Strange and Ever After (28 page)

“B-but . . .” I tried to moisten my mouth—each word was a blade in my throat. “I do not want to make you do—”

“You
can
,” his voice hissed. “You must command me or I will leave her—”

“You won’t.” I searched his face, his eyes. “I know you now, and you
won’t
.”

Pain tightened his features—and something else . . .
something angry. “If you believe that, then you do not know me at
all
.” He leaned in and gripped my elbow, rough and tight. “But command me, El, and command me fast or your friend will die.”

My breaths came in quicker. Harsher. I refused to back down from his gaze. I
did
know him, and I did not believe for a second he would abandon Jie. “Oliver,” I whispered, bringing my nose to his and driving the command into his eyes, “do what needs doing.
Sum veritas
.”

His irises blazed blue. I blinked, and he released me—lurching around toward Jie.

But Daniel refused to move. “No,” he mumbled, angling toward Joseph. “Please. We can heal Jie the natural way—”

“Get your inventor out of here,” Oliver growled at me, “or this girl will bleed to death, and we will be too late.”

I marched to Daniel. Blood splashed on my boots, on Jie’s clothes. I grabbed his collar. “Come with me.”

His head rolled back, his gaze uncomprehending. “Jie needs—”

“She’ll be
fine
.” I tugged harder. “We need to get the airship running, and you have to be the one to do it.”

Understanding flickered through his eyes, and with a final, broken glance at Jie, he staggered to his feet.

Together, we descended the pyramid. Our boots scraped on the stones. The sun seared into our scalps, into our faces, while the wind carried away Oliver’s chanting.

But I felt my demon’s magic, so pure and gentle in my chest. He was tired—drained from the hell I put him through—yet
he did as I had commanded, and each word he uttered pulsed through my veins.

And it made me strong.

Far to the south, small mounds poked up against the horizon . . . and a white dot floated above. Marcus. East was the Nile, a mirror of molten crimson. Sails moved along it like gliding gulls, and seas of orange grass fanned out along the banks as far as I could see.

My fingers closed and opened with each step. Curling, unfurling, and back again.

Why had Marcus done all this? Why had he pulled our strings like
this
?

So he can raise the Black Pullet.

But again,
why
? Were immortality and wealth worth all this planning and puppeteering?

“Empress?”

I looked down, my vision spotted and broken from the sun. Daniel was waiting for me, but his gaze was leveled high. On Jie.

“She’ll be fine,” I said to him, resuming my steady shamble. “Trust Oliver.”

“That’s exactly it.” Daniel’s lips twisted down. “I
don’t
trust Oliver—any more than I trust a Wilcox. And I don’t understand how
you
can.” He spoke with such venom that I knew he only wanted a target—a focus for his rage.

“Oliver is saving her life,” I said wearily, hopping down the next level. And then the next. “Come on. We have a balloon to follow.”

“You could show some goddamned concern,” Daniel snapped. “My best friend is bleedin’ to death from a bullet
I
put in her leg. Sorry if I’m a little distracted from your revenge.”

I slowed to a stop, my teeth grinding as I wrenched my gaze back to him. “I
am
concerned, Daniel. She is my best friend too, but we need to get the airship ready now or we will never catch up to Marcus.”

“I don’t give a damn about Marcus!” He vaulted easily to my level, his face lined with pain. “That’s
your
mission. Not mine.”

“My mission?” I threw my hands wide. “I’m not the only one who wants Marcus’s blood. Joseph, Jie—they want their revenge just as much as I.”

“No. You’re wrong.” Daniel stalked closer. “It’s just
you
. You and your demon have poisoned everyone—”

“And did we poison you?” I thrust a finger at him. “Or are you so enamored by Joseph you simply follow everything he does?”

“Do
not
,” Daniel snarled, “say that to me.” He advanced on me, and I shrank back.
Never
had I seen him look so angry. “Joseph is the most honorable person in this entire world, and the day I met him was the day my life turned around. Even if you and that demon and that . . . that ivory
thing
have poisoned Joseph’s thoughts, I will still follow him. To the grave.”

