Thoth by Alessa Thorn

2

Tahirah Eskander bent over the tiny statue of Anubis, and slowly ran the tip of her sable brush over its tiny engravings. It was the fifteenth statue of Anubis she had cleaned in a row and was starting to see the god in her sleep.

“What was your plan with all of these Wahtye?” she whispered, and half expected the ghost of the priest to talk back. Rana liked to tease her, saying she talked more to the dead than the living. She wasn’t wrong. Tahirah talked to Wahtye so much that they were practically dating.

Tahirah just found dead men more interesting. Wahtye’s tomb was a mystery that kept on giving. For starters, there was an absurd number of statues of himself. Names had been scratched off in the hieroglyphs, and he had placed himself in amongst the mural of the forty - two judges in the Duat.

What did you do to be so determined to cheat your way into the Field of Reeds? Tahirah had asked that question over and over. She and the other researchers had agreed that Wahtye had stolen the tomb from his brother, and being a thief was one crime that the Judges of Maat would condemn a soul for. By placing himself amongst the judges, Wahtye had been trying to hedge his bet of getting into Egyptian heaven.

Tahirah thought they had reached their limit of strangeness, and then they had started to find the statues of Anubis behind the fake door in the tomb. Hundreds of the small statues had been caught in the slurry caused by a heavy wet seasons. They still had people digging them out daily.

The whole tomb at once intrigued Tahirah and drove her crazy trying to unravel the mystery.

Tahirah lifted her head and rolled her aching neck. Her eyes drifted to the pencil and crayon drawing that Ishak, her nephew, had drawn for her. It was of the step pyramid and of Anubis. It never failed to make Tahirah smile.

Ishak was incredibly bright, but his sickness kept him out of school for months at a time. He had heart conditions because of Rana being sick with rubella when she had been pregnant.

Ishak would never be a robust child, but he was a voracious reader, and he loved Egyptology almost as much as Tahirah did. He didn’t find her stories of tombs and gods of the dead morbid like Rana did.

Tahirah was hoping he would be well enough to come and visit the dig site before the end of the season, so that she could show him all the statues of Anubis. He would love them.

“Ah, Tahirah! There you are, my dear,” a man exclaimed, coming into her work tent. Doctor Aharon Cohen was the site director and the leading Egyptologist on the site. He was perpetually flustered and bustled about the site like a small hurricane.

“What’s wrong?” Tahirah asked, her brain trying to drag back to the present.

“Nothing yet. How are your Anubis’s going?”

“Getting through them and so far they are all the same,” Tahirah replied and huffed out a tired breath. “How’s the clean up planning going?”

They were a month away from the end of the season and they were already trying to prepare to secure the site and pack up the camp for a few months. Tahirah felt a light flutter of panic every time she thought about it. She should look forward to having the time off, but she didn’t want to walk away from the tomb and site.

“Oh, you know how it is. Every one is getting edgy about being out of work for a few months and not knowing what’s happening to the funding,” Aharon said, and ran a hand through his dusty gray curls. “I’m hoping some rich person is feeling generous tonight.”

Tahirah frowned. “Tonight?”

“Dont tell me you’ve forgotten! The gala!” he exclaimed.

“Oh. The gala. Right. I’m sure everything will be fine, and the money will turn up. It always does,” Tahirah replied. She dipped down to pick up another Anubis statue from the tub by her desk.

“Tahirah, you have to be there,” Aharon insisted.

“Why? You are better at talking people into opening their wallets than I am.” Tahirah had already planned to duck into town for some take away before coming back to the site that night. The Anubis statues weren’t going to clean themselves.

“But you are the beautiful and brilliant Tahirah Eskander! Whisperer of the dead. Queen of ghosts.”

“Detector of bullshit.” Tahirah pulled a face. “You know I’m no good at small talk and mingling.”

“I know, but you are good at being aloof and beautiful and able to entrance listeners with your passion for the dead,” Aharon coaxed. “Please Tahirah, do this for me. Come for an hour, let people see you put in an appearance. You might not care about the glad handing side of the business, but you care about the dig. We are out of money, my dear, so if you want to come back next season, you need to be there.”

Tahirah let out a low groan. “You play dirty, Cohen. Fine! I’ll make an appearance.”

Aharon let out a cry of victory and did a happy dance. “You are a diamond in all of this dust. Be at the museum at 7 p.m in your most dashing dress.” He beamed at her before hurrying away.

Letting out a soft curse under her breath, Tahirah fished her phone out of her battered back pack. It was 4 p.m.

Rana should be awake. Her sister’s phone rang a few times before Rana mumbled a sound between a grunt and a hello.

“Wake up, sis, I have an emergency,” Tahirah said.

“What? What’s wrong?” Rana asked.

Tahirah sighed. “I’m going to need to borrow a dress.”

