Nosferatu

CHAPTER 4

Nekhbet. Nosferatu sensed her presence in the tube being dragged behind the two camels as strongly as he felt the sun beating down on the cloth wrapped around his body to protect his skin and eyes. They pushed on, into the Great Desert, leaving Giza behind. The Bedouins were keeping a southerly course, the Nile far off to their left, the Great Desert extending in all other directions. One Bedouin followed behind the party with a palm branch, sweeping away their tracks.

Kajihi had said nothing as Nosferatu and his Bedouins headed to the southwest, into the desert. As soon as they were out of sight he hurried back to his hut. His wife and children were still gone and would stay away until he sent for them. He pulled out a piece of thick papyrus paper. He wrote, telling of Nosferatu’s visit. He rolled the papyrus and stuffed it into a piece of bamboo, sealing each end with wax that he imprinted with the Watcher crest from his ring. He then placed the tube on top of four others, his reports of activity in Egypt for the past fifteen years. Soon it would be time to forward them to England, to Watcher headquarters.

As he tied the tubes together he sensed a presence. He looked up to see a man — no, not a man — a creature in human form standing over him. He knew who it was even though they had never met before.

Kajihi bowed his head, refusing to meet the stare of the other. “Kajihi, the Watcher, the Wedjat.”

Kajihi nodded. “Aspasia’s Shadow.”

“You have had a visitor.” Aspasia’s Shadow sat down cross-legged on the dirt floor. He looked very much like Nosferatu, tall, thin, with an evil grin. The major difference was that Aspasia’s Shadow had jet-black hair instead of red. “How did you know?”

“Someone has been in the Roads of Rostau with you.” Kajihi nodded.

“Who?”

“Nosferatu.”

“Ah, so the legend is true. I remember when Isis and Osiris were killed. Two of the brood who committed the crime escaped. I’ve met one several times. Vampyr. But that was a very long time ago,” he added, almost to himself. “What did Nosferatu want?”

“He took a black tube. He said his love was in it.” Aspasia’s Shadow nodded. “Nekhbet. Where did he go?”

“Into the desert to the south and west.”

“Interesting.”

Kajihi kept his eyes downcast, hoping the creature would leave, also knowing it was just as likely that Aspasia’s Shadow would kill him.

“What did you write?” Aspasia’s Shadow indicated the tubes. “A report of recent events.”

“That will be so useful,” Aspasia’s Shadow said with a laugh. The smile disappeared and Aspasia’s Shadow leaned over Kajihi. “Watcher.” Kajihi reluctantly looked up. “Yes?”

“The Roads of Rostau are not for you or the Undead. Do you understand?” “Yes.” But Aspasia’s Shadow was gone.

To the southwest, the last things on Nosferatu’s mind were Watchers, reports, or Aspasia’s Shadow. The sun was well over the horizon, shooting beams of light across the desert. He wrapped another turban around his face, further protecting his skin and eyes. They rode through the day, putting distance between them and Giza. By noon, Nosferatu had triple-wrapped his head, practically cutting out all light, allowing himself to be led by the Bedouins deeper into the desert known as the Great Sand Sea. When he questioned them about how far it was to the other side, they always shook their heads and indicated the next destination was an oasis they knew of. Beyond that, they didn’t say anything. He realized their concept of travel was much different than his and he didn’t know enough of their language to make himself understood.

As the day wore on, Nosferatu rode in a daze, directly behind Nekhbet’s tube. He had no doubt she was in there and that she was alive, although he had little clue as to what condition he would find her in when he opened the tube.

At his urging they rode straight through the night and finally halted just before the next dawn at the small oasis. Nosferatu felt the hunger, but he knew he needed the aid of the Bedouins more than he needed to feed. The desert people were a strange race, having nothing to do with Egypt or the Gods, or, now, the Pharaohs, preferring to live in a land where survival was an everyday struggle. To them, distance and time all related to water holes like this.

