by Lynne Ewing
At first, Sudi thought the murmuring came from the quiet flow of water, lapping against the canal banks, but slowly she realized the soft sounds were whispers, coming from the shadows. She struggled against the pain to rise up on her elbow and listened intently, trying to understand what the hushed voices were saying.
Scott looked up, wary, and stepped into the darkness beneath the trees. He growled, low in his throat, a feral sound, as if warning others away.
Maybe a pack of demons had come to steal her from him. She imagined the creatures pouncing and snarling as they tore her apart.
Then, without warning, a cat sprang from the branches above Scott and landed on his back, its claws ripping into his shirt.
He cried out and flung his hands, trying to knock the cat away.
The feline yowled, an unnatural, half-human shriek. Its sleek black fur sparkled with glitter, an earring dangled from its ear, and a velvet scrunchie slipped from its head. Already its hind legs were turning back into those of a girl wearing spiky red heels.
In the same moment, Dalila crouched beside Sudi. “We have to draw hieroglyphs on Scott’s chest,” she said breathlessly, “to make the demon’s spirit leave him.”
Sudi looked at her, surprised. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
“Your cat, Pie, told Meri’s cat, Miwsher,” Dalila explained.
“The feline underground,” Sudi said, and pulled herself up onto her knees, ignoring the jabbing pain.
Scott bellowed and spun around. Meri fell to the ground, transforming back into a girl. Her black dress, cut low in the back, was torn and rumpled, her party makeup smeared. But her skin still glistened with golden glitter.
Dalila and Sudi scrambled to her, each grabbing an arm, and drew her back, away from Scott.
He stood in the dim light, grumbling and baring his teeth in an ugly grimace.
Sudi stared back at her enemy, feeling a queasy dizziness. “What if we can’t get the demon to leave Scott? Do we have to—” she stopped. She couldn’t say the words.
“Kill him?” Dalila finished for her.
“Don’t even think about that,” Meri ordered.
Scott retreated into the shadows.
“What now?” Sudi asked. Darkness surrounded them; Scott was probably sneaking about, planning a surprise attack from another angle.
“I’ll find him,” Meri answered. Her eyes changed back into those of a cat. “There,” she whispered. “He’s next to the maple tree.”
“Do you think we can really restrain him long enough to write something on his chest?” Sudi asked, feeling doubtful.
“You bet.” Meri kicked off her shoes, reached up under her dress, and rolled off her panty hose.
“What are you doing?” Dalila asked, her frightened eyes searching the shadows for Scott.
“We need ropes,” Meri replied as she stretched out the legs of the panty hose. “We’ll tie his wrists behind his back.”
“How can you be so sure?” Sudi asked. She couldn’t even see Scott in the gloomy depths.
“Jeez, haven’t you ever heard of positive thinking?” Meri said. She didn’t wait for an answer. “We charge him on the count of three. One. Two. Three!”
Sudi ran blindly, following Meri’s lead. Suddenly, Scott stood in front of her. She screamed and lunged into him. He stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet. His back hit the tree.
Meri grabbed one wrist, Dalila the other, and before Scott could react, they were tying the ends of the panty hose around his arms.
Sudi pressed hard, pushing her full weight against his stomach.
In the murky light, his stare looked alien and filled with hatred. And then he surprised her. His face came down, mouth wide, and he tried to bite her nose. She pulled back, feeling his teeth scrape over her skin. She cried out, filled with rage, and elbowed him hard, driving the breath from him in a loud whoosh.
“I’ll never be able to be a Descendant,” Sudi whimpered, afraid that she might have wounded the real Scott. “I hate this.”
“All right, we have him,” Meri yelled.
Scott kicked and thrashed as Sudi rolled up his shirt, and then Meri handed Dalila the lipstick from her pocket, and Dalila drew the eye of light on Scott’s stomach. He heaved and hissed. Apparently, the symbol caused him pain.
