Amen Ra

It almost seemed like he had too many teeth in his mouth, too pointed, too predatory a fit together, in how they showed that way. His suit was jackal-black, like Anubis in every Egyptian painting, slick and polished, muscles coiled up with the strength he gained from the souls of the dead. When he stopped laughing, the grin was too pointy at the edges as he spoke. I thought of this man as \'Jackal\', for the reasons I explained above.
\"What sort of guy do you take me for?\" He seemed more at ease in his skin than such a dog should with fingers and a thumb - his were wrapped around a glass of some sort of alcohol. That\'s what it should have been, anyway. For all I knew it was just ice water. I wasn\'t going to get close enough to try and smell it. A shift of black suit, and his other hand was in his pocket, just that calculated slouch. Oh he was a comfortable hunter, lean from long rests between meals.
Honestly, I didn\'t even know what I was doing here. This place smelled ancient, like dust and sand, like bricks baked into existence only by the sun. The music was so loud in here, like any of the other clubs on this strip, but the patrons were subdued. They all found various comfortable means of rest. It seemed meant for that, with cushions and blankets strewn about.
Even the short, scruffy carpet reminded me of sand. Jackal expected an answer, and I shrugged him off, turned to the bar, and had a drink. The world was tan in here, tan and red. The pillows lining the walls were slick with bodies in red dresses, women in easy repose, chatting and piled up so comfortably. I\'ll always be amazed by the ability of women\'s bodies to fit together seamlessly. Jackal made a low noise in his throand lnd lit a cigarette, watching me watch, no more interested in the seamless line of women than he had to be.
\"You know, talking to me doesn\'t mean you have to stay here,\" He exhaled a clof smf smoke. The bartender got wind, all the way down the bar, and looked up. It was a no smoking place, but Jackal had permission apparently, by the way the tender just tipped his eyes away, and went back to polishing. No one else in the club followed his lead, everyone knew better. I knew better - I don\'t smoke often, but my nerves of a sudden, all stood up on edge. Why shouldn\'t I want to stay? Rather yet, why should I go? I didn\'t know any better at the time. I should have made polite, answered Jackal inanely, maybe then he would have doubted his judgment, double guessed himself.
\"But it does mean that I have to talk to you.\" No, he would never have second guessed. Predators know what they\'re hunting - they\'re never surprised as they sink their teeth right into a Zebra\'s neck. They know what a Zebra is, and it\'ll never turn out at last second to be a wildebeest. Jackal knew me, he knew what I was. He was as familiar with me as I was beginning to feel that I was with him. It may have been his easy mood, somewhere between his approach and now, he\'d found his way onto the barstool next to me, and his glass onto the counter so he could smoke with one hand by his face, the other tucked in along the bar, backs of his knuckles against his chest. I remember thinking that was so he could reach his gun. Why he\'d need it for me, I did thi think. His mouth stretched wide around that smile again - he smiled so wide that the skin around his nose and mouth wrinkled up, like a snarl. There was that low noise again, by way of acknowledgment.
\"I can\'t imagine a worse fate.\" His hand covered his mouth while he spoke, the cigarette between two of his fingers emitting a twin tail of smoke into the two two long lines entwining together until they weren\'t there anymore. He seemed friendly enough - all dogs do until they bite you, one day. They are loyal to a fault, in that someday they will make a mistake. That breaks them. This fellow wasn\'t really a dog to begin with, he was far more feral, though I suspected he answered to someone just the same. Put a collar on a wolf, fetters on a Hyena - that doesn\'t make them a dog. It just makes them irritable. Jackal seemed to be very irritated, just under his skin. I got the impression that it wasn\'t with me, but it was a very old irritation indeed. I looked away from him, looked back at the women.
Really, they were more interesting to me. I have to explain that now. It doesn\'t change any of my actions later, but they were more interesting to me to begin than some mafioso with slick black hair, and a mouth too full of teeth. He kept smoking, though I admit he hadn\'t smelled anything of tobacco before, and after the cigarette he still smelled only of some faint, expensive cologne. There was no smell of alcohol, either. I think about it now, and he only smelled like sandalwood. He kept right on talking, apparently I didn\'t have to reply in order to be considered part of the conversation.
\"They\'ll be here all night, you know.\" Bark, bark, bark. That was all I could think. He was trying to shake me out, get me to run so he could have an excuse to stretch his legs. Whoever owned him, they kept him on a short leash. But if he was chasing me, he could break it with an excuse to bring back - that was, so long as he caught me. I took another drink - it had been a while since all this shit had caught me. Jackal was grinning away, as he twisted the remains of his cigarette out. \"Why are we playing this game, Kei?\"
\"You\'re the only one playing.\" I could have given it up there, walked out, not seen any of them for another thousand years, avoided them all until they had new forms and could surprise me again. I should have expected to run into at least one of them in this club, The Egypt, they\'d have been just as sentimental as I. The game\'s rules were simple, they found me, I left. I figured eventually they\'d get on without me. I didn\'t care what they wanted me for. It was dead, it was all dead, and they couldn\'t change that. Not in a populace of atheists and Christians. They could kill us, if they wanted. It\'d be easy now, just to destroy what little remains of our histories. It was museum keepers who kept us alive now, not followers. They wanted the impole. le. \"I\'m just living.\"
\"And you\'ll die that way,\" Jackal replied, suddenly sober. He wanted me to run. He wanted to chase me. As if he could ever catch me. Dogs don\'t fly, but I can. We all have names now, all have lives. Some of us even have jobs - I\'m still not that humble. But the rest of them can\'t seem to forget what they are - or even let it go. I knew who was holding the Jackal\'s chain, I knew he\'d never let it go - and in that way, I felt bad for him. In a way, he could never live life like I was, even if he wanted to. It\'s not my job to set dogs free. He should be grateful to be living, grateful like I was. He should make the best of what little of it he had left.
\"Everyone dies someday. You should know that.\" He should have remembered that it wasn\'t
permanent, not by any means. My magic was still strong enough to raise them all. And even though I
wanted nothing to do with them, I still let it all go on. Maybe someday they\'d learn. Maybe they wouldn\'t, but they had the chance. That was important. That let me go on ignoring their pleas. I stood up, and Jackal was on his feet too. I held up my hands, indicated the stairs at the back of the club. \"I\'m going upstairs to use the bathroom,\"
That\'s my weakness, you know. I can\'t lie. I can choose not to answer, or I can say things halfway, but I can\'t lie. Not to any of them, anyway. So at that moment, I told him half of what I meant, which was I was going to use the bathroom window to escape. I\'d seen the fire escape up there. I could take the fall to the ground - after all, I died every night, and this one was getting late. Only so much time to die in the evening hours, but somehow, it always managed to find me. Death is a better hunter than even Jackal,there. He sat, restless, trying to decide how I\'d fooled him, when he knows that I can\'t lie, either.
The music faded behind me as I ascended. Oh yes, it was coming. I can feel it, every time.