As the sun rose, Nosferatu lay next to Nekhbet’s tube, covering himself with blankets despite the heat. He placed both hands against the side of the tube. Surprisingly, the metal was cool. He slowly fell into unconsciousness, the effort of the last few days and the growing hunger forcing his mind and body to retreat into itself.

He woke at dusk. He pushed aside the blankets and unwrapped the turbans from his head. It was cool, the sand giving up the day’s heat, a light breeze blowing in from the deep desert. The Bedouins were cooking a meal on the other side of the small water hole, ignoring Nosferatu and the tube. When complete darkness fell, Nosferatu went to the head of the tube. The control panel was alive with a glow that grew brighter as the sky grew darker.

Nosferatu’s hands trembled. From hunger, from anticipation. He tried to control the shake, but couldn’t. He knew he should wait. Opening the tube there and then would do no good. They must get across the desert. But she was there, so close, only the lid between the two of them after so many years apart, after so many years so close.

He tapped on the hexes. With a hiss, the lid cracked open and slowly swung up. She was as beautiful as the first time he had seen her brought into the cell under the Giza Plateau. Long flowing red hair splayed about her head. Smooth white skin stretched over high cheekbones. Red eyebrows cut across her lower forehead above her closed eyes. She was swathed in the same white robe he had seen her entombed in. Her pale lips were slightly parted, revealing perfect white teeth.

Nosferatu placed his hand on her forehead, just below the metal band. Her skin was cool to his touch. He moved his hand to just over her mouth. He felt nothing. There was no rise or fall to her chest, but he knew she was alive. The metal crown was still set on her head and he carefully reached in and removed it.

He knew how to bring her to full life. In the same way she had given him power so long ago.

But he was weak. He had the hunger. He looked up, across the water hole at the half dozen Bedouins. A muscle on the side of his face twitched. His heart was racing. He ran his fingers over Nekhbet’s face, marveling at the smoothness, the coolness, longing for the heat he had imagined for so long, that they had discussed for centuries.

He knew better. Patience had been chained into him. To act just then would be a mistake.

Nosferatu stepped away from the tube. He began walking around the water hole. All six of the Bedouins stopped what they were doing and looked at him. Despite his weakened state, the presence of Nekhbet gave him power unlike any he had ever known, even when he had drunk from Osiris himself. The six blades, the blades with which they had killed Osiris, were strung about his belt.

One of the Bedouins, the leader, was the first to realize the danger, drawing his scimitar. The blade didn’t even clear the scabbard as Nosferatu drew and threw the first dagger, the blade hitting the leader’s neck square on. The man staggered back, hands grasping at the handle. Nosferatu threw the second blade with his other hand as he pulled the third. Four of the Bedouins were down before they could mount a defense. The last two had their swords out as he threw the fifth dagger.

The man blocked the oncoming missile and charged Nosferatu. The sixth ran away.

Nosferatu dodged the man’s wild strike, stepped in close, and wrapped the Bedouin in his arms. He clamped down on the man’s neck, tearing through flesh to blood. As it had always been, the struggle was one-sided as Nosferatu gained strength and his victim lost it. Out of the corner of his eye, even as he drank, Nosferatu watched the sixth man running — keeping track. The Bedouin tried to leap onto one of the camels, but his fear made the animal skittish and he was unable to mount it.

Nosferatu drank, knowing he needed to break free and capture the last man.

Love won out against hunger and he threw the victim from him and ran toward the sixth man, who was by then running up the side of a dune. With the energy from drinking, Nosferatu easily caught him and dragged him down. The man fought, but a blow to the side of his head rendered him unconscious.

Nosferatu dragged the man back to the side of Nekhbet’s tube. He lifted the Bedouin and slid him into the tube next to his love. With a dagger, he punctured the man’s neck, quickly sliding a finger in to keep the blood from spurting out. He dropped the dagger and turned Nekhbet’s head toward the man.

He waited, letting a little blood seep out. The first sign of life was a slight flare of her nostrils. The head moved ever so slightly, the mouth opening.

