Daughter of Ra

by M. Sasinowski

  “We must get to the last pod!” Heru-pa called out.

  “Not without Dharr and Wen!” Tef fired back.

  “We cannot risk the fate of the others—”

  “He will be here!”

  Heru-pa lifted his hand to the bracelet. “Two minutes,” he said.

  Tef nodded then staggered and fell to the ground.

  “Tef!” Paul cried out.

  He crawled to her and slipped off her helmet. Glossy eyes stared back at him. Whatever last reserve the Rathadi had been riding, it had finally given out.

  More shots rang out from the Pureans, muffled cracks in staccato repetition that impacted the wall behind him. Heru-pa ducked out again to shoot, then he froze. Paul followed his eyes to the other side of the atrium.

  Dharr staggered into view before collapsing on the ground, a small boy rolling from his arms. The boy clambered up, struggling to pull Dharr behind a tree.

  Three Pureans rushed for him.

  “Wen!” Heru-pa yelled. “Run!”

  The boy lifted his head and scurried toward him on shaky legs.

  Heru-pa leaped over the barrier and rushed for him, his armor taking bullets.

  A Purean almost made it to Wen. He reached for him when the boy dodged him like a jackrabbit then cut around a second soldier and continued for Heru-pa with faltering steps. The third Purean stretched for the boy when he dropped to the ground, taking a hit from Heru-pa’s rifle.

  Heru-pa hoisted the boy and shielded him with his body as they retreated to the barrier. He lifted the boy into Paul’s arms and spun, rushing back for Dharr.

  Paul spotted the little gray canister bouncing in front of the barrier an instant before a deafening blast tore through the atrium. Paul flew back, arms outstretched, showered by a deadly rainfall of concrete, glass, and steel.

  He lay on the ground, curled up and unable to move, blind and deaf, save for the banshees shrieking in his ears.

  Paul groaned. He twisted his head to the boy and Tef, both sprawled on the ground. He coughed, spitting up blood, his breathing coming in ragged gasps.

  He summoned his remaining strength and willed himself across the floor to Tef. He pulled one of the cylinders from her thigh pocket and drove it into his leg, triggering the injection.

  The pain in his head and pounding of his heart was instantaneous. He screamed, cold sweat flooding his body, as his heart threatened to pound out of his chest. An instant later it was over. His vision cleared. He felt stronger.

  He lifted Wen and staggered to the evacuation pod. He strapped the boy into the seat among the other unconscious Rathadi then shuffled back for Tef and pulled her inside the pod, his strength ebbing with every step. He collapsed on top of her and lifted his hand to the release button.

  Paul yelped as he was yanked from the pod by his legs. The huge shape came out of nowhere, barreling into him. On instinct, he swung at the giant’s head and connected with his jaw, buying himself a split second. Paul flipped and scrambled on his hands and knees for the escape pod. He almost made it to the hatch when the Purean lunged onto him.

  He drove two quick punches into Paul’s ribs, knocking the wind out of him, and flipped him onto his back. As Paul gasped for air, he kept trying to use his legs to lift up the attacker’s body, but it was like being pinned underneath a truck. Paul stretched his hand desperately into the pod, trying to reach the release lever. The giant threw a punch to Paul’s head that rattled his teeth then clamped his huge hands around Paul’s throat. Paul twisted and writhed his torso, but he was losing the battle. His vision began to close in.

  Paul forced the darkness from the periphery of his vision and reached up to Tef’s body inside the pod, desperately fumbling to the pocket on her thigh. He clamped his fist around one of the cylinders. His strength fading, he pulled it out and drove it into the Purean’s neck.

  The giant froze, then screamed, his body spasming.

  Paul stretched his arm as far as he could into the escape pod and flipped the release lever, barely getting his limb back before the metal door slammed down and into the Purean. He gasped for air as he watched the light over the hatch turn green, signaling that the pod had released successfully, then he collapsed.

  “Hold your fire!” Nephthys bellowed. “I want her alive and undamaged.”

  The firing stopped.

