Maybe she could reason with him. “You don’t really want that, do you?”
“But I do, kitten. The long wait will make revenge all the sweeter.” So bitter, he sounded. If his fangs had leached acid, it wouldn’t have surprised her, especially with the burn lingering in her shoulder.
To be safe, she leaned away from him as far as his tight grip would allow. “But why? We never met until you came to work for the museum.” How could he bear such hatred for her?
“Where are you taking me anyway?” The last she remembered, they’d struggled in the museum storage room. Had she stayed unconscious until nightfall?
“Somewhere private,” he said, “where we won’t be disturbed.”
Too late. Howie was already disturbed. She wouldn’t point that out.
Another sharp turn, and he pushed open a heavy door. A musty smell hit her. An anemic light glowed, enough to reveal a narrow hallway. Walls of rock and floor of packed earth didn’t exactly lend a homey atmosphere.
“Escape is impossible. You are well known among my people. With the vizier leading so many legions against you, your plan will never succeed.” He flattened and then shot beneath a craggy outcropping of rock.
She ducked her head at the last second. Legions? Iker never mentioned that many enemies had aligned against her. Into organized groups, for crying out loud. How many people made up a legion anyway?
As they passed beneath another low, jagged entryway into yet another corridor, she shielded her head with her arms, but peeked out when he whipped around a corner and abruptly halted.
They’d entered a chamber, cleverly hidden by the stone formation. Two lanterns gave off a red glow that made the crude room appear more eerie.
And what plan was Howie talking about? Oh geez. He must mean the ritual Iker told her about, the one to supposedly liberate Hatshepsut’s soul. So Iker hadn’t exaggerated. They must all be insane.
“The only success I care about is the exhibit’s. I simply want to go back to my unimportant little life, work at my inconsequential little job and not have any trouble. I swear, I have no other plan.” Except to get the hell out of this dungeon.
When Howie dumped her on the damp stone ground, hope fluttered across her in a crazy, unreasonable dance. Letting me go? Here? As quickly as the thought winked in her head like a beacon of hope, it extinguished, taking all her courage with it.
Whiplike, his tail wound around her ankles, thick and pulsating and disgusting, effectively binding her knee to toe. She stifled a moan when he squeezed hard, smashing her legs together, making it impossible to move, let alone run.
She pummeled his chest—or whatever that part of him was called—and he grabbed her arm and twisted. At her gasp, his devious smile said he enjoyed hurting her. She wouldn’t give him that pleasure again by revealing her pain. She swallowed the next moan, schooling her features into a hard mask of determination.
Tongue flicking dangerously close to her cheek, he said, “It’s too late for such promises now, kitten. You’ll never see your precious museum or have your ‘little life’ again.”
With that, cold metal clamped around one of her wrists, then the other. The resounding click of a lock unleashed a flood of panic. When she jabbed at him, chains rattled and her arm jerked back against the harsh restraint.
No! “You can’t do this.” He couldn’t get away with kidnapping, could he?
“Oh but I can.” He lifted the chain and jingled it. “Obviously.”
Had the air in this horrible underground place thinned too fast? Wooziness robbed her sense of balance, and she slumped against the jagged rock wall. Pain jolted her back to conscious reality—a condition for which she no longer held any fondness. “This is insane.”
“No, this,” he lisped, “is destiny.”
She bolstered her spine and squared her shoulders. “Let me go now, Howie. Don’t make this worse on yourself than it already is.”
His hideous chuckle sent goose bumps across her flesh. “How amusing you are. I believe you could provide even more entertainment during your… stay.”
She used her best schoolmarm voice, the one she reserved for wayward interns. None had gone quite so off-the-charts wayward as Howie. “Everyone’s looking for me. You know they are. It’s only a matter of time before they find me.” Who exactly ‘they’ were, she hoped he wouldn’t ask. She had no clue.
Head tilted, he ran his beady eyes across her, and his fingers followed, tracing her curves. “Time is the key, isn’t it? They may find you, but when? After millennia of unfulfilled rage, I finally am able to exact my revenge against Ra. It will taste sweet, kitten.” He huffed. “Ra, the great sun god, indeed.” He slithered close. “You will soon beg for the sun. But you will beg in vain.”
