* 29 *

7.

Summoned Valerie dropped down on a chair . "Yussif is dead? When?

How?"

"See for yourself." Nekhbet pointed to the small television atop the bookshelf, a device she seemed to accept but would not touch.

Valerie clicked it on and swept through the stations until she found a news broadcast. The tidy, attractive form of Worldnews correspondent Najya Khoury appeared, leaning toward the camera while behind her a fi re raged. Explosion, derailment near Qena on the night train from Luxor, she reported. Fatalities unknown but terrorism suspected.

"He was on that train?" Valerie knew the answer.

"Yes. He lies on the ground and his ka is departed from him."

Valerie sat slack-jawed, remembering Yussif's scowling bearded face that would break into a radiant smile at the sight of his gor geous wife or her infant daughter . She recalled their conversations on the long march through the desert, and the surprisingly deep intelligence of the man. Precious few Egyptian men would marry a woman with an illegitimate child by a black foreigner. "Does Derek know?"

"He does." She indicated the phone, which at that moment rang.

Valerie answered, still staring at the images on the television screen and at Najya Khoury, reporting in the scripted tones of the newscaster.

"Derek? Is that you, dear?"

He answered breathlessly , his voice higher than usual, from the shock of the sudden tragedy. No time for a long conversation, no night for chitchat. They agreed to leave right away for Cairo on Thursday fl ights, he from Paris and she from Brussels. They could plan everything else once they were together.

"I'll call you with my fl ight information," Valerie said. "I'll telephone Auset too, fi rst thing tomorrow morning." She set down the phone, her head swimming. "This will change everything."

"No. It changes very little."

Nekhbet's beautiful lips were pressed thin. "The same crisis looms * 30 *

Vulture's Kiss as before. Your seas are dying, and the wild places are despoiled. The land and air are poisoned, and the Aton still whispers in the ears of the powerful. This is but a small tragedy."

"It is not small to Auset. I thought the gods were protecting us."

"We protect the Child above all, but we are not omnipotent. And Yussif...we never thought-"

"Because he was not part of the original plan. Yes, I know," Valerie said bitterly. She closed her eyes and forced the anger away. "All right.

As you heard, I've made arrangements to leave Wednesday night."

Nekhbet did not move and merely raised her chin a little. "There is something else."

"Oh? Yet another disaster?"

Nekhbet ignored the sarcasm. "Where is our Book? The chronicle you were called to write two years ago. We have waited."

Valerie took a step toward her desk and yanked open the top drawer .

"You mean this?" She lifted out a thick manuscript held together by rubber bands and dropped it with a thud on the desktop. "I fi nished your damned Book a year ago, and it's only now being published. By a small women's press. I don' t imagine they see themselves as apostles of a new religion, though."

Valerie laid her hand on the printout. "This cost me a year's work and kept me from the professional articles I should have been writing.

What about your side of the agreement? You were supposed to look after us. But for two years I have seen no sign of you."

"I made no agreement," Nekhbet said, aloof.

"Not in so many words, I suppose." Valerie fumed for a moment.

"Damn it. I died for you. I went into the underworld because of you.

The memory of it haunts me all the time."

"Many have died for us and in far worse ways. You can make no claim to martyrdom. You descended into the underworld and fl ed from it again." Nekhbet' s glance swept around the offi ce. "You have recovered from death quite well."

"Martyrdom is the last thing I would claim. I only want you to protect us a little. No one did that for Yussif. Is he in the underworld?"

The goddess would not meet her gaze. "It is complicated. We will talk later about that. First do as I tell you."

"Talk later? When will that be?" Valerie replaced the manuscript * 31 *

in its drawer, but when she glanced back, she was alone. She exhaled angrily, uselessly, and walked over to the offi ce window, trying to sort her thoughts.

Below her, in what remained of the summer evening, students were emerging from the lab or the library. They had no idea this bizarre other world of ghosts and animal-headed gods waited just outside their own. That once again, after millennia, nature and their own jealous authoritarian god confronted one another . And that she, of all people, was chosen to be the one to tell them.

She felt uneasy about Cairo. If Islamists were blowing up trains, things had gotten very bad again. And dangerous for a white European.

She unlocked her bottom desk drawer , lifted out a .38 revolver , and dropped it into her briefcase.

* 32 *

Vulture's Kiss

8.

Brussels to Cairo Gods, how she hated crowds. She had become an Egyptologist in order to spend time in the vast openness of the desert, and now here she was trapped in a tiny seat in an airplane. The tall man who sat next to her had been politely silent for the entire trip, for which she was grateful, but he blocked ready access to the aisle. Worse, the person in front of her had reclined his seat to nap and thus removed another third of her airspace. She was caged, and even when she escaped to walk in the aisle, which she had done repeatedly , she had always to return to her confi nement.

