Blood Lines

that his life would be an adequate source of power.
    At the moment, he had all the power he needed. He felt wonderful. An infant's life, so very nearly entirely unrealized potential, was a pleasure to absorb. Occasionally, in the past, when his fortunes were high, he would buy a female slave, have her impregnated by an acolyte, and devour the life of the child at the moment of its birth. The slave's birth pains and then the despair at the loss of her child became a sacrifice to Akhekh. Such nourishment took careful purchasing and then constant monitoring, however, as the children of some women could be claimed by the gods while still in the womb. Perhaps, with so few gods active, when Akhekh's temple had been built anew, he would be able to feed in such a way as a matter of course.
    He raised his personal temperature another two degrees just because he had the power to spare. It was too lovely a day to return to the enclosure of his hotel room. He would walk to the park, ward a small area, and soak up a few rays while he searched for the ka that blazed so brightly.
    'Mike, it's Vicki. It's about two-ten, Sunday afternoon. Call me when you've got time to talk." She hung up the phone and reached for her jacket. Now that they knew high-ranking police officers were involved and, given those same officers had already pulled him off the case, a tap on Celluci's phone line was a possibility; a slim one, granted, but Vicki saw no reason to discount it just because the odds were ridiculously high. After all, they were hunting down an ancient Egyptian mummy and who'd want to figure the odds on that.
    'An ancient Egyptian mummy named Anwar Tawfik." She hoisted her shoulder bag up into position. "How much do you want to bet that's not its real name." Still, it was the only name they had, so she planned on spending the afternoon checking the hotels clustered around the Royal Ontario Museum. Everything pointed to it having remained in that area and, from what Henry had to say, Mr. Tawfik apparently preferred to travel first class. She wondered briefly how it paid for such a lifestyle and muttered, "Maybe it has a platinum Egyptian Express card. Don't be entombed without it."
    Henry.
    Henry wanted to get as far away from this creature and its visions of the sun as was humanly possible. He didn't have to say it, it was painfully obvious. She doubted he'd be willing, or even able, to face the mummy again.
    'So I guess that means it's up to me." Her glasses slid forward and she settled them firmly back on the bridge of her nose. "Just the way I like it best."
    The vague, empty feeling, she ignored.
    His ka swept over the city and found no trace of the life he had touched so briefly the night before. A ka with such potential should shine like a beacon and searching for it should only be a matter of following the blaze of light. He knew it existed. He had seen it, felt it. It should not be able to hide from him!
    Where was it?
    The connection between them had lasted less than a searing, glorious instant before the young man threw himself backward through the library window and away but even such a slight touch would enable him to gain access into the young man's ka. If he could find it.
    Had the young man died in the night? Had he taken one of the miraculous traveling devices of this age and flown far away? His frustration grew as he brushed over a thousand kas that together burned less brightly than the one he desired.
    And then he felt his own ka gripped by a greater power and, for a moment knew a sudden, all-encompassing fear.
    Recognition lessened the fear only slightly.
    Why have you not given me the suffering of the one I claimed?
    Lord, I … He had walked through the woman's ka and gathered all the information he needed for his lord's pleasure.
    He had intended to set it in motion the night before. Had he done so, the suffering would have begun. The touch of the intruder's ka had driven it right out of his mind.
    No excuses.
    It made no difference that the pain existed on the spiritual level only. His ka screamed.
    'Are you all right?"
    He felt strong hands around his arm, lifting him back into a sitting position, and knew the wards had broken. Slowly, because it hurt, he opened his eyes.
    At first, while he fought his way free of the webs of pain, he thought the young man standing so solicitously by resembled the young man who had escaped him; who had been responsible for the delay in the working of his god's desire. Who had