Anubis Nights (12 page)

“That was fun,” she said. “Is there anyone else I can hit?”

Ankhesenamun rose from her chair and approached Kelly. “I have never seen anyone move so fast,” Ankhesenamun said. “You are truly amazing.”

Kelly gave her a quick bow. “Thank you.”

Tut rose from his chair and walked over to us. “She bested ten of your men, Horemheb.”

“She had the advantage of surprise.”

Tut laughed. “Oh, yes, I think she surprised them. She surprised all of us.”

Horemheb glared at me. “You knew she could do that.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” I said, though I realized as I said it that the translation wouldn’t make any sense to them. “Why do you think I suggested it? She didn’t hurt any of them. Look, they’re already getting up and dusting themselves off. If I’d faced them, I’d have killed them.”

“You think you’re a better fighter than your wife?”

I shook my head. “On the contrary. I don’t think anyone is a better fighter than my wife.”

“You admit that she could defeat you?”

“She won’t defeat me because we’re on the same side. You should choose your friends and enemies carefully.”

“The demonstration is not over,” Aye said and pointed at me. “You have yet to be tested.”

“You tried that yesterday. Today you merely test my patience.”

Tut smiled. “He wants the help of his magicians. If your magic is as strong as I believe, this will not pose a threat to you. Allow him his games; then we shall race chariots.”

Damn it. If I declined now, I’d be going against the wishes of the king, and they might kill me. I bowed my head to the king. “As you wish.”

Aye approached me. He pointed to five bald men in white linen kilts who each held a tall wooden staff. They nodded and walked over to us.

“This is just a demonstration,” I said as everyone else including Kelly moved off to the side to watch. “I will allow you to launch your magical attacks. Try to take my energy or try to overpower me with your energy. I have only one request since I must face six of you.”

“What is your request?” Aye asked.

“Your attacks must be aimed at me directly. If you throw staffs that turn into cobras that try to strike me or anything like that, I will kill you. You may cast as much energy directly at me as you wish, but with six of you, I will need my focus there. An indirect attack will distract me, and while it won’t hurt me, that distraction will bring my thunder as an automatic reaction. My thunder will injure or kill. I do not wish to harm any of you, and as long as you abide by my request, I will not attack you even though you are attacking me. Is that understood?”

“In war, you cannot set conditions,” one of the magicians said. “We do not fear your thunder.”

I smiled at him. “Yet.” Keeping my voice matter-of-fact, I added, “Aside from that, I will repeat that this is a demonstration and not a war. If this were war, I’d have already killed you.”

He didn’t look happy with my response, but I had already dismissed him, so I kept my gaze elsewhere.

Kelly walked over.

I leaned toward her. “You remember the story of Moses in Exodus?” I asked.

“If that’s a true story, it hasn’t happened yet,” she said.

“I suspect it’s mostly bullshit, but as I recall, the pharaoh’s magicians matched Moses trick for trick with staffs turning into snakes and such.”

“I think I know where you’re going with that. I’ll keep an eye on them,” she whispered. “If they try to surprise you with snakes or throwing things, I’ll warn you via the clock face.”

“I’m counting on that.” I knew they’d try something. Wizards are always assholes. I wished Esther were here. She would be able to warn me much easier than Kelly.

The magicians spread out so they could all aim in at me. I turned around to look each magician in the eyes. Wizards hate that. Then I addressed the audience. “If things get out of hand, take cover. I promise that if I call on my thunder, I will only kill magicians.”

I saw Tut grin at that, and I suspected he wasn’t a big fan of Aye either. Maybe he’d caught the son of a bitch drooling over his wife.

With the ground rules set, I stood in the center of the circle with one hand on the butt of my Glock. I faced Aye and I pointed at him so Kelly would know he was my twelve on the clock face. I knew he wouldn’t try the indirect attack because wizards are pussies and prefer to cheat when they don’t think you’ll see them. I had magicians at two, four, six, eight, and ten o’clock in addition to Aye at twelve.

The magicians launched their direct attacks. The magic washed over me harmlessly.

“You may begin whenever you’re ready,” I said because I knew it would piss them off.

