by Anna Butler
Banger Bill gave Lansbach a mild dose of laudanum to deal with the pain and ease his breathing, but refused to give anything to Ned, despite Ned’s savage headache. “Not when he’s had a crack on the head as bad as that. He’ll sleep a lot anyway, I expect, but for now I daren’t risk it, Mr. Hawkins, and that’s a fact.”
Ned merely groaned.
“Let’s get them back to the house.” Causton straightened and raised his voice in a flood of Arabic.
I didn’t catch more than a word here and there, but it had the men laughing and cheering, and wiping their tired, dirty faces on their galabeyyas even as they pulled the cotton robes over their heads. They pressed around us for a moment, hands reaching for ours, and all I could do was look into each man’s face and give him a heartfelt “Shukraan, my friend. Shukraan!”
“They’ll be happy.” Causton smiled at me. “I’ve just given them an extra month’s wages for tonight’s work.”
I grinned back, wriggling into my trousers before shrugging into a shirt I wasn’t sure was mine. I found my linen jacket. “Ned won’t begrudge it.”
Several cheerful workers stepped up to be litter bearers. Fouquet and his team, and Harper and Symington, came with us. It was late to walk across the desert to their home bases, and those of our workers from El-Khirba to the north appeared to have decided to spend the remains of the night with their kinsfolk in our village. I suspected none of them wanted to be out in the desert, given the many recent manifestations of the Dog. They clustered close behind the litters, within the protective ring of Gallowglass guards.
Out we went through the still-hot tunnel. The cool night air outside doused us like refreshing water, freshening heated, dusty skin. Breaths were deeper, easier, the slide of cool air soothing throats raw from coughing against the invasion of sand and dust. All around me, men straightened tired shoulders, drew hunched backs taller and prouder, and more than one face lifted to a sky heavy with stars.
We went slowly. Every motion of the litter increased Ned’s vertigo and sickness, but our progress was steady despite the lack of moonlight to light our way. We had enough aether flares to see us safely along the side of Seti’s temple and then down toward the canal and the cluster of village houses. I walked beside Ned’s litter, so weary I think I spent most of the journey sleepwalking, with an occasional course correction made by Hugh, whose vigilance stopped me from falling into ditches and holes.
The expedition house was dark. Too dark. Even this late, even if not one window showed a light, we should have been able to see the cobweb of tracers and lines marking the security fence. There was nothing but the dark outline of the building.
I stopped dead, snapping awake. “No. That’s not right.”
Sam caught my arm, glancing back at the litter where Ned lay, still now, eyes closed. “I can’t leave him.”
“I know. Hugh, Todd—we’ll go on ahead. I need a pistol.”
Hugh blew out a sighing breath. “You know, I would just like to get tonight over with, and no more trouble.”
“Well.” I took the pistol one of the guards offered me. “Sparks fly upward, so they say.”
I waved off questions from the members of the other expeditions who had crowded closer to Ned’s litter when we stopped. I left them to Sam to deal with. He did so in his usual trenchant fashion, brusquely ordering them to get back into place.
Sam’s voice faded into the distance as Hugh, Todd, and I crossed the level sands to the road at a jog-trot. Hugh carried a brimstone aether flare, its flame set as low as possible to still give us enough light to see our way yet make us harder targets to aim at. Our route took us past the western edge of the village, and along the short road south to the expedition house. A dog barked somewhere amongst the cluster of village houses, and beyond that another howled down by the canal. But these, I was sure, were real dogs.
I knew where Anubis was that night. The Dog wouldn’t trouble us.
Hugh doused the flare, and we left the road, cutting cross-country to the house, hoping anyone watching would see nothing but shadows among shadows. The security fence was indeed down, and the door to the courtyard stood wide open. Huddled up against the outer wall, we listened for any sign of life within.
Nothing.
The howling dog down by the canal was all I could hear. That and my own breathing. On the opposite side of the gate, Todd inched forward. He held up three fingers. Count of three. He folded in the first finger. The second. As he folded in the third, we darted in through the gate, throwing ourselves to each side again, to get out of any line of fire.
