Another pair of rough hands grabbed her and dragged her into the sand. She kicked out, but her legs tangled in the mess of her nightclothes and didn’t connect. The sudden knee in her back was sharp, although not as sharp as the blade under her chin. Eleanor went still, clasping her hands together as they tied her wrists with a length of rope.
They hauled Eleanor back to her feet and pushed her forward even as they kept hold of the rope around her neck. She found a halting, shuffling gait that allowed her to keep pace.
“Mallory!”
Eleanor was cuffed by her captor, and if Mallory heard her, he gave no reply. Perhaps he could give none. Eleanor didn’t like that idea and lunged into the man who held her, trying to throw him off balance. His steps faltered, but he held firm, kicking her feet out from under her. Eleanor went down and the cord drew even more firmly around her neck. Blackness bled around the edges of her vision and she feared she would die right there. She jerked her hands up, remembering too late they were bound. The rope burned into her wrists.
“You will walk nicely,” her captor rumbled and he yanked her back to her feet. The rope around her neck loosened as she stood up, and Eleanor took a shaky, dust-filled breath.
The strange metallic whinnies from the horses and the sound of sand grating in their gears unsettled her. It was too like the past, and when one rider tried to lift her onto a mount, she lurched free. She had no idea where she would run, bound and blind as she was; away sounded good in and of itself. But struggling proved useless; the men hauled her up and tied her to the saddle. Moments later, they were galloping.
She tried to tell herself a story as they traveled, couching it the way her mother would have. Defenders of the Protectorate, patrolling the desert wastes on their mechanical steeds. Her mother would have made it romantic—riding sepia oceans into ageless sunsets, seeking shade in unknown tombs, writing their names upon the sands so the winds would carry them to every corner of the land.
She called for Mallory again, but could only hear the hooves thundering over the rocky ground. It was a hellish ride; Eleanor glimpsed bits of sunlight as they poked through her hood, but nothing more. The sensation of being on the horse yet out of control sickened her, and by the time they pulled her down from the horse, she could do little more than drop to the ground.
When at last her captor drew the bag off, she squinted at the blinding sunlight. They appeared to be in the bottom of a canyon, walls rising high and ragged on either side of them. Three terraced levels of dwellings were carved into the cliff sides. Square doorways and smaller windows were covered in the same fabric the riders wore. In some places, children’s faces peeked around corners to stare down at the riders and their captives.
Eleanor found these faces fascinating, but her attention was also caught by the images of the Egyptian gods on nearly every wall. Kneeling Ma’at and her infinite wings covered more than one door lintel, while Isis stood guard with her ankh near others.
What Eleanor didn’t see were the other members of her party. There was no sign of Mallory or the rest, and the deeper into the canyon they walked, the more worrisome this absence became.
Some distance into the canyon, a woman in ochre robes approached them, shouting and gesturing. Her silver hair was wrapped into a high, braided column atop her head, and cowrie shells decorated her sleeves, making a bright music that was at odds with her demeanor. Eleanor took a step backward, meaning to avoid her, but she walked past Eleanor and her captor, still shouting. The woman moved toward another cluster of men who had somehow appeared behind Eleanor. They held Cleo in their midst! But no sign of the others.
The woman grabbed Cleo by the hair, pulling her from the group.
“Leave her be!” Eleanor shouted, but her captor jabbed her in the side, and Eleanor fell silent.
The woman forced Cleo to her knees and Cleo, with her arms bound before her, had no choice but to go down. It was Cleo’s arms the woman had an interest in; she lifted them and peered intently at the assembly of gears and cogs, sticking a brown finger into them. She continued to mutter and gesture to the men, and Eleanor caught the Arabic word tabiba, which meant the woman might be a doctor. A doctor of what was unclear.
“I want this one,” the woman said in Arabic.
Every inquiry met with denials from the men, and denials from Cleo herself.
“I want to take these apart,” the woman continued as she plucked at Cleo’s intricate fingers. She murmured words over the fingers, as though speaking an incantation.
