Crescent Moon (3 page)

She
shook her head and felt the deck shift beneath her body. Her heartbeat grew
loud enough she heard it in her ears. The beat muffled the sounds of the oars
slicing the water and the creaks of the wooden deck. “I’m not … . you’ve
made a mistake … coming for me.”

His
dark eyes seemed to glow as he leaned closer. “Are you unwell?”

She
reached up, pressing the back of her hand against her forehead. “I feel woozy,”
she whispered. Her head swung toward him, her gaze sharpened. “Was there
something in my wine?”

His
mouth eased into a smile. A smile that was pinched at the sides of his mouth
and didn’t reach his eyes. “I added a tincture to help with your fear.”

“Well,
it isn’t helping,” she said, her words slurring. “And why would you expect me
to feel fear?”

“I
thought you were a true oracle, that you would know what it is I want of you.”

Khepri
slipped sideways, barely catching her fall with a hand. “What do you want from
me? You had no need to drug me. I am The God’s wife. If you act as Pharaoh, I
am yours to command.”

“I
had no inkling you were as innocent as you are. As untried. More perfect than
Nephthys led me to believe.”

“You
needed me stupid?” Her heart pounded. “Unsophisticated? Why?”

“Because
your stubborn loyalty, your unwavering desire to serve, are qualities that will
follow you, even into the next life.”

“You
speak in riddles …” Too woozy to focus on the alarm causing her breaths to
shorten, she struggled to keep awake. “I want to go home,” she said in a small
voice. “I don’t need an adventure.”

“You
have no home. You were born in a wheat field. Raised inside hallowed walls.
Impervious to desecration. Pure of heart and body. Anubis will find no fault in
you when you meet.”

“But
I will only meet him when I die.” Shock tightened her stomach and her eyes
widened. Again, she swayed. “Am I going to die? Have you poisoned me?”

“Not
poison, but a potion. You’ll sleep, and then you’ll awaken. When next you see
me, do not be alarmed.”

Far
too late for that. Her heart thudded dully in her chest. Her breaths rasped in
her ears. She pushed up from the cushions, but the deck beneath her feet seemed
to dip and roll. Her knees buckled.

Strong
arms surrounded her. A warm, hard chest buffeted her cheek.

Her
last thought before she closed her eyes was what a fool she’d been to ever
desire this man’s touch.

Khepri was surprised when next she blinked open her eyes. She
hadn’t expected to still be living after he’d smothered her. Although, if truth
be told, she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t slowly dying.

Shadows were deepening in the cavern, further obscuring her blurred
vision. Wind whistled through the cave, but sounded less … natural. If her
ears weren’t covered, she might have heard voices carried in the wailing wind.
Or perhaps she was the one wailing, inside, where she was cold and barely
breathing.

This time, she wasn’t lying flat, but rested against something hard and
propped at an angle. She could see more of the cavern that would be her tomb.

“You were chosen for this battle, Khepri,” came the vizier’s calm voice.

How had he known she was awake? Had she made a noise?

“Nephthys didn’t lie to you. Only you aren’t protecting your precious
temple. You will protect the world from a monster.”

He’d wrapped her in linens, dressed her for death, but without benefit of
actually being dead. “You … are the monster,” she whispered, her voice so
soft, so rasping, she didn’t recognize it. No longer panicked, she glanced
around, tired to the point of resignation with her fate. But she was still
curious about this place. Her tomb. The place was indeed a cave—white walls
scoured smooth by blowing sands. An opening above provided light. A rough
ladder leaned against the opening.

Her glance swept the interior floor, and she saw another wrapped bundle
in the shape of a body. No doubt Pharaoh. “Did you bother … to ensure he
was dead … before you prepared him?”

“He was quite dead,” the vizier said, his face smiling into hers. “I made
sure of it.”

“You murdered him?” she whispered breathily.

“I didn’t act alone. Many within the palace saw the darkness inside him.”

“Only … dark soul I see … is yours.”

“I serve Set.” His jaw lifted. “I serve a righteous Pharaoh. What greater
purpose can one serve than to ensure evil never rises again?”

She closed her eyes, tears pricking again, but she was through crying.
Nothing would move him, and she didn’t want to enter the next realm with proof
of her fear staining her face. “Why am I here?”

