In her mind she pictured that odd lion’s-claw tattoo that Jade tried to hide. She’d written home about it, glossing over the details. Some sort of native tribute for killing a troublesome hyena, but Inez knew there was more to the story than that. What bothered her most was the fact that she had to read about it in an overdramatized, romantic novel by the wife of a coffee farmer who had been on the expedition with Jade. No, there was definitely more to her daughter than what Jade cared to tell, and that hurt. The fact that it hurt surprised Inez. She missed her daughter. She wanted to be close to her. Instead, Jade had a secret life. Just like I did at the Gypsy camps.
A man coming from the opposite direction passed them, a flaming torch in his hand to light the way. The scent of smoke, grease, and burning wood hung heavy in his wake. In an instant a vivid memory flashed into Inez’s brain like a living scene, overwhelming the present as it imposed faces, sounds, and scents from the past.
All around her, men sang and played fierce flamenco-style songs on old guitars while women beat tambourines and danced in a whirl of vibrant colors. Inez had danced with them, flipping her skirts, flashing her legs, and pounding her booted feet. When it was over, she collapsed by the fire, laughing. She saw the old Gypsy woman’s wrinkled face and gap-toothed smile inches from her own face as the woman conjured up her predictions from the campfire. Freedom is a wild horse. Once you catch it and corral it, it is no longer free. You will lose yourself, my child, and find yourself again in a far land where houses rise from the living clay.
Inez staggered under the memory’s weight, and Bachir hurried back to her, respectfully supporting her around the shoulders to keep her from sinking. She gratefully gave in to his help as she took a deep breath and rallied herself.
He pointed behind them to the darkened ruin of the old palace. “El Badi,” he said. “Jinni.” He pointed from the ruins to Inez as if to suggest the jinni were responsible for her present weakness.
“I’m all right,” she said, waving a hand to indicate nothing was physically wrong. She stood up straight and stared at the red buildings around her, seeing them as if for the first time. Inez always thought her home in New Mexico close to the Taos pueblos fulfilled that Gypsy’s prediction, especially when she “found” herself there as a mother with responsibilities. Now she knew the truth. She’d corralled herself in a self-imposed prison of propriety for all those years. These houses, manufactured in the same manner, were what the old Gypsy meant. This, not the United States, was the far land where she’d “find herself,” not physically but emotionally.
Bachir waited a moment while she composed herself, glancing nervously back into the dark at the ruins. Inez watched him put out his open palm, the sign against the evil eye, for protection. Once she felt in control of her legs, she smiled and nodded for him to proceed.
Jade almost felt sorry for the guard as they shoved him into the empty little room. This was the third time she’d humiliated him; the first when she escaped from the cellar, the second when she’d scratched him with the fibula by the old tomb, and now. Maybe this last time hurt less, knowing she’d needed the help of a man and a gun to get him. Probably not. It certainly wouldn’t bode well for him if Bennington found him like this, but she planned to solve that dilemma by taking care of Bennington herself.
After they bound his ankles behind him to his wrists, Jade checked the floor for broken tiles. She pushed into a far corner anything that might be usable to cut his bonds loose. They had no sooner shut the door and drawn the bolt when they heard the front door open.
“The last killing went too far, I tell you.”
Jade recognized de Portillo’s voice even as she and Sam scurried to the safety of the back room.
“You worry too much, Patrido,” said another voice, barely audible in its half-hushed tone. Jade knew it for Bennington’s. “The girl needed to die. She knew too much. Besides, it will be blamed on the two del Cameron women, as will the death of the man I had left in the Azilah tunnels. Not that it matters. By now the young bitch should be on her way to Timbuktu or some Arab sheik’s harem.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t kill her when you had the chance,” said de Portillo.
“Fool. If the French found her body, they would start to look elsewhere for a killer, which means us. As long as she is alive and presumed on the run, she’s the main suspect and no one will watch you. Besides,” Bennington added, “she needs to suffer for a very long time.”
