Theodosia & the Eyes of Horus (32 page)

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Still keeping the pistol firmly against my head, Sopcoate said, "Put them on the bottom step."

His eyes glued on Sopcoate, Awi Bubu did as instructed.

Sopcoate lifted the gun from my temple and waved it at Awi. "Now back away slowly."

As Awi slowly backed up the steps, I heard a rustle of movement from behind the sphinx. Had Sopcoate heard? I slanted my gaze toward his face, but he was totally focused on Awi Bubu's progress up the stairs.

Which is why he never saw the rock that came flying through the night air and thwapped him sharply in the forehead. He bellowed, then let go of me as he staggered with pain. That was the only chance I needed. I ducked down out of his reach. He bellowed again and tried to come after me but was assaulted with another rock, this one striking his hand and causing him to drop his gun.

Without pausing to think, I leaped after the gun and kicked it with all my might, sending it swirling into the darkness.

With the gun safely gone, Will raced out of the shadows and headed straight for the tablet and orb sitting on the bottom step. "Run, miss!" he shouted. Without breaking his stride, he snatched the artifacts from the ground, jumped over two of the bodies lying in his way, and disappeared into the trees lining the far side of the Embankment.

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"After him!" Sopcoate bellowed.

The few remaining Serpents of Chaos left their positions standing over the fallen Black Sunners and took off in hot pursuit.

Awi collapsed to his knees. Kimosiri knelt beside him, but Awi waved him away. "No, go after the boy. See that he is safe."

Kimosiri paused, clearly not wanting to leave. "Go, my faithful friend," Awi said with command in his voice. "And may the gods be with you."

As Kimosiri got to his feet, he sent Sopcoate a look of such utter loathing that I was surprised it didn't strike him dead on the spot. Then Kimosiri loped into the trees after the others with long powerful strides.

I tried to stand, but my legs weren't working properly, so I began to crawl over to Awi Bubu, who had collapsed completely once Kimosiri was out of sight. Before I could reach him, something snaked out and grabbed my clothes to pull me back.

"Oh, no, you don't." Blast! Sopcoate held on to me like a bulldog.

I strained against his grip, hoping my beastly dress would tear and let me escape, but no such luck. Using my skirt as a sort of fishing line, he began reeling me in. I strained even harder, using everything I had to get away from him.

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A figure emerged from the thick fog behind him. I blinked, unable to believe my eyes. Then a sturdy cane arced through the air and descended on Sopcoate's head with a resounding
thwack.
He dropped me like a hot potato and whirled around to find--

"Grandmother?" I said in disbelief.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO A TALE OF TWO GRANDMOTHERS

***

MY GRANDMOTHER PAID ME NO HEED and raised her cane again. "Get. Your. Hands. Off. My
granddaughter!"
she said, emphasizing each word with another blow from her cane. Sopcoate ducked and managed to avoid some of the blows. "How
dare
you!"
Thwack!
"And what are you doing alive?"
Thwack!

Before Sopcoate could answer that question, Grandmother connected solidly with his skull and he crumpled to the ground.

"Grandmother?" I could barely believe my eyes. But before I could say anything else, a racking cough drew my attention.

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"Excuse me a minute, ma'am," I said, then rushed over to Awi Bubu's side, afraid of what I'd find.

He was still alive, but his breathing was rapid and shallow.

Grandmother joined me and lowered herself a bit creakily onto the stair. With her eyes firmly fixed on the Egyptian, she asked me, "Are you all right, then?"

"Yes, Grandmother. Thank you for the assistance back there. How did you know where I was?"

"Henry," she said shortly, then stopped talking when Awi Bubu struggled to speak.

When no words came out, she moved closer to Awi Bubu and removed her gloves. I stared open-mouthed at her as she shoved them at me and then began rolling up her sleeves.

"Close your mouth, Theodosia," Grandmother ordered. "You don't want to take in any more of the night's evil miasma if you can help it. It's not healthy."

