Lazy Days (39 page)

The plane taxied to an outlying terminal and two
uniformed men entered the cabin. Again, credentials and passports were shown.
When the officials were satisfied, Roth escorted her from the plane. An old
Toyota 4x4 Land Cruiser awaited them on the tarmac. She looked at the vehicle
and said, "You've got to be kidding. I know my father gave you enough
money to rent or
buy
a Mercedes."

Roth opened the passenger door. Before grabbing
the keys on the driver's seat, he said, amused, "Rule number one in the
Bodyguard
for Dummies Handbook
—don't call attention to yourself. Let's go,
Rainey."

Within minutes, they were across the tarmac and
exiting onto an access road.

"Why are we in Egypt?"

"You need to step outside your paradigm,
and what better place than the cradle of civilization? Also, it seemed a good
place to hide you."

"I don’t need to step outside of anything.
I need to return to the United States and my lab."

He did not reply. Instead, he asked, "Have
you ever been to Egypt?"

"No."

"It seems strange that with your
inquisitive mind you haven't made it a priority to visit this country."

"Oh. And why is that?"

"Have you never read speculations about the
purpose of the Great Pyramid?"

"It was a tomb for some Pharaoh."

"Really. I wonder why hieroglyphs were
never found, like in the tombs of other Pharaohs."

"Okay, Mr. Beowolf, what are the
speculations
of the purpose of the Great Pyramid?"

"Well, Ms. Childress, some have thought it
to be a coded depiction of history and others have thought the various
chambers, antechambers, shafts, and passageways, were somehow used in a rites
of passage to bring an individual into illumination; some believe it was once a
power generator; still others think it may have been used to project sound into
the earth. Shall I go on?"

"Who are all these
others
you keep
referring to?"

"The group includes scientists, engineers,
geologists, astronomers, musicians, and yes, psychics and those studied in the
paranormal."

"Humph."

"I take it you don’t believe in anything
paranormal."

"I do not."

"That’s sad."

"Why is it sad?"

"Because it makes your world black and
white—colorless."

"Please do not judge
my
world
according to
your
criteria. Not to change the subject, but you seem to
know where you’re going. Have you been here before?"

"Yes."

"So you’re taking me to a location you’re
familiar with?"

"At one time it was familiar. I haven’t
been there in a long time."

"How long?"

"A long time."

Rainey refused to humble herself by badgering
Roth to be more specific. She turned her head and watched sand dunes whiz past
in the fading light. In the distance, the Great Pyramid effectuated a hazy,
otherworldly look; seemingly mocking her disbelief in anything paranormal.

After spending the night in Cairo at an
inexpensive hotel with an extremely cranky Rainey, Roth wasn't looking forward
to the next five-hour drive to Bahariya Oasis. However, she fell asleep during
most of the drive and he enjoyed the peace and quiet. When the oasis
materialized in the distance, he smiled, remembering his "camel"
assignment. It had been over fifty years since that mission. Since then, the
highway from Cairo had been built and Tahnoon and his wife would be in their seventies.

Gently shaking Rainey, he said, "Wake up;
you don’t want to miss this." Although he'd tried not to startle her, she
jerked upright. "Whoa, girl, everything’s okay."

"What’s happening?"

"I woke you so you could watch our descent
into Bahariya. It’s a beautiful place. There are several villages and towns in
the oasis. We’re going to be staying in the town of Bawiti."

"Lovely."

The sarcasm in her voice made Roth wish he
hadn't awakened her.

She reached to release the band holding her hair
and scrub her hands through the tangles before securing it again. Roth watched
from the corner of his eyes. She looked like hell.

"So, since I have no clothes and no
toiletries, what do you propose to do about that? I am not sleeping in my
clothes another night."

"I don’t mind pointing out that you have
nothing because you didn’t pack your suitcase
as requested."

"Don’t you mean
as ordered?"

"
As ordered
for your
protection."

"Whatever. As soon as we’re settled in our
hotel and I’ve had time to bathe, I want to shop for clothing and
necessities."

"What makes you think we’ll be staying in a
hotel?"

Rainey rounded on him. "I hope you’re just
having fun at my expense, because it you aren’t, and we’re not staying at a
decent hotel, I’m going to be more pissed than I already am. I will make your
life
hell,
Mr. Beowolf!"

Roth ignored her barb and returned his attention
to the view, enjoying the startling contrast of vegetation to sand; an Eden
planted in the midst of a desert. He remembered the luscious trees of dates,
lemons, mangoes, olives, and guavas, while the palms growing throughout the
oasis enhanced an already exotic location. It felt good to be back.

When they entered the outskirts of Bawiti,
Rainey started another harangue. Roth drove through the village, ignoring her
outburst.

