Nosferatu

THE PAST CHAPTER 1

Before the third age of Egypt which was the rule of the Pharaohs, there was the Second Age, when the Shadows of the Gods made by the God Horus ruled, and before that, beyond the borders of what man knew as recorded history, there was the First Age, when those Gods, known as the Airlia, ruled the humans who lived along the lush banks of the Nile.

It was the time of the Gods who came to Egypt from the legendary land of Atlantis beyond the Middle Sea after the great Atlantean Civil War. It was fifty-five hundred years before the Great Pyramid would be built by the Pharaoh Khufu according to the plans handed down by the Gods. For now the Giza Plateau was graced only by the alien beauty of a magnificent Black Sphinx, over three hundred feet long with red eyes that glowed as if lit from within. The Black Sphinx, set deep in a depression carved into the plateau, guarded the main entrance to the Roads of Rostau. The warren of tunnels and chambers under the plateau was where the Gods lived, and from which they ruled through the human high priests, occasionally venturing forth to look out upon their subjects, an event that was becoming rarer and rarer. There were whispered rumors that the Gods were growing older, but how could that be, if they were indeed Gods?

Deep under the plateau, along one of the minor branches of the Roads, was a dead-end corridor with three cells along one side. In the first cell were what appeared to be a pair of black metal coffins over seven feet in length by three wide and high. They were not coffins, however, but special prisons, each holding a body. At the head of each tube was a small glowing panel with a series of hexagonal sections on which were etched markings in the High Rune language of the Gods.

Inside the tube closest to the cell door was a half-man, half-God, whose existence was one of unending exhaustion and pain. His name was Nosferatu. He had memories of sunlight and playing in the sand while a woman — his human mother — stood nearby, keeping a watchful eye on him. He’d even played with true humans, children of the high priests, who could look forward to serving the Gods as their parents did. Nosferatu’s fate was to be one of service also, but in a much different way. His memories were of a time so long ago that he often wondered if the vague memories were not memories at all but instead a dream. Yet he held on to the concept that he could not dream something he had never seen. He must have been above ground in the sunlight sometime. He remembered palm trees and the sun reflecting off a sand dune and even the blue water of the mighty Nile flowing by. He remembered the stories the high priests told to their children, tales of Atlantis, the Gods called Airlia, and the great civil war among the Gods that had destroyed Atlantis. He’d listened to the other children being taught the language of the Gods and learned as much as he could along with the High Rune writing.

It was all for naught, though, because when he’d reached manhood, he’d been taken from the sunlight and brought below to serve. Three hundred years he’d been trapped in this tube in this underground cell. Not as a punishment, for he had done nothing to deserve this fate other than to be born who and what he was, but to serve the purpose for which he had been conceived: to provide pleasure in a most strange and twisted way for the Gods.

And although he had been the first, Nosferatu was no longer alone. There were four others in tubes in the two adjoining cells whom he could reach with hoarse whispers. And in the tube across from him in this cell was Nekhbet. His love. She was the bastard spawn of the God Osiris and a human High Concubine, brought there over a hundred years before, when Nosferatu was beginning to believe the world was comprised only of the mute priests who opened the lid and brought him human blood every new moon and the Gods who came every so often to in turn drain his blood. Now, once every month he got to sit up when the lid was opened, chains around his waist keeping him in the tube, and see his love while the mute priest held the silver flask containing blood just collected from supplicants to his lips. Even in the dim light and the grave circumstances, every time during that brief interlude Nosferatu always marveled at her beauty. Alabaster skin, high cheekbones, black-red eyes, she was tall and willowy, with blazing red hair flowing over her shoulders like a fiery waterfall. He always believed she represented the best of human and God.

Nosferatu’s skin was also pale white, his hair bright red. His eyes had a reddish tint to them and the suggestion of an elongation of the pupil. He was tall, well over six feet in height, and slender. His skin was stretched tight over his bones, giving him a skeletal appearance. He was indeed half-man, half-God, as were his prisoner comrades. Although he had been alive over three hundred years, he appeared to be in his midthirties, the mixed human/God blood in his veins and the sustenance of human blood allowing him a vastly longer life span. How long that life span would be he had no idea and he feared either possibility.

