When they’d finally made it to Giza, they’d restocked on some basic supplies and made a beeline to St. Mina’s Sanitorium to visit Helen. Her father had insisted upon seeing his youngest daughter, and Hex was not going to deny him this.
Hex planned on it being the last time he’d ever see Helen, however. Cruel, perhaps, but then again Hubert was a danger not only to himself but also to his own daughters. He’d been willing to sacrifice Hex for his own gain in the desert. Who knew what he would be willing to do to Helen, if backed into a corner.
Hubert made no secret about Helen being his favorite child, despite the fact that he’d not even raised her. But Hex didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him—which was not far at all, considering that gut of his. She shuddered to think what would have happened to her sister had she died out in the desert. Helen had not had to grow up on the streets with Hubert, so she didn’t really comprehend his true nature. But Hex couldn’t tell her the truth about Hubert—she was too young, too sick, and too naïve to understand.
Having been raised in Baltimore with their mother, Helen had never had to do the things Hex had done as a child. Helen still had her innocence, and Hex wasn’t about to take that away from her. But Hex could do her damnedest to shield her from Hubert, and if that meant cutting off his access to Helen, then she was more than willing to do so.
She’d not have Helen suffer as she’d suffered. Hex only had to glance down at her Welding hands whenever her conviction faltered on the matter.
She’d only been a few years older than Helen.
“Thanks, Simon. A few more hours, then we’ll head back to Cairo,” she said. “Do you think we can make the last leg?”
Simon shrugged. “The mechanics of the Amun Ra are in order. I was even able to fix that glitch in the sun panel while you were running around in the desert.”
“You make it sound like I was on holiday,” she muttered.
Simon smirked at her. “The electricals, however, are cooked to high hell. I can’t seem to pinpoint an exact cause, which is highly unusual,” he said, his smirk metamorphosing into a scowl. He was definitely frustrated, a relatively rare condition for the genius, whose brain was usually big enough to overcome even the most convoluted of problems. “Ever since that storm, nothing’s been right. And ever since he came aboard…” He broke off and shook his head.
Hex knew exactly what Simon was talking about. She’d seen with her own eyes the way the dials on the helm spun in circles whenever Rowan walked past them. It was…unsettling, to say the least.
The first night on board, he’d touched one of the nodes connecting the sun panels to the engine, and the thing had shorted out. It had taken Simon hours to repair. When the same thing had happened again shortly afterward, she knew it hadn’t been a mere coincidence and had forbidden Rowan from entering the engine room for the duration of the journey.
He looked so ordinary—well, not ordinary, considering how damned pretty the man was, with his marble-hewn physique and luxurious mahogany hair. But it would have been hard to believe there was anything abnormal about him had she not seen the evidence with her own eyes.
He’d been shot twice in the last three days, but his skin was as flawless as an alabaster statue. He’d taken a slab of stone that must have weighed well over a ton and thrown it across a room without breaking a sweat. And he’d lifted her father, who really needed to lay off the ale, up the ship’s ladder as if he’d weighed nothing.
His strangeness had only been brought home to her over the last few days. In the wake of all of the mechanical glitches, Rowan had grudgingly allowed Simon to do some cursory examinations of him, which had yielded yet more bizarre results. When Simon had scanned Rowan with his spectrum oscillograph, the needle had surged off the scale. Hex had no idea what that meant, or even what a spectrum oscillograph was, but Simon had assured her that it was not normal.
And when Simon had drawn Rowan’s blood, the blood itself—or whatever the hell it was—had burned through the metal syringe like acid. Simon had managed to salvage a bit of it in a glass beaker, but he had no equipment to properly analyze it aboard the Amun Ra.
But she didn’t need Simon’s analysis to tell her that nothing human had blood like that—pale, sizzling amber the same strange color as Rowan’s eyes.
After the debacle with the blood, Rowan had refused to be tested further—much to Simon’s displeasure, since Rowan had quickly become a worthy puzzle for him to solve. Something new, as Simon had said out in the desert. Normally Hex adored Simon’s insatiable scientific curiosity, but in this case, she rather hoped he’d let the matter go. Even Rowan himself seemed terrified of Simon’s findings.