Yes, much had changed. The modern era had
definitely encroached. He spotted a small hotel and pulled into the parking
lot, grinning at Rainey. "Just kidding about the hotel."

She sputtered and jerked the handle of her door.
It didn't open.

"Unlock my door!"

Roth laughed. "Rainey, we're not in a
luxury vehicle, you have to unlock it yourself." She looked at her door
and fumbled around before locating the lock and jerking the door open. Mumbling
under her breath, she darted inside the hotel. When Roth entered, she stood at
a small counter impatiently tapping her foot. "Hellooo," she called.
The delicious smell of food wafted through closed curtains behind the counter.
Roth sauntered over.

When he reached the counter, a young,
turban-headed man brushed the curtain aside and welcomed them. "Hello, you
want room?" he asked in English.

"Yes, please," Roth said, and pressed
his hand into the small of Rainey’s back when she started to speak. "My
wife and I would like a room for tonight, maybe longer." He gently pressed
her back again to keep her silent.

"Good…good. I have beautiful room. You sign
here and pay me."

Roth signed the registry with his free hand. The
clerk handed him a key and pointed out the window to a room at the far end of
the small, stone-built hotel. The voice of an elderly woman called to the young
man from behind the curtain and he bowed politely before retreating back into
the unseen quarters with the wonderful smells.

Rainey hastened out the door and walked in the
direction of their room. Roth had no doubt the spitfire would share another
piece of her mind with him before the day was over. He sighed and followed.

* * *

Rainey waited for Roth to unlock the door to the
shabby hotel room before brushing past him and entering the bathroom, slamming
the door. Never had she been treated with such…such…brutality. Well, maybe
brutality wasn’t the exact word, but she'd decided to use it anyway. Of all the
arrogant, egotistical, bullish, boorish, chauvinistic men she had ever met,
Roth was a million times worse.

She looked in the mirror and almost shrieked.
She looked like the Bride of Frankenstein. Portions of her mousey brown hair
stood on end. Her eyes were puffy from restless sleep. Her skin looked
splotchy. Her mouth felt like a sewer.

She reached for the shower and turned it full
blast. Unfortunately, full blast was little more than a trickle and the water
didn’t get any hotter than lukewarm. But that was okay, because the room was
hot enough to bake bread. She thought of her luxurious bedroom at home and
groaned.

After she'd showered and put her scummy clothes
back on, she returned to their modest room. Refusing to use her finger as a
toothbrush again, she marched over to her "kidnapper bodyguard" to
make demands.

Lying on the only bed in the tiny room, Roth
stared at the fan blades circling above his head. "Hello, Sunshine,"
he said, without looking at her.

"I need money. My father must have given
you a wad of Egyptian cash."

"Have you ever heard the word, ‘please’? In
fact, make that, ‘please, Roth’."

"I do not intend to play word games with
you,
Mr. Beowolf."

"Nor I, you,
Ms. Childress.
As I've
said before, you can make this easy, or you can make it hard."

Rainey walked to the curtains and jerked them
aside. Staring at the parking lot, but seeing nothing but the red in front of
her eyes, she pressed her nails into the palms of her hands and forced the
words, "Please, Mr. Beowolf, may I have some money."

"Close enough, Sunshine. Okay, let’s go
shopping."

Late that night, Rainey rolled over for the
hundredth time. Finally, she settled on her back, staring at the dim ceiling.
Her nightgown made her overwhelmingly hot, but being in such close quarters
with Roth, she'd deliberately chosen it because of its primness. She'd
unbuttoned the top two buttons. Even though the weather had cooled, their hotel
room remained stiflingly warm. She unbuttoned a third button.

The annoying rattle of the overhead fan kept her
awake and did little more than move hot air. In an attempt to lessen her
discomfort, she closed her eyes and visualized her eagle. For some reason,
thinking about him comforted her. She didn't know enough about eagles to know a
male from a female, but she sensed her eagle was male from its size. Intruding
into her thoughts, Roth’s face and graceful body suddenly replaced her vision
of the eagle. "Go away," she said.

"What did you say? There’s no one here but
me," Roth said from his pallet on the floor.

"I must have been dreaming." Rainey
unbuttoned another button and willed cool air from the fan to reach her.

"If you relax and accept the change, you
might actually find yourself enjoying Egypt."

"Good night, Roth."

* * *

Roth listened to Rainey’s quiet snores. He
longed to escape the confines of the room and slip into the night. He
considered the various creatures he might shift into. His blood heated at the
thought of soaring high above the Western Desert, part of the Sahara Desert of
Egypt

 Forcing himself back to the present, he
considered their next step. He knew beyond a doubt it would be impossible for
both of them to remain in this hotel room together. Rainey needed privacy, and
he needed to escape and shapeshift at night. Tomorrow he would begin searching
for a rental house, hopefully without neighbors and off the beaten path.

