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SUMMARY: This is the introduction of Carol and Ross from the first Chapter of "Betrayed By God." It is, in fact, the opening of the book. Carol is a Bastet Amaat (defined in Flame's story summary), as are some of her family members.

Her eyes are open - suddenly open - and she is in a room with burgundy walls and a disaster in progress. With no memory of the last moments prior, her last actions or mood, she is here. And she is angry.

Straps at the wrists bind her arms painfully apart to the edges of a wooden bed. A priest stands at its foot reading from a book he holds between his face and hers. He is heated, breathless and straining around a mix of Latin and Greek. His hoarse voice is loud in the room as he orders a demon to obey him.

"...in the name of CHRIST!" he shouts.

"Christ!" she mirrors. Looking to either side of the four-post bed, she sees the worried faces of two young men. They are both staring at her, both sweaty and both agape. They are the raw faces of fear.

"Roslyn!" one whispers, and she hates him instantly.

But he is not the one she knows. It is the priest. He has lowered the book and she can see his face now. It is not that it is so familiar. There are differences in the set of his eyes and the line of his jaw, but this is Ross Spartan. "Why are you doing this?" she asks in a tongue she hopes the young men do not know.

He is caught off guard. He has studied several dialects of Berber, and so the words are recognizable. A female voice again, as well, is almost comforting, but he knows he has not reached Roslyn. It is only a she-devil come to take the place of what he has already defeated. "What is your name, demon?"

"You know my name," she spits. Her patience for rough treatment will not last long. She only holds herself back on the hope he will explain some dire need for this foolishness. The fists she makes strain against her bindings. Her legs are not strapped down, but merely hidden beneath bed linen and tangled in the cotton of a nightgown. To rip herself out of the flimsy trap might be more trouble than just slipping it. She looks to one side to assess the hold on her wrists. "Shit," she whispers in English under the priest's next sweated demand for her name. "...White girl."

She's been this side of amnesia before. Memory comes back slowly. It is shaky in the beginning. But she is absolutely sure this is not the right colour of skin she inhabits. She looks back up to the priest, certain he knows far less than he thinks and stubborn enough to refuse to hand power to the ignorant. But the problem remains: "What the hell am I doing in the body of a white girl?" she asks, once again employing the trader tongue.

For answer, the priest flings the contents of a bottle onto her. A stream of holy water strikes her face, causing her to sputter her next curse at his idiocy. The boys cry and wail in their panic, begging her to answer as Roslyn. It is too close a name. There are no coincidences. This is definitely trouble.

"Demon of Satan, you are commanded in the name of God to leave this girl!"

Her tattered memory has to hold the reason for the madness, but it is useless to trace along the strings of that tangle in the middle of this ridiculous attack. "I am not a demon!" she yells impatiently in English. Then she calms to a cold, all-business stare.