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Kemamonit Undercover

Copyright 2013 Paul Edwards

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Kemamonit Undercover

Chapter One

I had infiltrated the Rand Corporation.

I was standing in front of the mirror in one of the women's bathrooms in their headquarters building.

I looked at my reflection as I smoothed my hair and applied some lipstick, I saw a twentyish looking woman with dark skin and long black curly hair staring back at me. I was wearing a dark colored skirt and a matching jacket over top of a white blouse.

I adjusted the clip on my security badge, it had a name and my picture on it, the name was Kemberly Smith, my new alias.

It was my first day of work, I had constructed an identity for myself as a doctor of Egyptology, I had used sorcery in order to plant all the pertinent files and information in the proper databases around the world, my cover should be almost foolproof.

It was midmorning and I had a meeting in one conference rooms in this building, it was a top secret briefing with three other people, the subject of the meeting was only to be revealed when we were all assembled.

I knew it already.

I put my lipstick back into my purse and then threw my purse over my shoulder, I left the bathroom and headed down the hall towards the conference room, I was fifteen minutes early.

The Rand Headquarters building was of a very odd design, it was in reality two buildings, each constructed as an arc, they intersected at each end making it look like a huge eye.

The oddness didn't end there, each office in the building was of the exact same size and the building itself was situated very close to an ocean beach, one that was very popular among tourists.

I was soon standing in front of the conference room door where the meeting would take place, I straightened myself and confidently opened the door and walked in.

There were two other people sitting at the rooms large conference table, a slightly chubby youngish man with thinning hair and glasses, and an older middle aged man, he was thinner and had greying hair.

They both stood up as I walked in.

"Hi, I'm Kem... Smith, I hope I'm in the right place," I said as I held out my hand.

The younger man almost lunged at me as he grabbed my hand and shook it ahead of the older gentleman.

"Um... hi... I'm Dr. Nord, pleased to meet you."

He seemed to be reluctant to let my hand go, I could tell almost immediately that he was infatuated with me.

"So I just call you doctor?" I said pulling my hand away.

"Oh... no... I'm Frank."

I shook the older gentlemen's hand.

"I'm Jack Smert, I'm an experimental physicist, Frank over there is a computer scientist, what do you do?"

"I'm an Egyptologist," I replied.

"Our fearless leader should be here soon, she just sent me a text that she would only be a few more minutes," he said.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"Janet Lincoln... I'm sure you've heard of her."

"Um... no... I spend a lot of time in the field digging... kinda out of date," I said.

"Really you've not heard of her? PhD in criminology... graduated top of her class in Quantico... won a national championship in college basketball... caught the Black van gang."

"The Black van gang... they were bank robbers right?" I said.

"Violent psychopathic bank robbers, they always used a black van to escape, she had only been on the task force for three days before she found them, then shot them all dead in a firefight."

"Oh... I heard about that, so she's the one," I said, my heart skipping a beat. I would have to be careful around her, I thought to myself.

The door of the conference room flew open then, a tall dark skinned woman walked in carrying a laptop and a pile of files in her left arm, she was holding a cell phone against her ear with her other arm.

Janet Lincoln was a woman in her late thirties, she had an attractive face bordering on pretty, her body was like a coiled spring, fit and lean, she wore conservative grey pants and a jacket.

She hung up her cell phone and then plopped her files and laptop onto the table, then she stuck out her hand towards me.

"Hi, I'm Janet."

I shook her hand, she had large penetrating brown eyes, I felt like I was being probed as she stared into my eyes.

"I'm Kem Smith," her grip was strong and I could feel calluses on her palm.

"You're the Egyptologist, excellent, well let's get started, Frank could you lock the door."

She flipped open her laptop and turned it on, there was a large flat screen monitor on one wall of the conference room, Janet grabbed a remote control that had been sitting on the table and then furiously started pressing buttons.

It took only a minute before she had a PowerPoint presentation displayed on the large screen, I was impressed, I had never seen anyone get an electronic presentation to work so effortlessly, usually it required many frustrating minutes of cursing and mouse clicking.

"People, this is why we are here," she pressed a button on the remote and a picture of a large statue appeared on the screen. It was of a young Nubian woman with extremely large breasts, she looked vaguely familiar.

"Kem your analysis, " she looked at me.

"Um... pre dynastic Egyptian... I think... created around three thousand BCE."

"Close, it's about a thousand years older... very good, you know your stuff."

I suddenly recognized the statues face, my heart started beating furiously.

"This is Kemamonit... she is a sorcerer, this statue was discovered in the nineteen twenties in the Sahara desert, it was created by a worshipper of hers named Senbi... this woman was spotted in Seattle two years ago."

Janet eyes suddenly narrowed as she looked at the statue, she studied it for a few seconds then she turned her head and stared intently at me, then at my breasts. I was wearing fake prescription glasses and I had confined my normally stubborn and rebellious hair into a conservative style using hair pins. I prayed she would not see though my disguise.

Janet's face relaxed after seeing my normal sized breasts.

"My god Senbi, will I never be free of your adolescent infatuation," I thought to myself.

"She's still alive after six thousand years... is she immortal?" Frank asked, an incredulous expression on his face.

"We don't know, she somehow corrupted the agent who was tracking her, which should have been impossible, he was a decorated special forces operative, he destroyed all the files on her, this statue is all we have left."

"What do you mean sorcerer?" Jack asked.

"Magic.. spells... whatever, we don't know, what we do know is that there are others."

"Others?" I asked.

"Yes, we have assembled this team, meaning all of us here, to pick lower hanging fruit, since she is obviously aware of us we have decided to go after someone else," Janet pressed a button on the remote and a picture of a man appeared on the screen.

"Peter Plotski multi millionaire, he's in the rocket business," Janet said.

"What makes you think he's a sorcerer?" I asked.

"He fits a profile we've developed, a man with average ability suddenly becomes a superstar, he created a series of groundbreaking innovations in a very high tech field, then he didn't patent them."

"That's not unusual... patents don't mean what they used to," Jack said.

"You're right, however five years ago he was just a community college graduate running a failing second hand store."

"This sorcery... is it genetic... is it like a psychic power," Jack asked.

"We don't know, we are not even sure if he is a sorcerer, but he will be our first target," Janet flipped to the next slide in the presentation, a series of bullets.

"He grew up on a farm in Minnesota, he was an average student, one brother, parents died when he was in his early twenties, he was an above average athlete, played some minor pro hockey, he was an enforcer type," Janet was summarizing the bullets.

"What's an enforcer?" I asked.

Janet turned and stared at me."

"I was um... not into sports when I went to school," I said.

"Hockey teams generally have three types of players, talented ones that score the goals and make all the artful plays, grinder types that give them the puck, and lastly, ones that are only there to scare the shit out of the other team, that's what he was."

I looked at Janet and wondered if basketball teams had enforcers.

"We believe that whatever this sorcery is it originated in Ancient Egypt, that's why you're here Kem."

"Do we have any artifact's, evidence?" I asked.

"Not anymore... we had a some jewellery, but it's disappeared."

Janet closed her laptop and shut off the large screen, she put the remote control back on the table.

"I have to go... Kem meet me in my office after lunch tomorrow, goodbye everyone... I don't have to remind you that all this is classified."

With that she was gone.

"Quite the whirlwind," I said.

"So Kem... why don't we grab a cup of coffee and discuss this," Frank said, trying to act nonchalant.

"Sure... are you coming Jack," I asked.

Frank's expression changed to disappointment.

"Ok," Jack said, standing up so quickly he banged his knee into the table, he had hid it better then Frank but I could tell he was infatuated with me as well.

That was my curse, nerds were always crazy about me.

Chapter Two

The three of us walked down the long hallway towards one of the buildings exits, we had decided to go to one of the many nearby restaurants to get a coffee.

"This is such a weird building in such a weird spot," I said to Frank.

"Ya... they say it was designed to promote meetings between people, but I haven't noticed any more chance encounters than usual," Jack said.

"I don't think it's weird, just unique architecture," Frank said.

I turned and stared at Frank, from the look on his face I got the distinct impression he was trying very hard to hide something.

"Why are all the offices the exact same size," I asked.

Franks face turned slightly red, "well um... more efficient ergonomics, kinda complicated to explain," he was mumbling now.

I thought better about probing him to hard, but he had made me quite curious.

We were soon sitting at a table on the patio of a restaurant, it was situated on a long pier jutting out into the ocean, I had a large cup of coffee and a bagel in front of me.

"So where do we start?" I asked the other two who were sitting across from me.

"We'll... um... I already had a meeting with Janet two days ago, she wants us to try to figure out what this sorcery stuff is," Jack said.

"Well it sounds like clever stage illusions, I can't believe there is actually such a thing as magic," I said in a sceptical tone.

"Well... we have witnesses, people disappearing in a flash of light, that agent that was compromised, he told someone he'd gone through a door to another dimension," Jack said.

I took out a coin and did some simple sleight of hand illusions, making it disappear, walking it across my knuckles, then I put it on the table.

"I have my doubts," I said.

"You know magic?" Frank said, a surprised expression on his face.

"I was a box jumper in college, to pay for my tuition," I said nonchalantly.

"Who for?" Jack asked.

"The Great Senet... ini." I said, almost without thinking.

"Never heard of him."

"He wasn't that big... he did outdoor festivals mostly."

"Well we still have to come up with a theory," Jack continued.

"It seems that anytime I've read about magical people it's always an inborn talent, it must be genetic," I said.

"Ya... thing is a genetic advantage that powerful would soon eliminate all the non-magical people, that's basic evolutionary theory," Jack said.

I bent over the table to reach for a packet of sugar, I made sure that both men had, for a few seconds, a good view of my breasts, then I sat back down.

"You're not disagreeing with me are you Jack," I said with a giggle.

"Well... no... um... do you have another theory?"

"It's magic, right, it could obey different laws, maybe evolutionary theory doesn't effect it," I said.

"Then it would have nothing to do with genetics, that's how evolutionary advantages are passed down," Jack said, trying to sound non-confrontational.

I used both my hands to smooth my hair as I tilted my head back, I thrust my chest out slightly.

"You could be right... but we have to start somewhere and genetics are something tangible, I'm no expert but aren't there all kinds of tests we can do... you know look for genes and stuff."

"Ya... I guess so... I'll need to consult a geneticist... that will take some time."

"It's decided then... we'll do the simplest thing first, that makes the most sense," I said confidently.

Both men had expressions of doubt on their faces, I twisted a stray lock of hair around my index finger then smiled my best smile at them.

I saw their expressions change from doubt to one of obedience.

"Yes... that makes the most sense," Jack said, as if trying to convince himself.

I took a sip of my coffee, I knew very little about high level science but even I could tell that my plan made very little sense at all.

I was sitting in front of Janet's desk in her office, it was after lunch. Janet was typing furiously on her laptop.

"Sorry, gotta send this email," she said without looking up.

She finished typing and then pushed the laptops screen down.

"So... you're from South Africa, what made you want to become an Egyptologist?" She asked.

"I always liked history and I travelled to Egypt as a young girl, it kinda changed me."

"I know what you mean, I did a field trip to FBI headquarters when I was young, wanted to be a cop from then on. I read one of your papers, you know the one about the scent cones actually being little hats, very interesting."

"Oh... thank you, I gotta a lot of criticism from that," I said feeling my face blush.

"Listen Kem, you strike me as pretty sensible, these hard science guys they're brilliant but they can't see the forest for the trees sometimes, I'm gonna rely on you to keep them reined in."

"What do you mean?"

"Well for starters Frank and Jack, they emailed me their plan to study this sorcery stuff, they want to do some kind of bizarre genetic testing."

"Well they seemed pretty convinced... I don't know anything about genetics but their idea struck me as sound," I said earnestly.

"Well I do, trying to find a specific gene unique to a small group of people would take years, and we don't even have a sample of their DNA."

"Oh... so... um... what would be a better way?"

"Well we know a bit about this stuff, all the files are gone but we do have a bit of anecdotal evidence, it's not common knowledge but they caught one of these people a few years ago, he escaped but they found out that these spells were some kinda algorithm."

"So we should study algorithms?"

"Ya... there are all kinds of spells in ancient Egyptian manuscripts, have Frank and Jack look at them, see if they can find something, you can do the translations, provide the insight, and keep them rowing in the right direction."

"That's a good I idea," I said.

Janet's eyes narrowed a bit as she looked at me, I could see she would not be easy to flatter.

"Well if that's all, we are all going to meet in Franks office."

"That's all... just don't let these guys push you around... I'm counting on you."

I bent my head and stared at the floor, trying to convey the image of a demur woman summoning up the strength to tackle an onerous task.

"I'll try," I said softly.

I would have to change my plan, fortunately I had already prepared a backup one.

I walked into Franks office, Frank was sitting at his desk, Jack was sitting in a chair on the opposite side, I plopped down on another chair next to Jack, I let out a big sigh.

"Well I just had a meeting with Janet... she's not happy, she wants us to concentrate on this new algorithm theory she has," I said.

"She can be a pushy sometimes," Frank said trying to sound sympathetic.

"That's for sure, maybe we should make sure we have a good plan of attack before we email her next time," I crossed my arms across my chest and stared at Frank.

"Um... yes ok... maybe we should... um... work together when we do a report," Frank stammered.

"Yes, we could just send one email, just CC everyone," Jack said trying to be helpful.

"Well... maybe you should let me do all the emailing... you guys will be doing most of the hard stuff," I uncrossed my arms and stared at them with a blank expression.

They both looked at each other, I could see they were reluctant to give me control over the groups communication.

Frank caved in first.

"That would be perfect Kem," he said, Jack then started to mechanically nod his head in agreement.

I smiled at them.

"So what is this algorithm theory?" Jack asked.

"I don't really understand it, we're going to search ancient spells and see if we can find a pattern," I replied.

"I've given this some thought, magic must be some kind of manipulation of a natural phenomenon," Frank said.

