Anubis Nights (26 page)

King Suppiluliumas was an older man who held himself with the confidence of a proven warrior. He still looked muscular and ready for combat. He sat on his opulent throne in a large hall on a ridge overlooking Hattusa. While it didn’t sport the colors the Egyptians used, it was still an impressive room with plenty of space. The floor was bricked over, and the walls had patterns painted on them but none of the cool paintings the Egyptians favored.

A number of guards and statesmen stood in various parts of the room. Several young men sat in chairs lined up behind the throne. One of the men whispered in the king’s ear. He nodded and faced the room.

“I understand my ambassador to Egypt has returned,” Suppiluliumas said.

Khattusa-zita approached when called. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“You’ve brought foreigners with you,” he said, looking at Hani, Kelly, and me. We didn’t approach. We kept our heads bowed respectfully and waited. This was Khattusa-zita’s show, and he promised he’d keep us safe. If he failed, Kelly would launch into battle, so I wasn’t worried.

“They were sent by the queen of Egypt to accompany your son, should you accept her offer, Your Majesty.”

“The letter was genuine?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“And why should we believe any of this?”

“Please allow me to introduce, Hani. He is a messenger from the queen of Egypt.”

Hani stepped forward. The little guy suddenly seemed to have a presence when he spoke. He rarely said anything to any of us, so I was surprised when his voice carried so much authority. “I have with me a letter from Queen Ankhesenamun. With your permission, I shall read it to you.”

“Very well,” said the king.

Hani pulled a papyrus tube from the waist of his kilt. He unrolled it, cleared his throat, and read, “I am angry that you doubted the sincerity of my offer. Never shall I take a servant of mine and make him my husband. I have written to no other country. Only to you have I written! They say your sons are many, so send one to me. I will marry him. To me he will be my husband, but in Egypt he will be king!”

Suppiluliumas shook his head. “If I send a son, you will take him hostage. I do not believe you will make him a king. Did not her husband raid Kadesh?”

Hani nodded. “And you attacked our holdings in Amki in response, but what my queen speaks is the truth. We can put an end to our hostilities. You need only supply a son who can become the king of Egypt.”

Khattusa-zita stepped forward. “Your Majesty, I have met with the Egyptian queen. I have verified her letter, and now Hani has also spoken to its veracity. Spring is upon us, and the queen is soon to lay her husband’s body to rest in a tomb. Do we send Hani and the foreigners back to Egypt alone, or do we send them back with a king?”

The king rubbed his chin and nodded. “This could be a very good thing. We can expand the realm and extend our power. No more wars with the Egyptians. It would be beneficial to have Egypt as an ally.”

The young man behind the king whispered in his ear again, and the old man nodded. The king turned to the young men lined up behind the throne. He pointed to a handsome young man. “Zannanza,” he said. “You shall unite the Hittites with the Egyptians.”

“You honor me, Father,” Zannanza said, bowing his head.

“You shall prepare to leave for Egypt immediately, my son. This is a wonderful day for the Hittites. We are making a friend from an enemy. Tonight we celebrate.”

***

It took several days to assemble a wedding party. Prince Zannanza had an entourage of seventy-five men, twenty bodyguards, and at least a hundred servants.

Khattusa-zita introduced us to the prince the morning we left to return to Egypt.

Hani, Kelly, and I bowed to the prince. He barely acknowledged us before waving us off with a dismissive finger twitch. He turned to an adviser and said, “My father has finally found a way to get rid of me. I’ll bet the queen is ugly and barren. I’d rather be leading a military campaign.”

Hani shrugged as if he’d expected this reaction, and he wandered off to prepare for the journey home.

I wanted to say something to the prince, but Kelly pulled me back.

“Not worth it,” she whispered.

“Ankhesenamun deserves better.”

“He’ll sing a different tune when he sees how lovely she is,” Kelly said.

“Maybe.”

“The prince just won the lottery. He gets a gorgeous wife, loads of wealth, and he gets to be the king of Egypt.”

“Maybe I should kill him and take his place,” I said.

Kelly laughed. “You’re too old for Ankhesenamun.”

“So are Aye and Horemheb, but they both seemed interested.”

