“Never mind.” I waved him off. “Share the wine among yourselves. I only drink vodka.”
“Yes, lord.” He rapidly blinked and ducked my gaze, likely relieved he had survived the encounter.
The second his flickering gaze caught mine again, I added, “And souls.”
“Yes, lord…” Back he went toward the door, shoes scuffing.
I zeroed in on his glare and probed inside his soul, finding it dark. “Yours looks sweet.”
His throat bobbed and he froze, a deer caught in the headlights. He didn’t look up, knowing if he did, I might see all the sins inside his soul.
Aika watched it all with professional detachment and unassuming silence. Motionless, she almost blended into the background. That was where her danger lay. She saw and heard everything. As much as I’d enjoyed the challenge of having her around, the game was coming to an end, but on my terms. For my next move, I needed her occupied elsewhere.
I approached the little man. In his early twenties, he was still dressed as though he might drop by the office later. Up close, creases and tears spoiled the illusion that nothing had changed. I wondered, briefly, if he had a family somewhere or if Seth’s sands had taken them.
“What is your name?”
“Tim… Timothy, lord.” Tremors traveled through him.
“Apophis?” Aika bowed her head and lifted the glass. “This wine is not what it appears.” She lifted the glass to her nose and sniffed. Her brow tightened.
“Wait!” Tim dropped to his knees.
“Where did you get this?” Aika handed the glass back to me, her glare locked on Tim.
I sniffed at its contents again. Wine was wine, wasn’t it? I never had cared for anything I couldn’t reliably ignite before drinking. “Raqaor.” Reveal. The glass cracked and a dart of pain sparked across my palm. On reflex, my fingers opened, and the glass shattered at my feet. Red wine fanned across the floor. I could taste it now, the delicate hint of power in the air. A curse. And I recognized its source.
Blood welled in the wound. I closed my fingers on it and watched it dribble into the mess at my feet. Timothy had sealed his fate. Between one moment and the next, I’d dissolved into a furious cloud of embers and crossed to the quivering Tim. The man grunted in fear when I wrapped a hand made of smoke around his neck. By the time I had him pinned against the wall, I was solid again, but my skin continued to burn and crumble, and ash rained around me.
“Osiris sent you!”
“N-no… No, lord. No! I didn’t know. Someone else gave it to me. I was told to bring it to you. I didn’t know!”
“You’re new?” I asked.
He nodded fast. He wouldn’t have known an unfamiliar face among the attendants. Someone had singled him out to deliver the glass, a glass designed to do more had I drunk from it.
I smiled. Osiris had been learning his wife’s slippery ways.
Dropping Tim, I stepped back. He fell forward onto his hands and knees, cowering, muttering, begging.
I needed to send a message to Osiris, one he couldn’t ignore.
“Have him hung, drawn, and quartered. He is not to die.”
Tim froze.
Aika dipped her chin. “Yes, my lord. I will oversee it personally.”
“W-what?” Tim asked. “What does that mean?”
“Display his body somewhere public. Let it be known that Osiris’s scorpions will be found and dealt with.”
“I… W-what?” Tim stammered.
“Seramca,” I hissed, silencing him.
“Shouldn’t his screams be heard as a message to all?” Aika questioned. She had freed her dagger and was hungrily eyeing the spy.
“No.” My palm throbbed and blood continued to drip-drip on the floor. “I must deal with the sorceress, and his wailing will be a distraction.”
Aika dipped her head. “Kur Apophis.”
Tim bolted. But Aika was fast. She threw the knife. It punched home in the back of the man’s thigh, instantly bringing him down.
I turned away and pushed his whimpering from my mind. “Let me know when it is done.”
I made it to my chamber without running. It didn’t matter that I’d seen Tim’s dark soul; I had condemned a man to an arduous death. Part of me wanted it. A larger part didn’t want to care. But I did.
