Michael raised a finger. “There’s something I don’t get.”
All heads swiveled toward Justin’s younger partner.
He shrugged. “Why didn’t this nameless one, simply…leave? He could have been anyone, done anything. Why risk a confrontation with you?”
Khepri blinked, surprised by the question, because she hadn’t thought about it from the point of view of someone who didn’t understand that some things were simply written into existence. “I would have found him, wherever he fled. Our fates were interwoven. Without me removed from the situation, he would always wonder when I would appear to do battle.”
Michael’s lips pursed. “If I’d been resurrected after being murdered, I’d have done everything in my power to live my life to the fullest. I wouldn’t risk myself like that again.”
“Pharaoh’s intention is not to simply hide in plain sight. His will is set. The vizier who murdered us both said his spirit is possessed, so he is unable to change. He seeks power, a new throne. In this realm. With Ammit by his side, using her powers of persuasion and ability to instill terror, he could be the calm at the center of the storm, even of one he fabricates. I am the only one who would see him for what he truly is. He will never be at ease, unopposed, so long as I live. If for a moment I believed he had remorse for what he did, that he might…change…into a man worthy of second chance…” She shook her head. “The fact he consorts with Ammit is proof he will not change.”
Michael nodded. Justin turned to look out the window of the car. Did he feel regret, just as she did, that Pharaoh was still intent on his path?
Amun cleared his throat. “We are here.”
The moment they passed the park entrance, Khepri raised the hem of her kalasiris and bit the edge, tearing it with her teeth. She gripped the fabric in both hands and rent it to just above her knee. When she glanced up, all three men were staring at the leg she bared. “I cannot be tripping over it. Sorry, husband, I know it was expensive.”
He chuckled and waved a hand. “The sheik can afford it.”
They neared the area near the small walking bridge where Sobek had climbed onto the bank to carry her to the cave. They all exited the sheik’s fine vehicle. A full moon, glowing yellow, hovered directly overhead, lending enough light that Khepri could pick out the armed men, dressed in black, who were stepping from large, square vehicles. They carried weapons, and they had wires that ran up their necks and hooked over the tops of their ears. A man stepped forward and handed similar apparatuses to both Michael and Justin. They put the ends in their ears and spoke quietly, nodding when they heard each other. When the man offered her the same, she waved him away.
“You’d be able to hear us and we’d hear you,” Justin murmured.
She shook her head. “Distractions…”
“Then I’ll stick close.”
She smiled and then turned to her husband. “You won’t be coming with us?” she asked, although she already sensed his answer.
Shaking his head, he reached for her hand and bent over it, kissing the top. When he straightened, he said, “I wish you well, Khepri. It has been a pleasure watching over you.”
“That sounds like good-bye,” she said, a tingle of alarm reverberating through her. Amun had been such a big part of her life, even when he’d been ephemeral, she didn’t know what a world without him would be like. “Either way, won’t I see you again?”
“I will always be there, but for this, you must travel alone.” He lifted his chin toward Justin. “She is free, Justin Henry Boucher.”
Justin gave the god of the wind a solemn nod. “I’ll watch out for her.”
Khepri raised her eyebrows. The two men spoke of her as though she were a token to be passed between them. Her eyes narrowed on her husband.
His lips twitched. Since apparently he really could read her thoughts, he knew she resented feeling as though she were an object to be passed from one to the other.
Without saying another word, her god husband walked away, shadows swallowing him.
“That spell?” Justin said, reminding her.
Khepri’s glance remained on the darkness where her husband had disappeared for a long moment, and then she turned to the man who had tried to give her a listening device. “You will follow us into the water?”
“We will go wherever you lead us,” he said, and flashed her a confident nod.
Justin shrugged off his fine jacket, removed the strapping around his torso that held his weapon, and stripped away his outer shirt to stand beside her in only a bright white undershirt. His handheld weapon, he stuffed into the back of his trousers. Michael did the same. They both gave her a nod, signaling they were ready.
