Sisters of Isis: Volume 1

by Lynne Ewing

  A gentle energy whirled around her, caressing her cheeks and throat and making the leaves tremble. The metamorphosis began.

  In response, she said, “Xu kua. I am glorious. User Kua. I am mighty. Neteri kua. I am strong.”

  A smile crept across her face as her clothing and backpack disappeared. She raised her arms in a lazy stretch, her soul already the essence of cat, and let the sun’s rays warm her.

  A sleek black pelt covered her skin. The silken fur shimmered in the light. Then her eyesight changed, and the sunshine became blinding. She stepped into the shadows. Her vision grew more panoramic but remained hazy around the edges.

  A sudden feeling of pain made her press her fingers against her chest as she shrank down to cat size. She meowed in triumph, enjoying her feline instincts, and sniffed the urine the tomcats had sprayed; it was like reading a gossip column. A toad jumped in front of her, and she had to concentrate to pull herself away from the temptation to spend the day chasing after it.

  She rushed to the front yard, her ears erect and facing forward, trying to hear her mother and Stanley over the shrill noise of chain saws.

  Stanley leaned on a walking stick that she hadn’t noticed him using before.

  “Look at the cute cat,” her mother said as Meri approached, mewling.

  Stanley’s head snapped around.

  “I hate cats,” he said and stamped his foot on the brick walk.

  The sound crashed through Meri. Of all her senses as a cat, hearing was the sharpest. She jumped back, arched her back, and hissed.

  “Why did you scare the little cat?” her mother asked Stanley in a scolding tone. “I can’t believe you were so mean.”

  Stanley bared his teeth. For a moment, Meri thought he was going to snarl. Instead, he poked the tip of his walking stick under her belly and nudged her away.

  “Stanley,” her mother said. “You’re going to hurt the little thing.”

  “Cats make me edgy,” Stanley explained.

  But immediately Meri realized she had another problem. She recognized the snake-scale pattern on his walking stick. That was her wand. The one Abdel had given to her. What was Stanley doing with it?

  The wand had the power to ward off evil, and even though Abdel had not shown Meri how to use its magic, she couldn’t let Stanley take it. She leaped and tried to dig her claws into the metal-covered stick. Her nails screeched over the stones embedded in the bronze.

  Stanley swung the stick and flung her into the air.

  Her mother screamed in disbelief.

  Meri twisted and squirmed and landed on her paws. She crouched low to the ground, lashing her tail back and forth in anger, and watched her mother and Stanley continue down the walk.

  At the car, Stanley placed his hand on her mother’s shoulder. His presumptuous touch made her mother scowl, and he took his hand away.

  “Once we’re in the car, we won’t be able to talk freely,” he said. “I need your answer now.”

  “Then my answer is no,” her mother said.

  “You have to help me,” Stanley continued. “You know what I can do if you refuse.”

  “When I feel doubt,” her mother said, “my answer is always no.” She had an intimidating frown, and she was focusing it on him. “And no matter what you may believe, you can’t blackmail me into changing my mind.”

  “Don’t give me your final say yet,” he said, softening.

  The driver came around the car and opened the door for Meri’s mother. He wore dark glasses, and even though Meri couldn’t see his eyes, she knew by the turn of his head that he was scanning the neighborhood for snipers. His dark suit jacket was buttoned, and he probably had a Secret Service badge hooked on his belt.

  “The Cult of Anubis is just a silly fad,” her mother said as she climbed into the sedan, “something from California that has become popular here. I could ruin my career by doing what you want.”

  Stanley crawled into the car, taking Meri’s wand with him.

  Meri was too stunned to chase after him and reclaim her wand. Instead, she wondered what Stanley had tried to force her mother to do.

  Like her mother, most Washingtonians believed the cult was only a fad that had become popular with young people who wanted to enjoy the spa and get in touch with their inner selves. Most members were unaware that the cult was ancient and evil.