Nothing.
The house was deathly still.
“I don’t think anyone’s here.” Hugh’s voice was as quiet as a breath.
They bloody well should be. Harry should be here. Harry should—
I gestured to Todd. He started down his side of the courtyard, checking each room. Hugh and I took our own side. I really wanted to rush to Harry’s room, but, not being the fool some people think me, took the search carefully and slowly. My pistol weighed heavy in my hand, the aether chamber glowing scarlet. Kill mode. I would take no chances.
The rooms we checked were empty until we got to Harry’s room, on my side of the courtyard. Harry and Molly weren’t there. Frank Sutton was, but one glance into his wide, fixed gaze told me he would be no help in telling us what had happened. I had backed away from him when Todd called me from the courtyard, and I went out, leaving Hugh bending over Frank.
“Forde’s dead,” Todd said, tone harsh and angry.
I nodded. “So is Frank. And Harry and Archambault are nowhere to be found.”
Chapter 25
THE GENERATOR had been switched off. The intruders must have brushed in past the alarms, and then turned it all off to prevent any of us hearing it over at the dig. By the time the others reached the house five minutes later, Hugh had restored the power. The house blazed with lights, and the security fence once more hummed and crackled with energy.
Sam’s scowl when he saw us would have frightened God. He made a sharp slashing movement with one hand to keep us quiet for a moment, trotting alongside the litter as Ned was carried to his room. Ned was asleep or unconscious. He didn’t stir when we slid him carefully off the litter and onto his bed.
Just for a moment, Sam stood with his head bowed, his hand on Ned’s. His gaze, flinty-hard, lighted onto Banger Bill. “Do we need to fly him to Cairo?”
“Wouldn’t recommend it, Mr. Hawkins. Can’t say what being in the air would do until his head settles down a bit.”
“Lansbach?”
“Not with the way he’s breathing. Not unless they both get worse.”
“Take care of them. Keep me up-to-date on how they’re doing.” Sam pulled me out of Ned’s room into the courtyard. “Well?”
I kept my voice low. “Harry and Archambault are missing. Forde was stabbed in the back and probably bled to death. Frank was shot inside Harry’s room.”
Even Sam’s lips lost color, narrowing into a hard line on his pale face. “God in heaven.” I had never heard him sound so defeated, not even the previous summer when Daniel Meredith had kidnapped Ned. He looked his age suddenly, and so tired that I ached in sympathy.
He pushed past me to Harry’s room. Frank lay on his back on the floor, under a blanket Hugh had taken from the bed. Sam squatted on his heels beside the body and turned back the edge of the blanket. Hugh had closed the staring eyes, but he could do nothing to smooth away the rictus of pain and shock on Frank’s face. I went out into the courtyard, blinking against the stinging of dust in my eyes. There would be one good man less to watch Spurs at White Hart Lane that season. If I could, I’d go to one match for him. Cheer him on.
Sam spoke from just behind me. “Where do we even start, Captain?”
I looked around the courtyard. Baumann was with Lansbach in their shared room, but Causton was there in the courtyard with the students, Mr. Bakhoum, Fouquet and his team, Harper and Symington.
> “I have an idea.” I waved them all to the dining table in the middle of the courtyard. “Everyone, sit down here, please. The night is not yet over.”
A gesture from Sam, and the Gallowglass guards ringed the courtyard.
Fouquet said something obscene in his own language. Like everyone else, he was dirty and tired and was probably longing for his bed, but he took one look at us, at Sam, Hugh, and me, and whatever protest he’d intended died unsaid. He sat where I indicated, talking softly to his two comrades and getting them to sit down with him with the minimum of fuss. He watched me quietly, his head slightly tilted, brow furrowed. His rubbing the back of his neck with one hand betrayed his disquiet. Harper and Symington sat on the opposite side of the table to him. Harper pushed back his chair and took up as much space as he could, legs spread, his shoulders back and head up. Only if I looked closely could I see he blinked more rapidly than seemed normal. Symington looked shrunken by contrast, his normally tomato-red face pale except for patches of crimson over his cheekbones.