The act had to continue. I couldn’t let it slip, not when everything was falling into place. Osiris had sent his opening gambit. I could make a move in return. Like so many others I’d tracked and killed during the sundering, Tim had paid a heavy price, but he wouldn’t be forgotten. Necessary sacrifices. Cat had been one, and there would be others before this was over.
I fell inside my room and slammed the door behind me. Aika was occupied. My priests were elsewhere. For the first time in days, no one was watching me. Finally, I could speak with Shukra freely…
But there wasn’t a sorceress tied to the bedpost. She had been there when I’d left.
Movement to my right.
I spun, a hand out and a spellword on my lips. An iron bar swooped toward my head. After that, I saw nothing at all.
Chapter 4
The dull throbbing ache dragged me from unconsciousness, where I would have preferred to stay. Blood blurred my left eye, but I had enough sight in my right to see Shukra standing in front of me. She held the iron bar and beat it against her opposite palm. The crusted flakes falling off it were likely rust or blood. Shukra wasn’t a large woman, but she had put every muscle behind the earlier swing. I’d be feeling it for a while.
I pulled on my wrists—snagged tight over my head and tied to the bedpost. They didn’t give.
“How’d you like that, Acehole?” She smirked.
I couldn’t reply or utter any spellwords around the rag stuffed into my mouth. Simple enough to escape, I thought, but as I tried to shift into ash, nothing happened.
Shukra’s dark eyebrow arched. “You left your little box behind. I studied it and picked out the hieroglyphs similar to those the witches used to trap you. I figured the markings on the box could trap more than your memories. Oh look, I was right.” She pointed down and drawled, “Like always.”
She’d scratched hieroglyphs into the dusty floor. I was bound and silenced, and at any second, Aika might enter the room. If the priests saw me trussed up and at Shukra’s mercy, my game of lies would be over.
“Youhavetoletmego,” I said, but it came out as indecipherable bundle of grunts.
“I’m gonna tell you a story.” She tilted her head. “There once was a soul eater. Most everyone hated the self-centered, sanctimonious, hypocritical reptile. But the soul eater had a clever, deadly, and devilishly beautiful sorceress cursed to his black soul. For five hundred years, the soul eater fought against the asshole gods, and all the while, the magnificent sorceress stood valiantly beside him.”
I narrowed my eyes. This wasn’t helping, and I already knew how the story ended. Plus, that wasn’t how I remembered our shared past. The devilishly clever sidekick had been a vicious, condemned demon, but sure, we’d stick with magnificent so long as she would cut me down at the end of her tale.
“The gods assumed he was just a stupid, no-name soul eater. And sometimes, even he thought the same. But when the end of the world came and the Lord of the Desert rose, the soul eater had a plan because, you see”—Shukra approached, looking me dead in the eye—“he was not just a soul eater. Turns out he was the Baddest of the Bad and the gods were in for one hell of a wake-up call.” She stopped close enough for me to see the purple specks of power in her eyes. “He confided in his brilliant sorceress and told her to keep his friends safe while he infiltrated the Desert Lord’s world with lies. His sexy and dashing counterpart told him it was too risky, that he would lose himself to the powerful memories, but he assured her his plan would work.”
Shukra paused. Sometime during her tale, her smile had faded. Deep worry lines dug into her brow.
“He forgot how she knew the sound of his lies. She tried to reach
him in time, but the battlefront was bloody and her friends were fragile humans who could die like flies. However, she courageously upheld her promise and kept the fragile humans safe, but in that time, the soul eater turned into everything they both feared. He had become the lie.”
Trust in the lie. Trust in the lie. I glowered at her as hard as I could. If she took the rag out, I could at least explain that I had to keep up the act. “Iftheyseemelikethis…”
She ignored me and continued with a dramatic drop in her tone. “He captured the noble sorceress, threatened to cut out her tongue, and left her tied to his bedpost.”
I rolled my eyes. Shu, a damsel in distress? Nobody would believe that. Shukra slammed the edge of the bar under my chin and leaned in, crushing my windpipe. “Now I have a call to make,” she sneered. “Kill Apophis while I can and maybe save the world for all of ten minutes, right before Osiris or Seth claim it, or trust that somewhere behind all that godly glamor Ace Dante still lives.”
