It's been almost a month now, and I still can't get you out of my head. I don't mean that as some kind of romantic hyperbole, either, although you have to know that already; I can literally feel your presence in my mind, calling to me from over a continent away with your ceaseless, unspeakable demands. Give me a hundred yards to pace and I could triangulate your exact location on a map; you're like a beacon in the darkness every time I close my eyes, whispering to me. Beckoning me. I thought it might attenuate with distance, diminish when you slept, but... no. It's a pull as ceaseless as the tides, as hungry as a yawning chasm. I don't know how much longer I can fight it.

I know Nathaniel suspects. He's always so kind, so solicitous and sweet and loving, but... he doesn't leave me alone anymore. There's always a friend nearby, or a member of his family, or simply one of his trusted retainers. Always staring at me whenever I handle something sharp, always watching my eyes in a way they think I don't notice. He's talked to them, I'm sure, during those periods when I thrash in restless sleep and say things to you that I never remember. He's told them about our encounter with you. He's shared his... suspicions? Concerns? Whatever you want to call them.

Oh, but I shouldn't say that, should I? I shouldn't give you that kind of authority inside my head, not when you're always pressing me to view their precautions through a sea of thick, pulsing paranoia that flows through my veins like venom. You want me to turn against them, to mistrust my friends and allies until the only voice I can truly believe is yours. Oh, you needn't bother denying it--it's not like it becomes any easier for me to resist you when I know the truth behind your sly, subtle insinuations inside my head. If you told me the sky was red, I'd see it begin to shade from blue into purple before long despite myself. Why can't we at least be honest with each other, here if nowhere else?

As soon as I so much as think it, I know the answer. I'm weaker when I doubt myself. The tether between us is only one form of control. You have others, honed over lifetimes of manipulation and deception into a keen scalpel that cuts into my sense of self. Why run a fair race when you can break your opponent's legs at the starting line, mm? I can expect no mercy from you, not even the cruel mercy of honesty in victory. You'd as soon break my soul and convince me it was always shattered.

But I haven't broken yet. Even when my gaze turns sightlessly in your direction, seeing you in your darkened crypts and catacombs just waiting for my resistance to erode that last little bit until my keen intellect turns toward finding a way to join you in the musty shadows of your eternal prison, I still know myself to be myself. I am Alexandra Grant-Palmer, no matter what you whisper to me in the dark and the night. Your words are nothing but lies and deception, calculated to make me doubt myself, and there's no sting of truth hidden inside them.

None.

None at all.

That's how I keep the memories at bay, the ones I tell myself you're responsible for. That's how I stop myself from rising in the middle of the night and stumbling through the silent shadows of my darkened bedroom, hoping this time that they've forgotten and left the door unlocked--I can't bring myself to mention you to my darling Nathaniel, not with your whispers always inside my head making it so difficult to think whenever I try to find the right words to explain what's happening to me, but I've let it be known that it would be best if I were locked inside at night. Tomorrow, I think, I might intimate that chains on the bedposts would be an even better option.

Oh, yes. Most amusing. I know what you're trying to get at with your lewd and improper suggestions, and it isn't simply to shock me into a dead faint like some kind of latter-day Catherine Earnshaw. You're trying to convince me that Nathaniel's interest in me is carnal and not romantic, that he's preserving me from your depredations solely because he wants to plunder my body for himself. Would it shock you, my ancient monster, to know that we've already lain together more than once as man and wife do? The dig was a loud and bustling place, more than loud enough to conceal a few stray moans and whimpers, and the clothing we borrowed from the locals was loose and easy to slip out of. I haven't been a virgin in quite some time.

Was that... was that what you wanted on my mind? You're such a devious one, I can never fathom all the depths of your deceptions. Perhaps you wanted me thinking about that stifling afternoon in the tent, my body bent over the desk Nathaniel brought with him from Cairo and my loose robes up around my waist so that I could feel his cock claiming my slick, hungry cunt. Perhaps I'm weaker when I daydream about the feel of him inside me, the urgency of his hips crashing into mine, the throb between my legs as I surrendered to my animal instincts the same way I yearn to surrender to--

Yes. Well. I think that answers that question. Perhaps a different topic, monster? One that leaves me a trifle less... distracted? Shall we talk about you? I expect you'd rather not. I imagine you'd much rather while away eternity by chipping away at my resolve. But let me inside your head for a time. Let me drink of your mind the way you guzzle at mine. You... you're in darkness again, I see. The shadows of the grave have been your home for how long? Centuries... no, longer. Millennia. You died over two thousand years before the reign of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. That's quite a while to be lonely.

When did you last see the sun, I wonder, before the diggers unearthed the stone that kept your catacombs sealed from the outside world? I know you have ways out into the desert, because you struck down Professor Neill in his own tent, but that was at night. Do you fear light that much? Have you hidden from it since you were interred in the endless maze beneath Saqqara? Mmm. I see. You'll forgive me if I don't believe you. You've done precious little to earn my trust since you dragged me down into the silence of your tomb.

