Scorpia Rising

price.”
    “Please—come in, my friend. No need to buy!”
    “You English? Jolly good chap!”
    Every shop had its own hawker trying to draw them in. And every hawker seemed to be selling the same thing: the same earrings, rugs, spices, decorated boxes, and incense sticks that Alex had already seen in the House of Gold and that were sold by everyone else. Everything here was somehow desirable. There was nothing that anyone really needed.
    And now they were back in the middle of it with at least eight armed men less than a minute behind them.
    “This way!” Smithers commanded.
    He had already lurched down a corridor that specialized in sheeshas, the slender glass pipes that many Egyptians used to smoke fruit-flavored tobacco over bubbling water. As he went, his arm or leg must have knocked into one. The result was a domino effect. Pipe after pipe toppled into the next with a terrible smashing of glass and the outraged howls of the hawkers. Alex felt someone reach out and try to grab them. He wrenched himself free and kept going.
    They passed through a soaring archway, part of a stone tower that might have housed a princess out of an ancient fable. There were thick pillars and narrow, barred windows. The archway led into a square filled with stalls and shops on all sides. The tourists were already evacuating the area. It was obvious that something was going on. They were surrounded by police cars. There were sirens howling in the air. And people were running! Nobody ever ran in the souk. The whole point of life there was to take it slowly. By the time Alex and Smithers stumbled to a halt, taking in their options, they were almost alone. Only the astonished shopkeepers gazed at them from behind half-open doors, wondering what was going to happen next.
    There were three ways out of the square, but Alex saw at once that they were blocked. Yet more Scorpia men had been brought in, and this group had somehow second-guessed them. They were closing in from every direction. At least these new arrivals didn’t seem to have guns. But they were carrying knives with long, vicious blades and they were ready to use them. Alex and Smithers were unarmed apart from the one gadget he had mentioned and that might be anything. What next?
    “Mr. Smithers!” Alex called out the warning as one of the men raised his knife and moved in for the kill. At the same time, Alex ducked sideways and grabbed a brass pyramid, one of thousands on sale in the souk. It made an ugly souvenir—but it was heavy, with a lethal point, and that made it a useful weapon. Alex hurled it with all his strength, watching with satisfaction as it sailed over Smithers’s shoulder and hit the knife man in the center of his forehead. The man went down like a stone, dropping his knife. Smithers snatched it up, spun it in his hand, and threw it across the square. Alex looked around. A man had appeared just behind him, carrying a machine gun. The knife turned in the air, then buried itself in his chest. As the man fell back, his trigger finger tightened and suddenly he was spraying the air with bullets. About a dozen glass lamps exploded. Brass plates were blown off their hooks, falling with a great clatter. The windows of a silver shop shattered. Then it was over—but the silence after the last bullet was immediately broken by more sirens, frantic shouting, the panic of people trying to get away.
    There were still two more knife men. Before he could react, Alex was seized from behind. He felt himself being dragged away and tried to struggle—but the man was too strong for him. He writhed helplessly, expecting to feel the point of the knife slide into his back at any moment. He wondered why it hadn’t happened already. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other knife man close in on Smithers, who was standing in front of him, his great chest rising and falling as he caught his breath.
    Alex had to break free. As he was pulled back, he passed a spice shop with sacks of powder and leaves piled up outside. He knew at once what he had to do. His hand shot out and scooped up as much brown powder as it could hold. Then he twisted around and flung it into the man’s face. It was chili powder. The man screamed as it invaded his eyes and nostrils. He couldn’t breathe. He was blind. Alex felt the man release him. He pulled free, then turned around and lashed out with a side kick—the yoko geri he had been taught at karate, his foot powering into the man’s solar