Holding her glare revealed her light soul. Whatever she decided, I was proud of her. She had risen from the darkest depths to outshine the likes of me. There wasn’t any other condemned demon I would have wanted to spend the last five hundred years with.
Her lips twisted and her eyes narrowed as though she was trying to see through all the embers in my eyes and into my soul. There wasn’t much light in there, but a flicker must exist. I was evidence that gods could change, even if my light only lasted a short while before the dark swallowed it.
“Ugh, I’m going to regret this.” She yanked out the rag and backed up.
I spat fibers and dirt to the side, opened my mouth to speak—
“If you so much as utter something with power, I’ll ram this bar so far down your throat it’ll stake you to the floor.”
“Love you too, Shukra.”
She tilted her head again, studying my words. “Say something else.”
“Did you bring vodka?”
Her dark eyes darkened further and narrowed to cutting slits. “More.”
I growled around a curse. “Cut me down before the priests overhear or, worse, before they see this…”
Her smile twitched, and she dragged her glare up and down her quarry: me. “Do you remember that time I tied you to the railroad? I can’t remember what the point of it was, but I recall how I enjoyed every twist of the rope. I get all tingly just thinking about it. Oh, where was that? We were traveling out west—”
“Shu! The priests!”
She glanced at the door. “Don’t they worship you?”
“Yes, and they’re everywhere. The second they realize I’ve been lying, their survival instincts will have them running to Seth, proclaiming their eternal devotion. I haven’t gotten answers out of the kid, and I’m not powerful enough to take down Seth—yet.”
Her lips pouted and skewed sideways. She started beating the bar against her palm again, dark eyes glittering. “Can I at least hit you again? The first time was almost orgasmic.”
“Cut. Me. Down.”
She scrubbed out a few markings and reached up to untie the rope.
The door creaked open.
My human act collapsed, turning into a twisting column of ash that spiraled around Shu. She had a second to gasp and reach for her oily power, but before she and I could lock horns, I abandoned her and crossed the floor, slamming into the intruder.
“I said… no interruptions.”
A priest. One of many. I should have known his name but didn’t. With my hand under his jaw, I forced his head back, revealing the whites of his eyes.
Blood dribbled into my eye. I’d forgotten to fix the wound Shu had given me. Hopefully the priest was too afraid to notice, because if word got back to Aika…
Damn these fools.
“Raoqa!” Leave!
I scooped him up, shoved him out the door, and slammed it hard enough to crack the frame. Power simmered through me, crackling from ember to ember. I clamped my hands to my head, rebuilding the human act and all its facets. Souls howled, sands hissed, and my mind fractured. I couldn’t go on like this for much longer. Apophis was never meant to be worshipped. I wasn’t a god. I was something else, something to be feared, not admired. These fools and their devotion—they were stirring up their own monster and feeding it treats.
“I believed,” Shukra quietly said. She sat on the edge of the bed, curiously watching me slot bits of myself back into being human. “I hate you right now.”
I laughed and heard how the sound cracked, threatening to shatter. “I thought that was normal?” With a ragged sigh, I lifted my gaze to the sorceress. “By the gods, Shukra. You took your time getting here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she drawled with a snarky smile. “It must have been so difficult to lounge about on your throne all day and have all those stupid people massage your enormous ego.”
“You have no idea.”
She snorted. “Whatever. That little bitch-priestess was going to cut out my tongue. I am going to find her and cut off her toes, one by one, and then I’m going to make her watch while I eat them like popcorn.”
Shukra was here. Finally, I could slip the act, if only for a few moments. My heart rate slowed and the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders. I could do this. I wasn’t alone any longer. Shu was here. The lies were still lies. They hadn’t become true. I was Apophis, but more.
“Then I’m going to do the same with her fingers,” Shukra continued as she ran a hand through her knotted hair. “Her nipples too. I’ll wear those as earrings.”
