Heart of the Gods

by Valerie Douglas

  He wasn’t certain yet that he believed any of it.

  If it were true, though…

  “The Horn called many of them but not all,” Raissa said. “The King, though, the Pharaoh as you call him, took no chances and so he created a secret society. One child out of each generation from certain families, the best of them, male or female, were chosen to seek out the dark Djinn, hunt them down and kill them. It would become their life’s work, their purpose. Their other would be preventing anyone from finding the Tomb.”

  “Perhaps that allowed the good Djinn to thrive,” Tareq said.

  The thought eased her a little. Something positive, then, had come of it all. She could live or die with that thought.

  She smiled. “Perhaps it did.”

  “Perhaps,” Tareq offered, with a smile. “So the Horn, too, is real?”

  Nodding, Raissa said, “Very real. Or you would have grown up as cattle beneath the Djinn.”

  The certainty in her voice was interesting.

  “And the Heart of the Gods?” Ky asked.

  For the first time, her blue eyes met his. “Real, too.”

  “A ruby the size of my fist?” he asked, incredulous.

  With a light shrug and a sigh she said, “I wouldn’t know, I never saw it.”

  “And the Guardian was the Key and the Lock, the Light and the Dark,” Tareq quoted.

  She turned to look at him, her face expressionless.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And you can lead us to the Tomb,” Ky said.

  She looked at him in apology and slowly shook her head. “No, I can only help you find it.”

  A little puzzled, Ky said, “But you came from there.”

  Slowly, she shook her head with a sigh. “I didn’t. Not the way you think.”

  Biting her lip, she gestured at herself.

  “This is not the body I was born with. That...”

  She waved, closed her eyes at the memories, took a breath and said, “That remains at the Tomb. This is a construct, something I created with magic, Isis’s gift to me and chants from the Book of Emerging into Daytime, what you call the Book of the Dead. A thing born of the life energy of the thieves that entered the Tomb. A form I could wear. It resembles me because the essence of me lies within it. My body, such as it is, remains in the Tomb. When they entered the Tomb I was there and I was in the village with the old thief when he fled, where the closest ‘threat’ was. Him. And you. You don’t know how difficult it was to do this, to make this body of mine. It took time.”

  “Why?”’Tareq asked, “Why was it difficult to do? Why do you need allies? You’re the Guardian of the Tomb.”

  She laughed, a little wryly, a little bitterly.

  “We were arrogant, I suppose. Like your people, we never thought our Gods wouldn’t be worshiped forever. We never considered the divine feminine would be put aside, that in a thousand years the Goddesses wouldn’t be revered as equally as the Gods, that two thousand years from our time Isis wouldn’t still be worshiped in her temples as the Mother, as Sekhmet was worshiped in her guise of the Healer. There is power in belief, no matter what you believe. It’s a small blessing that some still worship Her and so some power comes to me from her but it is a fraction of what I knew. I grew weaker with each passing year.”

  “Can’t you just go there and then come back?” Ky asked.

  To go back….?

  Her eyes closed. Just the thought made her shudder.

  Ky saw the brief look of a horror so deep and atavistic it made his gut twist in sympathy.

  “No. To do that,” she said, “I would have to let this go…”

  She gestured at herself.

  “And return…”

  To the close darkness...

  She shivered.

  “To where my body is. The…attention drew me out and the old thief…the things he said, and the way that he said them, the certainty of his words, held me. I was supposed to return to my place. There was no imminent threat. I should have returned to my place… instead I created this. If I do, though, this body will die and I could very well go back to sleep until you actually do find the Tomb the hard way. I might forget all of this and attack when you come, it’s my mission, my duty… Or the wrong people might find it before you do.”

  And she didn’t want to go, didn’t want to forget.

  Whatever else, in the long years alone, these were the first living souls she’d known in centuries.

