Bless the Child (36 page)

Beside the golden throne, a young man stood. He was tall as the Nile reeds that shaded the sacred ibises, and he was obviously of Pharaoh’s lineage. The finely chiseled nose and jaw, the stature far above the norm, the bearing of a king’s son, marked him as the heir to the Crook and Flail of the Double Kingdom.

He was both foreign and familiar to the dream/Maggie. She watched and listened, straining to know why he filled her with such desperate longing.

The young man spoke and the Pharaoh listened. The courtiers murmured among themselves at his wisdom, and the Ptah priests nodded knowingly to each other. The dreamer heard them say he would soon be ready to Cross the Abyss . . .

Maggie stirred restlessly in her sleep. Fear lapped at her, somewhere in the dream world . . . She reached out again without knowing why.

Karaden. His royal name was Snefru, son of Zoser-Horus-Neteri-Khet, but he was called Karaden. He was speaking . . . pontificating really, as if he were much older than his years. And his manner, so formal, so imperial, was so familiar . . .

Peter.
What was Peter doing in her dream? No, it couldn’t be Peter at Pharaoh’s court. That was so long ago . . .

So long . . .

So sad.

So
sad.
So
long . . .

Maggie opened her eyes and tried to blink back the dream. Why did these strange dreams all fade so quickly, so elusively that only fragments of knowing remained.

She would give anything to remember. Except that they always made her feel so sad.

J
enna’s body, seen through the nearly transparent black robe, was exquisite. High, full breasts with upturned nipples, waist narrow as a sigh, gently swelling hips, caught with an exquisite golden girdle of filigreed leaves and flowers. Her head was crowned with a gilded circlet, surmounted by a cobra’s arching body: her pale blond hair beneath it gleamed nearly silver in the candlelight. Confidently, she took her place at the altar, and raised both arms skyward in salute to Sekhmet.

The malevolent cat-headed Goddess’s statue was carved from black granite; around her neck and arms, huge precious gems reflected back the torchlight in a dazzling display. Looking every inch the priestess of an evil Goddess, Jenna took her place at the altar’s foot. She had been looking forward to this new level of initiation into the rituals of Maa Kheru.

“Even you, Ghania, just admit she has done this in previous life-times,” Eric said, watching the neophyte’s performance with a critical eye, form the back of the chapel. “One doesn’t learn this craft in a single incarnation.”

“Had she never been a priestess, she would not have been chosen as the vessel, Eric, as you well know. By the same token, had she not failed her Goddess, she would not be quite so expendable.”

“Touché, Ghania. You are right, as usual. You and I chose our Master long ago . . . Jenna arrived on his Left Hand Path by default. Nevertheless, she plays her role superbly tonight. She is a pleasure to watch, is she not? The Gods have crafted her clay to perfection, if not the spirit within.” He glanced sideways at Ghania’s scowl, then added with malicious amusement, “You are jealous of her body, Ghania . . . admit it to me. The perfect breasts, the loins so ripe for pleasure . . . you cannot tell me you do not envy her my bed.”

“Age is an unrelenting master, Eric,” Ghania replied, annoyed. “Someday, you, too, will envy youth.”

“But I was your
favorite,
wasn’t I, Ghania?” he prodded, like a petulant child. “And you
do
envy her. I insist that you tell me the truth.”

Ghania smiled slyly. “In this century, perhaps you were the best, arrogant boy. But there have been other,
better
centuries.” She turned and left him standing chagrined, at the mercy of Nicholas Sayles’s knowing smirk.

“You may own the old witch, Eric,” Nicky said, “but you will never best her.”

“I could have her heart cut out and fried for supper,” Eric replied harshly.

“True enough. But you will never best her.” Nicky’s laughter was very irritating, and reminded Eric that he might have let the man live too long, already.

D
evlin and Maggie were already seated in her parlor, when Gino arrived. He was dressed in chinos and a navy sweater, that somehow accentuated his Mediterranean sensuality. He didn’t look at all as Maggie had imagined.

She shook his hand with a broad smile. “I’ve heard so much about you Gino, I thought I’d recognize you on sight, but Dev forgot to tell me you look like a movie star.”

“You’d be surprised how few people he mentions that to,” Garibaldi laughed caught off guard by her openness.

“On second thought,” Devlin interjected, “maybe wanting you two to meet each other wasn’t such a red-hot idea.”

“Nah,” Gino countered, “we got too much to talk about here to be distracted by just another pretty face. Besides, you never looked lovelier yourself, Lieutenant.”

It was obvious the two men were buddies, and that made Maggie feel relieved; it was good to know Dev wasn’t entirely alone in his efforts.

“What’ve you got for us, Gino,” Devlin prompted.

“A lot of not enough, Lieutenant. I called a guy who called a guy, if you know what I mean, in the DEA, and the story is they’ve been watching our pigeons for a long time. We’re talking big bucks here. Major pipeline out of the Golden Triangle, through India and East Africa, et cetera, et cetera. You know the drill.

“A lot of dirty money seems to go through the Vannier family laundromat, but the word comes from on high that nobody’s supposed to pull the plug on their operation, because of Somebody’s-Ongoing-Something-or-Other, which makes it more important to keep these creeps in business than to put them out of it.
Capishce?”

Maggie looked startled. “You mean to tell me that the Drug Enforcement Agency knows that Vannier and Sayles are in the heroin business, and doesn’t do anything about it?”

