Raiders

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

With Caleb and Zara giving pursuit, Kiya and Tekin were almost out of sight now, fleeing into the crowd of people on the platform. The doors closed and the train started to move away. Mason cursed as he watched them disappear, but he knew they had at least failed in their mission to snatch the codex from the museum. The offending article was still firmly in the grip of his opponent, and he was determined to get it back.

Mason grabbed the man by the throat and piled another hefty punch into his face. The man grunted as his head cracked against the carriage floor. He was getting tired and hoped the Raven would buckle soon. “Give me the fucking codex!”

Dariush responded by bringing his knee up and driving it into Mason’s ribs, winding him and forcing him back. Mason hit the carriage floor with a smack but quickly scrambled back to his feet. The enormous Raven rushed forward and swung a meaty fist at his face. It missed by millimeters and made Mason jolt his head back to avoid the blow, but the Raven was too fast. Before the Londoner could regain his balance, his opponent had swung his left foot out in an impressive arc and hooked Mason’s feet out from under him.

He went down again, this time striking the carriage door with a heavy smack. The pain seared through his back and neck, and nearly knocked him out, but he shook it off and got back to his feet once again.

By the time he had his balance back, Dariush had decided to retreat and was turning toward the doors. The train was fast approaching Bond Street and Mason guessed he was desperate to rendezvous with his associates.

As the man made a break for it, Mason scrambled toward him and gave chase in a last, desperate bid to get the codex back. Catching up with him a few meters down the carriage he leaped at his legs and brought him crashing to the floor with a powerful rugby tackle.

Still clutching the codex in his hand and desperate not to let go, Dariush howled in pain as his chest and face smashed down into the floor. Holding the codex out in front of him, he had cushioned the blow a little and stopped himself from breaking his ribs, but his chin and mouth were now crushed into a bloody pulp.

Spitting a broken tooth into the air, he kicked and squirmed to break free of Mason’s grip, all the time trying to keep hold of the precious codex in his hands.

“You bastard!” Mason yelled.

“Release me!”

“You’re wasting your breath, mate,” Mason said. “Your arse belongs to the cops and that codex belongs to me!”

“Never!”

Mason saw the coldest, darkest fear flash through the other man’s eyes. Then, in a heartbeat, Dariush slipped a tiny glass vial into his mouth and crushed it with his teeth.

Mason gasped and leaped back, already knowing what had happened and that there was nothing he could do. The man had taken cyanide, and not even blinked while he was doing it. The automatic and immediate way he had swallowed the poison had shocked Mason to his core. Now, he watched helplessly as the Raven gasped and choked and foamed at the mouth. His eyes bulged, red and painful, but then it was over, and he collapsed back on the carriage floor, dead. Clearly, this Raven feared a painful death less than reporting his failure to secure the codex back to his superiors in the Order.

As the train slid into Bond Street station, Mason gently lifted the dead man’s arm and peeled his fingers away from the stolen Nectanebo Codex. He shook his hand in pity, and calmly closed the dead man’s eyelids as a sign of respect. Whatever he had been in life, he was gone now, and Mason wasn't the kind of man to disrespect the dead.

He was shaken from his thoughts by the familiar sound of his old friend Zara Dietrich as she ran up beside him, a policeman at her side. Caleb was there too, and the shrug he gave told him that Kiya and Tekin had slipped the net.

“Please tell me he didn’t get away with the codex?” Zara said.

Through the pain, Mason gave a cocky smile, shook his head and waved the dented, copper tube at her. “What do you take me for? It’s right here.”

“Where’s the Raven?” Caleb asked.

Mason indicated inside the carriage and his friends saw the dead man sprawled on the floor beside the main exit.

An armed police officer ran to Dariush with his weapon aimed at his head. “Stay down!”

Mason rolled his eyes. “He’s dead, for Christ’s sake.”

The policeman ignored him, and wedging the toe of his boot under the dead man’s chest, he kicked him over onto his back. Aiming the muzzle at him at all times, he leaned forward and checked his wrist for a pulse. Finding none, he stepped back and clicked the safety catch on his Heckler & Koch and rubbed the sweat from his face. After surveying the trashed carriage and faces of the terrified passengers, he said, “And you clowns do this for living, am I right?”

