by Brea Essex
“Are you just going to abandon the human the wraith is attacking, then?” I asked him as we exited the airport through the front doors.
He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “No, of course not. I just don’t know if I’ll be any good to them.”
I reached up and put a hand on his back, over where I knew his tattoo lay under his T-shirt. “All you can do is try, right?”
“Right.”
“Where is it?”
“Give me a minute to focus,” he said, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, he said, “It’s at the Imperial Cathedral.”
“Seriously? I would have thought demons couldn’t go into a church.”
“First of all, we call them wraiths, remember? Second, you would be surprised what they can do. They’re sneaky, and they’re evil.”
“Which way do we go?”
He shook his head fiercely. “Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m letting you go with me. I’m not about to put you in danger like that.”
“You need me to guard your body. We can’t risk leaving it unguarded.”
“We’ll find another place to hide you and leave my body.”
Now it was my turn to protest. “It would be better if you and I were in the same place. We can’t protect each other if we’re not together. You need me to watch your body while you’re in the spirit realm, and you need to be able to protect me if I get dragged into a shade.”
He stared at me, a twisted expression on his face as he debated with himself. “Fine,” he relented. “I don’t like it, but you’re right. It’s probably better if we stick together.” He offered me a small smile, which looked more like a grimace. “We do make a great team after all.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be sarcasm? If so, it’s not all that funny.”
Now his smile became genuine, if not tight. “No, not sarcasm. We really do make a great team. If it weren’t for you, I may not even be here right now. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Rhiannon.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, and dug a hair tie out of the pocket of my jeans. “Same here.” I scraped my hair back into a ponytail, securing it with the elastic tie.
“What are you doing?”
“If we’re going to go into battle, I’d better have my hair out of my face. It kind of gets in the way.”
“You’re not going to be fighting,” he reminded me.
“I know. But who knows what might happen while I’m guarding your body. I need to be as ready as I can be.” I stared up at him. “I wish I could help you fight. I hate letting you go into danger by yourself.”
“I’m not going by myself. You’ll be there. Protecting my body while I’m out of it is just as important as my actual fight against the wraiths. We don’t need a repeat of the last time I left my body to go into battle.”
“Still, you have to admit I’m pretty useless against the wraiths.”
He shook his head vehemently. “No, not at all. You’re not like most humans. At least you can see into the spirit realm. You will be able to see the battle happening. You’ll know what’s really going on. No one else can do that for me.”
“One of your own people could,” I grumbled. “Not only that, they could actually help you fight.”
He reached down and ran his hand along the side of my face, tucking a tendril of hair that had escaped my ponytail holder behind my ear. “Make no mistake, Rhi, you are more important to me than anyone. I’d rather have you here with me than anyone else. Now, let’s go save this person.”
We dashed through the streets, relying on Zac’s instincts to locate the Imperial Cathedral. He could sense the presence of the wraith, and that enabled us to go straight to its location. Zac paused in front of the door. “Now, when we go in, we need to find a safe place for you to hide. I don’t want you to get in the way. You could get hurt.”
I nodded, even though his declaration that I could get in the way stung me a little. I knew he hadn’t meant it the way it sounded; he was just trying to protect me. Besides, my being in the same room could result in the wraith coming after me. Zac was protected by the ritual the Cardinal had performed on him when he had been younger. He couldn’t be possessed by a wraith. I was much more vulnerable than he, although he could still be injured.
Zac cracked the front door open. We snuck inside and glanced around. “In here,” Zac whispered in my ear, indicating a small door just inside the entryway.
I opened it. “Seriously? This is a closet.”
He nodded. “Yep. I know. Looks like some sort of storage. It’s still a good place to hide.” He pushed me inside, following behind me. He closed the door so quietly that I barely heard the click of the lock catching.
“You should be safe here until I’m done. There doesn’t seem to be many people around,” Zac said as he slid to the floor. He sat with his back propped against the wall.
“Be careful,” was all I said as he slipped from his body and entered the spirit realm. It was a little easier to see him outside of his body this time. He seemed stronger, and he had had more time to rest. I just hoped he would be successful in his mission.
His spirit disappeared through the wall. I glanced over at his body. His eyes were closed and it looked as though he was sleeping. I shuddered. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was dead.
I could hear the sounds of fighting coming from deeper within the cathedral. What was going on in there? Was Zac winning?
Curiosity got the better of me. I cracked the door open and peered out. The entryway was empty. To my left stood a set of double doors. There were small, high windows cut into each door. If I stood on my tiptoes, I might be able to see what was going on.
I knew Zac wanted me to remain hidden, guarding his body, but I needed to make sure he was okay. Glancing back at his still form, I crept toward the doors. I stood on my toes and glanced inside the main room.
The scene that met my gaze was both confusing and terrifying. I recognized Zac instantly. The being—for to call it human would be incredibly wrong—that he fought was so disgusting it made me want to retch in the hall where I stood. At first glance, it appeared human. It wore a priest’s robes, so I assumed that was what the demon inhabited. Underneath the human guise was a beast so completely wrong, I was surprised that the earth didn’t open up a chasm in its crust to swallow the abomination whole.
