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Christophe was draped over the windshield of her car, with comets of blood trailing down over the wipers. His face was hanging off in strips, denuded of its features, showing pockets of pure white bone.
The last thing Donni saw before she lost consciousness was the flicker of a forked red tongue. Because coiled inside of one of Christophe’s empty eye sockets was a small black snake.
CLEOPATRA’S CURSE
(Directed by Johnathan Steel; starring Adonica Blake and Ahmad Adel; 1999)
After watching this “Egyptian” film, I have a lot of questions. Why is peppy college student Cleo Patrelli reincarnated into Cleopatra VII by touching an “ancient” Victorian brooch? Why does her name sound Italian and not Egyptian? Why does her eye makeup look more Twiggy than it does Tutankhamen? Is the body chain dress and linen loincloth authentic ancient Egyptian garb? Or was it just cobbled together with Blake’s ’98Playboyshoot in mind?
Why does she go on a killing rampage in Los Angeles instead of Egypt? Or Italy? Why not punish the Romans? What did LA ever do to you, Cleopatra—apart from putting you in this movie? Who was the sorceress who put Cleopatra’s “soul” into this pin and why do we never see her again? Are we really supposed to believe that there’s going to be a sequel?
Why is Ahmad Adel the only real Egyptian being forced to carry this film? And why does that somehow automatically make him the villain? Why do they fuck with a snake, and why does the snake look so little like the giant animatronic one that ultimately kills Cleopatra? Whydoesthe snake kill Cleopatra? She’s supposed to have command over snakes, right?
I guess this is why they say, don’t look a gift snake in the mouth.
Or is that a giftBlakein the mouth?
Alas, this is advice that poor Ahmad should have heeded.
Movie score: C+
-Ian Brannigan (Movie Critic Depo, 1999)
Chapter Seventeen
Save Yourself
Donni woke up dazed. She wondered why the stars were dangling overhead like a distant chandelier and why her back felt so painful. And then she remembered and nearly rolled into the spot where she’d been sick, which was almost enough to set her off again.
Christophe’s dead, she remembered.He’s dead and there was a snake—
She shot up, darting a quick and nervous look at her car. Or where her car had been. It was gone now and so was the body. Christophe. Christophe was the body.
Where the fuck was her car?
“Whoa,” a man’s voice said. “Take it easy.”
Rafe was holding out a hand, crouching beside her in jeans and his boots. He was wearing his unbuttoned flannel over one of those vee-necked shirts and looked so normal that it hurt to look at him. Though the night was chilly, she could feel the heat of his body through his clothes.
She found herself wanting to hold on to him, so she could cry and cry and never stop.
Donni let herself imagine how it would feel to give herself over and be wrapped in a strong pair of arms. The luxury of feeling safe. But then the picture of it shattered into a harrowing cloud of sharp, lethal edges, and she shrugged his hand off from her shoulder.
“When did you get here?”
“A couple minutes after you texted me. That was when I got their call.”
He tilted his head towards Officers Lambert and Corcoran. Her own two personal Ghosts of Christmas Present, always warning her off the dark path of evil.
Or would that be Halloween Present?
She nearly laughed, but managed to swallow it down, suggesting that if she did start laughing, she wouldn’t be able to stop. And it was already hard to breathe around the ball of panic in her throat. She could still taste the sour tang of bile.
This man could ruin me, she thought, and she could see the knowledge of that in the cruel set to Rafe’s jaw, the glint in his eyes. A look that said:Yes, yes, I could—but will I?
She was no longer certain, and the answer would end up changing both of their futures.
But now, Donni didn’t know if she would be able to bring herself to carry it out.
