Steve woke with the bite of sand in his eyes and the taste of it in his mouth. He looked around, unable to focus on his dirty surroundings. He could feel the soft body of a woman next to him and knew it was Lisa. But that was about the only thing Steve knew. His mind was so confused, he didn’t know where he was or how they’d gotten there. The only thing he remembered was being shut into a coffin the night before, then blackness had closed in on him.
Morgan felt the movement of his body and ran her hand over his face, whispering, “Are you hungry, luv?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Steve answered obediently, knowing Morgan always demanded a prompt answer from him. She got out of bed and headed for a cooler filled with bottles. Bringing back one, she opened it and handed it to Steve, saying, “Who takes care of you, baby?”
“You do, Lisa,” Steve said emptily.
“After you’ve drank, we’ll have some time to ourselves, okay?” she said with a smile.
“Where are we?” he whispered, trying to clear his head with little luck. All he could hear was the shadow of three voices in his head. Nothing distinct, just the bare feeling that three people were calling out to him in the distance. Two of those voices were starting to get stronger, while the third stayed just a faint echo.
“In the necropolis outside of Cairo,” she said, then quickly spun to face him. “Why are you so worried about it?”
“I’m sorry,” Steve said hurriedly. “I was just wondering.”
“Well, none of them are going to come after you again,” Morgan said confidently. “They’ve probably forgotten all about you now anyway.”
“Who?”
“Never mind,” she whispered, remembering that Steve had no idea about his friends while he was under her spell. “Just remember that I’m the only one you have now. No one else will take care of you, but I always will.”
“Yes, Lisa,” He murmured without a thought. She’d certainly made sure he’d had what he needed since they’d been together. And her story, about him being abandoned by a coven that didn’t want him anymore? It seemed believable enough. Maybe he hadn’t had anyone that cared about him before Lisa had come along. Yet, there was doubt starting to surface in his mind. None of it went with the bits and pieces he could barely remember. Thoughts of a man and woman who were willing to share everything with him, down to their very life. And a blond haired man who he’d been through so much with. Were they dead now? Was that why Lisa was convinced nobody cared about him now. Maybe he’d had something to do with their deaths and that was why the coven had rejected him. Trying to think did nothing but confuse him, so he let it go. He had nowhere to go without Lisa now anyway.
Lyra squinted into the lights of Cairo, trying to make out the forms around her. She could see Sav almost clearly now, yet Kevan, Phil, Cyra and Rick were still so blurry that she wouldn’t speak to anyone until she knew who it was. She could only listen as Kevan laid out his plans.
“Okay, Cyra and Rick, why don’t you check out the butcher shops here and see if anyone’s been buying blood,” Kevan was explaining.
“What?” Cyra asked crossly. “Do you really think she’s going out, doing the good wife thing and keeping him in blood?”
“Siona, do you think she could held a hungry vampire for long?” Kevan asked quietly.
“Shouldn’t her spell take care of that problem?” Phil said curiously.
“It can’t override his basic survival instinct and that means blood,” Kevan answered. Turning back to Cyra, he said, “So you two go check out the butcher and meat shops. Lyra, you and Sav fly down to the pyramids at Giza and see if she’s down there. You’ll have better luck tracing him with your bond than Phil would.” Then he looked at Phil and said, “We’ll poke around here in Cairo and see if we can find him. There are a lot of old ruins that I know Morgan was rather fond of, so she may be hiding him in one of them.”
“Do you want me to stay with you or go out on my own?” Phil asked.
“We can split up, but for God’s sake, don’t try to take him on,” Kevan answered. “If you see them, come find me and hurry about it!”
“Yes, sir!” Phil said with a mock salute.
“I’m not kidding, Phillip!” Kevan said angrily. “Your friend won’t know you under this spell and he could kill you without even thinking about it! I’m not going to have to deal with that!”
“Okay,” Phil said quietly, his voice suddenly much more serious.
“Everyone know what they’re doing then?” Kevan asked as he looked around the group. With nods all around, Kevan took a deep breath and said, “Let’s get to it then.”
Sav grabbed Lyra by the hand and pulled her up into the starry Egyptian sky with him. The flight to Giza was short and soon they stood in the moonlight shadows of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the three monuments. Lyra looked around, trying desperately to feel if there were any vampires in the area. She couldn’t feel a thing and looked at Sav sadly.
“He’s not here, Rick!” she whispered. “Damn it, where the hell does she fucking have him?”
“I don’t know, baby,” Sav answered quietly. “But wherever he is, we’ll find him and bring him home. After everything we’ve been through, I just know we’ll get through to him and get rid of Morgan forever.” He looked across the sand and saw the Sphinx resting in the desert night. Pulling Lyra away from the base of the Pyramid, he wrapped her in his arms and carried her to the top of the Sphinx. They sat down quietly and Sav whispered, “You know I’ll never leave you, don’t you, Lyra?”