I could see ten and two o’clock in my peripheral vision. They aimed their staffs at me, and I could see the energy flowing through them and flying at me. I feigned a yawn, again to piss them off. Wizards don’t have exclusive rights to being assholes.

The indirect attack probably wouldn’t come from six o’clock because that would be too obvious, so I expected it from four or eight. I expected them to go with a cobra because by saying it, I’d put it in their minds. It wouldn’t be long, so I kept my ears open to Kelly’s voice and ignored everything else.

“Eight!” Kelly yelled.

I drew my Glock as I spun. A staff flew toward me and started writhing in the air as it shifted into a snake. It didn’t look like a cobra, so I suspected it was an asp. I did a shoulder roll toward six o’clock so the snake would land away from me, and I fired three shots into the magician at eight o’clock. Two of the shots hit him center mass, and the third was a headshot. He collapsed to the sand.

The sound of the gunshots scared the hell out of the audience. I turned to look for the snake, but once the magician died, the snake transformed back to a wooden staff.

The other magicians broke off their attacks and rushed to the side of their fallen comrade.

“He’s dead,” one of them said.

“I warned you that I’d kill anyone who made an indirect attack.”

Aye glared at me. “Your magic may be powerful, but you are not invincible.”

“News flash, genius. Nobody is invincible.” As I spoke, I walked up to him and stared deep into his eyes. “That includes you.”

While I doubt he understood the term news flash, the rest of it clearly translated well enough. He held my gaze, trying to look unimpressed, but I could see sweat on his brow. I gave him a smile and turned away as if he meant nothing to me.

I retrieved my spent casings because I didn’t want some Egyptologist to dig them up in a few thousand years and have to try to explain them away. I knew I should take the bullets as well, but I didn’t want to go digging around in the skull, or in the bloody mess that used to be the magician’s chest.

Horemheb grabbed a composite bow and nocked an arrow, aiming at me.

“Horemheb, no!” King Tut said.

Horemheb kept the weapon drawn. The bowstring quivered but I also saw Kelly poised to leap in front of me if he let the arrow fly.

“Lower the bow,” Tut said.

Horemheb hesitated. “He killed one of your magicians.”

“After giving fair warning,” Tut said. “This was to be a demonstration, not an execution.”

“These two are not gods.”

“We never claimed to be,” I said as I pointed the Glock at the general. “Lower that bow or I’ll call on my thunder to strike you down.”

Tut glared at Horemheb. “If you do not lower the bow, I will send you to the quarries. I will not say this again.”

Aye rushed over to Tut, his face red and his eyes blazing with fury. “My king, this man should die for what he’s done.”

Tut laughed. “I have more magicians, but none of them can call upon thunder to slay an enemy.”

“We should kill him before he kills us.”

“We should enjoy the rest of the day.”

Horemheb shook his head but finally lowered the bow. I holstered the Glock and gave him a nod.

Tut addressed a few of his men. “Handle the body of the magician, and we shall convene here later for a chariot race.” Tut nodded toward me. “You and your wife shall participate.”

I’d never been in a chariot, and I doubted Kelly had either, but as I’d just killed one of his magicians, I didn’t think saying no was an option, so I said, “We would be honored.”

Aye fumed and stormed off.

Kelly moved over to stand beside me. “Maybe you should read a Dale Carnegie book when we get back.”

“What do you mean? Tut just invited us to a race.”

“Not him. Aye and Horemheb.”

“Oh, come on, Kelly. Tut is cool with it, so I’m not worried about those idiots.”

“Well, if I remember my Egyptian history correctly, both Aye and Horemheb become pharaohs after Tutankhamun.”

“Good for them but if you’re okay to travel, we’re leaving tomorrow anyway. Our guy isn’t in Thebes, so we shouldn’t be here either. We’ll go along for this chariot race this afternoon, enjoy some dinner, catch some sleep, and head out early in the morning.”

RAYNA NOBLE

Rayna got an early start the next morning, ending up at the New York office of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, staring at a logo with an image of an eye and the motto
We Never Sleep
emblazoned beneath it. She entered the building and moved down a short hallway to a room with a number of desks spread out. Most of the desks were unmanned at the moment, but a few men stood around, talking and drinking coffee beside a counter on the right.