For a long breath, Daniel’s green eyes bored into mine. Unrelenting and absolutely terrifying. But then his breath burst out, and his shoulders sank. “I don’t want to fight. Not with you.” He turned away, and as he padded down the final level to
hit the sand, he called out, “But please think about it, Empress. This is what Marcus wants. If he’s really one step ahead—and he sure has been so far—then he’s expecting us to give chase. He’ll be waitin’ for us.
Again
. Just consider that, Empress. Think about what it means.” Daniel shoved his hands into his pockets and hurried toward the airship.

And I watched him go, his words skating through my mind—leaping, twirling . . . and finally settling like silt on the bottom of a pond.

Because Daniel was
right.
If we followed Marcus, we walked directly into what he wanted.

I screwed my eyes shut and thought back to my earlier question: why did Marcus go to such great lengths?

It wasn’t simply for immortality and wealth. If all Marcus cared about was the Black Pullet, then he easily could have killed us in Marseille or just now, in the pyramid. For that matter, Allison could have sabotaged us at any point before now and claimed the ivory fist.

I popped my eyes wide, casting my gaze on the airship. It floated, unharmed and safe—ready to fly at a moment’s notice.

So what was the one thing Marcus wanted more than
anything
?

Swiveling my head, I peered back up the pyramid. At Joseph. He sat bowed over Jie; his face was pale with worry while Oliver continued a tired chant.

And as he always did, Joseph scratched at his bandages. They were now filthy with grit and sweat.

Your blood is very strong.
That was what Madame Marineaux had said when she cut off his ear.
And when my master learns whom I have killed. Oh, how pleased he will be
.

I wet my lips, remembering one of the first things Marcus had done after taking Elijah’s body: he had asked me where Joseph was.
He and I have unfinished business,
Marcus had said,
and I intend to settle it
.

“Marcus wants Joseph,” I murmured. My head tipped to one side. The breeze carried strands of hair across my vision. “He wants his blood—and he has since the beginning.”

But it was not only Joseph’s blood he craved—no. It had to be something Allison wanted too. . . .

Revenge.

I had known it all along, yet until this moment I had never considered how far a person would go for vengeance.

But now I understood, because
I
was willing to do the same.

It was all so obvious—so
stupidly
apparent when I thought about it. Marcus knew we would follow him because we always did. Because, in the end, Joseph and I wanted the same thing that Marcus wanted. As such, all that Marcus had to do was imagine what
he
would do in our shoes and then lay the trap accordingly.

I bent forward, planting my hands on my knees and watching our balloon. Daniel scrabbled up the ladder, ready to take us south . . . exactly as Marcus expected.

I dropped my chin, staring at the pebbles on the crumbling stone. At the blood and dust on my boots.

If I were
Marcus
and my prey failed to walk into my next—and presumably final—trap, what would I do?

I would go after them. I would hunt them down and finally claim the one thing I had wanted all along: retribution.

As the realization solidified, I shoved off my thighs and tipped my head back to bask in the sudden surge of ideas.

The Spirit-Hunters, Oliver, and I were weak; Marcus knew that. He had beaten us time and time again, and now he had an invincible army of mummies. If he were to raise the Black Pullet, there would be no stopping him—not in our current, devastated condition.

And that meant we needed to even the odds. . . .

I dug my knuckles into my eyes, reveling in the Egyptian sun warming me so completely—and Oliver’s magic, strong and sure.

There was a way to win this war, and all I needed to do was think it through. It was like Elijah’s eight-queens puzzle from chess, but this was
real
. We needed a location we could defend and a way to defend it. . . .

And who defends the queen? An army.

Hunger spasmed in my belly, fierce and insistent. It was our turn to pull the strings—our turn to move the pawns on the board. We would raise an army of our own, and we would pick the place to defend.

“It’s a good plan,” Oliver rasped, lolling his head back against the Sphinx’s paw. The airship creaked overhead. Less than an
hour had passed since Marcus and Allison had fled, yet it felt like days.

Oliver had finished healing Jie, and now she slept. Daniel, Joseph, and I had toted her down the Great Pyramid on a makeshift stretcher of sheets from the airship beds. Then we’d hauled her rung by rung into the cargo hold.

And ever since then, Oliver had been resting. Even now, almost an hour later, his cheeks were much too sallow. His chestnut curls dull—though that might’ve been from all the dust.

