The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned 2)

But what did she want? Why had she traveled to Alexandria on the arm of this young man? Was it to say goodbye to her old city, the same reason he had traveled the length of Egypt himself only months before?

Everything about her was a mystery to him. He'd been a vital man in his prime when he drank the elixir; she'd been a corpse when he poured it over her. He'd never been subjected to fire of the kind she had apparently survived. And so he could not guess as to her state of mind now, any more than before, or her motives, to say nothing of what might lie ahead for her body, her will. And indeed she had a will, a will as fierce as his own. He had seen this for himself as she'd fought to go on living.

He rose to his feet and walked about the large suite, gesturing for Samir to remain seated. He knew that Julie was watching him.

He was remembering, gathering for himself, all he had ever learned of the elixir.

In the thousands of years since he'd first stolen it from the cackling old Hittite priestess, he had tested the elixir's strength and limitations, learned its blunt simplicity. When he was still king of Egypt, he had sought to create an immortal bounty. But the crops he grew with it couldn't be digested. They had to be uprooted and sunk to the bottom of the sea. For they had killed droves of his own people in pain as soon as they were consumed.

As the years advanced, he learned the extent to which the rays of the sun could awaken and sustain him. The extent to which he could wall himself off from the sun's life-giving power, inducing a sleep that was close to death, a sleep in which his body dried and withered. Natural light, from the sun or reflected acr

oss the night sky, sustained him. Only once he was sealed off from it altogether for a period of several days did the deep sleep return.

This was what he had done two thousand years before, when his refusal to give Cleopatra the elixir on behalf of Marc Antony had resulted in her suicide and Egypt's fall to Rome.

An agony to think of these things now, as it always would be.

To remember her pursuit of him after they'd discovered Marc Antony's corpse, dead by his own hand. The way she'd called for him, begging him to bring Marc Antony back from the dead. Insisting that he could do it with his precious, secret elixir.

He had slapped her! A terrible thing, but he had slapped her at the mere suggestion that he use the elixir in this way. And to think that two thousand years later, he'd used the elixir for just such an end, not on Marc Antony's remains, but on her remains.

Now that his actions in Cairo had resulted in a menace from which they might never be free, would her love for him turn to bitterness and anger?

Julie sensed the torment in him, and stood beside him, laying a hand gently on his shoulder.

"And so you believe Cleopatra is behind the sale and she used proceeds from it to buy the silence of anyone at the hospital who might remember her?" Julie asked.

"As well as anyone who might remember how quickly she healed," interjected Samir. "But who knows if such things are even necessary? Who would believe tales of her strange resurrection?"

"And do we have reason to believe she has killed again?" Julie asked.

"Not quite, no," Samir said. "But we know she is very much alive. That she has traveled the length of Egypt. And that she is not alone."

"There is something else we know," Ramses said.

"Yes, darling?" Julie responded.

"We know that if she does decide to kill again, there is very little we can do to stop her."

When he saw darkness overtake the expressions of his companions, he regretted the words. But they were the truth. An unavoidable truth that had to be addressed.

Once he found the courage to meet Julie's stare, he saw that it was not fear in her eyes, but sympathy and concern. For him. This astonished him.

"I will not have you lost to regret over this, Ramses."

Quietly, Samir said, "I shall leave you now. They lost sight of her in Alexandria, but it's possible they might be able to find her again. I can arrange to have them watch the ships from Port Said when they reach England, if you wish. Let me know what you would have and I shall make it so, my king."

"No, Samir," Julie said, "you mustn't go so quickly. You must be exhausted. Stay here with us. Rest. Have something to eat. Let me arrange rooms for you."

"No, but thank you," said Samir. "I am staying with an old acquaintance of mine from the British Museum. In the morning, I'll return to London and make sure your house remains secure."

"Secure?" Julie asked. "Well, of course it's secure."

"Indeed. But it will comfort me to be sure. Just as it comforted me to see you at Maxim's tonight, so beautiful and full of life."

He rose and received Julie's two hands and her loving kiss on his cheek.

"Good night, dear Julie. Good night, Mr. Ramsey." Samir offered a coy smile when using his alias. "I would say, Sleep well, but alas..." And then he was out the door.