3 Blood Lines (28 page)

Although it was an emotion he would use, it was a question he could not ask. So he asked another.

“Why do you search me out, Nightwalker?”

 

Why indeed?

“You hunt in my territory.”

Ambiguous enough to hide a multitude of motives and also, Henry discovered as he spoke, the truth.

 

Again he attempted to read the other’s ka, to enter past the surface, but he got no further this time than he had before.

“I would talk with you, Nightwalker. Shall we walk together for a time?”

 

Henry wanted to say no, torn between a desire to run and a desire to rip out the creature’s throat and drink deeply of the blood he could hear surging beneath the smooth column of throat. The first would bring him no closer to a solution. The second . . . well, even if he could get past the defenses all wizards wore, which he doubted, it was Sunday evening at a major intersection in downtown Toronto and committing a violent murder in front of hundreds of witnesses, while it would be a solution of sorts, would not be one he himself would likely survive.

So, because it seemed the best, if not the only choice, he turned and fell into step at the other’s side, trying to ignore the sun that continued to blaze in one comer of his mind.

 

They walked south down Queen’s Park Road and the power that walked with them turned more than a few heads as they went.

“What shall I call you?” Henry asked at last.

“I use the name Anwar Tawfik. You may call me that.”

“That’s not the name you were born with.”

“Of course not” He laughed gently, an elder chiding an errant pupil. “I took the name upon awakening. I am not likely to give you the power of my birth name.” He had not heard his birth name spoken since before the joining of Egypt into a single country. “And I am to call you . . . ?”

“Richmond.” Although he had answered to it in the past it had been a title, not a name, and so should be safe from whatever magics could be wrapped around it.

They walked a short distance further, until the sounds of Bloor Street faded and then, in mutual agreement, crossed over to the park. After dark on a November evening, they walked alone on paths damp with fallen leaves, under trees nearly bare. No one would overhear the words to be spoken; no one would have to die because they had heard.

The scattering of lights pushed back the darkness only in isolated areas; in the rest of the park the night stretched unbroken from infinity to the ground. Little light of any kind reached the bench they chose and as Henry watched Tawfik lower himself carefully down, he realized that the other had no better than mortal vision.

Tawfik smelled of excitement, not fear, and his heart beat only a fraction faster than human norm. The movement of his blood called to the Hunger even as the weight of his life overwhelmed any desire Henry had to feed. Henry could smell the fear on himself and his own heart, while still ponderously slow by mortal measuring, beat faster and harder than it had in years.

Tawfik spoke first, his voice sounding mildly amused. “You have a hundred questions, why not begin?”

Why not? But where? Perhaps with the question he himself had answered. “What are you?”

“I am the last remaining priest of the god Akhekh.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Do you mean how do I come to be here, in this century, in this place? Or do you mean what am I doing now I am here?”

“Both.”

Tawfik shifted on the bench. “Well, that is, as they say, a long story and as you have only until dawn . . .” He saw no reason to lie to the Nightwalker about how and what he was and, although he would chose his words carefully, he was also willing to speak of his plans. After all, he wanted to win young Richmond’s trust.

Fortunately, Dr. Rax provided him with a twentieth century framework to hang his story on.

“I was born about 3250 BC, in Upper Egypt just before Meri-nar, who had been King of Lower Egypt, created one empire that stretched the length of the Nile. I was, at the time of the conquest, a high-ranking priest of Set—not the Set that common history remembers, he was then a benevolent god, unfortunately on the losing side. After the conquest, Horus the elder, the highest of the gods of Lower Egypt, cast Set down and declared him unclean. Set, still very powerful, merely worked his way into the new pantheon.” Tawfik’s tone grew slightly dry. “Egyptian gods were, if nothing else, flexible.