She sure as hell didn’t want to get any more involved with whatever was going on with Rowan. It could only bring her trouble, and that was the last thing she needed more of in her life. Especially with Helen to consider.
“Once I get to Cairo, he’s out of our lives. He is not my problem,” she stated firmly.
Simon’s scowl deepened. He really didn’t like the idea of his new project being taken away from him. “Something happened in the desert, and something is happening with Rowan.”
“Again, not my problem,” she gritted out. “You didn’t see what I did, Simon. It’s wrong. He’s wrong.”
“He’s interesting,” he corrected stubbornly.
She sighed in exasperation and stood up. There was no reasoning with the man once he found something interesting.
“Once we get to Cairo, you’re welcome to him, then. Just leave me out of it.”
Simon gave her a mock salute. “Noted, captain,” he said dryly.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m going to make sure Hubert hasn’t absconded with my sister,” she said, ending the conversation. The sad thing was that she wasn’t even joking. She wouldn’t put it past the old man to do something so impulsive, even though he knew how sick Helen was.
She left the workroom and walked out onto the deck and into the shadow of Khufu and Khafre, the largest pyramids at Giza and Helen’s favorite place to picnic when Hex came to see her.
Other than a few tourist caravans huddled around the base of Khufu, they had the place to themselves. She surveyed the sand and found Hubert lurking at the edges of the small crowd to the far left of the dirigible, glaring up the side of the smaller third pyramid, Menkaure.
Her heart sank. She’d known she was taking a risk letting Helen go off the ship with Hubert, but she’d thought that if Rowan went with them, Hubert would have been less inclined to misbehave, considering how terrified he was of the man. She’d needed to have Simon fix her broken hand, and she’d always hated exposing Helen to her Welding enhancements any more than she had to. Helen would never admit it, but the sight of her sister’s mechanical hands upset her.
They upset Hex as well.
Yet in protecting Helen from that unpleasantness, she may have just put her in jeopardy. What had she been thinking?
She quickly scrambled down the ladder and ran to her father’s side.
“Where is she?” she demanded.
Hubert, looking a bit green beneath his sunburn, pointed upward. “He…he took her up there!” he cried.
Her stomach lurched as she caught sight of Rowan and Helen at the very top of the pyramid, waving down at them.
“Good God,” she murmured.
Helen had always wanted to climb to the top of Menkaure. Hex had long ago ruled out climbing Khufu, given its massive height—and thank hell Helen had let go of that fantasy without much of a fight—but she’d always been too sick to even attempt the shorter climb up Menkaure. Until today, apparently.
“He just went up, like it was nothing,” Hubert whispered.
“They’re coming down,” she murmured, watching as Helen climbed onto Rowan’s back for the descent.
Hex’s heart was in her throat the entire time. She didn’t know whether to feel angry or elated at Rowan for giving into Helen’s pleas, for she knew her sister must
have put on quite a show to get her way. With the ample depth of the massive cut stones, there was little to no risk of actually tumbling to one’s death unless one really tried, but it was still quite a long way to the top for someone in Helen’s condition. Even Hex was dizzy just staring up at them.
Rowan finally made it to the bottom and gently helped Helen dismount. Hex hurried to their side, caught between her outrage and mounting worry for Helen’s health. Rowan wasn’t even winded, but Helen’s face was flushed beneath her bonnet, her breathing a little bit labored just from holding on to Rowan’s neck during the climb. Yet her smile was so wide, so beautiful, all of Hex’s anger quickly fizzled into oblivion. She’d not seen Helen smile like that in years.
The little girl threw herself into Hex’s arms. “Did you see us, Hex? Wasn’t it incredible? I could see for miles, just miles! And did you see Mr. Pharaoh throw that stone? It went forever!”
She’d not seen that particular feat, but she could well imagine how far Rowan could throw one, judging from the spectacle she’d witnessed in the tomb. “Mr. Pharaoh?” Hex inquired teasingly.
Helen’s smile grew even bigger, so big Hex had to choke back tears. “He doesn’t remember his last name, so I gave him one.”
