Deep pools of agony have formed in the agent’s brown eyes. “I was contacted shortly after they were taken. He wants them to die in front of me, just as he watched his wife die. But first, he wants to play a sort of scavenger hunt for clues.”
“Meaning?” Eliana asks.
“Meaning I have two days to find him or he will simply assassinate them without my presence.”
“How old is your daughter?” I ask.
“She is ten.”
“Has he given you any clues?” Josh asks. “Where he’s hiding them, I mean.”
“Yes, I now have one hour to travel to the Cairo Necropolis and find the next clue. It will be given to me via cell phone which I will find on a particular tomb.”
Eliana gasps. “But that cemetery is four miles long!”
Wow, that’s a lot of dead people all in one place. And a lot of tomb stones. I don’t think this guy really wants the agent to find him. I think he just wants to play with him and then kill his family anyway. My own blood is starting to boil now. We are definitely going to get this guy.
Chapter 17
Agent Amman provides all the details given by the kidnapper. The tombstone is supposed to be in the southeast corner of the cemetery. Unfortunately, people actually live in the cemetery; if we need to use magic, it would be difficult to keep it unnoticed by the residents. I don’t think the guy chose this area because of that, though, since he probably doesn’t even know that magic exists. I think he just thought the people will hinder the search.
“Do we have enough time to get to the cemetery to locate it?” Kallen asks, looking at the clock.
“We have enough time to get there,” Agent Amman says solemnly. “It is the finding it that I am worried about.”
Kallen is deep in thought for a moment. Turning to me, he says, “There is a location spell that you can use. It will search for the weapon of your enemy.”
I turn my back to the agent and whisper, “Wouldn’t it be safer if you did it?”
Kallen shakes his head and says quietly, “No. Your reach will be greater in case the kidnapper intentionally gave the incorrect area to search.”
Oh god, I hadn’t even thought of that. I really need to read up on forensic psychology and profiling. I’m sure at least some of it from this realm would be helpful in other realms. I’ve seen basic similarities in beings wherever I’ve been.
I’m still not convinced though. “Will the spell work if it’s not really my enemy?”
Kallen smiles sadly. “By agreeing to help find him, you have made him your enemy.”
Great, one more enemy to add to my list. Another thought hits me. What if Belial decides to attack me while we’re in the cemetery? Oh crap, I can’t worry about that right now or my head is going to explode.
Standing up, Josh jiggles his keys. “Okay, let’s go. We’ll take the Land Rover. It’s less conspicuous than your SUV.”
Agent Amman nods and rises to his feet. “Eliana, Josh, I thank you for your willingness to help my family.” He turns to Kallen and me. “You are strangers, yet you offer your help as well. Thank you.”
I shrug. “It’s what we do.” That sounded pretentious. I’ve been hanging out with Fairies for too long.
We follow Josh outside. It’s a tight fit in the back of the Land Rover with Kallen, Agent Amman and me, but we make it work. A heavy silence falls and we travel to the cemetery in silence.
As we near the southeast corner, my mouth drops open. The spectacle in front of me is not a cemetery. It’s a suburb! There are so many people loitering, it’s like a small city. There’s laundry hanging out to dry, strung between mausoleums that have become living quarters for families. Some of those mausoleums have to be hundreds, if not thousands of years old. There are big chunks of stone missing from some of them and a few look like they’re going to fall over or cave in if you look at them too hard. I avert my eyes from those just in case that’s true. How can people live here? Sadly, they must not have any other place to go.
Josh pulls the Land Rover onto the side of the road. Many curious eyes look in our direction as we climb out of the vehicle. We only have half an hour left and I have to use magic. How am I going to do that with all these people watching?
Reading my mind, Agent Amman says, “There are places over here.” He nods his head in the direction he means. “We will be shielded from prying eyes.”
I guess he knows the place better than we do. Eliana doesn’t look any more pleased than I do. Kallen’s face has been grim since we left the house.
Agent Amman stops behind a mausoleum that would be impossible to live in. Half of the roof has caved in. It appears that people have pilfered some of its stone for other uses. It’s not the greatest shield in the world, but it’s better than nothing.
“We need to do better than this,” Kallen says. Turning to the other three, he says, “I am going to create a magical circle that will put Xandra and me between realms. You will not be able to see us, but we will be able to see you. After Xandra has worked the spell, I will take the circle down.”
“Between realms?” Agent Amman says. “Invisibility?” He shakes his head in disbelief, but he doesn’t say anything more. His expression goes from hopeless to hopeful when Kallen demonstrates his magic and we disappear from view. Eliana and Josh look a little disconcerted, but not too bothered. I think at this point, nothing is going to surprise them.
