Catching my eye, Awi Bubu tried to bow, then grimaced painfully and clutched his side. He turned to leave, and Sopcoate called out, "Wait!" as he struggled to his feet, dragging me along with him.
Awi stopped, and I saw now that one of his eyes was swollen shut, and his left arm hung at an odd angle. He was bleeding from a cut on his lip, and there was a long gash along his forehead. He held his body gingerly, as if something were broken.
Sopcoate reached into his pocket, then I felt the press of something cold against my temple. "The girl," he said quietly. "If you don't hand over the tablet—and that orb—I'll kill the girl."
Everything inside me went still, and every clever or useful idea I'd ever had flew from my head.
Awi Bubu seemed rather stunned too. He looked at me, then at Sopcoate, then at the tablet itself, the lone map to a cache of artifacts so powerful they made the orb seem like a child's toy. What horrid mayhem could Chaos create with power such as that? Even so, I couldn't quite nod my head to give him permission to leave. I'm not that brave.
Awi Bubu's shoulders slumped. "Very well," he said.
Still keeping the pistol firmly against my head, Sopcoate said, "Put them on the bottom step."
His eyes glued on Sopcoate, Awi Bubu did as instructed.
Sopcoate lifted the gun from my temple and waved it at Awi. "Now back away slowly."
As Awi slowly backed up the steps, I heard a rustle of movement from behind the sphinx. Had Sopcoate heard? I slanted my gaze toward his face, but he was totally focused on Awi Bubu's progress up the stairs.
Which is why he never saw the rock that came flying through the night air and thwapped him sharply in the forehead. He bellowed, then let go of me as he staggered with pain. That was the only chance I needed. I ducked down out of his reach. He bellowed again and tried to come after me but was assaulted with another rock, this one striking his hand and causing him to drop his gun.
Without pausing to think, I leaped after the gun and kicked it with all my might, sending it swirling into the darkness.
With the gun safely gone, Will raced out of the shadows and headed straight for the tablet and orb sitting on the bottom step. "Run, miss!" he shouted. Without breaking his stride, he snatched the artifacts from the ground, jumped over two of the bodies lying in his way, and disappeared into the trees lining the far side of the Embankment.
"After him!" Sopcoate bellowed.
The few remaining Serpents of Chaos left their positions standing over the fallen Black Sunners and took off in hot pursuit.
Awi collapsed to his knees. Kimosiri knelt beside him, but Awi waved him away. "No, go after the boy. See that he is safe."
Kimosiri paused, clearly not wanting to leave. "Go, my faithful friend," Awi said with command in his voice. "And may the gods be with you."
As Kimosiri got to his feet, he sent Sopcoate a look of such utter loathing that I was surprised it didn't strike him dead on the spot. Then Kimosiri loped into the trees after the others with long powerful strides.
I tried to stand, but my legs weren't working properly, so I began to crawl over to Awi Bubu, who had collapsed completely once Kimosiri was out of sight. Before I could reach him, something snaked out and grabbed my clothes to pull me back.
"Oh, no, you don't." Blast! Sopcoate held on to me like a bulldog.
I strained against his grip, hoping my beastly dress would tear and let me escape, but no such luck. Using my skirt as a sort of fishing line, he began reeling me in. I strained even harder, using everything I had to get away from him.
A figure emerged from the thick fog behind him. I blinked, unable to believe my eyes. Then a sturdy cane arced through the air and descended on Sopcoate's head with a resounding thwack. He dropped me like a hot potato and whirled around to find—
"Grandmother?" I said in disbelief.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A Tale of Two Grandmothers
MY GRANDMOTHER PAID ME NO HEED and raised her cane again. "Get. Your. Hands. Off. My granddaughter!" she said, emphasizing each word with another blow from her cane. Sopcoate ducked and managed to avoid some of the blows. "How dare you!" Thwack! "And what are you doing alive?" Thwack!
Before Sopcoate could answer that question, Grandmother connected solidly with his skull and he crumpled to the ground.
"Grandmother?" I could barely believe my eyes. But before I could say anything else, a racking cough drew my attention. "Excuse me a minute, ma'am," I said, then rushed over to Awi Bubu's side, afraid of what I'd find.
He was still alive, but his breathing was rapid and shallow.
Grandmother joined me and lowered herself a bit creakily onto the stair. With her eyes firmly fixed on the Egyptian, she asked me, "Are you all right, then?"
"Yes, Grandmother. Thank you for the assistance back there. How did you know where I was?"
"Henry," she said shortly, then stopped talking when Awi Bubu struggled to speak.
When no words came out, she moved closer to Awi Bubu and removed her gloves. I stared open-mouthed at her as she shoved them at me and then began rolling up her sleeves.
"Close your mouth, Theodosia," Grandmother ordered. "You don't want to take in any more of the night's evil miasma if you can help it. It's not healthy."
My mouth snapped shut.
"Do we know the extent of his injuries?" Grandmother asked, gently examining the gash on his forehead.
"N-no," I stammered. "I haven't had a chance to determine those yet."
Awi Bubu's voice came so faintly we had to lean in close to hear it. "I believe my left leg is broken, as are a number of my ribs." Then he coughed, which made him wince in pain, and collapsed back into silence.
Grandmother became all business. "If he took that hard a blow to his midsection, then we'll have to keep an eye out for internal injuries or a punctured lung." She leaned in so close to Awi Bubu that their noses were practically touching. "Is that blood on his mouth from a cut, do you think?"
I could only stare at this woman who had clearly done something with my real grandmother.
Once she was convinced the blood was from the cut on his lip, she began palpating his sides, looking for broken ribs. With her eyes fixed on her patient, she asked offhandedly, "How long have you known Sopcoate was alive?"
A sick, metallic taste filled the back of my throat. I thought about fibbing. I could tell her I had only found out that night. Instead, I blurted out the truth, the weight of all those secrets simply rushing out of me. "Since he disappeared," I said.
Grandmother laid her coat on top of Awi Bubu. "We need to keep him warm," she said. "Hand me your coat."
As she folded my coat up into a pillow and placed it gently under Awi Bubu's head, she sniffed. "Why did you not tell me?"
"I was told I couldn't. That it was a matter of grave national security. That no one, not even my family, could know."
Our eyes locked for another long moment, then she turned back to the man on the ground. Her next words shocked me more than all the other shocking things that had happened that night. "Good girl. I'm pleased to know you have the sense to keep a secret of that nature if you have to."
I began to wonder if I was stuck in one of those nightmares where reality was so intertwined with bizarre distortions that it felt frighteningly real, and when you finally wake up, you're weak with relief. Surely that was the reason I found enough courage to blurt out the next question. "How do you know so much about taking care of injured men?"