Trickster’s Hunt

by Kel Carpenter

  “I- I’m fine.” I tried to sound confident and blasé. What came out was a breathy whisper that ignited something in his eyes. Before he could say a word, I cleared my throat. “Are we going to geek out in this museum, or are we going to stay jammed together in here?”

  There was a tense moment where none of them moved. I was caught in Silas’s intense gaze and could hear the other two breathing. My heart was thundering, my skin was sweating, and I felt my eyes closing. They were all so close. All so…

  “Okay, then. Let’s go.”

  As Silas spoke, Amos tightened his grip on my hand and Rhett patted my shoulder. Whatever had been happening, they appeared to have had little knowledge of it; the only proof of it having happened at all being my clammy skin and still racing pulse. I just wanted to get out of there before I said or did something embarrassing. Like told them to back up a few steps because they were making me horny.

  That would go down well after the previous night, and I’d look like a nymphomaniac if I told them I was ready to go again after my time that morning with Silas, I was sure.

  As we stepped out into the corridor, I heard the door close behind us and felt rather than saw Rhett’s presence on my other side. His hand brushed mine as we walked, and I kept my eyes trained on the back of Silas’s head. On his shoulders. On the muscles that moved as he walked.

  “Okay, so this person trying to kill me thing…”

  I didn’t really want to know. I just needed to get my mind off the hand holding mine, the hand brushing the other, and the body in front of me. “Any of you managed to guess at why?”

  “Nothing I would care to give voice to right now, no.” Rhett sounded tense. “Speculation would be of little help to us at this moment in time.”

  “I agree.” Amos gripped my hand a little tighter as we came to the lifts, turning me to face him. “We should deal only in facts.”

  Silas tapped the button and looked around us before looking over his shoulder at me. “Whoever it is will reveal themselves, Maia. When they do, they’ll discover who we are.”

  The underlying threat in his tone sent a thrill through my body that was entirely unexpected. If the two at my sides felt me shudder, they didn’t say. Silas faced the lift doors as they slid open and the four of us stepped inside.

  Mistake.

  Now, maybe I’d suffered some sort of brain damage from being under water so long. Or, most likely, I’d seen too many bad porno films, but we were back to being crammed in a tight space and I wasn’t sure my blood pressure was up to the stress. I dropped Amos’s hand and stepped toward the control panel on the wall, jabbing at the button marked G.

  “Claustrophobic, Maia?”

  There was a definite challenge in Rhett’s tone. Had he realised?

  I wasn’t playing. Looking over my shoulder I caught his eye. “With you three? Yeah, a bit. You’re a bit intimidating in small spaces, you know?”

  He glanced to Silas, who looked at Amos, and the three of them backed up a step, looking uncomfortable crushed against the rear mirrored wall. I turned around and faced the doors, willing the lift to move faster so I could get out and breathe.

  They opened, and I moved quickly, putting some distance between me and the three imposing men at my back.

  No, not men.

  Djinn. Genies. Magical fucking beings who could grant wishes and who had my pulse racing just by looking at me.

  I needed help. Psychiatric help, obviously.

  “Is everything alright, Miss Reeves?”

  I stopped dead, turning my head to the reception desk. Despite being a bit of a bitch to him, Adam’s bit of stuff was on his feet and looking at me with no small amount of concern.

  “Yeah. Why…”

  I looked back at the three behind me. They stopped. Rhett on the left, Silas on the right, and Amos between. None of them particularly small in stature. None of them very friendly looking as they glared at the poor desk clerk. All of them looking like they were following me. They were, obviously, but it seemed conclusions were jumped to far too readily.

  I gave him a slow wink and looked back at the three with a grin plastered on my face. “Yeah, they’re friends of mine. We’re just going out for sustenance before we get back to it. Adam should be back soon, too. See you later.”

  Amos chuckled at my back. He got it.