I take out the little piece of paper that Kallen wrote the spell on. I really, really hope I don’t end up locating every cell phone in Cairo when I say it. With a deep sigh and crossed fingers, I say, “In a well of evil my foe has sunk, his black soul away from the light has slunk, promising death not by his hands, but by instrument if not met are his demands.” Apparently, rhyming is more important than grammar in this spell. “Such cowardly actions must be defeated, this warrior’s false strength cheated. Set right the balance of courage and cowardice, let nature’s talents reign over this foulness. Show me now this instrument of doom, harness the magic done under this moon, take the power from this object, its master’s control it will now reject.”
I wonder if anyone else can see the massive light show about five hundred yards away. It’s the fourth of July over there. Gee, I wish my spells were a little more conspicuous.
The thing about light shows? People love them. Really, really love them. Which is why they are moving en masse to where the five of us need to be. I would teleport over there, but that would probably give a few people a heart attack or stroke and it would expose magic to humans on a larger scale than I already have. Neither option is acceptable at this point.
Kallen drops his circle and we can once again be seen by our new friends. Josh, god love him, is enjoying the hell out of my spell gone awry. Eliana looks worried. Agent Amman’s eyes are burning hatred into my retinas. Kallen? He’s trying to look innocent and is inching away from me. I stare him down until he admits what he needs to admit.
With a loud clearing of his throat and a new shade of pink crawling into his cheeks, he says, “Desperate times call for desperate spells.”
I am not letting him get away with that lame excuse. “You knew the spell would be blown waaaaayyyy out of proportion if I did it.”
He has the decency to look abashed. “I was concerned that the kidnapper set a trap. If that is the case, the crowd will foil any such attempt at catching us unawares.”
“And you couldn’t have discussed that with me first?”
He looks surer of himself now. “You would have been nervous about performing the spell and may have channeled even more magic into it.”
“Um, this may not be the best time for a marital spat,” Josh says quietly. “We only have ten minutes left.”
Now I’m the one who is abashed. I can let Kallen know later how upset I am. Right now, I should be worrying about something else. We begin walking quickly towards the crowd.
Turning to Eliana, he asks, “Do you want to go ahead of us?”
Sh
e shakes her head. “I wouldn’t be able to get through the people unnoticed.”
One of the skills that she demonstrated this afternoon was speed. I may be able to teleport, but she is definitely not lacking a fast way to get to one place from another. She can move so fast you can hardly see her. But I can see how that would be impossible at the moment.
We’re jogging at this point and the strain on Eliana’s face as she keeps pace with us is heart wrenching. She desperately wants to be there already. I have to admit, though, Kallen was thinking ahead better than the rest of us.
Of course there would be some sort of trap set. This guy wants to torture the agent. Kill him too, I’m sure. As hard as I’m trying to, I just can’t get the idea out of my mind that he plans to kill the agent’s family no matter what.
Pushing our way through the now dumbstruck crowd, we get to the source of the light show. A cell phone sitting in a gouge in the stone wall of a mausoleum is glowing with different colored light. As casually as he can, Josh moves to it and picks it up before anyone else does. I’m so happy when it doesn’t burn him. I have no idea of the ramifications of this spell, so I would not have been surprised if it did.
“Great new app, isn’t it?” he says to the crowd as he pockets the phone. There must be a few who speak English because they nod in astonishment. The rest look at him like he’s an ass for making the lights stop. Well, not stop exactly. His butt is glowing different colors through the denim of his jeans. The Fourth of July has moved to his pants. I’m not sure he’s aware of that, because he looks uncomfortable with the way people are checking out his behind.
Impatient, Agent Amman flashes his badge, causing the crowd to start thinning rather quickly. He grabs Josh by the arm and practically drags him behind the mausoleum. Josh pulls the phone from his pocket and hands it to him.
Calling the only number programmed into the untraceable cell phone, he barks, “I am here.”
Before I can tell if the person on the other end of the line responded, the wind has kicked up around us, leaving us in the eye of the storm. The sand and wind form a wall around us that we cannot see through. None of the sand is actually touching us, but it’s definitely bringing out my latent claustrophobia. It’s moving us closer together as it roars faster and harder.
Eliana’s attention is focused on something the rest of us can’t see. There is something out there that she’s protecting us from. A threat she was able to detect when neither Kallen nor I could. If we were dealing with magical creatures, we wouldn’t have been taken by surprise. We can’t sense human malice, but I’m suspecting Eliana can.
Agent Amman is holding the phone closer to his ear, desperate to hear what is being said through it. His face is dismal and growing more so by the second. After a moment, he snaps the phone closed. He takes a deep breath before he’s able to speak.
Over the roar of the sand tornado, he says, “We were obviously not supposed to survive this little game. Since we did, we must wait until morning for his next instructions.”
Meaning, the guy didn’t have a plan B. Great. I sure hope he doesn’t take this out on the agent’s wife and daughter.
My attention is dragged from my worrying about that to worrying about the strain on Eliana’s face. She’s struggling to either keep the sand going or let it go. I can’t tell which.
