by Anne Rice
Samir placed a key in Ramses' hand. He whispered the address and the directions. Ramses should follow him. It would not be a long walk.
He and Julie moved on, with Ramses a few paces behind.
Ah, she liked this one, who called himself an American and spoke in such a strange voice. They rode along together in the horse-drawn "taxi" carriage, among the "motorcars." And she was no longer afraid.
Before they'd left the "railway station" she'd realized that the big iron chariots pulled people about. Just a common means of transportation. How strange.
This one was not as elegant as Lord Rutherford, by any means, but he spoke more slowly and it was becoming quite simple for her to understand, especially as he pointed to things as he spoke. She knew now what was a Ford automobile, and a Stutz Bearcat, and also a little roadster. This man sold such things in America. He was a merchant of Ford automobiles in America. Even poor people could buy these driving machines.
She clutched the canvas bag he'd bought her, which held the money and the bits of paper with OPERA written on them.
"And this here is where the tourists live," he said to her, "more or less. I mean, this is the British sector. ..."
"English," she said.
' 'Yes, but all the Europeans and Americans pretty much come here, too. And that building there-that's where all the best people stay, the British and the Americans, that's Shepheard's, the hotel, if you know what I mean."
"Shepheard's-the hotel?" She gave a little laugh.
"That's where the opera ball's going to be tomorrow night. That's where I'm staying. I don't much like opera"-he made a little face-"never did much care for it. But here in Cairo, well, this is an important thing, you see."
"Important thing, you see."
"Real important. So I figured pretty much I'd go, you see, and to the ball afterwards, though I had to rent a tailcoat and all that." He had a lovely light in his eyes as he looked down at her. He was enjoying himself immensely.
And she was enjoying herself as well.
"And A'ida being all about ancient Egypt."
"Yes, Radames singing."
"Yes! So you know it. Bet you like opera, bet you appreciate it." Suddenly he made a little frown. "Are you okay, little lady? Maybe you'd find the old city more romantic. You want something to drink? How about a little ride in my car. It's parked right behind Shepheard's."
"Motorcar?"
"Oh, you're quite safe with me, little lady, I'm a real safe driver. Tell you what. Have you been out to the pyramids?"
Pee-ra-mids.
"No," she said. "Drive in your car, super!"
He laughed. He shouted a command to the taxi and the driver pulled the horse to the left. They rode around the hotel, Shepheard's, a handsome building with pretty gardens.
When he reached up to help her down from the carriage, he almost touched the tender opening in her side. She shivered. But it had not happened. Yet it had reminded her that the wound was there. How could one live with such awful sores? That was the mystery. Whatever happened now, she must return at dusk to see Lord Rutherford again. Lord Rutherford had gone to speak with the man who could explain these things-the man with the blue eyes.
They arrived together at the hideout. Julie agreed to wait as Samir and Ramses entered, inspected the three little rooms and their neglected garden; then they motioned for her to come in, and Ramses bolted the door.
There was a small wooden table with a candle in the middle, stuck in an old wine bottle. Samir lighted the candle. Ramses drew up two of the straight-backed chairs. Julie brought the other.
This was comfortable enough. The afternoon sun came through the old garden and through the back door, and the place was hot, but not unbearable, as it had been locked up for a long time. A damp musky odor of spices and hemp hung in the air.
Julie took off the Arab headdress, and shook out her hair. She had not pinned it up because of the headdress, and now she loosened the ribbon that kept it tied at the back of her neck.
"I don't believe you killed that woman," she said immediately, looking up at Ramses as he sat across from her.
Like a sheikh he looked in the desert robes, his face partially in shadow, the candle glinting in his eyes.
Samir sat down quietly to her left.
"I didn't kill the woman," Ramses said to her. "But I am responsible for the woman's death. And I need your help, both of you. I need someone's help. And I need your forgiveness. The time has come for me to tell you everything."
"Sire, I have a message for you," Samir said, "which I must give you at once."
"What message? " Julie asked. Why hadn't Samir told her of this?
"Is it from the gods, Samir'? Are they calling me to account? I have no time for less important messages. I must tell you what has happened, what I've done."
' 'It's from the Earl of Rutherford, sire. He accosted me at the hotel. He looked like a madman; he said that I must tell you that he has her.''
Ramses was obviously stunned. He glared at Samir almost murderously.
Julie could not bear this.
Samir removed something from under his robe and gave it to Ramses. It was a glass vial, such as those she'd seen among the alabaster jars in the collection.
Ramses looked at this, but he didn't move to touch it. Samir went to speak again, but Ramses gestured for quiet. His face was so heavily disfigured with emotion that he scarce looked like himself.
"Tell me what this means!" Julie said, unable to stop herself.
