Empire of Ash: A Passionate Paranormal Romance with Young Adult Appeal (God of Secrets Book 1)

by L. R. W. Lee

  Crap! I swallow hard. You did this, Pell. It’s your fault this creature is alive, I remind myself.

  Harpoc continues his monologue with the thing in whatever that language is. I’ve no idea how many languages he knows, but if the thing calms because of it, I don’t really care. It’s probably more his tone than the words anyway; I just hope it keeps working as I inch my way toward him, my heart beating wildly every step of the way.

  As I reach his side he says, “Approach her slowly, Pell. Let her scent you.”

  My eyes go wide. “You can’t be serious. I’m not getting any closer to that thing.”

  “I’ve told her you mean her no harm.”

  “She understands that language?”

  He ignores my question, focused on the creature. “She needs to scent you so she knows you’re the one who brought her back.”

  “Why, so she can chase me down and eat me?” My voice rises.

  “She won’t hurt you.” Still he keeps his eyes locked with the sphinx.

  “You don’t know that.”

  A long silence follows, but he finally exhales heavily. “You’re right. I don’t, but it’s the only way we can hope to stop her before she hurts more people.”

  “So I’m the sacrificial lamb? What makes you think she’ll stop if she smells me?”

  “You reek of secret magic.”

  I huff. “I do not stink.”

  Harpoc chuckles, then continues. “I’m hoping I can reason with her if she knows you’re the one who released her secret.”

  Reason with her? This is crazy. I’m crazy if I do this.

  I give his profile a long look before returning my gaze to the beast.

  When I still haven’t moved after a couple minutes, Harpoc asks, “How serious are you about taking responsibility for what you did?”

  I dispatch a growl of my own. Harpoc knows how to goad me, that’s for damn sure. “Okay, fine.” I draw my palms out, not that they’ll stop the thing if it lunges for me.

  He nods.

  It suddenly feels like a python is wrapping itself around my windpipe.

  You can do this, Pell.

  I lick my lips. I can do this.

  Harpoc utters more gibberish to the beast. Who knows what he’s telling it, probably that I taste like chicken, or whatever the translation is for unknown critters that sphinxes enjoy.

  What do chickens think we taste like?

  I hold my breath as I take a tentative step, then another, inching forward. I yip when it turns its eyes on me as I draw to within ten feet of it, my breathing laboring.

  “How close do I have to get?” My voice wavers.

  “Keep going.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  My limbs shake and forward movement slows to a sloth’s pace, but I keep putting one trembling foot in front of the other, never making any sudden movements.

  When I’ve neared to within paw-swiping distance, the sphinx rises.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I throw my hands up, over my head, and screech as the sphinx closes the gap and sniffs my hair, loosing an angry growl once it has.

  “Please don’t eat me,” I beg, cowering.

  “Lach unib lele gow url gur nakum.”

  It speaks, and it’s that language Harpoc’s been talking to her in.

  I gasp, holding myself.

  “She says to calm down. She’s not going to hurt you… yet,” Harpoc says, frowning.

  Yet? I feel my bowels loosen, and fear I’ll pee my pants.

  Keep it together, Pell, I admonish myself.

  The sphinx glares at Harpoc, then utters more words I don’t know.

  “Why have I been brought back?” he translates.

  Harpoc replies in that foreign tongue, then says to me, “It was an accident.”

  The creature growls, where she stands.

  An empty feeling fills my stomach. Breathe, Pell, breathe.

  “An earthquake uncovered the scroll your secret was sealed on,” he tells her. It’s the truth, hopefully she believes him.

  He continues playing interpreter as the beast asks, “Then why is this one here, stinking of magic?”

  “She’s the one who discovered the trove of scrolls and translated yours.”

  I clench my jaw when the sphinx flicks her tail, eyeing me up and down. “This pitiful creature brought me back?”

  Pitiful creature? I unknowingly made a mistake, okay?

  Boy, is it hot tonight? I shrug my coat off my shoulders with trembling hands, stopping short of taking it off.

