Nik thrust his now-empty hands straight over his head. Energy surged through his sheut, and a solid sheet of At and anti-At spread out from his hands, shielding Nik, Mei, Mari, Kat’s body, and the two humans under a small, black-streaked dome. He channeled a raging river of the otherworldly energy, making the dome as thick as possible.
But he couldn’t reinforce the shield quickly enough. Even as he added layer after layer to the interior, he could feel the Netjer stripping the At and anti-At away from the outside. He couldn’t keep up. The Netjer was too powerful. In a matter of seconds, the demon would be through, and then it would all be over.
Suddenly, Nik felt more anti-At reinforcing his dome. It had to be Mari.
A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed his suspicions.
Mari had handed her job over to her mom and the humans, and she’d joined Nik in defending their small rescue party. Together, the two seemed to be holding the Netjer off. They weren’t making headway, but at least they weren’t losing ground anymore, either.
But Nik knew that the second either of them stopped, the Netjer would tear through the shield and rip them all apart.
“It’s time!” Mei called. “She’s bleeding again!”
Nik exchanged a glance with Mari. He could see her commitment to the cause—her sheer fucking determination—and suspected what she was going to say before she opened her mouth. He shook his head, even though he knew it was the only way out of this.
Mari’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Go,” she said and nodded behind her to Kat’s body. “I’ll hold the bastard off until you guys can get away.”
“Mari, no!” Mei said, stopping chest compressions on Kat and staring at her daughter. The two weren’t related by blood, but their bond was as deep as any shared by a mother and child. “You can’t—”
“I have to, Mom,” Mari said. “It’s the only way.”
“But—”
Mari shook her head vehemently. “Nik needs to be alive to bring Kat back when the time comes, but this—” Her chin trembled. “This is what I can do. This is how I can help. I can make sure you’re all long gone by the time this asshole gets in here.”
Mei covered her mouth with her hand, trapping a heartbreaking sob.
“Besides,” Mari said, bravado masking the fear shimmering in her eyes, “I have a feeling Kat’s going to need all the help she can get in Aaru . . .” She looked at Nik. “Go, now,” she ordered, voice thick. “I’ve got it.”
Nik nodded once, and she nodded back. And then he released the energy flowing through his sheut and lunged across the snow toward Mei and Kat’s body. “Get in the hole,” he shouted to the humans. “Cover yourselves in snow. The Netjer might not notice you’re here.”
The man seemed to be in shock, but the woman nodded, yanking him back to the hole. She jumped in, dragging him in with her, and started clawing at the edges.
When Nik reached Mei, he touched her shoulder. “We have to go, Mei. Now.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t even look at him. She just stared at her daughter.
On the next heartbeat, the world fell away.
The trio reappeared in the tunnel outside of the bunker, the light spilling out through the open vault door brightening as the rainbow brilliance caused by tearing a hole through the fabric of the universe faded.
Nik clenched his jaw, fighting the waves of dizziness that washed over him.
Mei stood and shrugged Nik’s hand off her shoulder as she stepped away. “I’ll be right back,” she said, voice barely audible.
“Mei, wait!” Nik said, stumbling toward her, steps made awkward by the disorientation caused by teleporting. “We’re not—”
There was a brilliant flash.
“—in the right place,” Nik finished, but it didn’t matter.
Mei was gone.
She was supposed to take Kat to the Oasis, not back to the bunker. That was where all of the medical geniuses like his mother would be waiting to whisk her body away and spend the next gods-knew-how-many days attempting to reverse her death. But here, there was only Nik, and he had only the most basic knowledge of the healing arts—things he’d absorbed by proximity from his mother over the years. All he could do was sit there and watch his blood leak out of the self-inflicted gashes on Kat’s wrists.
