Black Hand Vacation (Neiko Adventure Saga Book #3)

Chapter 1

Six months had passed since Neiko returned from her adventure in ancient Egypt. The twenty-one-year-old warrior was now in Qari with the fellow members of the Attack Pack, engaged in a war against King Skull and his Damonites rescuing hostages from a potentially deadly situation along on of the trade roads.

During this heated battle with the Damonites, there was trouble brewing at Skull Fort. Osiris was being reinstated into his position as the First Pharaoh ever since Ramses had been banished years ago. Ramses had been exposed as the Dark Pharaoh and not of the once glorious clan.

Menes, Osiris' oldest son, was not very happy about this decision because he wanted to be the one to seize the crown. "Father, shouldn't I be the one to be First Pharaoh? I don't mean this in disrespect, but aren't you a little old and a has-been? I mean, you forfeited your crown to Ramses—"

"Hold your tongue, Menes!" Osiris snapped with a vicious scowl. "I am still very much in my prime, and I am not old. I would like to find out just how that malarkey began. I did not willingly forfeit my crown. Ramses probably used some sort of Dark Pharaoh trickery to steal my crown after I had already been a victim of other treachery. You are not ready for the responsibility of First Pharaoh. The miserable lot of you will start acting like Pharaohs or so help me, I will flog you myself."

The three brothers winced at the unspeakable change in their father. Since the discovery of Ramses' infiltration into the clan and then masquerading as Osiris' eldest son, everyone couldn't help but wonder why, and that was a mystery everyone wanted to solve. As a consequence, a consuming rage had overtaken Osiris, and he had become even meaner than he was in his heyday. He no longer hid his scarred face behind his mask. The ten pink scars were now part of him and the new Osiris he had just become. He was not ashamed of them, and he felt they did not diminish his handsome face—rather, they added character and served as reminders of his past.

The chief adviser, a wildcat man dressed in a white, came in and bowed. "The coronation ceremony is ready for tomorrow just as planned." Along with his white robes, he wore gold adviser's regalia with the royal stag beetle embroidered on his garment, and he carried a gold staff in his left hand.

Osiris smiled. "Excellent. General Coldstone, where is the whereabouts of Neiko?" He looked at himself in the mirror and stroked the pink crisscrossed scars on his right cheek, checking that every hair in his black flattop and lock of hair, which hung beside his head was decorated with fancily carved and jeweled bands, were in place.

"She is with the Attack Pack in a battle against King Skull and his Damonites," replied the hulking rhino general. "My spies don't know when she will return home, but it won't be long. The Damonites are losing terribly." He wore the black armor of the Skull Bearers with the silver ram horns and skull characteristic of all Skull Bearers, and a plume on his head.

"Very well. If she returns home before the coronation, then we wait til she returns," said Osiris, a bit deflated. "She always comes back."

"Oh, goodie, thanks, Dad! I can't wait," said Menes, rubbing his hands together and beaming with delight.

Osiris turned to his son, brown eyes smoldering as he held up the mirror to admire himself again. "She's not for you," he said with a subzero chill to his voice.

Menes laughed. "What? What are you talking about, Dad? Neiko's my girl."

"Our girl," corrected Tut as he crossed his arms and gave his older brother the stinkeye.

"Yeah," added Re.

"Wrong!" said Osiris with brutal fury in his voice. "There are some things that are going to change around here. Neiko will be your new mother since I claim her as mine. You don't deserve her."

"Why? Why are turning selfish on us?" asked Menes. "She's twice your age too, Dad," he retorted.

"Selfish? Ha! No more than any you. It has been three million years since I had a woman, and I am long overdue. I have never in my whole life thought such desire as I have since the first time I saw Neiko. I have imagined us together since that day. Leah was nothing more than a deceitful witch that used trickery to give me weak offspring. As for her being twice my age, I don't care, and furthermore, Earthlings age much slower than we do, so that doesn't even concern me. As far as Earthlings are concerned, she is entering her prime and all that it implies."

"How could you say that about Mom?" said Re. "I thought you loved her."

Osiris snorted and spat. "Not hardly. That—whatever you would call that—was not love of any kind, and she did not love me. Now I do nothing but despise her! You lot are a disgrace and you remind me of her and what she did to me—but I will fix that, and there will be even more cause for all to fear me now. Get out of my sight!" he shouted and threw the mirror at Menes.

Menes ducked as it whizzed over the bony plate on his head and shattered. "That's thirteen thousand years bad luck!" he said.

"Shut it! Get out!" Osiris shouted, pulsing with rage and shaking his fists.

The three brothers left the room almost running.

"What has gotten into Dad? He's become worse than Ramses was," said Tut as he shifted his eyes in the general direction of the room they had just left.

"We never saw the whole scope of Ramses," corrected Menes. He shivered.

"Dad's looking toward the Dark Pharaoh's chosen, and do you know how dangerous that is? Menes, you should know about that firsthand," said Re.

"Yeah, I remember. He is playing with fire, all right. I don't think Ramses' threat will intimidate him. It don't scare me, either. I liked Dad better when he hid behind the mask. I think there was a monster hiding behind it," said Menes.

"I hear this is what he was supposed to be like before we were born and before Mom came. I think Mom weakened him somehow, and that's another reason why he scorns her now. The ancient ways look down on weakness, definitely after grandpa Saber and Great Grandpa Anubis," said Re.

"You were always the expert on all that ancient stuff," said Menes with an indifferent huff.

"How far in the ancient ways will he go?" whimpered Re as he chewed his lip.

"I don't know, and frankly I don't care, but we better watch our step or we might be out of a home."

The three brothers listened in on their father and his advisers.

"Where are the twelve volumes of Black Magic and the Eye of Cygnus?" asked Osiris to his advisers as his gaze fell on each one in turn.

"They have been lost since the city fell, my king. They must be in the ruins somewhere, but since the spell has been cast, the family and your advisers cannot find it, which was its purpose," said the wildcat chief adviser.

The chief spy stood for his turn. He was a hyena man dressed in common traveler clothing. "I have heard rumors that Neiko discovered the ancient city during her first travels, and it is possible she found and held them. I also have heard that the Eye of Cygnus is in Hawote in the hands of her enemies, but it is called something else."

"This is only another reason why she must be brought in, but I doubt she will give me the information. I want the entire Five Lands searched. I will bring my family back to glory before I die, I vow to that. Dismissed!" shouted Osiris, and the advisers left.

Menes and his brothers left to go to their rooms.