DISTANT RELATIVES

A dull scarlet light filtered through the blinds of the hotel window, casting warped shadows across the tiny room. Isis approached the windows cautiously, peeking through the plastic blinds and holding her breath. A black car reversed into the parking lot outside the hotel. Her grip on the thin sliver of plastic tightened as she waited, watching the car with fear growing inside her. The car slowed. Stopped. Paused. The red lights switched off and it began to slowly crawl forwards, out of the parking lot, onto the main road and away from the building. Within moments it was a tiny blur against the murky blackness of the night.

Isis let out a hot, shuddering breath. Her heart felt like it had grown to twice its normal size, pulsing in her chest and threatening to burst. She swallowed, trying to will herself to calm down, to regain her composure. It worked to some degree and she turned away from the window, setting herself down on the bed and clutching up the sheets in her fists. She swore she could almost feel the grime and filth that surely caked every surface of this cheap room, but in her position she knew she couldn't be picky. The single dim lightbulb above the bed fizzled for a moment and almost threatened to go out, but managed to hold on for now. Isis reiterated aloud that she couldn't be picky.

She lay back on the bed, dismayed slightly by how the hard, slender pillows seemed almost a little damp beneath her head. There was no way she was going to get beneath these suspect sheets, so she pulled her coat up like a blanket to keep herself warm in the rapidly cooling room. She sighed, staring up at the ceiling, a melting pot of greys, blacks and ochres staining the plaster. Gritting her teeth she reached out for the light switch, slick and greasy beneath her fingers. She shuddered and pressed it, plunging the room into a blessed, welcome darkness. Isis' fingers wrapped around the elegant golden curves of her necklace, holding on as though for dear life, feeling her own heart beat thudding against her palms. Slowing. Slowing. Isis passed into the world of sleep.

#

Rumbling. A low mechanical growl and clattering. A jarring vibration running through her body.

Her body? His body?

Their body.

"Sister?" Rishid's voice passed from their lips, their eyes opening. Isis could see a plastic table in front of her, an old newspaper open on top of it. To the right was a window looking out onto a beautiful country landscape at night, speeding by. A train. That explained it.

"Yes. It's me Rishid." Her own voice echoed about the fibre of her adopted brother's spirit.

"I thought I could feel you here with me." He sounded pleased, and Isis could feel him pulling the corner of his lips into a tiny smile. "The Millennium Necklace's doing I presume?"

"That's right. I'm keeping an eye on my brothers."

"Trying to follow us, more like."

"Partly," Isis admitted, "but I also wanted to make sure you two were alright." Rishid's eyes turned to the left, to the figure sleeping in the seat on the opposite side of the table. The youngest of the Ishtars wrapped himself in his purple robes, eyes shut and gently murmuring in his sleep. "Has he...?" She let the question hang half-finished, trusting Rishid to know what she meant.

"He's been fine. I've made sure of it."

"You always were a good guardian, brother." Isis could feel his lips turn to that same small smile.

"Not always." His fists tightened, teeth grit. A chill ran through his powerful frame, and Isis knew that he was losing himself in those horrific memories.

"It doesn't have to happen again Rishid," She told him, her voice firm, commanding even. "Turn back. Stop him."

"I cannot do that sister." Skin ached at the front of his face, he was frowning hard. "I will stand by him every step of his journey. I will look after him."

"And what about me!" Isis was shocked by her own outburst. It seemed to echo through the man's body. "What about me?" There was no answer for her. There was just a further tensing of his brow as Rishid struggled to find the right words to set it all right. Neither of them truly believed such words existed. So much had happened. Pain. Loss. So much blood. Words could never set that right. "Are you going to tell him?"

"About what?" Rishid's voice seemed shaken, and his cheeks ached, his vision blurring.

"That I was checking in."

Silence. Rishid ran a hand over his eyes, covering them and sniffing. "No. No I won't. I don't think he even knows you're following us. Your secret's safe with me."

"Thank you, brother. I'm looking forward to seeing you again."

"Don't." This time it was Rishid's voice that had taken on the stern tone. "Please. It's my turn to tell you to go back. We'll return when Malik has finished what he came here to do."

"You know I can't let you do this," Isis was pleading, "I'm going to keep following you. No matter how many times you tell me to turn around. I promise that."

"And I know you well enough to know you mean that." Rishid chuckled, a familiar sound that reminded Isis of their childhood together. It warmed her, it broke her heart. "So consider this a gift."