Mason managed a sheepish grin. “Well…”

“You did a good job,” a tall man said. He flashed a warrant card that identified him as Inspector Henderson, and then he turned to his sergeant and nudged his chin in the direction of Dariush. “Get an ambulance over here right away. We’re going to need a post-mortem on this one as fast as we can.”

Kiya stepped silently from the shadows and watched Tekin drag the dead body out of sight. Her Raven had just murdered a man returning to his BMW on the top floor of a multi-story car park not far from Oxford Street. The man had done nothing more than be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now he was dead.

They climbed into the Beamer and Tekin used the dead man’s keys to fire up the powerful engine. Slamming into reverse, he was out of the parking space in no time. The wheels spun and smoked as he hit first gear and stamped on the throttle, speeding along the down ramps without wasting a second.

Were it not for Dariush, Kiya might have smiled. It was a mistake losing the ankh in Frankfurt because of a simple flesh wound, and letting the enemy get to the sarcophagus first was unforgivable, but now she had the advantage. Their next destination was not far, and then she would have her prize. Whoever had been trying to stop them was tougher than the police, but still no match for her. If they crossed her path again she would be forced to kill them.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the seat. The gentle motion of the luxury car rocked her. It felt soothing. She imagined there would be a lockdown back at the sight of the battle, but that was of no consequence.

Dariush had done well to sacrifice himself in the way he had done. He had brought great honor on his rank and bought Tekin and her several much needed minutes; precious minutes that would allow them to slip out of the city and into the peace of the night. She would report his bravery to the Lion and he would be honored.

“Why Oxford?” Tekin asked as he steered the car west.

“It’s obvious,” Kiya replied, crossing her long legs. The diffused overhead lighting of the instrument panel shone on her leather trousers. “The only man who can lead us to the codex lives there.”

The confusion on Tekin’s face was almost endearing. “But those people we fought… they have the codex.”

“Wrong. I had time to unroll the paper they found in the sarcophagus. It is not the codex, but it will lead us to it.”

“Then we shall have it,” Tekin said.

Yes, she considered, we will have it.

As the car cruised through White City, she studied the pictures of the team who fought her on Oxford Street and back on the Underground. She felt a surge of hatred for them all, especially the man leading them. He looked cocky, and she wanted to break him down in front of his friends and show them all who called the shots.

But first, she needed to know her enemy.

She sent the pictures to the Lion with a request to make an ID search on him. There could be few people in this world that had the ability to run from the Lion, and even fewer who could hide from him. She was confident that she would soon have all the information she needed on this crew of rogue fools.

Tekin started to speak but she hushed him with a dismissive wave of her hand. In the new silence she had created she closed her eyes and saw the sun once again as it crawled toward the horizon and the desert went black. The pipes played once more; their hoarse, reedy notes danced over the dunes as the woman was dragged toward the fire and they made her kneel. The man in robes was here again, moving through Kiya’s imagination like a spectre. He raises his sword and pushes the tip into the bound woman’s chest. She screams. Those observing the killing scream and whoop like crazed animals as the man runs the sword through her and catches her blood in the cedar wood bowl.

Her eyes flashed open.

She was in a car in London and her heart was beating hard in her chest, like a caged bird trying to fight its way out of her. She slowed her breathing. The Augur had told her she was safe, and she believed him. No one in Occulta Manu ever doubted the Augur and his prophecies.

Still flanked by her remaining loyal Raven Tekin, she squeezed her eyes shut tighter and considered her next move as they slipped out of London. The sound of the car driving on the asphalt and the chit-chat on the radio talking about the terror attack on Oxford Street was replaced by the gentle, reedy call of the ancient pipes. The sun rose over the desert and she almost gasped when its rays struck her eyes.

The ancient order would always win.

Sacrifice, honor, death, eternal life.

But first, she had to get to Oxford because that was where her enemy was going — even if they didn’t know it yet.