“You could show some goddamned concern,” Daniel snapped. “My best friend is bleedin’ to death from a bullet I put in her leg. Sorry if I’m a little distracted from your revenge.”
I slowed to a stop, my teeth grinding as I wrenched my gaze back to him. “I am concerned, Daniel. She is my best friend too, but we need to get the airship ready now or we will never catch up to Marcus.”
“I don’t give a damn about Marcus!” He vaulted easily to my level, his face lined with pain. “That’s your mission. Not mine.”
“My mission?” I threw my hands wide. “I’m not the only one who wants Marcus’s blood. Joseph, Jie—they want their revenge just as much as I.”
“No. You’re wrong.” Daniel stalked closer. “It’s just you. You and your demon have poisoned everyone—”
“And did we poison you?” I thrust a finger at him. “Or are you so enamored by Joseph you simply follow everything he does?”
“Do not,” Daniel snarled, “say that to me.” He advanced on me, and I shrank back. Never had I seen him look so angry. “Joseph is the most honorable person in this entire world, and the day I met him was the day my life turned around. Even if you and that demon and that . . . that ivory thing have poisoned Joseph’s thoughts, I will still follow him. To the grave.”
For a long breath, Daniel’s green eyes bored into mine, unrelenting and absolutely terrifying. But then his breath burst out, and his shoulders sank. “I don’t want to fight. Not with you.” He turned away, and as he padded down the final level to hit the sand, he called out, “But please think about it, Empress. This is what Marcus wants. If he’s really one step ahead—and he sure has been so far—then he’s expecting us to give chase. He’ll be waitin’ for us. Again. Just consider that, Empress. Think about what it means.” Daniel shoved his hands into his pockets and hurried toward the airship.
And I watched him go, his words skating through my mind—leaping, twirling . . . and finally settling like silt on the bottom of a pond.
Because Daniel was right. If we followed Marcus, we walked directly into what he wanted.
I screwed my eyes shut and thought back to my earlier question: why did Marcus go to such great lengths?
It wasn’t simply for immortality and wealth. If all Marcus cared about was the Black Pullet, then he easily could have killed us in Marseille or just now, in the pyramid. For that matter, Allison could have sabotaged us at any point before now and claimed the ivory fist.
I popped my eyes wide, casting my gaze on the airship. It floated, unharmed and safe—ready to fly at a moment’s notice.
So what was the one thing Marcus wanted more than anything?
Swiveling my head, I peered back up the pyramid. At Joseph. He sat bowed over Jie; his face was pale with worry while Oliver continued a tired chant.
And as he always did, Joseph scratched at his bandages. They were now filthy with grit and sweat.
Your blood is very strong. That was what Madame Marineaux had said when she cut off his ear. And when my master learns whom I have killed. Oh, how pleased he will be.
I wet my lips, remembering one of the first things Marcus had done after taking Elijah’s body: he had asked me where Joseph was. He and I have unfinished business, Marcus had said, and I intend to settle it.
“Marcus wants Joseph,” I murmured. My head tipped to one side. The breeze carried strands of hair across my vision. “He wants his blood—and he has since the beginning.”
But it was not only Joseph’s blood he craved—no. It had to be something Allison wanted too. . . .
Revenge.
I had known it all along, yet until this moment I had never considered how far a person would go for vengeance.
But now I understood, because I was willing to do the same.
It was all so obvious—so stupidly apparent when I thought about it. Marcus knew we would follow him because we always did. Because, in the end, Joseph and I wanted the same thing that Marcus wanted. As such, all that Marcus had to do was imagine what he would do in our shoes and then lay the trap accordingly.
I bent forward, planting my hands on my knees and watching our balloon. Daniel scrabbled up the ladder, ready to take us south . . . exactly as Marcus expected.
I dropped my chin, staring at the pebbles on the crumbling stone. At the blood and dust on my boots.
If I were Marcus and my prey failed to walk into my next—and presumably final—trap, what would I do?
