ISBN13: 978-1-933110-87-5.

THIS TRADE PAPERBACK IS PUBLISHED BY.

BOLD STROKES BOOKS, INC.

NEW YORK, USA.

FIRST EDITION, AUGUST 2007.

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND.

INCIDENTS ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR'S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS, EVENTS, OR LOCALES.

IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL.

THIS BOOK, OR PARTS THEREOF, MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY.

FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION.

CREDITS.

EDITORS: JENNIFER KNIGHT, SHELLEY THRASHER, AND J. B. GREYSTONE.

PRODUCTION DESIGN: J. B. GREYSTONE.

COVER GRAPHIC: SHERI (graphicartist2020@hotmail.com) By the Author The 100th Generation-The Ibis Prophecy: Book One

Acknowledgments.

So much to learn, it takes your breath away . I want to thank Thomas Behr for sharing his knowledge of the First Crusade, Yoni Debel for information on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Tim at DeHLTA for explaining how to blow things up. I am greatly indebted to Inga Horwood, who read the rough manuscript and critiqued me gently . Special thanks is due to gifted editors Shelley Thrasher and Jennifer Knight who, when you think you're fl ying, get rid of the hot air without taking the wind out of your sails (and would for example NEVER stand for a hideous mixed metaphor like that.) Thanks also to Sheri for a beautiful and insightful cover, to Julie Greystone for nipping and tucking in all the right places, to Ruth Sternglantz for Hebrew instruction, and above all to the awesome Radclyffe who keeps this whole enterprise going.

DEDICATION.

To Dr. Angelique Corthals, who brought me to Egypt, and to the Jewish-American Medical Project that brought me to Jerusalem.

DISCLAIMER.

This story deals with religion, monotheisms and polytheisms. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have all made their contribution to art, learning, and the formation of cultural ideas. Each has a core of goodwill and an attempt at a just moral code. But at their fringes are the dogmatists and absolutists whose otherworldly doctrines threaten the secular values of tolerance and basic human rights.

On the hard Christian right stands the politically powerful evangelist John Hagee and his 18,000-strong congregation, who ar gue that, to fulfi ll God's plan for the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ, the US must join Israel in a preemptive strike against the Arab world.

Judaism, which traditionally looks to Israel as its spiritual home, has its most militant proponents among the settlers who-supported by the Israeli military-pursue what they believe is God's plan to make all of Palestine Jewish and, in doing so, perpetuate confl ict in Israel and in the Middle East. Islam, it will surprise no one to learn, has Al Qaeda and other violent fundamentalist sects that see the West as satanic and seek to do it grave harm. In all cases, the mix of religion and politics is lethal.

This story, though fi ctional, suggests that religion be returned to where it started, in the reverence for the majestic, and sometimes vulnerable, elements of nature.

* 14 *

Vulture's Kiss

Prologue.

It was of a Friday , the very day and hour of Our Lor d's crucifi xion, that the city of Jerusalem was taken. The valiant duke, the knights, and the other men of arms descended from the walls into the city. All of them that they met they slew in God' s name, men, women, and children, sparing none. No prayer nor supplication could avail them. They slew so many in the streets that one might not pass but climb upon them that lay dead. The men went in bands, holding in their hands great poleaxes, swords, mallets, slaying all the heathen until the channels and gutters ran with their blood, and the streets were covered with the dead. Truly it were a lamentable thing, had these not been of the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ, and misbelievers, who had defi led the place with their foul law of Mohammed.

William of Tyre (c.1 181) trans. from Latin: William Caxton (1481) While the Frankish armies went rapine thr ough the city, on the high platform the noble emir surrendered. He came with our women and his guard and laid down his sword before the Frankish prince. The emir was courteously met and granted mer cy. Yet a knight coveted one of the women and sought to take hold of her . Strangely, a vulture came upon him suddenly and lit upon his chest, catching its talons in his garment and striking him in the face. The knight fell back, covering his eyes. An armbruster shot it thr ough with a bolt fr om his crossbow and it fl ew off. The knight was sorely vexed and snatched the woman's child into the air. A cry seemed to go out fr om the very wind to stay his hand.

Sharif al Kitab (fragment: c.1102) trans. from Arabic: Said Khoury (1998) * 15 *

* 16 *

Vulture's Kiss

1.

