Nefertiti’s Curse: An Urban Fantasy Read online

  He scrolled back to one of the photos depicting Lathan socializing with her boyfriend. He was thinking that she could do better than that guy when a male voice from the aisle said, “May I join you?”

  Xavier looked up. The man, who might have been in his mid-thirties, was dressed in a well-tailored blue suit. He seemed to be of African descent except for his irises, which were much too gray and bright to be of human origin.

  Suddenly conscious of the silence that had overtaken the cabin, Xavier leaned out into the aisle. The ticket collector and all the other passengers were frozen in place. A stream of water hung in the air between a plastic bottle and a man’s open mouth.

  “Be my guest,” he said.

  The man sat. “Greetings, Earth Speaker.”

  “Is Baynin your real name?”

  “Unlike your mother, I have but one.”

  Xavier figured this was the point when he was supposed to fawn and beg for answers about his parentage. “I didn’t expect to meet you on a train. I was pretty sure that would happen when you broke into my house to offer me some of your super fruit.”

  “Your weaknesses are not the kind the fruit can cure.”

  “How would you know?”

  “You have my song in your blood.”

  “Your song?”

  “What the mortals call DNA.”

  “You look a little young to be my dad.”

  The stranger laughed. “Your father is a mortal long dead. I am referring to the blood that flows in your veins whenever you call forth your anubis.”

  “I only know of one way to share your DNA.”

  “That is because soulcrafting is not a talent that was given to the progeny of Adam.”

  Xavier had heard similar statements elsewhere.

  “If you’re not here to offer me your fruit, then I’m not sure why we’re having this discussion.”

  “Has your slave master not sent you on a quest to find and thwart me?”

  “I’m nobody’s slave.”

  “Are you not? You may not travel or pursue a trade without permission. Even the currency in your accounts, which was bequeathed to you before this nation existed, is not yours. It can be taken from you at any time by way of the laws of beings who are weaker than you in every respect. The only freedom you possess is the right to convince yourself you exist in less bondage than the Africans who arrived here chained to the bottom of slave ships.”

  “Where were you when they were putting them on those ships?”

  “I was not upon the mortal plane when these events came to pass.”

  “Why was that?”

  “I had grown weary of mortal savagery. The plane of humankind is a better reflection of Lucifer than any mirror the serpent may gaze upon. War exists on every plane, but humans are the only beings who seek to completely eradicate other beings. Genocide is a unique human creation.”

  “But now you’re back to save all of us poor self-deluding fools?”

  “I returned to discover that humankind had increased its number and dominion a hundred fold while our kind cowers in an ever-diminishing shadow. The warmongers are devouring the Earth herself.”

  Xavier struggled to find an untruth in anything Baynin had spoken. “Who is my mother?”

  “I have given my word not to reveal this to you.”

  “As usual,” Xavier said. “I don’t know why I asked.”

  “Although I may not bring you to your mother, I can bring you to the one you hold as your father.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I speak of the mortal called Thaddeus David Hill.”

  Thaddeus Hill, the man who had raised Xavier, had disappeared under mysterious circumstances seven years earlier.

  “He’s alive?”

  “He is.”

  “And you know where he is?”

  “He told me to give you this message: ‘The water here is just like Willingboro.’”

  Xavier did not try to hide the emotions. “What is your price?”

  “When you find that we are truly in agreement, speak to the Earth for our kind. After this, I will show you the way to your father.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That is all I ask.”

  “I have your word?”

  “You do,” Baynin said as he reached over and placed a small, dark-colored fruit on the armrest of Xavier’s seat.

  “I thought you said the fruit can’t help me?”

  “The fruit I have given you is a special kind that will cure any sickness afflicting a mortal body. Partake of it when the time comes.”

  “When which time comes?”

  “You will know.”

  The train briefly went black as it passed under a tunnel near Baltimore. When the lights returned, Baynin and his magic were gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Amazon Rainforest

  Elpidio and Enieda were settling in for the evening when Cezar kicked open the door of their hut. He was accompanied by two large males.

  Enieda stood. “Cezar! What is the meaning of this?”

  Cezar marched over and snatched Elpidio’s observatory-grade telescope of its tripod. “What is the meaning of this?” He threw the telescope to the floor, cracking the adjustment wheel. Then he picked up a book from the Enieda’s reading desk. “And this?” He tossed the book aside and yanked Elpidio’s prized lab coat from the back of a chair. “And this? You cover your fur with human cloth?”

  “Give it back,” Elpidio said, reaching out for the garment.

  The male to Cezar’s left growled and punched Elpidio in the chest so forcefully that the pudgy canine toppled backward into a table full of glass beakers.

  Enieda yelped and rushed to her mate’s aid. After she had helped him to a sitting position and brushed all the broken glass from his fur, she scowled up at Cezar. “Why are you doing this? You know everything we do here is for the good of our people.”

  “I decide what is good for our people. I am the Chief.”