“I know, baby,” she whispered as she laid her head down on his shoulder. She nuzzled into Sav’s throat and felt the sudden burning need for his blood. Brushing his hair back from his neck, she bit gently into the pulsing vein just below the surface. Letting out a soft moan, Sav adjusted their bodies and let his own fangs descend. The blood kiss they shared under the moonlight and stars was the one thing that kept them both from falling into complete despair at the situation they found themselves in.
Cyra and Rick checked with every butcher in Cairo, and Rick was amazed by her command of the Egyptian dialects. Each time he commented on it, she just smiled at him and said, “You don’t live nearly two thousand years without speaking the languages around you, luv.”
By three in the morning, they were both getting frustrated. There was no sign of Morgan around any of the shops they’d visited and, after they’d closed, they’d found no sign of her around any of the bars either. Heading back towards the meeting point they agreed on with Kevan, Cyra found an annoyed Kevan pacing the ruins they’d planned on sleeping in.
“No sign of him in the ruins?” Cyra asked anxiously.
“Not a damnable trace,” Kevan cursed.
“Where’s Phil?” Rick said quietly.
“He should be making his way back here soon,” Kevan answered quietly. “Matter of fact, he should have been here by now...”
Phil shook his head, then stopped at the throbbing pain right at the base of his neck. His eyes didn’t want to focus correctly, so he closed them and tried to figure out just where he was. Trying to move, he realized his arms and legs were tied down and he started to panic. As he moved his shoulders, he felt sand moving down the back of his shirt. Forcing his eyes open, he looked around and saw the lights of Cairo in the distance. He took a deep breath and thought about his situation. Somehow, someway, he was tied down in the middle of the desert on the outskirts of town.
Finally, his mind cleared and he could remember what happened just before he’d blacked out or maybe been hit by something. He’d been standing on the edge of a necropolis, that much he knew. And there’d been a vampire hidden somewhere inside it. Part of him could barely feel that it was Steve. He’d began to look around the excavated rooms of the abandoned ruin when there’d been a blinding pain in the back of his head. Then he couldn’t remember anything until he’d woken up here.
“KEVAN!” he cried, suddenly realizing that he didn’t know how long he had until sunrise. That thought brought a far more desperate one to mind. The spot he was tied to, in what could be a very short while, was going to be right out in the sun! If he didn’t get free somehow, there wasn’t going to be anything left of him at sunrise but a blowing pile of dust! “SAV! LYRA! SOMEBODY! HELP!”
“What’s wrong, Phillip?” came a taunting voice from just out of his field of vision. “All ‘tied up’ and somewhere to go?” Morgan stepped forward, looking down at Phil with a nasty expression on her face. She was ENJOYING this torment!
“Listen, let me up from here!” Phil pleaded. “All I want is my friend back, then you can go wherever you want to, I swear!”
“Steve?” Morgan laughed, motioning to someone beside her. Steve stepped forward and looked down at Phil, his eyes completely empty of any emotion. “I don’t think he wants to go back to vampires who’ve abandoned him, do you, luv?”
“No, Lisa,” Steve answered, though his voice was as empty as his eyes.
“STEVE!” Phil cried with relief in his voice. “You’ve got to get me loose, mate! That sun comes up and I’m dusty!”
It took a few minutes for Phil to realize that Steve hadn’t even heard what he’d said. “What did you do to him,” Phil said in a voice heavy with accusation.
“He’s mine and that’s all that concerns you,” Morgan said quickly. Then she laughed and said, “But if I were you, I’d be far more concerned about sunrise, luv. That’s only three hours away, so I’d make my peace with whatever god you vampires pray to. Cuz I really don’t foresee anyone coming to your rescue. Nobody knows where you are!”
Ignoring Morgan, Phil twisted and looked at Steve desperately, saying, “Come on, you sorry bastard! I know you’re in there, Steve!” For the longest moment, he thought Steve hadn’t heard him again. Then, he saw Steve’s eyes barely glance down at him and widen before looking back at Morgan.
“Ready to go, luv?” Morgan whispered worriedly. Exposing him to Phil for too long could be detrimental to her hold on him if she wasn’t careful. “It’s time for us to fly to the pyramids, anyway.”
Nodding, Steve looked back down at the man who was still pleading with him from the sand. That voice! Steve could feel it, that voice was important. It was one of the voices he’d heard calling him over the past few nights. With a sudden shock, he could put a name to it. Phil. His best friend for the past few decades. The other voices broke through to his mind and he could hear Lyra and Sav calling to him as well now. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember everything that had happened, but he couldn’t. He shook his head anxiously and Morgan saw the movement.
“Come on, Steve,” Morgan said impatiently.
