“Handling that purple carpet must’ve done some permanent damage,” Raphael said.
“To you.”
He leaned over and murmured, “I’m not the one with purple stains on my butt.”
Oh, it’s like this, then? “Would you like to be?”
He grinned and nodded.
“Maybe you needed backup to help you with Roman,” I told him.
“I don’t need backup. I can take him with one hand tied behind my back.”
“He had one hand tied behind your back.”
“Maybe it looked like that from where you were sitting…”
That’s how Jim’s messenger found us, sitting on the ground, bickering and flirting. Jim’s teams had returned from the Warren, the poor neighborhood by White Street, and they had brought information about Gloria back with them.
I sat at a large conference table filled with food and reports. Jim sat across from me, and Chandra, Clan Jackal’s designated expert on ancient Egypt, sat to my left. Between us teetered small mountains of paperwork—all of the information Jim’s team had squeezed out of the inhabitants of the Warren. Derek joined us after the first fifteen minutes. We were looking for clues. Somewhere at this very moment, Gloria’s associates were preparing to raise Apep from the dead. We needed to know where that location could be, and Gloria was our only link.
We’d been at it for hours. So far I had made two piles: a big pile of stuff I’d gone through and didn’t consider relevant, and a very tiny pile of paper that might be something. I’d covered half a legal pad in notes. I was hungry again. The lunch hour came and went without us finding a smoking gun.
“It would be nice if there was a map,” Chandra said. “With a town circled on it.”
“And a note that said ‘Secret Hideout Here’?” Derek added.
I scrutinized the paper in front of me. Gloria had used a private shipping service, which was faster and more reliable than the post office, but which also forced their customers to declare the exact contents of their packages. In the event your package decided to sprout tentacles when the magic hit, they wanted to be prepared for that eventuality.
This particular operative, whose name was Douglas, had tracked down the shipping company Gloria used and offered their rep an outrageous bribe for the manifest of everything delivered to Gloria’s doorstep. Handmade soap, thirty bucks a bar. Expensive perfume. Pricy bath salts. Someone was living high.
Doolittle walked through the door. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“I’m saving the world,” I told him.
Doolittle looked mournful. “I’ll make us some hot chocolate.”
I went down the list of deliveries: books, blah-blah, more soap, antimosquito cream. Hmm. Georgia was in the grip of a drought. I hadn’t seen a mosquito in ages.
“Mosquito cream,” I said.
Derek raised his pen. “Boots. She went down to Carlos’s Footwear and got herself a pair of rubber boots two days before you killed her. Some kids from the Warren nagged her for change and she told them to piss off.”
Fatal mistake. Never upset the street kids.
“So we have water,” Jim said.
“In the original myth, Apep lived in the river,” Chandra said.
“Could he be somewhere in the Chattahoochee?” Derek asked.
“No.” Jim tapped the paper. “Too risky. The Chattahoochee is too shallow and too well patrolled. Half of the city’s shipping comes through it. The army would napalm a giant snake the moment they saw it.”
“So we either have lakes in the north or…” Derek pulled out a map. “Or the Suwanee.”
“The Suwanee River would work,” Jim said. “It’s deep and black water.”
I dug through the manifests. “She put in an order with the teamsters for a large crate shipment to be shipped a couple of weeks ago. Supposedly glassware. It’s going to…Waycross.”
“Waycross, Georgia?” Jim asked.
“Yep.”
“That’s right on the edge of the Okefenokee swamp,” Derek said.
“There are also crate orders for Augusta and Tallahassee,” I said.
“We need a confirmation.” Jim dug through his papers.
Derek and I burrowed into our stacks.
“Pontoon!” Derek announced twenty minutes later. “She bought a pontoon boat.”
“When?” I looked through my notes on the shipping records.
“On the fourteenth. Took it off the lot.”
“She shipped a large crate of antiques down to Folkston on the fifteenth. Where is Folkston?”
“The east edge of the Okefenokee.” Jim rose. “We got her.”
“You can’t be involved,” I reminded him.