His brief touch across her shackled wrist was light, but enough to give her the shivers. Her hand fisted automatically as he eased nearer. One slither closer, and she’d knock him cold. Twist that forked tongue right out of his scaly cobra-hooded head.
“Apep.” The stern, commanding voice filled the chamber.
The serpent halted. Sanura froze, too, but strained to see past Howie. Ha, busted! But by whom? A sinking feeling told her whoever had arrived, he was not her friend.
Howie’s visible struggle to compose himself gave her small satisfaction. When she glimpsed the owner of that voice, her satisfaction dissipated like fireworks fading to black dust.
A tall man filled the entrance, large and stocky as a refrigerator. He radiated power, and blocked her freedom more surely than Howie ever could. His plain, cream-colored tunic revealed thick legs, leather sandaled feet that could stomp on her like a bug.
The vizier.
****
The silence of the exhibit room closed around Iker’s heart like a warning, a damning of his soul. The presence of the goddess enveloped him, fearful and urgent. Shame washed over him. He’d returned from eternal sleep for a purpose, and failed.
No, I have not yet failed. I will save Sanura, or perish with her. The thought of her in captivity, suffering at the hands of Apep… agony wrenched him as surely as if the serpent had twisted chains around him.
He hardened himself against the tenderness beneath the pain. Such feelings caused him to lapse in his duty as guardian. He’d never allowed himself to open his heart to anyone, and such thoughts of Sanura were unthinkable. Courtesans had fulfilled his physical needs.
Love had no place in his life. Reserved for fools and commoners, it wrapped a haze around them. Oh, Sanura’s charms would be blissful, but a taste would also blind him to danger. He had no trouble sharing Queen Hatshepsut’s bed and remaining clear-headed. But with Sanura, he’d drown in love-drunk bliss.
Iker knelt on one knee, head bent. “O goddess, hear my plea. Restore to me the weapons of my past—my staff, my arrows, my bow. I pledge to use them well in your service, to fulfill my oath to you and the queen pharoah.”
Golden light shimmered in a tall column in front of him. Surprised, he forgot himself and lifted his head to meet the green-amber gaze of Bastet, kind and reassuring. Goddess, he’d forgotten how gorgeous she was, not having seen her in the flesh in many centuries. Aside from the smooth black fur sleek against her feline head, she gave every appearance of a woman—a sensuous, lithe woman. Her black hair flowed along the plunging neckline of her white gown, trimmed with gold at the short sleeves and hem, which touched the floor, leaving only her bare feet visible. The fabric clung like a second skin.
The resemblance between Bastet and Sanura struck him—silken dark hair, green almond-shaped eyes, small pert nose and perfectly shaped lips upturned at the ends in a feline smile. Both had the stature of a goddess, even if Bastet was well at ease with the title and Sanura had yet to fully embrace it. Any doubt he might have harbored about Sanura’s heritage disappeared.
Bastet leaned her long staff toward him. “Arise, warrior.”
Keeping his head low, he did as she commanded, then waited.
“Excellent One,�
�� she said. “Gather your weapons.” She swept the staff in the direction of the exhibit where his ancient bow, arrows and staff laid, useless and rotting.
Doubt must have shown in his face, and in his hesitation.
“Make haste, warrior.”
After a curt bow, he strode to the display. How strange to stand in front of his former self, even if only a shell of what he once was. Thankful to be alive again, he gave a nod of respect to the embalmed husk. Power sizzled in his muscles, ready to lunge into action. But what use would these decrepit tools be in battle?
Bastet would not mislead him. He reached for the bow. A cloud of light engulfed the display for a moment and obscured his vision. The mist slowly cleared to reveal his beloved weapons restored to newness. The bow sturdy in his grasp, he quickly loaded the leather bag with arrows and hoisted the strap over his shoulder. In his hands, the staff, thick and strong, would defeat any attacker.