“Yes, ma’am,” Steve answered, though the servile tone of his voice was gone now. He picked Morgan up and looked down at Phil. Moving closer to Phil’s hand, he kicked out roughly and broke the post which had been holding Phil’s arm down. But he’d turned Morgan away so that she couldn’t see what he’d done. Leaping for the air, his last thought was, “Get your sorry ass out of the sun, matey.” Then he was gone.
Phil pulled his arm free and started untying himself as soon as Steve had disappeared from sight. He considered flying after them, but knew that the brief break in Steve’s ensorcelment might only be a momentary thing. He flew back into Cairo to find the others and hoped they’d still be able to find Steve when he found them.
“Steve, I need you to do it for me,” Morgan said quietly as they landed at the base of the Great Pyramid of Knufu.
“Yes, Lisa,” Steve said, trying to mimic the robotic tone he’d had before. Memories were flooding back to him now and he was getting angrier by the moment. But, a plan formed in his mind and it was time to put a stop to Morgan’s hateful ways. He lowered his mouth to her throat and bit deeply, taking a long draw on her blood. He thought for a few seconds of simply taking things too far and killing her instead of bringing her across. But what she’d done deserved far worse than the peaceful death he would have given her.
Lyra and Sav’s head snapped up in unison as they both heard Steve’s voice whisper, “Stay back and let me do this. Then we’ll be together again.”
“Where is he?” Sav asked, knowing Steve was VERY close by.
“Over there,” Lyra whispered, pointing in the direction of the largest pyramid. Taking Sav by the hand, she flew over and landed half way up the structure, staring down at the entwined figures on the sand below. Though she knew Steve was bringing Morgan across, something told her to let him do what he thought was right. She watched in dismay as he fed Morgan from his own wrist, then laid her body down to die in the sand. He turned around, then took off to an area where people tied their camels during the day. When he returned, he looked up and saw Sav and Lyra watching him from above. Closing his eyes, Steve let out a sigh and then set about putting his plan into motion.
“WHAT?” Cyra said angrily. “She was going to leave you out to die?”
“Yeah,” Phil sighed, only just beginning to regain his bearings after what Morgan had nearly done to him.
“But Clark let you lose?” Kevan questioned.
“Yeah, he kicked my arm free just before they flew off,” Phil said quietly.
“Her hold on him is fading severely then,” Kevan said with a grin. “By night’s end, he’ll completely remember who he is and he’ll leave her.”
“Can’t she cast the spell again?” Rick asked.
“Not right away,” Kevan answered. “It takes time for her to redo it and that’s only if she realizes what’s happened before he leaves her.”
“Well, let’s find them and put a stop to her,” Rick said quickly.
“You’re right, young Richard,” Kevan sighed. “It’s time to end her playing once and for all.” The four vampires flew into the sky, following Phil’s once again whole link to Steve. The closer they got, the more Phil noticed that Steve was completely back in his mind again. As they drew closer to the pyramids, Cyra saw Sav and Lyra sitting half way up and they landed carefully next to them.
“What’s going on?” Kevan asked quietly.
“Steve told us to stay back, that’s all I know,” Sav said quickly. “Apparently, he’s got something planned and he wants to do it on his own.”
“Do you trust him?” Kevan asked suspiciously.
“With my life,” Sav answered confidently.
“Where is he?” Rick said suddenly.
Phil pointed down to the sand, where Steve was on his knees next to an form laying on the ground. They sat and watched as the form started to move and thrash about.
Steve bit open his wrist and let Morgan drink deeply, hoping he’d be able to satisfy her first hunger with only his own blood. Luckily for him, Morgan had kept him well fed and she was nearly over the hunger by the time Steve pulled away. But he could still see the bit of madness in her, so he sent out a silent call to the others sitting on the pyramids.
Kevan was the first to reach their side and he looked down at Morgan with shock and pity in his eyes. Steve had tied her to the ground in the same way she’d held Phil earlier that night and the newborn vampire strained for release from her bonds. Looking at Steve, Kevan saw cold determination in his eyes and wondered just what the young vampire planned to do with her. But, for the moment, Kevan leaned down and let her feed from his own powerful blood.
Steve stood back and swayed from his own blood loss. Lyra wrapped him in her arms without a word as Sav came to stand just behind the pair of them. The two of them stared down at Morgan with disgust in their eyes as she started to come out of the first hunger and see things for the first time as a vampire. She looked around with amazement, not realizing at first that she couldn’t move from where she lay. Turning her head, she found Steve standing next to her and started to smile up at him. Then she saw Lyra and Sav just behind him and her smile disappeared. Trying to sit up, she pulled at her wrist and realized she couldn’t move.
“Steve, let me up, luv!” she whispered. “A joke is a joke, but I’ve got to be able to move now.”
