Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3) Page 15

  Besides, there was just something so bloody familiar about her. He got the same headache when he thought of her that he did when he half-remembered something about his past. That couldn’t be coincidence.

  She was keeping something from him, had been from those first few moments of their acquaintance. Now, faced with losing her completely and not even having the option of finding out what she was hiding, he knew he had to act.

  It had nothing to do with infatuation. Simon didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

  It took several hours to get close enough to the palace without attracting too much attention. It took another hour to figure out how to get inside the heavily guarded building. His chance finally came just after sundown when a call to prayer from the palace’s minaret initiated a change of the guard.

  In the momentary commotion, he intercepted one of the guards at the rear of the palace. He easily subdued the man, knocking him out cold with a precision that rather startled him. Muscle memory had simply kicked in, as if it had once been a common practice for him to render people unconscious. He was not sure how he felt about that particular revelation, but he had no time to dwell on it.

  He dragged the man into a stand of ferns and quickly exchanged his soiled robes for the man’s uniform. The navy jacket fit just a bit too tight in the shoulders, and the matching trousers with gold stripes down the sides were about an inch too short. The whole thing stank of tobacco and dried sweat, but the boots were a good fit—much better than the ratty hemp Jerusalem sandals he’d been wearing for weeks.

  He fitted the metal helmet low on his brow and walked as nonchalantly as he could out of the shadows. No one questioned him as he slipped inside one of the servants’ entrances along the western wing of the building. He wandered down opulent corridors, avoiding eye contact with anyone he passed, his ears open for mention of the English archaeologist Simon had told him about.

  At first, he feared he’d never find Hex or this Netherfield fellow in the maze of rooms. The khedive’s residence was home to not only an extensive royal family, but also all sorts of foreign visitors and government officials. Even at such a late hour, the palace was bustling, most of the staff focused on an elaborate dinner party being thrown by the khedive himself.

  He soon managed to overhear a pair of servants gossiping about Netherfield, who was apparently the guest of honor at the party. It was an unusual distinction for a lowly European professor, but then again, from the frightened tone the servants used when they spoke of him, Netherfield was obviously something more than that. It only confirmed Simon’s suspicions about the level of trouble in which Hex had managed to land herself.

  It took him nearly an hour, however, to work out Netherfield’s haunts from the servants’ chatter, all of which centered around the third floor library. The entire palace staff had apparently been forbidden from entering it, which was exactly the sort of place where one might find something—or someone—Netherfield was trying to hide.

  The library, when he finally located it, could have been more appropriately called a museum. He was confronted by display case after display case of moonlit Egyptian artifacts lining the walls, undoubtedly priceless.

  He crept into the vast room, trying his best to keep to the shadows, the feeling of something…off tingling at the base of his spine. The room was as deserted as the corridor had been, but that was not reassuring to him at all. In fact, it was downright disconcerting, for the moment he’d opened the door, he’d known immediately he’d found trouble from the smell alone.

  He had discovered over the course of the last month that his senses were a bit sharper than an ordinary human’s, and so underneath the smell of day-to-day life—dusty books, lemon polish, a decanter of whiskey left unstoppered on a desk—he could identify the faint miasma of decay. He’d smelled dead bodies before—he couldn’t remember precisely when or where, and it hurt his head to try and dredge up specific memories—but he knew without a doubt that was what he smelled now.

  Someone had killed in here.

  It was not exactly the sort of location one could get away with concealing such an act for long, what with all of the servants and hangers-on milling about the palace. And it just seemed too easy that he had simply walked into the library, doors unlocked and unguarded. Much too easy.

  The feeling of being watched stalked him across the room as he followed the smell with his nose. At the rear of the vast room, he noticed a small recessed alcove behind a display case. He could hear the faint sounds of movement on the other side of the door, and for the first time since he’d entered the library, he felt a faint ray of hope.

  He just prayed he wasn’t about to discover Hex’s dead body.

