Sand had climbed halfway up the walls of what appeared to be an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Queens. My link to Nile’s slave cuff had pulled me in the kid’s direction, leading me straight here. I walked around the outside and spotted the only entrance sand hadn’t barricaded. I was expecting to find footprints in the sand, but if there were any, the relentless wind had filled them in.
I backed up around the carcass of a car abandoned in the empty street and eyed the top row of narrow windows. Shukra could be alone with Nile, or I might be about to get ambushed by Cat and her feline friends. My distinctive black armor stood out against the swathes of red sand.
My side twinged. I splayed a hand against my waist. Dark blood oozed between my fingers. Damn Anubis’s spear. The tip was still inside. I wouldn’t heal until I got it out.
An arm circled my front and yanked me backward. Whispered words held me close against a rigid body. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t open up your insides and spill them all over this street.”
Cat.
“Bastet’s alive,” I replied, feeling her heart thudding against my back.
“And I’m supposed to take your word for it? I learned the hard way that only idiots and the suicidal trust Apophis.” The words brushed against my ear, warm with the venom behind them.
“That’s good advice.” Four hardened spikes pressed into my skin where the armor had weakened. Claws. She would make good on her promise. “If you kill me, I’ll just come right back. Mortal laws no longer apply to me.”
“But it would be very, very satisfying.” She pressed against my back, in a way that would have been sensual if not for the claws and the fact I was about to drop to my knees. Not so long ago, she had laid tangled in my arms, with nothing between us but millennia of secrets. Those secrets were out now, but the gap they’d left behind was a mile-deep chasm that could never be filled.
“I smell blood on you.” She sniffed. “Yours. Others. And…”
Bastet, I suspected, as she tensed.
“Me and… most of Duat had a disagreement. The gods aren’t big fans of change.”
Her breathing deepened, but her grip stayed strong. Seconds passed, dragging like hours.
I lifted my gaze to the roofline belonging to the building sheltering Nile and Shukra. Clouds churned in the red sky. The only sounds were that of the sand hissing down the street and the slow, tired thud-thud of my heart.
“You sound like Ace, but different,” Cat murmured. “You smell like him, but deeper, beneath the man, there’s ash and ancient things. It reminds me of the Twelve Gates, of the nothing smell of the storm that tore me apart. I want to hate you. I want to kill you again and again, but then I remember how you brought those witches back and how you tried to save me in Duat. And now you tell me Bastet is alive, and I smell her on you, and I want to believe you. But you lied for so long and you would lie again to get what you want.” Her grip tightened and her claws dug into my armor. “What do you really want, Apophis?”
“Whatever I say, you won’t trust my reply.”
“Try me.”
“I want to stop the gods—for good.”
“How?”
“Osiris’s weapon. It’s meant for me, but if I can figure out how it works, I’ll turn it on them all. And if that fails, I have a talent for killing gods. I was created to devour all the wrong in the worlds. All of this—the sundering—is wrong. I intend to stop it.”
“Then what? Will you stand on the ashes of this world and reign over its remains?”
“I am the End of All Things.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I twisted, caught her wrist, and yanked her arm up between us, locking her close. She pulled, but I held fast. “I didn’t want this. I never wanted this. I still care. That’s why I’ve changed. Ace Dante taught me how to care. I am him, but more, and I’m sorry—”
“Liar.” She yanked back and pressed the claws of her free hand against the wound in my side, but she didn’t sink them in. “All this time, you’ve been waiting for the moment to strike, like the true snake in the grass you are. While the other gods slept and schemed, you waited, buying up time until the world was weak and ripe for a creature like you.”
“In the beginning, yes. That was my intention. But I’ve changed.”
“Changed?” Her top lip rippled in a silent snarl. “You blinded that poor boy!”
Like a physical blow, the words struck deep and hollowed out something vital. I heard Nile’s screams all over again. “I had to,” I said, the words choking me.
“You’ve killed hundreds, maybe thousands, while you and Seth brought about the new sundering.”
