I remembered her almost using some sort of dust in the University on Olivia, and I felt a little sick at the thought she might have been able to control us. I swallowed, and Olivia's hand in mine made me feel a little better about it.
A shadow passed over us, and we all swung our heads to the sky by the sun. I voiced my concern. “There it is again, that bird that's been following us. Is it with Lazarus? Or just following me like all the other predators?” I pointed to the scorpions and a particularly large fuzzy spider gathering twenty feet away in the shade by a crack in a rock formation.
They all just tracked it in the sky as it flapped its large wings once before stretching them wide, soaring around to keep the sun between us and it. Neith said, “It is huge for us to still see it when it is so far up.”
Steph shook her head. “It isn't a normal bird. It is tracking us and trying to keep hidden in the glare of the setting sun.”
I prompted as I reverted to human and laid my head on Olivia's shoulder as she played with the ends of my hair, “A hybrid?”
The soldier-girl among us shrugged. “They had some with feathers or wings, but always deformed. I never saw one who could actually fly. Xerxes was hunting some potentials that were some sort of ravens, I met them. The commander's full attention was on capturing... this... one... girl.”
Her head snapped up, and she squinted at the bird far above us as she asked herself in a whisper, “Angel?”
I asked, “Who is Angel?”
She kept looking up, tracking our observer as she explained, “Remember I told you a group of women exposed the Crucible?” Olivia and I nodded, and she went on. “They infiltrated the Crucible, took down the guards, and posted all the Lazarus human genetic research to the web to expose them.”
She got a hard look on her face as she ground out, “Xerxes and Truit escaped with the help of that weather witch woman who caused that massive storm in Vancouver. They all ran like rats.”
Then she smiled and said, “Angelina was one of them, she was the only potential I had seen who could actually fly. She had these great white wings that made her look, well, like an Angel.”
I looked up to the sky, shielding my eyes to see the wings soaring high above us as Olivia prompted, “Potentials?”
Lowering my eyes, I looked at our snake-y friend as she looked around our group waving her hand about, “Potentials. As in you, well us now I guess. People who possess extraordinary powers and abilities. He is obsessed with finding out their secrets so that he can live forever. He blames Angel for something, and she is listed at the primary target of Lazarus Group for capture and study. It is a capture order only if she is harmed or killed during capture, he has threatened to terminate the life of anyone who did it... slowly and painfully.”
I swallowed hard at that and looked skyward again. What had this Angel person done to enrage the Commander like that? I whispered, “Do you think it is her?”
Stephanie gave me a predatory smile. “I hope so. If it is, that means the others aren't far behind. They call themselves Sentinels, and every single one of them is lethal, including the humans who travel with them. Especially, Captain Frost, there is something about her that borders on inhuman. I've heard Xerxes speak of her being the top end of the curve when we learned she was seen with some potentials, but I have no idea what curve he's talking about.”
She sighed then looked up at us, her reptilian eyes sort of growing on me as I thought for a second that they were pretty. “We can't count on the hope they are here. We have a job to do. We should stop a mile from the camp to listen in, refine our plan of attack.”
She looked at me in question. Again it felt as if she was looking to me for approval. I nodded, and she looked at the others, “Ok, it's decided. Time to get our freak on ladiessss.” She snaked out mid-sentence. We all followed suit, and it looked almost silly when this cobra-headed warrior pulled out the phone to check it one last time before charging ahead.
I snickered at the sight, and when Olivia looked over at me in question, I dangled my long canine tongue out of my mouth and crossed my eyes, causing her to chuckle... Then I stumbled but kept upright this time. I exhaled and turned my attention forward as my inner voice sighed out, “Just what you need to do, face plant again, Aya.” “Shut up pup.”
We hadn't traveled more than a mile when I could finally pick up all the scents Steph had mentioned. I always had thought that canines had the best olfactory senses, I guess I was incorrect in the assumption. And by the time we found ourselves on a ridge overlooking a sprawling camp a mile away, I glanced up to the sky to see the high flying avian circle us and the camp once before veering off and flapping in powerful strokes back the way we had come from.
