Chapter 19
?
Nineteen
Subhas leaped down from the porch, stalking through the village. Adam followed him.
Ellie hurried after, still cold with shock. “Borthwick is here? How is that possible? He was going to Nandapur! How could he have made it here so quickly if he hadn’t even arrived by the time we left?”
“Because he never went to Nandapur,” Adam bit out. “I’m guessing he never meant to… which means he planted that rumor specifically to keep Connie’s family pinned down.”
Ellie felt the blood drain from her face. “He suspects they’re involved in this.”
Adam caught up to Subhas. “You’re sure those kids saw soldiers? Not police?”
“They know the difference,” Subhas retorted.
“Why does that matter?” Ellie pressed with a twist of unease.
“Bigger guns. Better training.” Adam glanced at Subhas. “And I’m guessing the Indian Army doesn’t hand out detachments for just any damned reason.”
“No,” Subhas returned shortly.
“How on earth does a twelve-year-old girl think she has that situation under control?” Ellie demanded.
“Bhanja said he recognized two of the English words she spoke to the soldiers,” Subhas replied.
“What words?” Adam pressed.
Subhas met his gaze. “‘Help’—and ‘money.’”
Adam closed his eyes. “The damned kid’s trying to bluff Borthwick into thinking he can bribe her as a guide.”
Ellie recalled Vanika’s brash confidence and found Adam’s theory all too plausible.
A new and terrible thought snapped through her. “Was there another white man with the soldiers? Lean and pale with dark hair and eyes? He wouldn’t have been in uniform.”
Subhas frowned with irritation at the question, but he called out to Vanika’s young messenger, who was now on the porch of one of the nearby houses with his mother.
The boy answered. Even without knowing Kuvi, Ellie could tell it was an affirmative.
Jignesh called Subhas from across the village. Ellie grasped Adam’s arm as Subhas stepped away to join him.
“Jacobs is there. And he’ll know she was lying.”
“Yeah,” Adam agreed grimly.
“Then why would he let her come with them?”
“Because he wants to find out why an English-speaking village girl would suddenly show up offering to help them along.”
Fear tightened Ellie’s throat. “She has no idea how much danger she’s in.”
Worry darkened Adam’s eyes. “I know.”
Subhas gave Jignesh another order, and the old Adrija warrior broke away to hurry to the other houses in the village.
Jignesh had been the one to lead the party that had easily ambushed Ellie and the others on their way to Ranyapali, but he clearly deferred to the younger man—the one Vanika’s friend had called ‘abbaya,’ the term Vijay had given for the local clan leader.
Ellie was starting to suspect that Subhas Kōnja was capable of handling himself in places far more dangerous than a classroom.
Adam strode back over to Subhas. “Where are they?”
Subhas made a mental calculation. “I know the trail they’re following. If the detachment is marching at a regular pace, they should now be about two and a half miles to the northwest.”
Adam glanced unerringly to a point between the distant peaks beyond the village. He didn’t have to check the compass in his pocket to know where they needed to go.
Families crowded onto their porches, children held close as they watched Subhas with tight concern. Jignesh waved to some of the men as he stalked past. They slung quickly assembled packs over their shoulders as they hopped into the road to join him.
Ellie startled as Kalb pressed himself to the back of her legs, nearly knocking her over. He whimpered as though sensing that something was wrong.
Adam stepped closer to Subhas. “We have to get her out of there.”
Subhas assessed the gathering Adrija. “My men and I will ambush Borthwick’s line.”
Ellie stiffened with alarm. “You’re talking about a battle! People will get hurt!”
“My people,” Subhas returned dangerously, “are more than capable of a fight.”
“Vanika could get hurt!” She looked frantically to Adam. “There must be a better way!”
Grim understanding tightened Adam’s mouth. “There is—if you and I go get her.”
Shock momentarily blanked her thoughts as Adam’s logic became clear.
She and Adam could go after Vanika—because they had an advantage against Borthwick that no one else in the village could replicate.
“Fiddlesticks,” Ellie breathed out uneasily.
Constance and Neil joined them, Nirjara following more sedately in their wake.
“And why should I believe that the pair of you can do what my men and I can’t—in our forest?” Subhas’s voice dripped with skepticism.
Ellie reeled as she answered him. “Because the pale man with Borthwick needs Adam and me alive.”
Subhas’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “For what?”
A single word echoed through Ellie’s brain, crackling with anger and disdain across a windswept desert night.
Justice.
“Long story,” Adam cut back, visibly mustering patience.
