Chapter Forty-Six

“My whole world shattered when I was eleven,” Imogen said.

Caleb and Dyfan waited, giving her time to share what she had been holding in since that horrific night.

“I was a kid during the Great War, back in 1915. Half our country was off fighting over in Germany. In England, we lived in fear of air raids and bombings from Zeppelin airships. I remember there being a lot of tension at home. My father’s business had been in German imports. He bought fine-crafted musical instruments and sold them at his music shops in London and Surrey. Before the war, my family made yearly trips to Frankfurt. Dad had made a lot of friends there, mostly instrument makers. When the war broke out, he was put in a difficult spot. A married couple, who’d become like a family to us, Heinrich and Olga Müller, fled to England with their newborn baby. My parents took them in. I remember a few fun nights of Heinrich playing violin while Dad played cello. Mum would sing. She had the most lovely voice. Olga baked and let me help with the baby. At the time, I didn’t see anything wrong with the Müllers staying with us. They were so kind and did not support the war, nor did my parents.

“We had a full staff of English servants at our manor in Surrey, and several of them despised the Müllers. Our housemaster, Geoffrey, quit. According to him, we were housing the enemy. He returned with an angry mob, who protested outside our house. They called my father a German sympathizer and a traitor. Father’s response was to lock all the doors, shutter the downstairs windows, and wait for the mob to leave. Then we would escape to our manor in the country. But Geoffrey’s mob wouldn’t stop their shouting and throwing things at the house. I can still hear the banging at the front door and objects hitting the shutters. Olga’s baby crying. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Imogen shook her head. Once again, anger and guilt weighed heavy in her heart. “I was a headstrong girl who had hated Geoffrey with a passion. I couldn’t stand by and let him and his protestors threaten my family. While my parents and the Müllers were discussing what to do, I snuck off to my parents’ bedroom and got my father’s pistol. He had taught me how to shoot it. I opened an upstairs window and fired the gun. I aimed at the drive, not intending to hit anyone. I just wanted to scare the crowd so they would leave us alone. But the bullet ricocheted off the pavement and struck Geoffrey’s leg. He swore vengeance as his followers carried him off.

“My father took the gun away from me. He was so angry and scared he was shaking. My mother was worried that I’d done more harm than good.

“Later that night while we were packing to leave, someone chained all the doors and…set fire to our house.” Her mind filled with screams. “We were all trapped inside, fifteen of us. The fire spread fast. My father, along with the Müllers and several servants, died fighting the flames.” Imogen could feel the heat burning her skin, the smoke filling her lungs. She recalled how a bright orange fire had engulfed the ceiling. “Mum helped me out a window. It was too small for her. When I got outside, I promised her I’d run round to the front of the house and open the door. But I couldn’t get the chains off. In my nightmares, I still hear my family screaming in the fire.”

Caleb took her hand.

“You wonder how I lost my faith in God. It was the fire. When death took my parents and everyone dear to me, it did more than end my happy childhood. It changed me.”

“How?” Caleb said.

“Before, I believed in magic, angels, the unseen. I spent long summer days exploring the woods and heather fields near my home. I was an only child but never lonely. I felt spirits with me in the woods. I pretended lightning bugs were fairies. Those strange magical days were the best of my childhood. The fire burned all my magical thoughts to ash and took my faith too.”

She wiped her eyes. “It helps to have said it out loud, but it doesn’t change what happened.” She admired the way Caleb listened. “You would’ve made a fine priest.”

He released her hand. “No, I would make a very compromised priest.”

“We won’t let this place get to us,” she said. “If you see something else, we’ll talk about it. Okay?”

He nodded. “You too. You can tell me anything. When I saw the men who died because of me, I felt terrified myself.”

“We’ve all been humbled by this place,” Dyfan said. “It is pure evil and means to draw us into our own personal hells.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Caleb said. “I believe we’re in some sort of purgatory. It offers a chance to face our sins and forgive ourselves for the wrongs we have committed. The existence of this place only deepens my faith.”

“You think faith is going to save you here?” Imogen said. “All I’ve seen so far is people dying without mercy.”

“She’s got a point there,” Dyfan said.

Caleb said, “A nun named Sister Maya once told me, ‘When you find yourself in complete darkness, faith, even blind faith, will be the guiding light back to God.’”

“I hope you’re right,” Imogen said. “Because I have never been more in the dark.”