“It is very…fitting,” Hex said, glancing at Rowan, who was also beaming. He flushed a little under Hex’s scrutiny and cleared his throat as he tried to rein in his smile.
Helen tugged on her waistcoat to recapture her attention. Hex grew immediately suspicious of the calculating gleam in Helen’s wide eyes. It was just like her father’s, unfortunately, but without his particular brand of malicious guile.
“Mr. Pharaoh said it was no trouble, Hex, so I was thinking…” she began. Hex groaned inwardly when Helen fluttered her lashes and drew up her cupid’s bow lips into a pout. The girl was pulling out all of the stops, so whatever she was up to could not be good. Not at all. She braced herself. “Maybe he could take me up to the top of Khufu,” Helen finished sweetly.
Hex should have seen that one coming. She snorted and playfully flicked Helen’s bonnet back on her forehead.
“Absolutely not. You’re lucky I’m not tearing into you for this little stunt. It was dangerous enough.”
Helen adjusted her bonnet with a sniff. “Hardly,” she said. “Not for Mr. Pharaoh.”
Hex put her hands on her hips and stared her sister down. “What if you got tired of holding on to him? What if you fell before he could catch you?”
“He wouldn’t let me fall,” Helen insisted, her pout settling in, her arms crossing stubbornly over her pinafore.
“No, and that’s final,” Hex said.
“But…”
“Helen,” she warned.
Helen huffed. “Fine. But one day, when I’m well, I’m going to climb it, see if I don’t,” she stated petulantly.
“When you’re well,” Hex conceded, unable to bear contradicting her. She doubted she’d deny Helen anything when she was well.
If that ever happened.
Helen continued to pant, unable to catch her breath, and started to unconsciously lean into Hex’s legs. Though the girl would never admit it, she’d had enough fun for one day.
“Back to the Amun Ra, I think,” Hex said.
Helen grinned up at her, but instead of grabbing her hand as she would usually do, she sidled back to Rowan’s side. She pulled on his robes until he bent down and whispered something in his ear. He grinned at her and crouched low so she could climb on his back again, wrapping her thin arms tightly around his neck. Her eyes sparkled mischievously in Hex’s direction as she peeked over his broad shoulder.
Hex shook her head in exasperation. From the moment Helen had laid eyes on Rowan, she’d been smitten. It had not even been Hex’s intention to introduce them, for she’d hoped that the man would make himself scarce during the visit.
But Rowan had been so curious when they’d dropped anchor at St. Mina’s that he’d been practically vibrating with nervous energy. She’d not been able to say no when he’d expressed an interest in accompanying her and Hubert to the sanitorium. Having someone by her side to help temper Hubert’s impulsiveness had not been a bad idea anyway, but now, seeing the result—how seamlessly Rowan had slipped into her life—made her extremely wary.
As she trailed her father and Rowan back toward the Amun Ra, she studied the way Helen clung to Rowan so trustingly, laughing lightly at something the man said, and felt her heart constrict in her chest so tightly it was hard to breathe.
Dread. Bewilderment at the entire situation. Had her father and Omar not also witnessed it, she would have said that what had happened in the tomb had been a dream. It certainly felt that way.
How had he known her name? That, more than anything else, ate at her. He’d not remembered her when he’d woken up later in the tent, but there was no doubt in her mind that he’d known her in those first few moments. There had been recognition in those unnerving amber eyes. It made it way too…personal.
And the way he’d charmed Helen…
She wasn’t sure how to feel about any of it, and she loathed that uncertainty. The last time she’d been so emotionally torn was during her brief, disastrous marriage to Edgar Shaw. In retrospect, she could see just how callow and ridiculous of a child her husband had been, but for a while there, Edgar had twisted her soul in knots.
At first, his self-effacing and well-bred manner had been so refreshing after a lifetime surrounded by the street-toughened, vulgar-tongued thugs who had comprised most of her father’s circle of acquaintance. She’d thought herself so lucky to have finally escaped her father’s yoke and settled into a half-respectable life with her mother and sister. She’d felt so damned grateful that Edgar, the son of a prominent Baltimore shipping family and as polished as any Old World aristocrat, had shown an interest in her. She’d been smitten with him—with the life he could offer her and Helen and her mother.
