Crescent Moon (19 page)

Haddara—no, Khepri’s
husband
—held his gaze a moment
longer and then turned to gaze at her slim form as she stood and flipped up her
hand to release the tiny funnel toward the ceiling, where it rocked the
chandelier, causing a tinkling sound, then dissipated.

The crowd moved toward her, jostling Juste and Haddara in
their excitement, but the two men stood face-to-face.

“Why haven’t you told her?” Juste asked, his voice raised
now to be heard over the exclamations of the crowd.

“She must fly on her own. I am not allowed to interfere. I
can guide and mentor, but I cannot act.” H gave a shrug. “What will be will
be.”

“Sounds like a really tired cliché. She thinks you’re some
all-powerful being. She thinks you’ll have her back.”

“And I do, in my own way.”

Juste shook his head in disgust. “That thing in the parking
garage—I assume it doesn’t follow the same rules?”

“Ammit dares defy our laws. She thinks that she can walk
among you, rule you.”

“Are there more of you here to help us?”

“There is only me. And I am here, and yet not. So my power
is diminished. Not nearly as strong as Ammit’s, or even dear Khepri’s.” He
waved a hand. “This was a parlor trick, something to please Khepri.”

“You gave her false assurance that she could depend on you
in a fight.” Irritation tightened his muscles.

Haddara’s dark gaze locked with Juste’s. “Above all, she understands
this is her battle.”

“She washed her hands in an offering bowl?” Dr. Dorman’s
voice rose toward the end of his question.

Haddara glanced sideways at Dorman’s approach and leveled
him with a glare. “She had my blessing.”

Dr. Dorman’s lips thinned. “Of course. It’s your call. I’ll
have it emptied and cleaned.”

“Leave it. See how they follow her example?” He pointed
toward the pedestal.

Sure enough, looking sheepish, one after another, patrons
dipped their hands in the bowl to wash them.

Juste shook his head. Did they think they’d whirl
minitornados from their fingertips?

“They are filled with reverence for the magic they feel in
this room. She gave them that, however transitory.” Haddara nodded as he
watched those at the bowl. “They will remember this feeling, savor it. Perhaps
some will be moved to explore their spirituality.”

He spoke to Juste, but Dr. Dorman stood by, his lips curled.
“She’s drawn attention from the relics. They should be the stars.”

“The relics serve as reminders of our shared pasts, but
offer only faint echoes of what we were.”

Dorman gave him a skeptical look. After all, he knew Haddara
only as security for the exhibit. He drew a deep breath through his nose.
“Well, I must circulate. You appear to have everything in hand here.” He pulled
at the cuffs of his white tunic and walked away.

“I think he’s annoyed,” Juste murmured.

“He is filled with his own self-importance. What’s
significant, though, is that he seems to have forgotten he was smitten.”

“Yeah, for someone who nearly drooled all over that Massri
woman, I’m surprised he left her side.” Juste blinked, and then looked more
closely at Haddara’s carefully neutral expression. “It’s her. Ammit.”

“Yes, and I am sure that at some level, Khepri is also aware
that she is near.”

“What about the pharaoh?” Juste’s gaze narrowed.

“Him, I haven’t felt.”

“Would you recognize him?”

“I should, unless…”

Juste ground his teeth. “Unless?”

“He has used magic to change his appearance.”

“Why would he? Who is he hiding from?” He started to run a hand
through his hair, but slowly lowered it. “He has to know you won’t interfere
and that Khepri won’t recognize him.”

“He may be hiding in plain sight, perhaps using another’s
appearance to assume his place. Being unknown can offer many benefits. He may roam
at will drawing no undue attention, studying his surroundings, even his foes,
to find advantages he may take.”

Hell.
Juste’s gut tightened. “He could be anybody?”

“But likely someone he met,” Haddara said, nodding, “someone
he could study in order to mimic.”

“So someone whose path he may have crossed? That’s a lot of
people.” Juste glanced toward the doorway the curator had exited. “Dorman?”

Haddara shook his head. “I’ve dealt with Dorman before. He
is prickly and arrogant, but doesn’t seem any different than before.”