An owl hooted, and Roth’s restlessness
increased. He stood and walked to the window, pulling the drapes aside. Staring
at the full moon, he envisioned Fawn roaming the woods behind the Childress
Estate. He thought about the few times they had met to speculate about their
overlapping missions: his to protect Rainey, and hers to protect the
laboratory. As with every mission, the Thirteen co-Princes had not revealed the
entirety of the reason for their assignments.

Roth remembered his assignment to protect a
photographer during the American Civil War. At the time, he had not been
advised of the reasoning behind his mission; only that the co-Princes wanted
the man to survive. It wasn’t until much later that he'd understood the
significance of that assignment. The man, Matthew Brady, was later credited as
being the father of photojournalism. It was because of him the horrors of
battle were forever captured in photography as a reminder of the brutality of
war. His photography had memorialized history for those coming after him.

Roth turned to look at Rainey and the moonbeam
slanting across her chest. Her hair, fanned out in disarray, looked like a
halo.
A fallen angel,
he mused. She had unfastened several buttons of
her nightgown and her full bosom stretched the fabric tight, teasing his eyes.

He looked away and made himself focus on Fawn.
She had tried to entice him. As wolves they had enjoyed each other intimately.
However, he had never desired her as any creature other than a wolf.

He looked back at Rainey and felt an overwhelming
desire to trace the "V" of her unbuttoned top. Jerking his eyes away,
he stared out the window again and made himself deep breathe. He refused to
entertain even the slightest thought of an encounter with Rainey. At that
moment, he wished he had accepted Fawn’s invitation for a tryst.

While Rainey slept late the next morning, Roth
used the time to read a two-day old newspaper he'd spotted stashed among a
display of faded brochures in the hotel office. As a shapeling who had lived
thousands of revolutions of the sun, he had acquired substantial knowledge of
many languages. He flipped to the rentals' section where only three ads
captured his interest.

Returning to their room, he heard Rainey in the
bathroom. The clothing she had purchased the day before lay strewn across the
bed: slacks, skirts, blouses. After some frustrating visits to shops selling
clothing more appropriate to Egyptian women, they had finally received
directions to a women’s clothing store catering to tourists. She had demanded
he visit another section of the store while she shopped for underclothing.

Curious, he opened the sack on her bed and
pulled out lacey pink underwear. Glancing back at the drab array of outer
clothing, he shook his head in bewilderment.

Using the landline phone in their room, he
placed a call to the three rentals. One was already rented, and he made
appointments to look at the other two. Rainey stepped out of the bathroom, her
hair pulled back in its usual severe style. She wore a bland pair of slacks and
a colorless blouse that made her pale complexion look lifeless.

"Well, Mr. Beowolf, what exciting plans do
we have for today?"

"Well, Ms. Childress, I think we should go
house hunting. Of course, if you prefer sharing a room with me, we can always
stay here."

"Actually, Mr. Beowolf, I abhor being your
roommate."

"Then the sooner we find a house, the
better."

"My sentiments, exactly."

* * *

For Rainey, the first house proved to be a huge
disappointment, and the second wasn't much of an improvement. But the thought
of spending another cozy night with Roth convinced her to voice her opinion
that they should rent the second house.

"Are you sure," he asked. "You
must be desperate to escape my presence. However, the house does have
advantages. It’s secluded, it’s semi-furnished with good lighting, fans in
every room, and your room is next to mine." He smirked on the last
advantage. "Yes, I guess we should rent it."

Rainey whooshed in relief. She wouldn’t have to
spend another night with her stomach tied up in knots because Roth was sleeping
so close to her. She refused to contemplate the ramifications of her stomach
issues, however.

Thankfully, the house was clean and she made
quick work of putting her few belongings into the one bureau in her bedroom.
Next, she stowed her toiletries in the bathroom across the hall in a box she’d
ripped off from the hotel trash can. She'd have to share the bathroom with
Roth, and that grated like nails on a chalkboard.

By late afternoon, with their transition into
the rental house complete, Rainey lay across her bed stroking a wet cloth over
her face and arms, hoping the air movement from the overhead fan would give her
some relief from the heat. Her eyes drifted shut. A knock on her door woke her.
"Wh-what?" she croaked.

She heard the door creak open and then Roth
asked, "You hungry?"

She opened her eyes to muted light. She couldn’t
see anything. Then she realized she had fallen asleep with the wet cloth over
her face. It was dry now. She brushed the cloth aside and looked at Roth
standing in the doorway. Backlit by the late afternoon sun filtering through a
hall window, the trick-of-light caused an aura affect to surround him.
He
looks like a freaking god,
Rainey thought, and groaned aloud.