And you are mine. Osiris didn’t say it, but I heard the words all the same.
“Is that why you chained me up?”
“You are but a drop of time in the river of eternity. I do not expect you to understand the ways of the gods.”
And with that, Osiris did my job for me. Nile’s power clicked and flooded into the kid’s mortal body, lending it a furious light. It couldn’t hurt Osiris, but I could. While the god was distracted by his son’s brilliance, I acted as though I were shying away from the light and freed Alysdair.
I’d wanted to drive the blade through Osiris’s heart for centuries. For a time, I’d thought of nothing else but revenge. After the memories of killing Bastet had fallen back into place, I hadn’t been able to rid the bitterness of vengeance from my tongue. I despised him with all my black soul. Trapping me in the sarcophagus had been the final blow. I was done being his whipping boy.
“Sans!” Stop. Osiris flung out a hand and the command. “Hurzd.” Hold. The spellwords latched on and yanked me up short, with Alysdair raised for the killing blow. Osiris simply smiled at my failure. “You are not yet Apophis, not while you cling to the illusion of a mortal life.”
It was my turn to smile. “I don’t need to be.”
A black snake the width of a barrel and length of a bus shivered into sight and dangled from the ceiling behind Osiris. Its sudden hiss was all the warning the god received before it struck. Fangs sank into Osiris’s shoulder. He barked out a yell and span into the hold. The snake wound its muscular body around Osiris, trapping him inside its coils.
Osiris’s compulsion cracked and crumbled away. I staggered into motion and brought Alysdair up once more.
“Sans!” Osiris commanded. The compulsion slid off. “Sans!” he tried again, but that too shivered off.
I stepped closer, admiring how the snake’s scales rippled tighter, crushing the god an inch at a time. His golden eyes flashed with indignation, malice, and rage. His words no longer worked. Without the curse, he didn’t have the power to stop me.
Alysdair hummed louder, the blade hungry for more godly blood.
“Truka sros dvarr em sra imdarvurrd, I bemd aeui, bae raors, bae kuir, bae kemd,” Osiris said, but the old curse skirted the fringes of the new me, where once it would have sunk in and clamped a hold of my soul. As I shook it off, the final piece of the past crumbled away. The old curse—the one shackling my soul to his—cracked open, and the dark poured through. As I locked my sights on Osiris, his five-hundred-year-old prison fell in ashes around me. The man—Ace Dante—fell away too, shed like a snake’s skin. I couldn’t hold back the truth, not anymore, and I didn’t want to.
Osiris went on muttering his useless words, but his reign over me had ended. A new reign was about to begin.
I pressed Alysdair’s edge to Osiris’s neck. Those golden eyes blazed. He wasn’t afraid. If I killed him, he’d come back and hunt me down, likely bringing Anubis and Mafdet and half the underworld with him. “I could kill you here and now, reap your soul and feed the Eye of Ra… just like I did with your wife.”
Oh, to watch the light fade from his eyes. To see the god quiver at the edge of my blade. I’d wanted this for so long. Revenge tasted sweeter than souls. Revenge for it all.
The power in his rage cut like razor wire on the tongue.
Words tumbled from his lips, and the snake crushing him shuddered. The air crackled. The walls groaned. I’d killed the Light of his life. And damn, that felt good.
I smiled into Osiris’s silent rage, knowing how it burned him up inside. It had been worth it—the lies, the subterfuge, the horrors I’d endured at his command—just for this moment. “You had me kill Bastet.”
“Do not—” His voice quivered. “Do not play me for a fool. You wanted her death, just as you desire mine. You are a Godkiller, Apophis. It is in your nature.”
I dragged Alysdair down his neck, opening a line of blood. The sword soaked it up. “I will be there when the time comes for the End of All Things.”
“I tried to help you.” Osiris breathed hard, or tried to. Blood bloomed through his golden eyes and dripped from his nose. I savored every one of his tremors resonating through Alysdair. “To save you this fate—to save the worlds—”
The blade cut in, silencing him. “The time for words is over.”