I would go after them. I would hunt them down and finally claim the one thing I had wanted all along: retribution.
As the realization solidified, I shoved off my thighs and tipped my head back to bask in the sudden surge of ideas.
The Spirit-Hunters, Oliver, and I were weak; Marcus knew that. He had beaten us time and time again, and now he had an invincible army of mummies. If he were to raise the Black Pullet, there would be no stopping him—not in our current, devastated condition.
And that meant we needed to even the odds. . . .
I dug my knuckles into my eyes, reveling in the Egyptian sun warming me so completely—and Oliver’s magic, strong and sure.
There was a way to win this war, and all I needed to do was think it through. It was like Elijah’s eight-queens puzzle from chess, but this was real. We needed a location we could defend and a way to defend it. . . .
And who defends the queen? An army.
Hunger spasmed in my belly, fierce and insistent. It was our turn to pull the strings—our turn to move the pawns on the board. We would raise an army of our own, and we would pick the place to defend.
“It’s a good plan,” Oliver rasped, lolling his head back against the Sphinx’s paw. The airship creaked overhead. Less than an hour had passed since Marcus and Allison had fled, yet it felt like days.
Oliver had finished healing Jie, and now she slept. Daniel, Joseph, and I had toted her down the Great Pyramid on a makeshift stretcher of sheets from the airship beds. Then we’d hauled her rung by rung into the cargo hold.
And ever since then, Oliver had been resting. Even now, almost an hour later, his cheeks were much too sallow. His chestnut curls dull—though that might’ve been from all the dust.
I hunkered in the sand beside him, enjoying the airship’s drifting shade. “But we will not know when Marcus returns.” I pursed my lips. “It might be hours. It might be months.”
“Call up a scout. A corpse scout.”
I turned a frown on my demon. “I have no idea how to do something like that.”
“You woke up something before,” Oliver went on. “In Paris.”
As he said that, an image of a teal-carpeted hallway—the Hotel Le Meurice in Paris—filled my brain. And scurrying through it were dead rats and cats and . . .
“Birds,” I whispered.
“Exactly,” Oliver said. “A bird corpse under your control could follow that balloon.”
I chewed my chapped lip, considering where I could possibly find a dead bird—or if I had enough power left inside me to raise one.
“I will give you what magic I have,” Oliver murmured, his eyelids fluttering shut.
“Which isn’t much since you can barely stay awake.” Gently, I laid a hand on his forearm. “I . . . I think I understand you now, Oliver.”
“Really?” He snorted and cracked open one eye. “I highly doubt that since I do not even understand me.”
I sighed. “Perhaps, but what I meant is that I cannot in good conscience take any more magic from you.”
“Not in good conscience?” A laugh tickled over our bond. “That’s a first for you.”
I groaned tiredly and shoved to my feet. At least, despite the horrors of the morning, my demon still had his sense of humor.
I offered him my hand, my shadow slinking over his face. “Thank you, Oliver. For everything.”
His eyes flashed, briefly brighter than the sun’s light. “Don’t thank me. Not yet.”
“Then when?” With a grunt, I towed him upright.
>
He rolled his shoulders and set to brushing the dust off his suit. “How about when you free me? Perhaps then one of us will have sorted out exactly who I am.” His eyebrow rose. “In the meantime, shall we summon a scout?”
I nodded, my jaw setting. Even if he didn’t accept my gratitude, at least he knew he had it. “Help me find a scout, Oliver. Sum veritas.”
Our spell to find a scout was a strange, unexpected success. Rather than raise many animal corpses—as I’d accidentally done in Paris—when I sent out the call Awake!, Oliver helped me focus my magic. Together, we narrowed the necromantic leash from an almost weblike wildness into a single, targeted arrow.
And that arrow found a dead falcon. The magic plunged into the corpse, then with a gentle nudge—Awake—my necromancy latched on tight and sparked the body back into life. Suddenly I felt the falcon—its ragged wings, its ancient rib cage—and I sensed its surroundings of crypt-like darkness and other dead birds. And then, just as suddenly, I had absolute control over the corpse, almost like some extended limb.
