Authors: L. A. Banks
“We are also not supposed to allow them to suffer. These men are poor. The loss of a beast of burden means the loss of their livelihood in a very unforgiving landscape. The camels might not even be theirs or paid for, and if that’s the case, their bosses could exact the toll of thievery upon them in an Arab nation, which could be severe for something they did not do. Their stories would never be believed, and who knows if the mere mention of it could get them stoned or worse. Our edict was to do no harm to mankind. Just our tripping over a supernatural land mine did harm. It must be corrected.”
Azrael lifted his chin and strode away. Bath Kol shrugged and rubbed the hot nape of his neck and then squinted up at the sun. “Hey, you know how he is when he gets like this. There’s no talking to the man.”
Just like that, it was settled. The threesome trudged back to stand with the others at the opening of the vast tomb, all eyes on Azrael as the guards smoked cigarettes and sized up the women in the small group. Upon Azrael’s approach, men ran and arms waved as a group leader
chastised the fleeing camel drivers. He threw a cigarette butt on the ground, then several other men who hadn’t witnessed the event dragged the screaming men to stand before Azrael.
The stricken guards began to stand, then suddenly the screaming men stood calmly and then laughed as Azrael pulled out a large bankroll from his pocket—one he hadn’t had before. No one had to tell her that some angelic sleight of hand was going on. She and her sisters shared a knowing look. Resources were being manifested from the ether to fill pockets; minds were being calmed—all happening quietly right before her eyes.
Shoulders in that group relaxed. Men laughed. Guards lowered weapons and spoke to each other in a language she couldn’t understand, but their body language told her everything she needed to know. The leader of the camel drivers’ area accepted the bills and held some out for the previously shaken men, who hugged Azrael. Apparently he’d well overpaid for their losses.
After ten tense minutes of negotiations, Azrael returned to the group just as the last of the tourists were being flushed from the Great Pyramid. Eager to please the wealthy American who was flashing lots of cash, the guards scrambled to accommodate Azrael’s request that his party be the only ones allowed in.
“Wait, wait, Diddy,” one said. “I clear for you, okay?”
“I’ll make sure no one comes behind you,” another said proudly, saluting Azrael. “You play this football … basketball?”
Azrael smiled and shook his head. “No, man.”
“You movie star—or like a music man … rap star?”
Isda burst out laughing. “Naw, dude can’t carry a tune.”
Seeming confused but deciding it wasn’t in their best interest to continue asking questions, the guards dropped the queries and went through the structure, leaving a couple to handle the payoff details. After several long, hot minutes they emerged, sweating and smiling.
“It’s all good, boss,” the first out of the structure exclaimed.
“I take pictures?” another offered, clearly wanting to get in on the payday.
Azrael handed each man Egyptian currency what was worth a hundred US dollars. “No pictures, no guards—private.”
The guards looked at each other sheepishly. One looked away as the leader came in close to Azrael.
“You cannot desecrate the monument with the ladies … not even for money.”
“No!” Azrael said, holding up his hands in front of his chest. “Just prayer.”
“Ohhhhh! You had me worried. You have no idea what people try to do within the great walls here!” The man looked embarrassed and wiped his forehead. “But prayer is not really allowed either, except for the right gift, how and when a man prays …” He shrugged and glanced around at his buddies, who were all smiles.
Azrael nodded and peeled off several more bills. “A tithe?”
The man nodded. “It is right to share, my friend.”
“Can we go in now?” Bath Kol muttered.
“Yes, yes, but be careful—the way is steep and you are tall. Go low, low, bend and watch your heads.”
This time Isda took the lead as they entered the dark; Azrael brought up the rear. Two brothers were in front, two in back, with one as a security checkpoint in the center between the women. Instant claustrophobia assailed Celeste as they bent in the tight, stone confines and began what amounted to a ten-story trek straight up, holding small handrails, bent over to walk beneath the four-and-a-half-foot-high ceiling. The steps, such as they were, amounted to slats placed close together and not deep enough for a modern foot to fit. If she was having trouble, she couldn’t imagine how the guys, who stood well over six feet tall with shoes sizes and body mass twice hers, were faring.
