Addison’s soul bobs forward, alighting on the other side of the scale. The weighted side slowly rises until the Feather and soul are perfectly balanced. I release the breath I’ve been holding, relieved Addison is going to survive. When I turn to smile at Andy, the crashing scales draw me back, making my head snap around. Addison’s soul has toppled the scale, sending the Feather adrift.
As the fluffy, white Feather floats toward the limestone floor, the grinding sound begins. Massive blocks slide open on the far side of the chamber, revealing a dark so black it’s consuming. Nails scrape against the limestone, announcing Amemit’s arrival. Her nickname—Devourer of the Dead—is well-earned. As she emerges into the light, her leathery crocodile snout appears to be smiling. Once she’s cleared her cavern, Amemit rises up onto her hippo haunches, carrying her lioness body like it weighs nothing at all.
“I’ve been waiting for you, my sweet.” Amemit’s accent is heavy, thick with the cadence of ancient Egyptian, which I know she still prefers. Lion claws raise Addison’s soul off the scale, until it hovers at eye-level with the beast.
“You may materialize,” she hisses, and Addison’s soul glows brighter and elongates. The soul takes shape, forming into a translucent image of Addison’s old body, complete with confusion and horror etched across that perfect little face. I don’t know why Amemit insists on playing with her food instead of swallowing the soul like a pill. I do know that I hate—hate—this part of the ceremony, and I step behind Andy to shield myself from it.
His head spins around and a scowl mars his honeyed skin. “She has no power over you unless you give it to her, so stop.” He leans in closer and half-hisses in my ear, “Remember who you are. Gods don’t cower.”
Amemit’s teeth click together and her sandpapery hippo feet scrape against the limestone as she advances. Then comes Addison’s scream and the crash of bodies as she scrambles backward into Horus and Thoth. If she’s looking for protection, she’s looking in the wrong place. They’ll simply push her back toward her fate. The scales crash again—Addison must be scrambling over them in her effort to flee. Amemit roars, some kind of deranged, guttural wail, and it’s then that Addison spots us.
“Andy! Beth!” she shrieks. “Heather! Don’t just stand there, help me!” Hearing my name makes my eyes pull open and I peek around from behind my brother just in time to see Amemit’s jaws crash around Addison’s shoulder. Drops of light—her celestial blood—splatter across the chamber before disintegrating as she’s thrown to the floor.
Addison’s new scream is gut-wrenching. She must know she’s dying all over again. Amemit falls down to all fours, perches above her prey, and smacks her jaws together just above Addison’s head. “I’ve been waiting for something sweet like you,” she purrs.
I can’t watch. Won’t watch. Addison’s screams stop as quickly as they came and I know Amemit has finished her off. My stomach clenches and I’m about to be sick. Even though Horus hasn’t dismissed us yet, there’s no way I can stand in that chamber for another second. Holding back the bile rising in my throat, I tear down our hidden passage, through Beth’s music parlor, and straight up the stairs to my bathroom. Amemit may have feasted tonight, but it’s clear I won’t be keeping down my dinner.
***
I know Beth and Andy will be back soon and I’m not in the mood for their why-the-hell-did-you-freak-out talk.
After pulling on my quilted jacket and wrapping a scarf around my neck, I pluck a set of keys from Andy’s room and head out into the night. The door on his rusty Ford pickup squeaks in protest against having to move in the cold. I crank the heater full blast, but know it’ll be another ten minutes before I get enough warmth to have feeling in my fingertips, and I’m not waiting around.
As I back out of the driveway, gravel crunches beneath the tires with a popping sound that reminds me of snapping bones. Broken bodies.
I will not think about Addison. I will drive and sing too loud and forget this night ever happened.
Cranking up the volume on my iPod, I shove in the ear buds and blast myself with Snow Patrol. My headlights push against the blackness of the arctic night, exposing the next feet of road just in time for me to drive over them. With my singing, I’m belting out enough hot air to float a blimp, so the windshield immediately fogs over. As I’m wiping the frosty glass with the palm of my hand, a figure steps away from the side of the road.
