Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(71)

Joseph, Daniel, and I stayed silent as we floated beneath the late-morning sun, the shifting of levers and the creaking steering wheel the only sounds as we focused on the ruins below and the pyramids passing by.

Joseph broke the quiet first. “That mound at the very northwestern corner—beside the column.”

We all squinted into the distance. On the far edge of the ruins was a mound rising up from a dune that I never would have thought man-made if not for the eroded column thrusting up beside it.

Except it wasn’t a column. As we approached, I realized it was an obelisk, like the one at Heliopolis, and it burned like a candle flame beneath the sun. And the mound behind it was a pyramid, weathered almost to dust.

Joseph took the wheel, while Daniel went to the cargo hold to prepare us for mooring. Several minutes later, the ladder clacked down, and Daniel began anchoring us on a series of stones on the north side of the pyramid. The stones almost seemed to extend in a straight line, as if they’d once been a street, but now all they led to was a great, sloping dune.

I checked my falcon. It had been flying for hours now, yet it still diligently followed Marcus. If we were lucky, the necromancer would go all the way to the Valley of the Kings, wait some time, and then head north. We needed all the time we could get. . . .

But it was best never to rely on luck.

While Joseph slept, I sat with Jie in her cabin and fought to keep my eyes open. She looked so peaceful, and the remains of Oliver’s magic gave her face an unearthly glow.

Eventually Daniel relieved me, and I staggered to my bunk to enjoy a dreamless sleep of my own. When I awoke it was sunset, and after feasting on apples and hard bread, I wandered into the cargo hold. The hatch was open, and a rope swung through it. Daniel had set up a simple pulley system to lower his crates of equipment onto the orange earth below. He was tying off knots around several small boxes when I came in.

He smiled at me. “Where’s your falcon?”

“South. Always south.”

“Then good. Always good.” He moved to the hatch and shouted, “These are the last ones, Joseph!” Then he shoved the crates through the hatch, the pulley’s wheel squeaked, and the box lowered from sight.

“What are you doing?” I moved to the open hatch and waved down to Joseph. His hands full, he only nodded back.

“All these dunes around here will work in our favor.” Daniel wiped at sweat on his brow. “I’m thinkin’ I’ll lay out copper wires—rig up something like our Dead alarm in Philadelphia. But these lines will trigger pulse bombs instead of a telegraph.”

My breath caught. “And then when a mummy crosses, the spiritual energy will detonate a bomb. How very clever, Daniel.”

He grinned, flushing.

“So what can I do?” a soft voice asked.

My head whipped to the door—to where Jie stood, her hands in her pockets.

She looked . . . different. There was a bright challenge in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in days.

“You’re awake!” I cried, stumbling toward here. “How do you feel? You look all healed, but—” I hesitated. “Sorry. You’re probably tired and don’t want—”

“Oh, shut pan.” She punched me lightly in the shoulder. “I feel great, yeah? Never—” Her next words were lost in the bear hug Daniel flung around her shoulders.

“I thought I’d killed you, Jie. I’m so sorry.”

She made an uncomfortable grunt and pulled free. “Where’s Joseph?”

“Here,” he answered, rising up through the hatch. He gave her a small smile and moved slowly toward her. “I am . . . glad you are well. Immensely glad. Have you had a fresh incision to resist the compulsion spell?” He winced as he asked, and when she shook her head no, his wince only deepened.

“I know how to use the scarificator,” Daniel said gruffly, moving toward Allison’s cabin.

Jie’s face fell at the prospect of more bloodletting, but she didn’t argue when Daniel returned. And as he had her sit on one of the equipment crates in the cargo hold, she explained what had happened while we were inside the Great Pyramid.

“You had been gone awhile,” Jie began. “I was getting nervous, so once it was time for another cut, I started calling for Allison. I was by the Sphinx, yeah? And she was still in the airship.

“When she didn’t come to my call, I climbed the ladder. That was when I realized she wasn’t on the airship at all. I saw her from the pilothouse, trekking around the dark side of the pyramid toward another balloon. . . .” Jie’s voice faded as Daniel pressed the scarificator to the inside of her arm, and click!

The blades popped out, and when the device pulled back, three narrow slices welled with blood on Jie’s arm.

Daniel pressed a suctioning cup over the cuts and offered Jie an apple. She resumed her story, pausing every few moments to munch. “I took Daniel’s spyglass and saw . . . Marcus in the balloon. I saw Marcus and realized you were all in danger. So I ran—as fast as I could up the pyramid and to you. But . . . I wasn’t fast enough, I guess.”

“Or you were just in time,” drawled a new voice.

I started—we all did, snapping our heads to the door, to where Oliver lounged against the frame, intently focused on his shirt cuffs.

“Perhaps we would all be dead if you had not cleared a path,” he added, glancing at Jie—and then quickly back down.