Heart of the Gods

by Valerie Douglas

  Zimmer’s black eyes settled on Raissa and he smiled, his lips drawing back from his teeth like the smile of a shark, baring them in preparation. Those flat black eyes were cold, pitiless…

  “Do you remember me?” he said, softly.

  There was something… A chill went through her at his words, at something in sound of them, a dissonance that was odd. She shivered a little, hid it as she looked up, hearing a strange resonance in his voice, an intonation and accent that was almost familiar. It was as if she heard two voices speaking simultaneously, one overlaying the other, Zimmer’s, and another…

  It was there again, that odd sense of familiarity, something about the set of Zimmer’s shoulders, the way that he carried himself, the expression on his face, that echoed inside her.

  Familiar, and yet not.

  As quick as a snake, his hand shot out, took her by the throat and lifted her into the air as if she weighed less than a feather. She kicked and struggled in vain.

  The speed, the strength it took to do it, to lift her as if she were nothing, was astonishing. Even as small as she was, no mortal man could have done it.

  Her eyes widened as she looked into his face.

  Perhaps it was the angle or the cruel satisfaction on it.

  She did know him, recognized him…

  Fear, huge and hot, shot through her like lightning.

  If it was true, they were all in terrible danger. Far more danger than she’d even begun to suspect.

  “Kamenwati,” she whispered, going cold as her fear was confirmed by the glint in his eye. “Oh dear gods and goddesses.”

  The Grand Vizier, who in his desire for power had been willingly possessed by a marid Djinn so he could create the Horn, overthrow the King and take the throne of Egypt.

  Once her Master, and her enemy.

  It seemed he’d found another soul willing to be possessed.

  She wondered how Zimmer liked it.

  Slowly, he smiled. “Yes. Where are the Gods, your precious priests and priestesses to protect you now as they once did? The King? Your precious General? Dead and gone. So foolish to use magic so close to me. To protect them. To protect him.”

  His eyes slid to Ky.

  Alarm shot through her.

  If he was Kamenwati, if Zimmer somehow held Kamenwati’s spirit, or some part of it, Kamenwati would remember, he would see a familiar face. A known face.

  A hated face.

  Zimmer had no love for Ky either.

  “He’s not the same man,” she said, desperately.

  “Isn’t he?” Zimmer/Kamenwati asked.

  A smile curved his mouth.

  Kamenwati. The name was familiar. Raissa had mentioned it.

  A chill went through Ky even as he felt Tareq stiffen beside him. He’d recognized the name, too. The Grand Vizier, the one who had created the Horn, who had summoned the Djinn, called them down on Egypt.

  Irisi’s, and therefore Raissa’s, sworn enemy.

  And General Khai’s.

  Ky’s doppelganger.

  This wasn’t good.

  He met Zimmer’s flat black stare evenly, steadily, despite the helpless fury that burned in him. It was like looking into the eyes of a shark, cold, emotionless.

  He knew he didn’t dare show fear, not to this man, and he wouldn’t.

  Ky bided his time, looked for chances and gave the man nothing though seeing Raissa in his hands had Ky’s vision going red at the edges. It was all he could do, be prepared to act if the opportunity presented itself.

  She dangled there as if she weighed nothing, was nothing, helpless and vulnerable with her arms shackled behind her, her feet dangling, the thin t-shirt she wore fluttering around her thighs.

  With his hand around her slender throat, she could look at no one other than Zimmer.

  The longer Zimmer/Kamenwati stared at Ky, the more fear pooled in Raissa’s belly.

  “He’s not Khai,” she repeated.

  “The resemblance, though, is amazing,” Zimmer murmured in that odd tri-partite voice. His, Kamenwati’s, and the marid Djinn.

  Fear for Ky sang through her like the sound of electricity wires.

  So she gave Zimmer―Kamenwati―the one thing she knew would catch and hold his attention. Convince him and draw his attention from Ky.

  “He doesn’t love me,” she said, her voice steady.

  The absolute conviction in her voice caught Zimmer’s interest. He turned to look at her.

  From the corner of her eye she saw Ky stiffen.

