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warrior glanced at him. "My name means nothing to you. Gwalcmai I was called long ago. I have had other names and will have others in the future."
    Nosferatu and Nekhbet followed Donnchadh into the cell while her partner remained outside. The twins Vampyr and Lilith were held here. Male and female, they had been brought into the darkness nearly seventy years before, as best Nosferatu had been able to determine. Nosferatu watched as the woman opened their tubes, noting which of the hexagonals she pressed. He shushed the twins'
    questions, working swiftly to free them from their chains, and they moved to the third cell and released Mosegi and Chatha, the youngest of the six, another male-female pair, chained up and entombed for only about twenty years. There were six half-breeds in total, one for each of the six Gods who desired the pleasure of drinking their blood.
    As soon as the last were free of their tubes, the strange woman, Donnchadh, turned toward the exit to the last cell. "I will leave you to do what you must."
    Nosferatu put a hand out, stopping her. "Tell me more of the Gods. Why do they need to do this?" He lightly touched the shunt in his neck.
    "As I have said. They do it for pleasure. It is an elixir for them. They prefer it over pure human blood."
    "That is all?" Nosferatu had always held on to the belief that at least he served the purpose of keeping the Gods alive.

    37

    "Do you not relish the feeding you receive?" Donnchadh asked.

    Nosferatu nodded.
    "And was not her"—Donnchadh pointed at Nekhbet—"blood so much more?"
    "Yes."
    "Then you should understand."
    "We exist only for their pleasure?" Vampyr was holding his twin's arm, keeping Lilith upright while she learned to use her legs once more.
    "Yes." It was obvious Donnchadh was not interested in talking.
    "It is said the Gods are immortal," Nosferatu pressed.
    Gwalcmai was restless in the corridor. "We must hurry."
    "In a sense," Donnchadh said, "they are."
    "Then am I immortal?" Nosferatu had shied away from that possibility, knowing it would mean an eternity chained to the wall.
    Donnchadh shook her head. "No. But if you continue to drink human blood to feed the alien part of your blood—and don't get drained of any more of the blood you have—you can live a very, very long time. You can also go into the tube and use the deep sleep to let time pass without aging." Her eyes grew distant. "I have seen it before. Where I came from. They did the same to my people."
    "Where are you from?" Nosferatu asked.
    Donnchadh shook her head. "You would not understand." She pointed to the end of the short corridor. "You can go to the right and get out a secret door near the Nile. The ceremony will start shortly in the Sphinx pit. Wait until the Gods who will oversee the ceremony appear, then follow them down the main Road of Rostau."

    38

    "But—" Nosferatu wanted to know more but Donnchadh was moving away, then was gone to the left, her companion with her.
    The other five looked at him, waiting.
    "Follow me."

    Prostrated before the massive paws of the Black Sphinx were fifty priests, chanting in an alien tongue the same prayers their ancestors on Atlantis had sung: "We serve for the promise of eternal life from the Grail. We serve for the promise of the great truth. We serve as our fathers have served, our father's fathers, and through the ages from the first days of the rule of the God who brought us up out of the darkness. We serve because in serving there is the greater good for all."
    The chanting echoed and looped, reverberating off smooth stone walls surrounding the Black Sphinx. The Sphinx was over two hundred feet below the surface of the plateau, reachable only by a set of stairs cut in the stone wall.
    Just below the chest of the beast, a dark opening was cut into the rock beneath the paws, forming one of the entranceways to the sacred Roads, where only the select high priests were allowed to go.
    Hidden in the shadows along the edge of the