Owl and the City of Angels (34 page)

Carpe glared at me, still indignant. “Seriously, Owl, do you see the violence here?” He turned his attention back to Rynn. “All you incubi do is hit things.”

Rynn smiled. “If I thought for a second you actually knew what you just said, I might laugh,” he said as he glanced down at his watch. “One minute thirty seconds left.”

Carpe stared at me, pleading. “Owl, please.”

I held up my hands. “Hey, I’m just the archaeologist. You want to steal our cargo plane, you get to talk to the mercenary incubus.”

“OK, OK. Just point the gun somewhere else.”

Rynn obliged, and Carpe pleaded to me once more. “All right, when I figured out you were going to the City of the Dead to try and get out of the curse you got yourself into—”

“You mean Alexander tricked me into.”

Carpe waved his hand as if the details weren’t particularly relevant. Not exactly ingratiating me to his cause . . .

“I got to thinking that it was going to be a long shot, even if we got the map from World Quest. No offense, but there’s a very good chance you’re going to die anyways—hey, it’s the truth!” Carpe yelled as Rynn kicked sand at him. “On a side note, I was wondering how you’d get there. I ruled out North Africa and Europe—too much IAA, then it occurred to me you might be coming from the south. When I checked which flight you were on—”

“Whoa, wait, you cyber-stalked me to find out what flight I was taking?”

He shrugged. “Not really cyber-stalking. More like I walked by a house and the lights were on with the drapes—”

“You idiot, that’s called peeping. It’s just as bad—no, worse than cyber-stalking.”

He seemed to consider that. “Well maybe people shouldn’t leave their data that accessible—”

“Thirty seconds,” Rynn said. “Now what the hell were you doing flying our plane?”

“Fine—Jesus, you have serious anger issues, you know that?” he said, but I noted he sped up. “When I realized which way you were going, I figured the tomb and my book were right along the way—”

I closed my eyes. My God, could Carpe be that much of a selfish asshole?

“Granted, we didn’t land as close as I wanted, but a bit of a walk and we should be able to retrieve my book before nightfall.” He glanced back at the plane. “I also didn’t figure on crashing. It’ll take some work to get you to the city—I feel bad about that. Oh, almost forgot.” He rifled around in his jacket until he produced a folded sheet of paper and offered it to me. “See, I even have a map. I know how much you prefer raiding tombs with a map.”

I stared at the piece of paper.

Rynn leaned in close enough to whisper, “Now, I’m not one who told you so—”

“Yes you are,” I whispered back.

“But if you’d have listened to me about trusting elves in the first place, we wouldn’t have ended up with this little demonstration.”

I shook my head and held out my hand to Rynn. “Give me your gun,” I said.

“Why?”

“So I can shoot the elf.”

Carpe must have picked up on some of our exchange, because he frowned and decided it’d be a good idea to keep talking. “We’ll have plenty of time to get to the city. I brought my laptop so we can deal with World Quest. As soon as you have my book.”

“Have you ever been in a tomb?” I said to him, my jaw clenched.

“We’re counting World Quest, right?”

“World Quest is about as close to a real tomb as the flight simulator is to a cargo plane,” I said, waving my hand at the spectacular wreck behind us.

“In all fairness—”

“So let me get this straight, just so we’re all on the same page and we remove all minutiae of misunderstanding. You figured since the agreement was the City of the Dead map for the Egyptian spell book, it’d be a better idea to derail any chance I have of lifting my curse to get your damn book first because in your estimation I’m going to die anyways? That’s the reasoning we’re using?”

Carpe frowned. “OK, in my defense the spell book is a life-and-death situation—and for more people than just you. Who cursed yourself. And I’m not that callous. I plan on staying to help with the city.”

Rynn snorted.

That was it. I launched myself at Carpe, landing on his chest. “Why, you lousy, no-good excuse for a teammate—”

The Kevlar worked to my advantage; I was heavier than expected. Carpe gasped as I knocked the wind right out of him.

I didn’t waste time. My fingers closed around Carpe’s neck. “I am going to
die
because of your obsession with a book—a stupid
book,
you evil excuse for pixie—”

“It’s just a detour! We’re practically there already—we do them all the time in game. What am I supposed to do if you die?” he said, trying to dislodge my hands and roll out of my grasp.

