I Do Not Trust You: A Novel

by Laura J. Burns

  With a bellow, Horus yanked, pulling Set off his neck—along with a chunk of Ash’s flesh—and hurled Set across the field. He landed with a thud that shook the ground, but was on his feet again in seconds.

  Ash felt blood pumping from the gash in his neck. Could Horus feel the agony in Ash’s body—or was that Ash’s alone? If the god had the capacity to feel pain, it didn’t slow him down. He charged across the field at Set. Set responded by running straight at Horus, then launching himself in the air, jaws wide and dripping foam.

  Power ripped through Ash’s body, more than he’d ever channeled. His nerves were like wires conducting high volts of electricity. Horus leapt impossibly high, meeting Set far above the field. When their bodies collided, a boom of thunder sounded, and the blue sky darkened, the fluffy white clouds going black.

  Ash expected to feel his body slam back into the ground, but the two gods grappled in midair. The scent of ozone, sweet and pungent, filled Ash’s nose as a ball of lightning formed in Set’s hand. He smashed the ball into Ash’s skull, and for a moment all he could smell was his own singed hair.

  Horus pushed himself away from Set, flying backward through the air. A ball of lightning formed in each fist, Ash’s flesh crackling, and Horus hurled the balls at Set. One ball went wild and hit the earth a few feet from Hugh, the impact knocking him to the ground.

  Ash’s instinct was to rush to his friend, no matter what had happened between them, but he couldn’t act. He wanted to search for M, but he could only see what Horus chose to look at.

  Set hurled another lightning ball and it hit Ash on the shoulder, with the harsh burn of dry ice. The blast sent Horus into a roll. He plummeted toward the ground, hit the grass and skidded across it, then sprang back to his feet. Power burned through Ash as Horus formed a lightning ball between his hands, letting it grow bigger and bigger until, with a grunt, he launched it at Set. It was a direct hit that knocked Set out of the air to the ground.

  Horus gave a shout of glee. The battle was all he cared for.

  * * *

  M pulled her father away from the SUV. One of the blazing balls the gods were throwing had smashed into it and the gas tank had exploded. Someone was screaming. Shrieking. But before M could act, the sound abruptly stopped.

  “Are you all right?”

  Mike was running toward them. “What are you doing out here?” M demanded. “You promised to wait inside.”

  “Two of the people I love most in the world are out here.” She gave M’s dad a fast, hard hug. “I see the rumors of your death were greatly exaggerated.”

  “Well, for the moment anyway,” her father agreed.

  “I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Mike said, gesturing toward the battle. “But I’m not going to think about it right now. How can we help Ash?”

  “That isn’t Ash,” M told her. “He’s being controlled by Horus. Ash is a god channeler, and now I know what that really means. But it’s still his body. That thing ripped a chunk out of Ash’s neck.” She thought it had stopped pumping blood, but the front of his shirt was soaked with it. It looked like half his hair had been singed away. “I don’t know how much longer he can survive.” She had to shout the last words. A series of rhythmic booms had started up.

  “What is it—Horus—doing?” her dad yelled.

  Ash—Horus—held an enormous fireball, much bigger than the ones he’d been throwing, and was slamming it repeatedly into the ground. With each blow, the earth rose in response, gathering itself into a heap, then a mountain. She shot a glance at Set. He’d taken up a position about halfway across the field. His hands were spread wide, but M didn’t see anything between them. He wasn’t making another lightning ball. She didn’t want to wait to see what was going to happen. She had to find a way to stop this.

  The repetitive booming stopped, but a low rumble continued, and there was an underlying hissing sound. Mike brought her hands to her chest, and M saw she held her rosary. “Dear God. It’s made a volcano.”

  The top of the mountain had started to smoke, and the entire thing was trembling. M saw her little dog carrier sticking out of the earth about halfway up. The animita.

  “A sacred space!” she exclaimed. “We need to create a sacred space!” Sacred spaces made the Set animal fall apart, and it was the only thing she could think of. Would it work on an incarnate god? She didn’t know, but anything was better than standing here.

