Everlasting (Descendants of Ra: Book 2)

by Tmonique Stephens

  ***

  Deep in her meditative state, Nu rebuilt her energy and healed the body of her host. It was a slow process. The child could barely contain her and each time she used her vis’Ra the child slipped further into the darkness. There was no biological reason for it.

  Yes, her vis’Ras could be destructive, but foremost she was a healer, a grower, nurturer of all things, and mother of the Pantheon. The energy she fed the child was pure. So why did her spirit falter and split into darkness, taking Nu along with her? Each day they grew weaker. Only strict conservation of her energy had saved her from leaving this realm and being forced to return to Chemmis.

  Days had passed since she last expended any energy to check on her children. She could sense them, knew they were alive and on this plane of existence. Sometimes their emotions filtered to her. Mostly anger and sometimes passion. She blocked the latter emotion and focused on their patterns.

  If her sons were stronger, they could sense her like the Gods of the Pantheon. But they were half-gods and thus limited. She did the best that she could for them by binding their vis’Ras at birth—and though it broke her heart—leaving them soon after to safeguard their presence. Those acts allowed them to mature. Now, they weren’t just formidable men. Already Reign showed signs of a breach in the psychic fortress she’d locked his vis’Ra behind. If Roman would do the same, nothing could harm them. Together they were—

  A backlash of energy pummeled her through the link to her sons. One was in pain, no…agony, and rage, but why? Nu expended what energy she could and easily found Roman inside the house, happy and content. Frantic, she turned her attention to Reign, but the link abruptly severed. Using the secret pathways she always used into his mind, she tried again and found a smooth steel door. She couldn’t reach him. Did he know of her?

  She tried again, beating against the mental barricade to no avail and in the process, exhausting her host. Then she felt him pass through the wards she had created to protect the house. A moment of relief flooded her until she read his patterns through the weaves of the wards.

  Altered.

  The Reign she watched—even when he was in Duat enslaved by Nephythys—was not the same entity that now entered the house. She tried another pathway and another, flitting around the edges of the steel trap of his core, searching for any entrance.

  When he flashed to the back lawn and passed through the next barrier to the house, she discovered a sliver of an opening and slipped inside. Her soul ran cold.

  NO! This I will not allow.

  Regardless of the consequences, she had to stop him.

  ***

  Khuket paused, ready. A bright light pierced the gloom and the goddess Nu separated from the child. The goddess gasped and a desperate look swept over her features. “My children! Reign, no!”

  Children! Reign and Roman. Twice the pain. Revenge delayed is just as sweet. Before Nu could flash, Khuket hurled her weave. Aimed at Nu’s chest, the dark ball of energy stopped inches away, snapped opened and wrapped around her. Tendrils, blacker than night, bound her. The goddess collapsed, shrieking in a wail that shattered all the windows in the room and rolled through the house.

  Khuket hesitated. Something was wrong. This weak creature could not be the goddess who conquered her kind at the beginning of time. The deity Khuket remembered would never have succumbed so easily. Still, she wouldn’t give the Egyptian a chance to recover. She gathered another ball of energy. This one wouldn’t bind her. This one would go straight into her heart. “Hello, Great Goddess. Look at me and remember.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  A roaring fire blazed in the fireplace, an Afghan was wrapped around her shoulders, her feet were in her favorite slippers resting on the ottoman, and she had a cup of tea and a plate of basboosa and baklava made with Egyptian honey. Together, all of these things didn’t chase away the loneliness devouring Hathoria Gregory’s soul, but they did make this one evening a bit easier to bear. The temptation to reach out to her only child’s mind gnawed at her. Tyrone had taken up a quest, one she didn’t approve. The day of his blind obedience had ended long ago, yet still too soon.

  “He’s not a child.” She reminded herself and nibbled on the pastry to soothe the ache in her heart. The time to cut the cord had passed, but he was all she had.

  She always knew, sooner or later, he would discover the truth—the secret she buried in the shifting sands eons ago. If only sooner would wait a bit longer.