Cleo closed her mechanical fingers hard over the woman’s hand and tried to wrench herself away. The old woman shrieked as the fingers gripped. She backhanded Cleo, who went sprawling into the dirt.
The man who appeared to be their leader, with his manner and staff, put a gentle hand on the woman’s shoulder and moved her away, murmuring. She was not easily placated, but eventually she turned and vanished the way she had come, but not without a scowl directed at Eleanor.
The men roughly hauled Cleo back onto her feet, and their group continued deeper into the canyon. Eleanor said nothing as they pulled her in the opposite direction.
Faces still peered from windows; others of the tribe were bold enough to step from their homes and stare. Among these people, Eleanor saw no children, and the only women she saw were outfitted as the men were, in simple clothing that would not hinder in battle. Trousers and tunics, hair kept short or pulled back in braids. Shells and bracelets layered atop tattooed arms.
A temple façade filled the far end of the canyon. Whether this was a natural end to the canyon or manmade, she could not say; she only knew she had been intentionally paraded through the entire settlement.
The air inside the temple was cool and smelled vaguely of jasmine, a sharp contrast to the dust outside. Eleanor coughed, nausea roiling inside her. She forced it down as she was pushed inside, beyond columns holding up a carved stone ceiling.
Three columns stood on either side of her, a tall, shadowed stone statue in the center of the arrangement. Flames flickering in a few braziers illuminated walls painted with brilliant sapphire and scarlet, but the shadows of the temple remained deep and hid much.
“I am disappointed we had so little time together,” her captor said. With that he left her, closing the wooden door, securing it with a lock. A small barred window afforded a limited view of the world outside.
Before Eleanor had time to ponder what kind of a temple had a locked door—and what exactly her captor had meant by his parting comment—she heard a snuffle. Eleanor froze, and when the sound came again, it felt as though every hair on her body stood on end. She wasn’t alone.
“Cleo?”
Her own whisper sounded huge in the space, every shadow pressing closer, the flames seeming to dim. Surely that was her imagination, but even so, the idea was disquieting. There was no reply to her question, not even another snuffle.
“Imagination,” she whispered to herself. Still, she moved away until she backed into a column. She recalled, with perfect clarity, her first trip into a tomb and the way she had thought the walls pressed down on her; the way it felt as if all the air left the small space. It felt like that now, as close as the canvas sack that had so recently encased her head.
Eleanor tried to calm herself and turned her attention to the temple, to the figure standing in its center. Long curved snout, slanted eyes, but not Anubis. She looked to the forked tail. The men were not Defenders of the Protectorate, then, but followers of Seth? Or were they one and the same? Finding the god of chaos was not encouraging, either way. Egyptians weren’t supposed to like chaos, a childlike voice inside her protested. Her stomach flipped over and her nausea returned.
As did the snuffle.
“Auberon?”
It was not Auberon who emerged from the temple’s shadows. She thought at first it might be a desert jackal, but as the beast emerged into the firelight, she saw it was no jackal. This was a wolf.
As a child in Ireland, Eleanor had
kept a wolfhound as a pet, a massive animal named Oak, for he stood tall and strong like the trees. He was as gentle as he was tall and would never have hurt anyone. This animal before her was no dog. Shorter and more squat, with a sharper face and keener eyes, this animal stalked her. Brown fur brindled with gold bristled every which way as the beast moved.
She took a step to her left, meaning to place the column between herself and the wolf, but the wolf’s head swung in that direction, eyes never leaving her. Those eyes—they were fathomless, and perhaps it was a trick of the firelight, but they flickered and simmered with color and heat. The pupils grew wide, a thin rim of gold coloring their outer edge.
Eleanor took another backward step and the wolf took one forward. Her parents had taught her about jackals and other feral canines, about the possibility of encountering them in the desert, but never wolves. Wolves were uncommon here, but Eleanor suspected they might keep with jackal traditions. Showing any weakness would grant the creature an opportunity to take advantage of that weakness, her father had lectured. The same might be said of humans, Eleanor remembered her mother saying.
