Shadow of the Sheikh (6 page)

“W
ow. This is what you call a camp?”

At Gemma's fascinated question, Shahin glanced from where they'd paused at the top of the dunes and down to the place he'd called home for the past three-hundred-odd years.

“Why? What would you call it?” he asked, trying to see it through her eyes. Wondering if her impression was a good one or bad one.

The camp was situated in a rare permanent desert oasis, tucked into a narrow, sheltered valley in the midst of the sea of massive dunes, a vivid patch of green grass and tall, elegant palms, flowering plants and rippling pools of crystal-blue water. A few dozen
multipeaked nomad tents were scattered along the verdant shore, brightly decorated in patterns of red and blue, with hanging tassels and fluttering pennants. Each tent had an awning that stretched out from the front door, under which mounds of pillows lay scattered about on thick Persian carpets. The porches were arranged facing west, toward the daily battle between darkness and light—the one which darkness always won.

“It looks like something straight out of Burton's
Arabian Nights
,” she murmured.

“Does that mean you approve?” he asked, more curious than anything else. Other women he'd brought here had not been so impressed. Not by the camp, at any rate. The awe had come later.

“It's beautiful,” she said.

Shahin agreed. And he thought it even more so from the reflected colors of the impending night—reds and oranges like the ripening skins of sweet Nubian grapefruits against the cobalt of the sky.

The woman had once again managed to surprise him.

As his small troop rode into the oasis, they were met by several servants and a handful of smiling women bearing cups of water. After they dismounted, Shahin accepted two cups and passed one to Gemma.

“Cut the dust with this, and then we shall have
cocktails as we watch the nightfall,” he told her. The sun was nearing the horizon, and it was custom in camp to watch the golden arc in its daily defeat by the power of the Lord of Night.

He drank down his water in a gulp, tossed his
bisht
and turban to one of the servants, then called over to a boy standing nearby. “Take care of madam's horse,” he instructed. “You know what to do, yes?”

“Yes, my lord!” The boy ran off, a grin on his face to have been so entrusted.

“Cocktails?” Gemma asked, brow raised, as he led her over to a large tent.

“There is no sharia law here,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “We keep the old ways, with no proscription against alcohol. In any case, I am Coptic, not Muslim.”

She tipped her head in puzzlement. “You're Christian? Not a follower of Set-Sutekh, as the Shahin legend says?”

So he was still being tested.

“I am, indeed, one of the
shemsu
, a follower. And I am a Christian as well,” he returned, and invited her to sit with him under his front canopy. “I see no contradiction.” He arranged a pile of pillows behind his back and stretched out his legs. It was good to be home. “This is Egypt, a land where—”

But Gemma wasn't listening. She was gaping
at the camels—what was left of them. They were slowly dissolving, swirling like mist into thin air.

“They are ghost camels,” he explained, reminding himself this was all new to her. “Not real.”

She blinked. “But…but we were just riding them! They were solid and…”

“Conjured. It comes in handy when one must shift back to human form unexpectedly, as today. We are immortal, but twenty miles on foot across the desert is not my idea of a pleasant afternoon stroll.”

She swallowed. And dropped abruptly down onto the pillows next to him. She ran a hand over her eyes, and he could see her fingers were shaking a little. “This is insane.”

She drew a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “You really
are
what you say. Aren't you?” But it wasn't a question, but more of a rasped statement of reluctant acceptance. Finally.

“Yes,” he said. “It is true.”

Just then, the servant reappeared carrying a drinks tray, and another with a low brass table, which were arranged on the rug between him and Gemma. Then the servants bowed and melted away. Shahin picked up the pitcher, poured a splash of pinkish liquid into two stemmed glasses and handed her one. “Here. You'll feel better after a few sips.”

“Martinis?” she asked, looking at the time-
honored shape of the glasses half-amused, half-incredulous.

