Heart of the Gods

by Valerie Douglas

  Raissa paused, took a breath. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like inside the fort during those terrible few hours as friend turned on friend, as a curl of smoke become a thing of teeth and claws to tear and rend. To see the marid in their unnatural beauty appear from nowhere to rip their quarry to pieces.”

  She remembered Ky’s find, the lone skeleton in the commander’s office.

  It was likely the man had opened the door to a friend, someone he trusted, only to find himself attacked.

  He’d fought there, alone, for Egypt and for his life.

  For him, help had never come.

  Her breath shuddered with old sorrow.

  “The Djinn had become cannier with Kamenwati, the Grand Vizier, guiding them. Knowing that, we also knew we couldn’t tell friend from foe. There was no choice, or find ourselves in the same straights, attacked from within by those we trusted.”

  Standing on a slight rise they looked over the site. Raissa sighed.

  “Khai knew we had few choices. Either to face the Djinn on ground of their choosing and risk the army, or leave and choose our own. Abandoning those in the fort to the Djinn.”

  It had been a terrible decision, a heartbreaking one, but he’d made it. He’d been the General.

  In the fading light it seemed as if little had changed from that time so long ago, or in the time they’d been gone, not surprising due to the care that had to be taken. Or perhaps it was just that so much had changed for them while they’d been away.

  The late afternoon sun cast long shadows, the light tinged with gold, warming the pale color of what remained of the fort’s towering walls, exposed once again to sunlight.

  One of the other archaeologists called a greeting to Ky and Tareq, clearly surprised to see Tareq, one of the Museum directors, there.

  Ryan wandered off to look at the room of the site where he’d been working, to see if anything had been disturbed. His jaw tightened as he saw signs that someone had been poking around.

  Lifting his head, he looked around at the other parties working the site.

  Standing where the entrance to the old fort had been reminded Raissa of her first visit to the dig and that moment she’d shared out by the garbage heap with Ky, his dark eyes looking into the past…to a time she’d lived and known. He’d looked so beautiful that day…so much like her Khai it had pained her.

  Watching him as he stood and talked with Tareq and the other man, tall, handsome, the muscle she’d felt the night they’d kissed only hinted at by his shirt, his thick dark hair curling to his collar, he still didn’t look like any academic she’d ever known, or any of those here―although he was undoubtedly one of them.

  With an effort she drew her eyes away.

  People worked in the remains of one of the towers. By the care they were taking it seemed they were excavating another of the dead.

  In a way she was glad. Now some of those here would be properly buried in what they considered Egyptian soil. Perhaps their spirits would find rest at last, their ka and ba reunited so they could move on to the afterlife.

  Khai would have been glad to know it.

  A pang went through her at the thought.

  She missed him desperately, missed his counsel, his strength and courage, but more than anything she missed the deep love they’d shared, however briefly.

  Tears stung. Tears she couldn’t afford.

  She grieved, too, for what she might have had with Ky although she allowed herself some little bit of optimism that things were returning to what they had been. At least to the easy friendship they’d shared, if nothing else. Every small sign gave her a little more hope.

  Taking a deep breath, she looked over the rest of the dig and then her eyes returned to those in the tower.

  One of the men who supervised there turned… His hair was blonder than hers, nearly white, thick and wavy. He looked oddly familiar in a number of ways…and yet he wasn’t…

  It was so strange.

  Something in his stance, the way he held himself, tugged at her memory but something didn’t fit. The hair, the general build of his body was all wrong.

  She frowned a little, looking at the man as an odd frisson fluttered over her skin. Tilting her head, she studied this man who seemed both familiar and unfamiliar.

  Ky felt an odd sense of uneasiness move over him.