  I breezed out of the hotel with my friends behind me, not bothering to check to see what colour the desk boy had turned.

  Out in the street, someone grabbed my wrist and spun to face him.

  Silas, obviously.

  “Who, exactly, is Adam?”

  I looked down at my wrist then back at his face. There he was again. Obnoxious prick. “Addie? Adam? The man I came here with. I told you he was back at nine tonight.”

  Rhett coughed, and Silas released my hand. “Where is he now?”

  Not one for being spoken to like that by anyone, least of all someone I barely knew that seemed to be laying some sort of claim on me, I told him the truth, omitting a detail he didn’t deserve to know at the moment. “He went back to our home to care for our pet dog. What’s it to you?”

  He looked furious. “You have a man?”

  “Again, what’s it to you?” My hands were on my hips and my neck was doing some weird wiggling thing, but I didn’t care. He was being a prick.

  They’d latched on to me.

  They’d stalked me.

  They’d let themselves into my hotel room, and I thought I’d been extremely understanding considering everything that had happened to me over that week. Someone was trying to kill me, for fuck’s sake. I know I was doing a bloody good job of hiding it, but my nerves were shot to shit. The only thing holding me together was bravado and libido.

  He lowered his voice and leaned in. “Your behaviour suggested you were single.”

  “My—”

  Had he just called me a slag?

  I should have stuck with Adam’s idea of online dating. You don’t get any of this shit. You get laid, tell them to fuck off, and they go.

  I turned and walked away as angrily as I could in flip flops, leaving the three of them standing in front of the hotel.

  Fuck him.

  And them.

  And their magic and their food and their fucking cat.

  I stomped off in my huff, not bothering to look behind to see if they were following and not caring if whoever was trying to kill me was lining up to take another shot. Twenty minutes and several miniscule stones in the sole of my left foot later, I found myself standing outside the British Museum.

  I was still pissed off.

  A glance back told me they were still behind me. Amos looked pissed off. Rhett was, apparently indifferent, and Silas was scowling at me.

  I passed the barrier and approached the building, ignoring the architecture of the place and the hundreds of tourists around me. I marched straight up the stone steps and passed the Greek revival frontage of the place with my head down. It deserved a glance, at least, but I was in no mood. I was there to look at the Egyptology exhibition and sod all else. I was forced to stop to buy a ticket, and it was then that I realised I’d left my bag at the hotel.

  Pushy blokes.

  No thought to us needing money to get in. Just escorted out of the building and bugger real life. I hoped one of them had money to get us inside.

  Amos arrived at my side as I stood clenching my jaw in frustration. He walked past me and said quietly, “I have.” Then stepped up to the kiosk and said clearly, “Four adults, please.”

  Rhett stepped between us. “Maia, please. I understand that you are upset, but now is not the time for outbursts of emotion. We have research to do and our enemy is still watching. We must display a united front until we can be certain of your safety.”

  Prick. He was right. Seemed that one was always fucking right.

  I looked back down at the map. “It’s down here.”

  I passed through the atrium with the three of them on my heels
. The flip flop sound of my footwear following me through the airy space was pissing me off even more. I should have been awed. I should have been gazing up at the domed ceiling and saying wow, but as it was, I kept to the left and moved into the wing that housed what I needed.

  The exhibition opened before me and I scanned the display cases. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”

  I’d said it more to myself, but Silas was behind me and answered, “Just look for something familiar.”

  I turned and glared at him. “Familiar. Yeah. Because I’ve spent a lot of time kicking around ancient fucking Egypt, Silas.”

  He stepped forward, shoulders back. I assumed he was trying to intimidate me, and I looked up at him in defiance. “Really?”

  “You should calm down, Maia.”

  “You should both cool off.” Rhett stepped to my side and placed his arm around my waist and I instantly side-stepped, walking away from them all.

  I didn’t bother to see where they went, turning my attention to the various carvings and statues in the cases, and moving further into the exhibit.

