straight at where my lover was likely fighting for his life.
“There!” I yelled, gesturing—and forgetting how the carpet worked. The syllable had barely left my lips when it leapt ahead, causing Ray to yelp and me to clutch his waist as we took off at what could only be described as an extremely unwise pace.
I didn’t care. “Faster,” I breathed, and swore that I felt us speed up even more.
“Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!” Ray screamed, because there were no safety protocols on this thing, which had just fallen like a stone. But it had fallen in a slanting, forward motion-y kind of way, which literally seconds later had us hitting the Khan-el-Khalili, the huge bazaar in the center of the city.
I’d heard of this place, of course; everyone had. It was almost as famous as the pyramids, with its narrow, cobblestone streets, soaring arches, and limestone walls practically unchanged for seven hundred years. I’d heard tales of towering mosaics, of intricately carved wooden doors, of sagging wooden balconies hanging over shops filled with everything from cheap tourist crap to genuine finds. I’d been planning to visit before we left and maybe pick up some souvenirs for the folks back home.
But not like this.
Because our turbo charged ride did not seem to understand the difference between flying unimpeded through the air and flying through a still-crowded marketplace, where colored glass lanterns cast rainbows over what had to be hundreds of people—touts, tourists, locals, guides, and shop owners with their merchandise.
Especially their merchandise.
“Ow!” Ray yelled, batting at a hanging garden of copper pots, pitchers and platters that batted us back. And then at some blue beaded chandelier things outside the entrance of another shop, the strands of which hit us in the face like hail. And then through a lamp seller’s inventory, which—gah!
“Down!” Ray gasped, as glass shattered and sprayed everywhere. “Take us down!”
We went down, plowing through a shoe vendor’s rack, sending multiple pairs of leather slippers flying like a flock of startled birds. And then through another rack of brightly colored outfits, shimmering with beads and sequins, half of which clung to us. And then behind a local man on a motorcycle, who was staring over his shoulder with the panicked, disbelieving eyes of a guy being chased by a couple of djinn on a flying carpet.
Which only got worse when an Anubis jumped off a building on top of him.
The man and his ride went skidding into a café, sending the patrons screaming as we tore past. And then was thrown off altogether when he hit a wall. The crash didn’t seem to faze the ancient god, however, who swiftly righted the bike and used it to come after us.
“Give me the gun!” I yelled at Ray, who had shoved it in his pocket.
“What?”
“The gun!”
He gave me the gun.
I sketched something appropriate and pointed it at a wall. But we were going so fast that the pic got a little overstretched. Which resulted in a twelve-foot-long scorpion that . . . yeah. Worked really well, I thought, as I gestured at the god of death coming up fast behind us.
“Kill it!”
The scorpion seemed enthusiastic about this idea, leaping off the wall and tackling the motorcycle riding asshole. At least, I assumed so, judging from all the yelling going on behind us. I would have turned around to see, but another huge assailant had just jumped down and caught hold of the back of our ride.
And Ray—God bless him—made sure that he regretted it.
Ray had the front of the rug in a death grip, and was using it to steer by tugging this way or that—and he’d gotten pretty good at it. Because we slung around corners, sped down avenues, and zipped across cross-streets. And in the process smashed our would-be assailant into beautiful old geometric wood paneling, into plastic mannequins wearing belly dancing costumes, into glassware, copperware, and shelves of obsidian statues—some, ironically, of Anubis himself. We plowed him through displays of carved wooden boxes and dishes with shimmering mother-of-pearl inlay, and a huge brass hookah taller than he was. We slung him into a couple of massive alabaster vases outside an antique shop and then through a spice seller’s baskets of cinnamon, peppercorns, and cardamom.
If there was a shop we missed, I’d be surprised. And when we weren’t crashing into something, we were dragging him over rough-edged cobblestones, scattered café chairs, and a fountain of very hard ceramic tiles. Which I guessed wasn’t fun judging by the sounds he was making.
And