* * *

Beyond the bathhouse, Trummel and Gosswick carved the gloom with their lights. The chamber echoed with the sounds of their boots crossing the tile floor. An infinite number of paths wove through a forest of columns.

“Another bloody maze,” Gosswick said. “Perhaps, we should—”

“Shhh.” Trummel held up his hand at the sound of running feet. From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of white disappear behind a column. Then he felt a connection that he hadn’t felt since he’d shared his days with his twin. “Nell?”

His ten-year-old sister stepped into the beam of his headlamp.

Trummel could only stare.

“What is it?” Gosswick asked.

“Right over there. Do you see her?”

“All I see is a shadow of something. Must be a trick.”

Nell looked very much alive, the same as the day he last saw her. Her lacy white dress was clean, and she was wearing white stockings with her favorite black shoes. She smiled the way she always did when she was grateful to see him. “Nate, I’ve missed you so much.”

Hearing her voice brought back all the pain of losing her. His chest grew heavy and his eyes watered. His logical mind argued that she was dead, but the Nell who stood before him was so real, the connection between them as strong as ever. He had missed the feeling of his sister, as if a part of him had been cut away. He now felt as if that severed part was being healed, becoming whole again.

Harlan had spoken of witnessing miracles inside Duat. “I saw my wife, Julia, there, and we spent a glorious time together. It was my reward for making it to the higher realms.” What if Trummel had passed some sort of spiritual test and the gods were returning her to him?

“I’ve missed you too, Nell.” He ventured a step toward her.

“I want us to be together again,” she said, “forever and ever.”

“As do I.”

“Let’s play hide-and-seek.” She dashed off into the dark.

“Wait, come back!” Trummel ran after her. He searched behind column after column. “Where are you?”

Her whistle echoed up ahead.

Gosswick called for him from behind, but Trummel kept searching. He descended a set of steps into a pitch-black pit. His headlamp spotlighted Nell standing twenty feet away.

“Found me; now you gotta catch me.” She wiggled her finger for him to come to her. The invisible tether that connected them pulled him toward her. She held open her arms for him to hug her.

“Dr. Trummel, stop!” Gosswick shouted from the top of the steps.

Hissing echoed all around.

The hairs stood on Trummel’s neck. A swish of his torch revealed he was standing in a pit filled with snakes. Stacked in piles, slithering over one another. Dozens of them moved toward Nell until there was barely a footpath between brother and sister.

Trummel froze.

Snakes of every color coiled around Nell’s legs. “Brother, you’ve become so selfish and cold-hearted. You belong among the snakes with us.”

Behind Nell appeared Göran Järvi, carrying a python around his neck. From the shadows, half a dozen cobras rose up in striking stances, flaring their hoods. Nell and Järvi turned from solid to transparent, flickered like projected film images, and then disappeared.

Trummel’s chest felt a sting of betrayal. He’d been fooled and led into a trap. While seeing Nell alive must have been a trick of the mind, the snakes that infested this realm looked real enough to kill him.

He slowly backed away. One of the king cobras attacked. A gunshot fired and the cobra’s head exploded. Trummel hurried up the steps as Gosswick unleashed several more shots into the pit, killing the snakes that snapped at Trummel’s heels. This only riled up a hundred others.

Nell’s giggles echoed in the chamber.

Trummel ran with Gosswick back through the columns with sounds of hissing behind them. In the bathhouse, the pools were writhing with black water snakes. They slid their heads up the side walls. Nell floated facedown in one of the pools, dead as the day he’d found her. Snakes slithered over her back.

In another pool, Järvi rose out of the water, covered in a slithering mass. He grinned and sounded a singsong whistle.

Ahead, the liquid gate whirled. Trummel and Gosswick crossed through it and returned to the junction room.

“Fucking hell,” Gosswick cursed, breathing heavily.

Imogen, Caleb, and Dyfan stood.

“What did you see?” Caleb asked.

“A realm full of snakes,” Trummel said, catching his breath. Although he was shaken, he did his best to maintain his composure. He wanted nothing more than to get far away from Nell’s ghost and her killer. Had Duat’s omniscient darkness conjured them from his memories? Whether hallucinations or real ghosts, they terrified him. “We need to keep moving. Let’s try the last gate.”

Imogen punched in several glyph combinations on the final door. It took her a moment to solve the riddle. Then she punched a code and called out the name, “She Who Shows the Way.”

The hooded demon scraped its finger blades together and the gate opened.