*HF* Shifting Sands
By Mufasa
Shifting Sands
Prologue
Somewhere in Southern Egypt
Frantically, her darkened hands dug through the scriptures, searching… looking. The sandstorm brewing outside was yet another reminder – aside from the sounds of shouting, screaming, and fighting outside the door – that she was on borrowed time. Furiously, she lashed out with her powers, ripping all the scriptures and tablets from the shelves with one swipe. There… in front of her… the iron plate.
She slapped her hand onto it, calling out into the air. “//To protect the House of Ra.//” (Translated from the Pharaohan.) With a white flash from her eyes, the iron plate flipped backwards revealing its prize for her. “//The Key…//” She withdrew the object, looking upon it with a mixture of reverence and fear. She ran her hand across the disc, her fingers tracing the R-shaped symbol etched into face by a mechanism unknown even in these modern times. Wrapping it carefully in thick-cut Egyptian silk, she tucked it in the pocket of her dress, hoping her own considerable power may help to mask its signature. Their enemies were unaware of the Key’s existence… and she planned to keep it that way.
The roar from the doorway snapped her back to reality. Momentarily chiding herself for letting her defenses down in these most dire of times, she spun around, her eyes reflexively glowing with her power.
The creature – which resembled an overwhelmingly large black panther – rushed inside, the fur and tail receding back into its skin. In its place stood a man, muscles rippling beneath his ebony skin. His yellow, cat-like eyes, locked onto the woman’s as he spoke, his voice still a little gruff from the transformation. “//ASIMA!//”
“//Keep your voice down, Numair. I am well aware of the situation. Zafirah may be formidable, but she is still young. Her illusions fooled the psi-soldiers, but even I knew it would not fool Tutankenset. Our forces?//”
“//We are down to less than half… Ahmed is ready to transport us…//”
“//We will go, then. I will order the evacuation.//” With a flash of her eyes, the mosaic on the side wall opened up. Asima started to enter, but she felt her feet come from beneath her… Numair’s arms, firmly held her to his chest, much as a groom would his new bride.
“//Forgive me for my forwardness, Asima, but it will be faster this way.//” He said, rushing inside the secret passageway before it closed.
“//I will forgive, this time.//” Asima said, her eyes flashing white as she telepathically ordered the evacuation of the remaining Followers. Numair’s estimation had been optimistic, or at least had the tone of being so. There were twenty-three left… twenty-three left to ensure the future of an entire world.
She wondered to herself why Anwar – who had not considered the Followers a credible threat in years – considered it worth his resources to decimate what little was left of their number. Her lips passed a silent prayer as the halls of the passage way passed by her. She prayed for the courage of Queen Nefer… and the blessing of Ra…
End Prologue
Chapter One
“//I submit to you, people of Pharaoh…//” (Translated from the Pharaohan) the figure whispered to himself in the room of the museum. “//…that the lion is not dead…//” His hand reached out toward the pair of sunblades, each four feet long, their light cutting through the darkness of the room they had been housed for five-thousand years. “//…but asleep, a testament to his will – his heart…//”
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He heard nothing… not the hum of the engines of his ship… not the sound of his own heartbeat… not even his finger continuously tapping on the screen of his monitor as he browsed through screen upon screen of microfiche illegally downloaded from the school newspaper at the University of Cairo. All of them had features from the Archaeology Department. That was what he was looking at. Yes, he had a plan, but he always had to do a little research first. When there is an opportunity to cover all the angles before going in, be sure to take it.
“Come on, Gabe…” Daemon said to himself, his eyes quickly scanning the screen in the microsecond it took to flash in front of him. “Something has got to be here somewhere…”
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Khalid felt his legs kicked out from under him, barely having time to roll to the side before a foot came crashing down where his face used to be. He started to roll up when his opponent’s foot lashed out again, this time along the underside of his chin. He expelled a sharp breath of air as his back crashed into sand beneath him. Two hands picked him into the air, this time throwing him bodily into the sandy ground. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, wiping the blood off his lip. He resisted the urge to peel back his upper lip and snarl…
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“//He has not given up on us…//” the figure said, his hand lightly tracing one of the sharp bends of the blade, careful not to cut the skin on his fingertip. “//…and I ask you not to give up on him, in return.//” His other hand clasped the grip, slowly withdrawing the sunblade from its scabbard. He laid the tip flat across his hand, admiring the workmanship… the detail… the attention that went into it. “//Even asleep beneath the sand, the lion listens with his ears, and is slowly awakening from the snake’s venomous bite.//”
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“Fuck it…” Daemon said, inserting the last disc into the reader. “If there is nothing listed in the University of Alexandria, I’m not worrying about it.” His finger again tapped repeatedly against the touch screen, passing through one frame a microsecond. So far, all of the major universities in Egypt have not turned up anything promising. He was not sure why this should bother him… He did not expect to even find anything close, but he still had to look… he still had to hope. The only other way to do this was not looking promising. This was the only way.
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The palm of his hand shot out, tagging his opponent in the jaw. He followed it up with an elbow drop in the chest and another hit directly in the windpipe. With a snarl, Khalid then struck for the nose…
///He struggled against his scaly grip, fighting with every dirty trick he had, but he would not release him. Khalid saw the forked tongue sliding in and out of his mouth as the thing hissed at him, salivating over what it intended to be its next meal. “Yeeesssssssssss… your heart…”///
Khalid snapped back to earth as the kick landed in his rear. He fell face forward into the sand, the next feeling being a solid grip him by the base of his braid. With a snap, he was pulled back up, a hand swiftly coming down at his face. It stopped, the metallic claws that had been extended laying barely against his skin.
“That move was careless, Löwe… and could have cost you your life,” Maul said, releasing Khalid so that he landed on his rear. “This entire session was slow, hesitant, and unfocused.”
“What do you expect?!” Khalid said quickly. “You guys HIJACK my life… DRAG me out into a fucking dessert on the other side of the world going on three weeks now without notice or telling me what the FUCK we are doing out here… or even letting me talk to ANYONE. My powers have been shut down. I am NOT a hand-to-hand combatant… and BOTH of my sparring partners may as well be fucking invulnerable as far as I’m concerned!”
Maul’s backhanded him, this time picking him up by the neck. With a jerk, he brought him over, sniffing along the artery near the Adam’s apple and throwing Khalid back on his rear. “Nein… You’re afraid, Löwe, but you won’t tell anyone what you are afraid of!”
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“//I place these sunblades on display to remind us all of the sleeping lion, who though unaware will pull through on his vow… a vow not of mindless obedience, but of friendship and commitment to man. I ask all of us – especially the children – to meet his sacrifice… his loyalty to both yours and his. I have had these sunblades cursed in his memory to always keep them on display. They will remain in this museum with the manuscript of my fable, untouchable to all but me and mine, until the day I bring the waking lion home. They are his claws, who although sharp, are still not as powerful as his heart.//”
“//Oh!//” A voice exclaimed, pulling the dark figure out of his reverie. “//Lord Hashad, please forgive my intrusion.//” The old man stepped into the doorway of the exhibit, his silhouette made all the darker by the light pouring in from behind. “//I was making my final rounds before closing the museum. I was not aware you were here.//”
“//Continue then, Amunhotep…//” the young lord responded, not turning away from the blade he held in his hand. “//I will see myself out.//”
“//As you wish…//” the old man said, stepping silently away from the doorway.
“//As tempting as it is, old friend…//” Hashad said to himself, placing the blade carefully back into the scabbard with its partner. “//They are not mine to give.//” With that, he left, finding it strange that he did not confuse it for Worf’s weapon on Star Trek…
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///He jumped out of the jeep, lashing out with his lion aura at the ground, over and over again… digging. He had to get there. There was no choice this time. He had to get there before anyone else…///
Maul backhanded him again, this time grabbing him by the shirt. “What is wrong with you?! Must I always bitchslap you to get you focused?”
Khalid slapped his wrist off, backing away… his voice almost cracking. He shouted back with a growl, his hands shaking a little. “There is NOTHING wrong with me… NOTHING. What’s WRONG, Maul? Upset because I’m not having one of those days where I get all growly and want to go hunting? Oh wait… No… you’re upset because I haven’t had that urge in over a month! The ONLY reason you’re pissed off is that I’m succeeding this time. I’m reining it in.”
“You’re not reining it in… you’re suppressing it! Along with it, you’re suppressing your senses… your powers… Everything. You’re scared of something… something beyond everything else. What IS it?!”
///The only thing he felt was a thrust in the back and then he looked down, seeing the blade sticking out just below his sternum. With a flash of the eyes, he knew who was behind him. “You… you… betrayed me?”
“Yes… long overdue, don’t you think?”
His eyes jerked open as if surprised by something in the voice. “Son of a bitch…” he said, slumping to the ground… ///
“NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!” Khalid said turning away from Maul. He looked out toward the horizon, just to avoid looking at him. Both of them knew he was lying and both of them knew Maul knew he was lying. His powers were down ever since the fight in Central Park… but it seemed that with their absence, something else filled the void. Something he KNEW he didn’t want. These flashes were always vivid… appearing so real that he was never sure just what moment he is in. He can’t write them off. Last time he did… he did not even want to think about it. These images were different from before in that they were vividly depicting events rather than symbols… Sure enough one of these events takes place in the dessert. Where the hell is he right now? The fucking Sahara Dessert. If that flash has any truth about it, then so does…
“You find out what the hell’s up his ass, yet?” Daemon asked, jumping out of his solar/fusion-powered jeep. It was fully capable of hovering, but Daemon figured from time too time he might want to appear to be driving through the desert. He sure as hell could not go around flying in the space ship… and camels were OUT of the question. “I don’t think he even noticed me drive up.”
“I don’t know,” shrugged Maul. “A case of blueballs, perhaps?”
“Tell him to go behind a sand dune and take care of it already. We have work to do.” Daemon tossed a newspaper into Maul’s chest, nodding toward it. “We’re going hunting. The man’s name is Tom Vargas, an Egyptologist working under the auspices of the University of Alexandria. He is searching for the Eye of Ra, just like we are… and we have to beat him to it before our ‘friends’ do. K’s riddles say that they are hot on the chase. We’ve gotta be hotter.”
“Don’t they also want you for some reason?”
“Yes… and my suspicion is that they want me as bait… provided they get the Eye of Ra. Don’t ask, really complicated.”
“So why did we bring Löwe”
“Easy…” Daemon said, nodding toward him. “He hid it 5000 years ago.”
“Aaaaaah… Now, I understand,” Maul said with a smile. “This gets more and more interesting.”
“YO K!” Daemon shouted. “Get your ass in the jeep!”
Slowly, Khalid glanced backwards. “Hey D… Who’re the people?”
“What people, K?” Daemon asked, looking toward the horizon. “I don’t see any. My sensors say you’re full of it.”
Maul grabbed Khalid by the back of the shirt, bodily throwing him into the back of the jeep. “Probably a mirage, Löwe. Now, buckle up, take a nap, and shut up.”
“Do you always have to do that?!” Khalid said, rubbing the back of his scalp. Fuck… It’s the jeep… the same jeep from the flash… Daemon and Maul both got into the front seats, looking at him with demented smiles as they put on their seat belts. “Pricks… the both of you…”
“Yeah? Well… I’m not the one with blueballs!”
“I do NOT have blue…”
“That’s not what I heard.” Daemon sneered, putting the jeep in gear.
With a snarl, Khalid slapped Maul upside the back of the head. “What the fuck… I do NOT…”
“Sleep.” Maul said, snapping his fingers. Khalid’s eyes rolled toward the back of his head and he fell into the backseat, asleep. “That’ll make the trip quieter.”
The jeep surged forward, quickly accelerating to about 250 miles per hour. With a press of a switch, the top and sides rose from the sides of the jeep, protecting Khalid from the flying sand and the harsh sun. Daemon momentarily wiped the sand covering his sunglasses as he continued. “The way he’s been acting ever since we got here, I’m half-tempted to tell you to give him a suggestion where he thinks he has them. According to the master bracelet, his metabolic hormones are outside of typical human specifications.”
“Perhaps he does have them…”
“Don’t know… don’t care… Let’s find the Eye.”
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“//Three of them as far as I can tell, in a technologically advanced jeep. I can get a better look if I fly up…//” (Translated from the Egyptian.) The tall, thin Middle-Easterner stood beside Asima, the leader, his powerful eyes seeing them in the distance.
“//No, Saqr,//” Asima said. “//I suspect the mulatto saw through my shield. There is something difficult about reading his mind. I do know that the other dark one is a Pharaohan. If he’s here…//”
“//That means he is after…//”
“//We have to stop them before they destroy it all.//”
End Chapter One
Chapter Two
University of Alexandria – Department of Egyptology
As Department Chair, Professor el-Nasser was afforded privileges that others in the department were not afforded. He was only committed to teaching one semester a year, two sections of a senior level course. He had the first and the final say over what faculty were hired and kept their positions. His weight on the tenure committee was considerable. Should the need arise, he could exercise considerable power. Yet, his reputation was known more as a fair and honest professor than a pompous, arrogant tyrant. He made himself available to listen to students concerns and needs. He talked to them… counseled them… encouraged each and every single one of them to reach for their full potential, both as students and as future colleagues.
Thomas Vargas was one such student. Of all the students – American, nonetheless – to have passed through the Egyptology curriculum, this one showed the most promise… the most fluency. His mind was one of those rare ones that could easily decode and defragment, mentally arranging things both into their component parts and into the “big picture.” Professor el-Nasser saw in this man someone who could go far in the field… someone who could make great strides in the research…
…someone he could use.
“Aaaaahhhhh… Thomas,” he spoke into the phone. “My son, Seth, has informed me that you have made great strides in deciphering the tablets and have already relocated to the temple.” He smiled across his desk at Seth - the young middle-Eastern man, visually appearing to be in his twenties. Seth unconsciously brushed his hand over his thick black goatee, engrossed in the game of chess playing out on the table. The ornately decorated pieces were apparently carved out of stone, figurines of Pharaohs, queens, soldiers, mages, guards, and slaves passed long ago. With no apparent gesture on Seth’s part, other than a stare, his knight moved forward, positioned decisively so that he would either take a queen or a rook.
“Yes, Pro…” Tom’s voice answered in the speaker of the phone, slightly drowned out by the sounds of people working in the background. “I mean, Anwar. Old habits are hard to break. The tablets left in the crypt where the Eye should be speak like a story, narrated from the point of view of a king.”
“Oh really?” Anwar asked, his voice deceptively curious. “I trust you will be discussing it in your book as well as your research.” His eyes glowed purple as he stared at the chessboard. A purple energy field surrounded the queen piece, moving it safely from the threat imposed on it by Seth’s knight.
“It is very riveting, actually. The practical knowledge that comes with it, of course, is that it points to another tablet – in the temple. It also discusses a construct of some sort, no doubt in the chamber we have not found access to yet. What I did find was a partial map of the main city. I think we may have actually tripped on the capital of a third kingdom. I can’t understand, though, why the temple is situated so far away from where the map says the central city is. The Eye is here… for that. I am certain. I think there is a story, though. Waiting to be told. It will take a long time, though…”
“Perhaps not, Thomas. The department and I have agreed that we will be sending some reinforcements for the excavators. Considerable reinforcements. Implications this groundbreaking need only the best investment of resources to be timely. I plan on making a trip myself, soon. Please give my regards to Melissa.” Seth’s knight came to life, drawing its sword. It stalked across to its destination – Anwar’s rook – and ripped the sword across the rook’s neck. Gasping, the rook dropped to its knees, sand spilling from its neck. It dropped to the board, its body convulsing as its “blood” continued to spill. When it had finally finished, the rook transformed into sand, sinking into the chessboard. With a smirk, Anwar looked across the desk toward Seth, shaking his head in disbelief. “Ever the melodramatic, Seth?”
Ignorant of the chess game occurring on the other end of the phone line, Tom continued to speak. “I will. Please feel welcome, Professor. We could not have done this without you and the department.”
“Aaaaah… but Thomas,” he said, his eyes still locked onto the board, analyzing… calculating… “We could not have done this without you. You WILL get the promotion you deserve. Good day.” With that Anwar, set the phone on the hook. “As the man who made this possible. It is only a matter of time before they find the Eye and the machine.”
“According to Tutankenset, the Pharaohan is on his way to the Temple, even as we speak.”
“Aaaaaaaah…” Anwar said, a purple field moving his bishop to take out Seth’s knight. As before, the two pieces fought, the knight this time tossing his head around on his hands before he disintegrated into sand. “The gathering of the pertinent parties. I trust that Mufasa is with him?”
“Yes… and the vampire.” Seth said, his rook moving of its own accord into position to take Anwar’s bishop or queen. “Should we make plans to dispatch them?”
“No… no…” Anwar said, with a chuckle. The purple field moved the queen in a position locking Seth’s king in place, protected from behind by the bishop Seth was poised to take. Checkmate. “The Pharaohan, of course, we need. Our previous altercations – if anything – was to raise his suspicions. Mufasa is to fulfill a smaller role and be discarded when he is no longer of use to us. His mind is still fragmented, so we cannot afford to move too quickly. Be patient, Seth, and it will fall into place. The best part about chess pieces is that they do not know when they are being manipulated!” As an exclamation, the queen transformed into a snake and attacked the king repeatedly as he lay unable to defend himself… and slowly disintegrated into sand…
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“All right. This is what you need to know not to fuck everything up,” Daemon said as he steered the jeep easily around a sand dune. With one hand, he tapped a button on his master bracelet, causing a holographic blue orb to appear before Maul. Inside the orb formed a two-dimensional image of a symbol resembling a backwards letter R with an eye in the center. “Take a close look at this symbol right here. This symbol is called…”
“I am familiar with Egyptian mythology and symbols,” Maul said, his feet propped up on the dashboard as he read through the Egyptian newspaper. “You refer to the Eye of Ra, the sun god.”
Daemon turned his head toward Maul, in disbelief, not saying a word.
A grin spread across Maul’s face as he continued. “According to Ancient Egyptian mythology, Horus and Set battled in the Sahara Dessert and Set cut out his eye. The symbol here is the reverse image of it, the Eye of Ra.”
“That makes my job a lot easier,” Daemon said, trying not to laugh. With a tap of a button, the “R” turned into gold and the central eye looked like a blue crystal. Next, the image revolved around an axis through the eye, this time taking a three dimensional shape.
“So what is this you are showing me?”
“This is the artifact we are looking for. I was showing you how the shape itself is derived. This is THE Eye of Ra. The Toc-Ra are also looking for it. Our job is to beat them to it first.” Daemon paused as he drove just a little further. “Question… You know a lot about Egyptian mythology?”
“When you are assigned to a base in Alaska, Gabriel, you read a lot of books. The entire year of 1957, I read nothing but mythology – of Greeks, Norsemen, Egyptian, everything – in my spare time.”
“You continue to astound me, Maul.”
“In 1959, I taught myself to play the piano. I became interested after I drank a touring concert pianist from Russia by accident. My target was supposed to be her husband, but Ryan’s secretary mistyped the memo.”
“Shit…”
“Nein… she was a good lay… Those fingers…”
Daemon laughed, not sure what he found scarier… Maul’s sense of humor… or that he understood it. Shaking his head, he decided he better get back to business. “Anyway, they are looking for that and they are looking for the Key, a small gold disc with the symbol that can fit in the palm of your hand. Both of them glow in the dark.”
“Why are they after them?”
“The two of them are part of a mechanism that can be used to summon the current avatar of Ra in the case of extreme emergencies. Remember that this group was formed to destroy Ra in all its incarnations.”
“I guess they and Set would get along pretty well.”
For a moment, Daemon remained quiet, and then he spoke again. “I think they are planning to summon the current avatar of Ra…and kill him.”
“You told me how Löwe fits, but you have not told me why they are after you.”
“You don’t need to know. It has not come down to that, yet.”
This time, it was Maul who remained quiet for a while. He could hardly blame Daemon for holding information back, especially since he himself has been known to do it. “On the subject of secrets, what secret do you suppose Löwe is keeping from us?”
Subtle, but not TOO subtle. Daemon had to respect that. “Something put him on edge. I think it’s beyond the ‘Khalid and Mufasa’ thing right now. He’s scared.”
“Of what?”