The headlamps cut across him and I recognize the boy. His face is familiar, and yet different. Jerking the wheel hard to the left, I manage to keep from hitting him, but send the truck into a wild, fishtail spin. My dad’s driving advice echoes through my head, and I somehow manage to pump the brakes instead of just slamming my foot into them. Even still, I’m spinning so fast, all I can see is the blur of weeds and trees and pavement as the lights swing around. And I just keep thinking: this is how Addison died. I don’t want to die like her.
When the truck comes to rest fifty feet down the road and facing the opposite direction, my heart is hammering hard enough to break out of my ribs. I’m clutching the wheel so tightly it actually hurts to uncurl my fingers. The boy who nearly caused my death is running toward me and I have to know what the hell his problem is.
All but falling out of the truck, my feet crunch into the ice-packed snow and I slam the door shut. “What are you doing?” I yell. “You could’ve gotten us both killed.”
He slows to a trot as he gets closer and it’s then that I realize where I know the guy from. He was in our funeral home a month ago.
Because he’s already dead.
***
Kyle Reese wasn’t the type of guy you brought home to meet your parents. After getting kicked off the baseball team for failing his drug test, he’d barely managed to drag himself to school. And when he did, he was like a red-eyed zombie staggering down the halls.
I don’t think anyone was really surprised when he ended up laid out in our mortuary, a victim of his own drunk-driving. And given his track record, it wasn’t really surprising that his soul outweighed the Feather, entitling Amemit to another feast. But I sure as hell am surprised to see him standing in front of me, a month post-consumption.
His nose looks broken and I wonder whether it was from the accident or Amemit. Maybe both. Did it still hurt? As I study his face, something in his eyes is so sad, I can’t tear myself away. There’s an ache in my chest, almost physical, that makes me want to protect this guy. To help him, even though he’d just nearly killed me.
“Kyle? Is that you?” I step closer cautiously, not exactly sure how to deal with the resurrected undead, even though I technically do have some power over their souls. He takes another step forward too, bringing himself within the beam of the headlights. It’s definitely Kyle. I recognize the pinstripe suit and tacky tie his mom buried him in. Although his silk handkerchief is about to take a nose dive out of his pocket, and I know my dad had dressed him better than that.
Before stopping to think, I reach forward to rearrange his pocket square.
“Don’t you touch me,” he snaps, grabbing my wrist to halt my advancing fingers. Guess he thought I was going for his soul again. Couldn’t really blame the guy there, all things considered. But as his hand wraps more tightly around my arm, a blazing pain sears my skin. It feels like we’re being welded together, our skins soldered beneath a heat torch. Kyle’s panicked eyes tell me he has no idea what’s going on either. I can tell he wants to let me go, but he just can’t make his fingers release.
The pain makes my head heavy and dark. So dark the road around me vanishes—sinks into darkness, taking my mind with it. Alone with dead Kyle, on the side of a deserted highway in the middle of the coldest January I can remember, I black out.
***
When I come to, Kyle and I are no longer attached. The finger marks branded into my tender wrist are the only proof that I haven’t hallucinated the whole episode. That, and the fact I’m not sitting by the road in the snow. No, wherever I am now, it’s stiflin
g. What my grandmother would have called “soggy,” where the humidity makes you sweat until your clothes plaster to your body.
I sit up, rubbing at my wrist and trying to get my bearings in the pitch dark. I’m in some sort of cave, maybe. It’s definitely stone I’m sitting on and there’s a dank, cavernous smell assaulting me, but the ground is too smooth to be natural. Straining against the dark, I listen for any sound, any clue to tell me where I’ve landed after Kyle unwillingly transported me gods-know-where.
Or perhaps more importantly, gods-know-why. Why did a dead guy brand me with his touch? Why was he on the side of the road in the first place? Why did he try to make me crash?
As my brain is processing, a noise cuts through the fabric of darkness. It sounds like a rubber-soled shoe scraping against stone. Then the clank of chains. My first instinct is to scramble backward, away from the sound, but a low groan stops me.