  The original name that Soul Bringer had given Cezar after his awakening was Gulankaro, which meant The Strength of Trees in their tongue. But Cezar had changed his name after he had killed Rankoo in the fight that won him the right to be chief. Enieda knew then he would be trouble.

  “Perhaps so,” she said. “But if Elpidio cannot carry out Soul Bringer’s work, you will have no people left to rule.”

  “Says the one who has contributed no life to the Village.”

  Enieda was stung by the remark. She was the only female of pup bearing age who had never given birth, a scandal the other females often whispered about. “Maybe I am the only one with the sense not to bring a pup into a village ruled by a fool.”

  “Eni, don’t” Elpidio pleaded.

  Cezar struck her in the snout with the back of his paw. “Or maybe this sack of monkey dung you call a mate has eaten so much of Soul Bringer’s poison he can no longer put a pup inside you. That is what the others say. Perhaps I should add you to my watasi and find out the truth.”

  There were nine females in Cezar’s watasi and he had impregnated all of them.

  The truth was that Enieda had intentionally avoided pregnancy. She wanted Elpidio to experience the joy and pride of fatherhood, but the gift that Soul Bringer had given her people did not naturally pass to their offspring. Every pup that was born was just a feeble-minded animal like they had all once been. Their youth did not gain sentience until Soul Bringer granted it to them twice annually in a mysterious ceremony that no adult Chupacabra was permitted to observe. He took the pups away one day and returned them the next as thinking and speaking beings. She had come to regard this as another way that Soul Bringer exerted control over her people. The females with pups in need of awakening imposed tremendous peer pressure on the others to comply with their benefactor’s will.

  Enieda pressed a cloth to her snout. “I sometimes speak without considering the consequences of my words. I am quite sure you would not want a female with this habit disrup
ting the order of your watasi.”

  She could see in his eyes he had not considered this downside.

  “What I want,” he said, “is to stop being a slave to a false god.”

  “We all want that,” she agreed. “Elpidio is doing all he can to achieve it.”

  Cezar grimaced. “Elpidio is doing all he can for Soul Bringer. He makes the trees for the human hang heavy with fruit. But all he has done for his own people is produce fruit so small that ants carried away half our yield.”

  Enieda came to her mate’s defense. “You know that Soul Bringer keeps a very close accounting of the special soil that makes his trees grow. It takes time to recreate a substance of such complexity.”

  “We are out of time. The storehouse is almost full.”

  “We will work faster.”

  “You should have been working faster during the time you wasted in your hut reading Soul Bringer’s books and staring at the sky through a spear pole.”

  “We were searching for the knowledge our people need.”

  “I have found what our people need.”

  She was genuinely perplexed. “You have?”

  He handed her an 8x10 photo of Xavier.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Pine Barrens

  Tu’Lok opened a door hidden in the base of a wide tree. He stepped inside and proceeded down a set of stairs that led him into the antechamber of his spacious underground living quarters. He started a pot of coffee, powered up his MacBook Air so he could catch up on his favorite blogs and then went to his stove to light a flame under a pot of water. He was in the mood for boiled eggs.

  “Some of us were not sure we would ever see you again,” he said without turning from the stove.

  Yefet stepped out from behind a wall. “I would never abandon my people.”

  “That is what Om’Risi said.”

  “What do you say?”

  He turned around to face her. “I say that if Yefet is angry with the Moon, then the Moon would be wise to change its orbit.”

  She smiled and surveyed his quarters. “This is nice, but I do not think there is enough room here for all my weapons.”

  He shrugged. “There is a bigger place over by the Gorge that I’ve had my eye on. It’s under a clearing you could use as an archery range and it has a nursery for cubs.”

  “Cubs?”

  “Yes, I want lots of cubs.”

  “How soon?”

  “When the time is right. I still have a lot of things left on my bucket list. I’m sure you do too.”

  “I don’t cook,” she said.

  He tapped one of the gourmet pans hanging from a chef rack in his ceiling. “Not a problem.”

  “I bite my tongue for no one.”

  “Then I shall never have to guess how you feel.”

  “I do not want to spend my entire life here. I wish to travel.”

  He nodded. “When Baynin is no longer a threat, there will be nothing stopping our people from seeing the world.”

  “What of the other females? I have seen how they purr at the strength of your back.”

  “I wake up alone most mornings.”

  “Good,” she said. “I would prefer someone with experience.”

  “Most Sasquatch males do not feel the same.”

  She crossed her arms defiantly.

  “But I am not most males. I am Tu’Lok.”

  She gave him another thirty seconds, but he asked nothing.

  “I would walk with you among these trees until my body returns to the roots,” she said, invoking the formal Sasquatch mating proposal.

  He turned off the stove.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Every eight years or so, the orbit of the planet Venus comes into alignment with the Sun and the Earth. On the evening of the Summer Solstice following this celestial dance, the twenty-one Gypsy priestesses belonging to The Circle of Isiteric Sisters of the Lenape Valley gather to participate in a ceremony that renews the spell which makes them appear as young women at the height of virility. An uninformed observer might view the ceremony as a raucous orgy.

