by M. R. Forbes
I turned slowly, knowing what I was going to find, even if I didn't know how it had happened. When I finished the half-circle, I saw that there was only one Egyptian left standing, a younger man with a thick mustache and an athletic build. The others were on the ground behind him.
"How many times do I have to explain this? I'm a god, Landon. I don't need to 'find' you. I always know where you are."
Was that how he had found us on the train? Then why hadn't he attacked us in New York? I had an idea that maybe being inside a church had something to do with that.
"You didn't have to kill them," I said.
He cackled with laugher. "Didn't have to kill them? That's what I do, you moron." He took a few steps back, and kicked one of the bodies. "So fragile, humans. So easy to break."
His anger was enough to change the pressure in the air. I could feel it coming off his host like a static charge.
"Not feeling as confident, are you?" I asked. "Not after we've slipped past you and yours, what? Three times now? It's happened so often, I'm losing count. Some god."
This only enraged him more, but I wasn't that concerned. Sarah Commanding his host had shown he was limited when he was possessing another's consciousness. I probably shouldn't have been goading him, but I had my own share of anger.
"What are you doing here anyway?" I asked.
"I was curious."
"Curious?"
He took a few steps forward. "What would you be doing in Egypt? Something brought you here."
"You think I'm just going to tell you?"
He chuckled. "I know you aren't going to tell me," he said. "That's why I had to come and see for myself. I just couldn't resist revealing myself to you. I wanted you to know that I'm here. That I'm always here. And I can be anyone. Oh, and I'm not limited to only being here. Right now, I'm also in the body of a fiend in Mumbai."
"Mumbai?" I asked.
"I'll tell you what I'm doing in Mumbai, if you tell me what you're doing here," he said.
"I have an idea of what you're doing in Mumbai," I said. He was the Beast, after all. "You can't say the same about me."
"True enough, kid. I guess I'll have to settle for a different kind of satisfaction. I'll admit, you're pretty good at this game, for a rookie. You've managed pretty well, and I applaud you for that." He started clapping. "Like I told you before, my power is growing faster than even I expected. So, I'm moving up the time table on phase two. If you think it's been fun so far, you ain't seen nothing yet."
His face changed, growing into that freaking smile. That damnable grin that I despised.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
I focused, preparing myself for whatever he intended. "Bring it on."
He raised up his right hand, and I watched in horror as the bone of the forearm pushed out through the skin, growing and changing shape until it resembled a blade of bone, leaving the man's hand hanging limply attached below it. His other arm went through the same transformation
"This is just a preview, kid." He said. Then he charged.
There was no time to shift, but at least I had Josette's fighting prowess to rely on. I focused, pouring power into my body, sidestepping the first attack and countering with a solid right hook. The Beast brought a forearm up to block it, and I heard the bones crumble beneath the force.
"Ouch," he said, without emotion. He brought the right bone-blade around, slashing at my face. I caught his arm and held it.
"Do you really think you can take me like this?" I asked.
"Don't be stupid, kid," he replied. "That's not what it's about."
I shoved him backwards, sending him twenty feet in the air to crash down on the rest of the dead. He pushed himself to his knees, facing me.
"Watch this," he said. He stabbed one of the bodies with the bone-blade. A second later, it began to climb to its feet. "Are you starting to get it?"
I felt my heart start to pound, my mind starting to catch up to the Beast's display. He could re-animate the dead. How many at one time? I didn't know, but Malize had said the angels sent entire armies up against him, armies that fell to their once fallen brethren. He could also possess the living. It was a vicious combo that brought all of the hope I'd started to gain from his prior defeats to a screeching halt. How could anyone stand up to that?
"Ah," he said. "I see you are. I-"
His head fell forward, detached from his body. Adam stood behind him. "Okay," he said. "I believe you."
Was it a surprise the statement didn't bring me any comfort? I motioned to the man he had animated. "What about him?"
