Conquer the Dark (22 page)

Bath Kol looked up. “The ancients got it. The Source is both male and female, whole. Yin and yang, masculine and feminine, balanced.”

“I can feel that energy moving all through the grounds,” Aziza said, scanning the group and getting nods from the other women.

“But the feminine energy feels weaker here, somewhat constricted for some reason,” Melissa said, hugging herself.

“Yeah, like something else happened … I don’t know.” Maggie glanced at Celeste for moral support.

“Like the feminine goddess energy here got shut down somehow.” Celeste lifted her ponytail up off her neck. “It makes it harder to intuitively read the site, from our perspective.”

“Yeah, well,” Bath Kol said with a weary sigh, “unfortunately, when the patriarchies moved in, by the first century the worship of Mut stopped, and humans only started looking at the single aspect of the Source. The male side.”

“True dat,” Isda said, shaking his head. “It was a crying shame, too. How can you only give praise to one-half of the Source, mon?”

“Right.” Bath Kol looked around as though trying to get a layout of the buildings in his mind’s eye. “Okay, so they also put up the Precinct of Montu and then there’s the Temple of Amenhotep the Fourth—who was otherwise known as Akhenaten—”

“Who got himself in a shitstorm with the priests,” Isda excitedly interjected, obviously unable to contain himself. “I told him the politics were dicey. He was going monotheistic on them, and the priests were vested in keeping
the temples and energies as separate representations of the Source. So, dat temple you talkin’ ’bout, mon, got torn down as soon as the man died. Another crying shame, because dey tried to blot his name out—scratching it off temple walls and razing all he’d built. But his wife was fine, too, mon, Nefertiti … what can I say?”

Trying not to laugh and thus encourage Isda, given Bath Kol’s serious attempt at keeping the conversation on track, Azrael interjected with logic.

“If I were attempting to hide something,” Azrael said calmly, glancing around the bus, “I’d bring it to somewhere that it would seem unlikely—here. It’s so open, so accessible, so many unrestricted and unguarded areas, it would seem like putting money in a vault and then never locking it. But I assure you it won’t be where normal tourists can trip over it. So, the Temple of Amun is just a place we must pass through to get deeper inside the complex. The Precinct of Montu is a possibility, but we know if the Temple of Amenhotep the Fourth has been reduced to rubble, one might not want to risk something valuable getting damaged there. But the Temple of Mut …”

“We’re right on the same page, man,” Bath Kol replied, nodding. “See, right in the center of her complex is the sacred lake, and the inside bend of that faces her actual temple.”

“Water,” Celeste said, leaning forward. “Today I was drawn to the water, and so far we know for a fact that the men hiding the sarcophagus initially had it in a place where there was feminine energy … back at the Temple of Hathor in Dendera.”

“Mut’s believed reign was of the earth, creation … also
very symbolic for what’s being hidden—something that can re-create life to come up from the earth and not down from the heavens,” Azrael added, glancing around.

“Not to mention, feminine energy traditionally isn’t warlike, but in the case of Mut, she was represented by the lioness head—so that energy is not to be messed with. Just ask any man that has truly pissed off his ’oman,” Isda said over his shoulder. “Plus, with a lake, dat’s a nice natural barrier for a priest to light up, you know?”

“Same page, yet again, brothers,” Bath Kol said, now enlarging the section of the map that dealt with the Precinct of Mut. “All right, here’s the challenge. The area is blocked off and this campus is crawling with guards. From the main entrance of where we wanna go, there’s a four-hundred-meter-long avenue of ram-headed sphinxes that leads north directly to the tenth pylon of Amun. So if we create a bit of a diversion, we can backtrack from the Temple of Amun right into it. Or, there’s another avenue of sphinxes that leads two hundred and fifty meters west to catch the flow into a three-kilometer-long avenue of sphinxes that connects the Precinct of Amun to Luxor Temple.”

