The Mummy (Ramses the Damned 1)

"Rita, leave us," she whispered.

"But miss ..."

"Go."

Silence again. Then he came towards her. No trace of a smile; only a gentle seriousness, eyes widening a little as he appeared to study her face, her hair, her dress.

How must this flimsy lace peignoir look to him? she thought suddenly. Good Lord, does he think the women of these times wear such things about the house and on the street? But he was not looking at the lace. He was staring at the shape of her breasts beneath the loose silk, at the contour of her hips. He looked at her face again and there was no mistaking his expression. It was passionate suddenly. He drew closer and reached out for her shoulders and she felt his warm fingers tighten.

"No," she said.

She shook her head emphatically and she stepped back. She straightened her shoulders, trying not to admit her fear, or the sudden delicious chill that ran up her back and down her arms. "No," she said again with a faint touch of disapproval.

And as she watched, on the edge of fear, the warmth in her breasts astonishing her, he nodded, backed away and smiled. He made a little open gesture with his hands. He spoke in a soft riff of Latin. She caught her name, the word regina, and the word she knew meant house. Julie is Queen in her house.

She nodded.

Her sigh of relief was impossible to disguise. She was shaking again, all over. Could he see it? Of course.

He made a gesture of asking:

"Panis, Julie," he whispered. "Vinum. Panis." He narrowed his eyes, as if searching for a proper word. "Edere," he whispered, and gestured gracefully to his lips.

"Oh! I know what you're saying. Food, you want food. You want wine and bread." She hurried to the doorway. "Rita," she called out. "He's hungry. Rita, we must get him something to eat at once."

She turned around to see him smiling at her again, with that great warmth of affection she had seen upstairs. He found her pleasing to look at, did he? If only he knew that she found him almost irresistible, that a moment before she had almost locked her arms around him and--Best not to think of that. No, mustn't think of that at all.

LLIOTT SAT back in the wing chair, staring forward at the coal fire. He was as close as possible to the grate, his slippered feet on the fender. The heat soothed the pain in his legs and in his hands. He was listening to Henry, veering between impatience and an unexpected fascination. God's vengeance upon Henry had been almost complete for his sins. Henry was a scandal.

"You must have imagined it!" Alex said.

"But I am telling you that damned thing got out of that mummy case and came at me. It strangled me. I felt its hand on me; I looked up into its filthy bandaged face."

"Definitely imagined it," Alex said.

"Imagined it, hell!"

Elliott glanced up at the two young men at the end of the mantel shelf to his right. Henry, unshaven, trembling, the glass of Scotch in his hand. And Alex, immaculate, his hands as clean as a nun's.

"And this Egyptologist fellow, you're saying that he and the mummy are one and the same? Henry, you've been out all night, haven't you? You've been drinking with that girl from the Music Hall. You've been--"

"Well, where the hell did the bastard come from if he's not the mummy!"

Elliott laughed softly. He gave the coals a poke with the tip of his silver cane.

Henry went on undaunted.

"He wasn't there last night! He came down the stairs in Uncle Lawrence's bathrobe! And you haven't seen this man! He's no ordinary man. Anybody who looks at him can tell he's not ordinary."

"He's alone there now? With Julie?"

It took so long for Alex to put things together, trusting soul.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you. My God! Isn't there anyone in London who will listen to me?" Henry gulped the Scotch, went to the sideboard and filled his glass again. "And Julie's protecting him. Julie knows what happened. She saw the thing come at me!"

"You're doing yourself a disservice with this story," Alex said gently. "No one's going to believe--"

"You realize those papyri, those scrolls," Henry sputtered. "They talk about some kind of immortal something. Lawrence was talking about it to that Samir fellow, something about Ramses the Second wandering for a thousand years--"