Nefertiti’s Curse: An Urban Fantasy Read online

  “Do you think he has your secure line too?”

  “Doubt it. He would need to have our DNS mapping to reach that line.”

  “What did you tell him?” Isabella asked.

  “I told him I had no idea what he was talking about.”

  “And that worked?”

  “He laughed and told me not to answer until I heard what he was offering as compensation.”

  “Let me guess,” Xavier said. “He offered to get you a telecommuting job at the NSA.”

  Maya grinned. “Nope. He offered something better. He said if I did it he would arrange for me to get a ninety-nine-year lease on 108 Mayflower Lane for the same rent I pay here!”

  Contessa said, “I guess that explains why I’m here.”

  Mayflower Lane was the name of the street lined with million-dollar homes where Xavier, Isabella and Contessa lived.

  “I’m so excited,” Maya said. “I’m moving to Chestnut Hill with you guys!”

  “One oh eight,” Xavier said in contemplation. “Isn’t that the Wilbourn house?”

  “Yes,” Contessa said.

  “That house is for rent?” Isabella asked.

  “Not exactly,” she said. “Apparently the Wilbourns sold it to an organization called The Mercy Society a few weeks ago without telling anyone. I found out about it yesterday when the title company sent me a document asking our HOA to approve the sale. I was going to bring it up after this meeting.”

  “We can’t lose them,” Xavier said with great concern. “They’re the only normals on the block.”

  “Don’t worry,” Maya said. “Vin’s godparents are normals and they’re going to move in with us.”

  “So you’ve already secured Carlos’s watch?”

  “Of course I did,” Maya said. “I wasn’t passing up the chance of a lifetime. Did you look around on your way here? This isn’t exactly Beverly Hills.”

  “Maya!” Isabella said. “How could you do that without talking with us first?”

  “I have the crypto keys,” she said. “If you guys really object, I can delete them.”

  “What will happen to his watch if you did that?” Xavier asked.

  “It’ll be exposed.”

  “Will he know?”

  “Yes. I loaded a rootkit that will make the screen change colors if that ever happens. I’m starting to get the impression you guys don’t want me as a neighbor. I thought you would be happy for me.”

  “Don’t be narcissistic,” Isabella said. “We would love to have you as a neighbor. But there are a lot of factors involved here.”

  “Uh, who is Vin?” Contessa asked. “And how do you know his godparents are normals? And even if they are, how do you know they’re not with the DSO? Have they been screened?”

  “Vin is my boyfriend,” Maya said.

  They all groaned. Maya’s love life had a checkered history filled with loser boyfriends.

  “Okay, maybe I deserved that a tiny bit. But Vin is different, I swear.”

  Isabella said, “That’s what you say about all of them before they crash your car or find out you have wings. Are you not living here because the one you called Georgy ruined your credit?”

  Maya knitted her eyebrows. “I thought you guys were my family.”

  “We are,” Isabella said. “That’s why we tell you the truth.”

  “You’ll feel differently once you meet him.”

  “That’s unlikely,” Isabella said. “But right now, we need to get back to discussing the Carlos situation.”

  “Vin!” Maya turned and yelled out. “Hon, can you come up here?”

  Isabella huffed. “He’s here and you didn’t tell us? What has gotten into you?”

  Wooden steps creaked loudly under the weight of someone coming up from Maya’s basement.

  Xavier stood and placed himself between the basement door and the three women. The unusual scent he had first detected while waiting on Maya’s front stoop became overpowering.

  A creature that was a man above the waist and a horse below it emerged from the basement and approached the living room.

  “Greetings,” the centaur said in English. “I am Vinicus Luvenalis Clinea.”

  Maya’s visitors gawked. The centaur’s human portion was a handsome Mediterranean man with olive skin, ice blue eyes and neatly trimmed black hair. He was wearing a gray cashmere sweater and a tasteful Patek Philippe watch. Its lower half was a muscular stallion with a coat the color of wheat.

  Vinicus gestured at the wall Maya shared with her neighbor. “Someone is a fan of Anton Webern. I believe this is the string quartet of Opus 5.”

  “That would be me,” Contessa said, beaming. “And yes, this is Opus 5. Webern was a genius.”

  “You have excellent taste,” Vinicus said.

  “And a husband,” Maya announced.

  Isabella spoke several sentences to Vinicus in Italian.

  “You are correct,” he responded in English.

  “Correct about what?” Maya asked.

  “Your friend is familiar with my homeland.”

  This made Maya realize she had failed to make introductions.

  After pleasantries were exchanged, the five of them had a forthright discussion about Vinicus’s background, his relationship with Maya and the responsibilities that he and his human godparents would bear as residents of Mayflower Circle.

  Satisfied with his answers and having a quorum of the Homeowners Association present, Isabella called for an immediate vote on the sale of the Wilbourn property.

  It passed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Washington, DC

  Carlos stood in front of his open refrigerator trying to decide between cranberry juice and orange juice. He decided to go with orange juice because he feared the cranberry juice might mix with his blood and confuse the first responders.

  He poured a tall glass and then sat at the dinette set in his small condominium apartment. “You can come out now,” he said.

