Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure

by E. Catherine Tobler

  Mallory’s low moan made the decision clear; she crossed to the statue, picked up the vase, and brought it back to Mallory. While Eleanor respected the gods of Egypt, Mallory was in sincere need of the water. Seth could bloody well hang.

  Eleanor tore the hem of her nightgown and dampened the fabric before drawing it across Mallory’s hot forehead. The water was cool, whereas he burned with fever. He managed to pull the robe more firmly around him, but even so, the line of his slim body was plainly visible beneath the floral-flecked material.

  “Must be inconvenient,” Eleanor said as she dunked the hem back into the water and rubbed it clean before taking another swipe at Mallory. “Surely you have a dozen tailors on staff to see to your upkeep.”

  She tried to keep her tone light, but question after question crowded her tongue. But now was not the time, when Mallory needed tending and the temple needed escaping. As she drew the fabric over Mallory’s clenched jaw and neck and he closed his eyes, she thought of the first day she had seen him, of his carelessly tied tie, and an uneasy sob escaped her.

  Mallory’s hand closed around her own. She looked down at him to find him wholly focused on her. That look was still disconcerting, especially now that she had evidence as to the animal inside.

  “Only one,” Mallory whispered, his voice rough. “Should probably give the man an increase in his wages. He must wonder what the hell I do with all the damned clothing.”

  They laughed, an uneven sound in the small space, but a comfort to Eleanor. Mallory slid to a seated position on the floor and reclaimed Eleanor’s hand. His fingers slid up her arm to curl around her elbow and draw her closer. She went without hesitation, thinking of the way the wolf had smelled her. Known her. Here in this small space, she relaxed in Mallory’s arms and rested her head against his chest, listening to the thrum of his heart.

  Then, he began to shake.

  “S-so cold.”

  Eleanor sat up, hands moving over Mallory’s arms. “You aren’t cold, you’re feverish,” she said. She scowled when he tried to turn out of her reach, to avoid another swipe from her damp cloth. “Virgil—”

  “It’s—” His teeth chattered so hard that he couldn’t get another word out.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, in clear agony, and Eleanor felt helpless. His hands reached for things she could not see and a low moan came from him, until his fingers brushed the silver ring he wore. That seemed to calm him, but he couldn’t keep hold of it with the way his hands shook, and he moaned again, shifting on the floor.

  “Virgil, what can I—”

  Mallory’s eyes rolled open. “T-tell me.” He reached for her again, shaking hands closing hard on her forearms. He pulled her closer, surprisingly strong despite the shaking. “A story. Let me—” He exhaled. “Focus.”

  He needed a focus. Was that what the ring did for him? Was that what the opium did for him? Oh, God.

  Eleanor moved from his embrace, shushing him when he groaned at the apparent loss of her. She didn’t go far, shifting only enough so she could draw his head down into her lap. Mallory continued to shake, and Eleanor drew her fingers through the dampness of his hair. With a look to the statue above them, words came to her.

  “My father told me the story of Seth when I was learning to tie my own boots. Seth killed his brother, Osiris—tricked him into a coffin and dumped him into the Nile. When Isis heard that her husband was dead, she went in search of him, to properly bury him.”

  Her fingers tightened in Mallory’s hair as his shaking grew worse. Was this withdrawal or did the beast want back out? She held him while he shuddered, while sweat beaded on his forehead. She rocked him, continuing the story as her father had told it to her.

  “Children led Isis to Osiris’s body, which she took home for burial. Seth feared Isis would be able to bring Osiris back from the dead—she was a crafty one—so Seth stole the body and cut it into a hundred pieces. Seth scattered the pieces into every corner of Egypt.”

  Back from the dead. Don’t die on me, Mallory. Don’t.

  “Isis was furious that Seth had done such a thing,” she continued. Was she imagining the way Mallory’s body had begun to calm? “Isis went on another journey. Wherever she found a piece of her husband, she buried it there and made a shrine. The entire world would be marked with such shrines if Isis had her way, thus ensuring Seth would never be free of his brother.”

