He looked up and saw his face framed by a cracked mirror set in the old wooden coat tree. The thing in the middle of his forehead was like a massive pimple, red and hard and shiny. It looking ugly and freakish.
The fear struck him again like a blow to the face. He panicked, scrabbled at the amulet with grimy fingers. He tried to pry it out of his forehead, but his fingernails were too short to get a grip on it—though in his blinding fright he scratched himself so badly that blood began to flow.
A knife, he thought. A piece of glass. A strip of metal. Anything to get that thing out of his head.
Fortune's heart nearly stopped when a car pulled into the store's rutted dirt parking lot, its headlights gleaming like monstrous eyes through the dirty storefront window. A strange, powerful hand clamped down on his brain, and he began to change.
The metamorphosis should have been painful, but if it was, John was too frightened to notice. His body grew massively. He felt his new overalls rip apart at the seams, as if they'd been made out of paper towels, and he was naked again. But he didn't really need clothes. He was furry all over, with a thick pelt that shone as he had once shone himself, back when he'd been an ace. He could see a ghostly reflection of his body in the dirty glass window.
A lion. Of all the crazy, impossible things in the world, he had turned into a lion.
No. Not quite. More precisely, he was a lioness . . . but a lioness a lot bigger than any he'd ever seen at the zoo. And he glowed. He glowed like a beacon in the dark.
That was the only solace he could cling to, all he could think about if he wanted to keep his sanity. Because he no longer had any control over the body that was no longer his. He stared at the car outside, trying to speak, trying to call out—but something would not let him. Something else had taken command of his flesh, something that was growling, twitching its tail angrily, its muscles ready to leap and pounce. Something . . . or someone. It was furious, he realized, but it was also, underneath it all, very afraid.
Car doors opened and slammed. John heard his name called out. "John! You in there?"
He recognized the voice. It was Bugsy. The massive figure at his side had to be Lohengrin, though he could see little but their outlines because of the headlights glaring in his eyes. The lioness tensed. She leaped, landing atop a rickety wooden shelf, scattering cans of chicken-noodle soup and beanie weanie everywhere. He felt her take a deep breath. Her lungs expanded enormously and a heat kindled in her stomach, burning like a furnace popped on by a pilot light.
"Mein Gott!" Lohengrin shouted. "The lion again!"
No!> Fortune screamed. He made no sound, though the word reverberated in his skull like an echo in a tiny cave. Don't hurt them! They're my friends!>
The lion let its breath out in a whoosh that engendered a smoky billow of air, but no flame.
The big one tried to kill me with his sword,> a voice said in his head. It had a lilting accent that Fortune couldn't identify, and was definitely feminine . . . and tinged with fear.
Her words brought back shattered memories—his first transformation, in his mother's house . . . Lohengrin . . . the sudden armor and sword . . . fire, smoke, the scream of an alarm. The house burning down around them. Crashing through a window to escape.
John would have sunk to his knees if he'd had control over his transformed body. Who are you?> he asked.
My name is Isra,> the voice said. But I am also Sekhmet the Destroyer, the champion of my people and the Breath of Ra.> There was no doubt that it was a woman.
My God, Fortune thought, I've got a woman in my head. He had to be certain. Where are you?>
Once I inhabited the amulet,> Isra told him. For, it seemed, a long, long time. Now I am in your body. What year is it?>
Two thousand and seven.>
There was a long silence, then, More than twenty years. Tell me all that has happened!>
Wait, wait, wait!> Fortune thought frantically. How about telling me what the hell has happened? How did you get into my head? And my friends, out there—>Bugsy and Lohengrin were peering though the storefront. Let me talk to them!>
Isra shook her shaggy head. That is impossible. Sekhmet lacks the tongue, the voice box, to form human words.>
Sekhmet?> He remembered her saying the name, but it still meant nothing to him.
The Destroyer. The Protector. The Breath of Ra.>
Still nothing. Well, turn us back into me, then. Let me talk to them.>
No.> The single word was hard, final. She hesitated a moment, then almost plaintively said, I was chained in the amulet for so long . . . so long.>
Well—> Fortune swallowed his anger. Isra had the upper hand at the moment, but he'd managed to retrieve his body before. He could do it again. If he could just figure out how.
Well. Wave at them or something, to show them that it's okay. That we're friendly.>
Isra lifted a paw. Lohengrin's sword had flickered into his hand. He and Bugsy looked at each other. "What do you think?" the German ace asked in accented English. "This time, she is not attacking. That is good, ja?"
"Ja," Bugsy replied, "I think that it might be all right. John, is that you? Are you . . . are you all right?"
Isra nodded her leonine head.
Why'd you do that?> Fortune asked. I'm not all right.>
"John?" Bugsy was saying. "Can you . . . ah . . . change back? If you want to . . . I sent out a few hundred wasps to find you after you busted out of Peregrine's house." He paused momentarily. "Ummm. Sorry about the house and all, but it wasn't us. It was the lion." He stopped for a moment, as if realizing how lame that sounded. "She breathes fire. Uh . . . you breathe fire. Really. You probably know that, though."
"John," Lohengrin said. "I am sorry too."
"Anyway," Bugsy said quickly. "I'm sorry it took us so long to find you. Trying to rent a car in the middle of the night is a real bitch, and you were really moving there for awhile. My wasps could hardly keep up . . . uh . . . but the question is, where should we take you? Do you need to go to the hospital?"
Isra shook her head angrily, a low grumble sounding deep in her broad chest.
"We could call your mother," Lohengrin offered.
"No," Bugsy said, "no, not his mother. Simoon's mother. Isis. She was the one who wanted him to have the amulet. Let's take him to her. Maybe she can . . . fix him or something."
"Is she a doctor?" Lohengrin asked.
"No, I think she's a god."
Isis! Yes, I must find my people. I can sense them, vaguely.>
The Living Gods?> At last, some things were starting to come together. I know them—some of them, anyway—sort of. The ones in Vegas. Las Vegas. Nevada.>
Nevada?> The lioness paced through the store and pushed through the remains of the door, shoving it completely off its hinges. She padded past Bugsy and Lohengrin, who turned to keep her in sight at all times. Fortunately, the rental car was a convertible. Isra—or Sekhmet, or whatever the hell she should be called—leaped lightly into the back and settled herself regally across the seat. She pretty much filled it.
Lohengrin's sword disappeared. "I think she wants to go to Isis," he said. He slid into the driver's seat. Bugsy took shotgun. "Great," he announced. "Road trip."
The sun had been up for some time when they hit the Strip.
They could see the black glass pyramid of the Luxor towering in the clear morning sky a mile down the street to their right. John Fortune could read the utter amazement in Isra's mind as they moved past hotels and casinos, though her leonine features showed nothing but regal inscrutability. Despite the early hour the street was thick with traffic, and the sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians. Las Vegas is truly the city that never sleeps.