Area 51: Nosferatu-8 (6 page)

When the other four caught up, Nosferatu continued the pursuit, blood-soaked dagger at the ready. He heard the rumble of a large stone moving and picked up the pace, knowing the Gods had secret passageways that even the high priests knew nothing of. Doors that appeared out of solid rock and disappeared just as quickly.

He dashed around the bend in the tunnel. A stone was beginning to slide down at the end of the corridor twenty feet away. Nosferatu was prepared for this. He dived forward, sliding along the smooth stone, the piece of black metal the strange woman had carried now in his off-

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dagger hand. He stuck it in the way of the descending door, one end on the floor, the other up. The bottom edge hit the metal and the door shuddered for a moment, pressing hard on the metal, then halted, leaving a gap.

Nosferatu let out a sigh of relief. Looking under the door he could see the two flickering shadows of Osiris and Isis on the left side of the wall. And then they disappeared. He glanced back. Nekhbet was near his feet, the others crowded behind her, daggers grasped tight in their hands.

He knew that it was not the time to hesitate. He slid forward, underneath the door, into the lair of the Gods. Nosferatu 'got to his feet, peering about.

There was light ahead, around a curve to the right, which explained the shadows he had seen. The only sound was the scrape of cloth on stone as Nekhbet slid through, then the others. He waited a minute, letting his eyes adjust as much as possible; but the light hurt, and he kept his eyelids closed to slits to protect his sensitive pupils.

Nosferatu began moving down the corridor, dagger held out in front. He pressed his back against the left-side wall and edged along the corridor, trying to peer around the bend. The stone walls were cut perfectly smooth, the work of the Gods, not human hands.

The priests said the Gods had built the Roads of Rostau in the very beginning after arriving from beyond the Middle Sea. And that there were six duats (chambers) where the Gods lived and kept their secret sources of power. Wondrous things were said to be hidden in the duats of which there were only whispers and vague memories of an earlier time when the Gods walked the Earth openly and flew about in the sky in golden round chariots. Now the Gods hid down here, ruling through the priests, rarely seen, as if they were hiding from something, but what

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could Gods be hiding from? Nosferatu often wondered. There was only one answer—other, more powerful Gods. As a child, he had heard the stories of the Great Civil War, when God had battled God and Atlantis had been destroyed. To him that meant one thing—they were vulnerable.

None of the six noticed the figure that silently followed them. The Watcher slid under the door, then halted as a hatch on the top of the tunnel slid open.

Kajilil froze, covering himself with the gray cloak, and watched with wide eyes what came out of the small space and headed down the corridor in pursuit of the intruders.

Nosferatu came around a corner and bumped into Osiris, Isis being ahead of her partner. It was hard to say who was more startled, but Nosferatu was the quicker to react. He jabbed with the knife, the point puncturing Osiris's chest.

Nosferatu continued his momentum, throwing all his weight behind the shaft of metal.

Osiris grabbed Nosferatu's throat with his six-fingered hands, squeezing, lifting him off the floor with inhuman strength. Nosferatu twisted the blade in the God's chest, ripping through flesh, piercing the heart. Red eyes went wide in shock, then life faded from them and Nosferatu was released. Isis finally reacted, jumping to her partner's defense but she was swarmed by the other five half-breeds, their daggers rising and falling with the deadly blows they rained down on her body. Decades, centuries of imprisonment, spewed forth, and over fifty blows punctured her skin. Blood spattered over all and tongues snaked out, tasting the God's blood.

They couldn't help themselves. Their plan disintegrated into a feast of blood as all six lay atop of the two bodies, licking, tasting, and tearing at exposed flesh to get

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to veins. They even suckled at Osiris's corpse, drawing the still blood from him as best they could.

And that was when the strange beast Kajilil had seen appear came upon them from behind.

Only Nosferatu had enough awareness. He spun about from Osiris's body in time to see the thing come around the curve. A glowing gold orb, two feet in diameter with black, pointed legs all around, scuttling along the floor. Mosegi was the last in the party and the first to die as the strange creature reached him. Two metal legs, razor-sharp at the tip, struck, punched into Mosegi's chest, and came out the back. They scissored together and Mosegi's body was sliced in half, falling to the ground.

