“Yeah, hey. What are you doing out here?” He jogged to meet us, but something was off. He looked frazzled, which was odd because Tage was known for his airy confidence. He was almost as cocky as Roman most of the time.
“Well, we have a problem,” Roman said lazily.
Actually, Ford and I had two problems. The first was Delilah, and if what he said was true, I had no idea how to combat that threat. The second was Roman’s bloodthirst. I could end it, but I just hoped it didn’t come down to that. In this particular moment, I wasn’t hungry or angry. Just tired as hell.
“What’s the problem?” Tage asked, stopping in front of us. His eyes darted around as if looking for something…or someone.
Roman perked up, looking behind us. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Tage said quickly. Too quickly.
“Our problem,” Roman started, “is that Delilah isn’t what everyone thinks she is.”
Tage stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“She’s a witch,” Ford threw out hastily.
“A witch?” Tage asked, shifting on his feet. “I don’t know about all that.”
“It sounds crazy, but she took me to this sandy, hot place. One minute we were in the forest at night, and the next we were standing in the sun and sand. She’s definitely some sort of witch.” Ford shoved his hands in his pockets. “I understand if you don’t believe me. It sounds stupid to even say it, but I promise it’s true.”
“You’ve always been honest with me, Ford,” Tage said.
I couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong with Tage. His eyes jumped to the area behind us, to his right, left. He glanced behind him. “Are you looking for Porschia?” I finally asked.
“Yeah, I am. I can’t seem to find her in the forest.”
Ford scoffed. “Bet the witch still has her in that desert.”
“Why would Delilah need Porschia, though?” I asked.
“I told her to be careful who she told about what she was,” Roman said. “Some will want to use her as a weapon. Maybe Delilah is one of them.”
“But if she has magic, why would she need an Infected night-walker?” I asked. Nothing made sense.
“Mercedes is right,” Tage said gruffly. “Why would a witch need Porschia?”
From behind Tage came a female voice, Delilah’s voice; but the woman who spoke it did not look like Delilah at all. “Tageset, you know exactly why I need her and that I’m no witch.”
The woman looked dangerous. Long dark hair, feline eyes, olive skin...and when she stepped beside him, I noticed his eyes had changed, too. They were molten gold and looked exactly like Delilah’s.
“Tage?” I said, cocking my head.
“Bring them,” the woman ordered, and with a wave of his hand, we disappeared. The forest was no more. Heat surrounded us, the sun overhead scorching our skin and the sand beneath our feet.
“Welcome to The Sand,” she cooed at us. Then, turning to Tage, she added, “Please place them in the tent with Porschia, Tageset.”
“Tageset? What the hell, Tage?” I yelled. Roman grabbed my elbow.
I turned to him and he shook his head slowly. “Don’t.”
“What?” I whispered to him angrily.
Roman’s dark eyes drilled into mine. “Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. If that’s who Delilah really is, we don’t know what – or who – we’re dealing with yet.”
Ford nodded. “He’s right, Cede.”
I swallowed. “Fine.” Despite the fact that I wanted to tear the bitch to shreds and Tage right along with her, I held my tongue and my fangs in check. How did Tage know Delilah? Did he already know her when Porschia first found her wandering outside of Mountainside? She looked so different, more like Ford’s age, more like a traumatized teen than a confident woman. She was a hell of a lot less intimidating than she was now.
I turned toward Roman. “Why do you care what I do?”
He pursed his lips. “Because your actions, if you don’t think them through—which you have a tendency to do—might adversely affect me, too. I’m not willing to let that happen.”
“What are you gonna do about it, Roman?” I snapped.
“Try me,” he said, his eyes daring me to test him.
“Hey!” Tage barked. “Do you want to stop arguing and go see Porschia?” Slowly, I backed away from Roman and walked toward Ford, who was already obeying Tage’s commands. I didn’t like it, but what choice did we have but to follow him? Tage led us toward a huge black tent. The hot wind blew the tails of the fabric, let it go and then grabbed it again. Whatever this was, we were all in deep and I worried not all of us would make it back to Blackwater and reality.