  Alyssa hunkered on the ledge, her back flattened against the short wall. She pressed her hands against Horus’s wounds, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood. Pure terror surged through her veins. Her body shook. Her mind refused to believe what had just happened.

  What she had just done.

  “Where are you going to go, Alyssa?” Nephthys’s voice rang out, mocking.

  A flame curled in the pit of Alyssa’s stomach, rising up to her chest. Her fingers coiled around the pistol as the blood rose to her cheeks.

  Alyssa snarled.

  She ducked out and fired her weapon, a feral scream escaping her lips. The shots went wild, but Nephthys and her soldiers took cover.

  “You are only delaying the inevitable,” Nephthys called out.

  Alyssa rose from behind the wall and fired, pumping the trigger again and again until the slide locked.

  The silence still echoed in her ears when the soldiers cautiously ventured from behind their covers. Nephthys stood at the entrance to the building, a triumphant shine in her eyes despite the crimson stain on her shoulder.

  A palm grasped Alyssa’s arm. Horus stirred. His eyelid fluttered open.

  He’s alive!

  She fell to her knees beside him. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” she whimpered.

  “It was not you,” Horus whispered between ragged breaths.

  Her eyes stung with tears as the Purean soldiers stalked toward them. She crumbled beside him, inhaling a trembling breath. She stared at her hands, stained with his blood. The guilt clawed at her chest, wilting the fire inside her to an icy numbness.

  A gust of wind whipped away the hair from her face. Darkness swirled, pulling her in. She gazed into the emptiness below. Her jaw tightened, and her breathing grew harder.

  I will never be her vessel.

  She squeezed Horus’s hand.

  I’m sorry…

  Alyssa closed her eyes and veered to the edge.

  Her palm grazed the bracelet on his forearm. Her mind leaped.

  The plane!

  Alyssa held her breath as she tapped the bracelet. It activated. She pressed the triangular symbol for the plane and the sequence Dharr showed her to summon it. A moment later the twin jet engines spun up on the tower below. She rose to her feet again, facing Nephthys and the Pureans. Nephthys’s lips curved into a cold smile.

  “You will be a worthy—”

  The jet appeared behind Alyssa. The Pureans stopped in mid-stride. Nephthys dashed inside the building an instant before the automatic guns on the jet erupted.

  Heru-pa woke to the heat and the sound of his own coughing. Thick black clouds choked the air, billowing into the high atrium, hungry flames rolling outward. The once majestic space cracked and wilted under the weight of the fire, glass and metal mixing into a fiery inferno.

  A stir from his bracelet forced his eyes from the ghastly view. He glanced at the alert. The jet had been launched.

  Horus?

  A moan rang out beside him.

  Dharr!

  Memories flooded back as a fresh spat of flames belched out with a growled rush of heat and smoke. Heru-pa’s eyes scanned the space, searching for a path through the flames. Any escape route down had been completely blocked off by the debris and flame. He rose to his feet and lifted Dharr then staggered to the stairwell, heading for the roof.

  The plane hovered just beyond the rooftop, and the ramp lowered to the ledge as more explosions rattled the building. Alyssa grunted, struggling to help Horus to his feet. She half-dragged, half-carried him into the jet.

  They collapsed on the floor as the ramp closed behind them and the jet lifted
. She knelt at Horus’s side, panting.

  “The consciousness…” He swallowed, his face knotting with pain.

  “We must find Heru-pa!” Alyssa cried.

  His fingers locked around her arm. “There is no time…” He locked his gaze on her.

  Alyssa froze, her heart thudding in her throat, as the meaning of the words sank in.

  “No!” she cried, her voice cracking. “Heru-pa is your heir! I am… I am nobody!”

  “You are my daughter,” he whispered. “I should have told you sooner. I… I am sorry… I was trying to protect you.” His breathing grew slow and shallow.

  “Don’t speak,” she pleaded.

  “Your mother, she wasn’t looking for the Hall.” His words came out slowly, between labored breaths. “She was looking for me.”

  “I know… I know that now.”

  His face twisted again.

  “The legacy… it must be preserved.”