Blood upon blood. Death upon death. Nosferatu sprang to his feet, dagger at the ready, knowing instinctively it would not stop the beast.

But something did. The thing poised, two arms up, the sharp ends dripping Mosegi's blood pointed at Nekhbet, but not striking. Suddenly a bolt of gold hit Chatha in the chest, knocking her back unconscious. The other four Gods appeared in the corridor behind the beast, three holding long spears in their hands. The fourth held a small black sphere with which it controlled the beast. Another bolt came from the tip of Horus's spear and hit Lilith with the same result.

Vampyr reached for his sister but a bolt of gold struck just in front of him, causing him to pull back.

"Come." Nosferatu reached for Nekhbet. Too late, as she was struck and knocked into him. He and Vampyr pulled her body back along the corridor, away from the site of the murders. Two of the Gods halted there, checking the bodies, while the other two pursued. A door rumbled open in the floor in front of Nosferatu and he almost fell into the black hole that had suddenly appeared. A 46

human hand beckoned. Vampyr slithered into the hole without a moment's hesitation.

"Come," a man's voice called as Nosferatu paused, something he would regret for thousands of years. Horus and Amun arrived, spears ready. Nosferatu dived into the hole, pulling Nekhbet with him as Horus struck. The spear blade sliced cleanly through Nekhbet's wrist.

Nosferatu fell with her severed hand clutched in his, slamming into the sidewall of the tunnel, tumbling, sliding, the reality of what had just happened not sinking in until he hit the bottom of a cross tunnel.

"Come." The same figure was urging him to move. Vampyr was next to the human, gesturing for Nosferatu to follow.

Nosferatu remained still, feeling the rapidly cooling flesh clutched in his hand, his mind replaying what had happened. He scrambled to his feet, looking up the passageway down which he had slid, reaching up with his free hand to grab hold of the lip and pull himself in.

"No," the voice hissed. Vampyr reached up and grabbed Nosferatu around the waist, stopping him.

Then Nosferatu heard the clatter of metal on stone and knew the beast was coming down after them.

"This way," the man urged, pulling at his arm along with Vampyr. Nosferatu followed them into a corridor half-filled with water.

Dawn found Nosferatu and Vampyr hidden on the Giza Plateau along with the strange man who had so far only identified himself as a Wedjat, whatever that was. The word meant "eye" in the ancient tongue. They were located to the south of the Black Sphinx depression, amid a pile of large granite blocks, 47

each marked for placement in the construction of a temple dedicated to the worship of Isis. By climbing on top of several blocks and sliding into the hidden place between two of them, they were able to observe the depression in which the Black Sphinx sat. Throughout the night, criers had gone through the surrounding villages, ordering all to be present around the Sphinx at first light.

Nosferatu had Nekhbet's severed hand, swathed in linen, in a small leather pouch tied off at his waist. In order to protect his eyes from the morning light, he had wrapped a length of cloth around his head, leaving only the slightest of slits through which to peer. He and Vampyr had spent the night with the Wedjat, huddled in a small hut along the banks of the river, near where they had exited from the Roads. The man had offered no reason for saving them and Nosferatu had not asked, his thoughts on Nekhbet and what the morning would bring.

As dawn approached, both Nosferatu and Vampyr found themselves forced to tear strips from their cloaks and wrap them around their faces, covering their sensitive skin and eyes to protect them from the rays of the sun.

The sun slowly rose over the horizon, revealing two six-foot-high X's of wood that had been rigged by the priests on top of the head of the Black Sphinx.

Behind them stood one of the black tubes, its front open. Surrounding the Black Sphinx along the top edge of the depression were thousands of Egyptians, all within hailing distance. The nearest were less than fifty feet in front of their concealed location, all staring in the same direction, into the depression.

Looking at the arrangement, Nosferatu didn't want to make the effort to deduce what the setup on top of the Black Sphinx might mean. He'd experienced three

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hundred years of imprisonment and abuse by the Gods. He knew that day would bring worse.

Vampyr turned to the Wedjat. "You have told us you are a Wedjat, but little else. What is your name?"