She stared out the window into blue sky above and vaporous clouds below, starved for openness. Finally through a gap in the cloud she glimpsed land. The dun-colored patches told her they had crossed the Mediterranean and reached Africa. She guessed they were curving over the Libyan plateau and, mercifully , were only about half an hour from Cairo.

Seeing the desert from such a height called to mind the soaring vision that Nekhbet had once given her . Valerie smiled inwardly at the chain of events that had led up to that moment: the four of them wandering in the desert carrying a stolen mummy , the encounter with the Bedouins, the strange midnight invitation to the Bedouin tent, the tense, thrilling fl irtation with the beautiful woman under the veil, and fi nally, the shattering kiss. The kiss she had craved her whole life, without knowing it.

She could not even fi nd a word to describe the ecstasy that she had experienced. For the briefest moment she had been caught up in pure, scorching eroticism, but just when she feared she would die from it, her consciousness had slipped free of the physical and become pure thought and image. She had witnessed Egypt, all of it, throughout its history, complete with the desecration and destruction of its gods. The wonderful, terrible vision had told her that, in spite of the kiss, she was not so much loved as needed. That through the mummy they carried, * 33 *

she was tied to those gods and that she was called to bring them back to the world.

She sighed. Here she was again, still needed but not loved, on a mission to rescue a man who had been dead three thousand years. Not just any man, but her own distant ancestor , himself once martyred for the gods. She had grown to like him, this priest of Hathor , who had come into her life as a ghost. Now his ka, the spirit that could live as long as form and substance existed to house it, had disappeared, and she was ashamed that she had let it happen. Why had she not thought of making the statue when they entombed him?

Of course the whole point of the ka's appearance in the tomb had been to prepare them for his last descendant, the precious infant who was born fi nally at the end of their fl ight through the desert.

Nefi made it all worthwhile. Half black, half Egyptian, of parents who were Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and pagan, she was their hope.

Born on the Egyptian New Year's morning, in the sanctuary of Hathor's temple, and welcomed by all the gods of Egypt, she was somehow the seed of both the new and old religion, though it was not clear how . Even the name the gods had given her , Neferenepet, which simply meant "The beautiful new year," only hinted of her destiny.

For that matter, Valerie had no idea what any of them were destined for. She had written the Book called for in the scribe god' s prophecy, describing the gods' spectacular appearance in the night sky over the temple, yet she still had no idea how the gods would fi nd their way into a world fraught with religious turmoil or what ef fect they would have.

They seemed to have little interest in human af fairs and no power to infl uence them. With their headpieces that marked them as wind, river, harmony, wrath, fertility, and countless animals, they were simply the powers-or fragilities-of nature. She found it somewhat endearing that they did not rule, or impose laws that commanded how humans should behave, dress, eat, and love.

On the other hand, on her more contentious days, the struggle of the Egyptian gods to be recognized seemed preposterous. If the gods did not reward or punish, or even provide any real guidance, what good were they? What was a god, anyway?

* 34 *

Vulture's Kiss The seat-belt light fi nally went of f, and the passengers stood to retrieve luggage from the overhead compartments. Dulled by the half sleep she had fallen into, Valerie sat patiently, hating the crush of people worse than the confi nement of her seat.

She peered drowsily at the passengers as they shuffl ed toward the exit, and for an instant, as if in a dream or nightmare, the man at the front of the line took on the snout and ears of a jackal before he ducked his head through the doorway and moved out of sight. Anubis?

she thought, astonished. Behind him, the man who had sat next to her through the fl ight suddenly had a falcon' s head. He seemed to stand taller for an instant; then, as Horus, he too passed through the doorway.

The woman that followed presented Wadjet's cobra's head. Tasting the air with her forked tongue, she curled briefl y toward the passenger behind her. Valerie wondered if the next one would be Nekhbet, but no, she sprouted the horns of the cow goddess Hathor, a sphere of light suspended between them.

A spark of divinity ignited in one passenger after another. Valerie named them to herself. Horus, Wadjet, Hathor , Amun, Shu, Nuut, Sekhmet, Ptah. Only the last one in the line, a man who bore an extraordinary resemblance to the actor John Gielgud, nodded toward her, his puckered mouth morphing into the long ibis beak of the scribe god Jehuti. Then he too exited the cabin and Valerie remained sitting, stupefi ed.

A hand touched her shoulder lightly. "Madame," a steward said, "I am sorry to wake you, but we have arrived. Can I assist you with your luggage?"

* 35 *

9.

Cairo, Mother of the World Valerie stared at the sky , watching a lone vulture glide in soundless arcs. She imagined what the airport must look like through its miraculous eyes as they surveyed the land from high above. Nothing but a wide strip of concrete in the middle of a sandy wasteland.