  The stench of decay hit him like a brick wall when he jerked the alcove door open, so overwhelming that his eyes began to water and bile rose in his throat. But something else was alive and moving in the shadows. Rowan could just make out a flash of red hair and a pale, freckled face in the moonlight drifting in from a small, barred window. His heart swelled with relief. Not dead, after all.

  “What are you doing here?” Hex demanded in a testy whisper.

  Well. She was clearly just as maddening as when he’d last seen her.

  “I came here for you,” he retorted. He glanced at the apparently eviscerated remains of the man under the window and nearly cast up his accounts. “Dear God. What did they do to him?”

  “Nothing good. It’s Omar, by the way,” she said, much too matter-of-factly.

  “Omar?” he cried. “How the hell did he get mixed up in this?”

  Her lips flattened into a taut line. “It’s a long story.” She held out her bound hands to him, and he made quick work of untying them. “Simon?” she asked after he was done, shaking the circulation back into her wrists.

  “He’s on his way to Helen in the Amun Ra.”

  She nodded, looking grimly pleased by this news, and surveyed his uniform dubiously. “So you decided to come here and play my knight in shining armor?” she asked archly.

  “I could leave, if I’m inconveniencing you,” he retorted.

  Her eyes widened in the moonlight, as if surprised by his sarcasm. She’d better get used to it. He’d changed a lot in the month they’d been apart, and he was bloody well at the end of his rope after hours of searching for her. She was lucky he’d found her at all in this labyrinth.

  “I’ll take the inconvenience if you can get us the hell out of here,” she finally said.

  “How magnanimous of you, Miss Bartholomew,” he drawled.

  “You know, using big words like that will not make me like you more.”

  More? He’d rather thought at all would be more accurate.

  “Good thing that was not my intention,” he muttered.

  She snorted with amusement, and his pulse leapt. Oh, God, they were bantering, weren’t they? Over eviscerated remains, no less.

  “How did Simon find you anyway?” she asked.

  He gave her a flat look and attempted to breathe through his nose as he caught another powerful whiff of…Omar. “I would prefer to have this conversation when there is not a dead body present.”

  Her nose did not scrunch up in an adorable way with dismay. He was not infatuated.

  “I must have gotten used to the smell,” she said, following him out the door.

  “I haven’t,” he muttered.

  They made their way into the main room. She glanced around her in disbelief. “Not that I’m surprised, but how did you get past Netherfield’s guards?” she whispered.

  He stopped up short, that uneasy feeling he’d had since he’d entered the library settling low in his gut. “There weren’t any.”

  “Son of a…” she hissed. She turned to him, her eyes wide and panicked. “There were two of them. And they weren’t…well, human.” She shook her head ruefully. “I can’t believe my life has come to the point where sentences like that are actually necessary,” she muttered.

  He decided to ig
nore her existential crisis, since he was in the middle of his own. “What do you mean they weren’t human?” he demanded, his insides twisting even more in a mélange of dread and hope. Would he finally have some answers? But why here, and why now? “Were they like me?”

  She shook her head, looking a bit green about the gills at whatever she was remembering. “Nothing like you, trust me. And they wouldn’t have just let you walk in here,” she said flatly. “It has to be a trap.”

  Well, obviously. Hell and damnation, he’d known it had been too easy.

  There was a click, and all of the gas lamps set within the walls flickered to life. He spun around, catching sight of two figures approaching from the doorway. They moved too quickly to be human, just as Hex had said, but he was able to track them easily.

  A blonde woman in an evening gown and diamonds flew in Hex’s direction. Her beautiful alabaster face contorted with malevolence, and her eyes glowed with amber fire, while long, metallic canines protruded from her mouth. He was so shocked by the unlikely sight that he gave an embarrassingly high-pitched yelp of surprise.

