Immortal Dynasty (12 page)

They’re called photographs.
Bessie’s voice entered her mind again.
Look, that’s you.

There were no
photographs
of the babe, but one did catch Shaila’s attention. “My sword. That would be very useful. Bessie?”

You don’t have to ask, Sister. I’ll go scope out Lilith’s place. It’s probably in the weapons room, but I avoid that place. It’s creepy.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Darius said. “We haven’t found anything yet.”

He had returned so quietly that Shaila nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked toward Bessie, but the cat was just slinking out the door.

“Let’s go. This time you’re coming with me.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her with him, all the way out of the house. “I need my grandfather back, and I can’t just sit in this house and wait for tomorrow morning to come.”

“What is important about tomorrow morning?”

“That’s when I’m going to grill my grandfather’s best friend for information.”

He marched silently along the cobblestone alleys, and she easily lengthened her stride to match his. He seemed moody. In her experience, powerful human men tended to be quite moody. She already knew he preferred being in control. She admired his confident attitude and the obvious affection he had for his grandfather.

He cursed a lot, but he seemed sincere. She believed him when he said he would not turn her over to Lilith. There was an aura of honor about him. Still,
 
he was working for Lilith to find the amulet. Shaila could not afford to let down her guard. It was essential that Lilith not be allowed to recover the amulet, and she absolutely could not be trusted to keep her word. It was doubtful the witch would release his grandfather at all. He obviously knew too much.

In the fading light of the day, the moon already hung low to the earth shrouded in an orange haze. It was a late harvest moon cycle, a time of great energy for both light and dark powers. If she survived this coming moon cycle, she would search for her mother.

If Lilith had him looking for the amulet, then Darius could look for the child at the same time. After all, she had been in the same tomb with the babe for centuries. She wondered if Lilith had him. Did she discover the tomb? Her priest had ensured that no record of the tomb existed beyond its walls.
Oh, goddess, where could he be?

“Darius, you saw where she kept me?”

“Yes.”

“Was there a wrapped infant?”

“No. I didn’t see any mummies. Her personal collection is large, but she’s only known to actively collect jewelry and weapons.” He slowed his pace, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “If she’s acquired mummies, it would’ve been a black market transaction. That’s an illegal purchase, but one that I can still track.”

His voice lowered to a mumble, as if he was talking to himself. “Collectors with illegal or stolen items tend to keep them close, especially if they hold significant emotional value. They worked so hard to get the items that they are compelled to display them, but in a way that only they can enjoy looking at them. If she has mummies, her pride would keep them close. Very close.”

They reached a street that reminded her of a bazaar, but these shops were all inside buildings. As shadows overtook the streets, artificial lights popped on everywhere. Lights inside and out. It was disruptive to her newly-awakened senses.

They passed a shop selling big bound stacks of papyrus. Darius said they were called books, and he pointed out a small sign in the window that he said boasted an ability to find any out-of-print book in the world. He was skeptical, but he said the shop owner was a lovely woman.

Then they passed a row of windows through which she could see a large group of children in white outfits practicing fighting skills. Shaila smiled at the way his mouth moved when he said the word
taekwondo
.

“You love kids, I can see it in your face.”

Shaila nodded. “Yes, they are more honest than adults.”

Deep laugher shook his body. “That has apparently not changed in thousands of years. Is this child you seek yours?”

“No. I have not been blessed with a child yet.” She sighed wistfully. “The Anunnaki do not have many offspring. Our life span can reach tens of thousands of Earth years, virtually immortal compared to humans. Nature compensates by making us less fertile.”

He looked like he was adding it up in his head, but then he clenched his jaw and moved her along to the next shop. It was dark inside, but little lights glowed throughout the place. A strange mix of sounds beeped and blasted all around. The sounds and lights came from many tall boxes, which children stood in front of.

