by Anne Rice
His sex jutted against her. He lifted her and thrust her down on it; ah, yes, nothing remembered now, nothing but the flesh; she went limp in ecstasy, her head thrown back, her eyes closed.
Defeated, he dragged his left foot like a cripple, drawing ever closer to the hotel. Had he been a coward to leave? Should he have stayed, struggling to be of assistance in that war between Titans? With malice in his eyes, Ramsey had said, Go. And Ramsey had saved his life by intervening; by following him, by making a joke of his last feeble attempt to get the elixir of life. Ah, what did it matter now? He must somehow get Alex out of Egypt; get himself out of Egypt. Wake from this nightmare once and for all and completely. That was the only thing left for him to do.
He approached the front steps of Shepheard's, eyes down.
And he did not see the two men who stopped him until they were blocking his path.
"Lord Rutherford?"
"Let me alone."
"Sorry, my lord, I wish I could. We're from the governor's office. There are some questions we must ask you."
Ah, the last humiliation. He did not fight.
"Help me up the steps, then, young man," he said.
She stepped out of the copper bathtub, the long coarse white towel around her, her hair still damp and curling in the steam. It was a bath for a palace, this room of painted tiles, and hot water running through a tiny pipe. And the perfumes she had found; how sweet the scent, like crushed lilies.
She walked back into the bedroom and saw herself again in the mirrored cabinet door. Whole. Perfect. Her legs had their proper contour. Even the pain inside her, where the evil one called Henry had wounded her, that was no more.
Blue eyes! How the sight shocked her.
Had she been this beautiful when she was alive? Did he know? Men had always said she was beautiful. She did a little dance, loving her own nakedness, enjoying the softness of her own hair against the backs of her arms.
Ramses watched her sullenly from the corner. Well, that was nothing out of the ordinary, was it? Ramses, the secret watcher. Ramses, the judge.
She reached out for the wine bottle on the dressing table. Empty. She smashed it on the marble top. Bits and pieces of glass fell to the floor.
No response from him; only that hard unyielding gaze.
So what did it matter? Why not go on dancing? She knew that she was beautiful, that men would love her. The two men she'd killed this afternoon had been charmed by her, and now there was no dreadful secret evidence of death to hide.
Pivoting, letting her hair fly about her, she cried out:' 'Whole! Alive and whole."
From the other room came the sudden frantic cry of that parrot, that evil bird. Now was the time to kill it, a sacrifice to her happiness, like buying a white dove in the marketplace and letting it go in thanks to the gods.
She went to the cage, opened the little door and thrust her hand inside, catching the fluttering, screeching thing at once.
She killed it by pressing her fingers together. Then shook out her hand and watched it drop to the floor of the cage.
Turning, she looked at Ramses. Ah, such a sad face, so full of disapproval! Poor dearest!
"I can't die now. Isn't that true?"
No answer. Ah, but she knew. She'd been pondering ever since . . . ever since all of this began. When she looked at the others, it had been the realization hovering in the back of her mind. He'd raised her from the dead. Now she couldn't die.
"Oh, how disconsolate you look. Aren't you pleased with your magic?'' She came towards him, laughing under her breath. "Am I not beautiful? And now you weep. What a fool you are! It was all your design, wasn't it? You came into my tomb; you brought me back; and now you weep as if I were dead. Well, you turned away from me when I was dying! You let them pull the shroud over my face!"
He sighed. "No. I never did that. You don't remember what happened."
"Why did you do it? Why did you bring me back? What were we to each other, you and I?" How did all these little shimmering bits and pieces of memory fit together? When would they make one cloth?
She drew closer, peering at his skin, touching it again. Such resilient skin.
"Don't you know the answer?" he asked. "Isn't it deep inside you?"
"I know only that you were there when I died. You were someone I loved. I remember. You were there and I was frightened. The poison from the snake had paralyzed me, and I wanted to cry out to you, but I couldn't- I struggled. I said your name. You turned your back.''
"No! No, that could not have happened! I stood there watching you."
The women weeping, she heard it again. Move away from that room full of death, the room where Antony had died, beloved Antony. She wouldn't let them take the couch away, though the blood from his wounds had soaked into the silk.
"You let me die."
He look her by the arms again, roughly. Was that always his way?
"I wanted you to be with me, the way you are now."
"As I am now. And how is that? What is this world? Is it the Hades of myth? Will we come upon the others . . . upon ..." But it had been right there a moment ago. "Upon Antony!" she said. "Where is Antony!" Oh ... but she knew.
She turned away. Antony was dead and gone; laid in the tomb. And he would not give the magic to Antony; it was all there again.
He came up behind her, and embraced her.
"When you called out to me," he said, "what was it you wanted? Tell me now.''
