Owl and the City of Angels (35 page)

“Considering there’s a skeleton crew of IAA guards who are patrolling from further back than we are, I say the going is about as good as we’re going to get.”

I noted Nadya had my infrared binoculars out already, anticipating the need for them shortly—in the next hour or so, give or take the sunset. “You ever been here before?” I asked.

She shook her head. “You?”

I shook my head. Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t that stupid. The more inconsequential the temples looked, the bigger the monsters . . .

Rynn came up on my other side, also shooting a glare at Carpe before crouching down next to me. “There’s next to no one here,” he said. “There’s the watchtower a kilometer downriver, but that’s all I could find. Not even the IAA wants to piss off the sorcerer’s mummy.”

Fantastic . . .

Rynn frowned and nodded towards the temple. “Why do you think he designed it this way?”

The last of the sun set behind the sand. Time to get going before the chills got much worse. “Same reason this place looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere,” I said, squeezing his shoulder as I stood up. “To keep the thieves out.”

I slid my backpack on and helped Nadya roll out the yellow dinghy we’d salvaged from the plane. I whistled for Captain. He popped out from under a rock, already wearing his harness. I wouldn’t worry about the leash until we were ready to cross. I doubted there were vampires hanging out by the bank, not with Passer. It was the water I was worried about; Captain wasn’t a huge fan of water.

Carpe glanced up from his laptop, perturbed. “I still think I should come with you—”

“No!” Nadya and I both answered as we unrolled the dinghy.

He looked awful dejected for someone who’d just downed our airplane.

“Look, Carpe—it will be much better for us if you stay out here and work on World Quest. Worst-case scenario, if we get into trouble, you’ll be more help out here anyways.” And that had some truth to it. Considering Nadya and I had only been studying the tomb map for a couple hours—and I wasn’t at my performance best—it was a distinct possibility we’d need Carpe to do some online tomb reconnaissance on the fly.

I was also less tempted to punch him over a headset.

“Just stay online,” I said, tapping my earpiece. “And do whatever the hell Rynn says.”

Nadya lowered herself over the ledge to the riverbed, while Rynn held me back.

“Keep your line open to channel one—I’ve got the elf on channel two.” There was a reluctance and warning on the end of that statement.

I snorted. “Don’t worry, the elf is on a need-to-use basis. What about our ride into Syria?” We’d missed whatever checkpoint Rynn had set up with his contact.

“They’re aware of the situation. Not happy about the elf, but they’ll come to us.”

“What are these guys exactly?”

Rynn had been sparse on the details except that they could handle themselves.

“About the only people coming out on top of the Syrian civil war. The Jinn.”

“At this rate I’ll be amazed if we make it to the City of the Dead before I dissolve into a hallucinating pile of human wreck.”

“We can leave the elf here and go now, Alix, just say the word.”

I glanced to where Carpe was sitting. I wondered how good elf hearing was.

I shook my head. “I need the World Quest map too much—and Nadya and I should be able to handle this.” Initially I’d considered taking Rynn, but as useful as he’d be dealing with the mummy, the traps and inscriptions were another matter. Just because Rynn was supernatural didn’t mean he knew everything, and Egypt wasn’t his forte. “Just make sure the elf is working on my map. He seriously got elves to rescue the chickens?”

“Oh yes. Nothing about picking us up, mind you—”

Like some warped, twisted version of Buddhism . . . “Just try not to shoot him before he finishes the job.”

“What if he double-crosses us?” Rynn said that a little too fast for it to be spontaneous.

“How could he possibly screw us over even more?”

Deadpanning, Rynn said, “But just think. What if his elven friends need help rescuing all those chickens?”

I shook my head and glanced over at Carpe, still typing away on his damn computer. “The worst part is I don’t think you’re joking.”

Out of all the moments in the last couple hours, Rynn picked that one to snake his arm around my waist and kiss me. Not our usual “there were people around” version but the kind he usually saved for behind closed doors . . . or if there isn’t anyone around we particularly care about seeing us. That’s happened a couple times . . . and no, I’m not the instigator, Rynn is . . . not that I’m complaining.