“Give me a moment. I have to think.” She waved them back and walked to the edge of the water. Golden light reflected on the surface. She kicked off her sandals and walked in until the water lapped gently around her thighs and thick vegetation squeezed between her toes.
Glancing upward, she studied the moon. “I could use your light, Khonsu,” she said softly. “If I entreat you, will you provide it? I am sorry I do not remember you, but if you are half as remarkable as your father…” She closed her eyes, drawing in the moonlight, imagining the glow warming her skin, a true tingling warmth thrilled through her veins. When she opened her eyes, she glanced down. Her body glowed. Although she hadn’t envisioned how her request would be manifested, she was happy with the result. “Thank you,” she murmured.
Turning to glance over her shoulder, she looked at the group assembled at the water’s edge. Twelve men in all. “Now you will see me. Don’t let me out of your sights until we are there.”
Then she turned, took a deep breath, and dived beneath the water’s surface. In her mind, she prayed,
“Great ones, hear me.
Aid me now in returning one who has escaped Osiris’s realm.
Amun, do not forsake me, not just yet. Guide my way.
Horus, friend to my husband, lend me your battle prowess.
I am only a woman, frail of body, but fierce of heart.
I, who was born in humble field, but raised a God’s Wife, entreat you.
Open a doorway, let us find the nameless one.
I will join a righteous battle, in your service.
Should we prevail, we will tell your stories,
We will not forget. Open the door—I am Khepri, Amun’s wife, I entreat you…”
She swam downward, deeper than the bottom of the waterway, light pouring from her body, air leaving her lungs in green bubbles. Before long, her chest burned, but she stretched, reaching deeper and deeper with her strokes, and for a moment she doubted she could swim any farther. Had Amun truly expected her to do this without some small intervention? She closed her eyes. Husband, please!
In the next instant, she was standing inside the cave, her body dry and no longer glowing, silvered instead by the tiny, starlike lights swirling on the ceiling. Her throat tightened in a moment’s remembered panic. But she wasn’t smothering, wasn’t wrapped in linens. Behind her, footsteps sounded, crushing the soft sand.
She glanced back to find the team spreading out around her. Relief that they had made it, that each one of them hadn’t given up, lifted her spirits.
“Where to?” Justin called softly, coming up beside her.
She glanced around the chamber, at the rock slab where she’d been laid by the vizier, at the wind-scoured walls, and then upward. This time, the ladder was once again present, leaning against the edge of the hole at the top of the ceiling. “There,” she pointed, toward the stars gleaming above them in a midnight-blue sky through the small, round opening.
Justin stepped past her and began climbing. Michael followed. She glanced at the man who had tried to give her the listening device, the team’s commander by the way the rest of the men looked to follow his lead. “Follow me, protect me and my friends, but do not interfere when I find Dr. Felton.”
He gave her a nod, and she climbed the ladder, encumbe
red by her long skirt. When she neared the top, a hand reached down to help her over the edge. Once outside, a hot wind tossed her hair and whipped at her skirts. Instantly, she missed the sultry air of Justin’s home.
Justin steadied her as she stood. “Where the hell are we?”
“My past, I think. Where I was entombed.”
“I’m sorry for that,” he said, his voice deepening.
Khepri shrugged. “It’s a lonely place, but I wasn’t aware of it for very long.” Which was a small half-truth. The memory of the moments when she’d awakened, her body trapped by layers of fine linen, wrapped so tightly she could scarcely breathe, was never very far from her thoughts.
Something of what she felt, the melancholy that chilled her soul, must have shown on her face.
Justin pulled her close and bent his head. His mouth touched hers briefly before he set her back. “For luck,” he said gruffly.
She touched his chest, right above his heart. “There are so many things I would say to you.”
“Save it. For later.”
