M7 Mike Costa Lives: The Eyes of Sakhmet

The Eyes of Sakhmet

At a local Archaeological Excavation Site

Giza, Egypt

1:00pm

“Ahmed, what do we have here? More Pottery?” the workman asked his Overseer, Ahmed Kattahi. The Overseer sifted through centuries of dust, coarse sand, and a few Egyptian Shabtis from the 12^th Dynasty.

“No. It’s not what our Master wants. Keep digging,” Ahmed replied nervously. Ahmed returned to the upper tier of this sunken Egyptian Temple, ready for his Master’s instructions.

“Have you found my item?”Asked a figure obscured by dark robes of black silk wrapped about like the Egyptian Deity Ptah. His Vandyke beard escaped a fold of silk leading back to his bronzed face with high cheekbones and a tattoo of Maahru draped against two Djed Pillars. His piercing black onyx eyes illuminated Horus insignia eyeliner, focused on the dripping sweat of his punitive workers who labored intensely in the hot Egyptian Sun.

“Not yet, Master,” Ahmed said.

Some commotion was overheard from the pit. Workers scrambled for a better look. Ahmed took the lead and unveiled a large stone structure from the sand.

“Can it be? Can it be?” Echoed the workman. “Ahmed! It’s Sakhmet!”

The Master approached the enigmatic shape. His gloved right hand cleaned the sand from a lioness with solar attributes down to its missing inlaid eyes.

“It’s not here,” the Master said silently. “You,” the Master pointed to Ahmed. “Go find it! Go find her eyes.”

Cairo Airport,

1:30pm

Flying over Cairo, our Tour Guide scoured through many tourist magazines to find the one he wanted to show us. The landing would be brief, and a little bumpy.

“I hope it’s not like that Baklava again,” said Trevor Blacknight. “You know what I mean, right, Claire? Smooth and a little rocky.”

Claire responded with a flick of her hair against her softly tanned neckline rising above a tunic of Nylon and Egyptian Cotton. She pointed to her social media tablet, pressing several Likes to a post by her College Roommate back in the States.

A waiter approached the First Class cabin, holding two shots of Whiskey and an Arnold Palmer iced tea for Claire. Trevor handed him a $20 Dollar bill with a smile.

The landing was a bit bumpy, but not due to Global Warming. The runway was just polluted since a recent Sandstorm.

The airport was a busy thoroughfare with merchants peddling fake artifacts to camera-happy tourists. Luggage racks led by men in uniform swam about the crowded hallways like ducks in a pool. People yelling foreign words in Arabic, Coptic, French, Japanese and English interrupted local news broadcasts set above the fray. Outside we had Taxis and ride-share cars speed about as if absent traffic laws did not apply.

An hour passed. Claire and Trevor gathered their suitcases, passed Customs and Agricultural Inspection (as well as Artifact Inspection) and hailed a Cab.

“Two-Thirty Ramses Square,” Claire told the Cab Driver with an automatic payment from her cellular phone. The car sped off into the jungle of traffic.

Trevor glanced to the window nearest Claire. “Yes?” Claire responded.

Trevor planted a friendly kiss on her forehead while leaning to see the Giza Pyramids on the horizon. “They’re still there. Amazing,” he said.

Claire removed her pendant hidden in her tunic. It was an Emerald shaped like an Egyptian eye, which was handed down to her from her grandparents. The eye was inscribed in an archaic language not hieroglyphs, so it didn’t count as an Egyptian Artifact.

“Woah, that’s huge!” Trevor said momentarily. “Claire, you never told me the story behind that gem…”

“Yes I did, you just forget sometimes,” she smiled. “The story goes: my grandmother was fishing off the coast of the Red Sea in 1921 when the man who became my grandfather was swimming below her boat. He surfaced and later said there was a shipwreck stuck in this rock formation. So he gave her the Emerald, and she married him. How is that for romance?” Claire said.

“Did you know that Cleopatra mined Emeralds in Egypt?” Trevor asked as the Cab neared the Ramses Square Hotel, a five-star resort.

“Yes. She once gave one to Julius Caesar,” Claire replied. “There. The bellhop is coming.”

Claire and Trevor exited the Cab. They met some servants who delivered the suitcases to the hotel lobby. “Claire, I will go check in. If you need anything call the front desk.”

Claire took a long glance at the Giza Pyramids. She handled her Emerald pendant in the sunlight.

The Master was in the center of an incantation after 3:00pm. The Sakhmet statue had been relocated in the midst of the Temple of Ptah at Mennofer near Cairo City. He also had a jeweled eye pendant resting comfortably on his covered chest. This one was a large Ruby with Egyptian hieroglyphs etched in gold.

