Pharaoh's Taboo Gift

Pharaoh's Taboo Gift

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~~ All characters in this book are over 18. ~~

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Chapter 1

"Egypt? No, Mom. No freaking way. Please. Not again."

Zahira Collins sighed, having expected this reaction from her youngest child. "This isn't a negotiation, Chris. I'm going. So you and Sabah are coming with me."

"But why?" His voice was close to a whine. If she hadn't been so excited about the phone call she had just received, she would have almost laughed. Chris sounded as if he were six years old again, instead of being nearly twenty and topping six feet by a good three inches. He turned off the television, which he had been watching when she got back home from her office at the university, and tried to loom over her. She glanced up at him, amused by his attempt to intimidate her, and he backed off with an irritated shrug. "It's nearly June, Mom. Why do you want to go to Africa in the summer? We'll roast. Even I remember that."

Zahira cocked a sardonic eyebrow. "You do if an old friend calls you up and tells you that he might have stumbled across the archeological find of the century, and that he trusts you to keep your mouth shut."

Chris blinked, and she thought her son's skin went a touch pale, even through his tan. "Not...not Dad, right?"

A snort sounded from the other side of the room, where Sabah was reading a book and ignoring the debate. "She said an 'old friend,' genius," her daughter, twenty-two years old herself and in the masters' program at NYU, commented caustically. "Not, 'someone who I would happily drop-kick into a sausage grinder.' So I don't think it was Dad."

"No," Zahira grinned. "It wasn't. You guys remember Gonzalo, don't you? Professor Gonzalo Escobar?"

Sabah frowned. "Short fat guy? Curly hair? Told the world's worst jokes?"

She nodded. "That's him. He called me at the office this afternoon. This...if it's true...gods!" She shook her head. "It's huge. Gigantic. Everyone thinks that she never had a tomb of her own. That she was entombed with her father."

Her children traded long-suffering looks. They were used to their mother going off on one of her scholar's tangents without having any idea what she was talking about. "But come on, Mom," Chris said. "I can't go to Egypt for the summer. I need to earn money for school next year."

"Right," Zahira scoffed. "I didn't see you doing that last summer. And you know very well that my settlement with your father means that we've got plenty of money for school for you and for Sabah. Even if you both decide to go to graduate school, instead of just your sister."

"Not likely." Chris smiled crookedly. "But why can't we stay here, Mom? Sabah and I can take care of ourselves. We're not little kids anymore."

"Thanks for volunteering me, dumbass," Sabah muttered, turning a page.

"Or we could just stay with Grandma and Grandpa."

"Really?" Zahira folded her arms across her chest. "You're going to stay with my parents? You do remember that they're practicing Muslims, right? Are you going to pray towards Mecca five times a day? Go to the mosque every Saturday?"

"And stop eating bacon?" Sabah injected.

"Ummmm..."

"Right." She put her hands on her hips. "You're coming with me. Both of you. That's final."

"Auugh." Chris clutched his head. His fingers sank into his black, curly hair, a legacy he'd inherited from her. "Fine! If you want to drag us halfway around the freaking planet so we can spend all summer in a freaking tent, that's fine. But just think about this." He wagged a finger in front of her nose in mock threat. "When I'm rich and famous and everyone wants me on all the talk shows, and they ask me who's responsible for my amazing success, I'm going to tell everyone what a horrible mother you were."

Zahira lifted her eyebrows. "That threat would be a lot more frightening if you weren't an accounting major, Christopher. When was the last time one of them was a guest on Jimmy Kimmel?"

"Come in, Chris," Sabah said as the knock sounded on her door.

"How did you know it was me?" her brother asked as he flopped down on her chair. It squeaked in protest, but didn't break. Sabah gave him an aggravated look, but he ignored it, oblivious as usual.

"Only three people live in this apartment, Chris," she pointed out as she dumped a suitcase on her bed. "And Mom's too busy packing. Which you should be doing. Or do you plan on catching the plane to Cairo with nothing but what you're wearing right now?"

"Ugh. Don't remind me." He closed his eyes and tilted his head back until it was resting on the wall behind him. "How long do you think we're going to be over there?" he asked.

"As long as it takes for Mom to research this big mystery of hers, I guess," she replied.

