“Yes, the weapon. The scrolls. The buildings. Nile. I know all about it.”
“Do you?” He smiled into his drink. “I had five hundred years to devise a way to stop the End.”
“How’s that working for you?”
“It’s working. That’s all that matters.”
“For how much longer?”
“We’ll soon know.” He hesitated, still smiling. “I wrote the prophecy.”
I tripped over my next words and promptly forgot them. He’d written his own prophecy?
“The son will sunder a king…” he repeated. “Or, if you believe the rumors, a child will rise and stop the End of All Things. Seth is a complication. I did not expect you to collaborate with my wife and release my brother. I’ll admit that… was a surprise. But everything else has fallen nicely into place. The prophecy was a way for me to maneuver Thoth and Isis into the Beginning. Along with my seed, they helped create Nile. Neither would have listened had I asked them, and so I steered them into position with written words. Over time, those words took on a life of their own. The meaning became twisted—”
“Time often does that.”
“But the weapon at its heart remains. It is too late for you to stop it. Its gears were put into place long ago. The prophecy is in full motion.”
“How can it be when it’s your own lies?”
“Because you believed, and so did others. What is a prophecy if not a fragment of power worshipped by a few devout believers? The more believers, the more powerful a prophecy becomes. You, Thoth, and Isis helped make it real. And when the time comes, you will help bring about your own demise. Think of me, won’t you, when you see the End. And remember, it’s nothing personal. In many ways, I admire what you are. How could I not? Neith’s first creation and a way to be rid of all the Dark in the worlds. You are the End of All Things. But you must always be defeated, and in Ra’s absence, that responsibility has fallen upon me.”
“Osiris, the hero.” I’d heard enough. Lifting Alysdair, I placed the blade on my left palm and approached Osiris. “You compelled me to kill Bastet, knowing I could and would obey. I assume you wanted her out of the way because she would have started asking questions, especially as it was her daughter you impregnated.”
“Bastet was a complication you were all too eager to help me dispatch.” He set the empty goblet down, freeing up his hands. “Little godlings make excellent pawns.”
By Sekhmet, give me the strength not to kill him before this is done. “Bring Bastet back. And in exchange, I’ll give you Isis.”
“My sister…” His lips parted. His words stalled.
Now he looked at the sword with longing and apprehension in his golden eyes. He wanted to reach for the blade, but wouldn’t. He couldn’t admit I was winning. There was something deeply satisfying about having Osiris on the end of a string.
He would agree; he just had to figure out a way of doing so without looking as though he was groveling in the dirt. I could have stretched the moment into forever, bit I didn’t have that long.
“Bring Bastet back, then Isis,” I said again.
He pressed his lips together, whitening them. I was untrustworthy. I could easily ditch the deal the second I got what I wanted, but I was handing him the Eye of Ra, the only weapon that could strike me down. Not something I would hand over lightly.
“Why do you want Bastet resurrected?” he asked. “Surely she’s just another god in your way?”
I hadn’t expected the question and hesitated in answering. Why did I want her back? She would make an excellent ally. She would also get Cat off my back—if she believed in me. But was there another reason? A closer reason? I rubbed at the ring on my finger, caught myself doing it, and shook out my hand before Osiris could see.
“If I bring Bastet back, you may find you have another enemy,” he continued, saving me from answering him but also revealing a fear I hadn’t yet dealt with. “Her clowder will not forgive you easily. Neither will she.”
“If anyone is to blame for her death, it’s you. Her cats will come around.” I would deal with Bastet once he brought her back. “Agree. Time here is time wasted in New York where Seth is killing thousands more. Or perhaps you don’t care about the dead, just your reign over them?”
“Do you care, Apophis?” He smirked. The idea that I might care was clearly ridiculous to him.
“Stop stalling.”
“I will need some time to prepare. My temple must be dressed accordingly—”
I laughed icily. “Oh, did you just lie to the greatest of liars? You don’t get time, Osiris. Do it here. Now. No delays.”
He ground his teeth. “The worlds will be much improved without you in them.”
