The remnants of a pizza lay in a box at our feet, and every once in a while I’d reach down and have another slice.
“This sucks,” I complained, gesturing at the screen with my straw. “First, we couldn’t find anything at the library in five hours of searching, and now this. I can’t believe that if you google ‘halo’ on the internet, all you get are nine million websites about a stupid video game.”
Remy frowned and tried typing in a few more combinations of “Joachim” and “Halo.” We’d been at this for a few hours now, and I was getting sick of finding nothing but random porn sites. Those interested Remy in a purely vain fashion-she wanted to see if she was mentioned on any of them-but for me, it was just annoying.
“How the heck am I supposed to find a halo that’s been missing for the past, oh, three or four millennia?”
Remy shrugged, reaching for the last slice of pizza. “Maybe we need to find who had it last.”
I sat back on the couch, nursing my shake and thinking. “Well, obviously the queen’s boyfriend had it last. The question is, where was he when he died?” I rubbed my temples, trying to think. “Think that our buddy Nitocris was a queen before she was vampire queen?”
“We could always punch in her name with a few of the older kingdoms in history, and see what that pulls up,” Remy suggested, tapping away on the keyboard.
“Phoenician,” I guessed. “Zulu. Greek? Nah, they had city-states or something. Celtic? She doesn’t seem lightcomplected enough. Carthaginian?”
Remy snorted and flipped the laptop in my direction. “You’re trying way too hard. Check this out.”
Under the search words of “Nitocris” and “Queen,” I saw a few articles neatly listed on the search results.
“Bingo,” I crowed. “Queen of Egypt. I guess that fits.”
“No kidding.” Remy clicked on the first link and began scanning the page. “Good lord. Did you read this stuff?” Her mouth set into a grim line.
“Well, seeing as how you’re hogging the computer and we just pulled it up five seconds ago, no. Let me see.” I angled the computer screen toward me a bit and leaned over her shoulder to read.
“First Female Pharaoh of Egypt” the top banner proclaimed.
Remy jabbed her finger directly over the line I was reading. “Did you read this stuff about Herodotus?”
I shoved her finger off the screen. “I will, if you give me a chance. From Herodotus’s
Beside me, Remy coughed in shock. “Wife and sister? That can’t be right. Joachim was an angel, not an Egyptian. Maybe we don’t have the right woman. Beautiful and virtuous hardly describes the woman I had a run-in with last night.”
I shrugged and kept reading. “Wife of Mete-doofus, an Old Kingdom monarch who came to the throne at the end of the sixth dynasty and was savagely murdered by his subjects soon afterward.” I paused, thinking. “She didn’t say that he’d been murdered, though, just that she’d ruined her kingdom for him, and he was destroyed in the first temple of God. Maybe she killed her brother-husband-whatever for her angel boyfriend?”
“Keep reading,” Remy urged. “Maybe it mentions something about that.”
“Nitocris ordered the construction of a secret underground hall connected to the Nile by a hidden channel. When this chamber was complete, she threw a splendid banquet, inviting as guests all those whom she held personally responsible for the death of the king. While the unsuspecting guests were feasting, she commanded that the secret conduit be opened, and as the Nile waters flooded in, the traitors were drowned.’?” I paused, my throat suddenly dry. “‘In order to escape the vengeance of the Egyptian people, she then committed suicide by throwing herself into a great chamber filled with hot ashes and suffocating.”
Remy’s eyes were wide. “Crazy suicidal bitch. That’s definitely got to be our girl.”
“Yeah. I mean, maybe Herodotus glamorized this a bit, but it makes sense. She faked her own death to get out of Egypt. What kind of woman tosses herself into a room filled with hot ashes so she can suffocate?”
“The kind that doesn’t need to breathe because she’s already dead,” Remy agreed. “Which makes it easy to leave the country without being suspected. But the queen didn’t mention a water chamber along the banks of the Nile, just a church.”
I popped my knuckles as I thought. “But if Joachim was an angel, maybe he was sickened by what she did and left her. The ancient world wasn’t exactly great for travel, though, so maybe he didn’t get far. We need to go to Egypt and start with that secret water chamber, or her tomb. Maybe we can find a reference to a Temple of God in Egypt.”
Remy made a disgusted noise. “Egypt? Do we have to? It’s so hot this time of year, and I hate camels. I promised myself I’d never ride on the back of another one for as long as I lived, and I’ve held that vow for the past four hundred years.”
I saved the webpage link and snapped the laptop shut. “Just look at it this way-you can buy yourself some cute tourist clothing. Maybe something safari, or with a leopard print.”
She perked up at that. “I suppose I could.”
“There’s a few Egyptian artifacts at the museum I work at that I want to take a closer look at before we go. Book the tickets for two on the quickest red-eye flight to Cairo, and we’ll head for the airport when I get back, okay?”
“Don’t forget me,” came a voice from across the hallway, and I looked over to see Zane watching me with sleepy eyes. “If you’re going on safari, I’m tagging along. Queen’s orders, remember?”
I sighed. “Fine. Three tickets. I’m off to the museum, Remy.”
“Me, too,” Zane said. “Wouldn’t want to miss an exciting tour of pottery fragments, would I?”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. If you’re coming with me, hurry it up. I’m not going to wait for you.” Maybe he’d want to take another nap and skip the museum.
No such luck. “Anything you say, Princess.” Zane grinned at me and followed as I headed for the door.
I pulled up to the museum and groaned as I parked Noah’s Explorer. Right next to it, Julianna Cliver’s Miata gleamed in the moonlight. The rest of the parking lot was empty, as it should be at 9:00 p.m. on a weekday night. I sighed and told my passenger, “Looks like we’re going to have company. We’ll have to go with plan B.”
Zane unbuckled his seat belt and opened his car door. “Plan B?”
I reached over and grabbed his door, pulling it shut. “Yes. As in, you stay here and guard the car, and I’ll go inside and do some research. Understand?”
“No can do, Princess. If you go in, I must follow.”
“Can’t you let me go inside for ten minutes? I promise it won’t take any longer than that.”
“Nope.” Zane grinned, showing perfect white teeth and a hint of fang. “Who’s the driver of the sissy car that’s making you run scared?”
I sighed. “The world’s biggest pain in the ass, who also happens to be my boss. I’m
His eyes gleamed. “A job is a job, and besides,” he opened his door with a bang, smacking it against the scarlet Miata with delight, “I haven’t fed yet tonight.”
“No,” I choked, fumbling with my seat belt and door. I dashed across the parking lot to where he was stalking purposefully toward the museum. He ignored me, so I grabbed at his arm. “You can’t go in there and eat my boss,” I hissed, furious. “I’ll get fired.”
He shrugged his shoulders, hands deep in the pockets of his trench coat. “I’m not going to eat her, Princess. I’m just going to have a little taste.” He gave me a wicked grin, and I could have sworn I saw a gleam of red in his eyes.
My heart pounded. This was very, very bad. I ran ahead of him to the glass doors of the museum, determined to buzz myself in before he could get there. The employee badges had only a fifteen-second grace period. If I could get inside before Mr. Tall, Dark, and Hungry, I’d be in luck.
Of course, as soon as I started running, Zane started running right after me, laughing like a madman hunting his prey. No sooner had I swiped my badge and cracked the heavy glass door to slide inside than he had his hands on the door handle. I stood on the other side and tried to hold it shut, but it was like arm-wrestling with King Kong.
