Osiris had stood to thunderous applause and was now melting their hardened hearts and loosening their pockets for a worthy cause. Anyone would think he cared.
I’d thrown on the borrowed suit, but it had seen better days and garnered me a few frowns while I mingled. I didn’t care what they thought. All this seemed rudimentary and shallow after my time in Duat. How did Osiris stomach it?
Osiris’s speech neared its end. I leaned over a plump gentleman, stole his wine glass, flashed him a smile, and lifted the glass high. “To the mayor.”
People turned, chairs squeaked, someone gasped. You’d have thought I was holding a snake in my hand, not a glass. I just wanted to remind the mayor I still existed, just in case he’d forgotten … considering he hadn’t lifted a finger or made his presence known in any way while I’d been surviving Anubis’s attempt at revenge.
Osiris stalled, but that was all. He didn’t even look my way as he proceeded to finish his rousing speech to applause.
I downed the stolen wine, gripped the gentleman’s shoulder, saying, “Thanks,” and handed him back the empty glass.
I made it halfway around the room before a smooth, cool touch trickled down the back of my neck. Isis slid her fingers down my arm, took my hand in hers, and pulled me toward a curtain. I’d taken a few steps before getting enough of a hold on my wits to yank free.
“The prodigal son returns. Come …” She lifted the curtain and pushed through without glancing back, fully expecting me to follow.
Osiris stood among a throng of smiling people, his attention well away from us. If he found me having a private one-on-one with Isis, I assumed the response wouldn’t be a slap on the back and a handshake. But Isis had answers. Some alone time with the goddess would do just fine, so long as she kept her distance and her hands to herself.
I slipped through the curtain into a sectioned-off area. Stacked chairs and tables lined the walls. Isis glowed in the center of the room. What little light there was spilled in through the curtain behind me. Her cocktail dress could’ve been cut from emeralds. It pinched and flowed in a way designed to distract.
“Nameless One.” Her lips ticked upward at one corner. She lifted her long-stemmed wine glass and took a dainty sip.
“Isis.” I deliberately omitted the lengthy, official greeting and stopped a few strides away from her. She could move quicker than light, but the distance gave me the illusion that I had a chance should she decide to get too close. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Oh?”
The party continued behind the curtains, and conversations grew louder as the wine flowed. It seemed a million miles away, as though those people and their inconsequential lives were so far removed from me that they might as well be fantasy. Was that Isis’s doing, or had I still not settled into my role as Ace Dante?
“It was your idea for me to return home, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“You’ll have to be more specific.” Her smile was still there, locked sideways on her red lips.
I found my feet carrying me in a circle around her and consciously stopped to casually tuck a thumb into my belt. “You want specifics? Sure. You killed Ammit right before I could get there.”
Her eyes still shone in the dark and her smile held, as hungry and lascivious as before.
“Thoth helped you fire up a prophecy, though I suspect he believed you were helping him, because that’s how you work, isn’t it?” My feet were moving again, circling me around her. “You guide others to do your bidding, making them believe they’re in control, but really, it’s all about you. I almost feel sorry for Osiris.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
I smiled back at her. “I had Anubis breathing down my neck because of you.”
“Oh, we were aware of the unfolding events. Who do you think tidied up the witnesses you left behind on Long Island?” She laughed, the sound light and tinkling like fracturing glass. “We were observing events from afar.”
I wasn’t going to ask exactly what she meant by tidying up. I already knew I wouldn’t like the answer. “You were watching, huh? So, what? You didn’t want to dirty your hands with the Soul Eater’s fate?”
“You standing here is clear evidence you didn’t require my husband’s help.”
In retrospect, I hadn’t, but it would’ve been nice to have some divine backup. “Anubis would’ve torn my soul to shreds. Shukra was the only reason he didn’t. My soul was saved by a demon. You almost had me killed.”