In response, a grenade of hellfire hit the corpse, setting it on fire. Adam backed away from it, and in a few moments it was consumed. Izak stood there, a grim look on his face. He might not have been happy, but watching the body burn gave me back a little bit of my lost hope. At least we could burn the dead, to keep them from coming back.
The three of us ran through the warehouse, meeting up with Sarah and Charis near the exit.
"We need to move fast. The Beast-"
Another Egyptian man rounded the corner and leaped at Sarah. Before I could react, Izak got in front of her and grabbed his head in his good hand. It burned away beneath his touch, the body flopping to the floor.
"He's possessing people and sending them at us," I finished.
"Come on," Charis said. "The Pyramids are ten miles away."
That wasn't that close. Not when we had to get through a city of hundreds of thousands of people, and any one or more of them could be the Beast.
We ran as fast as we could, up a flight of stairs and out the back door of the museum through an emergency exit. We had to keep going, to keep moving faster than the Beast could get people after us. Even if we killed them with fire like Izak had, he was still destroying people. People with families, and homes, and lives of their own.
"We need a car," Sarah said.
We had come out the back. There was a fence, and a roadway on the other side. I focused, tearing open the fence with a thought and running for the road.
As we approached, a car skidded off the pavement, headed straight for me, the driver laughing. I crouched and focused, ducking to the side and lifting the front corner of the car with a tug, sending it corkscrewing away to land upside down with a crash. A second later, two more cars veered towards me.
"Stay close to Sarah," I shouted. Not to protect her, but because she could protect us, at least from the cars. He wasn't going to risk killing his prize. They skidded to a stop, and the drivers got out.
They didn't get far. Izak hit them with hellfire, sending them falling away, but more cars were pulling over, and then I felt the sudden heat of a demon in my Sight.
"Get in the car," I yelled, pointing at one of the abandoned vehicles.
"I'll meet you there," Adam said. He spread his wings and shot into the air, circling above us.
The rest of us made a beeline for the car, some run-down rust bucket of a thing. Charis slid in behind the wheel, and I took shotgun. She peeled out as best she could in the clunker.
"Which way?" she asked me. I dug into my pocket and pulled out my cell. I never thought I'd be Googling directions to the Great Pyramids like this.
"Left," I said, looking at the map that had come up. I was still waiting for the GPS to locate us, so I hoped that it was right.
"I can't go left from here," she shouted. "It's one-way."
I looked at her. "Are you kidding me?"
She smiled and turned the wheel, forcing the tires to whine while she pulled the car left, up a curb, and over into oncoming traffic. They split around us, avoiding an unseen obstacle. That didn't save them from the Beast, who was moving those he possessed behind us. We could hear the crashes in the background.
"Son of a bitch," I yelled.
We passed more cars, and I heard the screaming tires as the Beast took the drivers and turned the cars around, angling them into other oncoming traffic. Within seconds, the cars ahead of us saw what was
happening behind us, and they came to a stop.
"Not good," Sarah said.
Charis hit the brakes. "Now what?"
I tried to think. This had gone bad faster than I could have imagined. I had thought the Beast would adapt his strategy, and he had in a big way.
"We'll have to fight our way through." I opened the door and got out of the car. They followed my lead.
"Do you give up?" Three of the drivers were walking towards us. The words came from all of their mouths at once.
"Not a chance," I said. As much as I hated that people were dying, if he won, everything would die. "You're going to have to do better."
Three faces smiling in unison. "Oh, I plan to. This is just the warmup."
"Izak?"
The demon walked towards the drivers.
"Nice hand," they said. "That looks like it hurts."
He held out his palm, the hellfire flaring in it. He bathed them in it.
"Good for you." Two more people approached from the other side, another man and a woman. "You can keep me from bringing them back, but you can't stop me from taking them, and there are quite a few people here in Cairo."
"Landon," Charis said. "This isn't going to work."
