Going for Gold (15 page)

Authors: Annie Dalton

Maia had banished herself.

That’s how I knew she was gone. Forever, I hoped, this time.

In the garden, Cleopatra’s little boy was galloping over the grass pretending to be a chariot driver.

I could see them all through the open doors in the golden glow of late afternoon, framed by dancing leaves.

Seeming totally recovered from her shock, Cleopatra was making everyone sniff the insides of her wrists. Queen Nefertiti’s perfume was obviously a hit!

“Notice how it changes with the warmth of my skin?” she told her attendants eagerly. “It’s so fresh, like a summer dawn in my garden here in Alexandria. But underneath there is something most mysterious and intriguing!”

That’ll be the costus, I thought, grinning to myself.

“Charmian, have the blue chamber prepared for our honoured guests!” Cleopatra commanded her lady in waiting. She put an arm around each of the girls’ shoulders. “You will stay in my palace tonight,” she smiled. “Tomorrow I want to hear all your ideas for turning my ship into Aphrodite’s barque.”

That’s when I knew Khamsin was truly home and dry, in this life anyway.

I blew them all angel kisses, then turned to go.

A servant with a lighted taper was going from room to room lighting the lamps. It would soon be evening.

I wanted to fix it all in my mind for ever; the lovely light, the sea breezes which set the tapestries shivering and the lamps flickering, this palace which seemed as thrillingly alive as Cleopatra herself.

I heard a husky mew. Khamsin’s cat was winding around my legs.

“No, kitty,” I said softly. “You can’t go where I’m going.”

She gave an irritated squawk, like, I’m the all-seeing eyes of Isis OK? I choose where I go, thank you VERY much!

So the determined little kitty and I ended up going back through the long hall together, over the slippery black marble floor, past Cleopatra’s guards, out through the barred gate, and down the steps, until we’d reached the street.

The kitty kept running in front of me, almost like she wanted to trip me up. She seemed v. stressed about something, like, Will you just look at me, Melanie! No I mean REALLY look at me!!

Suddenly I was crouching on the blistering hot pavement, gazing into a pair of intense moonlit eyes. I mentally replayed my exit from Cleopatra’s palace. “Did you just shimmer through those gates, kitty?” I breathed.

“Oh, finallyl” said Lola’s voice inside my head.

I gasped. “Lollie? Is that really you in there?”

I felt a weird disturbance in the air.

We both looked up in time to see a shimmery white shape racing towards the palace steps at warp speed. Five seconds before it drew level, I recognised Maryam’s jeep.

My tutors were in the front, looking like they drove to Cleopatra’s times every day of the week.

“You weren’t planning to walk into the future were you?” teased Khaled.

The kitty and I climbed in. Khaled put the jeep in gear and I felt my hair stream back as we blasted back to the twenty-first century.

“Doesn’t she know how to turn back!” Maryam asked, amused.

“Actually, I’m not too—”

The little she-cat picked that moment to morph back into an irate Lola. “I can’t believe you didn’t recognise me, you pig!”

“Maybe because I wasn’t expecting you to be wearing FUR!”

“What was I supposed to do?” Lola shot back. “When I lost you in the middle of that cosmic battle, I was just screaming, ‘I can’t leave Mel, someone help me!’” Next minute I was floating down to Cleopatra’s times! So I guess someone helped.”

Someone like the gods, I thought, breaking into goose bumps.

Suddenly Lola was almost in tears. “Michael said I had to stick to you like glue. I had this idea to turn myself into a cat so I could look after you without Maia knowing. Sorry, trainees aren’t really supposed to shape-shift unless it’s a cosmic emergency,” she added hushly with a worried glance at our tutors.

“Oh, that definitely counted as a cosmic emergency,” Khaled said a little grimly.

Then Lola and I just hugged each other and cried.

Chapter Eighteen

B
efore we left Egypt, Khaled and Maryam organised a private celebration for us at Maia’s magical Nile cafe.

When we rocked up, I was amazed to see Michael chatting to our tutors.

He was obviously delighted to see me and Lola safe and sound. He poured out sparkling pomegranate juice for us all, and everyone congratulated me all over again on getting through the Test with flying colours. I’d even had a text from Brice telling me well done!

I’d survived an ordeal I never knew existed.

Instead of feeling proud, I just felt confused -and, well, betrayed. How could a divine Agency turn a deranged angel girl loose in a dangerous Universe, with just her inner fruitcake for guidance?