  Harpoc glances my way with those silver and gold eyes, but they do nothing to calm me when he grabs the back of his neck and grimaces. “She did.”

  The creature takes a step, then another, and another, continuing to look me over as she begins to hobble-circle, coming between Harpoc and me.

  Yeah, look down your stinkin’ chipped off nose at me, everyone else does.

  Despite my fiery thoughts, I don’t dare move.

  “How did she manage to read the scrolls? I was under the impression that only those who…” Harpoc pauses, seemingly resisting translating. I give him a cool look, prodding him on.

  “… wield secret magic can…” He stops again.

  “What did she say? Tell me,” I demand.

  Harpoc huffs. “… make sense of them.”

  “Only those who wield secret magic can translate them?” My voice rises.

  “Hieroglyphs, Pell. You know hieroglyphics.”

  “Hieroglyphs are your secret magic?” I narrow my eyes.

  He sighs. “A part.”

  I rub my ring. His claim about hieroglyphs makes no sense. Lots of people know how to read them, but they don’t reanimate ancient creatures, let alone transform inanimate ones. He isn’t telling me everything. How many secrets does Harpoc have?

  I tune back in when Harpoc tells the sphinx, “Her reading your scroll was an unforeseen anomaly, the probabilities of which are virtually incalculable.”

  “Yet she did.” The beast stops between Harpoc and me, and I swallow hard.

  “Yes… she did.” Another sigh. “I take full responsibility.”

  “So you should.” She flicks her tail, then continues hobble-circling me.

  He runs a hand through his locks, messing them up for the first time since I’ve met him.

  I exhale, at least she isn’t standing between us anymore. Harpoc’s shoulders seem to relax a little, too.

  “So what am I to do now that I’ve been brought back?”

  Harpoc wrinkles his forehead, then brings a finger to his lips and starts tapping.

  “Why don’t you go back to your home at the Louvre?” I ask.

  The sphinx hisses when Harpoc remains silent. I’m guessing that’s her way of getting him to tell her what I said.

  His gaze shifts between the creature and me several times before he reluctantly translates.

  I earn a snarl. Just shut up, Pell, I reprimand myself and take to biting my lip.

  I follow the creature’s gaze as she stops and looks over the nearly barren field, then on across the land between us and the small town of San El-Hagar in the distance. At length, she returns her attention to me, letting go what sounds like a moan.

  My stomach quivers.

  “This was my home. It is gone. There’s nothing for me to protect. My purpose is gone.” Sadness fills her tone, Harpoc’s too as he interprets.

  The ancient Egyptians placed sphinxes at the entrances of temples to guard their mysteries. This one had been positioned to guard the temple of Amun, but with the temple gone, she’s right, she’s out of a job.

  What’s a ticked off, animate, turned to granite, buried for eons, found, and hauled to the Louvre, then reanimated sphinx, to do? My pedigree’s nowhere near hers, but even with her stellar resume, I can’t see employment in her future.

  Joking aside, despite the harm she’s caused the archeologist, I almost feel sorry for her. Almost. She still keeps growlin
g at me.

  Harpoc keeps tapping his lips. He clearly has no ideas either.

  “Prove to me you know my secret,” Harpoc interprets as the creature breaks the silence.

  We exchange looks.

  Why? Was not the fact that she’s here proof enough?

  He takes to rubbing his dark, stubbled jaw for a time. “You don’t want Pell to do that.”

  “I do.” The sphinx stares him down.

  He shakes his head. “There must be something else. Another temple to guard perhaps.”

  The creature wrinkles what little is left of her nose as if smelling an unpleasant odor as she speaks words laced with disdain.

  “She suggested going back to the Louvre.” Harpoc translates.

  She chuckles and shakes her head.

  I shuffle my feet.

  Harpoc translates as she continues. “You seem to think you have all the answers.” She gives me a pointed look, and I shrink back, then sense the snip in her tone despite not understanding her words. “What other temples need guarding?” Harpoc translates.

