Then Fido bounding up to us for me to pet and praise him saved me from any more awkward conversations.
“That’s a pony,” Xiu exclaimed, enthralled instead of frightened. “So cute!”
“Cute” was strange in Xiu’s world, but Fido nosed her and Xiu rubbed his ears and cooed at him. So long as someone adored him, all was right in his world.
“He’s a fearsome Beast, one who strikes fear in the hearts of my God’s enemies and all who see him,” Sutekhgen muttered.
“What happened?” I grinned, knowing what he wanted to say. “Why is the infidel not cowering in fear? Why is the Beast not fearsome? Is the crazy one going to crown him with flowers?”
He looked at me in horror at the last one. But I wouldn’t put it past Xiu to do that, if Fido didn’t mind. And he wouldn’t, because he was just one big puppy at heart.
With Xiu occupying Fido or vice versa, I moved closer to Sutekhgen. “What are you doing here?” I murmured.
“You have discovered the danger that is near,” he intoned. “That is the only reason we’re able to be here. His control over you is weakening.”
I looked at him, wondering what Sutekhgen was hinting at. He gazed back impassively.
“The pictures?” I asked finally, after racking my brain for what new information I’d found.
“Do you not find it strange a man could be found at all those times? The same man whose appearance hasn’t changed over decades?” Sutekhgen demanded.
My skin had crawled when I saw those photos. Even as my mind was saying it couldn’t be possible, my heart swore it was.
“It doesn’t have to be the same person,” I protested, even if I didn’t believe it. “People don’t always look like they really do in those old photos. I just haven’t been able to tell Uncle Yushua because…. There isn’t a meeting. He was just getting Uncle out of the way.”
“You know I’m right,” he insisted. “And because of that, we were able to come here to help you.”
“He hasn’t done anything to me,” I protested. “What do you think he’s going to do?”
The ground shook when I said that. Xiu was pulled out of her adoration of Fido at the movement. The crowd around us also reacted to the quake, split between looking around to see what was happening and whipping out their phones to check what was happening.
“This place is seismologically stable,” Xiu exclaimed. “This shouldn’t be happening. And why isn’t the ocean reacting?”
“He comes,” Sutekhgen murmured.
“Who comes?” I demanded.
“My opposite.” Sutekhgen smiled as I translated quickly for Xiu.
It wasn’t a nice smile, and I noticed the smoldering wildness he emoted. He was channeling Set, his god, who was supposed to be mine also. But I felt nothing, except a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“That tells me a lot,” she snipped. “Is this really a good place for it to happen? Whatever ‘it’ is going to be, besides choking the rest of us with the testosterone overload.”
“Now you’re trying too hard,” I murmured. “Less cheery sidekick and more kicking needed right now.”
Xiu sighed. “You don’t want to know the amount of that crap I have to deal with, and only two of them have hit puberty.”
I laughed and Sutekhgen looked like we were both crazy, since this wasn’t a laughing matter. I sobered quickly under his gaze. “There’re too many people around here. They’ll get hurt.”
“This place is his strength,” Sutekhgen said grimly. “Civilization is his strength. And he has no problem spending that strength freely.”
“We need someplace deserted,” I said in English. “Set is the god of the wild places and the desert.”
“Good luck finding that around here,” Xiu snorted. “This place is as overdeveloped as New York.”
I racked my brain, because it was true. This entire peninsula was crowded with people and buildings.
“We can’t just stand here,” I insisted. “We need to get as far away as possible.”
“That isn’t—” Sutekhgen started.
“Run,” I snapped, needing to move and stop talking. “We follow the trail until we’re farther away from people.” I turned to Xiu. “Start running and don’t stop. We need to get away from here.”
“Fighting on the ground of your enemy’s choosing is idiotic,” Xiu misquoted, even as she took off.
Sutekhgen looked at me, and I waved at Fido to start after Xiu. He bounded off happily. I had to prod Sutekhgen into moving. He ran easily after I pushed him, and I took up the rear, hiking up my skirt so I could run easier.
