Chapter 3
Anubis
The mortal woman smelled of fear and lavender soap and something else I could not identify, a peculiar mixture of resignation and defiance that humans rarely carried in equal measure.
She was still unconscious, sprawled across her hotel bed in a tangle of limbs and cotton sheets, one arm flung over her eyes as if to block out the world.
I had been watching her for the better part of an hour.
The hotel room was typical of modern accommodations, appearing sterile and impersonal, with furniture made of compressed wood and paintings that meant nothing.
Through the window, Cairo sprawled in a chaos of light and noise, so different from the city I had known.
When I had last walked freely in this land, the Nile had run a different course, and the great pyramids still gleamed white under the sun, their limestone casing stones intact and polished.
That had been three thousand years ago.
Three thousand years of darkness; of being bound to a single purpose, sleeping in the space between worlds, waking only when those foolish or desperate enough to violate the sanctity of the tomb touched the Binding Stone.
Each time, their reasons had been the same.
Priests of rival gods sought artifacts. Treasure hunters searched for gold.
Scholars ached for knowledge that was not meant for mortal minds.
Each time, I had dispensed judgment according to the old laws.
But this woman - Jessica Thomas from New Jersey (wherever that was) - had touched the stone with no purpose at all. I’d searched and found no greed in her heart; no malice in her intent. I arrived on the other side with a sense of curiosity and a profound emptiness that I recognized all too well.
It made no sense.
She stirred, making a small sound of distress, and I straightened in my chair. The hotel furniture was absurdly fragile beneath my weight, groaning with every small shift. Modern humans had grown soft, building everything from materials that crumbled at the slightest pressure.
Her dark brown eyes opened and found me immediately.
To her credit, she did not scream.
She simply stared at me for a long moment, her expression cycling through confusion, recognition, and then a weary sort of
acceptance that suggested she had given up trying to make sense of her reality.
“How did you get here? You disappeared in the pyramid,” she said, her voice hoarse. “So either I’ve lost my mind, or you’re real.”
“I am real.” I kept my voice level and non-threatening. The last thing I needed was for her to panic again. Unconscious mortals were tedious to transport, and she had already fainted twice. “As are you, though your grasp on consciousness appears tenuous at best.”
She sat up slowly, clutching the sheets to her chest as if they offered some protection. Her eyes tracked to the golden bands on my arms, the collar across my chest, and then to my face. I saw the moment she remembered my eyes, saw her pupils dilate with fresh fear.
“This is my hotel room,” she said, as if that mattered. “How did you…? We were in the pyramid. I was in the pyramid. How am I here?”
“I brought you.” I gestured to the door. “Your guide was searching for you. I could not allow him to discover the chamber, so I removed you from the situation.”
“Removed me.” She repeated the words, her voice low.
“You removed me from inside a pyramid to a hotel room, through a locked door, because I know I locked the room before I left. Unless you stopped to pick up a key card, which I doubt.” Her voice rose, hysteria creeping in at the edges.
“This is insane. How did you know where I was staying?”
“You are not insane.” I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my knees, the choker around my neck catching in the room’s artificial light. “Though I understand why you might wish you were. The alternative is considerably more complicated.”
She laughed, but it was not a sound of amusement. “In the pyramid, before I passed out, you said you were Anubis.”
“I am Anubis.”
“The god.”
“Yes.”
“As in, the God of the dead. Jackal-headed. Weigher of hearts. That Anubis?”
“The same.” I watched her carefully, trying to gauge how much truth she could withstand. “Though I can take forms that do not frighten modern mortals quite so severely. This form seemed prudent, but I assure you, my current appearance is for your benefit.”
She stared at me for another long moment, then reached for the phone on her nightstand. Her hands shook enough that she nearly dropped it twice before unlocking the screen.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Calling someone. My friend. A doctor. The embassy. I don’t know.” She scrolled frantically through her contacts.
“Someone who can explain why I’m hallucinating an Egyptian god in my hotel room. Maybe it’s dehydration.”