This was definitely one of those. In fact, it caught me so off guard I opened my eyes partway through.

Rynn’s arms might have been wrapped around me and his face might have been pressed against mine, but he sure as hell wasn’t watching me. He was looking at the damn elf, and not nicely. I caught Carpe glance away as soon as he saw me look.

Oh for Christ’s sake . . . I pushed Rynn away, breaking off our kiss. “Seriously?” I said, nodding towards Carpe.

Rynn shrugged but didn’t offer up any defense.

Yeah, not getting off that easy. “Out of all the nymphs and attractive bartenders hanging around the Japanese Circus, you’re jealous over the damn elf? Seriously, are you sure I’m the only one hallucinating?”

He shrugged, but there was a ghost of a smile on his face. “The bartenders work for me and you don’t like the nymphs. You talk to the elf on a daily basis.”

“No, I talk to you and Nadya on a daily basis. I play World Quest with Carpe, and it’s a couple times a week, not every day. And he crashed our plane and is holding my map hostage!”

Rynn wasn’t fazed one damn bit. His smile widened as he waved at Carpe, who glanced back down at his screen, though I could have sworn his face was red. “Besides,” Rynn added, “I really hate elves.”

I shook my head and grabbed Captain, encouraging him into the backpack. “I’m not even going to dignify that one.” I grabbed the rope and followed Nadya down to the bank.

Rynn jealous over the backstabbing elf—who I was tempted to punch. Again. I mean, Carpe wasn’t horrible to look at—in a kind of yoga-retreat way. He was slighter than Rynn, which made sense, with the perma-computer chair and vegetarianism—not that Rynn was a super athlete or anything . . .

Jesus, what was I doing, comparing Rynn and Carpe?

“What was that about?” Nadya asked once I touched down on the bank.

“Nothing, except I think the curse is rubbing off on Rynn. He’s jealous—of
Carpe
.”

Nadya didn’t say anything, instead becoming engrossed in the inflation of the yellow raft.

“Seriously? Not you too.”

Nadya shrugged. “Well, you do spend a lot of time on World Quest.”

“And in the bar, and on dig sites.”

“Not the same thing, and you know it.”

I snorted. Rynn worried about Carpe. If it wasn’t for the fact that I didn’t have a headache, I’d be willing to bet I’d hallucinated it. I hunkered down with Nadya and Captain to wait for nightfall and our signal to cross.

Well, considering the IAA in the tower hadn’t spotted us yet, maybe our luck was on the up. On a lark, I checked Hermes’s card to see if the message had changed.

Don’t hold your breath.

I shoved it back in my pocket. Great, just fucking fantastic . . .

The nice thing about the desert is it gets dark fast. With only the artificial light from the IAA tower, the stars were out and bright. I like looking at stars. I don’t get the chance in Las Vegas and Seattle with the city lights.

On a positive note, the night had cooled down, but my fever was running hot again.

“It is dark enough to go now, no?” Nadya whispered beside me.

“Have to wait for Rynn’s signal. Does us no good to get across and have the IAA waiting for us with guns when we stroll out,” I said, and added, “though it’d sure be nice if he’d hurry up on that.”

“I heard that,” Rynn said into my headset. “Take a look over at the tower,
carefully
. They watch that river for boats.”

“Don’t get spotted, we got it the first time.” I rolled onto my back and edged out from underneath our hiding spot—a river-worn stone ledge. I focused my goggles until I could see the tower and its front door. “All right, I see the tower.”

“Now watch the door. There will be guards entering the lighthouse any minute.”

Like clockwork, I watched as the two guards did indeed round the tower and enter through the front entrance.

“They’re in,” I said.

“That’s the guard change—there should be two coming out any minute. Once that happens, go. I can drop the infrared camera and give you about twenty minutes without raising any major alarms.”

“How the hell do you plan on doing that?” The IAA was notorious about sounding alarms for next to nothing.

“Easy, the generator is outside. I’ll run a power surge through it—out here, with the temperature fluctuation, a blown fuse isn’t far-fetched.”

