“The priests require your blessings, another suspicious acolyte has been found, and the sorceress escaped.”
My stride through the ground floor anchored down. I’d hoped to enter through the back of the building and go straight to Nile, but Aika seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to knowing when I’d return and where exactly in the building I would be.
“And you assume I care because…?”
She blinked and bowed her head. “The paintings? The sorceress must be questioned. I assume that’s why you had us bring them here?”
“Of course.” Right. Shu’s paintings. I’d sent Aika to collect them. I’d hoped that job would keep her tied up for hours. She was too efficient and too damn good at what she did. And now Shu had escaped, as I’d expected, but without Aika’s interference, the fact Shu was missing would have gone unnoticed for at least a day. “What were you doing in my chamber?”
“The door was ajar.” Her eyes flicked up, questioning, doubting. The others would have been groveling on their knees. Not Aika. She glared back, testing my patience.
“So go find her, and when you do”—she wouldn’t—“take her to my room.” I stepped around Aika and headed toward the kitchens. “And deal with the rest as you see fit.”
“Yes, lord.”
I didn’t miss the tilt of her words or the suspicion hidden in them.
“Apophis?” she called, stopping me as I unbolted the kitchen door.
“Yes?” I hissed.
“Your hand?”
I looked down to find the cut across my palm weeping blood. It hadn’t healed. Osiris’s cursed glass had found its mark. Locking my fingers closed, I willed the flesh to heal and felt the wound’s edges slowly tug together. The slightest knock and it would probably open again. Whatever he had cursed that glass with, it had weakened my ability to heal. It had weakened me. Not enough to do any serious harm, but enough for Aika to notice. “Find the sorceress,” I repeated.
She bowed her head. “Kur Apophis.”
If I lost Aika’s faith, the rest of the priests would follow. She would make sure of it. I watched her turn, her black gown sweeping the floor around her feet. I needed this lie to last a while longer. I was so close to having everything where I needed it. I couldn’t afford for one priestess to upset my plans.
“Wait.”
She hesitated.
“Join me.” I shoved open the kitchen door and strode in. Nile scrambled away from one of the windows and hastily hid both hands behind his back, concealing the fork I’d already seen.
Guilt had my resolve wavering, but it was too late. I needed answers. I needed Aika’s faith restored. I needed everything to pay off, and I needed the sacrifices to be worth something.
“Cukkomd,” I poured surplus power into the word, leaving no room for Nile to squirm free. “Take up the fork, place your hand on the countertop, and stab the fork through the back of your hand.”
Horror contorted his face, turning it white. His hand lifted and pulled him toward the nearest counter. He struggled and yanked, appearing to fight against himself. The compulsion dragged him closer.
Aika stood close behind me, watching the commands play out.
Nile pressed his hand to the counter and spread his fingers wide. He fought against the compulsion the way I had countless times against Osiris. But like me, Nile wouldn’t win. With the slave cuff amplifying my power, he wasn’t strong enough, and there wasn’t time for him to shake off my control.
His hand holding the fork lifted and trembled in the air.
His unique power flexed against the cuff’s hold and mine. If he knew what was to come, and if I hadn’t already whittled away his spirit, he probably could have pushed back enough to fight me. One day, perhaps, but not today.
The fork plunged.
Four prongs punched through the back of the kid’s hand, wrenching a scream from him. Aika flinched—so she did feel. I stared, unmoved by the display. Sobs and pleas tumbled from Nile’s lips.
“Why are you doing this?” he moaned.
Sacrifices must be made. He would survive. Those at the edges of Seth’s storm would not.
I relaxed the compulsion but didn’t free him. I wasn’t done.
He stared at the blood creeping out between his fingers. Shock would soon wrap him up in a blanket of numbness. These moments, as painful as they were, wouldn’t last. It would be over soon.
“My patience has expired.” I folded my arms and drew in a breath. “What were you creating in the train depot?”
His lips tightened, twitching at their corners, and his eyes hardened. The touch of his power, flexing and writhing against my hold, felt too much like Osiris’s, reminding me of all the times I’d fought the god’s hold, all the times he’d had me on my knees with a sinking sense of dread tugging on my guts. That same sense of dread hollowed me out now. I was no better than Osiris. I didn’t want this. I had no choice. But I couldn’t be seen to care.