“I, as a ranking priest, had been cast down with my god, stripped and scourged and thrown out of my temple. Only mortal and already middle-aged, I hadn’t the luxury of concerning myself with Set’s long-term plans. I wanted immediate revenge and I was willing to do . . .” He paused and Henry saw him frown as he remembered. “I was willing to do anything to regain the power and prestige I had lost.

“To me came Akhekh, a minor and dark deity, who in the confusion of the heavens had managed to get hold of more power than usual.
‘Swear to me,’
said Akhekh,
‘dedicate your life to my service, and I will give you the time you need for your revenge. I will make you more powerful than you have ever been. Become my priest and I will give you the power to destroy the ka of your enemies. You will feed on their souls and with such nourishment live forever.’”

Tawfik turned to face Henry and smiled tightly. “Now do not for a moment think that Akhekh made this offer out of regard for me. The gods exist only as long as belief exists. A change in those who believe, means a change in the gods. When no one believes any longer, the gods lose definition, their sense of self if you will, and are absorbed back into the whole.” He caught a powerful negative flare from the Nightwalker’s ka and inclined his head politely toward the other man. “You wanted to say . . . ?”

Henry hadn’t intended to say anything, but he found that when challenged he couldn’t hold back.
I will not be like Peter and deny my lord.
“There is only one God.”

“Richmond, please.” Tawfik didn’t bother to keep the amusement out of his voice. “You, at least, should know better. Perhaps there may someday be only one god, when all people dream and desire alike, and there are certainly less gods now than there were before I was entombed. But one god? No. I can . . . introduce you to my god, if you wish.”

The night seemed to grow a little darker.

“No.” Henry ground the word through clenched teeth.

Tawfik shrugged. “As you wish. Now then, where was I? Oh, yes. Of course, I accepted Akhekh’s offer; that it came from a dark god meant little to me under the circumstances. I discovered that not only could I extend my life and power my magics with the life remaining in the ka I absorbed, but I also gained the life knowledge that ka held. An invaluable resource for those necessary moves between cultures that occur over a long, a very long life.”

“So when you killed Dr. Rax . . .”

“I absorbed the power of his remaining life and came to know everything he knew. The younger the life the less knowledge but the greater potential for power.”

“Then the infant you killed earlier today . . . ”

That jerked Tawfik out of his relaxed posture. “How did you know?” he demanded and knew the answer before the question had quite left his mouth. The young man who had been watching, fully aware of what had occurred—the young man who had fled in terror—must have fled to the protection of the Nightwalker. He had heard they sometimes gathered mortals about them, a ready food source when hunting became unsure.
So, another pawn has entered the game.
Tawfik let nothing but the question show on his face or in his voice. If the Nightwalker thought he had forgotten the young man, his protection would be less extreme and easier to circumvent.

Henry heard Tawfik’s heart speed up, but the wizard-priest made no mention of Tony. Perhaps Tony had been wrong and he hadn’t been spotted. Given Tony’s terror, that seemed unlikely. Perhaps Tawfik played a deeper game and had no wish to tip his hand. Tawfik no doubt had his own reasons for denying a witness; Henry’s were simple, he would not betray a friend. He let the beast show in his voice as he repeated, “You’ve been hunting in my territory.”

Tawfik recognized the threat, and countered with one of his own, playing on the Nightwalker’s barely controlled fear of him. “As you were about to observe, the infant I killed earlier today made me very powerful.” Stalemate again. “Now then, if I may continue with my history . . . ?”

“Go on.”

“Thank you.” Akhekh’s offer had come with a condition; he could not devour the ka of one already sworn. For the first hundred years after the conquest, while the pantheon settled, the unsworn were easy to find and he had risen in power—which he discovered he desired much more than revenge—and the cult of Akhekh had grown strong. But the more stable and prosperous Egypt was, the more the people were content with their gods and the fewer unattached ka were available, so his power and Akhekh’s—waxed and waned in counterpoint to Egypt’s.
This
age had a decadence he recognized and had every intention of exploiting—they were ripe for rituals Akhekh had to offer. Tawfik saw no reason to mention any of that to the Nightwalker.

