Blood Lines

accompany Lady Wallington on her expedition. The city had started to feel like it was closing around him, as if it were some large and complicated trap. Perhaps a few hours away from it would clear his head.
    They stepped out of the carriage onto moon-silvered sand that drifted up against the base of the monuments like new fallen snow, its purity broken by the pits that marked vandalized tombs or sunken shrines. The light had erased the patina of age from the pyramids and they in turn cast dark bands of shadow across the features of the Sphinx so that he looked both more and less human as he gazed enigmatically down on the night. Unfortunately, flaring torches and crawling bodies marred the pale sides of the Great Pyramid and the sounds of their progress carried clearly on the desert air.
    'Hot damn, ain't we there yet?"
    'While I admire Americans as a breed," Lady Wallington sighed, tucking her hand in the crook of Henry's elbow,
    "there are a few individuals I could gladly do without."
    As they approached the pyramid, they braced themselves for the charge of self-styled guides, antiquities peddlers, and assorted beggars who stood clustered around the base waiting for the chance to part foreigners from their money.
    'How strange," Lady Wallington murmured, as the men remained where they were, peering out at them from under their turbans and muttering to themselves in Arabic. "Although, I suppose we can manage quite well without them."
    But she looked rather dubiously at the monument as she spoke, for in full evening dress the three to three and a half foot steps would not be easy to navigate without assistance. Most of the women already climbing had two men pulling from above and another pushing from below.
    Henry frowned. Under the scent of dirt and sweat and spice, he could smell fear. As he leapt up onto the first block and reached down for Lady Wallington's hand, one of them made the sign against the evil eye.
    Lady Wallington followed his gaze and laughed. "Don't mind that," she explained as he lifted her easily up onto the next level, "it's just that in the torchlight your hair looks redder than it generally does and red hair is the mark of Set, the Egyptian version of the devil."
    'Then I won't mind it," he reassured her with a smile. But the smile would have meant more if he hadn't seen the knot of men melt away the moment he'd climbed beyond the range of a normal man's vision.
    Over the years, the top of the pyramid had been removed, leaving a flat area about thirty feet square at the summit.
    Breathing a little heavily, Lady Wallington collapsed onto one of the scattered blocks and was immediately surrounded by natives who tried to sell her everything from bad reproductions of papyrus scrolls, guaranteed genuine, to the finger of a mummy, undeniably genuine. Henry, they ignored. He left her to her purchases and wandered closer to the eastern edge where, past the obsidian ribbon that was the Nile, he could see the twinkling lights of Cairo.
    They came from upwind, moving so quietly that mortal ears would not have heard them. Henry caught the sound of hearts pounding in a half dozen chests and turned long before they were ready.

    One man moaned, grimy fist shoved up to cover his mouth. Another stepped back, whites showing all around his eyes.
    The remaining four only froze where they stood and over the stronger stink of fear, Henry caught the smell of steel and saw moonlight glint on edged weapons.
    'An open place for thieves," he remarked conversationally, hoping he wouldn't have to kill them.
    'We are not here to steal from you, afreet ," their leader said softly, his voice pitched so that none of the other foreigners on the pyramid would hear, "but to give you a warning. We know what you are. We know what you do in the night."
    'I don't know what you're talking about." The protest was purely instinctive; Henry didn't expect to be believed. Even as he spoke, he realized from their bearing that they did know what he was and what he did and that the only option left was to find out what they intended to do about it.
    'Please, afreet …" The leader spread his hands, his meaning plain.
    Henry nodded, once, and allowed the persona of slightly vapid Englishman to drift away. "What do you want?" he asked, the weight of centuries giving his voice an edge.
    The leader stroked his beard with fingers that trembled slightly and all six carefully kept from meeting Henry's gaze.
    "We want only to warn you. Leave.