by Jonas, Gary
“How’s it hanging?” Brand asked from where he sat on the cot.
Joseph was passed out on the floor, his breathing irregular and bubbly through the tightly rolled bloody dollar bill. The guard looked from Brand to Joseph then back up to Brand.
“Who in the name of Sam Hill are you?”
“You don’t need to know my name, but you do need to get Joseph here to a doctor, and you need to let me out of here because I was just visiting.”
“How did you get in here?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“Okay, I jumped through a time vortex from the twenty-first century and landed in this cell with a dumb-ass psycho killer who mistakenly thought he was higher up on the food chain than me.”
“You’re right. I don’t believe you.”
“That’s all right,” Brand said. “I can convince you with ten greenbacks. They all have pictures of Alexander Hamilton on them. You do take United States notes, right?”
The guard watched as Brand reached into his pack and pulled out ten slightly crumpled twenty-dollar notes with a profile of Hamilton and a red scalloped seal.
“I don’t know.”
“Let me put it another way. If you take the two hundred dollars, I disappear, and you don’t have to explain how I managed to get into a locked prison cell without anyone noticing me.”
“What about Joseph?”
“He cut himself shaving.”
“I’ll come up with something better. Maybe he tried to kill himself.”
“And there you have it. Do we have an agreement?”
The guard nodded.
Brand rose from the cot, walked over, and held up the cash.
“Pass it through,” the guard said.
“Open the door. Then I’ll hand it to you.”
“Don’t try anything funny.”
Brand laughed. “I just want to go buy a nice breakfast somewhere.”
The guard hesitated.
“Joseph does need to see a doctor sometime today,” Brand said. “Or you could pull the tube out and let him die. Your call.”
The guard sighed. “All right.” He pulled his ring of keys, fumbled through them, and inserted one into the lock. He swung the door open, and Brand stepped out of the cell.
“Thanks,” Brand said and handed him the two hundred dollars. “You have a nice day.”
“You too.”
Brand strode down the corridor past rows and rows of cells, ignoring the prisoners inside. He hesitated at a juncture but figured if he went left, he’d eventually find an exit. The clomping of his boots echoed as he moved along the hallway. A few minutes later, he found the exit. There were offices and a guard at a station, but Brand simply tipped his hat to the guard as he passed, acting as if he belonged there, and stepped out onto the street into 1877 New York City.
The smell outside was almost as foul as the smell inside. Brand shrugged. He’d smelled worse in his day. He tugged his jacket tighter against the cold wind and went in search of breakfast. While he was surprised he hadn’t seen Esther yet, he figured she’d appear soon. Regardless, he knew he’d spend the rest of the day getting ready to begin the hunt for Winslow. That meant buying a gun, getting a room, and buying a ticket to San Francisco before doing the legwork to find Winslow’s future mother. Brand shook his head. Whoever let Winslow read Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex should have been shot.
KELLY CHAN
From the moment we appeared in Egypt, I felt nauseated, but I knew better than to let Jonathan see that. I needed him to believe I was as strong and stalwart as ever, so I soldiered through, but by the time the wizard Aye showed us the bedroom, I was struggling to keep anything in my stomach. I didn’t know if it was the time travel or the shots, but either way, I felt terrible.
As soon as Jonathan left the room, I rushed into the latrine and vomited.
I dropped to my knees and tried to control my breathing.
My head spun but I didn’t want to pass out in the bathroom. I struggled to my feet, felt my stomach flip again, and had to let go with another round of vomiting into the latrine. I tipped my head back, closed my eyes, drew a deep breath, and let it out slowly. When I opened my eyes, the room spun on me, and I put a hand out to brace myself against one of the privacy walls. I doubled over, breathing like a pregnant woman doing Lamaze thousands of years before it was developed. I wasn’t pregnant but I was sick.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been sick. Probably when I was twelve, going through Sekutar training before they’d magically engineered our pain away. I’d failed in holding a stance for fifteen hours, so the instructor took away my food ration for a week. I got water but nothing else. After six days of intense physical training without any food and very little sleep, my body gave out on me and I collapsed. They were forced to feed me then, but that just meant they found more creative ways to punish me.
Not that I cared about that these days. After all, the torture and the training and the suffering made me into the woman I am today, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
The damage I’d suffered at the claws and teeth of a destroyer back in April seemed to be hanging on. The healers had done their best, but their best just wasn’t good enough, and now I wondered if my best would be good enough.
When the world finally settled down, I staggered back to the bedroom, collapsed on the bed, and passed out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
JONATHAN SHADE
Kelly put on a good show, but I knew she was wiped out. I wanted to help somehow, but she prided herself on being strong, capable, and self-sufficient. One thing I’ve learned in my years of dealing with things that go bump in the night and the violence that seems to rain on my parade all the damn time is that we all need friends. We need to belong to a group. It’s just how humans are wired. My group was mostly Kelly, Brand, Esther, and Rayna at the moment, with a bunch of friends on the outer circle who sometimes helped or needed help. Loners are aberrations and they tend to not live long once life starts punching them in the face.