He smiled and shrugged, settling back to watch the drama unfolding before them. The glowing golden ball of the sun was just disappearing behind the crest of the highest dune, the air around it shimmering with the dying heat of the day. Fingers of indigo darkness stretched across the sky, reaching, reaching to snuff out the dimming light as it had for an eternity, and would for another.

He lifted his glass in a toast. “What can I say. I had a good British friend who was a very bad influence.”

She frowned, noticing the faint color of the drink, caused by a handful of red seeds slowly sinking to the bottom of the glass. “I thought martinis were supposed to have olives,” she said.

“Not mine. Taste,” he urged.

She sipped, tipping a few seeds into her mouth and rolling them on her tongue. Suddenly her eyes flared, and he could see her struggle to decide whether to spit them out or not. She finally swallowed, and said, “Seriously? Pomegranate seeds? That's not a bit obvious?”

He smiled, pleased that she'd caught the irony. “Don't worry,
kalila
. I assure you, I am not Hades. I simply like the taste of pomegranate.”

And unlike Persephone, there would be no
bargains made for her freedom. He was hers. Not for six months of the year, but for as long as he wished to keep her.

She took another sip; this time, her swallow was more convulsive. She glanced sideways at the ragged silhouette of tents that stretched the length of the valley, then westward, to the giant dunes that rolled out from the oasis, stretching halfway across the continent of Africa. The orange sun was nearly gone now, consumed by the deepening darkness of the coming night. Just a sliver remained, hovering like a burning drop of mercury on the horizon.

She watched it as she said, “You aren't planning to let me go in the morning, are you.”

Again, not a question.

She was still bespelled, but only concerning her attraction to him, not regarding her capture. Apparently, that would be unnecessary, it seemed, even for the short term. He was glad she'd accepted her fate. It would make everything so much easier on her.

“No,” he affirmed. “I am not.”

The last remnant of sun blinked out, vanquished. She did not look back at him.

“Why?” she asked quietly. “Why me?”

He sensed she did not want to be given platitudes, told he'd taken her because she was the most beautiful woman in the world and he couldn't live
another day without having her. She wanted the truth. The strange thing was, that
was
the truth. Or part of it, at least. If she hadn't thoroughly captured his masculine interest at the temple yesterday, she would now be a prisoner in Khepesh, awaiting the decision of the high priest as to what would be done with her.

Being here with him was infinitely better. Here, she would have a chance to learn what it was like to be an immortal in the service of the god, and could decide to join the
per netjer
of her own free will. For if she didn't, she would be robbed of that free will and turned into a
shabti
, a human servant, to spend eternity in the service of the immortals, with no trace of her former self intact. A living purgatory.

The unhappy fate of his own mother.

He shook off the unwelcome reminder of his family and tamped down the instinctive fury that always rode him just beneath the surface because of it, consuming him with the need for revenge.

“It's complicated,” he said gruffly, and jerked down the remainder of his martini, then poured another and topped up hers.

“It would appear,” she said drily, “that I have nothing but time on my hands. So go ahead. Give me the unabridged version.”

He sighed and silently debated what and how much to tell her this early on. But he was not a
palace courtier used to prevarication and intrigue.

He was a warrior, for better or worse, plainspoken and straightforward. So he gave her the no-frills version.

“Actually,” he said, “it's your sister we want. You are just…shall we say, collateral damage.”

She stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“I'm speaking of the
per netjer
, the temple, of course. Not me personally. Because you are definitely the sister I want.
Only
you.” He gave her a smile. But he saw plainly it did not take the bite from his words.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I don't understand,” she said at length. “Why does the cult, this
per netjer
as you call it, want my sister?
Which
sister?”

He adjusted his position on the pillows, turning toward her somberly. “At first, it was Gillian. Somehow, she discovered the hidden entrance to Khepesh Palace, the home of the immortals of Set-Sutekh. You must understand, there was no way we could let her leave with that knowledge.”

Gemma frowned. “Gillian is a historian and she'd been hired to find some long-lost British lord's grave. She was out searching for it on the day she vanished. But she phoned us. She told us she'd met a man and had decided to stay with him for a while.”
She leveled Shahin a gaze. “Are you saying that wasn't true?”