“Speaking of those two, I think we’ll need to be ready for them to attack when we get back to Egypt. They aren’t going to want an enemy as a ruler.”

I nodded. “They won’t know what hit them.”

Kelly smiled. “You’ve got that right.”

“No,” I said. “You got that right. Say it right or don’t say it at all.”

“Clearly you’re not an English teacher.”

“It’s a rock-and-roll thing,” I said. “Bust out your inner Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

“I’ll pass,” Kelly said.

“What would you sing?” I asked.

“Kelly Clarkson. She has a great first name.”

“You don’t have hazel eyes.”

“No, but I’m stronger.”

I couldn’t argue with that. We laughed and joked, and talked about the things we missed from our time. We tried to enjoy the ride back toward Egypt. I wanted to make sure Ankhesenamun would be all right. Then we could try to get back to Brand. I sure hoped he and Esther were getting along.

RAYNA NOBLE

When they entered the Thoth Hermes Temple, Carlton escorted Rayna to the basement. They went down the old stairs into a darkened room. An awful aroma permeated the area. It smelled like a rotting corpse. Rayna wrinkled her nose and tried to breathe through her mouth. Little puffs of steam escaped her lips as she kept the fire stoked in her stomach. Her kind had tended dragons and had a few special skills.

A single electric lightbulb cast a circle of light on the stone floor. In the center, Rayna saw a wooden chair. On the outer edges of the light, she could see men standing in the shadows.

“The chair is for you,” Carlton said.

Rayna hesitated and Carlton shoved her forward. She staggered into the chair, nearly knocking it over.

“Please sit down, Miss Noble,” a voice in the darkness said.

“Am I speaking with Henry Winslow?” Rayna asked.

“Yes. Now please sit down.”

Rayna pulled the chair back a few feet so she wouldn’t have the light directly above her. She sat down and tried to see the faces of the men in the shadows. They all wore black robes and gold masks just as they had at the meeting.

“Can someone light some incense?” Rayna asked. She heard a shuffling in the shadows, and she wished she had something to mask the awful aroma. She pinched her nostrils closed. “Guess not. What do you want?”

“I’ll be asking the questions. You’ll be providing the answers.”

Rayna shrugged. She figured she might be able to learn a lot from the questions asked.

“You’ve been searching for me,” Winslow said.

“That’s not a question,” Rayna said.

“Why are you trying to find me?”

Rayna took a slow breath, wincing at the stench.
What would Jonathan say?
“I have a set of encyclopedias to sell you, but clearly I should have brought deodorizer.”

One of the robed men chuckled, but Carlton moved in front of her. “Show some respect,” he said and kicked her chair over backward.

When the chair hit the stone floor, Rayna wasn’t ready for it, and her breath escaped in a jet of flame. She hit her head on the floor. It hurt but not as much as losing that flame. It would take some time before she could restore the fire.

“What the hell was that?” Carlton asked. He rushed forward, preparing to kick her.

“Carlton, no,” Winslow said.

“She’s like some circus performer breathing fire!”

“And now she’s breathing steam. The threat is past. Do not harm her.”

Carlton clenched his fists and grimaced, but after another moment of hesitation, he stood down.

“Are you all right, Miss Noble?” Winslow asked.

“So far,” she said. She climbed to her feet, rubbed her head, and righted the chair before sitting down again. She glared at Carlton.

He smiled at her and stepped backward, swallowed by shadows.

“You are the second link,” Winslow said.

It wasn’t a question, so Rayna didn’t answer. She wondered for a moment if Carlton would be upset by her silence, but Winslow spoke again before Carlton did anything.

“Your mission is to kill me, but how do you kill someone who is already dead?”

“I suppose that depends on what kind of undead thing you are at this point. And my mission is not to kill you. My mission is simply to locate you. And guess what? I just did.”

“Miss Noble, I’m in touch with the other two aspects of my spirit. I know you were sent by Charon and Chronos, and that Jonathan Shade and Kelly Chan are in ancient Egypt while Brand Easton is somewhere in the 1870s. I haven’t met him yet, but I suspect I will before too long.”

