us whole. Stay in the middle of the road.”
“Wil do,” I replied. For the rest of the trip I paid attention to the tanner and his interpreter, who continued pointing out the turns and the axle-breakers. I didn’t much mind the backseat driving because, dayum, my new wheels could put the power down! I suddenly wondered… was that al ?
It’d be just like Vayl, having trotted out the big surprise, to hold off on a little one like, “Oh, by the way, I had Bergman make a few modifications,” until he decided it was time to pop the details on me. I vowed to give the girl a good going over as soon as I had a free minute.
Which wasn’t now. Because we’d arrived at the Bab ed-Debbagh, a gray archway topped with a simple array of vertical stones. We parked in a lot outside the gate, piled out, and secured the car, fol owing Yousef onto cobbled streets that turned and twisted so many times before they released us into the city proper we had to wonder how anybody had ever conquered it. This close to dawn we only met a few farmers carting their wares to the souks to be sold later that morning. Otherwise, al we saw were feral cats nosing through piles of trash that had blown against the wal s of neglected red-wal ed homes that might once have housed rich merchants. Now they held the poorest citizens of Marrakech.
We ducked into lanes so narrow I could stretch out both arms and touch the wal s that fenced them. We bounded up staircases whose steps were so chipped and worn I could easily imagine the steady succession of invaders who had pounded up and down them in their quest to be the next great conquerors of a shining Moroccan city. And I wondered if it could possibly have stunk as bad back then as it did now.
Yousef stopped beside a doorway with a large pot of some dark green plant growing beside it. He broke off a piece for each of us and gestured for us to hold it under our noses. When we did, we inhaled the refreshing scent of mint, strong enough that the other smel barely got through.
Then he led us into an abandoned building whose windows might never have held glass, up stairs that had been formed of the same rough material as the wal s, and onto a roof that groaned occasional y, making me wonder just how much weight it could hold beyond the rusty metalwork railing that divided it into thirds. He took us to the edge, gestured below, and spoke.
Cole said, “We’re here.”
We looked down, our extra visual capabilities showing us a large open space, its uneven border shaped by the tal , windowless buildings just like ours that surrounded it. In the middle sat cement tubs that would shine so white in the sun I suspected looking at them without sunglasses could give you headaches. Some stood alone. Some were connected circles or squares, like Tetris blocks where the line is nearly finished, or where one in the shape of a backward L has fal en randomly next to another shaped like an I. Of the individual vats, a few looked to be a much darker color. Those had high rims that wouldn’t al ow accidental slippage, but many were dug so deeply into the ground that they worked as actual pools, and they were fil ed with a brew that looked certain to kil whatever touched it. Animal hides in various stages of tanning stretched across maybe a third of the vats and, gawd, the stench! Even with the mint stuffed against my nostrils I couldn’t get past it.
Yeah, I could believe the legends about this place. And that the Weres had decided to hide a demon’s tool here seemed like a stroke of genius. If Roldan could see us now he’d be howling as he regarded us from his comfy little beanbag throne in one of Valencia’s posher vil as.
“Go ahead, you pitiful schmucks,” he’d say. “Just try and find my needle in Marrakech’s nauseating little haystack.” To which I’d have to reply (after kicking him square in the teeth, of course), “We’ve got the map, ya douche. It’s not gonna be that hard.” If that was true, of course, some hel spawn or other would’ve retrieved the Rocenz a long time ago. But I didn’t need to be that honest with myself today.
Vayl turned the map so the shapes on it matched the vats twenty feet below us. Most of us could see them without the aid of the two or three pole lights that worked so poorly they left the majority of the tannery in shadow. But Yousef, with his nose nearly brushing the paper, stil had to squint to make the images stand apart from one another.
Vayl said, “We need a light for our guide.” Sterling reached into one of his pants pockets and pul ed out a yel ow yo-yo that I recal ed from our last mission together. Its string, a thin black line that looked like it would tangle if you even looked at it funny, fit around his middle finger and then clipped into a groove on his left bracelet.
Holding the toy as if he meant to “walk the dog,” he tossed it toward the ground. As soon as it jerked to the end of its line it began to glow. By the time it had rol ed back up to where he could snag it, our warlock was holding a glow-globe.
He trained it on the map while Vayl said, “Cole, ask Yousef if any of this looks familiar to him.” Cole translated quickly, but his eyes weren’t on the prize. He was peering into the darkness, his expression so close to bitter he might’ve just swal owed a glass ful of cranberry juice. He didn’t seem to concentrate on Yousef’s reply, but his words were steady. “Of course the dyes we use are different than the ones shown in the map. But otherwise it looks right.”
Sterling’s light wavered, and an odd image caught my eye.
“Hey.” I pointed to his hand. “Hold that underneath the page, wouldja?”
Sterling moved the yo-yo beneath the paper. In one spot it seemed to reveal a second picture.
I’d been bending as close to it as I could manage considering I was shoulder to shoulder with four other people. Now I glanced up at Vayl. “There’s definitely something else here. I think the original map wasn’t just drawn, it was built, like those old paintings that have a second portrait hidden underneath. The real map is lying under a thin layer of material that’s got to be removed before we can figure out where the Rocenz is.”
“So we stil have to get the treasure scrol from the demon,” Cole said flatly.
“Yeah.” I watched him closely. Final y I said, “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
Even lit by the distant glow of Sterling’s light and detailed by my night vision, I could barely read Cole’s expression. If I had to guess I’d have said he was feeling about as much self-loathing as a young girl who’s mowed her way through an entire package of Chips Ahoy. But instead of saying, “I’ve been naive,” he said, “I’l kil her myself.”