“You shall be an
ushabti
.
Called into service should
he
ever
rise again. At the moment of his ascendance, you will strike him down.”

“I am nothing special … not magical.” Her throat tightened. “If he is
evil … I will fail.”

A look of pity flickered across his stern features. He trailed a finger
down her cheek. “Did you trust in Nephthys? Did you believe her righteous and
blessed?”

To rid the sudden welling of tears, she breathed a shallow breath through
her nose. “Yes.” Nephthys had been a second mother, beautiful and wise. And
gentle. How could she have sanctioned this horror?

“The first time she brought you to the sanctuary, brought you before Amun
to share in the ritual, she was struck by a vision. She’d known from the first
moment she spied you with the butterflies that you were special, and destined
for greatness. She was a little jealous, I think, of your potential, but she
was Amun’s Wife and never questioned where he might lead her.”

“What did she see?” she whispered, darkness pressing closer.

One corner of his mouth curled upward. “I mustn’t say. Your destiny
awaits.”

“I don’t believe you. I will die here … but there’s still so much . .
. I want to do. I’m … not … ready.”

His head lowered, he pressed his forehead against hers. “I know I seem
cruel,” he said softly. “I do what I must. I don’t wish to harm you. I regret
you are afraid. But trust in your teachings. If you cannot trust me, trust in
Nephthys. I have danced too close to evil to complete this journey with you. Do
you hear what I am saying?”

Again, tears leaked from her eyes. There was no saving her. In moments,
her life would end. Better to confer with the gods, prepare her soul, than rail
against something she was powerless to stop.

And if he was right about a battle she must fight, then she wouldn’t
spend her last breath whimpering. She would listen. “I am ready … to hear.”

As he let out a deep breath, his shoulders lowered. “You are so
beautiful. So brave.”

He sees me now?
Panic no longer
ruled her thoughts; she concentrated, determined to remember. If she faced Anubis
or Osiris, or if she one day awoke, she would need to remember.

“I have tucked amulets into your wrappings, gifts to introduce you to
Set. Bribes to help you enter Horus’s realm while you wait. More to pay your
passage on Re’s boat to make the final journey home.”

Again, he was speaking of the
Duat
,
of the Land of the Dead. “Yes,” she said, letting him know she heard. “Bribes.”

“I have wrapped your fingers around a blade, inscribed with a prayer to
Neith, goddess of war. Keep the blade close, for it will enable you to use
whatever weapons are at hand. Around the top of your head, I have placed a thin
golden band impressed with the symbol of Dhehuty, the head of an ibis. Wherever
you awaken, you will know that world. Don’t fight the images that fill your
mind or they will jumble.” The vizier held up a scarab amulet between his
fingers and turned it to show her the inscriptions carved into the back.

“I can’t see …”

“Amun. A final gift from your husband. When I place this on your tongue,
you will speak the language of your new home.”

“Not yet,” she said, not ready to give up the one freedom she had left.
But he stuck his fingers into her mouth and set the hard stone in the center of
her tongue.

She felt nothing. Not a shiver or a spark. It was a stone. Just a stone.
And he was insane.

She’d die. To sleep. If she was brought to Osiris by the gatekeeper,
they’d mock her for being foolish enough to let this man with the maniacal
gleam in his eyes lead her aboard Re’s boat.

All because she’d wanted an adventure. Because she’d been lonely. When
she had been chosen … The God’s Wife … exalted above others.

With pressure from her tongue, she tried to push the stone from her
mouth, but he wound strips beneath her chin and over the top of her head,
clamping her jaws closed. She gurgled, growing panicked again, but the sounds
were faint and weak.

She grew dizzy and breathed through her nose, afraid now that she’d vomit
and drown. Wrapped for death, she stared up through the opening at the clear
blue sky. She remembered her earlier vision and wished she could set her
ba
free to fly from the gloom.

But linen, the softest from her
kalasiris
no doubt, fell across her eyes and tightened. The cloth wrapped around her
nose, and what air she’d been able to breath before was further filtered.

A brush scraped the linen, and heat seeped through, burning her forehead.
Then she knew. Hot resin would seal her head, her face.

But she was alive.

I live, husband. Help me. Help me.

