Nefertiti’s Curse: An Urban Fantasy Read online

  The next day, after Baynin’s anger had subsided, Afara counseled him to have Kinora assist the villagers in retrieving their dead from the rubble so they would better understand that she was more than a beast.

  While Baynin and Kinora did this, Afara set off to explore the countryside. She had walked a thousand cubits when she came upon a weeping warrior bearing the insignia of a great empire.

  “What troubles you?” she asked the warrior in Coptic, exercising her new mastery of foreign words.

  “I am a fool with a closed mind,” the soldier said.

  “Why do you say this?”

  “I was sent out to retrieve a stone from the Tower of Babel so my Pharoah could speak the strange tongue of a people we have conquered in the farthest corner of Kush. But the terrain of this land is not fit for a wheeled caravan and I was greatly delayed. I arrived today to discover only ruins.”

  Afara said, “If you have conquered this nation, then command its people to speak your tongue.”

  The soldier’s countenance twisted as if he had been cut by a blade. “These Kushites are not like the others who have fallen before our chariots. They are more than the simple sea people they pretend to be. Even before our army arrived at their border, they had sent an envoy to Thebes with portraits of a woman possessed of beauty more exotic than any in the Empire. Their envoy claimed this woman had the power to raise the Nile if commanded to do so by a King speaking her native tongue. They offered this woman’s hand to Pharaoh in exchange for their sovereignty. Pharaoh’s advisors cautioned him against entertaining an offer that was little more than a nurse maiden’s tale. They warned him that the portraits were merely beguiling works of art. No woman was that lovely in the flesh. Pharaoh, who has the wisdom of Ra in his blood, did not need advisors to see this offer for the delaying tactic that it was. But the Nile had not risen in any of the three seasons before the envoy’s arrival. Half the Empire was starving, which is why we were invading far off lands. He believed it was his duty to consider it.”

  “What did your Pharaoh do?”

  “He sent one caravan to Kush to retrieve the woman and he sent another to Babel to purchase a speaking stone. He decreed that if the Kush caravan returned with a beautiful woman who could whisper to the Nile, he would use the stone to command her to feed his people. But if it returned empty, or filled only with more tales, his generals had orders to wipe out the Kush population and send their bodies down the river to feed our livestock animals. His people would be nourished in either case.”

  “And yet you weep.”

  “I weep for joy because the famine that plagues my homeland will end. I departed from Thebes under the belief that the Kushite woman was a myth and the speaking stone was real. I see now the opposite is true.”

  Afara was puzzled. “Show me what led you to this truth.”

  The warrior handed her a tattered portrait of herself.

  “And she speaks our tongue without the aid of a stone!” he exclaimed.

  Afara turned from the warrior to seek out Baynin.

  “We have been tricked,” she said upon finding him.

  “How so?”

  “This journey shall cost us more than we shall gain.”

  “Perhaps I should have Kinora build a ship to help the villagers see that we can float.”

  Afara narrowed her eyes. “This is the Serpent’s doing.”

  “Most assuredly,” Baynin said as he watched Kinora pretending not to listen to their exchange. “I told you that opening your heart to his words would be as embracing a thornbush. Now my servant speaks every tongue and blames me for the loss of her mate.”

  Afara looked at Kinora in surprise.

  The pregnant Sasquatch female stopped shuffling chunks of mortar and glared at Baynin.

  Afara turned back to him. “I cannot let the mortals of the Nile starve because of my doing.”

  “Neither can you undo what you have done,” he said.

  Two generations earlier, Afara had used her magic to raise the great river as a show of power to the inhabitants of the remote Kushite fishing village who had begun worshiping her as a goddess after witnessing lush flowers spring to life in her wake as she strolled along the beach. She learned later, after speaking with Gaia, that her action disrupted the Nile’s normal cycle and led to the famine down the river.

  “I have made my choice,” Afara announced to Baynin and herself.

  Three fortnights hence, after a difficult journey, she stepped down out of a Kushite wagon that had just arrived in Thebes. Pharaoh Akhenaten found her breathtaking.

  She told him to call her Nefertiti, which is the name the Kushite sea people had given to their goddess. In their native tongue, it meant Lady of the Nile.

  Baynin stood among the crowd observing the eye contact between the Pharaoh and the Keeper. This is how the concept of jealousy found its way into the Lord’s Garden.

  * * *

  It took nearly fifteen minutes before Tu’Lok noticed the wind had quieted. He thought of reaching for his Glock pistol, but then decided against it. Nothing on that mountain would be afraid of a bullet. He unzipped the flap to his tent and stepped out, knocking icicles off the polyester fabric.

  He was stunned to find a wide area of the ground covered in a hundred varieties of brightly colored flowers. Two figures stood in the center of this small oasis. One was a short, Caucasian human male with a roguish grin on his face. He was standing to the rear of a tall and radiant human female with walnut-colored skin. She wore a white dress that literally sprouted from the ground. Her body was surrounded by a dazzling amber glow that matched the color swirling inside the portal behind them, which Tu’Lok could now easily make out in the absence of the driving snow. The elaborate headdress was missing, but it was the same woman from the famous limestone bust.