Saul and I were quietly trying to find a way out of the tent, but the entrance was sealed. Everything was sealed. “There must be something, some weakness,” I grunted, pushing hard against the fabric wall. It was like stone, even though I could see it moving in the wind.
“Porschia?” He stopped shoving the tent wall and rested his hands on his hips.
“Yeah?”
“No matter what, I won’t hurt you. I don’t care if I fed from her. I don’t care what the two of them say, I won’t.”
“I know that, Saul,” I answered, but was unable to hide the waver in my voice. I was doubtful, but Saul didn’t seem to be. I hoped he wouldn’t hurt me, and I hoped he wouldn’t allow Delilah to use him to hurt me, either.
“No, I don’t think you do,” Saul started. “Everything’s been so...”
“It’s okay. I know. I promise,” I told him, continuing to push against the wall. “Maybe if we push together?”
He walked over to me and we pushed against the tent hard, straining to shove through the fabric, but it was no use. It wasn’t budging and that meant we were stuck. We were at Sekhmet’s mercy, and that wasn’t a position I wanted to be in for long.
“You should go home, Saul. If they offer again, you should go.”
He scoffed. “Go home to what? My parents? The Colony? What would I go home to, Porsch?”
I was so tired, every muscle overworked, and I didn’t have it in me to argue. “I’m sorry. I just want you to have a chance at normal.”
“Normal is relative. It’s not something I’ll ever have in Blackwater, maybe never again, period, and I’m not leaving you here. I wouldn’t do that,” he said adamantly.
Hands clapping from behind us made both of us jump. “Working together to escape?” Sekhmet teased. “You’ve found it is a useless waste of time, I assume.”
I refused to say anything to this sorceress. She smiled, reveling in my defiance, mostly because it was never enough to do anything to hurt her. “I brought you a present...” she said coyly, just before my brother, sister, and Roman walked into the room. Tage followed them, sealing the tent once more.
“Why?” I screamed at Tage. Screw his crazy sister. He was endangering everyone I loved.
The muscle in his jaw ticked. Was he doing this on his own, or was he so scared of his sister that he’d lost all function of his own brain? I’d had it. “Well, surely you’ve introduced yourself to everyone, right, Tage? Why don’t you show them who you are? How about you tell them what a lying son of a bitch you really are,” I dared him.
With a flick of his hand, he was back in his white skirt and golden belt, the muscles of his stomach exposed and flexing angrily. “Does this make you happy?”
“At least it’s real. Stop pretending to be something you aren’t, and you aren’t Tage. You’re Tageset, firstborn son of Ramesses II, the first vampire ever cursed and sister to this freak,” I yelled, pointing at his sister. “Sekhmet, ‘the one who tears apart’, or whatever it is she calls herself. Why don’t you tell everyone how the two of you have the ability to end both curses, yet you refuse?”
“I can’t—”
“Tell them!”
“I won’t let you go! I love you. Whether you understand it or not, I refuse to lose you now that you’re mine,” he yelled, striding
around the trio of friends, now wide-eyed with their mouths hanging open, gaping at me.
I held my hands up. “Don’t touch me,” I warned.
“Or what? What can you possibly do to me?”
“I’ll eat you.”
“You can’t,” he said simply. “Unless I allow it. Out there,” he pointed to the flapping fabric of the tent. “you were strong. But you aren’t strong here. You are nothing against me or Sekhmet. As long as you keep that in mind, you’ll be safe. This is a different world, Porschia, and you have no power in it.”
“I don’t feel very safe right now, Tage, so forgive me if I decide to just trust what I know.”
His face softened. “Put your trust in me. I love you. You know I do. You know me, kitten.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Sekhmet began to laugh, drawing all eyes to her. “You call her kitten? That’s perfect.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked her, my eyes flicking to Tage.