Her eyes were still closed but she could scent the blood, feel its proximity. As her open mouth closed on the wound, Nosferatu removed his hand, letting the life force flow forth.

Nekhbet drained the man in less than a minute. Nosferatu marveled to see the glow come to her cheeks, her chest begin to rise and fall with steady breaths. Her eyes flashed open, fixing on his. She smiled, red-stained lips parting to reveal crimson-covered teeth. He leaned over and kissed her, blood on blood.

Eight days. And still no end in sight to the desert. Nosferatu looked over the moonlit sand, the same view they’d had every night since he’d brought Nekhbet back. She was at his side on one of the camels, another two animals behind them, dragging her tube. He knew she was weakening. He cursed himself for not keeping more of the Bedouins alive so they could feed again. He had anticipated being out of the desert in a day or two and able to hunt. But there was nothing out to hunt. The only living thing he’d seen since leaving the site of the massacre was a lone bird far off in the distance one evening.

His mind was feverish with hunger. He had to fight to convince himself that they were actually moving forward and not simply marching in the same spot night after night. He kept them oriented by the position of the stars, steadily moving to the south. How long could such desolation go on? He knew the Nile was to the east. Where there was water there would be people to feed on. But Egypt’s reign extended far down that strip of water and the long hand of the Airlia Gods reached down the blue waterway also.

The days, though, were bliss. Lying next to Nekhbet in her tube, talking, touching, and feeling each other’s closeness. Even the intense heat blazing into the tube was tolerable to be close to his love.

But if they did not feed soon, he knew they would run out of energy and be consumed by the desert.

“Feed from me and go on.”

Nosferatu was startled by Nekhbet’s words. They didn’t just intrude on his dark thoughts, the words assaulted his mind. “Never again.”

Nekhbet brought her breast next to his and reached out, touching his arm. “You freed me from the living sleep. That is love enough.”

Nosferatu had not wanted to know about the years she had been in the tube and she had said nothing yet. “Was it bad?”

“I could only lie there and think. I could not move even though twice every twenty-four hours the wraps on my body did as they had done when we were imprisoned together, working my muscles — it was the only way I knew the passage of time.

“At first I thought I would go mad. But then I started remembering all we had talked of. And I thought of those conversations.” She smiled. “And then I kept them going. I would try to think of what you would say. And then I would reply. We had the most wonderful talks. I would also invent places. That we would visit together. Beautiful places.”

Nosferatu was silent. His time in the tube before his escape had been horrible indeed, but at least he had been able to sleep almost half the time. And he could always look forward to the daily feeding when he would see Nekhbet. She had had nothing to look forward to and been unable to sleep for over six thousand years. A time he had spent in darkness and ignorance. He spurred the camel.

“We will make it out of this desert together. I promise you that.”

Nekhbet smiled sadly once more, but her head was shaking ever so slightly. “You do not believe me. You saved me from something worse than death. I would welcome becoming part of the desert. And I have had the last seven nights and days with you. That is worth a lifetime.”

“We will go forward together or perish together,” Nosferatu said simply.

But on the next night he knew it would be their last. They were expending too much energy with nothing to replenish their stores. Perhaps they could go into Nekhbet’s tube and set the device to put them to sleep for a millennium or two and hope the land had changed by then. But there was only one crown in there and one set of wraps.

“Feed on me, then put me into the deep sleep in my tube,” Nekhbet said. “It is the only way we will manage it.”

Just before dawn he draped cloths over the tube to protect it from the direct rays of the sun and climbed inside with Nekhbet. They passed the day holding each other and whispering of a future in a land that was green and full of life, one where they did not have to worry about the Airlia Gods swooping down out of the sky and destroying them.

As the temperature went down in the tube, they knew darkness was not far off. And that Nekhbet did not have the strength to ride on. He sensed she would not even have the energy to lift herself out of the tube.

“We must have a plan for the future,” Nekhbet finally said.

“We have been talking—” Nosferatu began, but she hushed him with a light touch of her finger on his lips.

