My stomach lurches then, bam, we land. As I let go of Cynnie’s hand something feels different—like someone is watching us. Sure enough, someone is. Harris sits on one of the upturned crates, his stare boring into me.
“What are you doing?” he hisses.
Frank’s still snoring where he was when we left. It doesn’t look like he’s moved a single muscle except maybe his jaw, which now hangs open.
“Visiting the girlfriend,” Cynnie says. “Iretum is the quickest way to—”
“Porting.” I correct her Collective term. “We went to see Mae.”
His eyes narrow with a slight tip of his head.
Cynnie drops my hand. “Let’s get some sleep, I’m beat.”
Harris doesn’t move and his glare weighs on my shoulders as if I’m wearing a cloak made of guilt. I scrub a hand over the back of my neck and step off the port mat trying for nonchalant.
“Why sneak around at night to do that?” Harris asks.
“You think Frank would let us take a pair of bands in the day for something non urgent?” Cynnie’s fast, wish I could think on my feet like that.
The clink of bottles rolling into one another spins my attention to Frank who rubs his eyes. It’s time for us to get out of here and now. As if she’s had the same thought, Cynnie scoots around the empty crate, bumping into Harris on the way. He grunts and tugs his foot in. “You stepped on my toes.”
“What’s going on?” Frank springs up, looking around groggily.
Harris is on his feet now, too, standing right next Cynnie.
“I just walked Cynnie out to use the ladies and we noticed you were asleep.” Harris shakes his head. “Thought we’d better man the scanner for a bit, because we can’t leave it unattended and you obviously needed the rest. It’s not right that you have to stay up every night, Frank. We should put it on a roster.”
By the time Harris is halfway through his speech, Frank’s nodding and I’m suspicious. Why the hell did Harris cover for us?
“Oh, and Jax here,” Harris says, “got worried when he woke up and Cynnie was gone, so he came looking for her. We’ve been sitting here for,” he spins his wrist over and narrows a peek at his watch, “at least an hour, wouldn’t you say, guys?”
Cynnie nods so vigorously her curls bounce against her shoulder. “Yeah, about that.”
Harris doesn’t look in my direction again, just starts walking away. And damn it, I’ve let him down, betrayed the only friend I had here—if I can call him that.
Frank readjusts his collar, then looks down, also refusing to meet my eyes. “Thanks.”
I blow out a breath and Cynnie tips her chin toward the back of the warehouse. She’s right, Frank’s embarrassed and we need to leave him to his own thoughts.
I turn to leave and I’ll be damned if Johnny isn’t hunched in the corner like a hobo, thick blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His eyes trained right on me. The dude chills my spine with unease, so I move a little closer to Cynnie. Better sleep light tonight.
After we slip into our swags, it’s a long while before sleep comes. My thoughts overflow with catacombs, ancient warlords, and Johnny’s shifty eyes. I finally start to doze off to the sound of people waking and shuffling about.
~*~
When I wake Cynnie’s still asleep, so I shift onto my back and wait. Today, we’ve got the day off from scanner duty. A luxury that only happens once a fortnight, or so I’m told, since I haven’t been here for a full rotation yet. It’s a good thing too, as it means we should be able to find a quiet corner and figure out what clue Nik’s chasing.
Cynnie stretches her arms above her head and yawns. What’s with people that make noises when they yawn? You suck air in, hold it, and let it back out. No noise needed. The sound Cynnie made was almost like a squeak.
I link my fingers together and slide them under my head. It could take a while for her to wake. When she finally glances my way, I say, “Day off, what do you want to do?”
“Great.” She noisy yawns again and sits up. “Is there a library around here?”
“And here I thought you’d want to do something special.”
She punches my arm then climbs up and tugs on the ancient denim jacket Harris procured from wherever he got her some clothes.
