Chapter 8 #3
For a moment, I consider running from Bes, like I planned to do before Ingrid foiled it.
Unfortunately, her presence alone confirms what I feared most: that more God Men are in Egypt, and they know exactly who I am.
They won’t stop until they have me and the amulet in their possession.
Knowing that, the least I can do for myself is get out of the city.
Especially since Bes is the only person I know here with a working car. I can figure out how to get to the airfield from the docks, or steal onto a boat of my own.
“Allez, allez!” a strange man in the driver’s seat, cast in shadow, yells in French.
“That means crack along, chaps!” Cecilio translates from the backseat, poking his wavy-haired head out of the window.
I grin, and Bes breathes a sigh of relief as we close in on the vehicle. “It’s good to see you, Cec. But how did you—”
“Thankfully, our fearless curator stuck around Cairo,” Cec cuts him off.
Bes glances at the driver. “Glad to see you as well, Mr. Lacau.”
The old curator clears his throat. “Likewise, Belzoni. But pleasantries will have to wait.”
Yanking my suitcase from me, Bes tosses it unceremoniously through the open back window. Cec yelps. Not wanting to trust another stranger, but not having much of a choice, I fling the door open and launch inside, dumping my pack hastily onto the floor beside my feet.
Bes opens the driver’s side door in front of me. “As grateful as I am for this, I’ll take it from here.”
“As you will,” Mr. Lacau agrees, shifting over to the passenger seat.
I catch a glimpse of his face as he does: he’s older than I thought he would be, with a pointed white beard and a white moustache. He wears a light brown three-piece tweed suit, light brown tie, and a red Fez hat.
After slamming the door, Bes reaches for the key in the ignition and turns it.
The machine rumbles to life. Without him even having to ask this time, I lean forward and shift into first. He stomps on the gas pedal.
The car lurches forward with the effort and the engine sputters; the stench of burning metal wreaks havoc on my senses.
Shit.
I glance back at the museum and swear a human-shaped shadow lurks on the side of the building. Panic buoys up my throat.
Bes continues to fiddle with the car in silence—right as Ingrid rounds the corner of the museum. I recoil at the sight of her, my back brushing Cec’s shoulder.
In the pale light of the moon, blood carves down the side of her pale face from where I hit her.
She braces a hand against the wall to support herself, slouching at the waist, and a crimson-stained lock of her hair comes undone.
She looks wild, manic. Determined. In her icy blue eyes, I see she won’t stop until she’s killed us all.
Not that I can blame her: Bes did kill her brother, after all.
And I refused to give her the one thing she came all this way for—the Amulet of Amun.
Dammit. I should’ve done away with her when I had the chance. My tea-filled stomach, however, gurgles in moral disagreement.
I try and fail to conceal the fear in my voice. “Now would be a great time to get us the hell out of here.”
“You don’t say,” Bes mutters, preoccupied with pumping the brakes. I reach back to put the gear in neutral and then back into one, but it’s useless.
Bes glances out the window as I do, and I could swear he growls. “You left her alive?”
“I’ve killed enough God Men for one day,” I argue, even as I know he’ll argue the opposite.
Cec responds instead. “You can never kill too many of them.”
Ingrid pushes away from the wall and stumbles in our direction—
The engine finally catches. I slam the gear into first and it purrs as we pitch forward into motion, racing around the driveway.
Mr. Lacau graciously takes over shifting the gears, and I turn in my seat to watch Ingrid struggle after us.
I should’ve told Bes to run her over. But I’m just glad to be away from her.
We roll out onto the road and cut off another driver, their honks and her figure disappearing as we speed away.
“Yes!” Bes shouts.
I breathe out shakily. “Thank Jesus.”
He’s breathless too. “Perhaps you should be thanking me.”
I raise my brow. I’m not a religious person, not by a long shot; I take the Lord’s name in vain constantly and without shame, and loathe having to attend church. That doesn’t mean the vernacular isn’t ingrained into my vocabulary, so much so I barely notice it.
Bes keeps surprising me.