  “Damn.” Her tea was cold. Hathoria peeled off the afghan from her lap, shifted her feet from the ottoman, and stood. She could warm the brew with a thought, but in the waning years of her mortal life, any expenditure of energy taxed her human body and pushed her closer to death. Not for the obvious reasons she didn’t want to die. Death would end this life, though not her existence. Once this human form died, the goddess Hathor would return to the Pantheon that would punish her, thus leaving her son unprotected.

  Carefully balancing the cup in her trembling hands, Hathoria shuffled off toward the kitchen. Halfway there, Nu’s wail stabbed through the protective shields guarding her mind. It was a psychic scream for help that the goddess dwelling within her couldn’t ignore. Hathor peeled away from the mortal shell and caught her human body before it fell.

  Gently, she guided her vessel back to the living room and made her comfortable on the sofa in the house which she raised their son. She didn’t have time to linger or wonder if she would return. Nu’s cries clawed at her. Hathor had no idea why the goddess called, but when the mother of the Pantheon summoned, you came.

  Hathor covered the distance between her home and Nu’s bedroom at RockGate in a matter of seconds. Nu lay struggling on the carpet, bound by bands of energy with an unknown deity stalking her. A ball of discordant power balanced in the stranger’s hands, who stood ready to throw it like a pitcher in the last game of the World Series.

  Hathor darted between the two. She stopped the hurled ball by extending her energy around the sphere. Quickly, she studied its erratic pattern to unravel the weave. She’d never seen anything like this energy before. It conformed to no regularity.

  The ball burned through Hathor’s shield. It knocked her across the room into the wall. She crumpled on the floor and stilled while the energy hovered above, waiting for her to move. The ball spun and tracked back to Nu.

  Across the distance, Hathor’s and Nu’s gazes met. Nu forced her thoughts into Hathor’s mind.

  No, Hathor answered and ignored the order to leave and stop Reign from whatever disastrous choice he was about to make on the back lawn. Nu tried to compel her, yet she was weak, too weak to command, too weak to save herself. Hathor flashed between the ball and Nu, and deflected it back to its master.

  “I did not plan to kill two Egyptians tonight.” Balls of energy gathered in the stranger’s hand. “Fortune favors me this day.”

  “Who are you?” Hathor demanded as she collected her vis’Ra.

  Red rimmed, pitted eyes glared from an ashen face surrounded by dark pixie hair. The tattered remains of a gown billowed in thick, angry bands stretching yards from the stranger’s petite body. “Who am I!” she screeched and the balls increased with her ascending rage. “Ask that bitch!” She hurled the energy, one at Hathor, and the other at Nu.

  The Goddess of Love couldn’t stop both, not at her present energy level, and this wasn’t her fight. Whoever this Goddess was and whatever Pantheon claimed her, she had a serious hard-on for Nu.

  Hathor could walk away like Nu walked away and left the Pantheon to wither on the vine. Hathor didn’t judge her, at least not as the others judged and condemned because she also left, and found love. Besides, the Pantheon deserved to wither. Those bastards deserved exile in Duat.

  She couldn’t call on them. They’d more than likely take bets than help. By now, they’d all heard Nu’s cry. The council would gather, a debate would ensue, and while they argued, she and Nu would die.

  Nu chanted, archaic words no longer s
poken in the Pantheon. Words Hathor remembered seeing in an ancient scroll that Nu had once snatched from her inexperienced hands. The room shook and dipped like a plummeting elevator. Chunks of plaster fell and the machines attached to the child cried an escalating tune.

  “Chant as you will, Egyptian. It will not work. How many millennia have I had to work my spell, this spell that will punish you for your crimes?” Her eyes blazed as she beheld Nu. Then she turned to Hathor.

  “I am Khuket, Goddess of Chaos and Darkness. Deity of Ogdoad. I am the last of my kind and the last thing you will ever see.”

  There was only one road Hathor could take, a path she never thought she would. Steeling her heart, she reached out across the distance and found a source she could use to bolster her energy. So familiar and very similar to her own, except for one key thing. It wasn’t Egyptian, not completely, which was a boon. She tapped into her source as the ball struck the shields she had extended around herself and Nu. Fortified, the barrier held…until the whirling mass burrowed through. First, a small fissure, then a wider gap as her weaves melted under the onslaught.