  The renewal spell requires the participation of seven unbetrothed men of pure heart. Because these males will briefly see the priestesses appear at their true ages, they must be carefully chosen from among those with an awareness of the supernatural. In centuries past, the male participants would be slain after the ceremony to preserve the Circle’s secret. But today, the Sisters simply have the men sign nondisclosure agreements and then selectively wipe their memories with special optogenetic lights. The men remember experiencing something wonderful but are unable to detail what that something involved.

  Xavier pulled his car into a spot in the parking garage of the Grand Regent Hotel.

  His best friend, Ronnie Thurgood, sat in the passenger seat in a fantastic mood. “I still can’t believe this is about to happen.”

  “Remember what I told you,” Xavier said.

  “I remember. Keep it classy. Don’t stare. Don’t ask personal questions. You have a lot of rules for somebody who’s never actually been to one of these.”

  “I know the people involved.”

  “And after tonight,” Ronnie said with a smile, “so will I.”

  Not for long, Xavier thought.

  “Have you heard from Denise?”

  Ronnie’s face soured. “Don’t kill my vibe.”

  “I’m just trying to make sure she won’t show up in the hotel lobby and do a Missy Elliott. That would kill everybody’s vibe.”

  “Denise is played out like flip phones. I changed my Facebook status and everything. I haven’t talked to her in almost two months.”

  “I hear that.”

  A beat of silence passed between them.

  “X,” Ronnie said, “you know you can keep it real with me, right?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Are you not going in there with me tonight because of your thing or because Isabella will be there?”

  Thing was Ronnie’s euphemism for Xavier’s supernatural abilities.

  “A little bit of both,” he admitted.

  Just then somebody tapped on the passenger side window.

  “Look who it is,” Ronnie said.

  “Time to go,” Xavier said, opening the car door.

  Ronnie stepped out of the car and said, “What’s up, Gray’s Anatomy?”

  “Hi Ronnie,” Adam said.

  Adam Bloomberg was Xavier’s other close friend, though they hadn’t grown up together like he and Ronnie had. Adam was a trauma surgeon at Temple University Hospital. Xavier had met him five years earlier when he had carried a severely wounded boy into the Emergency Department during Adam’s shift. Adam had done what he could for the boy and then frantically rushed around the hospital until he located the mysterious stranger whose own lacerations had impossibly healed themselves right before his eyes.

  When he found the man standing alone in an unused room in the Step Down Unit, he closed the door and demanded an explanation.

  Xavier was too exhausted from his fight with the Ogre who had been eating poor children in North Philadelphia to do much conversing, so he explained by transforming into his anubis.

  After Adam had recovered from the shock of that, he secreted Xavier out of the hospital through the physician’s lounge and stonewalled the Department of Defense agents who visited him two days later to interrogate him about the incident. The mild-mannered doctor would not have normally taken such action, but his grandmother was a Holocaust survivor who had told him stories about being rescued from a camp by a tall black woman with strange tattoos. He and Xavier had been friends ever since.

  * * *

  Isabella Osilvilic, High Priestess of the Isiteric Circle, was waiting for them with a bright smile when the elevator doors opened into the private foyer of the hotel’s penthouse. Her hair was stylishly pinned to her head and she was dressed in an elegant black charmeuse evening gown. She didn’t look a
day over twenty-five.

  Adam and Ronnie took turns kissing the back of her hand just as Xavier had told them to do.

  Xavier leaned down so Isabella could kiss him on the cheek. She smoothly wiped away her lipstick with her thumb.

  “Gentleman,” she said, “I am so glad you could make it. My sisters were very pleased to learn that we would be joined by healers, scribes and warriors.”

  Ronnie stood up a little straighter. He was an aspiring novelist and Adam had been training him in Krav Maga fighting. That slight movement garnered the attention of all five of the security guards Isabella had stationed around the foyer in tailored suits.

  She spoke a phrase in a language Xavier did not recognize and the men returned to their original poses. Ronnie had not even noticed that danger that nearly fell upon him.

  Xavier took a step forward and Isabella placed her hand on his forearm. “Relax, Darling. You have my word he will feel only pleasure this evening.”

  On cue, two priestesses emerged from the suite and escorted his friends away.

  Isabella led Xavier by the arm to a wet bar in the corner of the foyer. A uniformed server handed her a tumbler filled with Orangina, which she passed to him.

  “There is nothing I can say to get you to join us?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Yelena will be disappointed. She was hoping to look twenty-one again. She asked for a private meeting with you to help change your mind.”

  Isabella had claimed Xavier’s participation in the ceremony would allow the priestesses to emerge years younger than they otherwise could, but she refused to explain why or how.

  “Are you starting trouble again?” Xavier asked.

  “I’m stopping trouble by telling you who to watch out for.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She made eye contact with him. “I can assure you will not see or touch me. You will not even know I am there. I know how awkward this situation is for both of us.”