The creature towered several feet above the priest’s body, with skin blackened like charcoal and leather-tough. Three rows of three red eyes blazed from its face. Where the mouth should have been was a lipless, gaping maw, filled with row upon row of razor-sharp fangs. Two pairs of bat-like wings stretched out from its back, rearing toward the ceiling. Its breathing sounded like gravel scraping over sandpaper, and its grotesque, misshapen appendages were tipped with curling, black claws.
Stifling a scream, I stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over my own two feet. Was this the type of thing Zac fought on a regular basis? How the hell was he going to win against this? Did he even have any sort of weapon?
Before I could peer back through the window, I heard movement behind me. “What are you doing here, child?” a kindly male voice with a heavy German accent asked.
I whirled, praying that whoever stood behind me wouldn’t see Zac’s body hiding in the closet. “I’m sorry, sir,” I said, feigning cheerfulness. “I just came to see the cathedral.”
When I focused on him, it was all I could do to cover my surprise. Standing before me was the priest I had seen inside the main part of the cathedral—the one whose body the demon was superimposed upon. Squinting my eyes closed a little, I studied him more carefully. His form was slightly indistinct and wavered where he stood. I was talking to the man’s ghost.
“Ah, yes, we get many visitors here. It is incredible, is it not?”
I smiled and nodded. “Yes. Incredible doesn’t even begin to describe it.” Was the man actually dead? If he was, that could have meant that Zac was losing. I had onl
y been speaking to the man for a moment, and I already couldn’t bear the thought of him being lost in the Shadow lands for all eternity while a demon possessed his body. Surely a priest deserved much better than that.
The priest smiled back. “Enjoy your visit. I have duties I must attend to inside.”
As he reached for the door, I yelled, “Wait!” But a loud, bloodcurdling shriek inside the inner church killed the warning on my lips. An explosion wracked the entire cathedral, throwing me to my knees.
When at last I recovered enough from the shaking to look up at the priest’s ghost, I saw that the man had disappeared. As I pushed to my feet, Zac walked through the door, wiping a black, viscous fluid from a sword. “Well, that’s that. We can go catch our flight now.”
I gaped after him as he went into the closet and vanished. A moment later, his body stirred, and he jumped to his feet. The sword had disappeared.
“That’s that?” I asked incredulously. “What the hell happened in there?”
He shrugged and grabbed my hand, pulling me out the front door. “I won. The wraith is destroyed. The priest is back in his body. He won’t remember anything.”
“He’s okay?”
“Yeah. He’s fine. Lucky I got there in time.”
I heaved a sigh of relief as we hurried back toward the airport. I was glad the elderly man would be all right. “Zac? I saw his ghost.”
He glanced sidelong at me, but didn’t slow. “I’m not surprised. That happens sometimes.”
“But I thought the human souls always got pulled into a nightmare?”
“Usually. Though sometimes, the spirit is strong enough to resist, but not strong enough to prevent possession. He probably had some sort of charm or protection on him.”
“Not as strong as the protection put on you?”
“No. All the Zayin have the ritual performed on them, but you’d be surprised how many priests don’t think to perform it on themselves.” He looked around at the people hurrying past us. “Look, can we discuss this later, in private? We shouldn’t be talking about this around so many people.”
I consented, filing my millions of questions away for later. We reached the airport and boarded our flight. I was asleep as soon as we got into the air.
Twenty
I awoke to Zac’s hand shaking my shoulder. “We’re here,” he announced quietly.
Sitting up slowly, I blinked and looked out the window. Our plane was descending into the Cairo airport. To my surprise, I found that I had slept nearly the entire way from Frankfurt. I felt a little disappointed that we hadn’t been able to sight see during our layover. Battling the wraith had been more important. After the trauma of witnessing that, I had been exhausted.
When we disembarked from the plane, the driest heat I had ever felt immediately accosted us. Sweat began to bead on my forehead, and I fanned myself vainly with my hand.
Zac gave me an apologetic smirk. “I guess we didn’t exactly prepare for the desert heat, did we?”
I glared at him in response. “Let’s just find a library so we can figure out where to go.”
“I don’t think there is a witch’s library here. Our best bet is probably the Egyptian National Library and Archives. It’s the largest library here. It’s probably our best bet to find out where the City of the Dead is.”
I stopped walking. “Is that where we’re going? The City of the Dead?”
He nodded and beckoned me to keep walking. “Yes. Legend says that The Book of Thoth is buried in the tomb of Prince Neferkaptah in the City of the Dead.”
As I followed him once more, I asked, “Is the City of the Dead here in Cairo?” I tried not to think about the prospect of the tomb raiding we were about to do. I had no desire to be Lara Croft.
Shrugging, Zac said, “Possibly. According to my studies, there are several Cities of the Dead located in Egypt. I think Cairo is most likely the location of Prince Neferkaptah’s final resting place.”