So when I commanded the falcon to fly south after Marcus, south it flew.
But oddest of all, when I finally caught sight of the falcon, it was nothing more than a speck, far to the south and flapping from the distant mounds I had noticed earlier.
“Amazing,” I breathed, watching the black spot vanish—and feeling the necromantic leash connecting us grow taut and thin. “I cannot believe I could reach a corpse so far away.”
“I must admit I’m impressed,” Oliver murmured. “Saqqara is miles south.”
For some reason that name—Saqqara—sounded familiar. But I did not dwell on why. My mind was too consumed by the falcon’s flight. On the fragile line of magic that bound my soul to it.
By the time Oliver and I clambered inside the airship, my falcon had caught up with Marcus’s balloon. And by the time we had the hatch firmly shut and Daniel began gliding south, Marcus was many miles away.
Tourists and Egyptians watched us go. If any of them had seen Marcus and his army, I didn’t know. Some of them must have felt my gust of vicious power. . . . Yet as we flew away, I saw no signs of damage. No fear from our spectators.
I only hoped Marcus and his army remained as unaggressive. I told Joseph as much when I explained what I had done with the falcon corpse—and why. Yet the idea of Marcus acting out of revenge seemed impossible to Joseph. Only after I pointed out the great lengths to which we were willing to stretch for vengeance did the idea seem plausible.
“So we lay the trap,” Joseph mused, scratching the scars on his cheek as he, Daniel, and I bent over the table of charts. Jie still slept, her face as beautifully serene as when Joseph had draped her in her bunk an hour ago.
Oliver slept too.
“I don’t like this idea,” Daniel muttered. His gaze burned into the side of my face. “There are too many ways this could go wrong.”
“And when,” I retorted, “have we ever had a foolproof plan? We broke into Laurel Hill cemetery with only a boat and baseball bat. And we descended the tunnels of Paris with only pulse pistols and a crystal clamp. At least this time we may choose where our battle happens, and we can prepare.”
Joseph’s lips pinched tight, and ever so slowly he nodded. “Eleanor is right. We will have at least some advantage if we choose where to fight.”
Daniel gave a strangled groan, but other than that, he brooked no argument.
And I knew it was not the ambush that bothered my inventor. It was the thought of me raising corpses. At the first mention of my falcon scout, he had balked, and at the mere word “army,” he had gone deathly pale.
No matter how hard Daniel tried, no matter what had happened between us last night in the field, he still was not easy with my magic.
Joseph cleared his throat. “The first step will be to find a location. Preferably somewhere with old bodies.”
I stared at the maps, my eyes catching on Cairo. Then dragging down to Saqqara. Again, something about the name scratched at my brain. Why did I know it?
I gasped. Professor Milton. It had been the excavation in which Clay Wilcox had invested. . . . It was far from civilization or people, and best of all, it had been a necropolis. A city of the dead.
Without a word, I darted from the pilothouse to Allison’s cabin. Her trunks were still here, the lids tossed back. Her first aid kit was strewn on her bunk. In fact, it looked as if she might come back at any moment.
For a split second panic wound through me. What if Allison was compelled? Maybe we were abandoning her to Marcus by not following.
But my gut knew better. Allison wanted revenge, and like a patient spider, she’d spun her web . . . and then struck.
Fresh fury slid up my spine, gathering at the base of my neck. Scalding. Insistent. But I forced it aside and focused on what I’d come for.
The booklet about Professor Rodney Milton.
I found it quickly enough, tossed atop Allison’s gowns. The pages were bent and ripped as if she had crushed the booklet viciously in a fist. Yet it was not too damaged to read, and I flipped ahead to the page I remembered her reading at Shepheard’s.
During his excavations, Milton uncovered an entire necropolis, or city of the dead, where hundreds of catacombs were built to honor ancient Egyptian deities. He estimates thousands of mummified animals are buried below the dunes. However, due to a lack of tourist interest in the catacombs, Milton focused his excavation on the pyramids only. One day when funding permits, he hopes to uncover the animal tombs and reveal their secrets.