Another blow. She hadn’t moved, and yet I felt each impact. “Necessary.”
“You killed me!”
And I would never forget the look of betrayal on her face. That guilt would live with me. Forever. “I needed Seth to believe. I needed everyone to believe. And I needed to believe it myself. I don’t need to be good to do good. I am the last resort of a dying world. Don’t you see? Good doesn’t always have to be the one thing that triumphs over evil. I will triumph because I don’t play by the rules.” I released her and shoved her back, needing her away so I could think clearly. Pain throbbed up my side. “I lost my way. In creating Ace Dante, I found it again.” Blood soaked the inside of my armor, cooling as it spread. “I can’t do this alone. I need you to keep me real, Cat. You and Shukra and Cujo. Because the temptation to take and consume and devour is almost unbearable.” I could hear the whispers and the storm churning both outside the city and inside my head. Kur Apophis. Kur Apophis. Kur Apophis. Take it. Own it. Devour it all. “I asked you to trust me, and I meant it. I am Apophis, but I am also that man who drinks too much vodka and somehow believes that if he can’t save himself, he can at least save the world. If you don’t trust me, then trust him. He’s the only chance we have at saving what’s left of this city and this world. It happened before, it will happen here, and it will happen again. But I can stop it all. I am the End.”
She blinked and shook her head. “I can’t trust anything you say.”
I had told her exactly that moments ago, but only now she seemed to realize what it meant.
“He’s telling the truth,” Nile said. He stood in the doorway with a filthy rag tied around his head, hiding his closed eyes. I hadn’t seen or heard him approach, but I was grateful he had heard. He needed to. Behind him, Shukra loomed, watching with a slight smirk on her lips. “No lies,” Nile added. “I see lies clearly now.” The boy’s tone held a distant note.
I swallowed and swayed, my balance threatening to drop me on my ass. “You each have reasons to hate me. I am not here to redeem myself. I’m here to stop the sundering. Help me do that.”
Shukra stepped around Nile. She strode closer, wrapped in torn and scuffed pants and a long leather coat that looked a lot like the ones I never could keep for long. Hers had bite marks and what appeared to be bullet holes along the hem. She planted her hand on my shoulder and peered into my eyes. “I told you in Egypt. I’ve always got your back, Acehole.”
She probably understood better than anyone how I struggled to stave off the Dark. A demon sorceress turned good and an anti-god older than time. We were both impossible things. I didn’t need Nile’s truthseeing to see the resolve in Shukra’s expression and hear it in her words. She knew me. All of me. Shukra was a true friend.
“Ace Dante has a lot to answer for.” She squeezed my shoulder, let go, and sauntered back to Nile. “C’mon. All this sand is chafing in awkward places and you leaking blood everywhere will attract scorpions.”
Nile followed her inside, moving confidently without his sight. But beside me, Cat’s expression had fallen into an unreadable blankness. She waited for me to say something. Nothing I could say would make any difference, and none of it mattered anyway. As I entered the building, she stepped into the footprints my boots had left in the sand, likely counting all the weak spots in my armor for when the time came to sink her claws in.
“You let him just walk in!” Chuck’s shriek echoed through the corridors and into the bones of the abandoned office building. She jumped to her feet and glared murderous thoughts my way. The group had set up a makeshift camp in what had once been a communal cafeteria. Mobile spotlights trailed power cables across the floor and up the wall, probably to a generator. Sheets hung over the windows, keeping the light from escaping.
Shukra caught me eyeing the drapes. “We learned that the hard way. First night, scorpions got in. Friends of yours, probably.” She smirked.
Cat wasn’t smiling. She circled around the couches and tables, keeping to the edges from where she could watch me. Had there been a high shelf, she would have been on it, silently observing.
Cujo wheeled in moments later and slowed when he saw me.
“How is Chantal?” I asked.
“Safe.” A nod was all I got before he wheeled over to Chuck and told her to sit. “Remember what we talked about?” he asked her. “Don’t let the gods see how they hurt you.”
She huffed but nodded and fell into the oversized chair, glaring.
