Nuin smiled serenely. “Perhaps. And my plan worked quite well, did it not?”
I’d let myself be lulled by Nuin’s sometimes playful demeanor into thinking he was like me, like the rest of the Nejerets, that there was something of humanity left in him. But I’d been a fool. The other Nejerets had all been human at one point. Based on everything I’d learned about Apep and Re-Nuin, I was starting to doubt whether Nuin had ever lived as anything other than what he was—a god.
“Apep could have possessed me, Nuin . . .”
He nodded. “He could have, but there was never any danger that he would have.”
“You don’t know that.”
His grin would’ve given the Cheshire Cat a run for his money. “But I do. Apep is able to move in and out of any human he wishes to possess at a whim, but he would not risk possessing a Nejeret.” I opened my mouth, but Nuin raised a hand, cutting me off before I could even start to protest. “He would not risk it because if he possessed a Nejeret, he would be stuck in that single body until it perished. And that Nejeret could fight against Apep’s ability to control his borrowed body for a very long time indeed. If he possessed you, you could fight him for years, centuries even, and he would be trapped within you, unable to leave. Eventually he would take over, but it would not be immediate, not unless you let him control you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
Nuin shrugged. “It never came up.”
“Bullshit.”
He smiled.
“But what about—Apep was able to leave Set’s body to possess Marcus.” I raised my eyebrows. “So clearly he can leave a Nejeret’s body . . .”
“Ah . . . but that is a special case. Apep’s sheut, something he is linked to even if it is no longer fused with the rest of his being, forms something of a bridge between Heru and Set in your time. Apep may use that bridge to move between them, but only sparingly, as possessing Heru’s less familiar body would be quite draining on Apep’s energy reserves.”
After seconds of staring at Nuin and mulling over his words, I exhaled heavily. As usual, he’d made the right choice; his plan had worked. It had hurt like hell, but in the long run, it had worked. “You know . . . I love you, Nuin, I really do, but you sure can be a sneaky bastard.” Sitting back in my chair, I crossed my arms.
“Flattery will get you everywhere, dear Alexandra.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
He shrugged. “Are you ready to begin?”
I cocked my head to the side. “Begin?”
Nuin produced the tiny bottle I’d created from the fabric of the At and handed it across the table to me. “Extracting your bonding essence. Your time with Heru has strengthened you, and now you’re ready to learn how to save his life.”
PART THREE
Cairo, Egypt
Present Day
18
Kat & Jenny
Dear Lex,
It’s Kat, BTW. You’ve been gone for hours, and Marcus is seriously starting to lose it . . . just so you know. He DESTROYED your suite. Like, complete and utter destruction. If that’s what “true” love looks like, I’m definitely not ready for ANYTHING close to that.
But anyway, Dom said he saw you in the At, and he thought you were trying to tell him that you’re in another time. I’m writing this to you on the chance that you time-jumped into the future. If you’re reading this, please, just come back. Neffe’s been monitoring Marcus, and she said his withdrawals have already started. She and Dom were talking super quietly, but I think they forgot that my Nejerette traits are starting to kick in and, you know, that I could hear a little better. Anyway, I overheard them saying that they didn’t think he’d last more than a week without you. Which means YOU won’t last a week without HIM.
You HAVE to come back. We’re all so worried about you. Please, just come back.
Your half-sis,
Kat
“Kat!” Jenny called from the bathroom. “Do you want me to leave the straightener on?”
Jenny wasn’t really my sister, but she was sort of like my sister, since she was Lex’s half-sister, and Lex was my half-sister . . . whatever. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Jenny was as freaked out about Lex’s disappearance as I was, and in my book—which is the book—that made us family.
Abandoning my notebook and pen, I rolled off the ginormous bed and headed toward the bathroom door. “Nope. Not like it’ll do any good in this heat.” The straightening iron hadn’t tamed my dark, frizzy curls in Florence, and I doubted it would do any better in Cairo.