Steph whispered, “So, this is Camp Alpha.” We watched the activity below and listened intently to dozens of conversations as she started drawing the camp out on the sand between us. That smell of decay was much stronger now, it wasn't just Truit. I could feel the dead down there. Were these... were these some of the dead that Stephanie said Abigail Truit had brought back to life?
It was obvious that the Lieutenant had been very good at her job when she had been in the military. She laid out our original objectives, retrieve the two Anubis lodestones, bring Xerxes and Truit to justice, and destroy the Genesis Chamber so that no-one else would suffer a horrifying and disfiguring fate. We had added another goal with the new information we had. Put to rest the souls that Truit had somehow reanimated with her voodoo powers.
I had a couple questions I haven't wanted to ask, and I finally did while glancing at the sun low on the horizon, telling me we were close to enacting our plan. The first was, “What about the hybrids? They were once like you, just wanting to serve their country.”
We all deferred to Stephanie, and she sighed heavily, shaking her head like she didn't know what to do. “Some are loyal to Xerxes, even after what he did to them, twisting their bodies and minds. Some are compelled by Truit.”
She ground her teeth at the last, “The rest are forced to do as they are told with the control collars. Xerex makes sure to show every new 'recruit' just what happens if we don't comply with his orders, by executing a man in front of us with one of the collars. Some collars can give a lethal jolt of electricity, for the tougher hybrids, the collars are packed with enough Semtex to level a building.”
She absently rubbed her own throat and swallowed. I wondered if it were the phantom memory of when they had her collared. It enraged me what they had done to her.
We all shared a look, and she said what we couldn't, “Regardless of motivation, all of them will try to kill us. If we can get to the Commander first, maybe we can free some, but don't expect any of them to turn on him unless we can free them of those collars. Until then, we will be forced to defend ourselves.”
That didn't sit well for my jackal, who was driven to met out justice after weighing a soul for wickedness, nor me, but we couldn't be expected to do nothing if we are attacked.
I voiced my second concern. “What if this weather witch is with them? She was able to cripple an entire city with a monster storm, and not even the military could stop her.”
This got me a series of shrugs from each of the women. What was that supposed to mean? Olivia supplied, “If she is, she is, there is nothing we can do about it. Just stay on mission. Our reason for being is to bring the wicked to justice, we can't back down just because things get difficult. We were entrusted with this responsibility when our patron gods moved on from this plane.”
I sighed. Why did I know she was going to say that? The others were nodding, with looks of desperation on their faces. They were right, I knew it in my bones.
After watching the camp and listening, we had pretty much determined which was the command tent. Where the generators were, and where the hybrids were caged. What I had thought were guard dogs being led around the camp on leashes, Stephanie had explained were actually hybrids, likely made with a little of the b
ones of my ancestors and some sort of hell hound since they had canine attributes.
What we didn't know was where the Genesis Chamber was, and where the artifacts like the lodestones were kept. I looked to Kissa, whose snake had eaten all the other stones, “How do we locate the Anubis stones?”
Neith smirked and moved forward, as she manifested her falcon. She was somehow muting her golden flames so that they weren't a beacon pointing us out to the camp below. She reached to her back and pulled forth a large gold eye sculpture, that was stylized into a representation of the Eye of Isis.
I blinked in surprise and excitement, as the archaeologist in me realized it didn't represent the Eye of Isis, it was the Eye of Isis as she looked through its pupil as she held it out before her with both hands. Then she studied the camp, nodding with new appreciation.
Moving beside her and taking off my hat so I could look over her shoulder through the eye, I gasped. She smiled smugly at me. “You and Olivia aren't the only ones who possess the relics of the gods.”
I rolled my eyes at her as she moved her head aside so I could look through the eye.
