Anubis Nights (19 page)

“One fifty.”

He bit his lip. “Do you know how risky this is?”

Rayna smiled. “Look at me,” she said.

He looked.

“I’m young and I’m easy on the eyes.”

He nodded. “I can’t argue with that assessment.”

“They’ll thank you for the introduction, Thaddeus.”

He placed a finger on his lips and nodded. “Two hundred.”

“One seventy-five and that’s final.”

“Very well. Make the payment to Lincoln. I can’t be seen taking your money. I’m going to leave now. You two need to wait five minutes before you go.”

Rayna forced herself not to laugh. “Whatever.”

Thaddeus looked around one more time then slid to the end of the bench, rose quickly, and strode across the stone bridge, moving past an old man who looked vaguely familiar. The old man shambled off, and Rayna forgot about him.

Rayna laughed. “Your friend is a character.”

“He takes the Order seriously,” Lincoln said.

“What’s your cut?”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s having me pay you, so I know you get a cut. How much?”

“Twenty percent.”

“Thirty-five dollars.”

“I have bills to pay.”

Rayna wasn’t sure how one hundred seventy-five dollars in 1926 would compare to 2014 money, but she suspected it would be less than a thousand dollars. She had shoes that cost more than that.

KELLY CHAN

I wasn’t happy having Henry Winslow staying in our residence. Wow. Here I am saying our residence as if it belonged to us. As if we were a couple. Winslow was an intruder, though.

Sadek and Tuya brought a few male servants over, and they partitioned off a sleeping area for Winslow. To his credit, he did what he could to give us some privacy. Like the Egyptians, he was under the impression that Jonathan and I were man and wife.

Jonathan slept while I lay awake thinking. Getting home didn’t matter so much to me as long as I was with Jonathan. Wherever he was, that’s where I wanted to be so I could protect him. If Winslow was lying and he tried to hurt Jonathan, I would kill the man. Jonathan seemed to trust him, though, and while I didn’t want to believe Winslow, he did seem to be honest, and what he said made sense.

I turned onto my side and stared at Jonathan while he slept. He was keeping a secret from me and had been keeping that secret for a good six months. Last December he’d changed significantly in a matter of hours. He’d gone from a joking, fun-loving man who could always find a way to make things work to a hardened killer. The change was so sudden, it shocked me. I tried not to think about it, but staring at him in the darkness, I couldn’t help it.

What had happened to him?

Four months later, we protected Rayna from the Marshall Clan, a group of men from another dimension who killed her family. About the time he started sleeping with Rayna, he shifted back to being able to joke around, but he still had that hard edge. She’d softened him some—humanized him. But that hardness was still coursing through him. I liked that he could joke around again. I liked that he could pretend he was his old self.

I was supposed to be the hardened killer.

Being with Brand was an okay distraction, but just when Brand started to get interesting, we broke up.

I remembered the night he took me home from DGI. I shoved him aside when he tried to help me to bed.

“I can do it,” I said.

“I know you can,” Brand said, “but I’m here for you.”

“I don’t want you here,” I said. I didn’t want anyone there. I was supposed to be completely healed, and I wasn’t supposed to be afraid.

If he saw that fear, he wouldn’t respect me.

“I gave up everything for you,” he said.

And it was true. He’d been a Sekutar warrior. He’d still had years before the residual magic would fade and he’d be a normal man again. But he gave that magic to me.

“That was your choice,” I said.

Brand looked stunned and hurt.

“Well, if that’s the way you see it,” he said.

“It is,” I said, regretting the words even as they left my mouth.

“Well, I guess that’s it, then.” He turned and left me alone.

I could handle being alone. I was always alone.

Brand called me the next morning to apologize even though I was the one who owed him an apology. He forgave me and we didn’t tell anyone about our breakup. We didn’t spend much time together unless Jonathan set something up. So it was easy to slip back into the lonely life I’d led prior to Brand.

