Blood Lines

cataloged-measured, described, given the card number 991.862.1-and now existed as an official possession of the Royal Ontario Museum. The time had come.
    'Is the video camera ready?" he asked pulling on a pair of new cotton gloves.
    'Ready, Doctor." Doris Bercarich, who took care of most of the departmental photography, squinted through the view finder. She'd already taken two films of still photography-one black and white, one color-and her camera now hung around the neck of the more mechanically competent of the two grad students. He'd continue to take photographs while she shot tape. If she had anything to say about it, and she did, this was going to be one well documented mummy.
    'Ready, Dr. Shane?"
    'Ready, Dr. Rax." She tugged at the cuffs of her gloves, then picked up the sterile cotton pad that would catch the removed seal. "You can start any time."
    He nodded, took a deep breath, and knelt. With the sterile pad in place, he slid the flexible blade of the palette knife behind the seal and carefully worked at the centuries old clay. Although his hands were sure, his stomach tied itself in knots, tighter and tighter as the seconds passed and his fear grew that the seal, in spite of the preservatives, could be removed only as a featureless handful of red clay. While he worked, he kept up a low-voiced commentary of the physical sensations he was receiving through the handle of the knife.
    Then he felt something give and a hairline crack appeared diagonally across the outer surface of the seal.
    For a heartbeat the only sound in the room was the soft whir of the video camera.
    A heartbeat later, the seal, broken cleanly in two, halves held in place by the preservative, lay on the cotton pad.
    As one, the Department of Egyptology remembered how to breathe.
    He felt the seal break, heard the fracture resonate throughout the ages.
    He remembered who he was. What he was. What they had done to him.
    He remembered anger.
    He drew on the anger for strength, then he threw himself against his bonds. Too much of the spell remained; he was now aware but still as bound as he had been. His ka howled in silent frustration.
    I will be free!
    'Soon," came the quiet answer . "Soon."

    It took the rest of the day to clear the mortar. In spite of mounting paperwork, Dr. Rax remained in the workroom.
    'Well, whatever they sealed up in here, they certainly didn't make it easy to get to." Dr. Shane straightened, one hand rubbing the small of her back. "You're sure that his lordship had no idea of where the venerable ancestor picked this up?"
    Dr. Rax ran one finger along the joint. "No, none." He had expected to be elated once work finally began but he found he was only impatient. Everything moved so slowly- a fact he was well aware of and shouldn't even be considering as a problem. He scrubbed at his eyes and tried to banish the disquieting vision of taking a sledge to the stone.
    Dr. Shane sighed and bent back to the mortar. "What I wouldn't give for some contextual information."
    'We'll know everything we need to when we get the sarcophagus open."
    She glanced up at him, one raised brow disappearing under a curl of dark hair. "You seem very sure of that."
    'I am." And he was, very sure. In fact he knew that they would have all the answers they needed when the sarcophagus was finally opened although he had no idea where that knowledge came from. He wiped suddenly sweaty palms on his trousers. No idea…
    By the time they finished removing the mortar, it was too late to do any further work that day-or more exactly, that night. They would see what their stone box contained in the morning.
    That night, Dr. Rax dreamed of a griffinlike animal with the body of an antelope and the head of a bird. It peered down at him with too-bright eyes and laughed. He got up, barely rested, at dawn and was at the museum hours before the rest of the department arrived. He intended to avoid the workroom, to use the extra time for the administrative paperwork that threatened to bury his desk, but his key was in the lock and his hand was pushing open the door before his conscious mind registered the action.
    'I almost did it," he said as Dr. Shane came in some time later. He was sitting in an orange plastic chair, hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles were white.
    She didn't have to ask what he meant. "Good thing you're too much of a scientist to give way to impulse," she told him lightly, privately thinking that he looked like shit. "As soon as the