“Rynn, I hate being the voice of reason here, but depending on the IAA not to act—”

“Will work because I’m watching the tower and the elf is tracking their communications.”

“I thought Carpe was breaking into World Quest.”

“With proper motivation, the elf can do two things at once,” he said.

I decided not to ask what motivation Rynn used. Still pissed about Carpe hijacking and crashing our cargo plane . . .

The door to the tower opened and two guards walked out.

“Rynn, they’re out.”

“Go.”

Nadya and I shoved the dinghy into the river and leapt on board. I winced as the boat splashed into the water—more noise than I would have liked. The boat started floating downstream, and I kept my eyes on the tower to see if we’d been seen . . . nothing except the flicker of flashlights and the tower disappearing from my immediate sight . . . come to think of it, we were leaving the tower behind awful fast.

Shit, we were being dragged downstream.

Nadya swore and tossed me a paddle. “Go, before they get back online.”

We’d figured that between the two of us, it’d take ten minutes to get across, leaving five to ten to stow the bright yellow boat and make it inside. We hadn’t taken into account battling the current.

I started paddling. Captain, figuring there was now water involved, bellowed from inside my bag to be let out. “No, your claws will puncture the boat—then you’ll really be wet . . . ow!” I tried to dislodge Captain as his claws sunk through the canvas into my back.

“Keep paddling,” Nadya said. “We’re veering to the left, and the current is dragging us off target.”

I swore and got my paddle back in the water, fighting the current as Captain the wonder cat found new ways to torture my back.

The sound of sand scraping against the rubber raft told us we’d made it. We both leapt out of the boat and dragged it onshore. I got my backpack off.

“How much time?” I said, out of breath . . . we had to have four or five minutes left, right?

“You’ve got three,” Rynn replied.

“Shit—” Not only did we have to run back to the entrance, which we hadn’t planned on, but we also had to hide the damn boat and paddles first. Tying it up wasn’t an option. They’d see it once they got the cameras back on. Letting it float upstream was tempting, but I wasn’t willing to test that current or swim across with Captain puncturing my head. I pulled the air tube and started compressing like mad.

“Up there,” Nadya hissed, pointing to another sandstone ledge. I tossed her the paddles while I pushed the rest of the air out.

“You’ve got two minutes left, move.”

Damn it, why won’t air pockets leave? Oh hell, it was good enough. I rolled the dinghy up as best I could.

“Alix, the boat!”

I tossed the deflated raft to Nadya, who shoved it deep into a ledge.

“Time?” I said to Rynn.

“A minute. And you need to run.”

Damn it . . . “Come on,” I said to Nadya, and scrambled up the ledge. A head rush hit me as I pulled myself up—but if it was the curse or the exertion I didn’t have time to sit back and contemplate.

Nadya scrambled up ahead of me and broke into a dead run for the entrance.

I swore and took off after her, forcing my legs to keep up with Nadya’s longer stride.

“Run faster, Alix.”

“I hate running,” I said.

“Don’t care, and it’s thirty seconds now,” came Rynn’s voice.

I let Captain out of my backpack. “Work off those cat treats,” I told him, and kept running.

Nadya reached the entrance first and slid behind the recessed rock wall ahead of me. With my goggles I could just make out the entrance/optical illusion.

I grabbed Captain by the harness before he could overshoot and pulled him in after me.

I collapsed against the wall beside Nadya. “Let’s not do that again,” I managed to squeeze out between breaths.

“Do not say that, you will jinx it,” she said.

While the two of us recouped, I flipped on my flashlight and started to look around.

What had been absent in decoration outside Passer’s temple was made up twofold inside. Like the river temple entrances, this one was lined with statues of the Egyptian pantheon, but it distinguished itself with a more cavernous room. If this hall was any indication, the entire complex had been built as if someone really did intend to spend a few thousand years living here. I couldn’t tell for sure with my flashlight, but if I had to guess, I’d say the hieroglyph reliefs beat the river temples in number and intricacy as well. “You seeing what I’m seeing, Nadya?”