"Which means it could be anywhere from two weeks to two flipping years." Chris scowled down at his feet. "Crap. I thought we were done with this stuff when Dad split. Flying around the world looking for little bits of junk instead of having a vacation like normal people. Most kids get birthday parties. We got malaria pills."

"Well, you know Mom's ambitious," Sabah said. She opened her bureau, sorting through t-shirts and blouses. She picked out a dozen, lightweight and light-colored for the brutal African heat, and stowed them neatly in the suitcase. "Especially ever since Dad...well, you know."

Chris nodded grimly. Their parents' marriage had been one of those storybook affairs. Except in this case the fairy-tale had turned dark and nasty, and Prince Charming had been a devil in disguise. Their mother had been a graduate student at New York University, brilliant and with the dark-skinned Arabic beauty she had inherited from her parents, who had immigrated to America from Egypt after Sadat's crackdown and eventual assassination in the early nineteen-eighties.

Shy, studious Zahira Koury had fallen head-over-heels in love with Professor Gregory Collins, who had been her graduate advisor. Tall, lean, with a mane of prematurely silvering hair that gave him the look of an elder statesman, perhaps a senator, (or maybe even a president) in a made-for-television movie, Greg Collins had the sort of smooth, mellow voice and suave carriage that made him a favorite on the talk-show and lecture circuit when the occasion called for a discussion of ancient Egypt or Persia. He was able to parlay that minor-league fame into a trio of popular books about the Near East that were light on true scholarship but heavy on blood, gore, and anything that could titillate the common crowd.

Still, their mother had been content, Sabah thought. She had been born when Zahira was still working on her doctorate, and Chris less than two years later. Until she was fifteen her life had followed a simple pattern. Nine months of the year were spent in New York, where her mother clawed her way up the academic ladder, while her father seemed to be content in his life as an adjunct professor at NYU. But once school let out for the summer, it was time to get out into the field and do research. Egypt, almost always. And when the political climate allowed, other places that were usually hot, dry, dusty, filled with nasty insects, and hostile to Americans. She and Chris had celebrated Independence Day in nine different countries, by her count.

But that had all changed the summer she had turned sixteen. Her father had spent most of the past year working on another book. One that, he claimed on one of his innumerable talk-show appearances, would at last "lift the veil and show the modern world what life had truly been like in antiquity."

What no one knew was that his work had largely been stolen, lifted wholesale in chunks, in some places pages long, from his wife's own notes, which he knew quite well she was intending to turn into a full-length monograph of her own at some point. How he had thought he would get away with it was beyond her understanding. Maybe he simply thought Zahira, who rarely bothered to conceal her disdain for the popularization of her field, would never read it.

If he did, he was dead wrong. Hilariously so. The plagiarism and resulting scandal had been cataclysmic, even by the standards of academia, where petty feuds could last for decades. On the day the book was published, her lovely, sweet-tempered mother, who rarely raised her voice and never, ever shouted or cursed, had belted her father across the face with a hardback copy of Blood, Slaves, and Steel: The Rise and Fall of Persia when he was barely three steps into their apartment.

"Do you know what a reference is, Greg, you titanic fucking asshole?" she had raged down at him, while he cupped his broken and bleeding nose in his hand. She kicked him in the side hard enough to make his ribs creak, while Sabah stared aghast and Chris, only thirteen, huddled at her side. "How about a footnote? Or maybe a little disclaimer? One that says, 'I'm a goddamn fucking thief!'"

Gregory Collins had moved out that night, both his academic reputation and marriage in ruins. The legal brangling had gone on for years, however. In the end, their father had been forced to forfeit all the royalties from the book. NYU had cut all ties with him, of course, and now he was teaching introductory anthropology classes at a community college in Beloit.

Wisconsin, ugh. That might be even worse than Egypt.

"Yeah, I know," Chris sighed. "Mom wants to make her reputation, since there are still some jerkwads who think that mess with Dad was all her fault. But why now? Why can't it wait until school starts back up? Then she can take off without having to worry about us."

"Maybe she's worried the university wouldn't give her a sabbatical." Sabah wrinkled her nose at him. "Or maybe the find is so hot that she can't risk someone else finding out about it. What's the big deal, Chris? New York sucks during the summer, anyway. It's hotter than hell and the whole city smells like pee. And this way we can spend one last summer with Mom." She chewed her lip. "You don't have anything crazy going on, do you? Like a girlfriend?"