A grin spread over my face. Thousands of mummies. Even if they were animals, they could still do precisely what we needed: attack.
Now I merely had to convince Joseph—and I doubted I would find any resistance there.
My grin widened, and I sent out a pulse of magic to my falcon.
He was still flying south. Even if Marcus were to turn around now, we would have a few hours to prepare.
This time we were the ones in charge. As long as we screwed our courage to the sticking place, we could not fail.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
To reach Saqqara, we followed the Nile six miles south, then moved east past cornfields and date groves. We must have drifted over a thousand palm trees, our shadow covering their latticework of shade before we finally reached a barren realm of yellow rocks and sand.
And it was a world of pyramids. One after another they rose up, with edges so old as to be curved now. The dunes around them were littered with shards and bricks—as if the entire necropolis had been smashed with a hammer and the pieces left to scatter in the wind.
Joseph, Daniel, and I stayed silent as we floated beneath the late-morning sun, the shifting of levers and the creaking steering wheel the only sounds as we focused on the ruins below and the pyramids passing by.
Joseph broke the quiet first. “That mound at the very northwestern corner—beside the column.”
We all squinted into the distance. On the far edge of the ruins was a mound rising up from a dune that I never would have thought man-made if not for the eroded column thrusting up beside it.
Except it wasn’t a column. As we approached, I realized it was an obelisk, like the one at Heliopolis, and it burned like a candle flame beneath the sun. And the mound behind it was a pyramid, weathered almost to dust.
Joseph took the wheel, while Daniel went to the cargo hold to prepare us for mooring. Several minutes later, the ladder clacked down, and Daniel began anchoring us on a series of stones on the north side of the pyramid. The stones almost seemed to extend in a straight line, as if they’d once been a street, but now all they led to was a great, sloping dune.
I checked my falcon. It had been flying for hours now, yet it still diligently followed Marcus. If we were lucky, the necromancer would go all the way to the Valley of the Kings, wait some time, and then head north. We needed all the time we could get. . . .
But it was best never to rely on luck.
While Joseph sl
ept, I sat with Jie in her cabin and fought to keep my eyes open. She looked so peaceful, and the remains of Oliver’s magic gave her face an unearthly glow.
Eventually Daniel relieved me, and I staggered to my bunk to enjoy a dreamless sleep of my own. When I awoke it was sunset, and after feasting on apples and hard bread, I wandered into the cargo hold. The hatch was open, and a rope swung through it. Daniel had set up a simple pulley system to lower his crates of equipment onto the orange earth below. He was tying off knots around several small boxes when I came in.
He smiled at me. “Where’s your falcon?”
“South. Always south.”
“Then good. Always good.” He moved to the hatch and shouted, “These are the last ones, Joseph!” Then he shoved the crates through the hatch, the pulley’s wheel squeaked, and the box lowered from sight.
“What are you doing?” I moved to the open hatch and waved down to Joseph. His hands full, he only nodded back.
“All these dunes around here will work in our favor.” Daniel wiped at sweat on his brow. “I’m thinkin’ I’ll lay out copper wires—rig up something like our Dead alarm in Philadelphia. But these lines will trigger pulse bombs instead of a telegraph.”
My breath caught. “And then when a mummy crosses, the spiritual energy will detonate a bomb. How very clever, Daniel.”
He grinned, flushing.
“So what can I do?” a soft voice asked.
My head whipped to the door—to where Jie stood, her hands in her pockets.
She looked . . . different. There was a bright challenge in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in days.
“You’re awake!” I cried, stumbling toward her. “How do you feel? You look all healed, but—” I hesitated. “Sorry. You’re probably tired and don’t want—”
“Oh, shut pan.” She punched me lightly in the shoulder. “I feel great, yeah? Never—” Her next words were lost in the bear hug Daniel flung around her shoulders.
“I thought I’d killed you, Jie. I’m so sorry.”