She made a sound, a muffled sob. Something pressed against her covered
nose and mouth. A hand? Once again, her air was stopped.

Thank you, husband. Thank you …

Khepri, The God’s Wife, passed into the
Duat
.

Justin Henry Boucher didn’t trust his new partner. He didn’t
like his easy jokes or his shifty green eyes. Didn’t like the fact he was so
damn young, and obviously well-connected to have spent so little time paying
his dues as a beat cop before advancing to detective.

Michael Prejean probably wasn’t a complete douche bag, but Juste
just
plain didn’t like him. Maybe his
dislike stemmed from the fact that he’d had no choice but accept Prejean as his
new partner. He’d had a partner. A damn good one who’d been his best friend and
as close to a brother as he’d ever had.

Juste had a new partner he didn’t really know because he’d burned his
last bridge in his old unit when he’d sailed across the lieutenant’s desk and grabbed
for his throat. The fact he’d come away with only a reprimand, a dock in his
pay, and a “lateral” transfer out of homicide to the third district’s robbery
unit could have seemed light penalty for assaulting the man. Still, everyone
knew Juste had good cause to want the bastard dead.

His old partner and best friend since they’d fostered together, Bobby
Guidry, had died because the LT hadn’t bothered his ass to answer his phone
during a dinner party with the mayor. An op that never should have been
sanctioned in the first place couldn’t be stopped even after they’d spotted men
of Middle Eastern descent pouring from the ship they’d staked out because a
crew member was suspected of murdering a man in a bar fight.

But the LT had wanted a bust. Even if he’d known they faced a gang, armed
to the teeth, he might not have pulled the plug because he was a damn glory
hound and would have chafed at sharing attention with Homeland Security or the
FBI.

Regardless, the unit Juste and Bobby scrambled to make the arrest
included too few men, not enough firepower, and a boss too busy brown-nosing to
stay in the loop. And now, a good cop had been laid to rest. A man who was a
father and a husband.

Maybe part of what had set off Juste and sent him sailing across that
desk was the fact that deep inside, for just a second, he’d been glad it hadn’t
been him. Now he wondered why he’d been spared. No one would have missed him.
Despite a wall of commendations, he wasn’t such a great detective that he was
irreplaceable. Someone else sat at his desk in Homicide while he had sunk to
following up calls from museum curators dumb enough to lose a few “artifacts.”
Big fucking deal.

“Dr. Dorman will see you now.”

Juste pulled his gaze from the display in the Garden Museum’s business
office near the entrance. The sight of six-inch-tall statues that looked as
though his godson could have made them in a preschool art class didn’t really
hold his interest. But pretending interest was better than watching “Mikey” as
he hit on the curator’s secretary. From the moment they’d been asked to wait,
his younger partner sat on the edge of her desk chatting her up while she
walked back and forth to her printer.

Juste shook his head. At thirty-five, he was too young to feel this damn
old. He aimed a glare at his partner, whose gaze wasn’t straying from the
woman’s twitching skirt as they followed her down a long hallway and a set of
stairs into a large back storage room.

Tall crates filled the area. Packing peanuts and straw littered the
floor. A crowbar stood to the side of one splintered and empty wooden box.

“This can’t be happening.” A tall, thin man paced in front of the burgled
crate. Dressed in a tan suit with his bowtie askew, he looked the part of the
curator.

Juste snorted when the secretary approached the man and politely cleared
her throat, because his guess had been correct. Which left in question the
identity of the second man standing beside the crate. This one had darker skin,
dark eyes, and a thin mustache trailing down the sides of his lips and around
his chin. His large, curved nose marked him Middle Eastern, and he stood
frozen, staring at the empty box.

Already, Juste didn’t like him, seeing in his mind not an urbane,
well-dressed man but one of the crewmembers who had scattered to the winds
during the police sweep at the docks. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but Bobby’s loss
was still too fresh for him to be objective.

“Why these two artifacts?” Dr. Dorman asked, his question not directed to
anyone in particular as he paced. “The theft makes no sense. If they were
looting for antiquities, why not steal the gold tomb relics?” When the
secretary cleared her throat again, he looked up and spotted Juste and his
partner striding toward him. His eyebrows lowered into a worried frown.
“Detectives, you have to do something—quickly.”

