by Jonas, Gary
Turning back to the approaching boys, I said, “We come in peace.” I heard my voice, but I also heard a different language overpower the words. It gave my voice a haunting sound that would have been great at a Halloween party.
“Where did you come from?” one of the boys asked. His words reached me as gibberish, but I heard the English words more clearly, so the magic translator in the earrings was doing its job. I knew that in a matter of a few hours, I’d hear the English without noticing the ancient language.
Before I could answer, several men pushed through to check on the boys. They wore white kilts, and their skin was so tan, it looked damn near bronze. I backed away from them, and Kelly appeared at my side. We were surrounded by around fifty men armed with spears with the business ends pointed at us.
“I have good news and bad news,” Kelly said.
“I think I know what the bad news is,” I said. “What’s the good news?”
“The arrow struck skin and my shirt is fine.”
“Follow us,” one of the men said. “Aye is coming.” At first I thought the translator had bad grammar, but then I realized that Aye was a name.
“No problem,” I said.
They led us away from the practice area to the middle of a street paved with adobe bricks and plastered over with hardened mud. Men behind us kept their spears trained on our backs. They looked unsure so I trusted Kelly to recognize whether or not we were in danger. I checked out the surroundings. On either side of the street were a few adobe buildings with small walls around them, and down the road were a massive wall with another adobe building jutting above it. A crowd of people gathered in the street.
The people were shorter than I expected. Most of the women on the sides of the street stood maybe five feet tall, and the men seemed to average five foot five. At six feet, I towered over all of them, and Kelly at five four was taller than the women too.
A few minutes later, the crowd with the spears parted to admit an older man with a broad multicolored collar that covered most of the top of his chest. He wore a white kilt and sandals like the others, and his eyes held curiosity instead of anger or fear. He gazed up at me and at Kelly. His eyes took in our clothing and our faces.
“I saw you appear from the winds,” the man finally said. “I am Aye, the royal vizier.”
“I’m Jonathan, and this”—I gestured to Kelly—“is Kelly.”
“You were sent by Amun?”
Kelly leaned close and whispered, “Amun is the name of their main god.”
“That’s right. We’re here to find a particular man. A stranger to these parts.”
“And you claim to be gods?”
“We’re visitors,” I said. “We mean you no harm.”
The men with the spears dropped to the ground all at once, their heads touching the street. I took a step back because it surprised me. My first thought was, Was it something I said? Then I saw a man approaching with a group of another fifty men. He looked young—maybe eighteen or nineteen. He wore a broad collar, decorated kilt, and sandals as well, but he also wore a blue helmet-type headdress with a cobra on the front. His eyes had dark makeup around them that swished off toward his temples. He used a cane to walk, and as he grew closer, I saw he also had bit of a cleft palate. He had an odd-looking fake blue beard strapped to his chin. A lovely young woman walked alongside him wearing a sheath dress that started just below her breasts. She also wore what looked like a pleated shawl that draped over her shoulders. Her dark hair was heavily oiled and perfumed, and I could smell it from where I stood. It smelled a bit medicinal to me. My guess is that it was myrrh, but I’m not an expert.
Aye bowed to the man.
“You may rise,” the man said. He stared at me. “I am King Tutankhamun.”
“I’m Jonathan Shade,” I said. “You can call me Jonathan. Pleased to meet you.”
Tut regarded me for a moment; glanced at Kelly, who remained silent; and finally turned his gaze to Aye. “Are they from Amun? Or are they magicians?”
“I will find out,” Aye said. Aye faced me. “If you are from Amun, this will not harm you. If you are pretenders or enemies, you will not fare so well.”
He held his hands up toward me, palms out, and I saw light dancing from finger to finger. So old Aye was a wizard. Vizier sounded a bit like wizard, so maybe the word came from ancient Egypt like damn near everything else. I stepped toward him, grabbed his hands, and placed them on my chest.
“Do your best,” I said.
He channeled as much energy as he could draw and hit me with his best shot. I knew his magic was strong, but I just stood there, staring at him.
“Let me know when you’re finished,” I said.
Aye nodded. He turned to Tut. “If he was anything but a god, he should be dead right now. The woman took an arrow to the heart and still stands.”
“Is the woman your servant or your wife?” Tut asked me.
“My wife,” I said because I didn’t want Kelly to have to play like she was a servant. She might hurt me. Then again, she might hurt me for claiming her as my wife, but I suspected it wouldn’t be as bad.
“What brings you to Thebes?”
“We are hunting an enemy of Egypt.”
Tut nodded. “We will arrange a residence for you at the Royal Palace. You will join me and my queen, Ankhesenamun, for a feast this evening. Should you require assistance in your hunt, I shall assign General Horemheb to accompany you.”
“Your hospitality is both welcome and appreciated.”
My Egyptian geography wasn’t the best, but I knew that Thebes was the present-day city of Luxor, and that was a good four hundred miles from the Great Pyramid. So much for being close. Either Chronos had really bad aim or time travel to particular locations was even worse than he thought.
As they led us away, I whispered, “We get to have dinner with King Tut.”
“So?” Kelly said.
