Anne Rice: The Mummy or Ramses the Damned

"It is you," he whispered. "The Queen who was wise as well as impulsive? Who loved recklessly but knew always how to conquer and rule?"

"Yes, precisely. The Queen who begged you to share your gift with one mortal man, but you refused her. Selfish, spiteful and petty in the end."

"Oh, no, you know it is not true." Same old charm, same old persuasiveness. And the same fierce and unyielding will. "It would have been a ghastly error!"

"And I? Am I not an error!"

She struggled to free herself. She couldn't. Again he turned her in a great circle to the rhythm of the music, skirts brushing her as others danced around them, oblivious, it seemed, to her struggle.

' 'Last night you told me that when you were dying, you tried to call out to me," he said. "The venom of the snake had paralyzed you. Were you telling me the truth?"

Again she tried to pull loose. "Do not say these things to me!" she said. She jerked her left arm away from him, but he caught it again. Now die others did see what was happening. Heads were turning. A pair of dancers had stopped in alarm.

"Answer me," he demanded. "Did you try to call out to me in those last moments? Is that true?"

"You think that justifies what you have done!" She forced him to a halt. She would not be dragged along by him. "I was afraid. I was at death's door!" she confessed. "It was fear, not love! You think I could ever forgive you for letting Antony die?'

"Oh, it's you," he said softly. They stood motionless together. "It is really you. My Cleopatra, with all your duplicity and passion. It is you."

"Yes, and I speak the truth when I say I hate you," she cried, die tears springing to her eyes. "Ramses the Damned! I curse the day I let the light of the sun into your tomb. When your sweet mortal Julie Stratford is lying dead at your feet as Antony lay dead at mine, you will know the meaning of wisdom, of love, the power of she who always conquers and rules. Your Julie Stratford is mortal. Her neck can be snapped like a river reed."

Did she mean these words? She didn't know. She knew the hatred and all the love that had heated it, made it possible. In a fury she drew back, at last free of him, and turned to flee.

"No, you will not hurt her. You will not hurt Alex, either," he cried out in Latin. "Or anyone else."

She shoved the dancers out of her path. A woman screamed; a man stumbled into his partner. Others struggled to make way for her. She turned and saw him bearing down on her, calling out to her.

"I will put you back into die grave before I will let you do it. Into the darkness."

In terror, she plowed through the crowd before her. The air was rife with screams everywhere. But the door lay ahead, and freedom, and she ran towards it with all her strength.

"Wait, stop, listen to me," Ramses shouted.

Glancing back as she reached the doors, she saw that Alex had ahold of him. "Stop, Ramsey, let her go!" Other men were surrounding Ramses.

She ran on to the top of the stairs. Now it was Alex's voice calling her, begging her to wait, not to be afraid. But Ramses would get free of his captors. They could not hold him, and his threats rang in her ears.

Down the steps she ran, clutching to the railing, badly hampered by the high-heeled shoes.

"Your Highness," Alex shouted.

She rushed through the lobby and out the front doors. A car had just stopped at the foot of the steps. The man and woman were already out of it, the servant holding the door open.

She glanced back. Alex was running down the staircase, and Ramses was right behind him.

"Your Highness! Wait!"

She dashed around the car, and shoved die baffled servant out of her path. She slid behind the wheel and slammed her foot on the pedal. As it raced forward, Alex vaulted over die side door and fell down into the seat beside her. She struggled to control the wheel, barely missing the garden, turning back onto the street that led to the boulevard.

"God in heaven," Alex shouted over the wind. "He's taken the car behind us. He's following us."

She forced the pedal to the floor, turning dangerously to avoid the car directly in front of her, and then racing ahead into the open lane.

"Your Highness, you'll kill us!"

The cold air struck her face as she leaned forward, twisting and turning the wheel to pass the sluggish cars that would not get out of her way. Alex pleaded with her. But she heard only Ramses' voice in her ears: "I will put you back into the grave . . . into the darkness." To get away, she had to get away.

"I won't let him hurt you."

At last the boulevard had given way to the open country road. Nothing in her path now. Yet she kept the pedal jammed to the floor.

Somewhere far out there lay the pyramids, and then the desert, the open desert. But how could she hide there; where would she go?

"Is he still behind us?" she screamed.

"Yes, but I won't let them hurt you, I told you! Listen to me."

"No," she screamed. "Do not try to stop me!" She shoved at him as he went to embrace her. The car twisted, went off the paving. Over the packed sand it plowed, plunging into the blackness, headlamps shining dimly on the open desert. She had lost the road!

Far off to the right she saw a twinkling light moving as if towards her. Then she heard that sound, that awful sound: the scream of the steam locomotive! Ye gods, where was it!

Panic seized her. She could hear the low rumble of the iron wheels!

"Where is it!" she screamed. "Stop, you have to. Don't try to race it!" A glare of lights struck the little mirror above her, blinding her. She threw up her hands for an instant, then grabbed the wheel again. Then she saw the horror of horrors, the great roaring monster that had terrified her more than anything else. The giant black iron locomotive looming down on her right. "The brakes!" Alex cried.

The motor car bumped, rose up in the air and caught at a dead halt. The locomotive passed only a foot in front of her, the huge grinding wheels directly before her eyes.

"We're caught on the tracks, damn it, come on, get out!" Alex cried.

The whistle came again, screaming over the iron rumbling. Another one was coming towards her from the left! She saw its round yellow eye, the beam sweeping over her, its great flaring iron skirt as it thundered down the metal path.

They had her, these things; they had her. How could she escape them? And Ramses was behind her, Ramses was shouting her name. She felt Alex grab her arm and try to pull her out of the seat. The hideous locomotive was on top of her; as it struck the car she screamed.

Her body was thrown upwards. In one glaring moment she felt herself flying, high above the desert, tossed like a doll into the wind. Below the horrid iron monsters traveled past each other, over the endless sands. Then a searing flash of orange fire rose under her; unendurable heat enveloped her with a great deafening sound the like of which she had never before heard.

* * *

Ramses was thrown backwards by the explosion. He landed sprawling on the sand. One instant he had seen her body, thrown up and out of the car. The next the car had exploded, and she had been swallowed in midair by a great plume of orange flame. Again the explosion rocked the earth with its force, the fire spewing even higher. And for a moment he could see nothing at all.

As he scrambled to his feet, the great northbound locomotive was trying to stop. Wheezing, grinding still, it lumbered on the burning wreckage of the car shoved to the side, off the track. The southbound train roared on, oblivious, its rattling boxcars adding to the unbearable noise.

He ran towards the burning car. The mangled frame looked like blackened timbers in the rolling, greasy blaze.

He could see no life, no movement, no sign of her! He was about to run into the fire itself when Samir grabbed him. When he heard Julie scream.