  He glanced at Raissa where she stood at the entrance to the fort much as she had that first day, with her long brilliant hair streaming in the hot breeze like a river of sunlight. Now the sun burnished it to copper. She wore a longer cotton dress today, white, with buttons from the neckline to the hem but she hadn’t buttoned all of them at either neck or hem. The skirt blew around her lovely legs, revealing flashes of them. Raising a hand gracefully to hold back her hair, she looked across the dig site.

  She was so beautiful.

  Whatever else she was, there was that.

  The attraction was still there, she still made his heart beat faster.

  Tareq saw where he looked.

  “She’s a lovely woman, Ky,” Tareq said, quietly, echoing his own thoughts. “You care, she obviously cares. What is it that stops you, my friend?”

  For a moment Ky was tempted to throw out a facetious answer but he didn’t. “Other than she’s a three thousand year old mummy? Which one of us is it she cares for? And what happens when this is over?”

  “Ah,” Tareq said. He’d always seen the resemblance. It surprised him Ky himself had not at first. “The first and last I can’t answer, only you can, but Khai is dead, these millennia past. You, however, are not. You’re alive. Is it a ghost you fight then? And is it her ghost…or yours?”

  Ky didn’t know to any of those questions.

  All he knew, looking at her, was that some part of him responded to her, longed for her. Watching her, he saw her frown and followed her gaze. No wonder she was frowning.

  To her surprise Raissa realized she was staring at Heinrich Zimmer, one of the other archeologists, the one who had come to the airport with the Inspector, but somehow he seemed… changed in some subtle way. It was something about the hair, about the way he stood.

  Or was it just her imagination?

  “Komi,” she said, quietly, troubled. “Is there something about Dr. Zimmer that seems different?”

  Eyeing the man, Komi looked puzzled and said, “I don’t know, I don’t know him so well as that. There does seem to be something.”

  Careful to keep her observation from becoming too pointed, too noticeable, Raissa walked over to Ryan and asked him the same question.

  Ryan looked up quickly, glanced at the man, shook his head and said, “Nope, he’s still an asshole…”

  He glanced at her and saw she was serious.

  And there had been something. Something…off. Something…weird.

  He looked harder.

  “Now that you mention it, though…he does look a little…different, somehow.”

  His voice trailed off, his tone wound down as he studied the man.

  Now that he thought about it, it was more than a little creepy.

  Zimmer had always reminded Ryan of Hitler, a tall geeky Hitler, even if the coloring was all off. He was somehow sort of furtive. Now he reminded Ryan more of an SS storm trooper, and yet it wasn’t anything major or noticeably different. Maybe he combed his hair differently, didn’t wet it down and try to comb it over.

  Had he somehow become less bald? Or his hair thicker somehow? Maybe he’d started to use one of those hair growth shampoos, but that wasn’t all of it.

  Ryan frowned.

  Zimmer had always stood a little hunched, a little defensive. Now he stood straight, chin lifted arrogantly, more commanding than she remembered him to be.

  “Had he lost weight?” Raissa asked.

  “In a week?” Ryan said, incredulous. “If so, I wanna know his diet.”

  It wasn’t likely. God knew it had never worked for him.

  He looked again.

 
She was right, it looked as if Zimmer had lost weight, or gotten more trim, boasted pectorals muscles the likes of which Ryan had never dreamed.

  It was more than disturbing.

  He looked to Raissa.

  A shiver went over her as she studied Zimmer a little more closely.

  The man turned and his eyes fixed on Ky. His jaw tightened visibly. There was a look of such malice on Zimmer’s face that Raissa instinctively flung out a hand to ward Ky, chanting swiftly beneath her breath. In the same moment she warded all of them there, the protective flow of magic subtle, a slight twisting of the natural energies around them.

  Zimmer suddenly turned to look around, almost as if he sensed the use of magic. Startled by the possibility of his awareness, Raissa deliberately turned to look at Ryan as if they’d been talking all along.

  It couldn’t be, he couldn’t have perceived her use of magic.

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said, puzzled at the change. “Maybe those pills on TV do work?”

