She could not be far from where she had started, but hopefully far enough. She was before a large building, perhaps a palace, distinguished by tall spires. She could do with a palace, with its abundance of pure water and its bathing-maids. Her heart hammering, she made for the entrance.
As she was crossing the square that lay before it, she heard a bird of a kind she had not seen in many, many years, a great eagle, dark of wing, which had once ranged the Valley of the Nile. These birds had taken the children of men, and rent them with their beaks, while the parents ran along below wailing in the rain of blood. She looked up, expecting to see one of the creatures fall on some loose tot, but instead a small wagon filled with men came whizzing into the open space. The wagon’s lights were flashing blue and red, and it was uttering this scream from its stiff silver mouth. Was there a bird in the wagon, or had they somehow taken its cry? And why?
She watched curiously as the wagon sped past her, stopped in a cloud of dust, then wheeled around. She moved toward the palace, from which a guardian began crying a warning in Arabic. He was atop a high tower. “God is most great,” he cried, “I testify that there is no god except God. I testify that Mohammed is the messenger of God….” And she thought, Him again. She had decided that Mohammed must be the pharaoh of this time. Perhaps he was even within this palace. She would go to him.
At that moment, there came a cr-a-a-k that echoed through the open space before the palace, causing ordinary birds to rise from their roosts and swirl about in a terrified flock. The sound had emanated from a man in brown clothing. He was pointing a small stick at her and calling out, “Come here, in the name of God. We are the police wanting you.”
She did not understand the word police. In any case, she did not come at human command. She ignored the cry. It came again, and then another crack of sound. The birds continued swirling about in the darkness. The man in the tower finished his melodious call and withdrew. Lilith mounted the wide steps that led into the palace. Another voice shouted, “It’s desecrating the mosque,” and there were more cracks.
Then she was flying. She was flying quite far and high, it seemed. But no, she was falling. She put a hand out and steadied herself, but fell heavily upon the steps she’d just been climbing.
There was an odd sensation in her. For some time, she lay trying to understand why she was not walking, and what this sensation actually was. Finally, she realized that she had been knocked to the ground by something that had struck her in the back, and the sensation was pain.
There was the sound of running behind her. Pain or no pain, she went to her feet. Three men, all dressed in identical brown, were pounding across the wide plaza, coming toward her. She watched them with mild interest. The blow she had felt and the fall she had taken were still a matter for wonder. Had they struck her? If so, how, from such a distance? Their arms were not long, and she saw no bows in their hands, nor quivers at their backs. So how?
Then flame spat from the end of one of the sticks that they carried, instantly followed by a wind beside her head. So they were slings, and she had been hit by one of the stones. The little devils were trying to hurt her, and from the pain in her back, they had.
She took a deep breath, heard bubbling coming from within. They had pierced her with a projectile slung from the devices, the fire-spitting slings. But why? She had done these creatures no harm.
From out of a side alley there came women, all laid over with shrouds, all running along, wailing and crying out, “There she goes, stop her, stop the monster.”
Again the slings made their explosive sound. Lilith felt a stone pass her face so close that it left behind it a hot wind. She rushed along the steps but did not enter the palace. Better, when being chased, to leave as many paths open as possible. She would rather dare the night than enter an easily searched warren of rooms.
But she was being chased. How incredible. How fearful. Gangs of humans could chop you up, burn you. It had occasionally happened to Keepers, as she was well aware. She needed sign, she needed to find the house of Re-Atun.
She looked for more sign, but saw nothing. There was darkness ahead, however, so she went that way. Here was a fruit-seller’s stall. She recognized some of the fruits, but not all. There were red and yellow and green fruits, golden fruits, fruits with textured skins, and fruits gleaming like ceramics. It seemed to her that this must be the best-stocked fruit-seller’s stall in the world. How odd a coincidence, to happen upon what must be a famous place. She passed into the stall, where sat a man in a turban doing the “smoking” that had so pleased Ibrahim, and sipping hot liquid from a glass. He glanced up at her and asked, “Where are you going?”
