“The end of the world is too late, Shu.”
“Pfft, it’s not like you never had any secrets, Apophis.”
I started to argue but stopped. What was done was done. Arguing over the past couldn’t change it. There was no going back, only forward.
“Has he purchased other buildings?” I asked, wondering if Nile’s depot in Allentown belonged to Osiris. The kid probably didn’t know daddy owned it—considering their strained reunion—but Osiris had a way of manipulating from behind the scenes.
“Don’t know. Probably. It’s connected. It must be.”
Isis had once told me her husband never did anything without a reason. I was beginning to wonder if I had underestimated the son of a jackal. He had scrolls rooting themselves in this world and buildings scattered around the city. It sounded to me as though Osiris was setting up his final play.
“This weapon… When Nile was building it in Allentown, I was introduced to his power, and it’s the same as Osiris’s. His power is life…” I said, thinking aloud.
“Maybe it’s not a weapon at all?” she suggested. My laugh sounded like a growl. One of her eyebrows arched. “He’s a slithering lizard, I agree, but he’s also the God of Life and Rebirth. Why would he want a weapon that destroys?”
I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are we talking about the same Osiris?”
“I’m just saying he could have a reason we aren’t seeing.”
“Osiris? The same bastard who killed thousands to make this world bow down to him.”
“Like you”—she circled her hand in the air—“right now?”
“That’s…” I bit my tongue. Necessary, I wanted to say. Trust in the lie. Trustinthelie. I had to do these things. I had to make them all believe.
She shrugged. “I’m just sayin’, if you look at all this from his point of view—”
“No.”
“Just hear me out, Acehole. Osiris didn’t slumber like the others. Instead, he stayed awake, and we all assumed he was just screwing around and slowly going insane alongside his delightful wife.” She stopped herself and frowned. “Where is the bitch-goddess? I expected her to be all over this.”
“I have absolutely, positively no idea.”
Her eyebrow arched higher, outing Isis’s absence and my denial together and coming up with the likely outcome. “I hope she tasted delicious.”
“Revenge really is a dish best served cold, and they don’t come much colder than Isis’s heart.”
She grinned her approval. “So Osiris stayed awake and kept Isis awake too. Why?”
“Because…” I shrugged. “Because he didn’t want to be alone while he lived it up through the eons. He made Isis stay awake because he’s a selfish dick. They have this weird love/hate/murder relationship thing. I don’t care why, Shu.”
“What if he stayed awake to guard his reign and, subsequently, this world?”
“Osiris doesn’t do anything for anyone other than Osiris. Have you forgotten all the times he fucked with us? How about the time in London? Or better yet, do you remember Ontario when he had us raid that camp and kill all the settlers?”
Shu’s cheek twitched and a flicker of fire ignited in her eyes before she blinked and snuffed it out. “I’m not saying he’s suddenly all light and goodness. What I am saying is that you don’t have to be all good to do good.”
“What by Sekhmet are you trying to tell me? That Osiris is helping? That he’s suddenly the savior of New York and the world? What’s he saving it from? Himself?”
She held my stare. “You.”
“Me? Shu, I thought we established I’m trying to do the right thing here by stopping the gods from the inside.”
“From the outside, it looks a lot like you’re part of the problem.”
“Because I planned it that way. Do you think Seth would let me get close as the fool Ace Dante? We tried that in Luxor. It didn’t go down well.”
“I know.” She got to her feet. “I know you, but nobody else does. You’ve kept it that way for centuries. Out there”—she pointed at the window—“ash rains from the sky and people lament your name. If I were Osiris, I’d be looking at the storm of ash and sand the size of several states and doing everything in my power to stop it. He doesn’t have to be good to want to stop you. He just has to want to survive the storm and stop you in time to pick up the pieces.”
“I didn’t start this.”
“You think anyone cares who started it?”
I got to my feet and moved to the window. Outside, ash fluttered against the glass.
