Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure

by E. Catherine Tobler

  Just when Virgil didn’t think it was possible for his niece’s eyes to get any wider, they did. She exhaled a soft “oh!” and then giggled madly before sliding down from the bench.

  “Come, come see my treasure box.” She latched on to both Eleanor and Virgil, tugging them up and onward into the house.

  Margarite was proud to show Virgil and Eleanor to her room, a slightly disorganized space that held more than they would be able to sort through in one day. A rocking horse crouched in the center of the room, while a line of pinwheels decorated the sill of one window. Virgil pictured them all spinning on days when Margarite was allowed to open the window.

  She went straight to her canopied bed and peered under it, retrieving a box that might rival a bank’s vault. It was rigged with a complicated lock composed of bells and corded ribbons, and she bade both Virgil and Eleanor look away as she unfastened it. Several moments later, the little girl called for them to look at the treasures she had unearthed.

  Virgil and Eleanor joined Margarite on the floor, peering into the wooden box. The child had found a wealth of items and, for Virgil, it was like stepping back in time, finding bits of his childhood. A small sack of coins, a bundle of dried flowers tied with a ribbon; a packet of water-damaged postage stamps, a cup decorated with golden grapes in paint; barrettes, a watch face, countless mismatched earrings.

  Margarite told them where each item had come from as they went through the box, and grinned proudly when Virgil speared a silver ring onto his finger.

  “I love that one, it has a dog like Gat,” she said. “I found that by the Rogue Vine.”

  The way Margarite said it, the words had capital letters. “Rogue vine?”

  “A grape that tried to get into the garden,” Margarite said with a laugh.

  The ring around his finger bore the likeness of Anubis. Crusted with dirt, but Anubis nonetheless, and a perfect match for the image they had seen in Tau’s journal. He extended his hand and the ring to Eleanor.

  She took it, but slowly, as if she felt she might yet vanish. She spat onto her fingers and rubbed them over the ring to loosen more of the dirt.

  “See,” Margarite said, leaning against Eleanor to point to each symbol on the ring. “A feather and a doggy—and oh, a bird, I forgot!”

  “This is what we have looked for,” Eleanor said, nodding to Margarite.

  “Why does it make you sad?”

  Virgil only realized Eleanor was crying when Margarite reached out to wipe her fingers over her cheeks. Virgil assumed that any truthful explanation might be too much for the child to understand. Yet Eleanor managed to put it so she might.

  “It has been a very long search,” Eleanor said, “and now it has nearly come to its end. That can be sad sometimes.”

  “Like hide and seek,” Margarite said.

  “See, this ring goes with these.”

  With that, Eleanor pulled out the chain she wore. The memory of Eleanor in that chain and that chain alone made Virgil shift on the bench. Margarite reached for the rings, then hesitated, only touching them when Eleanor didn’t pull them away.

  “Are they very old?” Margarite asked and stuck her forefinger through each of the rings, turning her hand this way and that, seeing how they looked on her.

  Virgil’s stomach churned at the idea of his niece being sucked away by the Glass. Four rings, he reminded himself. Four rings and Egyptian blood, so she could not be taken, but Eleanor could, and might yet.

  “Older than your mother,” Virgil managed to say.

  “That’s old!” Margarite agreed. “Let us add this one to your necklace, Miss Folley.”

  She helped Eleanor open the chain and watched with great patience as the ring was added. Margarite was helping Eleanor fasten the chain around her neck once more when the window shattered. Chilled air raced into the room, setting the pinwheels to spinning madly.

  Margarite shrieked, and Eleanor dived atop her. The air felt suddenly heavy to Virgil, as though a storm approached. He tried to fight the memory of Anubis holding Eleanor the night before, but could not; though the sky was clear, thunder rattled the entire house, and he bit out a curse. If Anubis had come again to remind Eleanor of her duty, Virgil had a few choice words for the god. Virgil launched himself toward the window.

  “Maman!” Margarite cried.