  Mallory went still in her arms. Briefly, Eleanor thought he had died, and the idea was like a sudden knife in her belly. But then he drew in a steadier breath and his eyes opened to meet hers. Eleanor wiped the damp cloth across his face.

  “They meant for you to devour me,” Eleanor said in a low tone. She didn’t hear anyone outside the door now.

  “Yes.”

  Did that tremor in his voice mean he’d been tempted at the prospect? A shiver traced its way down her spine. “What is Mistral policy? Airship destroyed and abandoned, agents taken hostage by a band of natives . . . ”

  “Some might say execution.”

  Eleanor tried to laugh, thinking back to the attack on the gallery, but she couldn’t. Had Mistral done this, stranded its own people? But to what end? The simplest thing was usually true, she reminded herself. Mistral wanted the ring. To what lengths would they go to get it?

  “Policy,” Mallory added, clearly fighting to get each word out, “is to look for any means of escape. Gin likely sent a t-telegrapheme as the Nuit went down, but there’s no telling if it was received.” He shifted in Eleanor’s lap and pushed himself up. “Heading, last known position, that we were going down.”

  “I’ve no idea where the others were taken, and saw Cleo only briefly,” Eleanor said, lending Mallory a hand to help him sit upright. She kept her hand braced on his shoulder, thinking he still looked about to fall over.

  “If escape proves impractical,” he said, “we are to remain where we are and await extraction. Either way, our lives have been threatened, so I would recommend attempting escape rather than waiting for rescue.”

  Eleanor looked around the temple. It was not large, its size perhaps restricted by the quality of the canyon stone. Perhaps it had grown too soft to continue digging further in. While tombs might have a scattering of halls leading to other chambers, this temple was one room.

  One room that smelled like wolf piss, she thought, her nose wrinkling.

  She looked back to Mallory. “Can you control the change?” So many questions, and part of her didn’t want to pry when he was clearly still in pain.

  Mallory nodded, his hair brushing against his cheeks, damp strands catching in his slight beard. He went a shade paler at her question, though. “Mostly. The beast wants to come now—it’s the anger.”

  “Anger controls it?” She shook her head before she could go off on the path of endless questions. “Let it come,” she said, nodding when Mallory stared at her in plain confusion. “Let it. I’ll scream bloody murder and maybe they’ll come. To watch.” She shuddered, for she feared they would. Maybe they would open the door. Too many maybes.

  Mallory shifted again, to his knees, the floral robe falling open enough to allow Eleanor to see the scar marking his chest. A ragged, pale scar very like the one that wrapped her hand. The silence in the temple thickened. Wolf, Eleanor’s mind whispered to her, but he was also still Mallory. Deep down, still human. Wasn’t he?

  “You are either amazingly brave or incredibly f-foolish,” Mallory said. The shaking returned as his control slipped. “I don’t—don’t want you to—see.”

  Eleanor came to her feet. Her fingers rested against his cheek before she took a step back. “I’ve already seen you, Virgil. Let it come.”

  There was a terrible relief on Mallory’s face when she spoke, and he let go of the rein he kept on the beast. Though she had witnessed his return to humanity, this was different, watching him break apart, the human Mallory consumed by the animal inside. Eleanor forced herself to hold her ground as Mallory vanished inside the shifting bones a
nd lengthening hair. The sound of it was monstrous, bones twisting and shifting into their new forms, breath curdling into a growl. She gasped when the wolf lifted its head to look at her and threw the tattered remains of her robe from its shoulders.

  She extended a hand to him again, fingers scratching his muzzle as he responded to her touch. His tongue, warm and wet and startlingly pink against her dirty fingers, tasted her palm. Eleanor’s eyes sought the scars on her hand, watching as Mallory licked them. Was this the kind of creature that had bitten her that day? For so long, she thought she had dreamed that angry mouth.

  “Don’t actually eat me . . . ” She realized they had left that critical part of the plan out and questioned if wolf-Mallory could understand her now. Did he still process information the same way?

  Then, he snarled.

  Eleanor took a step back. She didn’t entirely believe he would eat her, but it was unnerving to stand so close to this marvelous creature, knowing that he could easily kill her if he wished. Summoning a scream wasn’t very difficult, and she backed closer to the door as Mallory stalked closer to her.