In the beginning he had tried to count days, a most difficult task since no sunlight penetrated so far under the Giza Plateau, along the Roads of Rostau into the realm of the Gods. He’d worked off the opening of the tube and the blood he was fed once a month, keeping track. But after the number went into the hundreds, he gave up. What did it matter? Even with the half blood of the Gods and the constant feeding, he knew he was very slowly getting older and that he would spend all of his however-long life there.

He heard the latch securing the lid slide open and closed his eyes, prepared for the invasion of torchlight that came with each feeding. He felt the shift in the air as the lid was swung up.

“The Gods must die or you will never escape this. You will die a miserable death after a long and worthless life.”

The words echoed off the stone walls of the chamber and the shocked face of Nosferatu as he opened his eyes and blinked. Leaning over him was a woman. Only men whose tongues had been cut out and ears punctured had come to feed him all these long years, never a woman. She was a human, not a God, dressed in a long black cloak with silver fringes. She did not wear the signs of the priests. She had short black hair, dark eyes, and pale skin. She was the first human other than the priests that Nosferatu had seen in over two hundred years. Looking past her, he could see a man, wearing leather armor and holding a sword, standing in the corridor, keeping watch. He too had dark hair, but his skin was tanned. He was peering down the corridor, on guard.

She looked deep into Nosferatu’s eyes, then reached up and placed a finger on his throat, feeling his pulse. She then looked at the shunt in his neck from which he was drained to feed the Gods and lightly touched it. “You’ve been used for a very long time, haven’t you?”

Nosferatu slowly sat up, the belt around his waist chained to the bottom of the tube keeping the lower half of his body in place. Around each arm and leg were straps with leads going into the side of the tube. Each time before he went to sleep, sharp pain came through those leads, causing his muscles to quiver and work themselves in tiny movements. And each time he came awake to the same pain. He had little idea how long he slept but he had no doubt it was longer than a normal night’s sleep. There was also a headpiece, shaped like a crown, in the tube, set in a small recess near the top, but Nosferatu had never had it put on his head by the priests, so he didn’t know its purpose.

He looked over at the other tube in his cell. The woman caught his gaze and went to it, opening the top and waking the occupant by tapping the appropriate hexagon on the panel. Nekhbet sat up, blinking. He could see that Nekhbet was also wondering who this stranger was and what she knew of their situation. The woman came back over to him, waiting for an answer. He didn’t reply, waiting to see if she would tell him more. He had patience — if there was one thing three hundred years of imprisonment taught, it was that trait. “You won’t last much longer,” the woman finally continued. “You have no choice. If you do not act, you will eventually die. Each time they drain you, the percentage of their blood in you is reduced and the human percentage grows. Soon you will no longer be effective for their needs. Then they will take another human female and make your replacement. They may already have a child, like you were once, growing up, guarded closely on the surface, ready to come here and be placed in this tube and drained as needed. They are very good at planning for their own needs and pleasures.”

Nosferatu finally spoke. “How do you know this?”

“It is their way. They are not Gods, but creatures from”—the woman pointed up. “From among the stars. They use us — humans — and they use you, half of their blood, half human. It is hard for me to determine which is the worse of their sins. At least what they are doing to you is obvious. Their rule of the humans is more devious, pretending to be that which they aren’t.” The woman shrugged. “There is also the possibility that the Gods may decide to go into the long sleep as their brethren have done in other places, in which case they will kill you and the others they keep down here, as you will longer be needed.”

Nosferatu tried to grasp the concept, but it had been so long since he’d been on the surface he could barely remember the sun, never mind the stars. And how could one be from them? If the Airlia weren’t Gods, then what exactly were they? And what did that make him? And what was this long sleep she spoke of?

“Why do you want to help us?” Nekhbet asked. “You are human. We aren’t. We’re half like them.”

“Because you must hate them as much as I do and more than those above,” the woman replied. “Most humans”—she shook her head—“they are like sheep. Simply happy their harvest comes in and the Gods make all the decisions for them.”

Nekhbet’s lovely voice floated from across the chamber. “You cannot kill the Gods. They are immortal.”

Donnchadh pulled aside her robe, revealing six daggers tucked into her belt. “With these you can. They were made by the Gods themselves for use against each other.”

Nekhbet still wasn’t convinced. “Even if we kill the Gods, the priests will then slay us, won’t they?”

The woman glanced over her shoulder at Nekhbet. “Not if you are immortal.” Nosferatu was the first to grasp the significance. “The Grail?”