"We don't have a choice." I took Sarah's hand. "Be careful with your puppets," I said. "You don't want anything to happen to Sarah."
"Don't worry. I'll be careful."
I let go of Sarah's hand and ducked as a vampire crashed to the ground in front of me. I had Seen him coming. He rolled to his feet.
"It isn't just humans, you know," the vampire said.
Maybe not, but vampires could still burn.
Or lose their heads. When he leaped at me again, Charis intervened.
"Turn right onto Nile Corniche in two hundred meters," came the automaton voice from my phone. It had finally gotten the directions.
"Come on," I said. "We have to run for it. Now!"
I reached out for Sarah's hand, and then paused, feeling a coolness enter my Sight, and hearing a buzzing in the distance. It seemed ridiculous, but what about the rest of the situation was any more sane?
"Sarah, when I say the word, grab onto me as tight as you can."
"Okay, but why?"
"You'll see. Also, tell Izak to get back over here."
She nodded, and I could feel her power reaching out to the demon.
"Getting defensive?" the Beast asked. He was moving his pawns in closer. Ten more doors opened, and ten more drivers got out. "I can do this all day," all twelve of him said.
The buzzing was getting louder. We just needed to hold them off for another minute. "Charis, the glass."
She looked at me, and then focused. There was shattered glass from the crashed cars all over the road. She brought it to us, and started spinning it around.
"That isn't going to work," the Beast said. A dozen voices laughed in unison. He sent them forward, into the maelstrom. Some of the bodies were torn up, but one would block the onslaught from another, and half of them made it through. The buzzing was much louder now.
Izak turned on those that had gotten through the barrier, burning them with hellfire and putting his palm to their heads. They didn't last long, but already a dozen more people were headed towards us.
"Landon?" Charis asked.
I turned my head and looked up.
"Charis, grab Izak," I shouted. "Sarah, hang on."
Charis reached out and took the demon by the arm. Sarah jumped on my back and wrapped her arms around my neck. The buzzing was clear now, easy to identify as an airplane propeller. I watched the plane swooping in, coming down towards us, ready to snatch us up like one of Tolkien's giant eagles.
The only difference was, we'd have to grab on ourselves.
I focused, flexing my legs and preparing to jump, hoping both Charis and I would get the timing right. I could see Adam now, inside the cockpit, his brow arched in concentration. Who knew an angel could fly a plane?
"Hey Ross," I said looking at the incoming puppets. Their eyes fixed on me, and I gave them the finger. Then I jumped.
"Hah. Now this is what I call awesome," Ulnyx cried, his excitement rattling my soul.
Sarah screamed, and her arms gripped tighter around my neck, threatening to choke me. The plane rocked from side to side as I wrapped my arms around the left landing gear, swinging wildly back and forth while my body absorbed the shock, praying Sarah would hold on. I looked over and saw that Charis had made it, having wrapped one arm around the right gear, and helping Izak find purchase with the other. Satisfied, and greatly impressed with Adam, I peered back towards the roadway. At least one hundred pairs of possessed eyes followed the plane as it zipped away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
We hung there, the four of us, from the landing gear of the small airplane that Adam had commandeered from I don't know where. It was less than ten miles to the Pyramids from the air, and the distance fell away fast. We had climbed up over the wheels by the time Adam circled the plane and brought it down in the sand next to the Great Pyramid.
There was no time to waste though. No time to congratulate the angel on his daring rescue, or even to just be thankful we had made it.
The Beast was here too.
Even worse, the Pyramids were patrolled by armed guards.
They started firing on the plane the moment it stopped moving, the bullets pinging off the aluminum, peppering it with holes. The only one they could kill with the rounds was Sarah, but they could still be effective at inflicting pain and slowing us down. I was surprised he was taking the risk of hitting her, but he seemed to be a pretty good shot.