Above us, somewhere in the house, something crashed. I’d once burned much of Osiris’s mansion around him. This time I had help. Kurvords, shape shifters, crocodiles, locusts. They were all Apophis’s followers and now mine.
“You will be stopped,” Osiris hissed.
I laughed and pulled Alysdair free. “Not by you.”
“I have means to stop you. You and Seth both!”
I urged Nile toward the door and spared Osiris one last glance. “I’m counting on it.”
Osiris’s curses crumbled in my wake.
Nile and I walked through the mass of scorpions crawling along the walls and around the streams of snakes pouring through every doorway. Yes, these were my charges, each one an extension of my will, and I willed them to destroy.
Outside, a small group of kmoda had gathered, the snake shifter Jasmine at their head. She dropped to a knee at the sight of me. The rest of her shifters followed and lowered their heads. Behind them, others bowed. Creatures of the old world. Creatures of the underworld. All mine.
“Kur Apophis,” they declared in one voice. “Va ora aeuirk.” For Apophis. We are yours. Their worship solidified the shifting parts of me and summoned a crackle of raw power. It was just the beginning. There was nothing left to hold me back.
“What is this?” Nile asked as we passed through the now silent group.
“The future.” He didn’t understand, but he would. I held out a hand to the boy.
Nile carefully extended his hand and closed his fingers around mine, wondering if he was accepting a deal with the devil. “We are going to stop it?” he asked.
I smiled. “What does your talent tell you, Truthseer?”
He frowned. “That your truths are lies and your lies are true.” He looked up at me. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“You will.” We walked away from Osiris’s grand house as flames crawled up the walls and embers danced high in the air, falling as ash long after we’d gone.
Chapter 17
The Ducati rested on its stand against the curb. Nile leaned against a tree, hands tucked into his pants pockets. He watched the traffic rumble by at the end of the quiet street, waiting for his mom to show. I’d showered and changed into typical Ace Dante black pants and a black shirt, minus the coat, but the smell of ash lingered, a constant reminder of where I’d come from and where I was going.
The streetlight directly above us was out. This was the same place I’d consumed a magic thief’s soul and Cujo had chewed me out via an earpiece. He wasn’t listening in now.
I ran my fingers over the slave cuff wrapped around my wrist. Nile noticed.
“What is that?” he asked.
“A friend’s insurance, though it doesn’t work anymore.” I tapped the metal cuff and whispered, “Raraoka.” Release. The cuff fell open, useless, just like Cat had guessed. It had probably always been a useless trinket on me, but I’d needed it in the beginning. Now, I couldn’t put this genie back in its bottle.
Nile pushed off the tree and paced along the curb. “You messaged her? She’s definitely coming?”
“She loves you. Mothers always do.” I remembered how Bastet had tried to protect Chuck by keeping us out of the girl’s life. It had been a nice idea, but a secret like Chuck was never going to stay hidden forever. We were supposed to follow and check in on Chuck, but that plan got derailed the second I killed Bastet.
Switching the cuff to my left hand, I freed Alysdair from the sword’s new sling and watched the glow from the streetlights slide down the blade. “You saw the truth when you looked into my eyes, huh?” I asked Nile. “Saw this sword devour Bastet?”
He nodded. “I didn’t know Osiris could compel you.”
“He can’t.”
“Not anymore? You broke the curse back at the house. I… saw it break.” He paced a few more steps. “You don’t seem relieved.”
“I was cursed to him for five hundred years. Part of that curse meant I also had a demon sorceress chained to my soul. Now that the curse has gone, so has my bond to her.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
Softly, I laughed. “You’d think so.”
He kicked at the curb, scuffing his shoes. “I’m sorry, yah know. When I saw the crimes of your past in your eyes, I just… I thought that was all that mattered. I was wrong.”
A figure approached cloaked in shadow, or so it appeared. I lifted my chin and lowered Alysdair to my side.
“Don’t be sorry.” The cuff warmed in my hand. “You were right about me, about everything.”
Nile studied the approaching figure that clearly wasn’t his mom. The tree branches above us rustled a warning. Nile didn’t see the sand beginning to rain around us.
