Vanessa felt a hot breeze blowing through gauzy curtains. She was in an elaborately painted chamber open on one side with lotus topped columns and diaphanous draperies filtering the view of a river beyond. The sun was bright and hot, but the chamber was airy. Vanessa was not alone. A lioness reclined on a chair of exquisite workmanship; her gaze was steady and the tip of her tail twitched occasionally.
Vanessa asked, "Why have you brought me here?"
A woman now sat in the chair. She had tawny skin, deep amber eyes, and her hair was dressed in tiny braids tipped in gold beads. Sekhmet wore a simple red linen dress, a beautifully worked broad, golden collar of a necklace and a headdress consisting of a gold sun disk and uraeus.
"Will you not answer me Sekhmet?" Vanessa continued, "Yes, I know that you who you are, and that you are a destroyer . . ."
"And a healer," Sekhmet interrupted. "I, too, know you, Miss Ives — as well as the other who shares a vessel of flesh with you."
"Then by all means tell me all about myself . . . and my "companion," Vanessa mocked.
Sekhmet purred, "Is not pride the sin for which the angels fell? Silence? Won't the other within you speak? Shall I continue to speak of an enormous red dragon…His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth…the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."
"Shall I speak of Sekhmet, the Eye of Ra who was so crazed in bloodlust that she, the lioness, set on the destruction of "the cattle of Ra", as humans were known. You butchered "Ra's cattle", those people, and drank their blood. Ra was horrified and realized that if he left you own devices there would be no people left on earth. He caused the Nile to run with beer stained red with pomegranate juice. You thought it was blood and drank yourself to insensibility."
"Yes, I awoke with a headache and was much calmer. I restored Ma'at, which is why Ra sent me against humanity."
"You went too far!"
"Silence!"
Vanessa staggered back as a blast of hot wind funneled against her.
"I will tell you what I found in London," Sekhmet continued. "You will not be the mother of evil although you sit within a web of those who foolishly wishes such a thing.
There is the disgrace of doctor, a perversion of a healer, who would sunder the barrier between life and death. An affront to Ma'at. He would seek to create a polluted parentage for foul line of creatures who have no place in existence. It will not endure, Ma'at will be corrected.
Then the silly, but dangerous, sorceress, Evelyn Poole. The vain, useless woman who loves her beauty above all else. She who summoned me — and presumed she might control me."
"Tell me," Vanessa gasped, "how will mighty Sekhmet slake her blood thirst?" her tone was meant to be mocking but was merely a croak.
"It is not yet time for correction of Ma'at. But it will come and it will be a horror the like of which the cattle of Ra have never beheld. I will give them a war so vast and deadly the will swear it would end all wars. Foolish cattle, it will only be the beginning. I will also bring them pestilence, the like of which, they have not seen centuries. I will slake my blood thirst, humanity sets that feast for me. It is not yet my time."
Sekhmet preened and continued, "The other within you remains quiescent because she, too, loves Ma'at. You will serve me, though. Your journey is not over."
"Answer me one question before I go. Who is Anthony Khoury?"
"Why Miss Ives, you've met him. He is what he seems, a clever young man who dreams of uncovering ancient Egyptian secrets, and aspires to be a proper Englishman. Who do you think him to be? The child Sir Malcolm deserves."
"You answer your own question, Sekhmet."
Vanessa felt a large paw clawing down her arm. She watched the welts rise on her skin.
Sekhmet rumbled, "Take your leave. We will not meet again."
~~~~~~~~~~~
Vanessa tossed on her bed in a fever. Sir Malcolm saw the welts appear on her skin. "That's a wound made by a lion!"
"It is ancient magic, Malcolm, as I told you." Sembene said.
"Can you do anything to help her?"
"No, she must find her her way."
"Or what, Sembene?"
"Or she will die," he replied.