"He followed me to the museum," Ramses whispered. He stared at the empty vial.
"But what are you talking about? What happened at the museum?"
"Sire, he says that the sun has helped her. That the medicine in the vial helped her, but that she needs more of it. She is damaged, inside and out. She has killed three times. She is mad. He keeps her safe in hiding, he wants a meeting with you. He has given me the time and place."
For a moment, Ramses said nothing. Then he rose from the table and headed towards the door.
"No, stop!" Julie cried out, rushing towards him.
Samir was also on his feet.
"Sire, if you try to find him sooner, you may be apprehended. The hotel is surrounded. Wait till he leaves and goes to this place for the meeting. It is the only safe thing to do!"
Ramses was clearly stymied. Reluctantly, he turned, looking past Julie with dull, crazed eyes. He moved back sluggishly to the chair and sat down.
Julie wiped her tears with her handkerchief and took her chair again.
"Where and when?" Ramses asked.
"Seven tonight. The Babylon, it's a French night club. I know it. I can take you there."
"I cannot wait until then!"
"Ramses, tell us what all this means. How can we help you if we don't know?"
' 'Sire, Julie is right. Take us into your trust now. Allow us to assist in this. If you are captured again by the police . . ."
Ramses waved it away in disgust. His face was working silently with emotion.
"I need you, and when I tell you, I may lose you. But so be it. For I have wreaked havoc with your lives."
"You will never lose me," Julie said, but her fear was mounting. A great dread of what was to come was building in her soul.
Until these last few moments she thought she understood what had happened. He had taken the body of his love from the museum. He had wanted to see it properly put in a tomb. But now, faced with the vial and these strange words from Elliott, she considered other more ghastly possibilities, denying them in the same instant, but returning to them again.
"Put your trust in us, sire. Let us share this burden."
Ramses looked at Samir, then at her.
"Ah, the guilt you can never share," he said. "The body in the museum. The unknown woman ..."
"Yes," Samir whispered.
"She was not unknown to me, my dear ones. The ghost of Julius Caesar would have known her. The shade of Mark Antony would have kissed her. Milli
ons once mourned for her. ..."
Julie nodded, tears rising again.
"And I have done the unspeakable. I took the elixir to the museum. I did not realize how much her body had been ravaged, that whoie hunks of flesh were no longer there, I poured the elixir over her! After two thousand years life stirred in her ruined body. She rose! Bleeding, wounded, she stood upright. She walked. She reached out for me. She called my name!"
Ah, it was better than the finest wine, better even than making love, racing over the road in the open American motor car, the wind whistling past her, the American shouting convivially as he jerked the "stick shift" this way and that.
To see the houses flying past. To see the Egyptians trudging with their donkeys and camels and to leave them in a spray of gravel.
She adored it. She looked up at the open sky above, letting the wind lift her hair completely as she kept one hand firmly on her hat.
Now and then she studied what he did to make his chariot move. Pump the "pedals," as he called them, over and over again; pull the stick; turn the wheel.
Ah, it was too thrilling; too marvelous. But suddenly that horrid shrill sound caught her off guard. That roaring she had heard in the railway station. Her hands flew to her ears.
"Don't be frightened, little lady, it's just a train. See there, the train's coming!" The motor coach came to a jerking halt.
Metal pathways side by side in the desert sand before them. And that thing, that great black monster bearing down from the right. A bell was clanging. She was dimly aware of a red light flashing, like a lantern beam. Would she never get away from these hideous things?
He put his arm around her.
"It's all right, little lady. We just have to wait for it to pass."
He was still speaking, but now the great rattle and clatter of the monster drowned out his words. Horrid, the wheels rumbling by in front of her, and even the long procession of wooden wagons, filled with human beings who sat inside against the wooden slats as if this were the most simple thing in the world.
She tried to regain her composure. She liked the feel of his warm hands on her; the smell of the perfume rising from his skin. She watched dully as the last of the cars rolled by. Again the bell clanged. The light atop the pillar flashed.
The American pumped the pedals again, pulled the stick; the car began to rumble, and they drove over the metal pathways and on into the desert.
"Well, most people in Hannibal, Missouri, you tell them about Egypt, they don't even know what you're talking about. I said to my father, I'm going over there, that's what I'm going to do. I'm taking the money I've made and going over there, and then I'll settle down back here. ..."
She caught her breath. She was settling into the pleasure of it again. Then far away to the left, on the horizon, she saw the pyramids of Giza! She saw the figure of the Sphinx coming into view.
She gave a little cry. This was Egypt. She was in Egypt in "modern times," but she was still at home.
A lovely sadness softened her all over. The tombs of her ancestors, and there the sphinx to whom she had gone as a young girl, to pray in the temple between its great paws.