She didn’t answer. A moment later, in fact, she heard the cries of the wagon of the angry men, and then also a cry from the fruit-seller, who went outside and began to shout, “The thief is here, the thief is here.”
She was slowed by the complexity of the surroundings. Moving blindly, not knowing which door led where or which alley would aid her escape and which thwart it, she nevertheless continued ahead. The wound in her back continued to give her pain. She could feel the stone lodged in her skeleton, making every movement a torment.
Then, very suddenly, there was a feature she recognized immediately, that she could never forget and that had been there since she had first walked in this place, when Egypt was a land of green grass and trees. The sight of the Nile almost shattered her composure. She sobbed, a sound that amazed her so much that it momentarily pushed aside her pain.
Her own kind had always lived along the Nile, in houses that communicated to the tunnels that led to Giza, and the halls of conclave and record that lay deep beneath the pyramids. It had been thus in the days of Thebes, and it would be thus now. She looked up and down the long, curving quay, and soon found signs of her own kind. Yes, they were here. Of course they were. In this greatest of human places, the Keepers would be in secret control of everything. That was the way the world worked, as she had intended it to work.
In the distance, she could hear the little wagons as they rushed about, trying to find her. Cairo, however, was a maze that made Babylon look simple, even when one could not find Keeper tunnels. She had crossed into alleys that could only be negotiated on foot. Even so, she looked up and down the open space, searching for more of the little men with the stone or dart throwers. If those things were to strike her head, it would be very dangerous.
Pain. Danger. How amazing. She moved quickly along, going to a place in the quay where the bricks of its wall were laid in a subtly different pattern. Standing there, she faced the buildings across the road, looking at their bases. And yes, she saw another variation in pattern there, a balustrade that had a row of carvings of fruits on it, one of which, looked at in a certain way, could be seen as an arrow.
At last, she had come to the house of Re-Atun. Now he would answer her questions and give her shelter. Now, she would be safe. She trotted across the street, moved in the direction indicated. Re-Atun would gaze at her with such fondness that it would make her anger melt.
She went down the steps, one two, into the fetor of the lower alleyway. At this level, it was designed to be unappealing, to appear abandoned. She felt along the seventh seam of the wall’s masonry, then made the intricate series of movements that served as a key.
There was silence. Nothing. She stepped back. She had not opened this door before, but all doors opened to all, so this one—
It swung in toward darkness absolute. She stepped in, quickly pushing it closed behind her. Speaking in her elegant, perfectly articulated Prime, she called on him to come forth.
This time, the silence was confusing. Could it be that she had, by some bizarre coincidence, come here while he was out foraging? She felt along the low ceiling to the light, then rubbed her palm quickly back and forth until the sensitive phosphors painted there glowed.
A face, leering. Gray objects dangling below it, oozing with some sort of life form. And—were those wings? No, they
were not wings. The chest had been split open and lifted, exposing the lungs and heart, which were seething with maggots. The lower body was laid open as well, the long, curling gut tied into a hangman’s noose. The body itself was riveted to a thick metal wall, where once, she suspected, there had been an elegant door leading into the subterranean palace of Re-Atun. She stepped back, too horrified at first to utter a sound. In her immense life, this was among the most repulsive things she had ever seen. But what, exactly, was it? She peered closer, looking directly into the rotted face, trying to understand.
NO! She reeled, turning away in loathing from the slowly struggling body, away from the awful, seething whisper that had started up in the lips, that she knew were words, “Kill me…kill me…”
He was still conscious enough to know to whom he spoke, because his Prime was formal with respect.
Her immediate impulse was to run, but she dared not. What had happened here? Oh, he had been split—and she knew the torment. It was called the blood eagle, the opening of the chest of a living creature, an ancient way of torturing one who could not die. Some ancient flags—that of the Russian czars, for example—displayed the blood eagle as a warning to the Keepers.
She could kill him, though, using her ancient and intimate knowledge of their kind.
