Blood of the Nile (18 page)

Yet the prim and
proper heiress who stood behind the podium was not the true Maliyah. Her
personality seemed stifled. No doubt she had remained in Cairo for far too
late. If she stayed in the country much longer, the rigid Egyptian cultural
expectations thrust upon her would strip away the spontaneity and spark of independence
that had originally drawn the vampire to her. At that moment, Ramses knew he
had to let her go. Rebuking her affections would force her to return to Italy
and spare him from bearing the responsibility for his mate’s broken spirit. It
didn’t matter that he’d loved her for two decades. Setting her free was the
right thing to do. As soon as the danger passed, he too, would leave the Middle
East. Find a deserted island where he could disappear into obscurity. First,
he’d have to liquidate his assets, maybe even take Andreas up on his offer to
purchase
Shakir
Shipping
outright
.
Before any of
that could happen, he had to bring Shahad to justice.

Thus far, the
bastard hadn’t shown his face. Maliyah had nearly completed her speech with no
sign of her elusive uncle. She began reading the final paragraph when out of the
corner of his eye Ramses saw a man in the front row closest to the stage,
presumably a reporter, stand up from his chair and start toward the exit on the
building’s left flank. He was tall and skinny, dressed unremarkably in a gray
suit. His only distinguishing feature was a long, unkempt beard that hung in
stringy strands from his chin. “Excuse me,” he whispered in Arabic as he passed
by the fellow journalists sitting in his row.
 
He held a cell phone in his hand and appeared
to be leaving in order to answer a call.

A moment later, a
woman who had been seated next to him screamed out loud.
“Bomb!”

Within seconds,
the entire room erupted in chaos. Ramses watched as throngs of spectators
streamed toward the exits. Husani pushed his way through the masses, his hand
firmly grasping Maliyah’s forearm as he attempted to lead her to safety. Ramses
used brute force to shove people out of his path in order to get to his mate
and her cousin.

“Take her to the
limo and get the hell out of here! I’m going after the guy who planted the
explosive. I’ll meet you at home.” Ramses shouted over the screams of the crowd.
Then, he ran the opposite direction, headed toward the stage to scoop up the
bomb. Once it was in his hands, he rushed to the exit where he’d last seen the reporter.
The man didn’t fit
Shahad’s
description, but surely he
knew where to find him.

The cell phone the
bomber carried most likely served as a remote detonator and if Ramses could get
to him in time, he’d be able to stop the device from exploding.
 
But keeping the man in his line of sight would
prove difficult. All around him, people screamed as they scurried out of the
building. Almost every male reporter in the press conference wore dark-colored
suits similar to the bomber, making him close to impossible to locate in the
swarm of commotion. Nonetheless, Ramses scoured the area with a fine-toothed
comb. He bulldozed through the crowd until he spotted what appeared to be the
suspect dart into a warehouse about five hundred yards down the street. He
recognized him by the straggly wisps of hair that covered his face.

Ramses raced down
the pavement and pried open the entrance to the old building. He crept through
the doorway on the balls of his feet, so as not to reveal himself. Once inside,
he found several rows of paintings and sculptures in various states of repair.
Some of the pieces were in the midst of
refabrication
and had bits of marble and clay strewn about, while others simply needed to be
placed in new frames. The space seemed to belong to the museum, a place where
aging works of art could be restored to their original condition.

After taking stock
of his surroundings, Ramses noted that there was only one way in and out of the
building. Other than the threshold he’d just passed, the suspect had no means
of escape. Feeling confident that the man was trapped, the vampire called out
to him.

“Deactivate the
bomb and give yourself up. It’s either that or I shove it down your throat and
detonate the thing myself!”

