As we jolted closer, especially after the camels climbed a steep incline, it became more apparent. Those really
were
pyramids—four large, crumbling pyramids, looming up before us. The twilight half hid vast pits in the ground, too, excavations of temples, causeways, tombs. Between those two extremes, rocks and stretches of stone wall crumbled together indiscriminately. A pair of worn columns still stood amid heaps of what otherwise looked like rubble.
Time hadn't been as kind to this place as to nearby
Giza
. Some things
weren't
immortal.
Oddly, I felt glad for Cat's arms around me, even if she held on only out of necessity on our galloping, bellowing beast. This night suddenly felt too important for just me, too big—too inescapable.
Lex.
Selim raced us down a long dirt grade, stones flying from beneath our camels' padded feet, into an excavated area at the base of one looming, barren pyramid. A final glance toward the distant cars showed me the maroon Vectra drawing nearer.
Then they were out of sight—as were we, into the pit. But had they seen where we'd gone? I certainly wouldn't have guessed that this huge, half-buried complex of ditches and walls was here, not from the road. I sure as hell hadn't seen the signs of activity waiting in the pit. Five saddled camels stood in wait beside two staring drivers. A pair of men who could only be sentries stood to either side of a gated hole into the hillside. A gate which stood open.
The sentries looked anachronistic in their formal business attire amid the hot twilight, rubble, galabiya-wearing natives and spitting animals. They watched us as we bounded to a welcome stop, the camels gargling yet more complaints.
We were flung forward as our camel knelt with its front legs, then thrown backward as its hind legs went down. I hadn't realized how shaky I felt until I half climbed, half slid from the beast's saddled hump. My legs nearly collapsed beneath me.
The sentries seemed intrigued, concerned even—about us, not for us. But they weren't yet… oh… shooting.
"Any suggestions?" asked Rhys, also eyeing the men as he limped closer to us. I held out Selim's money, which was taken quickly from my hand, and heard the camels being whacked some more, and complaining about it, as he herded them away. But I still watched the sentries.
"Let me think," I murmured, trying to focus past the continual awareness of Lex which called to me from beyond the dark gate—and the continual suspicion of
how
. "Not just anybody has the prestige to meet under a pyramid. Even these crumbly ones."
"These are perfectly good pyramids, and they ought not be put at risk," protested Catrina. "Even the moisture from people's breath—"
I held up a hand to remind her that I'd heard that part of the lecture.
"It would take major connections to arrange it, but that's what the Comitatus is about…power and connections. Still, they wouldn't risk the exposure, or go to the trouble of meeting somewhere this out of the way, unless it was especially important. Like deciding who their new leader will be. That might just require a place with ritual significance."
This could be just what I need
, Lex had said of
Cairo
. He'd been looking for a place, he'd said.
And I'm here because of you
.
One of the sentries headed toward us. "My apologies, ladies," he called with a thick, Spanish accent. "And the gentleman. This site, it is closed to tourists."
"If tonight
is
a ritual—
the
ritual—" I continued quieetly, quickly, "there are things they'll have to do. Things they've always done. There would be rules."
"Like 'no women'?" Catrina suggested. She caught on fast.
"And, just maybe, no violence. Or things having to happen at a certain time in order to count. Or—"
"I must be so rude as to insist that you leave," insisted the sentry, drawing closer.
I turned, and let him see me fully.
Ankh. Cleopatra eyes. Chalice-well pendant.
His eyes widened—for, like, a second or two. But as I swept by him, he still grabbed for my arm.
Well, it had been worth a try.
I spun, easily avoiding his grasp, and lowered my center of balance to better prepare for a fight. He reached under his jacket—
And Catrina clobbered him with a rock, from behind. The guard dropped to the rubble at our feet, moaning.
Okay, so she was growing on me.
"That way," she warned simply, glancing past my shoulder. I spun.
Sure enough, here came the second sentry, drawing from his suit not a gun but a long knife. Of course.
I hauled at my galabiya to get at my own sword, pulling the cloth tunic off over my head even as I slid my blade free. I knew how deadly those serrated, ceremonial blades could be.
"You people don't know who you're messing with." he warned, his accent straight American.
"You're not working with full disclosure, either," I warned him, readjusting to the heft of my still-new weapon.
Come on, Asp. Prove your worth
. "We're here for your new leader. He won't appreciate your interference."
I hoped.
He held the blade like an experienced knife fighter.
"What makes you think we have one?"
"Because I know Lex Stuart. He'll have a better argument, and he can win any contest your glorified boys' club throws at him." I realized, with some pride, that I actually believed that. Or I would, if they played fair.
It wasn't my imagination. The sentry's expression momentarily flickered.
I lunged, just enough to unnerve him. "You can either let us by," I warned, my feet moving across rubble, "or end up like your friend, there."
"If I let you by, it may not matter
how
I end up."
"Not if Lex is in charge."
He didn't say anything—he had more self-control than that. But something about the self-satisfied humor that flashed across his eyes cinched around my throat like an invisible noose.
Danger
.
And not to me.
I may never know how I did it. Most of my training with swords, beyond college fencing for PE credit, is defensive. But in a flash, with a ring of metal, my sword struck and the sentry's knife spun through the air and landed, blade down, in the sand.