“Who did this?”
The lips remained frozen. They would speak no more. But the eyes, the eyes seemed to look right through her. She turned around. On the distance, she heard the banshee wailing of many more of the little wagons, and the cries of hurrying humans.
To destroy a Keeper, you needed fire and time, and she had neither. Where she was standing right now, this very spot, was a death trap. She leaned close to him, into the stink and rotted vileness of his black flesh, bearing the mites that rushed onto her skin. She opened the flower of her lips, and a dying goddess kissed a living corpse. Then she stepped back. The whole flesh of him, the whole bone, seemed to twist on the spikes that held it to the wall. “Re-Atun, beloved of my womb,” she whispered, but then stopped. She could say no more.
He knew, and she knew, that this would be his last chance at mercy, maybe forever. She looked about, wishing that she could open the skull, could reach in—but the wailing ground down just outside, and the voices became sharper, more crisp. They had her, and they knew they had her. Of course they did: she had gone straight into their trap.
Chapter Five
The Monster of Cairo
Sweet Girl Pie” came on, and Ian turned the radio up as far as it would go. He jammed the gas pedal to the floor of his dad’s way-cool ’65 Mustang. Dad just loved this dumb old car. It was like all of Dad’s stuff, still perfect no matter how old. He could spend any amount on what he loved—keeping this baby as perfect as she was the day she rolled out of the showroom, or maintaining his terrifying antique float plane—or buying his new plane, for that matter. Hell, he could spend anything on what he loved, but Ian was still at East Mill goddamn High School.
“I’m alive, Dad, I’m SOMEBODY!” He yelled it out, blasting the words louder than the music. “I AM SOMEBODY!” It was a cry to the silence of the night and the twisting road down which the ’Stang was now screaming at 80 mph.
With an expertise that would have shocked even his father, who knew the truth about his extraordinary physical excellence and superb reflexes, Ian spun the gleaming old car in three complete circles in front of East Mill High, then headed into the parking lot, where Mr. Sleicher was frantically waving his flashlight. “Ward,” he said, “holy moly, you just about got yourself killed.”
Ian pulled into the space Mr. Sleicher was indicating. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sleicher,” he said, “you know these old ’Stangs don’t have a front end. Fortunately, I managed not to lose control.” He smiled politely at the history teacher known as Mr. Sleeper for his habit of falling asleep during his own lectures.
“Well, Ian, you…pulled it out. You oughta—you know there’s a good stock car run over in Danbury. Don’t tell your olds I said this, but you’d probably be able to qualify, you can drive like that. They take ’em at eighteen, you know.”
Ian thought, Exactly what I need. Ian Ward, stock car racer. He was tempted to ask, “Mr. Sleeper, just offhand, what was the Treaty of Paris?” But Mr. Sleeper taught his history by reading from his teacher’s manual and going for the class discussion suggestions at the end.
Ian had known since he was nine that he was a sort of freak in regard to intelligence. He kept it carefully hidden, but his parents knew. Hell, they were always praising him for it. So what were they thinking to stick him in this rat hole when all the kids he’d grown up with had gone off to prep school? Tommy Royal was at Taft, the Singer sisters were at Andover, his best friend of his life Kev Potter-Jones was at Exeter…and he was here, so Daddy could keep his widdle-bitty boy close to home. Dad was a Choate alum. By all rights, Ian should be a legacy there. Mom—had she gone to high school? Or school at all? Sometimes he thought she’d been grown hydroponically by the Company, picked, and plugged into that spyhole of theirs in the basement.
Ian had wanted to see the inside of their little cell since he was old enough to think, but it was no go. Classified. He had no idea what his parents did except that they worked for the CIA. Dad was rich somehow, because they always flew first class and family vacations could be, frankly, fairly amazing. Plus you didn’t go out and buy a quarter-of-a-million-dollar sport plane if you weren’t pretty well off. In school, Ian was, like, the rich kid.