“Who is—”
I yanked on his arm, clamped the cuff around his wrist, and hissed, “I uvm aeui.” I’d struck so fast the kid just blinked at me.
“Ace, what?” He tried pulling away from me, but my grip tightened, locking like ice around his arm.
His questions fell away as the approaching man came closer. His red armor soaked in the light instead of reflecting it, and the shadows he dragged with him weren’t shadows at all, but a cloak of red shifting sand. Behind him, sand swept over sidewalks and poured down drains, seeking new cracks to fill and new grounds to claim.
“Seth?” Nile stammered, not believing.
“You’re catching on fast.” I dragged the struggling kid with me and stepped off the curb.
“Srek ek sra buae? Seth asked, barely acknowledging Nile. This is the boy? His red-eyed glare speared into me.
“It is. Osiris’s son and the weapon Osiris planned to use against you.” I shoved Nile forward, but the kid whirled. I had Alysdair pressed under his chin before he could utter a spellword. “That cuff on your arm means you’re mine, boy. Your power is all mine. One wrong move and I can make pain rain down on you. For all your godliness, you’re still human. Be grateful. The Lord of Red usually slaughters his enemies. You will live.”
“Why are you doing this?” Nile exclaimed. “You were good! I saw it in you.” He truly had trusted me. Him and all the others. All but Cat. Sacrifices must be made.
“I am very, very good”—I grinned my soul eater grin—“at pretending.”
Nile’s power spluttered around him, rushing to his aid. Oh, he had power all right. He’d been building something with it—that warehouse meant something. Seth and I would study the boy-god and pick him apart if necessary.
“Seramca,” I whispered. “Sans.” The spellwords had barely left my lips when Nile recoiled, clutching at his throat. His magic retracted and fizzled to nothing. Despite all his power, the boy was human, and that made his mind pliable to the old words and to me.
Seth caught the boy’s shoulder and drove him to his knees. “Aeui verr raorm su vurkrev sra urd sudk.” You will learn what it means to worship the old gods. He held the kid still. “You answer to none other but Apophis and the Lord of the Desert.” His red eyes flicked to mine, and what he saw pleased him. I could guess: my soul eater gaze burned golden, flecked with slivers of bottomless dark, reflecting broken worlds and fallen cities, ash and decay. The storm of countless souls.
“I doubted your words, Apophis.” Seth’s broad smile was a thing of terror. Sharp teeth over bloodless lips. “After you attacked in Luxor, I believed you lost for all time, buried in your illusion. But your return to Duat and your offer to ally intrigued me. Here you are, presenting me with the gift of Osiris’s boy. I find I am… honored to once again have you at my side.”
I smiled my snake’s smile at the Desert King. “As I said, much has changed.”
“Have you changed?”
“Only for the better.” I stepped around Nile and gripped Seth’s armored shoulder. “Too long we have been in the dark, forgotten and dismissed by weak, insular gods. Are you ready to reign over the ashes of this world and the next?”
Seth’s gaze fell upon the New York street where his sands had already spread, turning the asphalt red. “Until the rivers run red.”
“Ace Dante!” A woman’s voice rang out from above. I looked up at the roofs and saw her silhouetted against a crescent moon as sharp as her claws. Cat.
“Take the child,” I told Seth. “I will follow once I have dealt with her.”
Seth considered my words and eyed Cat curiously. “I believe I shall stay and watch. It has been sometime since I saw you slaughter.”
Kres. “Very well.”
Cat leaped, sailed through the air, and landed effortlessly on the sidewalk. Her claws glinted. No swords, no guns. She didn’t need them. She had ten daggers at her fingertips and a righteous fury in her green catlike eyes.
Nile tried to spring off his back foot and lunge for her or me. He didn’t get far. Where a layer of dusty red sand had collected on the street, a huge hand rose, encircled the boy, and crushed closed. The hand dragged the boy down, burying him in sand until there was nothing left of him—not in this world.
The rage in Cat’s glare burned, and when she slid that glare on me, it was clear only one of us would walk away from this fight.
