Nefertiti’s Curse: An Urban Fantasy Read online

  “How many do you have?”

  “I have one mate to whom my heart is exclusively committed. However, that term might be interpreted to apply to someone else with whom I am very close.”

  “I think nowadays the cool kids call them Friends with Benefits.”

  “Were you referring to Tu’Lok or Tyrone?”

  “You know,” Carlos said, “these things go a lot smoother when the information flows both ways.”

  “Would you prefer I torture it out of you?”

  Carlos repositioned one of his crutches so Yefet could see the runes and sigils carved into it. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “You think a flimsy focus staff will protect you from my rage?”

  Maha walked up to their table with a wide smile.

  “Patni is a neutral place of joy,” the goddess warned. “Anyone who does not grasp this will be placed on a new path of enlightenment.”

  Yefet bowed deferentially and said something in Hindi.

  Maha touched two fingers to Yefet’s forehead and then walked away toward the kitchen.

  “Where were we?” Carlos asked, lighting an enchanted table candle that would keep their conversation private.

  Yefet retrieved a small white vial from her clutch and placed in on the table. “Your thigh is infected with something called Grendel’s Kiss. Put two drops of this on the wound every day for a week. After that, get whoever fixed your throat to take another look at it.”

  “Much appreciated,” Carlos said, scooping up the vial. “I was referring to Tu’Lok back at my place. I know about your history with Neph, but even Baynin would have to think twice before poking that hornet’s nest.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Yefet said. “But I had to be sure.”

  “Now you know. By the way, congratulations on your engagement.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “A man who betrays his sources will soon find that he has none.”

  “What were Cezar and Leclerc planning?”

  “Sixty-nine is my favorite number.”

  Yefet sighed. “You’re definitely not a priest anymore. Operation Voter Registration. Find out what that code name represents, and you’ll be looking at the chessboard instead of a single pawn.”

  “Is that a government designation?”

  “I can’t elaborate without violating an oath.”

  Carlos considered that. “We initially thought they were planning some kind of coop against Baynin, but now we see they had their sights set much higher.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Leclerc’s syndicate had been shipping materials to a facility in Norway that had us concerned he might have been developing a bio weapon. But when the MSA got an asset on the inside, they found something very unexpected.”

  “In what sense?”

  “They found human clones that could be animated and controlled by magic.”

  “What?!”

  “That was pretty much our reaction. All the clones had genetic material that we now know is from Baynin’s fruit, so we think supplying that was Cezar’s angle. Luckily, they seemed to be having problems sourcing the fruit so there were only a few clones.”

  “Was I one of them?”

  “No, but there were clones of the Norwegian Prime Minister and various billionaires. The MSA wiped out the whole facility.”

  “Thank you for this,” Yefet said.

  “Is there any chance you could tell me something useful about where Baynin is producing his fruit? We’ll eventually locate it on our own, but if you help us speed that process along I’m confident I could arrange to spare anyone you think would be a useful long-term asset.”

  Yefet rose. “I’m going to get going now.”

  “Before you go would you mind taking a selfie with me? My fishing buddies will never believe I had a date with a model.”

  “Those shots work best when I sit on your lap.”

  “That would be awesome,” he exclaimed.

  “I’m kidding. One, this is not a date. Two, you threatened to kill me in cold blood not ten minutes ago. No, Carlos, I will not take a selfie with you.”

  “That was just business. You stabbed and poisoned me but I’m not holding a grudge.”

  “Goodbye, Carlos.”

  “I’ll give you my word to never sign an enforcement order targeting Xavier or Zina.”

  She paused. “Where is your camera?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Solvorn, Norway

  The small motorboat left a frothy wake that was barely visible in the moonless sky. Astrid focused on the GPS device in her hand and tried not to visibly shiver in the chilly air. Her lack of success became apparent when the MSA agent who was piloting the boat tapped her shoulder with their last thermos of hot tea.

  Niels was a good friend. She had been unsure of how he would respond to her request to accompany her on this undocumented mission, but there was no one else she trusted enough to ask. Now she was thanking the stars he had agreed because he had provided a safe place to shelter her mother and sister and handled a dozen logistical details she would have never thought of.

  Two hours later they dropped anchor in front of a sheer cliff face in a remote part of Sognefjord.

  It would have been perfectly reasonable for Niels to question these unusual coordinates, but he said nothing as she prepared her climbing gear. Just before she donned her final rappelling glove, he offered her a semiautomatic pistol. “Take it.”

  She shook her head. “I appreciate the thought, but there is nothing up there that a small firearm can protect me from.”

  “It’s not for protection,” he said. “The chamber is empty. It’s mainly to help whoever we are here to rescue stay focused on your instructions. Guns have that effect. Trust me.”

  After a pause, she accepted the weapon and placed it in the front webbing of her harness. “Thank you for everything, Niels.”

  “Thank me by coming back alive.”

  “Let’s synchronize watches,” she said.

  After an arduous climb, Astrid rolled her body onto the rough stone floor of an unlit cavern halfway up the cliff wall.