Jenny and I had been sharing a room since the Set incident, as we’ve been calling what happened in the underground temple. I’d tried staying with my mom, at first, but she was still pissed at me about risking my life—eye roll—for Lex, so I’d asked Jenny if I could stay with her for a while. It is weird that Mom didn’t even argue, though . . .
I leaned my shoulder against the doorframe and watched Jenny stare at herself in the mirror, her mouth open as she put on mascara. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” I asked. We’d both been a blink away from crying like two-year-olds since Dom told us about Lex’s disappearance.
Jenny offered me a watery smile in the mirror. “It’s a deterrent; if I know my mascara’ll smear, I won’t cry.” She crossed her fingers. “I’m hoping.”
I looked at my naked wrist. “J, it’s, like, four in the morning, and we’re all gonna look like crap from being up all night anyway. Why even try . . . ?”
Jenny lowered her mascara wand and sighed. “Grandma Suse—that’s Alexander’s wife—she always says that the best way to get through the worst times is to do normal things: go to work, clean, get ready . . .” Jenny shrugged and looked away, but I could see her chin trembling in the mirror. She cleared her throat. “So that’s what I’m doing,” she said as she returned her attention to her reflection and raised the mascara wand to her other eye. “Normal things.”
Pushing off the doorframe, I stepped into the bathroom to stand beside her. I reached for the straightening iron and moved it closer to me before finger-combing through my long, frizzy curls and picking out a section to start with. I raised the straightener to my hair. Normal things.
My eyes flicked down to the reflection of Jenny’s belly; she was just starting to show under her sweater. “Is that how you’ve been dealing with . . . you know . . .”
With another sigh, Jenny jabbed the mascara wand into the tube and turned to face me, resting her hip on the edge of the pale granite counter. “At first, yeah. But not anymore.” Looking down, she touched her barely-there baby bump. “It’s not the baby’s fault, and I’m going to love him or her no matter how psychotic their dad is . . . because you and Lex and Dom . . . you’re all Seth’s—Set’s—kids too, and there’s nothing wrong with you guys.”
I looked at my reflection in the mirror and ran the hot iron down the length of my hair. Every day, I saw more and more of my dad in my face, like his sharp features were taking over—or maybe it was just an illusion caused by my paling skin. So annoying. I’d worked really hard to build up a tan this summer, and now my Nejerette regenerative abilities were wiping it away like it had never existed. I glared at my reflection. I hate you, Set.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Jenny was wrong. What if Set’s evilness would somehow spill over into their kid? What if it had spilled over into me? “Did you ever consider, um, not, um, you know . . . having the baby?” I asked her.
Jenny laughed softly. “You can say abortion, I won’t freak out.” She touched my shoulder and headed out of the bathroom. “But no, I didn’t. I guess it’s just not something I could bring myself to do.” I could hear her rummaging around in the wardrobe. “Lex would, I think. She never really wanted kids anyway. She’s always had a one-track mind, and up until she met Marcus, that single track was all about Egypt. Which could be so annoying, let me tell you.” She was quiet for a moment, and there was the sound of more rumm
aging. “Ah . . . there they are. But maybe, now that Marcus is in her life, she’ll change her mind about starting a family . . .”
She doesn’t know . . .
“She can’t,” I said softly.
Jenny appeared in the doorway, slipping on some sky-blue ballet flats. “What was that?”
I swallowed and met her eyes in the mirror. “Lex can’t have kids.”
“Why? Because of her position as the ‘Meswett’ or whatever?”
I shook my head and refocused on my own reflection, moving on to a new section of hair. “Nejerettes can’t have kids once they manifest. It’s impossible.”
Jenny’s eyes went wide, and she brought her hand up to her mouth. “Oh, I—I didn’t know.” She frowned and looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry, that’s—that must be so awful. I can’t imagine . . .”
