Her rooms were up here, he remembered. She said they’d worshipped her as Bastet, a goddess, and she lived on the top floor. That would be a good place to meet her. A good place to be with her again. A good place to remember her as she had been, not the snarling monster burning up in the flames below. He pushed off the door with a groan and shuffled down the corridor. Her door would be special. It would be different and he knew he’d recognize it. The walls were full of holes, hung with crooked pictures and shattered glass glittered dully in the smoky light. Broken vases and art and tumbled pedestals were strewn everywhere and he was a little amazed at how much damage they had done. The fight seemed like it lasted forever but it was probably only a few minutes.
He found her door, shouldered it open with a grunt of pain and saw how she had been. What she’d given up to be with him. The rooms were untouched since she’d left. They were sumptuous, filled with golden statues and casually tossed necklaces that were heavy with jewels. The suite looked nothing like a twentieth century hotel, it was like being transported back to ancient Egypt. The floor was marble tiles, the walls stone and relief carvings. Genuine columns from ancient tombs were etched with hieroglyphics. She’d had cats, their toys were still strewn about and a carpeted cat house was in one corner, huge and sprawling. She’d left them all behind to do her duty and once she was away and her head was clear, her duty had changed.
He walked over to her bed, still unmade months after her absence. The doors had been locked and it had been left as a shrine. Her father had held out hope that somehow, someway she might find her way back. Jessie sat, then remembered he wanted to look for bullet for his empty guns. He was weary, so unbelievably tired and needed to rest for a moment. A single, long black hair was on her pillow that was still slightly dented where she had lain.
Jessie lowered his head, closed his eyes and tears streamed down his ragged cheek.
He was so hollow. So empty and full of black, he could feel the heartache all the way to his bones. His head pounded and he was sure there were brains leaking out along with the blood. He couldn’t think of any reason to rise again so he lay there, his head finding the same spot where hers had rested. He stained the sheets with his tears and blood and tried to sleep. Tried to make it all go away and never wake up. He heard screams coming from far away, down the hall somewhere and didn’t care.
He heard violence being done to someone, breaking glass and crashing furniture and didn’t care. Maybe whoever it was would barge in and put a few bullets in him so he could sleep forever. He hoped so. Then they would be together. He closed his eyes and thought of her, breathed in her scent still lingering on the pillow and abandoned all hope. He was tired of fighting, tired of living and all of his old ghosts came back to stare at him.
Their eyes held judgement, they weighed his soul on the scales of justice and the faces of men he’d killed swam before him.
He willed his heart to stop hurting, to stop beating. He tried to push the faces away, the children from the orphanage, his friends from school, the Raider breathing his last under an impossible blue sky. The Anubis warriors barely old enough to shave. The thousands of undead, now just passively staring at him. He had failed. She was gone. Everything was for nothing.
Jessie wept.
133
Jessie and Jessie
The door slammed open on its hinges and banged against the wall. Without thinking, faster than an eyeblink, Jessie sprang out of bed and had both Glocks aimed at the stranger silhouetted by the flames behind him. His head swam and he felt the sledgehammer blows pounding on it, threatening to smash him to his knees. He fought it and didn’t falter. Didn’t show weakness.
“Sit down before you fall down.” the stranger said, and closed the door behind him.
Jessie stared as the scruffy bearded man with the battered leather jacket and the jagged scar running from lip to eye. He didn’t waver, followed him with his guns as he jammed the door shut with a sturdy chair.
“Your guns are empty. Sit down.” the man said.
“Piss off.” Jessie replied, still holding his aim steady.
The man laughed and dragged an armchair away from the wall and sat in it, facing him.
“Sounds like something I would say.” he chuckled and shook his head.
“You know how I know your guns are empty?” he asked “Because mine were empty in this same room on this same day about a thousand years ago. But I didn’t quit. I didn’t lay down and die like you’re getting ready to do.”
Jessie recognized the piercing blue eyes, the rough scar and the too long blonde hair, now with hints of gray. He saw it every time he looked in a mirror and he knew he was looking at himself. An older version of himself. His head still hammered but his mind was quick. The time machine the kids had found must be real. His knees buckled. He