  She clicked on her flashlight and shone its beam on the nearby walls. She found the heavy rope ladder that would be thrown down to expected visitors and five bulky nylon bodysuits that Leclerc’s minions would don to protect themselves from sunlight.

  About a hundred paces in she came to a heavy metal door with no visible frame between it and the rock surrounding it. She recognized the design of the nuclear blast door because the MSA had a similar one protecting their operations center far beneath the Defense Ministry building in Oslo. Such doors were impenetrable when closed. But this one was cracked a quarter open, beckoning her onward.

  She came across a body in the anteroom just beyond the door. Its skull was smashed open and its vampiric fangs were chipped. It had one arm extended toward the salvation of the open doorway.

  She passed through five more blood-spattered rooms filled with vampire corpses in various states of dismemberment before arriving at the chamber she was searching for.

  The large room was lit by halogen track lights and decorated with expensive furniture, including an extravagant sleeping crypt with padded velvet lining and the emblem of the Nordic Nightwalkers carved into its mahogany shell. The center of the space was dominated by a king-sized, four post bed sitting on a raised platform.

  The real Cella Arnstad was sleeping peacefully on the bed beneath a blanket, dark bruises tarnishing an otherwise beautiful young face. There was a steaming bowl of broth and several plastic bottles of electrolyte enhanced water on the nightstand. Cella’s clothing was neatly draped over the back of a nearby armchair.

  Leclerc’s nude body hung limply above the chair, his hands bound behind his back and his mouth gagged by a thick rope. He was being held aloft by an iron neck shackle bolted into the wall. He was alive, but he mumbled incoherently from the insomnia caused by the double-pronged
Heretic’s Fork pointing up from the neck shackle. The ancient and ingenious torture device would pierce the subject’s throat anytime his head dipped too low.

  Astrid smiled.

  She stood on the seat of a chair so they were eye level. She could see the scores of small wounds the fork had left in the skin of his neck.

  She slapped him in the face hard to focus his attention.

  His eyes widened when he recognized her. He tilted his head back away from the fork and writhed.

  “Sssshhhh,” she cooed at him, cupping his cheeks in both hands. “Don’t struggle, Petrov. It makes the ropes burn. Any of your sex slaves could tell you that, even the children.”

  He mouthed a stream of gruff sounds over the gag.

  “Do you remember what you said to me that last time I saw you?”

  He quieted, but the anger never left his eyes.

  She put her lips close to his ear and whispered, “You told me to wear my prettiest panties the day I put my last drop of Vampthrax on.”

  She pushed his torso against the wall to give him a view of her full body. She undid her harness and pulled up her top to expose her lacy red undergarments. “I wanted you to know that I obeyed you.”

  She glanced down to see that he was growing an erection despite the circumstances.

  She reached into the low-cut waistband of her panties and retrieved a small metallic cylinder. She unscrewed the top, hinged her head back and poured its clear liquid contents over her lips and open mouth. She stuck out her tongue to catch the last bit.

  She turned to him. “That was my last drop.”

  Then she yanked his head forward and gave him a French kiss, ignoring the rough prickling of the rope fibers on her tongue.

  Petrov screamed and whipped his head violently as the skin and muscle around his mouth sizzled and fell away in chunks, exposing the white bone of his skull.

  “That was for Cella and the other girls,” Astrid said.

  She reached between his legs with one hand and whipped out a serrated hunting blade with the other. “This is for me.”

  She carved the number twenty into the sensitive skin of his penis.

  He banged his head against the wall over and over to blunt the agonizing pain.

  * * *

  Astrid was dragging Cella’s sleeping body toward the blast door when she found herself surrounded by seven male vampires.

  The one directly in front of her said, “This is not how I expected us to meet, Dr. Hellstand.”

  The speaker was Asmund Fuglestad, the centuries-old vampire the MSA had expected to rule the Nordic Nightwalkers before Leclerc’s rise to power. He had followed them there just as Niels had predicted.

  “Let us pass,” Astrid said. “No one else has to die tonight.”

  He surveyed the broken bodies spread around the room. “I admit I do not know how you accomplished this or how you finally located Leclerc’s rat hole. To express my gratitude, I will let you live. However, you may not depart with the girl. This is my territory now and she is my property.”

  “She is a person, not property.”

  “You do not know me very well,” Asmund said. “The reason for that is the distance the MSA and I keep from each other. Killing you would disrupt that arrangement, but I assure you I will do it. Besides, from what I have heard, the MSA has its days numbered.”

  “I gave you a fair chance,” Astrid said before resuming her movement toward the door.

  Asmund frowned. “Take them.”

  A crackling orange blur zoomed around the room and literally cut the six advancing vampires in half at the waist. The blur came to stop in a rough collision that knocked Asmund unconscious.

  Once the static electricity around his body faded away, Astrid could see Niels floating in midair in his true form as Zotan, the Nordic god of speed.

  “How long have you known about me?” he asked.

  “Almost four years,” she said.

  “How?”