“You’ll never move again, Lisa,” Steve said slowly. “I’m not going to be responsible for unleashing you on the world.”
“WHAT!” she cried. “Talk sense, Steve! I’m the same as you, now! You can’t kill another vampire!”
“Watch me,” Steve answered, then turned from Morgan and into Lyra’s waiting body. Sav wrapped his arms around both of them as Cyra said, “Lyra, take care of Steve. He’s put himself in for a rough morning since he’s bonded to her. Her death is going to be very difficult for him.”
“Any more difficult than losing Lisel was?” Lyra countered.
“Actually, yes,” Cyra sighed. “He is Morgan’s creator. You should know how hard it is to lose a fledgling.”
Lyra closed her eyes and remembered the only time she’d lost a vampire she’d created. Looking at Steve, tears pricked at her eyes as she remembered the painful deaths of Rafael, Ronan and Gregor. She pulled Steve even closer to her at the memory, then said to Cyra, “Don’t worry, I’ll be there for him.”
“We’ll be there,” Sav said as he led them away from Morgan and back to the pyramid.
Cyra pulled Rick and Phil off to the side as Morgan let out an enraged scream. She cursed all of them, saying they’d regret doing this to her. Steve would most of all, she yelled. Thrashing against her bonds, she finally looked to her other side and saw Kevan standing over her.
“Kevan!” she sighed in relief. “Let me up, baby! Then we can be together forever, just like we were always meant to be!”
Kevan stood over her wordlessly as he watched the other vampires fade away into their hiding places from the sunlight. Cyra was the last to vanish from his sight and she turned for one last look at him before she went down into the darkness. Alone at last with his former student, Kevan knelt beside her and whispered, “I’m sorry, Morgan, but I can’t set you free. You’ll do nothing but destroy the rest of the world as you’ve destroyed me and I can’t let that happen.”
Morgan tried to concentrate, to weave a spell over her teacher to get her freedom again. But Kevan let out a humorless laugh and said, “I guess there’s one thing I never told you about becoming a vampire, my love. You’ve lost all the powers you had as a mortal. No more witchcraft, no more black magic. A vampire has to survive by their wits alone.”
“You bastard!” Morgan spit at him. “How could you do this to me, Kevan!”
“Because I know you now for what you are, Morgan,” Kevan said softly. “You may take me with you, but you’ll not bring the world down to your level.”
She could feel the sun beginning to break over the horizon as she pleaded, “Kevan, don’t let me die!”
“Morgan, Steve’s only done a thing I should have done long ago,” Kevan said sadly.
“PLEASE!” she whimpered desperately.
“NO!” he said firmly. “I won’t let you live like this, Morgan. Your spell may be broken, but you’ve always had my heart, young one. Maybe, in another life someday, we’ll be able to forgive each other and finally find the love we were meant to have instead of this empty hatred.”
“KEVAN!” she cried as she saw the first hints of light. Then, in a moment of realization, she looked at her teacher and let out a sigh. “I know you’re not going to change your mind. I know you too well for that. But,” she let out a sigh. She closed her eyes as she started to feel the heat of the sun’s first rays. “I did honestly love you, Kevan. For a long time. It was only at the end that I got so bitter about our relationship.”
Kevan looked at her with tears in his eyes, her words breaking through to a heart that had long forgotten the love he‘d had for her. Seeing the first sincerity in her eyes in a decade, suddenly Kevan realized she meant every word she said. Taking a deep breath, he considered her with eyes suddenly open to what he might be losing. Without a further thought, he launched himself at her arms, desperate to free her and get her out of the deadly rays of sunlight before it was too late. He’d just freed her first arm when she let out an inhuman howl of anguish. The sun had broken the horizon and was burning her body from the inside out. Tears clouded his eyes as he tore at the ropes. Her second arm had just been freed when the internal fire burst through her skin.
Kevan sat back, crying roughly as he felt the heat of the blaze. The fire consumed her and Kevan lost all his reason. He made a sudden, desperate decision. He wouldn’t let her go alone. Pulling her burning body up into his arms, he felt the fire start to burn at his skin as well.
Cyra walked slowly back up the stairs after seeing Rick and Phil fall at last into the morning’s sleep. Reaching the top of the stairwell, she looked toward where she expected to see Kevan standing over Morgan’s burning corpse. Instead, she saw two figures consumed by an immense conflagration and took off running for their side. She could just see the look on Kevan’s face as the fire raged through him. He was smiling like she hadn’t seen him smile in centuries. Sitting down in the sand a few yards away, Cyra watched as the two bodies collapsed into a pile of ashes and begin to blow away in the desert wind.
Cyra let out a cry at the loss of her old friend. After several minutes of tear-filled mourning, she crawled back into the dark hole where she’d hidden her lover and his friend and cried herself to sleep against Rick’s body.