Cairo? Keep that off my lawn.

The LA science center was opening its doors once again. It finally recovered from the incident that occurred last time Clayton Wray stepped through its doors (the incident that was the first in a very long string of very bad luck in a life that was already full of it) so of course they needed to have a party the night before; an Egyptian masquerade ball to fit with the theme of the first exhibit on display in the newly remodeled building. Between the professors, the celebrities, and the heiresses, it was a who’s who of west coast higher education and even higher society. That made it an easy party for Clayton to crash. The crowd was far too full of themselves to give a damn what anyone else was doing, and that’s the way he liked it. It was a sea of tuxedos and masks depicting the animal visages of the Egyptian gods. Crocodiles and cats in tuxes and dresses sipped champagne while they pretended to enjoy each other’s company.

Most of the party hadn't even taken a look at the newly unveiled main attraction: The Pharaoh’s Star. An egg-sized, black star sapphire; it was by far one of the most expensive gems in the world. It was found during the 1930 excavation of a desert tomb in Egypt. According to legend, the gem contained the soul of a wicked would-be pharaoh trapped there for eternity by the gods as punishment for turning against them in favor of some darker, forgotten deity from beyond the stars. Which would be king and which deity was anyone's guess, as any actual mention of their names were curiously removed from the tomb by vandals some centuries earlier.

Clayton had seen enough strangeness in his time to be more than a little superstitious about such things, but even he found the tale of the gem hard to swallow. It, like everything else in the Egypt exhibit, was on loan from the prestigious Miskatonic University’s Historical Society located in Boston. Most of it was standard museum fare, but the Star was quite unique. It switched hands between wealthy collectors so often that it was hard to keep track of. No one seemed to be quite sure how or when the University got a hold of the gem, but apparently, no one who owned it could stand to hold on to the thing very long. So he figured they might not even mind the gem coming home with him.

It was getting late, but the guests didn't seem to care. For some reason no one ever wanted to be the first to leave those parties. This bugged Clayton quite a bit, because in order to keep up appearances, he was actually on the clock as a caterer. His slicked wig and fake goatee gave a certain authenticity to the uniform he wore, which was that of a caterer dressed as an Egyptian slave. Nothing but sandals, a large necklace he knew was called a 'wesekh', and the Egyptian man-skirt he wasn't sure what to call. He most definitely looked the part of the working 20-something that was just trying to get by. He wondered how anyone could stand living in such a way. The constant demand for champagne and finger sandwiches was surprisingly difficult to keep up with while trying to scope out the building’s security, and the devices he needed to put at key points around the building in order to disable the security systems remained concealed within his waistband, but to keep them from being obvious they were digging themselves into his skin, which was incredibly irritating after a few hours. The barked orders from a boss that was too dumb to know who was working under him certainly did not aid things.

Luckily, Clayton felt he had enough of his devices in place to accomplish his task later and turned to leave. He turned a bit too quickly, though, and felt his body make contact with another before his head could turn to see who they even were. The glasses of champagne his tray was carrying hit the floor with a loud, ringing clash. He swallowed hard when noticed that all eyes were on him.

"Hebony," Hathorisis purred to the door behind her after Nate continued to insist on calling her Hannah. The woman looking back at her in the mirror looked nothing like any Hannah. Long black hair cascading down her back, deep brown pools of her eyes, and smooth brown skin painted to look like an Egyptian princess to match her dress. The only recognizable feature she still wore was her headdress, which looked more like a golden headband now. It was one thing she refused to leave out of her wardrobe, even if she had to disguise it.

"Hebony" slipped on a hawk mask over her face, which represented her patron deity and master, Horus. It paled in comparison to the real thing. Nothing was as beautiful as he was, and she felt her own appearance was a mockery of his old glory. A small tear came to her eye, and she quickly turned from the mirror. None of that tonight. She was working. "Do we really have to wear these silly masks?" she asked Nate as she pushed open the bathroom door. "I feel like I'm dressing for my own funeral." It was customary to bury people with masks after all. People in this new age were so weird.

Hathorisis sighed and put up with the mask anyways. This was a bit too personal for her, since a very important artifact from her dynasty was at stake. The evils involved in The Pharaoh's Star needed to be protected at all costs. She'd lock it away herself if she had to. Some people just had to touch everything. Did anyone ever pay attention to all the curses left behind in Egyptian tombs? There was a reason they existed.