The men exchanged glances and Gino answered her. “What I’m saying is
sometimes,
for those guys in the DEA, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. And sometimes, they watch an operation a long, long time before they pull the plug on it. Of course, sometimes, they never pull the plug, because they’re told not to by somebody higher up.”

“Who’s higher up?”

“The Justice Department, the President, the FBI, or CIA, maybe. A lot of people. Sometimes even a local DA, if he’s got real clout. Face it, Maggie. A lot of scumbags never get nailed, because somebody needs them to roll over on some bigger scumbag . . . or just because the system sucks, about certain things. That’s why a lot of the time we cops feel like we spend all our time rearranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic.
”

Gino sat back, and looked at Maggie. “I been looking forward to meeting you,” he said, with a genuine smile. “Believe it or not, the Lieutenant, here, is usually a very sane kinda guy. I wanted to see what kind of woman would make him take on Darth Vader and the Dark Side, all by his lonesome.”

“I’m sorry to have involved either of you in anything so dangerous,” Maggie said with concern. “I had absolutely no idea what I was getting you into, and I would understand completely if you ran like hell.”

Gino scanned her face a moment, judging her sincerity, then said, “You’re right, Lieutenant, she is a nice lady.” Then he relaxed for the first time.

“Tell you what,” he said leaning forward, his voice kindly. “Why don’t you tell me some stuff about this little kid we all got on our minds . . . She must be real special . . .”

G
hania took the little mouse from the pocket of her djellabah and dangled it by its tail in front of Cody, before letting it crawl up her arm and perch on her shoulder. She was in rare good humor this morning; Cody could see that Ghania was almost playful. This fact filled the child with apprehension, for it was a lie.

She felt a kind of numbness now, from the relentless succession of batterings and pleasantries that Ghania dished out, seemingly at random. In the beginning, she had tried to avoid provoking the fearsome attacks that brought pain—but the pain always came, anyway. The only escape was to go underground, hiding deep within herself, where there was safety in the Light. It was growing stronger . . . and sometimes, now, it seemed to her that someone lived there. Someone good.

“You may play with the mouse,” the witch said, with an indulgent smile. “She is very soft, and very intelligent.”

Cody reached out a tentative hand and picked up the tiny pinkish gray creature from Ghania’s shoulder. It squiggled itself free of her grip, dropped to her lap, and scooted across the bench so speedily the child couldn’t help but giggle.

“You can talk to the little creatures of the earth, like this mouse, you know. You have the gift,” Ghania said, and Cody looked up in surprise. “You must listen carefully when they are near, child, and you must quiet your mind to listen, for they speak softly. You will hear their thoughts, if you do as I say.”

Cody shook her head doubtfully.

“No?” Ghania queried. “You do not think so? Well, I know better!” She pursed her lips in a pensive expression.

“You do not remember your magic,” she said finally, as if the fact filled her with sorrow.

Cody blinked. “What magic?”

“The magic that is in your soul, little one. It is very big, very powerful, but you have forgotten how to use it.” She made a clucking sound of regret.

Cody looked puzzled. “I don’t know any magic.”

Ghania smiled expansively. “Ah, but you
do,
child! You do indeed. This is why Ghania is training you . . . this is why Ghania is bothering with you at all! You have
much
magic . . . I do not bother with ordinary children.”

“You don’t?” Cody thought it would be very good if Ghania didn’t bother her, anymore.

“No, child,” Ghania assured her in a most amiable way. “Ghania’s skills are only for the
Special Ones.”

Cody frowned and said nothing; she had seen Ghania’s skills in action. Even if Ghania was pretending to be nice today, it didn’t mean she was a nice person.

“Would you like to learn about your magic?” Ghania wheedled, and Cody nodded, uncertainly.

“Here is what you must do then, little one. You must make your mind very still . . . then you must reach deep down inside yourself to the
secret
places. If you look hard enough, you will see things there that will make you remember.”

“What kind of things?”

Ghania laughed and Cody shuddered. Ghania’s laughter usually had ugly consequences.

“Everyone sees different things in the depths, child. Some see demons, some see angels. You have the rare power to see both! It is easiest to see them when you are hurt or frightened. That is why Ghania does things to you, sometimes. Ghania hurts you, to help you find your magic.” Instinctively, Cody backed away.

“Not today, child. Do not fear,” Ghania said with a knowing smile. “Today there will be no pain. But in the old days, in the time of the Old Gods, there was much suffering to be gone through, before the magic would come. I, myself, was buried for three days in an ant hill, before my magic was fully formed . . .” She shook her great head in disgust at the memory.

“Didn’t the ants bite you?” Cody asked, fascinated, horrified.

“They bit me and they crawled into my eyes and my ears . . . I could not breathe or see. I could not scream, for I thought they would swarm into my mouth and kill me . . .” Ghania’s face was haunted by the remembered horror. “But the magic came,” she said finally, her voice oddly hushed. “The magic came.”

“I wouldn’t want it to come that way,” Cody exclaimed. “No magic!” she said vehemently, as if to ward it off.

“It will come to you, too, little one,” Ghania said relentlessly, in a voice as close to compassion as Cody had ever heard her use. “You are trapped by the magic within you, as I was trapped by mine. To be chosen by the Gods is the most terrible fate of all.”