“We have been fantasizing. The real world is much harsher. You have told me there are those out there who would kill us. The Ones Who Wait. Guides. Even the Gods who made us and hate us lurk somewhere, I am sure. I’ve waited long enough. I want to sleep. To truly rest. To wait for the time when we can be free. And there is this also—” She halted.

“What?” Nosferatu prompted.

“I have been drained far too many times,” Nekhbet said. “Without the blood of the Gods, like we took from Osiris, I have aged. Not as fast as a human, but faster than you, my love.”

“I do not know where the Gods are,” Nosferatu said, understanding what she was saying.

“I know. That will be your task. If you love me, you will take responsibility. You will be the one who watches and waits to bring me back when we can have a life together and when I can drink from a God.”

Nosferatu knew she was right. His plan had been shortsighted. If they were to have a life together, he would have to envision time much differently. He held her tightly, wasting precious hours of darkness.

She gingerly unwrapped his arms from around her body and whispered, “Now. Drink from me one last time.” “You said—”

“One last time,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. “It will not matter since I will go into deep sleep, but it will give you the strength you need, and it is the closest we can be.”

He pulled aside the cloth from around her neck and touched the shunt with his lips. The first trickle of blood sent a surge of energy into his body. He only took a little, enough to keep him going for another couple of days, then he stopped. He climbed out of the tube and looked down on Nekhbet. Her eyes were half-closed and unfocused, her skin pale. He prepared her, putting the wraps on her legs and arms.

With the stars shining down on him, Nosferatu stood over the tube. “Good-bye, my love. I will awaken you when we can freely walk the world together.”

Nekhbet’s lips twitched in a weak smile. She didn’t even have the energy to speak. Nosferatu slowly closed the lid. Then he went to the control panel. He touched the hexes, directing the alien technology of the tube to put her into the deep sleep he’d been in.

He attached the tube to the ropes connected to the camels’ saddles. Then he mounted his own camel and continued the trek south. He felt the isolation of the desert, the utter loneliness. Nekhbet’s aura was so muted he could hardly sense her.

By dawn, nothing had changed. Nosferatu slept next to the tube, covered in robes. As soon as the sun began to set, he rose and resumed the journey. Just after midnight he rode to the top of a high dune and paused as he peered to the south. There appeared to be a silver mist on the horizon. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t the same view he’d had for the past ten nights. Any change had to be for the better.

He pushed the mounts forward, the two camels dragging the tube struggling to keep up with him. After an hour the mist seemed no closer, and Nosferatu began to fear it was an illusion. Even after several more hours the silver apparition still hovered over the horizon, but lower and closer, he saw a dark line on the ground. Just before dawn the line was close and he knew it indicated vegetation— the edge of the desert. And where there was plant life there would be people.

And where there were people, there would be blood.

It was completely dark. As black as the inside of his tube. Vampyr turned his head to and fro, trying to find any light, while his hands explored the large stone that lay across his thighs, pinning him in place. How long had he been unconscious? He had no idea, but the hunger was gnawing at him.

He tried with all his superhuman might to move the stone off his legs but to no avail. His legs didn’t feel injured, but he couldn’t move them. After several more attempts to free himself, he laid his head back on the stone floor and closed his eyes.

Vampyr had no idea how long he stayed like that, trapped in his own Labyrinth. Days at least. Perhaps a week. The hunger grew stronger with each hour that passed. He tried several times to free himself, each attempt draining him of energy.

Sometimes he thought he heard voices, but in his weakened state he wasn’t sure if they were real or delusions. His soldiers didn’t know where he was and, even if they did, he knew they would not come for him. Ruling by fear had its disadvantages.

There was a noise and Vampyr turned his head, straining to hear. Something was moving in the dark, coming slowly closer. He heard voices and now he was sure they were real. Young voices, speaking Greek.

“Help me,” Vampyr cried out in the same language.

There was total silence in response.

“I know the way out,” Vampyr yelled. “If you help me, I will get you out of here.”