“Don’t know. We’ll get it out of him.” Daemon said, allowing a pause to show up. “All right… So are you ever going to tell me why you’re mindcontrolling him?”
“To fix his trau…”
“Bullshit. If anything else, you’ve been trying to get K to stop hiding Mufasa. You’re half the reason he’s having trouble controlling himself now.”
“Is it really control when you pretend to be something you aren’t?”
“I’m not arguing with you there, but there is something else. Something that goes beyond entertainment value. The way you treat him is possessive, like you have a right to drop psionic suggestions, tattoo his back to look like yours, drag him off for days at a time, push at his sanity… What’s the deal?”
Maul smiled, folding up the newspaper in his lap as he leaned the chair back just slightly. “What did Angelo tell you about Khalid?”
“”Not much, I suppose… Just the rare blood type, I think.”
“Ja, the rare blood type, the extra vocal folds that allows him to growl and speak at once, and a prominent birthmark on his…”
“HEY!” Daemon said, snapping his head toward Maul. “That’s fucking scary, man… How the hell do you know about that?! Particularly the birthmark… Only way I know is K’s memory…”
“I should know; I gave them to him.”
“Now I know you are smoking something, Maul. Those are physical traits; you can’t give them to him unless…” Abruptly, Daemon slammed his foot on the brake, the jeep skidding for about fifty feet, gouging a deep hole in the sand before it came to a stop. When it finally came to rest, the jeep was covered completely by the sand so much that it could not be seen from above. “You’re fucking pulling my leg, right?”
Maul didn’t answer. He just chuckled. “You asked; not me.”
“God damn,” Daemon said, the jeep exploding out of its sand dune. “No wonder K is so fucked up in the head.” He said, glaring toward Maul. “It fucking runs in the family.”
“Three generations, as a matter of fact.”
“Shut up; you’re giving me a fucking headache.”
End Chapter Two
Chapter Three
While everyone was getting set up, he stood alone, looking down at the felt covered box in his hand. With his thumb and index finger, Thomas Vargas opened the box looking down at the ring inside it. It was a simple ring. The Hieroglyphic symbol looking like the Eye of Ra was set very clearly. When he bought it from the jeweler in Cairo, he wondered whether or not that particular shape was a good idea. Then, he decided to just go with it. He wasn’t sure whether ANY of this was a good idea.
The reason Melissa Vargas had divorced him in the first place was because he put his dream – his search for the Eye of Ra... for Ra himself… above his entire life… his entire marriage. Over the past few months, he had finally been able to rebuild his friendship with her, at least. No, he had not given up his dream, but he has not given up on them, either.
How did SHE feel? She could have left a long time ago. She did not have to be his analyst at all. She could have told him to go straight to hell, but she didn’t. She came. She stayed. She…
“Tom?” her voice came from behind. “Jack’s got the camera ready. You waste too much time and I’m going to put make-up on you.”
His hand snapped the box shut, tucking it back inside his pocket. “All right… I’m ready… just getting my thoughts together.”
He turned around, straightening his shirt and brushing his hand through his hair. Mel walked up, holding her hand up to pause the cameraman. She licked her thumb and straightened up his eyebrows and then straightened up his shirt. “I don’t know why you’re so nervous this time, Tom. Your progress jumped by leaps and bounds in the last few months.” She stopped, taking a moment to scratch her wrist. “I’m… I’m with you.”
He smiled back. “I know… and that gives me strength.”
She was about to say something, but she pulled away and instead smiled at him. “Go ahead… I’ll get my instruments ready over here.”
Tom nodded toward the cameraman to start and began walking around. Having been used to doing this at all of his digs, he kept everything in mind. Project the voice… walk slow so the light and the sound man can keep up… and don’t be too nervous. With a chuckle, he acknowledged that it was not the videotaping that made him nervous at all.
“We are standing now at the Temple of Ra. It is a circular structure, complete with rooms across a hallway from a central chamber. The idea of a circle was very central to the Ra worshipers, because it represented Horus – the Sun. Horus and Ra have often been confused throughout history as one and the same, but according to the tablets they are definitely not. Horus is the sun… the method by which Ra travels throughout the universe. Mythological lesson aside, the temple itself is reflected in the shape of Horus, the sun.”
He stopped, this time in front of a wall which had a map – what little was left of it – etched in stone. He ran his hand across it, knocking the dust from the inscriptions. “On the East wall – on both sides of one of the two main entrances – is a map of a city. I suspect it is a city in the immediate area. Judging by the approximate distance on the map, the city is about three or so miles to the East, thus its location on the wall. East, as you know, is the direction that Horus rises in the morning. By placing the temple due west of the city, it was believed that Ra would watch over the city on his way to the temple. You are beginning to no doubt see the importance of the sun in Ra worship. This map here also opens up a wonder of possibilities, because it points to a city LONG buried… unknown for thousands of years. It may even be a third major kingdom of Egypt, buried on the fringe of the Sahara Dessert. Geological records indicate that at that time, this all used to resemble more of a savannah… that the land may have been even more fertile than that. There was a drastic change that helped the Sahara expand this way…”
He walked across the hallway to the inner wall. “Inside this wall is the inner chamber. According the tablets before – the ones that tell of the last days of the kingdom – there is a mechanism inside. They do not discuss what it is for or how it is used, but it does describe two components – the Eye of Ra and the Key of Ra. According to the tablets, a third tablet gives the location of the Eye inside, on top of the construct. We have not as yet found the entrance into the chamber.”
Scratching at the rash on her wrist, Mel stopped, this time noticing an irritation in her eye. She reached inside her purse, taking out a saline solution. With her other hand, she pulled out her contact lens and stepped back, dropping the solution in her eye, then replacing it. Unexpectedly, she tripped over her shoelaces, and fell back. She screamed, grabbing onto two torch stands… that unexpectedly slid down the wall. When the rumbling began, she jumped back to her feet, quickly stepping away from the wall.
Tom rushed over, wrapping his arms around her. “Mel… Are you okay?” He asked.
“Tom… I ‘m sorry… I did not mean to disturb your taping…” She was interrupted by his mouth on top of hers, a quick passionate kiss. When he ripped his mouth off of hers, she started to fall back, but his arms held her tight. “Mmmm… wow… okay… um…” Her eyes wide, she placed her hand on her chest catching her breath. “Tom?”
“Mel, you do GOOD work!” With an ecstatic smile, Tom turned her face toward the inside wall… which now had intermittent doors leading into the central chamber.
“My...” she said, looking through the door into the chamber. It was about 200 feet in diameter, with the symbol – the Eye of Ra – carved into the ground, taking up the entire room. A large pillar grew out of the center, reaching fifty or feet up toward the ceiling. The rumbling still happening, the ceiling pulled back, exposing the sky. “My God…”
Tom picked her up, walking through the East door. “Time to investigate.”
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Well… where is it at, Gabe? Daemon thought to himself, looking down at the instruments on the dashboard. According to the radar, they were about an hour from the temple. Good. The sooner, the better. They just had to find the Eye before everyone else did. So far, the Toc-Ra have practically been K’s bitches… but he could not count on that to continue being the case. One cousin he is mystically bonded to – a blue guy who has gone evil. The blue guy’s son – a psionic powerhouse. A grandfather who hunts monsters/demons for a living. An uncle who is a Catholic priest in Nashville. Oh… and a great-grandfather who is a vampire. I’m tempted to wake him up and ask him what his great-uncle does for a living…
“All right… I feel talkative… but not enough that I plan on waking K up. So… say something…”
“American blood has became laden with fat in recent years. If this keeps up, I might have to start eating oatmeal with every person I drink.”
“No… Not that… Something about yourself.”
“Well,” Maul said, the newspaper folded across his lap. “It’s been four days since I was last laid… You were giving Löwe another round of mental torture while…”
“Too personal…” Daemon cringed. “WAAAAY too personal… What about what you want to do with your life? What are your dreams? What do you see at night when you close your eyes?”
///Khalid felt his back crash into the wall and a hand – a blue POWERFUL one – at his throat, guiding a blazing sword to rest in front of his neck. He looked into the eyes of his assailant, and saw power – more than perhaps he had ever seen before. He also saw a man who took no pleasure in what he was doing… who saw it as his duty. “Consider this an official warning delivered in person, Purified. Turn from your path. End it. You CAN not win. You WILL not win… Should you follow through, we WILL destroy you.”///
“I see… the nights I spent among von Bonn’s leftover’s dreaming of a family ripped away from me… the nights I spent in bed waiting for my wounds – both internal and external – to heal… children I should have been there to love… to raise… to protect… That’s what I see… And you?”
Daemon paused a moment, looking out the windshield as everything passed by. In some ways, what he saw was emptiness. Just miles and miles of emptiness. The occasional tree… the occasional mirage… the oasis… but more emptiness than anything else. Maul thought of his wife and children. Daemon choked back the lump in his throat at the thought… the thought of what that aroused in him. He knew that pain – on both ends… not the same pain, but a similar one… One he wouldn’t admit to Maul. “I see…” Daemon paused, as if the words would not come to his lips. “I see my life before this… before the mercenary work… before…” He stopped, again his gaze locked onto the passing dessert. “Bad topic. What do you see in the future?”
/// “I’m sorry, Purified… but it must be prevented, even at the cost of the most innocent of all.”
He moved before he could allow himself to think, the sunblades flashing to life in his hands. Just as quickly, his opponent’s swords were out. Khalid swung, his opponent’s blade blocking his. Khalid was out for blood. His opponent was not. The sunblade ripped across the opponent’s face, tearing a gash across his bluish skin that healed almost immediately. Before Khalid could swing again, he was grabbed by the elbow and the shoulder and jerked back.
“K… NO!” Daemon said, holding him back. Khalid’s eyes remained locked on his opponent, his rage still rumbling out between his teeth. With a sizzle, he heard the extradimensional sword Anubis coming out of its pocket dimension. “You can’t waste the time on this overgrown turkey. You have something more important to do. I’ll take care of him.”
“Stay OUT of this, Strong. This does not concern you!” the other man said.
“Hell yeah, it concerns me… I’m the motherfucking badass protector of the innocent… and I won’t have a smelly discolored pussy like you screwing over one of my clients!”///
“The future is of no concern to me, Gabriel… I only want to drink blood, have sex, and die… Oh yeah… and also bring Ryan’s empire crashing down around him, but that was because he fucked with my family… in more ways than one.”
Daemon let it sit in, turning it over and over in his mind. No, he did not know much about the bad blood between Ryan and Maul, but he did know it was taking place over a span of half a century. For almost fifty years, Ryan had Maul locked in so tightly into the service of the Red Court – specifically him. The notion Khalid might be his great-grandson inspired Maul to sever his ties. “You don’t want anything else?”
“What? Power? Fortune? Those are but constructs of a feeble, impoverished, unconfident mind. I don’t need any of those.”
“What would you have done if you had never been made into a vampire?”
“Don’t know… Probably got them out of Germany… raised them… been content as a farmer... or a gardener. I answered. Your turn.”
“Nice streets… Safe neighborhood… Good people… Put simply, a utopia. Do I think I’ll ever get it? Hell no… but part of what drives me is working toward it. By the way, you KEEP that between you and me.”
“Ditto.”
/// “Maul…” he said, running down the collapsing hallway, amid the sounds of footsteps hot on their tracks. “Something’s wrong…”
“You have a gift for understatement, Löwe…” Maul said, gripping his burdens even more tightly.
“No… I mean… my powers… I can’t teleport… and I can’t turn them off…” Khalid said. They emerged out of the collapsing tunnel just in time for an explosion in front of them.///
Khalid snapped awake in the back seat the moment the newspaper hit him in the face. It unfolded on his lap, the front page picture showing Professor Thomas Vargas posing with the Egyptology Department of the University of Alexandria. Khalid’s eye focused not on Vargas, but on the man standing next to him… the department chair, visually an elderly bald, unintimidating Middle Eastern man. Before he realized it, a growl had risen from the back of his throat. It was interrupted by a hand from in front, reaching back to smack Khalid upside the head. “I’m awake! I’m awake!”
“Pay attention then!” Daemon said, tapping a button. The top and sides of the jeep pulled back, shooting beneath the sand, leaving its three occupants up top.
Khalid noticed that the three of them were surrounded on all sides… about twenty in number, all clothed in tunics and shrouds, with various accessories. He was not sure, but he was sure that there was something off about them. Something did not seem right – well – besides the fact that these people had surrounded them. Scanning their friends, he passed over a huge coal-black man with the yellowest… CAT eyes he had ever seen. What drew his gaze immediately was a woman – a drop dead GORGEOUS tan-skinned woman – who seemed to be the leader of the group. His eyes traveled to her delicate neck, caught on a silver-looking necklace with a pendant on it… hidden inside the bosom of her dress.
“//Leave, Pharaohan. Your quest can bring nothing but ruin here.//” (Translated from the Egyptian.) the woman said, ignorant of Khalid’s glare.
The man with the yellow eyes locked onto Khalid, though, growling himself… He opened his hand, allowing his fingernails to extend and contract… claws.
Daemon’s sword flashed into his hand, crackling and sizzling in the air as it hummed. “//I don’t know who you are… what you want… but I suggest you stay out of my way.//”
“D…” Khalid started to say…
“//Who we are is unimportant… but we will lay our lives down to stop you.//”
“Not now, K,” Daemon said. “Get ready to fight…”
“My powers are still down you fucking idiot.”
“Fuck… Maul… add that to the list of training objectives…”
“//ATTACK!//”
End Chapter Three
Chapter Four
“THIS IS INCREDIBLE!!!” Tom said, carrying Mel in his arms into the central chamber. The two of them stood in awe as the roof finished peeling back and the pillar sank deeper and deeper into the center of the chamber. On top of it was a pyramid, its base about a hundred square feet, with each face bearing a golden symbol representing the Eye of Ra.
Overcome with the sight of it all, Tom spun round and round on his feet, causing Mel’s hair to pull free from the bun she put it in. She laughed with him before he got dizzy and fell on his behind. He let out an oof as she came crashing down on his legs.
“Well…” Mel said, still catching her breath from the laughing fit. “That sure makes a girl feel welcome…” They looked at each other, each for a moment getting lost in the eyes… the smile…Coming back to Earth, they came to their feet, each turning away from each other, not sure what to say. Both of them turned back to each other, when she saw something fall from Tom’s pocket. They both bent down to pick it up when their heads smacked into each other. The two of them fell back, each laughing anew.
Tom grabbed his forehead, blinking his eyes open and shut as he spoke. “You know… I never knew what they meant by ex-wives being headaches, but now I know.”
“Haha… VERY funny…” she said, her hand reaching toward the small box. Just before she could reach, Tom’s hand snatched it up, sticking it back in his pocket. “What was that?”
Tom smiled. “Oh… nothing… just aspirin.”
“In a box… Right… Thomas Christopher Michael Vargas… WHAT are you hiding?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he said, helping her up to her feet. “We’ve got work to do.” He walked toward the center, looking around the room.
“Yes…” she said, turning away as a tear trickled down her cheek. “You said that when we were married, too.” Her head glanced toward the outside perimeter of the chamber. Twelve doors into the hallway. Main entrances on the east and west ends, no doubt having to do with the sun as Tom said. The central figure of this room, of course, was the pyramid, with its gold symbols reflecting the sun to four ends of the room. Five feet diagonal from each corner of the pyramid were four even-smaller pyramids, their bases one square foot each.
Tom stood at the base of the pillar, which was only about ten feet thick by this point, his eyes staring down at a blue diamond like substance surrounding it, further adding reflected light to the room. He walked around it, not quite sure if it was safe to step on it or not. “Odd…” he said. “The tablets said nothing about a sheet of diamond surrounding the base of the pyramid… This is amazing.”
“Tom, I have to…” Mel started, stepping toward him. She noticed the tile beneath her give and the entire room start rumbling once more.
Surprised as much as Mel, Tom jumped back, watching as the blue crystal started to sink away from the ground. He noticed that water was filling in the space left by the blue crystal to about four feet below the wall. “Hydraulics…” He leaned forward to get a look at the clear water that was still lit by the reflective crystal beneath it. Something… he saw something roll into the water from the side… He leaned closer taking a look… when the object thrust out of the surface, snapping at his head. “GAAAAAAH!!!” he said, jerking onto his back as he pushed away from the moat.
“TOM!” Mel said, running over to him.
“I’m okay… just a little surprised…” Tom said, standing to his feet. “Crocodiles.” With a smile, he turned toward Mel. “Dear… You are not going to believe this…”
“YES, I believe a crocodile just snapped at your face!” she said, clutching to him. Did he just call me dear?!
“No… Not that… This.” He motioned toward the moat… where the crocodiles had lined up across the moat, a makeshift walkway toward the steps leading to the base of the pyramid.
“I’m keeping my ass right here, Tom.”
“Understandable.”
----------------------
Maul acted first, exploding out of the sand behind the leader and kicking her in the back of the head. The two people you ALWAYS take out of the fight first – if possible – are the leader and the telepath. Two birds with one stone. “No offense, especially since I think Löwe might have a crush on you… but business is business.”
“Business is indeed business, German!” Maul had barely enough time to duck as a sword swung over his head. “Now that I see where your allegiances are!” As with everyone else, this man was very Middle Eastern. As near as Maul could tell, the guy just ran around carrying two swords. “Only the Toc-Ra would dare attack an unarmed woman from the shadows.”
“Interesting,” Maul said, dodging to the side again. “And here I was thinking YOU were Toc-Ra!” He jerked forward, headbutting the man on his rear. Maul flew past the man, grabbing the swords out of his hands as he went.
“You DARE insult Seif, German?” He jumped to his feet, four more arms exploding out of his tunic, each carrying swords.
Maul burst out laughing at the sight. “Spider is as spider does…”
“Indeed…” Seif’s mouth opened wide, a thick stream of sticky silk flying out, wrapping around Maul completely. Struggling, Maul dropped to the ground in the cocoon, his arms pinned so he could not use his claws to escape. “Fortunately for you, our goal is not to kill.” His eyes snapped open as he felt two strikes at the side of his neck and a kick in the small of the back. Seif fell face forward on the sand, unconscious… victim of a stall of flow of blood to his brain.
“Good trick,” Khalid said, moving toward Maul. “But not good enough… He’s here somewhere… I just need to figure out which one.” He stopped, his gaze traveling to the fallen Asima once again. With a snarl, he stormed over, turning her on her back so he could see her face. He looked at her wrists first, seeing the intricately designed Pharaohan jewelry on each wrist. Next, he pulled her pendant out of her dress to take a look at it. When he saw that backwards letter R with the eye in it, a rumble grew out of the back of his throat. He stepped back from the woman, furious…
“You DARE dishonor Asima, mulatto?!” the large black man with the yellow cat eyes said, growling at Khalid’s direction.
Khalid spun toward him, his fists already ready to go. “My name is Khalid… or K, if you wish. It is NOT mulatto… or whatever other term your twisted ‘mind’ can come up with to identify me.” His face turned into a sneer. “And I can’t very well ‘dishonor’ someone with no honor, can I?”
When the roaring man pounced from fifteen feet away, Khalid knew he was in trouble. When the man grew fur, tail, and claws in mid air, Khalid REALLY knew he was in trouble. His reaction was even more surprising. He jumped into the air as the pantherman was near, and grabbed the scruff of the neck as the man passed below him.
Khalid felt himself jerked so he landed with his back on the back of the pantherman. The pantherman skidded to a stop, bucking so that Khalid flew off, his back skidding into the sand. The pantherman pounced on Khalid again, pinning his shoulders to the ground. He leaned his mouth over Khalid’s throat, ready to rip it out, but he felt Asima’s hand on his back.
“No, Numair… We are to kill no one.”
-----------------------
I count about five people doing all the fighting. Most of them are hanging back. This isn’t a fight; this is a fucking test. Daemon thought, elbowing someone in the chin. Whoever these people were, they were obviously not Toc-Ra. They were testing the waters to see what their abilities are. If they were out to kill, chances are that Khalid would be dead already. Add to list: fighting without powers… Perhaps it was just as well that the three of them were together fighting poorly. Just as they knew little about their “friends”, their “friends” knew even less about them!
“You fight well, Pharaohan…” a Nubian girl – plainly about the age of 16 or so – said, walking toward him. The dress beneath her tunic was similar to the leaders, but brown. Her hair tightly curled into a small afro, she struck him as the sort of person his brother would like… well… in a few years when she was grown, anyway.
