"Here's your passport," Steve said, handing a small blue booklet to Dawn. "A boy named Beth would have attracted too much attention, so I made him a Bob instead."

Dawn flipped open the passport. Next to Beth's picture read the name Robert Summers. "Wait. That's my birthday."

"You're both seventeen," explained Steve. "If you're going to pose as brother and sister, you're going to have to be twins."

"Won't the Slayer be surprised when she finds out," Ethan interjected from behind Dawn

Why? Dawn mused to herself. She'd just have two fake siblings instead of one. To Steve, she said, "Can you get us to see Abigor?"

Steve nodded, then turned and gestured for them to follow. "He had to clear his schedule at the last moment just to see you. You should be grateful he agreed."

He led them to a door, marked "Authorized Personnel Only," in the side of a large decorative pyramid. The door opened to a series of steps leading down into what Dawn supposed was a basement. They descended until they came to a landing. Steve held his hand over the wall, saying, "Aperio aperire aperui apertum." The wall slid open.

"Now if that isn't a cliché," Ethan chimed in. Dawn shot him a look, but he only smiled. "I mean, really. All he did was conjugate the thing."

Dawn and Ethan followed Steve into the passage. As soon as they entered, they could hear a voice call out to them. "Miss Summers! Mr. Rayne! Have you come for advice?"

"Not at your prices we haven't," Dawn said, turning the corner so she could see who she was speaking to. Abigor was completely human-looking, seemingly youngish and dressed in the garb of an Egyptian pharaoh—minus the fake beard. "We need information."

"Ah, information," Abigor said, nodding. "Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Corruptio optimi pessima."

"Must we really go through this, Miss Summers?" Ethan asked. "I feel like I've walked into a bad movie."

"The Rite of Isis," Dawn said to Abigor, ignoring Ethan. "It's mentioned in the Tradescan Codex. We need to know what it is, what it does."

"Hmm." Abigor considered carefully. "The Rite of Isis. I remember when the worshippers of Osiris and Isis ruled in the Nile."

"Osiris-worshippers will be ruling again if we don't figure out what the ritual does," Dawn insisted.

"Quite right," said Albigor. "Let's see. I might have something that might help you. Walk this way."

Dawn could see Ethan's scowl out of the corner of her eye, but Dawn followed Abigor anyway. At least the chaos mage didn't make some jab about walking like an Egyptian.

Abigor led them to a giant stone slab, covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs. "Probably defaced during the reign of Akhenaten, but the parts that remain mention the Rite of Isis."

Dawn nodded and bent down in front of the slab, examing the hieroglyphs. "You keep archaeological relics in the basement of the Luxor?" Ethan asked, incredulous.

"Mr. Rayne," Abigor said, his attention now on Ethan. "I understand you were once familiar with the Rite of Isis?"

"Once being the operative word," Ethan agreed, deflecting the question. "So what does it say?"

Dawn began to translate out loud. "By order of the goddess Seshat, patroness of scribes . . . then it's illegible . . . it is a long road that has no turning . . . the Valley of the Nile was filled with Osiris' children—vampires, probably—until the great Amon-Re vanquished . . . the Rite of Isis, calling out to . . . the gods will walk the Earth . . . the wine will be sweetened . . . the Nile's waters did recede . . . and the Slayer—wait. This mentions the Slayer?"

"How do you know the Egyptian word for 'vampire slayer'?" Ethan asked. "I'm pretty sure that never ended up on the Rosettta Stone."

"One of the older Watchers' Diaries is written in ancient Egyptian," Dawn answered, her attention still on the stone in front of her. "Probably by the Watcher of this Slayer mentioned here. Which would mean we have a means of dating the tablet—about early fifteenth century B.C.E., if you trust the Council's estimates."

"And that helps us how?" Ethan just had to ask.

Dawn frowned. "Not much, I'm afraid," she admitted. "I'm still completely clueless as to what the hell the Rite of Isis actually is."

"Have you tried asking Mr. Rayne?"

"He doesn't remember," Dawn said. She looked over the slab again, checking to see if she might have missed anything the first time.

"Have you tried a prokaryote stone?"

Dawn paused, then turned to Ethan and Abigor. "Do you think that would work?"

"No, of course not," Ethan answered. "I'm not repressing what happened; the whole thing was wiped from my memory."