Vampyr couldn’t make out the whispered words the youths exchanged. He knew they had to be hungry and scared. He sniffed, picking up their scent. He felt the hunger surge, but he fought to control it.

“Who are you?” a fearful voice queried.

“A caretaker of the tunnels,” Vampyr lied. “I know the passages. I will help you escape.”

There was more whispering and Vampyr reined in his impatience. What choice did they think they had even to be discussing it? One of the youths was crying, a girl, and someone hushed her angrily.

A decision apparently made, he could hear the youths making their way toward him in the darkness. He called out several times so they could find him. He directed them to the stone across his thighs. With their help, he was able to push it off. He staggered to his feet. He knew the exit from the Labyrinth was right behind him.

The blood scent of the fourteen youths all around him was overpowering.

Vampyr reached out and grabbed the closest, a young girl. He wrapped one hand over her mouth while he tore into her neck with his teeth. He savored the blood flowing into his mouth even as he heard the leader of the youths just a few feet away demand he show them the way out. Vampyr slowly backed up, the girl in his arms, unseen in the darkness. His back hit the swinging stone and he passed through into the tunnel beyond.

He pressed the stone shut while he finished draining the girl. He lowered her body to the floor and turned, making his way back the way he had come so many days before. The torches that lined the corridor had burned out and he picked his way carefully, several times having to step over stones knocked loose by the earthquake.

After several minutes he saw a glimmer of light ahead and knew he was approaching ground level. The light grew stronger and he reached the wooden door leading to the palace. The frame around the door had buckled and he could see starlight through the cracks. With a mighty shove, he yanked it open and walked into the courtyard.

The palace was destroyed. What had taken over seventy-five years to build had been destroyed.

Vampyr slowly turned, taking in the ruins. He sniffed the air and his nose confirmed what he had suspected — not only was the palace destroyed, it was abandoned. Centuries of work building an empire undone in one moment.

Vampyr wandered through the remnants of his once magnificent palace. There were bodies here and there, some killed by the earthquake, others in the fighting afterward. The palace had been looted and stripped bare — even his throne had been stolen.

Vampyr went behind the throne room, to a secret passageway hidden by a rotating stone similar to the one leading to the Labyrinth. He passed through, then down a set of stone stairs to a thick wooden door, which he unlocked with a key hanging from a chain around his neck. He entered, locking the door behind him. Inside the chamber, set on a stone pedestal, was his black tube. He crawled into it, pulling the lid shut.

Vampyr slept for fourteen straight days, recovering.

On the fifteenth night, he arose. He left his lair and went back to the Labyrinth to feed. Catching another of the youths was easy, as they were slowly starving to death. Sated from the two feedings in two weeks, Vampyr went back to the surface to ponder his future, leaving the twelve surviving Greek youths trapped in the Labyrinth without a thought.

The tall tower had been destroyed in the earthquake. He sat on the pile of rubble that was all that was left of it and looked about. He could see smoke from fires slowly rising into the air. He had kept a tight leash on the people of Crete for over a century. He was enough of a realist to understand that leash could not be put back on.

He went below the palace to his hidden tube chamber. He barred the door and climbed inside. He set the control panel as he had watched Aspasia’s Shadow do, except adjusting the time for a shorter amount. Then he shut the lid on his ruined empire.

Nosferatu had been forced to leave Nekhbet’s tube for three days while he ranged the edge of the jungle in search of blood. On the third night he came upon a small hunting party and turned the tables on them over the course of the next two nights, taking down four of their number, a pair each night, to feed on.

Gorged, he returned to where he’d left Nekhbet’s tube. He knew he could wake her and feed her human blood, but then they would be back where they were before. She would still age more rapidly than Nosferatu because she’d been more completely drained of her original half-Airlia blood more than he. He needed the blood of the Gods, and that was not possible just then.

The camels had refused to go forward shortly after entering the jungle. Nosferatu had been forced to release them so they could go back to their beloved desert. He slept next to the tube that day, robes and blankets covering him, the noise of the daytime jungle all around. When darkness fell he packed up all he had, tying everything to the top of the tube. Then he grabbed hold of the harness, looping the straps over his shoulders, and leaned into it.

