“I did.” Dad’s mouth pressed into a tight white line. “But at least I tried out for football and basket—”
“Does my ‘unnatural’ obsession embarrass you? Is that the problem?”
Dad propped his elbows on the table and massaged his temples. “No, son. I love you, and I’m proud of you for being a scholar of the ancient world. But you need some time away from Cleo. You don’t realize the depths of her illness. Just—”
“She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Dad.”
He took a breath as though girding himself for my response. “I know you believe that, Hal. Your mother and I have been talking about this for weeks. For your own good, we’ve decided to ban Cleo from visiting here for one week. Just to give you time to—”
I lurched to my feet. “You can’t do that! I love her.”
“Listen, Hal, you do not really know Cleo.” He was speaking in slow precise words, as though explaining to a ten-year-old. “She has real problems. Under the right circumstances, your mother thinks she could even be dangerous. I mean it.”
“I don’t care. I love her, and she’s the best historian I know.”
Dad sagged back against his chair and gave me a pained look. “I don’t get it. Why can’t you find any good friends? I think you refuse to associate with quality people because you like being an outcast—”
“Nobody likes being an outcast, Dad. It’s awful.”
Dad squeezed his eyes closed for a long moment, and when he opened them, he said, “Hal, I’m trying to help you. I don’t want you to have to go through what I went through. Believe me, I know what it’s like to be the smartest kid in school. When I was your age—”
“No, you don’t! You have no idea how it feels to be chased down the hallways with people throwing things at you, and all the girls cheering for the bad guys to kill you.”
“Stop exaggerating. That’s never happened. You’re just trying to—”
“Yeah, right. I’m a liar.”
“Now, son, I never said . . .”
He continued, but I blocked his voice and thought about Cleo. A tiny part of me reluctantly suspected Dad was right. Cleo was not mentally stable. My mom, a psychiatrist, had treated Cleo right after she came to America. And while Mom was adamant about doctor-patient confidentiality, I remember her saying once that Cleo’s “memories” of ancient Egypt were really longings for a better Egypt; a homeland she still missed. And the demons that filled Cleo’s waking nightmares were actually fanciful representations of the men in crisp uniforms, wearing gas masks, who had destroyed her world six years ago.
While I was gritting my teeth, my phone chimed in my pocket. I pulled it out and read Cleo’s text: R U okay? Please, come soon. She always signed off with the Greek word Ginest-hoi, which meant “Let it be done.”
Much to my father’s dismay, I texted back: There in 5.
His mouth puckered like he’d just bitten into a sour lemon. “Was that her? Was that Cleo?”
“No, it was Roberto. I’m late. He wants to know if I’m still coming.”
“Give me your phone. I want to see the number.” He stuck out his hand.
“No way. It’s none of your business.”
“As long as you’re under the age of eighteen, you’re still a child, and it is my business. Now, please, give me your phone.” Thrusting his hand closer to me, he snapped his fingers. “Right now!”
I stuffed the phone in my shirt pocket and threw down the proverbial gauntlet. “You’ll just have to beat it out of me when I get home, I guess. I’m leaving, Dad. I’ll be at Roberto’s.”
With that, I shoved out of the chair and started for the door.
“Hal, wait.” Dad’s stern expression transformed into serious worry. “Are kids really chasing you down the halls at school? You didn’t get beat up again, did you? Is that why you’re so surly today?”
Unfortunately, I did get beat up a lot. Nobody liked me much, which meant they enjoyed ganging up on me. Just last week my obsession with history became an issue when my archenemy, Alexander the Gross, got me in a headlock at lunch. Alex was studying demonology with the local whacko cult in Denver. While he wrung my neck, he announced to the other boys at the table that I was the reincarnated Julius Caesar, and he needed three of my pubic hairs to use in a magical warding-off ceremony against some other Satanists in San Francisco who were psychically attacking him. Two football players jumped on me to hold me down. What a fight that was. For five endless minutes, I got the holy crap knocked out of me while I fought to keep my pants on. There was no question in my mind but that if I lost the fight the nickname “Pubic-hair Hal” would be all over the Internet before I could escape the cafeteria.