  “I’m sorry?” she said, the statement so incongruous after what she’d just seen that her mind couldn’t process it.

  Ryan waved it away. “Never mind.”

  Certainly Zimmer’s face seemed thinner, more honed, his too-dark eyes in his fair face seemed sharper, the curve of his mouth less dissatisfied than it had been and his hair was combed more attractively. The changes were slight but they nagged at her.

  With a sigh, she went to join Ky and Tareq.

  But she couldn’t shake the chill that went over her.

  Half of John’s body was stretched over and in the engine compartment of the big old truck. It was a monster, a great old beast, but it ran like a top. With a flashlight strategically positioned to give him light, he was literally sprawled on top of and nearly inside the engine when a nearby voice startled him and said, “Need a hand?”

  He glanced behind him.

  The face was familiar, John had seen the guy somewhere around the dig site a few times when he’d been there to pick up Professor Farrar and Ryan. Raissa, too, now.

  He was one of the other archaeologists. He had a funny kind of accent, though, not quite like anything John knew.

  “Nah,” he said, “I got it.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you what it is you’re doing?”

  John laughed. “Just random basic maintenance, checking things out. You know how it is in a country like this, you can’t be sure how good a job some of these people are doing. I prefer to check it out myself.”

  The other man nodded. “Yeah, tell me about it…”

  So John did.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Between the tension of the flight and the physical labor of setting up the camp, it had been a long, tiring day for everyone. John was checking the trucks, Komi carrying a plate of food out to him. Everything seemed all right. Still Ky felt unaccountably restless, oddly unsettled…and alone. Dinner had been almost a return to normal with Raissa downing astonishing amounts of food to Ryan’s obvious envy. Even knowing the reason for it hadn’t diminished the amusement apparently. It was as if everyone tacitly agreed to forget or ignore it.

  There had been laughter and a fair amount of teasing all around. Ky’s gaze kept drifting to Raissa, the firelight soft on her face. Once or twice Ky caught her glancing his way in return and something inside him would move. Tareq’s question haunted him. He was drawn to her, and yet the same question kept returning.

  Tossing and turning, it took some time before he finally fell into an uneasy asleep, then someone called his name softly from outside the tent.

  “Professor Farrar.”

  The voice was familiar. John. The last he remembered John had been going over the vehicles. If he wasn’t in bed by now he must have found something.

  Ky shook himself awake.

  “What is it?” he asked, trying to clear his head.

  “You’d better come look, Professor,” John said. “I think someone has tampered with the trucks.”

  “Shit.”

  Who would have tampered with the trucks and why? The same people who had messed with his plane? Or did they have another unknown enemy?

  “All right,” he said, shaking his head. “Give me a minute.”

  He quickly pulled his jeans on and stepped out of the tent.

  Only to find several automatic weapons pointed at his head.

  Tareq and the others were bound and gagged. Guns pointed at them also. All but Raissa had been taken swiftly, silently while he slept.

  In the back of his mind he swore softly. He’d lost his edge. Or maybe that was why he’d been restless. He just hadn’t expected such a direct attack. By their skill and how they handled their weapons these were skilled men, trained soldiers, probably mercenaries. One false move and Ky knew someone would die.

  It had been planned well, of that there was no doubt.

  He went very still and made no sudden motions.

  There was no expression on John’s face save a mild regret.

  “Sorry, Professor,” John said with a shrug. “I got a better offer.”

  Stunned, Ky stared at him. He couldn’t believe it, that the man could so blithely betray him, betray Ryan and the others. They’d been friends.

  What the hell had happened?

  Then he looked into John’s eyes, at the blankness behind them.

  It was chilling, as if John himself wasn’t there at all, just his body. His face was too expressionless and yet there was a tension in his body, the muscles strained, twitched almost randomly, as if some internal struggle was going on.

  Ky looked around.