“Yes he does,” said another girl from his right, a carbon copy… a twin? There was something about the way she spoke.
“A warrior of the highest order,” said another girl.
Daemon looked back and forth between them, his sword out. They started walking around him, all three speaking at once… all three hearts beating in sync. There was only one smell. One smell. He had to ignore the rest of his senses to find out which one she was…
“Who were they, Pharaohan?” they asked in unison, a smile spreading across their faces. “Mother and child… Madonna and son…”
“Stop… now…” Daemon said, his voice betraying a little anxiety. “Stay out of my head.”
“They scream to you, pleading for help… you go…” she said. “What do you see?”
“ZAFIRAH! NO!” Asima’s voice called out.
Zafirah grabbed her head, shrieking… Abruptly, her doubles disappeared as she fell to the ground.
Daemon stumbled around, assaulted from images, sounds, and smells from a time long past. His sword dropped from his hand, pinning itself into the ground below. First it was a crackle… a trickle of sparks streaming from his eyes… and then from around him.
“AHMED!” Asima screamed. “Get her… NOW!”
“On it!” With a blur, he disappeared from his place standing in the crowd, reappearing at her side. He knelt down to pick her up when he noticed that the hair on the back of his neck was rising. Just before he could teleport them to a safe distance, an explosion of electromagnetic energy erupted from Daemon, ripping a current through them and anyone else unfortunate enough to be near him.
Coming back to his senses, Daemon followed it with a wave of concussive energy before he plowed through the standing crowd like a bowling ball. He then used his superspeed to ram into the pantherman and catch Khalid’s unconscious body. Yes, he could probably stand to expend more energy, but right now he figured he had better get near Khalid as quickly as possible. The increased proximity meant his powers would be more reliable.
“Consider this test over,” Daemon said, his eyes trained on Asima. “And if you EVER go poking around in my head…” He stopped, noticing that everyone had dropped to their knees, leaning over in prayer. “What the fuck…”
Maul exploded out of the sand behind Daemon with a thick piece of spidersilk from Seif still wrapped around his head. Not looking toward him, Daemon reached over, ripping it off with a single tug and incinerated it in his hand. Blinking his eyes, Maul saw everyone kneeled down. “What did you do?”
Asima slowly rose, approaching Daemon on her knees. She looked up, seeing his silhouette against the sun and immediately turned away. “Ra… has finally returned to us in our darkest hour… just as the writings of Queen Nefer have predicted.”
End Chapter Four
Chapter Five
The Temple of Ra was abuzz with activity. Grad students, photographers, artists alike buzzed around the temple, eager to record every thing in sight… every detail for posterity. Tom had instructed them from his place on the central pillar to be careful. He was not sure what might be rigged, here. Although he was sure that he had deactivated all of the booby traps, he did not want to take the chance that this ancient Egyptian king might have forgotten a couple of them.
“Mel… How is your rash doing?” Tom called out as he cleared away the sand from the central pillar. The tablet was here somewhere. He just had to find it. “You should check with Jack over there. He always carries extra aloe in his camera case.”
Her hand scratching at the rash on her wrist, Melissa Vargas looked across the moat at her ex-husband. I’m surprised you even noticed, Tom… You never noticed when our marriage was troubled. “It’s okay, Tom. When things slow down a little, I’ll take my medicine.” She returned her focus back to her electrospectrometer, which was analyzing a sample of the blue crystal Tom managed to scrape before it sank beneath the moat. The water itself was saturated with the material, although for some strange reason it was not toxic to the alligators. Mel had discovered that this particular material – whatever it is – was unlike anything she had ever run across in her geological studies. Rather than carbon as its structure would suggest, this material was completely silica-based. On its own, it focused light better than even diamond. Used in solution, it could actually serve as a battery, absorbing ambient heat and light projected to it and when manipulated a certain way by external factors, serve as a power source more efficient than any today.
How did the Ra worshipers get a hold of it? What were they using it for? Mel knew for sure that Tom had hit on something, but she wasn’t exactly sure what. Her own scientific curiosity should be overflowing right now, but her emotions got in the way.
“I found it.”
“Tom?” She looked up from the spectrometer to see Tom brushing sand away from a tablet.
He walked down the steps of the pillar, using the inflatable raft someone brought to cross the moat. (Everyone agreed after he crossed the live crocodile bridge that he was not pushing his luck anymore.) “After plowing through those last two, I think I’ve caught on to the language pretty quickly…”
“Does it say…”
He stopped right in front of her, his face looking down at the tablet. Slowly he brought it up, an expression of both relief and anticipation in his eyes. “It’s… in the prison… in a crypt beneath the center cell.” He stopped just standing. “Mel… I…”
Her expression changed as she saw the look in his eyes. He was on the threshold of achieving his dream… the dream he had put before his entire life. The ice that had been in her heart just thirty seconds ago melted instantly and she went to him, grabbing him gently by the wrists. “Tom, you’re close. I only need a few people to finish up things. You take whoever you need and go get it. I’ll take care of things over here.”
“Mel…” he started, but instead just nodded… and started giving orders.
----------------------------------
The Den of the Followers: in some ways, built as a reflection of the Temple of Ra, but different. Where the Temple of Ra was meant as a place to call Ra in their time of need, the Den was meant as a base for his warriors – those sworn to protect the House of Ra at all costs and keep the Toc-Ra in check.
The central chamber itself was a circle about feet in diameter and thirty feet high, with a huge stone pillar supporting the structure at its center. The ground was laid in tiles, each with an inscription on it. Two levels with an open railing around the sides. Inscriptions everywhere. Not in Hieroglyphics, but in Pharaohan. Across the entire floor was a symbol in gold tiles… which resembled a stylized backwards letter R with a blue crystal eye inside.
Daemon inspected the eye itself when he entered. Just as he expected, the crystal light up in response to his touch. Yep, it was exactly what he thought it was. He stood back up, taking a another quick look at the room. Twelve doors to the central chamber on both the upper and lower levels. On the upper levels were about half the bed chambers, numbering about 48, and the weapons cache and other important items. The lower level had the rest of the bedrooms and the other rooms, such as the kitchen and small training rooms.
Reaching inside of his trench coat, Daemon took out two sets of devices. The first them was about the size of a cell phone, but was actually a portable recorder. In his other hand were small white-sized orbs that could easily have been marbles. Squeezing them lightly in his hand and giving them an electromagnetic charge, he opened his palm and watched them disperse around the room.
“What are…” Asima started to ask.
“Photographic scanners. They are going to record each and every inch of the room, particularly the inscriptions. I always like to gather bits of information wherever I go, just in case I need it later on. I’m curious, though… All of these inscriptions are in Pharaohan. From what you told me, only the leader – whoever was being primed for it – was to learn Pharaohan.”
Asima nodded her head up and down, gesturing to everything. “The inscriptions on the floor were done first. If you notice, they are the clearest of them all, carved by the first Follower himself. No one has been able to duplicate it with such clarity. My mentor told me that it was Ra and the first Follower himself who designed the chamber and the temple while Queen Nefer would see to the dealings of the kingdom. Most people in the kingdom never knew of the Followers, although there were usually about forty to fifty of us in number. We were in all walks of life, keeping the secret even from our loved ones.”
“So… this Queen Nefer… did her husband know she was a Follower?”
“He should have known… He WAS the first Follower, trained by Ra himself. I do not know much about it myself, unfortunately. While the speaking of oral Pharaohan was pretty well maintained through the generations, the written Pharaohan itself was not passed down as well. I can read some letters, but I can not make sense of most of it.”
Daemon mulled that over in his mind. Perhaps… but then how did she know what the writings of Queen Nefer predicted? “You guys are down in number, I noticed… barely twenty.”
“A few weeks ago, we were taken by surprise… practically decimated by the Toc-Ra. You must understand that while we have the advantage of a small number of powered individuals, they have individuals who have been in the organization ever since its founding… Anwar has been the leader for more than 5000 years, now. It is rumored he is the one that first corrupted King Lehran. Sekhmib used to be one of us, a Follower, but then betrayed us. Tutankenset is also there, a formidable mage in his own right…”
“Any other main ones?”
“Sethnakte is the second in command, perhaps even Anwar’s son. A simple power… control over the sands…”
“…but that makes him a god in the dessert. Who else?”
“Dahab. She can transform into gold and mold parts of her body but with a thought. Nu’man is also a major one, able to withdraw blood through the skin simply by touch… There are also others, but they are the main ones.”
Filing away for future reference… Daemon thought, this time turning toward the Followers themselves. “Let’s see how much of you guys I can remember from the entire thirty minutes I have known you. Asima, the leader of the Followers. Psion?”
“I can also turn us invisible.”
Daemon walked toward the HUGE black man, about 6’ 7’’, with yellow cat eyes, and some of the darkest skin he has ever seen on any man. Unlike the others, he wore very loose shorts beneath his tunic, no doubt to adapt when he transforms into a panther. “Numair… Pantherman… I’m assuming, probably has the musculature and the senses to go along with it, even in human state.”
“Correct.”
His eyes landed on the teenage girl who got more than she bargained for when she went poking around in his head. He noticed that she was unable to look him in the eyes, no doubt because of what happened earlier. She had no idea who Daemon was at the time. Hell… really, she STILL didn’t. “Zafirah, I know. Telepath/Illusionist…”
“My illusions are tied into the memories… often so powerful the person forgets where he is and relives the memory itself.”
“Hmmmmm… I’ll have to keep that in mind with Khalid… Now,” Daemon said, this time landing on a pair of twins, a male and female of African descent. “Rahotep… and Nofruret. Same power, if I’m not mistaken. You convert one type of energy into another… and can detonate objects… This isn’t one of those deals where you have to be in close proximity or touching, is it?”
“No…” Rahotep started, his eyes momentarily flashing as his sister cut in.
“Our powers are …” Nofruret continued.
“…our own independent…”
“of the other.”
Daemon gritted his teeth. Yeah… Perhaps… but sounds like you got a case of the two-in-one syndrome… like those two in G.I. Joe… “Okay… Tall man…” Daemon said, his eyes on the tall thin middle-aged Middle-Easterner. “Saqr… You fly… and you see things… and your bones are light.”
“I also have this incredible urge to fly South during the winter.”
“You tell jokes, too…” Daemon said passing him. “Um… Let’s see…” he said, moving toward the next one. Hmmmmm… all these Gulf men are starting to look alike… “All right… Whitey.”
“My name is Ahmed.”
“I know, but I like Whitey better. So, why is a blond-haired, blue-eyed American teleporter from some hick town in Alabama out in the Sahara hanging around with all these other people.”
“I was about twelve when they saved me. The Toc-Ra slew my anthropologist parents to get to me when they detected my powers. Numair saved me… He’s like my adopted father.”
Daemon looked at the rest, with a sigh. “Sorry, I can’t remember the rest of your names.” His eyes glanced at yet another Mid-Easterner, with six arms and six swords… a short guy. “Though, you would THINK I might remember you…”
“My name is Seif. I’m a swordman… and well… human spider…”
“Don’t go to New York. You’ll get sued for copyright infringement.”
“What?”
“Nevermind.” Daemon said, finished with his memory exercise. He was not sure why, but there was something that made him very uncomfortable around these people. He supposed that it could be that they regarded him with an adoration that was really meant for someone else. Something else he wasn’t particularly sure he liked was the way they regarded both Maul and Khalid. I don’t think I’ll be in any rush to tell them who Khalid really is… “Where’s Khalid?”
Asima answered. “Only Followers and Ra may enter our den. Both of them are in your vehicle outside. Your… Khalid… seems to be suffering not only from a concussion, but also a general depletion of his life force. Our healer Assad was not able to read much of it, because of something about his field, but he did say it would return with rest.”
If you only knew, Lady… “Fuck that… I want both of them inside this building now. You set Khalid on a cot somewhere. Maul you leave alone. They came with me by choice.” Well… Not exactly… but they don’t need to know that… “And I expect you to treat them as if they were one of you.”
“But…” Numair started to say, when Asima’s hand cut him off.
“As you wish, my lord. Numair will carry your mulat – Khalid to the infirmary.”
End Chapter Five
Chapter Six
The best way to describe it was a long, deep sleep. It was not the usual one with two to three REM cycles, but just long and hard. There was no dream… no nightmare… no memories… nothing. Just sleep. General depletion of his life force caused by a combination of continuous overextension of power and other ambient factors.
Daemon knew the reason, but Khalid did not want to hear it. He pointed out that when Khalid gets in some extreme state, he tends to lose control over his aura and his senses. His conclusion was that it meant Khalid was using more effort keeping the aura from flaring and dulling his senses than he would be by not doing it. That perpetual strain in turn depleted what was available when he needed it, thus shutting off his powers. To repair it, he would generally be exhausted. Daemon’s answer? Keep it on more often during the day, train more, and train harder.
Whatever.
He needed sleep, without the interruption of those nightmarish flashes. Finally, he got it, though it was not exactly on the terms he would have wanted it. Concussion by having his head slammed into the sand. Why was it that every bad guy has this need to beat in his head? Is he too good-looking or something?
In all honesty, those thoughts were the last from his mind. There was not much on his mind at all as he lay on the cot in the darkened storage room. Everything had shut down to an almost comatose state. It was seven hours later that his mind would start to pull out of it, that he would start to wake up.
He had been vaguely aware of the faint scent of jasmine wafting through the room. It now grew stronger, but not too strong. A finger lightly traced up his neck to the underside of his chin, over and over. Before he knew it, he was pulled so he sat up and his shirt had slid off. She had started to massage his shoulders and back, every touch and movement of her hand relaxing and intoxicating. His mind, which was already a dull hum, grew even more relaxed, more asleep than awake. All that mattered was her touch… her slow, seductive touch.
“Mufasa…” she whispered into his ear. Her hands slithered from his shoulders around to his abdomen, lightly tracing up and down his stomach. She could feel Khalid’s vocal folds relaxing as he breathed, and a resonant purr fill the room. “Mufasa…” she called again.
“Khalid…” he said, leaning back to inhale the scent of her hair.
“Same difference…” she answered. “One means ‘king’ in Swahili… the other ‘eternal’ in Arabic… Certainly, you have been both…”
“Same difference…” he muttered. He felt her hand slide up his neck and run through his hair. “Same person…”
“Do you like it? Do you like how it feels?”
“Yes…”
She leaned him back on the cot, her nails this time scratching gently over the surface of his chest. “I can be gentle… or I can be rough… You’ve had both… You can have both… All you have to do…” She knelt down so her lips were closer to his ear. “Is give me the Key…”
“The Key…” he said.
“Yes… the Key… ” Briefly, her forked tongue slithered out from between her lips tracing up and down his neck before dashing back inside her mouth. “I need the key, Mufasa…”
“The Key…” he said… “The Key is…”
“Yes…” Her hand slowly traced down his stomach to his belt… “Where is the key?”
“The Key…”
“Tell me, Mufasa… ” She said, starting to unbuckle his belt.
“The Key is right up your ass.”
“What?!”
Abruptly, his hand snapped around her neck in a vise grip as his eyes opened. With a red flush of light, he pushed himself to his feet with his aura, his eyes locked on his squirming slithering prey. What had been a contented purr had now become a furious growl. “Do you take me for a fucking FOOL, Sekhmib?!” he said. “Even after 5000 years. ”
In the red light of Khalid’s aura, Sekhmib’s long, thin features had finally come into view. Her shoulder-length black hair reared back to reveal her yellow eyes, wide with fear. Khalid’s eyes were different, full of anger as the ends of his fingers tightened on her dark green skin. She spoke out of a combination of fear and surprise, not paying attention to the words leaving her mouth. “You never resisted my touch before.”
“You never tried to seduce me before, traitorous sow… You are fortunate I didn’t slay you after you betrayed us to the Toc-Ra!”
“I had no choice. Anwar FORCED me to do it! I changed my ways… I…”
Disgusted with her blubbering act, Khalid threw her over the boxes of supplies into the wall. He pinned her to the wall with a photon lion’s paw and strode over to her, refastening his belt buckle as he went. Furiously, he jerked her head back painfully by the hair while his other hand tightened on her more exposed neck. “With my powers around you, there are no shadows for you to escape in… and your shadow tendrils cannot breach it anyway! You will speak now… tell me of Anwar’s plans… or I will…”
“Oh… but Mufasa… I’ve picked up a few NEW tricks since then!” Her knee crashed between his legs, causing his face to contort in pain as he released his grip. In his – er – weakened state, he managed to dodge a punch, but not the wave of black energy that shot out from her. Racked by a doubled does of intense pain ripping through his nervous system, Khalid dropped to his knees, unable to even gather enough air to scream. “Really, Mufasa… They teach that move in women’s self-defense classes around the world. You should have seen it coming.” With a laugh, she jumped into a shadow, disappearing completely from the room.
“God damn… Gotta… get… a cup…” His mind – as well as something else – reeling from her attack, he stumbled toward the door gasping for air. He forced his aura down as he pushed the door open. “Gotta find… them…” he said, grabbing his shirt from the peg on the wall. He looked across the hall to another doorway with the brilliant golden light cascading from the other side. It was the central chamber where the records were kept. “Warn them.” He thought to pause and wonder how he knew that, but then he realized – duh – he built them. THAT was how he knew it. This was the lair of the Followers.
He stumbled into the central chamber, at first covering his eyes from the light. As soon as they adjusted to the heightened sensory input, his eyes focused on the symbol written across the floor. The Eye of Ra… Khalid winced in pain, much like a migraine, as the symbol burned into his mind. When the pain and the buzzing of his senses settled down, he continued into the room.
Daemon stood about halfway toward the center, amid a group of people who watched him in adoration, speaking and watching his photographic orbs recording the inscriptions on the wall. The portable computer in the palm of his hand beeped and blinked as the orbs relayed the messages to his portable recorder. About halfway up the central pillar, Maul was using his adamantium claws to climb up. “K… about time your ass woke up… You’ve been down damn near all day.” Daemon said, noticing Khalid’s disorientation. He’s walking funny… Maybe he DOES have blueballs… “K… you okay?”
“Yes… Sort of… We need to talk… away from here.” Khalid said as he moved through the crowd of Followers surrounding Daemon.
Numair, the pantherman, stepped immediately in his way and bumped into him. “What is wrong, weakling?” With a clicking sound, his claws were out and leveled at Khalid’s neck. “You do not trust the protectors of Ra?”
Khalid backhanded Numair with his forearm, splitting his lip open. The palm of his hand shot to the underside of the chin and then his fist crashed down just over the larger man’s sternum. With a sweep of the legs, Numair fell onto his back, surprised by what happened. “You’re half right… I don’t trust you… weakling,”
Khalid continued toward Daemon amid the buzzing of conversation in the room. Five feet away from where he started, he felt the tap of a long fingernail on his shoulder. He stopped in place, his eyes locked on Daemon. Asima started to move as if to say something, but Daemon’s hand snapped around her wrist. Not turning around, Khalid’s eyes titled up in annoyance as he called out behind him. “Yes?” He was jerked around by the shoulder, this time to get a forearm in the chin. The sheer force picked him into the air, knocking him just in front of Daemon’s feet.
On his back, Khalid eyes blinked, focusing above to see Daemon looking down at him. Odd, Khalid thought. I never thought I’d see the day when Gabe could look down AND look me in the eye.
“K…” Daemon asked, “You wanted to talk?”
“Be just a moment,” Khalid said, as Numair’s hands balled the sides of his shirt and picked him into the air. “Gotta trim Kitty’s claws first.”
“All right,” Daemon said calmly, watching the altercation. “Just don’t take too long. We still need to get to the temple.”
“That’s exactly what I need to talk to you about,” Khalid got out before his back crashed into the central stone pillar. Numair roared in his face, his free hand rearing back to punch. “Do you mind?” Khalid asked.
“YES, I ‘mind.’ Your very presence in our Den is an insult to us and to Ra himself.”
“You simple-minded fool,” Khalid sneered as his aura erupted around him. “I’ve been insulting Ra much longer than you’ve been alive!” With a rush of light, Numair was knocked back a couple of feet. Khalid leapt into the air with a demonic growl, spinning as he went. The back of his foot crashed into Numair’s jaw just before the other foot made contact with the back of his neck, flipping the larger man on his back. Next, Khalid kicked him with a slight photon edge on his foot, throwing the man back into the wall.