If Mei didn’t return in a matter of seconds and complete the mission, Nik feared the decay that would set in at a cellular level would be irreversible. There wouldn’t be a damn thing any medical equipment could do to save her then, no matter how advanced or specialized. Not even Aset and Neffe with their combined thousands of years of healing experience could cure a rotting corpse.
“Fuck!” Nik turned and slapped his hand against the brick wall hard enough to gouge deep cuts into his palm.
The stinging pain brought sharp clarity to his mind. Maybe he couldn’t heal Kat, but he could do the next best thing. He could preserve her.
Nik crouched down beside Kat’s body and held out his hands, one over her forehead, one over her heart, careful not to actually touch her skin. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and once again opened himself up to channel the primal energy that flowed so freely through the universe. It flooded his sheut, and he used that power to pull At into reality and replace every single molecule in Kat’s lifeless body.
It only took a matter of seconds, but Nik felt like he’d just run a marathon by the time he was done. He sat back on his heels, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths and whole body shaking from fatigue. Transformations were always harder than simply creating something out of At. There were so many delicate details locked within each cell of the human body, and every single one had to be exactly right or Kat wouldn’t be the same when he reverted her to flesh, blood, and bone. That, on top of the massive amount of energy he’d channeled through his sheut just moments earlier to fend off the Netjer, and Nik was on the verge of collapsing into a deep, regenerative sleep.
He could feel the darkness of unconsciousness lurking around the edges of his mind. It was inevitable. But he couldn’t give in yet. Kat’s body might not have been where it needed to be for the healing to commence, but at least he could make sure she was safe.
Nik slid an arm under Kat’s neck, the other under her thighs, and stood, lifting her stiff, stonelike body off the ground. Carefully, he maneuvered her through the vault doorway and into the bunker. He set her on the sofa in the living area, then returned to shut the vault door, locking it with a turn of the handle.
He barely had enough energy to lean back against the door and lower himself down to the floor. Exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he slumped to the side, succumbing to the darkness of unconsciousness.
A deep, metallic gonging roused Nik from the deepest of sleeps. He felt like he’d only been out for a few seconds.
Groggily, he opened his eyes and looked around.
For a moment, Nik didn’t recognize his surroundings, and a jolt of adrenaline made his heart flutter in his chest. His mind slowly regained coherency, and he shook his head, throwing off the cobwebs of sleep.
He was in the bunker. Kat was on the couch, her body preserved in At. Mei and Mari were gone, dead, for all he knew.
The gonging came again.
Not gonging, he realized. Knocking. Someone was knocking—banging, from the sound of it—on the outside of the vault door.
Maybe Mei and Mari weren’t dead.
He stood and gripped the vault door’s handle but hesitated before spinning it to unlock the door.
Or . . . what if it was the Netjer on the other side?
Nik blew out a breath and shook his head. Paranoia was preventing him from thinking straight. If any of the Netjer assassins had found the bunker, they would have torn through the anti-At surrounding it and broken in within seconds. They wouldn’t have bothered with knocking.
Hope surging, Nik yanked the door handle, spinning it until the locking mechanism clanged. He shoved the door open, eyes searching the darkness b
eyond for Mei’s statuesque figure.
But it wasn’t her standing there. It was Heru.
Did that mean that Mei really was dead? Nik felt a sharp dagger of regret stab into his chest. His daughter—his only offspring. They’d only just begun to build a real relationship. Now they never would.
“Don’t look so disappointed,” Heru said. “Mei is safe.”
Lex stepped out of the shadows behind Heru. “She’s at the Oasis. She told us you were still here. We got here as soon as we could.” Lex’s focus shifted past Nik, searching the bunker behind him. “Where’s Kat?”
Nik stepped to the side, letting Heru and Lex in. “On the couch.” He followed them to the living area.
“Oh thank God,” Lex breathed, a hand to her chest. “Neffe’s been in a tizzy thinking Kat’s rotting away in here, but Aset felt certain you would’ve preserved her like this.”