No ventilation and insufferable heat added to dusty conditions that caused wheezing even if one wasn’t asthmatic. But for sure, this space was sacred and was meant for the original purpose it served—to bury a king. It was not meant to be a theme-park exhibit, but that’s what it had been turned into for the sake of tourism, and yet who could blame the local government for finally being the last to cash in on their own national treasures after, according to Isda, they’d been grave-robbed for centuries?
Then, most remarkably, when her legs were just about ready to give out, the tunnel opened up into a large stone room that was ten feet or more in height with a vacant stone coffin in its center. Angel brothers gathered around the coffin, with her and her sisters interspersed between them. Her nerves were wire taut as she looked at the way they’d slowly come in and the only one way they could get out. She breathed through a panic attack and fisted her hands at her sides. If scorpions or snakes or anything
insane bubbled forth from the walls, they were trapped. Everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing, and they all looked at Isda for guidance as he lowered his head in a moment of silent prayer.
But when he opened his eyes, they shimmered with tears, and his inner light had begun to flicker behind his pupils. Bath Kol was the first to catch it, and he glanced at Pas-char, who offered a discreet nod. Azrael backed the women in the group up just a bit, and Gavreel edged closer to Isda.
“You all right, man?” Gavreel said in a peace-inducing tone.
“Am … I … all right, the man asks?” Isda shook his head and chuckled sadly. “How can I be all right?”
“Okay, this was a bad idea. Let Az take the ladies out of here,” Bath Kol said, heading for the open doorway. “We can do this divination with me, you, and Paschar—we get the vision, then we’ll be out.”
“How
the hell
can a man be all right, seeing this?” Isda suddenly shouted, his emotions exploding violently. He punched the wall, causing a chunk of stone to fall from it as his wings spread, ripping his T-shirt. “They took the bodies! Mummies are our ancestors—they took the bodies of our children! They have them on a road show all over the world! This place used to be green, mon! It was fertile, beautiful, and now—look at it! They have pissed in the monuments and smoked cigarette butts on these graves—and you ask me if I’m all right?”
Gavreel tackled Isda with help from Paschar.
“I ain’t neva gwan be all right!” Isda raved as his brothers thrust him against the wall. “They ground up thousands of mummies, rich mortals did that, and they snorted them
in secret societies! Defiled corpses and graves! Built developments over the goddamned Valley of the Kings! They’re selling camel rides through the pharaoh’s backyard. Heaven help me, I will lay siege to this land! I swear it on me immortal existence—I neva wanted to come back and see it. My heart cannot take it, mon—now after all we built, all we did and taught, now they got my boy!”
Isda finally grabbed Gavreel around the shoulders and sobbed. “Dat is who they took out there in the desert and defiled his sarcophagus with innocent human blood in a pentagram! Imhotep—they made up lies about one of the greatest geniuses in all history—my son! Do you hear me, Azrael, Angel of Death, my legion brother, you make dis shit right!”
“Listen to me, man,” Azrael said, peeling Gavreel away from Isda and holding Isda firmly by the shoulders. “We’re gonna find the body.”
Isda nodded, his chest heaving. “You promise me.”
“I promise you,” Azrael said, then hugged him hard. “But you cannot lay siege to these humans.”
“They’re invaders! They aren’t the original Nubian people. These are—”
“Humans,”
Azrael said in a no-nonsense tone. “You know how this works … battles, wars, invasions, the ebb and flow—”
“Aided by evil,” Isda shouted, pushing Azrael off him.
“Yes,” Azrael said, nodding.
“They brought down one of the most magnificent empires.”
“Yes,” Azrael said quietly. “And choices made within that empire also helped.”
“Imhotep was a part of the Golden Age. My boy had nothing to do with dat travesty.”
“No, he did not,” Azrael said in a calm tone, going to Isda slowly as one would approach a wounded lion. “And we will recover his sarcophagus and clean off the filth they covered him with.”
Isda’s eyes glittered in the semidarkness. “They made up movies about him as evil. They have children afraid of his name. They—”
“I know, brother,” Azrael murmured. “We may not be able to correct all of that in one mission, but we can find him and return him to rest.”
