t. Was he holding back? Testing me?
Set let his mask dissipate to reveal a face alight with excitement where I’d expected to find frustration and anger. “Something in your heart gives you more spark than the average Medjai.”
My returning grin was dark with challenge. “You didn’t know I’m also a New York girl.”
Eyes wide and glowing, he murmured, “Magnificent.”
I raised my asaya, ready to clash again. “Have I disappointed you?”
“Quite the contrary,” he replied, his gaze hungry. “You enjoy the battle. I appreciate a creature with such a competitive spirit. You are wound tense as a viper. You might think I’ll take a chunk out of your hide, but we both know you’ll bite first.”
“We don’t have to fight,” I said through gritted teeth. “The entire world is about to erupt into war if those with power don’t stop the wrong people from taking it.”
“You mistake me for someone who cares about the political squabbling of mortals,” he said, annoyed. “Even for one with infinite time, I don’t like it to be wasted.”
“We won’t have to resurrect Nefertari at all if you help us,” I urged. “She’ll never get what she wants, and your grudge will be satisfied. I have no allegiance to her. There are more important things than blood at stake.”
He smiled, serpentine and unsettling. “Oh, this is a great deal more complicated than that.”
“Do you mean Osiris?” I dared to ask. “Your king humiliated you and he’s the real target of your vengeance.”
That smile twisted into a bared-tooth sneer. “If you knew anything at all, you’d beg me for sanctuary.”
“We will find Nefertari’s heart before you do,” I countered unflinchingly. “And once she’s resurrected, she’ll become too strong for you to take her heart.”
Set dropped back his head and loosed a deep, booming laugh that reverberated through the street and against the bones beneath my skin. “Our interests—yours and mine—are the same in the end. You are right. We don’t have to be enemies. I might even give you my favor. The stars are yours to seize. If the Medjai told you I mean to kill you, they lied.”
“You must think I’m an idiot,” I snarled at him.
The amusement on his face hardened. “I think you’re quite rude, but I like you and I am more forgiving than others would have you believe. My kind cannot survive in this mortal world, and that is Osiris’s doing as a weak king. I want to save my people and allow us to return here. An alliance between us and humankind may be
the key to victory for us all. There won’t be many chances for you to come with me and that isn’t a threat.” He extended his right arm to me, palm up, and star-fire burned in his eyes. “Take my hand, Ziva. You think the Medjai have shown you true power? I am Chaos. Let me make you a living god and I can give you the universe.”
My teeth bit together. I needed my distraction before I ran out of time. I started to lower myself to the ground, one knee resting in the dirt, and I placed my asaya gently beside me. My hand slipped into my pocket.
I hated to do this to my friend, but—“Anubis.”
Set gaped wide with confusion. “What?”
Beside me, shadows flashed, and I turned my face away from the burst of netherlight until it faded.
“Oh, no,” Anubis murmured, staring at Set.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I urged, hoping he knew how truly sorry I was.
Set’s gold mask reformed from nothingness, concealing whatever fragment of humanity he might have shown me. He roared in fury, his power detonating like a bomb around him, slamming into every last solid object nearby and crushing it like a can. A storm raged around the god of chaos, sweeping the sand and debris around him into a cyclone. Thunder and lightning crashed within it as if Set was the tempest itself. I lifted my arms over my head as the wind and sand barraged my body. Anubis bared his teeth as he braced himself, his hair whipping around his face. Around us, the storm devoured the city.
“When the sands of eternity swallow the kingdom of Egypt, my power shall be at its greatest,” Set bellowed, his hands raised high, his eyes glowing molten gold. “The Heliopolis shall crumble, and shadows will eat its ruin. Darkness will cover the sun and the earth will tremble and split and swallow kings. Chaos will flood the earth and drown the Osirian reign. Chaos will be mine as this world and the netherworld shall be mine.”
“This is between you and Osiris!” Anubis pleaded. “Don’t take everything down with you!”
Set vanished and reappeared in a blur beside us. He knocked me to the ground and grabbed Anubis’s throat. He slammed the younger god’s back into a lamp pole, uprooting wood from cracking earth. The pole groaned as it toppled through the air and landed, screeching, on top of a motorcar. The roof caved in, exploding glass. Anubis tumbled over and righted himself. He raised a hand to his face, drew it downward from the top of his head to his chin, and his own mask of gleaming, terrible gold appeared. Black paint outlined the slits revealing his eyes, all that seemed to remain of my friend. A knife of fear shoved into my gut and opened me from navel to ribcage.
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