The Mummy or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice Read Free Book Online Page A

of a woman with big drowsy blue eyes and silver blond hair. Her voice was nothing much and she knew it; but they liked her, they did. They liked her very much.
    And she liked Henry Stratford, or so she told herself. He was certainly the best thing that had ever happened to her. He’d got her the job below, though how she could never quite work out; and he paid for the flat, or at least he was supposed to. She knew there was quite a bit owing, but then he was just back from Egypt. He’d make it right or shut up anyone who questioned him about it. He was very good at doing that.
    She ran to the mirror as she heard his tread on the stairs. She pulled down the feathered collar of her peignoir and straightened the pearls at her throat. She pinched her cheeks to work up the blush just as his key turned in the lock.
    “Well, I’d just about given up on you, I had!” she bawled as he came into the room. But oh, the sight of him. It never failed to work on her. He was so very handsome with his dark brown hair and eyes; and the way he conducted himself, so truly the gentleman. She loved the way he removed his cloak now and threw it carelessly over the chair, and beckoned for her to comeinto his arms. So lazy he was; and so full of himself! But why shouldn’t he be?
    “And my motor car? You promised me a motor car of my own before you left. Where is it! That wasn’t it downstairs. That was a cab.”
    There was something so cold in his smile. When he kissed her, his lips hurt her a little; and his fingers bit into the soft flesh of her upper arms. She felt a vague chill move up her spine; her mouth tingled. She kissed him again and when he led her into the bedroom she didn’t say a word.
    “I’ll get you your motor car,” he whispered into her ear as he tore off the peignoir and pressed her against him so that her nipples touched the scratchy surface of his starched shirt. She kissed his cheek, then his chin, licking the faint stubble of his beard. Lovely to feel him breathe this way, to feel his hands on her shoulders.
    “Not too rough, sir,” she whispered.
    “Why not?”
    The telephone rang. She could have ripped it from the wall.
    She unbuttoned his shirt for him as he answered.
    “I told you not to call again, Sharples.”
    Oh, that bloody son of a bitch, she thought miserably. She wished he was dead. She’d worked for Sharples before Henry Stratford had rescued her. And Sharples was a mean one, plain and simple. He had left his scar on her, a tiny half-moon on the back of her neck.
    “I told you I’d pay you when I got back, didn’t I? Suppose you give me time to unpack my trunk!” He jammed down the little cone of a receiver into the hook. She pushed the phone back out of the way on the marble-top table.
    “Come here to me, sweetheart,” she said as she sat on the bed.
    But her eyes dulled slightly as she watched him staring at the telephone. He was broke still, wasn’t he? Stone broke.
    Strange. There had been no wake in this house for her father. And now the painted coffin of Ramses the Great was being carried carefully through the double drawing rooms as if by pallbearers, and into the library, which he had always called the Egyptian room. A wake for the mummy; and the chief mourner was not here.
    Julie watched as Samir directed the men from the museum toplace the coffin carefully upright in the southeast corner, to the left of the open conservatory doors. A perfect position. Anyone entering the house could see it immediately. All those in the drawing rooms would have a good view of it; and the mummy himself would appear to have a view of all assembled to pay him homage when the lid was lifted and the body itself was revealed.
    The scrolls and alabaster jars would be arranged on the long marble table beneath the mirror to the left of the upright coffin, along the east wall. The bust of Cleopatra was already being placed on a stand in the centre of the room. The gold coins would go in a special display