Mesmerized, she stepped inside and approached the largest group in the room. She towered over them, but they ignored her. She could not read the writings on the box, but the square in the middle was filled with painted images that moved. It appeared to be a game, since the children were cheering for the boy nearest the box. He seemed to be controlling a man in the moving image. What astonished her most was the scene in the game.

The little figure ran through a maze of tombs and catacombs, fighting mummies, guards and other creatures. In one tomb, he fought using only a small dagger. He collected points with each mummy or creature he killed.

Overwhelmed by curiosity, she stepped around the group of boys to get to the side of the box. Putting her hands on it, she felt the vibrations and sounds coming from it. She tried sending her mind inside, but there were no signals with this object. Just a bunch of vibrations that did not seem to have a destination.

“Come on, Joey. Get ’im.” The boys were getting very excited over the success of the game. Joey was trying to fight off mummies and obtain a golden spell book.

Shaila was fascinated with the variety of hieroglyphics throughout the scenes. Most were very inaccurate, but a symbol in body paint on one of the main players was quite real. How much did the humans of this age truly know about the medjai? She would barter her soul to the Underworld to have her warriors with her now.

In unison, the boys all turned to her. “Do you have any tokens?”

“Tokens?” She had no idea what they were asking for. Darius suddenly appeared, placing a bucket of tiny disks in her hands.

“Hi, Mr. Alexander.”

“Hi, Joey. You still working on your black belt?”

“Yep. Almost there.” Joey puffed out his chest. “I test for it in two months.”

“Excellent. I’ll come watch you when you test.” Darius and the boy slapped their palms together in the air. “I need a favor.”

The boy beamed. “Sure.”

“You guys can share this bucket of tokens,” Darius looked each of the boys squarely in their eyes, “but only if you guys will let my friend Shaila hang out with you for a few minutes. I need to run next door to the cell phone shop before it closes.”

“Deal.” Joey started to reach for the bucket.

 
Shaila held it higher for a moment, a gleam in her eyes. “I will share these tokens with you, if you will teach me how to play that mummy game.”

“Wicked cool,” Joey grinned. “I’ll teach ya.”

She handed him the bucket to share with the other boys in the group.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Darius leaned in closer to her ear. “Kick their butts.”

“Why would I want to kick them?” He’d already moved too far to hear her, disappearing into the darkness at the back of the room. Joey pulled her over to the big square box, and dropped two tokens into little slits in the front.

“This is my favorite video game in here,” Joey confessed. “It’s based on the movie. Okay, this button makes your guy jump over things. This button makes him duck punches. These two are for kicking and hitting…or stabbing if you’ve found the dagger…” Joey rattled on about the workings of the video game.

After a couple of failed attempts, Shaila began to get the hang of game fighting.

* * *

 
“She did
almost
beat me, Mr. Alexander,” Joey blurted when Darius returned. “But Apophis got her!”

“He should be so lucky,” Darius drawled.

He indicated with his head that it was time to go and moved to the back of the room. He quickly fished his new purchase out of the store bag: a disposable cell phone. Ripping it out of its plastic case, he programmed it to call his cell phone, and he tested it to be sure it worked. That gave him the return number.

“Here, take this.” He handed the new phone to Shaila, but she looked puzzled. “You put it in your purse. Oh, yeah. You don’t carry one of those.”

Now he was puzzled. That damned leather outfit hugged her so tight there was no place to tuck the cell phone. Except maybe between her breasts. Deciding that wouldn’t go over too well, he looked into the packaging and found a belt clip that looked like it wouldn’t break off too easily.

“Here you go.” He clipped it to the top of her leather pants. “That’s where it will be. If for some reason we get separated, you flip it open and press the green button. Forget all of the other buttons. Just press the green one, hold it up to your ear like this, and you’ll hear me on the other end. Got it?”

Shaila nodded.

Following him through a large metal door, she nearly jumped at the sound of it slamming shut behind them. The tiny gray room had a staircase, but instead of taking the stairs up, he pulled her behind it. Lifting up a metal grate from the ground, he motioned for her to descend into the inky darkness below. She nodded and gingerly placed a foot downward until she found the first step. Slowly, she descended into the shadows.