I knew Kelly needed some privacy so she could either rest or pull herself together, and I was happy to give it to her, but I suspected this was a deeper problem, and I hoped she’d let me help. For the time being, I wandered around the complex, which consisted of a number of buildings within the enclosing wall. We were staying in one of the suites in the royal residence. There were other private rooms in that residence, each with its own courtyard and pool and portico. I didn’t enter Tut’s private residence. However, I did walk past a harem. I wasn’t sure if Tut partook, but there were some mighty attractive women in those rooms, and I suspected some of the higher-ups might help themselves occasionally. Seeing those women sure made me miss Rayna. I hoped she was all right.
I needed to remain focused. I didn’t know nearly as much about Egypt as Kelly did, and even her knowledge was spotty and superficial, but I did know pharaohs often had multiple wives and mistresses on the side. Tut had married his half-sister to have claim to the throne. They shared the same father, Akhenaten, but had different mothers. Ankhesenamun was the daughter of Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s Great Royal Wife. Tut and Ankhesenamun were the last of the royal bloodline.
I wondered about their childhood. In my time, one did not marry one’s sister, even if you lived in rural Arkansas. But that sort of thing was common among pharaohs where the royal bloodline was so important to keep Egypt together. The pharaoh was considered a god. There I go again with the word pharaoh. Too many mummy movies, I guess.
A few servants passed me in the hall as I moved past the kitchen. The scent of bread and spices hung in the air. Some kind of meat was roasting. I wasn’t hungry until I smelled the food. As I wasn’t sure about the etiquette of sneaking a meal, I went outside and crossed another courtyard. Palm trees grew here and there, and the next building housed what looked like offices to me, but I didn’t investigate because the people there seemed to be busy.
The building north of the offices held the festival hall, where the servants bustled about, setting things up for the evening meal. I didn’t want to interrupt them. I was simply getting the lay of the land. To the west, I saw another building with a long ramp leading to a doorway. A few people stood outside the door, so I moved toward them.
A man walked down the ramp toward me. He wore a kilt and nothing else save a few amulets, but his kilt extended outward so while he could walk in it, it certainly wasn’t practical to work in. As with most of the people I’d seen, he wore a lot of makeup.
“Excuse me,” I said.
The man turned toward me, looked me up and down. My jeans, Nikes, and button-down shirt no doubt struck him as alien. He hesitated then started to kneel.
“You don’t have to kneel,” I said. “It’s all right. Can you answer a few questions for me?”
“I shall try.”
I wondered if he heard the English words as well as the Egyptian words or if the spell erased my native tongue and projected only his own language. That didn’t seem like a good thing to ask him, though. “What’s this building?” I asked instead.
“This is the audience hall. The vizier settles the occasional dispute here, or sometimes the king will address people here.”
“What do you do?”
“I am a scribe.”
“Excellent. What’s your name?”
“I am Neferhotep. I was so named because my parents claim direct lineage with the great Neferhotep.”
I’d never heard of the guy. “I’m Jonathan, so named because my father wanted to call me John, but my mother thought that was too boring.”
He looked uncomfortable. “Will that be all?”
I saw Aye and a muscular man staring at me from the entrance of the audience hall.
“Yes,” I said. “Thanks for the information.”
I moved up the ramp, but Aye and the big man met me halfway.
“You should be in your room, resting,” Aye said.
“I’m not tired.” I looked at the bigger man, who struck me as dangerous from the moment I saw him. He carried himself differently. I gave him a nod. “Who are you?” I asked.
He gave me a slight nod. “I am Horemheb, commander of the royal army.”
“I’ve heard of you,” I said.
“I cannot say the same for you.”
“This is my first visit to your impressive country.”
“May your visit be short,” Horemheb said.
That was no way to talk to a god, but I was pretty sure Egyptians chose which gods they wanted to worship. Evidently I was not on Horemheb’s approved god list. “I suspect it will be short. My reason for coming to Egypt isn’t in Thebes, so I’m just passing through.”
While I stood taller than Horemheb by several inches, he looked solid and confident. “See that it is so,” he said.
I didn’t want to mouth off to a general, especially since I suspected Horemheb could kick my ass up and down the compound without breaking a sweat.
“Please return to your residence,” Aye said to me. “I have assigned servants to you for the duration of your visit. They will report to you soon.”
“Thanks, Aye.” I nodded to Horemheb. “Nice to meet you.”
He stared at me with dead eyes. “Perhaps later you can demonstrate your power in battle. You hold yourself as if you are capable.”
Dangerous men tend to recognize one another on sight. “I’m not here for that. I’m just looking for a man named Winslow.”
“That name means nothing to me,” Aye said.
“That doesn’t surprise me. He’s not from around here.”
I gave them each another nod before I turned to head back to the residence. As I walked away, I heard Horemheb say, “Are the preparations complete?”
“Nearly,” Aye said. “It won’t be long now.”
