The Mummy or Ramses the Damned (39 page)

There he rested for a moment, and then he pounded with his right fist.

He could not have gone another step.

There was a long moment in which he heard nothing. He pounded again, and again.

Then came the sound of the bolt sliding, and Henry appeared, squinting, his face unshaven, dressed only in a green silk robe.

“What the hell do you want?”

“Let me in.” He pushed the door back and brought the woman with him into the room. Desperately she crowded against him, hiding her face.

Dimly, he saw that the place was luxurious—carpets, furniture, decanters gleaming on a marble sideboard. Through the archway, a dark-skinned beauty in a satin dancing costume-obviously Malenka—had just set down a tray of steaming food. Small orange trees crowded against the whitewashed garden wall.

“Who is this woman!” Henry demanded.

Holding tight to her still, Elliott struggled to the chair. But he could see that Henry was staring at the woman’s feet. He’d seen the bare bones showing in the instep. A look of disgust passed over Henry; of puzzlement.

“Who is she! Why did you bring her here!”

Then convulsively, Henry moved back, slamming into the pillar that divided the archway to the courtyard, his head thudding dangerously against the stone.

“What’s wrong with her!” he gasped.

“Patience, I’ll tell you everything,” Elliott whispered. The pain in his chest was so bad now that he could hardly form the words. Easing down in the rattan chair, he felt the woman’s grip loosen. He heard her make a faint sound. He looked up, and realized she had seen the cupboard across the room, the glass bottles gleaming in the light from the courtyard.

She went towards the liquid, groaning. The black serge garment fell from her head and then from her shoulders, fully revealing the bones of her ribs gleaming through the gaping holes
in her back, and the remnants of cloth that barely concealed her nakedness.

“For the love of God, don’t panic!” Elliott shouted.

But it was too late. Henry’s face went white, his mouth twisted and shuddering. Behind him, in the courtyard, Malenka let out a full-throated scream.

The wounded creature dropped the bottle with a great piteous moan.

Henry’s hand rose from his pocket, sun glinting on the barrel of a small silver gun.

“No, Henry!” Elliott cried. He tried to rise, but he couldn’t. The shot exploded with the same nerve-shattering volume of the guns in the museum. A parrot screeched in its cage.

The wounded woman cried out as she took the bullet in her chest, staggering backwards, and then let out a great bellow as she ran at Henry.

The sounds coming from Henry were scarcely human. All reason had left him. He backed into the courtyard, firing the gun again and again. Crying in agony, the woman closed on him, knocking the gun out of his hand and taking him by the throat. In an ugly waltz they struggled, Henry clawing at her desperately, her own bony fingers holding fast to his neck. The wicker table went over, china shattering on the tiles. Into the orange trees they stumbled, tiny leaves pouring down in a shower.

In terror Malenka crouched against the wall.

“Elliott, help me!” Henry screamed. He was being bent over backwards, knees buckling and hands flailing, catching stupidly in the creature’s hair.

Elliott managed somehow to reach the edge of the archway. But only in time to hear the bones snap. He winced as he saw Henry’s body go limp and tumble softly, in a heap of green silk, on the ground.

The creature staggered backwards, whimpering, and then sobbing, her mouth making a grimace again, as it had in the museum, teeth bared. The ragged cloth covering her had been torn from one shoulder; her dark pink nipples showed through the sheer linen. Great gouts of blood hung in the wrappings still clinging to her torso, strips of fabric falling from her thighs with each step. Her eyes, bloodshot and running with tears, stared at the dead body and then at the spilt food, the hot tea steaming in the sun.

Slowly she went down on her knees. She grabbed up the muffins and stuffed them into her mouth. On all fours she lapped the spilt tea. She scraped up the jam with her fingers and sucked them frantically. She gnawed on the bacon and then swallowed the rasher whole.

In utter silence, Elliott watched her. He was vaguely conscious of Malenka running silently towards him, and then hovering behind him. Deliberately, he took one short breath after another, listening at the same time to the hammer trip of his heart.

The creature devoured the butter; the eggs she crushed and scraped with her teeth from the shells.

