Chapter 16 #4
“Miss Sinclair,” Hugo hissed into her ear.
His chest pressed into her back. His overpowering cologne choked down her airway, where the edge of her dagger was currently balanced.
One swipe was all it would take. Not even a swipe, Celia realized.
Just a prick. If the knife broke the skin of her neck, her spine would collapse.
Fuck. “It’s getting a little crowded in here, wouldn’t you say? ”
Beetles clicked against the floor. A few were starting to climb Celia’s boots. She was thankful for the trousers’ heavy fabric as they hooked their way up her ankles and shins.
“You really are a crafty creature, aren’t you?” Hugo kept breathing in her ear, his words uncomfortably wet. “Enlightened this entire time. Hiding in plain sight. Playing Hamlet.”
The scarabs had reached Celia’s knees. She tried not to swallow—the knife was too near. “It’s better than being Ophelia,” she said, as lightly as she could against the blade. “You’ve sacrificed enough women.”
“Sacrifice?” Hugo snorted. “All I did was let them loose. Let their masks fall away. Let them be the vicious little beasts they are when they think no one else is looking. Or remembering.” The point of the Tunguska knife pressed a little harder.
“We all have our sins, Miss Sinclair, but I certainly wouldn’t want to waste any more of your space.
Would you kindly ask your associates to step aside? ”
Ezra had gone rigid in the doorway. Would he move? Celia held her breath, just in case an inhale went too far. Hugo held the dagger steady, but that didn’t mean shit when there was a treasure of this magnitude involved.
“Put the scroll back where you found it,” Vincent called over Ezra’s shoulder. “Then we’ll let you be on your merry way!”
Everett gripped the papyrus tighter. The blond hairs on his temple flashed—going gold—and the burial chamber filled with that sterile smell again.
Ezra’s outline flared in turn, repelling the magician’s spell.
It shot back at Everett, causing him to drop the scroll. He seemed too stunned to grab it again.
Celia’s lungs were burning. Sins? Yes. She had several signature sins, and she might as well use them.
Her hand had slipped cautiously behind her, searching for the pocket where she knew Hugo kept her father’s lighter.
It was there, waiting. She took comfort in its familiar weight.
Papa used to let her play with it on longer journeys abroad, teaching her not only how to hold the flames but how to mold them.
Celia played with fire the same way others shaped clay.
She felt the knife let up, just a bit, when the papyrus hit the floor.
Now or never.
She flipped the top of the lighter open.
Wrath rushed out. Flames coiled to the ends of her fingertips, then leapt, in the shape of a tiger, straight at Hugo Pratt’s face. Vicious little beast, indeed. He snarled. Celia twisted through the sparks, out of the knife’s reach, and dove for the fallen scroll.
She wasn’t the only one.
Everett managed to move enough to grasp the papyrus, his snarl just as feral as his friend’s.
There was a rasping sound that Celia recognized too late as tearing paper.
A parchment piece came free in her fingers.
Everett ended up with considerably more.
Celia swore, but she didn’t dare use her fire against him, not when he was holding what she suspected was a second clue.
“Celia! Look out!” Ezra’s warning reverberated through her—down to the bone.
She rolled just in time to see Hugo: his auburn hair scorched and stare murderous, the Tunguska knife still in his fist. He was plunging it straight at her chest, but the blade wasn’t falling.
The chamber’s shadows tilted again, this time snaking toward the spot where Ezra stood.
There was no room for stars in his eyes, much less green.
They burned vicious gold. A rage that put her flame tiger to shame.
Slowly, the knife in Hugo’s fist started to twist back toward his own heart.
Celia was too caught in her own darkness to do anything.
“Ezra!” Biz’s cry cut through the scene. Glass-sharp. “Stop this! Please!”
Her brother blinked.
The room stuttered, shadows rippling back to their respective casters.
Celia rolled into a pile of squirming scarabs.
Hugo dropped the knife. Everett was still holding the bulk of the scroll, clutching it to his chest as his companion ran toward the other side of the sarcophagus, casting yet another spell.
The burial chamber began to shake. Sand dislodged from the ceiling.
Cracks appeared. Sunlight ripped through the stones on the wall opposite Ezra.
They fell away with ease, revealing sand and sky.
A second entrance. And exit, Celia realized too late—there was another gold flash from Everett, and the magicians vanished.
She scrambled to her feet, running past the empty coffin.
Footsteps began to dot the sand that led out of the hole.
Celia did her best to follow, but as she climbed up the small hill, a strong wind greeted her.
The desert was ribbons of sand, weaving this way and that, erasing all traces of a trail.
Hugo and Everett were gone.