Juste stood silently by as Mikey introduced them.

His partner oozed the right amount of sympathy. “What a terrible thing to
have happen. We’ll get to the bottom of this. During your call, you said you
have some Egyptian artifacts missing—can you be more specific?”

Dr. Dorman stopped pacing. His gaze went to the darker man, before he
spoke. “We’re scheduled to open a new exhibit next week.” He reached into his
back pocket and unfolded a pamphlet which he held out.

Juste took the brochure, giving it only a quick glance before tucking it
into a pocket.

“It’s a traveling exhibition of Egyptian pieces from a private
collection,” the curator said. “Quite spectacular. We’re the first stop on the
tour. The crates arrived yesterday. We were to begin unpacking and cataloguing
today, but I walked into this mess.” His hands spread wide. “It’s a
catastrophe.”

Wrong
. A catastrophe was your
best friend lying in a pool of blood, but Juste stifled his irritation. He had
a job to do. “I’ve heard ‘artifacts.’ What
exactly
is missin’?”

“You mentioned gold?” his partner asked, glancing at Juste as though
begging his pardon for interrupting, but sidling closer to the curator anyway.

Did he think Juste might reach for the man’s throat too? Juste wondered
how much of his inner monologue showed on his face and decided to dial back his
sarcasm.

“That’s what’s so strange,” the curator said, his expression tense,
seemingly real concern shining in his eyes. “They didn’t steal any of the more
precious items. Not a death mask, not Re’s golden boat. No statuary at all.
They stole two mummies.”

Mummies?
Juste pressed his lips
together, fighting the urge to cuss under his breath. He’d gone from hunting
gangbangers to looking for missing mummies. Bobby would have bust a gut
laughing if he could see him now.

Mikey sniffed and then turned to the side to cough. When his glance met
Juste’s, humor gleamed. “Perps used a crowbar,” he said under his breath, “so
it’s not an escape.”

Juste shook his head, fighting the smile beginning to twitch at the
corners of his mouth. “Boy, don’t start,” he said under his breath, surprised
by the kid’s sense of humor.

The curator glanced from Mikey to Juste. Instantly, his brows lowered and
two bright spots of color burned on his cheeks. “These mummies date from between
3500 and 2500
B.C.
They’re in
remarkable condition. Recent finds. Their resting place was undisturbed for at
least four millennia. We have X-rays to tell us what’s inside them, but they’ve
never been unwrapped. If the thieves do so, the damage to the corpses could be
catastrophic. Just the moisture in the air could cause rapid deterioration—”

“To say nothing of the treasures inside the wrappings.” This statement
came from the Middle Eastern man. His gaze burned with quiet fury.

Juste pursed his lips. “Sorry, gentlemen. Our amusement wasn’t
appropriate.” He paused and gave Mikey a narrow warning glance, not that his
new partner needed one. Already, he looked contrite, his expression schooled
into fresh sympathy. “You said treasures in the wrappings?”

“Inscriptions. Talismans,” the darker man said, his accent more
pronounced. “There’s much to learn about who these two mummies were and why
they were interred. I agreed to include these finds in the exhibit shipment due
to Dr. Dorman’s expertise in
ushabti
.”

“Shabti?” Juste met the man’s hard gaze and he stiffened. Cool
intelligence and the determined set of the man’s chin had Juste wondering if
there was more going on here. He didn’t seem like an academic sort. His
expression was too alert and hard. “Excuse me, who are you?”

The darker man bowed his head. “I am Youssef Haddara. I travel with the
exhibit. I am the protector.”

Juste’s brows lowered. His hackles had risen with each guttural, rolling
“r.” “The protector?”

Dr. Dorman pointed a finger. “He’s security, assigned by the owner of the
artifacts, Sheikh Khaled Fathy.”

Juste was getting impatient dealing with the two men. “The museum have
security?”

“We do,” Dr. Dorman said, nodding. “Two roving guards who saw and heard
nothing, and a man who monitored the closed-circuit cameras. My assistant is
reviewing footage now, but I don’t hold much hope we’ll see anything helpful.
We had issues with our equipment yesterday—the camera at the cargo bay,” he
said, pointing to the back of the large room, “and there. Both feeds were
compromised.” He pointed upward to a camera mounted some twenty feet above
them.

