“What happened here?” Shu asked, gesturing at the clogged hole in the ground.
“Oh, dreadful thing. The entrance chamber gave way sometime last night. Digging it out again will add several days to our schedule, but we’ll get by.” Wheeler slicked his fingers through his thinning hair. “Lucky, I suppose, that nobody was inside.”
I slipped out of the tent and let Shukra work. She’d have him singing soon enough. I had another target in mind. The young woman whose gaze had lingered on me returned minutes later with various files stacked in her arms. One slipped as she wobbled over the rocks. I caught it before the documents could tumble into the dirt.
“Allow me.” I took a few files off the top and helped her deliver them inside the tent. Back outside, she lingered on a small rocky outcropping overlooking the winding path. She braced one hand on her hip, and the other tugged her hairband free. Her curiously straight dark hair fanned around her shoulders. I’d thought her hair black, but now I saw how the red-tinged valley light summoned an auburn warmth to the dark tones. She had the look of Egypt in her reddish-brown skin, but the accent was sharp English, like Wheeler’s.
“Nice view.” I stopped beside her and caught her frown out of the corner of my eye. “The valley,” I added before the comment had time to sink too deep.
“It is. There’s a life to it, you know. It looks desolate from here, but you have to look a little closer to find Egypt’s heart.” Her words took on a different meaning once her coyness had her breaking eye contact. “There’s so much love to be found in the crafting of these tombs… The years they took to make, the craftsmanship. Generations went into this valley. We only see a fraction of what was here before…” She started as though remembering she wasn’t alone and laughed dismissively. “I’m just going to stop talking.”
“Don’t.” Her last comment stemmed from self-doubt, which seemed like a crime considering she was right about everything she’d seen and said so far.
She eyed me straight on, questions ticking over in her mind. “I saw you talking with Doctor Wheeler.”
“We were discussing Senenmut.”
“You were?” She blinked, and tried to hide her surprise before I noticed. “Oh, I didn’t think… Never mind.”
“The tomb’s origins are confidential,” I guessed, “but you could say I have an… in.”
Curiosity whittled away her suspicions. “Well, I… Doctor Wheeler thought it best not to make the name public. We don’t have any proof yet. There are signs, of course. Radar alone tells us the tomb is vast. We know it was constructed for someone important—an official, perhaps a high-born noble—and we know the occupant is—was male.”
“You do?” I asked, thinking it wouldn’t take much effort to get her to reveal what else they’d discovered.
She smiled softly. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name?”
There was nothing apologetic about her. Fresh-faced and hungry for challenges, she couldn’t be more than twenty, but she was willing to look me in the eye despite her instincts warning her off. I offered her my hand. “Ace Dante.”
She took my hand, her grip firm and touch soft, and let go too soon. “Like the Inferno?”
“Something like that.”
“I’m Masika.” She tucked both hands into her linen pants pockets.
The conversation faded, leaving a curious awkwardness that I had no intention of alleviating.
“We’re pretty sure it’s Senenmut,” she blurted and turned to me in a rush of excitement. “I know I shouldn’t say, but I can’t remember the last big discovery in the valley. Senenmut was… Well, he built much of Hatshepsut’s temple and more, like the great obelisks at Karnak. You must have seen those.” She reached out as though to grab at the ideas. “He was a powerful man in his time and blessed by the gods. And the people loved him as one of their own—”
“Blessed by which gods exactly?”
She chuckled like the idea was insane, but her laugh faded when all she got from me was a closed smile. “There’s a relief in the tomb, probably buried now that the ceiling’s gone… Just as you go in the door, it depicts the winged Isis protecting the occupant of the tomb. It was added later, painted over what was already there. It’s difficult to decipher, many of the hieroglyphs are missing or scrubbed out, but it appears that Senenmut constructed something vast for the gods. Whatever it was, all references to it were erased.” Masika’s blue eyes sparkled at the prospect. “If we can prove it’s his tomb, that we’ve finally found him—”
Shukra emerged from the tent, her steps quicker than I’d have liked. Time to leave.
