Lady, we are close to Asyut.”
Baket’s voice stirred me from a strange, restless sleep maybe more accurately described as a state of unconsciousness. If I’d had any nightmares, I didn’t remember them. I slumped against her back, unable to feel my hands or feet anymore, and I realized she had slowed to a walk at some point.
I lifted my head, squinting against the harsh sunlight, and searched my surroundings. We were still in the desert and traveled alongside a mountain range. Cut into the rock were numerous levels of rectangular openings half filled with sand and debris. Old Kingdom tombs, I was sure. I wondered who’d been buried there eons ago.
Baket and I continued our trek, and I felt wearier than before. A city of haze emerged on the horizon smudged with deep, lush greens. The promise of water and shade spurred me with excitement.
“This is where I leave you, lady,” the sphinx said, her sweet voice softened with regret.
“I understand,” I told her. “We can’t attract attention from the locals.”
She nodded and frowned. “Stay safe.”
Her form dissolved into the wind. The realization that I was alone hit me with a bitter punch to my gut. I wanted to scream now more than ever, into the emptiness of the desert, but if I allowed myself to then I’d lie down and die. Death would be the last thing I’d succumb to if I had any say in my fate.
Asyut was less colorful than the tourist-centric Aswan. Flat-topped buildings rose straight out of the Nile, their mud brick walls stained at different heights, indicative of past flooding. The river’s opposite shore was lush palm groves and crop fields. I trudged into town, overlooked by passing motorcars and donkey carts. The occasional airship above cast its shadow over the street as it followed the Nile.
I felt like a broken, spinning compass that couldn’t find its way. I had two choices: travel south into Sudan where I had no clue what to expect or any of the language, or head north and get passage out of Egypt through Cairo. But that was risky even if I stayed on the run and ahead of the Medjai. Escaping to Europe and somehow finding my way home to America wasn’t an option. They’d expect me to do exactly that. If I knew French, I could’ve gone west, to Morocco. I’d have to make my decision once I got to Cairo.
Fear and uncertainty had me by the throat, but I didn’t have time to let them in yet. Not yet.
There were no airships docked today, but I wasn’t discouraged. Since an airship would’ve been faster, Cyrene might watch for me to travel that way rather than by river.
I headed back to the docks and purchased my ticket on the first boat out. My stomach rolled and squeezed itself around my insides. I hadn’t been this hungry since I met the Medjai, but if I wandered into a restaurant looking as ragged and filthy as I did, I’d get chased away. I found a lamp vendor nearby, and in the glossy reflection of brass baubles, I surveyed the damage.
Another disadvantage of having thick, curly hair was being unable to brush it out. I did what I could with my fingers to reshape the curls from out of the dirty, bushy mop my hair had become. With a little bit of saliva on my thumb, I could smear away most of the blood and dirt. After a couple minutes I looked like a person no one would run from screaming.
I had enough money to buy a meal, so from a street cart in the souk I ordered a dish of ful medames, mashed fava beans with garlic and lemon juice and a few triangle slices of pita bread. I selected a table on a café patio and ate.
“Good afternoon,” came a voice I was sure I’d heard before.
I looked up and choked on my food. “You!” I exclaimed, bewildered to see Ursula Vogt alive in front of me.
“Yes, me,” she replied in English. “So astonished, Ziva. I’d love a chat with you, if you have a moment.”
“How did you find me?”
“If there is one thing Germans exceed at, it’s finding what we want,” she replied slyly. If she weren’t wearing those huge sunglasses I was sure there’d be a wicked gleam in her eye. The wide brim of her fabric slouch hat concealed much of her face and her shoulder-length blond hair. She smelled faintly of diesel fuel and cigarettes. She wore a khaki trench coat belted at her waist and black leather gloves.
“Well, you surely exceed at dodging questions,” I grumbled, glancing around us. A tall white man in a Nazi uniform paced outside the entrance, making me more uneasy. How could any of them have possibly survived?
“We have ways of detecting paranthropic energies,” Vogt explained vaguely, then paused. At my baffled expression, she continued. “Intelligent, nonhuman life and beings long considered myth.”
I glowered at her. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I am human.”
“Not according to our qualifications,” she replied coolly and removed her sunglasses and placed them on the table in front of her, revealing a piercing blue gaze. “I believe yours is a strong species, and I choose to be open and honest with you because I hope you will cooperate with us. The men in control of my country support my research, and within the National Socialist organization is a group devoted to a higher cause. You may call us the Thule Society. Our purpose is rooted in lineage and history.”
“Your armed soldier pals didn’t look like scholars to me,” I challenged. “They look like Nazis.”
Her red lips flattened, though not quite in a smile. “My associates allow me the means to do my job.”
“Which is?”
“To bring greatness and strength to our cause,” Vogt explained, and her mouth formed a true smile, sparkling with self-pride. “We want to find beings like you.”
“Why?” I asked, stunned.
“Paranthropes are capable of magical or scientific feats ordinary humans are not,” she replied. “We are interested in your power.”
“For global domination,” I finished callously for her, narrowing my gaze. “The French have overrun Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt. The British won’t let India go. Your cause is to exploit and destroy as many groups of people as possible. There is no glory in imperialism, there is only decimation.”
“The Führer’s interests are more complicated than that,” she said. “He wants to avenge the German people for our humiliation during the Great War and to create the perfect race, the true human race. The Thule Society has begun several successful programs, including the very ambitious Lebensborn Project. But our last meeting has inspired me, Ziva, and I have seen my true purpose.”
I pushed my plate aside and leaned forward onto the table. “Which is, Doctor Vogt?”
The madness I’d seen before in her eyes began to glow again as she replied, “To create a god.”
If I’d had energy, I would have laughed in her face. “You can’t.”
Her brow raised, and one corner of her red lips tugged into a smile. “Can’t I? You saw with your own eyes mortal flesh made immortal and gifted power beyond anything in this world. Not even the old gods could stand against her might.”
At the mere memory of Nefertari rising from the carnage and mayhem she wrought herself, the blood in my veins began to freeze with fear. “I would not call what I witnessed a gift.”
“If you would let me study you, I might be able to recreate your abilities in our people,” Vogt explained excitedly. “Imagine the incredible things the Aryan race could do if we had power like yours. A god leading our war machines. We wish to bring unity to a broken and tumultuous world. Your kind can aid us.”
“You want to use us,” I interjected. “But you picked me because I’m an outsider, even to them. You’ve been watching me.”
Vogt paused, her chest rising and falling slowly. Those blue eyes seemed to slip into my skin like needles to probe the flesh beneath. “I want to be friends with you, Ziva,” she said. “But I don’t have to be to get what I want. Consider this my first petition of only three. If you refuse my third, then I will take you by force.”
I almost laughed, but I was too tired and angry. “If you think you can take me by force then you know even less about my kind than you thought,” I warned her, my voice shaking, as I leaned across the table toward her. “Gods have tried to take me by force and yet I sit here today having my lunch. Never mind the sphinx awaiting my safe return. You remember her, surely.”
Ursula Vogt smiled at me in a very disquieting way. “I could not forget. Your implication is clear, but please understand something about me as well. We all have our monsters. Some we keep in chains and save for a rainy day.”
Her threat did not faze me. “I would like you, Doctor Ursula Vogt, to get out of my sight and never speak to me again. I will not be so accommodating to your presence again.”
Several long, achingly frigid moments of silence passed between us.
She rose from her chair and smoothed out the skirt of her belted coat. “Have a lovely evening, Ziva Mereniset. I shall see you soon.”