  Another one, a hulking male with pale, lank hair and an excessively muscled body practically bursting from his evening clothes, came at Rowan, silent and quick and deadly. Rowan automatically struck out and sent the man flying clear across the room. He landed hard against one of the display cases, glass and wood splintering beneath him, the plaster on the wall crumbling down on his head.

  Too quickly, he was on his feet again, pulling out a shard of glass from his arm with barely a flinch, dark, ichorous blood dripping on the floor in noisy splats. He growled like an animal at Rowan and began staggering in his direction, disoriented but undaunted, his fangs gleaming.

  Rowan moved to intercept the woman, but the man had distracted him for a second too long. In a flash, the woman had one arm around Hex’s waist and another around her neck. Hex struggled ineffectually, and the woman—or whatever she was—tightened her hold until Hex cried out in pain and fell still.

  The look in those glowing eyes stopped Rowan cold. The woman could—and would—snap Hex’s neck if provoked, of that Rowan had no doubt. He didn’t dare to make another move.

  “You are, of course, correct, Miss Bartholomew,” came a smooth, cultured voice from the distant doorway. A man, tall, slender and harmless-looking enough, stepped into view, immaculately dressed in full dinner tails, a smug smile gracing his lips. His eyes, sharp and intelligent, swept over Rowan before pausing on his face.

  That smug smile wavered, and those sharp eyes widened. It was a look of recognition. The man knew him.

  And the man feared him.

  Rowan’s head immediately started to ache. He must have known the man as well, but again the details remained just out of reach. The most he could dredge up out of the hollows of his mind was the conviction that he’d not liked the man. The urge to do him violence was overwhelming and instinctual.

  “It was indeed a trap,” the man continued once he had recovered from his brief loss of composure. “Though I did not expect to snare such fascinating prey.” He let his eyes return to Rowan, and this time they were carefully shuttered. The smug smile remained, however, and Rowan had the sudden desire to punch it off his face. “It has been some time, has it not?”

  “Has it? Should I know you?” he asked bluntly.

  The man’s eyes widened again, as if Rowan had surprised him. Then they narrowed nearly to slits, as if trying to puzzle him out. “It has been a long time, but surely…”

  Rowan looked to Hex for assistance, but she just gave him a helpless look, as confused by the conversation as he was.

  “You’re Netherfield,” Rowan finally settled on. It sounded more like a question than a statement, and Rowan cringed. This was not going well.

  The man quirked an eyebrow and continued to study him suspiciously. “I am indeed,” he murmured. “And you are?”

  Rowan remained silent, clenching his fists at his sides. He had no use for games, but he had a feeling that he was in the middle of one. And he didn’t know how to proceed without showing his hand.

  He needn’t have bothered even trying, however, for something in Rowan’s expression must have given him away. Netherfield’s eyes lit with glee as understanding dawned on him, and his smug smile grew into a full-fledged grin. Rowan wanted to punch him more than ever.

  “You don’t know, do you?” Netherfield said, sounding awed at the revelation.

  “His name’s Rowan, you bastard,” Hex gritted out, her Welding hands scrabbling futilely against the woman’s forearm that was currently pressing hard against her neck.

  Netherfield inclined his head. “Yes, of course. Rowan. But beyond that?”

  “If you know who I am, tell me, damn you,” Rowan snapped.

  Netherfield snorted, his grin widening. “Why in the world would I do that? This is exquisitely amusing. You have no idea who you are. What you are.”

  “I know I could shatter every bone in your body in less than five seconds,” he growled, and he knew his words were true the same way he’d known how to incapacitate that guard so effortlessly. And he knew he’d not feel bad about it either. This man deserved death. He couldn’t remember why, but he knew it was unequivocally true.

  Netherfield’s grin faded. “You would have to get through Vasily to do so,” he said, nodding in the direction of the…thing Rowan had thrown across the room. Vasily growled at him again, looking completely unscathed now, aside from his bloodstained clothes. Whatever he was, he healed nearly as fast as Rowan did.

  “I don’t foresee that as much of a problem,” Rowan scoffed. Vasily’s brow darkened at the insult.