“Can I buy you a drink, Masika? After work tonight?” I started backing up.
“Oh, I… I don’t know. No offense, but I don’t know you, and we finish late.”
She didn’t seem like the impulsive type, but she loved her work. That was my angle. “You can tell me more about the Senenmut findings.” I turned and strode down the path. “I’m at the Luxor Hotel. Meet me in the reception area at ten.”
She’d come; her curiosity ensured it.
Shu had grumbled about the lack of actual scaring the wits out of the archaeologists. I told her to wait while I tried something subtler than her usual spell-slinger approach. Naturally, that went down about as well as my forbidding her to steal canopic jars. She’d stalked off, telling me she was visiting the night souks—probably to scrounge for spell ingredients.
Before the pair of us could show Doc Wheeler and his students how real ancient Egyptian myths were, I wanted to know more about Isis’s connection to Senenmut, and Masika happily obliged me by turning up, as expected, right at ten. She’d dressed down in a long skirt and flowing black blouse with a smattering of decorative sequins along the seams. Her outfit screamed “strictly business,” but that curiosity still burned in her eyes. I was a long way from a prize catch, but I could smolder like a professional.
We ambled through the narrow streets of the souk, the crowd ferrying us along. Vendors shouted their wares, trinkets, and clothing. Splashes of color hung out of windows and draped from house to house above us. The rich earthy smells of herbs and incense laced in the air. Masika weathered it like a local, even stopping to haggle down what had started as a ridiculously high-priced scarf. She talked about her work and little else. Occasionally, she attempted to steer the conversation back on me, but with a few nudges, we were back talking about the valleys and her time with Wheeler.
The hour was late, or early, when we stopped outside Karnak. The largest and most recognizable section of the temple glowed in the dark, the light from below setting its stone walls ablaze. Four thousand years of history hummed melodically beneath the oldest parts, now mostly piles of dust and rocks. A shadow of its former glory, the temple still captured the essence of the past, and that alone sent shivers racing beneath my skin.
A pair of armed guards stood at the entrance gates, cigarette tips burning red in the dark. They spotted us and barked for us to move on.
“To think, these buildings have been here for millennia. They’ve seen so much…” Masika was saying, trailing along behind me. She ran her hand along the crumbling exterior stone wall, needing to touch.
I steered us around the side of Karnak’s sprawling complex, heading toward the tiny Temple of Ptah, and found the crumbled section of wall I’d used two nights ago to gain access to the temple grounds.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Masika said, watching me grab a few protruding rocks and start the climb up.
Perched atop the wall, I reached down, inviting her to take my hand. “You only live once.”
She knew she shouldn’t—that it went against all her fastidious training—but she also really, really wanted to see the hidden parts of Karnak. Parts not open to the public. I smiled, tacking on a wicked glint, and helped her up.
“This is so illegal,” she muttered once we’d dropped into the yard inside the complex outside Ptah’s little shrine building. Dusting off her skirt, sh
e paused to look around her. Awe shone in her eyes, and her feet carried her forward.
“But so worth it,” I added quietly. “Rarru…” I whispered.
The temple didn’t answer.
A relaxed, slumbering power, like the kind that welcomed me home, tugged on my senses as I trailed after Masika. I let it tickle and tease, careful to keep my magic packed tightly away.
“Tell me about Isis and Senenmut,” I urged. We’d talked about legends and rumors, even mentioned a few gods throughout the evening, but this was the first time I’d mentioned Isis.
Masika wandered, hands out, desperate to touch the decorated columns, but she held back. “I don’t know much more… Only that it’s said Senenmut had the favor of both the goddess and the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. Some believe he was Hatshepsut’s lover, but there’s no proof of that besides crude ancient graffiti found in the workers’ village. The Egyptians were more open to female rulers than we are today, but she still had to depict herself as a man. She was a fierce, proud woman.”
“I know.”