“Oh, really now. How melodramatic. And you are not to blame, Soul Eater? The infamous liar? Your hatred for your surrogate mother was well known—”
“Anubis weighed my heart. The scales do not lie. I didn’t murder her.”
She blinked and tried one of those scoffing laughs, as though the notion was so absurd she wouldn’t waste time considering it. It didn’t hide her surprise though.
“All of Duat, and even Anubis, know I’m innocent.”
I’d circled around behind her and watched her watching me in the corner of her eye. If I tried anything, she’d strike me down. This empty storeroom wasn’t Duat. I was weaker here, shackled. How convenient. What would’ve happened had the Goddess of Light been present in the weighing chambers? Nothing, probably. My testimony against Isis would’ve looked desperate. I couldn’t win this by going public or hitting it head-on. I had to be smarter and come at it from the side, like her.
“You’re setting me up as your fall guy. The maddened, revenge-riddled Nameless One. The villain. I have to admit, you’ve done a damn fine job of it.”
I was closer now, within reaching distance. I looked deep into those beautiful eyes, skirting her brilliant soul.
“Pray tell me, Soul Eater, for what crime am I setting you up in this fantasy of yours?” Her smile had softened, melting away like she forgot she was supposed to be wearing it.
I touched her warm fingers, the one’s holding the glass, and eased mine around the stem. “It must be difficult, living forever in Osiris’s shadow and bowing to a god you once saved. Seth killed him and took his place as pharaoh and divine ruler. If it wasn’t for you, Osiris would be dead and Seth would be ruling both worlds. You stopped the war. Not the armies or the gods. Isis, the Light of Life.” I tightened my grip on the glass and plucked it from her fingers. Those steel-trap eyes watched me drink. It was too sweet, but it was hers, making it the best damn wine I’d ever stolen. “I’m thinking a few thousand years on and you’re regretting that decision. Maybe you’d like your husband not to be here again?”
“I love my husband,” she recited flatly, as devoid of emotion as if she were reading the instructions on a packet of noodles.
I downed the rest of her wine and handed back the glass. She took it without looking. “I never said you didn’t. From one immortal to another, let’s agree there are many interpretations of love. The fiery passion of young love, the stalwart, uncompromising love between parent and child, and a tainted love that’s fractured into razor-sharp pieces.”
“Your words verge on blasphemy.” Fire touched her gaze, but too little, too late.
I started backing up. “Story of my life, peaches.”
She looked at her glass, found it empty, and clearly considered throwing it at me, but she checked herself before giving herself away. “I haven’t told you anything.”
I smiled and turned away, letting her know how little I cared. “You’ve told me everything.” I lifted the curtain, but only halfway. “Oh, before I forget, Seth is waking. Convenient timing, don’t you think?”
Her sudden gasp sounded like a snake’s hiss. “Keep your friends close—”
I passed through the curtain to the sound of her heels rapid-firing against the hardwood floors behind me. She might’ve even finished her predictable threat had Osiris not looked up from his table. He speared his gaze into me before shifting it over my shoulder to Isis. In the smallest of moments, caught between one second and the next, the mayor wasn’t the mayor. He was a being
of power and light, twisted and warped by years of rule. The depth of his power threatened to swallow my next step, and then, in a blink, Isis was beside him, whispering in his ear, and the effect vanished. Noise rushed back in, the dinner continued, and no one was the wiser.
If Isis told Osiris anything of what I’d said, I’d be in for a whole world of punishment, but she wouldn’t—she couldn’t—because she was the silent guiding hand, and I was her scapegoat.
She slinked away from Osiris and disappeared into the crowd. Osiris’s dark, enquiring eyes settled on me from across the room. We stayed like that, the seconds dragging on, the world turning. He could’ve compelled me to him, demanded I tell him what Isis and I had discussed, but instead, he just stared, barring any trace of his thoughts from his face. If he’d known what was happening in Duat, he could’ve stepped in at any moment, but he hadn’t. Did that mean he’d wanted Anubis to condemn me, or had he wanted to see what I could do, if anything, against a god?