When I finally knew I was doomed, I screamed, “KARNAK! KARNAK!” at the top of my lungs. Only two people in the world know my secret emergency code.
Fortunately, my best friend, Roberto, was standing in the food line when he heard it.
Roberto came crashing through the crowd with something in his hand, yelling, “Out of the way! Out of the way! Corpse powder!” When he blew the red powder from his hand into the Gross’ face, Alex shrieked and ran off crying. Turned out to be chili powder, but—
“Did you hear me, son? I asked if you’d been fighting at school.”
“Nothing major, Dad. Now, please, I just want to go over to Roberto’s. I’m late, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. You’re grounded for today. When your mother gets home, maybe she can explain to you why you can’t spend all your time . . .”
Stamping to the front door, I threw it open and slammed it closed behind me with enough force to shake the house, and then I ran hard for the street before he could get outside. I only glanced over my shoulder when I was far enough away that I knew he wouldn’t chase me. He was standing in the open door frowning at me as I blasted around the corner and out of sight.
CHAPTER TWO
I found Cleo in our usual meeting place in front of Starbucks. Clouds had moved in, as they often did on May afternoons in the Colorado high country. The muted light gave her white T-shirt a bluish tint that complemented her jeans. She’d tucked her shoulder-length black hair behind her ears and was biting her lip.
When I trotted up breathing hard, my phone chimed. I pulled it from my pocket and read Dad’s text: Sorry, son. I know you’re at Starbucks. Come home. Let’s talk. Shoving it back in my pocket, I sat down next to Cleo. Years ago, my parents had installed an app on my phone that allowed them to find me no matter where I was, just in case I was abducted by a crazed pedophile.
“What happened, Halloran? Did you get another lecture about me?”
“Yeah, Dad pulled me aside to tell me you were totally insane, and I was crazy to believe any of your stories, and, oh-by-the-way, ‘For your own good, your mother and I have decided to ban Cleo from visiting here for one week’.”
Cleo blinked and looked away. “What did you say?”
“I told him I loved you.”
For several long moments she stared up at the mountains with a sad expression. Finally, in a faint voice, she said, “I love you, too.”
“You okay?”
“I just . . . it hurts. I know I’m not always . . . here . . . but your mom really helped me. I—”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t care what my parents think.”
Cleo clutched her canvas bag in her lap and stared at me with tormented green eyes. I could tell she was trying to work up the courage to tell me something. Her face was tense with the struggle.
“Hal, I’ve never told you . . . what it was like right after I came to America. I was really sick. I didn’t speak for months. I ran away and hid from my aunt and uncle several times. No matter where I went, I felt the demons seeking me in my dreams. Even after the police found me and dragged me home, I stole knives from the kitchen and slept with them in my
hand. It wasn’t safe to be around me.”
Her beautiful voice gave me a glimpse of the terrified ten-year-old child she had been, trying to hide from the demons, never able to rest. Knowing no one in this world could protect her from the evil that stalked her, waking or sleeping. It brought back my own childhood fears that monsters lurked under my bed or were hiding in the back of my closet. The difference was that Cleo had stood face-to-face with her monsters. They’d killed her parents.
“But you’re well now, Cleo.”
“I—I think I’m well, but maybe not. Maybe you shouldn’t be around me. I could be danger—”
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s about you, Cleo,” I said soothingly. “I think it’s actually about me. They want me to be normal, whatever that is. Dad said the problem is that you feed my obsession with the ancient world. Instead of studying Greek and Latin, they want me to go to movies, date other girls, and try out for the football team. God forbid,” I groaned. “When it comes to me, I think my parents want two and two not to equal four.”
Cleo gently touched my cheek and smiled up at me with all the love in the world in her eyes. “I’ve prayed that before. Haven’t you?”
That made me smile. “Often.”
She held her canvas bag tightly for a moment, then she unzipped it. For a while, though, she just sat there. “I have a favor to ask. I should have asked earlier, but your father interrupted before I’d actually decided . . .” She paused.
“Anything. You know that.”
