Wolfe nodded. Jess moved carefully through the clutter in the way—broken, dusty furniture; bolts of rotten cloth; unidentifiable bits of shattered lives that had been dumped here for show and to make their job harder. He didn’t see any enemies lurking; there wasn’t room for them. One door at the back, still closed, though he supposed someone might have shot Helva through it, then shut it again. He rattled it, to be thorough. It was securely locked.
He knelt down next to her, put the light down, and checked her for signs of trauma. No blood. No, wait—a small trickle of it running down her hand . . .
Something moved in the crook of Helva’s arm, and for a bizarre, insane moment Jess thought she’d grown a third arm, until some screaming, instinctive wisdom in the back of his mind recognized the sinuous way the thing moved as it glided over her chest.
Cobra.
Jess involuntarily flinched and the cobra reacted, rearing up to eye level and flaring its hood wide around its sleek head. Black eyes glittered in golden light, and for an eerie moment the thing looked like a ghost of ancient pharaohs risen again. It swayed slightly, watching him.
From somewhere behind him, Wolfe whispered, “Don’t move,” and Jess didn’t. He stayed as still as he could, exchanging stares with the reptile that swayed slowly in front of him. He didn’t know much about snakes—there weren’t many in England, and none like this deadly creature—but he knew sudden moves were a terrible idea, even if all he wanted to do was throw himself backward. Cobras, he remembered his friend Khalila telling him, could strike the length of their body, and this one looked as long as Jess was tall. At least Egyptian cobras didn’t spit. He was remembering a surprising amount of information from new-minted Scholar Khalila Seif’s lecture, to which he’d only half listened. Most critically, he remembered that the venom could easily be fatal without immediate treatment.
“Move back very slowly,” Jess heard Wolfe say. The Scholar hadn’t moved, thankfully. “Very deliberate movements. Native Egyptian cobras are not overly territorial; it wants escape, not confrontation. Give it a chance to go.”
“It had a chance,” Jess said. “It didn’t go.”
“It was attracted by her body heat. And stop talking and do as I say!”
Helva’s eyes were fixed on him, too. Her face was a dirty gray, covered in sweat, and he didn’t like the labored way she was breathing. The cobra continued to focus on Jess, which he supposed was the best outcome; if it turned on Helva again, she’d have no chance at all. I could try to shoot it, he thought. If he fired accurately, he might kill it. If he didn’t, it could bite him or Helva, and shooting Helva even with half-strength rounds might kill her, anyway.
“Back away,” Wolfe said again. “Do it, Brightwell!”
It was the snap of command in Wolfe’s voice that made Jess finally comply. He’d grown so used to following the Scholar’s orders as a student that before his forebrain could argue with the order, his hindbrain had already begun to move him backward, one slow scrape of his knees at a time. The snake shivered, as if considering a strike, but it held back and watched him shuffle in retreat.
The hood slowly deflated, and the snake—sleek and fast now—slid off of Helva and made for a darker corner of the room. Jess watched it without moving until he was certain it was set on escape, and then breathed a burning sigh of relief and lunged forward to Helva. She struggled to sit up, but he held her down. “How long?” he asked her. She gave him a weak, pale-lipped smile.
“A few minutes,” she said. “I was afraid he’d bite me again, so I didn’t dare call out. Thanks.”
“For what? I didn’t even kill the thing.” I should have, he thought, looking down at his comrade’s sweating, pallid face. He should have killed it. What if it came back?
The cobra had been shocking enough that he’d all but forgotten the shooting until he became aware it had stopped, and then alarm spread a net over his body, pricking every nerve to alert. He looked back to see Glain stepping through the broken window into the store. She kept her attention fixed on the street outside, but for the moment, at least, it was quiet.
“How is she?” she asked Jess without turning.
“Cobra bite,” he said, which he knew would tell her everything. They should have had a Medica officer with them, if this had been a real mission, but for training all they had were basic first-aid kits, and nothing that would help against that venom. “We need to get her out of here.”
“No,” Glain said. She sounded calm but grim. “Jess, I need you to bring help. Get Santi. Bring back Medica for Helva and anybody else who needs it.”
“You think we’re under real attack.”
Glain nodded sharply but he saw the set of her jaw, the line of her shoulders. She was angry. “Get to the gates,” she said. “Get Santi here and not Feng. Watch your back. Go, Jess.”
He didn’t like leaving her here, all but alone to protect Wolfe, but, then again, there was no one he’d trust more with that job. And, he thought with a bitter spike of awareness, no one she would trust more to risk this. He’d grown up running books for his father through the mazelike, dangerous streets of London. She knew that.
“Here.” Jess pitched her his weapon. “I won’t need it, and it’ll just slow me down.”
Glain caught it one-handed and promptly handed it to Wolfe. When he tried to protest, she fixed him with a straight glare and said, “Take it. We’re beyond all that now, I think.” In Wolfe’s hands, it looked entirely out of place, but Jess well knew the Scholar was no stranger to fighting or killing, if it came to it.
He cast one look down at Helva, who managed a smile. She was holding her own weapon now—a smaller sidearm—and said, “Run fast.”
“Always,” he said, and—mindful of the cobra lurking in the dark corner—moved to the closed back door. He opened it and checked. It seemed clear. The alleyway was bright after the dimness of the shop, and he took a breath to let his eyes adjust, then stepped out and turned to scan the roofs. No one in view, which meant he might have a chance.
Running for his life was a feeling that settled on him like old, familiar clothes. He wasn’t frightened by it: he’d played keep-away with the local London Garda all his childhood, and running in that vast labyrinth of a city was much harder than in these straight lines and clean angles. It meant, though, that there was less cover, less chance to lose pursuers in blind corners and narrow passages. He’d have to make up for that with sheer speed.
Jess took in three deep, stomach-straining breaths, oriented himself by the sun and memories of how far they’d come from the entrance, and ran. At the next alley, he cut around to the main road—it was, as the centurion at the gate had warned, the only way out. No point in wasting time.