“I don’t care! I’ll be dead, that’s the point!”

Carpe managed to break my grip, so I punched him in the face. “You were supposed to be working on getting me that map. Not hijacking our plane!”

I wound up to punch Carpe again, but Rynn and Nadya pulled me off. Carpe scrambled up.

“You stay there,” Rynn said to Carpe while he held me with both hands. Maybe I could get Captain to attack the damn elf. All of a sudden, my vision clouded like television static. I sunk to my knees.

“Alix?” Rynn said, concern edging his voice.

The static cleared somewhat, and I looked up.

Rynn was frowning at me, the concern I’d heard in his voice gone. “You know the elf is right?” he said.

“W-what?”

“Let’s face it, you’re not exactly competent when it comes to the whole theft game. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

I shook my head. Yeah, I mean, I believed that, but Rynn didn’t. Did he?

Sharp pain streaked through my head again, and I grabbed both sides. Rynn didn’t seem to notice or care; he kept going.

“And while we’re at it, you do know I’m only tagging along out of pity?”

That got my attention, even though my head was killing me.

“Why are you telling me this?” I said.

Rynn shrugged, his face devoid of any warmth. “Because no one lies to themselves quite like you do, Alix. It’s the only reason you haven’t figured out yet why I’m really here—”

My head flooded with another round of painful static, so I closed my eyes, trying to pinch it away.

“Alix?” Rynn said, again and again. Someone was shaking my shoulders.

“You know where you can go, Rynn—” I opened up my eyes and stopped.

I was on my back in the sand, Nadya, Rynn, and—to my dismay—Carpe looking down at me.

I sat up, the noise in my head downgraded to a dull thrum. “What the hell just happened?”

“You tell us,” Nadya said. “One minute we were pulling you off Carpe, the next you were on your back, talking to no one.” She frowned as she said it and put a hand to my forehead. “You are burning up again.”

Shit. “The hallucinations started.”

Nadya nodded and helped me up. “We need to get moving. They’ll only get worse.”

Carpe stepped in front of me. “Agree to get my book, and I’ll start on the World Quest server right now. I can get the map and anything they have on it—I promise. Your chances aren’t great with it, but they’re nonexistent without it.”

Rynn said something to Carpe in supernatural and stepped towards him.

Unfortunately Carpe was right about the map. “Fine,” I said.

Both Carpe and Rynn looked at me, shocked. “We’ll get your damn book, but on two conditions,” I added.

Carpe’s guard went up. “What are they?”

“One, we give it until nightfall. No book, we head to Syria, and not one more peep out of you and no more attempts to derail us.”

He nodded, still wary.

“Two, you better be damn sure you can get me that map, because if I get your book and lose half a day and there’s no map, you’ll have me to deal with.”

“Oh if he doesn’t get you the map, Alix, don’t worry—I’ll shoot him for you. With the poisoned crossbow bolts,” Rynn said.

Carpe flinched at that but nodded. “I can get you the map—I swear.”

He climbed back into the cockpit to retrieve his things. A chicken hopped out, and I swore. I’d forgotten about the chickens—I’d feel bad about leaving them here. “Guys, what do we do about the chickens?”

“We have protocols for that,” Carpe answered from inside the cockpit. “They’ve got food and water in the plane. It might get cold, but someone should be able to attend them in a day or so.”

“He’s serious,” Rynn piped up as he pulled two more canvas bags out of the cargo hold. “The elves have strange priorities.”

“Innocent living creatures that fall in harm’s way are always a priority,” Carpe said, sticking his head back out. “They are our sacred responsibility,” he added as he emerged again, giving Rynn and Nadya a wide berth.

I frowned. “Yet you hijacked our plane to fetch a book while I’m
dying
?”

Carpe hopped down and retrieved his bag from Rynn. “Yes, but none of you are innocent—except maybe the cat, and even he’s borderline.”

I glanced down at Captain, whose hackles were raised in Carpe’s direction. Well, he had that part marginally right . . . I exchanged a quick glance with Rynn.

“
Told you so,
” he mouthed before handing me a single bag, leaving him and Nadya to each take two. Normally I’d argue, but under the circumstances . . .

“It should be this way,” Carpe said, and set off ahead of us.