The woman nodded. “You kill the Gods. You go into the Black Sphinx and recover the Grail, which is hidden there, then partake as has been promised by the Gods since before the beginning of time. You become immortal.”

“Who are you?” Nosferatu demanded, trying to process all that she had said. “My name is Donnchadh. My partner”—she looked into the corridor at the warrior—“and I have fought the Gods in other places. That should be enough for you. Your enemy is our enemy.”

“Your enemies are our parents,” Nosferatu noted.

“One of your parents,” Donnchadh corrected, looking him in the eyes. “Your other parent was human, taken by an Airlia — the Gods — for their pleasure and to produce you so they can use you for their pleasure also. The Gods deserve neither your homage nor your respect. They will drain you and kill you without a second thought once they have a replacement ready or if they no longer desire the pleasure your blood brings them.”

“How can we do this which you propose?” Nosferatu demanded, rattling the chains that held the belt at his waist.

Donnchadh pulled out a three-foot-long piece of black metal. “Tonight. After the Ceremony of the Solstice. You can follow the Gods who oversee it from the ceremony to their hidden places along the Roads.” She pulled the metal rod out of her belt and placed the tip inside one of the links of chain that bound him. She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want your freedom?”

Nosferatu looked across the way at Nekhbet. Even if this woman lied, even if this was a trap, he didn’t care. If he could simply hold Nekhbet in his arms after more than a hundred years of yearning, it would be worth it. “Yes.”

Donnchadh twisted the rod and the link slowly gave, then popped open. She went to work on the other chains and within five minutes Nosferatu was free. He removed the straps around his arms and a red light flickered on the console but he ignored it. Grabbing the lid, he pulled himself out of the tube.

When his feet reached the ground, he took a tentative step and his legs buckled, tumbling him to the floor. Donnchadh was already at work on Nekhbet’s chains as Nosferatu struggled to his feet. The tube had worked his muscles, but his body was so unused to moving that he had to put a hand against the wall to steady himself. Driven by a force stronger than gravity he took a step. And then another. By this time, Nekhbet was free and the woman was helping her out of the tube. Nosferatu staggered across to Nekhbet and took her in his arms.

With the touch of her flesh against his, Nosferatu was transported from the stone chamber that had been his prison for centuries. He wrapped his arms tight around her slight frame as if their flesh and bones and blood would meld together and they would become one.

“Are you tired?” Nekhbet whispered.

“Not anymore.”

“You are weak, though.”

Nosferatu blinked as she offered her neck to him, the blood pulsing in the vein, the short tip of the shunt drawing him in. He knew he needed the energy, but from Nekhbet?

Her voice was a seductive whisper. “Take as they take, my love. You are the Eldest and must lead. You need the strength. I am younger. I can afford to give it to you. I want to give it to you. It will make us one as nothing else can. And you must lead us.”

He couldn’t stop. His lips curled around the shunt, the one-way valve opening at the touch of moist flesh on the outside. The first taste of blood was electrifying, a charge throughout his body that brought every nerve screaming alive as it coursed through his veins. Decades of exhaustion faded. Her blood, with its alien component, was so much more than the human blood he was fed each month.

The strange woman’s voice was an irritating buzz, trying to bring Nosferatu back to reality. “The ceremony has started above. You do not have much time to free the others and be ready.”

Nosferatu did not let go of Nekhbet. Minutes of touch could not compare to the centuries of longing from across the prison chamber. And the blood, the power he felt pouring into his body from Nekhbet, the pleasure. Is this what he gave to the Gods? He could almost understand why they kept him there. He forced his eyes open. He could see her neck so close, the skin white, the beat of the artery so slow now, her eyes closed. Startled, he released his lips and stepped back. Nekhbet staggered and would have fallen, but he caught her.

“I am sorry,” he whispered. “I took too much.”

Nekhbet shook her head, slowly opening her eyes, but the dark pupils had difficulty focusing. “It is all right. You need the strength.”

“If you do not act now, you will die,” Donnchadh pressed.

Nekhbet let go first, running a hand across Nosferatu’s face. “My love, we must do as she says. It is our only chance. We must free the others.”

Reluctantly, Nosferatu let go of Nekhbet. He followed Donnchadh out into the corridor, where her partner had already opened the door to the next cell.

“And who are you?” Nosferatu asked him.

