Exodus (14 page)

“It’s OK now,” he said, voice tentative, as if expecting her to strike him. “We should leave because there may be more of them. You can clearly handle it, but I’d rather run.”
 

Morgan’s head began to clear as one of the men on the floor coughed and moaned. She kicked him again and he sank back to the floor. Khal looked at her and she shrugged.
 

“You don’t want them following us, do you?” she said. “OK, let’s get out of here. We know where we need to go.”

As the library door closed behind them, one of the injured monks slowly sat up, fumbling for the cell phone deep within the folds of his robe. Wiping blood from his eyes, he tapped out a message and hit Send. Al-Hirbaa would pay handsomely for this information and the bitch who had beaten them would get her violent reward.
 

En route to Jordan. 8.14pm

The last of the sun disappeared beyond the Sinai horizon and Khal watched the shadows lengthen into chill night. With one hand on the wheel, he pulled his jacket on and then leaned over to pull Morgan’s coat further up so it covered her sleeping form. They had rushed out of the monastery compound earlier, not stopping to speak to the Abbot for fear of further attacks. Morgan had said little as they grabbed their bags and headed out to the vehicle. Once they had set off, she had fallen asleep, the after effects of the fight surely exhausting her. Khal glanced over at her sleeping form. She clearly had military training and could handle herself, but he wondered how far she would have gone if he hadn’t stopped her. There was clearly a current of rage under her usually calm exterior.
 

Khal was comfortable driving this route and he relaxed into the road. He had done his military service fifteen years ago and drove this desert road on patrol. The Arab Spring had brought renewed tension, including violence at the border crossing with Israel and a mob attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo, but Egypt depended on the tourist trade and had to encourage foreigners. The route from Sinai to Israel and up into Jordan was a regular route for pilgrim tourists who wanted to visit holy sites as well as Petra. There were a few night buses and taxis on the road, but otherwise the hours passed in darkness and peace, the only sound the whistling of the wind through the window. Khal had wound it down fully so that he could smell the night air and feel it, cool on his skin.
 

He finally had time to think after the crazy few days they had just been through. He didn’t know how Morgan managed to stay so calm. He wanted to help her, but he also felt that his place was at the university or the dig, while this was a little beyond his capabilities. But Morgan had brought a ray of light into his life, cutting through the dry routine he had created for himself, and giving him a glimpse of something he had missed for so long.
 

His thoughts went to Meena and the days they had had together, before a fast-growing tumor had ravaged his wife’s body and left her a shell. In the days before she died, she had asked him to live well and find a new wife, someone who would give him sons and love him as she had. But after her death, he had thrown himself into work, ignoring the flirtatious looks of the girls on the summer digs. Abasi had gently chided him, trying to get him to go to university parties and social events, but Khal had only found solace in work. Morgan was very different to Meena, but it was the first time he had felt real desire in a long time. He glanced over at her profile. She was frowning in her sleep, her lips faintly moving. It seemed that demons haunted them both.
 

It was only a few hours’ drive to Nuweiba, a coastal town from which they could get a ferry to Jordan in order to avoid the Israeli border crossing.
 

“Are we nearly there yet?” Morgan’s whisper came in the dark.
 

Khal laughed softly, not wanting to break the spell of night. “Maybe thirty minutes more to Nuweiba.”
 

Morgan put her seat back up and rubbed her eyes. “Are you okay with all this driving?”
 

“I’m fine,” he said. “You can have the crazy Jordanian side while I get some sleep. Are you sure we’ll be able to get a ferry at this time of night?”

Morgan nodded. “American dollars speak louder than ferry timetables.”
 

They reached Nuweiba around midnight, passing tourists in the resort town lying on couches near the beach, smoking sheesha pipes and drinking lurid cocktails. The tourist trade had lessened with the political situation, so any who made it this far were taking advantage of the good times, before the hordes realized it was safe to return.
 

