Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

There was a long silence, then,

Fortune thought frantically. me what the hell has happened? How did you get into my head? And my friends, out there —>Bugsy and Lohengrin were peering though the storefront.

Isra shook her shaggy head.

He remembered her saying the name, but it still meant nothing to him.

Still nothing. me talk to them.>

The single word was hard, final. She hesitated a moment, then almost plaintively said, … so long.>

—> Fortune swallowed his anger. Isra had the upper hand at the moment, but he’d managed to retrieve his body before. He could do it again. If he could just figure out how.

Isra lifted a paw. Lohengrin’s sword had flickered into his hand. He and Bugsy looked at each other. “What do you think?” the German ace asked in accented English. “This time, she is not attacking. That is good, ja?”

“Ja,” Bugsy replied, “I think that it might be all right. John, is that you? Are you…are you all right?” Isra nodded her leonine head.

Fortune asked. not all right.> “John?” Bugsy was saying. “Can you…ah…change back? If you want to…I sent out a few hundred wasps to find you after you busted out of Peregrine’s house.” He paused momentarily. “Ummm. Sorry about the house and all, but it wasn’t us. It was the lion.” He stopped for a moment, as if realizing how lame that sounded. “She breathes fire. Uh…you breathe fire. Really. You probably know that, though.”

“John,” Lohengrin said. “I am sorry too.”

“Anyway,” Bugsy said quickly. “I’m sorry it took us so long to find you. Trying to rent a car in the middle of the night is a real bitch, and you were really moving there for awhile. My wasps could hardly keep up…uh…but the question is, where should we take you? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Isra shook her head angrily, a low grumble sounding deep in her broad chest.

“We could call your mother,” Lohengrin offered.

“No,” Bugsy said, “no, not his mother. Simoon’s mother. Isis. She was the one who wanted him to have the amulet. Let’s take him to her. Maybe she can…fix him or something.”

“Is she a doctor?” Lohengrin asked.

“No, I think she’s a god.”

At last, some things were starting to come together.

The lioness paced through the store and pushed through the remains of the door, shoving it completely off its hinges. She padded past Bugsy and Lohengrin, who turned to keep her in sight at all times. Fortunately, the rental car was a convertible. Isra—or Sekhmet, or whatever the hell she should be called—leaped lightly into the back and settled herself regally across the seat. She pretty much filled it.

Lohengrin’s sword disappeared. “I think she wants to go to Isis,” he said. He slid into the driver’s seat. Bugsy took shotgun. “Great,” he announced. “Road trip.”

The sun had been up for some time when they hit the Strip.

They could see the black glass pyramid of the Luxor towering in the clear morning sky a mile down the street to their right. John Fortune could read the utter amazement in Isra’s mind as they moved past hotels and casinos, though her leonine features showed nothing but regal inscrutability. Despite the early hour the street was thick with traffic, and the sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians. Las Vegas is truly the city that never sleeps.

It was difficult to say who was more astounded—Isra, or the crowd on the sidewalks—as the rental convertible slowly cruised down the Strip. Fragments of excited conversation from the onlookers came to them:

“Holy crap, look at the size of that lion!”

“Is it real?”

“Of course it’s real! Whaddya think this is, Disneyland or something?”

“It’s too big to be real! And it’s glowing!”

“Is it dangerous?”

“It’s probably a publicity stunt.”

“That blond guy driving must be Siegfried.”

“Nah. He has tigers.”

“And look! There’s Ralph! Looking good, Ralph!”

“I had no idea he was so young.”

“Wave to the camera, Ralph!”

Bugsy waved enthusiastically, while the big German remained dignified as he drove sedately to the Luxor, muttering, “I am not Siegfried. I am Lohengrin.”

Fortune could feel Isra’s growing excitement as they pulled into the Luxor’s parking lot, passing a giant sphinx, a serene reflecting pool, and rows of obelisks. They stopped in front of the main entrance to the hotel, but none of the valets dared approach. Sekhmet was snorting fire in her excitement, much to the excited approval of the crowd that had gathered to gawk.

The show was only starting. The lioness leaped out of the back of the convertible and padded lightly, eagerly, back and forth, very much as if it was feeding time at the zoo. Fortune said, desperately hoping for some kind of help to arrive.

It soon did. Half a dozen of the Living Gods filed out of the main entrance to the hotel casino, accompanied by a retinue of fan-bearers, jugglers, acrobats, and other retainers. Led by the beautiful Isis, attended by fan-bearers holding ostrich feathers over her head, by a fat-bellied dwarf whose name Fortune didn’t know, by jokers with the heads of a dog and a hawk. Bringing up the rear, accompanied by their own servants, were two old familiar figures—Thoth, the ibis-headed spokesman of the Living Gods, and ancient Osiris, he who had perished and then come back to life, supposedly. As usual, a cryptic smile wreathed his tight-lipped mouth.

Isis—beautiful, voluptuous, and wearing a gown that was more diaphanous than modest—was receiving most of the attention from the gathered onlookers. Especially when she bowed low gracefully and said, “Hail, Lady Sekhmet! Your coming was foretold by far-seeing Osiris! Long have we awaited your arrival! Enter our abode!”

The onlookers burst into applause as the lioness returned Isis’s bow, as elegantly as four legs would allow her, and followed the colorful procession into the Luxor’s lobby. Bugsy and Lohengrin, exchanging glances, took up the rear. They were a traffic-stopper as they paced slowly, ceremoniously through the cavernous atrium and halted before the elevators. Not only was Isra reluctant to enter them, it seemed that she was too big to get into one even if she’d wanted to. Fortune urged.

Isra snarled and some of the onlooking tourists glanced about nervously.

Fortune said.

Perhaps the word “cages” did it, or maybe just the mere thought of confinement again. Whatever made Isra relinquish control, there was an unexpected, instantaneous transfiguration, and Fortune found himself standing naked in front of the elevator banks.

Fortunately, the fan-bearers acted with instantaneous aplomb and covered him—almost entirely—before the cameras in the hands of onlooking tourists could go off. All the important figures piled into the elevator, leaving their retinue to entertain the assembled crowd and deliver a spiel about the Pageant of the Living Gods, six days a week, with matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

It was a tight fit inside the elevator, but with John Fortune back as John Fortune and not a monstrous lioness, they made it. Osiris punched the button and they scooted upward to the private penthouse of the Living Gods in the heart of the Luxor pyramid.

“We must have something around here that would fit you,” Isis said, as they entered the living area of a spacious suite. She rattled off some sentences in Arabic to the dog-faced god, who looked to be about Fortune’s size. “Go with Anubis. He can lend some clothes that should fit. When you return, we’ll have refreshments.”