Then Dalila stepped back and began to read. “Hail to thee, Ra, king of the eastern sky in thy rising, even to thee who is called Atum at thy dawning. Yea, great Ra who comes as Khephera, the everlasting.”
Dalila droned on, but Sudi stopped listening. Scott had pulled one hand free and was angrily shredding the panty hose.
Sudi nudged Dalila. “Can we get on with it?”
“We don’t need a filibuster,” Meri agreed. “Just recite the spell.”
Dalila looked up and gasped. Scott had almost broken free.
“Force of the stars, we offer these words,” Dalila continued shakily, pointing to the hieroglyphs, and then Meri and Dalila joined in. “Pierce Scott’s heart, and dispel the darkness. Tear the demon from his soul.”
They stepped back quickly and watched.
Nothing happened.
“Should we try again?” Sudi asked.
Then, slowly, a shadow leaked from the eye drawn on Scott’s chest. The black mist rose, spiraling up; it curled around the branches overhead. Then it dropped to the ground and thickened into a bent-over creature, taller than a man, eight feet or more in height, with large, thick arms. Eyes formed, and the creature screamed. Its fury filled the air with an electrical charge.
“I don’t think we did it right,” Sudi said, taking another step back, pulling Dalila and Meri with her.
“Maybe we forgot something,” Dalila said. She unrolled the papyrus again. When she looked up, her face was pale. “We should have drawn a protective ring around us before starting the incantation.”
The demon fixed its attention on Sudi, its eyes strangely alluring. She stared back, fascinated.
“I think it just wants me,” Sudi said, easing away from her friends; she wanted to make sure they wouldn’t be harmed.
The silhouette streaked toward her, losing form, and swirled around her. She tried to control her fear and to think, but before she could consider a plan, the shadow engulfed her. The demon’s hatred pulsed through her. Its poisonous vapor seeped into her mouth. The taste made her gag.
The pressure became unbearable. She collapsed to her knees and fell forward onto the cold mud, her nose pressed against moldering leaves. She tried to draw a breath, but the effort seemed too great. The pace of her heartbeat slowed. She was vaguely aware of Dalila and Meri calling to her, and then their voices grew too faint to hear.
She was dying, but even as her body wanted to let go and be released from the pain, her soul fought to hang on to life. Then she remembered the words that the woman had spoken to her inside the museum. She mumbled them now: “Re-Atum emerged from the primeval ocean and took the form of a Bennu-bird. Then he flew from the darkness and perched on a rock. When he opened his beak, his cry broke the silence, and he created what is and what is not to be.”
Maybe she would have more strength as the Bennu-bird. She tried to transform, but she felt too weak.
She concentrated, and this time feathers fluttered around her, and she changed into the bird. She opened her beak. “I speak these terrible words of power; send the demon hovering over me back to the chaos where he belongs.”
The words came out as a primal scream that shattered the night and echoed around her.
Immediately, the pressure lifted and Sudi was transformed back into a girl.
The shadow wavered about her.
Sudi watched the black fog pull itself into a silhouette again. The demon opened his mouth, weeping loudly, and looked at her as if repenting for the crimes he had been forced to commit for the lord of chaos.
“He doesn’t want to go back,” Dalila said, joining Sudi.
“I know,” Sudi answered. She pitied the demon, a
n emotion she had not expected to feel, and suddenly she wished she had spoken other words. Maybe she could have released him from his enslavement to Seth. She understood the reason the woman had used the word “terrible” to describe the words of power.
Then the demon vanished, leaving only its stench and a withering vapor.
“What did you do?” Meri asked.
As Sudi told her friends, she felt both elated and frightened, but mostly sad that she hadn’t been able to save the creature.
“The Bennu’s cry is the primal scream of creation,” Dalila said. “You have the power to change what is.”
Sudi shook her head. “I don’t think it was me,” she whispered, “but another force. A greater power came through me.”
They stared at each other, and then Sudi gazed up at the stars and prayed to the universe to guide her and help her speak the words of power more wisely.
“I think we’ve been successful,” Dalila said.