My mouth snapped shut.

"Do we know the extent of his injuries?" Grandmother asked, gently examining the gash on his forehead.

"N-no," I stammered. "I haven't had a chance to determine those yet."

Awi Bubu's voice came so faintly we had to lean in close to hear it. "I believe my left leg is broken, as are a number

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of my ribs." Then he coughed, which made him wince in pain, and collapsed back into silence.

Grandmother became all business. "If he took that hard a blow to his midsection, then we'll have to keep an eye out for internal injuries or a punctured lung." She leaned in so close to Awi Bubu that their noses were practically touching. "Is that blood on his mouth from a cut, do you think?"

I could only stare at this woman who had clearly done something with my real grandmother.

Once she was convinced the blood was from the cut on his lip, she began palpating his sides, looking for broken ribs. With her eyes fixed on her patient, she asked offhandedly, "How long have you known Sopcoate was alive?"

A sick, metallic taste filled the back of my throat. I thought about fibbing. I could tell her I had only found out that night. Instead, I blurted out the truth, the weight of all those secrets simply rushing out of me. "Since he disappeared," I said.

Grandmother laid her coat on top of Awi Bubu. "We need to keep him warm," she said. "Hand me your coat."

As she folded my coat up into a pillow and placed it gently under Awi Bubu's head, she sniffed. "Why did you not tell me?"

"I was told I couldn't. That it was a matter of grave national security. That no one, not even my family, could know."

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Our eyes locked for another long moment, then she turned back to the man on the ground. Her next words shocked me more than all the other shocking things that had happened that night. "Good girl. I'm pleased to know you have the sense to keep a secret of that nature if you have to."

I began to wonder if I was stuck in one of those nightmares where reality was so intertwined with bizarre distortions that it felt frighteningly real, and when you finally wake up, you're weak with relief. Surely that was the reason I found enough courage to blurt out the next question. "How do you know so much about taking care of injured men?"

She dabbed at Awi Bubu's face with her fine Belgian lace handkerchief. "When I was a girl I longed to follow in Florence Nightingale's footsteps. More than anything, I wanted to attend her school and march off to the Crimea to help tend to our country's brave and injured.

"Unfortunately, my father would have none of it. Nursing was for the poorer classes, and he was appalled to think of a child of his dirtying her hands, and reputation, with nursing work."

Grandmother? A nurse? I simply stared at her as my mind struggled to absorb it all.

Awi Bubu began to cough horribly, as if he were trying to dislodge a lung. His face was drawn with pain when he was done.

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"We need some bandages to stabilize his ribs," Grandmother said. "I'll be right back." She slowly rose to a standing position and then disappeared behind the nearest sphinx.

As soon as she was out of sight, Awi's hand reached out and clutched at my sleeve.

"I'm right here," I assured him. "I haven't gone anywhere."

He opened his mouth and tried to speak, so I leaned closer.

"Our plan. It did not go so well. Did it?"

Afraid discouragement would worsen his condition, I said, "It went well enough. We have the tablet, I think. Will is quick and resourceful and knows this neighborhood. We'll get you patched up, then you can return it to the
wedja
--er, return it, just as we planned, and resume your place among them."

"No, Little Miss. Now it is I who must play the skeptic. That will not happen." He was interrupted by another coughing fit, and this time, blood came up. I looked around frantically for Grandmother, but she was still ripping bandages from her petticoats. Awi tugged at me again, this time more urgently. "You must honor your promise," he said, then went limp.

Pure panic jolted through me. "Oh, do hang on, Awi.

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Hang on!" I ordered. Then I remembered my amulets. I lifted the two from my neck and placed them on his chest.

After a long moment, his eyes fluttered open. "The information in the tablet cannot fall into the wrong hands." He grabbed my arm and tried to lift himself up. "Promise! Promise me you will do this thing."