  The sudden report of revolver fire and raised voices caused Eleanor to peer through the barred window in the door. Three guards stood outside, their attention drawn to something deeper in the canyon. Eleanor could see the shadows of airships hovering over the high lip of the ruddy canyon, figures descending on lines. How like the Galerie attack, she thought as more guns fired. She wanted to be out there, lending a hand and a gun however she could.

  “Mistral has arrived,” Eleanor said, then looked at Mallory, whose ears cocked forward. Did he understand her? Did he understand the sounds beyond the door?

  He growled shortly and stalked toward her. Eleanor held her ground this time and only stepped aside when Mallory gave her a firm nudge away from the door. A moment later, Mallory launched himself into the wooden slab of door. The hinges groaned. He bowed his head and his broad shoulder struck the door with renewed fury. Over and over, with a sound like the strike of a hammer into soft wood, Mallory threw his body into the door and when, at last, the wood cracked, he reached with his claws. He tore a ragged hole into the door. Hot afternoon daylight flooded the temple, along with the cries of their guards. Mallory greeted them with a roar.

  Mallory bolted through the broken door. The splintered wood snagged through his pelt, but he didn’t stop. The guards shrieked and fired their weapons, and as Eleanor crawled through the hole Mallory had left, she watched in astonishment as the guards engaged the wolf.

  One of the guards broke from Mallory to meet Eleanor. He grinned, as though he felt a woman would be a simple thing to dispatch. Surely nothing compared to that snarling wolf! He crooked his fingers.

  Eleanor stepped forward as he beckoned, bracing her foot against his. She lifted her fist and smashed it into his grin. His head snapped to the left, and when he righted himself, his grin was long gone.

  Eleanor’s father taught her how to throw a punch when she was only thirteen—would that he had taught her a year earlier, she always thought—and it was a skill that had served her well ever since. She ducked the guard’s counterpunch and went under his arm, jabbing her fist sharply into his side.

  “Eleanor!”

  She saw Auberon beyond the guards and Cleo in the distance, but it was her revolver in Auberon’s hand that most captured her attention. He threw the weapon, butt over barrel, and it landed in the dirt some distance away. Eleanor lunged for it.

  The guard caught her from behind, his hand fisting into the tangle of her loose hair. She let him pull her backwards, eyes still on her revolver until Mallory came into view.

  He stood atop one guard, a massive clawed paw pressing the man’s head into the dirt. Mallory’s jaws ripped into the man’s shoulder, and blood soaked the dusty ground as the flesh came apart under tooth and claw.

  “Not so fast, woman.” The guard who held Eleanor hauled her roughly backwards. Eleanor exhaled and let herself go slack. She felt his hold on her ease, believing in her surrender.

  She moved fast, knowing she had little time to sell the lie. Twisting in his hold and kicking out, she sent her slippered foot hard into his groin. The guard dropped like a deflated balloon, and Eleanor bolted, closing the distance between her and her revolver. She scooped the weapon from the ground and trained it on the fallen guard.

  The woman with the braided silver hair stepped between Eleanor and the guard. Surprise washed through Eleanor at the sight of her and the three men behind her. One of the men appeared to be losing form—his face looked like a melting wax cast as it shifted from human to something distinctly not.

  “You will come back,” the woman said.

  Eleanor ducked as the woman lunged. Her shoulder slammed into the woman’s stomach and Eleanor drove her back into the three men behind her. They reached for her, just as the men had on that long-ago day. In the close space, Eleanor wielded her revolver like a cosh, slamming it into the temple of one man and the jaw of another. They fell and she ran, losing her slippers in her haste. She felt Mallory close at heel as agents waved them toward the closest airship.

  A trio of agents welcomed her with a harness, a gleaming web of leather leads and bronze rings. They buckled her into the contraption before hooking the harness to a line. With a tug and a shout, they sent Eleanor careening toward the belly of the airship’s gondola. There, more agents caught handfuls of her tattered nightgown as they hauled her inside.