“Just how long have you been here? As Mr. Haddara?”

“Since the sheik was a young man.”

Juste studied the man who was more than a man. “You’ve been
waiting.”

“I picked the time. The place. I waited for you, Justin
Henry Boucher.”

Me?
Shock quaked through Juste. “There I go, thinkin’
you actually might have had a
good
plan.”

Haddara smiled. “You do not believe you are special, that
the man you are now is perfectly formed for this task?”

“Formed…did you have anything to do with Bobby’s death?”

“No, but I met Bobby, when he passed through. What he told
me about you intrigued me.”

“That happened only a month and a half ago.”

“And I am not constrained by your concept of time. For me, I
can step in when I please. In the
Duat
, time has no meaning. After I met
Bobby, I befriended the sheik, starting him on his lifelong passion of
collecting artifacts and studying the traditions of the past.”

Air stuck in his chest and burned. “You could have stopped
Bobby from bein’ killed.”

“I cannot interfere with what is predestined.”

Juste scraped a hand through his hair. “How was he, when you
saw him?” he asked, his voice rasping.

“At first, he was worried about you. But he met your Khepri.
When last I saw him, he was smiling hugely.”

The crowd had thinned. Khepri finished her conversation with
a couple who couldn’t seem to stop touching her arm or her hands. Juste knew
the feeling. Although, he was sure his impulses were more on the carnal side of
desire, where they simply were fascinated with the air of innocence and the
spark of magic in the room.

Khepri approached the two men, but leaned into Juste’s side.

He obliged her by placing his arm lightly around her back.
He bent and kissed her forehead, his gaze never leaving Haddara’s slightly
narrowed eyes. The man might be her husband, but he’d never given her the one
thing she’d craved. Physical connection and love. And because this was all
predetermined, Juste’s desire for Khepri and hers for him could be no surprise.
Juste went with it, shrugging off any scruples he might have had regarding
being with another man’s wife. Khepri was no
man’s
wife. So far as he
was concerned, she was a free agent.

“I saw Dr. Dorman, and he was alone,” she said softly, her
gaze rising to meet his and then swinging to Haddara. “Can you find out whether
anyone has seen her?”

Juste hadn’t heard any chatter about any problems, but then,
the team didn’t know to keep Madame Massri in their sights at all times. He
reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone, dialing Mikey.

“Heard your girlfriend put on quite a show,” Mikey murmured
in his ear.

“Yeah, but we may have a problem. Madame Massri. Have
everyone looking for her. I want to know where she is, who she’s with. But
don’t approach.”

“I’ll get on it now.”

Justin closed his phone, listening to the chatter in his ear
bud as orders went out to find her. The men at their various posts, responding
to Mikey’s description, reported one at a time from the different halls. She
was nowhere to be found. Glancing at Khepri, he pursed his lips and slowly
shook his head. “Any thoughts about what she might be up to?” he asked,
directing his question to Haddara.

“I doubt she would want to make a huge scene here. Too
messy, and she wouldn’t want more police showing up.” His expression impassive,
Haddara scanned the room. “While she’s the least subtle woman I know, she does
have some discretion.”

“She wants me to follow her,” Khepri said. “To catch me
alone.”

Juste’s body tensed. “Not happenin’.”

Khepri smiled. “I’m not eager to meet her. And I do appreciate
the support.”

“Any inkling where she might go?” He watched her face.

Khepri drew in a deep breath and leaned away from his
embrace. “How many people are guarding the warehouse area?”

“It is out of the public eye. Only a handful of men to watch
over it.”

“As good a place as any to begin our search. It’s where it
all began, isn’t it?”

Khepri led the way through the galleries. Her gaze scanned
the museum patrons and the proctors describing the artifacts. The displays were
lovingly assembled, but sad just the same. She could imagine, in her mind’s
eye, each ancient artifact as it had appeared in her time. From everyday
utensils—bowls, beakers, jewelry—to ornate fragments of sarcophagi and ushabti,
they represented the life she’d known, the friends who now were no more than
dust. With all her heart, she hoped they had all been spared an eternity of
pain following their judgment but was glad she didn’t remember each instance.
Better to believe they’d passed into Horus’s fields of peace, awaiting their reawakening
in some other realm or here again on Earth.