“What the…” Asima started to say, surprised at the reversal from before.
Daemon waved his hand over his mouth with a yawn. “You see one cat fight, you see them all.”
Clapping his hands together, Khalid pulled them apart, forming a thick photon blade. He bent it at the sides, to form a brace. He sneered at the sight of Numair rushing at him in mid-transformation. “Kitty’s been bad.” With a flick of the wrist the photon brace shot from his hand, pinning Numair’s tail into the floor. Khalid kicked him in the underside of the chin and then grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, another photon blade poised precariously under his neck. “Bad kitty… You do that again and I’m going to have to flick you on the nose.” That said, he dropped his aura and walked away.
Enraged and now humiliated, Numair reverted back to his human form, the growl coming out of his mouth. He leapt from behind, his claws ready to swipe.
“I warned you,” Khalid said without looking backwards. With a flare of his aura, a lion’s paw backhanded Numair across the face, this time hurling him onto the upper level.
“THAT IS ENOUGH!” Asima’s voice belted out as she approached Khalid. “Our allegiance is to Ra… NOT his guests. We allowed you and your vampire friend in here ONLY at Ra’s request. He did NOT say that we had to offer our hospitality after you have disrespected us and desecrated our own home. You have overstayed your welcome. You will spend the remainder of your time outside these walls.”
With an angry growl, Khalid grabbed her roughly by the wrist, just under the Pharaohan-design bracelet. “Now I have heard it ALL! You disgust me… and you insult my intelligence…” His other hand ripped the Pharaohan necklace from her neck, as he went on his tirade. “You will tell me where you got this jewelry… NOW!”
“KHALID!” Daemon shouted and then whispered as he walked over, “or who ever is in charge…” He grabbed the necklace from Khalid, giving it back to Asima and then stepped in between them. “Go outside and wait in the car. My photographic orbs are almost done scanning this room. The inscriptions in this room might give us a clue as to where the Eye and the Key are and I won’t have you…”
“It’s a waste of time. They say…”
“And how do you know?” Daemon asked. “Khalid… your scent is the one I’m smelling.”
“I… I…” Khalid managed to get out, before he dropped his aura. Once more, he felt the migraine slam into his head and the Eye of Ra image burn into his eye.
Having watched the conversation from above, Maul allowed a chuckle to slide out of his mouth. About time, Löwe… about time… With a yellow flash of his eyes, his gaze shifted toward Asima. Now aren’t YOU a sneaky bitch, waiting until Löwe dropped his aura to go sliding around in his head. Guess you didn’t realize I’ve already taken up residence there. I am going to have to talk to Löwe about his open-door policy… His eyes momentarily flashing yellow again, he saw Asima’s head jerk back as if she got the shock of her life. Sorry, bitch… It looks like as if the door’s been shut.
Maul released his grip on the pillar and dropped down to the floor, landing unceremoniously behind Khalid. His eyes glazed over the moment Maul grabbed him by the shoulder, everything freezing. With a charming smile, Maul looked past Daemon at Asima as he spoke. “Gabriel, I think perhaps Löwe here is still suffering from his concussion. As you can see, he’s having headaches. Come on, Löwe… I have some aspirin in the jeep.”
Daemon’s eyebrow raised. With a smirk, he nodded. “Go ahead, guys. I should be done here in about an hour.” He watched Maul lead Khalid by the shoulder out of the chamber… and activated the psi-inhibitor on his master bracelet.
End Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
He sat in the shade of the jeep, looking due East. He wasn’t looking for anything as much as just looking. Being confronted by all of this… that area… the images… the language… All of it was having an effect on him. Stuff rising to the surface uncontrollably…
“What is it, Löwe?”
Khalid did not really ponder Maul’s question. He was not debating what words to choose. He was just not sure if he really could answer Maul’s question. He continued looking outward, his aura swirling with streams of red and yellow, much like a bubble ready to pop. “I can’t push it back.”
“You can’t or you don’t want to?”
“Both. Each time I could feel it getting stronger and pushing out against my will… or perhaps because of my will… like a seed that had been planted and growing inside.”
“A seed that had been planted… or nourished?”
He paused a moment before he answered. “A year ago, I would have said planted. Seeing the effect that being in this area is having on me, I don’t know. I didn’t realize what had happened until Gabe told me he smelled my scent. I… feel like something… is crumbling…”
-----------------------
When the Department of Egyptology at the University of Alexandria sends reinforcements, they REALLY send reinforcements. Tom himself was surprised at the number of experienced excavators, students, etc. that the department had at their disposal. A job that would normally take two weeks was nearly completed in just a matter of hours. Mel had told him on the radio that she was well-staffed too… and that she had completed an astounding amount of work in just a matter of a few hours.
“Thomas,” Anwar called, walking up to the man overseeing this project. “To hear that you are this close to your goal… your dream… and knowing that it has been here under our nose for nearly a year now… That makes it all the more relevant to this department. You have already gone far in the field.”
“I…” Tom said, glancing around. “I had no idea, Anwar, that the department had already found the capital city of a southern kingdom.”
“Truly, Thomas, we were unaware ourselves. It was your research that let us know just how big this city was. If not for you, we would have never have known where all the buildings were. It is just an incredible coincidence… a coincidence that makes it all the more extraordinary. Do not fret, Thomas, you will receive full credit. This was your discovery… your research.”
Still… I don’t see how you DIDN’T know this was the capital… You had this city for over a year?! Nevermind… Let it go, Tom. “I’m glad you were able to make it. When the reinforcements arrived, I asked Mel if she would like to come, but she said she wanted to finish seeing to things at the temple.”
“She suspects she may have discovered a new compound – or since the Egyptians had discovered it first – rediscovered a new compound. Just as this may make your career, Thomas, that may make hers.”
“Well… It looks like they have finished clearing a path to door. Now…” Tom walked toward the entrance to the prison. “According to the tablet, there is a brick… right next to the door… about waist-high… that deactivates all of the booby traps. You might want to step to the side, Pro – Anwar. This king was crafty.” After making sure everyone was to the side of the door, Tom felt around the outside wall, pushing… feeling for something to give. He found the brick, waist-high and rubbed the sand off of it. The symbol of a lion… interesting… “I think I’ve found the brick… The tablet says that it has to be kicked in. I don’t see how that is going to happen with out breaking it.”
With a smile, Anwar looked at the brick. “Perhaps it has been worn through out the years. Try giving it a kick.”
“One of my kicks and one of Ra’s kicks are two different things.”
“Try it.”
With a shrug, Tom turned back toward the brick, locking his eyes on it. Right on the lion symbol should do it… if he were 5000 times stronger. Unaware that Anwar’s eyes were glowing behind him, Tom gave it a swift kick, surprised just how easily it pushed in and triggered the booby traps inside. “Well, I’ll be.”
“It appears to me you do not know your own strength, Thomas. Is it safe to continue?”
“Yes… Follow me.”
-----------------------------
His eyes flashing yellow, Khalid jerked suddenly to the side. Something crumbling… something being… released inside of him. The symbol of the Eye of Ra burned into his mind again, this time causing him to call out in pain. A shifting brick… He stepped away from the jeep, his photon aura growing brighter… hotter… The heat… the intense heat… Of the desert? Or from within?
Maul snapped out of his meditation, reeling from feedback from Khalid. “Löwe… What is…”
“I’m fine… just… just…”
---------------------------
Daemon felt the migraine slap into him, this time a field of electrons flowing around him and then rushing back in. Some kind of charge. He felt it. Just as soon, it pulled back. He thought that maybe he should investigate, but decided instead to finish what he was doing here.
Just as Asima said, the writing on the floor was done by the First Follower… who was also known as King Mufasa of Kemet. Then-Prince Mufasa and Lord Kailon-Ra had built both the Follower’s Den and the Temple of Ra shortly after thwarting the attack from both fronts by both En Sabah Nur and Mjimbe. With King Ratiki on his deathbed, Mufasa knew he could not return to Pharaoh and continue to lead the Followers. Kailon-Ra convinced Mufasa to start a branch on Earth to balance the increased threat of the Toc-Ra under the General Mjimbe and his arch-mage Anwar. The first of these Followers were Mufasa and his wife Nefer, a telepath/precog from Pharaoh. The Den was meant as a secret place for the Followers to gather, at least once a month and from time to time house themselves. The Followers were sworn to a vow of silence. No one – not even loved ones – were to know who among them could be a Follower.
The Temple itself was a cover. The real purpose of the temple was not to encourage worship of Ra as a deity, but rather to serve as an emergency beacon so that Kailon-Ra could be immediately transported in times of need.
To keep these times at a bare minimum – because avatars of Ra had thousands of other planets to protect – the three of them decided that Mufasa should take on a temperamental, feral persona. Kailon-Ra’s rationale was something he called “Good Guard, Bad Guard.” Nefer would be the one the people would love, would respect, would take their troubles to, and would empathize. Mufasa, on the other hand, would be the one everyone would fear and talk about… whose wild behavior and savage demeanor would be the stuff of legends. Behind closed doors, he could run everything and act as he saw fit. In front of the public, he was to start the act. A “popular” king, the other countries would run over. A “crazy” king with wild antics – like not eating anything he did not kill with his own to hands – who openly displayed his powers, no one in their right mind would cross.
----------------------
“Here we are at the central cell, Anwar.” Tom said, leading the way with a lantern. “According to the tablet, there are several more booby traps. The way to turn them off and to open the door to the crypt,” he stopped at the gate to the cell, nodding toward the skeletons inside and the unlit torch on the far side of the wall. “We have to somehow light that torch without going inside. Pretty ingenious, I have to say. For a normal man like us, that might be impossible. For Ra, who could shoot fire from his hands, that would be effortless at the least.”
“Perhaps not, Thomas,” Anwar said, taking an unlit sparkler out of his jacket pocket. He unscrewed the top of Tom’s lantern, dipping the end inside to light it. “How good is your aim?”
“Well… bad enough that I never did make the baseball team. Are you saying I should try throwing that sparkler at the end of that torch?”
“Why not, Thomas? You have nothing to lose.”
With a shrug, Tom took the sparkler from Anwar, balancing the tip between his fingers as he slid his hand through the gate. “I doubt I am going to make it.”
“Go ahead and try it,” Anwar said. His eyes once again glowed dark purple as Tom flicked the sparkler… which landed right on the torch, Immediately, the booby traps all deactivated and the floor of the cell pulled apart to reveal stairs into the crypt. At the end was the Eye of Ra, the blue crystal at the center lighting up the room in its splendor.
“God damn…” Tom said, pushing the gate open.
---------------------
The rest of the inscriptions in the Den – a considerable amount – were carved by Queen Nefer herself, who took on a historian function. (Daemon was still trying to figure out how she managed to carve in some of these places, particularly the top of the pillar!) Most of it discussed significant events that happened while she was in Kemet. Some of them include descriptions of events yet to come.
Within the space of one year, she had lost everything – her children, her kingdom, the Followers, her people, and her husband. Akim – apparently some mage who was not a Follower – had told her that she was with child shortly after Mufasa’s death. In the months afterward, she had personally recruited the next incarnation of the Followers to balance the Toc-Ra, mostly people she had saved from Toc-Ra’s “recruiting” forces.
And it goes on…
Khalid was right. Nothing here gave any indication where the Key and the Eye were, but there WAS something that did come out of it. Queen Nefer’s predictions. Daemon scrolled over them himself.
The House of Ra crossing once again with the waking Lion – he and K? – and with the Angel of Darkness – Maul?! – cleaning the den of the snakes and to restore the light.
Ra returning in their darkest hour to reclaim both of his eyes and…
Daemon stopped, this time turning east. He was not sure what, but he felt something. He DEFINITELY felt something.
----------------
Khalid bent over again, calling out in pain as the Eye of Ra symbol flashed in his mind. Something opened up in him, opening the flood gates. He dropped to his knees, overwhelmed by the pain… the heat from with in… the images… the senses… everything.
“Löwe!” Maul said, standing outside Khalid’s aura, which was now blinding… almost blue… and hot to the touch. “Draw it in… Power it down…”
“The Eye…”
----------------
“I…” Tom held it in his hands, bathed in the light emanating from it. “My life… My studies… I…” he stopped, his voice cracking. “I knew it existed… I knew it was true.”
“Yes, Thomas… It was true… It was ALL true…” Anwar said, his eyes as wide as Tom’s. “Do you mind if I…”
“No, I don’t. Careful… it is heavy…” he said, handing it to Anwar. When the old man took it, he noticed that the blue crystal at the center changed slightly, this time glowing a bright green. “It’s green now…”
Anwar sneered from ear to ear. “Yes… it is… Come on, Thomas. We must show Melissa your truly groundbreaking discovery.”
-------------
“MAUL! K!” Daemon called out as he emerged from the east entrance of the Den. Asima and the rest of the Followers were closely behind him, all of them peering out toward east. Daemon saw the rising cloud of sand and knew immediately that the jeep had just left. “Shit… K’s gone…”
Maul pulled himself out of the dent next to the door, cradling his head. “Damn kinder…” he said, snapping his head back into place. He reached up to his head, brushing pieces of sand and rock out of his hair before noticing Daemon and the Followers all looking at him in disbelief. Daemon knew with the burn across Maul’s chest that Khalid had blasted him to the side of the structure.
“Maul, we need to fly. K’s going for the Key.”
“The KEY?!” Asima interrupted. “How would he know where the Key is?”
Daemon snapped toward her. “Because he hid it… 5000 years ago. THAT’S how he’d know!” Before anything else could be said, Maul grabbed Daemon underneath the arms and flew off after Khalid.
“Asima,” Saqr said. “I think a sandstorm is brewing.”
“I think that is Seth’s doing. We have to hurry. Follow them!”
End Chapter Seven
----------------
Chapter Eight
The cheers and the celebrating never stopped, from the city all the way back to the temple. The designated drivers drove and just about everyone else was drunk as they sang as loud and energetically as possible. Tom, who was neither drunk nor singing, didn’t really notice it. He was looking at the artifact in his hands, the Eye of Ra. He admired the shiny blue light flowing from the crystal. He was not sure, but he even swore he could feel power from it. It just excited him.
When the entourage entered the temple to join with everyone else, the party grew even more festive. The singing was going. The alcohol was flowing. People he did not even know were just going by, patting Tom on the back.
“Good job, Tom…” a well-tanned Middle-Eastern woman said. “We’re all proud of you.”
“I’m sorry… Do I…”
The woman extended her hand, shaking his eagerly. As she spoke, Tom could not help but notice her rich, warm voice. “Professor Aliyah Dahab, Geology Department, University of Cairo.”
“Oh yes… I’ve heard of you, now… You interviewed Mel a couple of months ago…”
“Exactly,” she said, nodding back toward Mel who was walking around. “She’s made quite a discovery with that compound, Tom. I tell you, she could very well be the next Tracy Keenan, sober I hope.”
“TRACY?! My wi – er – ex-wife’s roommate at the University of Toronto?!”
“Only the more fitting… Anyway, she’s looking for you. Why don’t you go show her your find?”
“TOM!” Mel said, running over to him. He carefully handed the Eye of Ra to Prof. Dahab and wrapped his arms around his ex-wife as she giggled with excitement. “Isn’t this wonderful?! I’m so happy for you!”
Tom wiggled back and forth, laughing to his wife’s excitement. “I’m even more happy for you, Mel. A new compound?”
Behind them, Anwar walked up, nodding at Prof. Dahab. “Now, that is a face I have not seen in a while. I’m glad to see you here, Aliyah.”
“And you as well, Anwar. Is Seth going to make it?”
“But of course, Aliyah… He had to run an errand for me. I suppose it is not too soon to get the toast started.” Taking another glass of champagne off the tray, Anwar turned around, calling out in the temple. “Everyone… everyone… May I please have your attention?” Unbelievably, everyone hushed throughout the temple, the only remaining sound was the hum of Mel’s instruments and the trickle of the water from the moat.
Tom and Mel pulled back slightly so he could turn to face Anwar. “Now come on, Anwar… You don’t need to get drunk in front of us.”
“In my 6000 years of life, Thomas,” Anwar chuckled. “I have NEVER been drunk!” Laughter rang out all over the temple. Anwar laughed aloud as well and held up his hand. “It is true! Well… I actually lied.” Everyone quieted down yet again. “I am actually 6427 years old, but who is counting?” Again, laughter carried through before quieting down. “I just want to make this toast to Professor Tom Vargas,” he said, raising his champagne glass to his head. “For without him, NONE of this could have been possible!”
“CHEERS!” everyone said around the room, downing their drinks.
Tom noticed that Anwar’s features began to change before his very eyes. What had once been a fragile elderly man had started to fill out and increase in mass until he more resembled a man in his forties. His hand shaking, Tom’s fingers grew weak, dropping the champagne glass to the floor. “Anwar… what is going on, here?” He looked around the temple at everyone gathered. Almost everyone had transformed into soulless shells, with whited-over eyes. A flash of purple shot throughout the room and their clothes were changed into black cropped robes with green “skirts”.
Tom turned back toward Anwar, who now stood in a similar outfit that was dark purple, just like his eyes were glowing. Dahab stood beside him, her hands poised on his shoulder. She was a creature of pure gold from head to toe, without any clothing on her body.
“Tom…” he heard Mel’s voice say.
He turned to face her, to see that the rash that had just been around her wrist had spread all over her body, causing her skin to flake and peel, much like scales. Her eyes, which had been green, were now an even more striking fluorescent shade. Tom couldn’t help but allow his jaw to drop. “Mel?!”
“I always did hate it when you looked at other women!” she said, her fist coming at him. Then everything went black.
--------------------
The jeep jerked to a sudden stop, gouging a deep trough in the ground as it skidded. For a brief instant, it stood where it was, completely covered in sand, before an explosion of white light uncovered it. Khalid jumped out of the hole, his now-blue aura flaring wildly around him with desperation as he ran. He would know this spot anywhere… With a demonic roar, he started digging – first with his bare hands and then with the front paws of his lion aura. Faster and faster he dug, thinking of nothing but getting to the Key first. Finally, he reached the entrance of the pyramid and ran in.
The corners of the hallways were lined with the blue crystal so that it would automatically light up in response to his aura. That way, he would not have to place torch stands anywhere. That also limited the people who could access this tomb. He broke into a dead run all the way through, mindlessly setting off the booby traps as he went. As soon as he got to the hallway, he took a running leap and landed twenty-feet across a drop into poison spikes. He reached to his side, flipping a switch which automatically opened the trick door into the tomb…
The sarcophagus itself was made out of gold, bearing Ratiki’s deathmask on the front. In Ancient Egyptian across the top it said, “King Ratiki, husband of Nahid, father to Mufasa,” Across the chest was a four-faced Pharaohan fanblade designed by Mufasa himself to seal the sarcophagus. Without thinking, Khalid grabbed the handle of the blade to pull it out. The electrical current from the fan blade picked him into the air and threw him into the wall. With a sigh of relief, Khalid grabbed his head. “Dumbass… you built that fanblade for Kailon-Ra. Only an avatar of Ra can grab it. It was safe all along.” Khalid stopped, thinking about what he just said… and his entire chain of actions…
At that moment, Daemon burst in through the door, seeing Khalid sitting against the wall. Before Khalid could move to stop him, Daemon reached over and pulled the fanblade off of its resting place on the sarcophagus. He flipped it around in his hand and clicked a switch, so that two of the faces lined up with each other. “Nice toy,” Daemon said.
“Nice going. You just unlocked the sarcophagus.” Khalid looked at him and sighed, “You may as well keep it, now. I made it for Kailon-Ra.” Khalid grabbed the cover of the sarcophagus and slid it to the side.
“You know me and weapons.” Daemon said, removing the cover of the sarcophagus the rest of the way with one swift swipe. “Hold on, K… Are you…”
“Ask me later.” He looked inside at the mummified corpse with in and lifted it up slightly, allowing the scarabs inside to run out.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Daemon said, with a smile. Khalid pulled his hand out, holding a disc wrapped in thick Egyptian silk. Setting Ratiki’s corpse down, he stepped back, peeling the cloth back and momentarily polishing the gold disc with the symbol in blue across it. Daemon set the cover back on and slipped the fanblade on an empty slot on his shoulderbelt. “We got it… Now to get…”
“Not so fast, Pharaohan,” Asima’s voice called out from the doorway. Beside her, Maul struggled against a telekinetic field. The Pharaohan jewelry she wore peeled off from around her into the air, forming an enchanted blade in her hand… which she held right under Maul’s ribcage. “He may survive a wooden stake to the heart, but he will NOT survive this! Hand over the Key!”