The warrior glanced at him. “My name means nothing to you. Gwalcmai I was called long ago. I have had other names and will have others in the future.” Nosferatu and Nekhbet followed Donnchadh into the cell while her partner remained outside. The twins Vampyr and Lilith were held here. Male and female, they had been brought into the darkness nearly seventy years before, as best Nosferatu had been able to determine. Nosferatu watched as the woman opened their tubes, noting which of the hexagonals she pressed. He shushed the twins’ questions, working swiftly to free them from their chains, and they moved to the third cell and released Mosegi and Chatha, the youngest of the six, another male-female pair, chained up and entombed for only about twenty years. There were six half-breeds in total, one for each of the six Gods who desired the pleasure of drinking their blood.

As soon as the last were free of their tubes, the strange woman, Donnchadh, turned toward the exit to the last cell. “I will leave you to do what you must.”

Nosferatu put a hand out, stopping her. “Tell me more of the Gods. Why do they need to do this?” He lightly touched the shunt in his neck.

“As I have said. They do it for pleasure. It is an elixir for them. They prefer it over pure human blood.”

“That is all?” Nosferatu had always held on to the belief that at least he served the purpose of keeping the Gods alive.

“Do you not relish the feeding you receive?” Donnchadh asked.

Nosferatu nodded.

“And was not her”—Donnchadh pointed at Nekhbet—“blood so much more?” “Yes.”

“Then you should understand.”

“We exist only for their pleasure?” Vampyr was holding his twin’s arm, keeping Lilith upright while she learned to use her legs once more. “Yes.” It was obvious Donnchadh was not interested in talking.

“It is said the Gods are immortal,” Nosferatu pressed.

Gwalcmai was restless in the corridor. “We must hurry.”

“In a sense,” Donnchadh said, “they are.”

“Then am I immortal?” Nosferatu had shied away from that possibility, knowing it would mean an eternity chained to the wall.

Donnchadh shook her head. “No. But if you continue to drink human blood to feed the alien part of your blood — and don’t get drained of any more of the blood you have — you can live a very, very long time. You can also go into the tube and use the deep sleep to let time pass without aging.” Her eyes grew distant. “I have seen it before. Where I came from. They did the same to my people.”

“Where are you from?” Nosferatu asked.

Donnchadh shook her head. “You would not understand.” She pointed to the end of the short corridor. “You can go to the right and get out a secret door near the Nile. The ceremony will start shortly in the Sphinx pit. Wait until the Gods who will oversee the ceremony appear, then follow them down the main Road of Rostau.”

“But—” Nosferatu wanted to know more but Donnchadh was moving away, then was gone to the left, her companion with her.

The other five looked at him, waiting.

“Follow me.”

Prostrated before the massive paws of the Black Sphinx were fifty priests, chanting in an alien tongue the same prayers their ancestors on Atlantis had sung: “We serve for the promise of eternal life from the Grail. We serve for the promise of the great truth. We serve as our fathers have served, our father’s fathers, and through the ages from the first days of the rule of the God who brought us up out of the darkness. We serve because in serving there is the greater good for all.”

The chanting echoed and looped, reverberating off smooth stone walls surrounding the Black Sphinx. The Sphinx was over two hundred feet below the surface of the plateau, reachable only by a set of stairs cut in the stone wall. Just below the chest of the beast, a dark opening was cut into the rock beneath the paws, forming one of the entranceways to the sacred Roads, where only the select high priests were allowed to go.

Hidden in the shadows along the edge of the depression, amid a pile of discarded building stone, watching the chanting priests, were a half dozen figures — Nosferatu and the other five half-breeds. They clutched the sharp daggers the strange human woman had given them in sweaty hands. It was the Ceremony of the Summer Solstice, and the priests were thanking the Gods for a bountiful crop produced by the rich soil along the banks of the Nile and for keeping away the floods that occasionally ravaged the land.

It had occurred to Nosferatu during his long time underground that humans had never thought to question the power of the Gods when the floods did come. They would blame themselves, believing they had transgressed against the Gods in some manner, and pray even harder. The entire concept of worship and religion was something he found strange and most convenient for the Airlia. Behind it all was the tantalizing promise the Airlia had made so long ago on Atlantis — that the true believers would one day be granted immortality via the Grail. It had not happened yet, but again, the high priests told the people that was because they had not believed hard enough and been faithful enough.

