Chapter 14: The Showdown
By Conception.Creation
Disclaimer: The Bartimaeus Trilogy is the property of Jonathan Stroud
A/N: So close to the end now, I can taste it! Thank you experiement630, Nari-nick, and Duckweed for your reviews. I hope this is worth the wait!
I was pretty much resigned to death. Even the most valiant warrior must know when it's time to admit defeat, and let's face it; one against fifty is not good odds. All that was left now was to face the end with as much equanimity as I could muster, which wasn't an easy thing to do. After five thousand years you get kind of attached to living.
This is precisely the reason why I was so surprised when the temple doors slammed open, and two figures burst into the room with war-like cries. Two magicians, one elderly and the other youthful. Button and my old friend Rebecca, who looked particularly fierce as she clenched her fists in a fighting stance.
"Hooray!" I cried, applauding their timely entrance.
"You think that skinny kid and the one-legged magician are going to save you?" Werfel sneered, lowering his weapon a tiny fraction.
Well maybe he had a point about Button, whose face was an obscene shade of mottled purple, and was panting as if he hadn't had anything to drink in four months. Piper had spirit though–and they wouldn't have flown to my rescue without a plan, right?
Hmm, well I had to admit, if there was a plan they were sure taking their time in getting to it. Rebecca stood hesitantly in the doorway, shifting her weight from foot to foot as though trying to figure out what to do next. Werfel gestured to his companions.
It was about this time that I suddenly realized I should probably be escaping while my captor was distracted. I launched myself from the pentacle, flipping through the air and lobbing a Detonation at Werfel for good measure. Missed him by a mile, unfortunately, but at least some nice chunks of the stone wall were blasted away, peppering by-standers with tiny stone missiles.
The room erupted into immediate chaos.
Cries of fury echoed through the chamber. Several guards ran after me, jumping up and down and waving their arms in the air, trying to pull me back to earth. I was wisely flying well out of their reach. A separate wave of men rushed towards Button and Piper, furiously shaking the weapons they carried.
Button lifted stretched out an arm towards the pentacle and uttered a command. A bright orange kangaroo burst into the pentacle's centre in a cloud of choking yellow smoke. A bandersnatch by the looks of it. (Bandersnatch: a lesser djinni known for its unusual manifestation choices.) The creature grabbed the nearest guard and lobbed him right through the ceiling. Nice.
As for me, I was weaving left and right through the air, held aloft by a pair of sparkling white wings sprouting from Ptolemy's back. I ducked to the side as a silver throwing knife hurtled towards me, thrown by an unseen assailant on the ground.
Not fast enough, unfortunately. The silver missile clipped me in the wing. A drugged, sleepy feeling seeped through me as the silver poison permeated my essence. My wing beats faltered and I smashed into the ground in a crumpled heap.
Where I was immediately beset upon by a rather angry cat.
Werfel's little pet kitten took apparent offense to my fall from the heavens, and with a malicious hiss, pounced on my crippled form in a blur of ferocious calico fur.
I tell you, there's nothing quite like a set of jagged claws in your back to bring you back to consciousness.
With a string of vivid curses, which I can not specify here for the sake of propriety, I picked up the writhing kitten by the scruff of its neck and hurled it into the nearest wall. Sorry animal lovers, I plead self defense.
There was an abrupt squeal behind me as someone finally managed to get the Bandersnatch. Its essence dispersed with a loud sucking sound, leaving the three of us to fend for ourselves against the roomful of foes.
Piper suddenly caught my attention. She was dashing towards me, huffing and puffing and glancing back in terror at the unfriendly-looking man bearing down on her, brandishing his knife threateningly. I lent a helping hand, crisping Rebecca's pursuer to a cinder with a well-aimed Inferno.
"Didn't you have some kind of weapon earlier?" I shouted, now blasting at a patch of guards goading the ailing Harold Button. I have to do everything around here, I tell you.
