Chapter 34
How badly I’m shot, I’m not sure. But when I pull my hand away from the fleshy part between my shoulder bone and my heart, it’s coated in thick, crimson blood. Oh God, oh God.
“No!” Bes yells.
There’s some kind of scuffle, but I can barely hear it over the ocean waves crashing in my ears.
“Hawkins!” Cec calls out. Tapping me with his cane, he falls to my side. He must’ve broken free from Mara. “Are you hurt?”
I can’t talk through my clenched jaw, forced to groan instead.
“I assume that means yes.” He touches my arm gently. “Where are you hit?”
I grasp his hand with my bloody one, and place it on the spot where the bullet ripped through me.
He doesn’t change his expression as he gently probes the wound.
My vision swims from the agony of it; I bite down on the inside of my lip so I don’t cry out until I taste blood.
Unaware of my struggle, he reaches around the backside where there’s an equal amount of pain. He merely brushes my shirt, though.
He breathes out a stuttered sigh of relief. “It’s a through and through that just missed your heart. You’ll be alright. I need to—”
“I said, get to your feet!” Ingrid screeches.
I expend the effort to peer over Cec’s shoulder, finding Ingrid pressing the deadly end of a Luger to my friend’s head.
At first, Cec doesn’t move.
“Stand up, untauglich. I won’t tell you again.”
He grimaces but does as she commands.
My vision blurs and my breathing thins, echoing loudly inside my head. I grab for Cec, but he’s no longer within reach. Mortal dread sets in now that I’m alone. My body begins to grow cold. If I don’t get some help soon, I’m going to bleed out.
But that won’t matter if the only people who can help me are already dead.
My head lulls to the side. Gurlitt still nurses the open wound on his arm that Bes gave him earlier. The two Liechtenstein Nazis flank Bes, their guns drawn—he’s on his knees and restrained, his hands pulled behind his back again. He’s already looking at me, and his eyes light up when I find him.
Ingrid finally speaks, to Mara this time, who’s probing the area on her cheek where a bruise is already forming. Cec must’ve hit her with his cane. “Good work. You and Kali certainly held up your end of our deal—well, most of it, anyway.”
Mara and Kali. Their treachery slices deep, knocking what little breath I have from my chest.
And in my delirium, I remember it—where I’ve heard her name before. Kali is the Hindu goddess of death, time, and doomsday. Ironic. Though I’m still not sure how much of Kali’s hand was forced. I’ll likely never know. Especially if I’m going to die soon.
“Should I regale your friends with all you’ve done for us?
” Ingrid muses. “How you were the one to bring Ansaldo the assistant’s journal with the encryption for opening the Osireion in the Temple of Seti?
Or how you’ve been sending us coded telegrams with order secrets for the past few months, for instance, when these three would be docking in the Port of Civitavecchia to track down valuable information regarding the Third Reich? ”
I knew that was Ingrid at the club. I guess the blood oath doesn’t specify not telling truths about the order in code, except for the location of the base and the names of the Themis’s. If we get out of this, I’m going to tell Ansaldo that he needs to be more specific with his oaths.
With the blood slowly draining from my body, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it all.
But even though I blame myself for getting caught here, I couldn’t have avoided this if I tried.
It’s all been a setup. From the beginning, we were meant to lose.
My reeling mind battles with the ebbing pain in my shoulder for attention.
“Mara, no,” Cec chokes out. “I cannot believe it.”
Mara’s flat, emotionless eyes turn on Cec. “I owe you nothing, Cecilio Giudice, least of all an explanation. As for Kali, she was easy enough to manipulate once the God Men had her brother. Family is a weakness.”
Her brother’s not dead? Another falsehood manufactured by the God Men.
Cec takes a dangerous step forward in the direction of Mara’s voice. “Why betray everyone you know, everyone who—”
One of the men flanking Bes points his gun at Cec instead and cocks it. Cec halts at the sound.
Mara blinks, unaffected by the weapon pointed at someone who I thought was her friend. “They’re just as corrupt as any government, except its leaders dress it up in flashy benevolence. I’m loyal to no one but myself.”
“You joined us only to betray us?” Cec demands. “To sell your soul to the God Men—to the racist fascists trying to cleanse the world?”
That sparks fire in her dead eyes. “Don’t you dare judge me, Cecilio,” she bites out. “You’ve always looked the other way from your father’s prejudices, his biased decisions—it was only a matter of time before it came back to bite you.”
