Four of the seven men rushed Ifza and swiftly apprehended her. She was zip cuffed relieved of her remaining weapons.
Waleed stepped up to Ifza, stopping within a foot of her.
“Unlike you, I am not a cold-blooded killer.”
And with that, Ifza had a thick wool sack slid over her head. She allowed Waleed’s men to march her away to God-knows-where, manhandling her like the prisoner she was. Ifza could have easily tried to fight back, thrashing against her bonds like a feral beast. She didn’t, though. As Waleed had shown her, he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.
Based on the echoing sound of footfalls, Ifza could tell she was led inside a large room. She guessed it was the central building of Waleed’s operation. She’d never been inside, so she had no idea where she was being taken. They stopped and waited. A clunk preceded the sting of protesting metal as a door, in need of oil, swung open. Ifza was, again, dragged along, finding steps beneath her feet. Her captors slowed and allowed her to keep her feet underneath her.
Ifza had not expected to be treated with such care. If it were her and her people, they would have simply pushed Ifza along, and if she fell, that would have been that. Ifza would be picked up off the ground, or forced to stand on her own, regardless of any injury sustained from the fall, and forcibly shoved forward to meet some terrible fate.
This didn’t remind Ifza of that.
Several voices spoke up as she was guided along. The cloak and their hushed tones made it impossible to discern what was said, but Ifza figured they were talking about her. A door opened somewhere in front of her. The men on either arm led her in, spun her around, and sat her down on a chair. Through the sack, Ifza could just make out a lone light overhead. The rest of the space was as dark as night, from what she could tell. Her ankles were then shackled to the legs of the chair.
The door shut. She sat in total silence for sixty seconds.
She suddenly realized. It’s because she
“I know you are there,” she said, listening carefully.
Soft footsteps picked up somewhere in front of Ifza. They stopped just in front of her. If her legs hadn’t been restrained, she would have been able to lash out with her feet.
The wool sack was torn from Ifza’s head, taking some of her hair along with it. She tried to look up at the man standing over her but was met with a blinding light instead. Ifza had looked directly into the single bulb dangling overhead.
She blinked away the spots in her vision.
“It’s been a long time, Ifza.”
Baahir couldn’t believe what he was seeing. They had only just finished clearing off what he now knew to be a seal around a doorway.
As of now, he had displayed nothing more than indifference. He was hoping Khaliq hadn’t discovered it yet. But Baahir could only play dumb for so long.
The seal depicted Anubis and his scales, though instead of the god holding them aloft, he was seated in an oversized, throne-like chair. In one hand were the scales. In the other was the fabled Anubian canopic jar.
The epiphany hit him hard, and it was too hard not to react.
“What is it?” Khaliq asked, eyeing him.
Baahir swallowed. “Do you think the temple really exists?” He hoped the question would distract the psychopath.
It worked.
“Yes, I do.” He tipped his chin at the seal. “What do you make of this?”
Baahir needed to give the man some information. If he delayed for too long, Khaliq would order Ajmal to blow a hole through the priceless remnant. It was bound to happen.
Baahir attempted to explain his hypothesis, trying to stay as vague as possible. “We obviously have Anubis sitting in what could only be a throne, right?” Khaliq nodded. “And he’s holding his scales, as well as our family’s prized canopic jar, the one you destroyed and used to infect an innocent man with a centuries-old virus.”
Khaliq turned his attention from the seal to Baahir. The Egyptologist cleared his throat.
“What else do you have, Dr. Hassan?” Khaliq asked. “A child could decipher that much.”
Baahir’s pulse quicken. “Yes… yes, I was just trying to—”
“To
Baahir shook his head. “Why would I do that?” Now it was Baahir’s turn to stare down someone. “It’s not like I have anyone rushing here to rescue me, right? I mean, you did say that my sister was dead, after all.”
For a moment, Khaliq’s stoic expression faltered, cracking enough for Baahir to realize that he didn’t know for sure if Zahra was really dead. His eyes returned to the circular seal, and he stepped out onto its face.