“Or,” Celeste said with a shrug, “rather than going all Green Beret commando, we
could
just walk directly to it like dumb Americans, put up a good-natured pleading fuss, and bribe our way back there.”

The brothers looked around at each other and smiled as they realized it had distinct possibilities.

“Feminine energy works like a charm every time,” Isda said with a wide grin.

Bath Kol shrugged and turned off the lit floor map. “Works for me.”

Luxor could just as
easily have been any bustling city in the United States. Congestion was rampant, vibrant shops crammed themselves into every available inch of real estate. Vendors argued for their fair share of the pavement, and bodies endlessly milled. Local shoppers and the few tourists that had braved to come back after the civil unrest coexisted in an uneasy truce, all made palatable by the almighty dollar. But the thing that most fascinated Celeste as she stared out of the dingy bus window was how a modern city had imposed itself so thoroughly upon antiquity.

They rode over a busy overpass like one you would see in any major urban business district; however, beneath it were cranes, excavation equipment, and construction workers unearthing a two-mile-long stretch of an ancient road. Ten-foot-high sphinxes lined the road with one of the spectacular monuments evenly placed every three feet. That someone could have ordered such an arduous feat of building to be done blew her mind. Sphinxes, every three feet, for two miles, that led from your palace to your wife’s palace?
Dayum
. And it now just so happened to run through what was like their downtown Manhattan? The contrast was unbelievable.

She better understood Isda’s pride and excitement as they neared the Karnak complex. Hundreds of buses packed the lot, and thousands of tourists moved along the huge granite path, the prior unrest notwithstanding—people still came to see this world marvel. The crush of humanity looked pitifully insignificant against the monuments, like swarming ants beneath two-city-block-long
rows of giant stone baboon statues seated in repose as they approached huge obelisks to enter the Temple of Amun.

Everyone looked up the moment they got off the bus. It was impossible not to walk in awe, almost tripping over ground stones. Celeste found herself completely unable to turn away from the enormity of the architecture or the supernatural engineering that could be the only thing that accounted for what they were witnessing. In her heart and soul she knew something beyond human had assisted in creating what she now saw.

As they entered the gigantic Hypostyle Hall, every human in the group gasped. It was like standing in the middle of a fifty-thousand-square-foot redwood forest where the huge trees were man-made of granite.

Isda nodded and turned around slowly with pride, his focus toward the top of the massive pillars. “Check it out … one hundred and thirty-four columns set up in sixteen rows. A hundred twenty-two are ten feet tall, the other twelve are twenty-one meters tall, and all are like three meters wide. The architraves on top of the columns are seventy tons each.” He folded his arms and looked at the group, even though they were still staring at the structures. “And dey
still
don’t know how we did it.” He chuckled and began walking with his chest poked out. “We wasn’t bullshitting back den.”

“Not at all,” Celeste said in awe.

What amazed her was that not only were the columns huge, just as the entrance statuary and obelisks had been, but they were also just as detailed, telling a gorgeous story in stone relief on what seemed like every inch of granite.

“In the womb of the Precinct of Mut is da crescent
lake,” Isda said, gathering their group in a small huddle. “Now, if we do like da lady says, we may need a coupla brothers to peel off and make sure all these other tourists don’t see us get special treatment and then try to use dat as leverage to get in dere, too. If dat happens, da guards won’t go for it.”

Gavreel and Paschar nodded and broke off from the group.

“Okay, Mut’s Precinct has several small buildings in there, but if we focus on the one that has the holy of holies first and then fan out, maybe we can make quick work of this,” Bath Kol said, glancing around concerned.

“Holy of holies?” Melissa frowned.

“Main altar. Each temple has one,” Aziza said with a nod to the much larger Temple of Amun.

“Okay, you ladies work your magic,” Azrael said with a half smile. “My pocket replenishes itself.”

Celeste chuckled as she led Melissa, Maggie, and Aziza far away from the brothers toward a group of guards that were gathered by a small barricade outside the Precinct of Mut.