“Kyle?” I whisper, hoping I’ve guessed correctly. Hoping he’s not planning on using whatever chains he’s got on me.
“Hey, Heather.” The chains jangle with more emphasis. “I don’t suppose you can get me out of here?”
“Get you—” I start before realizing I’m practically yelling. “Get you out of here? I don’t even know where here is.”
Kyle chuckles this dry, ironic laugh that grates on my nerves in a thousand places. “You don’t know where we are. Unbelievable.”
I scoot closer until my shin butts up against his outstretched shoe. “Look, I’m sorry I had to bring your soul down to the Underworld. Like every other person in the world, I hate my crappy job, okay? But blaming me for not knowing where you brought us when it’s pitch-freaking-black isn’t helping anything.”
“Well then, as you told me a few weeks ago: Heather El Bay, I bid you welcome to the Underworld.”
What? This isn’t right. This isn’t the chamber I’m normally in; there are no torches glowing like miniature suns along the walls. None of this makes sense unless…
The distinct click of claws against stone locks everything into place. “Yes, welcome, little goddess,” Amemit purrs. I can practically see the dry smile curling her leathery, crocodile lips. “It’s so nice of you to come to my house for once.”
Without thought, I’m standing, preparing to defend myself against an immortal creature who could eat me for breakfast. But it seems like that has to be against some sort of cosmic rule. At least I hope it is, because I’m not cowering before Amemit any longer. Not when it’s my own soul on the line.
“Mind telling me why I’m here, Amemit? I’m off duty, if you hadn’t noticed.”
The ground trembles beneath my feet as Amemit advances. Slowly and methodically, each step a heavy death knell. “It seems Kyle here set out to kill the wrong person tonight.” She clucks her tongue like an angry hen. “All he had to do was run one, little mortal off the road. Send one more soul to you, so you could deliver it to me. Instead, he brings me you. It’s sort of curious, don’t you think?”
A million questions all scramble for placement at the front of mouth. “Why am I here?”
Her croak of a laugh sends shudders down my spine. “I can’t say, actually. It’s a first. Somehow, he must have brought you back with him when his mission was over.”
Her answer is unsatisfying, but there are too many other questions that need asking. “So all those accidents; they’ve been you. Why?”
“I’d like to tell you I’m hungry, but bored is more like it.” Amemit’s rancid breath seeps down my neck as she circles me. “Besides, your friends are tasty.”
“You monster!” I scream. My outrage is just as much for the torture she’s been putting me through as for the souls she’s devoured. Making me watch her ill-gotten meals. “I’m leaving. Let me out. Now.”
“Here’s the thing,” Amemit taunts. “The doors to my chamber only open when you bring me a soul, but you’re in here. Sort of a catch-22, wouldn’t you say?”
The wind rushes from my lungs. I can almost hear Amemit telepathically grinding the word “checkmate” into my brain. In a last grasp at hope, I turn to Kyle, who I’d left in forgotten silence once Amemit entered.
“Kyle, is she telling the truth? You need to tell me if there’s another way out.”
“Why? So you can run away and let her eat me again?”
Sweat trickles down my temples as panic sets in. I’m trapped in a dark cell with an evil goddess and some zombie boy who apparently hates me.
I’ve heard about adrenaline before, but I can’t say I’ve ever really felt it until right now. Lowering my shoulder like Andy does in football practice, I charge Amenit, hoping to throw her off balance long enough to find a way to escape. If she rolls back on her fat hippo butt, I’m sure I’ll get the head start I need. My shoulder connects with her abdomen, but it’s me who crashes backward, tripping over Kyle’s legs and skidding across the stone floor.
Then Amemit is on me, pinning me beneath her lion claws. “Was that your attempt at an escape?” Her teeth click just above my ear. “I’d tell you to try harder next time, but there won’t be a next time for you.”
No matter how hard I kick and thrash, I can’t shift her off. Her tongue, rough as sandpaper, flicks out of her mouth and licks my cheek.
Disgust and outrage well up into a scream that feels like it could tear out my very soul.
