Blood Lines

bird crowned with three uraei and three sets of wings. He'd sketched the creature who had been watching his dreams.
    'And now that I think of it," he pushed his chair back so that he could reach the bookcase behind the desk, "you look awfully familiar. Yes… here we are…" His drawing matched the illustration almost line for line. "Amazing what the subconscious remembers." Ignoring a cold feeling of dread, he skimmed the text. "Akhekh, a predynastic god of upper Egypt absorbed into the conqueror's religion to become a form of the evil god Set…" The book slid out of hands gone limp and crashed to the floor. The eyes of Akhekh, eyes printed in black, had, for an instant, burned red.
    Heart in his throat, Dr. Rax bent forward and gingerly picked up the book. It had closed as it fell and he had no desire to open it again.
    Elias. Come. It is time .
    'Time for what?" he called before he realized the voice he answered was in his head.
    He carefully put the book on the desk then rubbed at his temples with trembling fingers. "Right. First I'm seeing things.
    Now I'm hearing things. I think it's time I went home and had a large Scotch and a long sleep."
    The weakness in his legs surprised him when he stood. He held onto the back of his chair until he was sure he could walk without his knees buckling, then made his way slowly across the room. At the door, he grabbed his jacket and flicked off the light, trying not to think of two eyes glowing red in the darkness behind him as he made his way across the outer office.
    'This is ridiculous." He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath as he started down the hallway to the elevators.
    "I'm a scientist, not some superstitious old fool frightened of the dark. I've just been working too hard." The dim quiet of the hall laid balm on his jangled nerves and by the time he reached the door to the workroom his heartbeat and breathing had almost returned to normal.
    Elias. Come.
    He turned and faced the door, unable to stop himself. From a distance, he felt his hand go into his pocket for his keys, saw them turn in the lock, heard the quiet movement of air as the door opened, smelled the cedar that had been filling the room with its scent since they'd opened the coffin, tasted fear. His legs carried him forward.
    The plastic over the coffin had been thrown aside.
    The coffin itself was empty save for a pile of linen wrappings already beginning to decay.
    The physical compulsion left him and he sagged against the ancient wood. A man stooped with age, eyes deep sunk over ax blade cheekbones, flesh clinging to bone and skin stretched tight, walked out of the shadows. Somehow, he had known that it would come to this and that knowledge kept the terror just barely at bay. From the moment he had first seen the seal, he had felt this moment approaching.
    'Des… troy those." The voice creaked like two pieces of old wood rubbing together.
    Dr. Rax looked down at the linen wrappings and then up at the man who had so recently worn them that the marks still showed imprinted on his skin. "Do what?"
    'There must be… no evi… dence."
    'Evidence? Of what?"
    'Of me."
    'But you're evidence of you."
    'Des… troy them."
    'No." Dr. Rax shook his head. "You may be…" And then it hit him, finally broke through the cocoon of fate or destiny or whatever had been insulating him from what was actually going on. This man, this creature, had been entombed in the Eighteenth Dynasty, over three thousand years ago. Only his white-knuckled grip on the coffin kept him standing.
    "How…?"
    Something that might have been a smile twisted the ancient mouth. "Magic."
    'There's no such…" Except obviously there was, so he let the protest die.
    The smile flattened into an expression much more unpleasant. "Des… troy them."
    As he had been while opening the workroom door, Dr. Rax found himself shunted off into an enclosed section of his mind while his body obeyed another's will. Only this time, he was conscious of it. The fog was gone.
    He watched himself gather up the linen wrappings and carry them over to the sink.
    'That… too."
    Fighting to stop himself, he lifted the strip of hieroglyphs from the worktable and added it to the rest. When he went into the darkroom, he knew the creature was using his mind-fire would have been an Eighteenth Dynasty solution, chemicals were not. A bottle of concentrated ascorbic acid dissolved the rotting fabric sufficiently to wash the entire mess down the drain and although his