It really was funny, how she could turn her younger brother into a blushing, stammering adolescent with only a few words. Even through his dark skin, mirror to her own, she could see the way the flush crawled up his neck. "No."

Sabah smirked. "Maybe you should make an offering to Hathor," she said, naming the Egyptian goddess of love and fertility.

"Maybe you should mind your own business, you godless heathen."

"Yeah? When was the last time you went to the mosque?"

He stuck his tongue out at her. "You can't make me. I want to hear nothing," he declaimed dramatically, spreading his arms and tilting his head back, as if he were staring through the ceiling and up to the sky, "about any of your puny, puling, late-arriving godlings. I worship the mighty Sun-God Ra, who has a better track-record than Jesus, Jehovah, or Allah, as far as I can see. At least we get to bask in the warmth of his munificence every day. What has Allah done lately?"

"Don't let your grandmother hear you saying that," their mother said, shouldering open the door. "And Christopher, you should be packing. Our flight is at seven. You both know where your passports are, don't you?"

"Right here, Mom," Sabah said, lifting hers from her nightstand.

"Chris?"

"It's around here somewhere," her brother said vaguely. "And can I just say that it's total bullshit that we're not Egyptian citizens? Just because you're not a man, Mom? If Dad was Egyptian, we would be."

Zahira leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. "What? What was that for?" her brother asked.

"You know what, Chris?" Her mother smiled. The smile that made her look twenty years younger. "Every time I think that you're completely hopeless, you say something that makes me realize that you're not a big dumb dope after all."

"Thanks, I guess." He rubbed the spot where her lips had touched his skin.

"Chris. Pack. Now." Sabah hid a grin. Her mother was practically bouncing with excitement. Whatever Professor Escobar had found, it had Zahira ready to fly halfway around the globe on less than a day's notice. And whatever else she was, her mother was not the sort of person who took crazy risks. Her academic reputation had been built brick by brick. She wouldn't endanger it for anything that was less than incredible.

Endanger it? she thought suddenly. Or make it? Zahira's climb up the ladder had been steady, but slow. Did she think that in Professor Escobar's call she had found something that could vault her up the ranks? Her brother's question echoed in her mind. What was really going on, anyway?

She realized her mother had been speaking. "I'm sorry. What, Mom?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were ready for tomorrow."

Sabah shrugged. "I haven't forgotten how to pack, Mom. But it's still a pain in the ass to have to rearrange my entire summer with barely any notice."

"Tell me about it," Chris grumbled.

"Yeah?" She prodded her brother in the rear with a toe. "Didn't Mom tell you to pack? Move."

"I feel bad for him," her mother said quietly, as he slouched out the door and into the hall. His footsteps faded behind him. "I remember what that age was like. Brain telling you one thing, body telling you another. It's no wonder I ended up with your father." She snorted. "And what a disaster that was."

Sabah smiled. "Well, seeing as how I would never have been born if you and Dad hadn't hooked up, I don't consider it a complete disaster, Mom."

Her mother hugged her, tight and fierce. "And don't you ever forget it. You and Chris are the two best things that ever happened to me."

"Chris? Really?" she joked. Even at twenty-two, it still surprised her that she was able to look her mother in the eye. Her presence always made her seem taller. "I'd hate to see what was in third place."

A smack on her arm, almost hard enough to sting, made her jump. "Chris is a good boy. No." Her mother corrected herself. "A good man. Or he will be, soon. He just needs time to grow into himself. I know he's ticked off at me right now. So give him a couple days before you start giving him the business, okay?"

"Fine, fine," she smiled. It really was impossible to stay mad at Chris. The big goof might look like one of the stars on the hilariously terrible Egyptian soap operas her grandmother devoured. But he was still, when everything was said and done, her little brother. And she loved him. "I'll give him forty-eight hours. But if he keeps acting like a little kid who just had his favorite toy taken away, I'm going to plant my shoe so far up his butt he'll be tasting leather."

"My daughter, the diplomat," Zahira laughed. Another hug, quickly released. "I know I can count on you. Now. I'm going to make sure that Chris isn't packing his winter coat instead of socks and underwear."