  “Ah, but then Theodora would have no qualms in dispatching Miss Bartholomew to the afterlife. Even you would not be quick enough to save her. And it is why you are here, is it not? To rescue her?” Netherfield taunted.

  Rowan remained silent, refusing to be baited. He had no doubt he could kill Netherfield easily, and he damn well would if he got the chance. Vasily was a slightly different matter, but Rowan was still fairly confident of his odds.

  However, there was no scenario he could think of that wouldn’t end in Hex’s immediate death if he attempted anything at present. He had been stymied from the moment Theodora had captured her.

  “And I wonder how much of a coincidence it is that Miss Bartholomew should have a friend like you. Poor Omar’s absolutely incoherent ramblings make a bit more sense now,” Netherfield continued conversationally. “He spoke of a man fitting your description quite nicely. Though he didn’t think you were a man at all, poor, superstitious primitive that he was. My benefactor and I speculated that something of this sort might be possible, but we were rather expecting…someone else.”

  “Who am I?” he demanded, uninterested in Netherfield’s speculations. “What am I?”

  Netherfield scrutinized him again, as if he were a specimen under a microscope. “It’s simply extraordinary that you don’t know. Amnesia, is it?” He took Rowan’s angry silence for assent. “It would take quite a lot to incapacitate your…kind in such a way.”

  “There are others like me, then?”

  Netherfield just grinned once more and wagged a scolding finger. “Again, there’s no fun in telling. Though perhaps a few visual stimuli might be in order.” He walked over to one of the intact display cases and raised a brow in Rowan’s direction, as if expecting him to follow.

  Rowan didn’t want to cooperate in any way, of course, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He gave Hex an uneasy glance. Theodora still held her tightly, but she didn’t look as if she were in immediate danger, just bloody furious with the situation.

  He knew how she felt.

  He crossed the room grudgingly and joined Netherfield by the case. Netherfield gestured down at a series of old scrolls.

  “The tale of the god Apophis’s journey to earth,” he explained. “It was said he came and left this world from his tomb somewhere in the Western Sahara.”

/>   Rowan’s stomach hollowed out at Netherfield’s mention of the desert, though he fought to let none of his surprise show.

  “And?” Rowan prompted tersely.

  “It is where you were found by Miss Bartholomew and Mr. Janus, was it not?” Netherfield asked. “Omar was under a great deal of duress when he told his story, convoluted as it was. However, I do not think he was lying at that point.”

  “It seems Omar was not the only superstitious primitive,” Rowan retorted, “if you are suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”

  Netherfield didn’t like that. Something cruel flashed over his brown eyes, and his smile hardened. He pointed down to a figure on one of the papyri: tall, pale, amber-eyed and black-haired, his back and torso decorated by a vividly colored, serpent-like creature. The decoration seemed glaringly out of step with the rest of the papyrus’ artwork and not very Egyptian at all.

  And unsettlingly familiar. He knew that mark. He’d been there when the black-haired man had returned from his travels, in the possession of that ridiculous tattoo. He’d been exasperated but thankful the man had finally come home, after years of fearing he’d never see him again…

  A pain flared in his temples, so sharp and bright that he gasped and stumbled away from the case. He clutched at his head and didn’t dare look back at the papyrus, fighting back a bout of nausea.

  When he finally gathered the remnants of his composure, he raised his head to find Netherfield studying him again. “That was an…interesting reaction.”

  “Sod off,” Rowan breathed. He glanced over to Hex. She was watching him with a worried frown.

  “I would ask if you recognized the tattoo, but I think your reaction is answer enough for me,” Netherfield said, then he too glanced at Hex speculatively. “Tell me, Mr. Rowan, do you know how to return to the tomb?”

  Rowan watched Hex’s whole body tense and her face go carefully blank. Somehow, he got the feeling that his answer was extremely important.

  “No,” he said quietly, deciding on the truth.