Slay

by Matthew Laurence

  She kneels down to view the stately creature head-on. “Over four and a half thousand years gone, and here you sit,” she whispers, eyes wide.

  “Friend of yours?” Nathan asks.

  “An homage, more like,” Sekhmet says, getting back up. “I was quite the subject for statues and carvings, I’ll have you know.”

  “Yeah, about that—there’s a room just down the hall to the left I think you’ll enjoy.”

  Sekhmet’s smile grows eerily wide at that, and for a heartbeat Nathan imagines he could catch a flash of the lioness’s fangs beneath the illusion. It’s in these moments he feels most terrified by and drawn to the woman before him. Dating Sekhmet is like trying to romance an inferno, to clasp a creature of ancient aggression so close you either smothered its flames of carnage or were consumed by them. Either way, it’s all or nothing, a conflict at turns brutal and brilliant, subtle and shocking. As real as any war, theirs is a relationship with its own particular feints, charges, tactics, and stratagems, each deployed in the hopes of winning another inch of territory in the other’s heart.

  Nathan loves her for it.

  Exploring the Egyptian wing with Sekhmet is like stepping back in time with the finest, most self-centered tour guide imaginable. Every scrap of pottery seems a springboard for another story, usually tinted in some way by scandals, sleights, or slaughters directed at or committed by the goddess herself. By the time they pass beneath a doorway titled EGYPT UNDER ROMAN RULE, Nathan feels he already knows more about the secret lives of the pharaohs than any other mortal on the planet.

  Sekhmet begins edging her way around a tightly bound sarcophagus on the floor, a tale about its occupant already on her lips, when she freezes, her attention drawn to the hall beyond. Her mouth drops open and her whole body seems to tense, and then she springs forward, clapping her hands rapidly as she practically dances into the next room.

  “It’s me! Nathan, it’s me!” she exclaims, drawing a few curious glances from other patrons. She skids to a halt in the center of the room, pointing at two seated statues set before a wall of preserved Egyptian murals and hieroglyphics. Twins carved from dark granite, each sculpture depicts a well-dressed woman with the head of a lioness, her intense eyes staring straight ahead.

  “Amenhotep made these for me—the Magnificent, they called him,” she says, releasing a very happy, high-pitched noise. “Just imagine: temples filled with my likeness, over seven hundred seated and standing graven tributes to my name, each an entreaty for health, protection, and long life.”

  She whirls to look at Nathan, eyes aflame. “I must have them.”

  Nathan blinks at that. “Wait, what?” he says, hoping he’s misunderstood her.

  “The statues. They are mine,” she says, leaning in to examine the right-most carving. “The headpiece on this one is the more damaged of the two, but the body seems in fairer condition. We shall secure it first.”

  “You’re joking,” Nathan says, already knowing the truth with sinking certainty.

  “Oh, take heart,” she says, giving him what’s probably supposed to be a reassuring smile. “I will perform this labor. Now, do you think they have attached it in some way?”

  “No, Sekhmet, hang on, you can’t steal a statue from the—”

  “Steal?” she repeats, incredulous. “I am no thief! I am the rightful owner of these pieces, exercising my divine right to reclaim them.”

  “Um, okay, but that was four thousand years ago! Isn’t that—”

  “Three thousand, four hundred years.”

  “Fine! Point is, people don’t care about Star Wars spoilers anymore and that’s barely forty years old. Somehow, I don’t think anyone’s still taking receipts on statues from the Twelfth Dynasty.”

  “Eighteenth,” Sekhmet says absently, listening with only half an ear as she examines her ancient likeness. “How much could this weigh? No more than … fifteen hundred kilos, surely?”

  Nathan fingers the phone in his pocket, wondering if he should cancel their dinner reservation now or try to remain optimistic. “Sekhmet, please, let’s—”

  “Oh wow, hey there!” a familiar voice says from the entrance behind them.

