The Cult of Osiris

Eddie made an irritated noise, then went to Macy. ‘Hi. Yeah, I’m Nina’s husband - and part-time bodyguard. For all the thanks I get.’

‘Hi.’ Macy gave his hand a perfunctory shake, giving him a look-over that was equally brief. Nina could tell what she was thinking - too old, too bald - and smirked.

‘So,’ he said, sitting down, ‘now you’re here, maybe someone can finally tell me what the hell’s going on? Like why something in Egypt meant I had to nick Grant Thorn’s Lamborghini and chase you halfway across town?’

‘You know Grant Thorn?’ Macy asked. ‘He is so hot. Wow. That’s cool.’

‘Grant Thorn’s not who we should be talking about,’ said Nina, seeing that Macy’s opinion of Eddie had just been revised upwards. ‘It’s those guys who were after you. Were they the same ones who chased you in Egypt?’

‘Only the guy with the bad hair and the terrible jacket.’

‘Thought his jacket was pretty cool, myself,’ said Eddie. He frowned, a memory tickling his mind.

‘What?’ Nina asked.

‘I saw someone with the same jacket, just recently . . .’ His frown deepened as he tried to recall the image. ‘Shit! It wasn’t just the same jacket - it was the same guy! He was at that cult thing Grant dragged me to.’

‘The Osirian Temple?’

‘Yeah, that’s it. He was in a limo with the head guy, some ex-actor. There was another bloke too, this miserable-looking sod with a big burn scar—’

‘Oh, my God!’ Macy interrupted. She tapped her right cheek. ‘The scar, was it here?’

‘Yeah, right across his face.’

‘He was there too!’ she told Nina excitedly. ‘He was at the Sphinx - he was in charge of the whole thing!’

‘What is this thing at the Sphinx?’ asked Eddie. ‘What are they after?’

‘You know those TV commercials that get me so mad?’ said Nina. He nodded. ‘They’re after that.’

‘They’re trying to dig in before the IHA so that they can steal what’s inside,’ Macy elaborated.

‘Which is?’ Eddie said.

Macy took out her camera. ‘I’ll show you.’ She saw Nina’s laptop. ‘Can I connect it to that?’

Nina rummaged in a drawer for a connecting cable, then plugged the camera into her MacBook Pro so Macy could copy over the relevant files. A minute later, she was able to take a proper, detailed look at the images she had seen in miniature on the camera’s screen. ‘So those are the three scrolls that were given to the IHA . . .’

‘And that’s the one that wasn’t,’ said Macy, pointing at the fourth of the ancient pages. She zoomed in. ‘This part here describes the north entrance to the Hall of Records - it would’ve been reserved for the pharaohs’ use, ’cause the Egyptians had a big thing about the Pole Star symbolising royalty and the gods.’ She flicked through to the next picture, showing the blueprints of the Sphinx compound, and pointed out the two tunnels. ‘Everyone else would have used the eastern entrance.’

‘The one Logan’s excavating,’ Nina said, nodding. ‘What else does it say?’

Macy returned to the first picture and scrolled down it. ‘Something about a map chamber . . . here! There’s a zodiac in it, which if you know the secret tells you how to find the Pyramid of Osiris.’

Nina’s scepticism returned. ‘Are you sure that’s what it says?’

Macy sounded almost peevish, before remembering to whom she was talking. ‘Yes, I’m sure, Dr Wilde. I thought it was weird too, but that’s what it says. The zodiac’s some kind of map.’

Nina regarded the screen. The first three scrolls about the Hall of Records had proved accurate, and if the fourth were as reliable . . . ‘This could be huge. If the Pyramid of Osiris really existed, it’d change everything we thought we knew about Egyptian history.’ She looked at Macy. ‘And the guys after you obviously believed it’s real enough to kill for.’ Her gaze returned to the papyrus. ‘What else does it say?’

Macy read on. ‘The tomb of Osiris, the immortal god-king, keeper of . . . of the sacred bread of life.’

‘Not much of an immortal if he’s in a tomb,’ Eddie pointed out.

‘It’s complicated,’ said Macy. ‘He was murdered by being trapped in a coffin, resurrected, murdered again, became immortal but could never come back to the living world . . . kind of an ancient daytime soap opera.’