  I’ve no idea what ancient temples still exist, but I can’t imagine much good will come from her stalking outside any of them. “I don’t know.”

  Way to go, Pell. Open mouth, insert foot.

  The sphinx returns her gaze to Harpoc. “Have her prove she knows my secret.”

  He looks down at his boots and sighs.

  “What’s she planning to do?”

  Harpoc doesn’t answer, just closes his eyes and shakes his head.

  “Look out!”

  He looks up and startles, then whips up a hand as the sphinx closes to within five feet of him. “Please have patience.”

  He motions for me to join him.

  Nothing I’d love to do more since it’ll get her from between us.

  I eye the ground between him and me, with our “friend” between, and opt for a circuitous route. I’ll give her a very, very wide berth.

  That pair of eyes, one gold the other silver, bound to the forefront of my mind, but my pulse still races as I take the first slow step. No way will I rile her with any sudden moves.

  Steady, Pell, you can do this. I keep the mantra going, over and over, as her gaze follows me every cotton pickin’ step of the way.

  Harpoc winks when I at last reach him. I almost want to hug him and never let go. He puts a reassuring arm around my shoulders despite the bulk of my jacket still over my arms.

  I don’t care that he’s crazy, his touch grounds me, and I slump in his arm.

  “Pell, do you remember the riddle you translated?”

  I look up at him. “Of course, it was only the greatest discovery of the century.”

  “Tell me again.” His voice is gentle. “Tell her.” He nods toward the creature who’s sitting on her haunches. She keeps glancing between us, but in Harpoc’s arms, I’m not intimidated.

  “Often talked of, never seen,” I begin, my voice strong.

  The sphinx straightens.

  “Ever coming, never been.”

  Harpoc rubs my shoulder with his thumb making the hair on my neck rise.

  I clear my throat. “Daily looked for, never here.”

  The creature flicks her tail but remains silent.

  “Still approaching, coming near.” Fluttering erupts in my chest as Harpoc continues moving his thumb.

  The sphinx begins to purr as I say, “Thousands for my visit wait, but alas, for their fate.”

  I look over at Harpoc and whisper, “Keep going?”

  “Please.” His thumb doesn’t still.

  I nod and lick my lips as a chill runs up my back. “Though they expect me to appear, they will never find me here.”

  My legs turn twitchy, and it’s not from reciting the riddle. “What am I?”

  The sphinx looks down and sighs. Harpoc translates what she says next, “I lived to serve and protect. This is my home from which I shall never again be parted.”

  My brain is somewhat addled with Harpoc’s thumb circling like it is, but a sense of impending doom settles over me. What’s she saying?

  The creature has sadness in her eyes as she asks me, “What is the answer to my riddle?” Harpoc’s translation.

  I put my hand over his, stilling his digit, then look between him and her. What’s about to happen?

  I open and close my mouth.

  “Reveal her secret. She deserves that much,” Harpoc encourages when I still haven’t said anything a minute later.

  My gut trembles as I say, “Tomorrow.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The sphinx looks skyward and a terrible roar that jars every bone in my body sounds. All rational thought vanishes.

  Only Harpoc hugging me to his side with a strong arm keeps me vertical.

  “Easy there,” he encourages.

  I swallow hard and nod. Keep it together, Pell.

  The sphinx turns, and with eyes fixed toward the blue tents launches into the air, heading for the guys!

  “They evacuated him to the truck a few minutes ago,” Harpoc says into my ear.

  I sigh with relief as I watch the winged creature fly. She lands in front of the largest of the tents, then limps into the shadow between it and another. A loud crash, the sound of several large metal somethings collapsing, reaches us.

  “What’s she doing?”

  Harpoc stays silent and I glance up into his face. His expression remains neutral, watching.

  More clanking and clattering.

  I strain to see into the darkness between the tents to no avail.

  After a protracted silence, another fierce roar rises but dies seconds later.

  Harpoc closes his eyes and bows his head.

  “What’s she doing?”