Bastet had moved beside the tomb door. “Your goddess awaits your faithful service.”
For a moment, he mistook her meaning. Light shimmered around her, and Bastet faded into a mist, which thinned and vanished.
His goddess—Sanura. Of course. He had to hurry. Every second brought her closer to danger.
He strode to the false door, certain a pathway would open. It didn’t. He ran his hand across the granite, pink flecked with black, solid as ever.
Despair welled up within him, and then changed to anger. I am The Excellent One, the queen pharaoh’s most esteemed warrior. I will not let a small challenge defeat me.
Apep had somehow carried Sanura through the false tomb door, so it was not impossible for mortals to traverse its corridor. He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts on the vizier, whose tomb this door had protected. The image of User passing from this world to the next grew vivid in his mind. In place of the vizier, he imagined himself doing the same.
Eyes still shut, he walked ahead, leading with his staff. The rod bumped over something on the floor, then scraped along a different surface, a bit rougher than the museum’s linoleum. He didn’t open his eyes. Not when cool air splashed over his skin, not when whisperings turned the silence into a howling lament. Light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, a dangerous illusion for humans to disorient them.
He trudged ahead, led by the image of Sanura bright in his mind.
Chapter Eleven
Which was worse—a slimy half-man, half-snake or an evil vizier?
Sanura decided on the vizier. After all, he had a hell of a wicked stare. Even Howie couldn’t meet User’s gaze for more than a few moments. And any man who could appear powerful and threatening while wearing a white tunic won the Worst Evil Dude contest hands down.
Wait, if he’d dressed in the uniform he’d used during his reign, did that mean Howie had somehow transported them back in time? Her head spun. She focused on the hard, cold iron encasing her wrists to stay grounded. Whether in the past or the present User had sought her out with the express purpose of stopping her from aiding Hatshepsut’s soul to find its final rest.
Her earlier conversation with Iker came to mind: by stopping, you mean killing?
His blunt response had inspired greater panic: not before torturing you.
She twisted her arms against the rough shackles binding her. No chance these old things were rusty enough to give way, she bet. But when had they last used them? No, don’t even think about who else they might have chained up in this cave.
The vizier’s voice boomed, “Apep. Bring me the knife.”
The knife? A prickle shot up Sanura’s arching spine.
Apep’s cobra hood went rigid, then fanned as if he’d begun hyperventilating. “My lord, I—”
User clenched his fists and seemed to grow larger. “You failed to retrieve my knife?” His voice shook with rage.
Sanura almost felt sorry for the intern, even if he was a cold-skinned serpent. He shrunk back, seeming to gasp for air, or some excuse.
The vizier stepped toward Sanura, gaze searing into her. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” she squeaked. Silly to try to buy time, and probably annoy him further.
He stomped one more step closer, eyes radiating venom and daggers and death rays. “Tell me where you hid my knife.”
She plastered herself against the wall, but a few sharp rocks protruded from the craggy surface. Just imagining someone pushing her against it made her wince.
Think. Tell him anything. “Iker has it.” No, not that! They’ll go back to kill him, but first they’ll torture him. She couldn’t stand the thought of anyone marring his beautiful body. “I mean, he took it somewhere and hid it. He wouldn’t tell me where. He said I’d be safer if I didn’t know.”
User bared his teeth in a canine smile, the kind wild dogs flash just before ripping someone’s flesh apart. “Iker was wrong.”
Wrong move. Cats hated nasty dogs, and Sanura’s instinctive defenses kicked in. Anger rose up, impossible to contain, and burst from her in a loud, tooth-bared hiss. Every muscle tensed, ready for battle, and her hands arched toward him like claws.
A flash of surprise erased his smug smile, but only for a moment. Then he laughed, a loud obnoxious sound, the false sound of victory.
A bit premature, she wanted to tell him. But she’d let him find out the hard way.
“It seems our kitten thinks she’s a lioness.” User paced nearer. “I’ll have you mewling before long, kitten.” Hardness returned to his eyes as he eased close, so close his rotten breath stung her nostrils when he added, “For mercy.”