The air outside the Temple appeared moist, and then a small tornado formed. Ahmed Kattahi was concerned.

“Master I have an idea,” Ahmed interrupted. The Master turned towards him.

“Yes?” the Master replied in anger.

“Uhm… Your pendant! Insert it into the missing inlay,” Ahmed suggested.

The Master looked down briefly, held the pendant up to the Sun, and grinned evilly. “Of course! The Eyes of Sakhmet!”

The Master briskly walked to the Sakhmet statue, climbed up its solid granite base and removed the pendant from its chain and inserted it. The left eye now held the Ruby. The Master smiled with both hands raised to the sky.

The Sakhmet statue glowed brightly. The ground beneath it suddenly quaked with dust rising from the ground around it. A booming voice echoed in the air…

“Who dares awaken Mighty Sakhmet, Goddess of Pestilence and Healing?”

The Master instinctively bowed his knee before the statue. Lifting up his shaven head, he said: “It is I, Dua-ren-ef Ah-Moses, who awakens the Mighty Sakhmet…”

“Very well, what do you want, Dua-ren-ef?” Sakhmet asked him.

“Send me $100 Trillion Dollars in Gold coins, and punish the non-believers with Pestilence!” the Master said, smiling.

“Granted!” The Statue continued to glow throughout the day.

“Trevor,” Claire asked while in their hotel room. “Did the weatherman mention anything about a Sandstorm in Egypt today?”

“It’s always a Sandstorm! This is Egypt, remember?” Trevor laughed.

“Can you turn on the TV?” Claire sounded cautious.

“Breaking News! The Center for Disease Control has just announced a recent breakout of Coronavirus in Egypt. This disease was eradicated from the World in 2020, though cures are currently not available in all cities…” the News said.

It wasn’t a Sandstorm over Giza this time. The sky was raining down gold coins over the Temple of Ptah.

“Trevor, honey, I am going to take a walk. I will call you on my cell phone if I need anything,” Claire said to Trevor as he was taking a shower in the bathroom.

Claire wasn’t worried. She holds a black belt in three Asian Martial Arts and carries a modified Taser in her cell phone. The storm appeared unusual as it neared the Pyramids at Giza. Cairo recently installed hidden cameras on all light poles with occasional Drones flying above for security purposes.

The Master was standing there in the glory of Sakhmet, his workers collecting gold coins and placing them into plastic buckets.

“Master, we have a visitor,” Ahmed said while pointing to Claire.

The Master turned.

“What in the Seven Hathors are you? And why is it raining gold coins?” Claire said astonished.

The Master looked at her, then her pendant. She followed his glance, and then looked at the Sakhmet statue, and back to Dua-ren-ref.

“Oh, no, no, no! Not my pendant!” Claire said while turning to leave.

Ahmed blocked her path. Claire spun around and landed a round-house kick to his jaw. This was followed by several jabs to his chest, shoulder and neck. Ahmed fell onto the sandy pavement. The Master reached his hands into the sky and said something in Ancient Egyptian dialect.

The ground started to shake and opened in a few places. Creatures wrapped in desiccated linen sprawled from underground and attacked Claire.

Claire’s eyes widened. “Mummies? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

As Claire fought off the attacking Mummies, the Master approached her pendant. Claire noticed his.

The statue of Sakhmet glowed brightly by 4:00pm. Claire ran towards the statue of Sakhmet, escaping the Mummies. She somersaulted over a table, sprinted up the statue and grabbed it.

The Master saw this and said, “NO!”

Claire removed her pendant and inserted it into the other eye socket. Once this was done, the Mummies all stopped moving. The statue said something to Claire.

“You have awakened me from my slumber. What do you wish?” Sakhmet said.

“I want you to end the Pestilence in the World,” Claire said triumphantly.

“Very well,” Sakhmet replied.

Claire’s cell phone had a Breaking News bulletin that stated the Coronavirus suddenly stopped infecting people. Those with it stopped having symptoms.

The Master shouted something in archaic as the ground opened up below him, with Mummies grabbing and pulling him down. The other Mummies escaped through the holes in the sand before the holes closed by themselves.

The sky reverted back to a clear blue. Claire’s phone rang. It was Trevor.

“Hey Claire,” Trevor said. “Do you want to go out for dinner? I don’t have enough for anything expensive.”

Claire noticed all the gold coins on the ground in front of her. She smiled.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I think we will have enough,” Claire said.