But if this man had heard everything, he said nothing. A foreign woman? Not that he was aware of. Any outsiders at all? Couldn’t think of any. Anything out of the ordinary lately? Ghosts and disappearances; rumors of a mummy. Nothing living.
They paid for the meal, a bottle of water, a can of insect repellant, and a cheap backpack, since Alex’s and Ren’s were still somewhere back in The Order’s secret citadel. Alex put the stuff in the pack and the pack on his back and headed toward the door. But that’s when he spotted something on a middle shelf: a quick flash of a familiar color. He turned back to the shopkeeper.
“This tea here, with the purple label,” he said. “Do you sell a lot of it?”
The man looked up at the tea and then back down at the cash register. “Not much,” he said. “It was a special order. Most people around here prefer the Egyptian —” He tensed visibly and swallowed the next word. After what seemed to Alex a very deliberate pause, he continued. “It is neither our most popular brand nor our least. Have a nice day! If you are still around tonight, we also serve dinner.”
He slammed the cash register shut, and with it, the conversation.
Alex tapped the metal tea canister. The little bonk he got back told him two things. First, the container was half empty. Second, his mother knew Egypt well — but he knew her better than anyone.
“She’s here!” said Alex as they stepped out into the bright, hot morning. “In Minyahur! He sold her tea — he special ordered it for her!”
Ren swatted at one of the many flies buzzing dizzily around the center of town. “How can we get him to tell us where she is?”
“That, he will not know,” said Todtman. “She will come in at irregular times, he will say, unpredictable. She will pay in cash and leave quietly, maybe slip out while he is talking to another customer. Sometimes she will head in one direction, sometimes she will head in another.”
“How do you know any of that?” said Ren.
“Because that is what I would do,” Todtman said simply. “We must search the edges of the village. She would not stay in its center.”
They stood on the edge of the sidewalk, waiting to cross the street. There were no cars in sight, but a passing donkey cart was in no hurry.
“Why didn’t she buy the whole container of tea,” Alex asked Todtman as they reached the other side, “instead of leaving half of it there for me to see?”
“Maybe she did and the storekeeper bought another, hoping for more business,” said Todtman with a shrug. “Or maybe she couldn’t afford it.”
The thought of his mom counting coins and buying only as much tea as she could hit Alex like a punch in the gut. He imagined her eating half of one of those chalky biscuits for lunch, saving the other for dinner. Hungry, and on her own …
“Ow!” he said, slapping down hard at his neck.
“Yes,” said Todtman. “Sand flies. Nasty little beasts — and maybe worse. I think it’s time for that insect repellant.”
And maybe worse … Alex was thinking the same thing: Could these flies be spies, too? Alex removed the spray can from his pack, and Ren plucked it from his hands.
“This looks like it’s from World War Two,” she said, scrutinizing the peeling label on the unpainted steel can. “Half the ingredients are probably banned in the US.”
But they took turns spraying themselves. Alex coated his arms and neck and Ren applied it in small puffs, like perfume. Todtman, who had long sleeves, coated his hands and face.
They resumed their search, heading away from the center of town.
“I’ll try my amulet again,” said Alex, reaching up and pulling it out from underneath his shirt. He stopped, closed his eyes, and grasped the scarab. The night before he’d sensed a diffuse signal spread across the landscape — death magic everywhere. But something had changed. Alex suddenly felt like he was holding a baked potato fresh from the oven. The sensitive flesh of his palm sizzled, and his vision lit up from the inside in red and orange and gold.
He gasped and dropped the scalding scarab.
He opened his eyes. Color still swirled at the edges of his vision as he looked down at his palm. No physical burns or blisters that he could see.
“What is it?” said Ren, clearly picking up the shock and pain in his expression.
Alex looked at his best friend, who was wreathed in stars.
“It’s the Lost Spells,” he managed. “They’re here.”
“Did you get a direction?” said Todtman.
Alex looked at him, his vision just now beginning to clear, and answered as best he could.
“No — I couldn’t tell. It was too intense. But they’re close,” he said. “Very close.”
“That is good,” said Todtman, “because I think we are about to have company.”
At first, Alex didn’t understand what he meant, but as the swirling colors subsided, his vision continued to shift and buzz. He looked all around. The villagers were gone, hanging back from the three visitors. In their place, a sea of flies. Vicious little sand flies buzzed in clouds in the air, and every flat surface within twenty feet was dotted with big black flies.
“Uh-oh,” said Alex, and as he did, a fat black fly darted inside his mouth like a filthy drop of midnight.
Alex gagged and spit out the fly. It hit the ground like a wet pellet.
“We’re in trouble,” he said. “Aff Neb is here.” He wiped his forearm across his mouth, spat again.
Todtman looked around at the buzzing, crawling swarm. “Yes, or he will be soon. I think they are watching us for him. He will be powerful out here among so many … friends. And I doubt he will be alone.”
The Order had endless firepower. Alex feared Peshwar and their leader — not to mention a small army of hired guns — were also nearby. Had they just led an unstoppable force straight to his mom and the Spells?