“You can’t.” I fell into a chair and dropped my head back, closing my eyes. Power rippled across my skin. Too much power. Too much temptation. But Shukra was here. Finally, Shukra was here. And that meant not everything was lost. “You can’t touch Aika. You can’t touch anyone. You’re to stay here and act the part until we can figure out a time to move. It’s the only way for now.”
“Act like what?” I opened my eyes and frowned at Shu. She eyed the bed. “Your pet? Then kill me now because that’s never happening.”
She had to understand. “The only reason you’re alive is because they think I’m torturing you.”
“Your ridiculously sad puppy eyes already are.”
“I’m not screwing around, Shu. If one single whiff of suspicion falls on me, then this is over and our plan might as well be ash. As far as anyone is concerned, I am Apophis. All those people worshipping me, the priests… One fuck-up and Seth will know I’m…” I hesitated, careful to lower my voice. Even speaking words of betrayal here was a risk I wasn’t ready to take. Too much was riding on my and Shu’s subterfuge.
She huffed and looked around the room with renewed interest. “You had me fooled. I believed it. Everything. I really thought you were going to let her take my tongue…” She stopped, her thoughts catching up with her words. Her dark expression said it all. She had believed it because it was real.
“I am Apophis,” I said, rising to my feet. “Sure, I’ve changed since hiding in Ace Dante, but the illusion is over. I am the End of All Things, and don’t think for one second I won’t turn on you and everyone here. I will, eventually. Which version of me do you think holds more sway? The five centuries of drunken bad boy, or the countless millennia as a world-ending monster?”
She searched my eyes, saw the truth there, and nodded tightly. “Then I guess we’re lucky you’re on the good side.”
Good? Could a demon sorceress and a mad anti-god really be good? The laughter threatened to bubble free again. “For now. But this…” I tossed a hand out, indicating the room, the building, and everything in it. “The more I’m worshipped, the more dangerous I become. We don’t have long.” I don’t have long, I added silently. “Tell me what’s happening outside Manhattan.”
“Martial law throughout the US. Everything the military throws at the Red Storm doesn’t even penetrate it. Might as well be throwing sticks at tanks. It would be hilarious if the sand hadn’t swallowed so many people. People
are panicking. It’s sad, really.” Her voice softened. “It’s all coming undone.”
Not all of it. This was just the beginning. I was bringing the end. “How far has Seth reached?”
“North Carolina. Into Iowa. Far.”
Farther than I’d realized. Farther than I thought him capable of on his own. I needed Nile to talk. No more stalling. I would have to compel him if he didn’t give the information freely. This had gone on long enough.
“There’s something else…” Shu began in her “oh, I forgot to mention how we’re all about to die” voice. “The scrolls Osiris had me deliver to people, they’re coming alive.”
“Coming alive how?”
“I don’t know how to describe it. They’ve rooted themselves in this world and started growing.”
“Growing?”
She reached for the right word. “Charging.”
Osiris had had Shukra place those scrolls with various people for years, and each one was incredibly potent. I’d burned one after some kids had stumbled on it and used it as the anchor for their summoning spell. I had gotten a taste of its magic. Those scrolls weren’t mediocre magic. And that was before they’d somehow come alive. Osiris had a plan. Of course he did. He’d had a plan since the beginning, long before it became known who I was. Maybe because of who I was. The prophecy wasn’t about him. He’d been working all this time to make sure it came to pass, or at least line everything up. The scrolls, the boy, Shukra’s building. The only thing he hadn’t planned for was my releasing Seth.
Shu added, “I should probably mention something else.”
“Probably,” I drawled.
“Osiris had me buy my building. And then he compelled me to paint a few hieroglyphs and cover them up with art to hide them.”
I’d been in her apartment building. I’d seen her paintings. At the time, I’d looked for something suspicious but hadn’t found anything. But the paintings had been right there in plain sight. “How long has this been going on?”
“A few years. I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“Now.”
Edge of Forever (The Soul Eater Book 6) Page 3