Checking up on her wasn’t a good idea. Now I can’t get her out of my mind and my thoughts keep circling back to Sam’s words: She’s up to something. Mae’s always up to something, but I feel antsy not knowing exactly what that something is. What if she’s planning to go after Nik, or worse Manvyke? She knows how to look out for herself, but she’d be in over her head. And after what Nik said—“I’m coming for your pretty little girlfriend”—that urge to move, to do something like chase down my brother, is impossible to ignore.
That’s what led me to this moment. And I can’t leave Cynnie here alone.
“Psst,” I whisper just loud enough for Cynnie to hear. “You awake?”
“Mm-hmm.” She rolls onto her back and I jolt out of the way just as her arm slams into my chest. She rolls again, this time onto her side, facing me. Without opening her eyes she grabs the blanket and pulls it up under her chin. She certainly doesn’t look awake.
“You need to wake up, we’re going.”
At that her eyes shoot open and green iris’s focus on me. She doesn’t ask any questions, just peels the blankets back and stands up. Not making a sound, even though she wobbles on her toes like she can’t find her balance. No one stirs in the bunk room as I pad out and into the main warehouse, where it sure looks like Frank’s had a few tonight. Slumped amongst a mess of bottles—not the usual whiskey tonight, but beer—he seems to have passed out. I cross to the computer and repeat my last search: past week, global.
Right at the top of the list and registering at only an hour ago is Alexandria—another tie to ancient cultures. Nik must think he’s onto something. I click to set our coordinates and look around for the port bands. But, damn it, they’re circling Frank’s wrists. That he’s bothered to wear them now, when he usually never cares, is insane. Frustrated, I pull my fingers through my hair and sweep another look around the porting area. The second set have to be here somewhere.
Cynnie makes a tiny throat clearing noise and I spin to face her, because hell, we need to keep quiet. She’s smiling like she doesn’t realize this is serious. And as if that’s not enough absurdity, she raises her eyebrows, then her hand, waving her wrist at me.
The other set of bands circle her thin wrists.
I drag a deep breath through my nose and exhale out my mouth, then cross to the port mat. Cynnie steps on beside me, and takes my hand in hers. Why girls always want to hold hands when porting is beyond me. It only requires physical contact.
She taps the bands and I close my eyes a second before we fall. It’s somehow easier not seeing the nothing; doesn’t help that gut-in-mouth sensation just before we land though.
I open my eyes and drop Cynnie’s hand as I survey our surroundings. The scanner said Alexandria, but wherever we are, it’s not the city I was expecting. We’re in some sort of tunnel, standing on a wooden plank that spans a flooded floor, somewhere underground. Human-sized images carved out of the wall itself stand guard over the entrance from this room to the next. Egyptian gods—one with a dog’s head and one with a bird’s—both holding some sort of staff, stand barely visible in the dull artificial light.
“Where are we?” Cynnie’s voice is low, almost reverent.
“In an Indiana Jones movie.”
“Who?”
Damn sheltered Collective life. What a waste of a good joke. I sigh. “Alexandria.”
“Why?”
Cynnie takes a few steps along the plank, her footsteps echoing through the tunnel. If Nik’s still here, he isn’t nearby, because the area is deserted. The chamber feels completely hollow and empty. I take a deep breath; time to trust her.
Cynnie glances back at me, her eyes steady when she speaks before I have a chance. “I couldn’t do it anymore.”
That wasn’t what I was expecting. “So asking me to get you out wasn’t a spur of the moment decision? I was worried you might regret it.”
“No,” she shakes her head, “best thing I ever did. Fighting from the inside wasn’t working and I just . . . I couldn’t do it anymore. Pretending to work with them and seeing people get hurt, when on the inside I was screaming for it to stop was horrible.”
She shakes her head, twisting her mouth to the side as she glances away. I follow the line of her gaze to the tunnel walls carved as straight and square as if they were built out of bricks and mortar.
“So what are we doing here?” she asks.
Not telling her means we can’t move forward with this, but I need to be certain she’s trustworthy with knowledge of the keys. After what she just said, it seems likely, but . . . time to test the waters. “The founders’ ideals . . .”
She scoffs. “Yeah, right. Ideal for who . . . the patriarchs? That’s about all.”
That’s the only confirmation I need.
“What are you smirking at?” she says.
She certainly isn’t Collective at heart, and if she was fighting for civilian rights then she isn’t power hungry either. Hopefully this is the right choice. “How do you feel about the Keys of the Patriarchs?”
She takes a tiny step back and her foot almost slips off the edge of the plank. “By the founders, Joshua Manvyke, we’re not chasing that stupid old myth, are we?”
I hold her stare, even though that name feels like an insult.
“You are.” She shakes her head, her curls bouncing. “No one believes the old stories, not even the council—”
“My father believes and that’s why we’re doing this. Can you imagine,” I draw in a long breath of musty, stale air, “if he had any of the keys? What it would be like, what he’d be like?”