“Look, best-case scenario, we track Borthwick’s expedition, sneak in after dark, and get the kid out before anybody notices we were there.
She’s not a prisoner—yet—so it shouldn’t be that complicated.
But if it gets complicated, Ellie and I won’t get shot over it.
Jacobs would have to stop anyone who tried. ”
“You realize this sounds insane,” Subhas noted.
“Sure does,” Adam agreed tiredly. “But so do magic mirrors and deserts that turn into waves, and I’ve seen both over the last few weeks. You going to tell me nothing has ever happened to you that you couldn’t explain?”
Subhas cast a frowning, uneasy look at his grandmother.
The village kuttakaru smiled back at him serenely.
Adam pleaded with them. “Ellie and I have an advantage in this situation that might keep people from getting killed. Let us use it. Please.”
The women and children hovering outside their houses continued to watch worriedly. Jignesh’s men scattered to gather supplies, the old warrior deftly supervising the preparations.
Nirjara prodded her grandson with a finger, asking him a question. Subhas answered with obvious reluctance.
The older woman’s serene smile carried a hint of mischief. “Tari Penu hā?a. ēvari haladu.”
“What did she say?” Ellie asked.
Subhas rubbed an exasperated hand over his features. “That Tari Penu says you should go.”
“Tari Penu?”
“Our god,” he replied dryly.
Ellie thought of the carved pillar that stood sentinel on the far side of the village.
“Though how much of it is Tari Penu and how much is Attubu?hi meddling, I couldn’t say.” Subhas faced Adam with an air of frank challenge. “Do you have any idea how to track a body of men in the forest without being seen?”
“Yes,” Adam returned flatly.
Subhas absorbed the unquestioning confidence in his response.
Adam adjusted the fall of the Winchester across his back. “Two and a half miles to the northwest.”
The younger man came to a decision. He looked far from happy about it.
“Borthwick will have to find a way to cross the river,” he begrudgingly filled in.
“You can’t use the same route. He’ll watch his flank…
but we have our own crossings. Take the game trail that branches to the north a mile up the valley.
Follow the level ridge to the west until you see a dry streambed on the southern slope.
You’ll find what you need there.” Subhas’s eyes glinted with challenge. “Do you have all that?”
“I got it,” Adam replied, meeting his gaze.
He whistled, and Kalb—who had been starting to creep after a chicken—darted to his side.
“At the river, watch out for the bodh,” Subhas added with deceptive ease.
“What’s a bodh?” Adam asked.
“It’s a rather large catfish.”
“Am I watching for it in case I get hungry?” Adam quipped.
Subhas ignored the question, authority coming into the line of his shoulders.
“My men and I will go after your astra—not because I think there is a magical weapon hidden in the forest,” he emphasized with a glare.
“But if there’s anything out there important enough to catch Borthwick’s attention, I don’t want him to have it. ”
Adam’s thumb hooked around the strap of his rifle. “Sounds like a plan.”
Neil straightened with determination, stepping forward. “I’m coming with you.”
“You come,” Adam pushed back mercilessly, “and you’ll be handing Jacobs exactly the leverage he needs over the two of us—because he’ll have no problem hurting you.”
Neil’s eyes sparked with frustration. “Am I just supposed to sit around and wait to see whether you come back?”
“No one is sitting around,” Constance cut in. “We’re going with Mr. Kōnja.”
Subhas looked frankly horrified at the idea. “Absolutely not.”
Constance narrowed her eyes. “Do I need to remind you what I can do with my daggers?”
Subhas stepped closer. “I don’t need daggers if I have guns.”
“I’m also trained in the Japanese art of jiu jitsu.” Constance flashed him a dangerous smile. “I could show you, if you like.”
“I’ll pass,” Subhas retorted.
Frustrated, Constance jabbed an angry finger at Neil. “What if he can see ghosts?”
“What?!” Neil blurted out, horrified.
Adam cocked a questioning eyebrow. Ellie frowned.
Was this some gambit Constance had cooked up to try to get herself onto Subhas’s expedition? If it was, it seemed quite far-fetched.
Except that Neil had suddenly gone very, very still.
A dart of unease shivered up Ellie’s spine.
Constance was defiant. “You heard the sitar player in the garden at Nandapur—don’t even try to pretend that you didn’t! And you saw a Moghul prince in the window of the Lal Bagh in Puri.”
Neil forced out an unconvincing chuckle. “But that’s… I mean, that was obviously just…”
Constance crossed her arms, waiting.