We make our way to the kitchen where Harris already sits staring into a bowl of some kind of cereal, a dark cap hiding his expression. A badge in its center holds some sort of symbol, nerdy I’ll bet. Cynnie makes toast for herself and sits next to him, seems like the breakfast is more interesting than her though because he never takes his eyes off it.
“Is there a town library?” I ask him.
Harris doesn’t speak or make eye contact with either of us.
“Sounds like fun.” The bounce in Cynnie’s voice doesn’t match the troubled look she passes me.
The rest of our breakfast proceeds in silence, with me and Cynnie trading glances while Harris tries to pretend we don’t exist. The tension in the air is palpable and ripples under my skin, so when Johnny walks into the room with his shifty eyes I can’t cope. I shove my chair back, shoot Cynnie a look that says, we’re leaving, and walk out of the kitchen. Not stopping or turning back until I reach the swinging door that leads out of the warehouse and then it’s only to make sure she’s with me. She is. Cynnie’s different today, her head held slightly higher and she’s walking like she’s got a purpose. Telling her about the keys was definitely the right choice.
I hold the plywood board back for her to duck through the old window. Then I slip out behind her and shove my hand into my jacket pocket, my fingers curling around the keys for my motorbike. Heading toward it, I turn around at Cynnie’s harrumph. “That? That’s your ride?” she asks.
“Yep. Sure is.”
“What is it?”
I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “Better than a transport. No glass walls to stop the wind from blowing against you and—”
Footsteps sound behind us and I spin around, my hand darting to the inside of my jacket and closing around my clarinium blade. It’s not Johnny though. Harris strides across the parking lot, his arms crossed over his chest and his attention locked on Cynnie.
“Why the library?”
“We’re sorry.” Cynnie touches his arm. He pulls away and shoves his hands in his pockets. “We didn’t go to visit Mae.” She glances around the empty lot. “Come with us and we’ll fill you in.”
Like hell she will. The pressure in my forehead tells me I’m doing a shitty job of hiding the shock on my face. It’s damn hard to school my expression to neutral, but somehow I manage, even though I could kill her.
Harris tucks his chin under and tips his cap up, weighing her offer. After a long silence he looks up to say, “All right, but wouldn’t the internet be better than the library?”
“Yes!” Cynnie says. “Of course, I always forget you have that.”
“Good point,” I say. “The library will have access.”
“We can take the van.”
“I’ll come with you,” Cynnie says.
I eye my bike longingly yet again, not game enough to leave Cynnie alone with Harris. Christ only knows what she’ll divulge, probably my whole life history. With a sigh, I release the key from my fingers, letting it fall against the base of my pocket.
We pile into the white van, Cynnie taking the front seat and leaving me to sit on the floor in the back of what seems to be a stripped vehicle. Harris doesn’t speak the entire way there and neither does she, thank god. She has her face turned to look out of the side window.
After about ten minutes we pull up in what looks—from my place in the windowless back—like a parking lot almost as empty as the one we just came from. Harris cuts the engine, but doesn’t unclip his belt.
“So,” he says.
“So,” I reply before Cynnie can make the choice for us, but she cuts right in anyway. “We’re chasing the guy who messed up my face.”
She flicks both of her pointer fingers toward her cheek which now looks pretty good, albeit a little off-color with a yellow tinge.
Harris shakes his head. “You should have said so.”
“It’s a little more complicated than just going after him . . .” Cynnie’s shoulders rise. She’d better not be going to tell him about the keys.
I cut in just in case. “We can’t catch up with him. It seems like he’s on some sort of mission, but we’re always too late. Hence the research.”
“What sort of research do you need?”
“History,” Cynnie says. “Do you know anything about Alexander the Great?”
Harris unclips his belt and spins around in his seat to face her. “Alexander the vertically challenged. Sure I do.”
“The catacombs under Alexandria?”
“They have nothing to do with the legendary commander. They weren’t built until well after he died.” Harris whips out his cellphone and goes to an internet search engine.
Heck, I’m surrounded by history buffs.