  Only a few people knew its true history. Anubis had once been the most important Egyptian funerary god. Then his cult had been taken over by those devoted to Osiris. But some of the priests who had served Anubis hadn’t wanted to lose their power, so they had used Anubis and the Book of Gates in unholy ways to call forth demons and resurrect the dead.

  Now the priests who had once served Anubis worshipped the wicked god Seth and planned to return the universe to the chaos from which it came. The leaders had brought the cult to Washington, D.C., hoping to find the Descendants and destroy the bloodline of Horus before the Hour priests were even aware of their scheme.

  Meri shuddered, imagining what would have happened to her if Abdel hadn’t found her first.

  But her thoughts quickly turned back to Stanley. He knew something about the cult, and it had to be important for him to risk blackmailing her mother. She wondered what he intended to do if her mother refused to help him.

  Meri needed to hurry on to school, but the inborn pattern of a cat was growing stronger than her desire to transform. She stretched and rolled, soothing herself with a throaty purr, then licked her paw and rubbed it behind her ear. Just as she decided to waste the day lolling in the sunshine, black clouds spread across the sky and hid the sun.

  She scrambled across the street and raced toward school, hoping to get inside before the first raindrops fell. When she passed the National Geographic Building, her whiskers twitched. Other eyes were staring at her. She tilted her head. Pedestrians marched around her, feet clomping on the walk. A man almost stepped on her, but no one was watching her with ill intent.

  Still, the feeling didn’t go away. She jumped onto the stone wall.

  Across the street, Michelle Conklin stood sentinel at the entrance to Entre Nous Academy, holding an oversize umbrella, oblivious of the students who had to duck around the huge black canopy.

  She was staring at Meri.

  Instinctively, Meri’s lips curled back, and she hissed. When Meri had started school at the academy, she had wanted to be popular the way she had been back in California, but Michelle had seemed determined to make that impossible. She had spread lies and warned other students away from Meri.

  A raindrop landed on Meri’s nose. More hit her back. Her feline self curled inward, and Meri could feel the change begin. She dashed around the corner, to an open courtyard directly across the street from Entre Nous. Then she scuttled under the branches of a hedge and crept back until she was certain no one could see her, not even Michelle.

  She relaxed, and sweet pain rippled down her spine and tail. Muscle spasms made her yowl. Her bones stretched, and paws turned back into fingers. She lay naked beneath the thick growth of shrubs.

  “Darn,” she whispered. Where were her clothes? Panic made her hold her breath and concentrate.

  Seconds later, her clothes appeared, but not everything did. Her feet remained bare, and her backpack was missing.

  Her belongings didn’t always make the transformation with her. Dalila and Sudi didn’t have this problem. They always changed back fully clothed, in whatever they had been wearing before the switch.

  She got up on her knees, spread the branches, and peered out. No one was watching. She jumped from behind the thicket and cursed silently, then brushed the dirt and leaves from her skirt. Abdel had to teach her how to use her power before she ended up naked in a public place and got arrested.

  Meri crossed the street, dodging around traffic and hating the grimy, wet sludge beneath her toes. She needed to get to her locker before the first bell and put on her gym shoes. She eased through the crowd near the door. Kids talked in dif
ferent languages and laughed at jokes that Meri didn’t understand.

  It was not the first time she had wished she could attend Lincoln High with Sudi instead. Meri’s life had been casual in California; she hadn’t had to worry about how low to curtsy when she met P. Diddy in a celebrity club. But in D.C., knowing who stood where seemed important. Most of the students at Entre Nous had protocol officers to guide them, and those who didn’t took classes on etiquette at George Washington University.

  “Pardonnez-moi,” Meri stammered as she tried to push around two guys speaking a mix of French and Arabic. “Assalamu alaikum,” she said in Arabic. “Hello” was the only word she knew.

  When they didn’t budge, she became frustrated. “Can you just move it?” she said in her plain California English. That worked. They turned and looked down at her, then stepped aside.

  She could feel her blush growing. If her mother expected her to make friends with students whose parents could contribute to her campaign, she was going to be miserably disappointed. Meri’s bad manners were probably going to cost her mother votes.