Gripping the amulet beneath my shirt for comfort, I lean forward in my seat. Eyes trained on the road, he grins softly. Giddily, even. I give him a good once-over: he’s dirty and bloody and bruised, but alive. I’m honestly surprised either of us made it out of that situation with minimal injuries.
“You’re right. Well done, Bes.” I glance over at the curator. “But we wouldn’t even have the car without Mr. Lacau, or Cecilio.”
Cec taps the bottom of his cane on the car floor. “Doubly agreed on that front. But how did you two escape the God Men?”
“I was waiting for Bes outside the back of the museum,” I start to explain, belaying why I was out there by myself in the first place, “when some woman who knew my name came up to me and demanded I give her the amulet. Then Bes shoved her brother through the back doors. We tussled, but Bes got the better of his man first. He even used a fountain pen and sprayed ink in his eyes.”
Cec snorts.
“Something funny, Cecilio?” Bes asks.
“Nothing, old chap, just that you’ve proven beyond any doubt that the pen is mightier than the sword.”
Unable to help myself, I chuckle. Bes shakes his head.
Leaning back, I turn on Cec. “How did you find the old curator?”
“I take offense to that word, old,” the older man huffs. “I’ve experienced more with my one pinky finger than you have with your entire being, fille.”
“He found me,” Cec explains before I have a chance to be verbally offended. “I was hoping to flag down a taxi so that I could get to the docks before the two of you and get everything in order. Pierre pulled up instead.”
“What are you still doing in Cairo?” Bes asks Pierre, an edge to his voice I can’t place. “I thought you chose to retire so you could return home?”
“I did,” Pierre admits. “But I wanted to visit some of the city before I left for good. When I realized I left one of my journals back at my office, I came to retrieve it, hoping you would be there to let me in.” He glances back at us. “That’s when I recognized Cecilio.”
“And when the two of you heard the gunshot, you hoped Bes did the shooting, in which case we’d need a quick escape,” I deduce.
Cec glances in Bes’s direction. “She’s quick.”
I nearly laugh. “More likely you have incredibly low standards.”
“The most apt description of my cousin I’ve heard yet.”
Cec reaches forward to slap Bes’s bad arm with the back of his hand. “Don’t be rude, cousin.”
He responds by hissing and reaching over to grip his arm.
“Oh, come on, mate, I didn’t hit you that hard,” Cec chides.
One look at the spot tells me he did hit him hard. Enough to make him bleed, at least. The bullet wound he received from Claude must’ve reopened from his tussle with Klaus, and Cec made it worse by striking him.
“Damn it to hell,” I mutter.
Bes risks a glance at it as I reach for his shirt before returning his attention to the road. “I’m fine; it’s only a flesh wound.”
“And hell is merely a steam bath,” I mutter. It’s something Nonna says whenever I make ridiculous comparisons. I never thought I’d repeat the phrase myself, but desperate times.
Noticing a slight tear in his blood-stained shirt from the fight with Klaus, I gently reach inside. Making sure to avoid touching the wound, I rip it apart, separating it from the rest of the fabric with little effort.
Bes glances down at my handiwork. “Aye, at least warn a bloke before you ruin his best shirt.”
I continue ripping the cloth into strips. “This is your best shirt? That’s unfortunate.”
I grin over at him, seeing the same expression stretch across his face. Still giddy from our narrow escape, I see.
“This is… fascinating,” Cec says, his normal brand of humor absent.
Once I’ve removed the old dressing and patched Bes back up, I settle in my seat. Cairo rushes past me in a warm blur as we rattle down the main highway. I’m grateful for the silence; it allows me to mull over all that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.
When I travel with Nonna, she’s always one step ahead of where we need to be, what we need to do, who we need to meet. Now, I can’t decide if that’s because she prepared as much as she claimed, or because of her connections—ones that go deeper than I realized.
But, the truth is, I don’t care. Despite my curiosity about the amulet being piqued with the appearance of more God Men, I again cling to the chance that I might make it out of Egypt on my own once we get to the docks.
That I can leave this nightmare behind me.
Some desperate part of me believes that my troubles will end once I’m no longer in Cairo, far away from these men and their ties to the German Third Reich.