“Answer me!”
Nile’s knees buckled. He slumped against the counter but clung on, refusing to fall. Sweat beaded across his forehead, plastering to his skin. “I’ll. Never. Help. You.”
You stupid, stubborn fool, I cursed silently.
My compulsion slipped, but I still had him. Stepping closer, I pulled all the shadows in the room, and when Nile lifted his face and smiled, I had no choice but to remind him of the monster he faced. Worshipped and reawakened, I had all the dark in this world within my reach. Madness clamored inside my head, and hunger stretched its gaping maw wide. I could take this kid, this world—knock Seth aside and take it all for myself. Nothing stood in my way—only me.
The hand I locked around Nile’s neck was made of crumbling ash. Fingers of embers choked off his air. My reflection burned in his eyes right before I dove into his soul. The goodness inside him thrashed against my hold. There was nothing bad in Nile. He hadn’t lived long enough for his soul to collect any stains. He was all good, and he was in my way.
“How much truth can you see without your eyes, Truthseer?”
Deeper I dove, pulling him closer so that my gaze scorched his.
“No… Stop.” He squeezed his eyes closed and thrashed his head from side to side. It wouldn’t save him. I had him now, all of him.
I caught his jaw in my free hand and locked him still. “Tell me.”
Sobs bubbled up from inside him. “My eyes!”
“What is Osiris’s weapon for?!”
“I don’t know!” Nile screamed. “It was just something I had to do since I could remember. Please, stop. I can’t… I can’t open my eyes.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“I just… Those marks, I had to draw them! Building after building, all around New York and nearby. I don’t know what they mean. They’re part of something bigger, part of something he’s building. I can feel them working and coming alive somehow. Whatever it’s for, it’s already happening. Pleasestop—ithurts!”
“Tell me what you saw when you looked into Osiris’s eyes.”
“I… He… I saw his righteous light. He believes he’s doing good. But he’s afraid.”
“Of what?”
“You.”
I threw him back against the counter and stepped away. Aika darted out of my way.
“I can’t see…” He lifted his free hand and brushed his fingers across his closed eyes. “I can’t open them. Why can’t I open my eyes?”
“How long before the weapon is operational?”
“Days,” he whispered. He yanked the fork out of his hand and dropped it by his feet. Blood splattered across the tiled floor. “You took… You took my eyes?” He groped at his face with bloody hands, smearing blood across his cheeks.
This time, when his knees buckled, he fell.
“You took my eyes!” he wailed.
I turned and saw Aika watching closely, her thin lips pressed into a pale line. She bowed her head and stepped aside, letting me pass.
Nile’s cries became louder inside my head with every step. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. Trustinthelie. Trustinthelie. I am a monster. It would be easier to believe.
I don’t recall walking back to my room, or the priests who bowed as I passed, or their never-ending chanting. Kur Apophis. Kur Apophis… Or if Aika followed, or when she might have left my side. Those moments were lost somewhere in the madness.
I blinked back into myself, seated against the wall below my chamber window, surrounded by pieces of broken furniture. A storm had ripped through my room. That storm had been me.
Trust in the lie. I could do this. I had to do this. I had come too far and paid too much to give up.
I could hear them chanting below. Their worship resonated through the walls, reaching out to me. All I wanted was for it to stop. For everything to just… stop.
Kur Apophis.
I sank my fingers into my hair and knotted them tight.
Make it stop. Make it all stop.
“Do you know they have a poster of your ugly ass in one of the rooms on the third floor?”
Shukra.
“Not your actual ass. Although that would be just as useful. They have an altar. Candles and some shit that looks like fragments of canopic jars. It’s a terrible fire hazard. Wouldn’t it be a shame if one or more candles happened to fall over…”
She trailed off as she scuffed through the mess, coming closer.