Seeing Cujo offering a guiding hand to Chuck… An odd sense of unease and guilt started squirming again. She was my daughter. I had tried to help her in the only way possible, by cutting myself out of her life. Ace Dante might have wanted to do more, but I looked at her now and saw a liability. Cujo was a better guiding hand than I could ever be.
The crowd was tough, but it beat having hundreds of priests waiting on my every word. The chances of being worshipped here were slim.
The group milled about. They appeared to fit well together. I resisted the urge to move among them. The tension had already ramped up to almost audible levels.
“Seth killed you?” Cat asked. She stood as far away as possible while remaining in the room, arms crossed over her chest.
I removed Alysdair and set the sword down on an empty couch. “Yes.” I considered sitting, but the wound in my side wouldn’t cooperate. “Is there somewhere I can get cleaned up?”
“Not healing?” she inquired.
I flicked my gaze to her and scanned the others who all appeared to be working hard at not paying us any attention. “Anubis’s spear found its mark,” I admitted.
“What happened in Duat?” Shukra had dropped into a chair and propped her boots up on a low table. She looked right at home, more so than she ever had in our various businesses over the years. Half her hair flowed loose, the other half she had pinned back with what looked like a scorpion’s pincer. More than anyone, Shukra looked as though she’d been made for the apocalypse.
“I raised an army, cleaned up Seth’s sand, and tried to get Duat on my side. It was working until Osiris and Anubis got involved.” I gestured at the wetness glistening on my side. “Anubis always wanted to stick me with his spear, and not in a good way.”
Shukra arched an eyebrow. “Looks painful.” She smiled like that was the best news she’d heard all day.
Not much had changed.
“Follow me,” Cat suggested, heading for one of the doors.
“Is that wise?” Chuck asked. “Letting him walk around in our camp?”
I turned, but it was Shukra who snorted and said, “Go ahead and try to stop him.”
Chuck looked as though she might spring from the chair and launch herself at me. The girl had guts, the kind of guts that got heroes killed. She would learn—if she lived long enough.
“But before you do,” Shukra continued. “Think about what he can do with a single word. About what he can make you do if he wanted. I’ve been at a god’s beck and call, little godling girl, and this guy, right here, right now, is the best you’re going to get.”
“He’s a… monster.”
“So am I.” Shu grinned.
I turned back and continued after Cat. The discussion would continue while I was gone. There was no use in my hearing it. Cat led me through a few corridors into the washrooms. She flicked on a work light hanging over the sink and reached up into a recess to grab a first aid kit.
“Strip,” she ordered.
I watched her fingers rip open a gauze package and bandage. She hadn’t met my eyes and wouldn’t. After unbuckling the breastplate, I shrugged it off and dropped it with a clatter. The buff leather coat beneath had fared well enough. It hadn’t stopped Anubis’s spear though, as the ragged tear in the side and the protruding metal tip revealed.
“If she’s alive, why isn’t she here?” Cat asked.
Working my arm out of the coat wasn’t easy, but with a few hitches, I managed it. Cat frowned at the wound. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the antiseptic and bandages would be wasted on me. But I appreciated the thought.
“Bastet stayed behind to delay Osiris and stop me from making a mistake.”
Cat sank her claws in, setting the wound on fire, or filling it with acid, or something equally mind-numbingly painful. I yelped and jerked. The tip slurped free. Cat lifted the huge arrow-shaped head, coolly admired its construction, and tossed it into the sink.
“What mistake?” She dabbed at the wound. I flinched. “Stay still.”
Cold water fizzled against the heat.
“Wasting time and power by trying to kill Osiris.” I realized I’d been rubbing my thumb against the ring. I lifted my hand, showing Cat. “It’s a slave cuff. I should have known. Why would Bastet, an Egyptian goddess, bother with a marriage ceremony and human tokens of love?”
“Because she loved you?” Cat didn’t look up from the wound and there was no hesitation in her voice, but I knew Cat, and her words were always sharp.