  “Come.” He drops his arm from my shoulders and nods toward the tents.

  A rock fills the pit of my stomach as I shrug my coat back over my shoulders. I fear I know what we’ll find but refuse to think it into existence.

  Anxiety erupts inside me like a volcano the closer we get, and my scalp starts to prickle.

  “You don’t need to see this,” Harpoc says when the tip of her tufted tail comes into focus. It doesn’t move.

  Breathe, Pell. Breathe.

  “I… I think I do.”

  “Pell, have you ever seen...” His metallic eyes are soft.

  I swallow. “I’ve seen a dead cat.”

  Harpoc gives me a long look.

  I know it’ll be different than a cat, but I need to see what my words have caused, and I nod him on.

  The tent’s shadow makes sight difficult, but there’s no mistaking the dark hulking shape that lays as still as the granite it has, most recently, until today, been crafted of.

  “I’m going to grab a flashlight. Wait here,” my companion says and heads toward the command tent we spoke to the others in.

  I feel alone the instant he disappears around the corner of the tent and draw my hands across myself, surveying the dark shape of the still creature. I realize how used to Harpoc’s comforting presence I’ve gotten in just a few hours.

  Get a grip, Pell, you’re better than this.

  Not one sound penetrates the stillness of the night; not a bird’s chirp, not a locust’s soft buzzing, not a mouse’s scurrying, nothing. It’s as if nature itself holds its collective breath until we discover what’s become of the sphinx.

  A couple minutes later a flashlight beam announces Harpoc’s return. “Here you go,” he says, handing me another.

  I run my light over the beast’s pinkish fur from its hind feet toward its head, then step forward, my gut tightening.

  She lays headfirst on a heap of jumbled tools; the handles of shovels and spades peek out from beneath her stomach and chest along with a growing pool of red.

  I inhale sharply.

  Harpoc strides to her shoulder and with a mighty push, rolls her on her side.

  A squeak escapes me when I spot a pickax jutting from her heart. She’s killed herself after
I proved I knew the answer to her riddle… just like the sphinx at Thebes centuries before. She decided to when she assessed her life would be meaningless.

  What have you done, Pell? I bite my lip.

  I should be happy that she’s no longer a danger, but I can’t escape the wave of sadness that washes over me. Until this afternoon, I thought sphinxes exist only in myth. She’s somehow been subjected to some weird stasis as a statue and has finally killed herself… because of me.

  No matter how bizarre the situation, to be the cause of any being’s death, let alone by suicide… leaves me feeling… what? Hollow, uneasy… fitting words escape me.

  “Hey…,” Harpoc says, motioning me toward him.

  I stop beside him, and one hand in my coat pocket, the other still shining the light on the sphinx, I long for him to wrap his arm around me again and tell me… tell me that I’m not a bad person for causing this, that the meaninglessness I feel will fade in time, that everything will be okay.

  Emotion bubbles up inside me unbidden, and I can’t swallow back a tear that persists in escape. I swipe at the thing, taking a deep breath.

  Keep it together, Pell. But my admonition rings hollow.

  Without a word, Harpoc draws me against his muscled chest, wraps his arms around me, and holds me close.

  It takes me several minutes to compose myself, not that I’m a crying mess because I’m not, but when I finally step back Harpoc gives me a warm smile. It isn’t mocking or chiding as many have been up until now. No, this is a genuine smile that I chose to believe means he’s glad he can be here to comfort and support me. It looks good on him.

  Harpoc has some depth, and I want to get to know him better.

  Whoa, Pell. Not smart. Don’t fall for him.

  I find a Kleenex in my pocket and blow my nose.

  “Her choice is not your fault, Pell. Don’t try to take responsibility for it.”

  “But if I hadn’t brought her—”

  “She decided she had nothing to live for, not you.”

  “We didn’t exactly counter her arguments.”

  “And you knew of something for her to do to feel valued?”

  “No. I did think about it, but I came up empty.”

  “Exactly. She arrived in a time no longer hers, and she knew it.”