“Asima!” Daemon called out, “What the hell is going on?! You’re with them?!”
“Oh…” she said, chuckling. “I was with them all along, you fool. For weeks I was among them and no one knew the wiser. As we speak, the remainder of the Followers are being slaughtered by my minions.”
“K?” Daemon asked.
“I wanted to warn you earlier, D, but his field clouded my senses. I did not know which one he was or how many there were… and everyone was surrounding you like glue.”
“HIS?!”
“Yes… Tutankenset… Anwar’s prize thug.”
Asima laughed as her shoulders and muscles expanded. When the transformation was complete, “she” had become a man, with brown skin, and thick dreads. “Excellent, Mufasa…” the now-deep voice said. “I thought you had forgotten about me.”
“How could I forget an ugly black man in drag?” Khalid sneered. “I knew at least ‘Asima’ was full of it because of the jewelry. That was a cheap imitation of the jewelry Kailon-Ra presented my wife on our wedding day.”
“A cheap imitation made out of enchanted metal… which WILL kill your vampire friend…”
“One thing you are forgetting, Tutankenset. I built this tomb…” With that, Khalid dropped his aura, plunging the entire crypt into pitch darkness. The next sound was of a mechanism being set off and then one soft thud and a loud thud. Once again, the tomb lit up from Khalid’s aura.
Maul looked over at the body next to his and a head rolling down the hallway. He and Daemon both glanced toward Khalid in disbelief. Taking a deep breath, Khalid shrugged looking back at them. Trying not to laugh, Daemon gestured toward the hallway. “Come on… Let’s go save the Followers.”
Maul kicked Tutankenset’s head further down the hall. “I always fancied myself a soccer player…” he said, noticing the head disappear in a cloud of sand which was heading for them. “They are certainly kicking up dust cloud out there.”
With a flash of light, Daemon’s extradimensional sword flashed in his hand. “Something’s not right about it.”
The wind and sand hit the three of them immediately, knocking Khalid into the sarcophagus and hurling Daemon and Maul to either side of the door. For a moment, the sand seemed to spiral like a miniature tornado in the doorway and then it coalesced into a Middle-Eastern man, visually in his twenties wearing a brown cropped robe with a green tunic underneath. He held a dramatic pose, sneering down at the three gathered around the room.
“Hello, Sethnakte,” Daemon said, already back to his feet. “I suggest you leave now… preferably the way of your buddy Tutankenset!”
“No need to be so formal,” he said, opening up his hands. The sand scattered around the room flew into the air and shot to his hands. Before their eyes, it transformed into two shining swords, each emblazoned with the symbol of the Toc-Ra across them. “My friends call me Seth.”
Daemon moved first, swiping at him with his sword. Unexpectedly, it passed through Seth who remained unaffected, except for a few pieces of sand being scattered. With a spin through the air, both of his feet kicked Daemon upside the head. By this time, Maul – who had come up from the other side – shoved his hand into Seth’s back, discovering to his shock that Seth was pure sand. With a jerk, he was pulled through Seth’s body and hurled into Daemon. Khalid swiped at him with a lion’s paw, but Seth scattered into a cloud of sand and reformed behind Khalid, stabbing him through the left shoulder with one of the swords and ripping it out. With that, he kicked Khalid in the small of the back and grabbed the Key that fell out of his hand.
“I’d have killed you, Mufasa… but then Dad would have written me out of his will.”
“It’s YOUR will you have to worry about!” Daemon said, an infrared blast shooting from his hand. Before it could strike, Seth discorporated into a whirlwind of sand and whooshed down the hallway, gone with the Key. Suddenly, the tomb started collapsing in around them. “Fuck… We’ve gotta get out of here.”
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“ANWAR!” Tom called out, struggling in the grip of the golden manacles that wrapped around his hands and feet. Sneering at Tom trapped in her grip, Dahab’s free hand went through his hair over and over again, coming it. On the other side, Mel’s tongue dashed in and out of his earlobe. “You tell me what is going on NOW!”
The mage walked up to Tom, holding the Eye of Ra in his hand. His laugh carried throughout the temple, ricocheting off the walls. “Why… we have reserved an important spot for you in our number, Thomas… after everything is finished, that is.”
Dahab leaned in closer to his ear. “What’s wrong, Tom… You can’t get it up? Most men would kill to have two beautiful women pay such close attention to them… not that you did so with Mel…”
“Get away from me you metallic bitch!” Tom snapped. Glaring back toward Anwar, he called out again. “What is this about?! What have you done to Mel?!”
“This, Thomas, is about power… control… GLORY!” Anwar said as he walked around. “When I was your age, I personally watched Amun-Ra battle it out with Set in this very spot… as well as plenty of others. He called himself a god, but Set showed me the truth. Oh… Set showed me the TRUTH!”
“Set?” Tom asked.
“Yes… SET!” Anwar barked, his forked tongue momentarily dashing in and out of his mouth. “He told me that if I were to join him… Help make this world his… and join in the quest to destroy Ra, then he would uplift this entire world… transform it into a true empire!”
“What the…”
“Once upon a time, I had a strong foothold on this kingdom. My protégé was a man by the name of King Lehran. He was set to start this empire, but his bloodline was WEAK. His son Ratiki was weak-minded, no doubt because of the influence of his Swahili mother. Lehran could NEVER do anything with that boy. His grandson, though, showed power even as a toddler. I agreed to transfer the boy’s power to Lehran just before his campaign to conquer North Africa. However, Kailon-Ra saved the boy and struck down Lehran. It was not until after their paths crossed once again that boy became one of the biggest headaches. His name was Mufasa, the last King of Kemet… and the Chief of the Followers. It was HIS writing – written in the language of Ra – that you have been translating, Tom!”
“What?”
“As you had guessed earlier, Mufasa had set both places so that Ra should have been the only one to access them. The Key – as I suspected – was sealed in his father’s tomb, locked by a device that could only be unlocked by someone with a remnant of Ra. Once you led me to the Eye, Tom, I knew that the current incarnation of Mufasa would go after the Key... and likely bring his friend along to open it.” He stopped, laughing as he felt a gust of wind begin in the room. “Speaking of the Key…”
A whirlwind of sand tore through the west door, casting wind all about the place. When it stopped, Seth stood beside his father, opening his hand to reveal the golden disc with the Eye of Ra symbol across it. “Just as you predicted, Father. He went for it and the Pharaohan followed him. Tutankenset is dead, though.”
“Oh,” Anwar said, pouting. “Poor Tut… oh well… I warned him about underestimating them. Nu’man! Sekhmib! Bring her here.”
Sekhmib jumped out of Anwar’s shadow, her prisoner wrapped in a web of blackness. Nu’man – a small red-skinned man with Nubian features – grabbed Sekhmib’s prisoner by the hair, jerking her through the shadowy tentacles. The prisoner screamed as wave upon wave of pain racked through her body. Anwar’s hand grabbed her by the neck, pulling her close. “Hello, Asima… You see, we DID keep you around for a reason. Thomas over there is something of a novice are reading that incomprehensible gibberish called Pharaohan, but I heard on the grapevine that you are not!”
She spat in his face, still struggling in his grip.
“Fortunately, my dear, Sekhmib can make the transfer.” With his cue, Sekhmib took Asima by the neck and forced her telepathic powers to activate. Both Tom and Asima screamed as she was forced to give him a crash course in Pharaohan. When the transfer was complete, Asima lay unconscious and Tom was on his knees with a headache. Next, a purple glow surrounded Tom pulling him to his feet so he looked Anwar in the eyes. “You are going to use that machine on the pillar to call forth Set, Thomas.”
“And if I refuse?” he asked.
“Simple,” Anwar answered. “I feed you to Nu’man…” his gaze next turned toward Mel. “And I turn Mel over to my pet Sadat as his willing concubine. I knew when he converted her earlier that he had a crush on her.”
Tom glanced over at Mel and the man – in the loosest term of the word – who was next to her… covered with scales… and with the head of a cobra. Seth whispered in Tom’s ear. “Don’t they make a cute couple?”
End Chapter Eight
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Chapter Nine
Numair cursed himself as he disemboweled yet another Toc-Ra soldier. Of everyone, he should have been able to sniff out Tutankenset’s impersonation of Asima. Now, their numbers were down to about ten. Everyone played right into Anwar’s hands. To think that mulatto was actually the First Follower all along…
“Numair, watch out!” Rahotep said, hurling a fireball over Numair’s head into the crowd of soldiers converging on them. Taking his cue from the young man, he rushed forward, his claws out. One swipe and three of them were down. One more and so were their friends.
Nofruret and Zafirah were getting crowded as well. One of Seif’s arms were broken. (He still had five others.) Saqr was limited to picking off people from the air, but his effectiveness was minimal. Numair never realized just how much they relied on Asima to coordinate.
Suddenly, there was an explosion from the sand. Daemon quickly rushed out into the battle while Maul kept watch over Khalid. The combination of increased firepower and speed helped turn the tide of the battle toward the Followers.
To the Followers, Daemon was every bit as good as the legend of Ra made it out to be. Fast, powerful, decisive… It was almost scary that someone could look graceful while severing heads and frying Toc-Ra. One turn and a head went flying. Another turn and someone was split from head to thigh. It was amazing just how deft he was. When the battle was over, he walked back toward Khalid and Maul, his body covered with blood.
“Are you okay, K?”
“Yeah… Sort of… Not really.” Khalid said, sitting up. “He clipped an artery. Maul finally managed to stop the bleeding, but I’m not going to be too effective.” He stopped, glancing down. “I fucked up, man… played right into their hands.”
“Yes… you did… but you aren’t alone.” Daemon said. “I made the same mistake you did.”
“And I as well,” Numair said, approaching them. “For my distrust. Of anyone, I should have realized that Asima was acting differently. I accepted her distrust of you, without thinking for myself.”
“And I blame myself for not drinking Type O like I wanted,” Maul said, helping Khalid up. “Forget the blame. They are about to set off a contraption, are they not? Löwe’s injury and this battle was nothing more than a delay tactic while Sandman got away with the Key.”
“We need to get to the temple. K, can you…”
“D, I can barely concentrate right now… To teleport that far would probably wipe me out, not to mention that I wouldn’t be able to help out.” Khalid said, looking toward Maul. “Can you…”
“No, Löwe. It is within my distance, but I have never been there. Even pulling it from your mind would be risky.”
“I can take us there,” a voice with a Southern accent said. The blonde teenager known as Ahmed stepped forward, standing beside Numair. “I’ve been there plenty of times. It will be no problem, but… um…” he said, nodding toward Khalid. “You sure we need to be taking you all wounded like that?”
“Allow me,” Maul said, discorporating into gray mist. As the mist started entering through Khalid’s mouth and nose, his hands flailed back and forth as he coughed and gasped for air. Finally, he fell backwards into the sand, his eyes slamming shut.
“What the fuck?!” Daemon said, watching this. He saw Khalid’s shoulder wound heal before his very eyes as well as his skin bubble and pull inward. Maul’s was using his healing factor to cure Khalid, but the increase in metabolism was eating away his body fat. “Maul… cut it off…”
Khalid’s eyes snapped open, black with red pupils. With a sneer more suited to a German vampire than a reincarnated Egyptian prince, he brought hand up close to his face, bloody where shiny metal claws popped through the fingertips. With a pained click, the claws were forced to retract and the fingertips healed. He then started licking the blood off the fingers, one by one. “I’ve acquired a tolerance for his blood, which allows me to heal…” Before he could finish, Khalid’s aura flared up with a blue flush of light and the gray gas began streaming out of his nose, disappearing into his shadow. He rolled over onto his knees, coughing and throwing up.
Nearby, a set of clothes sank into its shadow. Seconds later, Maul burst from the ground and zipped the fly of his pants shut. “There… all better…” he said, shaking the sand out of his pantsleg.
Daemon’s face contorted as he looked at Maul strangely. “Man, am I going to have nightmares…” ACQUIRED a tolerance for his blood?! As in… he’s done this shit before?!
Khalid still stood bent over, coughing and rubbing his shoulder. With a flash of his eyes, his head snapped toward Maul, a demonic growl rising out of his throat. He lunged toward Maul both physically and with a blue lion’s paw, but Daemon intercepted him and held him back. This was the way he had acted weeks ago when he burst his hand, allowing instinct to push him rather than logic. “Come on, K…” Daemon said. “Save it for later.”
Maul crouched down so he was just out of Khalid’s reach, sneering at the seething look in Khalid’s eyes. “That’s right, Löwe… Just like that.”
Rolling his eyes at Maul’s taunt, Daemon released Khalid, expecting him to continue with the impulse and attack Maul, but instead he dropped onto the ground his hand covering his eyes as if to block out the sun. He spoke his voice shaking just slightly. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Go ahead, Ahmed.” Daemon said. “Your power will draw the least attention.”
-----------------------
Asima’s shriek echoed through out the temple. Her face clenching, her hands pried at Nu’man’s hot grip around her neck. She knew it was futile, only adding yet more surface area where Nu’man could draw blood through her skin, but she just could not sit still as he drained her.
“Yes, my dear…” Nu’man said. “Scream… struggle… It makes your blood all the warmer and delicious.”
“You would be dead now if Sekhmib’s shadow tendrils did not interfere with my nervous system.”
“Aaaaah… but I am not!” he said, increasing his take. “TELL me… what does the writings of your precious Queen Nefer say? Did she warn of your sacrifice to my Master?”
“No,” Asima said, this time a sneer spreading across her face. “She says that the Angel of Darkness will swoop down and feed off the ‘new man’ who feeds on others.”
Nu’man started to choke her in his hand when a stream of purple energy ripped him away from her. Anwar flexed his fingers, tightening the stream’s hold on Nu’man. “You are to simply keep the sacrifice drained… NOT to kill her!” Anwar released him and turned his attention back to Tom Vargas, who was standing on the central pillar, walking around the central pyramid. “It is in your best interest to be expedient, Thomas. The sooner you call on Set, the sooner you and your ex-wife will be released.”
“You liar,” Tom said, moving to the front of the large pyramid where the Eye of Ra symbol was set in gold. “You’re going to do the same thing to me as you are to that woman,” he spat. “You’re going to sacrifice me to Set.”
“That is where you are wrong, Thomas. Set can only feed on the mystically or otherwise empowered such as Asima or Mufasa. A lowly – what do they call them? Oh yes… - flatscan such as yourself or Melissa would be of no nutritional value to Set. You are right… I was lying.” Anwar sneered. “As I said before, we will have a place for you in the new world…”
Tom slowly set his hand on the blue “eye” of the symbol on the pyramid. “I don’t want your new world.”
“True… but I think your resistance to me is not as strong as your resistance to see your ex-wife in the arms of another.”
He closed his eyes, allowing two streams of tears to trickle down his cheeks. For years he had worked, dreamt, LIVED to find the Eye of Ra… so much that it cost him his marriage. And now, his dream had turned into a nightmare he had no choice but to face. “//To protect the House of Ra.//” (Translated from the Pharaohan.) He stepped away as the faces on the tip of the pyramid pulled back, revealing a stand to insert the Eye of Ra. He carefully set the Eye inside the slot, snapping it into place with a click. Next, he took the Key from his pocket and looked down at it, momentarily inspecting it. His glance first traveled to Asima who was pleading with her eyes for him to resist and then to Mel who was standing next to… that THING… He pushed the Key into the “eye” on the symbol and turned it with a click.
Immediately, the crocodiles in the moat stepped out, surrounding the edge as the watery solution of the blue crystal shined with the energies it had absorbed from the heat and the sun. The four smaller pyramids across from the base of the main one opened up, each with tips that resembled smaller replicas of the Eye of Ra. Four bright blue streams of light flowed from the smaller pyramids into the Eye of Ra, whose glow now filled the room.
“FINISH it, Thomas…” Anwar said, his skin now growing scales from the ambient power in the room. His purple energy field swarmed around him as he rose in the air. “FINISH IT!” His forked tongue zipped out of his mouth, as he pointed toward Mel. “OR SADAT KILLS MELISSA RIGHT NOW!”
Tom placed his hand on the Eye of Ra itself. The pulse of blue light now swarmed around him as he spoke, his voice cracking more with every word. His attention turned away from Mel and this time toward Anwar, glaring… seething. “//IN THE NAME OF SET!//” With that, a chill flushed around the room. The light emanating from Eye of Ra, the pyramids, and the moat all changed from blue to green and a concentrated beam shot from the crystal through the open roof into the sky.
“YES!” Anwar started to laugh maniacally. Suddenly, he jerked his head to the side as a white beam of light streaked past him toward the Eye of Ra. Tom dodged as it made contact with the crystal, sending a brilliant flash of light throughout the room. Immediately afterward, the streak of light ricocheted back to its source. Anwar spun around in time to see the white streak slap into Daemon’s hand… it was the Pharaohan Fanblade that Mufasa created for Kailon-Ra.
“Like my new toy?” Daemon asked. “Here, why don’t you take a closer look at it!” Again, he flung it at Anwar, pausing only to bark orders at everyone else. “Maul, save the chick with the skin condition. K, you…” he stopped. “Where the hell did K go? Fuck… I’ll save the man. Everyone else, RIP THEM A NEW ONE!”
Anwar barely dodged the fanblade again just before it returned back to Daemon. “Seth, sandstorm! Sadat, kill the girl. Everyone else, I WANT THESE PEOPLE DEAD!”
“NOOOO!!!!” Tom screamed as he stood up. With the spots finally cleared from his eyes, he looked at the crystal. Half was blue and the other half was green… sending two separate beams of light in two different directions out into space. “What does that mean?”
Anwar glanced at the fighting that had broken out across the room, noticing a serious deletion. “Mufasa… I know he is here somewhere. His pride would NEVER allow him to sit out a fight. I will paralyze him from the neck down and laugh in his face while Set eats his heart alive!”
--------------------
Two streaks of light tore through space, traveling at a speed several thousand times faster than the speed of light. From opposite directions, they approached. Their destination?
Southern Egypt.
End Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
The room had erupted into chaos quickly and immediately as everyone charged into battle. What was particularly dangerous about the close confinement was the lack of maneuverability. In contrast to the fighting occurring everywhere else in the central chamber, Tom stood halfway transfixed at the phenomena before him. Whatever that strange weapon was the black man threw, it cracked the crystal… TWO beams of light were shooting off into space, one blue and one green.
He was shaken out of this entranced state by a glance at his wife… and at the monster that was now trying to kill her. “NOOOOO!!!” He screamed again, coming back to earth. He started to move when he crashed into a field of both blue and green light. “What the…” He reached out to touch it with his hand and then noticed what it was… a protectorate forcefield so that no one could harm that who would call on Ra.
That weapon passed through the photon field… because the black man had charged it with photons… I can’t get out of here until I shut the machine off. He turned back toward the machine, his hand on the key trying desperately to shut it off… only to find to his horror that the key was stuck…
----------------------
Maul emerged out of Sadat’s shadow, with a quick punch him on the underside of the chin – well – or whatever it was he could call that thing that passed for a head. “Here is your knight in shining adamant…” He spun around to grab Mel only to recognize the brainwashed look in her eyes as she hissed. From her mouth, a stream of acid spewed out aimed at Maul, but he dropped into his shadow at the last moment so it instead landed on Sadat’s face. He rose through the floor again, this time backhanding Mel across the face before he threw her over his shoulder. “Normally, I only bitchslap stubborn great-grandsons, but I’ll make an exception this time.”
Finally healed from Mel’s misdirected attack, Sadat started to jump at Maul, but instead found a steel-toed boot to the face ad Maul took off into the air toward the East door. “You won’t esssssscape from me… “ he hissed, dropping into his shadow.
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“Asima! You’re alive!” the teenage Zafirah called out, rushing toward her mentor. “Tutankenset had been impersonating you. Why…” she stopped, seeing the expression on Asima’s face, apparently void. “How come you are not fighting?”
