In the Eye of the Storm (Storm and Silence 2)

‘Absolutely not!’ my dear employer snapped. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

‘No, it’s still in my head, just as usual.’

‘You don’t even know how to shoot!’

‘It’s never too late to learn, is it?’ Grabbing the rifle, I pulled it from the man’s unresisting hands. ‘Where do you put the bullets in?’

‘You’re insane!’ Mr Ambrose hissed. ‘Put that down at once!’

‘No!’

‘You won’t need it anyway! You’re staying here!’

‘In your dreams!’

Driving his camel forward, he was suddenly beside me, his hand reaching up. But other than with that poor man earlier, he didn’t grab my throat. He grabbed my chin, pulling me towards him. ‘In my dreams,’ he told me, his voice still as hard and cold as an iceberg, ‘more interesting things happen. Things that involve the two of us.’

I swallowed. Just this once, with his dark, sea-coloured eyes boring into mine, I had no words.

‘Stay here!’ he ordered.

I shook my head.

Youssef’s camel skidded to halt beside us.

‘Effendi, we have to go! We have already lost the element of surprise! If we delay much longer, they will have reinforcements at the entrance to the gorge, and we won’t be able to take it!’

I felt Mr Ambrose’s fingers clench around my chin almost painfully tightly. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He didn’t take his gaze from me, almost not seeming to notice the commands shouted at the distant entrance of the gorge.

‘There’s nothing I can do to make you stay, is there?’

‘No,’ I vowed. ‘I’m coming with you!’

Before I could so much as flinch away, he was on me. His arms came around me, almost lifting me off my saddle, pulling me so tight against him I felt every crease in his tailcoat, every line of his hard body, every grain of sand between us. Our lips collided like two opposing armies, ready to die and love it.

‘Effendi! We have to…’

I didn’t hear the rest of Youssef’s words. My ears were ringing, my body was on fire. Dimly, I wondered whether one of the bullets had hit me. But this felt entirely too sweet for that.

When we finally broke apart, I was panting for breath. Mr Ambrose, of course, was as cold and collected as ever. Well, almost.

‘Stay safe!’ he ordered, pressing his forehead to mine for just a moment. Then he wheeled his camel around and raised his rifle into the air. ‘Attack!’

The Art of Losing your Way

It wasn’t quite the attack I had imagined. I had expected a brave rush towards the entrance of the gorge, waving our rifles in the air and firing the occasional well-aimed shot at the bandits.

Reality was somewhat less heroic. We hunkered down behind a few rocks some distance away from the entrance of the gorge. While bullets were flying over our heads, I watched with increasing puzzlement as several of our men put up three of the large cylindrical objects they had brought on tripods. At one end, the objects had a barrel, like a rifle. At the other, something that looked like handle stuck out of it.

‘What’s that?’ I demanded, pointing to one of the objects that was sitting a few rocks away from us.

‘One of my prototypes,’ Mr Ambrose answered, curtly.

A shot rang out, and I hurriedly snatched my hand back from over the rock, staring at him in disbelief. ‘We are being shot at by blood-thirsty bandits, and you want to test some new gadget?’

‘Yes.’ He gave a signal to one of the men around the cylindrical thingamy, and the fellow grabbed the handle, directing the barrel-shaped protrusion directly at the entrance of the gorge. One final time he looked up, searching for final approval from Mr Ambrose. Mr Ambrose nodded. ‘Fire!’

The handle began to turn - and the world turned into fire.