* * *

Tahirah was running late by the time Rana dropped her off at the back car park of the Imhotep Museum.

“You look like a princess,” Ishak had told her before she had left for the evening. She didn’t feel like one. She felt overdressed and self-conscious at how much cleavage she was showing.

Tahirah was wearing a plain black velvet dress with a scoop neck and capped lace sleeves. It was the least revealing of all Rana’s dresses and was one of the few ones that Tahirah fit properly. Rana’s curves were far more generous than hers, but Tahirah was taller, so depending on the cut, they could share clothes. At least they would if Tahirah wore anything but t-shirts and cargo pants.

Tahirah had put on some silver loops into her ears, and her usual silver ankh necklace that she never took off. Rana had insisted on styling her sun streaked hair into glossy curls and had done her makeup with dark smokey eyes and a red tinted lip balm. Tahirah drew the line at a bold lip that she would have to spend the rest of the night touching it up.

“Try to nab yourself a rich boyfriend,” Rana teased her as they stopped in the carpark.

Tahirah laughed loudly. “You know these events mostly have old white guys?”

“So? Get a sugar daddy.”

“Sugar grand-daddy, maybe.”

Rana only rolled her eyes. “Have fun for once!”

“Doubtful but thanks.” Tahirah waved to her goodbye before turning back to the museum and taking a deep, steadying breath.

You only have to be there for an hour. Make an appearance. Get out.

Inside, people wandered the museum with glasses of wine and champagne, platters of canapés being carried by waiters in crisp uniforms.

Tahirah took a glass of red wine off one and had a large mouthful for courage. She smiled a little as she wove her way through the growing crowd and looked for Aharon. She needed to make sure that he saw her. That way, he couldn’t complain she hadn’t been there.

Tahirah followed the crowd to a bar that had been erected for the event. She saw Aharon talking to a group of older men and she gave him a wave. His smile widened, and he raised his glass to her.

“Tahirah Eskander,” a voice said behind her. She whirled around and found herself face to face with a polished man. He was in a neat dark blue suit, with his dark hair slicked back.

“Yes?” Tahirah frowned, unable to place him.

“It’s a pleasure to meet Rana’s older sister at last,” he said, inclining his head. “I’m Waleed Said.”

The club owner, Tahirah’s mind prompted her. Multiple clubs, in fact. Rana had worked for him for the past year.

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you. Rana speaks highly of you,” she lied. Rana barely talked about her job because she knew how much Tahirah disapproved of it. “What brings you out to the museum tonight?”

“What brings us all here? A love of history and Egypt and wanting to support our great country’s cultural heritage,” Waleed replied smoothly. He looked her over and Tahirah tried not to be offended. It was why she was there, after all. To be the youthful face of the dig. “Also, Rana is constantly talking about how brilliant her sister is… she never mentioned how beautiful.”

Tahirah smiled awkwardly. “Thank you. It’s not often I get to go to an event. Usually it’s all dust and boots for me.” Tahirah’s words drifted off as a cool awareness slipped down her spine. It was the same sensation she sometimes felt when she was at the dig site late at night, when the ghosts walked…

She looked around, trying to find the source of her unease. Dark eyes caught her gaze from the shadows, and Tahirah froze. A man was staring at her from his place against the wall. He stood a head and shoulders above all the other patrons, and was dressed head to toe in a three piece black tuxedo. His black hair was tied back from a striking face with dark eyes. His head tilted slightly as he studied her curiously.

Waleed was saying something, his words a drowned out blur of background noise that Tahirah couldn’t hear. The stranger started walking towards her, people instinctively moving out of his way. She couldn’t move, couldn’t look away like she was faced with a wild predator.

The stranger came to stand in front of her, his silver ankh tie pin glimmering in the low lights. His full lips widened into a smile that flashed sharp canines.

“There you are,” he said in a deep voice. Tahirah stared dumbfounded as he took her hand and ran the tip of his nose along the top of her palm before pressing his lips to it. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“You have?” she asked, brows drawing together in confusion.

“Of course he has! You are the lady of the hour, after all,” Aharon said, patting her shoulder as he joined them. The man still hadn’t let go of her hand, and Waleed’s eyes narrowed. Aharon charged on oblivious to the surrounding tenseness.

“I would like you to meet Anubis Akhom, he’s looking at investing at the site. Mr. Akhom, our resident whisperer of the dead, Tahirah Eskander,” he said excitedly.

“Hello,” she said softly, heat creeping over her cheeks. She wanted to hit Aharon, she wanted to run as far away as she could. She needed to stop staring and couldn’t.

Anubis Akhom looked down at Tahirah, black eyes glittering and his fingers tightening around hers like a snare trap. “The pleasure is all mine.”

***

ANUBIS is coming soon in 2021!