“So isn’t that cool?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re such a dork.”
CHAPTER SIX
JONATHAN SHADE
Aye led us into the Royal Palace. The compound was surrounded by a tall enclosure wall with an entrance at the north end. We moved into the courtyard, which had symmetrical arrangements of blue pools; green shrubs; palm trees; and a massive, colorful garden among them. It appeared the pools irrigated the garden. Beyond that, I saw a roofed but open colonnade with places for people to sit and while away the afternoon in the shade. A single palm tree comprised each column. We passed through that area into an adobe building that had private walled-off rooms. The walls were all painted with beautiful scenes with the standard Egyptian-style art and bright color that sang. I’d been expecting a sea of beige but was granted an explosive barrage of vibrant color and bright, vivid images of paradise.
“Wow,” I said. “This is beautiful.”
Kelly nodded and whispered, “The museums don’t do this place justice.”
“This will be your residence during your stay,” Aye said and showed us into the room.
The bedroom was smaller than I expected and had a raised alcove at the far end with a little bed, built with a wooden frame resting on legs and twine lashings for a mattress. There were linens spread over it and odd-looking headrests at the top. They looked like little stands with curved arms. I wasn’t about to use one of those things. They looked about as comfortable as a hangman’s noose. Above the bed near the ceiling was a small window with thatched wood instead of a glass pane. I guess Egyptians didn’t look out the windows and had them for ventilation only.
Adobe benches lined the rest of the room, and oil lamps stood in niches in the walls. More murals adorned the walls, and I made a note to see about getting some Egyptian art when I got home. It was too cool, and again, the colors were brilliant.
Kelly sat on the bed, remaining silent.
I glanced up at the ceiling, which was constructed from some kind of wood with smaller slats running the opposite direction on top
.
Another room adjoined the bedroom, and when I looked into it, I saw it was a bathroom. Basically it was a latrine enclosed on three sides for privacy. A channel cut into the floor led to the outside of the building. A screened area beside that held a wooden stool with a hole in the center that stood above a bowl. I knew I was going to miss indoor plumbing.
“Would you like a servant to bring you some more appropriate clothing?” Aye asked.
“I think we’re good for now. Thanks.”
“One of your servants will bring you to the hall for dinner. Do you have any other requirements at the moment?”
“Again, I think we’re good for now,” I said.
Aye nodded. “I will assign servants to you.” He gave me one last hard look before leaving us alone in the bedroom.
I walked to the doorway to watch him leave, and once he was out of the residence, I turned to Kelly. “Thoughts?”
“They aren’t going to believe we’re gods for very long.” She shrugged out of her pack and tossed it on the floor next to the wall.
“Oh, come on, they believe in tons of gods. Why not two more?” I set my pack beside hers. “Besides, I said we were visitors, not gods.”
“The implication was still there. I’m just saying we should get out of here as soon as possible. We need to get to the pyramids, find Winslow, and kill him.”
“It isn’t every day you get to meet a famous pharaoh.”
“Don’t call him a pharaoh. We don’t know how well the translation spell will work on unfamiliar words.”
“He’s the pharaoh. Why would the translation struggle with that?”
“Because they didn’t call themselves pharaohs. The word pharaoh comes from the Bible. Just call him King Tutankhamun to be safe.”
“I shall bow to your greater knowledge.”
“Yes, well, I’m not an Egyptologist, and even the Egyptologists don’t know a lot of what happened in this age.”
“Any clue what time of year it might be?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not Inundation, so it’s not September. Does that really matter?”
“To some degree it does. Since we’re going to make the journey to the pyramids, we’ll need to know what kind of weather to expect. I know it’s hot right now, but how will it be at night? Do we need some warm clothing? Temperature variations in the desert can be crazy.”
“So we should play the god card to see if we can outfit ourselves for the journey?”
“Works for me. Besides, we’ll be the only people in the twenty-first century who can legitimately say they got to have dinner with King Tut.”
Kelly frowned and stretched out on the bed. “All right. I think it’s nap time.”
“You’re tired?” I asked. I didn’t mean to sound quite so concerned, but based on her dirty look, I failed. I held up my hands. “Sorry. It’s cool. I’m going to check out the palace.”
“Don’t get into any trouble.”
“Like I ever get into trouble,” I said and left the room before she could throw something at me.
RAYNA NOBLE
Rayna spent the afternoon lining up a hotel room, settling on the Aberdeen because they allowed unaccompanied women. That would never have been an issue in the twenty-first century, but in the Roaring Twenties, it was unusual, and she’d been turned away at two hotels before one of the clerks told her to go to the Aberdeen. She bought some necessities and dropped them off in her room. She wasn’t sure how to go about finding Henry Winslow. She didn’t even know for sure he’d be in the city. For all she knew, he was in San Francisco or Paris, France. It wasn’t as if he’d take out an ad in the paper to give out his address. The guy had just died, so would he really advertise the fact that he was alive again? What if he decided to lay low? How did Jonathan find missing people? They’d never really discussed how he did his job.
That made her think about him. She missed him already.
