Carole Douglas - Brimstone Kiss

Long teeth and beheading might not be proof of vampirism, but they were clues my theory could be right. I found others.

Vegas Coroner Grisly Bahr had said that the Sunset Park bone boy's head had been cut off and a coin placed in his mouth because that was a tried-and-true old European method of killing a vampire forever.

Might not the ancient Egyptians also have had vampires and used the same decapitation method to destroy them forever, sans the coin? My research revealed Egyptians didn't use coins until the Greco-Roman era, a thousand years after Tutankhamun's reign.

Yet were there, layered among Tut's wrappings, items that functioned like the coin in the mouth to keep a slain vampire dead?

Studying detailed drawings (reproduced on a Web site) made when the mummy was first unwrapped, I noticed many of the one hundred and fifty or so amulets and articles of jewelry on the body were clustered around the neck. But many items were also centered on the chest and forearms and in the pelvic, thigh, lower leg and scrotum area. Pretty much everywhere I'd spotted tattoos on the tandem Pharaohs.

The Book of the Dead prescribed the various placements of these pieces, so they were probably potent magic, even more effective than coins.

Maybe the scientists wouldn't buy it, but I found further proof for ancient Egyptian vampires in the fact that juniper was probably used in the embalming materials. In later European tradition, juniper, hawthorn and ash wood are recommended for staking vampires. Likewise, keeping a branch of juniper or holly in the home supposedly helps protect it from vampires.

Maybe that's why so much resin was used on Tut's body. It was literal overkill.

If Egyptians had entombed vampires, the Imiut fetishes featuring headless animals dripping blood could have been a warning to future generations that the tomb's mummy was a beheaded vampire and not to be interfered with. That meant even beheading might be circumvented. Certainly Keph and Keph thought they could resurrect the beheaded Prince Krzysztof and it was possible someone had revived the royal pair themselves centuries earlier.

And those tattoos I'd noticed…

I called up Groggle again and searched for major artery locations in the human body. A "play" vampire, like Undead Ted, the anchorman at WTCH-TV, would want to bite a neck, but avoid the carotid artery there, just under the skin. A seriously hungry real vampire would want a royal road to the blood source. I found artery sites in the neck, wrist, inner arm and knee, groin and inner thigh, the very sites where Kephron and Kepherati bore tattoos. Their mostly bared bodies had acted as billboards advertising their breed and habits.

That answered the "vintage" treasure versus reproduction question. Vampire Egyptian artists and sculptors could replace aging monuments and furnishings endlessly.

Oh, my God. Who did I warn first? Ric, of course, but who would believe us? Who would have the will and power to confront this undiscovered cabal of vampires, or even believe the urgency of some major force dealing with them?

First things first.

I needed to let Ric know so we could figure this out together. If only he hadn't been out of touch since mid-morning. Damn Las Vegas ' notoriously spotty cell phone reception on the Strip and off! I took out my cell and hit redial. Again, voice mail. Where was he?

And then the true, awful meaning of two CinSims's unheard-of struggle to escape their venues to reach out and communicate hit me like a bolt of lightning.

My cell phone hadn't made or accepted calls underground at the Karnak either.

I had to place my dawning, stomach-churning suspicion into a logical scenario.

The royal freaks had taken an interest in me and were annoyed with me because they thought I'd disturbed the bone boy's sleep before they had time to "reclaim him." Then, their interest deepened because of the showdown in the Spring Mountains with the Cicereau Mob werewolves. They'd been fascinated that zombies had been raised to help defeat the werewolf packs. When I'd been in their royal clutches, they'd asked more about who had raised the dead than about me. A "servant of Anubis," they concluded, must have been present.

I'd assumed they were interested in zombies, since they commanded companies of them in the form of mummies and Egyptian warriors.

Were they really interested in Ric's abilities to raise the dead? Were they after not merely the bone boy, not merely zombies, but long-laid-to-rest vampires reborn, the age-old powerful vampires so absent in the Vegas of today? Except for themselves.

Ugarte had sent me Casablanca 's "Rick" as a messenger for two reasons.

One, this Bogart persona was already working at the Inferno, a hotbed of CinSim defiance. Peter Lorre/Ugarte had a second major film connection with Bogart, so maybe he could use some form of telepathy to break the "Rick" Bogart lose from his venue. But how the heck could he pass on the Lip Venom case I'd dropped during my athletic escape leap? Maybe he had somehow gotten to the Inferno in person. I blinked. My eyes felt as dry as my little gray cells.

I'd nail down the Lip Venom transmission mystery and nuances of CinSim inter-species communications later. Right now I needed to concentrate on the other key part of the message.

Casablanca Rick was the perfect messenger, not only to spur me to examine the cell phone photos I'd taken of the fetishes, but because Ric himself, my Ric, couldn't come. Only the CinSim Rick was available. He was used to remind me of my own Ric, and to make me realize that he was in danger. Terrible danger.

That had to be why I couldn't raise Ric's cell phone. The twin pharaohs already held Ric prisoner. They needed him to raise the old vampires hidden here and maybe elsewhere.

And Ric had walked right into their trap: his appointment at the Luxor today with the "Mexican consulate" people. The Luxor had been one of the first Vegas hotels after the Crystal Phoenix to create an internal lobby waterway. They'd discontinued it years ago, but the channels might well still exist beneath the hotel-casino, a quick way to smuggle anyone anywhere. I'd practically led them straight to him. I hoped like hell I was wrong about Ric being held captive, because the thought made me desperately fearful.

After being forced as a boy to raise zombies for misuse by the Mexican smugglers, Ric had sworn never to raise the dead for another's use and abuse. I knew he'd never consent to share his secret of dowsing for the dead or his skill. I guessed the spoiled Egyptian rulers would never accept anyone's defiance.

It would be a struggle of wills to the death, Ric's death.

How long had he been out of touch? I hadn't heard from him since ten o'clock, hours before my groupie gathering. My brain was as fried as the Bogart Rick's had been.

I stood up from the desk, the huge white leather chair spinning away from me, almost knocking me off my feet as my mind juggled huge questions.

How to penetrate that fortress beneath the Karnak? Who was mighty enough to fight Pharaoh's army and marching zombie mummies? How could I save Ric from a fate worse than death? From the curse of eternal living death he would loathe with every cell in him? Servitude of any kind after his enslaved childhood was unthinkable.

How could I rescue Ric?

I had to.

Now!

"I see you're abusing my hospitality and my office furniture," a cool, deep voice said from the doorway. "So where's the party?"

Snow, still dressed from his stage show, stood in his office doorway looking like an alabaster statue in his white leather catsuit. His ever-present sunglasses seemed to be taking in my midnight-blue velvet gown, not my desperate all-business face. At least they inspected me from top to bottom.