A young couple distracted Osiris, freeing me from his attention. I used the opportunity to slip away unnoticed. With any luck, Anubis would spend the next few months licking his wounds, Osiris and Isis would go back to playing the celebrity couple, and me, Shu, and Cat would get on with our lives without any godly interruptions.
Right, and maybe Duat would freeze over.
A summer shower had left the streets steaming and my new coat glistening wet. I shrugged the stiff leather off as I climbed the stairs, shook the water beads free, and opened my office door to Cat sitting in my chair. She’d moved the goldfish bowl onto my desk in front of her—sans fish, I realized as I hung up my coat.
“What did you do with Shu?” I asked, crouching to peer inside the cloudy bowl.
She blinked and then followed my gaze to the bowl. “You named your fish after Shukra?”
“Technically, I named it Shu, after the god of air. Shukra just happens to have the same name.” I’d named it after Shukra.
Cat dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a knuckle and invited me, with a look, to ask again.
“You ate my fish?”
“It’s the natural order of things.”
I straightened, undecided on whether I should feel outraged or amused. “We clearly need to discuss boundaries.”
“So it’s fine for me to eat the rodents in this building, but not one little fish?”
“You’ve been eating rats?”
She was joking. At least her smile suggested she was, but I also knew she’d probably eat the rats if the desire took her.
“You’ve got the right constitution for New York food.”
I pulled up the visitor’s chair and sat on the wrong side of my desk. Nothing of what we’d been through showed on her face. If anything, there was a warmth that hadn’t been there before, and that playful glint in her eye was back. It suited her.
“Thank you,” I said and didn’t specify what for. Didn’t need to.
“You’re welcome.”
“I went to Mafdet’s. I was hoping you could’ve come. There was something—”
“I’m leaving.”
I’d expecting those words, but what I hadn’t expected was the crushing disappointment on hearing them. After a few hundred years, I’d thought being alone would get easier. It didn’t. “If it’s to find Bastet, I asked Shu to help.”
Cat stood and cruised around the office the way she had countless times in cat form. “There’s no easy way to say this, especially after … after what we’ve been through. I appreciate everything you did for me there. I know it wasn’t easy.”
I eased the chair around, following her slow retreat toward the door. “But?”
“But I want to trust you.” That didn’t sound so bad. “And I can’t, because whichever way I turn, you’re there. I can’t get past you.”
I showed her my palms. “I’m not stopping you.”
“But you are. You just don’t see it.”
She wasn’t making any sense. “I just told you, Shu is—”
“I can’t trust Shukra, and if I learned anything from my time in Duat, it’s that I want to believe you, the same as I think you want to believe certain things, but I can’t let my … my feelings for you distract me from the facts.” She had her back to the door, her escape route right there. “Bastet is my queen. My life and my loyalty are hers. She came here, Ace. She came to you asking for help. I spoke with witnesses at a local woman’s shelter who remember you and her discussing a young homeless girl.”
Who the hell were these witnesses? I laughed. This was ridiculous. “They’re lying.”
Cat snaked her arms crossed and sighed. “They described you, right down to the coat.”
“I’ve never been to a woman’s shelter.” Of that, I was damn sure. Why would I?
“So why did you donate a substantial amount of cash to the Goddess of the Rising Sun Women’s Shelter in Queens?”
A low grumble sounded at the back of my throat. “Clearly Shukra has no clue what anonymous means. Sure, I told Shu to hand off some money. I didn’t even know the name of the place—”
“Tens of thousands of dollars.”
Thousands of dollars from the sale of Isis’s golden gift. From the darkening look on Cat’s face, telling her where the cash had come from wouldn’t help. “I just plucked the shelter’s name out of the air. I’ve never been there.”
“You’re lying.”
