The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned 2)

"There you are!" Alex Savarell shouted. He'd just appeared around the side of the hedge, and now he was bounding towards them with drunken glee.

"Do not drink," Ramses whispered fiercely. "Do not drink the champagne. Only pretend to drink. Don't let a drop of it touch your lips. Nod to indicate that you understand."

She nodded. And so there was more to this, she realized, more to this strange plot into which Cleopatra had stumbled, and Ramses was aware of it, and the only choice was to follow his instructions.

From behind, Alex steered them towards the lawn.

"We've been looking all over for you two," he said, sounding as if he had already imbibed a great deal. "I've been preparing this toast for weeks now. Force me to wait another moment and I'll suffer an attack of nerves all the wine in Yorkshire won't cure."

Seconds later, Alex had positioned them at the base of the terrace steps.

The crowd turned to face them. And there in front, Jeneva Worth and her husband, Callum. Impossible to believe they weren't connected to what she had just witnessed inside the temple. How else to explain their strange, overly detailed request for a tour of that very place? Now their expressions were unreadable, thanks to the sunglasses they wore. But they were certainly staring in her direction. Were they noting the little smudges of dirt from the temple on her dress?

As he spoke, Alex's gentle voice carried across the quiet lawn, occasionally drowned out by the breeze moving through the trees overhead.

It seemed a perfectly respectful toast, full of gracious, humble sentiments designed to tell the group before them that he and his entire family had truly moved on, that all those present should accept Mr. Reginald Ramsey and Julie as destined for each other. But Julie heard only every few words of it, and so it came as a surprise when Alex said, "And so I ask you now to lift your glasses in celebration of Mr. Reginald Ramsey and his bride-to-be, Miss Julie Stratford."

All of the guests complied.

She only pretended to take a sip, just as Ramses had instructed. But what could this mean?

She looked from glass to glass to glass to glass, searching for a mysterious cloud or flecks of some strange particle. But she saw only sparkling fluid in each.

There was a smattering of applause, some polite laughter, a few murmurs about what a lovely champagne it was.

Jeneva Worth dabbed the side of her mouth with a napkin. Then she went suddenly and conspicuously still. The sight of something on the terrace behind Julie had paralyzed the woman with fright.

She reached up and removed her glasses. Julie saw the woman's eyes were as blue as her own. Then she gripped her husband's wrist, whispered something to him that caused him to also stare past Julie.

He too removed his sunglasses. His eyes were also startlingly blue.

Finally, Julie looked over her shoulder at whatever had captured their attention.

She was one of the most beautiful women Julie had ever seen, and she was emerging slowly through the terrace doors. Her gold turban glinted in the sunlight, and she lifted her chin gradually as she crossed the empty stone terrace, until her features were visible to everyone on the western lawn who had noticed her arrival. Her skin was dark as ebony, her eyes as blue as an immortal's, and the gaze she leveled on the crowd before her seemed as steady and immutable as the Sphinx.

Many had noticed her arrival, but were trying not to openly stare. This was not the case with Jeneva and Callum Worth. Or with the giant bearded man she'd seen them mingling with earlier. Or with several other guests, who had noticed the arrival of this beautiful black woman with an evident horror that caused their jaws to gape and their hands to tremble. Each of these terrified guests wore sunglasses they now removed. Each revealed the crystalline-blue eyes of an immortal.

Ramses seemed less surprised by this woman's entrance than Julie was, but he stared up at her now, as well. He recognized the importance of her quiet arrival.

Most of the guests had gone back to chitchat.

But Julie felt as if every muscle in her body had coiled.

Do not drink, Ramses had told her. Only pretend to drink.

And now...

There was a soft thud against the grass a few paces away. Jeneva had dropped her champagne flute. She stared down at it as if it were a serpent preparing to

strike.

"The queen," Callum Worth whispered.

And then Jeneva hit the grass knees first. The blue drained from her eyes, replaced by what at first appeared to be a fiery shade of red, then her eyes became empty, black sockets.

When Callum Worth reached for his wife's shoulder, he saw that his own hand was withering before his very eyes, as if every ounce of blood and every drop of water had been sucked from his flesh in one swift and silent instant.

Jeneva's hands appeared exactly the same. But this didn't stop her from reaching out for Ramses and Julie even as her jaw fell away from her face and turned to a drift of ash that danced gracefully on the cool breeze.