The Pharaoh's Mistress

by Aderyn Wood

  The carriage was busy. A little too busy for Nathaniel’s tastes. He preferred quieter spaces with fewer rats. Though, with more people, it would make it easier for him to lure away a victim if the mood took him. Not that it would be difficult otherwise. Still, Nathaniel preferred to attract as little attention as possible. That way he was less likely to cause a blip on the radar for the likes of Amynta, or her irritating minions like Brother Gerold or Schleck.

  The old brother wasn’t all that bad, Nathaniel had to admit. For a rat. The monk’s intellect and self-awareness were well beyond the average, beyond such base human desires of mindless procreation and living a sad little life in a sad little suburb, worrying about how big the house was, or if the car would shout ‘upwardly mobile’ to spying neighbours.

  But the monk had tortured Nathaniel more than any other. More than the sick and twisted Alguaciles, the so-called wardens of the Inquisition with their burning swords. More than the witch hunters with their fire and holy water. More than that modern dog, Schleck, who so relished her torture.

  Brother Gerold seemed to know all the tricks, from garlic and holy water, cinnamon and pimento, and various other ostensibly harmless spices, to silver and fire. And then there were his curses. Those little utterances he mumbled were of an archaic and mysterious language, and they had the power to paralyse even the most aged of Old Ones. Nathaniel knew. The monk had done it to him.

  But Brother Gerold had information, and Nathaniel intended to prise it out of the old prick one way or another.

  A high-pitched giggle flew over the muted conversations in the coach and grated against Nathaniel’s ears. It was filled with promise and pretence. Nathaniel narrowed his eyes on the Yankee at the bar. So glaringly pretentious. Couldn’t the other rats detect it? Nathaniel considered choosing her, just for the glee of extinguishing her pointlessness. Her hair had been bleached, coifed, curled and tortured. Later that night, when he sunk his nose into the mess of it, he knew it wouldn’t smell like human hair – warm and musky. It would smell like… plastic.

  Nathaniel took a step toward the bar and froze. The sudden scent of something so familiar made him stick his nose in the air and inhale again to be sure, though he’d known it the very second he detected it.

  Nathaniel scanned the carriage, before realising the scent was coming from behind. A number of eyes were on him, though, and he advanced slowly to the bar, emitting a sense of calm as he stepped through clusters of rats talking in at least five different languages, all of which he understood. At the bar he ordered a cognac, a double. As he waited he turned his head, slowly. There, seated at a back booth, the man sat. He wore black, the preferred shade of their kind. His hair was a wavy dark blonde, and would have been a shade or two lighter before he was turned. His eyes were red – just sated then.

  Nathaniel turned his head once more to collect the cognac and made his way over. The vampire’s gaze connected with Nathaniel’s and the stranger gave an almost imperceptible nod, which Nathaniel returned.

  Nathaniel sipped his cognac in an overly casual way then stepped to the vampire’s side, sniffing the air as he did so. The vampire was only recently sated, and he was, Nathaniel was somewhat relieved to learn, much younger than he, a few decades, at least, before his first dormancy. Not a surprise. Nathaniel was the third-eldest vampire he’d ever known.

  He sat at the Young One’s table, keeping his gaze forward and spoke quietly. “You head east.”

  “As do you.” His voice held a hint of trepidation. He was wary of the older vampire, and well he should be.

  “How far?” Nathaniel glanced across to see him squirm, ever so subtly. No vampire liked to give their intentions away. Especially not to one with the strength to overcome them, to compete with them. Vampires have always been somewhat territorial. Unless, of course, they organised themselves for a mutual purpose, or into a coven. Nathaniel had joined a coven once, and once had proved enough.

  “Egypt,” the Young One finally said.

  Nathaniel felt himself frown and he smoothed his brow with an effort. “Egypt. I, too, travel there.”

  The vampire looked up with a startled expression. “Intriguing.”

  “Agreed.”

  “You’re the second one I’ve met in as many days who travels there.”

  “That so?” It was possible the Young One was lying, though he showed no sign of it. The vampire held his gaze. Lying to an Old One would be too risky. No, he tells the truth.