“We heard that Mut was the goddess of fertility and the earth,” Celeste said, using her most coy demeanor. “Couldn’t we just go in for a quick peek?”

The guards smiled at them as Melissa’s voice chimed in with Maggie’s to harmonize on, “Please.”

“We would be ever so grateful,” Aziza said in a sensuous but dignified rush.

The men smiled and took several long drags on their cigarettes, and the leader stepped forward, addressing Celeste.

“Nubian sister, I would like to, and my men would like to accommodate such beautiful women, but … it is after all dangerous. Plus, if I allow you—the others will see.” He nodded in disdain toward loud-talking tourists that milled past them. “All do not appreciate the
beauty
as you do, but I must disappoint you. Are you married?”

Celeste released a theatrical sigh that the other women in the group also picked up on and mimicked. “No, not yet. That’s why we all wanted to go inside.”

“None of you are married?” The man looked at his fellow guards as though the concept was impossible.

“No,” Celeste said, telling the truth, but pouting for extra emphasis.

“What is wrong in America? This cannot be!” The lead guard turned around and translated for his men, which set off a rapid-fire Arabic conversation that Celeste and the other women didn’t need a translator to understand.

“No boyfriend?” The guard smiled a dashing smile and waited.

Again Celeste released a heavy exhale. “Yes, but I don’t think he can marry me.”

“He has a lot of money, but the man has issues … uhm … entanglements that prevent that, I think,” Melissa offered, smiling at Celeste.

“Yeah—
big
entanglements. Cosmic.” Celeste laughed, shaking her head.

“Oh, so sad, a beautiful woman should be married and have lots of children, and, well, if he cannot …” The guard shrugged and stepped closer. “I am Hakim. I would like to make you many children.”

Celeste laughed hard, for a moment at a loss for words.
African men had a level of forwardness, she’d noticed, that made the average guy on a street corner in Philly look downright timid.

Maggie giggled and filled in the gap. “Hi, Hakim.”

Another eager guard stepped up, and although he didn’t speak English, he bowed and placed a hand over his chest. “Yusef.”

“Hi, Yusef,” Magdalena said with a wide smile as another, shier guard approached.

The lead guard named Hakim pointed to the shy man and shoved him forward a bit as the other men laughed. “This is Amir,” he exclaimed. But Hakim then walked over to Aziza and took up her hand. “Hakim can have two wives. You and her—one beautiful and young, one beautiful and wise, such makes a man’s household rich and peaceful, too. Please say yes, both of you!”

Aziza laughed and withdrew her hand. “You are too kind.”

Hakim sighed. “But, I should not allow my wives to go into a dangerous temple area. That would be irresponsible for me.”

“Her boyfriend has lots of money,” Maggie said with a shrug.

“He is here?” Hakim said, slight disappointment in his voice.

“Yeah,” Celeste said, sounding thoroughly disgusted. “Unfortunately.”

Her comment seemed to revive the dejected guard. “Well, maybe if he pays for your safe passage, I can call you later … since he is so entangled? He should pay for you to be happy now, yes?”

“I agree,” Celeste said with a wide grin.

“You are in hotel here?”

Dodging the question, she smiled. “Give me your number. He likes to play cards with his friends.”

“Come, come,” Hakim said, turning her away from the group to speak privately to her as he dug into his pocket for a pack of matches, and then for a moment closed his hand over hers with a sexy smile. But as he lifted his head, Celeste froze.

The man’s eyes were completely black, no whites showing. It happened for the briefest of seconds, and then her mind felt foggy.

“You have something to write down my number?” he said, tearing the matchbook and giving her a tiny slip of paper. “I would be so honored to show you all of Egypt.”

Nodding through the disorientation, she dug into her small, black waist bag, which held her ship boarding pass, passport, and a little cash, to find a hotel pen. But as she did so, her fingers felt thick and clumsy, just as her mind had become. Somewhere deep within her a small voice cried out that something was wrong, and just as suddenly as it did, a dark fog choked off the sound of it.