I gasped. I don't know how to describe what I saw as I looked first through the eye, then at the camp with my own eyes. I guess the best way to describe it is that I saw the truth? It was almost like seeing the heat signatures of the soldiers moving around down there, and the hybrids on patrol looked like men just walking on all fours. Then I realized that the bulk of the people down there didn't glow at all in the eye... they... they had no life in them. Animated dead... and I was loathe to say the word, but it was the only that fit, zombies.
The others gathered around Neith, trying to get a look. I saw one tent virtually glowed with what could only be objects of power. And I recognized two bright points of light as mine. The lodestones. When I moved back to look at that tent, the others swarmed the smug looking Neith. She was obviously proud of the artifact she had been gifted by some long dead gods who had walked among men so very long ago.
I asked the group as they all took a look through the eye in turns, “So, do all Maiden's possess one of these artifacts of power?” I hesitated and nodded to myself and replied before Olivia, who looked to be slipping into instructor mode could, “Kissa has the hooked khopesh sickles, of Osiris, goddess of agriculture. I have the was-scepter which represents power and dominion of the gods and rulers. Smuggy McSmugsalot, Neith there.” I crinkled my nose at her indignation. “Has the Eye of Isis, which can apparently see through to the truth of anything. And Olivia has that Ankh that sends stabbing pains into my brain and causes some sort of feedback in me. It has the power to heal.”
My falcon looked concerned that her artifact had that effect on me. She looked apologetic. “I didn't know.”
Kissa rolled her eyes and said like we were a couple of toddlers, “Of course. The Ankh represents life, which is the antitheses of Anubis, who has dominion over death and the underworld.” She held up her hands and looked at each in turn. “Water, oil, no mixie.” Then she whispered, “Have you seen Stephanie's tail?”
I whispered back as Steph actually blushed and crossed her arms over her chest, “I have, and you're fixated on it, lady.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me and slid an arm through Steph's forcing my friend to relinquish her defensive stance. “What can I say? She's got what every Snake Maiden wants, and I'm a Snake Maiden.” She looked far too cute for an ancient predator as she threw out the double entendre.
Steph gave me a pleading look, but I didn't miss her placing her hand on Kissa's arm in hers. Me thinks the snake-y doth protest too much.
I asked the Doc, “If Apophis let chaos remake Stephanie into another Snake Maiden, would she have an artifact herself?”
She shook her head. “No, the only other artifact, the Sistrum of Isis was lost with the last Winged Maiden like the Was-Scepter was lost with the Jackal Maidens. We are gifted one of the artifacts at random as we first manifest. But those two had been lost to us for ages...”
She trailed off as everyone turned to Stephanie, who was in full cobra-mode, hood flaring as she reached to her back, her hand searching. Her eyes widened, and she slowly pulled forward a U shaped bronze frame with a handle and three metal crossbars protruding through the frame.
It caught fire in her hand, and she almost threw it down until she realized the flames weren't harming her as she just turned it in her hand, examining it in fascination. The rods clinked, making the music of the ancient musical instrument.
The women were all speechless as they gaped at it. I said absently, “If I remember my history correctly, the Sistrum was a tool of fire and purification as well as creation wielded by Isis, Hathor, and Bast. Of all the tools associated with the Egyptian Gods, it represented the most powerful artifact of power equal parts destruction and genesis.”
Steph looked at it, her eyes glazed, then she shook herself and quickly dropped it. We watched it dissolve, and she looked at me apologetically. “I'm sorry, that thing is terrifying, I saw what it can do. It's what Commander Xerxes needs to accomplish his goals.”
Why was she apologizing to me?
Kissa was giggling. We all looked at her, and she explained between giggles, “Apophis is cruelly ironic. Sowing chaos by giving the most destructive weapon of the gods to a soldier who doesn't want to use it.”