I’m lying? I snorted and shoved out of the chair, heading around my desk. “I get it. You heard souls tell you how much of a lying bastard I am. Fine. Go find your answers and do it without my help.” I reached toward the desk’s bottom drawer. I hadn’t touched the vodka since coming back, but now seemed like a great time to crack it open. The bottle was inside, waiting, but with Cat looking on, I hesitated. I didn’t want her seeing me reach for the crutch.
I kicked the drawer closed and pressed my fingers onto the desktop instead. “Leave then.”
“I think something happened here. I asked Shu, but—”
“Cat.” My smile was all slippery with insincerity. “Don’t drag it out. Go do your thing. When you find her, don’t bother coming back to apologize.”
Liar. Call me a liar when it’s justified, but to accuse me of lying when I knew I was telling the truth? Apparently, I didn’t know Cat at all. I guessed she didn’t know me either if she thought I could harm Bast and cover it up.
Cat hesitated, unspoken words holding her in place until she gave up, turned, and left. I listened to the outer door close, heard her descend the stairs, and waited until all I could hear was New York’s din outside my window and my own heartbeat.
Alone, I opened the drawer and stared at the bottle. I’d wanted to explain to Cat how I’d found Mafdet’s store trashed behind strings of crime scene tape. I’d been planning to call Cujo to see if he could dig through the evidence and locate the jackal-headed box and ask him if Mafdet had been present.
Cat wouldn’t have helped though. And I didn’t much feel like calling Cujo. Not yet. Cujo was part of Ace Dante’s world, and I hadn’t fully slotted back into place inside it yet—like the new coat. It was identical, but it would never fit the same as the old one had.
The foolish part of me wished I’d mentioned the changes in me to Cat.
But she had her thing. I had mine.
Time to move on.
I lifted out the vodka bottle and glass, twisted off the cap, and poured a generous slosh. A folded note tucked into the bottom of the drawer caught my eye. I’d seen the paper’s ragged edges and card-like thickness before and smelled the same warm and misty perfume.
I know who you are.
I need your help.
Meet me.
He will not be told.
~ Isis.
Something like a laugh slipped free before I downed the drink in one go. Secret meetings with her Divine Bitchiness had worked out so well for Thoth.
I should tear up the note. Burn it. Scatter the ashes.
More
vodka went down, hot and smooth.
I know who you are.
With the note pinched between my finger and thumb, I lifted it to eye level, admiring how Isis’s embellished writing swirled as if the words were alive.
“Daquir.”
The paper fizzled and embers rippled along its surface, eating up the evidence until the entire note crumbled to ash.
Isis could go hang.
Continues in Scorpion Trap, Soul Eater #4
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Scorpion Trap, Soul Eater #4 - Excerpt
The McDonald’s restaurant tucked away behind the lingerie in Macy’s was the last place I’d expected Shu to be headed, but there she was, carving through the unsuspecting crowd with her distinctive raven-black hair pulled into a scorpion-like ponytail and her stilettos stabbing the sticky floor. She looked like the type of woman who’d walk over cold corpses each morning to get her chai tea latte fix.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. Lately, we’d been getting along fine, as much as demon sorceress and soul eater can. That was the problem. Five hundred years, give or take a few, and we’d never gotten along. She hated me. I hated her. We were enemies cursed together for eternity. That made sense. What didn’t make sense was her giving up a chance at redemption to save my soul. Hell, had we been BFFs, she still should’ve damn well taken Anubis’s offer. She hadn’t, and that was the problem. Something was wrong with Shukra, and that’s why I’d been tailing her for the past couple of weeks.
I sauntered into the line of folks waiting to collect their bagged orders and pretended to check my phone as I kept Shu in the corner of my eye. She’d stopped at a table by the window. Four twenty–somethings, two guys and two girls, abruptly stopped chatting over their hamburgers and looked up. Shu said something with a jerk of her chin. Tension crackled off Shu’s rapt crowd. I was wondering if the tension might spark an argument, when one of them wordlessly dusted off his hands and scooped a bag off the floor.
See No Evil (The Soul Eater Book 3) Page 13