Derek's plane had been on the ground for half an hour , but customs was no doubt holding him up. He would not have had time to apply for a visitor's visa in Paris and would have to do it here before he could leave the airport. And so she waited, impatience sapping all other emotions, even the sorrow and dread she had carried with her for the past forty-eight hours.

She returned to the poorly air -conditioned terminal and paced for a few minutes, then stopped to look through the glass wall at the runway. Light struck her from somewhere at the side, and she could see her refl ection in the glass. Rumpled clothing and disheveled hair . Oh damn, she thought. I look terrible. She stepped closer and studied her own tired face. Six months teaching in Brussels had left her pale again, and her sun-bleached hair had returned to its original light brown.

Yussif had once compared her oval face and visible cheekbones with those of Fairuz, the Lebanese singer. He had meant to compliment her, of course, since the young Fairuz was a beauty , but the aging star also became famous for her scowl. Valerie had tried to smile more, but it always felt fake. She had to laugh at the comparisons men were always making. Derek too had meant to compliment her by referring to her "Cleopatra eyes"-not realizing that Cleopatra was Greek, not Egyptian. She wondered if Fairuz-or Cleopatra-ever looked as puffy and tired as she did now.

Ah, there he was, fi nally. She watched him for a moment before they met and embraced. Usually ebullient, he was subdued. Then she realized he wasn't alone.

A large, slightly rumpled man in pale blue trousers strode beside * 36 *

Vulture's Kiss him, carrying a matching suit jacket folded over his arm. Two others walked in step behind them. Their expressions, devoid of cheer or even interest in their surroundings, revealed they were not tourists. Their massive shoulders and set jaws gave them the demeanor of hit men.

"Valerie, dear." Derek kissed her lightly, then stepped back.

He was still heartbreakingly handsome. Lar ge eyes rimmed with lashes of extraordinary length were set above cheeks a shade lighter than the rest of his dark face. As always, they gave him a sort of radiance, even when he mourned.

He took her hand, nervously, as if he knew his next remarks would be unwelcome, and indicated the blue-suited man. "Valerie, this is my stepfather, Reverend Harlan Carter. He's engaged to speak at the East-West synod in Cairo later this week, but he met me in Paris so we could fl y together. He also wants to...uh...meet his granddaughter."

Valerie focused on the reverend, holding a weak smile. He was fl eshy, from his wide, short neck and thick shoulders to the muscular roundness of his chest and belly , encased in an expensive white shirt.

He wore suspenders, the stylish kind that bankers wore, and pinned to his shirt pocket was a small crimson metal cross. But most shocking of all was his color.

He was white, or had been white, before the Egyptian heat had rendered him an apoplectic pink.

Regaining her composure, she of fered him her hand. He took it courteously, but cupped his own hand to prevent their palms from touching. Half a handshake. "So, you are the young lady who brought my son to the heathens. We fi nally meet."

Valerie supposed he intended his remark as a witticism, but no one smiled and he seemed not to notice.

"Oh, how nice," she said blandly , concealing annoyance. Auset would need a great deal in the coming weeks, but she did not need a Protestant clergyman.

She glanced toward the two cheerless men behind him, and a third she hadn't noticed before.

"This is Mr. Dredding, my lawyer and advisor." Reverend Carter laid a hand on the shoulder of the older man, the only one who wore a hat, a pale straw porkpie. "These other gentlemen are here to look after me." The bulky hit men nodded perfunctorily . "I am so sorry * 37 *

about your friend's death, Ms. Foret. God acts in mysterious ways, his wonders to unfold. Perhaps it is His way to bring the little girl back to her real father."

Speechless at the cler gyman's tactlessness, Valerie glanced at Derek, who only gave a tiny shrug. Falling silent, the six of them moved on to Baggage Claim, where they spread out along the carousel.

Valerie stood beside Derek and jabbed him with her elbow . "You never told me he was white. All these years I've been imagining him as black."

He saw his luggage emer ge from the bottom of the chute and yanked it off the treadmill with a single swing. "I didn' t mention it? I thought I did. Well, what difference would it have made?"

"I don't know. None, I guess. I just imagined him as a sort of Martin Luther King, but he's more like Colonel Sanders. Anyhow, would you explain to me again why he came with you-at a time like this?"

"Frankly, I was a little put of f myself when he told me. But he was already engaged for these sermons with the synod. I told him about Yussif being killed, and an hour later he called again to announce he'd changed his schedule to be here with me. What could I say?"

"You could have said this is a delicate private matter and you prefer to deal with it alone."

Derek looked pained. "W ell, he' s here now . He'll do his preaching thing and at some point pay his respects to Auset, inspect his granddaughter, and then leave."