“Funny, I often think the same about you.” I stabbed Alysdair into the stone floor. “The sword stays there. Remove it and I’ll bring the Dark down on you so hard you’ll beg me to kill you and make it stick.”
Fury rippled around him, warping and twisting the air, lending him his typical luminous glow. I wasn’t leaving here without a fight, but before we inevitably tried to kill each other, we both wanted something from this arrangement and from Alysdair.
He had delayed long enough. Soon, his army of acolytes would tell the guards how the Dark One was in Osiris’s chambers and I’d have visitors to contend with, probably Anubis and his jackals. The sooner we were done, the sooner I could leave without maiming or harming any of the innocent souls Osiris would likely throw in my path.
Osiris—cheek twitching—stood astride Alysdair and wrapped his fingers around the sword’s handle. Almost instantly, his power flowed through the stone beneath my boots. At the beginning, I only felt it—like the buzz of nearby high voltage electrical cables—but seconds after the first wave, the air immediately surrounding him crackled and heated, brightening his glow. More and more his power built, and so did the Light. I shielded my eyes and leaned on my back foot. I couldn’t give him any ground, even when his power frayed my edges. I heard the words spilling from his lips in an endless chant. I couldn’t decipher them, but all gods had their own words, spoken only by them. Mine sounded like sand and crackling embers; his sounded like a seductive melody, the kind that could persuade the dead back to the living and flood the Nile valley with sustenance.
Everything about his power repelled me. If it hadn’t been for the ring on my finger, I might have ended the resurrection before it had even begun. But the ring was real. A tiny thing, but I needed it to remind me why I was doing this. I had been coming undone when I had stabbed Bastet. Now, I was as together as I had ever been.
Osiris’s chanting grew louder. Alysdair hummed, its resonance almost excruciatingly perfect. If all of Duat hadn’t known I was here, they did now.
The burn flooded heat over my body, driving me back, and there, folded among petals of Light, stood Isis’s unmistakable outline.
The bastard. Did he truly believe I wouldn’t stop him?
His wife wasn’t yet fully formed. Just her body. Her eyes were beautiful, but dull and lifeless.
I shrugged off the ruse of flesh and blood and dove into the Light, reaching for Alysdair. Power, heat, life, everything Osiris fought to drive me back. My edges sizzled. Dark wisped to nothing. My outstretched smoke-born fingers disintegrated. But I’d died and regained my army. I was worshipped by thousands, and in Duat, the souls were coming around to my way of thinking. I was everything Osiris feared. I was stronger than him.
Alysdair sprung from the stone and slammed into my grip. I whirled—dark slicing through light—and swung the sword overhead. The blade’s curved edge hugged Osiris’s exposed throat, pinning him still, but not slicing through. His spell collapsed and splashed across the floor. Shadows once more filled the room.
“Kill me and prove you are a monster,” he goaded. “Prove it!”
There weren’t words for what I truly wanted to say.
Thunder grumbled through the building.
I leaned in closer, dragging my Dark wi
th me, filling the room with it until it pushed at the walls and tried to smother Osiris. “Bring. Bastet. Back.”
Thunder rumbled again. The walls trembled. I briefly wondered if the thunder was mine, but then it occurred to me this wasn’t mu moka and thunder in Duat was unlikely.
Again, the air and ground growled as though something enormous was moving.
No… it couldn’t be. I took my eyes off the god and looked to the window where silken drapes fluttered. A shadow fell over the courtyard.
Osiris twisted to the side and landed a fist to my gut. It wasn’t any punch; he’d added a little godly oomph, enough to fling me off my feet and launch me backward. My back slammed against the bedpost, igniting a flash of pain. I fell into a crouch and sprang forward. Osiris materialized a khopesh out of the air and swung it down, striking Alysdair with a crash that shuddered up the sword and through my entire body. Plates of armor crawled over him, slotting into place as he lifted the sword and swung again. I parried—barely—distracted by the four sarcophagus-sized fingers that scooped in through the window and yanked out half the wall.
Stone cracked and crumbled, raining into the bedchamber. Part of the ceiling fell inward, peeling open the roof to reveal Duat’s red skies.