  Baynin stepped into the light. “This is a modest dwelling for a mortal of your standing.”

  “I’m saving up for a houseboat,” Carlos said.

  “Your desire to jest never ceases,” Baynin said.

  Carlos was about to explain that he had not been joking when Yefet appeared behind his chair and placed a knife to his throat.

  “If you stay out of my path,” Baynin said, “I will see to it that no more of my fruit enters the borders of your nation.”

  Carlos leaned his face up at Yefet. “You should be telling your boyfriend that.”

  She stabbed him in the thigh.

  He moaned in pain, stifling a yell.

  “Now is not the time to test my patience,” Baynin said.

  Carlos wrapped his necktie around his thigh as a makeshift tourniquet. “It’s not that simple. I would need to have a credible explanation for delaying the task force.”

  “Tell your overseers that their pact with the Gypsy has been more fruitful than anticipated. Every man wishes to believe the boat turns by his own oar.”

  Carlos knew he would already be dead if that was what they had wanted. “And if I refuse?”

  Baynin grabbed Carlos by the neck and lifted him from his seat, squeezing hard on his windpipe. “Then I shall inform them of what became of you in the years after Barranquilla.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  “Why are we here?” Xavier asked Howling.

  They were standing outside the entrance of a trendy sunglasses store on Chestnut Street near the University of Pennsylvania.

  Howling started bobbing and slapping at the air. “I was learning how to do the Whip and Nae Nae and I accidentally broke my favorite pair of V Shades. I need a new pair.”

  Xavier laughed despite himself. “It’s all in the wrist. Now, why are we really here?”

  “To see the talker at the top of the tree. Did you bring the sample?”

  “Yes.”

  The s
aleswoman only had to fend off Howling’s overtures for three minutes before an African American man in his late thirties appeared in a doorway at the rear of the showroom.

  “Kallie I will help these gentleman,” he said.

  The rimless V Shades he wore had the initials PT monogrammed in gold on the hinges and he might have just stepped away from a GQ photoshoot in the Hamptons with his tan linen suit and Gucci loafers.

  Xavier glimpsed a Hugo Boss label when the man stretched out his arm to beckon them into the carpeted hall beyond the door.

  Howling immediately trotted down the corridor but Xavier made a show of examining the framing around the door.

  The man smiled. “Please Brother, come in.”

  Xavier admired the office while Howling and the fashionable man made small talk. A tinted skylight bathed the room in warm light while soft jazz played from recessed speakers. The wall behind the man’s desk was dominated by a hundred-inch video screen displaying a space nebula colored in vibrant reds and purples. The gases of the nebula undulated as he watched.

  There was a door in a far corner of the room protected by two keyed locks and one digital lock. In the light beneath the door, the shadow of something inside the room occasionally moved.

  Howling introduced the man as Dr. Triptree.

  “What’s good, Xavier?”

  “Everything is everything,” Xavier said.

  With just six words the two men had established an instant cultural rappaport.

  “Call me Tree.”

  “Call me X.”

  “I like that,” Xavier said, pointing to the giant video screen. “It’s almost like we’re seeing it from the window of a spaceship.”

  “It’s a private live stream from the SALT observatory in South Africa,” Tree said. “Are you into Astronomy?”

  “No.”

  “Not even full moons?”

  They made eye contact.

  “No,” Xavier said.

  Tree nodded and went back to buffing the lenses of his glasses with a polishing cloth. “What can I do for you, X?”

  “A woman in Norway told me to come see you.”

  “Really? When?”

  “Last week.”

  “She have a name?”

  “Cella.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “She was a vampire up until a year ago.”

  “Still doesn’t ring a bell. And did I hear you correctly?”

  “About which part?”

  “About her no longer being a vampire.”

  “Yes, she was cured. Now she’s just a normal woman again.”

  Tree leaned back in his chair and regarded his two guests. “You know, if you weren’t here with him and didn’t have that blue cloth wrapped around the hilt of your Khopesh, I would think this was a practical joke.”

  Xavier leaned forward. “Who told you about my khopesh?”

  “Nobody. I can see it for myself.”

  “How?”

  Tree looked at Howling. “You didn’t tell him who he was coming to see?”

  Howling turned to Xavier. “Dr. Tiptree can see your anubis. Actually, he can see all things in their true form. That’s why I was hoping he would be willing to look at our sample.”

  “A sample of what?” Tree asked. “If somebody pulls out one of that girl’s fingers, we’re going to have a problem up in here.”

  “Oh no, it’s nothing like that,” Howling said. “Xavier, would you mind?”

  “Which hand is my khopesh in?”

  “You just made the creature put its arms behind its back. The khopesh is in a scabbard on its left hip. I have other things I could be doing with my time, Bro.”

  “Xavier, this is important,” Howling pleaded.

  “I didn’t mean any offense,” Xavier said.

  “None taken. Not yet at least.”

  Xavier removed a folded white handkerchief from his pocket and placed it on the desk.

  Tree unwrapped the package and studied the odd, dark-colored morsel for several minutes. Then he looked up and asked, “Why were you in Norway?”