“They’ll only care who finishes it,” Shukra continued. “And who do you think they’ll worship when Osiris stops the End of All Things?”
“I never wanted to be worshipped,” I murmured. Red lightning forked across the sky, illuminating downtown. All the buildings looked like tombstones. “I didn’t want any of this. I just want it to end.”
“All I’m saying is instead of fighting Osiris and assuming whatever he’s doing is bad, maybe you should—”
“Finish that thought and I’ll cut out your tongue myself.”
“Your hatred of Osiris is your weakness.”
“I have no weakness. Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”
“You think I’m afraid of you? Come over here and try me—”
“Seramca.” I’d whispered the spellword but that didn’t lessen its impact. Silence gripped Shukra. Her rage flared, along with her power. “Cukkomd.” I added. “Go lay on the bed and do not move until I return.”
I watched her reflection take a wooden walk around the bed, climb on, and lie neatly down with her head resting on the fluffed-up pillows. Inside, she would be screaming all the curses at my many names.
She thought I was the villain? She hadn’t seen anything yet.
Three knocks sounded on the door. I already knew who stood behind it, having heard her approach. “Come.”
Aika opened the door. She stepped over the threshold, stood at attention, and bowed her head. “Lord, the spy has been dealt with. He hangs from the canopy above Thirty-fourth Street, where Osiris’s spies cannot fail to see and understand the message. I don’t think he will last long. Your scorpions are hungry.” The priestess’s attention drifted to the sorceress lying silent and still on the bed. “Forgive me for asking, but… may I assist you with the sorceress?” Hope brightened Aika’s face. What kind of person hoped to witness torture? I didn’t know if it was my magic that had warped Aika or if she had always been this way, and I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t leave Aika here. She would try to hurt Shu. She wouldn’t succeed—Shukra wasn’t easily wounded—but I couldn’t risk damaging all the lies I had concocted.
“Come with me…” I strode from the room with Aika close behind. Shukra’s magic trailed after us. “Nobody in or out,” I told the priest loitering outside. He nodded and closed the door on Shukra and her magic, but the crack I’d created earlier by slamming the door on the priest had left the smallest of openings for my whispered, “Raraoka.” Release.
Apophis didn’t have friends. Only tools and game pieces to be used as a means to the End. But I needed Shukra. I couldn’t survive what was coming alone.
Chapter 5
Shu’s building, like the rest of the block, had been ravaged by Seth’s storm. The diner that took up the entire ground floor had sand climbing halfway up the walls. The rickety stairs leading to Shu’s first-floor apartment still clung to the outside of the building, but soon the sand would eat those too.
Inside, where one window had shattered, sand piled high. The space looked as though it had been looted for anything valuable. It hadn’t. The missing walls, trailing wires, and missing patches of ceiling were exactly how Shu liked it. Halfway between demolition or renovation, I’d never been sure which.
Her paintings were still here, resting against the back wall. I made my way over and flicked through them. When I’d first seen them, I’d been both impressed and alarmed by
her artwork, wondering how a demon could paint with such flair when all she had in her heart was darkness. Much had changed since then, but the fact Osiris had had her paint them now tainted my appreciation. I’d wanted to believe they were all Shukra’s doing. Maybe the art was, given their deep, sweeping brush marks and moody colors. But the incentive wasn’t. Yet another thing Osiris had ruined.
“Why are we here?” Aika asked, wandering through the stud-wall framework dividing the rooms.
I handed her a painting, took another, and ripped the canvas from the frame. Sure enough, hidden inside, painted against another layer, dark strokes marked out a hieroglyph. One I’d seen before. Nile had been marking a depot floor with symbols just like it. It was all connected, but to what end?
Aika followed my example and tore the painting open, revealing a similar design. “What are these?”
“Osiris and his serpent’s game.” I took a third painting. “Tear them all open.”