Also, if I’d truly passed - durn durn durn - THE TEST, and come safely out the other side to popping champagne corks, like everyone was making out, why didn’t Helix come back? Now my cosmic crazies had worn off, I was aware of a kind of foggy void where my divine guidance system ought to be.

No one seemed able to tell me if this was, like, a temporary after effect of the Test, and if so how long this phase would last.

But Michael had taken time out from a hectic cosmic schedule to toast my achievement, so I swallowed down all my questions and tried to make an effort.

Our headmaster listened patiently as Lola and I babbled two versions of our big Nile adventure simultaneously, from our two legged and four legged perspectives.

About half way through, we had an interesting discussion about why I didn’t get sick on the boat despite spending so much time with the high-school girl from Hell. Michael thought it was because the Light coming from all the humans on the boat, Mardian, Lady Iras and whoever, was simply too strong. It was Maia who got sick, as she’d so

charmingly pointed out. Khamsin got sick too, of course, but only because Maia deliberately plugged her full of toxic vibes.

Then we went back to describing Cleopatra’s palace, and of course young charismatic Queen Cleopatra herself.

“I wish Maia hadn’t told me about her dying of snake bite,” I said wistfully.

I wanted to remember Cleopatra putting her arm round Khamsin and Amisi going, “Charmian, have the blue chamber prepared for our honoured guests!”

I literally jumped up spilling my juice. Golden shoes.

“Michael, I just realised! Sky - well, really Khamsin - got to sleep over in Cleopatra’s palace for real!”

“Oh she did much better than that,” he said mildly.

He opened up his shimmery white laptop and suddenly we were watching cosmic footage of Cleopatra’s treasure ship.

“Omigosh, can you believe that hussy went for purple sails!” Lola shrieked.

Like a modem-day celeb, Queen Cleopatra knew exactly how to promote herself, picking the perfect time of day to sail into Tarsus, so she’d be sailing right into the setting sun. The slaves’ silver-tipped oars shimmered and flashed, making it seem as if this magical ship was giving off its own divine light.

Michael zoomed in, and Lola and I oohed and aahed to see Cleopatra draped over a leopard-skin couch in a frankly cheesy goddess pose. She was dressed in pure gold from head to toe, making it seem like she’d just that minute flown down from a starry Heaven. She was showing a LOT of cleavage I have to say!

Lady Iras and Lady Charmian reclined adoringly at her feet, dressed as sea nymphs. The two younger sea nymphs beside them seemed strangely familiar. My heart gave a delighted skip as I recognised Khamsin and Amisi giving it all they’d got!

Now we were zooming in on a burly Roman in military uniform, waiting on the dock with his awestruck lieutenants.

“Look at Mark Antony’s face!” breathed Lola. “He thinks he’s dreaming!”

“Wait till he smells Nefertiti’s perfume,” I giggled.

It’s a strange feeling, knowing you’re one tiny part of an awesome pattern woven by gods and angels, runaway perfume makers, divine cats and incredibly cunning and resourceful queens.

If one tiny element had been changed, if I never knew Sky, if my inner fruitcake hadn’t made me rush off to Egypt to save the world, if Khamsin hadn’t run out to buy apricots, if Amisi had been born without the snake magic in her DNA - would Cleopatra’s meeting with Mark Antony still be remembered thousands of years later as one of the most romantic moments in human history?

I was only sure of one thing. Khamsin would never have made it to Cleopatra’s court alive without a determined tufty-eared kitty.

I
wasn’t alone, I realised, and I started to smile to myself,
I
had my faithful inner kitty to take care of me!

“I knew you’d send her packing in the end,” Lola told me softly.

“How could you know?” I asked amazed. “I was being such a total idiot.”

My soulmate squeezed my hand and repeated with total confidence, “I knew, carita, OK? I just knew.”

*Answer: None. If the angel is doing her job properly, the light bulb will v-e-r-y slowly and gradually change itself!

About the Author

Annie Dalton has been shortlisted for the Carnegie medal and won the Nottingham Children’s Book Award and the Portsmouth Children’s Book Award.The twelve Angel Academy books (previously known as Agent Angel), became an international best selling series. Annie lives overlooking a Norfolk meadow with a ruined castle, in a row of cottages that were rescued from bulldozers and lovingly rebuilt by a band of hippies.

www.anniedaltonwriter.co.uk

Also by Annie Dalton

Urban Fantasy Books

Night Maze

The Alpha Box

Naming the Dark

The Rules of Magic

Angel Academy Series

Winging it

Losing the Plot

Flying High

Calling the Shots