Hex had never blamed her mother for leaving her behind with Hubert after Helen had been born. The itinerant life had been killing Caroline, and so when Hex had woken up one day to find her mother’s note, she had understood. Hubert wouldn’t have let Caroline go so easily if she’d taken Hex with her. Hex was, after all, the one who’d filled his pockets.
Although Caroline herself came from as respectable a family as any in Baltimore, her elopement with Hubert had never quite been forgiven or forgotten. After she’d fled back to Baltimore with Helen, she’d been able to maintain a frugal household on the small allowance her family had reluctantly settled upon her, but when Hex had joined them years later, they had just barely managed to scrape by.
Hex had never regretted finally getting away from Hubert after what he’d done to her, but she had felt guilty for adding to her mother’s burden. Perhaps that was why she’d so hastily agreed to Edgar’s proposal when she was just sixteen.
In the end, just after Hex’s marriage, her mother had died, wasted away with the same mysterious disease of the blood that she had passed on to Helen, and Helen had become Hex’s sole responsibility.
The addition of her already sickly sister to the household had been the last straw for Edgar, whose family had never approved of his choice in Hex anyway. After his family had threatened to cut him off completely, Edgar had caved and asked Hex for an annulment.
Hex hadn’t even bothered to fight for the marriage. Edgar’s luster had quickly worn off once she’d realized how weak-willed he was. He’d chosen his family’s money over her and in the end had willingly subjected her to a divorce when the courts had refused to grant the annulment. It was a stigma that would always leave her beyond the pale of Baltimore society, through no fault of her own.
She’d taken the divorce, and then she’d taken the Gray family’s latest prototype dirigible from their warehouse and had never looked back. Baltimore and all of its narrow-minded society could go hang, for all she cared. She’d vowed over the Atlantic never to let herself be put in such a vulnerable position again.
&
nbsp; Yet ever since Rowan had spoken her name in the tomb, that was all she’d felt: vulnerable. Out of control. It was unacceptable. She was grateful that he’d stepped in front of that bullet for her and made Helen smile today, but she refused to feel indebted.
After they landed in Cairo, Mr. Pharaoh was on his own.
Chapter Four
HEX FINALLY SET foot on the teeming Cairo air docks and sighed with a mixture of relief and resignation. Nothing had changed while she’d been in the Western Sahara. The docks were, as usual, a god-awful cacophony of clanking machinery, shouting street vendors, and whirring airship engines. The familiar miasma of unwashed bodies, engine grease, and the kebap stand just across from the Amun Ra’s berth was underscored by the ever-present stench of human excrement that hung over the Nile.
Ah, home. Or at least what passed for a home these days. The familiarity of it all was somewhat comforting, though, and she’d take somewhat over nothing at all, considering her limited options.
Simon jumped from the ladder and landed beside her with his usual clumsy grace. He wrinkled his nose as he always did when first arriving back in the city, unimpressed as ever with the smell.
“Well, we’re alive,” he said gloomily. “There is that.”
She snorted. “Such as it is.”
He stretched out his long limbs and sighed. “Well, I’m famished. Kebap?”
She waved him on his way with a shake of her head and turned her attention to her two neighbors, who had set up a makeshift table out of old engine parts in the narrow strip of dock beside the Amun Ra.
Thaddeus Fincastle and Won Jin occupied the berths on either side of her own, and they were both thankfully only slightly nefarious characters. She didn’t think she would have lasted as long as she had in Cairo had her neighbors been anyone less scrupulous. She may have been streetwise, but she wasn’t stupid enough to believe her age and gender didn’t put a target on her back.
Thaddeus was an old salty privateer with an antique Welding peg leg, a ubiquitous red neckerchief, and a thousand tall tales about his adventures. He operated a ramshackle dirigible so ancient it had likely seen action during the Crimean War, and dabbled here and there in small-time smuggling schemes. He seemed happy to earn just enough to keep himself in tobacco and whiskey, though he did occasionally disappear on mysterious business for months on end that he refused to talk about.
Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3) Page 8