Anubis

by Erik Schubach

  I touched the sweaty mass of hair that was hanging down my back. It had taken years to grow it out as long as mom had liked it when I was younger. I shook my head and said to the air, “Sorry mom, this is just too uncomfortable.” I pulled out a pair of scissors from my tool bag and grabbed my hair back in a ponytail... took a deep breath to steel my resolve, then started hacking at it around my shoulder level.

  I may have squeaked in alarm as I watched my long tresses fall to the ground, but then immediately sighed in relief when I released my hair and felt the tickle of the air on the sweat of my back where my hair had once lay.

  I put the scissors away, then looked into the little mirror in my tool bag and squinted an eye at the improvised bob cut. It wasn't terrible. I did have to smile, it looked like some of the old pictures dad had of mom before they were married. What did they call this? A Cleopatra cut? It was rough but serviceable. If I were a little more vain, I'd have someone clean up the butcher job a bit while I was in the city today.

  I dressed quickly and had to snort when I grabbed the hat Albert had bought me as a joke when I mentioned I needed something to protect my head from the sun here. Hardy har har old man, an Indiana Jones hat. But the joke was on him, the geek in me loved it, and I may or may not hum the Indiana Jones theme song when I'm working on the excavation. I glanced at my leather jacket and snorted, all I needed now was a whip.

  I sat on the edge of my cot and ate. I couldn't believe how ravenous I was. It was like this every night I had one of those strange nightmares about that Anubis woman. I had to slow down when I realized I had forgone the fork and was scooping the eggs and beans of the ful medames into my mouth with my hand. I'd have to go see if there was more.

  I licked my fingers and wiped them on a rag then steeled myself to go see the troops outside. I'm sure there had been a lot of whispered speculation about the scene I had just made. Trudging through camp half naked.

  I poked my head outside and rolled my eyes. Both Albert and Rafa were standing there with shit eating grins on their faces. I grumped out, “Shut up.”

  Rafa asked, a faux innocence coloring his question, “Have a nice stroll last night, Professor?”

  “This isn't you shutting up.”

  Albert smiled, then his smile dropped as he asked with real concern, “Is everything alright, Aya? You've been acting... strange, ever since the third idol was unearthed.”

  I gave him a forced smile and wiggled my fingers in the air as I said in a spooky tone, “Ooo, the curse of Anubis.” I winked at Rafa when he snorted and hid his smile behind a hand. Then I got serious. “It's nothing. I've just had a few rough nights.”

  Then to get the spotlight off of me, I said, “We need to get to the University, Doctor Nazari is expecting...”

  Rafa interrupted, “What did you do to your hair?”

  Albert blinked and looked at me, then his eyes widened. “I hadn't even noticed. You look so much like your mother this way.” He gave me a warm smile. I could see the sorrow in his eyes that matched what I felt every time she was brought up.

  I absently touched my hair, not liking the attention on me. Rafa saw this and added some humor to the conversation by prompting, “Her mother butchered her hair too?”

  I muttered, “I'll butcher you, funny boy. It was just too sweaty and uncomfortable in the heat of the day.”

  He cocked his head and said while I jammed my hat on my head and reached back to take my jacket off the chair, “Actually, it looks quite becoming. I can see your Egyptian heritage better this way.”

  I sighed and shook my head, not knowing if he was still teasing, as I collected the idols into a padded case, holstered my gun, and pushed past them, tapping Rafa's sternum, “Yuck it up, buddy, you're driving.”

  He mimicked my sigh as I heard him moving behind me with Albert, “Of course I am.”

  I parried back, “You're supposed to be my guide, so guide.”

  Albert harrumphed as he caught up and put my hand in the crook of his arm as he led me to the Jeep, “Children, please. This is important work we are doing here.”

  We must have gone to the same school of smart assery as we chimed out together, “Yes, Professor Harmon,” eliciting another harrumph from the man. I hugged his arm before we got into the Jeep, coaxing the smile back onto his face. I rubbed the silver stubble on his chin with a grin. He was always so clean shaven unless he was at a dig, I thought it made him look a little ruggedly regal.