  “Three Dark Ones traveling to Egypt,” the vampire said. “Extraordinary.”

  “Indeed.” Nathaniel gave him one last glower before saying, “I suggest you leave all passengers well alone on this journey. Any pleasures to be had will be mine and mine alone.”

  The vampire narrowed his eyes, almost imperceptibly, as he glanced to the bar. A sense of regret wafted from him.

  “Especially that one,” Nathaniel said.

  The Young One bobbed his head. “Of course. As you say, Old One.”

  The Yankee’s blonde head fell back the moment her pulse stopped, and Nathaniel swallowed his last mouthful. Her blood was second-rate to be sure, filled with sweet wine and cocaine, but she had been a safe victim that raised no suspicion when she’d followed him all too willingly. The chemical stench of her plastic hair wafted to him once more and he scowled. Sometimes he wished his predictions weren’t so accurate. Very little surprised him anymore. A surprise now and then would be nice. Somewhere in his mind he recognised the contradiction wrapped up in such a desire. Georgette had surprised him, and that hadn’t been nice at all. She’d penetrated his privacy and taken the lance.

  He forced his attention back to the task at hand. This rat’s life had now fully vanquished. Her slight form grew heavier by the second. Not that it bothered him. Still, he had to deal with her corpse this very minute, lest any prying rats found her dead in his arms. It had been an easy task to draw her to the very back of the last carriage. He could have persuaded her to jump from the train if he’d wanted. Her intellect, what little there’d been, was readily pliable. He forced the door and a rush of snow blew in. In less than a second, he had her thrown off the train, into a drift and the door shut.

  He walked with quick steps back through the passage and into the dining car where a few passengers whiled away the small hours getting drunk. He took a seat and pretended to read a stray newspaper, Belgian, as a steward hurried to the back of the train. Nathaniel smirked. An alarm would have sounded when he’d forced the door open. But it would take days, perhaps even weeks before his victim’s body would be found in these far reaches. If the snow covered the corpse, it would take even longer, and by then he would have no need to worry about Amynta.

  Once back in his cabin, Nathaniel shut and locked his door, and drained the cognac in one long gulp. He studied the empty glass for a moment with a sigh of regret. He should have ordered another.

  He tossed the glass onto the seat and sat beside it. He didn’t want to think about the Young One and his troubling news. It was extraordinary. Three vampires all traveling east. Surely it was nothing but coincidence. But then coincidences were increasingly troubling. It had been no coincidence that both Amynta and Georgette sought the lance. And he still failed to understand why. He must find Emma, as well as Georgette, perhaps Emma’s knowledge of such ancient relics would help him to put certain clues together.

  He closed his eyes and an image of Asha sprung up in his mind. Her arms held wide, her black hair flowing, looking exactly the way she had all those centuries ago when she’d made him.

  With reluctant hands he pulled out his diary and his thumb found the fraying page before he could think. In the next instant he’d opened it and there she was before him. The sketch was a perfect likeness. He gently traced the outline of her flowing hair, down to the vial of blood that rested on her breast. God she was beautiful. And so cunning. He snapped the diary shut and returned it to his coat, which he took off and hung on the hook by the door.

  He
looked out the window at the snowy landscape. “What do you know of her, Gerold? What pulls me east?”

  Shaking his head he retrieved the suitcase, opened it, and smiled. There on the very top lay a full and handsome bottle of cognac.

  Chapter 8

  We wait in the shadows of the ticket office. It’s nearly midnight and the famous light and sound show finished at least two hours ago. The gates to the complex are shut, and only a few tourists linger. The old security guard, who I’ve already bewitched, has retreated to the small office to sleep. Is ‘bewitched’ the right term? Perhaps I should use ‘glamour’ like they do on the TV shows. Why not? Hollywood got some things right after all. Things like sunlight and wooden stakes. I tap my pocket. Michael insists we both keep a weapon. He gave me a wooden stake fashioned from the leg of a broken chair he’d found on the street when we left the yacht. When Michael staked Vincent, it was straight from a movie scene. Blood and gore everywhere.