“Just so you know what you are doing. But I still do not like it. I did not buy into murder.”
“Are you thinking of running out on me now, Patrido?” The voice took on a new note of menace, emphasized by the soft, threatening tone. “I would not suggest that at all. Not if you wish to live.”
The voices came closer as the two speakers passed through the courtyard.
“Damn,” said Bennington in a stronger voice, one that made the soft whisper seem more like a facade. “Where is that fool guard?”
“Probably sleeping,” said de Portillo. “Maybe downstairs guarding our new prisoner.”
Jade’s attention went to full alert at that last statement. Who did they have in the cellar now? It sure as hell better not be Mother again. She stopped herself when she realized that was impossible. She’d left her mother with Bachir, the Kennicots, and Mr. Tremaine back at the hospital.
“How much longer until the shipment is ready?” asked de Portillo. “It is getting dangerous to remain here.”
“Tomorrow,” said Bennington. “After that fool Wahab talked to del Cameron, I encouraged him to speed up his work.” Bennington laughed. “He didn’t need those two toes to stitch leather, anyway. Come on, let’s visit our friend Mohan and convince him to show me where he hid that amulet.”
“I fail to see your interest in that silver trinket. You can buy them everywhere,” said de Portillo.
“This one is ancient, dating from the founding of Carthage. It will be worth a small fortune to the right collector. Besides, I am very intrigued by the legends surrounding it. It is said to be a thing of power.”
“Then you go,” said de Portillo. “I’m staying here to watch over my bags since that fool guard isn’t doing his job.”
Jade heard de Portillo cross the courtyard to the old bathing room where the bags were stored, while Bennington headed to the front to gain access to the cellar. As soon as they were both out of earshot, she turned to Sam. “You take care of de Portillo. Don’t let him get away. Lock him in there, shoot him, whatever.”
“Let me guess, Jade. You’re planning on taking on Bennington yourself. Why? Once he’s in the cellar, we can lock him in there with that Mohan fellow. We’d have them all in one tidy package.”
“I need to follow Bennington and get that amulet back, Sam. Mohan’s the only one who knows where it is.”
“So we get Mohan out when we lock up Bennington,” Sam argued. “He’ll probably be so grateful to be free he’d take you right to it.”
Jade shook her head. “I doubt I’d be able to convince him to reveal his new hiding place as well as Bennington can. I intend to follow them.”
If Sam wanted to argue the foolishness of her scheme some more, he lost his chance as Bennington and Mohan came back up the steps.
“Remember,” Bennington said, “give me this rare amulet and you’ll live. Lead me on a wild goose chase and you’ll die slowly and very painfully.” Their footsteps died out as they wended around the entryway’s turns towards the door.
Jade faced Sam and claimed his mouth in one brief but smoldering kiss. “Wait for me,” she said as she released him and raced down the courtyard to the door.
“Jade,” Sam hissed after her, trying his best not to alert de Portillo, but he was too late. The Spaniard had heard the extra pair of feet in the courtyard and hurried out of the storeroom.
“Is that you, Hassan? Where the devil have you been?” yelled de Portillo.
“Hiding,” said Sam as he raced up behind de Portillo and l
anded a solid punch to his temple.
Bachir pulled Inez back into a darkened side street as Mohan’s pleas alerted them to the approaching danger. Mohan spoke French, so she couldn’t make out the words but thought he said something about a body. Behind her, she heard Bachir’s sudden intake of breath, followed by a whispered repetition of Mohan’s words.
“El Badi,” Bachir hissed.
Oh, thought Inez. So that’s what he said. Inez waited for Mohan and whoever was with him to pass, eyes alert and muscles tensed for flight or fight. As soon as the whimpering Berber stumbled by, Bennington right behind him, Inez felt her ire rise and her fists clench. That man had used her and imprisoned her daughter, and no one did that to a del Cameron. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of following Bennington and capturing him herself. That idea vanished with the sight of her daughter skulking past her in the shadows, tailing the others.