“Because, foolish whelp…” came a voice from behind, kicking her in the back. “My shadow tendrils prevent her from concentrating on her power!”
“SEKHMIB!” Zafirah said, rolling along the ground and coming to a stand, just as Sekhmib’s foot came flying over her head.
“Such a pretty girl, you are…” Sekhmib said, kicking Zafirah in the stomach. “I used to look like you… Clear ebony skin… Tightly curled hair…” A dark rope shot out of Zafirah’s shadow wrapping around her neck and binding her. “Asima chose her protégé well… Unlike her, you are able to resist the effect my tendrils have on the central nervous system.”
Zafirah sneered. “Probably because your shadows aren’t actually touching me!” With that, the girl faded away.
“What?!” Sekhmib got out before a brick came smashing down across her head from behind. As she fell to the ground, her hold on Asima fell away.
“ZAFIRAH!” Asima called out, rushing over to her rescuer. The two women embraced momentarily as her powers came rushing back to her. “I am proud of you.”
“We thought you were gone… and everyone else…”
“Ssssssh…” she said, her eyes flashing yellow. “I have been kept prisoner for too long… and what they have done has made my rage three fold.” From her hand, four streaks of telekinetic force shot out, each hitting four sides of the temple. It was not enough to blast through, but it was enough to weaken the structural integrity so that it would take very little to cave in. “Let us hurry, Zafirah… The First Follower will need our assistance.”
-----------------------
“DAMN it,” Tom said, fidgeting with the Key. “Come out! COME OUT, damn it!”
“Thomas…” Anwar said, floating over. “What are you doing?”
“I’m shutting this goddamn machine off! THAT’S what I’m doing!” He said, struggling harder.
Then, Anwar noticed the two streams of light shooting out from the Eye. “What is THAT?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” Impulsively he started rushing at Tom, but slammed face first into the photon field.
Tom stopped for a moment, seething at Anwar through the field. His fist struck against the field as he spoke, further expressing his anger. “I let myself get used. THAT’s what. I was so wrapped up on this quest that I lost what is the most dear to me… and let myself get maneuvered in a position to deliver this world to my captors.”
“You fool…” Anwar said backing away from the field. “You are a damn fool…” He cringed as a white streak of light clipped his shoulder.
“You’re blaming the wrong person, Purple.” Daemon said, catching the fanblade in his hand. “That’s MY handiwork… I’m not letting a shithead like you call a shithead like Set here. Now, come down here so I can kick your ass properly.”
Anwar’s eyes flashed bright purple. “Perhaps later,” Anwar said with a sneer. “Perhaps what is coming isn’t so bad after all. Foot soldiers, remain and kill them all! Everyone else, regroup…” He said dropping into his shadow.
I sure as hell don’t like this, Daemon thought. That asshole knows something… and so does Khalid… Anwar’s TRYING to keep us trapped in this chamber. I gotta bad feeling about what is coming. “Professor Vargas!” Daemon shouted. “Your wife is safe… Turn off the fucking machine!”
“I can’t!” Tom called, struggling against the Key. He turned his attention, this time toward the Eye of Ra itself, trying to pry it loose. “It’s stuck! Your weapon must have damaged the machine!”
Daemon remembered that his fanblade had passed through the photon field, but that neither Anwar or Tom could. Protective mechanism, no doubt… Mufasa probably set it up that way so he would always be able to turn it off. Two can play that game, though… With a twitch of his powers, a photon field began to surround Daemon. No, he could not manifest them solidly as Khalid could, but this was enough to nullify the effects of the field. Quickly, he passed through it and was beside Tom in a matter of miliseconds.
With one jerk, the key was turned off. Another jerk and the Eye of Ra came out of its place. Tom noticed that as soon as Daemon made contact with it, that both cracked pieces were glowing blue again. “We’ve got to get out of here.” Daemon said, dodging a stray blast. “This place is collapsing and I’m feeling an energy spike from somewhere.” He handed the Key to Tom, pulling out his fanblade again. “I am really going to have to thank Khalid for this toy. Saves me some trouble,” he said, charging it this time with photovaltic energy. With a flick of his wrist, the fanblade shot from his hand, leaving a streak of photovaltic energy in its wake. Several unlucky Toc-Ra footsoldiers found their throats slit or in one case cut right across the waist. The others around them were momentarily blinded and thrown back. “West door’s clear,” he said as the fanblade returned to his hand. With that he grabbed Tom and took off down that path, heading out the door.
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Maul neared the East exit just in time to find Khalid coming out of a secret passage wall carrying what looked like an exact replica of the Eye of Ra, but with a silver casing instead of gold. “Löwe! There you are… We need to.”
“Maul… hold…” Khalid said, handing Maul the artifact. Placing two fingers from each hand in his mouth, he whistled across the temple. On that cue, the crocodiles, which had been lying dormant at the side of the moat, snapped awake, attacking Toc-Ra footsoldiers unfortunate enough to be nearby. “That’ll stall them. Where are the Followers?”
“The boy got them out when once Anwar left. As you notice, this place is falling down.”
“Yeah,” Khalid winced seeing the footsoldiers coming after them. “Don’t see the heavy hitters right now. Looks like they regrouped… or perhaps are after Gabe.”
“I suggest we do the same.” Maul said. They started to move when a blast hit the top of the east exit, collapsing it on top of the door. “Shit…”
“Fuck that,” Khalid said as a blue photon bolt shot from his hands, clearing the rocks. Not wasting any time, the two of them ran, with a mass of foot soldiers hot on their paths. Everyone had decided for right now to conserve energy, because of the fight that was likely coming.
“Löwe… The number of footsoldiers following us have decreased. I smell just enough to chase us, but not too many.”
“You’re right… Like the hounds chasing the fox to the hunters.” Khalid said. “You up for a shadowslide, yet?”
“Nein… I have yet to recover from taking over your body… If you had not cast me out, I would be fine.”
“Well… warn someone next time and…” Khalid’s voice trailed off as he looked down at his hands flashing with the blue aura. “Maul… Something’s wrong…”
“You have a gift for understatement, Löwe…” Maul said as they finally emerged out of the end of the tunnel.
“No… I mean… my powers… I can’t teleport… and I can’t turn them off…” Khalid said. At that moment, there was an explosion of fire directly in front of them from an object crashing into the ground. Maul managed to keep his grip on the artifact Khalid handed him as the shockwave took him off his feet, but Mel slipped off his shoulder onto the ground.
“YESSSSS!” Khalid heard as he came to his feet.
Instinctively, he started to expand his aura into lion shape and reinforce its structural integrity, but found instead that he could not adjust his powers. They were stuck in “neutral” with the key in the ignition. When the hand slapped around his neck, picking him into the air, he suddenly knew why. “Shit…” he choked out as he struggled.
“Löwe!” Maul said rising to his feet, only this time to get backhanded on the underside of the neck. The sheer force knocked him well over the Temple of Ra, sending him flying for a few miles.
--------------------
After Tom and Daemon emerged out from the end of the tunnel, he heard the explosion and then felt the wave of heat pass over him. Daemon jerked to a sudden stop, allowing Tom to slide to the ground. Tom dropped to his knees, waiting for the spots to clear from his eyes before he stood up. “Forgive me… er whatever your name is…”
“Daemon…” Daemon said, not moving.
“But shouldn’t we be…” Tom stopped, finally seeing what it was that caused the explosion… and that stopped Daemon in his tracks. Five feet away from them stood a man, visually appearing to be his twenties, just slightly taller than Daemon. His unnaturally dark skin was set off by the clothing. A colorful cropped robe covered a royal blue tunic, both covered with Egyptian (actually Pharaohan) designs and Hieroglyphic characters. In his hand was a silvery staff, inscribed extensively with Pharoahan characters. The man was teeming with power. Tom could tell that. His eye drawn to the flashing symbol across his face, he finally understood why. “My God… It’s… Ra…” he said. “It is actually Ra… I…” He stopped again, this time his head jerking back and forth between Daemon and this new man, observing their features and their expressions. “Fuck… You guys look so much alike, you could be brothers!”
“We are brothers,” the two of them said in unison.
“Oh.”
End Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
“Now what do we have here?” Khalid heard the voice at the end of the hand say.
Fuck… fuck… fuck… fuck… he said over and over in his mind, struggling to rip his neck out of this hand. His photon powers were of little use to him right now, possibly even more of a liability than ever. He swung his leg up so that it went around his opponent’s arm, planting the heel in the back. This helped him alter the direction of his force, pulling his head free. Just as he fell to the ground, he felt a concussive force blast hit him in the face. Stunned, Khalid felt the hand once again grab him by the neck.
He opened his eyes to look the creature in the face and fought the temptation to close them again. The name of the alien race eluded him, but the features were predominantly the same. Essentially, they were Serpent men at one time from a planet that was just a few light years from Pharaoh. They were humanoid in the important aspects, but serpentine in such ways as being cold-blooded, scales, shedding their skin, fangs, and venom sacs in the back of their mouths. At one time, the race had been a trading economy, but a few thousand years ago, they split in half in a bloody civil war.
“Why do you fear Sssssekhssset, Terran?” The thing asked, its long forked tongue dashing out to tap all over Khalid’s face. A cold shiver slid down his back as Khalid fought to control his nerves. “Your power… It resonatessss in responssssse to my own. I ssssmell ssssomething… ssssomething familiar… Do I know you?”
“Er… no…” Khalid said forcing his hands to stop shaking.
“I think I do…”
“You know what they say… All us Terrans look alike.”
“It issss true… The lassssst Terran Sssset met did not look like you, though… but… his powers were like yours… Photonssss, as a matter of fact. That was thousands of livessss ago… and he was sssssurrounded by Pharaohanssss…” His curiosity satisfied, Sekhset placed Khalid back on his feet and released him. “But you are not… ”
Khalid started backing away. “Well, it was nice speaking to you, but I’ve got to…” He stopped in his place, seeing the Toc-Ra foot soldiers and Mel that still surrounded the two of them. By this point, Anwar had also made an appearance, doing little but standing by and watching with the most ridiculous smile on his face.
“You are just by yourssssself, Mufassssssa…”
A pained roar erupted out of his throat as his powers were opened up just past his threshold. Too much… He couldn’t handle this much and not release it, but he couldn’t. Sekhset’s hold was too strong on it. A kick was the next thing he felt, throwing him into the air. Then, a punch in the stomach. Sekhset was holding back; Khalid knew it. He was going to suffer… everything gradually growing more painful.
“Ssssuch delicioussss power… ressssstrained…” Sekhset said, turning up Khalid’s connection another notch. “Pure… but bound… Better than lasssst time… But delicioussss… ” He said, throwing Khalid roughly to the sand again with a kinetic force-bolt. “With your heart… comesssss your power… and it will be mine…”
“It’s my heart… you can’t have it!”
“Then, I’ll just take it!” He said as a burst of telekinetic energy ripped Khalid away from him.
“ATTACK!” Asima’s voice called out. With that, the appearance of over a thousand people seemed to flow in, attacking the footsoldiers.
“IT’S AN ILLUSION!” Anwar called out. “I don’t know where that bitch is, but…”
“It makes no difference,” Sekhset said. Before Khalid could get far, he spewed forth a stream of venom from the sacs in his mouth, covering him in a green slime. Khalid dropped to his knees, a roar of pain coming out of his mouth.
---------------------------
“Hello, Gabe.”
“Hello… Hashad… er… Ra…”
“We both know what you mean.” Hashad-Ra answered. His glance then turned from Daemon to the sky overhead, seeing a figure flying through the air backwards. “Friend of yours?” He asked, raising his eyebrow upward.
Daemon looked up, wondering why Maul was flying like that at that speed. The sheer momentum would likely carry him a few miles away. “Yeah… He’ll be back in a sec,” Daemon said.
Tom stole a quick glance at the door seeing the Toc-Ra foot soldiers who were streaming out with their weapons ready. “Um… Daemon…” he said, stepping away from him.
Hashad-Ra leaned over slightly to get a better glance of the approaching footsoldiers coming up behind Daemon. “Friends of yours?”
“Nah, they’re Toc-Ra.”
“Okay… can’t have THAT, can we?” With a slight gesture of his fingers, he motioned for Daemon to step slightly to his left. In his hand, he formed a ball of fire and with a few steps, rolled it along the ground like a bowling ball. With a loud “fwoosh” it grew in size as it rolled, incinerating the Toc-Ra and easily collapsing the tunnel on top the remains of the footsoldiers.
First, Tom stood dumbfounded at the effortless power of the man. Hashad-Ra, Daemon called him. Then, he remembered his Egyptian mythology. The gods were said to have combined with people and each other at times to form a more powerful aggregate. So, it made sense. He should have seen it coming before, rather than expecting Ra to be this completely independent entity. Ra no doubt required an avatar. With a snap of his head, he then realized… hold on… “Neither one of you are much for archaeological posterity, are you?”
“Wanna join them?” They both said in unison, again. Next, the distinct sound of a demonic roar cut short snapped them both out of their sort of awkward reunion. Again, the two of them spoke at the same time, Daemon saying “K” and Hashad-Ra saying “Mufasa.”
“Stop that!” Daemon said, snapping at his brother.
“No, you!”
“You started it…”
“What the hell are…”
“Save your friend, fight later?” Tom asked.
“Deal!” They both said, again glaring at each other. With a burst of superspeed, Tom felt himself picked up by the loop of the pants and dragged off to the other side of the temple.
-----------------------
The darkness caused by the sand storm was overwhelming, but it did not slow him down. It couldn’t. Khalid gave it to him for a reason. Of that, he was sure. When it was the main people themselves who came after it rather than the footsoldiers, Maul knew it was important. He couldn’t let them have it at all… and he could not let anything happen to it.
Likewise, he could not carry on like this forever. No… still recovering… Should never have shadowported earlier, because I cannot now. If Löwe had not cast me out… His every move was defensive, never offensive. He couldn’t spare it. One of his hands were already bound just holding the artifact.
One kick and Sekhmib’s concentration on her shadowtendrils was stalled. A quick slash across Dahab’s face backed her off for a little while… Löwe… Gabriel… I could use some help right now…
----------------------
“Set!” Hashad-Ra called out.
Daemon set Tom to the ground, his sword flashing to life in his hand. He could recognize Zafirah’s illusion now. They had attempted to rescue Khalid from Sekhset, but were in over their heads. Why only footsoldiers and Anwar? I’m missing something…
Both Daemon and Hashad-Ra took off with a supersonic boom, forgetting the effect it would have on Tom. The explosion of air slapping back into place picked him into the air, throwing him on his face. He brought his hands up to cover his ears, who were now in pain and dysfunctional. “God damn,” he said…
It was that supersonic roar traveling through the middle of the battle that changed the tide completely. Moments after Sekhset had disappeared in a blur, (observers were sure that he was likely one of the two EXTREMELY fast streaks of light continually crashing into each other and knocking away) the boom lifted everyone off their feet, dropping them back to the ground.
Daemon surprised himself with his speed, the way even before people landed on the ground he was able to weave in and out of the crowded mass, quickly slicing and dicing almost all off the footsoldiers. Leaving enough for the Followers to finish off, he rushed toward Khalid, who was reeling in pain covered with green slime. Just before he arrived, Khalid’s hand jerked up. Immediately, his forward momentum stopped and Daemon paused just five feet away from him.
“NO! Don’t touch me!” Khalid roared backing away from Daemon.
“My God, K…” Daemon said, noticing that Khalid’s skin was peeling away and a sheath of scales started emerging beneath. The process had started at his hands and feet – which more resembled talons – and was creeping inward toward his chest.
From his side, Mel started to tackle Khalid, but a blue photon paw intercepted her, knocking her into the sand. She screamed as the blue light surrounded her, racking her body. She convulsed on the ground, her shriek carrying through the air.
“MEL?!” Tom screamed. “LEAVE HER ALONE!” He said, slapping Khalid in the temple with the Eye of Ra. Before he knew it, an electromagnetic bolt struck him in the chest and an extradimensional sword was leveled at his neck.
“Tom?” Mel said, sitting up. She ripped off the layer of scales covering the skin of her arm, dropping it to the ground as she looked at him.
“Mel?” Tom answered in return.
“That man… he… canceled the spell! He…” Before she could continue, Tom was on top of her, his mouth greedily devouring hers. His hand reached up as they kissed, tearing off the layer of scales that had grown over her arms, revealing her very skin beneath.
“Wlymrrme…” Tom’s muffled voice said, not coming up for air. His free hand fumbled inside his pocket, feeling for the felt covered box. Mel smacked his hand away from his jacket, wrapping it around her neck as they kissed and rolled around on the ground.
Daemon and Khalid were both taken off guard and looked toward each other, raising their eyebrows. “White people,” they said in unison.
One of Tom’s hands pulled away from Mel for the slightest instant, sticking his middle finger in the air, before traveling back so he could make out with his soon-to-be ex-ex-wife.
“K… you okay?”
Khalid made it to his feet, looking at the scales that were creeping up his arms. With a white flash of his eyes, a portal formed beneath him, releasing a flare of light that rushed past him toward the sky and then shut down. “Had to burn off Sekhset’s slime.” Khalid said. “Can’t remember the name of his race…”
“Scythrans…”
“I just remember that they reproduce two ways. Either the old-fashioned way… or by spewing their venom on someone else.”
“That’s right… I forgot… Their venom alters their victims genetic structure.”
“Exactly… and forges a bond stronger than telepathic… Their victims essentially becomes their slave, unable and unwilling to resist their commands.”
“K?!”
Khalid reached up to roll back the sleeve on his arm, but ended up tearing away what little was left of it with hands which resembled talons. Daemon could see the tattoo flashing underneath. The transformation could not proceed past that point on either arm. “I’ll be okay.” He said. “But the last thing we needed right now was a former avatar of Ra running around being the slave of Sekhset.” He nodded toward the two streaks of light, bouncing all over the area, occasionally tossing off a stray blast as they slammed into each other over and over again. “I see your brother made it down here for the party. He’s got a mean left hook.”
Tom ripped his mouth off of Mel’s, jerking his head toward Khalid. “You can SEE that?!”
Mel sat up, grabbing him by the neck. “Who gave you permission to breathe?!” she stopped. “Hey… Aren’t you Kha…”
Daemon ignored the two of them. “He should… After all those years I spent pounding his head in. He’s going to kick Set’s ass.”
“We’ve gotta stop them,” Khalid said as a stray fireball flew past them, crashing into the sand nearby with a loud explosion. By this time, the Followers were done with the footsoldiers and Asima was concentrating on reinforcing her telekinetic forcefield as they gathered near.
“NO WAY!” Daemon said as a stray streak of lightning flew past his ear. “Hashad’s going to kick his fucking ass! He can take him! Sekhset doesn’t stand a chance!”
“Gabe, in close enough proximity, Set was able to manipulate my photon power just like Ra could. They have the same power, the same resiliency, the same stamina…”
“Who the hell are you telling, K!” Daemon shouted at him. “I WAS the motherfucking avatar… REMEMBER?! I’m telling you that Hashad is going to kick…”
“The issue isn’t whether he is going to kick his ass or not, but WHEN!”
“What’s it matter K?! This battle is signed, sealed, and…”
“Gabe… Haven’t you ever wondered where the Sahara came from?”
The two of them stopped, staring at each other as the streaks of light from the fight happening around them passed over Asima’s telekinetic field. The only sound to be heard was that of the explosions and the blasts happening around them. Daemon finally spoke. “Fuck. We’ve gotta stop them.”
“The Eye of Ra was designed to bring Ra here in times of need. The Eye of Horus, on the other hand, was to send him back just as quickly when he was done. As you know, it does not take much to calibrate it to Set… I was getting the Eye of Horus earlier, but I was unable to find the Key.”
Asima stepped forward, reaching inside the pocket of her tunic. She withdrew a silver disc, with the reverse emblem of the Eye of Ra that she had taken at the Toc-Ra’s initial assault on the Followers. “I have it. The writings of Queen Nefer warned me that I was to deliver it to the waking lion. Fortunately, my own mystical field prevented Anwar or Sekhmib from detecting it on me.”
“Fuck then, it’s all coming together,” Daemon said. “We’ll go back to the temple, fix the machine, send snake man away, and we’re fine. So, where’s the Eye of Horus, K?”
“I asked Maul to carry it when we were running out of the temple.”