It wouldn’t have bothered me so much if he hadn’t sounded so cheerful. I set off after him, ignoring Rynn’s smirk. “Fifty bucks says you try to kill him again before we reach the temple,” he said.

“You’re on.”

“Awful confident.”

I shook my head. “Only because I figure you’ll beat me to it.”

“Train wreck.”

“Whore,” I said under my breath. “Hey, Carpe?” I waited until he looked over his shoulder. “Just remember, if I end up dead after all this, you can be damn sure I’ll be coming back to haunt you.”

Carpe swallowed, and the cheeriness dropped a peg as we set off over the sand dunes.

Nadya caught up to me as Rynn kept a close eye on Carpe. “Alix, I’m not one for violence, but my nose says we should have done what Rynn said and shot the elf. Nothing good can come from a creature who values chickens over humans and cats.”

She had a point. Half of me was disappointed in Carpe, but on the other hand, we were ruthless with each other in game. I guess I always figured he’d be different in person. “Nadya, to be honest, I’ll be amazed if we even make it to Carpe’s temple. I’m just waiting to see what’ll go wrong next.”

I didn’t even bother checking Hermes’s card. I didn’t want to know what it said.

15

Pyramids

7:00 p.m., OK, so not really pyramids, but close

When people think ancient Egypt, the Nile by the border of Sudan isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. More like Cairo; maybe the Valley of the Kings if they watch TV specials.

They’d be making a big omission. The Nile was the backbone and lifeblood of ancient Egypt and didn’t recognize the arbitrary borders we use today.

We were just north of the Sudanese-Egyptian border in a deserted section of the Nile. We were about twenty kilometers or so south of the Abu Simbel river temples, a pair of temples carved into the Nile cliffs during the reigns of Ramses II and Nefertari in the twelfth century BC. And no, I don’t mean Nefertiti. Different queen. Interesting story about Nefertiti though; she and her husband tried to put a supernatural masquerading as a god into power. The other Egyptians didn’t like that very much . . .

Off topic . . . The point was, the river temples are glorious—designed as monuments to stand the test of time, attracting hordes of tourists even today.

This
temple, the one I was about to break into, had been built by Ramses II’s court sorcerer and vizier, Passer. Whereas the river temples had been designed as monuments, Passer, the High Priest of Magic, had designed this one with the idea of never being found—he’d gone to extreme lengths, even having a fake body buried in his name elsewhere.

You know, it’s the ones who get lost to history you need to worry about . . . Like deadly poisonous snakes camouflaged in tall grass, the last thing you want to do is stumble into one. The fact that the IAA had set a two-kilometer perimeter around this place should be warning enough to stay away.

“Move, Captain,” I said as I scooted up closer to the edge of the sandstone out-crop twenty feet up from the river and lifted my binoculars to scan the cliff face on the opposite side of the Nile. There were four inconsequential sandstone pillars carved into the rock face flanking a rectangular entrance camouflaged by a recessed piece of sandstone. If you didn’t know exactly where and what to look for, the entrance of Passer’s tomb appeared like just another solid piece of the cliff, the door and pillars bleeding seamlessly into the rest of the sandstone.

Oh this was a bad idea . . .

I shielded my eyes against the light reflecting off the water’s surface. The sun was almost below the horizon now—just a little bit longer. Nice part about this section of the Nile, the water didn’t smell . . . and there were no crocodiles. Considering what we were planning, that was probably a good thing. I pulled my cargo jacket closed. I was into the chills part of my fever now.

“Well, Carpe, you were right about reaching the temple by nightfall,” I said. Sitting a little ways away from the edge of the embankment, he glanced up from his laptop and frowned at me. Apparently elves weren’t used to the kind of treatment we were in the habit of showing people who crashed our plane.

“Now all you need to be is right about how to handle the sorcerer’s mummy and we might actually get out alive.” Personally, I was hoping not to run into the mummy at all. From the map Carpe had given me, there were an awful lot of side tunnels and passageways to hide in.

With my luck, the mummy would walk in right while I was lifting the damn book.

“What do you think?” Nadya said, sliding in beside me and nodding at the hidden temple entrance. Both she and Rynn had taken to ignoring Carpe. It seemed about the only way to prevent us from dissolving into threats of physical violence.