  To his shock Zimmer was with the men who surrounded them, as was the Inspector, confirming Ky’s suspicions. Some of the men here were clearly the Inspector’s, their uniforms declared them police. Itt was obvious who was truly in charge, though, by the way they looked to him, his too-dark eyes in his fair face glittering flatly, blackly, like jet in his tanned face. And it wasn’t the Inspector.

  Ky, shocked but wary, said, “Zimmer…”

  The man held up a finger to his lips, a single finger.

  “Shut up. Another word, just one word,” he said, softly, “and they die.”

  Guns pointed at the heads of Tareq and the others.

  Men closed around Raissa’s tent while another stepped behind Ky to bind his hands.

  “Call her, Farrar,” Zimmer said, his black eyes intent. “Call her.”

  Did they know what she was?

  Ky didn’t know, he wasn’t sure.

  With a gesture, two of the men pressed their guns to the temples of Tareq and Ryan. Both went still. Their eyes reflected their anger and fear.

  Ky’s jaw clenched. He hated the helplessness, hated what he was being asked to do.

  She trusted him. She’d answer, suspecting, expecting nothing. He knew that.

  He would be betraying that trust.

  There was no choice. He knew Zimmer was doing this deliberately, playing on that faith, using it, using Ky to betray her as John had betrayed him. Less willingly, perhaps, but betrayal nonetheless.

  Rage nearly blinded him but there was no choice, not with guns at the heads of the others.

  He closed his eyes.

  “Raissa,” he called. “Raissa.”

  At the sound of her name Raissa woke, recognizing Ky’s voice, grateful she’d gone to bed clothed. The oversized t-shirt would cover her enough to answer. She reached for the zipper of the tent. Even as she unzipped it and stepped out she registered the strange note in his voice, the strain in it…

  Alarm went through her like a bolt of lightning but they hit her fast and hard.

  Instinctively, she fought, but she hadn’t fed in days. Food only sustained her, kept her body alive, to fuel herself she needed Sekhmet’s gift, she needed blood and the small portion of spirit that came with it. She tried to call power but she’d used so much in the last few days between the flight and the warding there was little to spare.

  She looked aro
und frantically.

  Armed men, bound figures, Ky with a gun to his head, the others the same.

  Zimmer…

  Fear shot through her. Somehow she’d miscalculated. Something was happening here that she hadn’t anticipated.

  The men slammed her to the ground, one pinned her head to the dirt, another with his knee in her back wrenched her arms behind her and shackled her.

  Ky winced, his jaw tightening as they took her down, hard. He swore softly, viciously and bitterly, beneath his breath. It took everything he had to stand still and let them do it with Tareq, Ryan and the others held hostage to his good behavior.

  The surprise was enough. She never had a chance to fight them.

  The men pulled her roughly to her feet, hauling on her bound wrists, dragged her beside Ky and forced her to her knees beside him.

  Zimmer waved his men back, stepped forward to look over his captives with visible satisfaction.

  Forced to look at the man, Ky studied him intently. Their only chance was in knowing their enemy well enough to fight him, them, in finding their weaknesses.

  He’d never been particularly fond of Zimmer, the rumors of his behavior strong enough and plentiful enough to have the ring of truth to them. Plus he’d never liked the man personally, Zimmer’s smarmy charm always left him feeling as if he’d been doused in oil. He’d pitied those forced to work with the man.

  Something had changed about him, though.

  The man seemed to have a grown a backbone, gained a confidence Ky had always found lacking in him before, to the point it was almost a swagger.

  It almost seemed as if Zimmer wasn’t really, or completely, Zimmer.

  In light of Raissa, of who and what she was, the thought was unsettling.

  Casting the order over his shoulder to his men, Zimmer said, “Search the tents. Find the papyrus, anything that might lead us to the Tomb. I’m tired of waiting for the good professor to find it for me.”

  In the distance there were gunshots, shouting, outcries, as the other archaeologists were rousted from their quarters. Ky didn’t like the sound of any of it.