Oh it was dead all right, Marissa thought. It was burned to dust along with the radio and his original uniform.

“Sargent’s hurt. He tumbled ten feet down Ranger’s Cliff. It’s a damn lucky thing I had a good hold on his leash at the time.” It was also lucky that most cops wouldn’t think it was odd that his dog was in search mode with his leash on. In woods like this the likelihood of the leash getting tangled up on trees or brush made it more efficient to remove the leash and give the animal his head.

“Is he okay?” Hampton asked, reaching to tentatively ruffle the dog’s fur. Jackson didn’t blame him. The entire precinct knew exactly how hard Sargent could bite. They’d all watched him in action these past weeks. But they should also know he was extremely obedient and well trained.

“Just a sprain I’m sure. I’m going to take the little bugger home and get us both some rest. Sawyer’s here now, right?”

“As well as two dog teams from Albany,” Hampton agreed with a nod. You guys get out of here. Get some sleep. You’ve both been at it way too long. I’ll tell the captain.”

“I’m sure we’ll see him on the way out,” Jackson said, unable to help looking over his shoulder toward the breaking dawn.

“Oh and hey,” Hampton said, nodding his head toward Marissa. “Doc, I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

That distracted Jackson just enough to look at her questioningly. She muttered a thank you before reaching to touch his arm and urge him forward. Oh, now he knew he’d missed something. He was going to have to pursue the question at a later time. A much later time. He could feel it … the sun … all along the skin of his back and legs, a tightening in anticipation of his unprotected position in the open.

They weren’t going to make it. If he fell in front of everyone … it would be really goddamn bad.

That was the moment he realized it was time for him to quit this job and go on about the business of becoming the Bodywalker he was meant to be. Becoming Menes, the pharaoh and ruler of the Bodywalkers. Living and behaving like a Bodywalker, aware of his strength and weaknesses, and leaving the world of his humanity behind him.

The understanding damn well stung him. It sucked in every major way. That wasn’t to say that the prospect of the new life awaiting him wasn’t something he could get excited about, it was just … it was just mourning the loss of that which had once made him content and comfortable.

“Come on, Jackson. Let’s get this guy some kibble and a soft bed,” Marissa said, reaching to lay her hand on his back, pushing him forward. She didn’t have to ask or urge twice. They both knew what was about to happen and how crucial it was that it didn’t happen in front of witnesses.

But what burned, what really chafed him …

She would be protecting him when, in truth, she was going to need him to protect her. As they broke from the tree line and made their way quickly to Jackson’s car he made the barest of excuses before getting dog and doctor into the car and getting the car on the road. The sun broke about five minutes later and Jackson slammed on the brakes, his entire body clenching with spasms of rigidity.

“You can’t bring me to my house,” he rasped as he grabbed her by the arm and yanked her bodily into the driver’s seat. He left the seat as he put her into it, getting out and stumbling around to the other side of the car. “Or yours. Somewhere else,” he ground out. God almighty this was painful, he realized with no little shock. He hadn’t realized it would actually hurt. “Darkness. I need the dark in order to move. You aren’t going to be able to manage my weight so you need to get me into the dark in order to get me out of the car.”

“Jackson,” she said, reaching to grip him by the wrist, making him look into her eyes. “Trust me. I understand and I will keep us both safe.”

He laughed a little painfully. “Marissa, I don’t doubt that in the least. I just … I’m just trying to remind you things have changed. I’ve changed things for you.”

“I know.”

“And I’m damn sorry for that,” he said tightly as she threw the car into gear and began to race them off of the mountain.

“I know that, too,” she assured him. “Stop fighting it. I see how much it’s hurting you. Please, Jackson, just trust me.”

She was right. The more he fought it the more it hurt. He exhaled and tried to relax, tried to let the stiffness wash over him unimpeded. The helplessness of his numbing body was terrifying. It crept over him as if he had stared Medusa in the eyes and was now turning to stone. He had once wondered how that must have felt for those heroes of myths, to have moving life bled out of them, snatched away, making them forever helpless. It terrified him that now he knew.

It was the most horrifying feeling in the world.

Ram sat up suddenly and sharply in bed, a gasp for air ripping through him as a sensation of absolute terror and agony whipped through his senses. Docia was asleep curled up against his warmth and strength, the darkness of their protected home keeping them safe from the bane of the sun. They had only just fallen asleep, after much flirtation and then, finally, a great deal of fervent lovemaking. Docia had proven lately to be … how had she put it? “A total horndog.” It was yet another amusing turn of phrase in his mate’s vast repertoire of colorful phrases.

Docia came awake more slowly than he had, her hand reaching for his back as she pushed up and laid her sleepy weight against him.

“What is it?” she mumbled into his skin.

He wished that he knew.

“Nothing. Lay down, sweet, and go back to sleep.”

“Mmmno,” she said. “Not till you tell me what’s wrong.”

“A nightmare, I think,” he answered with a sigh.

“About?”

Menes. It had been about Menes. Or rather, Jackson, who was her brother. The absolute feeling that he was in grave danger was still clawing through his body. The problem was, Ram wasn’t exactly known for being clairvoyant. His power was command of the weather, the crash of thunder and the sear of lightning. The only prophetess in their house, or chantress as she was often called, was Cleo. Perhaps it had been a subconscious thing. As every day passed he’d grown more and more anxious about Jackson’s reluctance to take up Menes’s mantle of leadership, and even more so since Jackson had sent him and Docia away to ready a new household for him in New Mexico where so many of the body Politic resided. Jackson had insisted he was safe, that his anonymity protected him from Templar assassins. But the entire idea sat ill with him. He had been separated from his good friend more than long enough. And he knew Docia had been chafing for his appearance as well. She loved her brother a great deal and, although she was now a Bodywalker herself, she had been very upset about Menes taking up a position in her brother’s body. Even she had known the risk involved, that just his existence painted a target on him as the two warring factions tried to gain the upper hand.