By Sekhmet, he hadn’t only been trying to resurrect Isis.
The giant Osiris statue, the one that had forever guarded the Halls of Judgment, swept its stone crook into the room, destroying everything in its path. I collapsed into smoke and spiraled up the giant’s arm. A quick visual sweep of the complex below showed jackals moving in, but nothing of Osiris. He would be close, waiting for the moment to strike me down.
He could raise the whole of Duat against me, but I wasn’t leaving without Bastet.
I freed some of the souls I had remade in the Twelve Gates, unleashing the beginnings of my true power. Shadows swarmed into the courtyards, wrapped around the jackals, and consumed them—feeding the Dark, feeding me.
Unraveling from the giant’s arm, I drifted backward in the air and got a good look into its flat, expressionless stone eyes.
“Cukkomd.” I felt the word sink in and grip the brilliance at its core. It had a soul. Osiris had given it life. But not for long. I gathered up my power and focused on the stone giant. A massive hand swept toward me, whistling through the air, but I had its dull glare locked on mine. All it would take—
A spear plunged into my smoke. Its tip pierced something vital, drawing a hiss from my ash-touched lips. Anubis!
The god stood at the edge of the courtyard below, head tipped up, eyes blazing. The ground around him crawled with jackals. From my height, they moved like beetles crawling among the columns and temple grounds.
A wave of weakness threatened to pull me out of the air.
The giant’s hand crashed down. I tumbled, half in control, half free-falling. A roof cushioned my impact with a sickening crack. Back in a body, I gritted my teeth against the pain and reached for the spear sticking out from my side.
Arrows sparked in the corner of my vision. Some bounced off the stone giant as it leaned in. The behemoth lifted his crook and swung it at me, hoping to knock me off the roof. Instead, the roof gave way. I was falling again, this time too quickly. Tiles and stone landed in a heap. I coughed, tasting blood.
Rolling onto my side, I gripped the shaft of the spear, gritted my teeth, and pulled. It didn’t move, but it did light up my insides with a whole new world of pain. All this only served to delay me. Osiris was mine, and so was Bastet.
A growl sounded nearby.
I didn’t need to look to know I was the prey. I caught a glimpse of pale fur and dark stripes and rolled to the side. When the big cat’s paw swiped in, I kicked out and heard a satisfying crunch as my boot connected with its face. On my feet, I fell into a run.
Stumbling outside the house, I spotted Osiris standing beside an ornate fountain. His glare snagged on mine. Too many numbers. I couldn’t fight them all without proving to Duat I was everything they feared. I needed to get Osiris alone, somewhere where he wouldn’t risk throwing his power around.
I was smoke one second, solid the next, and beside him in an instant. He lunged with his sword, but I wasn’t staying and only needed to whisper a few words as I passed behind him. “While you’re here, the Halls are unguarded…”
And I was gone—a river of Dark washing through the streets. I poured up the steps and through the glittering Halls. The weighing chamber doors flung open in front of me. Inside, I was alone. The gods would come, but they wouldn’t risk destroying this most sacred of places by sending stone giants and rabid jackals.
Standing as a man in front of the huge Scales of Justice, I dropped blood on the grooves where Anubis had once had me chained and fighting for my so-called innocence. I snapped off the end of the spear, stifling a cry, and tossed it aside. Blood chilled my right leg, and something behind my ribs bubbled where there definitely shouldn’t be a hole.
Staving off the hot and cold waves of sickening agony, I freed Alysdair and looked up at the Scales. The edges of the Feather of Truth shimmered. Such a fragile thing, justice. So easily corrupted.
“Do not obstruct the course of life and death,” Osiris warned. He stood in the doorway, glorious in his armor, though his face wore the expression of a man who had already seen too many battles and had no wish to see any more.
“Is that what you think of me?”
“It’s in your nature.” He carefully approached me. I expected the jackals to follow, but none did. Behind him, the Halls were silent. He was alone. “Gods do not change.”