Nosferatu made it a half mile into the jungle that first night.

The second night he did slightly better, covering almost a mile.

The third night he quickly fed, got back in harness, and pushed forward into deepest, darkest Africa for another mile.

And so he moved south, pulling his love behind him, blazing a narrow trail through the thick jungle.

After a month he passed along a ridgeline and an opening in the jungle gave him a view of the land to the south.

Nosferatu came to a halt, staring at the vista. Mountains with their peaks covered in white clouds filled the southern horizon. He realized they were what he had seen from the desert so long ago.

Nosferatu looked left and right. The mountains stretched in both directions.

He assumed there was a way around, and his inclination was to the right, to the west, as he needed to get to that coast eventually. But how far would it be to get around the range? Would there be more desert? Nosferatu stepped back, releasing the pressure from the harness. He had calluses on his shoulder where the leather bands had rubbed for so long. His body was hard, all muscle.

It had been four days since he’d fed, and he was burning energy at a high rate. He realized he would never be able to pull Nekhbet’s tube across another desert, even a small one. The mountains ahead promised to be an extremely difficult endeavor.

And what did it matter, he realized, if he did get her to the Skeleton Coast? So they could sleep next to each other every day, while he waited for the time to bring her back?

Nosferatu looked at the peaks. He focused on the center one, a mountain slightly apart from the others. Leaning into the straps, he headed toward it.

He reached the base in a week, surprised to find himself in the midst of swamp and marshes. He splashed his way through, the going actually easier where he could partially float the tube. Then he reached a place where the watery landscape gave way as the ground sloped up. He began the arduous task of pulling the tube upslope. He wondered if the peaks were the source of the Nile as streams splashed down the rocky terrain around him. It was certainly the strangest place he’d ever been. At one point he passed through a bizarre level on the slopes where monstrous plants grew among the rocks, some over ten or twenty times the normal size. Nosferatu picked up a sense of the primeval about the place, as if it had been forgotten in some hole in time, while the world around it had progressed.

After ten days, most of the vegetation fell behind as he passed above the tree line. The terrain now was the exact opposite of what it had been. A few bushes struggled to grow, clinging to wind-scoured rocks. He was in the mist now, able to see only a short distance ahead. Several times he had to retreat and try to find a different way as he ran into slopes that were too steep to pull the tube up.

Twice he had to abandon Nekhbet’s tube and make the climb down to the more temperate zone to hunt the villagers who lived at the base of the mountains. Each feeding cost him a four-day round-trip and almost wasn’t worth the effort by the time he climbed back up.

Soon he was in snow, the whiteness blinding as he pulled the tube upward. Finally, he could go no farther. There was no trail and he would have to climb hand over hand to go higher. Nosferatu rested the next day, then spent the evening searching the mountainside.

On the third night, he found a small cave, more a crack in the side of the mighty mountain that extended about twelve feet in, but was only waist high. The fourth night he moved Nekhbet’s tube into the cave, shoving it ahead of him until it touched the end.

He spent the next day sitting cross-legged at the foot of the tube, swathed in robes and cloaks taken from victims to protect him from both the cold and the white mist light. He was tired and the hunger was strong. But he did not want to leave. Though he had slept for thousands of years and some things had changed, the world still was not a safe place for Nekhbet and him. How many more years would have to pass before he came back and recovered and revived her so they could walk the world together?

Nosferatu felt the cold hand of loneliness begin to grip his heart.

He spent another day and night and the following day at the foot of her tube until finally he knew the time had come. He leaned over and placed his hands on the cold metal. His lips lightly touched the smooth surface with a last kiss, then he slid out of the hole and began piling rocks in it, covering the tube. When he was done, there was no sign of the hole, just a small clutter of rocks along the side of the mountain.

“I will return,” he whispered. Then Nosferatu turned and headed downslope, leaving his love behind on the mountainside.