Blood Lines

of old horror films.
    Her opinion of those had decided him against mentioning, in even a theoretical way, the idea that seemed to have possessed him.
    Possessed … He shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets and hunched his shoulders against the chill wind. Let's come up with another word, shall we …
    When it came right down to it, there was only one person he could tell who'd listen to everything he had to say before she told him that he'd lost his mind.
    * * *

    'Nelson. Private investigations."
    'Christ, Vicki, it's one seventeen in the afternoon. Don't tell me you're still asleep."
    'You know, Celluci…" She yawned audibly and stretched into a more comfortable position in the recliner. "… you're beginning to sound like my mother."
    She heard him snort. "You spend the night with Fitzroy?"
    'Not exactly." When she'd finally gone to bed, having slept most of the day, she'd had to leave the bedroom light on.
    Lying there in the dark, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was beside her again, lifeless and empty. What sleep she'd managed to eventually get, had been fitful and dream filled. Just before dawn, she'd called Henry. Although he'd convinced her-and at the same time, she suspected, himself-that this morning at least he had no intention of giving his life to the sun, guilt about not actually being there had kept her awake until long after sunrise. She'd been dozing off and on all day.
    'Look, Vicki," Celluci took a deep breath, audible over the phone lines, "what do you know about mummies?"
    'Well, mine's a pain in the butt." The silence didn't sound all that amused, so she continued. "The ancient embalmed Egyptian kind or the monster movie matinee kind?"
    'Both."
    Vicki frowned at the receiver. Missing from that single word had been the arrogant self-confidence that usually colored everything Mike Celluci said. "You're on the ROM case." She knew he was; all three papers had mentioned him as the investigating officer.
    'Yeah."
    'You want to tell me about it?" Even at the height of their competitiveness, they'd bounced ideas off each other, arguing them down to bare essentials, then rebuilding the case from the ground up.
    'I think…" He sighed and her frown deepened. "… I'm going to need to see your face."
    'Now?"
    'No. I still work for a living. How about dinner? I'll buy."
    Shit, this is serious . She pushed her glasses up on her nose. "Champion House at six?"
    'Five thirty. I'll meet you there."
    Vicki sat for a moment, staring down at the phone. She'd never heard Celluci sound so out of his depth. "Mummies…"
    she said at last and headed for the pile of "to be recycled" newspapers in her office. Spreading them out on her weight bench, she scanned the articles on the recent deaths at the museum. Forty minutes later, she picked up a hand weight and absently began doing biceps curls. Her memory hadn't been faulty; according to Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci, there was no mummy .
    It was cold and it was raining as he walked from Queen's Park back to his hotel, but then, it was October and it was Toronto. According to the ka of Dr. Rax, when the latter conditions were met, the former naturally followed. He decided that, for now, he would treat it as a new experience to be examined and endured, but that later, when his god had acquired more power, perhaps something could be done about the weather.
    It had been a most productive day and the day was not yet over.

    He had spent the morning sitting and weighing the currents of power eddying about the large room full of shouting men and women. Question period they called it. The name seemed apt, for although there were plenty of questions there seemed to be very few answers. He had been pleased to see that government-and those who sought positions in it-had not changed significantly in millennia. The provinces of Egypt had been very like the provinces of this new land, essentially autonomous and only nominally under the control of the central government. It was a system he understood and could work with.
    Amazed at how little both adult ka he had devoured knew of politics, he had convinced a scribe-now called a press secretary-to join him for food. After using barely enough power to ripple the surface of the man's mind, he had sat and listened to an outpouring of information, both professional and personal, about the Members of the Provincial Parliament that lasted almost two and a half hours. Taking the man's ka would have been faster, but until