Isis felt bones aching as her brother shifted his weight, turning to look down the empty train carriage. He turned his gaze up to a slowly blinking red display above the door. The next destination.

Outside the hotel, a car horn blared and Isis awoke.

#

Isis took the stairs down to the reception three at a time, her single suitcase clattering off the stone steps as she charged her way forwards. She slapped a wad of notes onto the reception desk, not bothering to count them. She knew there was enough there to cover her night's stay, probably twice over, but she didn't wait for change. She rushed the front door, hailing a cab outside even as the receptionist was still struggling to regain their wits after being woken by the slap of money onto the counter.

Within the hour she had made it to the train station, booked a journey to her brothers' last known destination and was on her way there. Provided they stayed there long enough, rooting for information, trying to track down anyone who knew anything about the pharaoh, she might be able to catch them before this whole thing got out of hand. She set her suitcase into the luggage compartment and fell back into her seat. It was a cheap, standard train seat, but it still beat everything about that last hotel hands down. It felt like the most comfortable of plush, soft King-size beds in comparison to the stiff and foul-smelling affair she had slept in the previous night.

Without even realising she was tired, Isis drifted off into sleep once more.

#

The air was charged with a mixture of fear, excitement and the sharp crackle of ozone. Isis could feel the wind rushing across Rishid's face, buffeting his robes about him. Something seemed off about the sensation. It was hollow, present one moment and then leaving only numbness. The feeling of the breeze over skin existed only in that moment, vanishing when its potential was gone. This was the jarring, displaced sensation of experiencing something that hadn't happened yet. Of once again remembering something that you had yet to learn, let alone forget. She stood within Rishid's mind once again, but this time it was in his future. Distant or near, she couldn't tell. The Millennium Necklace had seen fit to once again gift her with the ability to peek into the soul of another, but as befit the strange artefact, it drew no distinction between the past, the present or the future. All events were the same, whether they had happened, were happening or had yet to happen.

It was a strange concept, something that Isis felt she could muse on for an eternity. That is, of course, if it wasn't for the sight that filled Rishid's vision. Terror ran through her as the brightness of the lightning bolt grew larger and larger, its descent slowed by the Millennium Necklace struggling to work out exactly what would happen. She could feel Rishid's body tense in anticipation, his eyes closing.

"No!" She screamed, "This can't be right! This can't be what the future ho-" She was cut off as the bolt crashed home, striking her brother and coursing through his body into the metal floor beneath him. Isis cried out as the pain of so much raw, untapped power suddenly rushed through something as frail as the human form. Skin crackled, blood boiled and nerve endings became explosions of agony. The pain shook the powerful man like a rag doll in the hands of a giant, igniting the heat of a miniature sun within him. With startling serenity, Rishid began to tumble forwards. The pain that he experienced, and that Isis shared, dulled as he slipped into unconsciousness. The floor rushed upwards to meet them, a loud metallic crash announcing the collision with the deck and the simultaneous ending of the dream.

#

Isis woke up screaming, her whole body jolting forward as she gripped the headrest of the seat in front of her. She lurched back in her own chair, sucking in lungfuls of breath and sobbing audibly, completely unaware or uncaring of the stares she was getting from the rest of the carriage's occupants. She began her well-practiced mantra, telling herself to be calm, to breathe and get a hold of herself. She gripped hold of the Millennium Necklace, wanting to tear it off and throw it away. She didn't want to go through that again. Her fingers tightened, starting to tug on the golden artefact.

There was a mechanical buzz and the train began to slow. A depressingly tired-sounding announcer informed the train's passengers that they would soon be arriving at the route's final destination. Isis loosened her grip and lowered her hand, controlling her breathing, calming herself. She looked outside. The sun was low, it was getting on for late afternoon. She would have enough time to try and drag up some information and hopefully find Rishid and Malik. She was filled with new determination. She had to stop them. If what she had experienced was the future that lay ahead of them, she had to turn them back.

Hours of fruitless searching later, and the sun was long gone by the time Isis booked into her hotel. She had made sure to find somewhere with a little more class than the last place, not that that was a difficult task. After her latest experiences she felt as though she deserved a little more comfort and hygiene. She paid in advance for the room, trying hard to ignore the leering grin of the desk clerk, hoping she'd be able to forget the way his eyes roamed across her body without shame. She dragged her suitcase up a single flight of stairs, finding her room and quickly getting inside, locking the door behind her.