“No, we can’t help you fight,” Jim said. “There is a difference. Nobody says we can’t scout the swamp and mark the way for you. You won’t go in blind.”
“I’ll get on the phone,” Derek said.
They left the room.
Doolittle put a cup of hot chocolate in front of me. “Drink this before you go.”
I sipped it. It had to be half sugar. “It’s delicious.”
Doolittle patted my arm. “It’s good for you. A little sugar goes a long way.”
Little, huh?
“Thank you,” I told him. “You were always kind to me. Not many people are. I will never forget it.”
“You are coming back.” Doolittle fixed me with his stare.
“Sure.” I got up and hugged him.
Raphael, Roman, and I rode the ley line out of Atlanta. The magic current ran whether the magic was up or down, but when tech ruled, like it did now, the ley line speed dropped to a mere forty miles per hour. It took us several hours to get there. The magic finally spat us and our cargo out right between Waycross and Folkston into the open arms of a shapeshifter woman with a Pack Jeep. She was short, dark-haired, and had a sprinkling of freckles on her nose.
“Here is your ride.” She held out the keys. Raphael took them. “Go down that road, take the right fork, then the second left. You’ll come to the pier. There are two pontoon boats there. Take them. The way through the swamp is marked with strips of white fabric. Good luck.”
She walked away.
We loaded the cargo into the Jeep, and me and my Heckler & Koch UMP submachine gun called shotgun. Roman crawled into the backseat.
Twenty minutes later we pulled up before the wooden pier. In front of us a narrow channel curved into the green wall of trees and underbrush. Two pontoon boats floated on the water the color of black tea.
A crate sat on the pier. On the side someone had written in black marker, “A present from Uncle Jim.”
Raphael pulled the top off the crate. Pixilated ACUs—Army Combat Uniforms—in lovely randomized patterns of greens and browns, perfect for the swamp.
“I like this uncle.” I found the shortest set and stripped off my jeans.
Roman opened his eyes wide, as if he had never seen a woman in underwear before.
Raphael threw a set at him. “Don’t just stand there.”
“You want me to wear these?” Roman looked at the ACUs and put his hand over his chest, as if protecting his black robe. “That’s not right.”
“You have a problem with pants?” Raphael asked.
Roman pulled his robe apart, revealing a pair of black jeans underneath. “I always wear my pants. I just don’t want to deal with that retarded outfit. I don’t even know how to put it on.”
“Wear the fatigues,” I told him. “It won’t kill you. Not wearing them might.”
Roman sighed, rolled his eyes, and stripped off his robe and jeans, revealing a muscled torso. Well. Someone worked out. Roman pulled on the fatigue pants, grabbed the black boots, folded the bottom of the pants in a practiced move, and stuffed his feet into his boots.
Hmmm.
Next he took the ACU top and rolled up both sleeves in a perfectly even summer regulation cuff. Raphael stared at him. Roman pulled the ACU on and flexed. “Makes your
arm bigger, see?”
“You asshole,” I punched him in the shoulder.
“Gentle! I bruise easily.” He rubbed his carved biceps and I caught a glimpse of a tattoo on his arm: a skull wearing a beret. Army Ranger.
Now I had seen everything.
* * *
I stood on the bow of a pontoon boat and held binoculars to my eyes. Raphael sat at the helm. Roman piloted the second vessel behind us. He’d brought some sort of leather harness, which he had fit over his ACUs, and stuck his staff through it. It looked silly protruding over his shoulder.
A river stretched in front of me, its waters blue-black and half hidden by lily pads and water weeds. Strange trees bordered it, couched in the brush and reeds, tall, their trunks bare and bloated at the root where they thrust from the water, then narrowing as they rose to spread in a canopy of fresh bright green. They looked prehistoric. This was not my country.
“Cypresses,” Raphael told me, when I had asked about them a minute ago. “They are buttresses against the hurricanes.”