"Good luck with that."

Chapter 2

"God." Chris blinked as he stumbled out of the jetway and into the main terminal of the airport. "What time is it?" His brow furrowed as he took in the darkness outside the tall glass windows that looked out over Cairo. "Hell. What day is it?"

"It's today," Sabah grumbled, slinging her carry-on over her shoulder. "Not quite midnight. The same day we left. Tuesday," she clarified. "We're seven hours ahead of New York."

Chris blinked. That sounded about right. His body was ready for supper, almost. But the difference between his internal clock and the deep night outside made his brain hurt. One thing told him it was after his bedtime. The other, that he should be sitting down to a meal.

"Customs," their mother said firmly, walking up beside them. "And then the hotel."

It was always weird, Chris thought, as they made their way through the bureaucracy that never seemed to change, no matter how many times governments rose and fell. The difference between the sleek, modern, glass-and-steel airport, and the knowledge that barely an hour away was a howling desert that would kill you stone dead from heat and thirst and winds that could scour the flesh from your bones if you weren't prepared for it. Civilization was a thin veneer. One they took for granted.

Not that weird, his mind supplied. Think about America, for fuck's sake. Can you imagine what would happen if you dropped someone from Egypt into Miami? One look at the Everglades and they'd pass right out. Or what about Minneapolis or Buffalo? They'd run back home screaming when they found out what winter was really like.

The bored official in front of him stamped his passport and handed it back to him. "Thanks," he grunted, tucking it into a pocket, not caring whether the man understood English or not. His mother and sister were waiting patiently, already done.

"Zahira! My love!"

Oh, God.

Chris groaned, Sabah smirked, and his mother laughed out loud as a short, barrel-chested man bore down on them. Thick black hair, shot with silver, crowned his head, the same color as his full beard. Below, a fat belly strained against the buttons of a horrifically loud Hawaiian shirt, though Chris had it on good authority that Professor Gonzalo Escobar had never gotten closer to Hawai'i than Chicago.

"Ah, my friends. It is so good to see you!" His English bore only a trace of the accent of his native Spain. He took Sabah's hand in his own, turning it to plant a kiss on her knuckles. "Zahira, my love. When will you marry me and make me the happiest man in Barcelona?"

"Professor," Sabah giggled. "My mother is over there!"

"No! It cannot be!" The older man goggled. "You cannot be little Sabah! The last time I saw you, you were no bigger than a minute. And now you are just as lovely as your mother!" He fell back, striking a pose. "Will you come and be my bride, lovely Sabah? My own wife has no charms that can compare to your beauty. I will put her aside, and lay myself at your feet. Please, say yes. And all that I have will be yours!"

"Yes, very likely, you shameless old man," his mother laughed, while Sabah flushed becomingly. "Which wife is it, anyway? Number three or four? I lose track, you old goat. And you probably do, too."

"Four," the professor said comfortably, grinning through his beard. Despite himself, Chris found himself liking him. "How can a man stop at just one," he winked, "when there are so many lovelies around?

"And you must be Chris!" he exclaimed, shoving out a shovel of a hand. "By the Virgin! I haven't seen you in years!" His craggy head cocked shrewdly. "You've got the look of your father about you."

"God, I hope not," Chris said honestly as he shook the professor's hand. The only thing he had ever wanted from that detestable old man was his height.

"Well, just a touch." The older man ran a thumb down the side of his jaw. "My apologies. I know that things...did not end well."

"Come on, Gonzalo." His mother took the older man's arm. "We need to get the luggage. And then I want to hear everything."

"The Valley of the Kings."

Professor Escobar spread out the map on the table. The trip from the airport to the hotel had been mercifully swift. This late, there had been little traffic, even in Cairo.

"Not Giza?" Sabah asked.

"No." The professor spared her a quick smile. "Giza was built far earlier. Even so, this discovery is old. So old it's new."

Sabah's brows drew down in a scowl. "I'm studying antiquity, too, professor. Although," she admitted, "I'm concentrating on Rome and Greece."

"Don't concentrate. Spread your net wide, sweet Sabah," he grinned. "Specialization is for ants.

"But this might be before your time. Tell me. What do you know of Hatshepsut?"