Eleanor didn’t want to appear weak, but neither did she want this wolf close to her. What was her captor thinking, putting her—
“Of course this was what he intended,” she whispered.
He had known the wolf was here. Did the tribe keep wolves for dispatching those who had offended the oldest gods?
“Damnation,” Eleanor spat.
The wolf’s ears pricked forward, giving it an oddly youthful look, and the massive head cocked to the right, as if it were trying to determine something. Eleanor took another step backward and rounded the column, placing it between them, but felt no better for it. She was still in a much-too-small temple with a much-too-large wolf for company.
Eleanor pulled at the ropes around her wrists, but the rope only dug in more firmly. A look to the door reminded her it was locked, and if there was another way out of the temple, it lay well concealed in shadow.
“This is not what I had planned for my afternoon,” she said and still took a step toward the door. It seemed her best bet, locked or no.
The wolf snarled at the step. Eleanor froze in her tracks. Her legs quaked as though they were not a part of her, as though something else entirely controlled them. She wasn’t standing her ground—was heading for the door considered a sign of weakness? Surely preserving one’s own arse was anything but a weakness.
Eleanor looked at the wolf, and its cautionary snarl deepened when she met its eyes. She dropped her attention to her slippers, fearing that she would present herself as a challenge. She needed to tuck her metaphorical tail and—
A sharp whistle at the barred window pushed Eleanor into motion. She turned toward the door, which placed her back to the wolf. She stepped quickly backward, closer to the wolf to avoid the whistle’s shriek, but their proximity was short lived. The beast charged the door as men outside urged him to consume Eleanor. The solid wolf body hit the wood door until the men stopped their whistling and shouting, perhaps fearful of the enraged wolf as it bared its teeth. The door creaked under the assault, but held.
Eleanor backed deeper into the temple, her mind racing. If there was another way out, she meant to find it while the wolf was otherwise engaged, but she found no such exit. When she came back to the edge of firelight on the floor, the wolf had ceased its attack on the door. It sat on its haunches, looking somehow disappointed. The wolf raised its head and looked at Eleanor. Eleanor met the look straight on.
“If you mean to eat me,” she said, “I won’t go down easily.” Her arms were tied behind her, she was clothed in little more than tattered nightclothes, overlarge slippers, and she had no weapon. “Not even my own boots . . . ”
The wolf’s ears pricked forward again, listening, and then he began to pad forward.
Eleanor’s knees went weak. “If you took that as an invitation, you must forgive me, for it was not meant as such.” Perhaps the wolf liked it when his food fought back.
The wolf paused near the statue and snuffled at its base, where he lifted a leg and relieved himself. Then he came forward two more steps. Had Eleanor’s arms not been bound, he would have been within reach. Slowly, she dipped to her knees, thinking to treat the wolf as she might have Oak. Oak liked it when others were on his level.
The wolf closed the distance between them. Eleanor decided her end was near—she hoped it would be quick—but the beast surprised her. She felt the whisper of breath across her cheek. The wolf snuffled and buried its nose into the hair above her ear. A low growl rose between them and Eleanor’s heart pounded.
“Holy God, please have—”
No more words could come as the wolf dipped his head, muzzle snuffling down her bodice before burrowing into her underarm. Eleanor flinched and tried not to haul herself away; she felt she might topple right over, arms bound as they were. The large wolf head swung up, wet nose brushing her neck as he took in her scent there, too.
His mouth was not human.
Eleanor tried to calm her breathing, afraid to meet the wolf’s eyes. Would he take it as a challenge? She looked instead at his nose, wet and snuffling, and then at the bristle of whiskers and the caramel fur that spread upward along the muzzle from there. When she did meet his eyes, the pupils were not so wide as before. He was a calmer beast, gold-flecked brown eyes watching her. Familiar eyes.
“Mallory?” she whispered.
And then, she laughed. It was a low, uneven sound that caused the wolf’s ears to prick again.
“I am losing my mind.”