Now the six waited, hunched over among the stones, for the ceremony to be finished. They were patient because their goal was the ultimate prize, that which generations of priests such as these had prayed for but which the six of them had decided to seize this night: eternal life. They had escaped from the Roads via an entrance on the bank of the Nile and made their way back here under the cover of darkness. For Nosferatu every breath of the fresh night air was a revelation, the canopy of stars overhead a wonderment to his eyes. The gifts of his Airlia genes combined with years of living in the pitch-black of his tube allowed him to see in the starlight as if it were daylight. He wondered what else he had gained from the Airlia that made him different from humans. “Will the Gods be here?” Nosferatu asked.

“Isis and Osiris have come to give the final blessing every year as long as any can remember,” Vampyr whispered in reply. “I saw them myself at this ceremony before I was taken below with my sister.”

Isis and Osiris were the two principal Gods. There were four other Airlia — Horus, Amun, Khons, and Seb — but they appeared even more rarely. It had been many years since all six had been seen together on the surface. For many years Nosferatu had only been visited by one of the Gods. When others showed up, perhaps coming out of the deep sleep that Donnchadh had mentioned, the others like him were made and imprisoned.

Nosferatu’s mother had told him that his father was Horus and Nosferatu believed it to be true because that was the only one of the five that did not take blood from him during the feedings. In the same manner, Nekhbet’s father had never taken from her.

The chanting paused as two figures appeared in the dark entryway. They were tall, thin, and unnaturally proportioned. From the forms it was obvious they were male and female but as they pulled back their hoods it was also obvious they were not human. Catlike red eyes peered down at the priests. White alabaster skin glistened in the glow of the torches. Elongated ears drooped on either side of their narrow heads. And when the male of the pair raised his right hand in acknowledgment of the priests’ prayers, six long fingers, festooned with jewels, waved their blessings.

Nosferatu recognized them from the thousands of times they had come to his cell and fed from Nekhbet and him. They were Isis and Osiris, the Goddess and the High Protector of Egypt, who had ruled from beneath the ground for over two thousand years. Egypt had prospered under their reign, the borders expanding down the green belt of the Nile and west and east to the edges of the desert. It was the cradle of civilization, the place where the majority of the survivors of the fall of Atlantis had been brought by the Gods. Beyond the borders of the Gods’ reign, there were humans, but they lived like animals according to what the high priests said.

Unseen by Nosferatu’s group, the priests, or the Gods, there was a fourth party in the depression, not far from them. A man named Kajilil, covered with a gray cloak that blended with the stone, tucked into a slight crack in the rock wall. He saw the priests, the Gods Isis and Osiris, and the group of six hiding on the opposite side. He was as still as the rock that surrounded him and as patient. He was one of the Wedjat, a Watcher, the fifty-second of his line, sworn to observe the Giza Plateau and the Gods. His line had watched from the very beginning, when the Gods had first arrived with the survivors of Atlantis.

When the priests got stiffly to their feet and shuffled away from the Black Sphinx toward their stone temple near the Nile, the Watcher remained still, eyes on the small group of half-breeds across the way. Only one man remained in the open, the high priest, standing in the entranceway to the Roads of Rostau between the Black Sphinx’s paws, waiting for the last of the supplicants to clear the area. As the high priest turned to follow Isis and Osiris into the depths, the group sprang into action, Nosferatu in the lead.

The high priest was reaching for an emblem around his neck to shut the stone door to the entranceway when Nosferatu leapt at him, dagger point in the lead. The tip of the blade punctured the side of the high priest’s throat, and Nosferatu pulled the handle hard to the side, severing the man’s jugular and preventing him from crying out a warning to the two Gods who were ahead of him.

The blood from the high priest’s still-beating heart sprayed over Nosferatu, drenching his face and chest. Nosferatu’s tongue snaked out, tasting the blood. He blinked, staggered, and felt a new surge of power. He leaned forward, mouth open wide, and drank in the weakening surges of arterial blood until the high priest died and there was no more. The blood coming from a living human was much more exhilarating than what he had always been fed secondhand from a flask, but not quite the same as what Nekhbet had shared with him.

With his free hand Nosferatu removed the emblem from the high priest’s neck.

Etched on it was an image of an eye within a triangle. Nosferatu moved into the tunnel, Nekhbet right behind him, the other four carefully stepping over the body of the high priest.

And behind them, like a shadow, the Watcher followed, keeping low to the ground and moving silently.