His head buzzed inside and out. Flies swarmed around him, one biting his neck while another got tangled in his hair. He felt angry and frustrated — but not helpless. “Hold on to something,” he said through gritted teeth.
The wind began behind them and rolled toward them through the wide streets of the little village. It brought with it a wall of roiling sand. The Fly Lord would be powerful out here, but he wasn’t the only one with desert magic. The familiar mantra formed in Alex’s head. The wind that comes before the rain …
Alex spread his stance wide and let that wind roll over him. Ren grabbed on to the post of a nearby fence. Todtman speared his walking stick into the ground and leaned forward into it, forming a tripod.
The flies lacked such options.
For a few moments, the whipping wind drowned out all sound and the rolling sand cloud blocked out the sun. When it passed, the air was clear and the flies were gone. Villagers who had ducked into huts and alleyways for shelter began gophering their heads back out for a look.
“That is better,” said Todtman, coughing up a little sand. “But it won’t hold them for long — nor will it delay their master.”
Alex nodded. “We need to find my mom now.”
Without another word, both Alex and Todtman turned and looked at Ren. “You must use the ibis,” said Todtman. “We don’t have time to argue.”
But Alex stayed silent. He’d noticed something about Ren lately. She was less hesitant with her amulet, less unsure, more …
“Ready!” she said, folding her hand around the ibis.
Ren closed her eyes.
A moment later, her eyes fluttered open.
“What did you see?” said Alex, leaning toward her expectantly.
“Same as last time,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
Alex kicked the ground hard in frustration.
“Well, that is no help,” said Todtman, turning away.
“No, wait,” said Ren. “You’re thinking about it wrong. It doesn’t give answers, just information.” She turned to Todtman. “Last time I saw nothing you said it meant the Spells were being hidden or protected by some
kind of magic.”
“Yes,” he said. “So?”
“So, they’re hidden again,” said Ren. She pointed at Alex. “But they weren’t when he tried it last time — their signal nearly burned his hand off.”
“That’s true,” Alex admitted. “That hurt.”
“Do it again,” said Ren.
“What? No way!” he said.
Ren broke into the smallest of smiles and then, imitating Todtman’s accent, she said: “We don’t have time to argue.”
Well, she’s got me there, thought Alex. His hand closed around the scarab. He closed his eyes and reached out with his senses, steeling himself for the burning pain and shock to come. Instead …
“Nothing,” he said. “Just the same little shimmer I got last night. Weak, and all around.” He turned toward Todtman. “What does it mean?”
“The Spells were unprotected, briefly,” he said. “She must have had them out in the open, and now she has hidden them again … Perhaps she has seen the flies, too.”
“Or the windstorm,” said Alex. “She’d recognize that. This used to be her amulet.”
“Either way, we know the Spells are nearby, and they have been concealed again,” said Todtman.
“So she’s here, and she’s watching,” said Alex, suddenly looking all around.
“Perhaps getting her attention is not the worst thing now,” said Todtman. “We have no more time to waste — and nothing left to lose.”
“But why get her attention?” said Ren. “She’s hiding from us.”
“Hiding, yes,” said Todtman. “But also protecting the Spells. If there’s a threat to them …”
“She’d want to know,” Alex chimed in, picking up the thought.
“Tell me,” said Todtman. “If you saw your mother — even disguised, covered head to toe — do you think you could recognize her?”
Alex thought about it. He considered the million multifaceted memories that made up their history together. He remembered his mom sitting quietly across the kitchen table from him, him half-playing a game on the iPad, her half-reading some thick book, how sometimes they’d both look up at each other at exactly the same moment — who knows why — smile, and look down again.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think so.”
“Good,” said Todtman. “Then we must use the amulets again.”
“Which one of us?” said Ren.
Todtman smiled. “All of us, of course.”
“On the count of three,” said Todtman. “One, two …”
They all reached for their amulets. The Order was on the way, and Alex knew they would not be subtle in finding his mom. They would burn this little village to the ground and tear the veils from people’s faces. The three Amulet Keepers wouldn’t resort to such tactics, but this was clearly no time for half measures.
“Three!”
Alex closed his left hand around the scarab. As soon as he felt the ancient energy crackle through his veins, he began waving his right hand above him in a little circle, like a cowboy twirling a lasso. A whipping, swirling wind kicked up and immediately began picking up the sand that lay all around them in the little desert outpost. A whooshing sound filled the streets, and a tall funnel appeared, the circular air currents made visible as walls of whirling sand.
The people on the street turned to look as the sand devil towered ever higher. Others stepped out of doors or poked their heads out of windows for a closer look. Sand augers and dust whirls were common out here — but not like this.
“Now, Ren!” called Todtman through the whipping maelstrom that now surrounded them.
Ren clutched the ibis tighter and thrust her free hand straight upward.
FWOOP!
A flash of brilliant white light lit up the sky, reflecting off millions of shiny sand crystals. A beautiful wash of splintered white light carried to the very edges of the village.
Alex heard gasps and shouts from the gathering crowd. More eyes turned to the spectacle, and more feet carried them toward it. Finally, Todtman did his part. Alex had seen him use the Watcher to control individual minds many times, but now he needed more than that. He squeezed the stone falcon tight and shouted: “Watch! Look!”