“Yup, almost four hundred years’ difference.”
Cynnie flops against her seat. “There goes that idea.”
“What was it?”
“Well, he’s been to Pella and Alexandria, which both tie into my theory. But it was the catacombs he visited, which . . . well, they don’t actually connect to old Alex, so . . . yeah.” She shrugs.
“They could have,” I say. “The people who created them may have . . .” Inherited the key or heard of it. I trail off not sure how to say it without mentioning the keys.
“Why’s he chasing Alexander the Great, anyway? And what are you guys going to do when you catch up with him? And,” Harris twists around and glares at me over the top of the vinyl seat, “how the holy guacamole do you know it’s that guy, anyway? I take it you’re going from scanner activity? Which means it could be anybody you’re chasing.”
Seems like Harris is onto us.
I hold his glare. “It’s him.”
Harris stares at me, clearly waiting for more of an answer that I don’t intend to give. He’s the first to break eye contact.
I reach into my pocket, passing over my keys to grab the photographs that rest against the inside lining. Pulling them out, I pass them into the front, scooting up between the bucket seats. Cynnie grabs them. Probably because I haven’t had the chance to show her yet, but something about those snake carvings is special. She looks at the first photo for a few minutes, then flicks through the rest until she gets to the one with text. It gets a fair examination before she flicks through them all, until she reaches the first one again.
I lean between the seats to see better and she runs her thumb over the snake.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“I think I can see two swords, a shield and a cloak.”
Harris leans in too, our heads far too close for comfort—all three almost touching—but I need to see where the cloak is. The sword and shield are obvious, but after thinking of nothing but this image for twenty-four hours I haven’t been able to see anything else.
“The serpent goddess of Egypt: protector of country, pharaohs and other deities. Otherwise known as Wadjet,” Harris says.
Cynnie smiles. “The cloak.”
“What? That makes no sense,” he says, but he’s wrong. It makes a hell of a lot of sense. The cloak’s biggest duty is protection, but that snake looks nothing like Mae’s pendant.
“It’s a symbol,” Cynnie says.
“Oh, the snake is a symbol of protection. Got it. But the weird thing is the shield.” Harris braces his arm on the dash, so he can lean right in, scrutinizing the photo. “It’s not Egyptian at all . . . it looks more—”
“Greek,” Cynnie says. “That looks like Medusa on a goddess Athena shield.”
“Yeah, but this is in Egypt. Why is there Greek art under an Egyptian city?”
“You think it means something?” I ask Cynnie.
She nods. “Absolutely.”
I shuffle back a little, into my own space. “Can either of you read the script?”
I learned to read a little Latin and Greek at school, but that isn’t familiar. My training was cut short at eleven years old, so Cynnie has a good seven years on me. She flicks back to the photo with the words. “I can read Greek, but that looks like ancient Greek.”
“I can’t read it, but this can.” Harris holds up his phone. He touches an icon on the screen and then takes a photo of the photo. A few seconds later his phone beeps and English words appear on the screen. Impressive. Some technology on the outside is getting as good as that in the Collective. Guess it seeps out. The words on his phone read: And he said, “I lay my sword down with you, Father.”
“By the founders,” Cynnie says. “I think that means the sword.”
My mind whirls to catch up. “If he had the Torith—” I slap a hand onto Cynnie’s shoulder. “That’s going to really help us.”
Harris stares at my hand. “Why do I feel like you’re not telling me everything?”
“Because we’re not, but trust me, it’s better if you don’t know. I promise it won’t put anyone in danger. It will actually save people.”
“And we were telling the truth. It is about Nik and we are after him,” Cynnie adds.
Harris holds her stare for a long while, readjusting his cap. He’s weighing us again and Cynnie must feel it too because she reaches out, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Trust us.”
Finally, Harris takes a deep breath and says, “Just make him pay, all right.”
“We will.”
She’s right, that message is a hint to where we can find the sword. And we’re going to use it.