  “We went there to see someone with a unique expertise,” Xavier said.

  “Did you know about Cella before you went?”

  “No, we didn’t know—or at least I didn’t know.”

  Tree stroked his goatee but said nothing.

  Howling reached into his breast pocket and produced a folded letter, which he handed to Tree.

  After reading the letter, Tree nodded to the morsel on the table. “I don’t know what this is, but it’s mostly artificial.”

  “What do you mean?” Xavier asked.

  “It’s not natural. It’s a copy of the real thing.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The artificial part doesn’t have an aura. And the DNA of the engineered part doesn’t match the DNA of the natural part.”

  “You can see DNA?”

  “If I look hard enough and don’t have a hangover.”

  On their way out the door, Xavier asked Tree what was inside the room with all the locks. He didn’t recognize the scent.

  “Do you believe in God?” Tree asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because if you believe in God, you can’t handle what’s in that room.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “But you can handle it?”

  Tree’s smile was as wide as the Mississippi River. “I’m not your average bear.”

  * * *

  Half a block from the V Shades store, Xavier yanked Howling into an alley. He shoved the smaller man into a brick wall and jammed his forearm against Howling’s throat. “Who are you?”

  A powerful gust of wind sent Xavier hurtling backward. He crashed into the opposite wall like a ragdoll, pulverizing a section of masonry. The gust then split into five distinct streams that pinned his arms, legs and torso to the wall. His healing tattoos began radiating intense heat.

  Howling walked toward Xavier with a jovial smile. His body seemed to be completely impervious to the violent wind that was thrashing every other movable object in the alley.

  “Wind sprite,” Xavier wheezed.

  Howling’s expression changed to one of disgust. When he spoke, his voice boomed from multiple directions. “I am no mere sprite. I am the Wind! I am he who the southern people call El Nino. I am he who the northern people call Jet Stream. I am he who the Druids called Elemental. My wrath splits oceans and moves mountains!”

  The wind momentarily died away.

  “No wait,” Howling said, moving his forefinger to his lips. “That’s not technically true.”

  The wind began blowing again and Howling pointed a finger at Xavier. “My wrath splits oceans and shakes mountains very hard!”

  Xavier frowned in annoyance as his body slowly dropped to the ground.

  “What do you think of my super villain voice?” Howling asked in a normal tone without the surround sound effect.

  “This is another one of your bad jokes? I think you broke my back.”

  “Hey, you attacked me, Chuck Norris. I have a right to defend my avatar. You should avoid surprising me like that. I could have accidentally flattened the whole city and blown you halfway across the Atlantic.”

  Xavier considered the extraordinary wind manipulation he had just witnessed. “You were telling the truth? You’re really the Wind Elemental of the Earth?”

  Howling held out his hands. A tiny tornado swirled in each palm. In what he had called his super villain voice, he shouted, “Yes, I am the Wind!”

  Car alarms began blaring and a window pane two stories up shattered, sending shards of broken glass raining down.

  Xavier covered his head. “Stop doing that!”

  “Sorry,” Howling said. “Glass hadn’t been invented when I came up with that routine.”

  “Which was when?”

  “Before you were born.” Then he added, “Originally.”

  �
��I’m sorry for attacking your avatar,” Xavier said.

  “Yes, be careful. This is my spare. My first one had the body of a Greek god.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “I used it to start a relationship with the Morrigan.”

  “The Celtic goddess?”

  “That’s her,” he said with a mischievous grin. “She was a firecracker that one. Everything was peachy until she found out I participated in one of those Summer Solstice orgies with sixteen cute gypsy girls from Mesopotamia. Parts of that body are still fertilizing flowers on three continents.”

  “What was on the paper you gave to Tiptree?”

  “A letter from Astrid Hellstrand promising to co-publish a scientific paper with him if he gave us his best help with the sample.”

  “A scientific paper? About what, sunglasses and Gucci loafers?”

  “You should have Maya do one of those dossiers on Dr. Tiptree.”

  “I’ll do that. Who sent you to help us?”

  “The lady in charge.”

  “In charge of what?”

  “The Earth.”

  Hearing this lifted Xavier’s spirits. Mother Nature herself had come to their aid. “She is with us?”

  “Uh, about that,” Howling said. “The Rules say that if she sends help to one side, she must also send it to the other. The good news is that she sent me to help your side.”

  Xavier had a sinking feeling. “Who did she send to help Baynin?”

  Howling counted on his fingers. “Let see: She sent my siblings Fire and Water, nineteen of Earth’s twenty-one land elementals, two tectonic plates, a tributary of the Amazon and pretty much perfect weather everywhere he goes.”

  Xavier put his face in his hands.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Washington, DC

  Carlos, Xavier and Michelle were seated in a conference room at the DSO’s offices. Xavier had just given the two officials the fruit from Paxton Briggs and an update on his findings. Carlos was asking the questions while Michelle took notes and avoided eye contact.

  “Tell me again how you know the fruit has two types of DNA,” Carlos said.

  “One of my sources showed me a lab report,” Xavier said.

  “Uh huh,” Carlos said. “What was the name of the lab?”