And while the artifacts filled her with bittersweet
nostalgia, she was happy to have arrived in this present time, to have known
Justin, and to be a part of saving his world from terrible turmoil. Justin
might not recognize how fortunate he was, but he was blessed with true friends.
Although he had only recently entered Justin’s life, Michael was a friend,
someone with his best interests as a priority. Someone he could trust if only
Justin would let him inside his heart.

Then there was Denise, his dead friend’s wife. She provided
the needed connection to “family” that Justin unknowingly craved. Although she
hadn’t met Denise’s children, she had witnessed the quiet joy that had
mitigated the horror of the woman’s husband’s passing. If Justin would only let
go of his pain to see the evidence of his friend still living on inside his
children, he wouldn’t feel so alone. That was the rhythm of life—to know joy
and pain, and to set your children on their paths. Another thing she could not
let herself regret.

They entered the corridor leading to the warehouse area. The
polished floor shone in the light from ugly, elongated fixtures on the ceiling
that produced an incessant buzzing like distant swarms of insects.

Approaching the door, Khepri slowed her steps, touching her
ankh for comfort before reaching for the knob.

“Let me enter first,” Justin said, stretching past her and
opening the door. He stepped into the cargo area first, but the stiffening of
his body telegraphed his unease. “Somethin’s up,” he said, and slipped his hand
beneath his jacket for his weapon. “Stay behind me.”

At least he hadn’t insisted that she remain in the hallway.
He likely knew she’d disobey. Khepri kept close to Justin and climbed down the
steps onto the hard concrete floor. To the right, she noted the supine body of
a uniformed police officer. Blood pooled beneath his head, but his chest still
rose in shallow swells.

They continued, passing the tables that had been set up
during the inventory of the artifacts, past the pictures strewn over the
surface of one, of her and Pharaoh’s mummified bodies. A chill shivered down
her spine, but she rubbed her hands, warming them with sparks of fire, readying
herself should she need to protect Justin and herself.

Behind her, she heard Haddara’s tread, and the door whooshed
open again. Khepri glanced back to find Michael entering, crouching low, and
followed by several of Mr. Haddara’s black-clad security team, and then
Forrester, looking red-faced as though he’d come running to be there. They all
fanned out around the perimeter of the staging area, Michael kneeling beside
the injured man before speaking into his handheld communicating device to call
for aid for the man.

Justin gave a faint whistle and raised his hand, pointing
two fingers toward his eyes, then directing men with quick gestures to search
down rows of shelving. Justin moved forward, toward the area where she’d been
left, and toward the rear door where she’d made her escape that first day.

As they passed the end of one row of shelves, the lights
went out. Justin straightened. A click sounded, and he held a small light beam
in his hand.

She held up her palm, where a balled flame rested.

He quirked an eyebrow but moved forward, clearing the row.

A scrape sounded to the left, and Khepri gasped as something
came down in a blur, hitting Justin squarely across the back of his shoulders.
She tossed the flame to the floor, where it sputtered out. He went down to his
knees, his handheld light spinning away, shadows deepening around them. Before
the person wielding the board could strike again, Khepri spun and kicked high
with her foot, catching the assailant’s wrist. Khepri lunged forward and rapped
the person’s ribs with quick jabs of her curled fingers.

A wheeze preceded the dropping of the board, and the
assailant turned to flee, but Khepri leapt, slamming into the back of the
Justin’s attacker.

They fell together. Khepri scrambled back to put distance
between herself and her foe, flinging flame to the floor in order to see.

What she found was Becky Ward, Dr. Felton’s graduate
assistant, cupping her wrist and giving her a frightful scowl, but otherwise
slumping to the ground.

“Why did you attack us?” Khepri asked, aware of Justin
stirring nearby.

“To delay you.”

“To delay us from what?”

Becky smiled; her eyes narrowed to slits. “I wouldn’t want
to spoil his surprise.”

“
His
surprise?”

“The nameless one,” Becky said, licking her lips. “The one
who is my master.”