I sent Sam to get his portable datascope, while I stood at one end of the table. Every eye was on me when I spoke. “While we were working to free Ned Winter and his companions from the collapsed tunnel, someone breached security here. Raoul Archambault and Harry Winter are missing. Two Gallowglass guards, Frank Sutton and Michael Forde, are dead.”
They stared. They stiffened where they sat for the first instant of shock, and then mouths dropped open, hands were raised to cover hearts or to touch parted lips, gasps and incredulous looks abounded.
Dramatic. And I had reason to doubt the shock was universally genuine.
“Mon Dieu!” Fouquet was white under the dust. “Lancaster! You are serious? Someone has taken the child? Is this some war between your imbecile Houses?”
“If we were back in Londinium, I’d think so too. But we aren’t.”
Sam reappeared with the datascope and handed it to me. He’d already put the image I wanted on-screen.
“You all know of the odd happenings over the last two months. Small, at first. Minor acts against the villagers—destroyed vines, boats springing a leak, date palms cut down. Nothing life-threatening. Small beer. A few malicious deeds aimed, probably, at making Ned and this expedition hated and reviled. I thought at first the perpetrators were motivated by envy and jealousy. Now I suspect it goes deeper than that.”
Fouquet caught my gaze and shook his head, flushing red.
“They were clever. They knew about the history of this place, the legends. They realized very quickly how much of that had sunk into local beliefs about spirits and djinns, and they knew how they could use that to their own advantage. They fostered stories about the Dog, hoping the villagers would become too agitated to restrain themselves. And they grew bolder.” I passed the datascope to Fouquet. “Pass this on, Fouquet, would you? Everyone should see it, please.”
Fouquet stared at the screen for a moment. “Merde!”
“This was our visitor last night, the reason I went to Cairo this morning to collect the rest of the Gallowglass guards. Over the last few weeks, we’ve caught several glimpses of something, someone, moving around near the temple at night. Only the day before the village generator was destroyed, I saw it for myself. Anubis, walking in the desert.”
The datascope had reached the students, who passed it on with shocked, startled whispers. Causton frowned at it and handed it on to Symington.
“Odd that this Ancient Aegyptian god understands security fences and just how far he can get without setting off the alarms. He knows exactly where to stand to catch the light from the Cowens flash boxes and be caught on photographic film to leave precisely the image he wanted to sow more uncertainty and fear.”
The datascope had made it back to me. “You’ve all had a good look? Right. A cartonnage mask, based on tomb paintings… very well done. Black stage makeup on the neck, with a pectoral any tourist could buy at the bazaar worn to hide the line of makeup… clever. Done by someone very familiar with the theater, used to making props, perhaps, and using stage pancake.”
I turned the screen to face them, so they could all see Anubis and his tilted head in the flaring lights in the courtyard.
“If this had been limited to the holed boats and the damaged fields, I might have been inclined to tell the Gallowglass guards to give you a good hiding and allowed that to pay the debt. But that was before the generator, and the cave-in, and two dead men. Not to mention a seven-year-old child who’s probably terrified for his life right now. For them, I’m inclined to let the guards loose, Harper.”
A bare instant’s silence, then Harper, red-faced and spluttering, leapt to his feet, roaring something incoherent. He didn’t get half a step toward me before George Todd had slammed him back into his chair, an arm across his throat. Harper made a choked, gurgling sound and froze in place. His face above the black of Todd’s sleeve was white and strained. The Gallowglass guards took a step forward as if one man. Everyone else at the table tensed and stilled, eyes shifting between me, Harper, and the guards. Symington’s eyes and mouth were round as saucers, and he’d lost even the patchy color over his cheekbones. He was a sickly yellow-white, perhaps because one of the guards had a pistol pressed against his temple.
“Are you certain?” Sam stood beside me, his pistol primed and ready, the aether chamber glowing the dark crimson of spilled blood. Set to kill. And I might just let him do it.
