He ignores my question, focused on the creature. “She needs to scent you so she knows you’re the one who brought her back.”
“Why, so she can chase me down and eat me?” My voice rises.
“She won’t hurt you.” Still he keeps his eyes locked with the sphinx.
“You don’t know that.”
A long silence follows, but he finally exhales heavily. “You’re right. I don’t, but it’s the only way we can hope to stop her before she hurts more people.”
“So I’m the sacrificial lamb? What makes you think she’ll stop if she smells me?”
“You reek of secret magic.”
I huff. “I do not stink.”
Harpoc chuckles, then continues. “I’m hoping I can reason with her if she knows you’re the one who released her secret.”
Reason with her? This is crazy. I’m crazy if I do this.
I give his profile a long look before returning my gaze to the beast.
When I still haven’t moved after a couple minutes, Harpoc asks, “How serious are you about taking responsibility for what you did?”
I dispatch a growl of my own. Harpoc knows how to goad me, that’s for damn sure. “Okay, fine.” I draw my palms out, not that they’ll stop the thing if it lunges for me.
He nods.
It suddenly feels like a python is wrapping itself around my windpipe.
You can do this, Pell.
I lick my lips. I can do this.
Harpoc utters more gibberish to the beast. Who knows what he’s telling it, probably that I taste like chicken, or whatever the translation is for unknown critters that sphinxes enjoy.
What do chickens think we taste like?
I hold my breath as I take a tentative step, then another, inching forward. I yip when it turns its eyes on me as I draw to within ten feet of it, my breathing laboring.
“How close do I have to get?” My voice wavers.
“Keep going.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
My limbs shake and forward movement slows to a sloth’s pace, but I keep putting one trembling foot in front of the other, never making any sudden movements.
When I’ve neared to within paw-swiping distance, the sphinx rises.
Chapter Thirteen
I throw my hands up, over my head, and screech as the sphinx closes the gap and sniffs my hair, loosing an angry growl once it has.
“Please don’t eat me,” I beg, cowering.
“Lach unib lele gow url gur nakum.”
It speaks, and it’s that language Harpoc’s been talking to her in.
I gasp, holding myself.
“She says to calm down. She’s not going to hurt you… yet,” Harpoc says, frowning.
Yet? I feel my bowels loosen, and fear I’ll pee my pants.
Keep it together, Pell, I admonish myself.
The sphinx glares at Harpoc, then utters more words I don’t know.
“Why have I been brought back?” he translates.
Harpoc replies in that foreign tongue, then says to me, “It was an accident.”
The creature growls, where she stands.
An empty feeling fills my stomach. Breathe, Pell, breathe.
“An earthquake uncovered the scroll your secret was sealed on,” he tells her. It’s the truth, hopefully she believes him.
He continues playing interpreter as the beast asks, “Then why is this one here, stinking of magic?”
“She’s the one who discovered the trove of scrolls and translated yours.”
I clench my jaw when the sphinx flicks her tail, eyeing me up and down. “This pitiful creature brought me back?”
Pitiful creature? I unknowingly made a mistake, okay?
Boy, is it hot tonight? I shrug my coat off my shoulders with trembling hands, stopping short of taking it off.
Harpoc glances my way with those silver and gold eyes, but they do nothing to calm me when he grabs the back of his neck and grimaces. “She did.”
The creature takes a step, then another, and another, continuing to look me over as she begins to hobble-circle, coming between Harpoc and me.
Yeah, look down your stinkin’ chipped off nose at me, everyone else does.
Despite my fiery thoughts, I don’t dare move.
“How did she manage to read the scrolls? I was under the impression that only those who…” Harpoc pauses, seemingly resisting translating. I give him a cool look, prodding him on.
“… wield secret magic can…” He stops again.
“What did she say? Tell me,” I demand.
Harpoc huffs. “… make sense of them.”
“Only those who wield secret magic can translate them?” My voice rises.
“Hieroglyphs, Pell. You know hieroglyphics.”
“Hieroglyphs are your secret magic?” I narrow my eyes.
He sighs. “A part.”
I rub my ring. His claim about hieroglyphs makes no sense. Lots of people know how to read them, but they don’t reanimate ancient creatures, let alone transform inanimate ones. He isn’t telling me everything. How many secrets does Harpoc have?
I tune back in when Harpoc tells the sphinx, “Her reading your scroll was an unforeseen anomaly, the probabilities of which are virtually incalculable.”
“Yet she did.” The beast stops between Harpoc and me, and I swallow hard.
“Yes… she did.” Another sigh. “I take full responsibility.”
“So you should.” She flicks her tail, then continues hobble-circling me.
He runs a hand through his locks, messing them up for the first time since I’ve met him.
I exhale, at least she isn’t standing between us anymore. Harpoc’s shoulders seem to relax a little, too.
“So what am I to do now that I’ve been brought back?”
Harpoc wrinkles his forehead, then brings a finger to his lips and starts tapping.
“Why don’t you go back to your home at the Louvre?” I ask.
The sphinx hisses when Harpoc remains silent. I’m guessing that’s her way of getting him to tell her what I said.
His gaze shifts between the creature and me several times before he reluctantly translates.
I earn a snarl. Just shut up, Pell, I reprimand myself and