I moved then, crossing the space between us faster than human eyes could track, and plucked the phone from her grasp. She gasped, pressing herself back against the headboard.
“You are not hallucinating,” I said, keeping my voice gentle despite my irritation. “Calling for assistance will only complicate matters further. The Binding Stone’s magic is not something your modern physicians can address.”
“Give me my phone back.”
“No.”
“Give me my phone back, or I swear to God…” she stopped, seeming to realize the absurdity of the threat. “Or I swear to... someone... some other god, maybe, that I will…”
“You will what?” I tilted my head, curious. “Scream? Fight me? Run?” I set the phone on the dresser, well out of her reach. “All of these actions would be futile and would achieve nothing except to exhaust you further.”
She glared at me with impressive intensity for a mortal. “What do you want?”
“An explanation.” I returned to the chair, settling back into it despite its ominous creaking. “For a singular purpose, high priests placed the Binding Stone in that chamber three thousand years ago.”
“What?”
“To summon me when tomb robbers attempted to violate the resting place of the Pharaoh. Every person who has touched that stone in all the centuries since has done so with intent. Greed, ambition, desperation. Name it and I have seen it. I have seen all manner of motivations. But you,” I paused, studying her. “You touched it for no reason at all.”
“I had a reason,” she said defensively. “It was... it looked interesting.”
“Interesting.” I let the word hang in the air between us. “You violated a sacred seal, released an ancient binding, and disturbed forces beyond your comprehension because it looked interesting?”
“I didn’t know it was a sacred seal! I thought it was a rock!
” She pushed her hair back from her face, and I noticed for the first time that she was older than my initial assessment.
By mortal standards, she wasn’t young, but not ancient.
She had lines around her eyes and mouth and strands of silver threaded through her dark hair.
“I didn’t know any of this was real. Gods aren’t… You’re not supposed to be real.”
“And yet I am.”
“So I’m gathering.” She took a shuddering breath, trying to compose herself. “Okay. Fine. Let’s say I believe you. Let’s say you are who you say you are. What happens now? Are you going to curse me? Kill me? Turn me into a scarab beetle?”
“I am considering my options.” I saw no point in lying to her.
The old laws were simple. Those who violated tomb seals were to be judged and punished according to the severity of their crime.
But those laws were leftovers from a world where gods walked openly among mortals, and people clearly understood the boundaries between the divine and mundane.
This woman had not known what she was doing. There was no malice in her heart, no intent to steal or desecrate. All I sensed now was that strange, aching emptiness I had sensed in the chamber.
“Considering your options,” she repeated, her voice devoid of emotion. “How reassuring.”
“You should be grateful I am considering anything at all. The traditional punishment for what you have done is swift and permanent.”
Her face drained of color. “I have a daughter.”
“I know.”
“You…what?”
I gestured to the nightstand, where a small photograph stood in a cheap frame. A younger woman, pretty, with the same dark hair and determined expression. “You carry her image with you. You look at it often. Your fingerprints caused the glass to wear around the edges where you touch it.”
She grabbed the photo, clutching it to her chest. “Don’t you dare bring my daughter into this.”
“I have brought nothing into this situation. You did when you touched the stone.” I paused, considering how much to reveal. “I am bound by ancient law to investigate and punish those who violate tomb seals. But the law assumes understanding, intent. You had neither.”
“So you’re saying I get a pass because I’m ignorant?”
“I am saying the situation is unprecedented.” The word felt strange in my mouth. How long had it been since I had encountered something new? “I require time to determine the appropriate course of action.”
She was quiet for a moment, her hands white-knuckled around the photograph. When she spoke again, her voice was smaller.
“How much time?”
“Twenty-four hours.” The words came out of my mouth unbidden. It seemed reasonable and sufficient to observe her; to determine whether she posed any genuine threat, whether there were others involved in this. “I will remain with you during this period.”
“With me?” Her voice rose again. “You mean like following me around? Being in my space?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You do not have a choice in this matter.”
“The hell I don’t!” She climbed off the bed, putting distance between us, though we both knew it was futile. “This is crazy. You can’t just attach yourself to me like some kind of divine parole officer!”