Love? Maybe. But I doubted it. Knowing everything I did now. Knowing the truth of me. No goddess could ever love me. “She suspected what I was… what I am. This cuff disguised as a ring was insurance so she would always know where to find me. She modified it, I think. Made it so I could take it off, but wanted to have it on. Otherwise, I’d have gotten suspicious. She’s a goddess, after all.”
“Can’t it be both? A symbol of love and a slave cuff?”
I smiled at Cat’s words. “Your romanticism is showing.”
She blinked and started, looking up. There, in that glimmer, she wanted to believe Bastet had loved me because it humanized her idol. Cat wanted to believe many things. Somewhere behind all that killer instinct, she really was a pussy cat. I knew because I’d seen her softer side when we’d lain together. She hid it well. Almost as well as I’d hidden the fact I was a world-eating anti-god.
“You could have told me.” She tossed the cloth into the sink, and when she looked back at me, the softness had gone, replaced by steel and her killer’s glare. “You could have told me all of it, but you kept me in the dark, and then when you stole Nile and handed him over to Seth… What you did to me.”
I broke the stare and tugged my coat back on. “Thank you, but the wound will be fine. I just need time to heal.” I almost laughed at my words. Time was the one thing I didn’t have.
“You don’t get to turn away from me, Ace Dante, or Apophis, or whatever you’re calling yourself now. You owe me more than that.” She trembled, but not from fear. Anger had her on the edge of reason. I’d betrayed her, lied to her, treated her like something to be used and discarded. I deserved her wrath.
“You’re right. I do owe you more. I wish I could say I’m sorry, but I’m not. I regret what I had to do, but I’d do the same again tomorrow.” Her cheek twitched. The words hurt her, but the truth often hurt. “I can’t give you what you want.”
“I’ve only ever wanted the truth from you.”
I scooped up the breastplate and brushed off a layer of dust. The matte-black armor beneath reflected nothing back. “Now you have it.”
“When you have your way and you stop the sundering, what will happen to the good gods?”
“There are no good gods.”
“Bastet—”
“Cat, the gods are everything that is wrong with the worlds. There are no exceptions. When they are gone, the people will be free of them forever.” And free of me, I added silently. She understood, just like she had once told me. She understood everything. Quiet stretched between us, one hungering to be filled. The almost inconsequential Ace Dante part of me wanted to reach out, but whatever he felt, whatever I had once felt, had been burned up, just like the ashes of the fallen city I was trying to save. As cold as I was inside, I would miss Cat. I’d miss many things once this was over. Admiring New York from the rooftops, Shukra’s smart mouth and whip-smart intelligence, Cujo’s forgiving friendship and good nature, and Cat… her ruthlessness, her protective instincts, and her willingness to believe in the good in me.
I owed these people everything. Without them, I would be the monster they feared.
“I have to talk with Nile and Chuck—” I had hoped Cat would follow. But after leaving the washroom, I looked back down the debris-scattered corridor to find I was alone.
Chuck radiated enough hatred to make up for Nile’s eerie calm. I sat on the arm of a couch set aside from the main area, still within listening distance of the others, and assessed both kids. Chuck chewed on her nails, making a point of not looking at me. Nile had tipped his head back and seemed lost in thought. His accelerated aging meant he could easily pass for Chuck’s brother. I wondered what lay in store for these two godlings. Godly offspring didn’t fare well—used, traded, manipulated—and those who weren’t born immortal usually died before reaching their twenty-first birthday. Bastet had tried to save Chuck from that fate by keeping me out of the loop. She would have succeeded had Osiris not godstruck Chuck and raped her to kick-start his “prophecy.”
Shukra dumped blank sheets of paper on the table between me and the kids and handed the kids a pen each.
“Draw each of the symbols you painted over the buildings,” I told them.
Nile took up his pen and leaned forward. Chuck silently watched her son scribble a few images. After a few moments, she turned her soul-eater eyes on me and threw the pen at my chest. It bounced off and clattered to the floor.
“Draw your own stupid pictures.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her legs. This wasn’t going well.
