Mysterious Cairo (34 page)

And then he was through! The floor had collapsed under his weight and he felt himself falling through an inky blackness, landing hard on the floor below. He was on his feet seconds later, grabbed the torch, and searched desperately for his rifle. But the enraged lieutenant was already leveling his Schmeisser at Hayes and shouting for help, forcing him to jump back from the hole into the shadows.

He could make out a set of steps leading up near the hole in the ceiling, and somehow he had missed them. He guessed that there was probably a loose stone or some other trigger in the hallway above which would have opened the ancient hatch had the Pharaoh's engineers discovered it. The walls of this chamber were lined with heiroglyphics which Gunner could not read, though many in the New Nile now could. At each of the four corners were statues of asses, the symbol of the god Set, a malignant entity associated with the night and the evils that lurked within it. Several tunnels led off this central chamber with no visible clue as to their destination.

The arrival of abu-Dahmi and Captain Achtiri woke Hayes from his survey, and he charged down the nearest passage, the rounds of the lieutenant's sub-machine gun kicking up dust and stone fragments behind him.

He looked back once and saw Achtiri maneuvering through the rubble of the roof down the staircase. Without a weapon he was doomed. His only chance was to find another way out, a chance he wouldn't have bet a farthing on. With a glance over his shoulder, he continued to speed down the rough hewn passage.

And then he stopped dead in his tracks. Before him was a huge stone slab surrounded by ten sarcophagi. Around the walls were millions of royals worth of gold, gems, and jewelry. Priceless statues were poised on elaborate pedestals arranged throughout the room. But the most frightening thing was the black shroud covering the slab. Beneath it was the unmistakable form of a human body, most likely a mummified king of ancient Egypt. He stepped further into the room and saw that several other corpses were piled between the uppermost sarcophagi and the wall. They were naturally mummified and Gunner realized that they had probably been the men who had carved out this room for the figure hidden behind the black burial shroud. He knew that certain royal families had buried the architects of their tombs with their fallen kinfolk to prevent them from returning later and looting the very structures they had designed.

A noise from the hall; Captain Achtiri was approaching! Hayes got an idea. He pulled the shroud off the corpse and saw that beneath it was the mummified remains he had expected. The face of the corpse was frozen in a hideous expression, an expression of stark terror. Gunner didn't think that made a whole lot of sense. And since when did Egyptian's cover their mummies with shrouds? He had never heard of that practice. He would have pondered the situation more had the footsteps in the hall not cut him short. He lifted the mummy — it was surprisingly light — and laid it among the more decayed corpses to the rear of the room. Then he jumped up on the slab and covered himself with .

* * *

EARTH! Earth was being shoveled upon him! He was being buried alive!
He was in some sort of invisible coffin for he could see the dirt landing upon its surface, stopping inches from his eyes as if looking through an inverted pane of glass. He reached outwards and found that whatever was supporting the earth offered no resistance to his fingers. He clawed and dug and scratched and pushed, breaking off several of his fingernails. The blood mixed with the particles of cascading dirt and caught in his mouth, eyes, and nose. And then a realization. He was not the sole occupant of his invisible coffin. Hundreds of thousands of squiggling, writhing, slimy worms were crawling beneath him. They climbed upon his shirt, wiggled inside his pants leg, and began to probe for the tender flesh of his ears. He clawed even more frantically at the dirt above him, and everywhere he made a scratch, more worms would come wiggling out, hanging like spaghetti before dropping onto his shirt, his head, his lips. Gunner Hayes tried to scream, but the worms were now so thick around his head that he didn't dare open his mouth.

And that is what saved him.

* * *

Captain Achtiri carefully stuck his head into the chamber and saw no sign of the spy. His flickering torch could not penetrate the darkness of the room, but soon he heard a terrible rustling, as if someone had jumped quickly out of bed, getting caught up in the sheets in their haste. He crouched back behind the corner of the entrance, his pistol raised. Abu-Dahmi, who had been following closely, saw him kneel and also froze in his tracks. The two men heard a strange sound, like . laughter, but it was deeper, slower, and more ominous. Achtiri peeked around the corner but something was wrong. The light from his torch seemed to emanate only a few feet before stopping abruptly, as if blocked by a black curtain. It was.