  He got into the passenger side, buckling his seatbelt as I secured the case in the back and donned my leather jacket and wrapped my face with a long scarf to protect from the wind and blowing sand. I grabbed the roll bar just as Rafa started the vehicle and gunned the engine, throwing up a cloud of dust and sand as we lurched forward, turning toward Cairo.

  I hummed Indiana Jones as the desert flashed by, eventually turning into the city suburbs, and then the congested city proper. I couldn't keep the smile off my face. I really enjoyed Cairo, it was so exciting.

  Chapter 3 – Lazarus

  Before long, we were pulling up to Cairo University, behind the Antiquities Building and stopping short when two clean, military looking vehicles raced in and parked in front of the loading dock where we were heading. The Humvees displayed a stylized green logo on their doors which read Lazarus, with a yellow lightning bolt through it. Wait, Lazarus? Like the group in the states that is under investigation for illegal human genetic testing? All their research had somehow been dumped onto the Internet and the government was doing all they could to contain it and remove it all.

  We watched as men in camouflage uniforms streamed out of the vehicles, some with automatic rifles. Two stayed at the transports as an older olive-skinned gentleman and a middle-aged black woman, with four guards around them, went in through the staff entrance. My vision swam, and that feeling of vertigo returned as I watched them enter. Every instinct within me was screaming at me that this man and woman were not just a little wicked, but the epitome of it. I had a flash of that Anubis woman in my mind, turning her head toward the man, taking notice.

  “Aya. Aya?” Albert was repeating. I shook my head, snapping myself out of it and realized that Rafa had parked us on the far side of the alley, giving the newcomers a wide berth. He asked in concern, “You zoned out on us, are you sure everything is ok?”

  I hesitated then gave him a reassuring smile, even though I wasn't sure myself at that moment. “I'm fine. Let's go see the Doc.” I tried to sound nonchalant about seeing Doctor Nazari, though my heart was racing.

  His lips quirked a bit at that. I warned him not to tease with a stern look. Then I turned to Rafa. “This might take a while, I'm sure you can find mischief to get into in the city, we'll call when we need you.”

  The man just gave me a smirk as he leaned back in his seat, flopped his legs onto the dashboard and pulled a book out from under his seat. Oh lord, kill me now. His shit-eating grin was begging to be knocked off his face as he turned to a bookmark in Alternate Interpretations of Egyptian Hieroglyphy and Ancient Culture, by Professor Aya N. Bane. Don't ask what the N stands for.

  Whatever had possessed me to release my doctoral thesis as a book is beyond me. What had I been thinking? It had upset many of the renowned Egyptologists and had the effect of basically putting me in a timeout in the corner to think about what I had done, as the archeological world put shade on me.

  I stand by my findings though. And as nobody has been able to debunk my theories, my research was that complete, I've been able to regain a bit of respectability in my field. Still, Albert is the only man to ever call me in for a consult.

  I shoved the cocky man's shoulder, and he just grinned into the book, ignoring me. I swear the man acted like a jerky younger brother. And not for the first time I wondered if this was what it would be like to have a sibling? Then I handed him my pistol, which he stuffed under his seat. I didn't need to worry about anything at the University.

  Albert and I m
ade our way into the building, giving the armed men a wide berth. Their eyes were trained on us like they were assessing our threat level until we slipped inside, one had his eyes focused on the empty holster at my hip, then the padded case I carried. I was unnerved and asked once we were alone inside, “Who are Lazarus?”

  My silver-haired companion shrugged. “I've never heard of them. A security company perhaps?”

  I nodded, it made sense. The uniforms and the weapons, it took pulling strings in some very high places to get the permits for the automatic rifles they carried, and their sidearms. They had looked ready for battle with all the gear they had strapped to them.

  We made our way past the huge intake room, and I hesitated at a couple huge pieces that were being moved carefully into large crates by workers. Two halves of a tomb door that had intricately carved hieroglyphs on the inner side. The men hesitated as I reached a hand out to feel the carvings.