  “It was a journey of days on horseback. And I was only there twice. I was never supposed to visit there a second time, not alive. That second time I had far more important things to think of, the spells I needed to chant from the Book of Emerging into Daylight that would keep my heart and soul, my ka and ba, intact. The desert is vast and treacherous, constantly changing. So much of it looks alike. Three thousand years of shifting sands, of time, war and wear, have changed the landmarks I knew. Even if I could, it would be weeks on foot to return, to see all I must see to lead you back. This is still a body. It requires sustenance. Weeks without it…under the hot sun…”

  With a grin, Ryan said, “And we know you can’t go without that…without sustenance.”

  She smiled a little at the joke. It wasn’t that far from the truth.

  Watching her, Ky could see what it cost her to speak of it.

  Ky remembered what she’d said the night before and the look in her eyes, the odd shiver that had gone through him. Was that why she ate so much, to keep something else at bay?

  He remembered what she’d said of Sekhmet and wondered.

  “I would die,” she said, simply. “For real.”

  The prospect of real death, of not passing into the afterlife, sent a shudder through her.

  “So you can die?” Ryan asked, surprised.

  Looking at him, she said, a little wryly. “Oh, yes, I can die, although I heal very quickly. If you put enough bullets in me I will die. Shoot me in the head or cut it off and I’ll die. If I don’t feed…?”

  I’ll go mad and die, but she didn’t say it.

  At one awakening she’d fought it, denied what she’d become, as she’d become more accustomed to the shock of awakening and the power of Sekhmet’s gift. She remembered Djeserit speaking once of the blood lust that could overcome her followers. At the time she hadn’t understood, hadn’t truly believed. She shuddered at her own memories.

  She hadn’t truly believed and then she had.

  It was her worst fear, to feel that madness come on her once again, worse even than returning to the stele and the dark.

  There was a brief flash of a level of despair in her eyes that was shattering to see and nothing like the Raissa Ky knew.

  What was it that was so terrible it put that look in her eyes?

  “Feed?”

  It was Tareq who asked, Ky couldn’t bring himself to think about it, much less ask.

  Raissa turned back to the window, faced away from them.

  That wasn’t a good sign. Ky had the feeling he would like what was coming even less.

  “Sekhmet’s gift…”

  Her voice was so soft they strained to hear it.

  For a moment, Tareq paused, thinking of all he knew of the Goddess Sekhmet, who Ra had set on mankind, much as later Gods would visit plagues on their people, because mankind wouldn’t obey his commandments. And so he’d loosed Sekhmet upon them and she fell on them, drinking their blood…

  “You’re a vampire,” he said.

  Turning, she looked at him, frowned in puzzlement. “I don’t know this word…”

  “You drink blood to survive,” he said, astonished.

  It was incredible.

  There was a word for it, she thought, in astonishment.

  Letting out a breath, she said, “Yes.”

  “No way,” John said, “Uh, uh. No way. No how.”

  Raissa looked at him. And sighed.

  If she were going to be honest…

  She hated this.

&nbs
p; For a moment, only a moment, she unleashed her ever-present hunger. She struggled to keep it contained, chained to her will. Even so, to show even this much awakened it again.

  She didn’t look at any of them.

  Her tongue flicked over her teeth. She could feel them slide down, the canines lengthen, the tips brush her lower lip…

  They all felt it, clearly, the shift , the sudden atavistic knowledge of a predator in the room with them that was more ancient even than she was.

  Ky looked where she stood in the light of the window, her hair shimmering like the sunlight that cascaded over her, her eyes a vivid blue. It seemed as if her skin had become luminous, as if she glowed from within. It was ironic but in that moment she looked more beautiful, more erotic than she ever had, even as she struggled with the hunger within her, as her upper canine teeth lengthened, overlapped her bottom lip just a little…

  Once more, her lips parted and she ran her tongue lightly over those teeth and the tip of her tongue brushed slowly and lightly over her upper lip in a gesture so sensual that Ky felt heat wash through him, even though her eyes didn’t meet his.