  Beneath his coat, Virgil wore his revolvers, and he tossed one of them back to Eleanor. “Keep her down,” he said and caught Eleanor’s nod a second before someone rocketed through the broken window. It wasn’t Anubis, but Christian Hubert, who landed on the floor beside Virgil. His eyes were wild with the same joy Virgil had seen in the Anubis chapel, right before everything went to hell.

  “Narrow focus leaves you vulnerable,” Christian said. “How many times—”

  Virgil let instinct take over; he spun and elbowed Christian in the jaw. Christian’s head snapped back, and he went down into the glass on the floor. Beyond Christian, he saw Eleanor and Margarite peering over the bed, the child’s eyes wide and wet. Virgil knew only one thing, that he had to get Christian out of this room, away from his niece, but Eleanor realized the same thing.

  “Four times, I think.” Eleanor jeered as she rose from the floor, answering Christian’s unfinished question. “But you’re still always one step behind, aren’t you?” The taunts worked. Christian leapt for Eleanor, scattering glass in his wake.

  Eleanor spun out of his grip, fleeing the room, which left Christian to follow. Virgil moved without thought, vaulting over the bed with every intention of following, but it was Margarite’s cry that drew him back, back to his niece who crawled into his arms, sobbing. Virgil pressed her close, praying Eleanor stayed one step ahead of Christian this time.

  At the base of the stairs, Eleanor listened. Where was Imogene? Where were Virgil’s parents? The house was strangely empty, and for that she was thankful as Christian’s boots thundered across the floor and down the stairs after her.

  She fled the house, refusing to allow Christian the opportunity to do any more damage there. She could hardly believe he had done what he had—especially with Margarite so close. Knowing Christian, he had watched the house, knew who was there. It made no sense, but then he was no longer the man Eleanor had known.

  There was nothing to be done for the footsteps left behind her, by which Christian would likely track her. She rounded the house, then plunged into the vineyard with its bare vines, letting her anger take her, letting it saturate her the way it had the night before.

  As she ran, she felt her human self as it was consumed by her fury. There was no less pain this time, and trying to prevent the change only resulted in more agony. She fell to the churned dirt path between the vines, crying and writhing as the jackal claimed her. Flesh already aching and bruised could do nothing but give way.

  And then she was running anew, on four legs rather than two, and appearing to make good time despite the number of times she stumbled, unaccustomed to this form of locomotion.

  Away. It was the one word in her head. Over and over, it repeated, like a chant, until it slowed, until she slowed and began to pick her way through the pruned vines. She found she could smell the enemy.

  In this form, scent was nearly overwhelming. She could smell the ground beneath her, rich even though the growing season was past. She could smell the vines themselves, woody and, where already pruned, slightly burned. But beyond the world itself, she could smell Enemy as he approached. There was something curious about his scent—perhaps only because she had never smelled him this way—strong and nearly as dark as the dirt beneath her. But it was a different soil he smelled of, one that was somehow familiar. Ireland? This made no sense, so she ignored trying to discern its meaning; she listened.

  “Eleanor, I wanted only to talk,” he called out. “I apologize for being so terribly abrupt. Of course I shall replace the window.”

  She crouched in the dirt, noting the way her paws blended in nicely with the color. She imagined herself invis
ible, and pressed her nose against her paws and stilled her tail, ears perking forward.

  “Cannot believe the little girl had the ring,” Enemy said.

  From the sound of his voice, he was a couple of rows over and approaching her position. She stayed where she was, the chain with its rings making a soft music when she lifted her head.

  “I wonder how long she had it.”

  The sound of Enemy moving through the vines reached her; he was pushing through a row, breaking the crisp vines, the smell of him closer now. He smelled like sweat and desperation, like a thing to be taken down and gnawed to death. Slowly. She felt her lip curl and had to fight to silence her growl.

  “Caroline mentioned France a time or two, but I brushed it off. She talked about so many different places, yet you ended up in Paris. Ended up here. Eleanor! I just want to talk.”