Finally there was no more food. Yet she remained there, on her knees. She was staring at her outstretched hands.

The sun beat down on the little courtyard. It gleamed on her dark hair.

In a daze, Elliott continued to watch. He could not absorb what he was seeing or judge it. The continuing shock of all he’d witnessed was too great.

Suddenly the creature turned and lay down on the paved ground. She stretched out full length, crying as if into a soft pillow, her hand scratching at the hard-baked tiles. Then she rolled over on her back into the full sunlight, free of the soft dancing green shadows from the small trees.

For a moment she stared up into the burning sky, and then her eyes appeared to roll up in her head. Only a half-moon of pale iris showed.

“Ramses,” she whispered. Her bosom moved faintly with her breathing. But otherwise she lay still.

The Earl turned and reached for Malenka. Leaning heavily on her, he struggled back towards the chair. He could feel the dark-skinned woman trembling. He settled down silently on the tapestried cushions, and rested his head against the high rounded chair back of prickly rattan. This is all a nightmare, he thought. But it was not a nightmare. He had seen this creature raised from the dead. He had seen her kill Henry. What in God’s name was he to do?

Malenka remained at his elbow, then went down slowly on her knees. Her eyes were wide and empty, her mouth agape. She stared towards the garden.

Flies circled over Henry’s face. They swooped down on the remnants of the overturned meal.

“There, there, nothing will harm you,” Elliott whispered. The burning in his chest subsided very slowly. He felt a dull warmth in his left hand. “She won’t hurt you. I promise you.” He moistened his dry lips with his tongue, then somehow managed to go on. “She is ill; and I must take care of her. She will not harm you, you understand.”

The Egyptian woman clutched at his wrist, her forehead against the arm of the chair. After a long moment, she spoke.

“No police,” she pleaded in a barely audible voice. “No English take my house.”

“No,” Elliott murmured. “No police. We don’t want the police.”

He wanted to pat her head, but he could not bring himself to move. He stared dully out into the sunlight, at the prone creature, her glossy black hair spread out in the sunlight; and at the dead man.

“I take care of …” the woman whispered. “I take my English away. No police come.”

Elliott didn’t understand her. What was she saying? Then slowly it dawned on him.

“You can do this?” he said under his breath.

“Yes, I do this. Friends come. Take English away.”

“Yes, all right then.” He sighed and the pain in his chest intensified. Tentatively he pushed his right hand into his pocket and brought out his money clip. Barely able to move his left fingers, he took out two ten-pound notes.

“For you,” he said. He closed his eyes again, exhausted by the effort. He felt the money taken from his hand. “But you must be careful. You must tell no one what you saw.”

“I tell no one. I take care of … This is
my
house. My brother give.”

“Yes, I understand. I shall be here only a little while. That I promise you. I shall take the woman with me. But for now, you will be patient, and there’ll be more money, much more.” Once again he looked at the money clip. He peeled the notes off without counting and forced them into her hand.

Then he lay back again, and closed his eyes. He heard her pad softly across the carpet. Then her hand touched him again.

When he looked up he saw her draped in black, and she held another folded black robe in her hand.

“You cover,” she whispered. And with her eyes, she gestured to the courtyard.

“I cover,” he whispered. And closed his eyes again.

“You cover!” he heard her say desperately. And again he said that he would.

With great relief he heard her go out, and shut the door to the street.

In the long flowing Bedouin robes, Ramses walked through the museum, among the milling tourists, peering ahead through the dark glasses at the empty space at the end of the corridor where the display case had stood. No sign that it had ever been there! No broken glass, no splintered wood. And the vial he had dropped. Gone.

But where could she be! What happened to her! In anguish, he thought of the soldiers who’d surrounded him. Had she fallen into their hands?

He walked on, turning the corner, eyes moving over the statues and the sarcophagi. If he had known misery like this ever in all these centuries, he could not remember it now. He had no right to be walking here with men and women, to be breathing the same air.

He could not think where to go or what to do. If he did not discover something soon, he would go completely mad.

Perhaps a quarter of an hour passed, maybe less. Cover her, yes. No, get her out of the garden before the men come. She lay in the sun, stuporous, now and then murmuring in her sleep.