  Startled, Sekhmet and Nathan turn to meet their unexpected greeter. Walking up to them with a bounce in her step is, oddly enough, Samantha Drass, daughter of Finemdi’s former CEO and teenage science superstar. She’s dressed in a well-cut lab coat and light indigo button-up (an odd choice for a museum, Nathan reflects), her pale green eyes are wide with delight, and her young, freckly features seem to radiate glee. Something tickles the back of Nathan’s thoughts at that, a hazy question he can’t quite resolve. If he knew her better, he might be able to narrow down precisely what’s bothering him. As it is, he’s never had many opportunities to interact with the girl.

  It’s something a part of him has always lamented, as out of all the people he knows, she’s the closest in age (by several orders of magnitude, in some cases). If there’s anyone who would understand the craziness of his life, it’s her. He doesn’t regret palling around with gods, not for a second, but doing it with a friend? Someone to commiserate with when, say, your girlfriend started plotting grand theft idol?

  Would’ve been nice.

  “A pleasure as always, Ms. Drass,” Sekhmet says, straightening. “What brings you to this place?”

  “I come here all the time,” she says with a wave. “Lovely museum; great for gathering your thoughts after, um, work.”

  “Ah, of course,” Sekhmet says, something cold in her eyes. “And what have you done for your masters today?”

  Samantha gives her head a rueful shake. “You know I’m not in it for them.”

  “Yes…” Sekhmet says softly, eyes narrowing as she focuses on the girl. “You speak truthfully, yet while I trust Freya’s judgment, I would prefer knowing your aims for myself.”

  “It’s a personal matter,” Samantha says, hesitation in her voice. “But not one that will aid Finemdi in any way, I assure you.”

  Sekhmet nods at that, affirming that Samantha has passed another lie detector test. Nathan relaxes a little. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Samantha. In fact, he rather desperately wants to trust her, to have that mortal connection he’s been missing. Of course, she did encourage Freya to hunt Ares and happens to work for a global god-killing conspiracy, but Sekhmet seems to believe her, which means Nathan can do the same.

  The lovely thing about his girlfriend’s powers of truth telling isn’t that she can spot falsehoods—anyone with half a brain can twist their words around that kind of limitation—it’s that she can tease apart lies of omission and half-truths, too. If you want a prayer of sneaking something under her radar, you have to word things very carefully, and it only gets worse when she has reason to be suspicious.

  So far so good, Sam, Nathan thinks with a little smile. Then, noticing the lull in conversation has begun to stretch to awkward lengths, he decides to speak up.

  “How are things going at the office, anyway?” he asks. “We’ve barely heard a peep since Orlando.”

  “Great for me,” she says, grin returning. “Besides a ton more work—Meridian is our headquarters—they’ve been keeping me busy trying to recatalog everything from Impulse Station.”

  “Any interesting developments?” Nathan asks, legitimately curious about a day in the life of a Finemdi worker bee.

  “Well, let’s see,” she says, looking toward the ceiling as she thinks. “We got another lead on a precursor in Greenland, so we’ve been poring over data from the teams they scrambled there. There was an artifact from one of the Greek primordials—we think Nyx—that popped up in the Namib Desert, too. We had to figure out how to get it here without triggering another eclipse.”

  She makes a hmm noise, then snaps her fingers. “Oh! Some rookies hauled in another Coyote clone last week. That was fun—took them the better part of the weekend to find all the scorpions.”

  Nathan exchanges a look with Sekhmet, who gives h
im a bemused shrug. At least she’s just as lost. Samantha doesn’t seem to notice, however, continuing to discuss her evidently insane workplace.

  “We got the green light on a proposal to build a new base in the Dreamtime,” she says, looking proud. “Now we just need to work out the logistics with ArchEng so the whole thing doesn’t turn into colored sand again. Oh, and on that note, I need to submit my review of the rangers’ idea to test if Otherworld extends off planet.”

  She leans in as if sharing a secret. “They want to build a rocket there, see if it’ll be a more efficient way to enter LEO or even selenocentric orbit.” She rolls her eyes and gives her head a shake. “I think the scale’s all wrong, and that’s even if the methane/LOX admixture follows the same physical laws over there.”