Minutes later, we stood in the scattered remains of Shukra’s art, the marks all exposed. Without knowing the order they should be placed in, their meaning was difficult to decipher, but I could guess. From what I had seen of Nile’s work inside the train depot, it acted like a siphon, a way to attract and funnel power. The designs Shukra had hidden were the same. Used with Osiris’s summoning scrolls, Osiris could call a vast amount of power to his side.
Shukra was just one tool. Osiris likely had more, and he’d been planning this for centuries. How many buildings did he have? How many scrolls had he distributed? How many paintings were there like this in New York and elsewhere?
“Apophis, what do these mean?” Aika had a jagged edge of desperation in her voice. Or perhaps it was frustration. I looked at the human woman, wondering what she saw when she looked back at me. Her eyes widened as my gaze lingered, seeing deeper. Her soul was on its way to turning black. People like her could save themselves. She still had time to do good and redeem herself, but only if she chose to.
“My lord?” she asked carefully, sensing how my thoughts had wandered.
I looked down at the canvas and frame in my hands. Use it or destroy it? I wanted to destroy it, along with anything and everything of Osiris’s I could find, but my motives were compromised along with the rest of me. I couldn’t trust my thoughts.
“Bring a scouting party out here.” I dropped the frame and headed for the door. “Collect these marks and take them back to my temple.”
“Where are you going?”
Home.
I threw a look over my shoulder, the kind that scorched souls. Aika recoiled. Where I was going, I didn’t want her following. After walking a few blocks, I sent a few critters out to make sure no one followed. Navigating the hollow city would have been easier on the Ducati, but the last time I’d seen it, I’d just handed Nile over to Seth. I could assume the Lord of Red’s sand had engulfed the bike, along with Ace Dante’s old apartment and everything else in midtown.
Eventually, I gave up walking and covered the remaining blocks as smoke and ash.
The building opposite my old office had collapsed, spreading rubble and steel girders across the street, blocking the entrance. As ash and smoke, I filtered in through the gaps and funneled up the stairs.
My office door hung open, its frame buckled. Inside, I saw why.
A black cat was sitting dead center on my dust-covered desk. Her green eyes sparkled and the tip of her tail twitched, but the rest of her could have been carved from stone.
I left her there and sped down the hall into Shukra’s office. Sure enough, the framed hieroglyphs displayed on her office walls were the same as those I’d found in her apartment. Breadcrumbs… and she wasn’t the only pawn Osiris had in play. I could bet these marks were scattered throughout the city and farther.
Back in my own office, I carefully rebuilt the body of a man and stood inside the doorway, eyeing the serene black cat on my desk. She was a little thing in cat form, but felines didn’t consider small size a weakness. She might as well have been a jungle cat, sitting there, watching. With that thought came the memory of Bastet, how she had walked into this office, sat in my chair, and asked me for help.
“Shukra recently told me a story,” I began. The cat glared back, unblinking. “Of a soul eater with no name. It was a pretty good tale, as stories go, but she failed to mention the most important thing about the soul eater…” I moved around the desk, those green eyes tracked my every step. Reaching down behind the desk, I pulled open the drawer. The movement upset Cat’s posture, but she turned and resettled, curling her tail across her front paws.
I lifted out a bottle of vodka and brushed my thumb across the label, sweeping off the dust. There wasn’t much liquor left inside, but it was something. Enough to wet the tongue.
Setting a glass down in front of Cat, I twisted off the cap and poured the dregs of the vodka inside. She watched the alcohol glug until the last drop.
“I guess you aren’t going to ask what that thing was?” I set the empty bottle down, dropped into my old chair, scooped up the drink, and leaned back.
Cat blinked.
I propped my boots up on the edge of the desk and cradled the glass in my lap. “The soul eater was a liar. Not just any liar, but the best liar there ever was. He lied to himself, lied to everyone around him, lied to the gods. He was so good at lying that he believed the lies just like everyone else.”
Her right ear flicked. She lifted her paw and grated her rough tongue around the pads, claws retracted. She looked harmless, but right now, so did I. I raised my dirty glass and sipped the vodka. Alcohol warmed my tongue and slid all the way down, warming my cold soul and reminding me of a time when I would sit behind the desk and try to drink myself into oblivion. That man had unknowingly been trying to escape the inevitable.