A little more expense had clearly gone a long way. The room seemed clean, it smelled as though someone had taken good care of it, and there wasn't the same sense of quiet desperation clinging to every surface like there had been in the last place. She sighed, setting her suitcase down and walking around the huge, soft-looking bed, making her way to the bathroom. Dark marble floor and walls, a crisply white bathtub with an overhanging shower. To Isis, who hadn't had a chance to wash that morning, it looked like heaven. She walked back into the bedroom, switching on the television and turning it to one of its music channels, filling the immediate area with the sound of Barry White declaring that he been around the world and yet could still not find his baby. She set the shower to its most powerful force and to a temperature just this side of steam. She quickly undressed and stepped into the tub, amazed at the wonders a hot shower could do for the mind, body and soul.

At some point during her time in the bathroom, Isis could have sworn she heard a thud and a crackle, not unlike someone falling against a piece of fragile wood and snapping it. She tried to focus on it, but couldn't hear it again. She figured it must have just been a problem with the television. A temporary problem, as Mr. White was now continuing to declare his love for his first, his last and his everything.

Wrapped in a fresh white nightgown, Isis slid beneath the sheets of the enormous bed, murmuring happily as the soft expanse of the mattress drove every worry from her mind...

#

It took Isis a while to realise she was dreaming again. Her vision swayed slightly and everything seemed to pass by slowly, as though time were set in thick, drying concrete. She felt the familiarity of Rishid's powerful physique as he walked through a crimson hallway. She recognised the carpets, the walls, the painting of a riverbank as he passed it. He was in this hotel! She tried to call out to him, but there was no noise. No matter how hard she forced the air from her mouth to shout to her brother, there was nothing. He passed the hallway's grandfather clock and Isis realised why. This was the past. The Millennium Necklace had once again taken her to the right person but at a time outside of the immediate present. It wasn't too far out though, barely even an hour and a half ago.

Rishid turned a corner, his eyes focusing straight ahead as a familiar shape disappeared through a side door. The creepy man from the front desk darted away, apparently unaware that he was being followed. Rishid silently gave chase, turning the handle of the door and stepping inside, taking great care not to make a sound as he shut it behind him. It was dark here. A thin corridor of bare wooden slats. A crawlspace. The sound of creaking wood was all but drowned out by the mixture of sounds from ahead. The deep tones of a male voice singing, a sound that now became sickeningly familiar to Isis, mixing with the noise of running water. Rishid was a lot more stealthy than his size would suggest, and he picked his way forwards, turning a corner and coming across a sight that turned Isis' stomach, even in this dream-state where she had no body to call her own.

The same man from before was standing straight ahead, his face pressed to the wall, one eye closed, the other glaring through a tiny peephole set amongst the woodwork and plaster. Rishid stalked forwards. The peeping tom wasn't aware of him until it was a second too late. Rishid's hand closed over his mouth as he turned away from the hole, lifting him off the ground and slamming him against the far wall. The man's eyes pleaded with the enormous Egyptian, his cries muffled to the point of inaudibility. Isis couldn't feel a single muscle shift in her brother's face. He was completely calm on the outside, but the trembling in his arm told a different story. There was a rage there that she had never seen exhibited by him before. There was a sudden sickening lurch as he tensed his arm, driving forwards and snapping the man's jaw and neck as he crushed him against the wall.

Isis was screaming. She wanted to make any sound at all, to alert Rishid to her presence, or at the very least to wake herself up and spare herself these images.

His gaze turned to the hole in the wall and Isis' heart fell. He stepped forwards, hesitating before slowly lowering himself, his eye slowly coming level with the peephole.

Marble floor. He lowered his head.

The base of the tub. He lowered his head.

Long legs, smooth and dark, glistening as hot water rushed over the skin.

Rishid stopped. He closed his eyes, turning away from the hole. With that same stealth and grace, he left the crawlspace, twisting the door handle back on itself to jam the door once he had made his exit. That same blurring of vision and aching of cheeks swept over their senses. He turned to Isis' hotel room door, breathing hard, a bead of a tear running down his tattooed cheek. He swallowed hard, lifting his arm to knock on the door. He paused for a small eternity, until Isis could feel the ache in his muscles. With a strangled, desperate sigh he turned from the door, rushing down the stairs, out of the hotel and into the night.

By the time Isis awoke, she was already crying.