I felt like a bitch because Brand gave up being a Sekutar to save me, and I knew he loved me, but I just wasn’t in love with him. He seemed to think I wouldn’t want to be with him now that he was a regular man. The trouble is that I didn’t really want to be with him even when he was a Sekutar, but I’d been so lonely that I took what I could get.

But what I wanted—what I’d always wanted from the moment he saved me—was Jonathan.

I wasn’t sure we could have a real relationship. I wasn’t sure he’d want to be with someone like me. With a little time, I hoped to see if there could be something more there. I felt we were making progress even though I felt bad because he was with Rayna. I just hoped he would see me differently and might soon choose to be with me instead.

But Winslow had to come along and get in the way.

I had half a mind to get up, go to his room, and strangle him in his sleep.

Instead, I got up and pulled on one of those sheath dresses the servants had brought. The dress came to just below my breasts, and I hung my hair to cover myself. My regular clothes were drying.

I slipped out of the residence and wandered the grounds. There were a few guards out, but they didn’t see or hear me. I knew how to carry myself, and my footfalls were so silent, I wouldn’t disturb a rabbit.

In the distance, I saw Ankhesenamun standing under the colonnade leading into the royal palace. She leaned against an adobe railing with her head down.

As I approached, I intentionally made some noise so she’d look up.

“It’s late,” I said. “I see you can’t sleep either.”

She smiled at me, but it was a sad smile. “Please, come over.”

I joined her at the rail.

“You’re dressing like an Egyptian,” she said with approval.

“Yes,” I said. “How is King Tutankhamun?”

She shook her head. “He’s going to die. The gods have willed it.”

“What happens to you if that comes to pass?” I asked.

She stared at the ground. “I will have to choose a husband.”

Women were mostly equal in Egypt but not when it came to rule. When Hatshepsut ruled, things were fine, but she was really coregent with her son. He preferred warring to ruling, but when he took over as pharaoh, he had her name struck from all the records and temple walls. She’d done a lot of building, but as far as Egypt was concerned, she no longer existed. Ankhesenamun would need a husband because she didn’t have a son. Whomever she chose would rule, but she would lend her husband legitimacy through her royal blood, even though the Egyptians hated her father, Akhenaten.

I understood all of that, so I simply nodded. “We spoke of this briefly. Have you given it any thought since then?”

“I have.” She sighed. “I don’t want to marry anyone in the royal court. I’ve seen the way Aye looks at me, but he is an old man and a commoner. I suspect he and Horemheb had something to do with the attack during the race, but I cannot prove it.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“If I marry one of them, they will keep me around for a short time then kill me as soon as they feel the people have accepted them. I’m young. I have many years ahead of me. But only if I choose correctly. I’m thinking I should contact Suppiluliumas because he has many sons. If I marry one of them, I would be safe for a time.”

When I looked into her eyes, I saw that she was scared.

“I don’t understand all your customs. Would people accept a foreign king?”

“They will not have a choice. There may be dissent among the royal court, but the people know their place, and when they see that life is good for them, they will not be a problem. Horemheb will not like it at all. He has led campaigns against the Hittites before. He will be furious, so if I do this, he must not find out in advance. He would be a very dangerous enemy.”

“If it comes to that, Jonathan and I will protect you. We are very good at what we do.”

“Your husband’s magic is strong. Even Aye says so, and Aye is not easily impressed. But I do not wish to delay your journey. I know you’re only passing through.”

We hadn’t told her Winslow was our man because it seemed wise to have her believe she was beholden to us. I didn’t expect Tut to live more than a few days, and from that point, it would be seventy days before he would be buried because his body would need to be mummified first, and they’d have a period of mourning. By the end of that seventy days, Ankhesenamun would need to choose a husband. I didn’t think anyone would try to kill her before that because they needed her royal blood.

Seventy days was a long time. Brand and Rayna were expecting us to finish sooner than that, but I couldn’t turn my back on this girl.