"Still, it might be worth a try." She considered. "You have a stone?"

"I do," Abigor said, walking over to a shelf. "Just let me get it."

"I must insist," interjected Ethan. "You are not sticking a stone into my brain. It is not happening." He turned to leave.

Abigor simply smiled and put up a hand. "Congelare," he said and Ethan froze in place. He walked over to the paralyzed chaos mage and held the stone under his eye. "Kun'ati belek sup'sion. Bok'vata im kele'beshus. Ek'vota mor'osh boota'ke." The stone began to inch up his face, finally crawling through Ethan's eye into his optical cortex. "Dissolutum," Abigor said with a wave of his hand.

Dawn watched as Ethan collapsed to the ground, spasming violently in obvious pain. Well, even if it didn't turn up any useful information, it certainly was fun to watch.


Ethan knew the setting in which he found himself. He recognized it easily: a dark London flat in October of 1979. "Bloody hell." Anyone could tell this wasn't going to turn out well.

"Anyone can see that isn't Egyptian, Ripper," he was saying. "The iconography is all wrong. It's Etruscan."

"It most certainly is not," Ripper rejoined as he rolled a cigarette, equal parts tobacco and marijuana. "Look at the design pattern. It's Egyptian."

"If that's Egyptian, then so are Charlton Heston and Anne Baxter. But go on, keep on believing it's Egyptian. Doesn't matter in the least to me. You go through all the trouble of running away from the life of a Watcher, and what do you do? Research some mystical ritual."

Ripper just shook his head. "Flamare," he ordered as his fag lit by itself. "When I'm done with this, Ethan, you're going to agree with me that it's bloody brilliant. I've heard that temporary demonic possession can produce euphoria like you've never known."

"Euphoria? Come on, Ripper," Ethan insisted. "When was the last time you went out with a girl?"

Ripper took off his glasses, spit on the lenses and wiped them off using his shirt. "Bastille Day. This West Indian girl—"

Ethan interrupted before Ripper regaled him with all the details of his conquest. "Bastille Day? You're telling me you haven't had a shag in over three months?"

Ripper looked embarrassed. "Well, that's assuming Deidre doesn't count."

"You're damn right she doesn't count. Now, I'm telling you, Ripper, go find some young and innocent girl. Now."

Ripper nodded, thoughtful. He got up, headed over to the wardrobe to change

Ethan examined the many books spread out on the table. "This, on the other hand," he said, examining one book in particular more closely, "is most certainly Egyptian."

Ripper winked at him. "Go find a girl, Ethan."

"Are you using this, Ripper?"

"Apparently not, if the whole thing's bloody Etruscan," Ripper said, putting on a pair of trousers. "Take it."

Ethan nodded, picked up the book. Did that really translate to what he thought it did? If he was right, the ritual—the Rite of Isis, it seemed to be called—would seem to unleash incredible amounts of power, so great as to make Ripper's precious little Eyghon look like a kitchen pixie. Which would be quite entertaining

He smiled.


The pain gone, Ethan looked up to see Dawn and the crazy Egyptian demon looking at him.

"Well?" Dawn asked, "do you remember anything?"

"Only why I hate helping out the good guys," Ethan said, rubbing at his eye where the prokaryote stone had entered and exited his optic nerve. "I found out about the Rite of Isis in the fall of '79, when the book I was using promised it would unleash incredible amounts of power. Sometime after that, I performed the thing, apparently. And then I had my mind wiped clean. Wiped clean, mind you—not buried or hidden or repressed."

"If the ritual is truly that powerful," Abigor answered, "that would make sense as a standard safety precaution."

"Oh, I'm sure that's what it was," Ethan answered. "Childproofing."

"Well, this has all been a huge help," Dawn said. She turned back to Abigor. "You sure there's nothing else you can tell us?"

"Just because I've been around forever doesn't mean I know everything," Abigor answered. "This is all I know. Unless you want some advice."

"No, thank you," Dawn said firmly. "Come on, Ethan." She walked out of the room and back up the stairs towards the hotel lobby.

"Now we're off to the airport.?" he asked her.

"Not yet," she answered. "I need to check up on an old friend of my sister's. The council has placed her in L.A., so that's where we'll be going."

"Los Angeles," Ethan repeated. "Because California holds so many wonderful memories for all of us."