The Anubis Plague полностью

Baahir climbed to his feet. He peeked into the suite and stopped where he was. On one knee, he watched the doctor plunge a syringe full of black liquid into Grant’s neck. He applied consistent pressure to the plunger until the last drop was gone. Baahir was appalled. Never in his life would he have thought he’d be watching an innocent man be experimented on. He stood and waited, unsure of what would happen next. He doubted the Ayads knew what to expect either. This was uncharted territory for everyone.

“What’s the black stuff?”

“That is powdered hellstone,” Khaliq explained. “Once it is hydrated, it transforms into something amazing.”

“Don’t you mean something appalling?”

Khaliq ignored him and took his sister’s hand. They appeared nervous. It was an uncommon characteristic for the killers.

Nothing happened.

Zahra made it to the bottom first. This time, she opened the door and held it open for her uncle. It was still hard to accept the fact that Wally wasn’t really a member of the family. But did he have to be to still be something more to Zahra? He had put his own life on the line all those years ago to protect her mother. That had to count for something, right?

She pushed open the door and was immediately hit by the incoming breeze coming off the water. She could smell the saltiness of the air and the natural calmness the seaside flow brought her. Zahra loved the coast, no matter where she was in the world.

Patiently, she waited for the elder man. If she had to guess, Wally must have been in his late sixties by now, though the heavy limp portrayed him as much older than that. He was halfway down the steps when Zahra turned and peeked back out over the water. A commotion had picked up in the area surrounding the lighthouse’s eastern entrance. The shadows of a dozen pine and palm trees made it difficult to make out exactly what the disturbance was. Port Said had seen its share of violence. Every place in Egypt had at some point.

A cloud moved away to unveil the uproar’s origin, and the party responsible for it. Locals and out-of-towners, alike, ran amuck, veering around a trio of men standing fifty feet from Zahra and the base of the lighthouse. The guy in the middle knelt and lugged a heavy-looking metal tube onto his shoulder.

Oh, shit.

Zahra let go of the door and ran back the other way, grabbing Wally by the arm as she began to reascend the stairs.

“RPG!” she shouted, pulling the stumbling man along with all her might.

They reached the first landing, hooked a right, but didn’t move any higher. At this angle, if they squeezed against the far wall, the entrance was hidden behind the next step of concrete stairs.

Hopefully, they’re solid enough.

The door to the Port Said lighthouse disintegrated as it, and the surrounding support structure, was decimated by the rocket-propelled grenade. Debris was tossed everywhere, some of it deflecting around the tight confines of the stairwell and hitting its occupants. Wally had thought fast and had covered Zahra and himself with his cloak, keeping most of the shrapnel out. However, some did hit them. As he removed his cloak, both he and Zahra realized they were bleeding from tiny cuts to their exposed skin. Zahra felt the sting of filth socializing with an open wound on her chin.

Shouts arose, and two men entered the cloud of dirt and dust, brandishing twin AK-103 rifles. Zahra drew her gun from beneath her jacket and opened fire.

Wally did as well, pulling a pistol from a hidden holster Zahra hadn’t known he had been wearing.

Each pursuer went down, sporting a pair of gunshot wounds before they could even get a shot off. Thankfully, the bodies weren’t that of local law enforcement or the military. Their civilian clothes and masked faces identified them as what Zahra figured were mercenaries, or, more than likely, members of the Ayad cabal.

Additional voices announced the arrival of more men. Zahra and Wally were outnumbered and outgunned. Being attacked, out in the open, at the most famous landmark in Port Said was not something either of them had taken into account. A wave of automatic gunfire got Zahra and Wally moving. With nowhere else to go, they headed back up the way they had come.

“We can’t go this way!” Wally yelled.

Zahra heard him, even past the ringing in her ears. “Like hell, we can’t!”

Wally squeezed her wrist, but they kept moving higher. “There’s no exit!”

She didn’t care. Anywhere was better than sitting idly by where they were. If anything, they could get to the top, and back outside, and call for help. The concrete walls of the lighthouse tower were surely blocking all cell service, not that Zahra had the time to check. She kept her Glock trained on the route behind her and climbed higher.