“Oh, you do?” Masika’s smile tilted. She nudged me playfully in the arm. “Do you ever wonder what other treasures are out here, waiting to be discovered?”
“I try not to.”
She chuckled, but her curiosity was back, burning like a hungry spark in her eyes. “Where did you say you work?”
I hadn’t, and I was saved from answering as we passed through the narrow gulley between the instantly recognizable first pylon and out into the processional way. Over forty ram-headed sphinxes flanked our arrival. They hadn’t always lined this west entrance, and more were hidden inside a nearby village, but I wasn’t supposed to know what esteemed experts hadn’t yet figured out.
Distracted, Masika wandered among the sphinxes. I sauntered a few steps behind, watching her soak up the past and her life’s work. She adored the country and its ancient history. It was obvious in the way she spoke and couldn’t help revealing all the things she’d discovered during the dig. I’d been right; Wheeler had plucked her out of obscurity from among a Cairo hotel’s staff, gotten her a student visa, and tutored her for the last few years in London.
“What if I told you the gods are real and alive today?” I asked, her delight for the old world so infectious I couldn’t help but tease.
Masika laughed. “I’d ask you where they were.”
Osiris is the mayor of New York, and Isis is probably having her back and other parts massaged by peons in the Luxor Hotel. “For argument’s sake, let’s say they lost most of their power and the years stole what remained of their sanity.”
She laughed again and didn’t notice how Karnak greedily ate up the bright sound.
I chuckled along. “Stay with me here. There was a war. The two sides exhausted themselves destroying the land over which they fought.” I spread my arms, using the ruined Karnak temple as evidence. “Some of the gods went into hiding, burying themselves from time, while some decided to hide in plain sight, taking on human roles so they might one day rise again.”
Masika touched a sphinx’s rump. “All right. I’ll bite. But it must be difficult to hide a true god, knowing what they once were.”
You have no idea. “They were never the most stable of individuals to begin with… Now, let’s pretend the gods who didn’t bury themselves are getting restless. It’s been a long time. Some are bored, some are waiting for whatever the next big upset will be, and some are… orchestrating it.” Isis, for one. I knew Osiris also had plans. He’d told me as much, but I just didn’t know what for… yet.
She cocked her head. “It makes an odd sort of sense, I suppose. We’re still discovering tombs. There’s no doubt much of Egypt’s past is still buried, but where’s the evidence these gods truly exist?”
Hidden by me, mostly. I patted her sphinx’s nose. “Archaeologists see the science, but they don’t or can’t see the magic.”
“Magic?” I waited for the laugh, but it didn’t come. “I feel it.” She shifted sideways and looked up at me. This close, the temple lights lent her dark skin a soft, golden glow. “How can I not? This place… There’s something here. Like you said, I can’t explain it, but I know it’s close.”
“Sleeping.” Slumbering, like the oldest gods.
“Yes!” She clicked her fingers. The crack echoed through Karnak. “Just because I worship science, it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in magic, you know.”
The night was hot, the air heavy, and as much as I didn’t like archaeologists poking around the bones of my past, Masika was different, and this not-a-date was drifting into dangerous territory.
I leaned a shoulder against the sphinx’s broad neck—it wouldn’t mind—and shifted away from Masika before she got the wrong idea. “Now that we’re assuming the gods are real and Isis blessed Senenmut for building something that was hidden or destroyed, what do you, in your professional opinion, think that something might be?”
“Whatever it is, it was enough to infuriate someone. In antiquity, Senenmut’s sarcophagus was moved, hidden, and his name was erased…” Masika turned her head, absently admiring Karnak’s first pylon behind me, her acute mind skimming over everything she knew. “He disappeared without explanation, according to what we’ve found. Hatshepsut must have been devastated. I don’t think either of them deserved it…” Her gaze roamed my face, and whatever she saw there snagged her attention and her eyes widened. “The light… Your eyes…”
I blinked, shucking off the power that had crept over me, and smiled. “Just the light.”
“No, I….” Her dusty fingers touched my cheek. “Who are you... really?”