No. We haven't told anyone. Not the full truth of it, at least. As far as Nathaniel's friends and family here in Kent know, Professor Neill was murdered by grave robbers who wanted to plunder the artifacts we found. I, of course, am hysterical over the late professor's demise, and overcome by the fits of mental weakness to which my sex is prone. It's almost charming how hard the lie sticks in my lover's throat, but nobody's asking questions right now. Not with their own hearts so filled with fear. The servants who saw the body have been talking, you see. They know that nothing human could have left marks like that.

Even so, none of them know the full truth. No one was willing to go with Nathaniel when he braved the catacombs by torchlight to rescue me from your clutches, and no one but him saw you recoil from the flame and flee deeper into the darkness as if the fire came directly from the sun god that you claim to have cursed you so cruelly. They have their suspicions--who could not, when every local warned us that Saqqara guarded its dead with such vengeance? But they did not see you as he did. As I did. As I do now, every time my vision slips away from the real world and into the eternal twilight of your ancient, implacable will.

Hmm. I didn't like that thought. It sounded suspiciously like one of yours. Or, yes, or one of hers, although I'm not convinced that she's anything more than another of your treacheries designed to loosen my grip on my own will and fall deeper into the prison of your mind. Oh, I've done the reading. I know she was real. A princess of the Fifth Dynasty, died young and quite unexpectedly before reaching the age of thirty-five. But all the best lies are cloaked in truth. Just because this Kekheretnebti existed doesn't mean that her spirit has been waiting all those thousands of years down in the catacombs for a body to inhabit.

No. It means nothing. You are in my head, all night and every day. You forced yourself into my mind like my Nathaniel's cock pushed between my labia, and with far less invitation I might add. There has not been an hour when I have had the privacy of my own thoughts, and not a second when I could truly trust them. You've made me doubt my dearest love, you've made me question my own sanity, and now you have the utter gall to insist that the one thing you're being open and honest about is my status as a reincarnated Egyptian noble? You will excuse me if I entertain some doubts on the subject.

Oh. Of course. You loved her. No, that I don't doubt, although I suspect your love was much more akin to the love my Nathaniel's cock had for the warm nest between my thighs than the one he holds for me. You have a possessive nature to you, my vizier, if I might be so impudent as to employ a bit of the good Doctor Freud's art. I have the strongest conviction that whoever this Kekheretnebti was, you wrapped her around your little finger with your manipulations and your magics and you convinced her that everything she was doing was all her own idea. But you ached to own her.

Was that what led to your downfall? To the curse that has spanned over four thousand years? Did someone see through you, realize that behind the wisdom of Ptahhotep lay a hunger that would never be sated no matter how tightly you bound Djedkare Isesi's daughter to your will? Oh, as I said. I've done the reading. Nathaniel's libraries are quite extensive, and no one here cares what I do so long as I don't try to leave. I know exactly who you are beneath those wrappings.

It was the king himself who called down the curse of Ra upon you. For dabbling with forbidden magics, for costing him the life of his daughter and granddaughter in your efforts to bind her spirit to you for eternity. Go ahead, deny it all you want, but you hide your anger less well than you think, my monster. I can feel the truth of it, as sure as I can feel you watching me all the way from Saqqaba. Kekheretnebti may or may not be inside me now, her spirit may or may not have been tormented and bodiless and just waiting for a woman's form to call her own. But I know you killed her.

Don't lie to me, monster. Not about this. Do you think I won't come find you? Do you think you can ever hide from me with our souls so fatefully intertwined? You think your magic is your strength, but I am not Kekheretnebti. My mind is my own, not some twisted and knotted tangle of thoughts that warps defiance back around to compliance like hers was. You won't deceive me into following your commands. I swear that I can hunt you down wherever you seek to conceal yourself in that silent maze of stone. And I can bring a torch along with me.

Oh, I know. You think I'm trapped here, locked in my own room, unable to come to you and deliver the comeuppance you so richly deserve. But it would be a trivial matter to break out. Some cloth over the window to muffle the sound of breaking glass. A three mile walk cross-country to get to the train station. And from there, I can disguise myself as a man and work for passage to Cairo. Nathaniel would never find me in time to... to save you. He'd never catch up to me before I entered the darkness with you.

I can sense it. You're afraid now. And you're jealous. Do you even have a cock, monster? Can you fuck with it the way the living do, or is it in some jar somewhere in your mastaba like the other soft bits they took out before they mummified you? Oh, I suppose I'll find out soon enough. Perhaps before I set you alight, I'll bend over, show my winking quim to you and dare you to fuck the defiance out of me the way you did with Kekheretnebti. I don't think you'll be able to. I don't believe you're anything but talk, honestly. Can you feel me rubbing my cunt now, Ptahhotep? Can you see from Saqqaba how wet it is? I promise it's yours for the asking if you can take it.

I'll be there by the end of the week, vizier. And we'll see how strong my will is then.

THE END