  And wondered when she dared not.

  Zimmer looked at her.

  “Doesn’t he?”

  Her throat tight, she lowered her eyes and said, “No. I lied to him. I didn’t tell him who I was, who I really was. Or what I am. He thinks I love him for the resemblance to Khai not for himself.”

  She lifted her eyes and let Zimmer see it, let him see all of it, the regret, the sorrow, the heartache and the pain…gave him her soul, that he might see it clearly.

  Ky saw it as well, in that lovely mobile face. She loved him, loved him enough to sacrifice herself, her pride, to keep him safe, alive.

  “How vexing for you,” Zimmer said, amused. “After so long apart…unable to love him then and unable to love him now. To look at his face, so like our dear General’s, every day only to find he doesn’t love you.”

  She remained silent.

  Zimmer looked at her, hid his smile of triumph.

  “Then you won’t care if I kill him now,” Zimmer said, pulling a gun from a holster at his back, pointing it at Ky.

  Fear raced through her.

  “If you kill him,” Raissa said, quickly, surely, her voice even, “you’ll never find the Tomb.”

  Zimmer looked at her, assessed her.

  Her quickness, her concern, had betrayed her and she knew it. She’d given him the key to breaking her. It was there in her eyes, along with the knowledge of what she’d done, what she’d given him.

  A part of him shouted in triumph. Oh, yes, he had her.

  “He may not love you but you do love him, don’t you?” he said with satisfaction.

  To give him that would be to give him an even greater weapon to use against her… To not give it would cost Ky his life.

  There was never truly any choice.

  She couldn’t lie. The part of Zimmer that was Kamenwati, and the marid Djinn soul still bound to his, would know.

  One life, against all these lives.

  If anything, Raissa’s face went paler still, only the tightening of her lips and the glimmer of her eyes betrayed her.

  Her voice was soft, breathless.

  Watching her, that mobile face held still by sheer will alone, and Ky knew.

  His breath caught in his chest. The truth of it was in her eyes, in her pale face and he knew what she gave Zimmer with her answer.

  Everything.

  She believed the Djinn waited in the Tomb. Had said she’d seen them with her own eyes. He’d seen the fear and the shadows in them when she spoke of the Djinn. To her they were real.

  Ky couldn’t forget, had hardly forgotten that night in the museum. He remembered the bullets striking her, driving her back one step, two.

  She was here. Real.

  As was Zimmer, but he wasn’t truly Zimmer any more, that couldn’t be denied. Nor had he denied being Kamenwati. Grand Vizier of ancient Egypt to one incarnation of the Pharaoh Narmer. They knew that name.

  If Irisi…Raissa…was here, and Kamenwati…?

  Were the Djinn real, too, then?

  “Yes,” Raissa whispered.

  In answer to Zimmer’s question and, inadvertently, Ky’s own.

  “What would it be then,” Zimmer said, triumphantly, leveling the gun at Ky’s head, “to watch him die now?”

  Ky went still as Zimmer’s mercenaries leveled their weapons at Ryan, Tareq and Komi to keep him motionless as well, the threat to them clear.

  It was hardly the first time he’d faced death, but
even so this wasn’t the way he would have chosen it, on his knees rather than fighting.

  He allowed none of that to show on his face.

  Raissa’s revealed enough. It revealed everything.

  She loved him.

  That lovely face went utterly still, bleak, and grief darkened her blue eyes.

  Raissa thought her heart stopped when Zimmer pointed his gun at Ky. Deliberately, she closed her eyes, shut the emotion away so none could see it.

  The thought alone was unbearable.

  Ky saw the calculating look in Zimmer’s eyes and knew what Zimmer was doing, and what Raissa would do in return, render herself hostage to Zimmer’s will against his life. She would lead Zimmer to the Tomb and the Djinn.

  He closed his eyes, helpless rage and fury nearly blinding him. He was helpless. That wasn’t something he’d ever known, he’d always been able to fight, to defend himself and others. He hated this helplessness more than anything, but he could do nothing as long as they had the others.

  Then she spoke and something inside him, the last barrier, shattered.