  Michael is pacing again. He worries about what happened in the guesthouse. As do I. The youth interrupts my thoughts often, and now and then I attempt to reach out to him with my mind the way I did with Hercules, but still there is nothing. I fear I’ve killed him and blinking my eyes hard I take a few steps toward the great Sphinx to study the ancient monument. If only to distract myself from a downward tumult into guilt-ridden despondency.

  Here I stand before one of the greatest mysteries of human civilisation, and the most ancient. The old Emma would have given an arm to do this. To stand beneath the stars, observing the limestone sculpture, to consider the questions that many had asked, but to this day, remain unanswered.

  Within the face, dark shadows linger in the missing nose and mouth, giving it an enigmatic yet slightly sinister appearance. Even with all our knowledge, no one can truly say who built the Sphinx and when, or for what reason. We do not even know its true name. All we know is that after several millennia, it remains standing despite the shifting of sands and time. Immortal.

  Heavy footsteps crunch over sand and I turn to spy a woman walking with a young man, perhaps her son. I glance at Michael, and he shakes his head.

  “She has blonde hair,” he says as he steps near.

  Of the few tourists who stand close to the fencing, many are young – university students, probably. No doubt some are adherents to preposterous theories about aliens and have come to observe Giza under the light of the stars. I say preposterous, but it wasn’t long ago I would have laughed in the face of anyone who told me vampires were real. Perhaps I shouldn’t judge too swiftly. Perhaps I should ask Michael’s opinion of the notion of the Sphinx and the three pyramids being some kind of time-keeping device, tracking to some inevitable end, but another set of heavy footsteps arrest my attention.

  A tall woman approaches wearing a long-sleeved overcoat with buttons running up the middle. The type of coat Muslim women wear over their dress here in Egypt. A severe black bob, with no hijab and huge sunglasses seem to suggest she is not a local. Odd, but not Georgette. I begin to turn, but Michael’s laughter distracts me.

  He moves toward the heavyset woman. “Georgette! Still in disguise I see?” he says with a warmth that somehow manages to raise my hackles.

  “Shhh,” Georgette hisses and swivels her head from side to side. Her black bob is a cheap Cleopatra wig hawked at every street corner in Cairo. “Someone might hear.” Her French accent rings clear. “Are you staying near? I think we should retreat to privacy.”

  Michael grins. “Of course, Georgette. Whatever you say.”

  “Don’t say my name!” she hisses again, and looks over her shoulder whereupon she spies me.

  What to do? Smiling is a foreign thing to me now. When I do smile it is forced, a way of appeasing the humans around me for my own purpose. So I remain still and return her stare.

  Georgette’s eyes widen, and she takes a sharp breath, but there is no fear. “You are Emma,” she says quietly.

  I allow her a small nod.

  “Come, let’s get back to our accommodation,” Michael says and we both follow him, creating a discordant rhythm of footsteps.

  In less than twenty minutes we’re back on the yacht, which has thankfully resumed its journey along the Nile. In our cabin, Michael brings Georgette a chamomile tea, while I down a full glass of vodka in one gulp and pour myself another.

  “You look well, Michael,” she says, casting an obvious look my way. “It is good to see you, mon ami.” She sits on the sofa and chats incessantly.

  To my growing annoyance, Michael keeps smiling. Georgette, it seems, has become quite the friend. I open my mind to his emotions and am glad to learn his feelings are platonic. My wariness eases somewhat. Georgette is not a lover, not like Judith was, but she is important to him. It is clear they’ve grown close in the short time they’ve known each other – a result of their work in finding me.

  Michael laughs at something she has prattled and despite what she means to him, my ire flares once more. Even a platonic friendship, it seems, can bring on waves of aversion. I never used to suffer jealousy, or very rarely. As an adolescent, I felt it strongly when my sister would attract the attention of the boys. My sister was eternally better than me at everything. Prettier, more stylish, and so much more popular. Making friends for her was as easy as breathing, and she always had a slew of boys trailing after her. Even the few boys I brought home soon lost interest in me when they met Susan. The bitterness seems to linger even now. I grew up and soon realised there was more to life than receiving desirous attentions from adolescent boys. So why do I feel anger toward Susan now?