Gunner held the shroud before Achtiri, away from himself. The captain saw Gunner's coal black hair, a single white streak running from his left temple to the base of his neck. He saw his crazed eyes, glaring red in the firelight. And then he saw the death shroud, and his own worst fears.

Achtiri stared for a few moments and then lay crying at Gunner's feet like an infant. The glazed eyes of Gunner Hayes looked momentarily at the Captain's pistol before the fingers of his shaking hands wrapped around it. Only a few meters down the hall, the terrorist named Abu-Dahmi had glimpsed into the dark material of the shroud, but had managed to look away before it had taken a hold upon his psyche. He raised his Uzi and held his finger on the trigger, spraying the floor, the left wall, and the back of Captain Achtiri's head with random shots. Gunner hardly moved. The terrorist had seen less than either he or Achtiri within the inky folds of the shroud, but it had been enough to spook him.

Gunner raised the Captain's Luger, and put a round into the Arab's shoulder. Abu-Dahmi recoiled in pain. Gunner fired again, twisting his opponent in the opposite direction. Abu-Dahmi, both shoulders pierced, managed to fire off the last burst of his weapon, catching Gunner in the right leg and calf. His maddened eyes showed no acknowledgement of the rivers of red which ran down his legs.

The terrorist screamed in defiance, an Arabic curse that Gunner could not understand and didn't need to. He fired again, gut shooting the airport bomber twice. The terrorist dropped to his knees, glanced once at the cloak, then again at the eyes of his executioner. He screamed one final time before his skull turned into a fine, red mist.

* * *

It was always here that Gunner awoke, usually screaming. That night he had become the Shroud, a dark avenger of justice whose greatest power was also his greatest fear. Since then he had learned more about the mysterious artifact, and converted it into a more manageable cloak. It had once belonged to an ancient priest named Seth Amon.

Amon was an ambitious cleric who worshipped the evil god Set. Through arcane rituals and dedicated service, his patron deity eventually rewarded him with a black cape which had the power to show mortal men their deepest fears. Seth Amon used this to terrify nomadic tribesmen into serving him and his god, and then had marched that army against his Pharaoh in an attempt to assume the royal throne.

After several bloody battles, the Pharaoh proved victorious and was able to capture the would-be usurper and the majority of his disciples. His punishment was, ironically, to be wrapped within his foul cape and entombed alive with his followers and his ill-gotten gains. The powers of the shroud had remained dormant for literally thousands of years until the axioms of the New Nile had washed over the land and restored faith in the gods of old. But now it was back. And with a vengeance.

Since the invasion, Gunner had met only a few men who could look into the folds of the shroud and shirk off its eerie powers. Such individuals were rare, and he had only recently discovered that the few who resisted had been devout followers of whatever god or gods they worshipped. Animals too, were strangely immune to its powers. Gunner reckoned that minimal human intelligence and a sincere lack of faith were the optimal conditions for the insatiable death shroud.

* * *

When morning came, Yishara was awakened by the smell of sizzling pork. Her obsession with Cairo's criminal element had left her with little time for proper meals and she awoke with thick saliva in her mouth and a gnawing hunger in her gut. Gunner strolled into the room. He seemed much more relaxed, though ill-rested;
resigned
was the word that came to Yishara's mind.

"I thought maybe we could check a few contacts around town after you eat. Maybe find out who these guys were and what they were up to," he said as he sat a plate down in front of his guest.

"Sure. That'd be great." The pork was tough, but delicious and she was only slightly embarrassed by the rapidity with which she wolfed it down. "Oh, I noticed something strange last night. I think. My head was cracked pretty good, but I thought I saw the one that got away reach into the big one's sash and take something."

Gunner's face tightened into a grimace. "Did you see what it was?"

"No, it was pretty small. But he smiled just before he left like they had succeeded at whatever it was they thought they were doing."

"Where did you meet them?"