  She started up the front steps, anxious to get inside and warm her feet. A black umbrella swung in front of her and barred her way.

  “Where are your shoes?” Michelle asked, and lifted the umbrella back over her head.

  Meri stiffened. She didn’t need this encounter. She already had too much on her mind.

  “Is that the California style?” Michelle went on loudly, and glanced around to see if other students were watching.

  “Why would you think this is a style?” Meri asked. “And why do you even care?”

  “Sorry, I forgot,” Michelle said too sweetly. “Barefooted probably comes naturally to you. Weren’t you a beggar on the streets of Cairo? I’m sure that’s what I read.”

  Before Meri could answer, Scott pushed through the students who were shaking out their umbrellas and crowding inside.

  “Why are you standing in the rain?” he asked, his wet curly brown hair hanging in his eyes. He didn’t wait for Meri to reply, but grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the porch under the overhang.

  He still had a California tan, even though he had moved to D.C. to get away from drugs and a bad scene back in Los Angeles. He lived with his grandmother, a physics professor at Georgetown University. His parents had hoped the change in environment would keep him clean, but he ran into other problems in the nation’s capital. Meri wondered what his parents would have done if they had known what had happened to him.

  “I was just inviting Meri to my party,” Michelle said pleasantly, as she squeezed onto the porch between them and pushed Meri into the crowd. “And I hope you’ll come, too, Scott.”

  “Sheesh.” Meri rolled her eyes. When Scott was around, Michelle acted as if Meri were her best friend.

  Michelle handed her umbrella to Meri, then pulled two turquoise envelopes from her messenger bag. She gave one to Scott and the second to Meri.

  Meri folded the oversize invitation and stuck it into her jacket pocket.

  “You’re having another party?” Scott flicked his finger against the card. “You just had an extravaganza that cost more than most people earn in a year.”

  “It’s practice for what I’m going to do,” Michelle said and brushed back her two-thousand-dollar blond extensions before continuing, “I’m going to run the coolest club in the world and let only celebrities in. I’ll be more famous than my father.”

  Her dad had a celebrity-courting lifestyle, but he did it to make money; he was the best fund-raiser in D.C.

  “I thought you wanted to be a singer,” Scott said and winked at Meri.

  “I’ve outgrown that,” Michelle said seriously. “I want to do something more.”

  “And I’m sure your club will make the world a better place for all of us to live in,” Meri said sarcastically.

  “Thanks,” Michelle answered. “I never quite thought of it that way. Maybe I can make a difference.”

  Scott laughed. “Are you for real?”

  “It’s hard to believe one person can do so much,” Michelle said, beaming as if he had complimented her. “My father always tells me I’m amazing.” She took her umbrella from Meri and ran inside after Cecil, the son of the ambassador from Romania.

  Scott rested his hand on Meri’s shoulder. “With all the money she’s spending on entertaining us, she could practically support a third-world nation.”

  “I know,” Meri answered. “Thanks for rescuing me again.”

  “Why is Michelle always on you, anyway?” Scott asked.

  “I’m friends with Sudi,” Meri said, wiggling her toes to get rid of the numbness.

  “I don’t think that’s the reason,” Scott said thoughtfully. “I think Michelle is jealous of you.”

  “Me? Why would perfect Michelle be jealous of me?” Meri asked. “She has everything.”

  “She doesn’t have photographers running after her,” Scott said. “You do, and she’d do anything to get that kind of attention. But the biggest reason for her jealousy is me.” He smiled broadly. “She thinks I like you.” He slid his eyes sideways, and Meri followed his look.

  Michelle stood on the other side of the window next to the door. She was talking to Cecil but her eyes were focused on Meri and Scott.

  “I think she thinks we’re more than friends,” Scott said.

  “I’ve told her a dozen times that we’re not,” Meri answered. “I can’t believe she’s jealous. She has a life that anyone would want.”

  “Except for you and me,” Scott said. “All we want is to go home.”

  Meri nodded. They both missed California and felt out of place in D.C. “You’re doing a better job of fitting in,” Meri said.