Terrified he'd cause himself grave injury, I said, "I promise. Now lie back down before you kill yourself."

He eased down and his grip loosened. "Leave an offering on the altar in the Temple of Horus at Luxor. The Eyes will know of it and come for you." Then he coughed once more and fell horribly, wretchedly silent.

"Grandmother!" I cried.

Grandmother hurried over, her hands full of bandages. "What's happened?"

"He's collapsed," I said.

"It may be just as well." She leaned over and felt for his pulse. "He is still alive, although his pulse is erratic. Here, rip off his shirt so we can bandage those ribs and keep them from poking about into something vital."

Some small part of my mind registered the irony of Grandmother Throckmorton telling me to rip off a man's shirt. I reached down and yanked gently; the thin torn cotton came away easily. Then I gasped.

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There on the base of Awi Bubu's throat was a tattooed Eye of Horus. The very same design that Stokes had worn, that all of the Brotherhood of the Chosen Keepers wore.

Beside me, Grandmother sniffed. "That's a rather heathen-looking mark," she observed as she bent down and began bandaging his ribs.

There was the sound of a footstep on the pavement behind us, and I was terrified that the Serpents who'd been chasing Will had returned.

But it was Clive Fagenbush who stood on the Embankment behind me. His black eyes were glittering and unreadable in the dark. He stared at me a long moment, then glanced down at Awi Bubu. His next words would have shocked me to the core if there had been any part of me left to shock.

"I've brought help," he said.

And indeed he had. No sooner had he uttered those words than a group of men emerged from the fog and headed in our direction. One of the men--a doctor--broke away from the group and hurried forward, a large satchel in his hand. "Let me through," he said. He knelt at the wounded man's side, and Grandmother began briskly rattling off Awi's condition. The doctor looked at her once in surprise, then rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

Bodies continued to swarm out of the fog. Scores of them

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carried stretchers, and they quickly moved along the Embankment, collecting the fallen, including, I was glad to see, Sopcoate. He would not get away this time. I recognized another of the fallen and rushed to his side before they could cart him away.

Stilton sat leaning back against Cleopatra's Needle, his face drawn and pale. He clutched his left arm, which seemed to pain him greatly. "It came true, you know."

"What came true?" I asked, sitting down next to him.

"Your prophecy for Trawley. 'The Black Sun shall rise up in a red sky before falling to earth, where a great serpent will swallow it.'"

"How so?"

"Well, half the Black Sun was lured into joining the Serpents of Chaos, effectively swallowing up Trawley's organization. And look." He pointed to the horizon, where the setting sun had turned the dark gray clouds a fiery red.

We were both quiet for a long moment, then he spoke again. "I-I'm sorry, miss. I've been a fool."

"Shh," I told him. "They'll have you patched up in no time."

Stilton shook his head. "No, miss. I've put you in danger. That's inexcusable. I just never realized how unhinged Trawley was. I know you can never forgive me. I'll hand in my resignation to your father tomorrow, first thing."

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"Don't be daft," I told him.

Poor Stilton blinked. "B-beg p-pardon?"

"Stilton, you joined the Black Sun in good faith. You had no idea who or what Trawley was, or what he was capable of doing, or that he would kidnap people off the streets, did

you?"

"No, miss. None at all."

"And as soon as you discovered that, you left him. Then to top it off, you put yourself in grave personal danger to make amends. I don't know about you, but in my book, that's good work."

Stilton's mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. Which was just as well, since two men arrived to put him on a stretcher. "Take good care of him, he's on our side," I told them.

"Very well, miss." They laid the stretcher on the ground and very gently helped him onto it. When he was secure, each man grabbed an end and lifted.

"Theodosia." Wigmere's deep, familiar voice reverberated like a bell.

Slowly I turned to face him. "Sir," I said cautiously.

Using his cane, he limped toward me as fast as he could, then put his hand on my shoulder. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

For some reason, his question made my eyes sting a bit.