“Except for the fact that we still have a love god running lose on Capitol Hill,” Meri said with a huge grin.
“Hey!” a voice yelled.
“We forgot about Scott,” Meri squealed.
Sudi was already running back to him. He looked bad: bewildered and covered with bruises.
He held up the shredded panty hose, then dropped them. “What did you do to me?” he asked, touching his swelling nose.
“I never did anything to you,” Sudi said. She hadn’t meant to hurt Scott, only the demon. “It’s not what you think.”
“I don’t even know what I think,” Scott said, and started to pull down his shirt. He traced his finger over the lipstick markings on his chest. “What’s this eye for?”
Sudi couldn’t even think of a lie to explain what they had done to him. She looked to Meri, hoping she could come up with an explanation. Meri shook her head and turned to Dalila, who shrugged.
“Something important,” Sudi mumbled.
Scott glanced down at the dried blood embedded in his fingernails, then at the scratches on Sudi’s arm. “Do I need to apologize for something?”
“It wasn’t you,” Sudi said.
“Then what was it?” Scott asked. “You look like someone dragged you through sand and mud.”
Sudi shrugged. She knew how she must appear to him. She had seen herself in the mirror at the spa.
“I really like you, Sudi,” Scott said. “But I don’t know, you do some weird stuff.” He shook his head, and, without explaining more, he hobbled away.
Sudi started after him, then stopped as an unnatural breeze curled around her. “Oh, no,” she whispered and looked at Dalila and Meri. “Is the demon back?”
Dalila and Meri stared back at her, unsure. The air thickened, then began to spin, glimmering with flashes of gold. Huge wings formed and encircled Sudi. She turned as the downy wreath of feathers was transformed into a woman’s arms.
Meri breathed out in a whistle and Dalila’s eyes widened with awe.
“I am Isis,” the woman said, “she of many names and daughter of Nut. I hold the greatest secrets of the universe, and I give my magic to the three of you.”
Three rings appeared, hovering in the air. The sacred eye of Horus was fashioned in the gold with lapis lazuli and green faience.
“Seth caused the loss of the eye,” Isis spoke softly. “But I restored it. The symbol is most powerful.”
She slipped the first ring on Dalila’s finger. “The ring of Isis bestows my favor and protection.”
Then she guided the second onto Meri’s hand. “All who see it will know you are my sisters.”
At last Isis faced Sudi. “You especially have proven yourself strong,” Isis said as she placed the last ring on Sudi’s finger. “You were called to a life you didn’t want, and you have accepted what fate has given to you.”
Then Isis started to disappear, her body wavering in the breeze.
“Wait,” Sudi said. “I have a thousand questions.”
“Many blessings, my sisters,” the goddess said, and then she vanished.
The girls stood in stunned silence, staring at their rings.
“Well,” Meri whispered, smiling with happiness and triumph.
Dalila seemed pleased; she kept turning her hand to make the stones reflect the street light.
“And now we’re sisters,” Sudi said with a burst of emotion.
“Sisters!” Dalila and Meri shouted. They caught Sudi and and hugged her, kissing her cheeks until Sudi was laughing and pushing them away.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sudi said, grateful that she would.
After leaving her friends, Sudi spoke the incantation for transforming into a bird. This time she focused her attention on her arms.
Feathers grew from her fingers, hands, and skin, fanning into wings. She ran down the street, until the wind caught her and lifted her above the trees. She soared, half girl, half bird, pure goddess, toward the rising moon, enjoying the enchantment of this night. They had been victorious, but she knew that this was only the first of many battles.
For Patty Copeland, my best friend forever, and her wonderful husband, my big brother Tom.
The storm was worse than any Meri had seen since she and her mother had moved into the old Victorian house in Washington, D.C. Lightning blazed across the night, and within three seconds, thunder exploded. A short burst of hail hammered the windows, then stopped, leaving only the patter of rain on the glass. Meri couldn’t rid herself of the strange and frightening feeling that the storm was somehow directed at her, a prophetic sign of bad days ahead.