We made our way through the labyrinth of waterways and false islands made of floating peat and covered with grass. The air smelled of water, fish, and mud. Somewhere to the left a gator roared, the sound ripping from its throat deep, powerful, and primeval, as if the swamp itself roared into our faces. There was a strange serene beauty in this ancient, wet riot of life, but I wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it.
Ahead the river forked, flowing around an island, a dense mess of underbrush and cypresses. A small piece of white cloth dangled from the low-lying bush, dead center of the river. In the past when Jim’s people had left markers, they were to the left or to the right, indicating which way we had to turn. This one was straight on.
“Island coming up,” I said. “I don’t think we’re going around this time.”
“Got it.”
Since last night, Raphael had said exactly sixteen words to me. He was distancing himself. It was probably better this way.
The boat slid into the muddy shore. I jumped out into the soggy soup of mud and water and pulled back the canvas covering the bottom of the boat. Guns stared at me, wrapped lovingly in plastic to keep the moisture out. Two shotguns. A Heckler & Koch UMP submachine gun. And my baby, a Parker-Hale M-85, my sniper rifle of choice. They didn’t make them anymore. She was a gift from my sniper instructor and she let me put a bullet into the center of a man’s forehead at nine hundred and sixty meters. She had never failed me.
I took the rifle and one shotgun, Raphael shouldered the backpack filled with ammunition and grabbed the UMP and the other shotgun. A moment later Roman docked and pulled back his own canvas, gathering up a giant rucksack filled with magic paraphernalia, and picked up my compound bow and two quivers filled with arrows. We set off through the swamp, moving as quietly as the wet ground allowed.
The ground climbed up. There must’ve been an outcropping of rock under all that mud. We kept going up the gently rising hill.
Raphael stopped. A moment later I smelled it, too—smoke. We bent low, moving up the hill in complete silence, until finally we went to ground at its end.
A small city spread out in front of the hill, stretching across the floodplain. Huts and shacks made of wood, tents, premanufactured buildings, all connected by wooden walkways, radiating from a circular channel in the center. Muddy water filled the channel, draining off into the floodplain. In its center a massive structure stretched to the sky. At least three hundred feet tall, it resembled a spiral of smooth coils, wide at the ground and narrow as it twisted about the base again and again, reaching to the flat top.
A clay spiral. Roman’s prophecy was coming true.
“They built an enormous dog turd,” Raphael murmured.
“It’s a snake,” Roman said. “Look, see the head is resting on the top, and the snake is curling down around the pyramid. They’ve made their god out of clay, and then they’ll animate him. It’s very clever, actually.”
The coils at the bottom of the pyramid were at least eighteen feet tall. I put the binoculars to my eyes. The top of the pyramid was flat. The head of a colossal clay snake rested on one side, its eyes closed, Roman’s coveted staff thrust through the beginning of the snake’s neck. Next to the serpent three clay man-shaped statues sat, their legs crossed, their arms resting on their knees. Behind them a short stubby altar rose. On the altar lay Anubis’s fang.
I shifted the view down to the huts and counted, two, five, eight, ten, twelve…Thirty-two buildings. People walked to and fro, both men and women. A group of kids carrying fishing rods jumped off the walkway and splashed through the muddy water, heading into the swamp. A woman and a younger girl cleaned fish on a wooden table. A cat sat by their feet, waiting for a handout.
Let’s say four people per structure. That’s a hundred and twenty-eight people. At least. Some buildings looked significantly larger than others.
They killed four of our people. We had come here with the idea to shoot every cultist in sight. This was a search-and-destroy type of mission. I had no problem killing the adults, but nobody ever said anything about children being present.
An unmistakable wail of an infant in distress tickled my ears. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Roman sighed next to me. “Why? Why do they always bring babies into it?”
“Probably to feed them to the snake,” Raphael said.
Our original plan waved good-bye at us, stuck its thumb in its mouth, strained, and exploded. We had to stop the ritual. We had to get revenge for Nick, his son, and the families of other shapeshifters. And we had to make sure not to murder any kids.
“We could try for the knife,” I said.
“What? We run all the way to the top in the open?” Roman stared at me.
