Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(70)

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.

Oliver slept too.

“I don’t like this idea,” Daniel muttered. His gaze burned into the side of my face. “There are too many ways this could go wrong.”

“And when,” I retorted, “have we ever had a foolproof plan? We broke into Laurel Hill cemetery with only a boat and baseball bat. And we descended the tunnels of Paris with only pulse pistols and a crystal clamp. At least this time we may choose where our battle happens, and we can prepare.”

Joseph’s lips pinched tight, and ever so slowly he nodded. “Eleanor is right. We will have at least some advantage if we choose where to fight.”

Daniel gave a strangled groan, but other than that, he brooked no argument.

And I knew it was not the ambush that bothered my inventor. It was the thought of me raising corpses. At the first mention of my falcon scout, he had balked, and at the mere word “army,” he had gone deathly pale.

No matter how hard Daniel tried, no matter what had happened between us last night in the field, he still was not easy with my magic.

Joseph cleared his throat. “The first step will be to find a location. Preferably somewhere with old bodies.”

I stared at the maps, my eyes catching on Cairo. Then dragging down to Saqqara. Again, something about the name scratched at my brain. Why did I know it?

I gasped. Professor Milton. It had been the excavation in which Clay Wilcox had invested. . . . It was far from civilization or people, and best of all, it had been a necropolis. A city of the dead.

Without a word, I darted from the pilothouse to Allison’s cabin. Her trunks were still here, the lid tossed back. Her first aid kit was strewn on her bunk. In fact, it looked as if she might come back at any moment.

For a split second panic wound through me. What if Allison was compelled? Maybe we were abandoning her to Marcus by not following.

But my gut knew better. Allison wanted revenge, and like a patient spider, she’d spun her web . . . and then struck.

Fresh fury slid up my spine, gathering at the base of my neck. Scalding. Insistent. But I forced it aside and focused on what I’d come for.

The booklet about Professor Rodney Milton.

I found it quickly enough, tossed atop Allison’s gowns. The pages were bent and ripped as if she had crushed the booklet viciously in a fist. Yet it was not too damaged to read, and I flipped ahead to the page I remembered her reading at Shepheard’s.

During his excavations, Milton uncovered an entire necropolis, or city of the dead, where hundreds of catacombs were built to honor ancient Egyptian deities. He estimates thousands of mummified animals are buried below the dunes. However, due to a lack of tourist interest in the catacombs, Milton focused his excavation on the pyramids only. One day when funding permits, he hopes to uncover the animal tombs and reveal their secrets.

A grin spread over my face. Thousands of mummies. Even if they were animals, they could still do precisely what we needed: attack.

Now I merely had to convince Joseph—and I doubted I would find any resistance there.

My grin widened, and I sent out a pulse of magic to my falcon.

He was still flying south. Even if Marcus were to turn around now, we would have a few hours to prepare.

This time we were the ones in charge. As long as we screwed our courage to the sticking place, we could not fail.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

To reach Saqqara, we followed the Nile six miles south, then moved east past cornfields and date groves. We must have drifted over a thousand palm trees, our shadow covering their latticework of shade before we finally reached a barren realm of yellow rocks and sand.

And it was a world of pyramids. One after another they rose up, with edges so old as to be curved now. The dunes around them were littered with shards and bricks—as if the entire necropolis had been smashed with a hammer and the pieces left to scatter in the wind.