Glancing down the street at the tourists dragging children by the hands, she halfway pulled a golden medallion from her bag—just enough that I could really see it. About the size of my palm, it had a hole in the top, as though it had been worn as a stunning pendant. The gold was crusted with what appeared to be rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Greek letters encircled the rim of the medallion.
“My God, that looks real! Where did you get it? Is that something your uncle found on an excavation?”
I reached for it, but she carefully hid it in her bag again. “My father found it in the desert near Port Said, Egypt. He gave it to me just before the Rebellion. He said the medallion had belonged to me in 30 BC.”
“In the desert? You mean on an archaeological excavation?”
Cleo nodded. “At the site of Per Amun. I’m not exactly sure where in the ruins he found it. I think he was afraid to tell me. All I know for certain is that he dug it up along the Great Horus Road, which runs through the site.”
“But I thought Per Amun was gone, erased by the sands of time?”
“Some of the ruins still exist. Today, archaeologists call the site Pelusium, but locals call it Tell el-Farama.” She slipped her hand into her bag and seemed to be holding the medallion for protection. “My aunt and uncle tried to take the medallion away from me this morning.”
“They can’t do that. Your dead father gave it to you. Why would they want to take it away?”
Cleo looked frightened. “They didn’t know I had it until today. I’ve kept it hidden for years. My father told me to never show it to anyone.”
“Then how did your aunt and uncle find it?”
“I’ve started sleeping with it under my pillow. I forgot it was there, and my aunt found it on wash day.”
I took a moment to suck in a deep breath while I considered that news, then I reached out and took her free hand to squeeze it gently. “Why are you sleeping with it? What are you afraid of?”
She whispered, “A few nights ago I—I saw something. A demon, I think. But it might have been a real man. It was really dark; it stood at the foot of my bed wearing an Egyptian Army uniform. It wants the medallion.”
The hair at the nape of my neck stood on end. The vision didn’t surprise me. Not really. In her mind, ancient Egyptian demons served in the national army. And why wouldn’t they? At the age of ten her parents had locked her in their apartment with a loaded pistol and gone down into the streets to participate in a peaceful demonstration against the government thugs that ruled Egypt. She’d never seen them again. Instead, her door had been broken down by men in blood-soaked uniforms, shouting orders. Her demons wore gas masks and carried guns.
I matched her whisper: “Will the medallion protect you from the demon?”
“I don’t know. Father said . . .”
A small herd of tourists shuffled by carrying brightly colored plastic bags. We went silent. I could hear the steam engine chuffing up the Georgetown Loop railroad, and smell the scent of pines that carried on the wind.
After the herd passed, Cleo said, “Father said I had to give this medallion to his old friend Samael, a legendary Egyptian archaeologist.”
“Why?”
“I think it was some kind of secret bargain. Father said that when I was old enough I had to give this to Samael. In return, he would give me the sacred dagger that will allow my soul to climb out of the netherworld of Duat and travel to the Island of the Two Flames.”
“How can a dagger get your soul out of Duat?”
“It opens a channel of light that leads to the island. All I have to do is follow it. But I must have the dagger in my hand.”
All ancient Egyptian beings, gods, demons, the dead, inhabited the afterlife, called Duat. But at certain times the boundary between life and death weakened and allowed the living to visit the dead. It also allowed supernatural intruders, like gods and demons, to cross over into the world of the living. Apparently, the dagger facilitated such otherworldly events.
“Why would a demon want the medallion?”
“To keep me here in this world, I think.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They want me to live forever, Halloran. To be reborn over and over again. It’s punishment.”
“Punishment? For what?”
As though she did not wish to remember, she quietly said, “Do you know that Antonius offered to kill himself to save me? Many times before that last day. I—I betrayed him. Before Actium. Not to save myself. I did it to save our children and Egypt, but he deserved my loyalty. He had sacrificed so much for me. Even on that last day, he forgave me, he . . .” She couldn’t finish. Tears filled her eyes and she looked away.
Just now Cleo seemed much older than her sixteen years, more like a grown woman who had witnessed the worst that life could throw at anyone.