“My father loved the feline deities. It’s why I chose the name Sekhmet after I was cursed. I was born Minateri, but I saw how he worshipped Bastet and Sekhmet. He said they were with him in battle, that the ferocious felines helped him win wars and slay his enemies. However, Tageset rejected everything our father valued. After Father refused to allow the slaves to leave, after all of the plagues had been sent down upon us and Tageset was the first to turn, he hated our father. Didn’t you, brother?”
“I did.”
“But you never forgot the power of the feline goddesses. You named your fake lover after them. Kitten,” she mused. “She might be strong compared to humans, but she is nothing compared to you and I. She is merely a bug, so easily squashed now. If we didn’t need her, I’d do just that,” she growled. Her fangs were sharp and long, as deadly as the monster she’d become. And the fact that she was a vampire was only icing on her cake.
Tage backed away from me, turned, and left the tent. “Sekhmet!” he yelled from outside.
“Oh, I’ve upset him,” she pouted before turning to follow him outside. She paused turning to Saul, a seductive smirk easing across her face. “Are you still hungry, Saul?”
“Yes,” he panted, trying to calm himself down.
“Feed from Porschia,” she whispered.
His head turned slowly toward me, chest heaving. Sekhmet wiggled her fingers and disappeared and while I was distracted with that small movement, I forgot how fast Saul was. He pounced on me in an instant, fangs bared, ready to feed. I pushed his face away, grabbed his throat with both hands. He wouldn’t stop. I could see the struggle in his eyes, the war he fought as he gnashed at my face and neck. It took Roman and Mercedes to pull him off me.
He shook with exertion, pain and sweat burst over his brow. For hours, they held him back, across the tent from me but not nearly far enough for comfort. For hours, we all strained against Sekhmet’s power.
And as quickly as it begun, it ended. His body relaxed and he fell into the sand. Roman and Mercedes still stood between us—just in case. But the spell on him had been broken. Her attempt to show her power over us had worked.
Saul wouldn’t look me in the eye for a long while after that. I knew he was ashamed, but it wasn’t his fault. Saul wouldn’t harm me on purpose. And if he fed from me, as she-witch commanded, he would have drained me dry and blamed himself for killing me.
That was what she wanted. To ruin everything standing in the way of her plan.
Mercedes, finally at ease but still standing in the center of the tent, looked at me. “You need to fill us in. Now.”
When things calmed down inside, the wind outside began to thrash the tent so hard I thought it might collapse on us. Sekhmet had sealed the tent after she left. Saul tried the entrance just in case, but it was no use. We were entombed.
“I don’t know much about the ancient Egyptians, but that right there? That was fucked up,” Roman said. “So... you want to fill us in on all the weird?”
Mercedes growled at Roman. “I just asked her that.”
My mouth opened, but I didn’t even know where to start, so Saul spoke for me after silently asking if it was okay.
“Please,” I said, knowing he’d say it better than I would anyway. And he did. He was much more eloquent than I. He didn’t ramble or cry or yell or pace; he only stated the facts.
Roman looked at Mercedes and Ford, and then held up a hand. “We understand about Tage now, sort of. But what does Porschia have to do with any of this?”
“We aren’t exactly sure,” Saul said. “Tage can heal vampirism, and Sekhmet can heal the Infection, or the ‘plague of rot’ as she calls it. Some kind of prophet or seer made a prophecy about Porschia a long time ago, and knew that she would suffer from both plagues. If they heal her, they can end both diseases for all of humanity, but the pair of them would die in the process. At least, that’s what I gathered.”
My stomach clenched and I dropped to the ground.
Saul was with me in an instant. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m going to be sick,” I choked. Heaving and heaving, nothing came up. But it didn’t stop my stomach from trying in earnest to expel something. My throat was dry. I couldn’t take the dry air anymore.
Mercedes screamed into the tent. “You’re killing her, Tage! You are killing Porschia. She needs to feed!”
“Do you think he heard you?” Ford asked.
She threw her hands up in frustration. “Hard to tell. This place is... it makes no sense. How do you turn a fabric tent into stone?!”