  She glanced at Nu. Granite-eyed, Nu watched the second ball do the same to the shield blanketing her. Hathor turned to her source again and drained it of every bit of power. The consequences of this action were unknown. There wasn’t anything she could do to change any of it except fight and pray her son would not hate her for her actions this day.

  Energy pooled into her, slightly alien, though adaptable. Channeling the force through her body to her palm, Hathor blasted Khuket across the room, smashing her through the farthest wall and into the adjacent bathroom. Pieces of wood, chunks of plaster and paint mixed with a geyser from a shattered sink.

  Hathor didn’t have a chance to claim victory. Khuket peeled herself from the floor. She levitated back into the bedroom. Wet and filthy, the wreckage followed her, gathered, and became projectiles wrapped in the same vis’Ra as the balls of energy. Hundreds of pieces, big as two by fours, small as splinters, darted toward them. Hathor reinforced her shield with the stolen energy. She slowed the deadly objects.

  The bedroom door swung open and Stella stood on the threshold. Her gaze darted between the three Gods and the child on the bed. She rushed toward the child.

  Hathor dropped her defenses. A mortal caught between three deities wouldn’t survive and Stella’s presence would only give Khuket leverage. Power leaped from Hathor’s hands. She caught Stella, flung her out of the room, and sealed the door.

  Hathor shielded Nu and herself a second before the first projectiles struck. The barrier didn’t stop them. Instead of blasting through Hathor’s weaves, they pierced the barrier in agonizing increments. Her vis’Ra couldn’t defeat this creature, but maybe something else could. Hathor manipulated the spewing water, redirecting the geyser and drenched Khuket. Then she channeled the electricity in the house, pulled it from the nearest sockets, and deflected the streaming arc at her enemy.

  The lights in the house flickered wildly. Not far away, a transformer blew and sparks rained on the withered late October grass, throwing the mansion into darkness and cutting off her supply.

  Smoking, yet still standing, Khuket wobbled on her feet.

  Bent over, hands braced on her knees, chest heaving, Hathor had nothing left. Her shields fell. Hathor deflected the larger pieces of wood and plaster, but the smaller pummeled and stabbed them.

  She had to call for help. Together, the Pantheon would destroy Khuket—before they turned their attention to their missing members.

  Fingers brushed Hathor’s bare feet and Nu’s thoughts filled her.

  Look to the night.

  Hathor glanced out of a destroyed window. A single, dense cloud raced across the moonlit heavens, a spark of lightning crackled within. She raised a hand to the sky, the other to Khuket, and with Nu’s help, channeled the lightning through her body and across the room.

  Khuket buckled. A bright orange flame ignited within her body. Her mouth opened in a silent scream and the flame consumed her form. She vaporized, leaving twinkling lights hovering in the air. A second passed before Hathor realized what they were. Hundreds of them. Somehow, Khuket had un-judged souls encapsulated within her.

  Five flickering lights lingered. Denser than the rest, these mini black holes swirled as they hovered.

  Hathor gasped. Sentinels! They were free! They darted away, each in a different direction before she could capture them. One catastrophe diverted only to have another on the way. Did Khuket know what she’d stolen from Duat?

  No. If Khuket knew, she wouldn’t have wasted time trying to kill two deities. She could’ve conquered this world and laid waste to Chemmis.

  The prophecy came to mind, but Hathor pushed the thought away. The tomb caging the Slayer shifted through time, never in the same place longer than a day, forever lost in the desert. The Rising would never happen.

  Hathor kneeled next to Nu. The goddess tried to speak, but her form flickered weakly. Hathor looked to the child and detected a dwindling sliver of life, though the EKG monitor screeched and broad spikes separated by wavy lines appeared on the screen. The goddess and the child were dying. Hathor could heal a broken heart, not an actual body, and not another god, yet she couldn’t let Nu die.

  “Help them,” Nu whispered.

  They had to return to Chemmis. It was the only way to save Nu. “I need to help you,” Hathor insisted. Feathery fingers brushed her hand and words were no longer necessary. “You’re dying. I can’t leave you like this.”