  Alyssa caved. Her tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks and dripped from her chin. She kneeled at his side, still as a statue.

  “It is time,” Horus said.

  He took a slow breath, as if to gather all of his remaining energy. Alyssa willed her muscles to move and helped him to his knees. He placed his palms on Alyssa’s head, his thumbs and forefingers forming a triangle.

  “I don’t know what to do…” she sobbed, his touch waking shivers under her skin.

  “Open your mind to me,” he whispered. Their gazes locked.

  “You are the legacy of Ra,” he said, his voice whispering away.

  His eye closed.

  Alyssa trembled, tears streaming down her cheeks. She focused on her breathing. A memory. Her mother’s eyes…

  I am Alyssa Morgan.

  Daughter of Horus and Anja.

  A blaze of light flooded her mind.

  I shall know no fear.

  Then darkness.

  The smoke billowed thicker with every step as Heru-pa clambered up the last few stairs, heaving, clutching Dharr in his arms. Another explosion tore through the building, pushing him onto the roof. He tapped his bracelet. Several long second later the jet appeared and touched down on the landing pad, lowering the ramp.

  Heru-pa lumbered inside. He stopped, his mind rejecting the abomination before him.

  Horus and Alyssa knelt, facing each other. His father’s clothes were stained with blood, his palms on Alyssa’s head, locked together in the sacred bond of legacy.

  Dharr slipped from his arms and hit the floor, moaning.

  Heru-pa roared. He rushed at Alyssa, his hand coiled around the hilt of his knife.

  “Stop!” Dharr’s voice rang through the cabin. “She is your sister!” Dharr’s voice was weak, but the words cut through Heru-pa, freezing him to the floor.

  He spun, his eyes burning bright with betrayal. “You lie!” he spat.

  “In the name of Ra,” Dharr’s voice rasped. “I speak true.”

  Heru-pa dropped the knife and collapsed beside Horus. He placed a hand on his chest, staring at his blood-soaked shirt.

  Horus’s hands slipped off Alyssa’s head and he slumped into Heru-pa’s arms.

  Alyssa’s chest rose and fell.

  “Alyssa?” Dharr moaned. He staggered to her.

  Her eyelids fluttered.

  “Alyssa, are you—?”

  The word died in his throat as she opened her eyes, yellow irises staring back at him.

  Nephthys stood on the spired tower and watched the jet take off from the landing pad on the tower across from the shattered dome. The blood pounded in her ears when she faced the girl on the floor. The girl’s violet eyes glared at her, defiantly, her back against the wall.

  “You have robbed me of my prize.” Nephthys’s words were barely a whisper through her clenched jaw.

  Yuri Korzo shuffled beside Nephthys, clearing his throat. “Her immunity to the ancient bioweapon is a promising development,” he offered meekly. “While we could not have predicted it, you have my assurance that we will get to the bottom of it.” He drew near the girl, a ghoulish smile on his face. “By the time I am through with you, Miss Renley, I shall know your deepest secrets.”

  The girl pressed her lips together into a white line.

  The door opened, and two other Purean soldiers stepped onto the roof, lugging a body between them. They threw the young man on the floor.

  The girl rushed to him. “Paul!”

  His eyes fluttered open. “Tasha?” he croaked, his eyes glossy.

  Korzo’s smile evaporated. He rushed to the girl and yanked her head back.

  “Your name is Tasha?” his voice trembled. “Where were you born?”

  “St. Petersburg,” she said, her lip curling.

  His hands shook as he pushed back the sleeve of her right arm. He spotted a small round scar on her upper arm, and he withered. He faced Nephthys with a pained stare.

  “It’s not the Horus virus to which the girl is immune,” he said. “She is immune to smallpox. The Horus virus never had a chance to infect her.”

  Nephthys pursed her lips. “Yet you claimed vaccinations to smallpox have been discontinued,” she said, her voice tight. “That there was no natural immunity to it?”

