Blood Lines

been lined with the aromatic wood. Someone sneezed although no one noticed who. A long strip of fabric, closely covered in scarlet hieroglyphs was wrapped around the body following the path the serpent had taken around the coffin. The mummy wore no death mask, but features were visible in relief through the cloth.
    The dry air of Egypt was good to the dead, preserving them for the future to study by leeching all the moisture from even protected tissue. Embalming was only the first step and, as sites that predated the pharaohs proved, not even the most necessary one.
    Desiccated was the only word to describe the face beneath the linen, although other, more flattering words might have been used once, for the cheekbones were high and sharp, the chin determined, and the overall impression one of strength.
    Dr. Rax let out a long breath he hadn't been aware of holding and the tension visibly left his shoulders.
    'You were expecting maybe Bela Lugosi?" Dr. Shane asked dryly, pitched for his ears alone. The look he turned on her-half horror, half exhaustion-made her regret the words almost instantly. "Can we go home now?" she asked in a tone deliberately light. "Or did you want to cram another two years of research into this evening?"
    He did. He saw his hand reach out and hover over the strip of hieroglyphs. He snatched it back.
    'Pack it up," he said, straightening, forcing his voice to show no sign of how he had to fight to form the words. "We'll deal with it Monday." Then he turned and, before he could change his mind, strode from the workroom.
    * * *
    He would have laughed aloud had it been possible, unable to contain the rush of exaltation. His body might still be bound, but with the opening of his prison his ka was free.
    Free… freed… feed.
    Chapter Two
    'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
    Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci frowned at his companion. "What the hell are you babbling about?"
    'Babbling? I was not babbling. I was ruminating on the monuments that man builds to man." Pushing her glasses securely into place, Vicki Nelson bent, stiff-legged, and laid both palms against the concrete at her feet.
    Celluci snorted at this blatant display of flexibility- obviously intended to remind him of his limitations-tilted his head back and gazed up the side of the CN Tower. From their position at its base, foreshortening made it appear simultaneously infinite and squat, the radio antennae that extended its height, hidden behind the bulge of the restaurants and observation deck. "Cows ruminate," he grunted. "And I assume you mean man in the racial sense rather than the genetic."
    Vicki shrugged, the motion almost lost in her position. "Maybe." She straightened and grinned. "But they don't call it the world's tallest free-standing phallic symbol for nothing."
    'Dream on." He sighed as she grasped her left ankle and lifted the leg up until it rose into the air at a better than forty-five-degree angle. "And quit showing off. You ready to climb this thing yet?"
    'Just waiting for you to finish warming up."
    Celluci smiled. "Then get ready to eat my dust."

    A number of charitable organizations used the one thousand, seven hundred and ninety steps of the CN Tower as a means of raising money, climbers collecting pledges per step from friends and business associates. The Heart Fund was sponsoring the current climb; as well as a starting time, both Vicki and Celluci had starting pulses measured.
    'You'll find the run pretty clear," the volunteer told them as he wrote Vicki's heart rate down on a slip of paper. "You're like the six and seventh up and the others have been serious racers."
    'What makes you think we aren't?" Celluci asked belligerently. With his last birthday, he'd started on the downhill run to forty and was finding himself a little sensitive about it.
    'Well…" The younger man swallowed nervously-very few people do belligerent as well as the police. "… you're like both wearing sweats and normal running shoes. Climbers one to five were seriously aerodynamic."
    Vicki snickered, knowing full well what had prompted Celluci's question. He glared but, recognizing he'd probably come out the worse for any comment, kept his mouth shut. With their time stamped, they ran for the stairs.
    The volunteer had been both right and wrong. Neither of them cared about racing the other climbers or the tower itself, but they couldn't have been more serious about racing each other.