  “Holy shit,” John said, softly, as he visibly swayed with the pull of attraction. “Fuck.”

  There wasn’t a man in the room that didn’t feel it, a tug of desire so strong, so deep and low it was nearly instinctive.

  Ky felt it, held against it.

  Closing her eyes, Raissa pulled it back, throttled it. “It’s why I eat so much. To find there what I can’t…”

  “Damn,” Ryan said, shaking his head.

  That had been about the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

  He’d always thought she was hot but that was incredible.

  With a small shrug, she said, “So I’m afraid though we’ll have to do things the old-fashioned way and look for it. I can help keep you on course, there will be some things I might recognize and I can translate the texts more correctly.”

  Ky looked at Tareq and saw that both of them had thought of the same thing at the same time. She could tell them so much about that time, correct things they or others had mistaken, solve mysteries. Oddly, Ky felt a burst of academic excitement second only to the thought of finding the tomb…but that was for later.

  “Then,” Tareq suggested, “we had better get to it.”

  Settling back in his seat, he frowned a little and said, “So, start at the beginning. When did you first see the Tomb?”

  “It was to have been mine, as successor as High Priestess to Banafrit. The day after she was sent on her journey to the afterlife, we went in search of the location of what some day would be mine.”

  She remembered that trip so vividly… Khai…

  It had been a happy occasion, sending Banafrit off to her place among the Gods, however terrible her death had been, then searching for and finding the right location for something that even in the dire circumstances in which they lived seemed far off, despite the prophecies.

  They had feasted when they found it, shared food and wine, she, Ky and the others.

  “So Banafrit was High Priestess before you?” Ky asked. “We were never sure…”

  He glanced at Tareq.

  It had been the source of many late night debates between them, where Banafrit had fit into the succession and whether Nubiti and Irisi had been the same person.

  Tareq nodded, smiled a little at the memory before looking at Raissa.

  Raissa saw him glance at her hair and nodded. “Both names were for the color of my hair and eyes. I was born somewhere in Wales I think…”

  Triumphant, Ky looked at Tareq. He’d been right. Tareq had been one of the proponents of the wig theory.

  Raissa rolled her eyes at them, shaking her head.

  “Did you take a litter or a chariot?” Ky asked.

  “Neither,” she said, “I knew how to ride horseback from my days in the North but we were held to the pace of the litter with Banafrit’s body in it.”

  “So if we find Banafrit’s tomb, we can find the Tomb of the Djinn?” Tareq said.

  She nodded. “It will definitely help.”

  With the museum coming back to life, Tareq sent for all and any information on a priestess of Isis called Banafrit.

  “Khai is buried out there, too,” Ky said, suddenly.

  Raissa stared at him.

  It was a new pain, shockingly sharp.

  “What?” Raissa breathed, and closed her eyes as she pressed a hand to her chest against the grief of centuries.

  “He arranged to have his tomb built out there by the Tomb of the Djinn,” Ky said, more gently, “so that Irisi, so that you, wouldn’t be alone.”

  Raissa pressed her fingers to her lips, grief moving through her again. “I never knew…”

  For a moment she couldn’t breathe. She thought she’d sensed his presence now and again.

  “So close.”

  Her head bowed as she fought back tears. She turned to the window so they wouldn’t see them.

  “If you loved him so much,” Tareq asked, gently, “why then did you never marry? Marriage was an important sacrament to the ancient Egyptians.”