The sound of his voice was all but drowned out by the whipping wind, but his psychic cry carried across the desert. The few doors that had remained closed were flung open now. Suddenly, even the most cautious villager felt the strong desire to see this towering but harmless twister.
Ren lit it with another flash — FWOOP! — and the ooohs and aahs came from a much larger crowd.
Alex’s head was beginning to pound and his arm was starting to tire.
“Enough!” called Todtman.
Alex released the scarab and let his aching arm drop. The column of swirling sand collapsed straight down.
“Ack!” called Ren, covering her head.
But the wind had stopped so abruptly that most of the sand fell heavily in a circle all around the friends, leaving them standing inside a sloping foxhole nearly two feet high.
“Look quickly!” called Todtman. “She will be at the edges. The Watcher will not hold a mind like hers. She will stay no longer than is necessary to identify the threat …”
Alex scanned the edge of the crowd furiously. There were scores of people now, the entire population of the little village. Most of them stood and pointed and conferred nervously with their neighbors. Alex got the distinct impression that they were no strangers to magic out here. He turned in a circle. The people closest to him blocked his view of those on the edges of the crowd — many of whom were already beginning to leave. The women vexed him in their all-concealing garb. Why can’t I have thousands of lenses in my eyes like Aff Neb? he wondered desperately.
The crowd continued to disperse, having already sized up these amulet-bearing newcomers.
I’m losing my chance, thought Alex. He needed to concentrate and so he ignored the eyes of the women, ignored their shoulders and walks and any of the other markers he thought he might be able to identify. Instead, he concentrated on just one thing.
He turned and turned and craned his neck around those who remained. And just when he thought he would collapse from dizziness and desperation and one breath held way too long, he saw something.
“There!” he said as the woman disappeared down a side alley thirty yards away.
“Where?” called Ren. “Which one?”
Alex scrambled over the sloping wall of sand in front of him and took off running. He had barely gotten a look at her, and that was fine, because there wasn’t much to see. Mostly just a flash of plain black abaya, indistinguishable from two dozen others on the street.
But he had seen something. And as soon as he had, any reservations he’d harbored about finding his mom melted away like mist in the desert sun. He picked up speed as he dodged and ducked his way through the crowd, scaring people as he ran up behind them, and leaving his friends in the dust.
An arm reached for him as he ran through the scattering throng, and another, alarmingly, grabbed at his amulet. He shouldered through the first and slapped aside the second. He kept his eyes trained on the approaching alleyway, not even daring to spare a glare for the would-be thief.
“Mom!” he called, his eager voice breaking. “Mom!”
He hit the alleyway too fast and crashed into the far wall before he could turn. He used the impact to bounce himself back in the right direction without missing a beat. He was in a narrow space between two of the village’s larger buildings, and at the very end of that space, walking briskly, was a woman in black.
Once she reached the end, she could turn in either direction. Then she could find the next alley and do the same. As small as the village was, Alex had no doubt that she knew it well enough to escape him.
He looked down to avoid a garbage can lid and when he looked up, the woman was gone.
Stupid, he thought. So stupid.
He called out again, desperation dripping from his voice now: “M
om!”
He had found her and lost her, and now she knew he was on her trail. Now she could escape again. He’d traveled thousands of miles, only to fall a few yards short. He called out one final time as he neared the end of the alley. And this time there was more than desperation in it. There was sadness, the breaking voice of a broken heart.
And maybe that’s why …
Because he expected to find nothing as he reached the end of the alley, but that was not the case.
A woman stood with her back to him, halfway to the next alley. Her head was covered in black cloth, but he knew who it was immediately.
“Mom?” he said.
The woman turned and removed her head-covering niqab.
And for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Alex Sennefer saw his mom. All his doubts — did she still love him, was she mad at him for what he’d cost her — melted away at the simple fact of her presence. After weeks of living in tight-chested anxiety, as if at every point he’d taken one breath too few, his lungs filled with one long, relieved breath.
There was a tear carving a dark path through the dust on his mom’s cheek, and it trembled and fell as she opened her mouth to speak. “I couldn’t run from you,” she said. “Not anymore. I couldn’t hear your voice and run.”
Alex opened his mouth but nothing came out.
“How did you know it was me?” she said, giving him a simple prompt, once again making his life easier.
Alex noticed some new gray in her hair, which managed to be both tightly bundled and utterly disheveled. Then he looked down and pointed. He didn’t know if his voice would work until it did.
“I recognized your boots.”
It definitely wasn’t the first time Ren turned a corner to find Alex hugging his mom. Back when Alex was a sick only-child and Dr. Bauer was a hardworking single mom, they often hugged before going their separate ways. Toward the end of his life — his first life — they’d hugged a little longer, never quite sure if they’d see each other again.
Ren gave them their space as they hugged hard, with their eyes closed to the world. She was pretty sure they didn’t even realize she was there. They were lost in the reunion and defenseless. And suddenly she felt intensely protective of them. Her left hand drifted toward her amulet. She would watch the hostile world for them.
The Stone Warriors Page 11