I shrugged. “I’ve known for pretty much ever, so it’s no biggie for me. It’s normal, just the way it is, you know? But for someone like Lex, who wasn’t raised knowing what she might be . . . yeah, finding it out would suck balls.” I rolled my eyes and exhaled heavily. “I bet that was a fun convo for Alexander . . .”
Jenny continued to stare at the floor, but she brought her arms up to her belly and wrapped them around her middle. Her shoulders were shaking.
I set down the straightener and turned to her. “Hey . . . J . . .” I rubbed my hands up and down her arms, crouching down a little so I could see her face. “It’s cool, really. I’m fine with it.”
Jenny shook her head. Dark smears of mascara bled from her lower lashes. “I’m just so scared for Lex . . . I mean, I just got her back, and now—” A hiccupping sob cut her words short, and her shoulders shook even harder. “Now . . . I don’t know if . . . I’ll ever see her . . . again . . .”
I wrapped my arms around Jenny and held her tightly while she cried, fighting tears of my own. Some people sympathy-vomit or sympathy-yawn, but I’d always been a horrible sympathy-crier. Of course, the fact that I was afraid of the same damn thing didn’t help one damn bit. The tears broke free. Damn.
Someone started knocking on the suite door. Knocking and knocking and knocking.
Growling under my breath, I released Jenny and stomped to the door. “What?” I said as I yanked it open.
Dominic was standing in the hallway with his fist still raised. I studied him with scrutinizing eyes. For once his prim and proper shell seemed to be cracked. His normally slicked-back hair hung in dark ribbons around his face, his eyes were shadowed, and his shirt was untucked, the top few buttons undone.
“You look like crap,” I told him, gaining at least a teensy bit of pleasure from seeing him so out of sorts. He was my usual instructor in how to use my new superpowers, and sometimes he could be such a . . .
“Neffe has need of you and Jenny in the lab,” he said, rubbing his face with his knocking hand before lowering it down to his side. His accent was heavier, which meant he was really freaking exhausted.
“The lab? What lab?” I cocked my head to the side. “There’s a lab?”
“It is underground, in sub-basement two.”
I held up my hand. “Hold on a sec, here, buddy—this place has an underground?”
“What does she need?” Jenny asked from behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder to find that she’d wiped the dark smudges from under her red-rimmed eyes.
“She thinks she may have come up with a way to decrease the severity of Marcus’s withdrawal symptoms, but she needs both of you in order to test her theory.”
I huffed out a breath. “Geesh, Dom—why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” I pushed past him through the doorway and headed down the hall toward the nearest set of stairs.
“I did.”
***
“Are there going to be needles involved?” I asked Neffe as I sat on a metal stool beside Jenny.
We were in “the lab” in “sub-basement two,” having taken somewhat hidden elevators from the ground floor. Where the aboveground parts of the Council’s Cairo palace were very antiquey and low-tech, the underground was about as ultramodern and high-tech as I could imagine. Everything was stainless steel or polished white or pristine glass. And with the lack of windows, I felt like I was on some sort of futuristic spaceship.
When Neffe didn’t respond, I added, “’Cause I’m not a big fan of needles . . .”
Neffe paused in prepping her microscope slide and met my eyes, looking bored. She took a deep breath, exhaling heavily, then returned her attention to her equipment.
“Okay . . . never mind. I didn’t want an answer anyway,” I muttered.
Neffe stilled, closing her eyes for a moment. “You are a saint,” she said, glancing at Dominic, who was standing opposite her at a high, stainless steel table.
Jenny coughed, and I was pretty sure she was masking a laugh.
I glared at each of them in turn.
Finally, Neffe gave Jenny and me her full attention. “Are you sweating?”
My eyebrows knitted together. “Uh . . . no. Why?” I looked at Jenny, who shook her head.
Neffe waved her hand at the open floor space in front of our stools. “Do some jumping jacks.”
Jenny and I exchanged a look as we stood and moved a couple steps away from each other. Halfheartedly, I started hopping and flailing my arms, looking anywhere but at Dominic. I hated that he was watching me look so stupid.