Nosferatu ran on the balls of his feet, his bare feet making no sound on the smooth stone. He felt powerful, stronger than he could ever remember feeling. He caught a glimpse of the tall figures of Isis and Osiris as he came around a bend in the tunnel and skidded to a halt, trying to control his breathing, sure the Gods would hear him in pursuit, but they continued around another bend, out of sight. He glanced over his shoulder. Nekhbet was right behind, and at his glance, she reached up and touched his shoulder lightly. He felt a wave of confidence from her touch. If they succeeded tonight, she would be at his side for eternity.

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-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 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 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 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, 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 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.

“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 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, blinking rapidly and painfully in the bright morning light, heads turning to and fro as if in search of their immediate future. Priests went to work, dipping leather straps in buckets of water and wrapping them around the limbs, working from the hands and feet inward. Each strap was an inch wide and spaced about two inches apart, leaving pale white flesh exposed between. The priests slowly continued until the arms and legs were encased up to the armpits and groin in strips of wet leather.

When they were done, once more the high priest chanted. “Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.” Then there was silence.

“What are they doing?” Vampyr demanded.

“I do not know,” Kajilil said. He had taken the looking device back and was peering through it. “I have never seen this before.”

The sun was rising behind them and had just struck the top of the Sphinx and the captives. Nosferatu narrowed the open strip in the cloth around his head. He shifted his gaze from Chatha and Lilith to Nekhbet. He could see how close she was to death. They had drained her even after he had taken his fill the previous night. And she had lost much blood from her wrist.

A moan escaped Chatha’s lips, carrying through the dry air. At first Nosferatu could not tell what caused her to cry out in pain. He assumed it was the sun striking skin and eyes that had not known daylight in many, many years. He took the looking device from Kajilil and peered through it. He noticed that the fingers on Chatha’s right hand were twitching uncontrollably. She cried out once more. The other hand was also twitching. Then Nosferatu saw the devilment the Gods had concocted and he cursed them. The leather was drying, and in doing so, contracting, pressing into the flesh. The straps were drying in the order they had been put on, from the outer ends of the limbs inward. Cutting off circulation, and pressing into the skin.

Nosferatu realized it was also the most devious and terrible torture that could have been devised for the state the two half-breeds were in, the bands forcing what little blood they had left into the centers of their bodies and keeping them alive, stopping the flow to the limbs bit by bit, while cutting into the flesh with inexorable pain.

Both were crying out by then, the screams forced from them by the waves of pain reverberating through their bodies.

“We must do something,” Vampyr hissed.

Nosferatu agreed with the emotion but he knew Kajilil was right. “There is nothing we can do.”

“My sister,” Vampyr whispered in despair. “They will pay. The Gods and the humans. They will pay for this.”

Vampyr rose and began to run forward toward the Black Sphinx. Nosferatu leapt up and chased him down, covering the distance between them in an instant. He wrapped his arms around the younger Undead, dragging him to the ground. Vampyr thrashed to and fro in his grasp. The fight was over when Kajilil rapped a stone on the side of Vampyr’s head, knocking him unconscious. They dragged Vampyr back to their observation post. Nosferatu tied Vampyr’s hands behind his back and bound his legs tightly together, then returned his attention to the top of the Black Sphinx.

The high priest stepped between the two crosses, spreading his arms to encompass both. “Behold the price of rebellion. Behold the price of betrayal. Behold the price of disobedience.”

The torture went on to the point where even watching was practically unbearable. Both women’s bodies were vibrating so violently that the sound of their backs hitting the wood as they spasmed in pain was clearly audible despite the screams. The bones in their legs and arms snapped, the sounds echoing across the gathered crowd. The humans gathered round looked on with perverted fascination.

Chatha died first, at least an hour after the last bands cut off all blood flow to her crushed limbs. The sun was nearly vertical overhead, indicating she had lived for almost five hours under the torture. And Lilith was still alive, although her screams were more muted, her throat parched and worn from the effort.

What would they do to Nekhbet? Nosferatu wondered. There was not a third cross on the Sphinx’s head, only the empty black tube.

Lilith finally raised her head and blindly looked to the sky as she cried out, “My brother. Avenge me.” Then at last she died with a whimper.

At her voice Vampyr rose out of his unconscious stupor, eyes blinking, great pain etched on his face. “My sister.” Vampyr hunched over in pain for his twin, bound fists clenched as he felt her death to the core of his being.