  “I’m not sure that’s possible,” Mike said.

  “Bali. People create their own sacred spaces there all the time.” Hope rose up inside her. Maybe the idea wasn’t completely insane. “And it worked on the Set pieces. They fell apart every time Ash and I walked by one. The pieces were falling apart and coming together every dozen feet. The voodoo guy made a sacred space of his own too. A cabinet.”

  The odor of sulfur permeated the air. “It’s going to blow. We have to try, or everyone here is going to die,” M urged.

  Mike knelt on the ground and began to pray, fingering her rosary beads. M hesitated, realizing that she didn’t have a god to pray to. How was she supposed to create a shrine?

  She thought of the animita again. Some of the shrines were dedicated to Mary or other saints, but some were just remembrances of the person who had died. The one she’d used had a collection of things that must’ve been special to the deceased person, nothing religious, but it had deactivated the Set piece.

  M pulled her mother’s Swiss Army knife out of her pocket. “It’s intent that matters, whatever’s sacred to you will work. I’m making a shrine to Mom,” she told her father. “You make something too. Let’s try to get a few points around the place where they’re fighting. The convent takes up one whole side—if we can trap them between that and our new sacred spaces, the Set artifact might fall apart again.”

  Her father nodded, taking his wedding ring off his finger, then removing the chain that he always wore around his neck. It held her mother’s ring. “I love you, Dad,” M said, then she ran, heading for a spot on the other side of the field.

  “I love you, too,” she heard her father yell after her.

  M tried to keep her focus on the plan. It was the best thing she could do to save Ash and everyone else. But she jerked to a halt when she saw the funnel of a tornado rise up from between Set’s palms. That’s what he’d been making.

  He flung out his arms, and the tornado spun free, growing as it moved. M managed to circle around it before it got too large. When she was on the far side of the volcano and the tornado—and the gods controlling them—she threw herself to the ground, flipped open the knife, and thrust the largest blade into the earth. She rested both hands on top of knife handle. She wasn’t sure what to do next, but closed her eyes, blocking out the destruction.

  A memory rose up in her mind, one of the strongest she had of her mother. M lay in bed, not at home, someplace else. She was maybe five years old. The bedspread was cream with nubby flowers. Mommy sat next to her, wearing a kimono, her hair damp. She smelled like lemons and shampoo. She smiled at M as she pulled the blanket up over M’s lips and lightly placed her hand over M’s eyes. “I think you have your dad’s nose.”

  She took her hand away, moving the blanket a little higher, so only M’s eyes were showing. With one finger, she traced one of M’s eyebrows. “Your eyes, though … They’re shaped like mine, but the color, that’s all you. I love your eyes.” She pulled the blanket down a little. “I love your nose.” She gave M’s nose a little tap.

  “And I really, really love…” Mommy paused, grinning, and M started to giggle. “Your toes!” Mommy grabbed M’s feet through the blanket and began to tickle. M laughed until her tummy ached.

  The memory sent warmth through her. She could feel it flowing from her hands into her mother’s knife. “I love you, Mommy,” M whispered, then opened her eyes. The volcano had begun to erupt, steaming lava sliding down the sides. The tornado spun around it, trying to destroy it. Bits of the molten lava were caught up with the vicious
wind, then were flung off, out across the field.

  M shoved herself to her feet. Keeping her head down, she ran to a spot on the field she thought would be opposite from her father. She couldn’t see him. The volcano blocked her vision. If she made a shrine here, they’d have one on each side of the battleground. Would that be enough? She had to try. What could she use for her new shrine?

  Her hand went to her necklace, the way it so often did when she was trying to make a decision. Instantly, she knew what this shrine would be. Her father was still alive, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t honor the love between them. It was the most powerful force in her life. She’d gotten this far because every time she felt like she was trying to do the impossible, she thought of her father and kept going. She’d refused to let him die. She wasn’t going to let him die now, either. Not him, or Ash, or Mike.

