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I probably should have asked if she, like Munira at the bazaar, thought I was some kind of champion—but damned if I could force the question out. It was too overwhelming an idea, way too big a responsibility to handle while jet-lagged. Instead, if only to avoid that particular elephant in the corner, I asked, “What kind of assistance?”
“Ah.” She ignored me to stand as her maid showed another woman, holding a notebook, into the room. “Jane. I’m so pleased you’re here.”
“Tala.” If the woman’s red hair, spattering of freckles, and blue jeans hadn’t given her away as a Westerner, the blunt edge of her East-London accent would have. I guessed her to be about my age, maybe a little older. “Father Pritchard, it’s good to see you again.”
I arched a look at Rhys. Father Pritchard? And here I thought he’d stopped practicing.
“I’ve been volunteering as a counselor when I have time off,” he explained, low. “I do have training, because of my previous work, and…”
And old habits were hard to break—especially habits one should keep, like helping others. I could get that, and tried to tell him with my smile that I understood.
In the meantime, Jane was asking, “Tala, where’s Kara?”
“She will be down shortly,” insisted our hostess. “Jane, this is Father Pritchard’s friend, Magdalene Sanger. The one I told you about? Mrs. Sanger, this is my daughter-in-law, Jane Fletcher.”
“It really is Ms. Sanger.” I offered my hand. “Or just Maggie. The ring is a bluff.”
“And I’m an ex-daughter-in-law,” Jane corrected, though her grip on my hand was friendly enough.
“My ex-stepdaughter-in-law,” clarified Dr. Rachid, just to confuse matters more. “It is on her behalf that I request your assistance.”
Rhys frowned. “Dr. Rachid, Jane, I understand how desperate you are, but this is hardly fair to Maggi. This is a…a…”
“A bait and switch?” I suggested. “You get me here by promising the secret of the Isis Grail, then demand that I earn it first?”
“Please, call me Tala.” Our hostess’s dark eyes showed no contrition at all. “And is not the secret of the Isis Grail worth earning?”
Intellectually, I knew the drill—how many of the heroes in myths and fairy tales first have to prove themselves in a series of trials before they get rewarded with the golden apple, the kingdom or true love? But in reality…
In reality, my head was swimming. I’d never set out to be a hero. I just wanted to collect the goddess chalices before the Comitatus could destroy them.
And yet…. Damn it. From either curiosity or kindness—or both—I couldn’t ignore the pain in Jane Fletcher’s eyes, either.
“It couldn’t hurt to tell me what’s going on,” I said, slowly. Reluctantly, even.
Dr. Rachid—Tala’s—smile was, as ever, gracious. Jane raised a fist to her mouth in a failed attempt to smother a hopeful, desperate laugh of relief. But it was Rhys, blue eyes more solemn than usual, who worried me.
And I’d thought I was in over my head when I fell into the Alexandrian harbor!
“Have you ever fallen in love with the wrong man?” asked Jane.
The only man I’d ever loved, besides my father, had been living a secret life the whole time. The only man who’d come close to distracting me from him was sitting right here—and he was a priest. I chose to say nothing and just looked interested.
“I did,” she assured me, opening her notebook. The first page showed a color copy of a wedding photo. “Him.”
I looked. “Sinbad!”
“What?” Rhys looked, as well. “You are right, Maggi. It’s the man from the airport.”
Airport, hell. “And the bazaar!”
He looked at the other ladies. “This is Hani Rachid?”
Tala and Jane exchanged worried looks. Then Jane proceeded with her tale, flipping to more photocopied pictures and then newspaper clippings as if to prove her truthfulness.
She’d been working as a flight attendant. Hani Rachid had attended college at Oxford, the epitome of tall, dark and exotically handsome. Even now, Jane’s gaze softened as she described their courtship. “He was wealthy, and protective. He showered me with gifts and compliments. And he was such the gentleman. He waited until we were married before he would…well…” A small frown marred the bridge of her nose. “I think my virginity meant more to him than ever it had to me. He later told me that if I hadn’t been pure on our wedding night, he would have killed me. I laughed at the time, but…”
He wasn’t the man she’d thought she’d married, at all.
Relieved of the need to win her, Hani had become dominating and chauvinistic. His disdain for the law became increasingly apparent. Not long after the birth of their daughter, Kara—that picture, of course, was adorable—their marriage imploded. Jane divorced him and, because he threw such a public fit of temper over that, she got custody. Infuriated that he could only have supervised visits, Hani moved back to Egypt.