"None of it makes sense... how can you control someone's mind, make them love you... or transform them into an animal just by waving chicken bones... these spells would have to be so complex, even if you just included the simple things, like what the size of the animal is, or what color it's eyes are, and if you don't put them in the spell then who decides them?" I said

"Maybe it's like a prayer... to an intelligent entity," Jack said.

"Yes... able to interpret the casters intentions."

I grabbed my chin trying to look deep in thought.

"Why would something that powerful listen to anyone," Frank said, using sound logic.

"It must be bound somehow... subject to pain if it doesn't do what the caster says," I said.

"That still doesn't make sense, then magic would just be a bunch of arbitrary rules made for no reason with absolutely no logic to it," Frank replied.

"That's it... it has no logic, it must just be a random mix of objects and actions... over the eons people have found things that work for no logical reason and have wrote them down," I said.

"I don't understand," Frank said.

"Well say someone accidently mixed some chicken bones with mushrooms and said abacadabra and a dog appeared, that would be a dog spell. Over the millennia there would be thousands of these incidents, making thousands of spells."

"Wouldn't that still be happening then?"

"Yes... unless there is a knack to it, like being an great athlete, someone born with an ability to craft these spells through instinct and feeling."

"I guess that's plausible," Frank said.

"So all we have to do is search some ancient documents, find the spells in them and then try them out using trial and error, should be a piece of cake," I said.

"Where are we going to get these ancient documents," Frank asked.

"Leave that to me, I'll have them by tomorrow morning."

They both looked content.

Frank's phone rang then, he picked it up and had a very short conversation then hung up.

"Janet has a job for you, she wants you to go to her office."

"Ok, we'll start our analysis tomorrow," I smiled at both of them, they smiled back.

Who needs mind control spells, I thought as I left Franks office.

I met Janet just as she was locking her office door.

"What's up," I asked.

"We have a chance to meet our prey, there's an expo at the convention center near here."

"What kind of expo?"

"Satellite technology."

Janet had already called for a taxi which met us in front of the building, it was only a few minutes later before we were showing our identification to the security guard at the convention centers entrance.

"That's what great about working at Rand, everybody expects us to be at these things," Janet said.

We walked into a large room filled with middle aged men in expensive suits, there were exhibits along all the walls of the room, they were mostly models of satellites and rocket boosters.

Janet scanned the room until she found who she was looking for, it took her only seconds. She grabbed my elbow and guided me along towards our destination.

"Don't lie, people can tell, just change the subject if he asks something you can't answer," she whispered into my ear.

"What do I tell him I do?"

"Your an Egyptologist, you do research at the Rand corporation."

We were soon standing beside a small group of men, they were being addressed by a man wearing a grey suit, I could tell he had not spent much time in a suit, he looked awkward and uncomfortable.

"That's Peter Plotski," Janet whispered.

I looked at him examining his features, he was a thickly built man with thinning dark hair, his build gave me the impression of a man who had spent a large amount of time doing manual labor, I could see small scars on his face probably caused by childhood acne.

Peter broke away from the group and started walking in our direction, Janet grabbed his sleeve to get his attention as he walked by us.

"Mr. Plotski?" She asked.

"Yes... do I know you?" He said as he stopped and looked at her.

"I'm Janet Lincoln, this is Kemberly Smith, we're with the Rand Corporation, we'd like to talk to you about your invention."

"Sure...um... I'm kinda hungry and there's a restaurant next door, why don't we grab a table."

We were soon sitting in a pleasant restaurant, it had lots of decorative wood panelling and stained glass lamps, the lunch rush had passed and there were only a few people sitting at the tables.

Peter was telling a server what he wanted for food.

"Do you ladies want anything?"

"I'll have a gin and tonic... without the gin," Janet said.

"I'll have a glass of dark beer," I said.

The server had a confused look on her face, "um... Guinness?" she said.

"Ok."

Peter stood up to take off his jacket, he hung it on the back of his chair, he sat down again and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, he had powerfully built forearms, his hands were covered in scars.

"National championship, impressive," Peter was pointing to a ring on Janet's finger.

"That was a long time ago," Janet said, I could tell she was flattered.

"Played pro hockey when I was younger never won anything , only made the bus leagues anyway."

"Why did you stop?" Janet asked.

"Kinda embarrassing, our star player was a jerk, acted like he was Gretzky, I was sick of it, so one game he starts mouthing off to one of the other teams players, guy gets pissed off and starts beating the crap out of him, I just stood there and watched, my coach was furious, kicked me off the team."

"That's too bad," I said

"Naw... I wasn't going anywhere, I was just some thud, I was only there to fight."

"Um... one of the things we do at Rand is try to study other disciplines, so Kem and I are just doing a little field trip, we were curious about your invention," Janet said.

"You mean the Frambulator?"

"Yes, how does it work?"

"Well, its proprietary... but I could give you an overview, give you the gist of it."

"Sure."

"Well it works by changing the frequency of the strong force in the rockets fuel atoms, it causes them to weaken along their radial axis which boosts the combustibility of the chemical reaction, this results in the rockets thrust being increased by twenty five percent."

"Where do you install it on the rocket?" Janet asked.

"It just bolts onto a convenient spot, it uses passive inductive wave forms to treat the fuel."

"Interesting."

"Um... could you excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom," Peter said as he stood up.

The server returned with our drinks after Peter had left.

"Man... his explanation sounds like complete gibberish," Janet said as she sipped her tonic water.

"Well, if I had a secret that was making me millions, my explanations would be gibberish too."

"You got a point... do you notice anything unusual about him?"

"No... he looks pretty tough... that's it."

"Ya, I wonder what a sorcerer is supposed to look like."

I wondered myself, I had only known three other sorcerer's, Shelley my former apprentice, Circe who I had met in the past, and Senbi who hadn't had any magic skill at the time.

I pictured them all in my mind, Shelley with her t-shirts and cargo pants a pencil cocked in her ear, Circe wearing an elegant outfit and expensive jewellery, and Senbi, his eyes squinting as he walked, carrying his rulers and gadgets.

They had nothing in common with each other.

Peter had sat back down at the table.

"You have such an odd accent Kemberly... where are you from?" He asked.

"South Africa," I replied.

"Really... there's another rocket guy here, he's from South Africa too, I should introduce you. He has a much different accent though."

"Well... um... if we have time... I'm from a northern fishing village, I grew up speaking a um... tribal dialect."

I did not want to meet anyone from South Africa, I knew next to nothing about the country, it would take this person only a few minutes of conversation to discern this.

"So how did you get the money to start your company?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Well that's an interesting story, I used to own a second hand shop, more like a junk shop actually, I used to go around to yard sales, estate auctions and any other place I could think of to get stuff for the store.

Anyway I went to an estate auction, it was in the mansion of a recently deceased millionaire, I bought a bunch of cardboard boxes full of papers for twenty dollars. I thought maybe I could find some autographs of famous people, instead I found two mint condition number one superman comics. I sold them for a million and half dollars. The rest is history."

"That was lucky," I said.

"What happened to the shop?" Janet asked.

"Kinda strange... water main blew up underneath it... destroyed it, could've killed me."

Peter had a strange look on his face, like he was hiding something.

The server arrived with Peter's food, It was a large sandwich with a side order of French fries, Peter picked up the sandwich and started eating.

"Water main explosion... I've never heard of that happening," Janet said.

"You and me both, engineer from the water company said it was a build up of steam... or something."

"Did you sue them?" I asked.

Peter looked at me, his eyes narrowed slightly as if studying me.

"No... I was leasing the building and I only had a few broken ribs, besides I already had my windfall, the comics were in a safety deposit box."

"Where did you get your idea for the Frambulator?" Janet asked.

"Same way most people get idea's, I just noticed something and the light bulb went off, don't want to be too specific for obvious reasons."

Peter quickly wolfed down his sandwich, he barely touched his French fries.

"Listen... I gotta go, I have a meeting, do you two have business cards?"

Janet pulled a small card out of her pocket, she took out a pen and wrote a telephone number on the back of it.

"That's Kem's number, I'm her supervisor," Janet said as she slid the card over.

"Thanks," Peter said as he picked it up, he rose up out of his chair and reached for his wallet, he pulled out a fifty dollar bill and put it on the table. He then put on his jacket over his rolled up sleeves and said goodbye.

"He likes you, I can tell," Janet said after he'd left.

"Huh? I don't think so," I said feeling embarrassed.

"Why'd you ask him if he sued the water company?"

"Just curious... people always say they're gonna sue mostly for ridiculous reasons, he had a pretty good case."

I sipped my beer, I was lying of course, I had asked because I knew two things, teaching yourself sorcery was very dangerous and explosions of water, air, trees and whatever else could be quite common, and if Peter had caused the explosion himself the last thing he would want is a thorough investigation.

Janet and I both returned to Rand headquarters afterwards, I said goodbye to her in the lobby and then headed for my small office, I had some work to do.

I closed the door of my office and locked it, I then closed the thin venetian blinds that lined the all the windows.

I surreptitiously reached under the loose sleeve of my jacket and expanded my sorcerers bracelet, I felt it grow from a small wooden decorative bracelet to a much larger one with numerous movable square pieces.

I used the bracelet to create and cast spells, the squares were labelled in a language I had invented and only I understood, I operated the bracelet by flipping the squares over in different sequences.

I did not know if the office I was in had hidden surveillance equipment so I was careful not to reveal my bracelet. I had practised sleight of hand for many years and now used this skill to operate the bracelet surreptitiously.

I soon conjured up a small flash drive, I made it appear that I had pulled it out of my pocket, I put it into my workstation's USB slot and then opened up a word processing program. I typed furiously and then walked over to the rooms printer, it whirred to life and started to eject paper.

The flash drive was just a fake and the printer was not actually doing anything, I had activated a spell which made it look like it was working.

I had already created the documents I needed weeks before, I knew nothing about the computer world but I was pretty sure that they and the networks they were on kept track of everything.

I soon had a three inch stack of paper sitting in the printers hopper, I surreptitiously stopped the spell and then shrunk my bracelet so that it was just decorative again. I picked up the stack and plopped it down on my desk.

I opened the blinds on the office's windows and unlocked the door, I sat down at my desk grabbed a sharpie and pretended to work on them.

Chapter Three

The next morning Jack, Frank and I met in Frank's office, I pulled the enormous wad of paper I had been working on the day before out of my bag and set it on Frank's desk.

"I did some research on ancient spells," I said.

"You don't have a soft copy?" Frank asked cautiously.

"It'd be nice... but translating stuff is a hands on thing," I said haughtily.

"Oh... of course... no problem..." Frank said apologetically.

I started to wonder how badly I could treat these two and still have them be infatuated with me, I felt my curiosity start to do battle with my conscience.

"These are all I could find, they're all pre-roman," I said.

I had collected all these spells from my library in the City of Magic, they were mostly mundane funerary spell's.

I was struck with how similar they were to each other and how closely they mimicked the symptoms of two different mental illnesses.

The first was paranoia, in these spells the subject wanted protection from every single possible thing that could happen in the afterlife, the second was obsessive compulsive behaviour, in these the intent of the spell and the identity of the person it was written for was described in excruciating detail over and over.

It was no surprise to me, virtually all of these spells were written for Kings and other noble persons, paranoia and a meticulous attention to detail were probably necessary personality traits a callous and megalomaniacal leader needed to survive.

"Seven loaves and seven loaves for the lord of the two lands, overseer of all, beloved of Osiris, maker of all that is good, magnificent and great.... this is a spell?" Jack said as he started reading one of the pages.

"Noble persons almost always use their full titles, you'll figure out the important stuff after reading a few of them, if there is any," I said sceptically.

"I was doing some other research," Jack held up a book, the cover had a picture of a bespectacled young boy on it, "maybe we should be testing potions too."

"How would we test them," I asked.

"We could make them and feed them to lab animals."

A picture of a suffering white mouse suddenly popped into my mind.

"Um... I'm kinda conflicted about the whole animal testing thing," I said.

"Maybe we could use undergraduates... tell them it's booze," both Frank and Jack started laughing uproariously.

"Let's concentrate on spells first," I said.

The three of us each grabbed a sheaf of paper from the stack and started going through the spells trying to find something useful.

I put down my sheaf after a few minutes of study and stood up.

"I need a large cup of coffee... I'm going to the coffee shop, do you guys want one?" I said.

They both said yes.

I made sure I took a good forty-five minutes to get the coffee's, I wanted the two of them to have lots of time to do a preliminary search of the pile of spells.

I needed them to find at least one of my little traps.

"Sorry I took so long, huge lineup," I said as I put the tray of cups on the desk."

"Oh... cream and sugar... that's all right..." Frank said as he looked at the markings on the cups lids.

"Oh... darn... you guys wanted black... sorry," I said.

I had asked the person at the shop to put six spoons of sugar in each cup, my curiosity had started to gain a slight advantage over my conscience.

Frank took a sip of his coffee, I could see him suppress a grimace as the syrupy liquid passed over his tongue.

"Um... good coffee..." he said.

Not to be outdone Jack took an even larger sip from his own cup.

"We might have found something," Jack said as he handed me a sheet of paper.

I took the paper and looked at it, I started to read it out loud.

"I created the light

the light was created

the wood of the palm tree

its heart in darkness

opened in the full moon

a square two fingers a side

I said the word

the word was hippopotamus

the light appeared"

"What does it mean?" I said, trying to look confused.

"We think it might mean, cutting open a palm tree in the full moon, then making a cube of wood from the center two fingers square, then saying the word hippopotamus," Jack said.

"That's as good as anything... I guess...what now?" I said.

"Well... we're in California... lots of palm trees, and it's a full moon tonight."

"Let's keep searching the spells... if there are anymore we can do them all at once, get it over with," I said, trying to convey the impression that I thought this was a waste of time.

We spent the next three hours going through the rest of the spell's, Frank and Jack were quite quick at skimming the pages and eventually found the other two spells I had planted.