A disaster for mankind, Collective and non-Collective alike, that’s what it would be like. Manvyke would think he was some sort of god—or ancient warlord—and demand to be treated as such, with an all bow down to me approach, no doubt.
“Besides,” I say, “I believe too. I’ve seen the Tarlequin.”
She looks at me like a fish out of water, all huge eyes and gaping mouth. I glance at the flooded tunnel; maybe there are fish here. The clear water reveals stepping stones just visible below the surface.
“By the founders . . .”
“Don’t worry, it’s safe,” I say. “The resistance has it.”
She snaps her mouth closed and her eyes drop out of focus, like she’s turned inward. “So why are we here, underground in Alexandria?”
“Don’t know. At the moment we’re chasing Nik and I’ve got no idea where he’s going. I’m still trying to piece it together.”
My earlier thought about ancient powers niggles at the back of my mind. Like an ancient warlord.
Cynnie jumps up and moves along the plank toward an unflooded floor up ahead. “Well, we’re in Alexandria, aren’t we? Collective myth says the three keys have the powers of—”
“Yeah, yeah. I went to school too. A sword, a cloak and a shield.”
“Aaaand . . . it says that one could protect the bearer at all costs, one could defend, and the other could conceal.” Her focus flits around the cavern as she bounds along the wooden plank, spinning around to face me when she reaches the end. I had no idea she’d be so into this.
“The Tarlequin is the cloak, so we’re chasing the sword or the shield, maybe both,” I say.
“No, it’s not.” Her hand rests on her hip. “The Tarlequin is the shield.”
“It can’t be. Its power is invisibility—that’s as cloak-like as it comes.”
Her brows scrunch together. “Are you sure? ’Cause myth says it’s the shield. It’s even in that thick old textbook, Collective Mythology.”
“Well, when it was activated it threw—”
“You saw it activated? No way!”
“It threw,” I glower at her, “up a shield. I’ve never seen anything like it. That thing even blocked out sound.”
“So you’re telling me its primary power is cloaking, but its secondary power is shielding.” She taps her chin. “Interesting.”
“Not that it matters anyway. I need to figure out why Nik was here.” I shimmy past her, through the opening, eying the dog-headed thing as I pass. It’s kind of cool, a man with a dog’s head—the ancient Egyptians sure were inventive.
“Well, it kind of does matter.” Her voice echoes off the stone. Nik better not be lurking around or he will have heard that. “If we can figure out which key he’s looking for. If that’s what he’s doing, then we’ve got a better chance of beating him to it.”
“He threatened Mae.” I don’t know how the words tumble out of me without permission, but now that they have I may as well throw everything I’ve got in the ring. “She has the Tarlequin and he said he’s going after her.”
Cynnie’s feet continue tapping the floor behind me, not even missing a beat. This girl is as good at hiding emotion as I am. She didn’t flinch at my confession. She steps off the board and right up next to me on the solid floor, the flooded part of the tunnel now behind us. I don’t want my brother anywhere near Mae or the Tarlequin, so with firm resolve, I say, “We have to beat him to this key, because if it’s the Torith—the sword—and she doesn’t see him coming . . .”
“We’ll beat him.”
Just like that; no hesitation, no plan, just we’ll do it.
“So,” she says, “Where else has he been?”
“A church in DC, Pella, and here.”
“Pella in Jordan?”
“Yeah.”
We walk through what I quickly realize are catacombs, or maybe some other sort of ancient tombs. It’s also evident that they’re a tourist attraction, because electric light floods the passages and some sections are roped off. I count back the hours in my head, but I’ve no idea of the time difference between home and here. It must be after hours though, because the place is so empty.
She chuckles. “He’s chasing Alexander the Great. I don’t know where the church comes into it, but Alexandria and Pella are both cities the famous general had close ties with. When you think about it, kind of makes sense that he had a key.”
I run my finger along the rough wall; no idea what type of stone it is, but it’s carved amazingly.
“He amassed a lot of power in a short time—before he was thirty, I think. It’s the only answer for why he was so victorious.”
I throw her a skeptical look. “It’s not the only answer. He could have just been a good general.”
“Come on, Jax, it’s blatantly obvious.”
“Okay then, going by your theory, he obviously lost the key and that’s why he lost his power.”
“Well, nooooo . . .” She sighs and this time I actually toss a look over my shoulder. “He never lost power. Alexander died with his power intact. His death was kind of sudden.”
“So someone offed him for it?”
“Maybe. My memory’s a bit foggy there. We need to research.”
“Finally, something you can’t pull out of the depths of your memory. How do you remember this shit, Cynnie?”
“I dunno. Guess I just like history.”
“So,” I say, “we need to look for rumors or myths that center on his power.”
“Or not,” she says. “Nik’s already done the groundwork and he obviously thinks old Alex was a key bearer. We just need to figure out what happened to it next—after him—then we’ll be a step ahead of your brother.”