Her teeth, far too blunt and thick but backed by incredible force, rip into my throat, silencing my scream. I gurgle back blood as my body shudders, involuntarily thrashing against the pain of her attack.
Quickly slipping out of consciousness, there’s just one thought now, circling my brain: Andy’s admonition from earlier that night.
I won’t let her do this to me. I’m Hathor.
***
My eyelids are crusted shut with snow. I try to pry them open, but my fingers are so numb and swollen, they barely function. I realize I can’t feel my cheek either, or the side of my neck, and I have the sudden image of being a fish laid out on ice at the market. My skin must look blue and dead like scales by now. Although I have no idea when “now” is, or how long I’ve been packed in my snowy display case.
My brain tells me I have to move. Get up and get help. Find warmth. But my muscles aren’t responding. I try to push myself up, but my hands just slip deeper into the crusty slush until my fingertips jam into the frozen ground. Hardly any air is reaching my lungs, and I suddenly realize my neck is probably flayed open. I have no idea how I made it out of Amemit’s den, other than sheer force of will, but it’s too late. And at this point, I don’t even care.
I’ve never been so cold in all of my life and I silently pray to hear the sound of Beth’s cello, calling to me in the distance. I’m ready to let this body go and find warmth in the afterlife. I can no longer stand the exquisite torture of the cold.
I’ll follow your music, Beth. Play for me.
The only sound I hear is the crunch of icy snow as my boot struggles uselessly against it, searching for a foothold I’ll never find. The best I can do is flip onto my back, get my exposed skin off the ground. Above me, the night sky winks. Stars spin and dance and draw closer. Or maybe it’s me that’s moving? Yes, I’m floating now, heading toward the stars. My arms spin slowly, like pinwheels in a lazy breeze, but there’s nothing to latch onto.
I close my eyes and let myself float. It feels so much better than the cold. I’m sure that if I could turn and look, I’d see my body back on the ground. It was just a vessel for this life, but I miss it more than I should. I wonder what I’ll look like next time around.
And if I’ll get the cosmic power shaft again.
But even as I think the thought, my bitterness over it is gone.
I close my eyes as the stars grow brighter and the ground dims and it’s almost like an invisible lasso is pulling me toward the Milky Way.
When I think of the Milky Way, something clicks. Some legend—or perhaps it was truth— about the Milky Way being milk spilled from Hathor’s udd
ers. My udders. And in the legend, I feel a connection. A celestial bond with the stars, and I realize I’ve accepted my role as Hathor. Accepted her power and love, and I can feel all of her other roles flowing into me, too. I wish I’d felt these things earlier—the urge to dance, the feeling of joy.
My soul stretches like the souls of the departed do once judgment is over. My new fingers feel longer than I remember. Thick, black hair hangs in perfect straight-iron form around my shoulders. And my head pulses with a terrible ache just above my temples. It’s then I realize I’m sprouting horns. There are freaking cow horns growing out of my scalp!
I reach up, running my long, new fingers over the spikes, and feel a metal disk sharing space between them. My brain is racing, even though my ascent has slowed to a crawl. Something familiar tugs at the corner of my mind. Something about the sun.
And then I know: the circle between my horns is the sun-disk. I’ve fully transformed back into Hathor as the ancients knew her. Knew me. As I’m allowing my aching head to relax, cradled by the weightlessness of space, the faintest of sounds weave their chords around my heart. I tilt my head, straining to listen. The notes grow more distinct now that I’m focusing: a song I’d never mistake anywhere.
Beth is playing for me.
Her death lullaby confirms what I already know: my time with the El Bay family is over. I can almost picture my human shell laid out in a satin-lined coffin. Beth would be clutching her cello to her chest, while Andy chuckles as he recalls some long-ago antic of mine from when we were kids.
It was a beautiful life—crappy job, unexplained goddess role, and all.
Turning my new body to Earth, I pass over the moon. Bathed in its reflective glow and awash in soft light and peace, it feels good to be back to being me.
– The End –
The Lion and the Unicorn: Part the First
Two and Twenty Dark Tales Page 12