  My brow furrowed at what I read, then I smiled at the men and moved away as Albert tugged on my arm. I whispered to him, “That looked like some sort of ward to seal something in.”

  He sighed patiently and said, “Those have been extensively studied by top linguists who all agree that it was a welcome, to usher the soul of the dead in the tomb to the afterlife.” He tucked my free hand into the crook of his arm and dragged me along.

  I shook my head. “No, I believe they have it wrong. It was definitely intended to bind some sort of evil, to stop it from passing back into the world. I think it was a prison, not a tomb.”

  He cocked an eyebrow and asked, “Is it possible that you, only seeing them for a few seconds, may have misinterpreted instead of the team that spent over eighteen months transcribing the meaning?”

  To his credit, I saw his own doubt. I know what I saw, and I was among the best, and he knew it. I continued like he hadn't just tried to throw cold water on me, “Who could have been so evil in life that they feared them in death enough to think they had to seal them in like that?”

  He shook his head. “They are still trying to figure out what pharaoh had been entombed there. There are no identifying marks or symbols, but the riches in the tomb indicated he was much revered.”

  I added, “Or feared.”

  He shook his head and flicked the brim of my hat, causing me to smile at the man. He sighed and muttered in good humor, “You are more like your mother every day.”

  I asked innocently, “Insightful and intelligent?”

  “Brash and argumentative.”

  “That's what I said.”

  He chuckled as we passed into the main halls, we turned left at the first junction, passing people scurrying about to their classes or to their research labs. It always felt so alive in here. Kind of ironic as everything being researched or taught here has been dead for centuries. I hummed the Indiana Jones theme song and Albert said in a long drawn out sigh, “I knew giving you that hat would come back to bite me.”

  I just smiled and hugged onto his arm, placing my head on his shoulder. This got a grin from the old archaeologist. Then we hesitated at the raised voices before we turned into the hall which Doctor Nazari's lab was in.

  A man, sounding frustrated, “Where are they, Doctor? You're to surrender the idols to us immediately, this is the paperwork from your government surrendering them to Lazarus' care.”

  A very defiant-sounding woman said in a British accent, “Get that paper out of my face, Commander. I don't care if you think you're god. I can't give you what I don't have. Let me say this slowly and clearly for you...” True to her word, she said slowly, enunciating every syllable, “The Anubis idols are not here.”

  He asked in frustrated anger, “Then where are they? You are the contact for Professor Harmon's dig. Our men just radioed and said they didn't find them at the camp.” My blood ran cold. These para-military jagoffs thought they were going to take the idols from us? They had visited our dig? These were an important find, and to hell if I was going to let a bunch of GI Joe types just waltz off with them.

  I looked around and Albert, who had an equally disapproving look on his face, touched my arm and pointed at a door labeled 'custodian' in Arabic. I nodded, and we stepped into the closet and hid the case behind stacks of cleaning supplies.

  We exited then walked around the corner to where Doctor Nazari was surrounded by the guards and the man and woman we had seen enter the building. The Doc looked so defiant... not even phased by the threat that seemed to emanate off the group. I felt the tips of my ears heat at the sight. She was spectacular.

  The pretty black woman said to the older man in frustration, “Here, let me, you're getting nowhere with your bluster.” She lifted her hand, and I could see some white substance on it as she went to blow it at the Doc, but they caught sight of our approach, and she closed her hand. What the hell? Were they going to try to drug her?

  Albert asked as we approached, “Is everything ok here?” And the Doc slipped between the armed men to step up to us.

  The older man stepped closer to us, and I winced at the sharp pain in my head as light glinted off a necklace he wore outside his uniform, which had a silver ankh hanging on it. That vertigo returned, but it seemed to be shrouded in a chaotic static. And I knew this wicked man's name... his true name, and I had no idea how I knew, but I knew it more surely than I knew my own. I heard a canine growl in my head as he approached.

  He said as he studied us, the woman stepping in beside him, “Commander Alexander Xerxes with the Lazarus Group. Everything is fine. And you are?” He offered a hand to Albert.