I didn’t hear anything more. It was probably an innocuous exchange about dinner or the transfer of soldiers to different quarters, but it stuck in my head. I returned to the residence and found Kelly sleeping. I didn’t want to wake her, so I went outside and sat down on a wooden stool in the shade of the portico.
I pulled out my cell phone. Needless to say, there wasn’t any reception, but the battery was fully charged. It didn’t display the time as it had no cell towers from which to update. I switched it off to conserve energy.
Later, I checked on Kelly, but she was still sleeping. It seemed like a good idea to let her rest, but I took a chance and placed my hand on her forehead. Normally that would be enough to wake her up and would potentially end up with me on the floor in an arm bar. She didn’t open her eyes. She felt hot to the touch.
In all the years I’d known her, I’d never seen her get sick.
This wasn’t good.
An hour later, two servants dropped by to check on us. Both were young and female and appeared to have led rough lives. When I asked their names, they shook their heads in unison and told me they weren’t important.
“Everyone is important,” I said. “Please tell me what to call you.”
“I am Sadek,” the first girl said. “This is Tuya.”
“That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
They shook their heads and stared at the ground.
“Is there anything to drink around here?” I asked. “Maybe some water?”
“We will bring some.” They left together and a few minutes later, they brought water for me. Sadek poured some into a ceramic cup and handed it to me.
“Thank you.” I took a sip. The water tasted a bit strange, and as I didn’t want to spend the night in the latrine, I said, “Do you have anything else to drink here?”
“We have beer and wine.”
“Beer sounds good.”
“As you wish.” They left to get me some beer.
I poured the water out into a shrub.
Sadek brought me a cup of beer. I tasted it. Wow, it was kinda nasty. The beer was definitely going to be an acquired taste, but it was still better and safer than the water. It didn’t taste overly strong, but I paced myself with it because I didn’t want to catch a buzz before dinner.
Sadek and Tuya left me alone and went inside to do whatever they were there to do. I figured they were cleaning . . . and keeping an eye on us. It made sense. If I were in Aye’s position, looking after the pharaoh, I’d want to make sure I had spies keeping tabs on any strangers in town. It didn’t bother me. After all, I planned to leave in the morning, as long as Kelly felt up to traveling.
The sun began its slow descent, painting the clouds a brilliant orange. It was beautiful but I kept worrying about Kelly. I must have checked on her fifteen times an hour. I hoped sleep would help her get over the fever.
It occurred to me at that point that if she died, I’d be stuck in ancient Egypt.
She would be all right. She had to be all right.
***
An hour later, Kelly was still sleeping. Sadek showed up to tell me it was time for the evening meal.
“Will you require assistance getting ready?” she asked.
“No thanks. I think we can handle it.”
“I shall wait at the colonnade.”
I entered the bedroom. Kelly looked peaceful. I watched the steady rise and fall of her chest, and I hated to wake her. She clearly needed the extra sleep.
“Kelly,” I said softly.
No response.
That was strange. Normally she’d wake up if someone walked into the room. I’d never spoken to her before without waking her up.
“Kelly,” I said, louder.
Nada.
It could be dangerous to wake her by shaking her. With her reaction time, if she took it as an attack, she could kill me before I could pull my hand away. I took a deep breath and risked life and limb by placing my hand on her shoulder and gently rocking her. “Kelly, it’s dinnertime.”
Her eyes opened and she looked up at me in confusion. “Huh?”
“We need to mee
t King Tut and Ankhesejetson or whatever her name is for dinner. I suspect Aye and Horemheb will be there too. Can you handle it?”
“Of course I can. And it’s Ankhesenamun.”
“What you said.”
“If you address her, don’t get her name wrong.”
“Can I just call her Queen or Ankh?”
“Do you want to be executed or sent off to work in the mines?”
“Mining isn’t on my list of things to try.”
“Repeat after me,” she said as she sat up. “Ankhesenamun.”
“Ankhesemoron?”
“You’re not funny.”
“Ankhesenamun,” I said. “Better?”
“Insert that name into your long-term memory, Jonathan.”
“Your wish is my command. How are you feeling?”
She glared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You look exhausted.”
Kelly stood. “I feel fine.”
She drew a deep breath, held it, then released it. She repeated this several times, and each time, more color returned to her cheeks. Finally she looked almost normal.
“If you get tired, just let me know. I’ll make excuses and we can come back here so you can rest.”
“I’m not tired, Jonathan.”
“You’re not yourself,” I said. “Maybe some food will help.”
“If I can keep it down,” she said under her breath.
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Kelly, if you’re not up to this, I can handle it alone. It’s just a dinner. I can bring back some bread and water. Well, maybe beer. The water tastes funny. The beer does too, actually. And it’s stronger than the beer back home.”
“I can handle the dinner.”
“There’s no shame in getting sick, Kelly. It happens to everyone.”
She spun toward me. “Not to me it doesn’t.”
I placed my hands on her shoulders. “I need you to be honest with me. You seem to be under the weather. I need you to be well, so if you need more sleep, or if you need me to bring you anything, you just let me know. I’ll do anything I can to help you.”