Rebecca was unable to answer, as just then an elemental sphere was launched our way. We dove for cover as the sphere detonated, rocking the foundations of the building.
It was then that Werfel made his move. I hadn't noticed him in all the commotion, but now suddenly he was by Piper's side. Grabbing a fistful of hair, he yanked Rebecca's head back violently, resting the flat of his blade on her exposed throat. Button and I froze.
"Any more tricks up your sleeves?" Werfel growled.
Kitty was practically flying over the weedy path. Her feet pounded rhythmically as she ran on, powered by pure adrenaline. The pain of her jarring ribs was lost in the urgency of her mission.
Something lay stretched out in her way, half obscured in the long scraggly grass. Kitty slowed her advance and gazed down upon it.
It was the body of Samir, face down in the golden Egyptian dust. He must have been dead for some time now, for his body was already stiff and cool. A slender dagger jutted from his back, indicating the cause of his demise.
Kitty stared down at her fallen foe impassively. So Rebecca had managed a bit more than mere escape then, had she? Well, no time to waste contemplating the morality of the situation.
Just as Kitty made to leave, a glimmer of metal caught her eye. Samir's heavy rifle lay discarded a few feet from where its owner had fallen.
Might come in handy. Kitty told herself. She scooped up the weapon and cradled it in her arms. Then she was running again, no more then a mad blur of movement on the mountain path.
She was approaching the edge now. In front of her, the mountainside plunged fifty feet into the tree-filled valley below. Kitty halted on the brink, staring out over Siwa. Her eyes scanned the horizon. There. Movement.
She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and then, with all her strength, screamed a command that reverberated through the Siwa Valley.
There was no change at first. Then a sound. A responding echo resounded through the trees, over the rocks, up the mountainside. Screeches and squeals like those of wild animals, feral growls, and the pounding tempo of wing beats. The blur on the horizon drew nearer, becoming more distinct.
Kitty gripped the cold metal of the rifle for reassurance, as the throng of writhing spirits descended upon her.
Once again, we were back at square one, with one of our party threatened as the other two watched helplessly. Button and I exchanged glances from across the room. How could we free Rebecca before Werfel turned her into a human pincushion? Neither of us dared to move; Werfel was becoming dangerously livid.
"Where is she?" Werfel hissed in Rebecca's ear.
Rebecca pressed her mouth into a thin line. This time, she wasn't going to be the one to spill the beans.
Werfel seized her neck and shook her furiously. He was practically foaming at the mouth. The girl's head flopped helplessly back and forth like a rag doll's. She looked a little green.
"Where is Kathleen Jones?" Werfel bellowed.
"Right here Werfel," Called a voice from the doorway.
Silhouetted against the dying light from the courtyard beyond stood Kitty, hand on hip and looking mightily pleased with herself. And was that a gun she was carrying?
Werfel acted immediately. He pulled Piper against him, shielding himself with her body. The knife was pressed more firmly against her throat.
"Drop the weapon or the girl dies." Werfel threatened.
Kitty casually tossed the weapon on the floor, her smile never faltering.
"Now," Said Werfel, sounding more confident now that the rifle was out of the picture, "Over there where I can see you. If you cooperate, I will let your friends go free when we are finished here."
Kitty raised an eyebrow.
"You're in no position to be making demands." She said.
"Oh? And why is that?" Werfel's voice dripped with condescension.
Kitty merely folded her arms across her chest.
There was a sudden whirr of wings. The sky behind Kitty darkened, as though storm clouds were gathering behind her. Then all manner of spirits spilled in through the gateway, flooding past Kitty and diving into the crowd of people inside. Shrieks of fear and anger rose up on all sides, flashes of multicoloured light and silver projectiles whizzed back and forth through the air.
Fruit bats, lemurs, cyclopes, octopi: an infinite array of creatures swarmed through the room. The floor shuddered and bucked under the blasts of their magic.