“Was there a question in there somewhere?” Rayna asked. She readied herself in case Carlton or one of the other cowards in the shadows tried anything.

“I’m simply letting you know that I’m very much aware of what’s going on. I’ll ask you the same thing I asked your friends in the past. How do you expect to get home?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t have a link back to your own time. How do you expect to get home?”

“We’ll kill you and that will send us back.”

“Not without a link to your own time.”

Rayna thought about that. What Winslow said made too much sense. They really didn’t have a way home. She tried to keep the concern off her face when she realized it but failed.

“And now you see your dilemma.”

“We’ll find a way.”

“Perhaps, but I can help you if you help me.”

“Why would I help you? You’re a murderer!”

“I haven’t killed anyone.”

“Your asshole lackey here killed my friend.”

Winslow shuffled in the shadows. “What is she talking about? What did you do, Carlton?”

“Only what needed to be done. That detective was getting too close to finding us,” Carlton said.

“I did not give that order,” Winslow said.

“It was a judgment call,” Carlton said.

“A bad judgment call.”

“Baker got rid of the body. It’s fine.”

“I disapprove.”

“Yeah?” Carlton said. “Well, you need me, Henry! If not for me, you’d still be rotting in that morgue, or you’d be six feet under right now. Remember that.”

“And you need to remember that without me, you won’t be alive in six months. The cancer is spreading, Carlton.”

Carlton shook his head. “I don’t get it, Henry. Why don’t we just kill this bitch and be done with her? That way those others won’t be able to come here.”

“You imbecile,” Winslow said. “I want them to come here.”

“But that Shade guy killed you!”

“He didn’t know me then.”

“For all you know, that spell pulls him to your living body to kill you before coming here to destroy your corpse.”

“The timeline has already changed, Carlton. The Jonathan Shade who killed me won’t be there to kill me now. It’s a paradox or it’s a layered time event. Either way, things will get interesting.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rayna asked.

“Time has already been altered, Miss Noble. In the original timeline, you weren’t here. Nor was Brand Easton. In the original timeline, Jonathan Shade and Kelly Chan came back here with Charon, who was calling himself Sharon, and a woman named Naomi Miller.”

“Sharon couldn’t come back here.”

“Of course he could come here. Charon lied to you, Miss Noble.”

“Enough of this!” Carlton said. “What good does she do us if she’s alive?”

“If she’s alive and unharmed, I can win Jonathan Shade to my side,” Winslow said. “And if I can’t do that, we’ll still want Miss Noble alive because killing people is wrong and because she knows a good portion of what happens in the next eighty-some-odd years. Properly motivated, she will share that knowledge, and we will all live much more comfortable lives.”

“Why would I share with you?” Rayna asked.

Winslow laughed and stepped into the light. As she expected, Winslow was the source of the stench. His rotting body looked terrible. He gave her a smile. “How would you like eternal life?”

“Do I have to look like you?” she asked.

“Once my aspects reach me, I will be whole and the rotting will reverse itself.”

“So you hope.”

He smiled. “It’s all part of the spell, my dear.”

“Right. I think I’ll pass. I’ve known you only for a few minutes, and it already feels like an eternity.”

“I do hope you’ll change your mind. I don’t like hurting people.”

“Good. Then don’t.”

“When it comes to torture, it’s not me you need to fear. Carlton loves inflicting pain. Do us both a favor and don’t force me to unleash him. This doesn’t have to get ugly.”

Rayna met his gaze. “We’ll see about that.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JONATHAN SHADE

They attacked before we reached Egypt.

Kelly spotted the Egyptian army on a scouting run, and when she reported back to me, she said, “We should probably take a different route. There are too many of them.”

“Define ‘too many.’”

“Thousands.”

“Let’s talk to Khattusa-zita,” I said.

We approached the emissary, who rode his horse next to the prince’s stallion.

“We need to talk,” I said. Kelly and I were on foot, as were most of the men. The guards were on horses, and they flanked the group.

Prince Zannanza ignored me because I wasn’t royalty and, therefore, wasn’t fit to speak to him. I didn’t care. I just wanted to talk to Khattusa-zita.

“Give me a moment,” Khattusa-zita said and turned back to the prince to continue their conversation.