  It seemed she had one more trick up her sleeve.

  “Kill him,” Raissa said, quietly, clearly, “and I will release this form, this body. I will have no more use for it and I will return to the Tomb.”

  She smiled at Zimmer and that smile was as cold, as merciless, as Zimmer’s own.

  “You can face me there on my own ground, on my own terms as the Guardian of the Tomb. That is, if you can find it without him and without me.”

  Check and mate.

  Her beautiful blue eyes lifted to Zimmer’s…steady, sure…defiant.

  Ky remembered the depth of her horror at the idea when they’d spoken of it in Tareq’s office. If she let go of herself, of this body, and returned to the Tomb, she would no longer be Raissa. Raissa as a person would cease to exist, there would only be the Guardian. She would effectively die for him, returning to her state as the Guardian, until the tomb was finally found.

  He would lose her forever.

  Zimmer went still and then he began to smile.

  “So,” he said, slowly, “as long as he lives, you remain here, in my hands and at my mercy and my will…and you will help me find the Tomb.”

  Still dangling in his clutches, she went very still, only her mouth tightening.

  Zimmer contemplated her. Her very stillness betrayed her.

  “Answer me,” he said sharply and shook her.

  Her breath came short, her jaw tightened.

  Ky waited for the answer, knowing what it would be.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  Beside him, his voice very soft, Tareq said, not unkindly, “It seems you have your answer, my friend. You know she loves you for yourself. But at what price?”

  Ky nodded, the pain of it piercing.

  One of the men stepped up beside Zimmer. “We found it, Professor Zimmer.”

  “Very well,” the man said and let Raissa go, tossing her away carelessly.

  She barely kept her feet, stumbled and went to her knees.

  Zimmer/Kamenwati walked to where his men had pulled the small trunk with the papyrus and fragments in it from Ky’s tent. He’d buried it there in the sand beneath it.

  Quickly Raissa looked at Ky, Tareq and the others, and just as quickly looked away. She kept her head lowered.

  Her voice was low but steady. “There may be a way, something I can do, be ready.”

  Ky looked at her. At the very least he could give her something, he could give her the truth...

  “Raissa,” he said, quietly, urgently.

  She went still and closed her eyes for a moment. Biting her lip, she took a breath. Her sky-blue eyes lifted to meet his.

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “I do love you.”

  For a moment she went very still, before those incredible blue eyes locked on his. She took a slow breath, straightened.

  Everything he’d been looking for all his life was in her gaze.

  Their eyes met, held.

  “Ky,” she said, breathlessly.

  In his look was everything she needed to hold her through whatever came. It strengthened her will, bolstered her courage.

  Quickly, sensing movement behind her, she turned, praying that Zimmer hadn’t heard them.

  He caught her up by the throat once again, shaking his head in dismay and disgust.

  “Look at you. You’re weak, little priestess. It seems I didn’t need shackles after all. John tells me you have little power. Have your Gods deserted you, then? Mine hasn’t deserted me. Set gives me anything. John has told me much. A little glamour and he gave it all.”

  Those cold eyes flicked over Ky.

  “It seems he’s envied you for some time, Professor. That was all I needed to buy his soul.”

  That cold smile settled on Ky for only a moment before returning to Raissa. “He also tells me you have Sekhmet’s gift, little slave, although he doesn’t believe it, but that you haven’t fed. Look where your scruples have left you, great Guardian of the Temple.”

  John.

  She’d warded the others but she hadn’t warded John because John hadn’t been there to ward. He hadn’t been protected.

  Now she knew who had betrayed them and how they’d been betrayed.

  Another clearly did not.

  “The Guardian!” Inspector Hassan cried out in shock, “No…!”

  The knowledge nearly shattered him. He’d betrayed the Guardian of the Temple.

  Even as he drew his gun he saw it, the resemblance to the figure of Nubiti that had been passed down to him from his father and his father’s father and sat in a place of honor in his home. It explained so much, her appearance in the village, her speed, her quickness, her skill fighting in the marketplace.

  He should have seen it. He’d been a fool.