"Listen to this," Jack started to read aloud.

I was thirsty

Ra was hot and fierce

I held my cup

I put in a pinch of sand

I put in a pinch of natron

I shook the cup

I uttered the words Osiris is great

My cup flowed with water

Frank found and read the last one about twenty minutes later.

I created gold

I put down a grain of copper

I put down a grain of lead

I melted the wax

It fell on the grains

I clapped my hands together

"The philosopher's stone, gold from lead," Frank said.

"Oh ya... we're gonna be rich," I said sarcastically.

"Believe it or not we have all these materials, we could try these spells tonight," Jack said.

"You have natron?" I asked incredulously.

"Someone was doing experiments on mummification a few years ago, there's a bag of it in one of the storage rooms," Jack said.

"Ok... then how about seven-thirty, the sun should have set by then."

The two of them both agreed.

I grabbed my bag and went back to my office.

I was sitting at my desk playing solitaire on my computer when my phone range, it was almost four o'clock. I furrowed my brows as I wondered who could be calling me, I had told no-one that I was here, not even Shelley my former apprentice.

I wanted to make sure my cover was as airtight as possible.

I picked up the receiver, "Hello," I said suspiciously.

"Is this Kemberly?"

"Yes."

"It's Peter, Peter Plotski."

"Oh... hi," I said as I recognized his voice.

"Thought you might like a tour of my factory tomorrow... um... if your available."

I thought I could hear a tinge of nervousness in his voice, he was probably not used to dealing with an organization like Rand I thought to myself.

"Sure... what time?"

"Um... I'll pick you up at four o'clock."

"Ok, I'll meet you in the lobby."

With that we both said goodbye.

I stared at the phone for a few seconds, I better tell Janet, I thought, her office was only a few feet down the hall from mine.

I was soon standing in her open door knocking lightly.

"Kem come in, sit down."

I sat on one of the chairs in front of her desk."

"Plotski called... he wants me to see his factory."

Janet's head perked up suddenly, "really?"

"Ya, tomorrow at four o'clock."

Janet stood up and then walked behind me, she put both her hands on my shoulders and started massaging them.

"Good... four o'clock that's kinda late... probably has idea's..."

I felt like a fighter being coached by his corner man.

"Make sure you ask a lot of questions... don't be too prying... and if stuff happens... you know, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do... nobody's business right... no need to put it in your report."

"Um... ok."

Janet went back to her desk and opened up a drawer, she picked up a smart phone and then tossed it to me.

"Keep that, it's got a GPS tracker in it. It's always on and almost indestructible, it'll work even if the batteries gone ant the phone is smashed. Do you want a gun?"

"God no... they terrify me," I said.

"Ok..."

Janet put her index finger against her lower lip as she thought, she reached into her desk drawer again and then tossed me a perfume bottle.

"It's basically high tech mace, just point and spray, guy'll go unconscious if you use enough."

I cautiously put the bottle in my pocket.

"Make sure you call my cell phone when you come home tomorrow night, even if its late."

Janet patted my bum as I left her office causing me to jump a bit. I had seen this ritual when flipping channels on my TV and accidently stopping on a sports channel. I guess I had come off the bench and into the game.

Chapter Four

I met Frank and Jack that night in the courtyard of the headquarters building, I saw the assembled spell paraphernalia on one of the large bench's in the courtyard.

"Ok let's get this over with," I looked at my watch.

Frank held a foot long piece of palm tree trunk in both hands, Jack picked up an electric saw and spent a few minutes cutting two inch and one half slices off of it. He took the second slice and then used a small axe to cut a cube from the center.

"There it is a cube two fingers by two fingers," Jack held up the cube.

"Hippopotamus," I said, nothing happened, "Ok we're done let's do the next one," I said impatiently.

"Wait... wait... maybe you have to say it in ancient Egyptian," Frank said.

"Whatever... ," I said hippopotamus again, this time in ancient Egyptian.

A bright white pinprick of light appeared about a foot above the wooden cube, I heard Frank and Jack gasp in surprise.

I furrowed my brows and looked at them with suspicion.

"Is this is a trick? You guys are trying to fool me..." I said with a hint of anger.

"No... god no... this is impossible... my god..." Jack mumbled.

They both stared at the light dumbfounded.

"This is ridiculous, it's a laser beam or something," I stretched my hand out and waved it through the light.

"Oww!" I yelled, I pulled my hand back making sure they both saw the little red burn mark on my palm.

Jack and Frank took pictures of the light with a camera, it light flickered out after about three minutes."

"Damn... we should have brought a prism... got a spectrum," Frank said.

"How do you say Hippo in Egyptian again?" Jack asked.

I said it aloud slowly, so he could get the pronunciation, the light reappeared, not as bright this time and it disappeared in a little over thirty seconds.

Jack said Hippopotamus one more time, a dim light flashed for a few seconds, after that the cube no longer worked.

"This has to be a trick... it has to be," I said with a desperate tone.

"Let's try the next spell," Jack said.

Frank held a coffee cup in his hand, he put a pinch of sand and natron in it, then he shook it.

"How do you say Osiris is great in ancient Egyptian," he asked me.

I said the command words slowly so the two of them could get the proper pronunciation.

The cup filled with water, so much so it flowed over the rim causing Frank to drop it in surprise. I stepped back and then slumped dramatically onto the bench, an expression of disbelief on my face.

"This can't be... it can't be," I said softly.

Frank licked the side of his hand, "it's water alright," he said.

"Third time's a charm," Jack said as he prepared the final spell, he put a small grain of copper and lead beside each other on a small circle of heavy paper, he then used a lit candle to drip hot wax onto them. He clapped his hands together.

I saw a little flash of orange light, I looked at the circlet of paper and saw a small burn mark, there was a tiny speck of gold in the center of it.

Jack lifted up the paper and studied the tiny fleck, "it looks like gold, gonna have to put it through a spectrometer to be sure."

"Well... so much for being rich we'd have to do this hundreds of times just to get an ounce of gold," Frank said.

"I guess that makes sense... otherwise they woulda made tons of it in antiquity... it would still be here," I said hesitantly.

"Well this is a strange turn of events," Jack said.

"I still don't believe it," I said defiantly, "this has to be lab tested, there's dozen's of brilliant people here... one of them probably just created an elaborate joke."

"I'll start the testing tomorrow, they've given us a lab," Frank said.

I had rented a room at one of the nearby hotels next to the beach, I returned to it after I had finished the spell testing with Jack and Frank.

I took off my uncomfortable clothing and laid down naked on the large bed. I was quite happy with the way my plan was progressing.

I looked out the rooms large window and saw only one or two pinpricks of light in the dark sky, I missed the night skies of the City of Magic, there I could see thousands of stars.

I felt like flying.

I had constructed a magic suit a few months ago that negated the use of a flying craft, I had grown quite fond of soaring over the desert at night under the stars.

What could it hurt? I thought to myself, the suit was made of a dark black material so it would be nearly invisible, and the moon had set, so once I got above the city lights I would not be able to be seen.

I used my bracelet to make it appear, I pulled it on then zipped it up and tightened the various buckles. I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked vaguely like a cat burglar from the movies.

I slid open the glass door to the rooms balcony and cautiously poked my head out to see if anyone was watching, there was no one.

I had brought a towel from the bathroom, I tied it onto the sliding doors exterior handle, I would need this to find my room again. I pulled my goggles over my eyes and then took off straight up.

I was soon about two thousand feet up, the city stretched below me for miles, I spread my arms out like a bird and then flew towards the mountains to the east of the city. My suit could fly incredibly fast but I feared hitting something unseen so I generally kept it below fifty miles an hour.

I was soon flying over the mountains, I saw a cars headlights moving down the road below me. I flew lower about fifty feet above the car and then used it for navigation.

It took only another twenty minutes before I was past the mountains and into the desert beyond. I saw what looked like a large airport to my left it was next to a huge salt flat.

I approached it cautiously, wary of aircraft. I saw two small planes take off from one of the runways, they had long orangy blue flames coming from their engines.

I realized almost immediately that this was some sort of military base, these planes were one of the many horrific weapons that had been developed in this era. I shuddered for a second, wondering what people capable of building weapons like these would do with sorcery.

The two planes roared off towards the north, I contemplated following them but thought better of it, it was getting late. I turned west, increased my altitude and flew back to the city.

It was easy to find my hotel, the odd shape of the Rand building made it a wonderful landmark.

I was soon back in my bed sleeping soundly.

When I walked down the hall to my office the next morning, I noticed Frank through the open doors of an elevator. He was removing a key from one of the elevators panels.

Frank put the key in his pocket as he entered the hall.

"The elevators ignition key?" I asked Frank as I walked by.

"Huh... um... no... um... it's the test key for the... um... alarm.... system... " he stammered.

Frank was a horrible liar, if he had just laughed benignly I would have been none the wiser, instead he had ignited a fire of curiosity.

"The alarm system huh?" I said as I stared at him.

"Um... Kem... how would you like to go out for a drink tonight?" Frank asked, hope in his eyes.

"Well, I got a meeting tonight.... you know Frank, I used to be like most girls... go for the good-looking guy... but I've changed, now I go for guys who impress me... what can you do to impress me."

"Um... you know on the internet when you put your mouse pointer over a picture and it gets slightly bigger... I wrote the software for that," he looked quite smug.

"That's interesting... but I was looking for something more substantial... that key for instance, it must be a huge responsibility to test the alarms... maybe you could show me how you do it."

I looked at Franks face, from his expression I could see there was a violent battle going on in his mind, one between common sense and desire."

Frank's expression changed to one of grim determination, "Ok... do you have a security clearance?"

"Oh ya... NATO Cosmic," I said. I really did have it, being a sorcerer had its advantages.

"Really?" Frank looked slightly relieved.

"You can look it up."

"You must not tell anyone what you're about to see, follow me."

Frank poked the down button beside the elevator, he and I entered when the doors opened. Frank then put a key in a keyhole on the control panel and turned it, the doors closed and the elevator started to descend.

The elevator went down three floors below the ground floor, there was a parking garage below the building we must have gone just below that.

The door opened into an enormous curved hall lined on one side with dark green cabinets full of electrical equipment. The cabinets had no doors on them and the equipment inside looked very old, I could see many rows of glass tubes and large metal canisters that resembled food cans with the labels ripped off.

We entered the room.

"The Newfellow machine," Frank said dramatically.

"What is it? It looks old."

"We're not sure... we think it's some kind of quantum computer, it was built in the nineteen fifties."

"What's so great about it?"

"It's hard to explain... it can sorta calculate infinity."

"Is this thing the reason the building is built the way it is?" I asked.

"It was starting to show up in IR when modern spy satellites passed overhead, the building was constructed to hide the heat signature."

"How come it hasn't been modernized," I said as I examined the components in one of the cabinets, I could smell oil and dust.

"We tried... we just don't understand it, we can't even upgrade the input output equipment... it still uses stacks of punch cards."

"Why didn't you just ask the people who built it?"

"It was designed by one person, and he also supervised the construction, he wouldn't say how it worked."

"Newfellow?"

"Jon Newfellow, the greatest computer scientist who ever lived."

"Hmm... never heard of him."

Frank sighed, "ya... everyone says that... his memory was so good he could recite everything he had ever read."

I felt a jolt of envy, this skill would have been very useful, when I first started practising sorcery I had to constantly refer scrolls I had written, I was forever misplacing them, I eventually wrote a spell that enabled me to consult to them more conveniently.

"What happened to him?"

"Died of pneumonia in nineteen fifty eight, he was still very young, in his thirties... he knew so many military secrets that they had a security detail around him when he was in his sick bed... they didn't want him to reveal anything when he was under the influence of medication."

"To bad, so what do they do with the machine?"

"We use it for all kinds of things... I'm the chief programmer ," Frank actually puffed out his chest.

"Really," I started walking down the length of cabinets looking at the electrical components, there was no rhyme or reason to it, each cabinet was different.

"I'll show you the input and output machines," Frank said.

I followed him for about thirty yards until we stopped in front of a huge panel covered in parallel rows of lights and switches. There was a large wire bracket holding a four foot high stack of punch cards.

"That's our latest program, the answer will come out here," Frank pointed to an empty wire bracket positioned in front of a slot on the panel.

"We write the program with a modern computer, then we compile it into punch cards."

"What's this program do?" I asked pointing to the stack of cards.

"Oh you wouldn't understand... um...ahh... I mean, it's kinda complicated..."

"Oh really, well I think this is boring and I want to go," I said, feigning anger, I was thankful Frank's social ineptitude had given me a reason to refuse his affections.

Frank's expression changed to panic, "I'm... I'm sorry Kem."

"I want to leave," I said as I crossed my arms and looked away from him.

I felt a bit guilty as I saw his crestfallen face out of the corner of my eye, I started walking back to the elevator.

I spent the rest of the day in a laboratory with Frank and Jack as they replicated the spells over and over again. Jack had brought in all kinds of scientific instruments to analyze the spells effects.

Frank was annoyingly polite and was constantly asking for my input and idea's, I returned his attentions by being cold and aloof.

"The light appears to be a combination of single spectral lines..." Jack said as he looked at the display of an enormous machine covered in dials and levers.

"That makes sense, could be some kind of electron excitation," Frank said.

"What did you find out about the gold flake?" I asked.

"It's gold alright, we tried to use its impurities to find out where it came from, there weren't any," Jack said.

"And the water."

"Like the gold no impurities, no deuterium either... strange," Jack furrowed his brow.

Through the rest of the day they used every conceivable instrument I could think of to examine the spells effects, even a high speed camera.

They were both still engrossed in study when I finely excused myself for my meeting with Peter, I noticed they had badly hidden expressions of jealously on their faces when I told them where I was going.

It still amazed me the effect I had on certain men, I had examined myself in the mirror many times and I had only ever seen myself looking back, never once a smouldering beauty.