She wiped her wet eyes with her hand. “Father gave me the medallion at the same time he handed me the pistol. That was moments before he and my mother went down to the demonstration where they were murdered. He said that if the sacred dagger had been buried with me over two thousand years ago, I would never have been reborn.”
“Why wasn’t it buried with you?”
“I don’t remember. Maybe my servants couldn’t find it. It was so hectic on August tenth of 30 BC. Anyway . . .” She zipped the bag closed and handed it to me. “Please guard the medallion for me? You’re the only one I trust. Please, please, don’t tell anyone you have it.”
Though I’d often heard Cleo talk about the demons that accompanied her through life, I’d never heard such despair in her voice. Giving her a solemn nod, I slipped the long strap over my shoulder. “I won’t.”
Cleo exhaled the word, “Thank you,” and leaned her head against my shoulder as though in relief. Her black hair fell down the front of my denim shirt like a silken ebony mantle.
Putting my arm across her shoulders, I pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry now, Cleo. Everything’s all right.”
Thunder rumbled across the peaks, and I saw lightning flash to the north. In another half hour or so it was going to be raining. “I’m headed to Roberto’s to play video games. Want to come?”
Cleo looked up at me and smiled. “Thanks, but I have to study for the geometry final exam.”
So did I, of course, but I wasn’t going to. Geometry
was second nature to me, as easy as breathing. “Want me to walk you home?”
Cleo’s house stood in a grove of pine trees just outside of town. It was about a twenty-minute walk.
“No, but . . . .” She lifted her head and looked up at me. “Halloran? Can you . . . Don’t panic, okay? It’s finals week in Fort Collins. My aunt and uncle are teaching late classes tonight. They won’t be home until after ten. Can you come over and stay with me until they get home? Maybe . . . maybe even spend the night with me? That’s the only way I’ll feel safe.”
The invitation sent a little jolt of fear and . . . well, other things, through me. Spend the night with her? I contemplated all the horrors my parents would heap upon me if I didn’t come home tonight, but after today, they deserved it. I’d have to ditch my phone somewhere, of course, or they’d know exactly where I was.
“Yes, of course, I will.”
CHAPTER THREE
By the time I’d walked halfway to Roberto’s house in the historic heart of town, a misty rain drifted down around me. Clouds hung like gauzy scarves on the mountains, and I could see a few of the resident bighorn sheep grazing on the steepest slopes.
Turning onto Roberto’s street, I trotted toward the green-and-yellow historical home with the giant cottonwood in the front yard. The house had been designed by some renowned architect in the 1890s and had a broad porch supported by carved posts and a cupola. My mother, who hated all buildings over the age of three, called it a “gingerbread nightmare.”
I rang the doorbell and waited, listening to the neighborhood dogs bark at each other.
When Roberto opened the front door, he gave me a quick once-over. “Christ, you’ve gained another five pounds since I saw you yesterday. Are you ever going on a diet, fat boy?”
“Just as soon as you stop blowing priests for communion wine.”
Roberto rolled his eyes. “My father’s a sommelier at the Holiday Inn. I don’t drink cheap shit.”
Robert Dally, who preferred to be called “Roberto” always dressed like a bad-ass biker, which is how he saw himself. After all, he had a Honda 125. To project this image, he wore a scruffy leather jacket and torn faded jeans. He was rail thin, or as my mother said, “Pathologically emaciated.” Four pentagrams dangled from his left ear to tell everyone he was a witch, although the local coven had denied him entrance on the grounds that he was just too weird. His brown hair hadn’t been washed in at least a week, which he considered very cool, and hung around his freckled face in greasy chin-length locks. Roberto said his witchcraft powers had come at the age of four, after he’d died. Really. Dead as a doornail. He’d fallen into a river while his family was on a hunting trip, and when his father dragged him out, he’d had no heartbeat. Ten minutes of artificial respiration had brought him back to life, but he’d been a little bizarre ever since. For one thing, he spent weekends target practicing with pistols and rifles, which is why everybody at school thought he was a latent serial murderer.
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