I couldn’t look up. Didn’t want to see her face. Didn’t know if I could pretend anymore. “Am I doing the right thing?” I asked, voice broken. “Tell me I’m doing the right thing. I blinded the boy. He had to talk, and Aika’s faith is weakening… I need to know what Osiris is doing so I can turn this all around, but I’m the one getting turned around. I thought I could do this, but I’m not even sure why I’m fighting when it would be so much easier to just be me—”
She crouched. “Look at me.”
Closing my eyes, I willed myself back under control, fighting off the madness, and looked up. Shu’s dark hair was loose and spread around her shoulders in an inky fan. Lips permanently tilted sideways like she had tasted life and found it sour. Eyes that had seen all this shit a hundred times before. But there was something new in there. It glinted at the back of her glower, almost hidden to anyone who didn’t care to look deeper.
“I’ve never lied to you,” she began.
“That’s a lie.”
She rolled her lips together and tried again. “All right. I say it as I see it. Right now, Seth is the threat. I believe you want to stop him and Osiris too—mostly Osiris. Hell, let’s not discriminate. You want to stop all the gods. You want to end all of this suffering and wipe the slate clean, right?”
I dropped my head back against the wall and peered down my nose at her. My face was wet from tears I hadn’t known I’d shed. “Right.”
“But you fucked up.”
I scowled. “You suck at pep talks.”
“Your mistake is thinking you can do all this alone. You can’t, dumbass. You came here, you sacrificed Ace Dante for this lie, and it’s killing you. One man can’t save the world, even if that man happens to be an anti-god.”
Was I saving the world or condemning it? I had known the answer, but now…?
“I’m gonna tell you a story—”
“Sekhmet save me from your stories.”
“Fine. But I’ve learned a lot in the five hundred years I’ve been tied to you, and one of those things is that when we’re alone, we can sometimes be our own worst enemy… I wasn’t born demon.”
“No, your soul was corrupted like the souls of all demons. I know how it works, Shu.”
“I was a priestess.”
Now that I hadn’t known. I shifted against the wall and tried to imagine Shukra all robed up and submissive. I couldn’t do it. “For what god?”
Some color touched her dark cheeks. “A minor one. She’s gone now, lost to slumber, but I loved her. I would have done anything for her. The more I worshipped her, the more power she gave me. I shut out everything—my life, my family. She became my whole world. And then, one day, she dismissed me. She told me to go live my life, but she was my life. Enraged, maddened, I lashed out with what, by then, was my considerable power. She killed me, of course. But when I traveled to the underworld, I couldn’t let her go. I wandered Duat, seeking out ways to go back, ways to have her notice me. With every desperate grasp, every spell I learned, every soul I manipulated, I turned mine dark. And then I stopped caring. Alone and twisted by my sins, I became something ugly. Time is different in Duat, but I must have been like that for centuries, until the soul eater started hunting me. I had a new focus then: stopping you. And for a while, you were a distraction. Then you fucked up so badly that Osiris tied you to me and I spent the next five hundred years trying to get rid of you.”
“Is there a happy ending?”
She shrugged, and I realized why she had reacted the way she had when I’d accused her of caring for Cujo. She cared, but it had been so long, she was afraid what it meant to care, or even if what she felt was real.
“I was so focused on worshipping the goddess that I cut myself off from everything that made me a person. When the goddess dismissed me, I had nothing left. I lost my shit because I couldn’t handle being alone. You have people who want to help. You don’t have to be alone, Ace.”
Shukra was making far too much sense. It was unnerving.
“If you give up, we’re all screwed. Without you, there is nothing left to stop Seth, or Osiris, or any god that gets a hard-on at the thought of ruling over this world. If you want to follow it through, you’ll have to let your friends in. So let’s go get Nile and blow this joint to bits, just like we planned.”
“Us?”
“Me, Cat, Cujo—”
“Cat will try to kill me the first chance she gets.”
“I tried exactly that for five hundred years. You’re difficult to kill. She’ll learn.”
The old argument that they would get themselves killed died on my lips. It was their choice to make. Not mine.
I squinted at the new and improved Shukra. “When did you become so reasonable?”
