Heart of the Gods

by Valerie Douglas

  The expression on his face went through her like a knife, sudden, sharp and piercing.

  How could she explain what she’d done and why? Why she hadn’t told him, why she’d deceived him, because, of course, she had. How could she explain in a way that wouldn’t make him hate her even more? She thought she’d have more time, hadn’t considered this alternative. Hadn’t known it existed. She just didn’t know enough about this time.

  Now there was no more time.

  Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Her breath caught. She knew what that meant from John’s TV shows. The authorities, police.

  There was even less time than she hoped.

  “I have to leave,” she said, glancing out through the doors at the approaching police cars as their flashing lights lit the growing darkness and the security guards went to meet them. “They can’t find me here.”

  She looked at her clothing, at the bullet holes.

  “This might be a little hard to explain,” she said, gesturing at them, looking at him, hoping for some sign of forgiveness, comprehension, understanding…in his eyes. Their eyes.

  Nothing.

  Nor could she blame them.

  She set her swords on the floor.

  One thing she’d learned from John was television and the programs he downloaded with their fixation with forensics had been very educational.

  TV had taught her much.

  “You’ll need these…”

  One of them was going to have to claim to have done her share of the fighting here, likely Tareq or Ky as they were the only ones with the skill to have done it.

  They couldn’t tell the true story or they’d look like they were crazy. As would she.

  If she stayed, tried to explain, they would lock her up. Things would be likely to turn very ugly. She would have no choice but to fight them. As much as they were officers of the law, the good guys, there was the Tomb and her duty. She could not let anyone stop her from that.

  Not the police. Not Ryan or Komi.

  Not even Ky.

  She started to turn…

  “Go?” Ky said.

  Righteous anger burned through him, and incomprehension.

  In two quick strides he caught her arm and she looked up into his eyes, clearly startled and surprised.

  Her arm felt astonishingly solid, slender yet strong, the skin soft.

  Something moved in those lovely eyes. A deep sadness, a heartbreaking grief and sorrow.

  His anger burned past them.

  “There are a few things you forgot to mention, don’t you think? Like being a three thousand year old mummy?”

  Even the words sounded incomprehensible, all the more so for looking down at her, so alive, with the seemingly fragile feel of her arm in his grasp. More, he remembered the way her lips had felt beneath his, the way her body had felt against his.

  Raissa looked into the pain in his dark eyes, torn between the desire to curl into his arms for shelter and wish it all away, impossible as that was, and the grief at what, looking up into the confusion, anger and betrayal in his eyes, she’d very likely lost.

  Worse, hunger raged in her. She literally ached with the need to feed.

  “I’ll be back,” she promised, her eyes fixed on his, desperately, almost pleading, “I’ll explain, I promise, but I have to leave…and I have to leave, now.”

  His hand was warm on her arm and Raissa could smell his scent in the air, rich, musky, a little spicy, a little sweet. It filled her nostrils. She shuddered. She could almost taste him when she breathed in that beguiling fragrance, a mix of Ky and the soap he used. His skin was slightly sweaty. He would taste just a little salty.

  Involuntarily, her tongue slid over her teeth, slowly, just the tip of it over her lips.

  It was a curiously erotic and sensual gesture and she was almost panting with the effort at control, Ky could see that and something like desperation in her eyes. She bit her lip, her sharp canine teeth catching her rosy bottom lip. Her blue eyes were luminous, glowing, brilliant…warm…

  They drew him in.

  A shiver went through him at the gesture, atavistic and instinctive, a not entirely unpleasant shiver that sent a curious warmth rushing through him.

  He shook it off.

  “Tell me why,” he said. “Give me a good reason why I should let you go?”

  Looking up at him, he thought he’d never seen so much despair in another person’s eyes. It shook him to see it in hers, even as angry as he was.

  “Do you know the story of the Goddess Sekhmet, Ky?” she asked.

  He looked at her bewildered but nodded. “Ra sent her to punish men…”

  For a moment he could only stare at her as her tongue slipped over her teeth once again, the gesture so sensuous…

  His fingers loosened as that warmth ran through him again and his body responded instinctively.

  “Sekhmet’s was the last gift the Gods gave me. Everlasting life…but the price… Let me go, Ky,” she said, softly, intensely. There was a command in her voice. “Please.”

  Almost involuntarily, he released her.

  She fled through the doors, disappeared into the gathering shadows as the police moved quickly and efficiently toward the doors.

  They never saw her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was nearly dawn when Raissa returned to the Egyptian Museum, walking up the promenade between the towering statues, the Mall still and silent at that fragile hour.

  The Hall of Statues was empty and dark save for the thin gray light coming through the doors and the windows high above. Not that Raissa needed light, Sekhmet’s gift had given her the ability to see well in almost darkest night. Her bare feet were nearly silent on the stone floor as she walked down the Hall toward the tall statue with the empty chair beside it.

  Just the sight of it made her heart ache.

  For a moment, she stood before it, looking up into the familiar face carved there, his dark eyes, his thick, wavy hair falling to his shoulders.

  Khai.

  He hadn’t been Egyptian by birth but he had served her well.