  “That’s because all the girls are crushing on me,” Scott teased. He stopped and nudged her. “Come on. Cheer up. My conceitedness alone should make you laugh.”

  “I’m trying,” she said and smiled up at him.

  Scott held the door for her, and she stepped inside. A blast of dry, furnace heat hit her.

  “So, why haven’t you called Sudi?” Meri asked. She had promised Sudi she’d find out how Scott felt about her. “I know you like her, so what’s the problem?”

  “Strange things happen when she’s around,” he said. “She’s bad mojo.”

  He tore open the invitation that Michelle had given him and brushed a hand across his forehead.

  “What?” Meri asked and grabbed his wrist. He looked wobbly enough to pass out.

  “Michelle’s parents rented The Jackal, that new teen club. I can’t believe she’s having a party there,” he said.

  “Does that place mean something to you?” Meri asked. She had reason to be nervous, but she didn’t understand why Scott was.

  “The jackal is a symbol of death, isn’t it? They used to haunt graveyards and feed on corpses.” He looked at Meri and added in a whisper, “Their howling scares me. It’s called the death howl.”

  “Have you ever heard a jackal?” Meri asked, surprised.

  “Yes,” he answered. Then he blinked, as if an odd flash of memory had left him. “No,” he corrected and laughed loudly, making fun of his lapse. “How could I know what a jackal sounds like? It must be the old burnout in me speaking. I wouldn’t know a jackal if one came up and bit me.”

  Her stomach felt queasy. She was suddenly worried about her only friend at the academy. “You’re not—?”

  “I’m clean,” he said solemnly. “I don’t know why I said what I did.”

  But Meri suspected that she knew.

  The bell rang, and Scott walked away from her, pushing through the throng of students.

  Meri stood in the center of the hallway, letting kids jostle around her, and didn’t even move when someone stepped on her toes.

  The Cult of Anubis had kidnapped Scott and replaced his soul with a demon’s spirit. Meri, along with Sudi and Dalila, had rescued him and exorcised the demon, but she wondered if they had been completely successf
ul. Maybe some kind of demonic residue had been left behind—something that Scott wasn’t aware of on a conscious level—that made him afraid to go to The Jackal, even if it was for a party.

  After school, Meri wandered through the Eastern Market as another storm ripped through D.C. She hadn’t eaten since the night before, and her stomach grumbled noisily. She craved a bite of apple or a dried fig—anything!—but her money was in the book bag she’d lost when she’d changed into a cat.

  When a vendor turned to pick up a crate of oranges, she stole four green grapes, popped them into her mouth and chomped down. The sour taste made her wince. She squinched up her face, and when she opened her eyes, the man was staring at her.

  Sudden guilt replaced her hunger pains. The unripe fruit hadn’t even been worth the theft, but she couldn’t tell him that.

  “I lost my money,” she tried to explain.

  Before he could scold her, thunder crashed, and its violent shock waves rolled through the block-long market hall.

  The vendor made the sign of the cross and stared up at the ceiling, watching the light fixtures swing back and forth.

  The butcher across the aisle stopped hanging sausages over a wire and stepped down from his ladder.

  Even the two photographers who had been stalking Meri suddenly forgot their prey.

  She heard the photographer she knew only as Thimble shout, “This weather’s not natural. No storm systems are coming down from the Arctic, and nothing’s coming up from the Gulf.”

  “It’s the Pentagon,” the butcher announced. He waited until he had the attention of all the shoppers near his counter. “They’ve learned how to control the weather.”

  “Then I wish they’d do a better job of it,” the fruit vendor challenged and started rearranging the grapes.

  “Just ask her,” Thimble pointed at Meri.

  Everyone turned and looked in the direction of his accusing thumb.

  “She’s probably heard her mom talk about these storms,” he continued.

  Meri shook her head.

  Tourists and shoppers wearing plastic head scarves stared at her. Their eyes widened, and smiles broke out across their faces as one by one they recognized Meri. Cell phones and cameras came out.