“I was imagining things!” Neil protested.
“Imagining things that actually happened?” Constance pushed back relentlessly.
Neil pressed his fingers to his temples. “No! It wasn’t like that.”
“I was right there, Stuffy. I don’t know why you’re even trying to deny it. I’m almost certain you did it in Egypt as well with that Eighth Nome official in the rock cut tomb.”
Adam shot a questioning look at Ellie, but she was just as bewildered by the exchange as he was.
“That’s not what happened!” Neil’s voice held a note of panic.
“Are you calling me a liar?” Constance challenged.
“Of course not!”
“Well, if I’m not a liar…” Constance began.
“It’s not ghosts!” Neil burst out.
“What else could it be, Stuffy?!”
“Time!” Neil blurted—and then clamped his mouth shut as though horrified by what had just come out of it.
He spun on his heel and walked away from them.
Constance stared after him, wide-eyed. Subhas watched with an air of bewildered amusement.
Neil dropped down to sit on the porch of one of the houses, putting his head in his hands.
Ellie walked over to join him.
“Time?” she asked carefully.
Neil drew in a slow, uneven breath. “Sometimes… occasionally… I seem to be able to… see through time.”
He raised his head with a look of desperation. “It’s not like it happens constantly. In fact, mostly it’s not really seeing anything at all. It’s just an… an instinct. You know—like when it’s obvious that someone’s mucked up their analysis of Punic orthography.”
“I don’t actually know when someone is doing that,” Ellie replied in a deliberately reasonable tone. “Because no one has figured out how to decipher Punic yet.”
Neil looked queasy.
Ellie couldn’t blame him. She was feeling a little queasy herself.
Her brother had been seeing through time? How could that be possible?
But then, she was also acquainted—however unpleasantly—with a man who always knew when someone was lying, which was just as impossible.
Was Neil like Jacobs? What did that even mean?
Ellie didn’t know.
“How long has this been happening?” she demanded.
“I don’t know.” Fear and discomfort tightened Neil’s words. “I didn’t realize I was doing it at all until Sayyid brought the whole thing up, and then made me—”
Neil clamped his mouth shut.
Adam knelt down beside him, his voice calm. “Made you what, buddy?”
Neil pressed his fingers to his eyes behind his spectacles. “Find the Staff of Moses in a cubit box.”
Ellie’s head began to spin.
“But I thought Sayyid found the staff,” Constance protested as she joined them.
Neil stiffened with a flash of indignation. “Sayyid isn’t the only one who can find things, you know!”
“Apparently not,” Ellie agreed numbly. Very gently, she reached out and took one of her brother’s hands. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It… It just seemed so…” Neil forced himself to meet her eyes, his expression desperately unhappy. “I’m sorry, Peanut.”
Ellie clasped his hand a little tighter, at a loss for how else to respond.
What could she say? Her brother had supernatural powers—Neil, of all people! The most unmagical person in the world!
“This is fascinating,” Constance asserted with obvious relish.
“And we’re gonna have to shelve the topic for later.” Adam pushed to his feet. “We need to move.”
Subhas had been reluctantly translating for his grandmother. At her response, he looked up at the sky as though striving for patience.
“Tari Penu is full of opinions today.” He lowered his glare to Neil and Constance. “Fine. You two can join us.”
Constance bounced to her feet. “Excellent! Come on, Stuffy!”
She hauled Neil upright.
Adam’s attention shifted worriedly to the northwest.
Ellie was worried too. She was far from certain how far Jacobs’ forced indulgence would extend.
She could still remember the moment on the cliffs behind Tell al-Amarna when his sheer fury at her and Adam’s constant interventions had threatened to tip the scales of whatever dark calculation had otherwise stayed his hand.
The weight of how suddenly the stakes had shifted settled over her like lead.
She and Adam had to find a way to bring Vanika home—while letting go of the purpose that had brought them out here in the first place.
It would be up to Subhas to save the Brahmastra now, but Ellie could see that he was a natural leader who clearly had the trust and support of his people.
Constance and Neil would be there as well, with whatever help they could offer.
And as for Neil… Ellie hadn’t even begun to wrap her head around the revelation of the secret power he had been hiding from her for who knew how long.
“You ready?” Adam asked her.
Worries whirled through her mind like frightened birds. Ellie drew in a breath of air scented with both flowers and the electricity of a coming storm.
She lifted her chin with determination. “Yes.”
“Then let’s go,” Adam concluded, taking her hand.