I took two bullets in the arm and another in the leg, wincing each time I felt the stinging pain blossom through my body. I knew by the grunt and groans and curses that the others were hit too. We made a run for the Pyramid, trying to keep the plane between the bullets and us, and casting aside any of the possessed tourists that tried to block our path.
"This look familiar, kid?" one of them asked, flipping me the bird right before I tossed him to the ground. Maybe I shouldn't have saluted him like that.
"Do you have any idea where we're going?" Adam asked. His arm was bleeding from a bullet wound.
"I don't even know if this is the right pyramid." I really, really, hoped Obi had been right about the whole secret room thing. It sounded like something that could have been left by Malize.
"How do we find out?" His hand shot out and blocked a punch from an old woman in a purple skirt. He grabbed her and pushed her to the ground, as soft as he dared. She fell to the ground laughing.
"Unless hurting them will make you fall, you don't need to be gentle," I said. "They die when he lets them go."
Adam's angry look reflected what I was feeling.
"There has to be an entrance somewhere. A glamoured wall, or maybe a hieroglyphic that looks like Malize's signature. It could be anywhere, or nowhere."
We kept running, from one side of the Pyramid around to another. At least the corners gave us respite from the gunfire. It didn't stop the puppets though, and I could swear they were multiplying.
"We should have come in the middle of the night," Charis shouted.
"Just look for the symbol."
We were around to the south side, opposite where we had landed, when we found it. I had focused to enhance my eyesight and see the lines in the stone more clearly, and even then I attributed at least half the discovery to luck. Someone had defaced the Pyramid more recently by scratching their initials into the rock. The change in texture had drawn a closer inspection, and I had found Malize's sigil behind it.
"Izak, Adam, you're on defense. We need some time."
"How do we open it?" Sarah asked.
I put my hand to the symbol, feeling around it. The stone was solid. I focused, reaching past it, trying to feel the density of the structure beyond. It was solid too.
"I wish I knew."
"The Great Pyramid?" The Beast asked, from the voice of a small girl. "In
teresting."
I ignored him, and kept searching. Charis knelt down next to me, wiping away the sand under the symbol, to see if there was another clue that had been buried by time.
"I don't know what you think you're going to find in there," he said. Both Izak and Adam were occupied with the larger puppets, so they allowed him to walk right up to us and lean over our shoulder. "Maybe you need to piss on it?"
"Sod off," Charis said, without looking at him.
The Beast laughed, a child's chipmunk laugh. "Am I bother-" He stopped mid-sentence, shoving me to the side so he could look at the pyramid wall. His head snapped towards me, long hair whipping around behind it.
Every voice joined in chorus at the same time. "Malize?"
So, he remembered the name. "You know him?"
He didn't get to answer. Sarah reached down and grabbed the girl by the shoulders. "Go to sleep, child," she said in a gentle voice. "It's a nightmare, that's all. Just a nightmare."
"Your nightmare," the Beast said, his fear and surprise masked by the normal smugness. "It's just start-"
The child's eyes fluttered back, and she fell to the sand.
"She's alive," Sarah said.
The realization face-palmed me. "He's spread too thin to resist your power." It wouldn't stop the assault against us, but it would certainly limit it. "How many can you Calm?"
Sarah turned to where Izak and Adam were doing their best to knock the Beast's prisoners back. I could feel her power building. "Rest, all of you," she said. It was a Calm Command, an ability unique to her. "You're all having a bad dream, and you must rest."
The power spread out from her, a charge in the air that I could feel throughout my soul. The Beast began to growl in frustration, but he wasn't strong enough to hold on. The mass of people rolled their eyes, and fell.
"Landon, look," Charis said.
I turned back towards the pyramid, and saw that Malize's symbol was glowing.
"What do you think it-"
The pyramid was gone. The sand was gone. The collapsed mortals were gone. Adam and Izak were both gone. Charis, Sarah, and I were standing in the middle of a large limestone room, filled with dry air and lit by the sigils etched into the walls. Templar script, tightly drawn. It began to glow brighter.