Moving caused people to notice us, and a lot of people were pointing at Fido, some of them stopping to take pictures of him. I wondered for a second if they would come out and then dismissed it. Afterward was a different issue. Right now, I had to get through whatever this was going to be.
I didn’t see anyone chasing us, but that didn’t mean anything. Horus was god of the air, and I wasn’t going to waste time looking up to find him.
After a minute we came to the end of the complex. We’d covered a lot of ground quickly, and I wasn’t even breathless. It was kind of awesome.
“Go left,” I shouted, waving in the direction I wanted them to go, since I wasn’t sure what language I was speaking right now.
Rat had mentioned there was an abandoned building at the head of the street on our ride that first day. Had it only been a couple of days? Time seemed both stretched and crunched at the same time.
We broke off the trail to run across a small, ill-mown green space. Xiu and Sutekhgen carefully climbed over the short fence that separated the grass from the broken-up parking lot. Fido and I leaped over the fence like it wasn’t there.
“What an interesting place you’ve found,” Xiu intoned, slightly breathless.
“A deserted building.” I grinned. “A wild place.”
I was starting to feel a little wild now, adrenaline coursing through my body and making me reckless.
Xiu looked at me blankly, and I repeated it in English, wondering if I was ever going to figure out when I was speaking Egyptian.
Rat had told me about the building, which was an abandoned exhibit hall, when we had driven here the first day. It wasn’t worth the effort to tear it down, so over the last decade or so, the thing had just fallen apart, unnoticed by anyone outside this section of the city.
“I don’t think this is the wild place my God would think of.” Sutekhgen grinned.
I shrugged. There was an office building nearby, but on the whole, there wasn’t anyplace closer I could think of. And if the place came down, who would notice? The parking lot was cratered and littered with… well, litter. The building looked like it would collapse under its own weight if you looked at it funny. I was betting there had been a couple of doors jimmied open and squatters living there. If not people, then whatever wildlife the city had was probably living in there. This was as abandoned and wild a place as I could find.
Chapter Fifteen
WE GOT there just in time, because the ground shook again as a golden being with the wings and head of a hawk landed on the ground near us.
“I’d have thought you would have chosen a better champion,” he drawled, his voice echoing.
He tossed his head and the hawk’s head melted and Harper’s face appeared. Or it was the man I had known as Harper. I doubted that was his real name, any more than the other names I’d seen listed for him. He was dressed in a white loincloth, his eyes outlined with kohl, in stylized Horus eyes.
“And where is yours?” Sutekhgen mocked.
Harper smiled wolfishly and pointed behind us. For a heart-stopping second, I thought he was pointing at Xiu, but when I turned to look, Rat stumbled over the fence like he was sleepwalking or something.
“Stay out of this, Xiu,” I murmured, stripping off my skirt.
As much as I wanted the fabric for protection, I’d be tripping over it more than anything. And my t
unic covered enough.
“You don’t know how to fight,” she protested.
“And you do?” I parried, handing her my purse. She took it and my skirt.
I looked Fido straight in his eyes. “Protect her.”
Yes, that would be taking an ally out of the fight, but I also didn’t have to worry about Xiu now either. He nodded solemnly and started nudging her to the side, tugging on the collar of her shirt, even as she started cursing him out.
Sutekhgen tossed me his sword, and I looked at it strangely even as I caught it. I took a deep breath, disturbed that it felt good in my hand. Better than that foil ever had during that long-ago fencing class. This was a weapon. And while I didn’t really know more than “swing sharp part at enemy,” I knew I could really hurt… all right, kill someone with this. And part of me was just fine with that.
Rat shambled toward us, passing through some sort of barrier, based on the shimmer I saw. And that woke him right up. And weirdly gave him some sort of costume change. Rat’s clothing melted and reformed as armor—a leather breastplate and an overlong loincloth that reached his knees.
“New Kingdom?” I asked, wondering why I was worrying about that, and relieved that when Rat did his magical-boy transformation, I didn’t see anything that made me want to bleach my brain. “Isn’t that kind of…? I don’t know, not even near Peribsen.”