“Because of me, my lord, in spite of his relatively subordinate position in the pantheon, was never absorbed into the greater gods like so many of the lesser deities had been and so in every age, in a thousand places along the Nile, I raised a temple to Akhekh.” Occasionally, he was the only worshiper, but no need to mention that either. “Now and then, other priests objected to my having stepped out of the cycle of life, but the centuries had made me a skilled wizard—
And had taught me when to cut my losses and leave town
.—so they could not take me down. As I only destroyed those who had no allegiance to a god, the other gods refused to get involved.”

“But you were taken down, in the end.”

“Yes. Well, I made a slight error in judgment. It could have happened to anyone.” In the darkness, Tawfik smiled. “Shall I tell you what it was? It is completely irrelevant to this time and place so even if you wished to, you couldn’t use it against me. During what you now call the Eighteenth Dynasty, although things were extremely prosperous for Egypt, most nobles had very large families which meant that a number of the younger nobility had nothing to do. In such a social climate, the temple of Akhekh grew and flourished. My lord had more sworn acolytes than at any time since the conquest. Unfortunately, although I didn’t see it as unfortunate at the time, two of the Pharoah’s younger sons joined our number. This finally attracted the attention of the greater gods.”

He paused, sighed, and shook his head. When he began to speak again, his voice had lost its lecturing tone and had become only the voice of a man sharing painful memories.

“The sons of the Pharoah were the sons of Osiris reborn and Osiris would not have them corrupted by what he termed an abomination. So Thoth, god of wisdom, came to one of his priests in a dream and told them how I might be overcome. My protections were shattered and once again I was dragged from my temple. The first time, I was left alive because my life had no meaning. This time, they were afraid to kill me because my life had gone on for so long. Even the gods were wary of what might happen should my ka be released into Akhekh’s keeping with so many acolytes still performing the rituals. I was not to be slain, I was to be entombed alive. All this I was told as the priests of Thoth prepared me for burial.

“Three thousand years later, my prison was brought here to this city and I was freed.”

“And you destroyed the man who gave you your freedom.”

“Destroying him gave me my freedom. I needed his knowledge.”

“And the other. The custodian.”

“I needed his life. I had been entombed for three thousand years, Nightwalker. I had to feed. Would you have done any differently?”

Henry remembered the three days he had spent beneath the earth, hunger clawing at him until hunger became all he was. “No,” he admitted, as much to himself as to Tawfik, “I would have fed. But,” he shook free of the memory, “I would not have killed those others, not the children.”

Tawfik shrugged. “I needed their power.”

“So you took their lives.”

“Yes.” He shifted on the bench, linking his fingers together and leaning his forearms across his thighs. “I told you all this, Nightwalker, so you would learn you cannot stop me. You are no wizard. Thoth and Osiris are long dead and cannot help you. Your god does not interfere.”

First the stick. “If you oppose me, I will be forced to destroy you.”

And then the carrot. “As I see it, you have two choices; live and let live, as
I
am willing to do with you, or join me.”

“Join you.” Henry was not quite in control of the repetition.

“Yes. We have much in common, you and I.”

“We have nothing in common.”

Tawfik lifted his brows. “Of course we don’t.” The sarcasm had a razor edge. “This city has many more immortal beings.”

“You murder the innocent.”

“And you have never killed to survive?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Killed for power?”

“Not the innocent.”

“And who declared them guilty?”

“They did, by their own actions.”

“And who appointed you as judge and jury and executioner? Have I not as much right to appoint myself to the position as you did?”

“I have never destroyed the innocent!” Henry held tightly to that while the sun grew brighter behind his eyes.

“There are no innocents. Or do you deny your church’s position on original sin?”

“You argue like a Jesuit!”

“Thank you. I am as immortal as you are, Richmond. I will never grow old, I will never die, I will never leave you. Not even another Nightwalker can promise you that.”