“When did the equipment begin to malfunction?”

Dr. Dorman’s lips settled into a straight line. “Just before the semi
delivered the crates.”

Juste shared a quick glance with Mikey. If the cameras were deliberately
sabotaged, they might be looking at an inside job. “Any ideas why anyone would
want the mummies? Are they valuable?”

“It’s not yet determined,” Haddara said. “A pharaoh’s mummy could be
quite valuable to a collector, but two nameless persons in an unmarked tomb . .
. ” He shook his head.

“Then why your interest? Why have them brought here?”

The dark man narrowed his eyes. “Because of the markings on the linen
wrapping the female.” He strode to a white table in a corner spread with
documents and rifled through the stack until he found what he was looking for.
He held out pictures, taken in color, of the two mummies. Both were slender—one
plain and begrimed, the other equally encrusted but with faded paintings
covering the place where the eyes should be and symbols stretching from the
face down the length of the mummy. Haddara pointed to the painted mummy. “The
inscription was unusual. It begins, ‘Khepri,
ushabti
to the nameless one.’” His gaze locked with Juste’s. “She
was a human
ushabti
.”

Juste remembered the word from the plaque on the display case housing the
small statuettes he’d been looking at outside Dorman’s offices.

Haddara continued. “
Ushabti
were statues made of various materials, but usually stone, clay or faience, and
quite small, doll-sized. They were placed inside tombs with the belief that
once the dead crossed into the next life, the small statues would grow to
human-size and come alive to serve the person being entombed.”

Haddara pulled another photo the stack—also of the painted mummy, but
shown in daylight beside the opening of a cave. “The woman in the tomb was
wrapped, but oddly; her organs were never removed, as was the usual practice.
That fact, and the markings on the linen strips, lead me to believe she was wrapped
while still alive.” His eyes glittered with excitement. “Incantations meant to
reanimate her covered the wrappings. The X-rays taken by the Sheikh’s physician
show an amulet in her mouth, a dagger in her hand, and many little amulets
tucked into her wrappings. Some gold, some silver or electrum. Richly ornate
items, which point to the possibility she held some rank, or that she was
designated as the
ushabti
to someone
else of very high rank.”

Dr. Dorman nodded. “Just from the photographs and the X-rays Youssef
shared, I was very excited. Symbols appeared several times in the
glyphs—describing a man of consequence who must remain nameless, but whose
identity was substituted with the picture of a scorpion.”

Juste felt a headache throbbing in the center of his forehead. “This is
all relevant because…?”

“If the body the
ushabti
accompanied is who we think he is,” Dr. Dorman said, his hands waving with his
excitement, “the mummy could be the most important find since King Tut’s
treasure. At least, more important to the academic community because he might
be the remains of one of the actual Scorpion Kings. They predate the richest
tombs. The age, the legends—it’s all very exciting. And now we’ve lost him. We
need both. She could provide us the proof we need to authenticate his
identity.”

“So we might be looking for someone with an interest in Egyptian
mummies,” Juste said, his tone even. He was looking at two such subjects right
now.

“You can narrow the search by concentrating on anyone who knew about the find,”
Haddara said. “It was recent. Not part of the actual exhibit. I included the
mummies because of the added security surrounding the event, but I wanted to
keep quiet the reason for our interest.”

“How many people knew the mummies were here?”

“Only a handful. The team from the University of Memphis who were invited
by Sheikh Fathy to conduct the excavation. Most are in town for the exhibit.
There is myself, since I represent the owner of the land where the tomb was
found, and Dr. Dorman here.” Haddara bowed his head. “A small group.”

“No officials in Egypt or here?”

When Dorman and Haddara shared a quick glance, Juste’s senses sharpened.

Haddara pressed his hands together, his forefingers steepled. “Due to
political unrest in my country, the Supreme Council for Antiquities is in
shambles. We, the Sheikh and I, decided
not
informing them of the find was far safer. If they’d known, they might have
taken the mummies. Treasures are disappearing all the time.” He waved a hand.
“And it was easy enough to add the mummies to the artifacts for the exhibit,
which we gathered hastily to get the collection out of Egypt until order is
restored.”