  “Whenever you visit my office, the perpetual motion device on my desk never stops because there is no friction in the air around your body. And your birth records are forged.”

  He studied her with suspicion. “Several people at the MSA are convinced you are like that arrogant American who makes the sunglasses. Are they correct?”

  “Not in the way they think.”

  “Right,” the deity said. “In any case, we must get moving. We need to get Fuglestad back to Oslo before sunrise.”

  “Why did you spare him?”

  “The loss of both Leclerc and Fuglestad at the same time would create a power vacuum in the Vampire social structure that would result in chaos. Asmund spoke the truth about his arrangement with the MSA.”

  “I could move a lot faster if you would help me with Cella.”

  He floated over and lifted Cella into his arms. “I will take her and the vampire to the boat. I will wait for you there.”

  “Wait for me? You are not going to help me down?”

  “Someone else will help you down.”

  He zipped away with no further explanation.

  “Niels!” Astrid yelled. “Zorat! Wait!”

  “He shall return,” a soothing male voice announced from behind her.

  She spun around, then fell to her knees with widened eyes and both hands covering her mouth.

  His eyes and facial structure were the same, but he was two meters taller and muscle rippled in place of his fat. His white garments were fastened to his body by sparkling golden strands and the air around him rippled with a soft amber glow. His war hammer still glistened with vampire blood. It was her husband Jonas without the humble camouflage he wore to move among mortals. He was magnificent to behold.

  Tears streamed down Astrid’s face.

  “Rise,” Odin said.

  Her body sprung to a standing position.

  “Do you think this could be the start of Ragnorak?”

  She wiped her eyes and composed herself. “There are signs. In some of the old tongues, the name Leclerc was written and pronounced as Loki. You would know better than I.”

  “Before I ate from the Tree of Knowledge, I did not imagine that being all knowing would be such a burden,” he confessed. “That is why I so enjoy the time I spend in mortal form. The mortal mind is too limited to contemplate the vastness of all things.”

  “Ignorance is bliss,” she agreed.

  “For a short while.”

  “Is that all you enjoy about your mortal life?” she asked, surprising herself with her boldness.

  He smiled. “I have had more than a thousand mortal wives, yet there has been but one who knew the truth behind my songs. Your star shines brightly on the Plane of Souls Astrid Betina Hellstand.”

  She blushed.

  He lifted his hammer. “A great battle for dominion of this realm looms. My duty beckons me there.”

  “I will go with you.”

  He touched a finger to her cheek and instantly healed the scar that Leclerc had left there. “Your duty lies elsewhere.”

  She caressed his finger. “What would you have me do?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Carlos, Michelle, Dr. Konstantinos Demetriou and two DSO security agents were ushered into a posh conference room where Isabella, Xavier, and three members of the Council waited for them.

  When everyone was seated, Carlos said, “Isabella you get more beautiful every time I see you.”

  “Perhaps you don’t see me enough,” she said.

  “I could arrange to see you more.”

  “If that would help our two communities come to a better understanding, I would be happy to make myself available.”

  Carlos’s ElectriShield ring vibrated from an encrypted ping it received from Michelle’s phone. That was the signal she was supposed to send him when she suspected he might be under the influence of feminine magic.

  Isabella looked directly at Michelle. “I believe your colleagues would
like to be formally introduced.”

  “Everyone here knows who everyone else is,” Carlos said.

  “I believe you are correct.”

  “I usually am.”

  Isabella smiled tightly. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Director Vasquez?”

  “I come bearing gifts.”

  “Of what sort?”

  “A cure for the infection that Baynin has been spreading with his fruit.”

  Xavier sat upright and two of the council members shifted in their seats, but Isabella showed no reaction.

  “Please elaborate,” she said carefully.

  “On which part?”

  “The most important part.”

  Carlos leaned his elbows on the conference table. “You must be a treat to have over on Poker night.”

  “It depends on what kind of poker it is.”

  Carlos’s ring buzzed. He leaned back and smiled. “Dr. Demetriou, please give our friends a briefing on your antidote.”

  The balding and rail thin scientist appeared stunned by this request. “A briefing? To them?”

  Carlos glared at him. “Did I not speak clearly?”

  “But...it’s classified. You said we were going on a field visit to the Philadelphia office.”

  “This company is one of our contractors, so that’s what we’re doing. I authorize you to release the information.”

  “But...”

  “Perhaps a brief intermission is in order,” Isabella said, rising from the table. “My colleagues and I need to confer in private about this before we proceed. We’ll join you again in twenty minutes. The restrooms are at the end of the second hall on the left. If you’d like refreshments, press the green button on the conference phone and someone will bring what you request.”

  Then everyone on her side of the table departed through a rear entrance.

  “I’m going to the ladies room,” Michelle said on her way out a moment later.

  Carlos looked at Konstantinos. “If you ever disobey a direct order again, I’ll see that you end up chopping pain pills in half in the prison commissary at Leavenworth. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal,” Konstantinos said. “I’m sorry. I was just caught off guard. I misunderstood the purpose of this trip.”