He shook his head. “No, that much was indeed true. It was Lord Kilpatrick she met. He is…was…one of us.”

Gemma's eyes widened and for a moment she was mute. Then, “My God.
Lord Rhys Kilpatrick?
It was
his
grave Gillian was searching for! But he's been dead for over a hundred y—” Her sentence choked off in dismay.

“Needless to say, Kilpatrick is still very much alive,” Shahin said. “And in love with your sister. They ran away together.”

Gemma closed her eyes and amazed him when her lips lifted in a bleak smile. “Thank God. At least something good has come out of all this insanity. She mentioned a wedding in her note. So they eloped?”

At the reminder of Rhys's treachery, Shahin finished his drink with a scowl and set the glass on the brass table with a clunk. Seth claimed to have himself engineered Rhys's defection to Petru, the palace of their enemy, as a sort of Trojan horse, but Shahin feared Seth's fondness for the Englishman had convinced him of a loyalty that did not exist. “Not exactly,” he said.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Our priestess, Nephtys, had a vision of Gillian as
the demigod Seth-Aziz's consort. The wedding she mentioned was to Seth, not Kilpatrick. But she and Rhys defied the god and went over to our enemy, Haru-Re, to seek sanctuary.”

Gemma's jaw dropped. “You can't be serious. You wanted her to be consort to a demigod?” Her expression turned to patent disbelief. She started to shake her head, then shot him a sharp glance. “Wait. Seth-Aziz? As in Seth-Aziz the high priest of the cult of
Set-Sutekh?
The one in all the local native legends?
That's
the cult you're talking about?”

“Cult has such a negative connotation. You must use the term
per netjer
. Ours is not a cult worshiping a specific deity. It's a way of life. An offering of service.”

But again she was not listening. She looked completely aghast. “But Seth-Aziz, he's supposed to be a…a…”

“Vampire?” he helpfully supplied. “Yes, he is.”

“No…” she whispered, going deathly pale. “Vampires don't exist.” Her denials were getting repetitious.

“They do. Two of them, at any rate. Haru-Re our enemy, and Seth-Aziz, our leader.”

“And you wanted my sister to be his consort.” She looked utterly appalled.

“We still do. Well, one of them.”

“You can't be serious. Surely, you don't mean…?”

Shahin jetted out a decisive breath. “Oh, but that's exactly what I mean. Seth has decided that because of Lady Gillian's defection, your other sister, Josslyn, is to take her place. As his wife.”

“No!”
Gemma jumped up so fast that the rest of her drink splashed out of the glass, soaking her shirt. She barely noticed. “How
dare
you?” she demanded. “What gives you the right to force such a thing on her? On
any
woman? Did it ever occur to you that she might not want to be a vampire's—His—”

“Don't,”
Shahin warned, and rose in a single swift motion.

He grasped her arms when she whirled and started to stalk off. Where she'd go, she had no idea. But it didn't matter. This was too much. “Let go of me!”

“There's one thing you need to understand,” he growled. “We don't force ourselves on anyone. In fact, we go to great lengths to avoid mortals even knowing of our existence. It was Gillian who intruded on our space and forced our hand. But in the end, she chose to join us and agreed to become Seth's consort of her own free will.”

“I don't believe you!” Gemma spat out. “Consort to a
vampire?
”

“Seth is a demigod, our high priest. Being a
vampire makes him more powerful, but to all appearances, he is a man like any other.”

She couldn't decide if he was serious or just plain crazy. So she grabbed on to an objection he couldn't argue against. “Even if what you say is true—and I don't believe it for a second—she wouldn't leave Joss and me like that. With no explanation.”
Just as their mother had…

“What would you have had her say?” Shahin argued. “In any event, she did phone you and wrote the note so you wouldn't worry. But believe me, she intended to stay. She wants to be with us.” He tugged her closer to his body. “Just as you will.”