A sharp hiss made her look down as lightning flashed again, illuminating her bedroom with shuddering light. A dark form crept across the carpet, tail flexing back and forth.
“Don’t be afraid, Miwsher,” she said as thunder rattled the walls. She assumed that the storm had frightened her normally bold cat.
She tossed back her covers and jumped out of bed, but as she started to run after Miwsher, her foot landed in something wet. She paused and swept her toes across a soggy groove in the carpet, then looked up, expecting to see rain trickling from the ceiling; after all, the house had been built in 1840. She didn’t see a leak, but she did see her cat, perched on top of the tall chest of drawers.
Meri spun around. If Miwsher was there, then what was the other creature?
The backyard bordered on Rock Creek Park, and although bears no longer roamed in the wilderness behind their house, raccoons and foxes did. Maybe a small animal had used Miwsher’s cat door to come inside and escape the downpour.
Meri tiptoed after the fleeing shadow, imagining the poor stray shivering with fear—but she didn’t follow too closely, in case the trespasser was a skunk.
As she neared the stairs, an unfamiliar musty odor filled the gloom. The scent reminded her of cucumbers and wet soil. Although it wasn’t a bad smell, some deep instinctual pulse within her took over—she stepped more cautiously now, not understanding her fear.
The middle landing formed a balcony from which she could see down into the living room below. As she leaned over the banister, wind hit the tall windows behind her, and the sudden noise made her jump. Thin branches slapped the panes. The leafless twigs made odd ticking sounds, louder than the rain.
She eased down the remaining steps, clutching the handrail so tightly her fingers ached. When she reached the last stair, a metallic crash came from her mother’s home office, startling her.
It wasn’t unusual for her mother to work late. She was the senior senator from California and had made one run for her party’s presidential nomination. Everyone said she’d succeed in the next election. That worried the opposition party, but it also worried Meri.
The last time her mother had been a candidate, Secret Service agents had gone everywhere with Meri, including the high school dances. Their constant chaperoning had inhibited her. She was fifteen and still hadn’t kissed a guy; not even a tight-lipped peck like most girls got on a dare in sixth grade. How pathetic
was that? Some of her friends back home were seriously discussing birth control. She could only imagine how unexciting her love life would be if her mother actually won the election.
Then a bigger worry took over. Eventually, the agents would discover Meri’s secret, and as sworn law-enforcement officers, what would they do? Was magic against the law?
She already feared that photographers would take her picture when she was doing something freakish. At one time she’d had two bodyguards assigned to protect her from the paparazzi. But after she’d learned about her true identity, Meri knew she couldn’t expose the two men to the dangers she had to face. It had been hard enough convincing her mother that she didn’t need the two-man escort. She couldn’t picture herself trying to convince the Treasury Department that the protection of the Secret Service wasn’t necessary.
Meri paused in the doorway to her mother’s office expecting to see the four-footed intruder padding across the desk. The night-light cast a pallid glow over the bookshelves, but nothing looked disturbed. Meri entered the room, brushing her hand across the polished wood, then gazed out the window and surveyed the backyard. Wind had toppled the iron lawn furniture and pushed it against the stones in the rock garden. Maybe that explained the sound she had heard.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a shadow moving toward her. She whipped around and bumped into someone. Before she could scream, a hand covered her mouth, and she breathed in the almond fragrance of her mother’s lotion.
“It’s me.” Her mother spoke into Meri’s ear.
“Mom,” Meri said, her heart still pounding from the impact. She started to flip on the overhead lights, but her mother stopped her.
“Someone’s in the house,” her mother whispered.
“It’s only a stray, or maybe a skunk,” Meri said. “I forgot to lock Miwsher’s cat door.”
“No animal could make the noise I’m talking about,” her mother said. “I heard the side gate opening.”
Twice when they were living in California, someone had bypassed the alarm system and broken into their home. Now Meri wondered why her mother was prowling around the house like a detective, instead of calling the police.