He trotted across the parking lot toward the gym. Kerry Logan’s dismal band, Bad Boy, was defecating noise into the night. He arrived at the cash table and plunked down his five bucks. Sherry Gleeson stamped his hand. “Why am I here?” he asked her.
“I don’t know. Why are you here?”
“Looking for survivors.”
He was female-challenged, always had been. Officially he was good looking, but in reality there was too much of the little boy in his face. He’d tried growing a beard, but had gotten only some blond junk that looked like it had been pulled out of some waitress’s beehive and pasted on. He was thinking about getting a swastika tattooed on his earlobe.
“Hey, fool,” Terence van Aalten said. His parents were apple farmers. His family had been apple farmers since before the Headless Horseman galloped up from Sleepy Hollow, which was about thirty miles south of here.
“Hey, Aapples.”
Glorious Gloria Gunderson looked through Ian so completely that he had the creepy sensation of being invisible. He leaned close to her ear. “Lick my bag.”
Her eyes went wide. East Mill scandal! East Mill scandal!
“Now, don’t look so shocked, I’ll give you a buck.” He fluttered his eyes at her. “I’m sooo sweet.”
“You’re just gonna get yourself beat up again, Different,” she said. “Do you want that?”
“I love punishment.”
Kerry Logan leaned into the mike and said, “Dis ova oeeennnee…” He leaned out. He leaned in again, “Oeeeeee…” Child Barley was somewhere backstage shooting the gain on the mike every time the Bad Boy from the Eagle Scouts tried to sing. So baaaaaaaaaad!
Ian thought he might go back there and give Child Barley some assistance. Also, the Child could sometimes produce the odd little pill. Ian didn’t indulge, not the son of intelligence officers, not if you respected their security clearances. But the possession of a tab of X would adjust the attitudes of any number of the flouncing beauties out on the dance floor. A tab of X would ensure a conversation in the depths of his car. The console was an amazing problem, of course, but there was always her house.
Irie Dearborn smelled like some kind of wonderful raw fruit, a trembling aroma of purest feminine sweetness. He leaned over to where she was sitting and said, “Your perfume smells like a dog in heat.”
She said, “I’m cut,” and held out her hand. She’d sliced it on a busted plastic glass that was lying on the floor before her pretty little feet. He lifted its white softness to
his lips and kissed, but really so that he could smell her smell more closely. Ian knew that it was extremely odd to love smells the way he did, but he did.
She yanked it away. “Thank you.”
He whispered in her ear, “You’ll get melanoma in a week, from the touch of my lips.”
“What’s that?”
“Cancer.”
Dream: He lives in Chelsea down near the docks, in one of those huge old derelicts where they throw raves. He runs the very most phat rave in the whole community, and he is, he is SOMEBODY. (Oh, yeah, like he would have the nerve to do that. Mr. Goodboy. But his mom and dad, their jobs depended on things not happening, like, he is tossed for raving.)
To go to the sound booth, he had to get up onstage, and when he did, some asshole threw a screaming fit and did a fake faint. In seconds, a dozen other guys were doing it. “Bite me,” he yelled as he pushed his way through the curtains and into the dark wings.
Thinking that the outburst was because of his ridiculous band, Kerry hopped and jerked his hips. Ian picked up a power cable connection and plugged and unplugged it a couple of times, listening to Kerry’s guitar live and die, live and die. “Hey, man,” came his voice from the Outer Beyond. “I know that’s you, asshole.”
Saying “asshole” onstage, Kerry—is there a merit badge for that?
The Child was indeed in the sound booth, enveloped in so much smoke that he was actually hard to see. Ian went in. “Hey.”
“Fuckaroo,” the Child said, handing over a surprisingly tiny joint.
Ian dropped the blinds and locked the door, then waved the joint away.
The Child, who was probably the coolest freshman to hit East Mill in history, convulsed with laughter. “God, listen to him. Is he singing with his bunghole?” He shot the gain up and down, up and down. “He’s gonna beat my ass up again.”