  It all looked the same.

  Look for something familiar. Fucking idiot.

  I know it was my idea to go there, but the cat seemed to think it was somewhere worth a visit. That I was taking advice from a cat was worrying.

  That I could tell, or at least thought I could tell, what the images etched into the massive stone tablets on the wall in front of me said I was insane.

  Everything about that week had been completely fucked up, and somehow, I’d been the one to suggest an educational trip to a museum. If my fans knew half of what I’d seen and done that week, they’d never watch another of my vlogs again. I was obviously having some sort of psychological break.

  I kept looking. The sooner I had an answer, the sooner I could shake that mad trio off.

  22

  The bright lights within the display case showed up the intricate etchings on the ancient paper, and I looked at it with my mouth open.

  The woman in the image was on her knees, arms outstretched. Feathers hung from her arms, a single feather attached to her left wrist. Something that looked like a cross between a feather and a reed was attached to a simple head band that held back her long hair. There were many hieroglyphs around her image, a weird looking crook, an ankh, something that looked like an open padlock…too many to list. The longer I looked, the more sense they made as that weird hallucinogenic ability to read them kicked in.

  I wondered how they hadn’t worked this out. They said Rhett had done the research, yet he’d missed this woman.

  I stepped to the right and looked at another image. This was more of a crude carving on a slab of stone, the woman far less defined, but it was definitely her. This seemed much more familiar. She was in a different pose, her feathered arms held out before her, pointing at what looked like a set of scales holding a circular object and another feather. They were perfectly balanced, but the items depicted couldn’t possibly have evened out.

  My eyes fixed on the headdress she was wearing. I had seen that image before.

  “Amos.”

  He was at my side in a second, his eyes scanning my face. “What have you found?”

  “Turn around, lift your shirt.”

  He didn’t move, looking at me like I was some sort of sex pest, so I stepped around him and pushed up his shirt myself. The fabric bunched around his neck as I forced it as high as it would go, exposing his tattoo. Careful not to touch it, I looked from it to the carving and back.

  The headdress.

  I kept his shirt pushed up. “Look at her. Familiar?”

  “Silas. Rhett.”

  The four of us crowded around the display, all looking at the carving. Rhett broke our silence. “Yes, I know. Ma’at.”

  “Who? What do you mean you already knew?”

  “She was the goddess of harmony, to put it simply. Truth and justice, morality, and law. She was the opposite of chaos and evil, injustice, and violence. Without her, there was no balance.”

  Rhett spoke quietly, not looking at the carving, but at me. The others looked at me, Amos turning to face me, and I released his shirt.

  “But you already knew these things matched?”

  They stared. I shrank away but was halted by the display case. “What?”

  None of us noticed the shift until I tried to move away again and felt my foot slip. It shouldn’t have. The ground beneath my feet was solid flagstone. Or it had been.

  That was when I became aware of the heat. And the change in the light.

  Looking down, I saw the flagstones were gone, my feet no longer on firm ground, but on sand. I looked around and saw nothing but sand for miles and miles.

  “What’s happening? Where the fuck are we?”

  “Not on your plane…” Silas growled, stepping in front of me. The other two moved to stand at my back.

  I turned on him. “What? What the fuck does that mean?”

  It was Rhett who answered. “There is another plane, according to the texts. Like another dimension, if that makes sense. This is between the plane of the living, and that of the dead.”

  “How do you know that? What texts?” Talking in riddles was sure to piss me off.

  Amos leaned closer to me, his chin almost on my shoulder. “We just know. We can’t explain.”

  “Whose magic is this?” Silas sounded angry.

  “I want to go home…”

  My pitiful whine caught Silas’s attention and he turned to face me. “Whoever brought us here has taken steps to ensure we can’t leave. I tried immediately. We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  “Would that you could stop me.”