“He visited Kara twice a year, and he did quite the job at controlling his resentment, but I could tell he hated being monitored with her. And then—” Here Jane hesitated, desperation darkening her eyes. “Then, a year ago, I got called onto a flight while he was visiting. My father thought there would be nothing wrong with letting Hani take Kara out for ice cream…but they never came back. Of course my parents were frantic. The first thing I did, when I found out, was call the airlines…”
I had the strangest feeling I’d heard this story before—probably because she wasn’t the first person it had ever happened to.
“He’d taken her home with him,” Jane said, voice breaking. “She was only eleven years old, and he stole her away to Egypt—and nobody in this godforsaken country will give her back!”
A human interest article, including pictures of a too young looking Kara, and copies of letters to and from different officials confirmed this.
“Egypt’s laws do not allow a child to leave the country without her father’s permission,” Tala explained simply, when Jane’s voice deserted her. “Unless my stepson signs papers—but of course, he will not sign. He has become increasingly angry, increasingly rebellious. His business activities…” But she shook her head.
Unsure what else to do, I took one of Jane’s trembling hands in mine.
She inhaled deeply, strengthened either by the goddess energy or just the caring, then raised her face and continued. “At least tradition frowns upon Kara living with Hani, as long as he remains unmarried that is. She lives with Tala, and I spend as much time here as I can afford, more than he does! But it’s not the same as having her home, and I’m afraid…”
Whatever she was afraid of, she couldn’t make herself put it in words.
“After the divorce,” Tala said, “my stepson became involved with other men urging the return of old-world values. Particularly the domination of women. He is not,” she clarified, “a Copt.”
As if any particular religion wholly prevented male domination.
Jane turned to a newspaper article in Arabic—I recognized only her picture. “I tried to smuggle her onto a ship, to get her out of the country, but I suppose he’d been watching for me to do it. He has contacts everywhere. Suddenly the police were there, and they dragged Kara out of my arms and arrested me, and she was screaming…” Jane shuddered and squeezed my hand, as if for strength. “Egyptian jail was horrible! I’m still surprised Hani dropped the charges. I could be in prison right now.”
“It would have been even more of a scandal,” Tala explained, “for a man to need the law to control his wife.”
Jane’s chin came up. “Ex—wife.”
“Especially a man who has so little respect for the law, unless he is using it to his own ends,” Tala continued, which wasn’t encouraging.
“Anyway,” said Jane, “that’s how I met Father Pritchard. I needed someone to talk to, someone who bloody well spoke English, and he was volunteering as a counselor at a clinic here, on his off time.”
“When she learned I was working with the divers, looking for the Temple of Isis, she mentioned the possibility of finding a goddess cup,” explained Rhys. “Of course I was interested, so on her next visit she brought Dr. Rachid—”
“Tala,” insisted our hostess. “And I must take full responsibility for bringing you into this, Maggi. When I hesitated to tell Father Pritchard my ancestral secrets, he suggested that I might be more comfortable confiding in another woman. He spoke so highly of you that…Well…there had been rumors.”
Okay, coward or not, I couldn’t ignore that. “Rumors of what? About me?”
Rhys looked as honestly confused as I felt.
Tala motioned to a maid, who’d waited quietly in the corner, and the young woman immediately left. “Rumors that the time has come, my dear. That the goddess chalices are calling out to be found—and that a champion has been chosen to do just that.”
There was that word again! “Chosen by whom? Assuming there were such a rumor—and I never heard anything about it until I got to Egypt—why would you think I’m that champion?”
I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. Wouldn’t I have been notified about something this important?
Tala’s composure did not waver. “Because, Magdalene Sanger, you are the one who answered the call.”
Before, that had only been because armed men had broken into mine and my aunt’s offices! Only because it was our own family’s grail they’d been after. And now, only because Rhys had a lead—and because someone had gone after him. Nobody goes after my friends. Unless…
What if that had been someone’s ploy to get me here?
“Look,” I said, perhaps more abruptly than was polite. “I’m very sorry for your troubles, Jane, and I hope that you and your…your former stepmother-in-law are able to resolve them. But the fact that I’ve found one single, solitary grail hardly makes me someone who can help you. I’m neither British nor Egyptian. I don’t have an ounce of legal or diplomatic experience. I’m a professor of comparative mythology, not a soldier of fortune!”
“Yes, but—” In the midst of her protest, Jane stopped and brightened. “Kara!”
“Mama!” exclaimed a high voice—and a little girl in a white dress launched herself across the room and into her mother’s waiting arms. Kara Rachid was small for a twelve-year-old, even smaller than she’d looked in her pictures. She had olive skin, curling black hair, and huge dark eyes that reminded me of a puppy’s. Her skinny arms held her mother tightly. “When did you get to Alexandria? How long can you stay, this time?”