Harper laughed, gestured, and Rat had a sword materialize in his hand. It was almost the same kind as mine but made out of iron and not the weaker copper.
“Cheater,” I muttered underneath my breath, causing Sutekhgen to snicker.
“You lighten my heart.” He smiled.
“We’re going to kick butt,” I promised.
I looked over at Rat. He grinned back at me, and I wondered who he saw. He had death in his eyes. One of us was going to walk the path and get our heart weighed before the day was through. Why was I thinking like that?
“Or maybe not,” I said.
“This is the reason he’s done this to your friend,” Sutekhgen murmured. “To cause you to hesitate. To weaken you before the first blow has been landed. If he had been able to get to the little one, he would have used her.”
I was grateful Harper hadn’t managed to pervert Uncle Yushua or Xiu this way. Then the fight would have been over before it started.
Rat marched up to me, and we started circling each other. He had all the advantages in this fight: he was heavier, had a longer reach with a better sword, and most importantly—he had armor. All I had was vague memories of how to use a sword and a desire not to be killed.
Rat struck the first blow, and I parried it, grateful my sword didn’t shatter. But I knew it and I weren’t going to stand up to a prolonged fight. So I needed to fight dirty.
I danced in to kick Rat in the knee, hoping I could dislocate it. It would hurt like hell even if I missed my target. I didn’t and Rat went down with a screech, describing the state of my parents’ marriage when I was born. I kicked his sword out of his reach, even as he was struggling to get up, murder in his eyes. I swallowed hard but tried to convince myself it was better than him being a zombie from whatever spell Harper had him under.
He stayed down when Sutekhgen shouted, and a blast of sand knocked him back and kept him down. Sutekhgen then had to dodge the bolt of light Harper threw. And then things got messy.
I tackled Harper, screaming like an idiot, but I managed to get him on the ground. I punched him in the throat, wincing a little at the sound. It crunched unpleasantly, but all Harper did was laugh and try to punch me back.
I dodged that by the skin of my teeth by rolling away from him. I was glad my hair was braided back or it would be too easy a handhold in this fight. My roll gave me a glimpse of Rat, and it didn’t look good. He’d sat up and was wrenching his kneecap back into position. There was no expression on his face, but I was pretty sure it hurt a lot.
Harper took advantage of my distraction to shoot some sort of spell at me. I rolled out of the way but caught a smell of burnt cloth, and my back felt like I had a sunburn. It hurt. A lot. I scrambled on the ground, going for Rat’s sword. It was better than mine, but I also wanted this not to become a swordfight, because then it would be too easy for us to kill each other. I was having enough trouble with Harper and his weird magic.
Harper turned his attention to Sutekhgen. They started a spell battle I couldn’t pay attention to, because while I managed to shove Rat’s sword off to the side, he’d gotten close enough to grab my hair and pull me up by it. It was as painful as it sounded. I punched him in the stomach, but while he had hold of me, I didn’t dare kick him, because I wasn’t desperate enough to lose a chunk of my hair—yet. I might if I lost my balance kicking him.
My blows didn’t faze him, so when I was on my feet, I did something really stupid. I head-butted Rat. It got him to let go of my hair, but it took a lot out of me. Rat tried to punch me, but I grabbed his arm and tossed him to the side. That gave me a second to check how Sutekhgen was doing.
My tossing Rat had drawn Harper’s attention to me. He threw some sort of light bolt that had me diving to the side to avoid being burned again. I tumbled into a roll that had me on my feet at the end of it. Right on top of Rat, unfortunately.
He punched me in the stomach, and as I was bent over gasping for breath, he kneed me in the head before tossing me to the side to go after either Sutekhgen or Xiu.
Rat reached down and picked up a rock. It was about the size of his hand. He threw it at Sutekhgen before I could warn him. Rat threw true and hit him in the head, knocking him into Harper, who punched him in the head a couple of times, before tossing Sutekhgen at me. We crashed together and ended up in a heap on the ground.