She considered what Chronos and Sharon had told them. She would be alone here for however long it took for Jonathan to dispatch Winslow in 1323 BCE and again in 1877. She didn’t know if their relationship was strong enough to withstand a long separation if it took years for Jonathan to get here. She hoped it wouldn’t take that long. She also thought about the way Kelly looked at Jonathan. Maybe she was imagining things. Jonathan didn’t see Kelly that way, so she really had nothing to worry about. She just wished he would get here sooner rather than later.
After dropping off her purchases in her room, she went downstairs and looked for the hotel bar. Then she remembered Prohibition was in effect, so there wouldn’t be any hotel bars, at least not officially. She remembered reading that the government actively poisoned illegal alcohol, which killed a number of citizens during the twenties. She wanted a drink, which meant she’d need to find a speakeasy. She approached the concierge, a man in his mid-twenties with slicked-back dark hair. He saw her moving toward him and gave her a smile.
“Good evening, ma’am. Is there something I can do for you?”
She nodded, gave him a shy grin, and leaned close, putting her hand on his arm as she whispered in his ear, “Do you know where a lady can get a drink around here?”
He glanced down at her hand, saw a folded twenty dollar bill peeking out from under her fingers. She slid her hand up his arm then tucked the twenty into his breast pocket behind the handkerchief. His eyes went wide for a moment and she realized she could have used a smaller denomination.
He winked at her, looked around, then leaned close. “There’s a joint called Sully’s two blocks north on Lexington. You’ll see some stairs going down. Knock on the door and tell them Buffalo Bill sent you.” He handed her a card with an address printed on it.
“Thanks, Bill.”
He smiled. “Buffalo Bill is the password to get in. If you need anything else, you let me know.”
“I will. Thanks again.”
Lexington was a short block over. Then she walked two long blocks north, looking for the address. She saw a number of places that looked as if they could be speakeasies, though. For a moment she felt silly for bribing the concierge and irritated that he told her to walk a few blocks when there was probably a good place on every block.
Oh well. She had the feeling of being watched, but she knew it was just nerves. She didn’t know anyone here, and nobody knew her. She glanced behind her and saw people on the sidewalk but nobody who looked potentially threatening. The feeling faded and she continued down the street. She saw the steps Charlie had mentioned, went down, and knocked on the door.
A grate slid open at eye level, and a man looked out at her. The sound of smooth jazz spilled onto the street. “I don’t know you.”
“Buffalo Bill sent me.”
“Step back.”
For a split second, she thought the man wanted to get a better look at her, but the door swung outward. “Come on in.”
“Thank you,” Rayna said as she walked past the man into a smoky club. A jazz band played at the back, tables lined the floor, and the bar stood off to the left. She noticed that all the patrons were white, but the musicians were black. The place was packed. Men clad in nice suits chatted with women in flapper dresses. Some of the women wore long gloves and smoked cigarettes while they laughed at whatever mildly witty remarks the men buying them drinks happened to make.
Rayna moved through the crowd toward the bar. There weren’t any open stools, but she managed to squeeze between two couples. When she finally got the bartender’s attention, she said, “Whiskey.”
“One panther sweat coming up,” the bartender said.
She placed a bill on the counter as he filled her glass. He slid it to her, snatched up the bill, and placed her change before her. She slid a tip his way, took her drink, and moved into the crowd, looking for a place to sit. A few older men entered the club, but she ignored them.
A middle-aged man with a knife scar on his cheek placed himself in front of her as she tried to move toward the back.
�
��Excuse me,” she said.
“Hey, doll,” he said. “You lost?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“You found someone.” He grabbed her and tried to pull her close, but she’d dealt with so many men like him, she reacted without even thinking about it.
She grabbed his crotch, dug her fingernails into the soft flesh beneath the material. “Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape,” she said.
He winced in pain and released her.
“Touch me again, and I’ll tear them off and feed them to you,” she said.
She let go of him and moved past in search of a seat. The man watched her go. He gently rubbed his crotch. “Crazy dame,” he said, and returned to his table.
Rayna couldn’t find a seat, so she leaned against the wall, sipped her whiskey, and listened to the band play. She looked around at the people dancing, talking, drinking, smoking, and having a good time. Each time she saw a smiling couple, she thought of Jonathan and how much she missed him already. In the middle of a crowded bar, she felt more lonely than ever. She faced an impossible task. She didn’t know anyone. She didn’t know the city. She wasn’t cut out for this. After all, back home, if she wanted to find someone, she’d have simply hired a private investigator like Jonathan.
“Well, duh,” she said.
She finished her drink, moved back through the crowd, set her empty glass on the bar, and headed for the exit. She felt like laughing at herself, but at least she had a plan.
Her admirer moved to follow her, but an old man stepped into his way.
“Move it, old timer.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Uncle Albert,” the old man said.
“I ain’t your uncle.”
The old man grinned. “And I’m not Paul McCartney,” he said and shambled off.
By the time Rayna’s damn dirty ape reached the door and burst onto the sidewalk, she was gone.
BRAND EASTON
The guards made their rounds in the morning, and as soon as the guard peeked into the room, Brand gave him a wave.