We walk in silence for a while. Collective history was boring enough that I then didn’t bother to pay attention to world history, but she’s got a point about Alexander. Why would we be in tunnels, though, what could possibly be down here? As we move further up, holes honeycomb the walls; some square, some rectangular, others arched. A multitude of tiny rooms break off the main area. This place is huge.
“Tombs,” Cynnie says. “I think we’re in the catacombs beneath the city.”
“Is Alexander buried here?”
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s buried here anymore.” She runs her hand along one of the cutout ledges.
My mind wanders back to her—stepping away from everything she’s known. Given the choice, would I have been able to do the same thing? I’d like to think I would have, that I’d be with the resistance because I believed the Collective was wrong, not because I’d been placed here by my father. This girl walking in front of me, she’s courageous, that’s for sure. When I saved her from Nik I’m not sure how I managed to keep a level head and not slit his damn throat.
Voices—really faint—buzz from an indecipherable direction. Cynnie stops, her gaze flicking to mine. She heard them too. “I don’t think we’ll find anything,” she says quietly. “This place is empty. There are no relics or anything; even the remains are long gone. Maybe we need to dig a little further into the history, so we can figure this out.”
“There has to be something or Nik wouldn’t have come here.” I stride past, weaving through the narrowest corridors ever, casting quick glances over the tiny empty tombs. Each only big enough to hold a single body.
We emerge into a large open area and a single sarcophagus, cut out of the same rock as the wall, dominates the center of the room.
“Hey, look at this.” Cynnie points to an alcove set back from the entrance we just walked through. Huge columns tower from the floor to the ceiling and how in the hell they cut such magnificent art out of the rock itself is crazy. Was it the same way they carved the tunnels, the tombs and statues? Maybe the ancients had some kind of tech.
The voices grow louder. At least three distinct people, none of them Nik, so we’ve still got time.
This room doesn’t have the same Egyptian feel of the last one, instead it’s more Grecian. A bull, a sacred symbol of ancient Greece, stands on an altar with a winged god presiding over it and he looks Egyptian enough. The images are carved in relief, the background chipped away to reveal the picture.
“This is just . . . wow,” Cynnie says. “Wow.”
“Let’s go this way.” The twang of an English accent sounds like it comes from the very next room. I cast a quick glance at Cynnie who shrugs.
And that, there . . . the image behind her. Some sort of snake, or maybe they’re dragons, coil on each side of the entrance we just came through. The strange thing is, each has two thin swords piercing its curled body and above them are round shields. Swords, shields . . . the only thing missing is the cloak. This could be a symbol . . . maybe. Or maybe I’m just clutching at straws.
A middle-aged couple barrels into the chamber. Wide-brimmed hats and fanny packs give them away as tourists. The cameras hanging around their necks remind me of Mae. She’d probably enjoy photographing a place like this. She’s only snapped shots of nature—the ring, flowers, Ace—when I’ve been with her, but she did say she liked old buildings and this is older even than ancient.
The woman smiles. “Hello. Would you mind taking a picture of my husband and I?”
“Sure,” Cynnie says, holding her hand out. “How about standing in this impressive doorway?” She gestures to the place I’ve just been examining.
The woman grins, passes her camera to Cynnie and grabs her husband’s arm, towing him along behind her. Meanwhile, Cynnie turns the camera over in her hands, pinching her brows together.
“It’s a Polaroid,” the woman coos. “It will eject the photo at the bottom. I just had to have one when they released them a little while back. I wouldn’t expect a young lass like you to have seen one before.”
Her husband shakes his head with a tiny smile.
Several minutes later, the camera has spat out half a dozen pictures which I now hold between my fingers, trying not to let them touch one another as per instructions from the Brit.
“Now let me take a picture of you two lovebirds,” the woman says.
“We’re not—”
Cynnie cuts me off with a glare. Doesn’t matter, I guess. As we walk toward the pillars, I notice something I missed earlier. Words etched into the stone under the snake on the left. I move closer. The serpent looks regal coiled on top of a square pillar and at the very base of that pillar words are etched in ancient Greek.
“Cynnie . . .”
“Come on, lovie, I haven’t got all day,” the woman says.
“Sweetheart,” Cynnie says and I swing around so fast my neck kinks. “Be a dear and come over here for a happy snap. It’s so sweet of Janice to offer to take our picture. I’d sure love to have a memento, wouldn’t you?”
Holy hell. She’s got to be kidding. I plaster on a fake smile and throw an arm over her shoulder. The flash near blinds me and even blinking doesn’t make my vision clear any quicker.
The woman hands the blank photo to Cynnie.
“Can we get on of that?” I point to the serpent.
The woman’s face lights up, and before I can say thank you she’s snapped off a heap of shots. “Here you go, pet. Just keep them apart until they dry. Come on, my love.” She beckons her husband. “These catacombs aren’t going to wait for us.”
They toddle off into another cave while Cynnie chuckles. “Pet, lovie?”
I clench my jaw. “We’re out of here.”