  Sometimes I think this new state has sent me backwards. My moods suffer from extreme swings and I am unable to always remain in control of myself. Indeed, it is like adolescence. Love, hate, lust, rage and hunger. These are the drives I must check every moment of my existence. It grows tiring, and often it seems my life would be much easier if I simply gave into the drives. Gave my body, my mind, my heart, exactly what they wanted.

  Another gulp of vodka and I shut my eyes for a moment. I feel tired, which is strange. Perhaps because my sleep is not as it should be. Those dreams keep returning, but when I try to remember them, they slip away like shadows. Some images have stuck – flashes of old cedar forests, and a bowl filled with blood. But they are too difficult to keep in my mind’s eye.

  “Emma.” Georgette turns to me, her green eyes remain wide. She reminds me of a large, lumbering Labrador, but she is quite something else. Beneath the vague veneer she is as sharp-witted as a fox. This one knows exactly what she is doing, and I will not be fooled. “It is good to finally meet you.”

  Without breaking eye contact, I take another sip of vodka. I don’t play this game anymore. These social niceties filled with nothing but platitudes. I was never good at small talk, now at least I have an excuse.

  But my iciness does nothing to dissuade her. This Georgette is also like a dog with a bone when it comes to being nice. “You look just like the photos we had during the investigation. The ones your sister sent us.”

  A warm wave of some strange yet familiar emotion fills me. It is at once calming and slightly alarming. Mention of my family, and my past always has this confusing effect on me and I clench my hands together and say nothing. Georgette is trying to warm to me. It will take more than a few statements to do so, and she will never get close. Michael is the only one I trust, and it feels to me that I will never trust another again. Not my sister, and certainly not my father.

  “Georgette,” Michael says. There is a strong sense of affection whenever he says the policewoman’s name. “It’s time you tell us what happened. In Paris. Why were you in danger?”

  She nods and sips her tea. “I had suspicions I was being followed and my calls and emails were being bugged.”

  “Not your secret email address?” Michael asks.

  “No, not that one. But my work address and another personal one that is on file with my workplace. They have both been hacked.”

&nb
sp; “How do you know?” Michael asked.

  “She’s a policewoman,” I offer. “If she says her communications have been intercepted we must simply believe her. No need to get bogged down in the hows and wheres.” I give him a level stare wanting to say more about how we should be moving faster rather than drinking tea and chatting pleasantly with Michael’s new chum. I was beginning to doubt she was of any use to us at all.

  “Of course.” Michael adjusts his glasses. “Go on, Georgette.”

  “Well, I’ve no wish to get bogged down in the details either.” She gives me an enthusiastic nod, her frizzy hair bounds forward and backward. “So let me get straight to the point.”

  “That would be appreciated,” I say with a flat edge in my voice. There is something about Georgette that catches my senses. It could be the very scent of her – a rich butteriness that makes my mouth water mixed with cinnamon that ruins the effect. But there’s something else, something about her blood.

  Georgette sighs as she puts her cup down. “Detective Schleck is more than what she seems. It appears she knew about you the whole time we conducted the investigation into your disappearance, Emma.”

  “What?” Michael says. “You mean she knew Emma wasn’t dead or missing?”

  “Exactement. Moreover, she knew what Emma had become.”

  “About me being a vampire?” I ask.

  “Oui, Mademoiselle.”

  “I knew she was keeping something back when I interviewed her,” Michael says. “But I never imagined it would be this.”

  “That and more,” Georgette replies.

  Michael sits on the edge of the sofa. “Go on.”

  “Schleck is in direct contact with someone who calls herself Amynta.”

  “No,” Michael exclaims.

  “It is my belief that under this Amynta’s instruction, Schleck has been conducting an investigation to seek out and destroy any and all vampires in Paris.” Georgette looks between Michael and me. “I take it you both know who this Amynta is?”