And just where is Mr. Featherstone? Inez reverted to the role of protective mother. Then she remembered that de Portillo was part of this smuggling group, as well. If Jade and Sam had arrived at the house together, and Sam now stayed behind, it must be because he was either dealing with de Portillo or lying in wait for him. Either way, he probably needed assistance. She turned to Bachir and pointed to him. “Sam Featherstone,” she said, and then motioned up the street where they had been heading. She next pointed to herself, then back down the street where Jade had gone. “Jade. El Badi.”
Bachir stubbornly refused with a firm shake of his head and his arms folded across his chest. He pointed to himself, then to Inez to show he intended to stay with her. He hadn’t counted on the imperial nature of Doña Inez Maria Isabella de Vincente del Cameron.
Inez straightened to her full height, chin raised. Despite her tattered clothes and sooty face, she looked every inch a queen, or in this case, a descendent of the first kahina. She shooshed him with both hands and, without another word of argument, turned and followed her daughter, leaving Bachir to find Sam.
Jade tailed Bennington and Mohan, at times relying more on sound than on sight. After the first turns out of their immediate alleyways, Mohan stuck to the lamplit street. Jade knew she’d be more easily spotted if Bennington turned around to look behind him. That meant staying farther back and hugging the walls. Twice she flattened herself into an entryway, her back pressed so tightly against the door that if anyone had opened the portal from inside, she’d have fallen backward.
Once she felt she was being followed, but couldn’t see anyone. Since her left knee didn’t ache, she brushed it off as an overactive imagination or more likely Sam and continued on. Wherever Mohan was going, it was not back to the old tomb. It was only when she saw the El Badi Palace ruins that she knew where he’d rehidden the amulet.
El Badi’s broken shell loomed ahead, the wall around it visible only as a black emptiness in the distant light from the torches scattered along the street intersections. From this distance the walls were apparent by the absence of anything else. To the east, north, or west, the eye sought out and found dim streets; here the impression of a doorway, there a rooftop with stars overhead. To the south loomed nothing but unbroken wall, an empty black space, and where there were gaps, more black wall beyond. Only the stars flickering above let the eye know when the wall ended and the sky began.
By day, the old palace was more a corpse than a building; the few shreds of majesty it wore were more mocking than grand, like a tarnished imperial ring on a desiccated mummy. By night the flickering torchlights transformed this sleeping corpse of a ruin into the waking dead, as sandy red walls became black like old, smeared blood that flowed with every shimmy of the torch’s fire. Every shadow jiggled as though alive, rendering the ancient palace truly frightening.
The mass of rubble and rock proved itself alive to the ear, as well. Scurrying and scratching came from above, the more fearful noises rolled up from below as it settled into itself. Hollow echoes like that of decomposition erupted from the bowels of underground passages. Something fluttered from an upper corner nook. A restless stork? An owl? A jinn?
Jade watched from the nearest corner as Bennington prodded Mohan with a gun and muttered threats around the old rampart and forward into the ruins. Still Mohan held back, clutching his own protective talisman. He seemed to be weighing the danger of torture from Bennington against that of a jinn angered at losing its treasure. You could dig up treasure during the day if you had salt and iron to protect yourself, but not at night when the jinni were awake. She heard a painful outcry, quickly stifled. Then the pair, like the cry, were swallowed up inside El Badi. Jade followed.
Once they were inside, not even the city’s torches assisted them, and the last sliver of moon wouldn’t rise until after two a.m. Only a myriad of stars lent illumination. Anyone without the reflective eyes of nocturnal animals was out of luck. Jade fingered her flashlight, tempted to switch it on and muffle the light under a shirttail, but in this blackness even that would be a dead giveaway to Bennington. Luckily Bennington also carried a flashlight in his left hand and turned it on. Something small rustled in the weeds as the beam swept across it. Higher up in the walls, two large round eyes glowed back at them. They blinked independently, then disappeared as the disturbed owl took off.
“Where is it?” hissed Bennington. “I’m losing patience with you.”