“How long”—feet together—“do we have to”—feet apart—“do this?” I asked. Feet together . . . feet apart . . . feet together . . .
Neffe offered me a tight smile. “Until you sweat.”
I bared my gritted teeth to her. “Great.”
She looked at Dominic. “Will you please hunt down my father? I will need him to be present to test the effectiveness of the synthesized pheromone cocktail.”
Standing, Dominic nodded. “I will send him right down.” He started toward the door.
“Thank you, Dom,” Neffe said. She glanced at me. “And please hurry.”
Five minutes later, I was most definitely starting to sweat. I stopped doing jumping jacks and plopped down on my stool. Jenny did the same.
Neffe planted herself in front of us. “You are sweating?”
Jenny and I both nodded.
“Good. Take off your shirts.”
We stared at her for a few seconds. “Uh . . .” Jenny said in chorus with my indignant, “What?”
Exhaling heavily through her nose, Neffe pressed her lips together. “I need access to the sweat on the skin of your underarms; it is the easiest way for me to gather a sample of the various pheromones given off by your bodies.” She held up a long cotton swab and tilted her head to the side. “I’m trying to save my father’s and your sister’s lives, so your unhindered cooperation would be appreciated.”
With another exchanged look, Jenny and I pulled our shirts over our heads. Luckily, Neffe had her samples and we were back to being fully clothed by the time Marcus pushed the lab door open. ’Cause him walking in when we were topless would have be mortifying . . .
“I still think this is a waste of time, Neffe,” Marcus said as he strode over to Neffe’s workspace and eased down onto a stool. He looked awful, or as awful as he could ever look.
I sighed and rethought what I’d written to Lex. True love, at least with someone who looked like him, might just be worth all the trouble . . .
We sat and watched Neffe work for what felt like hours. I tried to make small talk with Jenny, but she looked almost as haggard as Marcus, and I didn’t feel far behind. Neffe was the only one of us who didn’t seem to be wilting under the weight of exhaustion and dark emotions. No, Neffe was handling the situation in an entirely different way; she was focusing on a problem she could solve. Maybe.
The door opened, making all of us jump, but only Jenny, Neffe, and I actually looked at it; Marcus simply stared at the metal tabletop like he wasn’t even there. Which, I realized, might actually have been the case—
nothing was stopping him from spending his time searching the unstable At for Lex.
Dominic came into the lab ahead of a petite Nejerette with a dark bob, bronze skin, and pixie-like features. “Marcus, I’m sorry,” Dominic said. “She demanded to see you right away.” He stopped several paces away from Marcus, holding out his arm to block the woman from reaching him. “She claims to know you . . . and to know how to help you.”
When Marcus still didn’t turn around, Dominic glanced at Neffe, who frowned and shook her head. It looked like she didn’t know the strange Nejerette either.
“Heru,” the woman said. “Please . . .”
Marcus lifted his head and, ever so slowly, turned around on his stool. “Aset?”
19
Friend & Foe
Marcus stood and approached the Nejerette like he was moving through tar. When he reached her, he raised his hand and touched the side of her face. “You’re real,” he whispered. “Aset . . . how are you real? You died . . . I saw—”
“But you didn’t see, did you, brother?” the woman—Aset—said with a hollow laugh. “Set blinded you, and you only thought I’d been killed. You all thought I’d been killed, because you had to think that.”
“But—”
“You never saw my body, dear brother.” She covered his hand with her own, leaning her cheek against his palm and closing her eyes. “Feel me, Heru, I am real.” She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. “I’m real.”
A choking sob escaped from Marcus, and he moved so quickly, raising his other hand and lowering his face to Aset’s, that it took me several seconds to register what he was doing. He was kissing her. My eyes bulged. It was nothing crazy, and there was clearly no tongue or anything like that, but still . . . he was kissing someone who was definitely not Lex.
Time Anomaly: A Time Travel Romance (Echo Trilogy, #2) Page 16