  Zimmer laughed. “Yes, here is your precious Guardian, Inspector…but now she is mine.”

  Stunned, furious, Hassan looked at him.

  The name Kamenwati hadn’t registered at first, it was a name from the distant past, but then it did.

  The Grand Vizier?

  In his arrogance Hassan had allied with the wrong side and with him his men.

  A gesture from Zimmer even as Hassan’s gun cleared his holster.

  Magic whispered.

  Something huge came out of the darkness.

  A great force struck Hassan a shattering blow that lifted him from his feet, propelled his bodily backwards to vanish into the darkness.

  At the same moment, gunshots shattered the shocked silence and Hassan’s men fell, the mercenaries around them cutting them down mercilessly.

  Terrible as it was, it was the distraction Raissa needed.

  She knew she had to go carefully here, her magic subtle, for Kamenwati had far more power, was far more powerful than she was, she could feel the hum of it in the hand that held her.

  Quickly, she called what little power she had. She cast her incantations in the shadow of Kamenwati’s, first one then the other, while he was distracted.

  A sudden burst of wind rushed through the campsite in the wake of Kamenwati’s spell, not entirely unexpected at this time of night as the heat of day was supplanted by the cold of night. Some of the lanterns blew out, casting parts of the camp in shadow, especially the section where the prisoners were, giving them the cover of darkness.

  “Mine again,” Zimmer said, turning his eyes on her again. “Mine, slave. There is no one now to defend you. You’ve lost and you’re mine once again.”

  In that he was wrong…If what she planned was going to work, Ky had to have a chance to work unobserved. She needed Zimmer distracted, angry and unthinking. She didn’t know Zimmer well, she only knew what had been said of him, and what she’d observed.

  But she knew Kamenwati. She knew his pride, and the pride of the powerful marid Djinn that was allied with his spirit.

  They were weaker here, working through Zimmer, but she dared not underestim
ate them.

  She was no longer Kamenwati’s slave, had not been for three thousand years and more.

  Possess her body he might, but never her soul. That had always been hers.

  Until now she’d been submissive, deliberately she raised her eyes to his in such a way as no slave would have dared.

  Provoking him. Dangerously.

  She kept her voice calm, even, sure. And faintly derisive.

  “We haven’t yet reached the Tomb, my Lord Kamenwati. Much can happen between here and there. They have a saying in this time. Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.”

  Fury erupted through him, she saw it flare in his eyes at her insolence, at the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice.

  And not just him, but insecure, sensitive and insensitive Zimmer within him.

  It was like a spark to tinder.

  Enraged, insulted, he dropped her, backhanded her…

  The force of the blow sent her flying across the campsite as his spell had sent Inspector Hassan flying into the darkness. If she’d been human it would have broken her neck. The impact of his hand split her lip and made her head spin. It seemed she was human enough.

  Without her hands to catch her she sprawled on the ground.

  In that much he was right, she was too weak to fight him. Physically or magically, she’d used too much power. She had been and still was a mercenary, a fighter. That had always been her gift. Once they’d called her berserker, for the madness that took her in battle.

  Give her a weapon and she would fight like nothing these men had ever seen.

  It was not, though, her only weapon. She would have to use wit and guile instead. And her weapons were her own, bound to her.

  She whispered the incantation like a prayer to the Gods. It was one.

  Ky was barely aware of something, a brush of air at his back. Something touched his fingers but he was too intent on watching Zimmer and Raissa, and what Zimmer was doing to her.

  She rolled frantically and almost managed to scramble to her feet as Zimmer stalked across the campsite toward her, his eyes enraged, sparks glowing in the depths of them like hellfire.

  His anger seemed to shimmer in the air between them.

  She lifted her chin defiantly.

  Zimmer caught her by the front of her t-shirt…lifted her into the air.

  “Know you will serve me as you did not in the past,” Zimmer said, furiously, yanking her toward him so she was only inches from his face, “on your knees. You will never know a day when your hands will not be bound behind your back, each and every day until the day we reach the Tomb. And when we reach it I will stake you out in front of the doors to the Tomb as an offering to the Djinn when I free them…”