  Nu’s grip tightened on Hathor’s hand. Hathor tried to repel the urge to obey Nu’s wishes, but though she was weak, Nu wasn’t dead. Hathor couldn’t fight Nu when she merged with her soul.

  Outside on the lawn, a high-pitched cry ripped through the night. Stella, she was the only woman in the house. Hathor darted to the window.

  Damn, she was too late.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The time to explain had ended. Reign gripped Roman’s shoulders and flashed them to where Daniel waited, transformed into Alamut. Soon, they would have an audience.

  Roman’s startled gaze swung to Reign and then landed on the blade humming in his hand.

  Reign didn’t wait, he couldn’t wait, because that one second of indecision would cause him to fail, and lose his brother and Alexis. This was his only chance to save them all.

  He buried his blade into his twin’s abdomen. Desperately, he wanted to look away from the surprise and betrayal mirrored on Roman’s face. Instead, he pulled his brother closer. He wished he could be kinder, gentler, but Roman was just as stubborn as he was. This brutal assault was the only way.

  Reign wanted to explain. Alamut standing inches away prevented him from making a sound. But once, they didn’t need words to speak to each other. Once, they had entire conversations without saying a word. Reign plunged the blade deeper into his brother’s gut and used his power to slice into Roman’s mind. Their psychic link connected and unbearable pain blasted through Reign.

  His soul’s tenuous grip on sanity crumbled chunk by chunk. Roman was dying and taking Reign’s mind with him.

  He had to hurry. Already the blade had started incinerating Roman from the inside out. Reign ignored Thane and Alamut fighting next to him. He pushed past the fury in his brother’s mind and tried to share his thoughts, to make him understand. But Roman fought him, rejected his intrusion. God, he couldn’t blame him, and he couldn’t stop his brother from dying in front of his eyes.

  “I need you to trust me, as you once did, brother.” Forehead to forehead, his brother’s dying gaze met his as the crimson flames flared, illuminating everything around them. “We are the same. Fight it! Fight me!”

  Roman’s mouth opened. Flames rushed out and engulfed his brother. When they died—his twin was gone.

  Reign dropped to his knees. A sob ripped from his throat. The residual of Roman’s pain echoed inside of him, tainting what was left of his soul. That polluted essence slipped a little mo
re as his sanity hung by a slim thread, floating over his own personal hell.

  An anguished bellow echoed. Stella, with a blade in her hand, streaked toward him. She swung for his head. He almost let her take it but ducked and met her challenge blade for blade.

  Her strength startled him. Though Reign could see his brother’s training in her skill, her parries were wild and unfocused, easy to deflect. When Thane tried to join their battle, Reign drew a protective bubble around them to keep the others out and disarmed her within two moves. She crumpled to her knees and her chin buried in her chest. Wails tore from her throat.

  “Kill me.” She lifted her head. Stormy gray eyes blazed at him.

  Alamut’s yell drew his attention. Thane had managed to wound him while Hector hammered against the shield protecting him and Stella. Then Alamut vanished. Reign had to follow or risk losing his chance to save Alexis.

  “Forgive me,” he pleaded, gazing down into Stella’s desolate face.

  “Never!”

  The word trailed after him as he flashed away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Someone must have taken a bat and beaten every square inch of her body because all of her hurt. Yet all her aches paled in comparison to the hole in her heart.

  Alexis blinked until her blurry vision cleared, though that still didn’t help clarify her situation.

  Where am I?

  Flat on her back and staring straight ahead, the ceiling above her belonged in a mausoleum. All white marble threaded with veins of gold that seemed to resemble the noon sun, with clouds wafting by, and birds soaring between them.

  Am I dead?

  Alexis inhaled quickly and choked on the strange smelling air. Sulfur—she had just breathed in the poisonous gas. She groaned. The dead didn’t breathe and they didn’t hurt. She rose and a bout of nausea knocked her flat. At least the bed she lay on cushioned her comfortably. Pieces of memories flashed behind her closed eyelids. The battle with the quimaera, the death of Ruthless, and Reign—how could he? The ache in the center of her chest spread.