Nik took up a post at the opposite side of the couch from Lex and Heru, crossing his arms over his chest. “She was only out of the snow for a few seconds. Hopefully it wasn’t too long . . .”
Lex crossed the room to place a hand on Nik’s arm and gaze up at him, smile reassuring. “You did everything you could, given the circumstances. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Nik let out a relieved breath. They were in the eye of the storm, the wind howling all around them, but here, now, was a single, peaceful moment of reprieve. “So Mei and Mari made it out of there,” he said, combing his hair back with his fingers. “At least she didn’t leave us here for nothing.”
Lex and Heru exchanged a weary glance.
Nik narrowed his eyes. “What? What happened?”
Lex looked at Nik, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Mari—” The words seemed to catch in her throat, and she swallowed roughly. “She didn’t make it, Nik. Mei brought her body, but . . .” Lex lowered her sorrowful stare to the couch and shook her head. “Mari’s with Kat now.”
“Shit,” Nik said, drawing the word out low and slow. He genuinely liked Mari. She’d been a big part of Kat’s life, and he could only imagine how devastated Mei must be by her death.
“Yes, well,” Heru said gruffly. He cleared his throat. “It’s a heavy loss, but we’ve got Kat’s body now, and we’ll do everything in our power to make sure Mari’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain.” He, too, looked down at Kat’s frozen body. “Let’s take her home.”
“Alright, Nik,” Aset said to her son, “go ahead and begin the transformation.”
She stood on the other side of Kat’s bed from Nik, the thin plastic tube from a fresh bag of blood—Heru’s own this time—pinched between her thumb and forefingers. She was ready to attach the blood bag to the IV needle still stuck in Kat’s arm the second Nik reverted Kat to her natural, non-At state.
After a quick nod to his mother, Nik raised his hands, once again positioning them so they hovered just over Kat’s forehead and chest. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and pulled the At out of this plane, leaving behind only organic material.
Once the final particle of At was gone, Nik took a step backward, exhaling heavily. It wasn’t as exhausting as before, but then, he’d had hours of rest since arriving at the Nejeret Oasis.
There was already a flurry of activity around Kat’s bed as Aset and Neffe went to work hooking up the various machines brought in to do the impossible: bring Kat back to life. Within seconds of being unfrozen, Kat was intubated, and Aset and Neffe’s team of highly skilled healers went to work setting her up on the most advanced and invasive life-support machines available.
Someone swapped out the blood bag just moments before it was empty. Someone else pushed past Nik, adding an additional bag of some clear fluid to the IV.
“Come on,” Lex said, hooking her hand around Nik’s elbow. “Let’s get out of their way . . . give them room to work.”
Nik let her pull him away from Kat’s bed, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the woman who’d shoved her way, kicking and screaming, into his heart.
Lex led him out of the room that had been set up as an emergency operating room in the bottom floor of her and Heru’s home in the oasis and through another doorway into the dining area. An At table had been set up with a feast in buffet form, there for the medical team to replenish themselves as they worked day and night on reviving Kat.
“Have something to eat,” Lex said. “You need to keep your strength up.” She released his arm and retrieved a plate from the end of the table, offering it to him. “How bad are the withdrawals now?”
Nik shrugged, accepting the plate despite having little appetite. “They’re manageable.”
When he made no move to put anything on his plate, Lex took it back and started loading it up with an assortment of meats, cheeses, fruits, and bread. “Well, don’t be a tough guy, okay?” She glanced at him, empathy shining in her carmine eyes. She knew exactly what it felt like to slowly die of bonding withdrawals. “Keep Aset updated on your symptoms. She may be able to ease them a bit.”
“Yeah, sure,” Nik said. But his mind was still back in that room with Kat—with her body.
Lex handed him the plate full of food, then pointed to a long dining table with benches for seats set up across the room. “Sit,” she ordered. “Eat.” She planted her hands on her hips. “You can go back in there and see her when you’re done.”