Much to his dismay,
the bastard refused to surrender. Ramses had no choice but to proceed down each
long corridor to search him out. Finally, at the end of the last hallway,
hidden behind a large canvas that depicted a cherub seated on a golden throne,
the vampire detected a human heartbeat. The rapid
lub
-dub
rhythm pounded in Ramses’ ears. He could hear the gush of liquid as blood
pumped through the other man’s veins. The sound triggered an immediate
biological response. Without warning, claws burst through the tips of his
fingers. Fangs shot out from his gums and Ramses growled low underneath his
breath.

Ramses set the
explosives down on a nearby stool and slinked back toward the end of the
passageway where he’d stood earlier. In a fit of pure unadulterated rage, his
fist barreled into the center of the canvas, sending splatters of dried paint
across the floor. He grabbed his victim by the throat and pushed his head
through the hole his hand had made. Then he lifted the man’s body off the floor
and hurled it against the wall. His torso bounced off the concrete partition a
few times before it slid lifelessly to the ground. Again, Ramses yanked the
bomber up by the neck and bared his canines. With his free hand, he reached out
and snatched up the cell phone, which had skimmed a few feet across the
pavement during the ruckus.

“Give me the God
damn code! If you refuse, I swear I’ll suck you dry.”

The man’s lower
lip quivered as he squeaked out a reply.
“Pound.
9-6-9-8.”

In slow,
methodical fashion, Ramses entered the code into the phone’s keypad. The last
thing he wanted to do was key in the wrong numbers and
force
the device to blow. Even though he punched in the digits, the lighted display
kept counting down, and Ramses knew he was in for trouble. With only seconds to
spare, he threw the device with all his might. It bounced off the far wall, and
the vampire covered his face. Concrete and wood splinters rained down from the
ceiling at the same time a loud bang reverberated in his ears. By the time he
opened his eyes again, a
hole
the size of an elephant
had been blown into one side of the building. Art supplies were strewn about haphazardly
and clouds of colorful smoke rose up from the floor. Other than a few scrapes
and bruises, no one had been injured. Thank goodness the explosion had occurred
in an empty warehouse, instead of a busy Cairo thoroughfare.

After the dust
settled and Ramses’ regained his footing, he lifted the heel of his boot to the
bomber’s windpipe, essentially cutting off the air to his lungs. “Before I’m
through with you, you’re going to wish that device had killed you,” the vampire
said as he grabbed hold of the man’s wrist and torn a horizontal gouge against
the grain of his forearm. “Tell me where Shahad is. Otherwise, I drink.”

“Shahad?
Who is that?”

“The man who hired
you to plant the bomb,” Ramses said as he put pressure on the wound and forced
blood to trickle down the man’s arm. As the red liquid flowed uninhibited, he
felt his vision grow hazy. Bloodlust began to set in and would soon outweigh
his search for answers. “Tell me where I can find him.”

“I’m not sure. He
never gave me his name,” his victim babbled as he cowered in pain against the
wall. “All I know is that the bomb was supposed to be a distraction. Maybe kill
a few people in its direct path.”

A distraction?
Fuck! Shahad is going
after Maliyah.

Suddenly, Ramses
broke out in a cold sweat. The hairs on the back of his neck rose on edge.
Shahad had planned this whole charade in order to separate the two lovers. That
way, he could kill Maliyah and resume his place as head of the Aziz family.
Ramses had to get a hold of Husani to be certain they were safe. But before he
did so, he had to feed. He needed to be at full strength. The vampire jerked
forward, bringing the man who lay helplessly in a puddle of blood much closer.
Then, he sank two teeth into his arm. The suction from his mouth pilfered
sustenance out of the vein, until Ramses felt his victim’s heart rate slow to a
near standstill. He was breathing, but barely.

“You better be
telling the truth. Or mark my words, I’ll come back and finish what I started!”