I’m not the only one who notices. “Eliana, what’s wrong?” Josh shouts close to her ear.
“I can’t let it go,” she yells back.
She can’t let it go? This was something that she was convinced she had perfected control over. Why can’t she stop it? As I’m thinking this, the sand begins to move in. It whips at our hair, our faces, and our bodies. The crushing pressure of it becomes too much.
Eliana drops to her knees and screams as she tries to gather more power. I feel Kallen draw magic and he sends it out to her. She’s surprised at first, but when she feels it flowing through her, she figures out that he’s trying to help. Josh takes her hand and she climbs to her feet again with his help.
“What’s happening?” Agent Amman shouts.
“I don’t know!” Eliana shouts over the roars of the storm.
Kallen’s face is showing strain now as well. I can tell that their combined magic is keeping the sand storm somewhat at bay, but it’s not lessening it in the slightest. I don’t want to do this. I really, really don’t want to do this, but I don’t have a choice.
I give Kallen and Eliana my best ‘I’m so sorry, but this is going to hurt’ look. Kallen nods slightly, dread filling his eyes. Drawing magic up from beneath us, I fill myself with it. I let it build and build until it must overflow. Then I push it out. All of it. I push it through Kallen and tears flow from my eyes and down my cheeks as I hear his cries of agony. Then my magic follows the trail of his magic, which he is somehow able to maintain, to Eliana. She’s never felt my magic. She has no idea what is about to happen, and I don’t have time to explain it to her.
My magic burns hot and fast as it tears at her from the inside, clawing to get out, reaching out towards her hold on the sand. Then it clamps on to hers. She couldn’t let it go now if she tried.
“What are you doing to them?” Josh yells, dropping to his knees next to Eliana’s collapsed body. “You’re killing her!”
My magic has one goal. Stop the sand. Let us out. It takes the power from Kallen. It takes the power from Eliana. Like a B rated action movie, it stops the sand. Instantly. It falls in a heap around us.
“Stop whatever you’re doing!” Josh yells, even though the sand is no longer making it hard to hear him.
Agent Amman moves in front of me and reaches out to put his hands on my shoulders, presumably to shake me to my senses. “Don’t…” is all I get out. Magic is like water; it takes the path of least resistance. Humans can’t resist it. So when part of it escapes into him, the agent falls to the ground in a heap.
I’m trying to pull it back. I am. But it has grown out of my control. I look at the tortured forms of my husband and my new friend and tears stream even faster down my cheeks. What happened that required this much power? What happened to make it so I had to draw my strongest magic?
“I did.”
Chapter 18
Not only am I in Angel time, I’m somewhere I’ve never been before. It’s not a good place; I’m standing on the precipice of a large cliff. I am standing on a piece of rock no bigger than my feet. Staring down at a cavern so deep, I can’t see the bottom through the darkness. If there is a bottom.
Trying to ignore the peril that comes with the tiniest move of my feet, I turn to Belial. “What do you mean, you did?”
“Surely those synapses in your mortal body can decipher the meanings of my words.”
He is not standing on a precipice. He is floating in the air, his black wings moving softly. I should probably call my wings, but they would push me off this tiny ledge and I can’t say for sure that my ability to fly with them will override my terror of falling into an abyss.
“You took control of Eliana’s magic?”
“Control?” he scoffs. “I merely encouraged the essence within her to use all she had to keep that puny little sandstorm of hers going. I never did like Ra very much. He wore righteousness almost as badly as Raziel.”
“Did you really drag me here to give me a list of other beings you hate besides me?” Stupid cocky mouth. Stay closed for once.
“To think Raziel spent eons pining over you. You are nothing but a harpy and a mutt.”
“Is this where I say ‘sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me’?” Oh my god. Really? I had to go and give him ideas?! Oh my god, he did not just throw a boulder at me. Really? He’s that childish?
I wonder if my femur breaking hurts as much as my magic burning through Eliana. If so, then at least I feel like I’ve somewhat atoned for that. Though, it is impossible to maintain my balance now. My twisted leg leaves the safety of the tiny ledge and the rest of my body follows.
If there was ever a time I needed my wings, it’s now. Any millisecond now would be great. I am so relieved when I feel the pinches on my back announcing their presence that I smile over the pain in my leg. By their own accord, they stop my descent and float me back up to where Belial is waiting. Then, I remember that I can heal myself instantly when I have my wings. So I do. The sudden absence of such a great pain is a little disconcerting and I get dizzy for second. I’m just going to have to ignore that at the moment.
“Was that really necessary?” I ask.
“Tit for tat as the Cowans say,” he says with a sneer.
I shake my head. “Is this how it’s going to be? Are you going to randomly pull me out of realms so that you can bore me to death with your insults and ‘tit for tat’s?” That’s it, I have Tourette’s. It’s the only explanation.
Blood of Egypt (Witch Fairy Book 8) Page 7