I walked down to the lobby of the building and waited for Peter to show up, it was only a few minutes later before a large pickup truck pulled up, it looked kind of beat up.

I saw Peter climb out of the cab, I walked outside to meet him.

"Aren't millionaires supposed to drive expensive cars?" I asked as I shook his hand.

"Always felt like a weenie driving one around, and they're useless, can't pick up plywood in a Porsche. "

Peter opened the passenger door of the truck for me and I climbed inside, it was clean and comfortable in the cab.

"My factory is only a few minutes from here," Peter said as he climbed behind the wheel.

We were soon bouncing through the back streets of the city, true to his word it was only a short time before we pulled into the parking lot of a large square building.

The building was surrounded by a high security fence which hid it's lower exterior, I saw many security camera's. I climbed out of the truck along with Peter and then followed him to a small shack next to the fence.

Peter held open the door for me and I walked inside, I saw three security guards behind a long counter, two were watching a large bank of monitors showing the feeds from the various camera's outside, the third was watching me like a hawk.

"No problem Bob, she's with me," Peter was beside me.

"Of course sir," Bob said, from his demeanor I suspected he was not a typical security guard.

We walked through the opposite door of the shack and into a large landscaped area surrounding the building. There were hedge's and flower beds interspaced with cobblestoned walkways.

The building itself was strikingly new and modern looking, there were many large windows and beautiful architectural accents. The entrance was a large protruding glass gazebo.

"Wow, this looks like it was built yesterday," I said.

"Just opened it last year, why skimp I say, you need the best tools to build the best products."

I started laughing, "that almost sounded sincere ."

Peter turned to me and smiled," sorry... I spend so much time talking to customers... you start to speak in cliché after a while."

"So what's the real reason?"

"Why the hell not, who cares if I blow millions on some stupid factory, I'll never spend it all anyway."

"You have that much money?"

"I have so much money that it's become worthless."

"What do you mean?"

"If you have too much of something... it stops having value, whether it's apples or money."

Peter escorted me through the building's entrance, I emerged into a large open area, the floor was covered in expensive carpet, the walls were glaringly white and had many large paintings of all different styles hanging on it.

"Who painted that one?" I pointed to a portrait of a beautiful woman.

"No idea, I had a designer pick all this out, if I did it there'd be a lot of pictures of dogs playing poker."

We kept on walking until we entered the factory floor, I saw acres of gleaming machines and complicated looking robots. I saw only a few people walking around, they wore white lab coats and hardhats, none of the machines were on.

"Where is everyone?"

"Um... we're retooling..." Peter said unconvincingly.

"What's this one do?" I pointed to an incredibly complicated looking machine.

"It's used to calibrate the marzelvanes, it's a complicated process."

"Ya, those marzelvanes can be tough," I said trying to sound knowledgeable.

"It got easier once we retrofitted it with spurving bearings," Peter had an odd look on his face.

"Thank god for those," I replied.

"When was the last time you changed the oil in your car?"

I thought that was an odd question, "oh... I don't drive," I said.

"Let's go to my office... watch you don't hit your head on the dingle arm."

I cautiously stepped away from the machine and followed Peter.

Chapter Five

Peter's office was looked like something out of an architectural magazine, it was an expansive open area with a low stucco ceiling, an enormous desk dominated the room, it sat in front of a long wall of exterior windows. There were large flat screen TV's hung everywhere.

In front of his desk there were two leather couches facing each other, a long wooden coffee table in between.

"Have a seat, I'll fix you a drink... if you want?"

"Sure, I'll have a glass of white wine," I said as I sat on one of the couches.

Peter walked over to a large cabinet sitting against a wall, he opened its doors to reveal a well stocked bar. He returned a minute later with a glass of wine which he gave me, he was holding a can of beer in his other hand.

"This is quite the office," I said as he sat down on the opposite couch.

"Ya... kinda embarrassing, always wanted to be Tom Swift when I was young, figured he would have an office like this."

"Tom Swift?"

"He was the hero in a series of books, he was a boy genius, every book featured a different invention."

"The strangest things inspire us," I said sipping my wine.

"What inspired you to be an Egyptologist?"

"Kinda fell into it... wasn't really a choice."

"What did you want to be?"

"I don't know, I've honestly never thought about it... my parents weren't rich, I always thought I would end up catching fish like they had done, and their parents."

"Ya... I thought I would be a farmer until my parents died."

"Why didn't you?"

"Got sick of depending on Mother Nature, not a very co-operative woman."

"I know what you mean... very strange sense of humor."

"I remember not getting rain for six weeks, then when we started to harvest what was left of our crop, it rained three weeks straight destroying it."

"What happened to the farm?"

"My brother still runs it... we haven't talked since I left, he wanted to keep going, figured our parents would have expected that."

"How did they die?"

"Car accident."

"That's too bad... how's your brother doing?"

"Does most of his farming on a bar stool... I've been paying his bills."

"So what's your next invention going to be... Mr Swift?"

Peter looked at me with curious expression, "I'm afraid that's a secret."

Peter's cell phone rang then, he had a brief conversation with the caller and then hung up.

"I gotta go for a few minutes, I'll be back, make yourself at home."

Peter quickly got up and walked out of the room's entrance, he had left me alone in his office.

I waited for a few seconds making sure he had left, I then quickly got up and walked over to his desk. It only took a few seconds to open all the desk's drawer's, all I found was some pens, an empty pad of paper and a chocolate bar.

I looked around the large room to see if there were any filing cabinets, there weren't, I did notice a large workbench covered in blue prints and what looked like machine parts.

I walked over to the bench and picked up one of the metal parts, I could see that it was actually a model of some sort, it looked familiar.

I suddenly realized that it was the spaceship from a popular TV show, someone had roughly cut large pie shaped chunks out of it.

I lifted up my fake prescription glasses and examined it closely, the detail was incredible I could see rooms and hallways in the cutaway sections, the rooms against the exterior hull of the ship even had windows, there were even what looked like working doors.

I put the model down and then unrolled one of the blue prints, it was a drawing of the same spaceship, the detail seemed overly complicated for a simple model. I could see bathrooms and conduits.

I picked up another blue print and unrolled it, it was of the spaceship again a blow-up of one section, I looked at the rest of them, they were all of the ship.

"We use these plans to test our fabrication procedures."

I jumped in surprise, Peter was right behind me.

"Oh... that's why you cut the model open, why did you use a fictional spaceship?"

"It seemed appropriate, we are in the spaceship business."

"You were fond of the TV show?" I asked.

"Space destroyers? When I was young... now it seems corny"

"I never watched it."

"Every show was the same, they always lost half a dozen crew members, there was always a beautiful alien girl which the Captain seduced and the ship escaped disaster at the last second."

"It must have inspired a lot of people, hasn't it been in reruns since the fifties."

"It was the only science fiction show on TV for years, I think that's why it got so popular."

"Soon sci-fi will be reality... with your Frambulator."

"Ya... do you want to grab some dinner? I can have a car send you home afterwards."

"Ok, sure," I said.

Janet was right after all, he did have idea's.

Twenty minutes later we were sitting at a table in an upper scale restaurant, I felt a little underdressed when I looked at the other tables, most of the women were wearing expensive looking gowns.

"This place is kinda ritzy," I said.

"My assistant booked the reservation, she said the food is fantastic."

We soon had large menu's handed to us by a server, he was dressed in a white shirt with a black tie, a white apron over his dark trousers. When I opened the menu I noticed there were no prices beside the different food selections.

"Order what you want, I'll pay," Peter said.

The server soon returned with a bottle of wine Peter had ordered and two glasses, we both told him our food orders, I picked the lobster. The server filled our wine glasses and then left.

"So Kem you're an Egyptologist, what else do you do."

I had put a coin in my hand before we had sat down, I looked closely at Peter's face.

"I know how to do magic," I said.

I waited for a second trying to gauge his expression, he seemed to be trying very hard not to have a reaction.

I showed him my coin and did some simple sleight of hand tricks, he smiled at me.

"That's pretty good."

"Do you know any magic?" I asked, again looking for a reaction.

"I can juggle," he smiled again.

I took a sip of wine, "I found your story about finding the comic books quite interesting, who's estate did you say you found them at?"

Peter gaze suddenly became very intense," I didn't."

"Guess you don't want the estate owners descendant's to make a claim on them, course you could buy a hundred of them now," I said with a laugh.

Peter took a swig of his wine, "his name was Jim Sampson, he left everything to charity," he was still staring at me intently.

I thought for a moment, I was surprised he had told me the estate owners name, I then realized he had no choice, he didn't want me to think he was hiding something, or maybe he actually wasn't.

"Did you know anything about him?"

Peter relaxed his gaze a bit, "no, but his house was beautiful, not ostentatious, you know like most mansions, everything was just perfectly laid out."

"How'd he make his millions?"

"I don't know... probably like most rich people, just inherited it."

"Did you ever find anything that good any other time?"

"God no, half the time I was just paying for the privilege of taking away someone else's garbage."

"So the store didn't do so well?"

"No... I never had enough money to buy something good, that's how you make serious cash, get a big markup on an expensive piece."

Our server returned with some bread rolls then, he topped off our wine glasses as well.

Peter stared at me for a second, "there is something so different about you Kem."

"What do you mean?" I asked self consciously.

"It's hard to explain... like you're not from here."

"Well of course not... I'm South African," I said tersely.

"No... it's more than that... like you're from a different... something."

"That's ridiculous," I felt my heart start to beat harder.

"Hmm... where in South Africa?"

"Oh you won't have heard of it, just a small village," I said brusquely.

"Where they catch fish... are all the women there as beautiful as you?"

I felt a bolt of anger," so that's what you do... a bit of food and flattery and then an invitation to your bed."

Peter started laughing," so that's the secret? God, you are so peculiar."

I felt my face go warm, thankfully the server returned with our food then, I quickly started to eat my lobster, it was very good.

"How did you catch fish... when you were young?" Peter asked cautiously.

"Nets, it was all by hand... what did you farm?"

"Corn and Cattle... it was all done by machines, which constantly broke down."

"How'd you fix them?"

Peter held up his hands, "I can weld because of it, not a half bad mechanic too."

We chatted cautiously with each other for the rest of the dinner, both of us trying to discern what the other was hiding. I had thought my disguise to be foolproof but Peter had somehow been able to sense I was not who I appeared to be.

After our meal was finished Peter used his cell phone to summon a car to take me back to my hotel. He waited with me in front of the restaurant until it arrived.

"Maybe we can do this again," he said as a long black vehicle pulled to a stop in front of us.

"Maybe," I said enigmatically.

Peter grabbed my waist then, pulling me towards him, he kissed my lips. I felt a bolt of anger, the arrogance of the man, I thought to myself. I was preparing to push him away when I realized my traitorous arms were already encircling his neck.

Chapter Six

"How did it go?" Janet asked, "I got your voicemail last night, you didn't say much?"

It was morning and I was sitting in front of Janet's desk in the headquarters building.

"Well, I think he's hiding something, I just don't know what. His factory is state of the art and has airtight security. I think he might have even stopped production to make sure I didn't see anything."

"Hmm... what next?"

"I want to check some things, do some research on his second hand store."

"Ok, make sure you check in on Jack and Frank too."

I returned to my own office, I sat down at my desk and logged into my workstation, I wanted to do some research alright but not on Peter's second hand store.

I opened the STRUDEL search engine page and typed Jim Sampson into the keyword search box, a list of WebPages appeared. I clicked on a link which appeared to be an online encyclopedia.

I quickly skimmed the article, he was a university graduate, had two siblings and he inherited a large sum of money when his parents died, a noted philanthropist and generally fine upstanding person.

I could see nothing unusual about him, I noticed his father's name was highlighted as a link to another article, I clicked it.

Tom Sampson was a millionaire industrialist who started out life as a photographer, he had made his fortune buying small unprofitable companies and turning them around.

The article was a long boring description of what appeared to be a highly intelligent and resourceful businessman, there was nothing revealing until the last paragraph.

Noted for being a member of the ill fated Scott Desmanille expedition,

I clicked on the highlighted Scott Desmanille expedition link.

The article began with a black and white photograph of a man standing in front of a large strange looking automobile, I read the pictures caption, Lord Desmanille in front of his Bugatti in nineteen twenty four.

I enlarged the picture and studied the man's face, I saw a fiftyish looking person with a thick head of gray hair, he also had a thick gray moustache the ends of which curled up, a monocle was clenched in one eye.

The man had an expression of confusion on his face mixed with arrogance, he wore a heavy tweed suit even though the picture appeared to have been taken in a desert, it looked like the Sahara.

The first part of the article began with a description of Lord Desmanille, last of a long line of European nobility, his mother was the daughter of an British Earl, his father a French Duke. He was bilingual but somehow had managed to acquire a bad accent in both languages.

Lord Desmanille upon obtaining his inheritance invested the bulk of it into a heavier than air Zeppelin manufacturer.

I saw a picture of a bizarre looking aircraft, the company had gone bankrupt when the CEO had run off with the companies bankroll, it turned out he had been a notorious confidence man.

Lord Desmanille in a desperate effort to reacquire the immense fortune he had squandered organized an archeological expedition to find the lost treasures of Aladdin's cave.

It appeared he had been inspired by the amateur archeologist Heinrich Schliemann's discovery of Troy.

Using a map he had obtained in a bazaar in Cairo he led a caravan of camels loaded with supplies deep into the Sahara desert, he had used his Bugatti sports car to lead it, his one passenger had been the expedition's photographer Tom Sampson.

The expedition failed in its second day when an impatient Desmanille had roared ahead of the caravan in his car, he had told the other members to follow his tracks, unfortunately the tracks were lost within an hour, causing the caravan to turn back to Cairo.

The fate of the Bugatti's occupants was not known until two months later when an exhausted and emancipated Sampson had staggered back to civilization.

