Inside Straight

“She says she is too old and fat to fight, that bricks and stones are not worth dying for.” Sobek took a pack of cigarettes out of his vest pocket, tapped one out, and lit it. “She was here with Kemel when he built the New Temple and it has been her home for many years, but Aswan has lovely temples, too. She has spent our treasure on a cruise boat to carry us to Aswan. The Pharaoh docks at Luxor now, but will be here on the morrow.”

An uproar greeted that pronouncement. The child Little Isis sobbed and the grotesque four-headed Banebdjedet began to shout from all his mouths at once. Black Anubis leapt from his throne, brandishing a fist, and Red Anubis screamed at him. From the shadows at the foot of the pool came a rustle and a high-pitched ulullation as Serquet edged forward into the sunlight. She had the face of a beautiful young woman atop the body of a gigantic red scorpion, and the poison that dripped from her coiled tail smoked where it struck the paving stones. Everyone began to talk at once, until Horus slapped his wings together for silence, a sudden thunderclap so loud that it set the water in the pool to rippling.

He is angry, Klaus knew. He had only to look at the god to see that. Horus began to rant at Taweret.

“What flew up his butt?” asked Jonathan Hive.

“Taweret,” answered Sobek. “Horus says that she is a frightened old woman whose cowardice shames us all. That it took Kemel nine years to build the temple, yet Taweret will abandon it in a moment. That we must fight for what is ours.” The crocodile god took a deep drag on his cigarette. “He is always angry, Horus. He was a pilot, a colonel in the Air Force, very famous, but now …” He exhaled a plume of foul black smoke. “I have read how John Fortune’s mother flies with—how do you say it, teke? Her wings are for steering. Horus has no teke. His wings are too big for him to fit into a cockpit, but too small to lift his weight. He cannot fly. How will he fight the army?”

Jonathan began to cough. “Can you blow that smoke the other way?” he asked. For once, he had no wasps flitting about him.

Instead Sobek blew a smoke ring. “I should have gone to America with Osiris,” he announced. “I speak the English, I could be a greeter. ‘Hello to you, good sir, and welcome to the Luxor. Good luck with all your gambling, madam. A woman, sir? Yes, I’ll send one to your room.’ Thoth married a showgirl. I could have done the same. I am much prettier than Thoth.” He turned to where John Fortune stood, listening in grim-faced silence. “John, my friend, take me back with you to this other Luxor, where King Elvis rules. I wish to meet him.”

John did not reply, but Bugsy did. “The king is dead,” he said. “Just imposters left.”

Sobek shrugged. “Ah, well. I am too old for showgirls.”

The wrath of Horus finally ran its course. Taweret mumbled a reply in Arabic, looking as sour as a hippopotamus can look. Then some of the other gods stepped forward to say their piece, as Sobek translated. “Babi and the temple guard go where Taweret goes. Serquet means to stay and fight with Horus. She will summon a thousand of her small red sisters, she says. Bast says this is folly. She will go upriver on the Pharaoh. Min is not so sure. Unut believes we should send envoys to Cairo, to sue for peace.” He dropped the cigarette, crushed it out beneath a heel.

“My heart would stand with Horus,” Sekhmet said, in the voice of John Fortune, “but my head knows that Taweret is right. If we had the power of Ra—”

“If we had eggs we could have bacon and eggs,” Jonathan muttered. “If we had bacon.”

Klaus frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means we’re fucked.”

Sobek nodded. “Aswan is our only hope.”

“And if the army follows you to Aswan?” asked Klaus.

It was Sekhmet who answered. “South of Aswan there is only Abu Simbel, and Abu Simbel is not large enough to support a tenth our numbers. If they will not let us be in Aswan, then the Nile must run red with blood.”

“I saw that movie,” said Jonathan Hive. “Skip the blood, it doesn’t work. Go straight to the death of the firstborn, maybe you’ll get their attention.”

So let it be written, thought Klaus, so let it be done. He had seen that movie too.

~ ~ ~

Nightfall found the three of them in John Fortune’s rooms, overlooking the Nile. Jonathan was on his laptop once again, checking flight times out of Egypt. “Fuck,” he kept saying, “I am so dead. Aswan is the closest airport that’s still open, would you believe it? And all the flights connect through Cairo!”

“Perhaps God does not wish for you to go,” said Klaus. “If you leave us, who will bear witness for the world?”