***

The limousine had
been parked close to the rear exit of the building, tucked between a van
belonging to a local news station and a caravan of official government vehicles.
Shahad lie crouched down on the opposite side of the limo, hidden from view.
Maliyah, accompanied by his estranged son Husani, approached from the left. Strangely
enough, seeing his progeny, his own flesh and blood,
sparked
little emotion. He stared at the man who, as a child, had once frolicked at his
feet. He felt nothing, save indifference. Shahad dreaded this moment for years.
Yet now that it had been thrust upon him, he realized that slaughtering his own
offspring wouldn’t prove difficult. In fact, it’d be far less traumatic than
watching his brother wither away and die from afar.

The chauffeur must
have spotted Maliyah and Husani. He rushed out of the limousine to escort them
inside. While he tended to his fare, Shahad took it upon himself to sneak into
the front seat. The privacy screen was still up, which allowed him to maintain
his anonymity. Situated comfortably in shotgun position, he waited until he
heard the back door slam shut. Then Shahad cocked his gun and readied himself for
confrontation.

By the time the
driver popped his head back inside the car, the weapon was pointed at his right
temple. “Don’t say a word. Don’t even think about trying to be a hero. Just
drive.” With slow, steady movements the man sank behind the wheel, closed the
car door and fastened his seatbelt.

“Where am I
headed?” The driver asked, his voice somewhat strained as the fingers on one
hand dug into the grooves of the steering column. Using his free hand, he
started the engine and put the car in gear.

Shahad instructed
the chauffeur to head east toward the sacred pool of
Amun
.
He knew that his brother had been laid to rest nearby in the family crypt. The
secluded location would serve as the perfect place to dole out revenge. Twenty-nine
years ago almost to the day, Anwar came to him with a proposition: take a
substantial sum of money and disappear. At the time, Shahad accepted the offer
without a second thought. How could he refuse? Abandoning the conniving wench
who’d gotten knocked up and duped into an unsolicited betrothal didn’t require
serious contemplation. The opportunity to leave the wretched existence he’d
been relegated to live and start fresh sounded too good to be true. Soon,
Shahad found out why.

In the years after
Shahad had been banished from Cairo, his brother’s fortune had increased
tenfold. The business relationship he’d struck with shipping tycoon Ramses
Shakir
allowed him to amass more wealth than either sibling
had ever dreamed possible. Shahad tried unsuccessfully to bilk additional funds
out of his brother while he was still alive. However, when that didn’t work, a
more permanent solution had been devised. His plan would have worked, too, had
it not been for Anwar’s meddling daughter. Her postulations raised serious concerns
about the nature of Anwar’s death, causing his own children to second-guess the
coroner’s initial report. Like her mother, Maliyah had grown into a snooty,
overly inquisitive American brat. Shahad knew that Celeste
D’Agostino
had a lot to do with his exile. Distaste for his brutish behavior was never
something she kept secret.

Anwar loved his
ex-wife unequivocally, and fell into a deep depression once their marriage
ended in divorce. The only thing that kept him from sinking into a pit of
inconsolable desperation was the child the couple had produced during their
short-lived union. Surely, Anwar had bequeathed the family estate to Maliyah.
With her out of the way, the rightful successor to the Aziz fortune would come
into question. Once Shahad stepped forward, an Egyptian court had no choice but
to acknowledge his right of inheritance and award him the proceeds. Over the
past several weeks, he’d used whatever means at his disposal in order to
procure the young girl’s demise, even seducing his brother’s long-time servant
and coaxing her to take part in two attempted homicides. Yet Maliyah had proven
more resourceful than anticipated. The fact that Ramses
Shakir
refused to leave her side, made the task of killing her all the more difficult.

Ramses was most likely
dead. The explosives expert he’d hired had assured him that the small blast
would kill anyone within fifty feet of detonation. By now, the bastard had taken
the bait and been
blow
to bits, leaving the fate of
the remaining Aziz heirs to Shahad. As soon as the limousine came to halt at
the entrance to the family plot, he’d unceremoniously shoot them both and
reclaim his place in Egyptian society. If necessary, he’d murder Salma too. But
Shahad had the feeling that that wouldn’t prove necessary. Salma could easily
be manipulated. After all, she was her mother’s child.