Kindred (Kindred, Book 1) (51 page)

I stumbled, along with the mass of people about me and only just managed to not tip over on top of them. Nero had stilled, cocking his head to the side. “It is Nafrini. The
Cadre
have found us, they have come.”

“
They can't breach the wards. They can't get in.” I said, but not quite managing to hide my alarm and concern.

I was already running after him, he had shouted in Arabic to a few of the men in the room, who were blockading the door behind us as we sailed through. “They already have,” came his reply.

We started heading back the way we had come, but the corridor had fallen in on itself, so we backtracked and took another hall off to the side. This one led further towards the right hand rear of the building, away from the Nosferatin community and not towards the fight, where Nafrini and Michel were no doubt battling.

“
We're going to have to go outside and come back around the front of the building, there is no other way through,” Nero shouted above the noise of cracking concrete and shattering walls. We slipped out of the side of the building, Nero moving his hand over the door and muttering a few low words in Arabic, or maybe Latin, I couldn't be sure. I felt the ward give way and then he paused on the other side and resealed it. I knew we had powers to place protection wards on buildings, but I had absolutely no idea how this was carried out. Watching Nero now, it looked like some sort of spell or charm. I realised I had so much more to learn about who I was and what I was capable of doing. I only hoped I lived long enough to find out.

We slunk along in the shadows made by the palace walls, hugging the side of the building to stay out of sight. By the time we made it to the front of the palace it was obvious the fight had been taken inside. Dust hung in the air like an early morning fog on the farm, unmoving in the still of the night. I was about to take a step towards the entrance, intending on attacking the
Cadre
from the back, similar to what I had done last night, when Nero grabbed my arm.

He looked torn, when I turned to glance at him, anguished and slightly pale. “What is it? What's wrong?” It could be anything, Nafrini is hurt, Michel?

“This is not our battle tonight, Kiwi. We must fight elsewhere.”

“
What do you mean, Nero? Of course this is our battle. Michel is in there. Nafrini. The others.”

He shook his head. “Amisi is not with the
Cadre
, she is still at their base, we need to act now, before it is too late. Nafrini has asked us to rescue her. There is not much time.”

He saw the dawning look of horrible comprehension on my face, his only looked sadder.

“She doesn't think they'll make it, does she? She wants us to free Amisi before it all ends.”

Nero reached up and touched my face softly, wiping away some dust and stonewall grime.

“Our lives are not such a bad exchange for a young innocent, are they?

I don't know, I kinda liked mine.

But, I just took a deep breath and nodded, the last thing I did before we tore through the nearby streets and away from the battle at Heliopolis was to send a thought out on the wind....

Michel! I love you!

I didn't get a reply.

We had run down several streets before Nero stopped by a sleek black
Alfa Romeo
car parked next to the curb. I thought it must have been one of theirs, parked away from the palace as a back up, but when he ran his hand over the car's lock and muttered a few words in that other language, I realised I was wrong.

“
You're stealing this?”

He flashed me a smile as the door clicked opened and simply slid into the driver's seat, reaching over and unlocking my door. “Get in, there is not much time.”

I guess Nero wasn't opposed to Grand Theft Auto then.

The car was fast, but Nero seemed to make it fly through the streets away from Heliopolis. We swerved past pedestrians, still out socialising as the night wore on, bumped over uneven roads and screamed around corners barely on all four wheels. The engine sounded rich and throaty as Nero put it through its paces. I silently reached for my seatbelt and secured it in place.

The colours all around us seemed to be flying past in a blur. At one stage I couldn't tell if it was people or late night market stalls that were making the rush of colour streak past my window, I had to close my eyes and force my uneasy stomach to settle.

“
I am sorry if my driving is upsetting you, Kiwi, but the Coptic is a fair distance away, we must proceed with all haste.”

I just nodded, not trusting myself to comment. He reached over and squeezed my hand to reassure me, just as we came to a surprisingly tight stretch of road. The side of the car screeched against a parked vehicle, swiping our wing mirror off right by my side, sending sparks into the air and finger-nails-on-chalkboard sounds down my spine. Suddenly, I found I could talk after all. “Two hands on the wheel! Two hands on the wheel!”

Nero's attention returned to the road with a look of grim determination. We made it through that impossibly narrow road only to come out into an over-crowded square of some description. People were not only milling around the sides in large groups, but crossing the divide casually. When they heard our car horn frantically beeping, they began to jump and dive out of the way, but part of me knew there was no way we were going to make it across the square without connecting with someone. Nero slammed on the brakes and the car fishtailed wildly, nose down and tyres screaming and we finally came to a stop right in the middle of the square.

No loud thumps. Thank God.

And then I felt the bruise, the seatbelt had already started making, blossom across my shoulder, chest and lower abdomen. Oh God it hurt, I sucked in a breath, but that only made it worse.

Nero was trying to get the car started, but we had gone over some part of a market stall as we entered the square and obviously done some damage, smoke was starting to filter out around the bonnet in front, small at first and then thickening as I watched transfixed by it.

The people in the square were shouting and raising their fists at us, rocking the car from side to side, banging on the roof and doors. I didn't blame them, we had almost killed someone here tonight. Finally Nero shouted, “We will have to go on foot from here, it is not much farther.”

He began to get out of the car and I grabbed his arm. “What about the crowd?” But he had already gone and was pushing through the people on his side of the car to get to me. My door suddenly got wrenched open, I hadn't unlocked it, but when Nero opened his driver's door, mine had automatically unlocked. Damn central locking. I was pulled out of the vehicle by large rough hands, a dark-skinned man started shouting in Arabic at me while shaking me like a leaf.

