The Mummy or Ramses the Damned: A Novel [Paperback]

"The reader is held captive, and, ultimately, seduced."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Ramses the Great has awakened in Edwardian London. Having drunk the elixir of life, he is now Ramses the Damned, doomed forever to wander the earth, desperate to quell hungers that can never be satisfied. Although he pursues voluptuous aristocrat Julie Stratford, the woman for whom he desperately longs is Cleopatra. And his intense longing for her, undiminished over the centuries, will force him to commit an act that will place everyone around him in the gravest danger....Anne Riceis the author of thirty-two books. She lives in Palm Desert, California.1
 
THE CAMERA flashes blinded him for a moment. If only he could get the photographers away.
 
But they had been at his side for months now—ever since the first artifacts had been found in these barren hills, south of Cairo. It was as if they too had known. Something about to happen. After all these years, Lawrence Stratford was on to a major find.
 
And so they were there with the cameras, and the smoking flashes. They almost knocked him off balance as he made his way into the narrow rough-hewn passage towards the letters visible on the half-uncovered marble door.
 
The twilight seemed to darken suddenly. He could see the letters, but he couldn’t make them out.
 
“Samir,” he cried. “I need light.”
 
“Yes, Lawrence.” At once the torch exploded behind him, and in a flood of yellow illumination, the slab of stone was wonderfully visible. Yes, hieroglyphs, deeply etched and beautifully gilded, and in Italian marble. He had never seen such a sight.
 
He felt the hot silky touch of Samir’s hand on his as he began to read aloud:
 
“ ‘Robbers of the Dead, Look away from this tomb lest you wake its occupant, whose wrath cannot be contained. Ramses the Damned is my namelÛ