  She forced herself to stay where she was, nose pressed to paws, fighting the urge to leap on the approaching person. He sounded so close, so close, and she shut her eyes in an effort to get a better fix on him through scent alone. In the darkness behind her eyes, she saw a familiar face. Anubis reached for her, swift and sudden. The scent of dying flesh washed over her.

  A gunshot brought her back to this world—she jerked as if she had been hit, but it was Enemy who cried out, then fled toward the ship dock, past a body that lay on the ground, horribly still. A whine escaped her, and she fled the security of the vines, running for the body. Before she could see, she smelled him: Mate’s partner.

  “Eleanor!”

  She drew herself up short at the cry. The name was familiar to her, even in this form, and so too the voice. Mate loped toward her, his weapon held low at his side. When he reached her, he crouched down and she came to him, nuzzling the hand he extended to her. As Enemy had smelled different, so did Mate; he smelled like gunpowder, and it made her sneeze. Below that scent, there was only him, like myrrh.

  She pawed at him and looked again toward the still body. When Mate moved toward it, she followed, scanning the land around them for other threats, but everything looked still. At Partner’s side, she crouched. Her tail pressed into her back leg.

  “Not shot,” Mate said, tucking his own weapon away, hands roaming over the still body—and then Partner groaned.

  “Damn,” he muttered and lifted a hand to his head.

  “Come on then,” Mate said, easing the man up from the ground.

  Partner’s eyes swung toward her then, and she startled as his hand lowered. She took two steps to the side, out of his reach.

  “That,” Mate said, “would be Miss Folley.”

  “Damn,” Partner whispered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Imogene asked them to leave the vineyard, and Eleanor couldn’t fault her. She couldn’t get Margarite’s screams out of her head, couldn’t forget the way Christian had shot into the room, first with a bullet and then his body. She didn’t know what had happened to him, but he was no longer the man she had traveled with. The man she had once loved. Had his search for the rings changed him so drastically? Eleanor didn’t have to ask if her search had changed her, because she knew it had. But to the extent Christian had been changed? She didn’t know.

  Mallory managed to get her inside the house without anyone other than Auberon aware of the change that had overcome her. Once there, Eleanor cleaned herself up and set to packing. She tried to ignore the way her arms trembled and the way it felt extraordinary to walk on only two legs. How did Mallory deal with the changes? Did they become second nature the longer one endured them? She hoped she would have time to know, that he might teach her all he knew, even if his knowledge wasn’t complete. It was a place to start.

  When her things were packed, she came into the kitchen to find Mallory, Auberon, and Gin in hushed conversation at the table, maps spread before them. Their trunks sat nearby, and she added her own to the stack.

  “ . . . the issue of the final ring,” Gin was saying as she settled onto the bench beside Mallory.

  “We could destroy those we already possess,” Auberon said. He looked little worse for his encounter with Christian, more humiliated than injured, though the cast around his arm was smudged with dirt.

  All eyes swung to Eleanor at that suggestion. She withdrew the gold chain from her blouse, now heavy with three rings. After a moment’s pause, she pulled the chain off and spread the rings on the table.

  “For a long time,” she said, “I thought about destroying the scarab.” She touched the ring she had worn all these years. It was still warm from her body. “It seems the simplest way, but I can’t do it. The idea of destroying something as ancient as this goes beyond everything I was raised to believe.”

  She could remember asking Mallory what Mistral meant to do with the rings, and remembered him telling her they would be destroyed. In her panic and worry, destruction had appeared the easiest course, if not the correct one. Anything to keep them out of Irving’s hands or those even crueler.

  Was it something beyond her upbringing that stayed her hand even now? Could it be the influence of Anubis? Her encounter with Anubis should have deepened her desire to have the rings leave her possession, but it hadn’t; she wanted to slide those rings onto his fingers and watch him do his work. Had it been the same for her grandmother?

  Under the cover of the table, Mallory’s hand briefly clasped her thigh. “I don’t think I could do it, either,” he said.

  “I must admit to a strange desire,” Gin said. All eyes swung to him, and the pilot blushed straight down to the roots of his ginger hair. “To see the Glass open,” he continued. “To know if it can be done, or if it even exists at all. Don’t you wonder?”

