Teaser Tuesday: Stowaways.

If there was ever a time in my life that I felt like a princess, now was it.

            Of our entire team, I was the only one to get a room to myself; Harry and Gloria were sharing, Roy and Frank were sharing, and Eric was staying at his old apartment in Greenwich Village. So, I got one of the smaller suites to myself.

            But, man, what a sweet suite it was!

The room was quite large, set out with a main sitting room complete with coffee table, television and chairs, a separate bedroom and pearly white ensuite bathroom.

I did a quick self tour; I checked the bathroom, marvelled at the fresh fluffy white towels, expensive looking soap and collection of scented bath oils and shampoos; I browsed the television’s cable channels; and scouted the mini-bar.

The bed was probably my favourite part; a large, overstuffed king bed with a lacy, white satin duvet and matching pillows draped with sapphire blue and golden fringing.

In all honesty, it looked like the most welcoming bed I’d ever seen in my life.

So, I did what anyone would do in this situation: I did a run up and leapt onto the bed, bouncing gleefully until the tiny satin throw pillows had framed my body.

It was as comfortable as it had looked, and I considered myself well and truly satisfied with my room from the embroidered bathrobe hanging behind the bathroom door, to the little milk chocolates on my pillows.

I relaxed for a minute, popping the chocolates in sweet sensation, before squinting over at the little bedside clock and figuring that it may be time for a shower and change of clothes before Roy started beating down the door. He had said 10, and it was already 9.14.

Remember, we had that weird thing about time. I still didn’t quite get it.

I chucked my plane clothes, leaving them haphazardly splayed over one of the arm chairs in favour of dealing with them later, and put the bathrobe to the test as I tested the water in the 4-person shower. I had the feeling our entire Egyptology team could fit into it.

I sighed in relief when the hot water slid down my back after stepping into the spray, bathrobe hooked onto the shower door, and took a second to moan aloud. That out of the way I washed my face, hair and body with the assortment of nice-smelling little bottles arranged by height order within. It didn’t take too long, but when I was satisfied the unappealing scent of air travel had been washed away I turned off the spray and wrapped back up in the robe, and stepped out of the shower.

My luggage had arrived while I’d been soaping up, and arranged neatly in a row by the front door. I scooped up the purple one, the main one with my clothes, and plopped it on the bed to fish through.

I lost about ten years off my life when a bright light erupted from inside and a large, sleek black and white cat came bounding out of nowhere where a tiny statuette had been seconds before.

The cat jumped from the bed and shook itself off, before shuddering and morphing into the shape of a man – naked and stretching like you would after a good sleep. An odd, bell-like pendant around his neck.

Mimotosef, Guardian leader of the Princes of Bast, army to the Goddess Bastet from the very-real Egyptian pantheon and protector of the Priestess of the Gods, scratched himself behind the ear in my hotel room.

When I had specifically told him to stay in London.

Before I could get over my stun and demand an explanation, Mim unhooked the bell from around his neck and tinkled it a few times.

“Good job, Mim.”

I spun around to see my ghostly roommate brushing off what looked like a travel cloak and bowler hat, and carrying a newspaper.

“That was a long journey – though I am certainly sure it seemed shorter for you, Con,” James said with a smile, tipping his hat to me.

By this stage my jaw was mobile again and I felt my cheeks heat in anger. I clenched my fists and pointed an accusing finger at James as he shucked his coat.

“What. The. Hell!!” I huffed. “I told you both to stay in London! I said I would be back in a few days!”

“And miss all the fun? Mimotosef has never been to the Americas, I did not think it entirely to fair to deprive him of such a cultural opportunity.”

            I turned my glare on Mim, who was casually rifling through another of my bags to retrieve his signature black leather pants, black cotton tee, and boots. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed them beforehand.

            “Mim, remember to put on your coat, as well – the weather for today is expected to carry a slight chill.”

            “Coat?!” I stamped a foot, not knowing exactly what else to do at the time. “Are you telling me the two of you stowed away because Mim hasn’t been to New York?!”

            James smiled and clicked his fingers to produce his pipe, rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Well, of course. And to make sure you don’t get into too much trouble, my dear. Mim is after all your protector.”

            I just stared back at him in disbelieving anger. Between the ever-overprotective Mimotosef and the ever-stalking James the sardonic ghost, I barely had any alone time at home in England. And now, on my genuine holiday – one I needed, mind you – I wasn’t going to get any peace from them.

“You guys have got to be kidding me!” I sputtered angrily, throwing open my bag and pulling out the first pair of underwear I could find, a dress, leggings and heeled boots, threw them into a pile on the bed. “I’m on a business trip with holiday time, in New York City – what do you seriously need to protect me from here? Spending my savings on Broadway memorabilia?”

And with that I stomped back into the bathroom to change. I knew they wouldn’t follow – we’d had many mishaps before, and by now they were well trained to not bust in on me naked on pain of doom.

I quick-dried my hair, and pulled on my clothes and shoes in record time, and was just slapping some makeup on my face when satisfied, I stormed back into the bedroom.

“Alright,” I said, noting the time. “I have business to do here, and Roy will be here in four minutes, so I suggest you both make yourselves scarce. Or I will use my powers to kill you both.” I looked at James. “You, again.”

There was a funny thing about being the so-called ‘Priestess of the Gods’, that came with having some wicked cool powers. I didn’t know their full extent yet, I hadn’t had them for long and they hardly came with an instruction manual, or what exactly I could use them for.

But so far, I had been able to send both Mim and his most hated enemy – my darling Eric – flying after Eric’s identity as the reincarnation of the leader of the Jackal army had been revealed, and Mim had gone for his throat. I hadn’t meant to do it, or even really knew how I’d done it, but the force of my will and throwing up my hands towards them had released some sort of energy in their direction and separated them.

Like I said, wicked cool.

So since then I’d been practising all sorts of little tricks to try and figure out what they were capable off, but so far I’d discovered that unfortunately telekinesis and mind-reading were not on my list. Communing with the dead and the Egyptian gods? Yeah, those got a bit tick – bonus points for being scary as hell.

“You cannot kill me, Priestess, I am your Guardian Prince.” Mim raised a brow, not quite comprehending the prospect of an empty threat when he heard it. “Destroying me would only leave you vulnerable to the mercy of those that would see you harmed, like the bastard dog, Danukaric.” His sentence ended on a hiss, eyes squinting like those of a cat in testimony to his nature.

I gritted my teeth in frustration. “Just shut up and stay in here, would you? I’ll deal with you when I get back in a few hours!” Then I shrugged into my coat as Roy knocked on the door. “I don’t believe this, goddammit!”

Sometimes, when you think everything is going according to plan, and cruising along, you can learn that you’ve been so very, very wrong and what can go wrong will go wrong.

Yet, from experience, I refused to believe that things couldn’t get worse.