In the meantime, the maid had reappeared with a tray of ornate cups that reminded me of Greek kylix, though they were of course smaller than those standard offering vessels. They had wide, shallow bowls with a handle on either side, set on a narrow base. They fit this fine house, I thought, as much as I was willing to notice. They fit this woman.
The maid lay the tray on a cocktail table, and Tala brought the drinks to us. “Touching, is it not?”
I scowled. “This is manipulation.”
“I loved my husband dearly,” she said, her voice low beneath Kara and Jane’s happy reunion. “And I love my granddaughter. But I do not trust my bully of a stepson. Rescue Kara, Magdalene Sanger, and I will help you find the chalice of Isis. Refuse…”
She left the rest of the threat unspoken—but pointedly clear.
“I don’t appreciate ultimatums,” I warned, taking the cup she offered only to soften what I meant to say next.
She raised her eyebrows, unperturbed. “Who among us does?”
Annoyed, I took a sip of the wine—delicious.
But the next thing I knew, I was lying on some kind of rough wooden flooring, surrounded by absolute, echoing darkness.
Chapter 6
Had Tala drugged me?
Not just me.
“Rhys!” I shouted—or tried. Turns out there was cloth tied across my mouth. I inhaled deeply through my nose, smelling damp, musty air. It proved that I was at least alive. I also wore a blindfold. My hands were tied behind my back.
And somebody nearby was arguing. In Arabic.
Lie still, I thought, carefully testing my wrists against the strength of the fabric that bound them. Let them think you’re still out.
But footsteps sounded, hollow on some kind of wooden planking. My aborted shout must have gotten their attention.
“Tsk tsk, Mrs. Sanger.” I thought I knew that voice—deep and cultured and tinged with a British accent. “Have you been feigning all this time?”
Mrs. Sanger?
Then I remembered the damned ring I got from Lex. I should have left it at the hotel…or at least in my passport case.
Hands sat me up—my feet, at least, weren’t tied—and tugged at the gag, pulling my hair. From his voice, at least four feet away and above me, I knew the hands didn’t belong to the speaker. “My men assure me they did nothing to render you unconscious.”
They didn’t have to, if Tala had. “Where’s Rhys?”
“His safety depends on your cooperation.”
Instead of taking my cue—cooperation with what?—I took a fairly large chance. I had to find Rhys. “We might as well ditch the blindfold, too. I already know your face, don’t I?”
He laughed and said something else in Arabic. Hands pulled at the second knot behind my head—wrenching my neck slightly and taking more hair—and cloth fell away from my eyes.
Where the hell were we? It was almost as dark as when I’d worn the blindfold. Underground dark. Hugely dark. For a crazy moment I thought—a pyramid?
But I’d never heard of a pyramid in Alexandria…and I doubted one could be this roomy. Two swarthy men beamed flashlights into my face. But even squinting against yellow light, I recognized the man in the business suit, standing before me. It was Sinbad. From the airport. From the bazaar.
Hani Rachid.
He still had an Eye-of-Horus design painted on his cheek.
And he had at least four people with him I could only call henchmen. The implications didn’t escape me. It looked like Hani Rachid was some sort of crime lord.
“Imshee,” I told him, using his own word for piss off.
Again, I tugged at the bindings on my wrists. I thought I felt them give, just a little.
He laughed. “Your husband may be a weakling and a fool, allowing such disrespect. I am neither. You will stay away from my family or suffer the consequences, you and this false priest.”
Only when he pivoted and kicked did I see Rhys lying, blindfolded and bound, in the shadows near Rachid’s feet. My friend’s gag didn’t fully muffle his cry at the kick.
I feared it wasn’t the first. “Leave him alone!”
“Do not presume to order me about.”
“And you wonder why your marriage crashed and burned? If I were Jane, I would have left you, too.”
His eyes narrowed, and he took a furious step forward. Good—closer to me was farther from Rhys. But when I merely glared upward, refusing to flinch, he stopped himself—then turned and swung a vicious foot into Rhys’s ribs.
Rhys rolled back with a grunt. Another of Rachid’s men darted quickly behind him and kicked him from that direction.
Somewhere far below and beyond Rhys, I heard pebbles plop into water, as if the wooden plank we gathered on was some kind of platform. The echo was incredible. Even more incredible was a glimpse I got, when one of the henchmen briefly flashed his light across shadowy pillars and arches.
Colonnades. Definitely too roomy to be a pyramid.
So where the hell were we?