I couldn't focus properly on the people around me, my head felt like it was going to be snapped off my neck by the force of this man's arms, the world was just a crazy cacophony of noises; loud, jarring, booming noises. Then I realised I could fight. This might be a human, but I know how to fight and right now, this man was threatening me.

I brought my arms up in front of me and then roughly curved them out to either side, snapping the man's grip on my upper arms and threw his arms wide. He didn't stumble, but he was in shock. I don't think he realised a woman would fight back. He recovered himself quickly then and with a look of anger on his face he came at me, fists bunched, ready to strike. By this time Nero had arrived and he clamped a hand on the man's shoulder, saying something harshly in Arabic.

The man's head swivelled towards the new threat, but he stopped. He shouted something back at Nero, which I had no way of understanding, looked at me long and hard, then back to Nero, who nodded and then the man simply left. The group around us also dispersed with muttered grumbles and sideways glances, not all of them friendly, but some I noticed were in surprise, and could that be? Awe?

Nero grabbed my arm, right where it was sore from beefy feature's grasp and tugged me into a run away from the now somewhat silent crowd. I gasped at his hold over that tender spot and he moved his hand down to hold mine, still tugging me forward. I finally found my feet and pace and fell into rhythm beside him.

“What was all that about? What did you say to stop him?”

Nero looked at me quickly, just a glance, then back towards the street we were running down, his face was hidden, a mask of concentration. I didn't think he would answer me, but he said, “I told them you were a
Child of Nut
.”

I skipped around a group of people and rejoined him in the middle of the road, keeping pace with his long strides. “What does that mean?”

“My people have a legend, that Thoth, the God of Wisdom and Knowledge, once prophesied a child would be born to Nut who would become Pharaoh after Ra.” He stopped talking to negotiate another group of people, then rejoined me and ran silently for a few paces. I was about to ask,
what the hell does that mean?
When he continued. “It is told that she had five children, Osiris was the first born and it was proclaimed to the heavens on his birth, 'The Lord of All comes forth into the Light!' We are the children of the Light, Kiwi. We force out evil and banish the Dark. To my people we are the
Children of Nut
.”

“
How did
that
stop him, it's just a legend.”

“
To my people it is not.”

I didn't know what to say to that. It was just a legend, but it had got us out of a tight spot, so who was I to complain?

“Why did he believe you?” Another dodge around a group of younger people, loud and boisterous. They have teens in Egypt too then. Huh.

The streets had become more narrow, the buildings so much older. There were parts of walls bisecting alley ways that looked as old as time itself, or at the very least perhaps Roman in their origin. It was a rabbit warren of paving, low walls and crooked buildings. At any other time it would have been a lovely place to stop and take photos. Why is it on my first trip to Egypt I don't even get to be a tourist? I had no doubt I would not be seeing the Pyramids any time soon.

He shrugged, a simple yet elegant movement on him. “It is easy to see with you.”

That didn't make any sense at all, but just as I was about to voice that, he took hold of my wrist and steered me into the shadows, slowing our pace down to just a creep.

“We are almost there. Let us be cautious.”

“
What's the plan?” I whispered as we were hunkered down behind a low wall some ten metres from The Coptic Museum. The
Cadre
hadn't settled for a simple dwelling as their hide-out, they had commandeered The Coptic Museum, a beautiful old sandstone building engraved with arched designs and delicate mouldings along its roof line. The main entrance was a squat building, compared to the rest of the museum around it, with a flat roof. The glow of master vampire eyes obvious, every now and then on top of the entrance building, standing guard. Between us and the main entrance was a courtyard with two perfectly square green grass areas, each planted with a mini palm tree, and a large expanse of paving. Not an ounce of cover anywhere to be seen, crossing the courtyard unnoticed was going to be impossible.

“
We go in from the top. Take out the guards there and enter through the roof access.”

It was good as far as plans went, the buildings on either side of the museum were the same height as the outer buildings of The Coptic, which were all higher than the entrance building. If we could enter one of those and jump from their rooftop to The Coptic and then down to the entrance building, we might just be able to do it. Nero started moving off, back away from the entrance and towards the building on the left.

The neighbouring building was made up of various shops with what appeared to be apartments above. Nero ran his hands over the door to one shop, muttering his magic words quietly and the door clicked open. Dark inside, we negotiated our way past touristy objects, brightly coloured materials, Hookahs and small figurines of Pharaohs and Sphinxes, with the odd Pyramid or two.

At the rear of the building was a store room, a workshop and kitchen facilities, I guess for making morning tea and to the left a stairwell leading up into darkness. We quietly stepped on the stairs, expecting them to creak, but they remained silent as we ascended up past the closed door to the living area. A T.V. could be heard, passed unattended bedrooms above and finally reaching the door to the fire escape and roof access.

Another muttered word from Nero and a wave of his hand over the door knob and we were out on the external fire escape and climbing. The final steps to the roof top surrounded by dry heat and the noises of the city settling for the night.

Nero crouched at the edge of the building, trying to remain unseen. I knew we would have to move fast, the vampires guarding the roof would sense us well before we approached. Initially, they would assume our heartbeats belonged to the occupied buildings surrounding The Coptic, but once we landed on that building and made our way towards them, they would know an attack was on. There was just simply no way to sneak up on a vampire.