“I am not seeking your permission.” I kept my tone even, hoping I sounded reasonable.
“I am informing you of what will occur. For the next twenty-four hours, I will observe you. If I determine that you truly meant no harm, that you are simply a foolish mortal who made a poor decision, then I will release you from any consequences. But if I find evidence of deception, of hidden motives, of connections to those who would disturb the rest of the dead…”
“Then what? You’ll curse me? Kill me?” Her whole body shook, but she stood her ground. “Go ahead. My life is already a disaster. What’s one more catastrophe?”
There it was again. That emptiness and resignation laced with defiance. I found myself curious about this woman who fainted at the sight of gods but argued with them upon waking.
“Tell me,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Why Egypt? Why now? What brought you here, Jessica Thomas from New Jersey, who markets laundry detergent?”
She stared at me for a long moment, and I watched emotions flicker across her face too quickly to name. Then she reached for her purse, rummaged through it with shaking hands, and pulled out a piece of paper.
“Here.” She thrust it at me. “My tour receipt. It’s from a legitimate tour company. I paid for it with my credit card because I didn’t have enough money to pay in full. I’m a tourist. That’s it. That’s all I am.”
I took the paper, examining it. The tour company’s logo rested at the top, followed by itemized charges, and her name printed in neat letters at the bottom. Mundane proof of mundane intentions.
“This proves you paid for a tour,” I said. “It does not prove your motivations.”
“My motivations?” She laughed, that same bitter sound as before.
“You want to know my motivations? I got divorced. My ex-husband married someone younger. My daughter went to college. I lost my job. Then, I sat in my empty house for months watching home improvement channels and eating ice cream for dinner. One night, I got drunk with my best friend and booked a trip to Egypt because I’ve wanted to go ever since I was eight years old.
I figured if I didn’t do it now, I never would.
Those are my motivations. It’s my midlife crisis. How pathetic is that?”
Her words tumbled out in a rush, raw and unfiltered, and I realized she was telling the truth. Not because I could sense deception, though I could, and there was none in her diatribe, but because no one would invent such an unremarkable story as a lie.
“I see,” I said, sitting back in the chair.
“Do you?” She wiped at her eyes, though I had not seen tears fall. “Can gods have midlife crises? Do you even have lives to have middles of?”
It was not a question I had expected, and I wanted to answer her. “We have existence and purpose. Bindings and duties that span millennia.”
“Sounds awful.”
I almost smiled. “It has its moments.”
She sank down onto the edge of the bed; the fight draining out of her. “Twenty-four hours. Then you’ll leave me alone?”
“If I determine you pose no threat, yes.”
“And if you determine I do pose a threat?”
“Then we address that when the time comes.”
She fell quiet for a long moment, studying me with her tired brown eyes. Finally, she sighed. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to observe from a distance? Maybe in a different hotel room? Or on a different continent?”
“No.”
“I had to try." She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “It’s three in the morning. I haven’t slept in… I don’t even know how long. Can I at least sleep, or are you going to stare at me all night?”
“You may sleep. I do not require rest.”
“Of course you don’t.” She stood, moving toward the bathroom.
“I’m going to brush my teeth and change. Don’t... don’t do anything weird while I’m in there.”
“I make no promises.”
She paused at the bathroom door, looking back at me. “Did you really carry me out of a pyramid?”
“Yes.”
“And no one saw you?”
“Mortals see what they expect to see. I am quite adept at being unnoticed when necessary.”
She shook her head. “This is wild. My life has become a television soap opera.”
Then she disappeared into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her.
I settled back in the chair, listening to the sounds of running water, of a mortal woman going through the rituals of preparing for sleep. Outside, Cairo hummed with life, so different from the city I had known, yet somehow still familiar in its essence.
Twenty-four hours. It seemed like such a small amount of time, but it would be a heartbeat in the span of my existence.
And yet, watching the bathroom door, hearing Jessica Thomas’s muttered curses about ancient gods and terrible life choices, I felt something I had not experienced in three thousand years.
Curiosity about what would happen next.