My stomach kept revolting. Saul rubbed my back, holding my hair just in case. Eventually, the painful spell stopped and I fell onto my hip, spent and unable to move.
“Can I carry you to one of the couches?” Saul asked.
“Yeah,” I answered breathlessly. He lifted me easily and slowly walked to a nearby couch and laid me down on it.
Looking down at me, he whispered, “I wish there was more I could do. I just fed from her, do you want to feed from me?”
“No way. I don’t want to risk her being able to control me—if that part is even true. I don’t know what’s true anymore.”
Roman whistled. “I can’t see a way out of this situation. Not a single one. They have magic and fangs, and we only have one of those things.” He paused and nodded to Ford. “Well, most of us do, but either way, we’re screwed. Royally. We automatically lose in this case.”
“Well we can’t just give up,” Mercedes snapped at him.
“We don’t have to give up to know we’re beaten,” he growled back at her.
Ford rolled his eyes. “Let’s just shut up and think. There has to be a way.”
Roman stared at my brother in a way that made me want to attack him. “What’s going on, Roman?”
Mercedes waved me off. “I’m taking care of it, Porschia. Butt out.”
What exactly was she taking care of?
“There might be a way. At least, there’s only one I can think of,” Saul said pensively, grabbing his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger.
“What’s that?” Roman asked.
“We get them both to heal Porschia.”
“How in the hell do you suggest we do that?” Roman smarted.
Saul shook his head. “I have no idea, but both of them would die and we’d be rid of them.”
“Even if that worked, we would still be stuck here forever,” I argued.
“There’s no way to know, but the cure is more important than we are. We’re expendable in this situation.” Saul was right, but expendable or not, I didn’t want Tage to die any more than I was ready to meet death myself.
I wanted to tear her in two: my own sister! Truthfully, I have been waiting for her to strike. She wanted nothing more than to build an empire, and I highly doubted she desired anyone by her side while she did it. Our siblings had all died at her hand, and the only reason I was still alive was because I left Egypt and managed to stay clear of her all of these centuries. N
ow there was no way to get rid of her unless I killed her. If she died, Porschia could be cured, but not the rest of humanity. The ultimate cure comes from the children of Ramesses making amends for his mistakes. At one point, there were seven of us who could heal either one plague or the other, but Sekhmet killed them off, leaving only the two of us to clean up Father’s mess.
By healing Porschia, we could heal the whole world. However, Sekhmet thinks we should cure everyone individually, on our own. One thing I’d learned about defying my destiny thus far was that there would be consequences for trying to wiggle out of your responsibility. With every choice, good or bad, there were consequences. Some were just easier to live with than others.
“You wanted to speak, brother?”
“We need to feed her, Sekhmet. We need her to be healthy if we’re going to keep her alive.”
Sekhmet scrutinized me, sizing up my motives. “She is stronger when fed, which means we should keep her in a weakened state. Eventually we could even suspend her life, keep her in a stasis until we need her again.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. Even the most experienced of sorcerers knows not to toy with a person’s breath.”
She waved me off. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve been studying for years. Besides, there is a spell in one of the Books of the Dead I’ve found. It was in Father’s special collection of papyri. It will work.”
“So one spell in one book is supposed to comfort me? Why wasn’t it in all the other copies? Why aren’t all the papyri filled with this miracle spell?”
“The Book of the Dead isn’t the only book you should have been reading, Tageset.”
It suddenly dawned on me. I knew exactly where she’d gotten the spell. “Not those of the cult, surely? No, Sekhmet. Those men challenged even Osiris. That’s dark magic. We were warned never to fool around with it.”
“I’m not fooling with anything. I know the dark magic as well as I know the light. Trust me, brother.”
She was dark, evil, and not to be trusted. I’d known that since before the plagues, although it was funny how most people don’t change. A tiger couldn’t change her stripes, I supposed. “Why did you bring them all here?”
Fraud (The Frenzy Series Book 5) Page 4