“Fancy a bit of espionage?” she asked Khal, as they climbed out of the car and stretched their aching limbs. “Perhaps you’d like to do the honors?”
 

She pushed a roll of dollars into his hand, her fingers wrapping around his as she stepped close. He felt a wave of panic rise, and then subside as he realized that there would be no violence here, just a negotiation, and he was Egyptian after all. He could probably get a better deal than Morgan ever could as a female Westerner. He took the money and approached the jetty. There were large ferries but also fast catamarans for hire and Khal spotted one that would do nicely, where the skipper was playing cards on the deck. Waving him over, Khal negotiated a price and then beckoned for Morgan to jump on as he handed her the change.
 

“Hm, that’s a good rate,” she said, smiling up at him. “I’ll need to take you on some more adventures.”
 

Khal smiled as he gave her a hand up into the boat, and felt stupidly pleased with himself. But he felt a sense of trepidation at the next step of the journey to Jordan, for what if they really did find the Ark?
 

City of the Dead, Cairo, Egypt. 11.48pm
 

The taxi crawled through the tight, weaving streets, the driver honking at donkeys and pedestrians to get out of his way. After the long journey back from Zimbabwe, Natasha was tired, but she needed to make better progress in the search for the Ark and she was at a dead end. The notebook had pointed in two directions and belatedly it seemed that Sinai was the right one after all.
 

She had received a text message and a longer email from al-Hirbaa, informing her that the late curator’s assistant had been spotted in Sinai. It seemed he had help from the ARKANE agent, Morgan Sierra. Natasha felt a wave of anger, because the bitch had tricked her. Sierra should have died that night in the Sedlec bone church. Natasha blamed her for the loss of Milan Noble but she also wanted to find the Ark. Perhaps following the academics would achieve the goal faster.
 

Tonight she needed to connect again, to make herself right with the gods and her ancestors. Then she would be able to move on tomorrow in the sure knowledge that the Divine was on her side. Here in Cairo’s necropolis she would summon their spirits to aid her. She had neglected the ancient ways while in Europe, although she had made blood sacrifices to another cause. Now she knew that she must approach the gods on bended knee, before the shade of her father, and summon their help in the search for the Ark.
 

The City of the Dead was not a necropolis in the European sense, but more like a Roman town where the tombs were like small houses. Families had squatted amongst the tombs since the Cairo earthquake of 1992, forgotten refugees isolated in their own city. Some were here to be closer to their ancestors, but most were dispossessed, forced from Cairo as it had grown into a mega-city.
 

The poorest lived in the slum of Manshiyat Naser, the Garbage City, and there children worked in the steaming heaps of rubbish, eking out an existence on the edge of violence and certain early death. It was there that Isac had gone tonight to find a suitable sacrifice, for even if the people noticed a disappearance, nobody cared enough to investigate. They were beneath the rights of any law, existing in a no man’s land, neither living nor dead. Natasha watched the ragged people gaze listlessly at the taxi as it passed. It seemed to her that they were ghosts, living on the edge of death, and she saw only a waste of life in their eyes.
 

Finally, the taxi reached the tomb of the El-Beherys, which lay in one of the oldest parts of the cemetery. The area was mostly pedestrianized, so narrow were the streets. Natasha stepped out of the taxi a block away, pulling her robes more tightly around her face, for she didn’t want to be recognized. Hurrying along the street towards the tomb, she saw the guard sitting by the doorway. He stood as soon as she drew near, alert for any danger, and she pulled her shawl from her face so he could identify her.
 

“Are the others here yet?” she asked as he acknowledged her.
 

The guard shook his head. “You’re the first.”

His eyes lowered as he spoke, as he knew the reputation of the El-Beherys. For the sake of his children, he kept his eyes averted and his ears closed. This job was mostly tedious but when the tomb was used, it was a night of evil he tried desperately to purge from his memory. Some who entered this tomb never emerged, and he had seen the blood that had to be cleaned the next day. He turned and unlocked the heavy door, pushing it open so Natasha could enter. She swept in and he closed the door behind her.
 