  M pulled off the necklace and dropped to her knees. She closed her eyes, pressing the necklace into the earth with her hands. Her eyes pricked with tears as she thought of the moment she’d seen her father stumble out of the SUV—alive. Relief, and joy, and love had taken her over. M felt the power of the memory flow into the necklace, the necklace that had hidden the map, the map written in what had become a secret language for M and her father, the map she’d used to try to rescue him.

  A shout went up like the wailing of a thousand sirens, and M’s eyes flew open. Set was teetering. Blackness slid up his legs, obliterating the human skin. When the blackness moved over his knees, Set stumbled. By the time he hit the ground, the blackness had taken over his shoulders and was crawling up his face.

  The tornado died, bits of lava raining to the ground. A piece flew at M. She dove to the ground, rolling away from it, then she scrambled to her feet again, her eyes finding Set. His body, now completely stiff and black, began to shrink. Then splinter. Until all that remained was the five small pieces of the Set animal.

  People rushed at them. A man snatched one up and raced to the helicopter that had landed near the convent gates. Seconds later the helicopter was in the air. The Eye had gotten at least one piece. M wasn’t sure which side had gotten the others. But one was definitely safe, and that’s what mattered.

  Set was gone.

  And Horus …

  Ash! M’s heart skipped a beat. What had happened to Ash?

  * * *

  Ash stared at the place where Set had just stood. All he wanted was to see M, to know she was okay, but Horus still controlled his eyes. The god’s frustration and anger and disappointment coursed through him. Horus wanted to continue the fight.

  The god let out a roar that vibrated Ash’s throat. He turned in a circle, as if he couldn’t accept that Set wasn’t on the field somewhere, hiding from him. Ash got a glimpse of M, too brief, but enough to know she was alive. He saw Philip, too. His expression, one of awe and rapture, was exactly like the one Ash’s father had worn when he looked at Set.

  Ash felt Horus’s control loosen, just a little. Without Set to fight, the god didn’t have as much use for Ash’s body. His power wasn’t ripping along Ash’s nerves, because he didn’t have an enemy to hurl the power at.

  Now was his chance. Ash used all his will to push the god out of his body, fighting against Horus’s out-of-control emotions. But Horus still dominated every part of him.

  I can’t battle him, Ash told himself. I’ll never win. Ash tried to let himself fall into a pool of stillness, letting the sights and sounds and feelings he was receiving from Horus pass by without impacting him.

  When he felt calm and clear, unaffected by what the god was experiencing, he let the pool of quiet gently expand, picturing it growing wider and deeper, picturing the color as the cool green of M’s eyes.

  He could hardly sense Horus’s emotions now. The protective pool around him was too vast for them to reach him. He pictured the water deepening and spreading out, out, out, out, until it became an ocean, until it became his world, until there was no room in Ash’s body for both the water and Horus.

  * * *

  M stared at the closed door. One of the nuns had been a field medic before coming to the convent. She was in there with Mike, taking care of Ash. Was he even alive? The image of his mangled neck and limp body flashed into her mind again and again.

  Philip jumped up from the chair across from the sofa where M and her dad sat. “I’m going in.”

  “No,” she and Dad told him, speaking as one.

  “We’re all waiting here until Sister Juana gives us the okay,” her father added. Philip gave a long, hard glare, then sat back down and began scrolling through his phone.

  M checked the clock. They’d been waiting in the common room for almost an hour. She shifted a little, so her shoulder rested against her father’s. He wrapped his arm around her.

  She noticed that his juice glass was empty, and reached for it.

  “I don’t need any more,” Dad said.

  M studied his face. He looked better than he had on the field, but not enough to suit her. “How about some soup? I could get—”

  “I’m fine. Being here with you is all I need,” he insisted.

  “I can’t believe I’m really sitting next to you.” It was at least the fourth time M had said it.

  “I never doubted it would happen.”

  “Liar.”