I hunkered in the sand beside him, enjoying the airship’s drifting shade. “But we will not know when Marcus returns.” I pursed my lips. “It might be hours. It might be
months
.”

“Call up a scout. A corpse scout.”

I turned a frown on my demon. “I have no idea how to do something like that.”

“You woke up something before,” Oliver went on. “In Paris.”

As he said that, an image of a teal-carpeted hallway—the Hotel Le Meurice in Paris—filled my brain. And scurrying through it were dead rats and cats and . . .

“Birds,” I whispered.

“Exactly,” Oliver said. “A bird corpse under your control could follow that balloon.”

I chewed my chapped lip, considering where I could possible find a dead bird—or if I had enough power left inside me to raise one.

“I will give you what magic I have,” Oliver murmured, his eyelids fluttering shut.

“Which isn’t much since you can barely stay awake.” Gently, I laid a hand on his forearm. “I . . . I think I understand you now, Oliver.”

“Really?” He snorted and cracked open one eye. “I highly doubt that since
I
do not even understand me.”

I sighed. “Perhaps, but what I meant is that I cannot in good conscience take any more magic from you.”

“Not in good conscience?” A laugh tickled over our bond. “That’s a first for you.”

I groaned tiredly and shoved to my feet. At least, despite the horrors of the morning, my demon still had his sense of humor.

I offered him my hand, my shadow slinking over his face. “Thank you, Oliver. For everything.”

His eyes flashed, briefly brighter than the sun’s light. “Don’t thank me. Not yet.”

“Then when?” With a grunt, I towed him upright.

He rolled his shoulders and set to brushing the dust off his suit. “How about when you free me? Perhaps then one of us will have sorted out exactly who I am.” His eyebrow rose. “In the meantime, shall we summon a scout?”

I nodded, my jaw setting. Even if he didn’t accept my gratitude, at least he knew he had it. “Help me find a scout, Oliver.
Sum veritas
.”

Our spell to find a scout was a strange, unexpected success.
Rather than raise many animal corpses—as I’d accidentally done in Paris—when I sent out the call
Awake!
, Oliver helped me focus my magic. Together, we narrowed the necromantic leash from an almost weblike wildness into a single, targeted arrow.

And that arrow found a dead falcon. The magic plunged into the corpse, then with a gentle nudge—
Awake
—my necromancy latched on tight and sparked the body back into life. Suddenly I felt the falcon—its ragged wings, its ancient rib cage—and I sensed its surroundings of crypt-like darkness and other dead birds. And then, just as suddenly, I had absolute control over the corpse, almost like some extended limb.

So when I commanded the falcon to fly south after Marcus, then south it flew.

But oddest of all, when I finally caught sight of the falcon, it was nothing more than a speck, far to the south and flapping from the distant mounds I had noticed earlier.

“Amazing,” I breathed, watching the black spot vanish—and feeling the necromantic leash connecting us grow taught and thin. “I cannot believe I could reach a corpse so far away.”

“I must admit I’m impressed,” Oliver murmured. “Saqqara is miles south.”

For some reason that name—Saqqara—sounded familiar. But I did not dwell on why. My mind was too consumed by the falcon’s flight. On the fragile line of magic that bound my soul to it.

By the time Oliver and I clambered inside the airship, my
falcon had caught up with Marcus’s balloon. And by the time we had the hatch firmly shut and Daniel began gliding south, Marcus was many miles away.

Tourists and Egyptians watched us go. If any of them had seen Marcus and his army, I didn’t know. Some of them must have felt my gust of vicious power. . . . Yet as we flew away, I saw no signs of damage. No fear from our spectators.

I only hoped Marcus and his army remained as unaggressive. I told Joseph as much when I explained what I had done with the falcon corpse—and why. Yet the idea of Marcus acting out of revenge seemed impossible to Joseph. Only after I pointed out the great lengths to which
we
were willing to stretch for vengeance did the idea seem plausible.

“So we lay the trap,” Joseph mused, scratching the scars on his cheek as he, Daniel, and I bowed over the table of charts. Jie still slept, her face as beautifully serene as when Joseph had draped her in her bunk an hour ago.