She straightened and, freeing a band from her wrist, gathered up her hair and yanked it back into a tight ponytail. “New soul. New me. Life used to be about trying to kill you. I’ve moved on. I have other reasons to live now.”
Reasons like Cujo and his daughter.
“Fire!” The cry sounded in the stairwell outside my room and was joined by a volley of other shouts and the sound of stamping feet.
Shukra smiled innocently. “Oops.”
Shukra’s fire swept from room to room, fed by the thousands of candles dotted about the building. I sent priests and acolytes to fill buckets from burst water mains on the street, steering them away from the kitchens where Shukra was headed. Eventually, the background resonance from Nile’s slave cuff faded enough for me to be sure Shukra had taken him. Certain the kid was safe, I walked through the flames, extinguishing them as I passed. Whispers of “Kur Apophis” followed my every step. With a little more power, I could challenge Seth, but acting before I was ready would reveal the entire ruse. I had to be sure. Once I dealt with her, Osiris and his weapon would be next. After that, I’d hunt all the gods, and after that… It will be easy to own this world… No, that wasn’t why I was doing this. I was saving the world, wasn’t I?
Was it any wonder the gods all went insane? I wanted to be worshipped, but I hated that I wanted it. I wanted more power, I hungered for it, and yet I deliberately avoided the ceremonies that would feed my craving. Between one moment and the next, I could see myself devouring the world or saving it.
“Apophis…?”
I was heading for the throne room when the priest shuffled into sight from a side corridor.
“The er… The boy…” His head bobbed, shoulders bowing like a dog that knew it was in trouble.
“Yes?”
“The boy… He’s gone.”
I flicked my wrist and the man dropped to his knees, clutching at his head. He would live. I strode on. Once in the throne room, surrounded by a hundred pairs of eyes, I took up the dais and stood in front of the red throne. They looked on, faces blank, reeking of fear. “Find the sorceress.”
Nobody moved.
“Find the sorceress. Find the boy. Go!” With power behind the command, my acolytes had no choice but to obey. They filed through the doors, finally leaving the throne room empty and me alone with my thoughts.
I settled on the throne and dug my fingers into its arms. My priests wouldn’t find Shukra and Nile. She had taken to the sewers where the crocodiles were waiting, as we had prearranged. By the time anyone thought to look there, they would be long gone. As soon as the ash settled, I’d slink away and go find Shukra, Cujo, and Cat. Shu was right. I needed them to keep me real.
“An interesting development,” Seth said, casually striding in through a back door as though he had every right to be inside my temple.
I hid all emotion from my face. On the outside, nothing changed. I was still the bored anti-god sitting on an uncomfortable throne. But on the inside, panic had my heart bolting and my thoughts racing. Seth was here. That was… unexpected.
No god entered the temple of another without invitation. The fact he had breezed into mine was an insult. He couldn’t know the truth… could he?
He stopped dead center in the room. Candlelight licked over the Lord of Red’s dull armor and sparked against the red in his eyes.
“Do you remember our agreement, Apophis? I took your place inside your prison so you might hide from the worlds and later re-emerge. We would then combine our forces. Do you remember our terms?”
“When the time came, I would release you from that prison. We would rise and rule together. Together, we would take and command both worlds.”
He briefly bowed his head, conceding. “Until the rivers run red.”
I narrowed my eyes. Why was he dredging this up now?
“You were…” He hesitated, considering his next words carefully. “Different then.”
I slowly rose to my feet. “It’s been several thousand years. Even the timeless may adjust and adapt. This world is not what it was.”
“I disagree. The world is exactly like it was. Once communications were disrupted, this vast city fell in days, not unlike the cities of old. Other cities have collapsed in hours, not days. More will follow.”
I started down the steps. “Why are you here? I did not invite you—”
“How fares the boy?” Seth’s glare hardened against mine.
“I have my answers. I blinded him for his foolish efforts at keeping secrets.”
“He escaped?”
How did he know? Shukra hadn’t been gone more than an hour at most.
I laughed, thoughts whirring. “Hardly a concern.”
“Indeed, especially as he wears your cuff and you could find him with little more than a thought?”