‘It’s a bit more than that,’ Nina said tartly. ‘The Osiris mythology is the foundation of the entire Egyptian religion. But does this text tell us how to find the pyramid using the zodiac?’

Macy scanned through the rest of the papyrus. ‘No. I guess that’s a need-to-know thing for the priests or whoever. But it definitely says the zodiac’s the map to the tomb.’

Eddie leaned closer to the screen. ‘So if this pyramid’s real, what’s inside it that’s worth blowing up half of Times Square for? Are we talking Tutankhamun’s treasure?’

‘More than that,’ Macy told him. ‘Osiris is who all the other pharaohs aspired to be - the greatest Egyptian king ever. Even though they thought they were going to become gods themselves when they died, none of them would ever have dared try to outbling him, because he’s the guy who actually judges if they deserve to go into the next life or not.’

‘So all the pharaohs’ treasures that have ever been found,’ said Nina thoughtfully, ‘would still be less valuable than whatever’s in Osiris’s tomb. And considering how incredible some of the finds from other tombs have been . . .’

Eddie stood back. ‘There’s your motive, then. Money. Lots and lots of money.’ He indicated the screen. ‘Go on the Internet - I think we should have a gander at this Osirian Temple thing.’

Macy opened the browser, typing in the address of the Qexia search engine. ‘Not using Google?’ Eddie asked.

‘This is cooler,’ she said, entering a search string for the Osirian Temple. A ‘cloud’ of results appeared, the largest at the centre. She clicked it, taking them to the cult’s home page. A heavily airbrushed portrait of Khalid Osir, standing before what appeared to be a large pyramid of black glass, smiled at them.

‘That’s the guy I saw the other day,’ said Eddie. ‘Used to be a big movie star in Egypt.’

Nina read his potted biography. ‘And then he got religion. Though I guess his ego was too big for him to just join someone else’s - he had to start his own.’ According to the bio, Osir had founded the Osirian Temple fifteen years previously, the organisation now headquartered in Switzerland and established in over fifty countries.

‘Looks like it’s a nice little earner,’ Eddie said as Macy clicked through to other pages. As much of the site seemed to be devoted to selling merchandise as to explaining the cult’s beliefs.

Macy snorted sarcastically at one section of the latter. ‘What? That’s not even right! Osiris wasn’t immortal while he was still alive - that didn’t happen until he entered the Underworld.’

Nina scanned the rest of the text. ‘Huh. For a cult that’s based round the myths of Osiris, it doesn’t seem too interested in the accepted versions of those myths. It’s like this guy Osir’s deliberately ignoring anything that conflicts with what he’s trying to say.’

‘Trying to sell, you mean,’ Eddie corrected as another page opened, more catalogue than catechism. ‘Look at all this stuff. Diets, exercise plans, vitamins . . . it’ll all help you live longer, yeah, but he slaps a picture of a pyramid on it and charges five times more than you’d pay at the supermarket, and makes you listen to a load of religious twaddle while you’re doing it.’

‘It’s not just “twaddle”, Eddie,’ Nina chided. ‘People might not believe in it now, but it was the basis of a civilisation that lasted for almost three thousand years.’

‘Maybe, but this Osir bloke’s making it up as he goes. So, typical cult, really.’

Macy had meanwhile found another page: the Osirian Temple’s leaders. Osir took pride of place at the top, but below his entry was a smaller, black and white picture of another man with similar features.

‘Sebak Shaban,’ Nina read. ‘They look a lot alike - maybe they’re brothers.’

‘Yeah, I thought that,’ Eddie said, remembering seeing them together two days earlier. ‘How come they’ve got different surnames?’

‘Duh,’ Macy said off-handedly. ‘Osiris, Osir? It’s like a stage name.’ Eddie glared at her, but she didn’t notice. ‘And yeah, total Photoshop.’ The picture of Shaban very much favoured the left side of his face, but the part of his upper lip that in real life was scarred here appeared completely normal.

Nina leaned back. ‘And you’re absolutely sure he was in charge of whatever was going on at the Sphinx?’

‘Totally. It was him.’

‘And the guy from last night works for him?’ Macy nodded. ‘Okay, so they really,