The massive head ducked, then butted against her own, almost in answer. The touch was hard, but more playful than hostile. Eleanor leaned into the wolf in an effort to steady herself. She had no doubt he could have knocked her over, and if he wanted her for dinner, she would have been such by now. The wolf didn’t shy from her weight. His touch was brief, the wolf as warm as Mallory ever was before he slumped near the statue of Seth.
Eleanor exhaled in an effort to calm herself, but the glimpse of a bit of silver in the wolf’s paw made her breath hitch again.
Eleanor had seen many things in her life to challenge her mind and heart, but none so curious as what happened next. Her father being Irish and her mother being Egyptian had led to a childhood full of stories rich with magic and fantastical happenings; both cultures crafted tales laden with creatures that were not wholly human. Leprechauns, fairies, the Egyptian gods themselves. There remained a sliver of humanity in the way they looked, perhaps, but there was always something strangely Other.
She thought the wolf was in pain, for it began to spasm. There was no other word for the way the body twitched against the ground, raising dust in a low cloud around it. Eleanor pulled at the ropes that bound her, but still could not loosen herself. If the animal were to go mad, she wanted her hands free.
A sound began to permeate the air around them; it was almost a growl and almost a whine—something caught between. Eleanor came to her feet and stepped closer to the wolf to see if there was something she might do, but the wolf appeared to be coming apart. Legs flailed and claws spread, the silver flashing again in the firelight. Then, the body drew back into itself. The brindled fur receded, replaced with bare human skin; claws rounded into nails, paws into hands and feet. As she watched in silent horror, the body broke itself, remade itself, fashioning a man where there had once been a wolf. A naked man. No—a naked Virgil Mallory, wearing only the silver ring around his right index finger.
Virgil shook, his back bowed as he drew his legs into his chest and wrapped his shaking arms around them. He held on to himself like he might otherwise drown. Even though he was naked, he appeared as rumpled as any of his suits, skin putting itself to rights. It was almost too fantastic, but she recalled their night in the Nuit and the way he had smelled her.
She felt she should turn away, give him some shred of privacy, but the idea of simply leaving him there, naked on the floor and in pain
, was inconceivable. Improper or not, she looked at him and tried to decide how to help him.
“Virgil.”
She imagined those ears pricking forward. He turned his head toward the sound of her voice, though his eyes stayed closed. A fine layer of sweat coated him, and he trembled as if he might fall apart again. He smelled the air.
“El—”
He couldn’t get her entire name out, though he tried twice more. Eleanor shushed him and dropped to her knees at his side.
“If you can untie my wrists, you can have what’s left of my robe.” Her own voice was not steady, but she forced the words out, knowing only that he needed help.
Mallory couldn’t sit up, though he did manage to roll over, toward Eleanor. She turned and placed her bound hands within his, trying not to fidget as he made achingly slow progress with the ropes. He was ill-acquainted with his own fingers, perhaps having to remember how to use them. When she was free, she tugged her robe off and draped it over him. His bare feet poked out, but there was no helping that; he was too tall and the robe too tattered.
He made no move to draw the robe around himself; it seemed he could only lie there and breathe, much like Eleanor had when she’d come off the horse. She dared touch him, her fingers brushing the fall of his hair back from his temple. His skin was clammy, his hair wet with sweat and blood, and Eleanor muttered a low curse. She looked around the temple until at last she stared at the statue of Seth.
“Ugly b-bugger,” Mallory whispered.
Eleanor’s hand slid down to his shoulder, squeezing. “Seth,” she said in the same tone. She presumed Mallory meant the statue anyhow and not himself, for the wolf had been a beautiful thing. Mallory himself was not so terrible to look at, either.
A collection of clay vases ringed the base of the statue, each the same size, but with a different marking. She knew one would hold perfume, while another held oil, and another water. It was the water Virgil needed, to drink and wash both, but it had been left in offering to Seth. She was loath to touch it, not worried about incurring the god’s wrath, but rather that of the people who worshipped him.
Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure Page 14