Desmanille had driven at breakneck speed for almost six hours before getting the vehicle irreversibly stuck in the desert sand. Confident in the ability of the caravan to catch up he had instructed Tom to set to his shade umbrella, folding chair, and table, and to brew him a cup of tea.

"He was the stupidest man I ever knew, the sad thing was he thought he was brilliant," Sampson was quoted as saying.

I read another quote.

"I argued with him for an hour, he had no idea the mess we were in, I just gave up and left, I can still see him sitting there, oblivious to his fate, sipping his tea."

They found Lord Desmanille a year later, I saw a picture of a mummified man in a tweed suit sitting beside a car, the sand had buried them both knee deep.

The mummy was in remarkable shape, the shade umbrella must have hidden him from the vultures. I looked closely at the mummies face, the expression of confusion and arrogance was still there.

I read the entire article twice, I noticed that Sampson had been remarkably vague in explaining how he had survived in the desert for two months without water.

The area the Bugatti had gotten stuck in had no known oasis's or wells, even now. He had only had a small canteen of water which would have lasted a day at most.

I hit my web browser's back button until I was on Sampson's bio page again, I clicked on the highlighted link of the first company he had turned around, it was a manufacturer of light bulbs. Sampson had managed to increase the company's production, cut costs and produce a much higher quality bulb then his competitors.

He sold the company a year later for a substantial profit, the new owners had been the largest light bulb manufacturer in the United States, they simply closed the plant. Sampson for some reason had given all the former employees stock options, making them all a tidy sum of money.

I researched all the companies he had bought and sold, it was always the same story, he would make it profitable then sell it to his major competitor who would promptly shut it down, the former employees getting a huge reward from stock options.

It seemed odd to me that he didn't appear to be responsible for any innovations, there were no patents or new processes invented by him.

I thought for a minute, it would be so simple to do what he did with sorcery, and it would have been almost undetectable. Test thousand's of light bulbs until you find one that for whatever random reason is better than the others, then just use a copy spell to reproduce it.

The copy spell could be easily hidden somewhere in the production line, it could be a simple open ended box, one line of light bulbs goes in a different line comes out. I thought some more, if he had been a man of conscience he probably would have felt bad knowing all the employee's would be let go on the sale of the company.

The stock options would have soothed his conscience, I suspected most employee's would be quite happy to exchange a crappy job for large sum of money.

I thought for a moment, I went back to the STRUDEL home page and out of curiosity typed the name Jon Newfellow in the search box. The computer's screen was soon filled with links, I clicked on one to an online encyclopedia.

The article about him was huge, all I could tell from it was that he was incredibly skilled in numerous disciplines, and that he had discovered and invented many incomprehensible, to me that is, equation's and theories.

There was very little said about his private life, an affair with a young married woman, an interest in the Arabian night's stories, as Frank had said he did have a photographic memory, as well his story about him being guarded on his deathbed was also true.

I looked at a photograph of him at the bottom of the article, he looked very young and quite handsome.

I logged out of my workstation and then stood up, it was time to check up on Frank and Jack.

I walked into the laboratory to see Frank and Jack sitting across from one another at a lab bench, they had a pad of paper between them covered in writing.

"How's it going?" I asked.

"We were just going over our preliminary notes, trying to come up with a theory," Jack said.

"And?"

"We think it may be a kind of bug in nature, a flaw in the laws of physics, like when you play a video game and sometimes the character's go through walls they're not supposed to."

"Are you going to write a paper?"

"Paper? No... not yet," Frank said.

"Well that's up to you, you physic's guy's trust each other, you're lucky you're not in archeology, I've had stuff I discovered show up in other peoples papers a week later."

Frank and Jack looked at each other, I could see a hint of panic in their expressions.

"Well maybe it wouldn't hurt to get a preliminary one out there, you know so others could reproduce our results," Frank said.

"Did you learn anything else?" I asked.

"Just that every measurement we've taken seems to be exactly the same, the weight of the gold, the amount of water and the energy of the light," Jack said.

"So there's no variability?"

"None... which is what you would expect from a natural phenomenon I guess, a quanta."

"Well, you guys have done a great job, tell me when you've finished your paper, I'd like to read it."

"Do you want your name on it?" Frank asked.

"Oh god no, it ain't gonna do anything for my career."

They both looked a bit relieved, I wondered what was going through their minds, they must know that this discovery would change their lives forever. I hoped they would hurry, the longer I was here the better the chance I would be found out.

I walked to Janet's office and told her about the progress Frank and Jack had made, I deliberately left out the fact that they were writing a preliminary research paper.

Janet handed me a manila envelope.

"There's a rocket launch at Vandenberg three days from now, they're using the Frambulator, I put all the info in this envelope, I want you to go over there and examine it, they know you're coming."

"Ok, I'll leave this afternoon."

"Call me when you get there."

I didn't have a car and I didn't want to take one of the large transport vehicles common in this era, so I decided to wait until it was dark and then fly to the Vandenberg launch site.

I had made a hotel reservation at the small city next to the Vandenberg military base where the launch site was situated. I had not checked out of my current hotel room, I wanted to keep it so I would not need to carry all my things with me. I was only going to bring a small knapsack with my toiletry and extra clothing.

It was after nine o'clock when I stood on my hotel rooms small balcony. I had slung my backpack over my shoulders and was now adjusting my flying goggles. I activated a direction spell with my bracelet, a small red glowing arrow appeared, hovering over my wrist. The arrow would always point to my destination.

I put my arms over my head and then used my feet to hop a few inches off the ground, I swept my arms down as I took off into the air.

I flew straight up until I was around two thousand feet high, I then manoeuvred around until the arrow on my wrist until was pointed in the same direction as my flight. I accelerated until the wind was whistling in my ears. I had carefully examined my route in the afternoon to make sure that I was aware of all the hazards.

I had to fly a lengthy distance and did not want to be in the air for a long time, so I was flying much faster than my normal fifty miles per hour. I had also enchanted my goggles so that it overlaid a faint thermal image of my surroundings, this enabled me to see aircraft, metal towers and power lines.

The first part of my journey took me over a dark hilly wilderness, I saw only a few small towns and roads. The second part took me down the coast of the ocean, I flew over a long stretch of brightly lit cityscape. The last part took me over more dark hilly wilderness until I saw the bright lights of the small city that sat next to the rocket base.

I circled over the city until I found a secluded alleyway near a large taxi stand, I then surreptitiously landed in the darkened alley. I unslung my knapsack and reached in, I took out a long sleeved hoodie and a pair of jogging pants, I quickly put them on over my flying suit. I packed my goggles away and put on my fake prescription glasses.

I slung my knapsack back over my shoulders and then walked out of the alleyway and towards the taxi stand. I felt vaguely like a character I had seen in an old television show, he had been a secret hero who would change into a colorful costume to battle evil, he would always find a clever hiding place to put it on.

I flagged down a taxi and jumped in, It was only a half hour later before I was comfortably snoozing on a bed in my newly rented hotel room.

The next morning after breakfast I took a taxi to the military base where the rocket launch facilities where. As Janet had said they were aware of my arrival and after getting through the security checkpoint I had a an escort of two young foot soldiers to take me to the launch pad.

I was soon on an elevator going up the gantry beside a tall fearsome looking rocket. The foot soldiers had handed me over to two older looking gentlemen in grey suits.

"It's a commercial satellite, gonna broadcast TV shows," one of them said.

"Ya, it's a geo... thanks to the Frambulator we don't need all the solid fuel boosters, saves us a fortune."

The elevator stopped about half way up and the door opened onto a long catwalk that ended a few inches from the side of the large rocket. I saw a bulge on the exterior of the fuselage, it was about two feet square.

"Weighs only three pounds... they've made it pretty aerodynamic, doesn't affect the flight at all."

"Ya... too bad it always burns up with the booster... so we wouldn't need to keep buying them."

I walked over to the small bulge and examined it closely, it was featureless. I took a small digital camera out of my pocket and took some pictures of it.

"We x-rayed one once... they left it alone for a minute... put it though a luggage scanner, just an incredible mass of incomprehensible crap," one of the men said.

"Do you have the x-rays?" I asked.

"It was an old scanner, didn't store the images," one of them replied.

"Has one ever broken or not worked?"

"Nope... had a booster blow up at fifty thousand feet, it actually accelerated the debris before it was destroyed. They put an explosive charge in it, in case of a failed launch."

"Who installs it?"

"The company, they watch it like a hawk, there's a guy looking at us right now, we screw around with it we get a massive penalty," one of the men pointed to a man on the ground wearing a dark blue jacket and pants, he was also wearing a cap with what looked like a company logo on it.

"No ideas on how it works?" I asked.

"No clue, could be some kind of gravity interference, but that's just a guess."

"It doesn't need power?"

"There was what looked like a battery in the x-ray."

"Hmm... pretty inscrutable," I murmured to myself.

"Are you gonna stay for the launch?" One of the men asked.

"Oh ya," I said, Janet had sent me a text this morning telling me to stay.

The three of us headed back towards the elevator.

Chapter Seven

I spent the next ten days waiting for the damn rocket to take off, I soon learned that the most necessary skill needed in a career of rocketry was patience.

Frank and Jack sent me all kinds of sophisticated test equipment to set up and monitor the launch, the longer the launch was delayed the more equipment they sent. I soon became quite an expert in the installation and monitoring of numerous test devices, I was even offered a job by one of the base's supervisors.

When the launch finally came I was so busy making sure all the equipment was running properly and transmitting data I almost missed it.

The launch itself was exhilarating, the sound the engines made seemed to shake my very soul, it was like watching the birth of a mighty fiery beast.

It took me a further two days to disassemble and crate all the equipment and then send it back to Rand, thankfully I had had the help of the two young foot soldiers I had met while first entering the base.

When I finally checked out of my hotel I had to wait until nightfall in order to fly back, I spent the day at a small beach taking long swims in the ocean and sleeping under a large umbrella I had rented.

I was quite happy when the sun finally went down, I took off from the secluded spot I had found to change into my flying suit. The night was cloudless and I could see thousands of stars, I felt relieved to be finally going back, I could implement the rest of my plan and go back to my real home, The City of Magic.

I met Frank and Jack the next morning in Frank's office, I brought them all large black coffee's, I wanted them to be in a good mood.

"So how's the paper coming along," I asked as I sat down.

"We have the rough draft done, do you want to read it?" Frank said.

"Sure... rough draft... what still has to be done?"

"Oh just spelling and grammar, we're both pretty bad at it," Jack said.

Frank reached into his desk drawer and handed me a sheaf of papers stapled together, I saw a title typed on the cover page, Physical Properties of Antiquarian Magic, and both their names.

I looked at my watch, "have to go, got a meeting," I said.

I almost ran back to my office, I quickly closed the door and window shades then sat down at my desk and hurriedly read the paper.

The paper was perfect for my needs, they had used the references I had provided for the spells, the research was impeccable and it was well written and easy to understand. They had even signed their names in somewhat legible signatures.

I used my bracelet to surreptitiously create a copy, I then sent the copy on its way to another destination.

Frank and Jack were going to get their paper published in the most prestigious physics journal in the world. Not only would it be published but it would be a cover story, and they would have their biography's and extensive credentials published as well.

The most important thing of all was that the place that they did their research would be prominently displayed.

My plan was almost complete, I would now just have to wait until the journal came out and then implement my final phase.

The phone on my desk rang then, I looked at it suspiciously then picked up the receiver.

"Hello."

"Geez, where have you been?" It was Peter.

"Oh... hi, business trip, I was up the coast for two weeks."

"I guess I should have asked for your cell number, are you free tonight?"

"Ya... I guess"

"Let me take you to dinner... I have something to show you."

That night I met Peter in a quiet restaurant, it was just a run of the mill place catering to the local population. Peter directed me to a secluded corner of the restaurant, we sat at a largish table.

Once we had ordered our food and drink Peter pulled out a thick sheaf of paper from a small satchel he had been carrying, it looked like newsprint, old newsprint.

"When I said I never found anything else good when I was buying stuff for my shop, that wasn't quite true, I found these."

I picked up the sheaf of folded newsprint, the paper was yellow with age.

"What are they?"

"They're rubbings of hieroglyphs, I think, you're an Egyptologist maybe you can read them for me."

I carefully unfolded the sheaf, there were about twenty separate pages, I noticed someone had numbered the corners of each page. They were hieroglyphs all right, done in charcoal, they were so faint I could barely see them in the dim light of the restaurant.

Peter switched on a small flashlight and shone it on the page, I took it from his hand and started to read the glyph's.

"Early dynastic I think second or third dynasty."

I had read numerous ancient papyrus's to prepare myself for my cover story as an Egyptologist, I had found that I could easily distinguish the era that they had come from with a little practise, I could do the same with most artifacts as well.

"It's written by a guy called Imhotep, it's about some kind of dispute he had with a woman from the city of Assur, her name's Semiramis."

I read further.

I had conceived of a plan to thwart the shameless harlot, I could not wait to destroy her. I would finally redeem myself after falling prey to her seductions.

It seemed that Imhotep had been seduced and manipulated by some exotic beauty, like that has never happened before, I thought to myself.

The rest of the rubbing was basically a long description of a desperately infatuated man bragging about a ridiculous plan he had concocted to get back at the woman who jilted him.

I read my translation out loud so Peter could hear the story, It wasn't until the very last page that I realized that both Imhotep and Semiramis weren't just run of the mill citizens of antiquity.

I am sure she had been plotting against me since we met in the City of Magic.

I had to suppress a gasp, my heart almost leap out of my chest.

"Where did you get these?" I asked, trying to act nonchalant.

"They were with the stuff I got from the Sampson estate," Peter looked at me, his face was completely devoid of expression.

"Was there anything else?"

"I have Tom Sampson's journal... from the Desmanille expedition, have you heard of it?"

"I've read a little bit about it, what's it say... about what happened?" I tried to keep my own face expressionless.

"What do you think it said?"