' 'Ah, yes, that's a pretty sight, isn't it? I tell you, if people in Hannibal, Missouri, don't appreciate it, it's their tough luck."
She laughed. "Their tough luck," she said.
As they drew closer, she saw the crowds. A great field of motor cars and carriages. And women in frilly dresses with tiny waists, like her own. Men in straw hats like the American. And many Arabs with their camels, and armfuls of cheap necklaces. She smiled.
In her time they had sold cheap jewelry here to the visiting Romans. They had peddled rides on their camels. They were doing the very same thing now!
But it took her breath away, the great tomb of King Kufu looming above her. When had it been that she had come here, a small girl, and seen this huge structure made up of square blocks? And then with Ramses, later, alone in the cool of the night, when she'd been wrapped in a dark robe, a common woman, riding with him along this very same road.
Ramses! No, something horrid that she did not want to remember. The dark waters rushing over her. She had been walking towards him, and he had been backing away!
The American motor car jerked to a halt again.
"Come on, little lady, let's get out and see it. Seventh wonder of the world."
She smiled at the chubby-faced American; so gentle with her he was.
"Okaaaay! Super!" she said. She jumped down from the high open seat before he could give her a helping hand.
Her body was very close to his. His chubby nose crinkled as he smiled at her. Sweet young mouth. She kissed him suddenly. She stood on tiptoe and embraced him. Hmmmm. Sweet and young like the other. And so surprised!
"Well, you sure are an affectionate little thing," he said hi her ear. He didn't seem to know what to do now. Well, she would show him. She took his hand and they walked over the beaten sand towards the pyramids.
"Ah, look!" she said, pointing to the palace that had been built to the right.
"Ah, that's the Mena House," he said. "Not a bad hotel, either. It's not Shepheard's, but it's okay. We can have a bite to eat there later, if you like."
"I tried to fight them," Ramses said. "It was impossible. There were simply too many. They took me away to the jail. I needed time to heal. It must have been a half hour before I managed to escape."
Silence.
Julie had buried her face in her handkerchief.
"Sire," Samir said gently. "You knew this elixir could do such a thing?''
"Yes, Samir. I knew, though I had never put it to such a test."
"Then it was human nature, sire. No more and no less."
"Ah, but Samir, I have made so many blunders over the centuries. I knew the dangers of the chemical. And you must know those dangers now too. You must know if you are to help me. This creature-this mad thing which I've brought back to life cannot be destroyed."
"Surely there is some way," Samir said.
"No. I've learned this through trial and error. And your modem biology books, they've sharpened my understanding. Once the cells of the body are saturated with the elixir, they renew themselves constantly. Plant, animal, human-it is all the same."
"No age, no deterioration," Julie murmured. She was calmer now, she could trust her voice.
"Precisely. One full cup made me immortal. No more than the contents of that vial. I am eternally in the prime of life. I don't need food, yet I am always hungry. I don't need sleep, yet I can enjoy it. I have perpetually the desire to ... make love."
"And this woman-she did not receive the full measure."
' 'No, and she was damaged to begin with! That was my folly, don't you see! The body was not all there! But damaged or no, she is now virtually unstoppable. I understood that when she came towards me through the corridor! Don't you see?"
"You're not thinking in terms of modern science," Julie said. She wiped both her eyes slowly. "There must be a way to halt the process."
' 'On the other hand, if you were to give her the full measure- more of the medicine, as the Earl put it. . ."
"That's madness," Julie interjected. "You can't even consider it. You'll make the thing stronger."
"Listen, both of you," Ramses said, "to what I have to say. Cleopatra is only part of this tragedy. The Earl knows the secret now with certainty. It is the elixir itself that is dangerous, more dangerous than you know.''
"People will want it, yes," Julie said, "and they will do anything to get it. But Elliott can be reasoned with, and Henry is a fool."
' "There's more to it than that. We are speaking of a chemical which changes any living substance by which it is absorbed." Ramses waited a moment, glancing at both of them. Then he went on: "Centuries ago, when I was still Ramses, ruler of this land, I dreamed I would use this elixir to make food and drink aplenty for my people. We would have famine no more. Wheat that would grow back instantly after every harvest. Fruit trees tha
t would bear forever. Do you know what came to pass?''
Fascinated, they stared at him in silence.
"My people could not digest this immortal food. It stayed whole in their insides. They died in agony as if they had eaten sand."
"Ye gods," Julie whispered. "Yet it's perfectly logical. Of course!"
"And when I sought to burn the fields and slaughter the immortal hens and milk cows, I saw the burnt wheat spring to life as soon as the sun shone on it. I saw burnt and headless carcasses struggle to rise. Finally it was all cast into the sea, weighted and sent to the very bottom, where surely it remains, whole and intact, to this day."