I stopped in front of Seth. He was taller and broader than me, built for swinging two-handed swords. Where Osiris schemed, Seth swung an axe. Where Osiris manipulated, Seth stirred up a storm to deal with his enemies. We shared a mutual dislike for scheming and a fondness for wiping dissent off the map. Osiris had feared our collaboration, and he had been right to. Monsters ate godly politics for breakfast. But it also meant Seth and I thought alike. He was here looking for evidence of betrayal, and he didn’t have to look very far.
“The boy will run back to his weapon,” I explained. “It’s a compulsion, one he was born with. He will lead me right to the heart of the thing.” Technically, I wasn’t lying. It was plausible. I allowed a smile to lift my lips. “Your questions hint at a lack of faith, Seth. Surely, you do not doubt my intentions, and yet you are here, in my throne room, questioning me. A lesser god might take offense at such a brazen act.”
“An act? Yes. One thing hasn’t changed, Apophis. None can match you in subterfuge.”
There wasn’t time for me to guess at exactly what he meant. Aika marched Cat through the doors, bound, naked, and gagged, with a dagger at her throat. Green eyes flared in my direction but soon flicked to Seth. Fear fractured Cat’s fiery glare, and my insides twisted at the sight of it.
All thoughts, lies, and denials screeched to a halt. As far as Seth was concerned, Cat was supposed to be dead. Her murder and my gift of Nile to Seth had solidified my reign as the all-bad anti-god Apophis who would wipe this world clean alongside the Lord of Red. Now, here Cat was, very much alive, and Nile had conveniently escaped along with the sorceress. The evidence that I was as bad as they came had suddenly evaporated.
I swallowed the denials stuck in my throat. “Aika, the dagger is not necessary.”
Aika’s lips twitched and curled around a sneer. She kept the blade’s edge wedged under Cat’s jaw. One quick jerk and she would open Cat’s jugular. Cat might survive. She might not. She had told me she was three deaths into her nine lives. I’d recently taken another. What if she was wrong? What if she didn’t come back?
“She was discovered prowling the perimeter, looking for a way in. I am sure you are aware this woman is a descendant of the Slayer of Serpents,” Seth said. “You can see the lineage in the eyes, can you not, Apophis?”
“Indeed.” Face flat. Words thin. Now more than ever, I needed to believe in the lie. Seth would kill Cat, and he would probably have me do it, but this time he’d have me take her head, ensuring she couldn’t come back. It’s what I would do.
“Aika,” I said, adding weight to her name. “You do not answer to Seth. Betray me and—”
“Your actions are not those of the god Apophis,” the priestess interrupted, so confident in her new allegiance.
“What can you possibly know of Apophis?” I failed to hide the anger in my tone, but I had good reason to be furious. She was my High Priestess, and she was throwing her lot in with Seth. But the real reason for the anger stemmed from Cat’s fate and what I would have to do to stop it.
“I know he would inflict his own punishment instead of shying away from it,” Aika said. “He would not allow a mere sorceress to strike him. He would not wait to demand answers from the boy, and he would not avoid opportunities of worship. I don’t know who you are, but you’re not the god Apophis.”
“Foolish, foolish girl.” I smiled. Did she truly believe Seth could save her from my wrath? “I would also not allow a High Priestess to second-guess me.” I lifted my hand, made sure they were all observing, and clicked my fingers. In that snap, I’d speared in through Aika’s gaze, coiled around her soul, and yanked it out by the roots. Not dark, but not light either, her soul slipped down nice and easy, leaving its power residue buzzing through my veins. Aika blinked. Her mouth fell open, a question on her lips, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask it. The world around her would be gray. She would be wondering why she was here when she didn’t care about any of this.
I plucked the dagger from Aika’s limp hand, reversed it in my grip, and punched it into her heart. She collapsed around the blade and dropped to her knees. Of all the deaths, hers would weigh the least on my conscience. Cat staggered away, caught between an anti-god who could swallow her soul in the time it took her to blink and another who could consume her flesh inside a funnel of sand. Her gaze settled on the bloody dagger in my hand. She knew, the same as I did, what had to happen next. Sacrifices must be made.