  Eleanor could only rest while the others were hauled up in similar fashion: Gin, Cleo, and Auberon with his injured arm. She realized Mallory was at her side only when she heard a low rumble. She turned toward that sound as though it were a beacon in the madness. He was still a wolf, though now wearing the harness that had been used to bring him on board.

  Eleanor reached a bloodied hand out to stroke his head. His fur was matted with blood and mud and he panted, emitting a low whine as the airship lifted into the sky. She didn’t suppose wolves liked to fly, their natural habitat being the ground.

  Eleanor curled her fingers into his sodden jaw, and Mallory’s tongue snaked out to wash her hand clean as the world below dwindled to a caramel blur.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Cairo, Egypt ~ September 1865

  Eleanor’s father lifted her down from the scratchy, stinky camel and placed her feet firmly on Egyptian soil. Eleanor crouched down, peering at the camel’s feet and how they squished as the animal moved. They reminded her of a bellows without the handles, desert sand puffing around each step the beast took. She straightened and squinted as she peered through the camel’s gangly legs, at the triangles that rose like black portals before them.

  “Black doors!” she called. The pyramids rose tall against the setting sun, pure black at this angle, sunlight flaring gold around every straight edge. She remembered the drawings her father and Mr. Piazzi Smyth had shown her and she looked at the men now.

  “It’s Giza, little one,” Mr. Piazzi Smyth said, peeking under the camel at her. He gave her a lopsided grin, which Eleanor quickly returned.

  He was Italian, but her father said they weren’t supposed to hold that against him. Not everyone could be lucky enough to be Irish, after all (“And half Egyptian!” Eleanor had cried, feeling twice as lucky with the parents she had received. Who had ever been so lucky?).

  Some people had to come from other lands, her father told her. Eleanor was fascinated with the idea of people in other lands (Did they take baths and braid their hair?), and also the red beard that sprouted from Mr. Piazzi Smyth’s cheeks and chin, but didn’t cover his upper lip. She wondered how he managed that trick, if it involved a razor or simply grew as moss on a tree, clinging here but not there.

  “Where do the doors go?” she asked.

  She heard her mother laugh, but whatever Mr. Piazzi Smyth would have said in answer was lost as Eleanor squealed. Her father placed his dusty hands on Eleanor’s cheeks.

  “Da!”

  Sand ran over her once neatly
pressed blouse, to the toes of her boots, as Renshaw Folley rubbed Egypt across Eleanor’s brow, cheeks, and chin. She thought it felt like a blessing one would get in church and she closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of the ground and her father’s hands. She coughed and nearly sneezed.

  “Again!”

  Immediately willing to get dirty, Eleanor rubbed her hands into the Egyptian dirt that still held the sun’s heat, then pressed them over her father’s face. He scrunched up his cheeks like it tickled. She reached for her mother when she moved close enough. Eleanor clasped her mother’s sweaty hand within her own, pressing Egypt’s dirt between them.

  “Where do the doors go?” Eleanor asked again.

  “Not doors, Miss Folley,” Piazzi Smyth said, and drew a pack down from his own camel. “Well, not precisely.” He tipped his head, though, as if he were giving the idea genuine thought. Eleanor giggled as her father lifted her from the ground and braced her against his hip.

  “Pharaohs were buried inside,” her father said, and they moved closer toward the pyramids, her mother following.

  Eleanor’s eyes widened at the idea of dead kings inside the pyramids. “Not under the ground?” She rested her chin against her father’s shoulder as the group walked to the pyramids, the Italian showing them the way. He had explored the pyramids earlier this spring, researching a book about Giza and its marvels. She thought of her father’s parents, whom she had met after a fashion; they were resting under the green grass of Ireland now, tucked into an earthy bed. She looked at the line of the pyramid, rising up against the sky.

  “Above the ground,” the Italian said, “so they would be cherished and admired well beyond their passing.”

  Eleanor held her silence the closer they got to the pyramids, curiosity taking over. She could see individual stones now, stones that were the color of the ground all around them, nearly the color of melting candy. Eleanor chewed on the tie that kept her blouse together as they stepped toward a small opening in the side of the pyramid. That was where her father set her down.