“What happened to you?” she asked, circling me.
I matched her steps but kept my pace leisurely. Given the chance, she would spill my insides all over the road.
Perhaps this had always been in our futures. Cat would settle for nothing less than my death. I’d always admired her for her uncompromising devotion. And here we were, on opposite sides of an impending war.
“This was always in me.” I tightened my grip on Alysdair. The blade hummed in anticipation. “Did you truly think enslaving the Recka was a mistake? Did you believe I accidentally consumed Ammit’s soul? Bastet’s too? You were all so gullible, so willing to believe in good. I am made of lies.”
“I will kill you, Ace Dante.”
“I am not Ace Dante,” I drawled, arching an eyebrow at her quaint gasp. I opened my arms, inviting her to take her best shot. “I admire your commitment, but you can’t win. The boy is ours. And soon, this city, and others like it, will be ours too. After that, well, you get the idea.”
“I’ll stop you.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. She didn’t believe I’d turned on her and the others. It was time to show her exactly who it was she thought she knew.
I lunged, bringing Alysdair up. Cat jerked back, claws exposed. She avoided Alysdair’s opening gambit and lashed out with her left hand, catching my sword arm. I barely felt the pain and smiled at the opening she’d left me. I brought my knee up and kicked her in the chest, sending her reeling backward. She staggered but didn’t go down. It would take a lot more than a kick to drop Cat.
She launched off her back foot and raised her claws high. Really, it was too easy. I lifted a hand. “Sans.” And there she hung, suspended in the air. Rage had her green eyes glowing.
I licked at the smile on my lips and eyed Seth, still watching in the corner of my vision.
“You really are something…” I dragged Alysdair’s tip down her side, careful to have the blade cut through her clothes but not sink in too deep. Just enough for blood to seep. When I reached her ankle, I nicked at her tattoo. “Something to remember me by.”
She hissed through her clenched teeth. “There are other gods. They won’t stand for this.”
“Who exactly will defy the might of Apophis and Seth?”
“Anubis.”
I laughed as I circled her, drawing bloody lines along her body.
“Mafdet, the ferryman, others…”
“The old gods either sleep or are too weak to lift a finger. I am the first supreme being. Not even Ra can stop me, and he isn�
�t here to try.” I tossed a grin at Seth. Still watching.
The god narrowed his eyes and said, “Finish her.”
With a click of my fingers, I released the spellword. Cat fell out of the air, but instead of landing hard on the sidewalk, she spun, landed on her feet, and flung herself at me. I got Alysdair up in time to block one of her five-fingered slashes, but the other sailed through my defenses and tore across my hip and gut. Blood instantly wet my clothes and poured down my leg, but the pain was easily pushed aside. I’d heal.
She rallied for another volley, turning into a whirling blur of claws and teeth.
Sacrifices must be made.
With Seth’s heated gaze on my back and the sand climbing the buildings, turning the street red, I gritted my teeth, swallowed the agonizing burn of guilt, and kicked. She sidestepped. I did too. We spun. She lunged. I feinted left, and when she swung, I thrust the blade up, under her arm, through her ribs, and out through her chest. Suddenly, all went still. Cat slumped on the blade and looked down at the savage tip protruding through her breast. A mixture of expressions fell over her face. Fear, surprise, confusion. But mostly why? She tried to turn her head to look for me.
Of all the wounds, it was her look that cut the deepest.
I used my boot to shove her free from the blade. She collapsed face down in the red sand. Red on red.
I flicked Alysdair, sending specs of blood raining across the sidewalk. Lifting my head, a shadow caught my eye. Little more than a hint of movement on the roof. My lips ticked up even as guilt hollowed out my insides and the souls all screamed inside my head.
“Es ek duma.” It is done. I turned to Seth and snarled the words, “Until the rivers run red.”
The god bowed his head in agreement and deference. “It is an honor, Apophis.”
Sand rose and rushed in, but in the storm, I sank a hand into my pocket and hit “send” on the message that had been blinking on my screen.
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