Darius followed her, bringing the grate down over them. Lights flickered on, revealing a large room filled with lots of metal and flashing buttons. Somehow, it all seemed more sophisticated than the gaming room above.

“This is my private research lab.”

Shaila had no idea what she was looking at. But unlike the game room above, here she could feel the buzz of powerful signals. The signals gave off such a vivid aura, she could see their energy trails leading off through the walls. “What is it?”

“It’s a computer. Basically, take all of the libraries across the planet and all of the great thinking minds in history…and they’re in there.”

“Oh.” Curious, she poked one of the flashing buttons. One of three large screens on the wall sprang to life.

“Voice verification, please,” a very hollow but sultry voice requested. Shaila looked around for the source of the voice. Darius pointed at the speaker.

“
Assalaam alaikum
,
” Darius answered.

“And peace be upon you. Good afternoon, Darius. How may I help you?”

“She sounds very efficient.”
And annoying.
Shaila did not like this cold, disembodied voice.

“Good afternoon, ALICE.” Darius winked at Shaila. “If anyone ever found my lab, they wouldn’t know to use Arabic for the voice recognition.”

“I understood what you said. The language seems not too far off some of the sounds of my own tongue.”

“Is there any language you can’t understand?”

“I suppose I should be able to understand any spoken language on this planet.”

“That’s impressive.”

“Not particularly impressive, Darius. It is very simple. When you speak, your voice sends vibrations in patterns. My mind knows how to interpret those patterns.”

It was his turn to look confused. “Okay, well. Let’s put the computer to work. ALICE, task initiation.”

“Task initiation, verify command.”

“Task. List generation search terms are Egyptian and mummy and black market.”

“Task verified. List generation initiated.”

He spun his chair back around toward her. “When I was here earlier, I was only focused on finding the amulet. Now you’ve given me another item to research.”

“I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. Having two items from the same tomb to search for may actually help us in cross-referencing the data. The more factors, the greater the chance of success.”

“Can you see Lilith’s home with this?”

“Shit, yeah.” He spun back to the controls. “ALICE, aerial map on screen two, please.”

The huge screen on the wall became a live picture. Dwellings lined a river. Shaila marveled at the sight of miniscule machines moving along the streets, and tiny boats coasting in the water.

“Oh, Goddess. That is incredible.”

“Yes, this is modern technology at its best. That is a live satellite image of Lilith’s home. Watch this.” Darius clicked something in his hand and the image scrolled down toward the earth, making everything larger.

“So, this is your preparation room. Is it not?”

“You could call it that. I don’t leave home without every bit of information I can gain. Knowledge is power, honey.”

She repeated him. “Knowledge is power. I think we had a similar saying, but that is far less wordy.”

A loud beep preceded ALICE’s cold voice. “Task complete. Data saved in file folder Prophecy Documents.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Darius scanned the results of ALICE’s Internet search. The list quickly grew to hundreds of online links to underground discussions on mummies. Darius narrowed down the list by cross-referencing with infant mummies and items discovered near Deir el-Bahari. Although there was no official record of such a tomb existing in that temple, he went on faith that his grandfather knew what he was talking about.

It took some effort on ALICE’s part, but she eventually hacked into Mr. Artie Johnson’s office computer. Since his suspicious death, the agency had digitally sealed all entry into the man’s accounts.

After an hour of dead end links, Darius finally found an encrypted exchange of messages between Mr. Artie and someone with the screen name
TimeSleuth
. Piecing together the messages, Darius felt joy zinging through his body.

“Bingo! We’ve got a live one, Shaila.” Darius rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “This guy definitely saw you. I would think he was a nut if he didn’t describe you with complete conviction and accuracy. But no mention of mummies in the tomb.”

“Does he mention anything about markings on the walls? Did he translate the prophecy?”