One of the Gods gestured and the high priest went over and leaned close to the God, listening. Then the high priest went between the two bodies. “There are two others like these out there. Two who have betrayed the Gods. If they do not make themselves known, a worse fate will be their last companion’s fate throughout the ages.” At that, the high priest pointed at Nekhbet.

Two priests grabbed her arms and pulled her back, placing her inside the open black sarcophagus. A belt was placed around her waist and she was chained to the interior. One of the Gods went over to her, placing the bands with leads around her arms and legs. The God reached in and took the crown out of its slot, settling it on top of Nekhbet’s head. Peering through the cylinder, Nosferatu could see that there were also wires running from the crown back to the tube. Done, the God stepped away.

Over a hundred years. That was how long Nekhbet and Nosferatu had shared the same cell and fate. They had talked at every opportunity. At first of reality, but then they had begun inventing new worlds, imaginary places to which they could disappear together.

“She will suffer the living sleep,” the high priest called out. “Trapped in this, unable to die, unable to sleep, unable to move. Aware all the time. Unless you show yourself.”

Kajilil placed a hand on Nosferatu’s shoulder. “If you show yourself, both of you will suffer the same fate as your two comrades. And they will kill her too. She is only alive because you and your comrade are free.”

Nosferatu stared through the looking tube, focusing on Nekhbet’s face. He had been alone for a hundred years before they brought her in. What they were condemning her to was even more cruel than the past had been. They were keeping her alive to draw him in. He knew that and he knew it would work. But not then. And not on their terms.

Patience. It was the one thing that Gods had forced upon him.

Nekhbet turned her head slightly so that her eyes were dead on with his, as if she could know where he was and could see him. She smiled and shook her head ever so slightly.

The top of the tube was swung shut, enclosing Nekhbet. Nosferatu stared through the looking tube as the God went to the panel and long fingers tapped on it. Through his despair, Nosferatu tried to memorize the pattern.

Before returning to his place at the front, the high priest again went to one of the Gods and listened. “Hear this, traitors and murderers. You will be tracked down. And you will suffer an even more horrible fate.”

A phalanx of guards surrounded the tube, which remained on top of the Black Sphinx, a beacon to draw Nosferatu in. The high priests followed by the Gods, slowly walked down the ramp and into the darkness of the Roads of Rostau.

Vampyr twisted his head toward Nosferatu. “I will never forgive you for today.”

“You would be dead if you had gone down there,” Nosferatu argued. “I would rather have died trying to save her,” Vampyr said.

To that Nosferatu had no answer. For a long time they sat in the dark shadows, stunned and overwhelmed by what they had witnessed.

Kajilil’s voice broke the silence. “Perhaps, when things have changed, as they will with time, you may return. But for now, I think it is best that you both leave Egypt and go as far away as possible.” He took two large leather pouches that jingled slightly and handed one each to Nosferatu and Vampyr. “Take this gold. Go across the sands to the east until you reach the Red Sea. There you will be able to hire a boat to take you far away.”

“There is no ‘perhaps,’” Nosferatu said. “I will be back.”

“But not soon,” Kajilil said, the words both a statement and a warning. Nosferatu knew Kajilil’s words were true. It would be a long time before he could come back to claim Nekhbet.

“Can you get me into the Roads this evening?” “You cannot rescue her,” Kajilil said. “She will be guarded. You saw one of the creatures the Gods use to guard the Roads. There are others.”

“I know that,” Nosferatu said. “Can you get me back to the chamber in which I was held? It is empty now. The Gods will not expect me to return.” Kajilil frowned. “Why?”

“If I am to wait a long time, I need to do to myself as they have done to her. I will need my own black tube so I can use the deep sleep.”

“Mine too,” Vampyr said. “I will bide my time. But I swear revenge for my sister.” Vampyr stared at Nosferatu with half-lidded eyes, his lips still covered with the dried blood they had tasted on the Roads of Rostau.

Kajilil considered their request and nodded. “Tonight. Then you both must leave. They will be looking for you.”

Nosferatu’s eyes were on the Black Sphinx. “There will come a day when they will no longer rule.” He tapped his chest. “Then I will be back for my love.”

Vampyr glared down at the site of his sister’s death. “This is the Third Age. The Age of Man.” He tapped his chest. “Someday it will be our age. The Fourth Age. The time of the Undead.”