  “I would have if I could have but I had once been a slave and owned by the Grand Vizier, Kamenwati, the nameless one, the wizard who made the Horn of the Djinn. He wanted to be King. When the temple accepted me as priestess, freeing me from his service, Kamenwati was furious. He swore there would be no other but him and if there were they would die. It was no idle threat. Add to it there was no one he hated more than Khai, save me. Kamenwati wouldn’t have quibbled at using an assassin or poison. He had no honor. He hated me for escaping him. He hated Khai because he opposed him and because he couldn’t touch him. Khai was fearless but I wouldn’t risk his life. I couldn’t imagine a pain so deep as to know Khai had died because of me. So, we met in secret until we discovered it was Kamenwati who had created the Horn. By then it was too late for either of us. I wouldn’t bind him to me only to leave him. I wanted him to find love again. I wouldn’t have begrudged him that.”

  She stared out the window, looking at the young couples there on the Mall.

  “He never married,” Ky reminded her, gently. “There would never be any other.”

  For a moment, there was silence.

  “So, if we find Banafrit’s tomb, we can then find the Tomb of the Djinn,” Tareq said, to break it.

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  He and Ky exchanged triumphant glances. After all the years of searching, they were finally close.

  “We have found our first real break after all this time,” Tareq said.

  To them it had all occurred three thousand, four thousand years ago. To Raissa, it had been yesterday.

  It was clear ]they didn’t know their danger, they didn’t accept it.

  There was no way that they could. Nothing like the Djinn had existed for millennia and most magic had disappeared.

  She remembered, though, vividly, remembered the blood and the death, the battles and the pain.

  Ky’s distance only made it worse.

  The easy camaraderie between them was gone, too, and she didn’t know how to get it back. It broke her heart to know that.

  More than ever, she felt suddenly and horribly alone.

  Chapter Twenty

  If it wasn’t for the visits from the police with their questions about the ‘terrorist’ attack, it was almost as if nothing had changed, with the old Raissa back as they began the translations of the papyrus she’d found in the fort, except she now had the trump card when the debates took place―she’d been there. But directions, impressions…this point of view, that…They were all still open to interpretation. What they learned from her, though, even in casual conversation was incredible.

  Then there was Ryan, every now and then grinning and asking if he could check her heartbeat, just to be sure, for the excuse to get her to let him lay his head on her chest…to her and their amusement.

  Not that she let him.

  Sh
e still ate like there was no tomorrow. It became rapidly clear she ate just to stave off that other hunger―if she was getting enough of the other, she wouldn’t need to eat so much.

  Every once in a while she would look at Ky in the old way, with a glint of mischief in those bright sparkling blue eyes. And his heart would tug. As much as he wanted to trust her, though, she’d lied to him from the beginning…and there was the other…that hunger. Sekhmet’s gift.

  And so he fought it.

  They pulled every piece of papyrus that related to Banafrit’s tomb, the Tomb of the Djinn. Irisi’s or Nubiti’s tomb, pieced together hints to give them a direction or directions. To some success. They had some landmarks to go by, landmarks mentioned by the texts. How much those landmarks would have been changed by millennia of wind, sand, earthquake and man remained to be seen.

  With the increased protection of additional guards on the Museum and the police attention, they had no further incidents but Ky knew once they returned to the dig site they would be far from the protection of the Egyptian authorities and that worried him. Taking John and Komi aside, he asked if they could see if they could find them weapons. Carefully.

  For himself, Ky had to admit he was fascinated by one of Raissa’s swords. Especially the left-handed one. The one she’d thrown like a javelin at the assassin.

  It was intriguing, unique. The police had returned them at Tareq’s insistence―it was clear they were very old and so he claimed they were part of the museum exhibit and that Ky had used them out of necessity. No mention had been made of Raissa.

  The steel in the blades was clearly crude but also finely polished. The hilts were wooden, banded with steel, and with little in the way of decoration or ornamentation. They were tools, nothing more.

  Only the one was unusual, flatter on one side and padded with leather down part of the length of it.

  He was playing with it idly, turning it around and around in his hands when Raissa took notice.

  “I designed it myself,” she said, hesitantly, almost cautiously. “I believe at the time we were in part of what would now be Lebanon. They were getting a reputation as makers of steel. We had been hired to work there.”