Amen Ra

In the end, I tripped over Jackal's body, and it saved me, though it cost me a solid thump on the table, and a headache for the rest of the day. I tripped, and she lunged, and with a twist and, admittedly, an unkind act to Jackal's corpse, I tangled her up in it. I had her pinned, and since I'm merciful, that was my victory. It's a ritual battle for me, but she wants my death. Someday, I'll see if I can't tame her with my body. Someday. Ormandi was gone, and I gathered myself. Jackal would be fine on the floor for a few minutes, but my face was bloodied, and I could only pray that some club-going couple had kindly left me some aspirin in the tan-framed medicine cabinet, hiding just behind the mirror in the closet-bathroom.
There was none, but I found towels, and filled them with warm water, and it was almost enough. There wasn't anything to worry about on my side, one of her rings had cut my cheek, but as the blood came away, so did the cut. I have enough magic for something that small, at least. Then there was just one thing left - Jackal.
The Egyptians had the right idea, preserving the bodies so that they could live again after death. Unfortunately, I found kissing mummies to be repulsive. You would, if you ever had to do it, too. Back then, I had power enough to breathe life back into mortals. That's tricky, because without unified belief to help raise them, I have only my own power. It takes time, and it takes a lot out of me - raising mortals killed me, too. Or at least, in my last years of power. I told you I died a lot, but that death wasn't written by the Egyptians. Instead it was my failing power in the wake of so many influxes of culture. You snooze, you loose, or so they say.
Anyway, I can't do it anymore. I can raise myself - or rather, I raise, regardless of my opinion on the matter. I have magic enough for the others, and that is all. It's enough.
Jackal's face is a mess, blood and venom swelling up over the sharply handsome features. It would heal after some sleep, but he wouldn't be happy when he woke up. I can be considerate, when I want, so at the risk of having to kiss a corpse stiffening with rigor-mortis, I took a warm cloth to his wounds. Re-set his neck - luckily it was simply a misplaced vertebrae, nothing actually broken, and settled him into a comfortable position on the bed after righting it.
This can take some time, so I sat next to him, put one hand over the Ankh on his chest, and settled my mouth in against Jackal's cold and stiff lips. He didn't smell so much of sandalwood, now. I supposed he sweat that smell, and some part of my memory chimed an affirmative.
Memory is a strange thing. After so many years it starts to become like a filing cabinet. Every thing's there, neat and organized, if you rifle through it all and get it back. Recent memories scatter the floor, waiting to be put away. So, it takes an effort to remember things from our last meeting. Jackal and I haven't seen each other in at least a hundred years, though when I think about it, he'd died the last time too.
Kissing the dead is like walking a path. You can follow the soul to the underworld, if he's made it that far. I caught Jackal, glassy and staring, just a few steps down the path. I called him back, and though I knew he'd be grateful to me, I swear he sobbed as I did. Death is comforting to us, who cannot die.
Had I left Jackal, he would have have found the hell left to us, left by the new deity, God simple, for those who are forgotten. But he'd have been barred entrance, left to stare into eternity, or until I got him again.