  “Constantly,” Auberon said.

  “It exists,” Eleanor said and went on to speak about the day the Glass had opened for her mother. It was the first time she had spoken of it to the group as a whole, and it felt both awkward and freeing. “It looked like sunlight breaking through crystal, the way it fragments and spills. There was a voice, and a hand, both belonging to Anubis.” There were raised eyebrows at this, but no one spoke, waiting for Eleanor to finish. “If my father is right and my mother’s theory holds, we need more than the rings. We need me.”

  Mallory continued to weave the tale after Eleanor fell quiet, explaining Dalila’s theory: to open what the Folleys called the Glass, it required more than mere metal.

  “Egyptian blood,” Gin whispered, one thin hand reaching up to encircle his own neck.

  “I see only one solution,” Eleanor said as Mallory finished explaining what they knew from her father, “and none of you are going to like it. I meet with Christian and make him an offer—”

  “You cannot possibly—”

  “What kind of offer?”

  Auberon and Gin protested aloud, but Mallory held his silence, perhaps already having suspected this was coming.

  “What Christian did here was abhorrent.” Eleanor wanted to say more, but they already knew how terrible Christian’s actions were. Placing this family in jeopardy was inexcusable.

  “It only gets worse from here,” Mallory agreed. “Hubert becomes more careless. He could have easily injured or killed Margarite and that . . . ” Now it was Mallory struggling for calm. “Cannot happen. We need the carnelian ring, but he isn’t going to simply hand it over—even to you, Eleanor.”

  “And what’s to keep him from taking the rings we already have?” Gin asked.

  Eleanor unfastened the chain. “That’s why it’s smartest to separate me from them.” Christian was physically stronger than she, and Eleanor didn’t doubt that if he wanted to ambush her and take them, he would be able to. Long ago, his tactics wouldn’t have allowed such dirty play.

  She slid the lapis ring from the chain and offered it to Gin. He hesitated, as if taking it meant he might vanish in a puff of smoke. When he at last took it, Eleanor moved to the ring with the Anubis mark, offering it to Auberon. He hesitated to take the ring as well, rubbing his thumb over the
hieroglyphs on its surface when he finally did.

  To Mallory, Eleanor gave the final ring, the scarab she had worn so long. It felt strange for it to not be around her own neck, but right that if it had to be anywhere else, it was with Mallory. She fastened it around his neck, and he tucked it down his shirt, out of sight.

  “You aren’t going alone,” Mallory said, closing his hand around hers before she could fully withdraw.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

  Christian and the Remous didn’t prove difficult to find in the end, and Eleanor rather suspected that was his intent. As he had led them to Hatshepsut’s temple, he would make himself accessible for other hints, taunts, and bargains. As she and the agents rode into the small village which crouched along the banks of the Loire River to the east of Chateau Mallory, Eleanor found it strange to see the Remous anchored among the few other ships at the shipyard. The ship felt like a fragment of her past, something from a hundred years ago now unearthed and hanging for all to see.

  “You traveled in that thing?” Mallory asked as the carriage slowed to a halt some distance from the town proper.

  Eleanor grinned at him as she slipped out of the carriage. “In my reckless youth,” she said, then stepped quickly away from the agents, pretending she hadn’t been in the carriage at all. Christian might have eyes anywhere, and Eleanor wanted him to presume she had come alone even if the odds of that were slim.

  She moved up the street, with its gray buildings, toward the church standing at its end. Gin would see that the good Captain Hubert received her message, that she would await him in the church—an appropriate setting given their history of sanctified places, whether standing yet or in total ruin. If everything fell apart, it was also a setting that allowed her an easy escape.

  Easy being relative, she thought as she walked toward the church. If something in this mission had proven easy, it usually had proven wrong as well, which kept Eleanor’s guard up. Entering the thick stone walls gave her the sense of calm she always had inside a church. Her sense that she wasn’t alone and would never be was stronger these days. She walked up the aisle and chose a random pew well away from any other parishioners, settling in to wait. To, for once, pray.