  Sekhmet blinks at that. “You … certainly seem to be helping them with a wide variety of tasks,” she says after a moment, seeming unsure if she’s confused or annoyed by it all.

  Samantha sighs, clearly assuming it to be the latter. “I remain your ally, Lady Sekhmet—I may be in the employ of your sworn foes, but I do wish to aid you and Freya in your struggle. However unpleasant you find it, I hope you’ll agree this relationship is in your best interests.”

  Sekhmet’s lips twist, but from the way her posture relaxes, Nathan knows she’s already decided to trust the girl. “I cannot deny the appeal of this facility,” she says at last, directing her gaze at the room around them. “The presentation of these collections is both attractive and respectful.”

  Nathan smiles at the sudden change of subject. Sekhmet may have decided to let the subject of Samantha’s allegiance drop, but she certainly isn’t about to admit it.

  “Right?” Samantha says, her smile returning. “So what about you? Doing a bit of sightseeing?”

  “At first,” Sekhmet says, looking back at her statue. “Now we are discussing the best means of removing this sculpture.”

  “Whoa, no! We are not discussing anything,” Nathan says, wanting to set the record straight. “You’re the one telling me you want to steal—sorry, remove—a gigantic stone Sekhmet from the Met! Where would you even put it?”

  “I have storage facilities,” Sekhmet says, shrugging.

  “And it wouldn’t be better here, where people can appreciate it, and you?”

  Sekhmet purses her lips at that, tapping a finger against them as she considers his argument. “Please do not mistake me,” she says after a moment. “I am quite grateful to the proprietors of this establishment for taking care of my possessions, but they are mine. I am not content to view them as simply another tourist.”

  “But—”

  “Um, Nathan’s probably right, Sekhmet,” Samantha says, piping up.

  “Excuse me?” she says in a flat voice.

  “It’s just … there’s a lot of security here, and they’d be on you in seconds!” Samantha says, fidgeting. “You both could get in a lot of trouble.”

  Sekhmet says nothing, but the look on her face begins to darken.

  “And, um, Finemdi keeps a pretty close eye on this museum, too,” Samantha says, fingers twisting. “You don’t want to get them on your case, do you?”

  Sekhmet watches in silence for a handful of seconds, then growls. “Liar,” she spits. “Your cowardice is repugnant. Finemdi does not watch this place, and you are well aware the ‘security’ that does is beneath me.”

  “I-I’m sorry, Lady Sekhmet,” Samantha says, suddenly meek. “I was just—I mean—”

  “Spare me,” Sekhmet says with an imperious sniff, turning back to the statue. “If you will not help, then away with you.”

  Samantha sighs and gives Nathan a crestfallen look.

  At least you tried, Nathan thinks, returning a sad shrug. Should’ve known better than to straight-up lie to her, though …

  Without waiting for more arguments against it, Sekhmet steps up to her chosen statue, bends down, and wraps both arms around its legs. As she tightens her grip, digging her fingertips into the stone, a nearby guard begins heading toward her, saying, “Miss, do not touch—”

  With a heave, Sekhmet wrenches the statue from the floor, swaying back a step as she swings the absurd weight above her in one impossible motion. A thin crack shoots across the polished stone beneath her heel, the result of a metric ton suddenly slamming into one precarious place.

  I guess even goddesses know to lift with their knees, Nathan thinks, eyebrows rising at the sight of his girlfriend hefting a massive seven-foot granite idol onto one shoulder.

  Samantha backs away, clearing a path to the door, and motions for Nathan to do the same. The guard, meanwhile, has stopped mid-sentence, mouth stuck open at the sight of Sekhmet’s unimaginable deadlift. The handful of museum patrons lingering in the room all wear similar expressions of shock, and some begin fumbling for their smartphones.

  Then the alarm sounds, a siren cutting through the astonishment, and everything starts moving at what seems like double speed. First, the museum guests panic, nearly all of them making a mad dash for the entrance. At the same time, the guard, regaining his composure, hauls out his Taser, levels it at Sekhmet, and fires. Trailing conductive wires, two darts leap across the room and embed themselves in her left side.

