Darren Craske - The Eleventh Plague

'She is lying!' insisted Nadir. 'You witch, I know all about you and what you can do, why do you not just admit it?'

'I should have listened to Cornelius and had you thrown overboard, you treacherous little worm!' Destine snapped.

'Cornelius?' Joyce's ears pricked up. 'Cornelius Quaint, by any chance?' Destine's awed expression confirmed his enquiry. 'Now isn't that a coincidence. Until a few moments ago I had never heard mention of that name in my entire life, and now I have heard it twice within an hour!'

'What do you know of Cornelius?' demanded Destine.

'Not much, other than he seems to be making quite a reputation for himself.'

That sounds like Cornelius, thought Destine.

Joyce cackled victoriously. 'Your friend is on his way as we speak – accompanied by the leader of the Clan Scarabs. Whoever this man Cornelius is, he certainly likes to mix in dangerous circles…dangerous for him, that is.' He tapped out a rhythm on his desk with the blade of a golden letter-opener. By its side lay a neatly opened envelope. He plucked the note from inside and displayed it proudly. 'My old friend Nastasi has warned me that Mr Quaint intends to cause me grief…so it seems only sporting of me to cause him some back.'

'Did you just say…Nastasi?' asked Destine, her mouth falling open. 'That name…surely it cannot be? But that must mean…' Her eyes caught sight of a plaque on Joyce's desk. 'You are Godfrey Joyce! You betrayed Aloysius Bedford!'

The smug grin disappeared from Joyce's face in a flash and he shifted his position uncomfortably. 'How do you know of my association with him?'

'You are the man from his journal!' Destine snapped. 'The traitor!'

Joyce grabbed hold of the letter-opener and plunged its blade deep into his desk in anger. He stared at Destine with the ferociousness of a wild animal. With the mention of Aloysius Bedford's name, it seemed that Madame Destine had just touched a raw nerve.

A very raw nerve indeed…

The Baited Hook

IMPRISONED WITHIN A holding cell beneath the British Embassy, Destine was seated on a long wooden bench with her back to the wall, silent and brooding. A tray of food had been placed outside the bars of her cell, but she was in no mood to eat. Be it fate, or circumstance, or even coincidence, something had caused her path to cross Godfrey Joyce's. Hearing the scuffing of footsteps down the flight of stone stairs, she steeled her nerve as the large double doors at the far end of the cell block were wrenched open.

'Not hungry, Madame?' asked Godfrey Joyce, tapping his toe against the tray of untouched food on the floor. 'That'll do you no good, you know.'

'I am not making a petition for release, monsieur,' Destine said calmly. 'I simply find it difficult to stomach food in your presence.'

'Hoping your friend Quaint will come and save you?' asked Joyce.

'If Cornelius is on his way here, then he is not coming for me,' said Madame Destine. 'He is coming for you.'

'You're sure of that are you? You've certainly got a lot of faith in your companion. I must admit to being a little intrigued by this Quaint fellow myself. Nastasi was rather vague. What is this man doing in Egypt?'

'Hunting,' Destine replied.

'Hunting what, might I ask?' Joyce enquired.

Madame Destine's expression did not falter. 'People like you.'

'Well, I am afraid that he'll find me a tricky prey to catch,' Joyce said, smoothing his mutton-chop sideburns. 'Fortune-teller or not, you are still just as good a bargaining chip as the fellow in the cell next door to you. Is that not right, boy?' Joyce stepped back and slammed his hand against the metal bars of the cell next to Destine's. For the first time, the Frenchwoman realised that she was not alone in her incarceration. 'Your fate rests in your brother's hands, young Scarab, but fear not…your time will come. Once you have outlived your usefulness I will have no hesitation in ordering your death.' Joyce returned to Destine's view. 'So, Madame…what exactly is in that journal of Bedford's anyway? And how much does your friend Cornelius know about it?'

'He knows what I know, ver!' Destine lied. Cornelius Quaint had absolutely no idea at all who Aloysius Bedford was, of course, but at that moment it was the only weapon she had at her disposal. 'He knows all about your betrayal and he knows what happened in Umkaza!'

'Does he now?' mused Joyce. 'Well, that puts an interesting slant on things. Nastasi didn't tell me that. It seems my hard efforts for Umkaza to remain secret were for nothing. So what was Bedford to you anyway?'

'A friend,' Destine replied, lowering her head. 'You pretended to help him, introducing your accomplice Nastasi, promising assistance, yet all the while all you cared about was stealing the Pharaoh's Cradle from under his nose!'

'The Pharaoh's Cradle?' Joyce took a step closer to the bars of the holding cell. An inch of iron was the only thing separating him and Destine, but it might as well have been a mile. 'Now there's something I've not heard mention of for a long time. My, you're just full of surprising information, aren't you, my dear? I may have misjudged you, Madame. Why is it that it has taken you so long to find your voice? All this stuff happened two decades ago. It's ancient history!'

'Not to me,' said Destine, grinding her teeth on the words. 'I warned Aloysius not to trust you!' She felt an itch somewhere at the back of her mind, the vaguest of recollections, the merest hint of a memory – confirmed by Aloysius's words in his journal. 'I warned him what you were planning, how you sought to betray him!'

'You? So you can see the future, after all.'

'Non, my clairvoyance is no more…but twenty years ago it was functioning perfectly!' snapped Destine. 'I saw what you were planning, monsieur. I saw that you were merely using Aloysius…and because of my intervention you never got your hands on that treasure!'

'Whoever said it was the Cradle that I was after?' asked Joyce. 'But anyway, as I say, that was a long time ago now. It really doesn't matter what you know about Umkaza…or what your friend Cornelius knows. No one cares any more!'

'On the contrary, Monsieur Joyce,' said Destine. 'I am sure that the British government will not look upon you favourably once they learn the truth.'

'It's not the British that I'm fearful of, let me assure you,' said Joyce. 'And even if you were in a position to speak of it, who would believe an old crone like you over someone like me, hmm?' He stared numbly at Destine as she began to laugh. 'Am I missing something?'

'I see now what my task was all along,' Destine replied, a tranquil expression on her face. 'My destiny was not just to shed light upon Aloysius Bedford's betrayal…it was to expose you for the fiend you are! You think that you are safe here within the walls of your little castle, monsieur, but you are wrong. Soon it will all come crashing down.'

'I hardly think so!' Joyce protested. 'If you don't mind me saying, you do seem to have a slightly discoloured appreciation of your present predicament.' He leaned cockily against the bars of the holding cell, grinning widely as if a distant relative had just passed away and left him a small fortune. 'I am dispatching you to Fantoma, to my employers, and I wonder how long it will take the torturers of the Hades Consortium's jail to wipe that smile off your face.'

'The Hades Consortium?' asked Destine shaken.

'I must leave you for a time whilst I check on the whereabouts of your companion, but I will return soon.' Joyce turned swiftly towards the cell block's exit, his voice trailing as he walked back up the stairs. 'Sorry to disappoint you, my dear, but I think the walls of my little castle will be fortified for quite some time yet.'