I sighed as we exited the airport and once again stood in the oppressive heat to hail a cab. “So, we’re just going to go wandering around graves until we find the one we’re looking for?”
He gave me a look that suggested I had lost my mind. “No, of course not. That’s why we’re going to the library first.”
A cab pulled up to the curb just then, so I fell silent. Zac directed the driver to take us to the Egyptian National Library and Archives in what I suspected to be flawless Arabic.
“Exactly how many languages do you speak?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know,” he responded, looking out the window.
When we reached the library, we immediately headed for the ancient history section. We tore through books that were falling apart and maps that were so old they were barely legible until, at last, we found what we were looking for.
“We need to make a copy of this,” Zac told me. “I don’t think this is the type of thing we can just check out. Think they have a photo copier somewhere?”
“Not necessary,” I said.
“Why?” he asked, clearly confused.
I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket. “Phone camera.” I snapped a few pictures, then put it back. “Now let’s go.”
It took a lot of searching, but we finally found the supposed location of the tomb. Zac stared at the hieroglyphics carved into the side of the pyramid. “This is it,” he announced quietly.
We had found the tomb of Prince Neferkaptah at last. Nervously, I began to search along the bricks, looking for the seam of a door. Zac joined in my hunt, but we turned up nothing. Frustrated, I laid my hand on the wall and spoke words of opening. A grinding noise echoed from within, and a portion of the wall slid open slowly.
Zac grinned at me. “Let’s go.”
I followed behind him, my hand tangled in the back of his shirt. “What if we run into Prince Neferkaptah’s ghost?” I asked worriedly. It was the first time I had voiced my fear out loud.
“If that happens, we’ll deal with it. Maybe if we explain what we’re trying to do, he will be on our side.” He turned to look at me, and then stopped walking. “Rhiannon, you’re shaking.” He pulled me into his arms, embracing me tightly. “Don’t worry. Nothing is going to hurt you. I won’t let it. You can trust me.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I nodded. We began to creep down the dark, narrow corridor. The sandstone walls were oppressive and seemed as though they were closing in on us. “I’ve never been claustrophobic before, but I’m about to start being so,” I whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” Zac asked in a normal tone of voice.
“Because I feel as though if I speak normally, the walls will crumble and the entire pyramid will collapse on top of us. Plus, I really don’t want to disturb the spirit of the Prince if it’s here.”
“I hate to tell you this, Rhi, but we’re already disturbing him just by being here.”
I gulped. “I bet he’s not very happy with us, then.”
“Please, stop worrying. These pyramids have stood for thousands of years. Time and weather haven’t corroded them to the point of collapse. They were extremely well made. It won’t fall in on us. As for the spirit, like I said, we’ll deal with him if we see him. I’m sure you can sweet-talk him into leaving us alone. Now let’s just concentrate on finding the center of the pyramid where the actual burial place is, and locating the book. As soon as we do that, we can get the hell out of here. Believe it or not, this place gives me the creeps too.”
We walked in silence for a moment, and then I asked, “Zac?”
“Hmmm?”
“What happens if Typhon and my sister beat us to the book also?”
He was quiet for a moment before responding. “Then we move on to the next object and pray that we find that one before them. We keep going, trying to stay one step ahead of them. We’re going to win. We have to. Ty will destroy the world as we know it if we don’t succeed. Failure is not an option. It never has been.”
I pondered that as
we continued to wend our way through the pyramid. The entire structure was like a maze—a narrow, confusing, overwhelming maze. I supposed it was that way on purpose. I had never been the greatest student of history (although I was starting to become one now), but I seemed to remember that the ancient Egyptians had tried to protect the belongings they attempted to take with them to the afterlife.
Just as I began to wonder if we had been walking in circles for hours, we emerged into a giant, cavernous chamber. Tables stood everywhere, their surfaces covered with jewels, statues, and other treasures. In the center of the room lay a sarcophagus. It was smaller than I had imagined.
“The ancient Egyptians were shorter than modern man,” Zac said aloud, as if he had heard my thought. “They generally didn’t live as long either…” He trailed off, and then started into the room. He made a beeline for a table on the other side of the chamber. I couldn’t see what was on it, as his retreating form was blocking my view. “Rhiannon,” he called softly, his voice reverent. “Come here.”
Hesitantly, I followed his path across the chamber. “Did you find it?” I asked as I came up behind him, my voice equally quiet.
“I believe so. Look.” He pointed down at the book that was resting on a pedestal on the table. “See these glyphs? If my translation is correct—and it should be—this is The Book of Thoth.” He glanced around the chamber. “I wonder why this wasn’t buried in the sarcophagus with the Prince. This is far too important to be left out in the open.”
“Maybe someone moved it?” I suggested.
He shook his head. “No. That’s impossible. Who would have moved it and yet left it here? No one in their right mind would risk the curse for that.” His eyes widened as he continued to stare at the book. “Unless… maybe someone wanted us to find this.”
“Who would want us—wait,” I interrupted my own train of thought. “Curse? What curse?”
“Legends say that if you try to take the Book of Thoth, those nearest and dearest to you will perish.”