Isda nodded. “That’s all I ask. I don’t have much beyond that left anymore.” Two huge tears rolled down Isda’s cheeks as he allowed his back to slump against the stone wall. “I watched them all die. “Watched all of their inventions and brilliance get taken to other countries. Watched others be given credit for what my children discovered and developed here. They said the Greeks and Romans did it all, but it was my sons and daughters, and my grandchildren and great-grands.” Isda closed his eyes and drew in a shuddering breath and then sniffed hard. “Then they put them in chains and after dat, mon … I couldn’t come back here to see anymore. I would have murdered.”
“You don’t have to come back here anymore, brother,” Azrael said, drawing Isda into a warrior’s hug. “Do you want me to open up the column of light?”
Isda shook his head. “I don’t want to go home until I can find his sarcophagus.”
“Then, you tell us when it gets too intense. Some
battles you can sit out. After a tour of duty for twenty-six thousand, nobody can fault you.”
“Thanks, man … I’m all right,” Isda said as Azrael let him go. “It just fucked me up, is all. I felt all the energy on the walls, all the disrespect for what this place really was.”
“Yeah, man. I hear you,” Azrael said. “I feel it, too.”
“Can I try?” Celeste said, coming close to the open king’s chamber center stone.
Isda nodded and she waited, glancing around. “I need to get inside the space.”
Isda wiped his face and went to the edge of the open stone enclosure. Walking around the edges of what looked like the long, rectangular trough, he nodded. “This wasn’t Imhotep’s, it was Cheops’s.”
“But if something evil happened in the shadow of this sacred ground …”
“Maybe let her try,” Bath Kol said, imploring Isda without pushing him too hard.
Finally Isda nodded and held out his hand to Celeste to help her into the encasement that would have held a pharaoh’s golden sarcophagus.
Each person in the room placed his or her hands on the edge of the granite enclosure while Celeste slowly lay down inside it. Not sure what compelled her, she folded her arms across her chest in the ancient mummy pose, her body moving of its own accord as she closed her eyes. Soon her lashes began to flutter and images began to take shape behind her lids. She could feel the surface of her skin begin to tingle, and suddenly she was weeping.
“Who is Dendera?” She sat up quickly with a gasp and wiped at her tears with dusty hands.
Isda looked at Celeste and then around at the group. “Dendera is a temple in the south,” he said calmly, glancing around at the others as he began to pace. “A full day’s journey by car and too dangerous to be going through da desert at night. If you drive, you need an armed escort against bandits who would take foreigners hostage for ransoms—along the way, you’ll see … there’s some burned-out tour buses … look like Mad Max and the Thunderdome was dere.”
“Then, by all means, lets take the freakin’ train,” Bath Kol said, rubbing his neck. “Damn, why is everything here so complicated?”
“We’ll follow your lead, Isda,” Azrael said, helping Celeste out of the stone enclosure.
“Aw’ight, den,” Isda said, closing his eyes.
“But the Valley of the Kings turned up nothing?” Gavreel glanced around the group and his gaze settled on Paschar for a moment.
“No,” Isda said quietly. “When our advance team got here, that’s the first place we looked. There are thousands of tombs in that limestone, mountainous region. We figured it would be a perfect place to hide a coffin. But with all the excavations still going on and the fact that the government actually built houses on top of the grave sites for miles—and people are digging in their basements striking gold and regularly selling antiquities on the black market, since that’s worth more than the couple grand the government will give them for their homes … we pulsed the area. It was cold. Last place we even thought to look was the museum. Insane.”
“It was the last place any of us would have looked,” Azrael countered, clearly trying to make Isda feel better.
“Den it should have been the first place I looked, mon.”
“It’s all good, man,” Gavreel said quietly. “Stop lacerating yourself. We’re gonna work it out. So let’s focus forward instead of backward. How do we get down to Dendera safely traveling with mortals?”
“Aw’ight,” Isda said, drawing in his palm with his forefinger to show the direction they’d have to take from Cairo. “Gotta take the train way past Sakkara, Memphis, Beni Suef, Minia, past the rock tombs of Beni Hassan, even beyond Abydos, though not as far as Nag Hammadi. The route follows the Nile and we can get off at Qena, then catch a ferry over to Dendera.” He raked his locks with his fingers and sighed. “You was feeling female energy, little sis, because dat temple in Dendera was dedicated to the goddess Hathor.” He glanced around at his brother angels. “Our locator is on point.”