  My stomach clenched at the sound of the deep voice and I honestly thought I was going to piss myself. Whoever that was wasn’t friendly, and I didn’t dare look up to see who it was, so I squeezed my eyes shut and tucked my chin into my chest.

  “Ma’at, face me.”

  I opened my eyes and saw three pairs of feet. No longer wearing the comfortable leather shoes of my world, they wore armoured leather boots covered with gold and gem encrusted plates, and long red linen pants. Lifting my chin, I looked from one to the other and saw their top halves were covered in a similar material, loose but somehow tailored, and their arms were protected by gold vambraces decorated with gems that coordinated with their individual colours. Silas in red, Amos in purple, and Rhett in blue.

  Oddly, I could tell them apart from their body shape. They held cruelly sharpened Khopesh in each hand, and I noticed they had those weird bent bladed knives at their belts. The belts matched the vambraces and leg plates, and as my eyes travelled up, I noticed their faces were covered by protective gold masks. To complete the look, they had hoods pulled over their heads, masking their features.

  Silas stood in front of me, weapons angled. Despite the flowing fabric that covered his body, I could tell he was poised to attack. The man was a predator, his stance confirmed it without me seeing him use those evil looking swords, and he was positioned to protect me.

  Stepping to the side, I looked up at the person who had brought us there.

  His angular face was captivating. He appeared to be no older than twenty-five, until I met his eyes. His eyes, framed by thick brows that were pulled into an angry frown, were as old as time itself.

  They saw everything.

  They saw me, every flaw, every wrongdoing, every hope and every dream.

  Hair in thick dreadlocks, bare-chested and body so perfectly sculpted he looked airbrushed, he stood motionless on a dune to our right. His wrists and ankles were encased in gold rings, and he wore a sort of white linen skirt accentuated by green and yellow belts.

  He held no weapons. Maybe he wasn’t there to attack us? The guys seemed to think he was, though. Amos stepped to my left side. Rhett stayed behind, taking a step closer and squeezed my shoulder.

  I forced myself to face him. “My name is Maia. Not Ma’at. Who are you, and what
the fuck am I doing in a desert?”

  He descended the dune in a controlled slide, almost surfing down the thing, a grin on his face. “You still do not know?”

  I rolled my eyes. I don’t like riddles. I don’t much like being kidnapped or whatever this was, either. Stupid prick.

  “Obviously not. Who are you?”

  Without a word his head altered. His defined muscles bunched, his shoulders becoming scaled. His face elongated, and I glared as his now long snout grew large defined teeth. In seconds, he had gone from handsome god-like person to half-man, half-crocodile, and I felt my body tense up.

  “Sobek.”

  Rhett named him. I had no idea who that was, or what his name meant, but the other two crouched before me, swords angled, as though they were about to attack.

  Despite the clear danger, something inside of me snapped. I don’t know if it was the way the three of them had stepped in to defend me against the weird man-reptile, even after I’d spent the last hour hating their guts, or something else, but I felt myself getting angry.

  He was threatening them. Us. Why?

  What the fuck had we done to him?

  “Alright then, Connors. Explain. Who the fuck are you, who is Ma’at, and why do you think I’m her?”

  His voice hadn’t changed even though he had a massive crocodile head. He opened his huge mouth, the gleaming rows of menacing teeth glinting in the bright desert sun, and he laughed at me. “Have you no idea? Have none of you the intellect to decipher who you are? I clearly chose my side well. Since you have little idea, it will not pain you to understand the consequences of your death. I suppose that much is a blessing on your part.”

  “You will not touch her.”

  I flinched at the menace in Amos’s voice. He had always been so… kind. But hearing him then, the anger, the threat, I looked at him and wondered just who he really was.

  Croc-face laughed again. “Will you protect her, Justice? You did little to help her when she sealed your fates. Does she deserve your unwavering dedication after the suffering she has caused you?”

  “She did nothing to us, Sobek. Whoever incarcerated us did so to meet their own ends. It was not her doing.”