A thought occurred to me then, what if I was being set up, what if Rand had recruited Peter, what if I was still their target.

Unfortunately I had a tendency towards paranoia sometimes. Was I overreacting? Why would they create such a grandiose plan, it made no sense... unless they were trying to get me to unwittingly reveal the secrets of magic... then it made sense, use Peter to gain my confidence.

They could learn a lot just from a short conversation about sorcery, especially if I thought Peter was another Sorcerer.

"Is there something you're not telling me?" I tried to look confused and oblivious.

"No... the journal was kinda boring... he got picked up by a caravan, had to spend two months with them because they didn't want to divert their route."

Our server returned with our food then, we spent the rest of the dinner making small talk, I looked at Peter surreptitiously while he was eating, trying to discern his intentions in the expressions of his face. I saw nothing.

A strange feeling came over me as I looked at Peter, a kind of panicky anger, I suddenly realized I had developed feelings for him.

I felt my eyes narrow, if he was a Rand operative, and he was just stringing me along, he'd better hope that I was captured for I would pursue him to the ends of the earth to gain my revenge.

After dinner was over and we had paid our bill Peter walked me outside to wait for my taxi, he seemed to sense a change in my mood for he only gave me a quick kiss on my cheek as he opened the taxi's door.

Peter let me keep the rubbings, he told me that they were probably quite old but that they weren't old enough to have any value.

When I had returned to my hotel room I laid out the rubbings on the bed, I then took out my laptop and did a search for the two names in the writings, Imhotep and Semiramis.

Imhotep appeared to be a real person, an ancient polymath. It could just be someone with the same name I thought, I looked to see if I could find the era he had been alive, I found numerous articles which placed him in the third dynasty, he served a King called Djoser.

There were a few references to him being a skilled sorcerer.

The name Semiramis turned up two people, one a queen who had lived thousands of years after Imhotep and the other a mythical goddess like figure.

I searched for articles on the goddess figure, when I read them they painted a picture of a beautiful and treacherous woman who seduced and manipulated men. I found one very interesting tidbit, she had used trickery to make it seem as if she had resurrected a fallen King in order to stop a war.

I thought back to my own past, resurrection was something I had done, it was not a difficult thing to do. I also thought that dressing up someone else as a king would not fool anyone for long, for his armies would expect him to return to lead them.

I found one last thing, a reference to a papyrus, it had a description of a battle Imhotep had had with an Assyrian sorceress. I looked up the location of the city of Assur, it was in Assyria.

I looked at the rubbings, the way they were written seemed to indicate that it was a tribute, or a rendering of an accomplishment, something that would be put on a statues base... or a tombs wall.

I did a search for Imhotep's tomb, it had never been found, this in an era when gigantic pyramids had started to be built over tombs, the professional tomb robbers gift from the gods.

If Imhotep had been a sorcerer it would have been quite easy for him to hide even the worst of a man's vanities.

Had these rubbings come from Imhotep's tomb? Did Tom Sampson find it when he was wandering through the Sahara desert?

I closed my laptop, folded up the rubbings and then put them all on my night table. I was tired and it was time to go to bed.

The next morning the first thing I did after I woke up was to shut off the three spells I had created for Frank and Jack to test.

The magazine their paper was in would be on the newsstands this morning, I had used sorcery to make sure it was in this issue so I wouldn't have to wait for the usual publishing cycle.

I took a long shower, then got dressed and packed my things, I dispelled my luggage so I would not have to carry it.

After checking out of the hotel I was soon walking down the sidewalk towards Rand, I would soon see the results of my plan, I doubted anyone there would suspect me.

It was mid afternoon before Janet found me, I was in a laboratory where they were testing copies of ancient swords, something that interested me.

"Even the steel is authentic... and we had a blacksmith forge them," one of the technicians explained to me.

Janet burst through the labs doors, a strange look was on her face.

"You and you get out," she pointed at the two technicians, they both took one look at her and promptly walked out.

"Janet, what's the matter?" I asked with a suitably concerned look on my face.

"What the Hell is this?" she threw a magazine onto the bench beside me.

I picked it up trying to look curious.

"Oh... Frank and Jack, they published their paper... they didn't even tell me."

"Oh they did huh... those spells they were testing, they don't work anymore either... I think you did this." Janet stared at me, her eyes were as hard as stone.

"What are you talking about... how could I do this... the magazine is peer reviewed, even if I sent the paper to them why would they publish it?"

Janet pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to me.

"Look at that."

I opened it up, it was a map with some lines drawn on it, it looked like it came from a web site used to find directions.

"Unless there's a daily scheduled flight from your hotel room to a taxi stand in Lompoc, you flew... like a bird... I pulled the GPS co-ordinates out of that cell phone I gave you."

"Oh... you can do that?" I said surprised.

"The... the... chutzpah, even Dillinger didn't do this... you joined the taskforce that was hunting you?" Janet's voice was shaking with anger.

I took off my fake glasses.

"What did you expect, an attack from Lord Evil and his army of goblins," I stared right back at Janet," you had no idea who you were dealing with."

"You've destroyed their career's... made Rand a laughing stock... made me a laughing stock."

"You won't starve... you're life is still your own, beside's I thought it was kinda appropriate after what was done to those fusion guys."

"I knew it was you... when I saw the picture of that statue... I just couldn't believe it, didn't listen to my little voice."

I noticed Janet had a small bulge under her jacket, her hand had been slowly moving towards it as she had been talking to me. I saw one of the swords the technicians had been testing out of the corner of my eye. It had the word Ulfberht written faintly on the blade.

I lunged for the sword grabbed it and then swung the flat part of the blade against Janet's hand as she was pulling it out of her Jacket.

A menacing looking pistol flew out of her grip and slid across the floor, Janet stared at me, then she quickly took one step back and grabbed an Ulfberht of her own.

She held the sword in front of her, both hands on the grip, I could tell from the way she held it that she must have had some training in swordplay.

"So... you think you're tough huh... Texas A&M thought they were tough." Janet stepped towards me swinging her sword.

I parried, and stepped back, she came at with a flurry of swings. I was right, she had had some practise at this, she had a strange style swinging the sword over her head.

She kept rushing at me trying to use her size and strength to overwhelm me, I backed away defensively, biding my time, she finally made a mistake, over extended herself, she had assumed she was the stronger one and could risk giving me a bit of leverage.

I was a child of antiquity, when something had to be lifted, I lifted it, when a long journey had to be made, I walked or ran it. I had learned very quickly that in this era women were pampered and quite weak, even those who thought of themselves as athletes.

I swung my sword as hard as I could smashing it against hers, I saw it fly out of her hand cart wheeling though the air. I charged her then hitting her square in the chest with my shoulder, she stumbled backwards falling onto her bum.

I held my sword tip against her throat, she glared back at me her eyes full of rage and fury, panting with exhaustion.

"I'll be leaving now," I said.

I noticed a grim smile slowly creep across her face.

I felt something hard poke the small of my back, "Drop the cutlery princess, I got a gun," I heard a gruff voice from behind me say.

Chapter Eight

I lowered my sword then let go of the handle, it clanged against the floor, Janet quickly clambered up back onto her feet.

"I want you to undress yourself... slowly no sudden moves," the gruff voice said.

I turned around and looked at my new adversary, I saw a brute of a man with a large bald head. I could not tell his age, he may have been sixty... he may have been thirty. His body was a mass of hard muscle, his biceps almost bursting through his jacket sleeves.

"Undress!" He yelled.

Janet found a cardboard box and put it next to me.

"Put all your clothes and things in there," she pointed to the box.

I slowly and cautiously undressed, the brute watched me like a cat watching a mouse, I was soon standing in my underwear.

"All of it, take it all off," the brute barked.

I stared at him defiantly as I stripped naked, he looked away.

"Find anything?" the brute asked Janet.

"No... a cheap bracelet, earrings, a gold chain."

"Tape the box up we'll send it anyway."

Janet gave me what looked like a hospital smock to wear, and a pair of cheap sandals. I quickly put them on.

I stood there watching Janet tape the cardboard box shut, I waited until she had stood back a few feet to examine her handiwork.

"n m3=i mity srw pn," I said loudly in ancient Egyptian, it was the command word for my bracelets self destruct spell.

The box burst into flame, it was consumed almost instantly.

I looked at Janet and the brute, I saw the blood drain from their faces.

The brute, pointed his pistol at my head.

"You do that again princess... I put a hole in your skull."

"You won't kill me, you won't get what you want if you do."

"Handcuff her, don't take your eyes off of her either," the brute ordered.

Janet grabbed my arms and handcuffed my hands, thankfully she did not put them behind my back.

"You got ten minutes with her... that was the deal. I'll wait outside."

Janet led me to a small table and put a chair under me, I sat down. Janet had picked her gun up off of the floor, now she set it down on the table between us, she sat across from me.

"You've managed to turn over some pretty nasty rocks with what you did," Janet gestured in the direction of the brute.

"I won't tell you anything."

"I'm not your problem anymore," Janet reached into a jacket pocket, she pulled out a small statue of a woman sitting on a stool, the woman looked African.

"Do you know what this is?" Janet asked.

I picked up the statue and examined it.

"It looks old, there's some writing, I don't understand it though, sorry."

"I have a story to tell you... you must have heard about the black van gang right?"

"Ya... you shot them all."

"I was still drinking then, I got put on that task force to get me out of the office, they knew one of the suspects, I had read his file.

They sent me to a small city to investigate a tip someone had called in, said they had seen him. These things were usually BS, I investigated for two days but didn't find anything.

That last night I was sitting at the hotel bar, some salesman was bitching he couldn't watch his favorite college team, said that he usually stayed at some other hotel, the only one in the area that had a full sports package.

I remembered then, the suspect, he was a sports nut, and he had spent a lotta time in this city.

I was drunk, did a stupid thing, I went to the hotel he was talking about, desk clerk told me there were four guys renting the same room said they were gone for dinner.

I got him to give me the room key, I went to the room opened the door and there they were, all kitted out for a robbery... guns in their hands."

"And you shot them all," I said.

"Ya... between the eyes... they didn't even get a shot off."

"Pretty good."

"Except for one thing... I'm very good with a gun... but nobody's that good, and I was taught to shoot at the center of mass, it's was drilled into me, it felt like I had someone else's arm."

"You were stressed out," I started to wonder why Janet was telling this story.

"I spun the gun on my finger when I holstered it.

That statue... it was my Great Grandmothers, she lived to be a hundred and ten, scary old crone... half nuts... only time she made sense was when she gave it to me, said she was gonna die... said it was magical, told me it saved her mother... she had been sold as a slave, to some guy they called the Whipper, his wagon was hijacked on their journey to his place... by some extremely strange people, they released her told her to run north... just run honey, don't worry about nothing else, they told her... she became free because of them."

"Strange people?" I asked.

"They had painted eyes, wore kilts... spoke with an odd accent."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"That statue... musta lost it ten times... always turned up... never where I expected it," Janet stared at me," is it magical?"

"It could be... magic is easily hid."

"Who made it?"

"It would take weeks of research to find out, besides even if I knew I wouldn't tell you."

"Hmm... the writing on it, I had it translated, it says: My daughter, I will always watch over you."

"Do you have children?" I asked.

"Yes, a daughter and two sons."

"Well, you know what to do with it then."

"Times up."

The brute was back.

I felt a hand grab my arm and I was roughly jerked to my feet, he led me out of the room and into the hall, I saw that there were other men in dark suits standing guard.

We took the elevator down to the buildings parking garage, there was a van waiting for us, it looked like a police wagon except that I didn't recognize the name or insignia of the force.

The two of us were soon sitting on steel benches in the back of the van as we travelled through the city streets.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

The brute stared at me for a few seconds, and then turned away, he had a large pistol in his hand which he rested on his lap.

After about fifteen minutes I realized that we were heading for the large military base that I had noticed when I had first flown over this area.

Soon we had pulled up to the base's large entrance gate, we stopped for a minute then the gate opened and we were waved through, we were then slowly meandering around a long line of enormous buildings.

The van turned and we drove through an open garage door on the side of one of the large buildings, the van's rear door opened seconds after we had halted, I was jerked to my feet by the Brute.

We were in the midst of a small group of foot soldiers after we exited the van, they escorted us to an ancient looking elevator, the Brute inserted an odd looking key into a keyhole beside the elevator door, he then punched in a long series of numbers into a keypad below the keyhole.

The elevator door opened, I was pushed in by the Brute as he followed behind, one of the foot soldiers accompanied us.

The elevator went down only three floors before the doors opened, I saw a large warehouse there were rows of crates and boxes.

The two men each grabbed one of my arms as we walked through the warehouse, I looked at the crates as we walked, one of them was labelled ROSWELL 1947, for some reason the name sounded familiar.

I looked at another crate, it looked much older than the others, the nails that held it together had rectangular heads, it was labelled AURORA TEXAS 1897.

I wondered what was in the crates, probably just old paper records that had to be kept for legal reasons, I thought to myself.

We soon came to a small alcove, in it there were two small jail cells facing each other, each had a bed and a primitive looking toilet.

I was pushed into one of the cells, I heard the heavy barred door clang shut behind me, I shuddered a bit, I heard the lock being turned.

The Brute had me put my hands through a slot in the bars and then he undid my handcuffs.

"Congratulations, you are one of the few people to get to look at Newfellows last equation," the Brute rasped, a humorless laugh followed.

I was curious about what he had said and I looked around the alcove, then I saw it on the rear wall of the opposite jail cell.

Someone had written an incredibly complicated equation, there were only a few symbols I recognized, some of them were so complicated they must have been oriental.

"They've been studying that for fifty years, maybe you'll do better," the Brute laughed his humourless laugh again.

I saw that he had brought a folding chair, he positioned it at the entrance of the alcove then sat on it, he put his pistol on his lap. It appeared I would not be left alone.

I looked around my Spartan cell, there was nothing of interest, I walked over and sat on the bed, it was as hard as stone.