I approached. She tossed her head from side to side, eyes widening.
I had never wanted to hurt her. I hadn’t wanted to bring any of them into this serpent’s nest, but there was only so much I could do. I couldn’t save them all.
Her eyes questioned, begged, pleaded. Why? We had been here before, but this time, the death had to stick.
“There are worse ways to die than by the hand of Apophis,” I assured her, though judging by her expression, it didn’t work.
Fear twisted into anger. “Do it.”
She didn’t run. There was nowhere she could go where I wouldn’t find her.
“May the Twelve Gates have your soul.” I caught her arm, yanked her close, and met her terrified eyes. She smelled of freedom, of meadows after the rain, and I wished I had known her when everything was easier.
“Run,” I whispered.
Twisting, I shoved her away and sliced down through her restraints with one quick slash. I didn’t slow—couldn’t look to know if she was already moving. The momentum carried me around. I launched the dagger at Seth, aiming for his exposed neck. I almost made it too. The blade shot by, zipping open a cut just below his jaw, and clattered somewhere behind him. The Lord of Red clutched at his neck—surprise delaying his reaction.
“Still got it.” I grinned and collapsed into a swirl of smoke and ash, but it didn’t last. Sand rose up, hissing through the gossamer threads that held me together. Its dry heat burned through my ash and scattered my embers, tearing me apart. The power in him—the same I had witnessed inside an Egyptian tomb when he had tried to burrow inside my head and turn my thoughts inside out—scattered bits of me until I had no choice but to pull it all back together into the body of a man.
I was met with a row of knuckles and a blast of pain through my face. I spat blood and something gritty to the side. A quick glance revealed no sign of Cat. She was gone. She had to be gone. While Seth was focused on me, she was safe. I owed her a life, after all.
Another punch slammed into my jaw, fracturing it in a dozen places. Blood and bone slipped down my throat. My gut heaved, and I laughed through the fiery agony. “The worst part of it is,” I spluttered, “I am Apophis. I am everything you thought you knew, but improved.”
He flung me down and took a step back, probably to admire his handiwork. “You dare attempt to manipulate me?”
“Oh, I very much dare.” More laughter bubbled up. I rolled onto my side. “You were too easy, peaches.”
He recoiled, his features twisting into ugliness. “I will take this world for myself. I do not need this echo of Apophis by my side.”
“No?” It hurt to laugh, but it felt good too. “Listen carefully… Can you hear them chanting my name?”
Rage turned his glare vicious.
“You should kill me,” I suggested. “Because while I’m around, I’ll always upstage you. People fear me, the soul eater, the Lord of the Dark, Godkiller. I mean, shit, you can’t get a badder rep than that. You with all your sand? You know what sand is? Annoying, but not much else. That’s you. The people of this world fear and worship me. You? They just don’t like you very much.”
It didn’t cross his mind to stop and really hear my words. If there was one thing I did best, it was enraging gods. Seth eyed the only weapon within reach: Alysdair, still clinging to my back. He yanked the sword free, kicked me over, and raised it high. Alysdair—the Eye of Ra and the only weapon that could harm me—crackled and hummed, brimming with all the souls it had devoured over the centuries.
This was going to hurt.
Seth plunged the blade down, punching it deep into my chest. Metal grated against a rib and burst from my back. The blinding wave of pain faded to an empty numbness. I wrapped both hands around Seth’s grip on the sword’s handle and met his red-eyed glare. His cracked lips peeled back over startlingly white teeth in a smile or a sneer. As my vision blurred, I couldn’t be sure which. The edges of the world were coming apart. Or perhaps it was me.
“Until the rivers run red,” he said.
It’s a funny thing, dying. The air got too loud, too large, but at the same time, it collapsed in on the moment. All I cared about was my own rasping breaths and the blood escaping my veins. And the creeping cold. The cold was a promise. My heart pumped harder, desperately trying to keep beating, and deeper inside, my dark soul stirred awake, rousing the monster slumbering in its cave. I had enough breath left in me for two words. Two words that would ensure Seth wouldn’t win. I whispered them through my blood-stained soul-eater smile.
“Thank… you.”