“When those lies fell apart and he saw the truth of what he was, the soul eater had two options,” I continued. “Let the dark destroy him, or embrace it and use it to make the worlds right again. He chose to embrace it and the lies, but this time, he did so knowing the lies were the only way to hide the truth from the gods. And so the greatest liar began to fool them all once again, only now he did so by design. He told them all he was a liar. Made it clear to any who would listen, but none did, not really. They saw all that was wrong with the soul eater and chose to believe the lies.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I needed Seth to believe—needed them all to believe. I still do.”
Cat swept a paw to one side and shoved the empty vodka bottle clean off the desk. It shattered, casting a ricochet of echoes through the abandoned building.
Cats didn’t smirk. It was beneath them. She went back to licking her paw and brushing it across her face, smoothing out her silken fur.
Finishing off the vodka, I stood. “Good talk.” And made for the door. A crackle of power licked down my back, telling me Cat was likely back on two legs, but I didn’t turn. What I would see would only undermine what I had to do.
“If your heart was weighed against the feather for the crime of killing Bastet,” she began, voice as straight as razors, “how would it find you?”
“Guilty. But—” That one word likely stopped her from sinking her claws into my back and ripping out my kidneys. “I’m going to bring her back.”
“How?”
I smiled, but she couldn’t see it. “I have something the God of Life, Resurrection and Rebirth would give anything to have returned to him.” I turned to find Cat sitting naked on the desk. Her eyes were the same vibrant green as they had been in feline form, cut through by dagger-like black slits. Scars marked her skin. A fresh one just below her breast caught my eye. I’d given her that scar when I’d thrust Alysdair through her ribs. The scathing look in her eyes stripped me bare, but that was okay. I had no more lies to hide behind.
“How do I know you’re not lying right now?” she asked.
“You don’t. You can’t. You will never know, not for certain.” And that was why I h
ad to back away from her, from this room, from this life.
My gaze slid from the shifter to the pieces of shattered bottle, and in the next heartbeat, I was smoke and ash and untouchable as I funneled through the cracks in the door.
Chapter 6
“The priests require your blessings, another suspicious acolyte has been found, and the sorceress escaped.”
My stride through the ground floor anchored down. I’d hoped to enter through the back of the building and go straight to Nile, but Aika seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to knowing when I’d return and where exactly in the building I would be.
“And you assume I care because…?”
She blinked and bowed her head. “The paintings? The sorceress must be questioned. I assume that’s why you had us bring them here?”
“Of course.” Right. Shu’s paintings. I’d sent Aika to collect them. I’d hoped that job would keep her tied up for hours. She was too efficient and too damn good at what she did. And now Shu had escaped, as I’d expected, but without Aika’s interference, the fact Shu was missing would have gone unnoticed for at least a day. “What were you doing in my chamber?”
“The door was ajar.” Her eyes flicked up, questioning, doubting. The others would have been groveling on their knees. Not Aika. She glared back, testing my patience.
“So go find her, and when you do”—she wouldn’t—“take her to my room.” I stepped around Aika and headed toward the kitchens. “And deal with the rest as you see fit.”
“Yes, lord.”
I didn’t miss the tilt of her words or the suspicion hidden in them.
“Apophis?” she called, stopping me as I unbolted the kitchen door.
“Yes?” I hissed.
“Your hand?”
I looked down to find the cut across my palm weeping blood. It hadn’t healed. Osiris’s cursed glass had found its mark. Locking my fingers closed, I willed the flesh to heal and felt the wound’s edges slowly tug together. The slightest knock and it would probably open again. Whatever he had cursed that glass with, it had weakened my ability to heal. It had weakened me. Not enough to do any serious harm, but enough for Aika to notice. “Find the sorceress,” I repeated.
Edge of Forever (The Soul Eater Book 6) Page 4