"To make you suffer!" She laughed. She could see him in the mirrored door of the cabinet, and she laughed at the pain in his face. "I don't know why I called out to you! I don't even know who you are!'' She slapped him suddenly. No effect. Like slapping marble.
She wandered away from him into the dressing room. She wanted something beautiful. What was the finest dress that miserable woman had possessed? Ah, this one of rose-colored silk with fragile cutwork trimming. She took it up, slipped her arms into it and quickly snapped the little hooks up the front. It flattered her breasts beautifully; and the skirt was full and beautiful, though she no longer had to hide her feet.
Once again she put on the sandals.
"Where are you going?"
"Out in the city. This is the city of Cairo. Why should I not go out into it?"
"I must talk to you. ..."
"Must you?" She gathered up her canvas bag. In the corner of her eye she could see a great sliver of broken glass on the marble dressing table top. A shard from the bottle she'd smashed.
She moved lazily towards it. Her hand played with the pearls there. She should take these too. Of course he followed her.
"Cleopatra, look at me," he said.
She turned abruptly and kissed him. Could he be so easily fooled? Yes, his lips told her that, oh, so delicious. How splendidly he suffered! Groping blindly at her side, she found that shard and, lifting it, gashed his throat.
She stepped backwards. He stood staring at her. The blood poured down his white robe. But he wasn't afraid. He did not move to stop the bleeding. His face showed only sadness, not fear.
"I cannot die either," he whispered softly.
"Ah!" She smiled. "Did someone wake you from the grave?"
Again she rushed at him, kicking at him, clawing at his eyes.
"Stop, I beg you."
She raised her knee, jamming him hard between his legs. That pain he felt, oh, yes. He doubled over with it, and she kicked him hard in the side of the head.
Through the courtyard she raced, gripping the canvas bag with her left hand, as with her right she reached for the top of the wall. In a second she was over it and racing through the narrow unlighted street.
Within minutes she reached the motorcar. Instantly she turned on the engine, gave it fuel with a stab of the pedal and roared out of the small alleyway and onto the main road.
Ah, the wind in her face again; the freedom; and the power of this great iron beast at her command.
"Take me to the bright lights of British Cairo," she said, "dea
r sweet little beast. Yes!"
THE FRONT lounge at Shepheard's. Good gin from the bar, with plenty of ice and just a little lemon. He was grateful mat they had allowed him that. What a drunkard he had become. A lovely realization came over him. When he got back to England, he was going to drink himself to death.
But would they never stop? Surely they had realized he would tell them nothing. They looked like mannequins to him, their mouths jerking as if worked by wires. Every gesture seemed artificial. Even the handsome little boy who came in and out with the ice and the gin appeared to be acting. All of it false. Grotesque the figures moving past in the lobby; and the music drifting from the bars and the ballroom, why, it sounded like what they might be playing tonight in hell.
Sometimes the words they said made no sense. He knew the definition of each word, but what was the meaning? Dead men with their necks broken. Had she done it in the short tune that he had absented himself?
"I'm tired, gentlemen," he said finally. "The heat here does not agree with me. I took a bad fall today. I need my rest now. You must allow me to go to my room.''
The two men looked at each other. Mock frustration. Nothing was real here. What was real? Cleopatra's hands closing on his throat; the white-draped figure behind her, catching hold of her?
' 'Lord Rutherford, we are now dealing with several murders!
Clearly, the stabbing in London was only the beginning. Now we must ask for your full cooperation. These two young men murdered this afternoon. ..."
' 'I have told you. I know nothing about it! What is it you want from me, young man, that I spin fancies for you? This is absurd."
"Henry Stratford. Do you know where we can find him? He
was here at Shepheard's to see you two days ago."
"Henry Stratford frequents the worst parts of Cairo. He walks
dark streets alone at night. I don't know where he is, God help him. Now, I really must go."
He rose from his chair. Where was that damned walking stick now?
"Do not attempt to leave Cairo, sir," said the young one, the arrogant one, the one with the pinched nose. "We have your passport."
"You what! That's outrageous," Elliott whispered.
"I'm afraid the same applies to your son. And to Miss Stratford. I've already collected their passports from the desk as well. Lord Rutherford, we must get to the bottom of this.''
"You idiot," Elliott said. "I'm a British citizen! You dare do this to me!"
The other man stepped in.
"My lord, let me speak to you candidly! I know of your close relationship with the Stratford family, but do you think Henry Stratford could be connected to these killings? He knew this man in London, the one who was stabbed. As for the American found out at the pyramids, the fellow had been robbed of quite a good deal of money. Now we know Stratford had his ups and downs with regard to money."
Elliott held his gaze without speaking. Pinning it on Henry. That had not occurred to him. Oh, but it was obvious! Pinning it all on Henry, of course. And Henry knew the fellow in London. What luck. What supremely marvelous luck. He eyed the two gentlemen who stood now before him, awkwardly. What if this could work!