The white flash of his smile pulled her own mouth into an answering grin. “Later, then,” she said, the words nearly choking her, because in her heart, she doubted there would be another moment like this one.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Juste smiled down at Khepri even though the effort made his teeth ache because his jaw was clenched so hard He still fought his own disbelief over the fact they’d been swimming into swampy water and then suddenly arrived inside Khepri’s cave, completely dry and standing on solid ground.
The air was dry; grit sifted into his clothing and between his clenched teeth. The place where they stood was at the base of a ridgeline of rocky outcrops riddled with dark openings. More caves. The night sounds he was accustomed to hearing, insects and frogs, were absent here, save for the faint howl of the wind stirring through the caves. The place was desolate. His chest ached at the thought of what Khepri must have felt as her life had slipped away from her in this lonely place.
“Here.” Haddara’s team leader pointed toward the ground. Tracks, not theirs because they hadn’t yet moved that far from the cave mouth, led in a straight line along the escarpment. Two sets.
“Head out,” Juste said to the team lead. “Put one of your guys on point. Mikey, you’re with me.” Left unsaid was the fact he’d be sticking like glue to Khepri every step of the way.
Juste pulled his weapon, waiting until the first members of the team passed and the others spread out on either side of the three who would be in the middle as they trekked forward.
A glance at Khepri said she didn’t mind being stuck in the center with him. She flashed a smile.
“You’re barefoot,” he said, frowning.
“I am not delicate,” she said, wrinkling her nose in an answering scowl.
The way was rocky, but she didn’t complain, keeping pace with her protectors. The formation neared a series of caves, black openings that gaped like mouths. A scrape sounded from one, a moment before a blur of motion, darting from one of the caves, plucked a man off his feet and retreated. The rapid tattoo of gunfire sounded from the inside of the cave, then abruptly stopped.
Juste pushed Khepri to the ground and lowered himself over her. Mikey crouched beside them, his weapon trained on the cave’s mouth.
The team lead signaled to his men, and they fanned out to either side of the entrance, donning night vision goggles. Khepri pushed up to rest on her elbows, blowing to move a lock of hair from her face. “You can get off me.”
“Stay put.”
“This is my battle.”
“You brought us along for something. Or did you just want to feed Ammit until she was too fat to move?”
She jerked under him, trying to angle her head to glance back at him. “I would never—”
“I know that,” he grumbled. “Let them do their job.”
“Fine, but I should be ready to move. I cannot do it if my legs and bottom are tingling from lack of blood.”
“Fine,” he grunted and moved to beside her. She came to a crouch behind Mikey.
“What do you hear on your ear things?” she asked, not looking away from the cave’s entrance.
Any other time, he’d find her concentration cute. Her eyes were narrowed, her brows lowered. Her lips were pinched into a thin line he’d like to kiss. “Not a chirp. They’re using hand signals.”
The first two team members crept around the sides of the cave and disappeared inside. A moment later, two more entered.
What followed were long, tense moments of silence. No sound of gunfire or shouts. No one moved. Juste barely breathed, and from the lack of sound beside him, neither did his two companions.
Just when he’d decided to ask the team lead to check inside the cavern, something flew from the cave’s mouth, spraying as it sailed before thudding against the ground. Juste didn’t have to be close to know it was part of a team member’s body. The sound of the wet, dull thud and the scent of blood filled the air.
Two more men scrambled out of the entrance, retreating to stand at the mouth, weapons raised and firing into the cave.
The ground beneath him shook with the heavy tread of the beast that flew out of the cave. Seemingly impervious to the weapons the men fired, it twisted its body, knocking one man off his feet with a sideways swing of its long snout, then opened its mouth and clamped its jaw around the other man, making a sickening crunching sound before shaking its head and letting fly the two separated halves of the man’s body.
The beast paused, lifted its head, and made a deafening sound that was a cross between a hiss and roar.
“How do we fight it?” Juste bit out, one hand supporting the other holding the weapon, but unable to choose a shot.