She stepped in front of Steph, and cupped her cheek, giving her a look of compassion and understanding as she leaned into her touch. Then she sighed and stole a kiss from our girl. This snapped the Lieutenant out of it. The big badass soldier blushed again, then reached up to remove the hand from her cheek. My bird-girl and I exchanged quick smiles when we noted, she didn't let go of her hand.
Kissa and Stephanie, slithering in a tree. K-I-S-S... Hey, stow it JackAya! Though I admit that it was pretty funny how Kissa was wearing down our friend's resolve. It was grin worthy how she sighed in defeat and just went with it. She had been starved for human contact for two years, and here was someone who not only accepted what she had become but reveled in it. And even though Kissa wasn't the most stable of individuals, she was pretty damn cute.
Neith cleared her throat and got us back on task as she said in Arabic, “The sun is setting ladies. It is time for the vassals of the gods to dispense justice upon the wicked.”
We all took a collective breath to steel our nerves and manifested as Stephanie repeated the plan one last time to be sure everyone was clear as to their parts in it. I was nervous as hell, but my jackal assured me that we were made for this, she would handle our part, and to just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Was it wrong that the adrenaline and thrill of the hunt singing through my veins was almost intoxicating?
When the sun extinguished itself behind the horizon, we all sprang silently into motion, ancient wraiths, flowing like smoke on the breeze down upon the unsuspecting camp. We were justice, bringing death in our wake.
And I smiled.
Chapter 14 – Sandstorm
Unsuspecting? We realized as a huge sandstorm of epic proportions swallowed us as we neared the camp perimeter that we had just run into an ambush. It was obvious that the weather witch was indeed with them, and they had been waiting for us to come down from the mountains.
Our night vision was useless as the wind whipped around us, putting a virtual wall of sand between us and the camp. I had to shield my eyes as I slashed the bottom half of my shirt off to wrap around my face, which was difficult with an elongated muzzle.
I could feel the soldiers converging on us. Even though all of our senses were essentially blinded, I could see the others were looking in the direction of the movement of life around us. Steph yelled over the howling wind to us, “Aya, Olivia, you retrieve the sstoness, we'll hold Lazaruss off you, then we'll all meet at the Genessiss Chamber.”
I nodded, and the two snakes seemed to bleed into the storm. Neith placed an arm in front of her, and the golden flames seemed to cover her face, the extreme
heat of the air around it deflecting the incoming sand almost like a heat force field. She started running to the side, her Eye of Isis in front of her. She must have seen something coming, something we couldn't feel since just as soon as she disappeared into the night, the hoarse screams, of things not entirely human sounding, began.
I whispered to myself, “Come on dog girl.” And I strained, trying to feel what I had on the ridge and my eyes widened. I called out, “Come on Doc, we gotta move.” There was death closing in on our location. Our group, except for me, was blind to them. They were going to use them as fodder in the storm before the living soldiers engaged.
Neith was moving toward the incoming... zombies. Her Eye of Osiris was not blind to them. And I knew Steph and Kissa were heading straight at the living soldiers. They were going to make as big a commotion as they could to allow us to slip into the tents undetected.
The screams of human combatants told me that had arrived at their target.
My ears kept twitching as we reached the back of the first tent, and the winds there were not cyclone force, but rather fairly light, and there was more dust in the air from the swirling sandstorm circling the camp than punishing sand. What the hell kind of storm was it? Just ten feet away the winds were ferocious enough they'd tear through the tents here like a hot knife through butter.
Now that I wasn't virtually deafened by the winds, I could hear what I thought I had imagined in the storm. Someone was singing, well it was sort of singing. It was like some sort of long-forgotten haunted melody being played on an ethereal instrument which sounded eerily like a human voice.
From where we crouched behind some crates marked as “Meals Ready to Eat. (MRE),” we could see heavily armed men, some with RPG rocket launchers, some with those tranquilizer guns, all rushing toward the screaming of men, and some violent hissing heard over the storm. They all were wearing night vision goggles.
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