  He knelt and bowed his head.

  “You may pass,” she said in an ancient Kushite language.

  When he looked up, he found only the grinning man. “You are Ehecatl, the Spirit of the Wind?”

  “Nobody’s called me that in millennia,” the being said in modern English. “These days I go by Howling.”

  “However you are addressed,” Tu’Lok said, “I would appreciate it if you would not blow me off this mountain again. I have no quarrel with you.”

  “It wasn’t personal, Big Guy. No one may pass.”

  “You could’ve just slipped a note under my tent.”

  “What fun would that have been?”

  “More fun than hurtling toward the ground at Mach 10.”

  “But less fun than making cubs with Yefet right? Now she’s a looker. If you guys ever break up, tell her to swipe right on my Tinder profile. I’m listed under Kurtis Blow.”

  Tu’Lok wondered how dangerous it would be to assault a force of nature. “I believe I was just told I may pass.”

  Howling stepped to the side and waved his arms with a flourish. “Right this way to the Greatest Show off Earth.”

  Tu’Lok took a few steps forward.

  “You should probably take your gear with you,” Howling suggested.

  “Good point,” Tu’lok said before turning and heading back toward his tent.

  Ten minutes later he reemerged with a mammoth backpack. He walked at a quick pace toward the portal, warily looking up at the warrior angel every ten paces.

  The angel stared straight ahead, showing no sign of noticing his presence.

  Tu’Lok’s hope began to peak. He was close enough to make out grass and vegetation on the other side of the portal. But when he came within arm’s reach, a flaming sword the size of a jumbo jet slammed down over the opening.

  “The tools of Adam may not pass,” the Angel said in a booming voice that shook the mountain like an earthquake.

  Tu’lok stumbled backward and fell on his butt from the weight of his pack. He heard laughter above him. He looked up to find Howling sitting on the edge of a boulder and slapping his knee.

  “That was classic,” the
avatar said.

  Tu’Lok emitted a low growl, then unbuckled the strap of his pack. After relieving himself of every human-made object, he approached the portal again.

  The angel had sheathed its sword and returned to its previous pose.

  Heart pumping, Tu’Lok extended the tip of one claw toward the translucent glowing substance swirling inside the portal. It passed straight through. After a final glance at the angel, he stepped through the portal and entered the Garden of Eden.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  The Amazon Rainforest

  Xavier sat on the stump of an overturned tree in Anubian form, an eviscerated jaguar corpse at his feet. Sensing movement behind him, he spun with his khopesh raised high, where he found Yefet leaning on a spear in her Sasquatch form.

  He gaped in amazement.

  Yefet, on the other hand, was unperturbed. “Even though time doesn’t fly for us here, it’s still rude to stare, Little Brother.”

  He transformed into human form so he could respond. “What makes this place special?”

  Yefet transformed as well, shrinking down into a woman clothed in a white dress of an Ancient Egyptian style. “Baynin has encased this part of the jungle in a time rift,” she explained. “That’s why the DSO cannot locate it.”

  “Do you know Tu’Lok?”

  “You could say that.”

  “He never told me.”

  “He knows better.”

  “You are part of his people?”

  “I am both of his people and your people, but we can discuss it later. Right now, I need to get you back to the village because there are two sea women there who are desperate to see you.”

  “Two?”

  “Yes Cassanova, two.”

  She turned and began walking.

  He sped up to match her pace.

  He thought about her lack of surprise over the dead jaguar. “Do you need to, um, hunt every few days?”

  “No. My curse is different.”

  “Different how?”

  She looked at him.

  He turned away. “I understand if you don’t want to say. Most of us don’t. I only asked because you said we could always keep it real with each other.”

  “Do you remember when you asked me if I had children?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve given birth to two, a boy named Tennu and a girl named Imani, three years apart. They both died exactly seventy days after I delivered. Seventy days. Just long enough to build a bond that breaks your heart when it’s over.”

  Xavier regretted his question.

  “Neph blamed himself. He said our children died because he was a monster.”

  Xavier said nothing.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Yefet said. “But I know for certain Neph was not the cause.”

  “How?”

  “After I lost Imani, I did what most people would do and went to my mother for comfort. She gave me a truth vine and told me that she was to blame.”

  “Really? But I thought you said she made us this way to save us.”

  “I never said she made us this way.”

  “I don’t understand. If she didn’t make us this way, how is she to blame?”

  “Just before you and I were pulled out of the River of Time, the soulcrafter who gave us these forms asked Mother what she wanted us to be. She said, ‘I want my son to be a mighty warrior who wins many battles and I want my daughter to be a great beauty who bears many children.’ When she saw how the soulcrafter had carried out her instructions, she took its head. It was only later she learned that someone else had reached a bargain with the soulcrafter before she had.”

  “Who?” Xavier asked.

  “Baynin.”

  Zina and Michelle were waiting for Xavier at the village border, but he marched right by them without a word.

  “X,” Zina said, walking alongside him. “Xavier!”

