Chapter 48: Pussy Cat

           Re nodded and Bast bounced back to where Naida sat.  She sniffed at Kurama, almost a hiss and said “Behave yourself, canid.” Kurama licked one of her paws, daintily, ignoring the Goddess.

            Bast turned around two or three times and settled into one of Wadjet’s coils.  “I could have sworn that serpents were cold, but you’re nice and warm!”

            Wadjet wiggled slightly in what Naida realized was a shrug.  Wadjet didn’t have a well defined human torso, like Syb.  She was more cobra than anything else.  “When I’m with Him,” she waved at Re, “—it’s like basking on a stone.  I’m always warm and you’re welcome to share, of course.”

            “Wonderful!” She wiggled in and leaned back against another coil.  “Don’t bother trying to get to know me, just adore me while Daddy takes us straight down to that kitten killer, life stealer’s temple and I’ll be able to rescue my  sister Pharaoh’s child!”  Her eyes flashed and her hands spread, claws extended.

            Bodhi smiled and offered her tea.  “This will calm you down, maybe.  We could meditate some.  Then you’d be ready when your sky-daddy’s barq settles on Amun’s Temple.

           

            “Tea? You think tea is going to calm me down?  Oh, look!”  She leaped to try and pin the tip of Wadjet’s tail to the obsidian deck.

           Naida was tired from laughing so hard, her stomach hurt and she clutched a coil of Wadjet’s body, limp and grinning.  Bast had been chasing Wadjet’s (or was that Sybaris?) tail and feathers as Re’s barq had sped them south and west and then south along over the Nile. 

            Bast’s yowls and snarls and growls had drawn people’s attention and they shaded their eyes and looked up, waving, cheering.  One archer ran out of his watch post and shot ‘shriekers’, arrowheads with holes in them made to scream as they flew, into the air.  Not AT them, oh no, that would just not be done.  Besides, people here knew the avatars of the Gods and realized that that kind of rudeness would end up with somebody becoming a chunk of charcoal.