“I’m not here to destroy Duat or its souls. If you would all stop trying to kill me long enough to listen, you’d know I have only good intentions.”
“Good?” he laughed. “To wipe out the gods so that you may sit on both thrones?”
“No.” I smiled at the irony. “But I’m not surprised that’s what you think. It is, after all, exactly what you want.” The air inside the chambers had thinned, or was the numbness in my side tightening my breaths? “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m like the rest of you,” I warned.
“No, I suppose you’re right.” Osiris had moved close enough that I could swing Alysdair and graze his armor, but bleeding out and about ready to drop was not how I wanted to face him.
He appraised the jagged spear and the blood collecting around my boots. “We are not the same.”
“The old gods had their days. It’s time to step aside and let the worlds go.”
“A pretty idea for one so dark.” He smiled his sorry, pitiful smile. “If only I could trust your words were true.”
He never would. None of them could believe I had changed because they couldn’t. Trying to convince them was pointless.
“All of this is on you,” I said through my teeth. “All I wanted was Bastet, and you turned it into a battle.” His attention wandered to the Scales, his mind contemplating how without them, order would collapse. “Bring Bastet back, Osiris. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Why?” he demanded. “Why does she matter to you?”
“What difference does it make?”
“She cannot be corrupted by you.”
“I know.” I growled out the words and pressed a hand to my side. “That’s why I want her back.” Blood dribbled between my fingers. Osiris saw, but his expression tightened into something like confusion.
The ring.
I lifted my hand and showed him the bloody ring on my finger. “I wronged her and others. I’m not here to take Duat from you. I don’t want to be worshipped. I just want all of this to end. Seth is killing thousands, and you hide here in the underworld, hoping he’ll wipe the world clean for you. But soon, there will be no human world to reign over. You and your brother must be stopped.”
“Seth will come to heel.”
I was done trying to reason with Osiris. Either he didn’t understand why he had to stop, or he didn’t want to. I lunged for the Feather of Truth and lifted it off
the weighing plate. “One word from me and this is ash.”
He stilled and lifted his chin. His mark of indifference peeled away, revealing a raw hatred.
With my left hand, I tossed Alysdair at his feet. It clattered and skidded across my bloody boot marks. “Bring her back or Justice dies right here.”
Osiris picked up Alysdair and drove the sword into the marble floor. He said the words and yanked on his power, pulling it out of the walls, the floor, out of the very air, filling the weighing chambers with heat and light…
This time, the body cradled in light wasn’t the lithe figure of Isis, but the outline of a woman made for hunting. Osiris molded the light with his hands, sweeping curves and cupping form into flesh. Slowly, she took shape. I remembered her curious smile, her intelligent eyes, and the power in her presence. There was a second component to her making, the design of the huge panther. Seeing her in the light reminded me that Bastet was no goddess to be toyed with. She was the Warrior Goddess. The Great Protector. She had ripped the faces off her enemies and wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to me if she thought me a traitor.
In New York, she had come to me for help and I’d killed her.
But I was more than darkness now.
Those words, they had haunted me when my memories couldn’t. Whatever happened, she had saved me, saved Ace Dante, by believing in him. I could only hope she still believed in him.
The light receded. The moment her soul took root inside the body’s flesh and blood, light came alive in her eyes. She gasped, and with that sound, a sense of relief lightened my shoulders—maybe even lifted my own soul. I’d killed her. I’d wanted to kill her. But not anymore. Not now. I was different. Changed. I had feared that any goodness in me was lost. Yet here she stood, resurrected.
Her gaze drifted over me, my black armor, the integral difference in the way I stood, the way I looked—not Ace Dante—and snagged on the bloody hole in my armor. She saw the Feather pinched between my fingers and swallowed. Then she noted Osiris in his blazing armor, the Eye of Ra in his hands, and a tired expression on his face, and the fact we were in the weighing chambers. Her face crumpled with confusion. As Ace Dante, I had told her about Osiris’s hold on me, but she couldn’t know the rest. She knew the old tales of Light and Dark, of Apophis and his battles with Ra. But this? It was a lot to take in and judge in seconds.
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