  “Let him go,” Yefet said.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Let men be men.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Michelle asked as she gently restrained Zina by the arm.

  “It means,” Yefet said, “that he will be pissed at you for trying to stop him from doing something foolish that he is going to do regardless. The best thing you can do is be there when it’s over to say Baby it’s okay. They view everything as a statement of loyalty.”

  “I don’t want him to get hurt,” Zina said.

  “None of us want that,” Yefet said.

  “Where is he going?” Michelle asked.

  Xavier yanked open the door to Baynin’s trailer.

  Baynin was standing inside, waiting expectantly. “Before you sacrifice your life coming against me for something that cannot be undone, I suggest you go see what the mortals have done to your village. If after that you still believe I am the greater evil, I will grant you the duel you seek. Either way, your day shall end painfully.”

  “Why did you do this to us?”

  “That is the first thing you must ask your mother.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Pocono Hills, Pennsylvania

  Xavier and Yefet emerged from a Fae waypoint in a wooded area at the base of Chessa Mountain.

  Ten Orc soldiers pointed assault rifles at them.

  Xavier raised his hands to show he was unarmed.

  Yefet said something in Orchish which caused the soldiers to lower their weapons.

  “This way,” one of the Orcs said before carefully heading down a forest path laced with land mines.

  “I will wait here,” Yefet said to Xavier.

  He looked at her.

  “Remember the time,” she said.

  One of the soldiers led Xavier to a camouflaged blast door set into the side of the mountain. After speaking into an encrypted radio and deactivating five wards in five different ways, the orc pulled open the thick door and beckoned Xavier into the bunker that was supposed to be their community’s refuge in the event of a serious emergency.

  Xavier could hear wailing beyond the corridor leading from the door.

  Ghox, the Orc military commander, met Xavier at the end of the corridor. He silently directed them through a series of tunnels that ended in a large open space with rectangular bays set every ten feet in titanium lined walls.

  Xavier gasped.

  The floor was covered with the dead, mutilated bodies of children. Xavier counted at least thirty, not including the bodies that soldiers and Gypsy priestesses were stacking near the incinerator at the far end of the room to stem the spread of disease. The thin, lifeless arm of the basketball-loving teen who lived next door to him stuck out from beneath a blue tarp.

  He spotted Isabella and Dao-Ming across the room speaking with a blood-stained Shaman healer. He headed toward them, stepping over bodies and hundreds of spent shell casings.

  Relief came over Isabella’s face when she saw Xavier.

  He embraced her, letting her cry into his armpit for several minutes. He tried his best to be strong, but he couldn’t stop the tears from welling in his own eyes.

  Dao-Ming and the Shaman stepped away to give them privacy.

  “I failed them,” Isabella said, wiping tears from the dark circles under her eyes. “We took so many precautions, but I still failed them.”

  “I don’t understand,” Xavier admitted. Like the Rittenhouse School, this bunker had more than a dozen security systems designed to thwart military assaults. No human soldier could survive them all.

  Ghox, who had not stepped away, pointed at two large holes in the floor. “They used armored mechanized units to drill up through the bedrock. Most of our countermeasures were built to defend against air-to-surface attacks and ground troops. They were mostly useless against these mech units, which seem to have a whole range of anti-magic defenses.”

  “They used drones?”

  “No,” Ghox said. “Drones require radio signals that could not penetrate this mountain or get past the electron waifs we have stationed
outside. These machines are some kind of autonomous AI weapons with quantum capabilities.”

  “I thought we had a virus we could use against AI’s?”

  Ghox glanced at Isabella. “Our capacity in this area has been reduced.”

  * * *

  Maya’s dead body was bolted to the wall of the data center in the basement of her dream home on Mayflower Lane. The words Code Fairy were written in blood on her forehead.

  An elderly female Giang Tien and a dangerous-looking male warrior from Maya’s clan were there.

  “You gave me your word you would protect her if I let her help you,” the elder Fae said to Isabella.

  “My word,” Isabella said, “has lost much of its value in recent days. I will trade my life for hers if it will bring things in balance.”

  The warrior spread his metal spiked wings and said something sharp in an ancient form of Korean.

  Xavier and Dao-Ming stepped protectively in front of Isabella.

  The elder raised a hand, silencing the warrior.

  “Enough blood has been shed inside our own homes. We must parlay.”

  “Agreed,” Isabella said.

  Everyone departed except for Xavier, who remained to let out the emotion of the day where no one would see his tears.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  The Amazon Rainforest

  Yefet looked up at Zina and Michelle, who had invited themselves into her trailer. “Are we filming an episode of The Real Housewives of the Rainforest? I’ve already told you everything I know about what’s happening with Xavier.”

  “We appreciate that,” Zina said. “But we didn’t come here to talk about X.”

  Yefet rolled her eyes. “Whatever I feel for Baynin is my business.”

  “Don’t be that way,” Michelle said. “We’re going stir crazy out here. Our whole lives have been turned upside down and the humidity in this damn jungle has our edges puffy as hell. Humor us.”