“Oh then… Maul should be back any moment.”
Khalid’s eyes opened wide. “He wore himself out teleporting earlier to save Mel because he was not yet recovered from possessing me... and… and…” Khalid and Daemon both looked at each other noticing that they had not seen neither Maul, Anwar, nor the other major Toc-Ra for a few minutes. “FUCK!” They both shouted in unison.
End Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
His only advantage was that he could fly. The problem, of course, was that Seth’s sandstorm was making it pretty much impossible for him to do anything but jump into the air. His sense of direction was all twisted around so that he could not tell east from west or north from south. Even his nose was unreliable at this stage. The only thing he could really rely on was his ears. Despite the roar of the sandstorm, his ears almost never failed him.
Sadat would not fire a stream of acid, fortunately, because in such close quarters he could not get a clear shot. His bite, though, was wreaking havoc on Maul’s healing factor. It had started a rash, but it would not spread far. The problem, of course, was that his healing factor was no longer protecting him from everything else!
Dahab’s hands had morphed into long thin gold blades, each capable of flaying Maul’s flesh. Even she held back, though, because she did not want to risk the chance of harming the Eye of Horus.
The two most effective opponents against Maul, however, were Sekhmib and Nu’man. Sekhmib’s tentacles not only would bind him from time to time as he leapt around, kicked, and elbowed… but they would continually make grabs at the Eye of Horus. Nu’man’s task was even simpler – try to hold on to Maul as long as possible to drain blood through his skin.
Maul had successfully held out for a few minutes, but he was weakening, now.
“I do not know what that particular artifact was created for, but if Mufasa avoided the fight at the temple to get it, I do know that it is important enough that I want it.” Anwar said, standing beside Seth amid the wailing sandstorm as they watched the fight.
“The vampire is strong, Father. For three minutes, he evaded them.”
“His advantage is his disadvantage. Four opponents working together against one, must be careful not to hurt each other. More importantly, they must be careful not to hurt that artifact! He will not survive much longer. The Followers have been practically destroyed. Ra will be fighting Sekhset for a long time. Mufasa is undergoing the transformation process from Sekhset’s venom and will soon be unable to resist his commands. That leaves only the Pharaohan… vulnerable to us.”
“Father…” Seth asked. “What is that whistling sound?”
With a purple flash of his eyes, Anwar tackled Seth as Daemon’s fanblade whizzed where his head used to be. Then, a porthole opened in front of them, sending a brilliant flare of light right at them. Khalid jumped out of the portal, ripping a blue photon’s paw across Seth’s back while hitting Anwar directly in the nose with the palm of his hand – a sinus strike.
“Nice hands, Mufasa… Aren’t you a pianist?!” Seth said, forming two swords from the sand around him.
“Nice glass scar, Seth!” Khalid said, ripping a photon sunblade across Seth’s chest. Just as he predicted, the photons were hot enough to cause the sand to melt into glass. Furious, Seth came at him with both swords, each swing being a potentially lethal blow. Khalid knew better than to try to knock the swords from Seth’s hands, so he managed to deflect each blow with a well placed photon barrier.
A white flare of light shot from a portal behind Seth, surrounding him completely as it raced over him. He screamed from the process as his body was transformed into glass.
“SETH!” Anwar shouted, finally over the sinus strike. The purple field surrounded him as he rose into the air, delivering a spinning heel kick to Khalid’s face… but not before a photon bolt shot out from Mufasa’s fingers, shattering the glass structure into a million fragments. “SEEEEEEEETTTTTTTHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Anwar screamed, dropping to his knees. In desperation, he tried to pick up all the pieces with his hands, but the remnants of the dwindling sandstorm scattered them around.
With a sickening stretch of the skin, Anwar’s full form came about, the scales erupting out of his skin. His eyes had become reptilian, each glowing bright purple. The fangs from his mouth were long and sharp. “I will have you know, Mufasa, that your daughter was one of the best whores that I… Mjimbe… Tutankenset… and Imhotep all had. One right after the other… over… and over… and over again…”
A white flash came across his eyes as he snarled. His mind thought of nothing by that point. As far as he was concerned, the result of that fight was sealed.
----------------------------
Asima sat lotus style, fighting to concentrate through everything happening around her. All that mattered was that she maintained the telekinetic field around what little was left of the temple. It was a virtual maelstrom outside as the two streaks of light continued their fight, bouncing and crashing into one another over and over again. For all intents and purposes, she was their only protection against the fight between the two Power Elementals, her field taking whatever stray blasts and fireballs might come at them. She had to consider herself fortunate that neither Elemental crashed bodily into her field.
Rahotep and Nofruret remained outside the field. Their job was perhaps the most dangerous. They had to absorb as much energy expended as possible from the two elementals’ fight. According to Mel, the blue silica solution had been drained completely when the mechanism was activated earlier. With the setting sun blocked by the sand thrown into the sky from the fight, that meant they were going to have to use an alternate energy source. With Daemon and Khalid gone, those two were the best bet.
Ahmed’s job was to use his teleportation power to clear the rocks and rubble out of the silica solution. According to Mel, it needed to be as clear of “impurities” as possible in order for the power to transfer the most efficiently. Seif was to string webbing all over the left over of the temple. That way, any falling objects would be caught in his web.
“Let’s see,” Tom said, poring over the pyramid. “We’re going to need for this to be clear,” he motioned toward the smaller pyramids. “Those channel the power toward the Eye.”
“I think that one of the crystals is cracked,” Saqr said, looking closer. “Yes… I can see it with my microscopic vision.”
“That means that we are going to have to replace it,” Tom answered. “I don’t know where we are going to get it, though.”
Ahmed’s voice called up. “Wait… We can get some from the Followers’ Den! In the eye on the floor… remember, Numair?’
“You’re right, Ahmed.”
“Good… Ahmed… Take the catman here and try to dig out a solid piece. We’re going to need it.”
-----------------------------
For Daemon, Dahab proved to be just a little bit more than he expected. In a way, she was like Seth in that it was nothing for her to mold her body into different shapes. She was like liquid gold, constantly able to shift. Even WORSE was that the source of her powers were mystical. In other words, she tapped him and he bled.
She ran up to him, kicking him on the underside of the chin as she flipped back to her feet. When she landed, she followed by repeated alternating jabs to Daemon’s face in quick succession while kicking Anubis out of his hand. Next, she jumped into the air, ripping her feet across Daemon’s face, twice.
Concentrating, he fired a plasma burst at her, dismayed to find that she opened her chest around it. “Bitch,” he said, backhanding her…
Sadat came from behind, spewing a mouthful of acid onto his back. Daemon felt what was left of his trenchcoat disintegrate and his shoulderbelt start to slip off. “Fuck it,” he said, firing an electromagnetic burst at Sadat. He pulled the fanblade out of his shoulderbelt before it fell to the ground and grabbed his sword with the other hand.
“Damn it, Pharoahan… Don’t you know when to DIE?!”
“No… Don’t you know when to wear clothes?”
“No one’s ever complained.”
“Yeah… sure… you probably wait until they are between your legs and slice it off… right?” He asked with a sneer.
Dahab apparently did not take that too well, because she slipped into the sand. Sadat took on the attack where she left off. At first Daemon did not understand what was going on, because with Sadat simply being a reptile, he was the LAST person that should be attacking Daemon. Then, when the gold spikes started thrusting through the sand, he figured it out. Sadat just had to tag him – get him in a position where Dahab could nail him.
He didn’t want to do it, but he had to risk it. With a burst of superspeed, he came at Sadat – the immediate threat – punching him all over his body. While doing this, he was building an electromagnetic charge in his fanblade. If he timed this right, there would be nothing to worry about. Just as he was about to decapitate Sadat, a shadow tentacle wrapped around his wrist, jerking him backwards on top of Dahab’s gold spike. At the same time, Sadat bit him in his sword hand, causing him to release it.
Sekhmib ripped her tentacle through Daemon, laughing as he screamed from the pain to his nervous system. What she didn’t expect was for him to overcharge his fanblade. Daemon hurled it into the air, watching it rise high into the sky until it stopped, simply spinning with its electromagnetic energies. Intrigued as she tried to figure out what she was doing, Sekhmib pulled her tentacle back as he kicked Sadat away from his leg.
Overflowing himself with a buildup of electromagnetic energy, he grabbed Dahab’s spike that was sticking through his stomach and spun around so that she was pulled out of the sand on top of him. Dahab laughed hysterically as she pinned him down, head-butting him to the forehead. “Pharaohan warrior, indeed,” she spat. “I am made of metal! You cannot harm me with your electromagnetic charge!”
Huffing and puffing, Daemon looked up at her, sneering. “You got me, babe… Tell you what… Before you finish me off, you mind giving me a kiss?”
“Sure… why not?” She said, leaning over… but then Daemon’s head stopped her.
“Wait…” he said. “Almost forgot something.”
Dahab heard the shrieking sound coming in from behind her. Her head snapped behind her to see the fanblade directly in front of her. Before she could scream, it slid through her neck, landing directly in Daemon’s palm. As her head fell beside him, her body fell directly on top of him, lifeless. With a flick of his wrist, the fanblade shot from his hand lodging into Sadat’s neck before he could respond. An explosion of concussive force shattered Dahab’s body into pieces. Daemon finally stood up, pulling the rest of it out. The remnant of Ra, charged with the energy being expended by the fight between Hashad-Ra and Sekhset, had already begun to heal him and fight of Sadat’s bite when Sekhmib’s shadow tendrils wrapped around him again.
“Damn it,” Daemon said. “I knew I forgot someone.”
“Yes you did, Pharaohan…” Sekhmib said, thrusting her tendrils deep inside of Daemon. An electric charge wrapped around Daemon as wave upon wave of pain rushed through his nervous system. “Delicious… Pain… Pain upon pain…” What she didn’t realize was that there was a particular memory stirring up in the back of Daemon’s mind… and some things should just be left alone…
--------------------
“The Angel of DARKNESS, eh?” Nu’man said, kicking Maul in the chin so he flipped in the air and landed on his face. He walked up behind him as he lay, and grabbed him by both sides of the neck, draining off yet more blood before it could reach his head.
Normally, one on one it would not even be a contest. Maul would have torn Nu’man’s ass apart. The problem this time was that he had spent about three minutes getting the snot beat out of him by everyone before Daemon showed up. Sekhmib had stayed awhile to torture him, but then she went on to Daemon, because he had more life in him. “Were it a fair fight…” Maul got out. “You’d be dead. You still will.”
Nu’man shoved Maul’s face into his boot and kicked him over yet again. “If this fight were fair, I wouldn’t be a bad guy, would I?” he taunted, pulling a knife from his belt.
Maul knew if Nu’man drained much more blood, he would pass out… and once passed out, he would likely die without anyone to feed from. At this stage he was too weak and too slow to lift himself to a full stand. The adamantium was too heavy. He did manage to get on his hands and knees and start to crawl, this time toward the silvery artifact Khalid had given him early. If he timed everything right, he could probably have one more surge left in him.
“Aaaaah… in our haste to dispatch you so quickly, we had forgotten that we were supposed to keep you from that artifact. Not much of a challenge now, is it?” Nu’man said, shoving the knife deep into Maul’s back. “Your healing factor can take only so much punishment, vampire! Tell me… Can you feel your life draining from you?”
Maul collapsed to the ground. Nu’man had just severed his spinal cord. He looked over as Nu’man was about to grab the Eye of Horus. With his last once of strength, Maul grabbed him by the ankle and quickly bit down on him. Nu’man screamed, trying desperately to shake Maul’s bite off. He brought the Eye of Horus down on Maul’s head once… twice… trying to dislodge him, but Maul would not release his grip. His strength returning with each new drop of blood – apparently, Nu’man had fed off a LOT of people in the past few days – Maul came to his feet, this time kicking Nu’man upside the head. “Your blood… so concentrated… so rich…” he said. “The best I’ve ever tasted.” With that, he jerked Nu’man by the neck and bit down…
…and Nu’man screamed…
“NU’MAN!” Sekhmib shouted, turning her attention away from Daemon. Then she also noticed that the air around her was feeling particularly charged. Then it happened. A wave of plasma ripped from Daemon, hurling her through the air. She landed sharply on the ground, shrieking from the burns. Daemon rushed over to her, his sword ready to gut her when her shadowy tentacles ripped through the ground once again.
“Lady… you messed up before playing with my nervous system like that…” he said.
“I know…” she smiled. “Unlike the rest you dispatched, I’m no fool. You’ve won this time… just remember that you’re not alone around here. Give Mufasa my regards!” she said, sinking into the sand.
----------------------
In a split second, Anwar realized just what it was that made Mufasa so dangerous 5000 years ago. A man protecting his child is said to be among the most dangerous people in the world. A man AVENGING his child takes that entirely to another level, because in the back of his mind he no longer cares what happens to himself. As of this moment, Anwar no longer cared about his life. He no longer cared about his allegiance to Set. He no longer cared about any of it. He wanted Mufasa dead on the ground and blood on his hands.
It had started out as a fistfight, each one of them quickly trading blows back and forth. Anwar grew bolder as Khalid started to grow bloody, without the luxury of a healing factor like he did. That did not stop Khalid’s resolve or the effectiveness of his blows, though.
Two punches to the shoulders had momentarily stopped the blood flow to Anwar’s arms. Next came a photon bolt to the eyes and a kick to the chin, knocking Anwar on his back.
Anwar sank into his shadow, exploding later from the sand behind Khalid. With his field to enhance is already-considerable strength, he wrapped Khalid in a headlock, squeezing tightly as he fought to snap Khalid’s neck. A photon bolt to the eyes had cured that attempt and provided Khalid just the opportunity he needed to get some more blows in… when Anwar got a REALLY good kick in the stomach and an uppercut underneath the chin.
Khalid was knocked into the air and landed on the sand about ten feet away. When he rolled back to a stand, he saw a thick stream of purple energy with the head of a snake slam into him, surrounding him completely. With a gesture from Anwar, the snake started to squeeze, squeezing in on Khalid as well. Then, the head of the energy snake bit into his shoulder, starting to siphon off his life force.
A white flash coming to his eyes as he fought to concentrate through his depleting energies, Khalid formed a portal beneath Anwar. Rather than allowing Anwar into it, he allowed the light flare to shoot out from beneath exploding Anwar into the air and dissipating his energy snake. As Anwar came down, Khalid formed a photon blade in his hand and swung up, decapitating Anwar.
At first, he stared down, looking at what he did. Then, with a flick of the photon lion’s paw, Anwar’s head was hurled away from the body. Next, he felt a surge of energy shoot from Anwar’s body, passing into him. He roared as Anwar’s spirit passed through him, leaving his final revenge – Anwar’s memory of brutally raping and killing King Mufasa’s daughter. He roared and screamed even after his voice turned raw and the sound of Anwar’s laughing passed…
…and the tattoos his arms slowly stopped glowing…
End Chapter Twelve
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Chapter Thirteen
Thousands of years ago the Sahara was lush and green, with vegetation ranging from savanna to even rainforest. That had all changed when Amun-Ra and Set had their historic battle on Earth. Two power elementals with the strength of gods clashed on this land, completely upsetting the balance. Not only did the destruction wrought by their battle permanently destroy the ecosystem and most living beings around, but the electromagnetic disturbance changed the weather patterns. In a matter of years, the Sahara had emerged across Africa… the juggernaut of all deserts.
History has repeated itself thousands of years later, but in new incarnations. Sekhset had ascended as the Set elemental years after his own “father” had converted him into a member of his species with his venom. For years, he had been his father’s willing slave, until a mage had slain the avatar. Set had bonded to him, the next in line with the closest genetic code matching his father.
Hashad had a different rise. The rightful avatar of Ra was actually his older brother Daemon, whom his father passed on the right at the tender age of 14. Three years later, after a tragedy that would from time to time give even Hashad nightmares, Daemon had cast the Ra entity out, in effect passing it to Hashad.
The hatred they felt for each other was an inherited hatred, passed down on them from the tens of other avatars their respective elementals have inhabited through the years. It was primal, more than anything else, not guided by reason or thought. Pure instinct.
The average person would see two extremely fast streaks of light, dashing all over the place, destroying things, and crashing into each other. Someone with a heightened level of sensory perception would see the extreme kicks, punches, sword play, blasts, and level of fighting happening all within a blink of an eye. It was beautiful and frightening at once.
To those few people gathered who stood transfixed at something that could very well mean Armageddon, they were not sure just who was winning. The question was moot as this battle had the potential to drag on for ages. The fact was that if the battle was NOT stopped, it would be everyone else that would be the losers.
“Zafirah,” Asima called out through her deep meditation. The bulk of her concentration was spent maintaining and reinforcing the telekinetic field protecting them. The maelstrom outside it kept from slipping inside the temple, but the shockwaves from the stray blasts would not last. Her hold was weakening. “I am in need of your strength.”
“Asima?”
“The snakes are gone, but I sense grief… and overwhelming… despair.”
---------------------------
When they first heard the roar, they had instinctively expected the worst. Unlike the two of them, Khalid had no healing factor. Seth stabbing Khalid in the shoulder earlier had been another painful reminder that Khalid was as vulnerable as anyone else.
“Maul?!” Daemon asked.
“He’s alive,” Maul answered, picking up the Eye of Horus. “And relatively unharmed, but something happened when Anwar died…” They looked at each other, realizing what it was. With a twitch of Maul’s teleportation power, they had closed the distance in an instant.
As expected, Anwar’s body lay on the ground, headless as the blowing sand from the elemental fight near the temple started to cover the body. Khalid was bent over, his hands pressed at his temples, sobbing. Daemon noticed that the tattoos were no longer visible, covered up by a layer of green scales. “K?”
“Go away… both of you…” He said. “Just go away.”
“K… the transformation has resumed. You need to stop it before Sek…”
He knocked them both away with a photon paw and glared at them. The Scythran transformation was close, but not complete. Instinctively, Daemon had flashed his sword, but then remembering that this was Khalid, he sent it back to its pocket dimension. Khalid stepped toward them angrily, his now-forked tongue zipping in and out of his mouth. “I said GO AWAY!”
“Maul…”
“On it,” Maul snapped his fingers, his eyes flashing yellow as he spoke. “Stop the transforma…” His heard jerked back with a snap as his eyes stopped flashing. Maul turned toward Daemon, shaking his head. “Uh uh…”
“What’s WRONG, Vampire?” Khalid spat as his photon paw wrapped around Maul. “Upssssset becaussssssse your pssssionic sssuggessstion isssss not working?”
“Gabriel! Take the Eye to the Temple!” Maul said.
“Like HELL I am!” Daemon said, severing Khalid’s hold on Maul with a flash of his sword. “I’ll take care of K, you…”
“Nein. The fight from your elementals is interfering with my shadowporting! You are the most timely person to get it to the Temple.”
“I’ll be back,” Daemon said, taking the Eye of Horus and zipping off toward the Temple of Ra.
Taking his finger and removing a bit of flesh from his fang, Maul turned back toward Khalid. “Löwe…” He said his eyes flashing. “You will listen to me and you will turn back your transformation.”
“Or WHAT, Walssssh?” Khalid hissed. “Are you prepared to do what issss necesssssary? Are you prepared to ssssssslay me?”
“No,” Maul sneered. “I think I know what is going on. You have decided for some reason that you aren’t worthy of living. That is why you ALLOWED the transformation to take place. I think you want to die, but are too chicken to do it yourself… So you want one of us to do it.”
“You LIEEEEeee… My masssssster Ssssssekhsssset has declared that YOU, vampire, are to be converted into one of ussssss… into one of the sssssstrong…”
“Nein…” Maul laughed. “You can’t do it! You’re too much like me, Löwe…”
“You inssssssult me, Vampire!”
“You insult yourself!” With that, Maul disappeared into the sand beneath him, coming up directly underneath Khalid, who was ready with a photon blade. Before he could strike, Khalid was thrown along the ground on his back. From his hand, several photon bolts shot out, trying to nail Maul who easily avoided them. Frustrated, he got to his feet running at him when he realized Maul was not around.
Before he could react, Maul came up from behind, snapping his fingers to both sides of Khalid’s temples. The suddenness was sharp enough so that Khalid dropped his aura, but not strong enough to knock him out. “As I said before, you insult yourself, Löwe… Even ‘Khalid’ would not allow me to surprise him like this unless he wanted death… and right now, it is too late… you cannot fight me.”
