Zahra still didn’t have an answer as to why, but it was becoming more apparent that she might have to do without the museum. It was, more than likely, going to be closed for the foreseeable future. Zahra would need to go about things a little differently now. She’d need to look out for herself more than ever, with nothing to go home to besides her friends and family.
Neither roster was all that deep, either. She could count the people she loved and trusted on one hand.
There was no one else. Zahra could disappear forever, and there would only be two or three people in all of England that would personally miss her. It was becoming more and more clear that she really could live on the move, if she wanted, and not feel guilty about it. The sound of George’s espresso cup clicking down on the table brought Zahra out of her internal evaluation.
She stood. “Ready?”
He nodded and wiped the churro dust from his lips with his napkin.
“Thank you!” Zahra waved to the barista. “Everything was wonderful.”
The older woman waved back and wished them good fortune on their impending endeavors. Zahra could definitely use a healthy dose of luck right about now. Currently, life was less-than-ideal, but it was nowhere near as bad it was about to get if the Scales of Anubis got their way. Once they touched down in Cairo, Zahra wouldn’t stop until Baahir and Grant were safe, and Khaliq’s genocidal plan was dead in the water.
The burlap sack caused his sweaty scalp to itch intensely, and the covering reeked of something he couldn’t place, and it was making him ill. There was an almost barnyard-like quality to the odor, but he didn’t know if the stink was originating from the sack, or the place he had been led to. The last few hours had been the most trying in his young life, but they had gone by in a blur. He still couldn’t fully process what was happening.
Grant had been kidnapped by a group of violent zealots and then moved out of country somewhere. From the moment he had exited the SUV at an airfield he had never seen before, to boarding a private jet, Grant had been wearing the rotten sack over his head. There was no way of telling where he had been taken except that he had been flown out of the UK.
The outside temperature was presently much warmer than in London, and the ground was sandy and radiated the same heat as the air. The time aboard the aircraft clued him into his present location as did his present company. He was in Egypt somewhere. Grant had made that trek once before. A direct flight from London to Cairo was about five hours of total flight time.
His captors had mentioned Zahra several times — how she had killed a handful of their men with little trouble — and with no gun. Unknown to those around him, Grant understood enough Arabic to get around. Zahra’s reputation as a woman who could get the job done was plain to see. She was more than just an archeologist. Grant was confident in his assessment of her. She had shown him that — shown these people that.
Her abilities were what Grant was holding out hope for.
Zahra dreamt that everyone she cared about was dead, and based on her prior headcount, there weren’t that many people to mourn. But she also felt the weight of all the innocent lives that had been lost at the hands of Anubis’ plague. While the Scales of Anubis were directly responsible for the atrocities, Zahra couldn’t help but share part of the blame.
She stood atop the Great Pyramid in Giza and witnessed a shambling, zombie-like horde closing in on her position. She had no idea how she had gotten to the peak of Khufu’s tomb. It didn’t matter. All she knew was that there was a voice in head laughing at her predicament, and then
Zahra spun, gauging her escape, but she saw none. The swarm surrounded her on all sides and was nearly halfway up the pyramid’s four sides. And the most horrifying element of this moment was the zombie-like crowd and those who were leading the charge.
Dina, Grant, Cork, and her brother and father.