But Ram felt the tide of this interminable war might be turning at long last. The Bodywalker inside of his mate was a priestess. A Templar. She was also niece to Odjit and a being of such great power that when the priestess had tried to defect to the Politic, Odjit had hunted her down for it. It was in the process of that battle that her brother had nearly lost his life, sending him into the Ether where he had found Menes and the promise of a continuing existence.

“Menes,” he finally said to her.

That made her sit up a little straighter at his back. He felt the change go through her as tension took away the bonelessness of sleepiness.

“Jackson? What was it?”

“Ram!” The door to their outer suite crashed open as Cleo’s panicked voice filled the room. He was out of their bed in a flash of movement, Docia following a little more clumsily behind him as she pulled herself the rest of the way into the woken world.

“Cleo, what is it?”

“It’s Menes! I’ve had … there’s danger! Oh, so much danger! I can see the blood. The fire! Oh god, it feels so painful!” Cleo’s cerulean eyes had gone wide with fear, the wild tousling of her hair showing she too had been asleep when this had occurred. Cleo was not known for allowing herself to be seen unkempt. Nor was she prone to fits of panicked emotion. She had once been one of the greatest of Egyptian queens and she did not rattle easily. But when she spoke of fire burning she was holding out both of her arms and staring at them in abject horror as if she was actually on fire.

“I have felt this sense of danger myself,” he told her while at the same time taking hold of both her hands and pulling her arms up against his bare chest. He made her look into his eyes, drawing deep steady breaths until she was subconsciously mimicking him. “I will go to him this very minute and fetch him back to us. It is beyond time for him to be safely within these walls and within our reach to help him. Now, other than the things you described to me, was there some kind of clarity? You know a great many of your visions are symbolic and not necessarily accurate. So be calmed, Cleopatra. Be easy.”

“You must take this seriously,” she said, a tone of petulance entering her voice and turning her expression to one of consternation.

“I am taking this very seriously,” he assured her. “Did I not say I was going to fetch him? I would never take you less than at your word.”

“I did not speak of it earlier,” she said, “because there was only the sense of imminence, not alarm. I thought it was because you had told me that the Blending was almost complete and that he would continue to go about the business of withdrawing from Jackson’s old life in Saugerties. But it’s been stronger every day, this sense that something is on the horizon. Something … something is coming toward us.”

“Do you mean this danger?”

“I don’t know. The danger is new. Before this it was as though … as though we would be entering a time of discovery. Everything felt benign until just moments ago, or I swear I would have told you.”

“I know you would have. I don’t hold you accountable for anything, Cleo. You are of tremendous value to all of us. Your power has been an asset to us throughout the ages and it is very much appreciated.”

“Hm. For you maybe,” she said with no small amount of irritability. “You aren’t the one who has been cursed with this interfering ability.” She frowned very seriously. “I feel as though it has weakened me. Where once I was a woman of great strength and conviction, I am now plagued with caution. Worry. Always desperately trying to interpret what comes to me.”

“I can understand that frustration,” Docia spoke up. “In a way, for me, it’s been the opposite. Tameri has given me strength I never knew as a mortal human. It can so easily make me overconfident. She is always so confident, even if I am not. Together it Blends in an extreme push me/pull me manner. I question everything so very carefully now for fear of jumping all in and putting myself in danger.”

“Yes. Yes exactly,” Cleo said, the comfort of knowing someone else understood how she was feeling helping to calm her further. “Ram, you will go now? This moment? You should make time your enemy in this matter, I beg you. Take Asikri with you. Do not go alone. You must protect him at all costs. The Templars will do anything to take him from us for another hundred years. And to lose Hatshepsut as well … it would be a blow that could destroy our position forever.” Because they both knew Hatshepsut would not allow herself to be reborn if it meant leaving Menes in the Ether for another hundred years. Perhaps at one time she would have braved the abject loneliness that would have come with ruling alone, putting the well being of her people above the needs of her heart, but every regeneration had cleaved them closer and closer together until they could no longer bear living, be it in mortal form or in the Ether, without the other.

Jackson had told him that Menes had delayed his return from the Ether because of Hatshepsut’s reluctance to go through the pain of being reborn only to face the inevitable rending away of life and, in the same sweep, their love. Being the central figures in their government made them the key focus of their enemies, and their enemies knew as well as all other Bodywalkers that to destroy one was to rid themselves of the other. In the past they had survived because Menes had never allowed himself to go into the Ether without dragging Odjit or her lapdog Kamenwati with him. They were the Templars’ magnetic north, and without them the Templars stumbled around just as lost as being deprived of Menes and Hatshepsut would do to the Politic. But what kept the Politic above water was that the strength of Ramses, Cleopatra and Asikri made it possible for them to keep the upper hand in the war. The Templars were so busy infighting that they could not claim such cohesion. Yet they remained enjoined enough to hold steadily against all efforts to bring the Templars completely to heel. Perhaps that was because the Politic had a non-aggression policy. As long as they were not aggressed upon, they did not aggress in return. This was, Menes had often preached, what kept them from becoming the enemy they fought. Kept them from being just another power-hungry faction trying to force others to their will.