“The magic is down. Now is the best time to hit them.” I glanced at Raphael, looking for support. “No knife, no Apep.”
“What did I miss?” Anapa popped out of thin air and crouched down next to Roman, oblivious to mud staining his thousand-dollar suit.
“We’re going to get your tooth,” Raphael told him.
“Excellent.” He lay down on his back and put his arms behind his head. “Go on. Do your thing.”
“We need a diversion.” Raphael looked at Roman.
The volhv furrowed his eyebrows. “What are you looking at me for? The magic’s down.”
“I have explosives in my bag,” I offered. “If someone sets them off, it would buy us some time.”
We looked at Anapa.
“Who me?” He blinked.
“So you’re not going to help at all?” Roman chided him.
Anapa sighed.
I pulled the backpack open and took out flash grenades. “Look, this is simple. Pull the pins like this.” I pantomimed pulling the pins. “Throw. Run the other way. You’re the god of knowledge, you can do it.”
Anapa peered at the grenades. “Very well. Where do you want them thrown?”
I pointed to the left strand of trees. “There. In five minutes.”
“Very well.” Anapa took the grenades and walked off down the hill into the brush, looking absurdly out of place.
“Think he will do it?” Roman asked.
“We’ll find out.” Raphael was looking at the pyramid with the intense focus of a predator. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder.
I pulled my sniper rifle out of its plastic, chambered a round, and looked through the scope. Two people were guarding the path to the snake pyramid, two more were up on the slope, and then one last one was only a few feet under the snake’s head.
I took deep even breaths. Steady.
The man under the snake’s head was looking straight at me. He was older, with a careworn face and wrinkles. He looked so ordinary. What the hell was he even doing here on the slope, trying to resurrect an ancient god?
Steady.
The explosion flared on the left, tearing the silence with its thunder. It’s funny how a sudden threat separates people: two-thirds of
the swamp city ran to their huts like good little civilians in danger, while the remaining third, armed with rifles and bows, dashed toward the explosion, trying to eliminate the danger.
I fired. A wet, red flower blossomed in the middle of the older man’s forehead. He pitched back and crumpled onto the clay body of his god.
I sighted the second sentry, midway up, a blond woman, and squeezed the trigger.
Two more shots. Two more people turned into corpses. Minimal casualties. People like to note “minimal” and forget about “casualties,” but it’s the casualties that wake you up at night.
I picked off another guard, close to the path, and jumped to my feet. We ran straight ahead, single file, Raphael in the lead, his knife out, the wicked curve sharp.
A man noticed us and swung his rifle, blocking our way. Before he could pull the trigger, Raphael sliced and kept moving. The man crumpled down.
We kept going, pounding our way down the wooden walkway. A woman shot into our way, eyes wide and terrified. She opened her mouth, baring twin fangs, and lunged at Raphael. His knife flashed again. The woman fell against the side of a house.
A shout rang from the left—another guard had noticed us. Two rifles snapped up. I fired faster than they did.
The walkway ended. We jumped into the mud, sinking in up to midshin, and waded through toward the pyramid looming ahead.
Bullets whistled past me. I turned around. A woman with a rifle at two o’clock. Aim, squeeze, take half a second to confirm that her body splashed into the mud.
Roman lagged behind. He was moving fast for a human, but not for a shapeshifter.
“Raphael!” I called.
He turned around and doubled back.
“No, I’ve got this,” Roman said.
Raphael picked him up out of the mud and we raced to the pyramid.
The clay body of Apep wound about the structure, and I finally realized why the entire thing wasn’t collapsing under its terrible weight—steel beams and the edge of concrete poked out from beneath the clay. The cultists had used some sort of structure as a base. How the hell had they gotten it down into the swamp?
Raphael set Roman down and they began climbing. I lingered. The sentries had done an about-face and were running toward us. I fired. The bullet took the first man in the stomach. He dropped into the mud. I fired again, knocking the second runner out of the lineup. They scattered, taking cover behind the huts.
Gunmetal Magic (kate daniels) Page 34
