Blood Lines

caught up in getting out of Henry's apartment that she hadn't even asked him about the dream. For a moment she considered going back, then she grinned and shook her head, willing to bet that he'd be incapable of thinking coherently, let alone worrying, for the rest of the night. Tony had picked up a number of interesting skills during his years on the street, not the least of those being distraction.
    Chapter Five
    He gazed over the breakfast table-a bowl of strawberries and melon, three eggs over easy, six slices of rare roast beef, corn muffins, a chilled glass of apricot nectar, and a pot of fresh brewed coffee-nodded a satisfied dismissal at the young woman who delivered it, and snapped open his copy of the national paper. While he'd had the morning editions of all three Toronto papers delivered, it had been easy to tell which he should read first. Only one had more text than pictures.
    After devouring the child's ka, he had spent the rest of the day acquiring suitable garments and a place to stay. The shopkeepers in the small and very exclusive men's wear stores along Bloor Street West had been so concerned with status that they'd been almost embarrassingly easy to enchant and later the manager of the Park Plaza Hotel had responded so well to appearance and arrogance that he'd barely needed to use power at all.
    He had registered as Anwar Tawfik, a name he'd pulled from the ka of Elias Rax. Not since the time of Merinar, the first Pharaoh, had he used his true name and by the time the priests of Thoth trapped and bound him, he'd been called so many things that they could place only what he was, not who, on their binding spell. If they'd had his true name, he'd not have gotten free so easily.
    He'd chosen the Park Plaza because it overlooked both the museum and, a little farther south, the provincial seat of government. He could, in fact, see both from the windows of his corner suite. The museum held only a certain amount of sentimental significance. Queen's Park, he would take as his own.
    In the old days, when those who had held secular power had also wielded religious might, when there had been no division between the two and the Pharaoh had been the living Horus, he had had to build his power structure from the bottom up, from the disenfranchised and the discontented. In this age, Church and State were kept forcibly separate and that left the State ripe for his plucking.
    Often in those days, he found only enough unsworn ka to extend his own life and had hoarded what power he had lest he and his god ultimately perish. Now, with so few sworn, he had no need to conserve power. He could use what magic he wished, bend the mighty to his will, knowing that a multitude existed for him to feed from.

    Akhekh, he knew, would not properly appreciate the situation. His lord had… simple tastes. A temple, a few acolytes, and a little generated despair kept Akhekh happy.
    Folding the paper into quarters, he poured himself a cup of coffee and sat back, allowing the October sun to brush warmth across his face. He had awoken in a cold, gray land where leaves the color of blood lay damply underfoot. He missed the clean golden lines of the desert, the presence of the Nile, the smell of spice and sweat but, as the world he missed no longer existed, he would make this world his own.
    And frankly, he didn't see how anyone could stop him.
    'Homicide. Detective-Sergeant Celluci. You sure? Caused by what?"
    Dave Graham watched his partner scowl and took bets with himself as to who was on the other end of the phone.
    There were a number of reports still outstanding although they had already received the photographs and an analysis from the lab on the contents of the trap.
    'You're sure there's nothing else?" Celluci drummed on the desktop with his fingertips. "Yeah. Yeah, thanks."
    Although obviously annoyed, he hung up the phone with exaggerated care-the department had refused to replace any more receivers. "Dr. Rax died because his heart stopped."
    Ah, the coroner. He owed himself a quarter. "And why did the good doctor's heart stop?"
    Celluci snorted. "They don't know." He picked up his coffee, swirled it around to break the scum that had formed over the last two hours, and drank. "Apparently, it just stopped."
    'Drugs? Disease?"
    'Nada. There were signs of a struggle, but no evidence of a blow to the chest. He'd had a sandwich, a glass of milk, and a piece of blueberry pie about four hours before he died. He was, according to