Hathorisis took one look at Nate's mask with a curled grin before placing her arm in his. At least he looked as ridiculous as she did. "Shall we go then, jackal?" At least he wasn't wearing Set's face. She sat in silence throughout the limousine ride though. She wasn't too pleased about riding in the strange vehicle. It just felt wrong, which was why she was so pleased to escape it. She allowed Nate to lead her inside the Science building, where she mingled freely with the other guests.

She could sense that Nate was growing restless over time. He received a few irritated glances from her as he lost his discipline that he probably never had in the first place. Perhaps because he couldn't see her full face, he didn't seem to get the clue. They were here to work, and now he was running off. Hathorisis caught him by the shoulder. "Could you be a dear and get me a drink?" she asked to give him an excuse to leave without looking like a low-class fool. She then let him go and began to look through the artifacts of her culture.

She began by browsing through the more common pieces, offering a few insightful comments to other admirers. She was the expert after all. None of this really impressed her though. A lot of it was junk to her. Maybe age just made things more important. What did matter to her, though, was the Pharaoh's Star, which she gradually drew nearer to. And damn did the vibes from it feel wrong... Had it really grown this bad after all this time?

Clayton’s reflexes were enough to keep him from falling to the floor, but the drinks were done for and some poor rich jerks shoes were wet. Clayton’s first instinct was to tell the man that he paid $800 too much for his footwear, and that if he’d spent more time watching where he was going instead of staring at the girl in the hawk mask, they wouldn't have collided. However, the truth was that he had the same shoes at home and was just as guilty of staring.

There was a moment of awkward silence where Clayton nearly apologized before he remembered he was not actually a starving twenty-something that desperately needed the job, “Look at it this way, Fido, I did you a favor.” Once he started there was no stopping, “You paid waaay too much for those things anyway; about $800 dollars too much.” He could hear the jaws of some of his ‘co-workers’ hitting the floor, “And maybe, just maybe, if you spent more time watching where you were going, instead of ogling Ra over there, things like this could be avoided.”

A timid caterer dressed in the same ridiculous outfit as Clayton approached to attempt to diffuse the situation, but it was wasted effort. The idiot boss saw the whole thing and it turned him purple he nearly bowled the timid one over, “Just what do you think you’re doing?!”

“Quitting. I quit.” He picked out random members of the catering and crowd, “So fuck you, and fuck you, that comb over isn't fooling anyone, and really fuck you.” he stopped on the girl in the hawk mask and raised his voice so she could hear him, “But not you. Look out for Anubis, Egyptian lord of rohypnol over here, though, he’s had his eye on you.”

Two security officers forcibly escorted him towards the door. Most people would probably call it dumb to cause a scene in the place you planned on robbing later, but he didn’t care; it was quite the exit.


The Pharaoh’s Star, while seeming like a perfectly harmless gem during the day, took on a disturbing quality at night. For some reason as soon as moonlight hit the stone, the crowd unintentionally avoided it. The entire time no one got within fifteen feet of it, and if they did it was not for very long. Though, curiously enough, no one seemed to notice the phenomena; they all continued to on with the party as if the star did not exist.

Hathorisis took her eyes off the Pharaoh's Star when the scene blew up behind her. She just felt annoyance from the disturbance until she realized that Nate was a part of it. What was he doing? They were here to do a job, and he was making a public scene of himself. He was about to receive some scolding from her, but she didn't want to make things worse. They were supposed to blend in here, which was especially tricky for someone hiding her giant sphinx body.

So Hathorisis made herself seem as little as possible to avoid becoming part of the spectacle. It seemed like a sound plan, except for the part involving her attractiveness in this dress making her stand out in the crowd. She was soon addressed by the outspoken "servant" at the end of his quitting rant. For someone who dressed the part of a slave, Hathorisis felt very insulted by everything he said and did. Slaves should never speak like that, even if he technically wasn't a slave in this oddly slave-free country.

"I should hope he does," Hathorisis replied to diffuse his attempt on her. "Anubis came here with me after all. And I much prefer him to a sad excuse for a slave." She watched him be escorted out the doors, then shook her head. Men always were the downfall of society. That was still true today.

Now that things were settled down and the crowd has something juicy to gossip over, Hathorisis returned her attention to the Pharaoh's Star. With her senses and knowledge of the occult, especially with Egyptian artifacts, she understood why she felt repelled by it. Knowledge of that fact did not stop her from leaving its presence though. She happily distanced herself from it, but did not let it out of her peripheral vision. She grabbed an hors d'oeuvre from a passing "slave" and waited by a partially-opened window that allowed her a clear view of everything outside. If Nate was out there, she didn't want to lose track of him.

"Peaceful now that you're outside," she replied to Nate with a sour tone to her voice. "I hope you aren't trying to cause more trouble out there."