Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

‘You all right?’ Hunter barked.

Church nodded.

‘The djinn can drive you mad. And they’re all over the city.’

Church cleared the last vestiges of haze from his head and reclaimed Caledfwlch. As the Blue Fire rushed into him, he instantly felt stronger. On the periphery of his vision, the djinn left trails of movement, already gone by the time his gaze settled on them.

They backed to the door and slipped through it just as Church sensed the djinn launching another attack. What sounded like a frenzied jungle beast thundered against the just-closed door, shrieking cries, making their blood turn cold.

Church caught Shavi’s arm. ‘Thanks.’

Shavi smiled shyly. ‘Instinct. I am glad it worked.’

Searching the street, Hunter cursed loudly. ‘What’s the point in looking for something you can’t see?’

A familiar figure weaved towards them, keeping close to the buildings. Tom came to a halt and doubled up, wheezing from his exertion.

‘How do we know if he’s the real thing?’ Church said.

‘Stick your sword in him. See if he squeals.’ Hunter had already made his mind up.

‘Very funny,’ Tom snapped. ‘While you’re having your fun and games, one of your own has been taken.’

He proceeded to tell them about Laura. ‘I waited, but she never came out. And when I went in after her, the room was empty. No prisoner … no Laura. Only this.’

He held up a key with a handle in the shape of a jackal’s head.

‘A mortuary key!’ Fayed took it in awe. ‘I have not seen one of these outside the museum. They are ritual objects used to unlock the Night Door, when the dead are taken to the mortuary complex for the final judgment.’

‘Where’s the mortuary complex?’ Hunter asked.

‘ Imentet , my ancestors called it — west, the traditional direction in which the dead travel, towards the dying sun.’ He indicated down the street where they could see the searchlights shimmering on the Great Pyramid of Khufu. ‘Also known as kher neter , the Necropolis. The Land of the Dead.’

Hunter kept the pedal to the floor as he steered the stolen truck along Sharia al-Haram towards the Giza plateau. The road was lined with nightclubs and casinos, a tacky neon strip permanently in conflict with the majesty that lay beyond. At that time of evening, the pavements should have been thronging with tourists with too much money, posses of Egyptian businessmen and the street trade that preyed on both groups. But the road was eerily deserted. No traffic moved, which made it easier for Hunter to ignore the red lights.

Occasionally, impossibly beautiful women would attempt to flag them down, or injured, desperate children. Hunter never slowed. Sometimes they would step into the path of the truck, but there would never be an impact.

‘Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?’ Hunter said without any sign of emotion.

‘Why are you asking me?’ Church said.

‘We’re going right into the heart of where these gods exist. The chances of getting Laura out are almost non-existent.’

‘She is one of us,’ Shavi said quietly.

‘I know,’ Hunter said, ‘but this is in direct opposition to our primary mission. We make a hopeless attempt to go in there, we stand to lose everything. Smart strategy suggests we abandon this futile gesture and focus on what we’re meant to be doing. Or lose everything.’

‘You are suggesting we abandon Laura?’ Shavi said incredulously.

Hunter didn’t reply.

The truck sped past the Maryutia Canal, the pyramids huge against the night sky. Behind them the stars formed a milky river across the heavens, as though the Nile was reflected above.

‘We save Laura,’ Church said. ‘No argument.’

Fayed leaned between Hunter and Church. ‘We are nearly there.’

‘You can take the truck straight back,’ Hunter said to him. ‘It’ll be too dangerous to wait for us.’

‘No. I have spent all my life studying the great culture of Ancient Egypt. If what you say is true and the gods really do walk the Earth, then this is too great an opportunity to miss.’

‘You idiot,’ Tom said quietly.

The road passed the security perimeter of the Giza complex where armed guards would normally have been patrolling, but it was as deserted as the city’s suburbs. Hunter brought the truck to a halt before the ancient monuments. Not far away, three jackals tore at bloody remains that did not appear animal. As two of them fought over a long bone, another loped up, but although jackal-headed, this one had the body of a man. It attacked the remains with relish.

Filled with awe, Fayed scrambled to get a better look. ‘Anubis,’ he whispered.

The jackal-headed creature looked up as if it had heard him, and then loped away across the moonlit sand.

‘I’ll stay here,’ Tom said.

‘It’s not safe,’ Church responded.

‘Oh, it’s much safer going in with you,’ Tom replied sarcastically. ‘I think I’ll take my chances.’

The night was warm. The aromas of the city had been replaced by the dry scent of the desert and the cooling stone of the pyramids. Disturbed, the remaining jackals ran. Church decided not to check what they had been eating. There was an air of foreboding that put them all on edge.

‘Where’s the mortuary complex?’ Hunter asked.

Fayed made an expansive gesture. ‘The entire site has been a necropolis almost since the beginning of pharaonic Egypt. In fact, there are two distinct areas separated by the wadi. Here are the more familiar monuments. There-’ he indicated a ridge to the south-east ‘-are the private tombs of citizens of various classes.’

‘Such monuments to the dead,’ Shavi said in awe.

‘They believed that death was not the end,’ Fayed replied, ‘just a point of transition from this world to the next.’

‘Like the Celts,’ Church noted and glanced at Shavi, ‘and just about every other culture.’

Shavi smiled. ‘Do you think they were on to something?’

Nearest was the smallest pyramid of Menkaure, with a causeway leading to the mortuary temple before its entrance. The pyramid of Khafre had the same layout, with the Sphinx lying next to its causeway. And beyond was the Great Pyramid of Khufu, still breathtaking even without its sheath of gleaming white stone that had been stolen many generations before.

A figure separated from the shadows near the causeway and came towards them. Church drew his sword when he recognised Etain, her dead face as white as the moon.

Fayed fell to his knees. ‘What is this? The dead come for us?’

‘No sign of Veitch or the others,’ Hunter said. ‘Why’s she not riding that freakish horse you talked about?’

Curiously, Church sensed no threat. Despite her appearance, he saw the Etain he had first met in the Iron Age, beautiful and strong, the woman who had fallen in love with him and paid the price.

‘No visible weapons,’ Hunter said. ‘Take her down?’

‘Wait.’

Etain came to a halt in front of them. Church tried to read her intentions, but there was nothing in her eyes beyond the suffocating blankness of death. She waited for a moment, fixated on Church’s face, and then turned and walked north.

‘Well, I’ve followed worse,’ Hunter said. ‘Shall we?’

Sand swirled around their ankles as they made their way past the two smaller pyramids. After fifteen minutes they were standing before the Great Pyramid, and only at its foot did its scale become truly apparent. A mountain of steps rose up high overhead, a single star peeking out behind the summit.

‘Each block weighs around two and a half tons and there are more than two million of them covering thirteen acres,’ Fayed said, recovering from his shock and clearly finding comfort in graspable facts and figures. It was as if he was seeing the monument for the first time. ‘The mystery of mysteries. A true wonder.’