"I am called Kajilil."The Wedjat was a small man, with skin burned brown and leathery by the sun. He wore a gray cloak pulled tight around his body. Lines radiated in the skin around his eyes as if they had been shot like marbles into his head.

"What is a Wedjat?" Vampyr asked.

"A Watcher."

"And what is a Watcher?" Vampyr pressed.

Kajilil stroked his short beard as he considered the question. "We are an ancient order. Formed after the destruction of Atlantis. The first Watchers were ex-high priests of the Airlia who realized they had been betrayed. They vowed to monitor the two sides of the Airlia civil war."

"Why did you save us?" Nosferatu asked.

"Because Donnchadh—the woman—interfered. I am trying to set things right, but I fear regardless of what we do, there will be change."

"Who is she?"

"I do not know for sure. I have heard rumors. She, and her partner, the warrior, Gwalcmai, hate the Gods. Some say the two of them have walked the Earth since the time of Atlantis, subverting the Gods. That is difficult for me to believe, as they are human, or at least appear human, as do you. But some say they helped start the Great Civil War among the Gods that destroyed Atlantis."

Kajilil smiled wryly. "Some say anything. That is why it is best just to watch and record."

"But you saved us," Nosferatu pressed. Vampyr was watching the Black Sphinx, searching for any sign of his sister, but also listening closely.

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"To try to restore the balance, as I said," Kajilil said. "She interfered and I have tried to set things right. Although"—he shrugged once more—"who knows what right is? I have often thought about that. What if her actions are what was supposed to happen? It has occurred to me at times that doing nothing, as my Watcher creed decrees, affects things as much as doing something. That is why I acted when I saw you enter the Roads."

Nosferatu understood little of what the man was saying and he could tell that Vampyr didn't either. The burning issue remained: What did the Airlia Gods have planned for those they had captured?

Kajilil reached into his robe and pulled out a short metal tube, which he raised to one eye and peered through.

"What is that?" Nosferatu asked.

"It is something that was taken from Atlantis," Kajilil said. "Ship captains who sailed for the Airlia used them to see far over the water." He offered the device to Nosferatu, who brought it up and peered through the layer of cloth covering his eye into the end of the tube. He was stunned suddenly to see everything much closer and pulled it away from his eye, blinking, reassured to find he was still at the same distance and had not been magically transported to the Black Sphinx. He tentatively raised the tube and looked through it once more. He could see the lips of the priests move as they prayed.

"Men used this?" he asked Kajilil.

The Watcher nodded. "A gift from the Gods. In the old days when the Gods ruled openly."

Nosferatu had more questions to ask but the stone door between the paws of the Black Sphinx slid open and a phalanx of priests appeared, the three bound prisoners in their midst. In the front were Chatha and Lilith chained 50

together. And behind them was Nekhbet, wrapped in loops of metal. All three were being held up by priests, and through Kajilil's device Nosferatu could see that they had been drained of their blood just short of death. Nekhbet's severed wrist was bound in dirty linen.

Nosferatu began to rise, but Kajilil's hand was on his arm, holding him down.

"It is futile," Kajilil said. "You would be cut down before you even got close."

"What are they going to do?" Nosferatu demanded, as the priests and prisoners made their way up a hastily constructed wooden ramp to the top of the Black Sphinx.

"We must watch and see," Kajilil said.

Vampyr demanded the looking device and Nosferatu reluctantly gave it to him, wincing at Vampyr's curse when he saw his twin, Lilith, bound in chains and drained.

A hush rolled over the crowd as the four remaining Gods appeared. All the humans except the high priests and prisoners dropped to their knees, heads bowed. The Gods were wrapped in black robes with hoods drawn close around their faces. Nosferatu realized their garb was not to hide themselves, but as he and Vampyr had done, to protect the Gods' eyes and skin from the sunlight. The Airlia slowly walked up the ramp to the top of the Sphinx, towering over the surrounding priests and guards.

One of the four stepped forward, turned to the high priest and nodded. The priest began to chant out in a loud voice that carried clearly to all in view.

"Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience."

The high priest paused as Chatha and Lilith were brought forward to the two wooden X's. Their robes were ripped off, leaving their pale skin exposed. They were pressed spread-eagle to the wooden beams, blink-