Dazedly, Nik made his way to the table and swung one leg over the nearer bench to sit. He went through the motions of eating—picking up food with his fingers, putting it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing—but didn’t feel like he was actually there doing it. He felt numb to his body’s actions, just doing what had to be done to stay alive.
Mei shuffled in from outside, though Nik didn’t really notice her until she sat opposite him at the table. Her presence brought Nik back to the here and now.
He focused on her face, reading the lines of heartbreak and sorrow etched around her eyes and mouth. This was the first time he’d seen her since he’d arrived at the Oasis. The first he’d seen her since Mari’s death. Mei looked how he felt. Worse, maybe.
She rested her joined hands on the table and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice hollow. Her eyes met his, but she didn’t seem to be truly looking at him. Her mind was somewhere else. “I wasn’t thinking straight,” she added, “but I had to try. She’s—she was my baby. My little girl.”
Nik breathed out, his chest tight. Mei had lost the person she loved most in the world, but here she was, apologizing to him. He reached across the table, covering her hands with his. “There’s nothing to forgive.” He gripped her hands tightly. “Mari was brave and noble. She still is.” He laughed sorrowfully. “I’m sure she’s already kicking major ass in Aaru with Kat.”
A laugh bubbled up from Mei’s chest, and it seemed to surprise her. It stopped almost as soon as it started, but there was a little more life to her honey-brown eyes now. “Yes, I hope you’re right. Those two—” Her lips quivered, and she took a deep, shaky breath. “They’ve always been more like sisters than anything else.” Tears welled in her eyes, and her chin quaked. “It somehow feels right for them to be there together.”
“Yeah,” Nik said, feeling pulled to the cusp of tears by his daughter’s sorrow. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, it does.”
Kat
The trip between universes was just as psychedelic the second time. The portal spat me out near the moon, and I had a few blissful seconds to stare down at my beautiful blue planet, the loveliest sense of peace washing over me. It had worked. I was home.
And then I was staring down at the earth through a gossamer veil, the vibrant streams of soul-energy flowing past me and the multifaceted voice of the collective a joyous chorus humming all around me. Tendrils uncoiled from the general current of soul-energy, curling around my arms and legs, and as I floated across the streaming energy toward the endless darkness surrounding Aaru, the voices took turns greeting me like a long-lost friend.
Almost there. Almost . . .
The soul-energy coalesced into a distinctly feminine form before me, her hands reaching out to grip my arms, holding me in place. Her face solidified into a recognizable shape with achingly familiar features.
It was my mom. Or, at least, it looked like her. It was just as likely that I was staring down the projection of Isfet; she tended to favor taking on my mom’s shape when communicating with me in Duat.
“Kat?!” With the way she said my name, both disappointed and angry, there was no mistaking who I was facing—my mom. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “I told you—you shouldn’t be here!”
“I know,” I told her, smiling sadly. “I didn’t have a choice, Mom. This was the only way. I have to go into Aaru and find Isfet or we’re all dead—you, me, the soul-energy . . . everything.”
My mom shook her head, her rainbow brow furrowing. “I don’t understand.”
I took my mom’s hands in mine. “You were right—Isfet can’t lie.” I gave her hands a squeeze. “The danger that was coming is real . . . and it’s here. We need her, Mom. You have to let me go.”
Still my mom didn’t look convinced. Leave it to her to try to save her daughter, even if it meant leaving the whole universe to burn.
“Coming in hot!” a familiar voice called from behind me.
I barely had time to turn and look before Mari crashed into me like a flaming golden comet. She broke my mom’s hold on me, knocking me free, and we sped toward the precipice of that eternal darkness together.
“Mars!” I exclaimed, finding her hands. “What are you doing here?” Horror washed over me as I realized there was only one way for her to be in Duat. “You died?”
She let out a joyous laugh that seemed totally inappropriate. “I couldn’t let you have all the fun!” she said.
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