She turned her head, but kept him in her line of sight. Much as she wanted to argue, now wasn’t the time. Not when iron shackles bit into the skin of her wrists and ankles, a reminder she couldn’t move without injuring herself. She’d need more leverage to strike him.
Anyway, she needed time to form a plan. This cave was barely big enough to hold one blowhard. When the right time came, she’d strike silently, without warning.
The vizier’s eye flinched as if he read her thought. With rigid steps, he backed away and turned his steely gaze on the serpent. “Apep. You are still here.”
Howie’s gaze flicked from User to Sanura. “Yes…”
So pathetic, she almost felt sorry for the serpent intern. If her hands were free, she’d demonstrate how sorry, and put the snake out of his misery.
Through gritted teeth, User said, “Do not waste any more of my time. Return with my knife or you’ll join our kitten in eternal punishment. Your name will be forever shamed for your failure.”
Reptilian eyes blinked. “Yes, my lord.” Apep coiled his long tail, and then shot into the darkened tunnel.
User turned back to Sanura, brow slowly arching.
As if a switch flipped, her skin prickled, all her senses on high alert. She didn’t think she’d miss Howie, but now definitely preferred his cold cobra presence to User’s heated glare. His bulk exuded power, the nasty kind he wouldn’t hesitate to use against her.
“Triumph will soon be mine.” His low rumbling tone resonated through the small space.
Change the subject. “Kudos on brainwashing Howie.”
He frowned. “Apep knows his place. Soon you will understand yours, and know the bitterness of failure.”
“I will take great pleasure in disappointing you.” She had no intention of failing.
His meaty hands locked around her jaw, making movement impossible. Anger sizzled up her spine and erupted in a hiss.
“Such a waste of delicate beauty. I would have liked to keep you as a concubine.” His grip eased as he tilted her head from side to side.
She jerked her chin from his grasp. “Fat chance.”
“Indeed.” All warmth vanished from his face and he released her. “I demand complete loyalty. One of the many reasons I must destroy you. Likewise, Apep will soon outlive his usefulness.”
“What will you do to him?” How could the vizier kill his own servant? If he was that evil, then
what horrible torture did he plan for her?
“Centuries of planning. Waiting for the right moment.” Gazing at visions of the future only he could see, User mumbled as if enraptured. “Not to simply prevent Hatshepsut from her real due in the afterlife.”
What? That was supposed to be his main objective. “Then why?”
“To make myself more powerful, of course. In shaming the queen pharaoh, I’ll gain all her followers. They will do anything I ask of them.”
Pompous ass. She couldn’t imagine anyone willingly serving him. “Why reveal this to me?”
Hatred glittered in User’s eyes. “So you might know what an utter failure you are. Your plan to free the queen pharaoh’s soul could never have succeeded in the face of a powerful opponent such as me. Your torture will serve as an example to my people. Every scream of agony will cement my position as their king.”
A shudder cut through to her bones. Such a twisted mind. She had no doubt he’d enjoy hearing her plead for mercy. Too bad she never would.
Reining in her fear, she spoke in an even voice. “My only failure was letting a jerk like you get the better of me.” A mistake she intended not to repeat.
His bark of laughter opened a flood of mirth. Holding his expansive belly, he ho-ho’d all the way down the tunnel.
She slumped against the rough wall, chains holding her arms high. Oh yeah, hilarious.
Too bad the joke was on her.
Chapter Twelve
In the darkness, things skittered. And slithered. As Sandy, she probably wouldn’t have noticed them quite so much. Or been able to pinpoint the path of the large insect, probably a beetle, skittering up the wall. Or heard the flick of the forked tongue of the snake, not large enough to be a cobra so possibly an asp, along the far wall.
As Sanura, her senses were highly attuned, and missed nothing.
She was constantly aware of the endless footsteps of guards—at least two, probably many more. She couldn’t tell because they marched through the long tunnels, maybe entering other passageways to guard them as well, or possibly just up and back, up and back, guarding only her cell. In passing, they slowed to ogle her by the light of the torches they carried.
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