Her glance glued on the creature stomping farther out of the cave, Khepri said, “You cannot defeat her. Only another god can kill her. But you can maim her to remove her from the battle.” She glanced sideways, frowning. “Her eyes. They will be the most vulnerable part of her body.”
“Go for her eyes. Shoot her eyes,” Juste shouted, straightening and training his own weapon on the beast’s crocodilian head.
Golden eyes blinked. Ammit’s head swung their way then tilted, so that one wide-spaced orb glared directly at him.
“Get Khepri back,” Juste said, pitching his voice over his shoulder to Michael while he planted his feet firmly in the sandy, graveled dirt and aimed down his barrel at Ammit’s blinking eye.
In his earpiece, the team lead shouted incomprehensible orders to his team, and two men ran toward the monster, leaping on opposite shoulders and grabbing her mane to hoist themselves up.
Rather than risk striking either of the men, Juste lowered his weapon and aimed at her belly.
The shots dug furrows in her hide, and she screamed, but she had bigger worries than him because one of the men had worked his way forward, his partner grabbing his utility belt to hold him steady while he wielded a wicked, long blade and stabbed at her head. The blade deflected from the rigid snout and skull, sounding as though it struck wood.
Ammit growled and grunted, her feet stomping hard, causing the earth to quake. She shook her head violently, tossing the men side to side but failing to dislodge them. At last, one downward slice impaled a golden eye.
The creature’s back arched, its head rising, pointing upward as it shook and bucked, but to no avail. The man twisted the blade and sank it deeper.
Shrieking in agony, Ammit shuddered, falling to the ground.
The men scrambled off her back. Her body shivered, her outline shimmering as she changed, once more in woman form, naked and holding her head in her hands as she sobbed.
The men who’d defeated her circled her warily but eventually reached out and grabbed her arms, securing them behind her. Once they had her feet tied as well, they sat on her back and buttocks. Only then did they look up to the team lead to give him sharp nods. They could move on to the next target.
“They w
ill keep her secured while we search for the nameless one,” the team lead said, his grin tight.
Another team member approached at a run. “We have found another cave with footprints.”
Khepri pushed past Juste. “Lead me to him.”
Juste clamped a hand around her upper arm to stop her. “Dr. Felton, this nameless king—he’s just a man, isn’t he? You should let us take him.”
Khepri frowned. “He’s a man, but empowered by magic. Like me.” Her chin jutted. “I’m the one who must approach him. This is my quest.”
“But there’s no need. Not when you have us.”
She shook her head, lifting a hand to slide along his cheek. “These things are predestined, however you might disagree. Amun did not raise me to cower behind you. There is a purpose I must serve, just as you have served yours, getting me to this moment.”
Juste bit back another argument and released his hold on her arm. He’d let her take the lead, but he’d be one step behind her. He waved her on to follow the team member as he retraced the path Dr. Felton had taken.
This cave had a wide mouth. Light shone against a sandstone wall as the entrance narrowed and turned. An invitation. They wouldn’t have the element of surprise.
Khepri strode forward, passing the team members fanning even now around the entrance.
Juste followed, Mikey right behind him.
Inside the cave, the air changed, smelling faintly of sulfur. A breeze wafted, then grew more brisk the closer they drew to where the tunnel curved. The space was narrower, and Juste had to duck down to keep from scraping his head on the ceiling.
Khepri marched on, her back straight, her hands swinging at her sides, not a trace of fear or apprehension in her stride or posture.
At last they entered a large cavern. Above them, the ceiling was black and glistening. The floor was covered in deep, white sand. There was a fire pit in the center, and Dr. Felton sat on a rock, a notebook on his knee.
Juste frowned at the sight of him, looking so engrossed, so normal. Until he raised his head and smiled at Khepri. His eyes glinted, dark humor in their shining depths. His mouth was a thin, eerie circle that slowly stretched into a smile that raised the hairs on the back of Juste’s neck.
Crescent Moon Page 22