I stared at the primitive steel toilet hoping that I would not have to pee, I saw the equation out of the corner of my eye again, something about it twigged something in my brain, I turned and looked at it, I studied it intently this time.

Then I saw it, cunningly hidden amidst all the other gibberish, and then it all made sense, the Newfellow machine, being able to remember everything he had read and being guarded on his death bed.

Newfellow had been a sorcerer, and from the looks of the spell he had written, he had escaped from his cell.

He hadn't had pneumonia, he'd been drugged and then he had been guarded so he wouldn't escape. I suspected they had even faked even his death before they had imprisoned him here.

"What happened to this Newfellow guy?" I asked the Brute.

The Brute stared at me, "he picked the lock, he didn't get far."

He was lying, I could tell, it was the first crack I had seen in his facade.

I thought for a moment, if I had been Newfellow I would have made sure I opened the cell door after I had escaped, then everyone would assume that's the way I had done it. They probably thought he had just gotten lucky after leaving his cell.

I saw the Brute turn and hold a brief conversation with someone out of earshot.

He turned and looked at me, "you have a visitor."

It was Frank, he had a concerned look on his face, he walked up to my cell and rested his hands on bars.

"Kem... you have to co-operate with them... maybe I can get them to let you go."

I walked over and then put my hands on top of his.

"They're not going to let me go."

"Just tell them what they want... please," Frank whined.

"You know Frank... if you snuck over there... banged him on the head, got the keys... that would really impress me," I stared at him intently.

Frank jerked his head around and looked at the Brute, then he looked back at me, a kind of madness seemed to pass over his eyes, then it faded, he snatched his hands back as if they had been burned.

"You're the Devil!" he gasped.

Frank turned and walked away, his gait was unsteady as he moved, I saw him slow a bit when he passed by the Brute, he glanced at him, then his gait steadied and he was gone.

Chapter Nine

I was snoozing on the rock hard bed when a low rumbling sound shook me awake, I could hear the bars of the cell rattling a bit.

I stood up and walked over to the cells bars to see what was going on. The Brute was still sitting on the folding chair, he had turned his head and was looking back towards the warehouse.

I saw a foot soldier walk into the alcove, the Brute stood up and holstered his pistol.

The foot soldier was Peter, I felt my heart sink, so he had been an undercover operative, you will pay for this Peter, I thought to myself.

I noticed Peter's uniform didn't seem to be very snappy and crisp like all the other foot soldiers I had seen, It didn't fit properly and he hadn't bloused his trousers, I also noticed he didn't have boots on, just shoes.

The two men approached each other, then a strange look passed between them, like two animals confronting each other.

They both moved like lightning, almost instantly they were locked into each other's embrace, the Brutes enormous arms flexed as he tried to work his massive hands towards Peter's neck.

"You can do it Peter... he's not so tough!" I yelled, my heart racing in my chest.

I could see the Brute was slowly forcing Peter's arms back, he was obviously stronger, Peter jerked one arm free and then and in a lightning quick move he grabbed the bottom of the Brutes jacket and pulled it over his head blinding him.

The Brute used a hand to try and grab the jacket loosening his grip on Peter, I saw Peter's fist move like a jack hammer raining blow after blow against his opponents head. They seemed to have no effect.

Peter's fist found a soft spot then, the Brute shuddered, like a small tree being struck by an axe, he fell to his hands and knees, I could see he was now trying to reach for his pistol.

Peter walked backwards a few steps almost like he was doing a dance step, I saw the barrel of the pistol appear, Peter walked two steps forward and then booted the Brutes head as hard as he could, I saw it snap up.

The Brute collapsed, he landed spread eagled on the floor, a small pool of blood started growing next to his head.

Peter quickly searched his body, he soon found the cell keys.

"Get his wallet too," I yelled to Peter.

Peter reached into a pocket and grabbed the Brutes wallet, he walked over to my cell and put one of the keys in the lock, he had it open in a few seconds.

I jumped onto him flinging my arms around his neck and kissing him.

"How did you find me?" I asked after I pulled my lips away.

"You can't spend two years selling stuff to the military and not have a few friends."

"Come on we have to hurry," I climbed off of Peter and ran over to the Brute.

With Peter's help we soon had him locked up in the cell I was formerly in, Peter seemed to take a bit of care in moving the Brute, he even ripped a piece of cloth from the Brutes jacket and bandaged his head, he also turned him on his side so he would not choke.

I looked at Peter with a confused expression on my face.

"Hey... he fought the good fight... nobody wins them all."

"A woman would not think that way," I said.

"Um... when we get out of here, I gotta go to a hospital."

"Why?" I asked concerned.

"Pretty sure my foots broken... think I did a bit of ligament damage too," Peter thought for a moment, "twelve times twelve... hundred and forty four right?"

"Ya..."

I saw relief in his face, "no concussion this time, that's good."

I heard a rifle cock behind us, I turned and saw a young foot soldier with a terrified expression on his face.

"Don't move... I want you to walk into one of the cells," he stammered.

"How if we can't move," I asked.

I saw a look of confusion on his face.

"Just do it!" he yelled, his voice cracking.

I calmly grabbed Peter's hand and led him into the cell that had Newfellow's equation written on the wall. I used the keys to lock the door once we were both inside, I then tossed them towards the foot soldier, they landed at his feet.

The soldier cautiously picked them up.

"Hadn't you better help your friends?" I asked him with a blank expression on my face.

"Um... what?"

"The goblins... they'll be here soon... nasty creatures."

I saw the wheels turning in his head, then he stared as us intently.

"Don't you move," he yelled sternly, then he ran away, I heard him in the distance hollering to his compatriots.

"Don't think he'll be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs anytime soon." Peter said.

"Do you have a pen or a pencil?" I asked Peter.

He felt around his pockets then pulled out a ball point pen and handed it to me.

I walked over to the toilet and unrolled some toilet paper, I wrote the spell actuator symbols on the paper, then I made them damp with some water from the sink.

"Stand really close to me," I said to Peter.

I touched the concrete on top of and below the spell with my fingers, I felt a minuscule depression in both areas. I put the actuator symbols in the depressions, the wetness made them stick. I kept my hands in front of them in case there was a camera watching us.

I heard a small noise, and then we were no longer in the cell.

We had appeared in an office, it looked like it hadn't been used in decades there was a thick layer of dust over everything.

I looked at the floor and saw the two wet pieces of toilet paper with the actuator symbols, the spell had been designed to transport them as well, I picked them up and shredded them.

"We're on the first floor... looks like a university campus," Peter was looking out a window.

"How did you break in to the base?" I asked.

Peter turned and looked at me, "used Imhotep's stone moving spell, dropped a twenty ton rock on the hangar, made a nice hole."

"Imhotep?"

Peter took off his uniform shirt revealing civilian clothes underneath, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a very old leather bound book.

"Tom Sampson's journal," he handed it to me.

"I thought you said it was boring," I said as I grabbed it.

"I lied."

"So this is what you found... not the comics."

"Ya... used a copier spell at a comic book convention to get those"

"How competent a sorcerer are you?"

Peter laughed, "after blowing up my shop... I gave up, the Frambulator is just the stone moving spell, knocks twenty tons off the takeoff weight, that's the secret."

"How about Sampson?"

"He was about as crappy as me, the notes he took are missing some important stuff."

"Notes from what?"

"He found Imhotep's tomb, after he left Desmanille, he was an ancient sorcerer."

I opened up the journal at a random spot and started to read.

I wanted to shoot the man with my revolver, that idiot, we're going to die here and he prattles on about great leadership, that breeding determines a man's status.

He still thinks the caravan is going to find us,

"they are peasants it is in their nature to serve their true superiors to the limit of their abilities... that is why they will come."

I have decided to leave, I would rather take my chances with the vultures.

I skipped to another spot in the book.

I keep thinking it's a mirage, or I've lost my mind, if it is a fantasy I wonder why the water in the fountain tastes kind of muddy.

If only I had brought my camera equipment, the paintings on the tombs walls are of such beauty as to cause a man to weep, there is one of a Magical City that looks so wondrous I cannot believe it could ever have existed.

I skipped to another spot.

I have found some of Imhotep's spells, I was even able to activate one using my almost nonexistent skill in hieroglyphic translation, my mind swims with the possibilities of this. Thankfully I brought some tracing paper, I was able to reproduce many sheets of it with one of his spells. I will try to make rubbings of all the hieroglyphs.

I closed the book and handed it back to Peter.

"You keep it, you'll get more use out of it then me," he said.

"Did he ever go back to the tomb?"

"He could never find it again... what about you, what's your story?"

I looked at Peter, "you know that magical city he talks about in here," I pointed to the journal.

"Ya."

"I built it."

Peter's eyes went wide.

"How old are you?"

"I'm twenty... something, and I'm six thousand years old... it's a complicated story."

"You're Kemamonit," Peter blurted out.

"You've heard of me?"

"There is a couple of references to you in the journal, you were the wife of Senbi an ancient sorcerer."

I felt a bolt of anger, "I was not his wife... that's another complicated story."

"What do we do now?"

"Do you have your cell phone?"

Peter handed me a rectangular device with a flat screen, I activated the web browser then typed in the address for a mail service, Donut post, it was a spinoff of the STRUDEL search website, I had created an account previously.

I sent an email to another account, I had set up a spell with the help of a nerdy friend of my former apprentice Shelley.

I hadn't liked him much, but he was quite clever when it came to the arcane workings of the internet, he had had a weird obsession with clouds for some reason, he even talked about them in the third person.

A few seconds after I had sent the email my bracelet appeared floating in the air beside me, I quickly put it on.

I would have to be careful with it from now on for the recovery spell was written so it would only work once.

"I do not trust these devices, I think they are used to watch us," I said to Peter.

"I got no use for it anymore, I don't think I can just go back."

I used my bracelet to quickly dispel it.

"Where is it now?" Peter asked.

"On the surface of the moon."

I then conjured up some clothing, which I quickly put on. I looked at Peter, he was wearing an expensive suit and tie.

"You look very conspicuous," I said.

I quickly conjured up some more clothes after asking him his size, he was soon standing next to me wearing jeans and a t-shirt, he could not put his shoes on because of his broken foot.

"Now we go to the hospital, stand close to me," I said as I flipped the squares on my bracelet.

We appeared outside the emergency room of a large hospital in Stockholm Sweden, I had done some research previously and this hospital had the perfect combination of competent physicians and comprehension of English, they also took cash.

Peter was soon using hobbling out the main entrance with cast on his foot and crutches under his arms.

"The doctor said it isn't too bad, have to wear it for a few weeks," Peter said.

"What about the other stuff?"

"Just strains and bruises, what are we gonna do now?"

"Eat dinner, get some sleep," it was almost midnight here.

"Can we get a hotel this late?"

I reached into my handbag and showed Peter a large stack of the local currency.

"I don't think we'll have a problem."

"Geez... you can just conjure it up?" Peter had an amazed look on his face.

"A properly trained sorcerer can conjure anything up."

It was only an hour later before we had satisfied our appetites and were sleeping together in a large comfortable bed.

Chapter Ten

I woke the next day with Ra shining brightly in my eyes, I looked at the clock beside the bed, it was almost noon. I looked over at Peter, he was still fast asleep.

I turned on the TV and flipped to a news channel, I turned the volume down so I wouldn't wake Peter.

It took only a short while before I saw Frank and Jack in what appeared to be a makeshift press conference, they looked uncomfortable and kind of frantic.

The network had overdubbed their conversation in Swedish but I could understand the gist of it, they were saying they had been duped... by a magical being... that magic was real, but just not in the way their paper had described.

I could tell from the expressions on the faces of the reporters questioning them, that they did not believe any of it.

In an effort to save their careers both of them were just making it worse.

I had successfully relegated sorcery to the realm of faeries and monsters, I doubted if Rand or any other legitimate organization would ever research it from now on.

I only had the Brutes shadowy organization to worry about from now on.

I took the Brutes wallet out of my handbag, there was an identification card amongst his credit cards, it was for a company I had never heard of, General Importers, there was nothing else of any interest.

I threw the wallet back into my handbag, I would research his credit cards later.

Peter woke up then.

"So what next?" Peter was rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"We find Imhotep's tomb."

"Why?"

"We must hide it better, in case someone else stumbles onto it."

"How will we find it?"

I started flipping the squares on my bracelet, a wooden box appeared, floating in air, it was open on the side facing me, the box was stuffed with rolls of papyri.

I had found the archives of the City of magic a few months before, or more accurately it had been discovered by the archeologist I had hired to catalogue the city, Harry Camp.

I pulled out the papyri one by one and quickly scanned their contents.

Imhotep had arrived in the City of Magic at the age of twelve, his novice spell, the spell he was judged upon by the cities sorcerers to determine his fitness to become an apprentice, had been the stone moving spell Peter had used.

He had had an interest in architecture and medicine and he had died in his late fifties, old for his time, he had located his tomb in the Great desert ten days march from Memphis.

I conjured up a modern map of Egypt complete with ancient cities and monuments, I found the location of Memphis, then using the clues from the papyri I soon had a good idea where the tomb was located.

I put all the papyri back into the box and dispelled it. I jumped out of bed and walked over to the bathroom, it was time for a shower.

Peter and I were standing in the Sahara desert, the sun was high in the sky blasting us with an intense heat.

"Jesus... people live in this heat?" Peter said.

"It can get much hotter, make sure you drink lots of water."

I looked around at the rocks and sand, I could not see anything unusual. I knew the tomb had to be very close.

I used a spell to scan underneath the surface to a depth of about ten feet, again I found nothing.

"Sampson spent weeks trying to find it again, he said he had marked the site," Peter said.

I walked over to one of the boulders protruding out of the sand, I saw a crudely chiselled X, I also noticed a small cairn of rocks nearby, obviously man made.

"This must be it then, there must be some kind of trigger," I said.