“We should wait until daylight,” Mohan said, his voice tremulous with fear. “It is too dangerous at night. I have no salt or iron with me.”
Bennington’s right hand waved a tiny revolver, a Derringer. “I have plenty of iron here as well as lead. And there’s more iron hanging from my belt. But it’s not the jinni that will taste it if you don’t give me that amulet.”
“It is not for you,” protested Mohan. “I promised the dark lady. She will be angry.”
“You have no idea how angry,” agreed Bennington with a chuckle. “Which is why you should give it to me now. I promise she’ll get it.”
Still Mohan stalled. “It’s too hard to see. I might miss the spot.”
Bennington shoved the flashlight in Mohan’s hands. “Move!” he commanded. “You’re too much of a coward here to have gone very far even during the daytime. So I know it’s close.” Jade heard a click as Bennington pulled back the hammer on the Derringer. “Find it.”
Mohan moved up against the wall by the old entrance and followed it, counting paces aloud. Then, having identified which corridor to take, he turned left and walked through a pavilion and entered what was once an opulent courtyard of sunken gardens and pools. Jade crept up to the side of them, waiting for Mohan’s next move. Rather than proceed farther into the courtyard, he stopped and strained his eyes in the blackness, looking for a landmark.
Bennington obliged by sweeping the area with the flashlight. Jade dropped and lay flat on the ground behind a long untended shrub and waited until the beam passed overhead. Then she peeked through the weeds.
The Berber apparently recognized a spot, for he went to a chunk of fallen pisé near one of the smaller pools. He stopped only fifteen yards from Jade’s hiding place. Bennington followed and stood close behind him. Mohan dropped to his knees and rolled the chunk aside, then dug with one hand, the other still clutching his own amulet. Jade caught snatches of words, but whether they were incantations or pleas, she couldn’t tell. Soon the glint of silver winked back from Bennington’s light. Mohan had unearthed the talisman, the silver box carried by his tribe’s kahina since the days when Carthage was founded. From one of the near walls, a Little Owl sounded its questioning kee-uk from the opposite wall.
“The jinni are angry,” wailed Mohan.
In a flash, Jade’s dream returned to her: the stone walls, the talisman in the earth—it pointed to this ruin. It was the remainder of the dream that terrified her now. She’d seen the talisman replaced by the withered body of a man. My stars! He’ll kill Mohan! With this thought came another, more fleeting recollection. In the dream, it was a female form that made the man wither. The ide
a tickled at Jade’s subconscious.
There was no time to spend on the second thought. Mohan’s life was at stake. Time to end this once and for all. Jade drew the Arab guard’s flintlock pistol and took a bead on Bennington’s right hand, the one holding the pistol. Jade’s other hand held her flashlight, her finger poised to switch it on. She counted on Bennington’s attention being focused on the amulet. She hadn’t reckoned on what came next.
As soon as Mohan picked up the amulet and stood, Bennington pulled the knife from its sheath and rammed it into Mohan’s chest. The Berber dropped to his knees, the light falling from his left hand. His right hand still gripped the amulet as he clutched his chest in disbelief.
That’s when Jade turned on her light. Bennington wheeled around and squinted against the beam just as Jade fired.
CHAPTER 26
Sultan Ahmed al Mansour ed-Dahbi built the El Badi palace in the late 1500s,
using gold and onyx in unheard-of quantities and trading the country’s sugar
for marble. He asked a visionary at one of his banquets what the man thought
of his magnificent home. The visionary replied that it would make a
big pile of earth when it was demolished. It did.
—The Traveler
AS SOON AS SAM LANDED THE PUNCH, he knew it wasn’t enough. De Portillo reeled under the blow, but didn’t fall. Sam stepped up and aimed a left for the jaw, but de Portillo twisted away and escaped with only a glancing blow across his left cheek. Sam’s immediate jab with his right, however, landed squarely on de Portillo’s nose.
The Serpent's Daughter Page 27