"My lord, there's even more to it than that. We have two mysterious thefts as well. Not only the mummy stolen from the Cairo museum; but it seems the mummy's been stolen from Miss Stratford's house in Mayfair too."
"Really."
"And a bit of priceless Egyptian jewelry was found in the possession of Henry Stratford's mistress, a Daisy Banker, a music hall singer. ..."
"Yes. . . ." Elliott eased back down into his chair.
"Well, what I'm driving at, my lord, is perhaps Stratford was involved in something, you know, some sort of smuggling arrangement . . . the jewelry and the coins and the mummies. ..."
"Mummies . . . Henry and mummies . . ." Oh, it was too beautiful, and Henry, poor Henry, who had murdered Lawrence, was floating in the bitumen right now. He would begin to laugh, thinly, hysterically, if he weighed it all too deeply.
"You see, Lord Rutherford, we might be looking for the wrong man."
"But then what was Ramsey doing at the museum?" said the younger official a bit impatiently.
"Trying to stop Henry," Elliott murmured. "He must have followed him. He was desperate to talk to Henry, for Julie's sake. Of course."
"But how do we explain the coins!" asked the young man, getting a little steamed now. "We found seven gold Cleopatra coins in Ramsey's room."
"But that's obvious," said Elliott, looking up, the light just dawning. "He must have taken them away from Henry when they quarreled. He knew what Henry was up to. He must have been trying to stop it. Of course."
"But none of this makes sense!" said the younger man.
"Well, it makes a hell of a lot more sense now than it did before," Elliott said. "Poor Henry, poor mad, doomed Henry."
"Yes, I'm beginning to see a pattern," said the old man.
"You are?" Elliott said. "But of course you are. Now, if you'll allow me, I want to consult a lawyer. I want my passport back! I presume I may still consult a lawyer? That privilege of British citizenship has not been revoked?"
"By all means, Lord Rutherford," said the older man. "What could make young Stratford run amok like that?"
"Gambling, old man. Gambling. It's an addiction. It destroyed his life."
Whole, alive, and a madwoman! Madder than she'd been before he gave it to her. That is what his elixir had accomplished. Ah, the fruits of his genius. And how could this nightmare conceivably end?
Back and forth through the honeycombed streets of old Cairo he searched. She had vanished. How could he hope to find her until she gave him some sign?
Had he never gone into the dark shadowy corridors of the Cairo Museum, he would never have gazed on her neglected remains; a different path would have been taken into the future. With Julie Stratford at his side, all the world might have been his.
But he was linked now forever to the monster he'd created, dragging through time with her die suffering he'd sought to put to rest; the mad creature who could remember only the hatred she'd once known for him, and none of the love. Ah, but what then had he expected? That in this new and shining age, a great spiritual transformation would be worked upon her ancient soul?
What if Julie was right, and that soul was not even the soul of Cleopatra! What if the thing was a horrid twin!
The fact was, he didn't know. When he'd held her in his arms, he'd known only that this was the flesh he had once cherished; this was the voice that had spoken to him both in anger and in love; this was the woman who had broken him finally; and taken her own life rather than the elixir-who now taunted him with a fragment of memory, that she'd cried out to him in her dying moments centuries ago; or tried to; and he had not heard her last plea. He loved her, just as he loved Julie Stratford. He loved them both!
On he walked, faster and faster, out of the strange eerie quiet of old Cairo and back towards the bustle of the new city. All he could do was continue to search. And what clue would she give him finally? Another senseless killing; and that murder too would be blamed on the man known as Reginald Ramsey and it would drive another sword through Julie's heart.
But there was little chance that Julie would ever forgive him now. He had hopelessly compounded his folly, and she had expected greater wisdom from him, greater courage. And he had been a man standing in that little house, a man staring at the suffering image of his lost love.
And so he had sacrificed a finer, stronger love for a passion that had enslaved him centuries ago. He no longer deserved that finer lover, and he knew it. Yet he wanted it, lusted for it; just as he lusted for the doomed one whom he must somehow control or somehow destroy.
All consolation was now quite beyond his reach.
* * *
Now there were gorgeous garments, dresses she could love, for they had the old softness to them and the old simplicity, and they were threaded through and through with silver and gold.
>
She came up to the brightly lighted window, and placed her hand on it. She read the sign in English:
ONLY THE FINEST FOR THE OPERA BALL
Yes, she required the finest. And there was plenty of money in this bag. She needed shoes like that, high shoes with daggers for heels. And jewels as well.
She went to the door and tapped. A tall woman with silver hair came to answer.
"We're about to close, my dear. I'm sorry, if you come back ..."
"Please, that dress!" she said. She opened the bag and withdrew a great handful of the money. A few pieces of it fluttered out and down to the ground.