“I’m sure.” I held up the image again. “Did you all take a good look at it? Did you see the small mark on the left shoulder?”
Harper grunted, and his feet drummed on the courtyard tiles, his hands flying up to clamp on to Todd’s forearm to try to pull it away. I assumed Todd had tightened his grip and was cutting off Harper’s airflow. I can’t say I sympathized.
“It’s a scar. The edge of the pectoral didn’t quite cover it all. I saw it in the tunnel, Harper, when you took off your shirt.”
His eyes goggled at me, his face a grimace.
No. No sympathy.
Sam growled something menacing and nodded to Todd. A second guard leaned over Harper and pulled at the dirty cotton shirt. It took only a moment for everyone at the table to be as certain as I was. Fouquet reacted first, leaping up to look closely at the image on the datascope and then rounding the table to prod, hard, at the scar, his finger drawing a semicircle over Harper’s shoulder and chest as if tracing the line of the pectoral.
“Connard!” He stepped back, mouth twisting. He nodded to me, sharp and yet supportive. “I am convinced. This… this… ach, he is despicable, this branleur!” Fouquet threw up both hands in a gesture of repudiation Sarah Bernhardt would envy.
Symington squeaked. “No! No! I mean…. All right, we were playing a few tricks on you, but we had nothing to do with the village generator or the cave-in today. We know nothing about the boy and the old man! How could we? We were at the temple all night with you lot, digging Winter out! I swear we know nothing about this!”
Damn him, that last point had some merit. It couldn’t have been them, unless….
“You’re working with someone else!”
Symington squeaked again. “No! No! I swear it, Lancaster. I swear it!”
His reaction looked all too genuine. Sick and disappointed, I turned to Sam. He looked as despairing as I felt.
I looked at those two pathetic little men and gestured to Todd to loosen his grip on Harper’s throat. “Why the Anubis outfit? Your idea, Harper? I remember you said something about amateur theatricals at Christmas.”
The toad croaked and hacked as he rubbed at his throat and gulped in a huge mouthful of air. “It just—” Harper stopped, coughing, his voice a husky wheeze. “—got them all nervous, didn’t it, thinking the djinn was tied in to the old stories, that the Dog was back. It meant we could move around without much chance of being caught, and if they did catch sight of us, it was enough to make them run.”
“So your appearance outside Harry’s window last night was t
o rub our noses in it? And incidentally terrify a child. You pathetic, contemptible, cowardly pair of worms.”
Symington had the grace to look a little ashamed. “We knew everyone would be lax after the excitement in the village the night before, too tired to be alert. It was just a….” He stopped, shrugging. His ears were red.
“This isn’t helping us find Harry.” Sam raised his pistol. “Dispose of this filth and get on with it.”
Both Harper and Symington cried out in protest. Symington’s color had started to return, but now it drained away again, leaving him the same sickly yellow as before.
“You can’t be serious!” Harper’s croak was satisfyingly shrill.
I could only hope the pair soiled themselves where they sat. “I am so tempted to allow Sam to kill you, but we have more important things to worry about.” I wanted them out of my sight, stowed somewhere they could do us no further harm. The main storeroom was the most secure room, but since I didn’t trust them not to damage everything we’d collected from the dig, the large, empty closet just off it would have to do. The door was lockable, at least. The closet had only a tiny window onto the courtyard, but it would give them air, and there would be just enough room for them to sit on the floor. They wouldn’t be comfortable—but then they didn’t deserve to be. I turned to Todd. “Lock them in the storeroom closet, Todd, and put one guard into the storeroom and another outside the closet window. We’ll deal with them later.”
The two sagged visibly, but Harper still had a little fight left in him.
“You don’t have the authority—”
“I’ve got a seven-year-old child to find. I don’t care about anything else.”
Harper appealed to Fouquet. “Are you going to let them get away with this?”
Fouquet turned his back on them. “Enculés!” Which was very rude but perfectly understandable. He looked at me steadily. “Whatever you demand of us to help, Captain Lancaster, we will do.”