"Like a magic word?"

"Ya... it could be."

"What kind of man was Imhotep?" Peter asked.

"Hard to say... kinda nerdy I think."

"Was he compassionate?"

"I would assume so... he was a powerful sorcerer and there are no historical records of any megalomania."

Peter hobbled up next to me.

"Fall down onto all fours, act like you're dying of thirst," Peter said.

I looked at him curiously, then got down on all fours and did my best impression of someone dying in the desert, Peter laid down his crutches did the same.

I heard an odd noise, I looked up and saw that two stone pillars had appeared, there was a lintel placed across their tops, I looked at the space between them and saw an antechamber.

"How did you know?" I asked Peter.

"Just a guess... Sampson talked about a fountain, Imhotep must have had a use for it."

I stood up and examined the gate, there was a hieroglyphic phrase written on the lintel, it said: Welcome poor soul.

I walked into the tombs antechamber, Peter followed behind me, the tomb appeared to be open to the sky, I reached up to the ceiling and felt resistance, it was just an enchantment.

The room was full of furniture and decorative boxes, they would hold the things he would need in the afterlife.

I saw another entrance on the antechambers far wall, I walked through it and entered Imhotep's tomb.

There was a large granite sarcophagus in the center of the room, it had no decoration, the walls were decorated with beautiful paintings, I saw the City of Magic, Imhotep's wife and children and what must have been various scenes from his life.

There was a bubbling fountain in one corner of the room.

I saw an entrance to another part of the tomb, I walked through it and into a huge room, the walls were covered in hieroglyphs and paintings.

I started reading the hieroglyphs, they appeared to document his life and accomplishments, I looked at another wall and saw the book of the dead transcribed.

I walked around the room, I saw some spells written in between the hieroglyphs, I recognized a copier spell and Peter's stone moving spell.

"Wow look at her," I heard Peter exclaim.

I turned and looked, I saw him standing in front of a life-sized portrait of a young woman, I walked over to where he was standing and examined it.

"She's beautiful," Peter said.

I felt my eye's narrow, I looked at Peter.

Peter looked back at me.

"Um... I mean... almost as beautiful as you," he said.

I looked back at the painting, it was not the typical stiff wooden profile characteristic of most ancient Egyptian portraiture, someone had put in a considerable amount of effort to make her lifelike, I suspected they must have used magic.

Peter was right, she was beautiful, and exotic, she had light skin and long black wavy hair, she was wearing a dress that would have been risqué even in antiquity.

I stared at her large dark eyes, they seemed to stare right back, the artist had managed to capture a sinister coldness in her gaze. I felt myself shudder a little.

"It's Semiramis, Imhotep's nemesis," I said.

"Who was she?" Peter asked.

"There are numerous historical references to a goddess with her name, I don't think she was a fun person."

"She was a sorcerer?" Peter asked.

"Yes... thankfully she is long dead."

Peter looked at me, "is there no spell for immortality?" he asked.

"I can think of a way to do it now... but it would not have been possible in her time."

I looked at Peter.

"It would not be good for your soul to do it."

Peter smiled, "one go around is more than enough, is that what the gods were, ancient sorcerers?"

"I think not... being a god sounds pretty dull... worrying about the petty grievances of people."

"Ya... not to mention all the killing ya gotta do... floods... destroying cities... you'd have to have a pretty hard heart."

"I think gods are what we make them," I said.

I saw the story that Sampson had made a rubbing of beside the portrait of Semiramis , when I read it again I got the feeling that Imhotep was not just infatuated with her but had been under her spell, like an addict to a drug.

Peter hobbled and I walked around the large room, Peter looking at the art and I reading all the texts. I soon found the spell that controlled Imhotep's disappearing entrance, it was nestled in between the other texts, it was quite easy for me to disable it.

Peter and I left the tomb through the main entrance, we both turned and stared at the two stone pillars.

I used my bracelet to make them it disappear, for eternity this time.

"Rest in peace Imhotep," I said.

"What about his fountain?" Peter asked.

I flipped the squares on my bracelet again, a small stream of water emerged from the ground, then a small stele covered with hieroglyphs appeared in front of it.

"What's it say?" Peter asked.

"This is Imhotep's stream," I replied.

"Won't people find out it's magical?"

"It will bear out any scrutiny."

"What do we do now?"

"I think I would like to see the pyramids," I said.

Peter and I spent the next three days looking at the ancient ruins around Cairo, I even found the site of the temple of Atum where I had learned to read and write. There was nothing left, just an obelisk from a much later era.

I thought about all the people who had lived and died in the thousands of years since I had been born, all forgotten, all these people who had worked and worried, how important the things they did must have seemed to them, and now they were all gone.

I wondered what it was all about, what was our purpose here, hopefully my god Sobek would tell me when my heart was weighed, if he had really existed.

"You look sad Kem," Peter had a concerned look on his face.

"Every single thing from my past is gone, kinda depressing."

"Maybe you're looking in the wrong place."

"What do you mean?"

"Is this your real home... where you grew up."

I thought for a moment, I had never been back to my village, I had never even thought about it. I knew the area it had been in was now a dangerous place.

I pulled Peter with me into a secluded spot, I still had the position of the village bookmarked in my bracelet for when I had visited my family in the past, I now activated my transport spell.

We were in the desert, the Nile was nowhere to be seen, there was no vegetation or buildings, we were completely alone.

"The river used to be here," I said.

"River's move," Peter replied.

I walked to where I thought my family's house had been, I found nothing, Peter leaned on his crutches and used his good foot to kick the sand away making a small trench.

"Look a foundation," he said.

The two of us soon cleared away the outline of a small building, I couldn't be sure it was my family's house but it looked very familiar.

I thought for a moment then walked over to a specific spot, my secret place, it was where I had hid my things so my siblings wouldn't steal them.

I conjured up a small trowel and used it to dig, I had a hole about a foot deep when I found them, the cloth I had used to wrap them had long ago rotted away but the shells had survived.

I picked them up and showed Peter.

"What are they?"

"They were pretty shells I had collected, I was going to make a necklace out of them."

I felt tears rolling down my cheeks.

Peter put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek.

"We all leave our mark on this world Kem," he said.

I looked at the shells, they were dull now stained by the dirt, I carefully put them back in the hole and covered them up.

I felt better, my past had not completely disappeared, as well the land here was not arable, the ruins of my ancient village would probably not be disturbed for another six thousand years. I could always go home now.

Chapter Eleven

"I have to stop the organization that imprisoned me."

Peter and I were in a hotel suite in Cairo, it was early afternoon.

"I'm not going to be much help, I still can't walk," Peter replied.

"You have to go back, there are already news reports about you being kidnapped."

"Isn't that dangerous."

"You are an important businessman, they won't try to snatch you in public, they probably fear you now as well."

I used my bracelet to conjure up a silver ring with a large emerald setting.

"Wear this, if you get into any trouble just say my name three times in a row," I handed the ring to Peter.

"What will happen?" Peter asked as he put it on.

"You will be spirited away to safety," I thought for a bit, "um... if afterwards you see a young woman, just tell her your with me."

I transported us then, back to Peter's enormous office, it was early morning judging from the light coming through the window.

I had already researched the Brutes credit cards, I knew he belonged to a shadowy government organization that was headquartered near Rand.

Thankfully the organization was quite small, there were only a handful of employees. I learned quickly that there were numerous groups like this, created to solve specific problems which the ruling government wanted to remain secret.

I also realized that these groups were kept small so that they could be dissolved quickly and their records and sometimes people destroyed.

Peter had sat down at his desk and was calling numerous people, he was telling them that he was alright, he had made up a story that he had been beaten and robbed.

I was thankful that his factory was surrounded by a large fence and security guards.

"The police will be here soon... along with my lawyer." Peter said to me.

I walked behind the desk put my arms around his neck and kissed him.

"I have to go anyway, I'll see you tonight," I said.

"You'll be careful right?" Peter had a worried expression on his face.

"Of course... um... feel free to blame everything on me... they'll believe you."

"The exotic femme fatale angle huh... I'll try to keep you out of it," Peter replied.

Before I left Peter's factory I found a secluded spot and put on my flying suit beneath my clothing, I also conjured up a pair of sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat.

I activated a few new enchantments to my flying suit, it was now bulletproof and if I slipped on a pair of gloves which I had stashed in one of the suits pockets I would be much stronger than a normal person.

I again felt like a costumed character from a TV show preparing to battle evil.

I had found the address of the secret organization, I used a taxi to ferry me there, it was in an old three story brick office building. I paid the driver and cautiously entered the building then walked up the stairs to the second floor.

I was soon standing in front of the proper door, there was a small brass plaque screwed into the door, it said General Importers.

I slowly opened the door, it creaked slightly, I saw a large room with four old wooden desks pressed against the walls, the desks were full of stacks of paper and folders, there were laptops in amongst the clutter.

There were no people around, I saw another door, there was a sign over top of the doorframe it said general manager.

I walked as quietly as I could, unfortunately the old wooden floor was not co-operating with me, it groaned and squealed with every step.

I knocked on the door, if there was someone in the office there was no way I would be able to surprise them.

"Come in," someone said, it was a woman's voice.

I opened the door, I saw Janet sitting behind a large wooden desk, she did not look surprised to see me.

"Where's your muscular friend?" I asked.

"He's gonna be in the hospital for a while... then he's retiring, I got his job now."

I looked around her office, someone had hung a poster of some sort of flying craft on the wall, I want to believe was written below it. I recognized it from a TV show Shelley had liked.

"Frank works for me now too," Janet said.

I could see her hand surreptitiously moving towards her desk drawer.

"Don't bother, your pistol won't work anyway," I was bluffing, but it was a good bluff.

Janet narrowed her eyes, then pulled her hand back.

I looked at the poster again, "well you're already a lot smarter than Frank... all you need now is a long red wig."

"What do you want Kem?"

"I want you to stop, give this up."

"I can't do that."

"I'm no threat to you, or anyone, besides things could get much worse, I've been pretty gentle so far," I tried to sound threatening.

I could sense no fear in Janet, I suspected she and I were a lot alike, we had both been close to death so many times that we had made peace with it.

Janet stared at me, "it's funny, you know a lot of archeological discoveries aren't published."

"So?"

"If you ask the right people you can learn a lot of interesting things."

"You found something interesting?" I asked.

"Do you know an archeologist named Charlie Smith?"

"Maybe... I did a lot of research for my cover story."

"Well that's a coincidence because he did a lot of research on you, even purchased a small ancient statue with your name on it."

"Leave him out of it," I took my sunglasses off and stared at Janet.

"So... I'll bet he was the one who found you, I did my own research on you too... your are not as harmless as you want me to believe."

I felt myself start to get angry, then a thought occurred to me, she was just trying to manipulate me into revealing more information.

"I doubt you found much, just a few old stories, most of them fairy tales."

"Yes... fairy tales... like Sodom and Gomorrah," Janet studied my face intently.

"The names sound vaguely familiar," I said.

"I guess I should have said Soem and Gemer."

She had gotten the pronunciation almost right, I thought to myself, I took my hat off and sat down on the rickety wooden chair that was in front of her desk.

"Imagine my surprise when I found out they didn't publish a lot of things they found in the dead sea scrolls, lot of embarrassing things in there, thankfully I have a few connections," Janet said.

It was the first time I had ever seen a smug expression on Janet's face.

I stared at her.

"You're quite the hypocrite Janet, Dresden... Hiroshima... like it or not you're the beneficiary of that."

Janet expression changed to one of confusion.

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know what those scrolls said... gibberish probably... everybody changing the story to suit their needs."

"You destroyed two cities... how can you justify that," Janet looked angry.

"I told them to stop, I warned them, I did everything I could think of."

"You're a sorcerer, you could have just killed their leaders."

"It's nice to believe there are lynchpins in history... maybe there are... but I couldn't find one... just kill Hitler and everything changes... but then it doesn't... I was a eighteen year old girl as well as being a terrible sorcerer... no finesse in those days... trying to fix this awful thing."

"So what really happened then?"

"I got drunk and blew up the fucking cities... that's what happened, and it fixed things."

"So that makes it right?"

"I think Anubis and I are going to have a long conversation about that when he's weighing my heart."

"So what's stopping you from doing the same thing again?" Janet sounded defensive.

"I'm not a crappy sorcerer anymore... you talked about turning rocks over when we last spoke, you have no idea the rock you've turned over... you will stop hunting me Janet, one way or another."

"I'm not scared of you."

I stood up then, I rolled back my shirt sleeve and then started flipping the squares on my sorcerer's bracelet, a book appeared in mid air.

I grabbed the book and tossed it onto Janet's desk.

"There you go" I said.

"What's this?" Janet said, she looked at the book like it was a poisonous snake.

"Do you think you're a moral person Janet?"

"Yes."

"I'll bet you worship at a temple, give to the poor."

"I go to church," Janet was starting to look perturbed.

"That book, it's a textbook, it explains the basics of sorcery."

Janet cautiously picked it up and opened it.

"It's written in hieroglyphic's," she said.

"Sorry about that, there aren't any English copies, you're smart, I don't think you'll have any trouble translating it, it's quite good, the writer was a gifted teacher."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Now's it's your problem Janet, all those conscienceless people you work for, you can just give them all the secrets... let them destroy the world."

Janet turned the book over in her hands, her expression reminded me of the character's in an old movie I had liked, when they had finally found the valuable statue they were looking for, then it slowly changed into a blank mask.

"It has a security feature, the text changes into something else when another person comes near it, only you will be able to read it," I said.

Janet looked at me, I could see fear in her eyes."

"It's flammable... you can always just burn it."

Janet looked back down at the book, this time for almost a minute, her eyes didn't even blink, then she looked up at me again.

"Frank is right... you are the Devil."

I put my sunglasses and hat back on, and turned to leave.

"Call me sometime... I still have the cell phone you gave me."

I walked out the door.

The end.