  As had she, falling in love with the country she’d adopted over time.

  And it’s Gods.

  Stepping forward she laid a hand on the stone knee of the statue, so much larger than his own, and looked up into the semblance of Khai’s beloved face, into the face she’d once known so well, had desired for so long and let out a gusty sigh full of tears she’d never shed.

  They burned.

  In all the millennia that had passed she’d never had the time to truly mourn him. Appear and disappear into dreaming as life went on around her and the years, decades, then centuries, passed…millennia…

  She’d known the moment he died although she didn’t know the manner of it.

  In the endless darkness, grief had touched her distantly.

  Her throat was tight. A tear ran down her cheek.

  She missed him, missed his presence by her side, his counsel. His comfort.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered but for what she couldn’t have said.

  For not being there? She wasn’t even certain which of them she was saying it to. Or for what reason.

  “Help me,” she said, softly, looking up at the symbols carved into the chairs, crying out to the Gods as she had once before, to Sekhmet and Isis, as she had so many centuries ago. “I don’t know how to do this…I don’t know what to do…and I’m so tired.”

  For a moment, she closed her eyes.

  In the emptiness of the hall, her words echoed and were swallowed up in the vastness.

  She dropped to her knees, pillowed her head on the seat that would once have been hers and fought the tears that threatened to drown her.

  A gentle hand caressed her hair.

  She who had once been Irisi recognized the hand that touched her.

  Looking up, she saw a familiar face, round and full, dark, with warm brown eyes.

  Another face she�
��d missed.

  She gave half a laugh, but still smiled.

  This was how she’d always seen the Goddess, with the face of Banafrit, the High Priestess who had been her savior, her mentor and, in time, her dearest friend. Who had also been the representative of the Goddess in life.

  With a smile, the great Goddess Isis looked down at her with Banafrit’s eyes in Banafrit’s familiar face.

  “How else should you see me, child?” the Goddess said, gently, lovingly, “than with the face of her who spoke for me before you did? She was mine always, as you are.”

  Within her Raissa could feel it, the deep warm current of knowledge, of understanding, that she’d known as Irisi when the Goddess had been with her. Part of her.

  She sighed. That was something else she’d missed.

  The Goddess eyed her.

  “For what it is that you weep, my child?”

  Raissa looked at her, heart and soul aching. “You ask too much. I can’t do this. Not alone. Not anymore.”

  It was the Goddess’s turn to sigh.

  “What is too much?” another voice asked, this one harsher. “There is no one else but you.”

  “Sekhmet,” Isis chided, gently.

  Raissa turned to watch as the other Goddess stepped out of the darkness between the statues.

  There was something of the lion-headed Sekhmet in her features and something of the priestess that Irisi had known and loved as Djeserit, with her strong features and dark skin.

  “Is that what you fight for?” Sekhmet asked, not unkindly. “Recognition? What of those who wait? Those who lie below? Those you fought. Those who would die? Or have you forgotten?”

  Raissa shook her head, shuddering.

  Just the memory sent a chill through her, remembering the deaths, the manner of the dying.

  She looked at the face of Banafrit, remembered how her beloved friend and mentor had died as death emerged out of darkness and ripped her to shreds.

  “No, I haven’t forgotten,” she said, and involuntarily looked up into the face of the statue above her.

  Into the familiar features but he was gone and her thoughts of the one who was so like him.

  “He isn’t Khai,” Isis said gently.

  On a sigh, Raissa shook her head. “No, he’s not Khai. I know this.”

  “And yet he is,” Sekhmet said, her voice as harsh as a lioness’s roar but her tone softer. “The blood runs true in him. The same blood that ran in Khai runs in his veins as well. He is as strong and as true.”

  “He is,” Raissa said softly, looking at them, wryly. “Somehow I doubt that is an issue any longer.”

  There was no answer to the question in her heart, only compassion in their eyes.

  She looked to Isis, smiled crookedly.

  “I don’t suppose you could help with that?”

  The Goddess smiled sadly and shook her head. “No, it is his choice, as it must be, and you wouldn’t wish it to be otherwise, else not know whether he loved you freely for yourself , of his own heart.”

  Raissa sighed. “Somehow I didn’t think so. And you’re right, I wouldn’t wish it another way.”

  “We have done what we could,” Isis said, softly, “but I have not the power I once had, although it has gotten better in recent years. We didn’t see, could not see, that the power of the divine feminine would be so…forgotten. So it is Sekhmet’s gift you must rely upon and my magic, what little I can give you, you must hold in reserve against need.”

  “Will it be enough?”

  For a moment there was silence. Her answer was in their dark fathomless eyes.

  “We do not know.”

  Raissa closed her eyes and nodded.

  Isis gripped Raissa’s hands, her eyes intent and Raissa felt Sekhmet’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Know that we will be with you,” Isis said, softly. “We and all the Gods, both old and new.”

  Sekhmet turned her head, lifted it. Her mouth opened as she scented the air, breathed it in and tasted it as a predator would.

  “We are not alone,” she said, softly. “Someone comes.”

  She smiled as her eyes glowed red.