I search for Bes again, hot duplicity swinging through me. His head hangs low like he’s given up. God, I hope not. For all our sakes. Then, I catch a glimpse of his eyes through his lashes: they appear to be churning silver.
He’s warning the order.
“Enough squabbling.” Ingrid flaps her hand in dismissal. “It’s pointless anyway, considering you’re all about to die. Though, not before we have a little fun first.”
Ingrid struts over and kneels down beside me.
Adopting a saccharine smile, she reaches out and sinks her thumb into my bullet wound.
The pain sharpens and drags along my body like a hot knife, cutting to the bone.
I can’t stop the scream that wrenches itself from my throat, echoing across the hilltop.
My vision blackens from the searing pain—I can’t breathe.
“Stop,” Bes begs, something I never thought he’d do. “For the gods’ sakes, stop.”
At his command, Ingrid extracts her thumb from the hole in my body, leaving me there aching, struggling for breath. Then, of all things, she licks the blood from her finger. If I weren’t in such agony, I’d throw up my breakfast torte.
She turns to Bes. “I’d love nothing more than to stop all this, Mr. Belzoni. But you’ve given me no choice. The Führer needs the Amulet of Amun, and I’m going to be the one to deliver it to him.”
“You said you needed her too,” Mara cuts in. “Something about her father.”
My father? What about my father?
Ingrid’s mouth twitches. “Yes, well, I was waiting to reveal that part to Miss Hawkins once her friends were dead.”
Rage and adrenaline relieve my pain for the moment. She wants to take me? Fine. But I won’t allow her to kill Bes and Cec for sport. I have to do something. Now.
Fuck. This. Nazi. Bitch.
“I’ll never…” I squeak out, finding it difficult to breathe much less talk.
“What’s that?” Ingrid comes close again, still crouching beside me. “You’ll have to speak up.”
My next words are a trembling whisper: “I’ll never come with you.” She leans in further to hear me, and I gather what’s left of my strength. “I’d rather die.”
Before she can respond, I headbutt her. Our foreheads smack, bone hitting bone.
Bes chooses that moment to yell, “Now!”
Through blurred vision, he hops up spryly from his knees without the assistance of his hands or arms—and despite the fresh wound on his leg—surprising his two guards.
He cracks his own skull with one of theirs, wrenching his gun from his grasp before the Nazi crumples to the ground. Bes shoots him for good measure.
Something moves out of the corner of my eye, and I open my mouth to shout out a warning as the other one raises his gun and cocks it.
But Cec is quick—he sweeps the Nazi’s feet out from underneath him with his cane.
He must hear where the gun clatters to the ground because he’s able to kick it away across the grass.
With one last surge of adrenaline coursing through me, I find the strength to do what I need to, what I should’ve done in Cairo: I use my good hand to pull my pocket gun from its holster on my right leg.
Ingrid shakes her head to clear it, taking stock of a rip in her nylons from when she hit the ground. I tuck in my injured arm and use my elbow to push myself up into a sitting position. Gripping the gun with my right hand again, I point it shakily at Ingrid.
My voice trembles violently, my vision spinning. “Tell me about my father, and I won’t kill you.”
She wipes the blood from the second head wound I’ve given her—fury rages in her blue eyes and purses her crimson lips.
“Even if you did kill me, it would serve no purpose except to anger the Third Reich. They’ll simply send others like me, and by then, they may not need you alive.”
“Why do the God Men need me alive now?” I demand, my adrenaline waning. “And what does it have to do with my father?”
She clicks her tongue, moving to reach behind her. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me to find out.”
That’s not going to happen. If they had Nonna, maybe. But I haven’t seen my father in years. If they think I’m loyal to him because he’s my blood, they’re sorely mistaken.
And there’s always the chance she’s bluffing.
“Don’t do it,” I warn Ingrid, her hand maintaining its path for what I can only presume is to reach for her gun again. “I will shoot you.”
She smiles. “Oh, I don’t think you will. You couldn’t do it in Cairo, and you won’t do it now. You’re too much of a coward.”
She cocks her head in the direction of Cec and Bes, who are still fighting the two men; Mara hasn’t moved, frozen in what I imagine to be self-preservation.
Or, she’s at least weighing her chances of survival, depending on who gets the upper hand.
Which is idiotic because she’s already made her bed—the order would never take her back. Not after what she’s done.
“You’re not like them, Miss Hawkins. You don’t have an inflated sense of morality or an irritating need to make the world a better place. You simply want to do your job and be compensated for it.” She grins. “We can help you with that.”