Asp hovered a breath from his Adam's apple. "What do you know?"
He glared down the length of my sword. "
Nothing
."
"Wrong answer. Cat—"
She looked up from where she was binding the first sentry with his own tie.
"Tie him up, too, please." Catrina was proving herself significantly more ruthless than Rhys. Who would have guessed I'd find that a
good
thing?
She sighed—but she did it. The one time he tried to grab her, to use her as leverage I guess, she grabbed two of his fingers and pulled back so hard that he dropped to his knees.
She seemed to enjoy it.
"What do you know about Lex?" I repeated, glaring down at him.
"You won't hurt me," insisted the sentry—even as a particularly enthusiastic tug of Cat's made him wince.
"Not if you're with Lex Stuart. He's weak. His supporters are weak. That's what is defeating him."
Not what
would
defeat him. What
was
defeating him—right now.
Crap
!
"You think?" I asked—and knocked him to the ground. All it took was a well-placed foot between his shoulder blades.
"Maggi," warned Rhys. And true, with his hands tied, the guy couldn't break his fall with anything but his face. Oops.
I guess I could be more ruthless than I'd initially thought.
He grunted, then spat out sand. "I said I'm not worried."
"That's because you're paying attention to the wrong myths," I said, planting a knee on his back. "Catrina, please get the scorpions."
She widened her eyes and spread her hands. But at least she didn't ask,
What scorpions
?
"Thank you," I said, as if she'd handed me a whole jar. Then I deliberately traced a fingernail across the back of the sentry's coat, so lightly he may not have felt it.
To judge from his shiver, I guess he did. "That's one."
"You're crazy, lady."
"Maybe." I skittered two fingers now, closer to his neck, making sure the scrabbling against fabric was audible. "Two. They're pretty big, too—desert scorpions. Is this your first time in
Egypt
?"
"Not hardly."
"Ever hear of the Sun God, Ra? He was the most powerful of all the gods, but even he spilled his guts to the goddess Isis. He gave her all his magic, told her his sacred name."
Skitter
. I made sure to touch the edge of his hair and—extra aware now, straining for proof or disproof of my ruse—he flinched. "I'm very much into
Isis
right now—or maybe I should say she's into me—but even I'm not asking for that much."
Was it my imagination, or was his breathing getting faster, more shallow?
"Three," I murmured, adding a third finger to the tracing of imaginary bugs. "Of course, I don't have her power to heal, once you're poisoned. On the other hand, one scorpion probably won't kill a grown man. Which is why I'm using…four."
He definitely flinched.
"So what do you know about Lex Stuart and the ritual?"
"You're bluffing." But his voice shook. He was sweating now.
I tried to sense Lex's nearness, and realized why I was recognizing him with a sensation below my heart. The awareness was, in fact, deep in my gut.
It was, in fact, in my womb.
Logical or not, I now understood my new connection to him. Between that little epiphany, and the constriction of my throat warning me of imminent danger, I guessed I could be ruthless, at that.
"Sic him, pets," I whispered—and caught a piece of his neck between two fingernails, and pinched.
He screamed.
Three months ago, I hadn't known the Comitatus existed.
Now here I was, made up like
Isis
, an actual goddess grail in my fanny pack, racing to crash one of their inner circle's rituals.
I wouldn't recommend running in dark, underground passageways. Especially with loose rocks underneath your feet and only two lights—they had been the sentries'—for three people. But I ran like Set himself was after us.
Apparently by Comitatus law, no matter how convincing Lex's argument, the decision would come down to a freaking challenge.
Like trial by combat
, our captive had explained, in exchange for me brushing all but one of the other "scorpions" off of him.
But it doesn't have to be actual combat
.
What does it have to be
? I'd demanded.
My light zagged from the floor to the stone walls and back, making random patterns with Catrina's. Rhys's footsteps sounded behind her, which was all I'd heard from him since I'd tortured the sentry into confession.
I refused to feel guilty about that. Not yet, anyway.
Not after what I'd learned.
Any kind of contest
, the man had said, grains of sand shifting away from his mouth as he panted.
The injured party gets to choose
.
The injured party being Phil?
As I shortened my steps, to compensate for a particularly severe downslope, I felt a tug to my left—only a moment before we would have flown past an intersecting passageway. I skidded to a stop, catching the crumbling wall and whispering, "This way!"
Cat slapped my hand away—probably to protect the precious rock from the oils in my skin. "And how do you know this?"
But I was already running again. The next time I felt the tug, I turned on faith alone, even before the light found the passageway.
He's chosen a drinking contest
, the sentry had admitted. I'd thought, could Phil be more juvenile? But if that was the procedure, I supposed Lex would go along with it. It wasn't as bad as pistols at ten paces.
Then my informant had added,
Drinking poison
.
Now I could hear something else, and I slowed my footsteps, the need for silence barely—barely!—winning out over the need for speed.
Voices.
I'm not quite sure what I expected from a meeting of the inner circle of the Comitatus. Chanting, I guess. Grandiose titles. They believed in ritual enough to have sought out an ancient, shadowy place of power for their gathering, after all. Enough that most of them were willing to fly to
Cairo
, just to meet here. Enough that they would resolve their dispute in that most male of traditions—a stupid competition.