Haunted Valerie Foret remembered when the vultures came the day she died. Lying supine on the rocky dune, she saw them through dead eyes as they descended on her murderer.

The sandstorm stopped him from fl eeing, blinding him and choking the motor of his jeep. The wind ripped away the handkerchief that covered half his face as he jerked to a halt. He crawled beneath the dash on the passenger's side and tried uselessly to pull his shirt up over his head. But the tiny particles of the desert crept into his nostrils and along his throat. When he began to cough, he was already doomed, for each cough required an inhalation, and every inhalation forced more cutting sand into his lungs. He thrashed wildly , inhaling fi re and coughing out pieces of his lungs until the desert fi nally stilled him.

Abruptly the sandstorm stopped and left him staring sightlessly at her, his face a powder-caked kabuki grimace.

The vultures appeared next, a dozen of them, descending all at once around the jeep. One or two fl uttered near him, heads bobbing, and pecked tentatively at him. Others joined them, tearing through the fabric of his shirt to reach the tender fl esh. The rest gathered then, squabbling, displacing one another on the ground, in the vehicle, and on the still-warm cadaver.

Valerie watched the roiling mass of feathers through her own dead eyes, wondering if she was next, wondering how it would feel to be torn apart. Even if they did not devour her, she knew something would.

He was carrion for vultures, she for microbes; it made no difference in the end. All that mattered were the people who were left, the ones who would mourn or be outraged.

Sated, the fl ock of scavengers calmed and they withdrew from the hideous remains. They did not leave but seemed to wait for something, forming a rough circle on the ground. And then it happened. At the center the largest of them elongated vertically and assumed a new shape.

The narrow vulturine head broadened, the reptilian neck withdrew into * 17 *

itself, and empty eyes began to reveal expression. Wide wings drooped to the fl uttering tatters of a black abaya, and beneath the tatters a woman appeared. The croaking birds drew away from her with gobbets of fl esh still hanging from their beaks.

The apparition stood for a moment, gazing out over the desolate landscape, the last of the storm wind playing with loose strands of her long black hair. Finally she noticed the dead woman who stared at her, and she neared, moving mysteriously, with feet that did not quite touch the ground.

She was enveloped in a strange light, a bright darkness that seemed the residue of some unworldly place. Severe and powerful, she was stunning, in the perfect uncompromised way of a predator, with eyes as savage as the scavengers behind her and black as eternity.

The iridescent darkness around her expanded, both ominous and inviting. She extended one arm, clothed in the fl uttering thin black cloth, and the slender limb seemed to oscillate, now woman's arm, now blood-smeared vulture's wing. She beckoned, compellingly , but with eyes that offered nothing but abyss. That was the choice, Valerie knew.

To stay and decay into the desert sand or embrace the alien thing.

Dead, yet still she ached. Don't leave me here, she thought as the lovely monster loomed over her.

The shrill buzz of the three o'clock bell jolted her from her reverie.

Oh, right. Her last class. Damn. She had been staring out her offi ce window, lost in memory again, a frightening habit that had gotten worse in the last few months. How much was real memory and how much was the imagery of her feverish longing?

She shook her head. No time to brood on the question now . A.

classroom full of dullards waited for her to explain Egyptian theology.

She laughed inwardly. If they only knew.

* 18 *

Vulture's Kiss

2.

Trouble August 28. Brussels University, Department of Archaeology Vulture worship. That's a little disgusting." The well-developed young man who stood at the back of the classroom hooked his thumb over the belt of his jeans, causing his bicep to bulge slightly under the sleeve of his spotless white T-shirt.

Why did stupidity so often house in such robust bodies? Valerie wondered. Well, it was the last day of a summer review class for students with credit defi ciencies. What did she expect?

"But you are missing the point here." She circled to the front of the podium. "The animals had conquered the desert long before humans, and people had every reason to be in awe of them. The two goddesses, Nekhbet the vulture and Wadjet the cobra, could survive in the desert without water , and for the Egyptians, they symbolized a tenacious life force." She smiled at his simple masculinity . "Besides, Nekhbet appeared to mortals as a beautiful woman. You would have found her irresistible." She set the chalk down below her blackboard drawing of the vulture-form hieroglyph for "protection."