Natasha took a pen torch from her bag, clicked it on and then lit the thick candles that sat in the corners of the stone mausoleum, built for generations of El-Beherys and added to over time. Embalmed bodies were laid in alcoves around the walls. An altar sat in the middle of the space, channels cut into the stone below it that angled down towards a drain at the back of the mausoleum. At each corner of the altar, leather straps hung down, worn from years of use, and there was an earthy smell in the air as if the place was alive and fecund.
 

Natasha went to one of the alcoves and greeted the body of her father, mummified according to their tradition. Her family believed that the Ba, or spirit, remained in the tomb and could still act in the physical world. In her rational moments, Natasha doubted this, but here in the crypt, she felt the presence of her ancestors and as she touched her lips to the forehead of the mummy, she thought back to her memories of the man who had guided her life.
 

Born when he turned 50, she was the last of his sixteen children, his little princess. She was also the one most interested in ancient Egypt, so he doted on her and took her out of school to archaeological digs, letting her wear jewelry he took from the tombs. Her mother had been a beautiful Russian immigrant taken as a wife in the heat of lust and cast off as soon as the baby was born, so Natasha was raised by his other wives.
 

At seven years old she had started killing animals and birds in the garden, staking them out in the sun and stabbing them with the ritual knife her father had given her. She made the other children watch and they cried, but her father just laughed, swinging her up above his head, making her squeal with laughter. Then one day he had hit her for the first time. Without hesitation, she had bitten his hand and scratched at him. He praised her spirit and from that day, had started to train her to hit back properly, and then to become the aggressor.

"You are my little warrior princess,” he would say. “And I shall make you queen one day."
 

When she was thirteen Natasha took to cutting herself, the sight of blood exciting her, the pain just on the edge of pleasure. She made sure to hide the scars until one day her father noticed. She forced a tear from her eye and pointed at one of the wives. He turned in rage and backhanded his wife, sending her flying across the floor.
 

Natasha watched as he punched her face and then kicked her in the ribs, his boot making a thumping noise. The woman groaned, blood trickling from her mouth to the dusty ground. Her father called for his guards and they threw the woman out onto the streets. He had gathered her in his arms, saying, “No one hurts my little princess.”

Her position in the household changed after that. The other wives and children were respectful, afraid and kept their distance, eyes averted from her torture of animals and birds. Natasha grew into a beautiful young woman, with deep dark eyes and slender curves. She saw her father's eyes grow hungry when he looked at her and then darken with fear and regret. She recognized a new kind of power and would lean against him, her young breasts pushed against his arm. He would shift but she would cling to him, pulling herself onto his lap.
 

“Papa, perhaps I could come with you to the meeting tonight?” she asked one evening, squirming a little on his lap as if she was trying to get comfortable, but with the bulge in his pants, she could tell he was aroused by her proximity.
 

“It’s too old for you, my darling. It's not for children.”
 

“I’m no longer a child, Papa, you must see that. I want to be your princess at the temple.”
 

She had watched as his Adam's apple bobbed and he swallowed. His eyes closed as he gave into forbidden sensations.
 

“Then you must trust me and do as I say,” he said huskily. “It will be difficult, but if you make it through the rituals, then you will be part of the ancient line that stretches back to the pharaohs.” That night, she had honored him and other men with her body and many nights after that. Tonight she would honor him again and the Gods would reward her with the triumph of the Ark.
 

Natasha walked the length of the tomb and greeted all of her ancestors, asking for their blessing on the rituals she would soon perform. She remembered first coming here, mute with fear, watching as her father carved a man into pieces and then held them up to the gods. It was a ritual to mimic the dismemberment of Osiris at the hands of his brother, Seth, after which Isis had collected the parts to remake his body. She had made Osiris a new penis and become pregnant in the few precious moments during which he had breathed again before sinking back into darkness, ruler of the Duat, the eternal kingdom of death.