  “Nope. I got a good feeling off Ash. I could see he was a kid who wanted to do the right thing. Even if his idea of the right thing didn’t quite match mine.” He glanced over at Philip, still engrossed in his phone. “I was impressed he’d hung on to basic decency, after the way his parents … He told you about that, didn’t he?” M nodded. “I thought his integrity, and your stubbornness and knowledge of the map, would be my get out of jail free card.”

  M raised her eyebrows. “So you knew I wouldn’t just hand over the map? That’s what you told me to do!”

  “I’m your father. Of course I knew. But I didn’t think Ash would agree to team up with you, so I left it up to you to convince him.”

  “Threaten him, you mean,” M said. Her father just smiled in response. “You sure you don’t want soup?” she asked. “Or I could whip up some thousand-year—”

  The door swung open, and Sister Juana and Mike appeared. “Well?” M demanded, a queasy mix of fear and hope swirling through her.

  “He’s starting to come to,” Mike answered. “He’s asking for you.”

  * * *

  The light hurt his head. Ash tried to pry his eyelids open. He needed to see, to prove he was still here, somehow. Dark spots swirled through his vision, until he could focus enough to make out M, her father, Philip, and Mike gathered around him. He took a deep breath, the air painful in his throat.

  “Are you okay?” M cried. She lightly touched the bandage someone had put on his neck wound.

  “Are you?” Ash struggled to sit up so he could get a better look at her.

  “It might be a good idea to stay down for now,” Mike told him.

  “Is Horus still with you?” Philip demanded, speaking over Mike.

  Ash closed his eyes, feeling for the presence of the god, from his toes to his fingertips to his head. “He’s gone,” Ash breathed, relieved, cracking his eyes open again.

  Philip began firing questions. “What did you learn from him when he was within you? Did you get a sense of what he wants? Did he have instructions for us?”

  “Enough,” Dr. Engel said firmly. “The boy’s been injured. He’s exhausted. If your god had remained within him much longer, Ash would be dead. We’re staying here tonight.” He looked over at Mike, and she nodded. “Then I’m taking him and my daughter home.”

  “You’re nothing to the boy. I’ve taken care of him for the past six years. Who are you to take him anywhere?” Philip protested in a cold tone Ash was overly familiar with.

  “All you’ve been taking care of is the conduit for your god,” M snapped.

  “The responsible thing to do is for you and your group to go find out how much destruction tha
t battle caused,” Dr. Engel continued. “There could be people out there who need help.”

  Ash struggled to understand what was happening. Dr. Engel barely knew him. What he did know was that Ash had lied to him and led his daughter into a death trap.

  “Ash, we need to get back to London,” Philip said, ignoring the others. “We have plans to make. The Eye managed to get three of the pieces when Horus destroyed Set, but the cult escaped with two.”

  “I’m not going with you,” Ash rasped. There was more he wanted to say, but M’s father was right. He was exhausted.

  “The Eye—” Philip began.

  “You and the Eye can go stuff yourselves,” Mike announced. “You need to leave my convent now.”

  Philip opened his mouth to speak, but seemed unable to come up with a response. He turned and rushed out of the room in a huff.

  “I’ve decided Horus isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer,” M said, firmly shutting the door behind Philip. “Setting off a volcano is a terrible plan for saving the world.”

  “Not what he wanted,” Ash said, the desire for sleep almost overwhelming him. “All he cared about was fighting Set. There was nothing for the people he killed. He didn’t even notice them.”

  “Nothing for you, either.” M looked like she wanted to punch something. “I don’t get it. The whole point of the Eye was to stop Set from becoming incarnate because he’d destroy the world. Horus was supposed to be the good guy. But Horus seemed like he was trying just as hard to annihilate the world as Set was.”

  “Collateral damage,” Ash explained. “Horus wasn’t trying to obliterate the earth. He just wanted revenge. He wanted to kill Set, and the world was something he could make a weapon of.”

  “I think the followers of Set and the followers of Horus both misunderstood the prophecy,” Dr. Engel put in. “You know, facts can be forgotten over so many years, and stories—”

  “—get twisted so much their real meaning is lost,” M finished for him.