  “He is a tasty man,” she said, with a glance at Raissa. “If you don’t want him…”

  Raissa rolled her eyes and elbowed the Goddess sharply. “Keep your claws off him.”

  “It has been a long time,” Sekhmet said, avidly, smiling.

  Shaking her head, taking the other Goddess by the arm, Isis said, amused, “It’s time we were going.”

  “Just because you have Osiris doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have my pleasures,” Sekhmet protested.

  Laughing, Isis said, “I’m sure Ra or Thoth or Anubis will be more than glad to accommodate you.”

  With a sigh of resignation, Sekhmet said, “I suppose. But men are so…tasty.”

  She saw the look the other Goddess gave her.

  “What?”

  “You remember what happened the last time,” Isis chided, warningly.

  It had been quite a feast, but Ra had been quite wroth with her and Osiris.

  “Fine…all right,” Sekhmet growled.

  Both Goddesses disappeared.

  Turning, Raissa sensed him before she saw him.

  Ky stepped out of the shadows from between the statues and she was struck again by the resemblance she’d seen that very first day, with the figurine behind him.

  Seeing him made her heart ache. He reminded her of Khai and he didn’t. Certainly he reminded her of her loneliness and what she’d lost all those centuries ago. The pain of that was nearly more than she could bear. Add this new heartache?

  In that moment she also realized she loved him, not for what had been, or for the resemblance but for what he was, for his dedication, his strength and courage.

  Ky looked at her as she rose to her feet to face him, seeing in the first faint light of dawn the pain and grief in those beautiful blue eyes.

  Those eyes had captivated him from the beginning.

  In a strange way she seemed more vibrant, more alive, than she ever had. There was an air about her. She seemed to glow, to radiate vitality and life. Energy almost seemed to hum in the air around her.

  He’d watched her arrive from the windows of Tareq’s office and then briefly from the hall above, before he turned to the stairs. Doors opened before her as if they’d never been locked, swung shut behind her as she walked with that long stride that made her hips sway so gracefully. There were models who would have envied her that walk.

  Somehow he never doubted she would return as she’d said she would. It wasn’t in her not to. Her honor wouldn’t allow it.

  That much he knew.

  The security lights had cast pools of brightness on the floor as she walked beneath them, her long golden hair a rippling stream of sunlight over her shoulders, billowing out behind her and around her as she walked. Even now, knowing what he did about her, looking at her, at the bloodstains on the once-pretty blue sundress, he found she was still beautiful to his eyes.

  He watched her face now, with tears sparkling on her lashes.

  So, this was Irisi, the golden one. Nubiti. The one he’d dreamed of for most of his life. He’d had time to take in the idea while he’d talked to the police, while he’d waited for her to return.

  A part of him still tried to accept it.

  From the very beginning her beauty had struck him, captivated him. He’d thought Irisi a myth, for all his daydreams as a boy. He’d let those daydreams go long ago but the thought of a love that intense had stayed with him. Here she was, proof of it, in the flesh. Raissa or Irisi, she was as beautiful as he’d imagined her to be. More so. If what she said was true, the thought of the long centuries she’d waited still caused a pang.

  And raised an entirely new set of questions.

  “I thought you might come here, first,” he said, quietly. “Who were you talking to?”

  Raissa went still. She couldn’t look at him directly, just having him
this close made her breath come short and her heart ache.

  “The gods,” she said, softly.

  She could almost feel his disbelief and that was enough to bring her eyes to his.

  “Our Gods are not as yours,” she said. “They aren’t and weren’t distant and unknowable. They were as close as family, we took care of them as they took care of us, we loved them and counted them as friends. Known. Familiar.”

  She looked at the symbols of the gods on the statues around her.

  “The Gods were our mother and father as much as those who bore us. They loved us. Loved each other.”

  Remembering, she rolled her eyes and laughed.

  “Except for Set of course.”

  She couldn’t look at him, at Ky, so she looked at Khai instead, at the statue they’d carved of him.

  “You loved him,” Ky said.

  Swallowing visibly, she nodded.

  “As much as you thought and much, much more,” she said, her voice soft.

  Memories raced through her mind of Khai at that first meeting that long ago day in the desert, looking down at her from his horse, mounted as few Egyptians were. But he hadn’t been Egyptian, he’d adopted Egypt even as Irisi had, as their borrowed homeland.

  She remembered, too, the first time Khai had kissed her, that day in the King’s palace…and the last.

  The day they mummified her.

  “So much and so deeply. I remember… I knew when he passed…I felt it.”

  It was in her to ask, the question she’d never been able to have answered. She hesitated. Grief and pain, an ancient sorrow rolled through her.

  Did she truly want to know?

  “How was it that he died, Ky? Do you know…?”

  He’d said Khai had died in battle, but what was the manner of it? Had he suffered? The thought was agonizing. Or had it been quick?

  She looked at him, her eyes bright.

  It was there on her face. Her features reflected her pain, the grief that tore at her.

  Then she shook her head, turned away. “No. Perhaps it’s better not to know…”

  So much pain, so much heartbreak. Her hand rose, went to her breast and she bowed over with the pain of it much as she had when the bullets had struck her.

  She’d loved him that intensely.