Lost in Time (Blue Bloods 6)

“Yes,” Jack said tersely. He held up his bonding ring so the clerk could see it better. Schuyler tried to look modest and demure as the clerk eyed her warily. Jack rapped on the counter. “Will this be a problem, sir?” His voice was polite, but Schuyler could sense the annoyance behind it. She knew Jack did not like using the compulsion on humans, but it had been a long drive and he was getting irritable.

After taking a long time counting their cash, the clerk finally produced a key and led them to the second level. The room was plain but clean, and Jack and Schuyler went straight to bed so they could be up early the next morning.

The next day, Jack set off to speak to members from the local Coven. “I’m going to make a few calls. See if I can find anyone who can help us track down leads about Catherine,” he said. “You rest for a bit. You look tired, love.” He kissed her and was out the door. With his blond hair hidden in a cap and his green eyes shielded in wraparound sunglasses, dressed in light khakis and a white Oxford shirt, he looked capable and ready; yet Schuyler felt fearful for him. She knew he would be safe—as Abbadon, he was the one everyone should be afraid of—but she could not help it, she was afraid for his life. She knew she’d done the right thing in helping him change his mind about meeting the blood trial, but she worried it would not be enough—that somehow, some way, Jack would be snatched away without warning, and she would never see him again.

While he was out, Schuyler studied the rest of her grandfather’s journals. She could never read them without missing Lawrence. She could imagine him prodding her, challenging her to find the real, hidden meaning behind the cryptic words.

“Usually what we are looking for is right in front of us,” was one of his favorite maxims.

Jack returned in the afternoon. He removed his hat and rubbed his eyes. “The Conclave’s headquarters has been abandoned. But I was able to track down a human Conduit who used to serve an old friend of mine. He said the Coven has been under attack for the last month and the vampires are getting ready to leave the city. Bad news all around.” He looked despondent for a moment. The news that another Coven was going underground was hard to hear, Schuyler knew.

“Anyway, I asked him if he’d ever heard of someone called Catherine of Siena. It was a long shot, but sometimes legends last a long time in older parts of the world.”

“So you found her?” Schuyler said hopefully.

“Maybe. He gave me a name: zani, a holy woman with a huge following. We’re meeting a guide who can take us to her temple at the souk in an hour.” He looked at her directly.

“There’s something else.”

“What is it?” Schuyler asked, her inner alarm bells ringing, as Jack looked so somber.

“I think my sister is here. I can feel her…. She’s looking for something.”

Schuyler rushed to his side. “Then we’ll go.”

“No,” Jack said. “Somehow I sense she’s not here for me.”

“We can’t risk it….”

“Yes we can,” he said gently. “I am not afraid of Mimi or her wrath. We will meet with the holy woman. You will find your gatekeeper.”

They set off, navigating their way on foot through the topsyturvy streets of Cairo, where there were no crosswalks, traffic lights, stop signs, nor turn lanes; and along with the cars, buses, and rickety microbuses, the roads were clogged with donkey and horse carts, bikes and scooters headed in opposite directions. Just as on the highway, everyone on the streets pushed and shoved their way through. Schuyler noticed a car in the middle of the road, its owner fixing a flat tire—he had not thought to move it to the side, and so everyone else had to go around him. Using their vampire speed, they quickly zigzagged through vehicles, and arrived at the marketplace in good time.

The Khan el-Kalili was a winding labyrinthine souk that was once the center of commerce in Cairo during the middle Ages, but now mostly existed to serve the tourist community, with dozens of shops selling Pharaonic memorabilia and Egyptian trinkets: scarabs, crystal pyramids, Queen Nefertiti tea sets, and gold and silver cartouches with your name in-scribed in hieroglyphics. Formerly organized into districts, the shops were now mostly jumbled together, with rug merchants next to computer shops. Only the goldsmiths, coppersmiths, and spice dealers still kept to their historic places.

Schuyler walked quickly, matching Jack’s pace, attempt-ing to ignore the peddlers who thrust their wares in her face and tried to persuade her to come inside their shops. She would not let him out of her sight. He was convinced Mimi was not after him, but Schuyler was not as certain, and she didn’t trust Mimi to leave them alone. They tried to stay together, but the crowd was dense and they were often separated by the aggressive shopkeepers who came between them, holding up an “authentic” trinket of some sort.

“Very pretty very pretty ring yes? From authentic jade stone. One hundred percent made in Egypt!”

“No,

sorry,” Schuyler said, trying to hold on to Jack’s hand and feeling his fingers slipping from her grasp as a shopkeeper inserted himself between them.

“Miss miss miss… come see… alabaster vase from the tombs themselves. Very rare. Very rare,” another said, holding up what had to be a cheap ornament most likely made in Ch-ina. Where was Jack? Schuyler looked around, trying not to panic.

“Ankh? Ward off the evil eye, miss…. Come see. Come inside, many more for you. Very nice.”

“No, no, sorry…” she said, brushing through and trying to make her way past a crowd of Russian tourists who had stopped to gawk at a copy of Tutankhamen’s gold coffin. Jack?

She sent.

I’m here. Don’t worry. Jack appeared by her side, and Schuyler could breathe again.

“Miss! You want, here—perfect sapphire match your eyes!”

“No, sorry. Please…” Schuyler said, pushing the man away. “Goodness, they’re persistent,” she said.

“They’re always a little more desperate in the off-season.