“I’ll speak with my husband,” I said. “He’ll see things my way. We will stay to protect you until you are safely married.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

JONATHAN SHADE

The next morning, I paced the room, thinking about whether or not I should have killed Winslow. Part of me felt I’d missed my golden opportunity. Part of me felt he wasn’t a bad guy at heart. He just wanted to live.

What he said made sense, but by the same token, he was here to gain power and once he had that power, he’d be impossible to defeat. As such, he could easily be tossing out a load of crap to keep me from killing him while I could.

But I kept going back to the idea that Sharon had tricked me.

There was no way home.

Kelly entered the room. “How’s your knee?” she asked.

“It hurts but I can walk on it. Where were you last night? I woke up and you were gone.”

“Talking with Ankhesenamun. Tut is going to die in the next day or two.”

“Well, he did die young. If he wasn’t supposed to die at this point, he would have kicked off soon anyway, so time will even things out.”

“What about Ankhesenamun?”

“What about her?” I asked.

“They’ll force her to marry someone, and they’ll probably kill her.”

“I’m not as up on Egyptian history as you are. Is that how things are supposed to go down?”

Kelly shrugged. “I don’t know but I don’t like that idea. I think we should stay here and protect her until she has a proper husband.”

“You just said they’ll probably kill her at that point. So are you really saying we should stay here and forget about getting back to Brand and Rayna?”

“She’s thinking about lining up a husband from another land. If we can make sure she’s safe until that marriage is secure, it would mean a lot to me.”

“How long would that be?”

“A few months.”

“Brand and Rayna are waiting for us. I feel like we should have already gone to them.”

Kelly gave me a guilty look. “I sort of promised Ankhesenamun that we’d stay here for her until she was married.”

I closed my eyes. “You did what?”

“She’s afraid. Our job is to help people, and Ankhesenamun needs our help.”

“What are you proposing?”

“We can take Ankhesenamun around Egypt and see the land. Then once Tut is entombed and she has a husband in place, we can go.”

“By ‘go’ you mean kill Winslow.”

“Just his aspect. He has two more.”

“You’ve had some time to think. Do you believe him?”

“About Sharon?”

I nodded.

Kelly frowned. “I don’t know what to believe.”

A knock sounded on the wall, and Winslow leaned in. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “Are you discussing when you’re going to kill me?”

“More like if,” I said.

“May I offer an alternative?”

“I’m listening.”

“I can go forward to my next aspect as soon as I can use the tablets. I can take you with me. That way, you won’t have to kill me.”

“And we should trust you why?” Kelly asked.

“I’m trusting you right now,” he said. “You could kill me at any moment and move forward in time, but you haven’t done that. Deep down you know I’m telling the truth.”

“And you think you can get us back to our time using the tablets?”

“No. But I can keep you young while you work out a way to get home.”

“How long will it take you to work out how to use the tablets?” I asked.

Winslow shrugged. “Hard to say. It’s complicated but I hope to be able to translate enough to make a go of it within a week or two. Of course, it might take months. I wish I could give you a better answer, but it’s very draining to work on it because it draws power from me as I study it. I need to draw from it instead.”

“What do you know about this time period?” I asked. “Do you know what happens after King Tut dies?”

“I have no clue. I remember all the fuss when they uncovered his tomb. Howard Carter was quite the celebrity for a few years. But I don’t know anything about what happened to Tutankhamun or his wife.”

“I trust you overheard our conversation?”

“Most of it. Sorry. Voices carry in here.”

“Then you know my dilemma.”

“I do. You have a choice to make, Jonathan. Do you want to kill me now?”

“I don’t want to kill anyone, but technically you’re already dead.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled it to his chest. “Really?” he asked.

I could feel his heart beating.

“You died in 1926.”

“And I’m alive right now. Is my life forfeit so you can go kill me again?”

“It’s not like that.”

“It would be murder, Jonathan. I’ve done nothing to you, and you’re talking about ending my life.”

I turned away from him. “Damn it,” I said. “This whole situation sucks ass.”

Winslow put a hand on my arm and pulled so I’d turn around. “You have a gun,” he said. “Take it out and put a bullet in my head right now.”