“That’sssss wrong, Vampire…”
Maul slapped him in the back of the head and continued pressing against Khalid’s temples even harder. “Cut the act…” With that, Maul and Khalid dropped into the sand…
----------------------------
“Status report,” Daemon called out, rushing inside the Temple of Ra.
“Rahotep and Nofruret have charged the moat, but I’m afraid that will not be enough to activate the…”
“Not a problem,” Daemon said. “Anything else?”
“Well…” Tom said, motioning to one of the smaller pyramids. “According to Saqr, that crystal has microscopic fractures. Ahmed said that they had some at their headquarters, so he took Numair to get it. They should be back by now.”
Daemon set the Eye of Horus on the top of the pyramid and clicked it into place with a turn. He checked all the parameters just to make sure there was nothing that Tom missed. Satisfied, he looked back out through Asima’s telekinetic field and saw the two elementals fighting. “We’ve got to get this going, soon. We’ve hit an unexpected snag.”
“We’re…” Tom started when Ahmed and Numair faded in right next to him. “I guess we’re set… as soon as we cut this crystal down to…” Before he could finish, Daemon grabbed the crystal in his hand and shaped it before he stuck it in the pyramid. Feeling a charge by being caught in the middle of this battle, his hands glowed white hot with photons. He did not expect the room to fill up with light as he shot the concentrated stream into the water, but for the first time in a while he almost felt drunk on the power… as if it was locked up and denied him for a while. The stream started to grow even more intense when Daemon suddenly started to hear Mel’s voice. “CAREFUL! We don’t want to boil the water! I think it is saturated enough.”
Tom placed his hand on the Eye of Horus, a white glow surrounding him. Suddenly, he stopped. “Whoa… hold on… I don’t know the words.”
“Words?! What words?! Send Set back home, dammit!” Daemon said, flashing his sword.
“He’s right, Daemon…” Asima said. “Before, there were cue words printed around the Temple to explain how it works…”
“Goddamnmotherfuckingbitchasssonofa…” Daemon started. “All this way and we’re stalled because we don’t have a password.” With that, Daemon set his hand on the Eye of Horus, leaning. Unexpectedly, both Daemon and Tom were jolted with a surge of white energy as the light beam shot into the sky.
----------------------------
“Do you see that, Löwe?” Maul said, pointing Khalid’s head toward the two bright streaks of light crashing around and bumping into each other. “That power… Ra and Set… Primal… Pure power… Your powers can be manipulated by both of them… Why?”
He fought not to answer, but Maul’s fingers dug in more deeply to the side of his head. “Exposure to Ra… at a young age… triggered my powers… and apparently I got… sensitive…”
“You see power being used two ways… One for good… one not good. In both cases, it is being used. Now, tell me… Why is it Ra himself helped you to build the Temple, the Machine, and the Den?”
“He… was like… a father… more than… the father I had…”
“He taught you how to be a man… how to be a King. Like a father to a son, right? Now, Löwe… My suggestion still works on you. I pulled out of your head because I saw what memory Anwar left you.” Maul said, this time his eyes flashing. “You know it was not your fault.”
“I failed…” Khalid said, his voice choking. “I took Imhotep into my home… accepted him as a son, just as Kailon-Ra did for me. He… was a viper planted in my den… and I did not want to admit it.”
“It was not your fault,” Maul said.
“I should have known… He…”
“It was NOT your fault! ANWAR raped and killed your daughter… Not you,” Maul shouted into his ear. He thought back to the horrors his own family had endured in World War II Germany while he was imprisoned in the vampire bordello. His wife Greta slain in the street by the Gestapo. Katrina and Wolfgang fleeing to the United States. Erik… His eldest son, Erik… sent with his family to the concentration camps… and the guilt he felt for years afterward for not being there when they needed him. “No matter what you think, it will NEVER be your fault.”
“I…”
“It WILL be your fault if you allow them to win. They destroyed you the first time. Are you prepared to let them destroy you in this incarnation as well?” Maul ripped his fingers away from Khalid’s temples, watching as he bent over sobbing yet again.
With a white flare of light, his protection tattoos tore through the green scales that had grown over them and his features returned back to normal. Khalid reached up, peeling away the layer of scales that had grown over his face and chest… and then wailed for a child he had lost 5000 years ago…
------------------------
“Daemon, I can’t let go.”
“Neither can I,” Daemon answered. Tom didn’t have any trouble until Daemon placed his hand on the Eye of Horus. That meant it could be responding to one of two things. Either it clicked in because of Daemon’s remnant of Ra or it clicked in because of Daemon’s sliver of Khalid’s life force. Either way, he was caught and there was a fight brewing outside. The beam of light shooting into the sky let him know that something was happening…
------------------------
Hashad-Ra screamed as the light pulled at him. He tried to anchor himself down, but the pull was too strong.
“Yesssssss…” Sekhset said, laughing at the sight as Hashad-Ra was pulled into the air kicking and screaming. “Know THIS, Ra… By the time you return, I will have ssssssupped on the power of your brother and on Mufassssssa… and rolled this world underneathhhhhh my thhhhumb!”
“NO!” he shouted, straining against the light the imprisoned him. He could fight the pull, but not for very long. “Goddamnmotherfucking contraption…” Hashad-Ra’s eyes dashed around from inside, looking around the immediate area as Sekhset took off. With a flash of his eyes, he knew. Fuck… No wonder… Gabe’s the one activating it! He can’t remember what to do. Where’s… He looked toward the horizon… Down there…
------------------------
Khalid’s wailing was cut short with a flare of his tattoos and eyes. What the hell was that? he thought. By this time, Maul – who had noticed Khalid stop – turned toward him, studying the expression on his face. Once again, his eyes and tattoos flared up, this time a little bit stronger. Khalid’s head snapped up, scanning the sky. He saw it at the pyramid… the white flare of light shooting up toward the sky. “Fuck… They’ve grabbed Hashad by mistake. We’ve gotta…” His eyes blinked. “Maul… Leave.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t tele…” Before he could finish, an explosion of photovaltic energy knocked both of them into the air, sending each one to different sides. Khalid never landed, but felt his aura manipulated so that he was hovering off the ground, unable to get away. “I can see you just fine; you can turn off your invisibility.”
“Oh… I know…” Sekhset said, coming into full view. With a gesture of his fingers, Khalid floated over, unable to take control of his photon aura. “Your power… So delicioussssss… I can tasssssste it… pure…”
--------------------
“Fuck!” Daemon said. “We’ve got Hashad.”
“How do you know?” Tom asked.
“I was Ra before he was – don’t ask. Anyway, he’s letting me know… rather painfully. We’ve gotta do something.”
“All right… um… What?”
“Men,” Mel said, from outside the protective photon field around the moat. “You said something earlier, Tom… In the name of Set. That was what brought him here.”
“But there are DIFFERENT cue words, Mel,” Tom answered.
Daemon’s head snapped. Still unable to take his hand off of the Eye of Horus he looked around, trying to see outside. A white flash came to his eyes. For a brief second, he could feel Set’s hand on his throat and his the other one ripping off the remains of his shirt in preparation to rip out his heart. Then, some words came to his mouth. “//To protect the House of Ra… we banish Set.//” (Translated from the Pharaohan.) The white beam of light quickly changed color, this time turning dark red…
--------------------
Just as he was about to shove his hand through Khalid’s chest, Sekhset felt the red light imprison him and pull him up into the air. At the same moment, Khalid’s tattoos finally flared up and severed Sekhset’s lock on his powers. He struggled in the grip, trying to find a weakness in his grip, but instead he found a powerful electric shock that stunned him. “Yessssss… delicious power… will be…” With a sizzling sound, a streak of fire tore through his wrist, severing his hand.
Dazed, Khalid fell toward the ground, not really aware of where he was or just how high up. The fanblade circled around him and then whizzed back toward the ground to Daemon, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. He started to move when he saw a blue streak tear through the sky and catch him. Thanks, Hashad.
Daemon knew it was over. All the bases had been covered. Set was gone. The Toc-Ra were neutralized. Both Eyes and the Keys were safe. However unoriginal it may seem, they had once again saved the world.
So why did the world seem so much more different now? As if the sands… had shifted?
End Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
The Following Morning
“And the power invested me, I hereby pronounce you… Husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.” Hashad-Ra did his best not to betray his annoyance while Tom and Melissa kissed. His job was to save worlds, fight corruption, and all sort of superhero-type stuff. To be asked to do a wedding… a WEDDING?! He sighed as he saw Maul and the surviving Followers cheer at the sight. Perhaps he had missed something. Perhaps something had missed him…
“Tom,” Mel said, in between kisses. “You realize we still have to…” Kiss. “Get the paperwork…” Kiss. “Send out announcements…” Kiss. “Let everyone know we’re…” Kiss. “Married again…” Kiss.
“I know…” Tom answered. Kiss. “And my folks…” Kiss. “Will insist on…” Kiss. “Another wedding in a church…” Kiss.
“Then why…” Kiss.
Tom pulled his mouth away from his wife’s. “Come on, Mel… How many times are you going to be married by an ‘imaginary’ Egyptian God in his Temple?”
“True,” she said, her arms traveling around Tom’s neck. “Though I admit… You now have one more convert…” She slowly leaned in when a loud grunt interrupted the two of them. His arms crossed, Hashad-Ra stood uncomfortably close, looking rather mean and powerful.
“Oh yeah… Sorry about that…” Tom said, with a smile. He dodged out from under Mel’s arms, reaching besides him on the ground to pick up the Eye of Ra. With a deep breath, he handed it to Hashad-Ra. “Thank you for saving the world… and for performing the ceremony… and for helping me realize that my entire life’s work was neither a child dream nor a manipulation.”
Annoyed, Hashad-Ra jerked the Eye of Ra out of his grasp and then picked up the Eye of Horus. Tom opened his arms to hug Kailon-Ra when a flare of electromagnetic energy knocked him back. “The Keys belong to Mufasa.” Hashad-Ra said rather bluntly.
“Ooooh… Remind me to get his autograph on my compact disc before he leaves…” Mel said to Tom. “He’s SOOOO sexy without that shirt.”
Tom glared at her. “MEL! We just got married!”
“Sorry… but tell me you wouldn’t say the same thing if Tyra Banks had been standing here! And those tattoos… Mmmmmm… I heard he can growl…”
Hashad-Ra walked away, grumbling. “White people…”
-----------------------
The two of them sat on opposite sides of the remains of the Temple, each about seven hundred feet away from the exits. After the events of the previous day had finally settled, the two of them remained conspicuously silent. Daemon looked toward the East, watching the streaks that would be made along the ground as the wind shifted. Six thousand years or so, a monumental battle between two Power Elementals had created the Sahara Dessert. According to Hashad, it had started right here. In the aftermath of last night’s battle, he could feel the remnants of that power around the area.
“Hang it up. I heard you coming a mile away.”
“I know… We’re long overdue for a bout of sibling rivalry, but I’m not up for it, now.”
Daemon pulled the fanblade out of his pocket and with a click changed it from two blades into four. “Here Hashad… K told me earlier that he had made it for Kailon-Ra.”
“Yes, he did.” Hashad said, taking it into his hand and looking over it. With a laugh, he handed it back to Daemon. “What you need to remember is that it was symbolic, though. A weapon placed on his father’s sarcophagus… a gift for his other ‘father’. He made it for a friend… and you now fit that role better than I do.”
“So… How is everyone?”
“Dad and Grandpa had a falling out because Grandpa is still playing the superhero. Mom told him to let it be. Pharaoh is about to celebrate Great-Grandpa Tekon’s four hundredth birthday soon. I think he might like to see you.”
“I… don’t think I’m ready to…”
“Gabe, they know what happened. They knew ever since I woke up bonded to Ra. Dad’s blaming himself…”
“Maybe he shou…” Daemon almost said, stopping. “No… I…”
“Just think about it.” Hashad said, looking toward the sun. “It will be a few hours before the Horus arrives to pick me up. I think I would like to set some things straight.” He set his hand on Daemon’s shoulder, momentarily jolting him with an electromagnetic shock.
“YOUCH hey…” Daemon said, jerking his shoulder away. “Look here… Cosmic being or not, I’ll still kick…”
“I’d like to see you try. Just as I suspected… Your remnant is much larger than the previous avatars. The sliver Khalid pulled from you was miniscule, but apparently enough to keep your remnant from regenerating on its own.”
“That prick was responsible for…”
“ ‘That prick’ is the reason you have any powers at all. Because he swiped that sliver from you, he was able to use his own life force to sustain your dying remnant and help it heal. As you no doubt realized by now, your remnant is now completely healed after being caught in the crossfire between my battle with Set.”
“I thought he was torturing me all along, but he was trying to help.”
“He is still a novice, Gabe. He was removing a demon when he discovered your remnant. As you discovered yesterday, his powers react to Ra’s manipulations. It’s a two-way street. The remnant reacted to him as well, even more in this incarnation than the other one.”
“How much more?”
“We’ll get into that later, preferably after you drag him up to Pharaoh for Great-Grandpa Tekon’s birthday. The Hamanaptra Scorpions are playing the Cairo Pyramids that day in honor of Grandpa Tekon. It also happens to fall on the 5000th anniversary of Kailon’s initial The Lion and the Snake reading.”
“I told you I didn’t…” Daemon started, but then he sighed and smiled. “All right… I’ll bring his ass up to Pharaoh then. I’m not looking forward to it, but for Grandpa Tekon…”
“You only turn 400 once, Gabe.”
“Fine… Now tell me about how the games have been going.”
-----------------------
He sat on the sand the dune, his arms atop his knees as he looked deep into the Sahara Dessert. As far as the eye could see in all four directions was nothing but an ocean of sand. At the time Mufasa had called it home, there were still vestiges of vegetation left, fighting to survive. One of the things he had managed to do after he ascended to the throne was to install a system to bring water to the area and to fight off the dessert. When Kemet sank years ago, so did that system.
Maul approached him silently from behind. “Enjoying the scenery?” He asked.
“No,” Khalid answered. “I’m just taking a look at everything I have here.”
“I see nothing.”
“Exactly. Nothing. I lost it all 5000 years ago. My wife, my children, my kingdom… Everything I cherished. Gone. Wiped clean. The pain remains.”
“Pain means you are alive.”
“Does it really? Or does it mean you just aren’t dead, yet?”
/// By the time the light had settled down, only two people remained standing in the room, each poised with weapons. “I could have just killed everyone in this room that quickly.”
“Are you trying to brag, Khalid?” Grover asked.
“No, I’m trying to warn you. I know you’re going to try to stop me. Just be prepared for what is going to come with it.”
“Would you damn your own soul by…”
“Is the alternative any less damning?” With that, he disappeared in a flash of light.///
“Pain makes you stronger. It makes you appreciate everything that you do have that much more.”
Khalid looked on, not turning to meet Maul. “Pain can also make you forget everything you have if you get lost in it.”
“That begs the question, Löwe… Just whom am I talking to?”
“Beats me. When you find out, please let me know.”
“Fine, then answer my next question… Who are you?”
“Who am I?” The corner of Khalid’s lip pulled back into a half-smirk. “What does your nose say?”
“My nose says you are exactly who you are supposed to be.”
///He knew it would only be a matter of time before they arrived. Who? Damn near everyone. They were out to stop him. From what? Releasing a demon on Earth. He had hoped the Stranger would change his mind and help him, but at this point he had given up hope. He could have counted on the Stranger’s experience, but now he had to make it up as he went along.///
“I still don’t feel like I’m in control,” Khalid said. “It’s like I finally have one thing evened out, but there is still something there, bursting at the seams.”
“It’s the way you are meant to be… The way you have always been meant to be. It does not make you any less human.”
“Maul… I keep on thinking about what I would like to hunt for dinner. I can’t slip into that pattern, again. I had trouble enough being able to function during the days afterward.”
“I was watching you.”
“Yes… and sometimes you even encouraged it,” Khalid said. “I need control, Maul.”
“Control comes with understanding. Understanding comes with observation. Stop judging. Stop criticizing. Observe it and then evaluate it later.”
///With a flash of his eyes, a lightning bolt shot down from the sky igniting the fire in the center of the clearing. He felt the energy flood into him and his photon aura expand outward, sealing off the entire clearing. As long as he stayed in the clearing, he was the nexus. That meant that only certain people could force their way inside of his aura. Those few that did would have a nasty surprise waiting for them. When the sunblades flashed to life in his hands, he planted them in the soil on either side of him. He could sense them coming… and he was about as ready as he was going to be.///
“I hate to admit it but you both may have a point. You and Daemon were willing to do something that I was not – watch and take notes. It kills me to say this, but with all your snooping around and pushing my buttons… all this time… The mind control… the pissing me off… You were just trying to do what no one else wanted to do. You were right, all this time… and I’m sorry about the way I treated you. If you are still willing, I’ll be willing to learn… though I still plan on bitching like crazy.”
Khalid came to a stand and held out his hand to shake Maul’s. At first, Maul looked like he was about to take it, but then he punched Khalid directly in the gut. While Khalid was bent over, he brought his hand up, hitting him in the underside of the chin and knocking him on his back.
“About damn time,” Maul said, his eyes flashing yellow. “And maybe if you are lucky, you’ll find out what psionic suggestion I slipped in your mind a couple of weeks ago.” Laughing, Maul walked back toward the temple.
Stunned and a little dazed, Khalid sat back up and rubbed his jaw. “God damn prick,” he mumbled. He looked down in the sand beside him at the Pharaohan Neuron Holographic Projector that has been his electric leash for the past month. Yesterday, when he went after the Key, he had absent-mindedly turned it off. As he heard footsteps approach behind him, he slipped it back on… after deactivating the electric shock part, of course.
///All he felt was the thrust in his back. Then, he looked down to see the blade sticking out of his stomach… and the blood gushing out beneath it.///
“Mu…”
“Please call me Khalid,” he said to Asima as she sat down beside him. In one hand, she held both the Key of Horus and the Key of Ra. Khalid gladly accepted them. With out the Eyes of Ra and Horus, they were useless, but to him they still had sentimental value. “Thank you… For all your work and sacrifices though the years. I… It pleased me to know that the spirit of the Followers live on.”
“It will always live on, M—Khalid. It is like your name, Eternal.” She opened her other hand to reveal the silver Pharaohan jewelry that had belonged to Mufasa’s wife, Queen Nefer. “She wrote that she had forgiven you for straying, for accepting Imhotep in your palace, and for your innocence. She had also wrote…” Asima stopped, seeing the look in Khalid’s eyes. “That you have seen darkness in the future.”
He nodded, his hand placed on top of the jewelry in Asima’s hand. “Yes… I have.” Khalid said. “I… do not understand my visions… but…” he paused. “I have seen my…” He stopped. “Yes, it is dark… for me.” He gently pushed the jewelry back into Asima’s hand. “Please… Keep it. It means more to me that someone deserving should have it rather than I hold it to remember my wife.” With that, he set his arm around Asima’s shoulder and looked out into the dessert as he started to recount his story. “I remember that day on Pharaoh Nefer and I were married. Kailon-Ra had presented it to her…”
----------------
Miles away from the Temple of Ra, a whirlwind of sand had started to blow. It had finally coalesced into the form of a man, who dropped to the ground, weak from the effort. Gasping and wincing, the man felt the morning sun sear his uncovered skin. “Father…” he called out. “Sekhmib? Anyone…”
“Just me,” a voice said. The source of the voice was a man standing in a circle of light. He stepped out of it into the sand, his white robe momentarily revealing white tennis shoes. “The casual observer of the fight.”
“Who the hell are YOU?!” Seth blurted out.
A white orb of light shot out of the Stranger’s hand striking Seth in the chest. With a flash of light, Seth looked down to find that he was now wearing a white tunic. The tattoo of Set emblazoned on his chest had disappeared as well as the serpent on his neck. “We’ll get to that later. We have more important things to do,” the Stranger said. “I think first that you need to see the past as it really was, rather than how your father told it to you.”
He gestured his hand, shooting another bolt of white light at Seth. Seth’s eyes lit up before he dropped to the ground from the overload to his mind. The Stranger knelt by his side, checking his pulse. “You’ll be fine. Now, let us depart from here…” They disappeared with a flash of light.
The End