  Doctor Nazari introduced us as the men shook, “This is Professor Albert Harmon, and...” The tall Egyptian-Brit's eyes seemed to twinkle a little, causing me to look down, my cheeks heating, “Professor Aya Bane.”

  The man's interest seemed to spike at Albert's name as he just absently offered his hand to me. I took it and was hit by a primal fight or flight instinct as I could taste and feel like a wave, the wicked deeds of this man's past. Something inside me growled again, and my grip tightened. I guess I had chosen fight over flight.

  The man glanced from Albert to me in surprise, and he glanced at our clasped hands. I realized I wasn't imagining the growl as I discerned it was coming from me. I clamped my mouth shut as he used his other hand to pry my hand off his. It looked as if he was trying to peer through my eyes to see my soul as he said in distraction, “A pleasure to meet you, Professor Bane.” He turned toward Albert, his eyes still on me. “Professor Harmon.”

  Then he looked at my companion and asked him as he absently rubbed his hand. “Professor, you have something that is to be remanded into our care.” He reached over and snatched the papers from Doctor Nazari's hands to thrust them at Albert. “Three idols unearthed at your Anubis temple dig. They...”

  Albert, exuding genuine innocence that I would have to applaud him for later, just asked with regret, “Oh the idols? A shame that. Our camp was raided last night, and the idols, among other things, were spirited away. We were just coming to tell the good Doctor here about the bad news.”

  I chanced a glance up to the Doc's high cheekboned face, and she looked genuinely disappointed to hear the manufactured tale.

  The woman with the Commander asked in a sweet voice that had a slight Creole accent, “Are you sure, was the camp searched?”

  I winced as my eyes passed the Commander's ankh to look at the woman. I knew her name true too, and it wasn't what she shared with the world. My nose twitched at the slightest scent of decay as she spoke.

  Albert seemed enamored by the handsome woman as he straightened. “We're positive. We searched everywhere, and suspect one of the workers, as he didn't show up for breakfast, Miss...”

  He left the question hanging, and she smiled demurely at him and supplied, “Truit. Abigail Truit.”

  He inclined his head. “Miss Truit. Abigail... lovely name.”

  Oh dear lord, was he flirting? I'd need to wash my brain out with bl
each if he was. She turned her head down bashfully, in a move that looked too fluid, too rehearsed to be genuine.

  The commander pulled out a card in frustration and held it out, “If you locate the idols, please contact me at the number I wrote on the back, it is to my satellite phone. I'll make sure the University board is aware of it.”

  “Of course, Commander.” The professor took the card and turned it over to look, then absently tucked it into his breast pocket.

  This Xerxes guy inclined his head to Albert and the Doc, then turned his eyes to me and narrowed them for a moment. I winced at the glint of light from his necklace which caused a spike of pain to shoot through my head, then he was gone, marching down the hall with purpose, the others following behind.

  After they turned the corner, I finally exhaled the breath I had been holding and slipped my hat off to hold across my chest, whispering, “Well that was... creepy.”

  We all just stood there looking back the way the Lazarus people went. Then after we were sure they were gone, Doctor Nazari turned to us and asked in hushed tones, “Are the idols really...”

  Albert held up a hand and chuckled. “Of course not.” He looked at me and asked, “Aya?”

  I nodded then dashed down the hall and peeked around the corner, only students and staff were in the corridor, so I slipped back into the janitor's closet and liberated my case. I was on edge, my mind kept going to the piercing pain I got every time I looked at the ankh hanging from the Commander's neck.

  I dashed back to the waiting scholars and held the case up like a prize as I reached them. I felt my cheeks heating again as the Doc cocked her head to look at me. I started to put my hat back on, feeling nervous for a whole different reason, standing there under the gaze of a woman waaaay out of my league.

  I froze when she smiled and moved her hand up to stop me putting the hat on and ran her fingers through my much shorter hair. It felt sinful and it was all I could do to stop from purring. She said wistfully, “This is new. It's cute, Aya. I think I like it, but it's a bit rough, did they butcher you with a knife or something?”