Sutekhgen was unconscious or worse on top of me, and I frantically pushed his body off so I wouldn’t be trapped underneath him. As I struggled to be free of Sutekhgen’s weight, Harper laughed, a sound that curdled my soul.
Harper had grown somehow as I looked up at him while getting to my knees. He seemed enormous and almost blotted out the sun, even if it had been only a foot or two. I was shaking my head to clear it, since it was ringing from me landing on the ground.
Rat came out of nowhere to put me in a choke hold. I clawed at the back of his head so he would let me go, but he ignored it.
Harper laughed and raised up Rat’s sickle sword, which had materialized in his hand, drawing back to strike me with it. I wanted to tell Rat to let go of me, because Harper was going to kill the both of us with that blow. I was choking too hard to speak, and there were black spots starting to appear. But I still could see enough to catch movement on the edge of my vision.
I didn’t know where she had gotten it, but Xiu had a long piece of rebar tucked under her arm as she rode Fido like he was a horse. The two of them charged Harper’s blind side, Xiu leaning down over Fido’s neck, thrusting the rebar ahead of them like it was a lance. They drove into Harper, the look on Xiu’s face wild. She was screaming, the words making no sense to me.
And then physics came into play. I hated that branch of science with a passion at that moment. Xiu was too light to do much damage, and there was nothing she could grip on Fido. She hit Harper, and it was like hitting a wall for her. He didn’t even blink, I swear.
The rebar was stuck in him, but I don’t know if it hurt him. All I saw was Xiu go flying backward when she let go of the rebar, the shock of impact tearing it from her hand. I screamed and flipped Rat over my shoulder as I dove and rolled toward Xiu to see if she was all right. The dive saved my life as Harper followed through with his stroke. I felt the blade part the air above me.
“Xiu! Damn it! I told you to stay out of this!” I screamed.
She was out cold. I wanted to move her but was afraid of hurting her more. I barely saw Harper turning to face me, laughing as he swung his sword, even though he wasn’t close enough to hit me. I noticed out of the corner of my eye Fido snarling at Rat as he approached Sutekhgen.
“She’s
not one of us, so why should she matter?” Harper drawled as he casually pulled the rebar out of his side and tossed it aside without even a glance.
I was a little grossed out, even though there didn’t seem to be any blood. There was strange liquid on the rebar, but it wasn’t blood or anything even close to that. It was shiny and reminded me of mercury for some reason.
“She’s my friend,” I snarled. “Just as I thought Rat was yours? Or were you only using him? How many people have you used over the centuries?” I looked up at him. “Do you even remember who you were?”
That stopped him for a second. “I always remember who I am.”
He straightened up and recited. “I am Bant, the singer of Horus’s praises! He who is of the Air. The one who sees all! The true heir of the Two Lands. Horus who is praised by the Two Ladies and Lord of the Sedge and the Bee.”
And while he was doing that, I rolled into a crouch and tackled his knees. I knew I wasn’t going to hurt him, but I would put distance between him and Xiu. He slashed at me with his sword when he hit the ground, but I managed to get out of the way, rolling to my feet.
“You’re no fighter,” he taunted as he moved into a crouch.
“Never said I was,” I grunted, just before I did a spin kick to his jaw. I really didn’t know how I knew these moves, but it was like part of me was waking up, telling me how to fight. “I just need to stop you.”
“Sutekhgen has drawn you into this fight against your will,” Harper said, trying to sound reasonable and caring as he dodged my kick.
“Like Rat was drawn?” I snapped. “He’s a puppet right now.”
“Because you don’t think he could kill you?” Harper taunted me, circling back to me slowly. “That he’s a ‘nice guy’? Don’t you want to know what he used to do for the Army? Back in the desert?”
“Really? That’s the argument you’re going to use? Rat’s a bad guy because he defended his country? It’s mine too. I respect him for defending it.”
Harper shrugged. “I had hoped…. You’re young enough to be hurt by such things. And a man isn’t always who he seems to be, as you now know.”
I'm Not Who You Think I Am Page 19
