She stepped back to appraise him. She could see the dif ference now between him and Rekemheb, though the ka radiance shone from both of them. "I see you made it past the judges after all."

His mouth twitched toward the side. "Only just.

The scales doomed us both for our heavy hearts. Jehuti spoke for us, but even he had to make a deal with the judges. He promised them a new believer to show the prophecy was still on, but of course that depended on you."

He hugged her again. "I knew you could do it."

"You've answered one important question. No, you don't need to be mummifi ed."

"Yes, but since we're not, Yussif and I are sort of temporary. We're * 214 *

Vulture's Kiss going to need some statues quickly before...you know . Before we fall apart." His eyes lit on Najya, who still stood, frozen, at the entrance.

"Who's your lovely friend, sweetie?"

"Oh, I'm sorry ." Valerie took Najya by the arm and drew her forward. "Derek, may I introduce Najya Khoury: journalist, Jerusalemite, and...the believer who saved you. Najya, this is Derek Ragin, my opera-singer friend. And that..." she nodded toward the embracing couple. "That, of course, is Yussif."

"Hello, Najya. Welcome to our side." Derek leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

She jumped at the spark of contact with the afterlife and drew away. "A pleasure, I'm sure. But you know . I'll...just stand over here out of the way while you all get reacquainted." Her glance slid to Yussif, who still whispered comfort to Auset, then to the third apparition.

He was bare-chested, as always, with his hands behind his back, but the smile on his usually somber face was new.

"Najya, this is Rekemheb, Priest of Hathor and our ancient ancestor, Derek's and mine."

"I fi nally meet your mysterious priest. Hello." Najya of fered her hand.Rekemheb took the hand, which seemed to send another jolt of otherworldliness up her arm, and bowed from the waist. "We have been doubly blessed. Our new sister is also very fair of face."

Najya smiled uncertainly, then glanced sideways at Valerie. "Is he fl irting with me?"

"Maybe. But I don't think he's right for you. You know...dead and all." Valerie addressed the ka again. "Why didn't you show yourself in your tomb? I was certain the statue ceremony had failed."

"I could not. I was too far gone and I had no substance. I gathered it slowly, but it was days before I could even move an object. And I had to do that, a very precious object, as you saw. That was more important than comforting you."

"The amulet. That was you, then. In the museum."

"Yes, to keep it safe for the Child. We could no longer leave it with you."

"Why not?" She dropped her eyes as the answer became self-evident. "Oh. You expected me to be killed too, is that it?"

"I'm afraid so," he said with unexpected candor . "Auset had just * 215 *

fl ed to the city of the Aton and you would soon follow . We could not protect you." Then he added, "It was Nekhbet's wish."

"Ah, Nekhbet. Of course." Then she heard the fl uttering in the next chamber, and at the edge of the circle of light she saw the great black wing.

"Nekhbet."

At the sound of her name, the goddess made a faint gesture, the smallest motion of her hand, and the chamber glowed. No lantern was visible, but the walls themselves emitted a soft amber light. Nekhbet stood before what might once have been a statue, but only the plinth remained.

Valerie ventured into the second chamber and confronted the familiar harsh beauty . She understood Nekhbet now and grasped the fragility of the prophecy. It could fail. It had failed once; she had seen it through Nekhbet's agonized eyes.

They were like an old married couple that had come full circle.

Valerie had passed through desire for the Bedouin, to abject awe of the goddess, to recriminations, and fi nally to a deep, abiding sympathy. She no longer needed Nekhbet to love her back.

"The hieroglyph for 'protection.' I understand it now ." She let herself fall into the fathomless coal black pupils. "I wish I could have seen you snatch her out of mid-air."

"I was not always so skillful," Nekhbet replied with quiet remorse.

Najya had followed Valerie into the second chamber and now stood beside her. She stared, rapt, at the entity who seemed to stand, but, in fact, hovered a centimeter above the ground.