  Nathan grimaces as his girlfriend’s muscles twitch beneath her dress, electricity dancing across her obliques with a chattering sizzle, but other than that, she gives no sign of discomfort. In full defiance of mortal biology, she merely tilts her head to stare at the guard and favor him with a cruel smile.

  “Surely you jest,” she says, and shifts her grip on the statue, freeing one hand. She reaches down, plucks the electrodes from her skin, and casts them to the floor with a snort.

  Superiority established, she begins moving toward the exit, the weight on her shoulders transforming every step into a ponderous thud.

  The guard, clearly unsure what to do next, stares at the useless device in his hands, then drops it and begins speaking rapidly into his earpiece.

  By the time Sekhmet reaches the entrance to the Egyptian wing, a full squad of six security guards await her, several with real guns drawn. Most of the museum patrons scattered at the sound of the alarms, and the staff are ushering the last stragglers to the emergency exits.

  “Place the statue on the ground, lie down, and put your hands on your head!” barks one of the gun-toting guards.

  Sekhmet merely giggles at that and begins running straight at him, the enormous weight bouncing with every booming footfall. Half the guards scatter at the sight, desperate to get out of the way of what’s basically a very small oncoming train. The leader and his friends, however, stand their ground and open fire.

  Nathan pulls Samantha behind a doorway as the gunfire starts, the little scientist releasing an adorable squeak of surprise as he grabs her. His chest pounds, adrenaline and worry for Sekhmet sending his heart rate into overdrive. He chances a peek around the stone of the entryway, fearing the worst.

  His eyes widen as he catches a glimpse of the final moments of his girlfriend’s charge. He’s heard stories from Freya, of course, tales of their escape from Finemdi’s Impulse Station that featured the two goddesses fighting side by side against teams of mercenaries wielding military assault rifles, but he’s never really been able to picture it … until now.

  Sekhmet is cackling, laughter lost amid the gunfire as she practically skips into that stream of lead like a toddler splashing through a summer rainstorm. The guards’ bullets might as well be packing peanuts for all the good they do. Despite plenty of solid hits on her legs and torso, her pace barely wavers.

  Sekhmet blasts through the bewildered guards, bowling several of them over with her unstoppable momentum and clipping one of the columns beyond with the statue. Exiting into the museum lobby in a spray of cement chips, she stops to realign herself, checking her idol as she does. A look of regret crosses her face as she brushes a hand over some new gouges and bullet holes. She casts her gaze back to the room she’s taken it from, then
down to the museum’s entrance, and sighs.

  “I think she feels bad it got damaged,” Nathan says, watching.

  A moment later, as more guards begin arriving, Sekhmet proves him right by gingerly placing her statue on the ground beside her. She gives it a friendly pat, then shouts, “Apologies! All these years unspoiled, and now look what’s happened.”

  A nearby guard yells for her to step away from the statue and lie down. Sekhmet laughs at that and says, “I am not unwilling to admit gratitude at the care you have taken.”

  Another shout for compliance, and more raised weapons follow her words.

  “I … have been a poor guest, have I not?” she says, ignoring the commands. “Perhaps she is better off in your hands.” She frowns, and her gaze zips back, looking in Nathan’s direction. “Again I obsess over what is past, to the detriment of my present.”

  “Lady, what the hell is wrong with you?” a guard snaps, edging closer.

  She smiles at that, then sketches a quick bow at the man. “Do take good care of her!” she replies, and before he has a chance to react, she darts away at a blistering pace, racing for the exit at rally car speeds.

  Samantha’s phone dings in her pocket, and Nathan turns to give her an incredulous look when she takes it out and begins typing a reply.

  “Is this boring for you?” he says, listening to the sound of glass shattering in the distance as Sekhmet barrels through the double doors at the entrance ahead of a swarm of security.

  “Sorry, no, it’s just work,” Samantha says, sounding distant. “We got a live one—live ones, actually. Three new gods, very powerful—and guess who’s on intake duty!”

  She sends her text, puts away the phone, and smiles at Nathan. “Looks like I’m pulling overtime tonight. This was nice, though! Hope to see you again!”