The young man slid the fi ngers of both his hands into his jeans pockets. "You think so? But what if in the middle of a hot kiss she popped back into a vulture? Not to mention in the middle of doing, you know, the other thing." The other students laughed openly and he sat down, smirking.

Only one student seemed unamused. A sleek, raven-haired woman sat in the front row and watched intently as the lesson continued, never lowering her eyes. She leaned back slightly , crossing and uncrossing blue-jeaned legs. Her dark blue blouse was a fraction too tight and unbuttoned a fraction too far down for classroom dress. A wave of black hair spilled over the slender shoulder into the visible cleavage. She took no notes, but ran her fi ngertip back and forth over closed lips.

* 19 *

Valerie directed her gaze elsewhere, though she kept returning to the disturbing anomaly , the dark shimmering spot that reduced everything else in the room to dullness. Her unrelenting stare made it hard for Valerie to concentrate.

She forced her attention back to the young man. "If you fi nd the vulture goddess disgusting, Monsieur Vernaud, then you'll really have trouble with Khepre, the dung beetle who created the world by rolling up a ball of cow feces." The class murmured appreciation. "But never forget, we are talking about one of the fi rst great cultures of humankind, and their divinities were their way of dealing with nature. When the gods were revered, nature was revered. Rather more reasonable than having to placate a vengeful father-god, don't you think?"

The four o'clock bell spared her any further youthful disdain. The students stood up murmuring their private conversations and gathering their things, all but the dark-haired one, who was suddenly beside the podium.

"Do you have a question, Mlle...uh...?" She couldn' t remember the girl's name, couldn't actually remember seeing her in class before.

The student hunched her shoulders slightly as her male counterpart had done and slid her fi ngers into the two front pockets of her jeans. What was it about blue jeans that lent them so easily to sexual posing?

"Belle Cather ." The student shrugged for no apparent reason, drawing up her shirt in a curve under her perfect breasts. "I'd like to talk to you privately, if that's possible." She glanced toward the other students who were going through the door or who hung back waiting their turn to talk to the professor.

Valerie was taken aback. Asking for a private conference usually meant the student wanted an exam postponement. In this case, there was no exam. What was going on?

"Uh, well, yes, certainly, Mlle Cather." To her surprise, she found herself stammering. "I'm tied up with conferences the rest of the afternoon, however. Can you tell me what you need to talk about?"

Five or six other students were closing in from the periphery, each one with a question.

The young woman dropped her eyes. "Something important that I need to discuss in private. If you don' t mind." She pressed her lips together as if stifl ing the rest of what she had to say.

"Perhaps after the other conferences. In my offi ce. I have a few * 20 *

Vulture's Kiss minutes before a dinner meeting with the dean."

"No." The lovely creature looked at her through long lashes that were the same jet black color as her hair. "It will take more than a few minutes. I will come after dinner. Will eight o'clock be late enough?"

Valerie glanced at the other students who were already within earshot. Her inner alarm was beginning to sound. Student fl irtation.

Danger her e. Frivolous, unethical, r eckless. Twenty-one, too much makeup, too much libido, too little intellect, nothing to offer but one brief thrill. Danger. Run away.

"Yes. Eight will be fi ne," she answered quickly and directed her attention to the next student in line.

Valerie stayed in the empty classroom for a moment and stared at the vulture hieroglyph. What the hell had just happened? More to the point, what was going to happen? Was it the sex-char ged air of the young students that weighted everything toward the carnal? She didn't know, but something about the black-haired girl had affected her.

Whatever the discussion at eight o'clock that evening, it was unlikely to be about Egyptology, or even meaningful. Well, no matter. She had given up the thought of having anything meaningful with women.

The last time she had found "meaning" was in a Bedouin tent somewhere in the vast Egyptian desert. By the fl ickering light of an oil lamp, she had poured out her secrets to a mysterious woman and given herself to someone-to something-about which she knew nothing.

Yet when their lips had fi nally met, the Bedouin had not given back desire, but revelation, a staggering apocalyptic vision. It had changed the meaning of everything Valerie knew. Meaning in the place of passion. Enough meaning for her to lose her life over.

Since that night, Valerie had felt empty. No woman's kiss moved her beyond mere lust, and she sometimes wondered-half laughing at herself-if she had simply lost her taste for mortals.

She glanced through the open door where Belle Cather , full of promise, had disappeared.

Well, lust would do.

* 21 *