---

It's just as he's breathing again, jackal-brown eyes sliding open to re-orient with the world, that Syrus enters. His smile is faint, noticeable, and full of contempt. He'd won the trap, and so he deserved a moment of victory. Jackal, so soon dead and alive again, was ordered to stand in the hall. Syrus mistreated his pets, always, and it's with a stabilizing hand on his neck that Jackal retreats.
Because I know he'll be fine, I can spare myself some worry. Rather, I wonder what this trap was all about. Syrus would tell me soon enough, but I was impatient. I had, after all, had a long morning. It was only about to get longer.
Syrus had brought breakfast in with him, and he settled it on the table that had been Jackal's downfall. Since I can't starve to death, but I can be poisoned, I left it be. Perhaps Jackal would have it. He'd have more use for it, anyway.
"I trust Anubis has treated you well," Syrus announces that this is going to be one of those
conversations, where he's going to grate on my every nerve by using our dead names and forcing me to speak by it. Sullenly, I sink at first into silence - this is a conversation that I dread. I hear Jackal outside shifting to lean against the wall outside. I suppose it's just as human of me to worry, but once you've known someone for so long - No. It's probably just a selfish want not to have to kiss the same cadaver twice, today. It wouldn't be good for his pride, or my image.
"Yes." The answer was only simple truth. This can be both the simplest and the hardest truths for me. To lure him, I said further. "Admittedly, it was a bit of a surprise."
"Please, Ra." The name caused every hair on my body to stand on end. Ra is the name of a dead god. And I am dead quite a bit, yes, but I would hardly now consider myself a God. "Surely a new club called the Egypt would at least arouse some suspicion?"
It had aroused only curiosity., but Syrus was trying to be generous. This was not a game I wanted to play, not on his board, and not with his snare caught around my neck. I was his until the evening, then I would have to be set free. Syrus would not touch me, for fear of coming under my power - to simply need what felt like power. Nor could he send Jackal, like as the man might, so it would be real death tonight. The room was benign enough, but a slip in the shower can kill you, a stumble, a fire, a shorting lamp pumping electricity into your flesh. I know all of this first hand.
And before you ask, yes. I can masturbate to death.
"I want to know what this is all about." Truth again.
"Please, we haven't seen each other in quite some time," Not long enough, by my judgement.
Someday, someday I would get creative and lay a trap for Syrus, or perhaps I'd get fed up and just leave him dead for a few hundred years. It wasn't good for us. I had a suspicion it would drive him even more mad than he was now. "Surely we should catch up, first?"
He was comfortable enough to play around, I saw. Instead of answering, I shrugged, still sitting on the edge of the bed, simply waiting. He could converse with the air all he wanted, I had no interest in telling him that my life had simply been uninterersting the past hundred or so years. That I had wandered during the day, and wandered again the next day, and the next, reborn in places so very far away or so very close. I spent a lot of time at clubs, watching. It was just what I had always done. And so, there was nothing to say that he didn't allready know.
"Ah, well, buisiness, then." He folded his hands on the table - despite what I'd thought earlier, I almost wished Ormandi hadn't come allready. I'd like to have seen him get bitten in the face. He was eating breakfast without a care in the world, and holding my ensnarement over my head like a weight, ready to drop whatever idiotic plan he had for a return to power this time on me, but only when he was good and ready. Only when he'd had his laugh. He'd get less out of me, the more irritated I got. Instead of speaking further, he just looked toward the door.
Then I realized I was in for it. I'd been so intent on sulking that I hadn't heard -her- approach, until the door opened to admit her. Jackal was nowhere in sight - she hated him, and he was smart to get away in any way that he could when she came around. Isis leaned in the doorway, grey eyes on me with a friendly expression that frankly, scared the shit out of me. She was dressed primly in one of those business woman suits, a skirt that was practically painted onto her thighs, a top that described her waist and bust to me in full lines that hid absolutely nothing, and yet could not have been contested by the strictest conservative. I suspect that perfect tailoring is one of her powers, though I'm not sure. We've never been close. Her hair is almost white in how blonde it is, knotted up in a bun, erupting in a spray of elegant dissaray at the back of her head.
"Kei," She says, simply. She was allways a better diplomat than her husband. She was as ruthless as venom, when she needed to be. Of all of us, she alone has true power over me. It has not yet become weak, due to flaunting. This is Isis, who steps aside to reveal Namir too, far more supple, and with far less reserve in her dress. She is wearing just a pair of shorts that come about two inches short of covering her ass - I'm not complaining - and a top that I heavily suspect is just a bra. She slinks in before Isis does, catting her way over to pick at the breakfast that was supposed to be mine. I guess that means it wasn?t poisoned. She took the bacon first, all of it.
I could see now why Syrus had been so assured of himself. With so many of us gathered together, his newest plan must have some merit. Either that or time had made them all desperate, even with thousands of years in their future still. We had been written to have eternity, and everyone but I wanted it. Isis closed the door behind her, and for a moment I felt horribly trapped. These were all familiar faces, but none of them were particularly friendly in my recent recollection. None of us here really hated each other, however, Namir has a longstanding grudge with me. She called it a temper tantrum, and I was simply attempting to call in my last round of favors and impress my empire with what powers I had left. It was supposed to be a revival, and it worked, momentarily.
I don?t think anything would have been enough, and they would have blamed me if I?d done
nothing, too. So instead, I settle backwards, reaching my hands out behind me to tangle in the blankets, and flash my best smile around. Now was the time for them to start filling me in, and me to remain silent until I said no. Isis, however, answered my smile, and I almost felt my blood chill.
?I only have one question, Kei, and it?s a very simple one.? Namir giggles to herself, slinking around the table to take hold of the sausage as well. That?s what it is with cats, they?ll take everything that you have, but they always take what they really want first. It?s a weakness. Isis deftly directed my attention back to her, by producing a nail file and working on her nails ? all laquer and acrylic. Her eyes are gray, hooded behind a fringe of white-blonde bangs. ?Are you with us??
Honestly, without any more information than that, all I could do was turn her down. She took the choice away from me, but I suspected she knew my answer would have been the same anyway. They were all counting on it, it suddenly dawned on me, they were all counting on my answer. They weren?t really here to ask me at all, but to put me out of commission. I would say no, I would be shut out of their plans, and they must not have included me from the beginning. It was a rare flash of insight, I have no idea where it came from, but when things are really important, these things come to me sometimes. Or perhaps it was a trap, but Isis had other ways of getting me to say no, and it must be Isis behind the plan after all.
?Yes.? That was it. Without thinking, I tried my best to make up my mind and tell the truth after all. I wanted to know this plan. Telling the truth now did not bar my way later, especially considering the simple truth I spoke. Isis knew this, she looked at me a long moment, and then raised her voice to clarify, just as Syrus shooed Namir from his last piece of bacon. She?d sneaked the others while he was concentrating on his coffee.
?All the way???
That was a far tougher question. It negated the ability to use simple truths, limited me further. This one, I couldn?t answer. It was best here just to keep silent, what else could I do? This was not one of those cheesy action movies in which they?d inform me of their evil plans before they tied me into a highly escapable contraption which was almost certain not to cause my doom, as it was intended. They were my comerades, they were far more adept than that. And so, with nothing else to do, I remained silent. They knew my answer, they knew that I could not agree to Isis?s term without condemning myself to follow it.