The moment was as intense as it was awkward, and the air crackled, with what? Jealousy? Confusion? Valerie thought of the scene in the hotel room. She shook her head, shutting an internal door on the whole painful dynamic, and extended a hand in each of their directions.

"Nekhbet, this is our fi rst new believer , whom you have...uh...

seen before. A journalist. As the Book of the Dead says, she 'lives on truth, and none may testify against her.'"

"Be careful where you walk. This is a hallowed place." Nekhbet's reply seemed a non sequitur , and Valerie was disappointed. But then the goddess dropped her eyes to look between them, and her expression changed to tenderness.

* 216 *

Vulture's Kiss Nefi stood there, looking somber and troubled, as no two-year-old should ever be.

Valerie and Najya both made way for her , and she placed herself directly before Nekhbet. Taking hold of the black feathery garment just above the divine knee, she tugged gently, her little lips trembling.

"Netjeret nebu. Tcheni," she intoned solemnly.

"What's she saying?" Najya whispered.

Without taking her eyes from goddess and Child, Valerie whispered back, "She said 'Where is the yellow bird?' Don't ask me what it means."

"It is there, darling." Nekhbet pointed to a corner of the chamber , to a stone tablet that lay fl at on the ground. Covered with dust and streaked with the damp soil of the chamber, it had escaped their notice.

"Lift it up," she said to Valerie. "Please."

Najya and Valerie knelt by the tablet and brushed the dirt away from its edges. When they had exposed enough of the stone to take hold of it, they wrenched it upward onto its side. In the hollow of packed earth beneath rested a simple wooden box.

"Open it," Nekhbet said softly.

Valerie pried up the cover with shaking hands-and nearly dropped it again.

A tiny skeleton lay curled at the center. Its skull was cracked, and the tiny bones of its hands were still closed into fi sts. Its tattered smock, hidden from the light for centuries, still had its rust red color . At the front, an embroidered panel showed a yellow bird in fl ight.

Valerie felt a wave of unendurable sorrow.

"The hundredth generation," Nekhbet said.

"I know." Valerie touched the smock with the tip of her fi nger. "So this is where the jackals brought her . I'm glad." She closed the coffi n again and laid the tablet tenderly back in place. There would be no need to ever open it again.

Nefi stood now at the foot of the gravestone, her own fi sts clenched against her chest. She began to cry, with the weak, fearful sound of an abandoned baby. Behind her, Auset too looked ashen.

"Do not cry , Child." A male voice suddenly spoke. Rekemheb had entered the chamber , and his customary faint radiance seemed to increase at the center of his chest as he wafted near . He knelt on one knee before Nefi and carefully uncurled one of her fi sts.

* 217 *

"The bird you dreamt of is not gone," he said soothingly. "Look."

With that he scooped his hand into his own glowing chest. Withdrawing it, he held a bird, the size of a small parrot and as radiant as he was, perched on his knuckles. "You see, it is my ba."

Nefi stared at the creature, eyes glistening, then held out a fi nger to touch it.

Rekemheb smiled with both his faces, on his ka and on his ba.

"Now I will show you something even better."

With a deft twist of the wrist, he seemed to set his ba-bird on some perch back inside himself. He held out his empty hand for a moment, like a magician about to do a trick, then slid his fi ngers into the same place on her chest as he had on his own.

Enchanted, Nefi looked down as Rekemheb withdrew his hand and held it up to her. A budgie-like creature glowed at the center of his palm, lighting her face like a lantern from below. She watched it, rapt, her mouth forming an "O," then kissed its narrow head. The ba-bird opened its wings slightly and fl uttered.

"This is yourself, my precious one, and this is how you will come to us one day. But not for a very long time." Rekemheb let the ba-bird slip again into the infant chest. Nefi giggled softly, as if tickled, then grew solemn again as her ancient grandfather kissed her head in turn.

"Remember us, darling, and never be afraid," he said, and as he stood up again, he faded away to nothing.

Nefi sighed once and, like the exhausted baby she was, she raised her arms to be picked up by her mother.