  “The vaccinations continued for much longer in Eastern Europe. I… I thought since she was Renley’s daughter—”

  “Lord Renley adopted me when I was a child,” Tasha interrupted, a smile building as she seemed to sense Yuri Korzo’s distress. “My birth name is Natasha Mendeva.”

  Korzo sank to the floor.

  Nephthys inhaled deeply.

  “Well, Miss Mendeva, it turns out you are not as useful to me as I had hoped.” She eyed the trio before them. “However, two of you could still be used as bargaining chips for my vessel. I have no use for the third one.”

  She motioned two of her men, who seized Korzo’s arms and hauled him to the edge of the tower. His eyes bulged as realization struck.

  “No, please!” he wailed.

  Nephthys gave a small nod. Yuri Korzo’s scream rang into the night as he plummeted through the flames and billowing smoke, fading out long before his body struck the ground.

  Nephthys faced the pair as her choppers drew near. “I hope that you are as dear to Alyssa Morgan as I think you are,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, “for your sake.”

  Epilogue

  South China Sea

  The constant hum of the jet hovered above the silent void inside Alyssa as she stood in the cramped cabin. The sterile metal surfaces added to the chill in her blood, a coldness that brought the synapses in her brain to a standstill.

  Dharr lay before her in a narrow cot, the needle in his arm connected to the saline bag above his head. His breathing seemed less labored than it was when she first brought him into the medical bay. She had transfused him some of her blood, hoping to slow the infection. Heru-pa seemed just as unaffected by the disease, at least so far, as she has been. He hadn’t moved from Horus’s side since he had come on board, completely ignoring Alyssa as he held a silent vigil over his father’s body in the aft cabin.

  Dharr’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Where am—?” The rest of the sentence was reduced to a fit of coughing.

  Alyssa lifted his head as the spasms seized his body. Dark soot mixed with drops of blood splattered the inside of the oxygen mask on his face. He lifted it over his head and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Alyssa pulled the mask back down over his mouth and nose.

  “You have to keep this on. You inhaled a lot of smoke.”

  Dharr looked like he was about to argue, but his lips tightened, and he nodded. His wheezing calmed, and he took deep, steady breaths.

  “We’re on the jet,” Alyssa said, “on our way to meet the others.” Her throat tightened when the image of Tasha’s limp body lying at Nephthys’s feet flashed across her mind.

  Not all of them…

  Alyssa took a steeling breath before asking. “Did Paul make it out?”
>
  “He was with the others during the evacuation. He should be on one of the transports,” Dharr replied.

  She exhaled, closing her eyes. Tears welled up behind her eyelids when the door opened.

  Heru-pa shot her a scathing glance from the doorway. “You have brought this upon us.”

  Alyssa wanted to argue, to deny it, but she could not find the strength as she stared at the pain hidden beneath the rage in his gaze. Tears threatened again to fill her eyes, but she refused to let them come.

  “Can the illness be cured?” Dharr broke the silence.

  “I received a message from Bes,” Heru-pa replied, his face glum. “They are working on slowing it down, but it continues to mutate.” His lips pressed into a tight line. “It will eventually destroy the Rathadi.”

  Alyssa’s stomach roiled at his words. “There must be something we can do!” she cried, her mind racing. “And why are you and I not affected?”

  Heru-pa glared at her, unblinking. He showed no flicker of acknowledgement.

  Dharr swallowed. “Thoth’s weapon can never harm Horus’s direct descendants.”

  “Is that why Nephthys wanted me? Because I’m a direct descendant?”

  Heru-pa drew near, his face a handspan from hers. “You may be Horus’s bastard child, but you will never be a true Rathadi,” he seethed. “You are an abomination.” He turned on his heel and left.

  Alyssa stood, frozen. A bitter taste choked her mouth.

  Dharr touched her hand. “It is his grief speaking.”

  What if he’s right?

  “It should have been Heru-pa, not me,” she said.

  “There was no time,” Dharr said. “Heru-pa knows it, even if he cannot admit it to himself.” He squeezed her hand. “You preserved the legacy.”

  Alyssa stood in sullen silence. She swallowed to gain her voice. “I thought I would have his memories,” she said finally.