A young man entering the building behind her said, “Can I help you, ma’am?”

Rayna started because she hadn’t heard him come in.

“Sorry if I scared you there,” he said with a grin as he removed his hat. He wore a nice suit, and his lips beneath his mustache curled into a grin.

“It’s all right,” Rayna said. “I need to hire a detective.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place.”

“Are you a detective?” she asked.

He pointed to a gold badge on his chest that read,
Pinkerton National Detective Agent.
“That’s what they tell me,” he said. “My name is Lincoln Parker.” He extended his right hand, and she took it in her own.

“Rayna Noble,” she said.

“You want a cup of joe?” he asked as he led her into the rows of desks.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Well, I need one.” He stopped at a desk and pointed to the chair beside it. “Take a seat. I’ll be right back.”

She sat down and watched him walk to the counter. He nodded to the men and said something Rayna couldn’t hear, and they all laughed. Rayna looked around and saw four others in the office. A stack of papers sat on top of Lincoln’s desk, but she didn’t try to get a look at them. She glanced back toward the door and saw several more men entering the office.

Lincoln returned with a cup of coffee. He set it on the desk, moved a stack of papers to the side, and sat down in his own chair. He gave Rayna a smile. “Now how can I help you today?”

“I’d like you to find a missing person.”

“I can do that. Who am I looking for?” he asked.

“A man named Henry Winslow.”

He grinned. “Did Janet send you over here to pull my chain?”

“Who’s Janet?”

“Tell her it was a nice try, but I have real work to do.”

“Do you know Henry Winslow?”

“Of course. He was a famous stage magician who led a life of crime, but he kicked the bucket the day before yesterday.”

Rayna shook her head. “What if I told you he faked his death?”

“His body is down at the morgue, Ms. Noble.”

“A body is at the morgue, Detective Parker. That doesn’t mean it’s his.”

“While I’ll grant you that I haven’t personally seen the body, I don’t think the police would have messed up that bad. This Winslow character didn’t exactly keep a low profile.”

“I believe he’s alive, and I’m willing to pay you to find him.”

“It’s your dollar, Ms. Noble. You’ll pay us in advance for one day, but I’ll prove to you that he’s dead before lunch.”

BRAND EASTON

“The last time I was on a train, I was with my mother,” Brand said as he and Esther boarded the Pennsylvania Railroad train. “I was ten years old.”

“I can’t imagine you as a child,” Esther said.

“Me either,” Brand said.

His father had walked out on the family years before, and as he didn’t have any siblings, it was Brand and his mother against the world. He hadn’t thought about his childhood since his mother was murdered and he’d been bounced around from foster home to foster home until he ended up in the care of a man who worked at DGI. After Brand was caught fighting for the umpteenth time, his foster father asked him if he enjoyed fighting. That was a stupid question. Brand had lost exactly one fight in his childhood, and it was to the man who murdered his mother. That fight had been in the sleeping compartment of that train when he was ten.

Brand didn’t often think about the past. He came to terms with it a long time ago. He agreed to become a Sekutar warrior so he could learn to fight and kill. Even before he finished his training, he left the DGI training facility for a week to track down and kill his mother’s murderer. He returned to DGI and took the punishment they dished out for being AWOL.

When his foster father asked him why he didn’t wait until he’d completed his training and could no longer feel pain, Brand replied, “Because I wanted to feel every punch I landed on that son of a bitch.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

Brand had given his foster father a smile that chilled the bones. “Very much so.”

As Brand moved through the cars to his compartment, with Esther trailing him, he thought about that last trip with his mother. How they’d dined on steak and lobster and how she’d let him taste her wine. He remembered the man who joined them at the end of the meal. He had not been invited, and he had been far too familiar with his mother, but Brand, being a boy, wasn’t in a position to do anything. His mother handled the man with a slap to the face, and Brand was so proud of her.

A slap to the face wasn’t good enough when the man showed up in their sleeping car.

“Are you all right, sir?” an old man asked, snapping Brand out of his memories.