Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Ben and I exited the cave and found our footsteps being tailed by a tailed fiend. Qita trotted up to Ben's other side and looked us over. "You look like you could use a good luck charm."

I stopped and stepped out in front to face the cat. "You really only have one life left, don't you?"

Qita plopped his butt on the ground and twitched his ears. "What is your point, human?"

I knelt in front of him and smiled. "The point is we need you to stay near your family. If something happens, you have to find us."

Qita lifted his nose a little and frowned. "I may be of better use to you."

I stroked his head, and try as he might he leaned slightly into the petting. "Lila needs you, too. Her dad isn't feeling well and her mom is worried sick, so they'll have a hard time protecting her like you can."

The feline twitched his whiskers but stood. "Very well, but do not go wasting the life I so unselfishly saved."

I grinned. "A lot of people are asking me for some pretty hard promises."

Qita scoffed. "A promise is hardly worth the air used to make it. I demand an oath upon your most precious thing."

I blinked at him a moment before I lifted my eyes to Ben. He had a curious look on his face as I slowly spoke my new oath. "I swear on my most precious thing that I'll be careful."

Qita swatted my leg with his paw. "It doesn't work unless you name it!"

I hung my head and sighed. My words came out slightly more mumbled, jumbled, and faster than before. "IswearonBenthatIwillbeascarefulasIcanbe."

The feline frowned but sauntered past me. "That is a sorry excuse for an oath, but it will have to do." His high tail disappeared into the shadows of the narrow alley, but his voice floated back to us. "And remember it!"

"Oh boy. . ." I murmured.

Ben's hand came into view and I looked up to find him smiling down at me. "Did I ever tell you I had a knack for deciphering gibberish?"

A blush accented my cheeks as I accepted his hand and he helped me to my feet. "I-I couldn't think of anything better right then."

He chuckled. "Your impulse is most flattering and probably closer to your heart than you care to admit."

I cleared my throat. "Yeah, well, don't we have a dirty statue to go visit? We should probably hurry before she crumbles to dust waiting for us."

Ben's eyes twinkled but he led me forward without another world. Unfortunately, the path back to the small shop wasn't as easy as the first time. We had hardly gone more than two blocks when we ran into our first patrol. Two soldiers with spears and one of them with a saddle bag strung across his chest hinted at their purpose in hunting down those with the ‘gift,' a poor title for those being hunted down.

Ben leaned around the corner and his clothes shifted to his dark persona. I envied his ability to speak without being heard. "We should travel across the rooftops, and possibly the skies, until we near the shop. It will be closed at this hour, but I know another way inside."

I lifted my eyes to the wall nearest us. The rough dried mud was still a little too smooth for my hands. Ben bent down with his back turned to me and grinned at me over his shoulder.

"Climb aboard."

I shrugged and hopped onto his back where I wrapped my arms around his neck. He stood and flexed his clawed hands before he dug them one by one into the wall. With his hold fixed, he began with one hand in front of the other.

To say I was uneasy with my body swinging behind him as we climbed higher and higher up the wall would be an understatement. I just had to compound my terror by glancing over my shoulder. By then Ben had climbed thirty feet up and the shadowed ground appeared like a bottomless canyon beneath us. I swallowed hard and shut my eyes.

"A little less grip, if you please," Ben scolded me.

I opened my eyes and realized that I had unintentionally moved my grip closer to his windpipe. Ben now made squeaky noises that made me want to laugh and apologize at the same time. I readjusted my death hold and he continued the climb.

In a minute we reached the top and Ben eased us onto the roof. Like many of the other houses, this one was flat and devoid of walls around the edges. A forest of similar roofs stretched out in all directions around us, ceasing only at the edges and where the palace rose from the desert floor.

All was stillness and shadows beneath the starry, moonlit sky. Twinkling lights meandered their way through the wilderness of streets, signifying groups of soldiers. Everyone else, frightened by both the guards and the rest of the trouble, had taken refuge in their homes and pubs.

I felt Ben stiffen at my side and looked up to find his red eyes focused on the northerly horizon. "What is it?" I whispered to him.

He narrowed his eyes. "The Thaqiba. They've slowed down."

I stared in the direction he did but could only see the massive shadows that were the spinning sandstorms. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, and that explains Ramaal's desperation." Ben took my hand and nodded at the way in front of us. "This way."

The buildings often shared walls so that we were able to step from one to the other. Sometimes a wide street had to be bypassed, but we made progress and the sun didn't yet give a hint of its presence in the far east before we arrived at the shop. All was quiet and dark, and the door was shut.

A stack of broken crates allowed us to climb down and Ben led me over to a pair of wine barrels. He pushed one aside and revealed the sandy ground. I wasn't impressed until he knelt and brushed away the dirt to bare a wooden trap door with a ring. He yanked it hard and the wood grudgingly opened to show us a narrow hole in the ground that led into darkness.

"Ladies first," he told me as he offered me his hands.

I looked apprehensively at the impenetrable shadows. My hesitation gave way to fright when I heard faint voices approaching us. We both whipped our heads in that direction and a pair of tall shadows with even taller poles approached our position.

I plugged my nose, said a prayer, and hopped into the hole.

Cobwebs and spiders greeted me with open limbs, all eight of them, as I fell down a primitive shoot. Dust covered my backside and some of the sand followed behind, giving my head a nice, gritty sprinkle. I dropped out of the bottom and my ass hit hard-packed dirt. The dirt won.

I bit my tongue to keep from groaning, and a warning rumble behind me told me I had to push through the pain and roll through the dirt. I rolled out of the way just as Ben flew out of the darkness and crashed into the spot I had just vacated. His groan echoed in my head.

"Damn, but this floor is hard," he grumbled as he shuffled to his feet. I jumped when he clapped his hand over mine and pulled me to my feet. "Are you alright?"

"Nothing a little bath and a lot of soap wouldn't fix," I assured him as I jerked my head toward our entrance. "What was that for, anyway?"

"Overnight offerings to Tijari could be deposited there," Ben told me as he took my hand in a lighter grip.

The gravelly voice of Tijari came from the darkness. "Back when offerings could be found for a poor creature such as I."

"We've brought our end of the bargain," Ben called out as he guided me through the mess to the back wall.

Tijari's eyes glowed a soft yellow color in the dark as we approached. "Excellent! Pour it on me!"

Ben stopped us before the stone and drew out the vial. "There is a little bit of a problem."

"Never mind the details, just pour it on!" she insisted.

Ben shrugged and uncorked the bottle. He poured the contents over the top of the stone and the water ran down into every crack. Tijari let out a long, deep sigh.

And then she started screaming.