"It is time you took her to her proper place, and we returned to ours," Nekhbet said, drawing a conclusion to the spectacle.

Auset was not satisfi ed. "So, what do we do now? Is this going to go on forever? The Aton can strike her a thousand ways, everywhere we go: not just madmen, but lightning, sandstorm, plane crash. I hate this and I want it to stop."

Nekhbet raised a hand. "The Aton in all his names is no force of nature. He is held aloft solely on the wind of men' s belief, like their nations and their exalted offi ces. His power to harm is only through his believers. You must be on guard against all those who represent Him too aggressively. But we will look after you. The Child is always under my wing. Return to Egypt."

* 218 *

Vulture's Kiss "And Derek's stepfather?" Auset added a fi nal objection, but her voice lacked conviction.

"His threat was small, as you surely knew ." Nekhbet clasped her hands in front of her in school-teacher fashion.

"And what about Nefi 's father...fathers, actually. They will be all right?" Valerie knew the answer, but wanted confi rmation.

Nekhbet backed away , apparently fi nished with the audience.

"You know well you must make a likeness of them, and you must do it soon, before their forms are taken back into the earth. Now go, my patience wears thin."

She looked again at Najya, her expression unreadable. With the sound of fl uttering wings, she assumed for an instant the shape of the great vulture, then a hollow of colorless air . An instant later the illumination in the chamber fl ickered out, and they were plunged into total darkness.

"Damn. I hate it when she does that," Valerie groused, fi shing in her pocket for the fl ashlight. She clicked it on and saw that the others had already moved toward the fi rst chamber.

"They've all gone," Auset said. "It's just us now." Nefi had fallen into exhausted sleep, and Auset shifted her higher on her shoulder.

Valerie touched her on the back. "Are you all right, Auset? After everything that's happened?"

"Yeah, I think so." Auset sighed. "I was a little crazy there for awhile, but I'm okay now. I have Nefi back and soon, I hope, Yussif."

Valerie swept the walls of the chamber one last time with the fl ashlight beam. "Then let's get out of this hole." She pointed the light beam toward the crevasse leading from the underground chambers back to the lowest chapel. Auset went ahead, and Najya walked by Valerie's side. "The story of a lifetime, and no one on earth will believe me," she muttered.

"I know what you mean," Valerie said as they slid along the Plexiglas panels and into the stone chapel. At the top of the stairs, the chapel of St. Helena was now dark, though a dull blue-gray came from * 219 *

the hemispheric windows high above them.

On the second stairway leading upward, Auset took a last look at the pit from which they had just emerged. Valerie stopped with her. "Do you trust Nekhbet now, after all this?"

"I don't trust any of them. I'm so sick of religion and religions.

Those gods and their priests and mullahs and rabbis. They throw you into despair from which they offer to rescue you again. I wash my hands of all of them."

"I know what you mean. As a scientist, I choose no religion, but unfortunately, religion keeps choosing me."

At the top of the stairs, Najya took the fl ashlight and went to offer assistance to Auset. The corridor that led to the portal was dark, as the rest of the church was now . Only the pale granite of Calvary loomed again before them on the left. Najya directed the fl ashlight along the stone fl oor of the corridor as she and Auset passed the great rock.

Two steps behind them, Valerie halted suddenly. "Oh, no."

* 220 *

Vulture's Kiss

51.

Ecce Homo She was full of dread, yet sick to death of dreading. She should have known. There was no way an alien deity like Nekhbet could penetrate so sacrosanct a place without provoking a response.

This was it then.

His long hair was matted with blood under the crown of thorns.

He was nearly naked, a ragged, bloodstained cloth around his hips the only covering. His pale white body was terrible to see, bruised and lacerated, and he hunched slightly. He did not speak, but only breathed painfully as a man exhausted and broken by torment.

Auset circled back, clearly impatient. "What is it?"

"She sees something," Najya answered.

To Valerie she said, "There's no one there. Only some dust from the rock. Come on, you're exhausted. We're all exhausted."