Gripping his walking stick, he rose to his feet. There was feeling in his left leg again, and that meant there was pain.

He went into the bedroom. A high old-fashioned Victorian bed stood against the far right wall, its white mosquito netting catching the flood of sunlight from the open blinds of the window.

A dressing table stood just to the left of the window. And an armoire stood farther away in the left corner, its mirrored doors open, revealing a row of wool jackets and coats.

A small portable gramophone with a horn stood on the dressing table. Beside it were a set of gramophone records in a cardboard case. “Learn English,” said the bold lettering. There was another dance hall record. An ashtray. Several magazines and a half-full bottle of Scotch.

He could see a proper bathroom through a far door on the right side of the bed. Copper tub there; towels.

He went the other direction, through a door into another chamber which formed the north wall of the courtyard, with all its blinds shut. Here the dark beauty kept her tawdry dancing costumes and junk jewelry. But one cabinet was bursting with frilly Western dresses as well. There were Western shoes, and frilly umbrellas and a couple of impossible wide-brimmed hats.

But what good were these clothes when the wounded thing needed to be hidden from prying eyes? He found the usual Moslem robes folded neatly on a bottom shelf. So he could give her fresh covering—that is, if Malenka would allow him to buy these clothes.

He paused in the doorway to catch his breath. He stared at the regal bed in the sunlight, the netting flowing down from a circular tester, much like a crown above. The moment seemed trancelike, elastic. Images of Henry’s death flashed before his eyes. Yet he felt nothing. Nothing—except perhaps for a cold horror that took away the very will to live.

Will to live. He had the vial in his pocket. He had a few drops of the precious fluid!

That, too, did not affect him; did not dispel his languor. The maid dead in the museum; Henry dead in the courtyard. The thing lying out there in the sun!

He could not reason. Why bother to try? He had to reach Ramses, of that much he was certain. But where was Ramses? What had the bullets done to him? Was he being held by the men who had dragged him away?

But first, the woman, he had to bring her in and hide her so that Henry’s body could be taken away.

She might well attack the men who came to get Henry. And one glimpse of her might do them even more harm.

Limping out to the courtyard, he tried to clear his head. He and Ramses were not enemies. They were confederates now. And perhaps … But then he had no spirit for such dreams and ambitions anymore—only what must be done now.

He took a few cautious steps towards the woman asleep on the tiled patio floor.

The midday sun was burning hot, and suddenly he feared for her because of it. He shaded his eyes as he looked at her: for surely he could not be seeing what he thought he saw.

She moaned uneasily; she was suffering—but a woman of great and exceptional beauty lay there!

A large patch of white bone gleamed through her raven hair,
true, and a small bit of bare cartilage showed in her jaw. Indeed, her right hand still had two fingers which were bones only, blood trickling from the gristle in the joints. And the wound in her chest was still there, gaping, revealing a stretch of white rib, overlaid with a thin membrane full of tiny red veins.

But the face had assumed its full human contour! High colour bloomed in the beautifully moulded cheeks. The mouth was exquisitely shaped and ruddy. And the flesh had over all a lovely even olive tone.

Her nipples were a dark rose colour, her breasts plump and firm.

What was happening? Did the elixir take time to work?

Timidly he drew closer. The heat pounded upon him. His head began to swim. Struggling once again not to lose consciousness, he groped for the pillar behind him and steadied himself, eyes still fixed on the woman who now opened her pale hazel eyes.

She stirred, lifting her right hand and staring at it again. Surely she felt what was happening to her. In fact, it seemed the wounds hurt her. Gasping, she touched the bleeding edge of open flesh on her hand.

But if she understood that she was actually healing, she gave no sign. She let her arm drop limply and once again she closed her eyes. She cried again, softly.

“Ramses,” she said as if in half sleep.

“Come with me,” Elliott spoke to her softly in Latin. “Come inside, to a proper bed.”

Dully she looked at him.

“The warm sun is there too,” he said. And no sooner had he said these words than he realized. It was the sun that was healing her! He had seen it working on her hand as they came through the streets. It was the only part exposed save for her eyes, and they too had been healing.