“Hey, Jackie.” The voice was Noah’s, sleepy and a little unfocused. “I, uh, got your number the other day when we met at the bar. You probably don’t remember that, right? I guess you’re not home. No doubt staying with Remy again.”
He chuckled, and my heart did a little flip. “She’s a bit of a busybody, but she means well, so don’t take any of her ways to heart. She’s just excited to have another of her kind in the city. It’s been a long time since she’s had anyone to talk to but me.”
The voice in the recording paused for so long that I thought the message was over. I moved to hit Delete when Noah began to speak again. “I just … I guess … ah, hell. I’m not good with apologies. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry-for everything that you’ve been through. I would have never done it intentionally. You know that.” A huge sigh.
“You just looked so lost and alone that night in the bar, and so innocent, that I couldn’t help but be drawn to you. I hope you won’t hold it against me forever. I know it’s hard right now to adjust, and I guess I just … I just wanted to say that I’m here for you, if you ever need me for anything.”
I stood there in stunned silence.
The machine beeped. “End of message,” the computerized voice warned. “To delete this message-”
I hit the Save button, sniffing hard. I would not cry. I would not cry.
Damn Noah for being so sweet and such an arrogant ass at the same time. I checked the rest of the messages, hoping for more from Noah, but the rest were just more of Bobby’s mooning.
What now? Suddenly my excursion back to my normal life didn’t seem so important. I stared at my shabby furniture, at the stalker roses, at the pictures on the wall from graduation and college roomies, and everything else. It all seemed utterly trivial, and I felt lost and alone. The life I’d led before was meaningless, and the life I had now was utterly frightening.
I wandered into my bedroom like one of the walking dead. Worn-out sneakers under the bed, frumpy work clothes in the closet; I’d even neatly made my bed.
Who was I? I didn’t know anymore.
Sitting on the bed, I contemplated my options. I couldn’t go back to the way things used to be-my boss thought I was a crazy plastic surgery junkie. I couldn’t stay with Remy; her lifestyle would never be mine. Noah was gone, perhaps forever, and I was stuck with a cigarette-smoking vampire hottie who was crashed out in the backseat of a car that wasn’t even mine.
I buried my head in my hands. When did my life get so fucked up?
Much as I wanted to run screaming from the situation, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t bury my head in the sand and continue on like nothing had ever happened. Noah needed me. I had to at least try.
I gathered a few things: some comfortable old T-shirts, my briefcase full of museum paperwork, a few research books, and a few other doodads I didn’t want to leave behind.
I had an odd feeling that I wouldn’t see my apartment, or any trace of my old life, again.
Leaving the building behind, I got into Noah’s Explorer with a half wave to Bobby, tore out of the parking garage, and coasted back onto the highway, my mind churning. A quick glance behind me confirmed that Zane was still asleep in the backseat-not that I’d expected otherwise.
There was still a good half hour until I had to pick up Remy, but I couldn’t get much done in that span of time, so I headed back to the pawnshop and idled the car, flipping through radio stations.
Remy showed up shortly, a couple of bags in tow, and slid into the passenger seat. She dumped the goods on the floorboard and grinned, looking excited. “Miss me? You look like someone died. Everything okay?”
“I suppose, considering all the bullshit that’s going down. What did you get?”
“I’ll show you when we get home and drop off our third wheel.” She thumbed a gesture at the passed-out Zane. “Deal?”
“Whatever floats your boat. Can we grab something to eat? I’m starving.”
Remy laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Several hours later, the setting sun blazed through the miniblinds. Zane was stashed in Remy’s basement on an old couch, we were stuffed with milkshakes, pizzas, and burgers, and she was surfing the internet on her laptop. The remnants of a pizza lay in a box at our feet, and every once in a while I’d reach down and have another slice.
“This sucks,” I complained, gesturing at the screen with my straw. “First, we couldn’t find anything at the library in five hours of searching, and now this. I can’t believe that if you google ‘halo’ on the internet, all you get are nine million websites about a stupid video game.”
Remy frowned and tried typing in a few more combinations of “Joachim” and “Halo.” We’d been at this for a few hours now, and I was getting sick of finding nothing but random porn sites. Those interested Remy in a purely vain fashion-she wanted to see if she was mentioned on any of them-but for me, it was just annoying.
“How the heck am I supposed to find a halo that’s been missing for the past, oh, three or four millennia?”
Remy shrugged, reaching for the last slice of pizza. “Maybe we need to find who had it last.”
I sat back on the couch, nursing my shake and thinking. “Well, obviously the queen’s boyfriend had it last. The question is, where was he when he died?” I rubbed my temples, trying to think. “Think that our buddy Nitocris was a queen before she was vampire queen?”
“We could always punch in her name with a few of the older kingdoms in history, and see what that pulls up,” Remy suggested, tapping away on the keyboard.
“Phoenician,” I guessed. “Zulu. Greek? Nah, they had city-states or something. Celtic? She doesn’t seem lightcomplected enough. Carthaginian?”
Remy snorted and flipped the laptop in my direction. “You’re trying way too hard. Check this out.”
Under the search words of “Nitocris” and “Queen,” I saw a few articles neatly listed on the search results.
“Bingo,” I crowed. “Queen of Egypt. I guess that fits.”
“No kidding.” Remy clicked on the first link and began scanning the page. “Good lord. Did you read this stuff?” Her mouth set into a grim line.
“Well, seeing as how you’re hogging the computer and we just pulled it up five seconds ago, no. Let me see.” I angled the computer screen toward me a bit and leaned over her shoulder to read.
“First Female Pharaoh of Egypt” the top banner proclaimed.
Remy jabbed her finger directly over the line I was reading. “Did you read this stuff about Herodotus?”
I shoved her finger off the screen. “I will, if you give me a chance. From Herodotus’s Historia,” I read aloud, “Nitocris was the beautiful and virtuous wife and sister of King Metesouphis II-”
Beside me, Remy coughed in shock. “Wife and sister? That can’t be right. Joachim was an angel, not an Egyptian. Maybe we don’t have the right woman. Beautiful and virtuous hardly describes the woman I had a run-in with last night.”
I shrugged and kept reading. “Wife of Mete-doofus, an Old Kingdom monarch who came to the throne at the end of the sixth dynasty and was savagely murdered by his subjects soon afterward.” I paused, thinking. “She didn’t say that he’d been murdered, though, just that she’d ruined her kingdom for him, and he was destroyed in the first temple of God. Maybe she killed her brother-husband-whatever for her angel boyfriend?”
“Keep reading,” Remy urged. “Maybe it mentions something about that.”
“Nitocris ordered the construction of a secret underground hall connected to the Nile by a hidden channel. When this chamber was complete, she threw a splendid banquet, inviting as guests all those whom she held personally responsible for the death of the king. While the unsuspecting guests were feasting, she commanded that the secret conduit be opened, and as the Nile waters flooded in, the traitors were drowned.’?” I paused, my throat suddenly dry. “‘In order to escape the vengeance of the Egyptian people, she then committed suicide by throwing herself into a great chamber filled with hot ashes and suffocating.”