Alex Rider: Luck of the Goddess

The Expedition

It was the worst place in the world.

It was his first real glance around, since the attack and frantic search for Simon had dulled the actual first glance.

Alex could never have imagined coming here again. He had done everything he could to keep the fort out of his mind. He had dreaded going to sleep in case he saw it in his dreams and even during the day he had felt its shadow stretching out towards him. His counselor had told him that it would be better to confront what had happened at Siwa – but what could she possibly know, sitting in her comfortable office in a modern San Francisco school?

Well, he was confronting it now. Here it was, right in front of him – and suddenly he was seeing everything again. His new pains from the scorpion monster he didn't want to think about blended in with the phantom pains of then. The wires attached to his chest. Razim's mad eyes and the glowing tip of his cigarette. The knives and the scalpels in the brightly-lit room and the television screen that was going to make everything so much worse.

Are you ready, Alex? There's something I want you to see...

They had killed Jack Starbright and they had forced him to watch. Standing here, with his heart thundering in his chest and his head pounding, Alex knew how much they had hurt him. He would never fully recover. Did his luck really run dry the moment it mattered?

Unless Jack was alive.

It was hope that had brought him here and now it spurred him on. He had to do this – for her. Clenching his fists, he forced himself to continue forward, leaving Simon to calm his pegasus. His feet made no sound as they brushed against the sand. He felt the sun beating down on his neck.

He was surrounded once again by the four walls of the fortress and even though the gate was open and the souls in sight were people from his other world, he still felt trapped. Guard towers rose up at each corner and he could imagine Razim's men with their machine guns watching his every step. A movement caught his eye and he froze. But it was only a scrap of paper floating in the breeze.

He glanced towards the chapel that stood at the far end of the compound: circular, with a white dome. It looked small, even picturesque. But he knew that this was the one building he wouldn't be able to enter, no matter what happened.

The screen.

The car exploding.

Julius Grief laughing. Wasn't that great! Wasn't that cool!

Swallowing hard, Alex turned his head away.

"Hey, Alex, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost. You have, haven't you? If you see the ghost of Alexander the Great I get to say I told you so."

Alex shook his head no, once, twice, but on the third time he stopped. In a way, he had seen a ghost or ghosts, just not in the way Simon was used to.

Or maybe he was used to it?

Alex glanced back as Simon made his way toward him. His feet making so much more noise Alex would have cringed if he were anywhere else. Somehow, Simon's shuffling feet made his fear... less.

"Alex, you never fully explained to me what happened here, and I just want you to know that it's okay to back out. I'll search the rest of this fortress alone, but right now, you're not alone Alex, remember that."

Jack died there, or supposedly. That's what Alex had told Simon.

Then Alex smiled grimly.

"How could I forget? Your footsteps are louder than Sandy's."