"Over by that street the
Clarion
is calling the 'Alley of Death.' I was staking it out last night when these clowns jumped me." Yishara slid the plate back, signifying that she was through, and smiled a quick thanks. Hayes picked it up and walked back into the kitchen.

"What else have you heard about the alley?"

"Only what the papers have said. Everyone thought it was just a small-time cutpurse when the first few merchants got their throats slit. But then that beggar was killed, and the Priest of Isis, so I decided to check it out."

Hayes was staring intensely, he seemed to be analyzing every word, searching for some clue as to the identity of Raven's assailants. Yishara began to get nervous under the tangible pressure of Hayes' gaze, and shifted in her seat. Gunner noticed and turned away quickly, "Sounds like a trap."

"A trap? But how? Absolutely no one knew I was going to be there."

"Yes," he rubbed his chin and strolled to the large bay window in his apartment. "Then perhaps the trap wasn't for you."

Raven began to ask just who the trap was for when Gunner turned suddenly. "Get yourself cleaned up and we'll hit the streets. If we don't find out anything from my contacts, maybe we can set our own trap tonight."

Raven smiled. Despite the dull ache in her side, a rematch would suit her just fine — but she wasn't sure she wanted the company, at least not
his
company.

Something about him still scared her.

* * *

An hour later, Yishara and Gunner found themselves walking the bustling streets of Cairo. Their dress was casual, but still attracted attention from the local children and street vendors. They both knew that if they were to show any cash that they would quickly find themselves swarmed, mugged, or both.

"So where to first?" Yishara asked. She had borrowed some of Gunner's clothes and rolled the sleeves and cuffs up to make them fit. In Europe, she might have been considered trendy, but in Egypt, she just felt like a slob.

Gunner stopped, smiled, and raised his hand towards a seedy gin joint called the Drunken Dervish. Yishara shrugged and walked to the splintering door. She imagined that many men had flown head first through this battered door. Perhaps she would get the chance to throw one through herself.

Inside, the joint looked just as Yishara pictured it. A long bar ran across the left-hand wall. Behind it was a burly Egyptian, swabbing out a drinking glass with a dirty rag and an unhealthy amount of spit. His balding, bearded head remained fixed to the front, though his eyes slid over towards the door as the couple walked in. All around the bar were plain wooden tables inhabited by men in dirty white shirts and baggy cotton pants. Some wore traditional turbans, others wore only their jet black hair combed to the side. Empty glasses and a few piles of playing cards loitered about the surface of the tables. Lining the rear and side walls of the room were long booths, covered in what Yishara believed must be perpetual darkness.

She stuck her hands in the back pockets of the loose fitting jeans borrowed from Hayes, and spoke in Egyptian, ordering a shot of whiskey. The bartender filled a glass and left the bottle. She grabbed it and followed Hayes to the back of the room toward a dark and occupied booth.

When she arrived, she saw Gunner seated at the table and speaking to a one-eyed Egyptian. On the man's shoulder was a tiny monkey, picking some food matter from the man's long grey-black beard. The Egyptian was eating soup, drinking cheap whiskey, and paying very little attention to Gunner or Yishara.

Hayes spoke in a lilting voice, "Hello One-eye. How's the soup?"

"Ungh," he slurped. "What do you want, Yankee?"

Hayes sat, motioning for Yishara to seat herself on the other side of the aged man. One-eye scratched the skin around his black eye patch and turned his head to better see the girl which sat beside him, propping her slender legs upon a nearby chair.

One-eye had managed to sell information and stay alive over the years by way of an interesting subterfuge. He pretended to, and did in fact, sell opium to the many agents who used his knowledge of the underworld. In this way, strange men — white men — could enter the Drunken Dervish and speak with One-eye without drawing too much attention. The old police, of course, had secretly protected him, and the soldiers of Pharaoh Mobius were much too preoccupied to concern themselves with such a small-time dealer. His business' small size also put him beneath the notice of men like "Nails" Nash, Maxwell Burban and the rest of the Cairo crimelords — at least in the realm of drug-dealing.