I got to my feet. Oblivious to the pandemonium around me, I tread single-mindedly across the room, my eyes fixed upon Kitty Jones, who'd taken up the assault rifle that had lain at her feet and was trying to work out how to fire it.
"Kitty," I said, delivering a hefty clout to a man who'd stolen behind her. The flailing man sailed clear across the room. She looked up.
"Bartimaeus!" She cried. Her face lit up in a smile.
"Uh, you might want to use the other end of that thing," I suggested looking doubtfully at the weapon she was holding. She had the muzzle pointing towards herself.
Kitty looked down.
"Maybe I should be using a weapon I'm more familiar with," She said sheepishly. Dropping the firearm, She knelt down alongside the nearest corpse and pried a knife from its rigid grip. I grimaced.
"Together then?" Kitty asked.
"Of course."
With a small smile, Kitty slid her hand into mine.
I looked down at our entwined fingers, at her pale skin against Ptolemy's coffee-coloured hand. It looked good.
We entered the battle together, hands joined. With my free hand I sent off a series of Detonations and Obliterations, while Kitty's knife arced and twisted through the air, felling all in her path. We were unstoppable.
Kitty's spirits danced around us, a blur of fur and claw. A potent-looking afrit ripped up a stone pillar and hurled it towards a cluster of men who were in the midst of trampling an unfortunate imp underfoot.
"Bartimaeus, we need to get out," Kitty cried suddenly.
The entire room was shaking with the force of the fight. Cracks were cobwebing up the walls and forming deep fissures in the floor. The building wasn't going to hold much longer.
"There's something I need to do first," I said.
I darted into the thick of the fray, glancing this way and that. At last I saw him.
Werfel.
The elderly man was not ignorant of the state of the temple. He was desperate to get out. I followed him as he scrambled frantically over the bodies of his fallen comrades, stumbling towards the exit, only to find the once-grand Temple entrance had collapsed into a heap of rubble, effectively sealing him inside.
He glanced over his shoulder, eyes widening upon seeing me. He scrambled backwards until his back was pressed against the wall.
I stalked predatorily towards him. He stood slack-jawed as I advanced, watching in horror as my mouth opened slowly, revealing a row of wicked-looking teeth. Wider and wider my mouth stretched, opening to an impossible size.
"No!" Werfel shouted desperately, finding his voice. I ignored him.
The boy advanced.
His jaws slammed shut.
Werfel was gone.
Well, now with that little matter resolved, it was time to escape. Chunks of the ceiling were beginning to fall, raising up thick clouds of dust that filled the room with a choking haze. I spotted Kitty dispatching a foe, her long white hair whirling about her as she darted back and forth.
With a single bound, I leapt to her side, scooped her up, and was racing towards Button and Piper, who were dodging molten chunks of rock tumbling from overhead. I swiftly added these two to my stack of people I had to rescue.
Then, with a running start, I punched through the wall, leaving behind a gaping hole that couldn't have been good for the stability of the building, such as it was. The four of us sailed through, and then tumbled head over heels, landing in a tangle of limbs in the grass outside.
We lay clutching our sides and gasping at the fresh air. Button seemed particularly distressed. I propped myself up on an elbow, watching as the temple deteriorated.
Spirits swarmed out as the walls buckled inwards. With a great rumble that shook the very ground beneath us, the roof collapsed, burying the Pentacle deep within. Clouds of dust rolled up from the ruinous pile of rubble.
What a mess.
The spirits who'd come to our aid drifted nearer and stood calmly before us, waiting expectantly. We stared back at them, a bit overwhelmed by the magnitude of the destruction they had caused. Kitty got to her feet.
She took one step forwards, then another. There was a pregnant pause. Then she raised her arms towards them, palms turned upwards.
"Thank you for your aid," She called, "I now dismiss you back to your homeland." She made the gesture of dismissal.
With various pop's, snaps, and whistles, the spirits departed, leaving Kitty, Rebecca, Button, and I alone on the hillside, beneath the smoking ruin of the Temple of Amun.