“A better question is”—Isis’s perfectly clear voice sailed through the night like a spear—“what is he?” Her smile had all the subtlety of a scythe. She stood in the center of the processional way, wrapped in a deep burgundy cloak clasped shut by a large Eye of Horus buckle.
I shoved Masika behind me, ignoring her yelp. “Isis…”
“Well, isn’t this exceedingly sweet? The Soul Eater making friends with local vultures.”
This wouldn’t end well. I didn’t need to hear the slippery malice in Isis’s voice to recognize the threat in the leisurely way she moved, knowing she had all the time in the world. She would draw this out and make it hurt in any way she wanted.
“Step out, dear. Let me get a look at you.”
I pushed back, pinning Masika against the sphinx. I hated the way she gasped, but Isis would do worse. “Don’t,” I warned the goddess, with no weight behind my words to back up my threat. Isis couldn’t compel me to kill Masika, like her husband would have, but Isis was Isis. All she had to do was lock stares with the girl and Masika would crumble.
“I just want to see,” Isis said, her voice dripping sarcasm. “I won’t hurt your little bird.”
If I didn’t let Masika go, Isis would force her out. If I did let her go, she’d walk straight into the arms of an insane goddess. I should’ve known Isis was watching me. What else did she have to do? I should’ve gotten the answers from Masika without screwing around. But the temple, this place… I’d just wanted some time with someone who almost understood the old ways, even if she believed it was all fantasy.
“Release her.” The compulsion shuddered down my back and shucked off.
I’d stopped Anubis in Duat. I wasn’t as powerful here, but Karnak held power I could tap into, if I could wake it. But so could Isis.
“You are making it worse,” Isis warned, impatiently sashaying one way then the other like a snake.
Masika’s breathing had quickened. Fear, perhaps, or more likely the effect of having Isis’s full attention on her. Whatever I did, I had to be fast before Isis’s poison got inside Masika’s mind.
“Ace?” Masika’s hand slipped around my arm. “Who is she? Is that…?”
Everything you think you know but don’t. I couldn’t tell her. She could still walk away and chalk this up to a weird night in Luxor. She didn’t have to get h
urt, didn’t have to die. More than darkness. I wasn’t strong enough to fight Isis, but I had other ways to beat her.
“Let her leave,” I said, voice hard, “and you can have me.”
Isis’s brow arched. “Have you? Why would I want a creature such as you?” She idly switched direction to wander along the line of sphinxes, trailing a hand over their ram noses and hooked horns. Magic dripped from her fingers in fat, golden globules.
“That’s the question we all want answered,” I said.
Isis chuckled, and beneath us, the old temple foundation stirred at the sound of the goddess’s laughter.
“I am reminded of another time, of you guarding another little bird just like this one. Eyes… like yours…”
I had no idea what she was referring to, but as long as her attention was on me and not Masika, the girl might get out of this alive.
Isis tilted her head. “Mm… how fascinating… I see those moments were taken from you.”
“Let her go and you can have me for the rest of the night.”
Her liquid laughter flowed like her magic, weaving through temple columns, pouring over cracked rock, and seeping down into the earth. “How you have changed, Soul Eater, and yet not changed at all.”
Masika’s quick breaths warmed the back of my neck. She had a bright future ahead of her, one I wouldn’t allow Isis to steal. “You need me here, and it’s not for that skull. So forget the girl, and let’s you and me get down to business.”
“Do not presume to tell me what to do.”
“You wanted me trapped inside that tomb. Why?”
“You’re a lie, Soul Eater.” Isis lifted her arm and let her hand fall open. “Girl. Come to me.”
Masika pushed against my back.
No, no, I couldn’t let this happen… Not again. Too many innocent deaths. More than darkness. I had the power to stop this.
Masika threw her weight behind a punch, but her weight wasn’t much. Her fist bounced off my shoulder. I whirled around and captured her in my arms, but it was useless. Her nails clawed at my face. She’d fight me to get to Isis until I had to hurt her.
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