Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed

Author:Premee Mohamed
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd
Published: 2020-04-04T08:00:21.394889+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WE LEFT AROUND dawn—Johnny had transferred what she needed onto her computer, packed my bag with more notes and a carefully hand-copied map, and generated a new laptop map. When I had gone out into the hallway to find a bathroom—no way could I bring myself to just find a handy corner, not here in a mosque or a library—the airport man had disintegrated to a muddy black outline on the tiles, only scraps of his Adidas jacket remaining, bubbling slightly, moving as if it were filled with maggots. I had been preparing to have a conversation about body disposal, and was relieved that I wouldn’t have to.

We headed through a tiny side door into a walled garden or park. I gasped the relatively damp, cool air gratefully and looked up at the palm trees swaying in the pale, pink light of dawn. A few stars glittered on the horizon, hot and blue. Everything smelled of cinnamon, flint, and leaves. I hadn’t realized how stifling and musty the library had been. “Did you find what you wanted to find?”

“The alignment isn’t in our solar system,” she said. “It isn’t even in our universe. I knew that, but I also didn’t know where it was. Now I do. And we are screwed. Absolutely screwed.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“We have till about dawn on July fifth,” she said. “Today’s the third.”

“But... did you find out how to shut the gate?”

She shook her head; the light wasn’t even touching the dark circles under her eyes. I probably looked even worse. At least I didn’t have her beauty to lose; start lower, not as far to fall. “But I know who’s got the set of records I need. Duplicates, but they’ll have to do, we don’t have time to track down the originals.”

“Where are they?”

“Ireland. But they’ve got good copies at the University of Carthage library.” She snarled with frustration, and dug a foot into the thick grass. “We can’t waste any more time on buses; we’re chasing daylight now. We’ll have to take our chances at the airport here.”

“But the cops...?”

“Depends largely on Omar,” she said. “If he shut up that big cop with the moustache and told the others he transferred us, it’ll be a little while before they realize we’re not there. It’s easy enough to lose track of people in custody.”

“Jesus, let’s hope. What about trains?”

“No trains. You gotta zig where They think you’ll zag. Plus, trains mean tracks. Too easy to find and you can’t bail if you need to.”

To my immense, almost tearful gratitude, we found a cafe to have breakfast in first—or whatever meal we were supposed to be eating after skipping so many. The tables were small and round and perfect as backgammon pieces, real marble or a white stone that looked a lot like it, the plastic chairs a little incongruous next to them. She ordered in French and paged through her notes while we waited, my forearms resting on the smooth edge of the cold stone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.