I scratched at an eyebrow and considered all the ways I could approach this. “While you have your tantrum, people are dying.”
“Because your best buddy Seth is killing them. Why didn’t you stop him? Oh, wait, because you let him out, then you sided with Osiris to get Nile, and then you handed my son over to Seth. Not satisfied with that, you blinded him. Remind me again why I should help you. I hate you. I can’t stand to even look at you. I don’t want to be your daughter.”
She had her mother’s ability to cut with a glance and butcher with her words. I had once admired Chuck. She hadn’t had the best upbringing, but she’d survived through ingenuity and a stubbornness not to let the world kick her in the teeth. She’d made mistakes, and she had learned from them. Had I still been Ace Dante, I’d have been proud of her. It wasn’t easy staring into the face of a monster.
“If you don’t draw the hieroglyphs, I’ll compel you to.”
“Mind rape me? Do it. Prove what I already know.” Her lip curled. “You’re no better than Osiris.” She unfolded her legs and stood. “In fact, don’t bother. I already know you’re worse.”
“The things I did were necessary.”
“No, they weren’t.”
“You can’t possibly understand—”
“Oh, I understand.” She jabbed a finger at my face. “All that power and you hide behind lies. You’re a coward. Ace Dante would never have—”
“Sit.”
She sat.
“Pick up the pen.”
She scooped down and picked up the pen. “I hate you so much—”
“Draw the hieroglyphs—”
“I’m going to kill you.” Her arm trembled, but she had no choice. The compulsion had its teeth in her. She drew the marks, her pen tip digging deep into the paper.
She finished up her markings and threw the pen down. Lifting her head, she swallowed and twisted her lips around a grimace. Her cheeks glistened wet with angry tears. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m going to kill you and I’m going to take your soul so you don’t ever come back.”
I blinked away and lifted her drawings along with Nile’s. The markings, when placed together, told an interesting story. “If this works, you won’t have to.”
I caught Shukra’s eye and joined her and Cujo tucked into the corner. She removed her boots from the table so I could spread the papers out. “You remember how witches have tried to trap me over the years?” I began, pushing Chuck’s threats to the back of my mind. Shukra leaned in and examined the marks. “Osiris’s weapon isn’t a weapon at all. It’s a trap. He’s built a replica of the cage Kenny and his witches used against me. But this is…” The warehouses, the markings, the scrolls. “This cage is huge.”
“The trap is huge,” Shu corrected. “But the cage won’t be.” She pointed at one marking, the crocodile with three lines. “Once triggered, the power contained will be reduced to almost nothing.”
“Like a genie in a lamp,” Cujo added.
Shukra nodded. “Allentown, my building—they are miles apart, but they must be linked, like a net closing. That suggests the trap has been woven through the entire city, perhaps farther. To escape a trap this size, you’ll have to leave the east coast.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I scanned the elaborate markings. Each one was familiar, but modified. Whatever I might think of Osiris, he was a clever son of a jackal. “What triggers it?”
Shukra shook her head. “Osiris himself, perhaps. I’m not sure. It’s not clear. It could have been in motion for decades.”
Nile had told me the trap was in motion now. The countdown was nearing its end. Osiris could spring it at any time. “What about the scrolls? Was there anything in them that might tell us more?”
Shu leaned back and tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. “They were summoning scrolls, used to collect and funnel power toward a point, a target.”
“What target? Where?”
Shukra tapped the scribbled image of a snake-headed jackal. “You.”
“Can we stop it?”
“If you had weeks to find all the scrolls, destroy them all, and then locate the buildings Nile left his marks of Light all over, then sure.”
“I have days,” I said. “Probably less.”
“This kind of spell, it’ll take vast amounts of power. Osiris will need to be close by and completely focused. I doubt he has the power to pull this off. He hasn’t been properly worshipped in thousands of years.”
I glanced at Nile. He was sitting quietly on a couch, barely moving, breathing steadily. Nile: Thoth’s soul, blood of Apophis and Bastet, Osiris’s son. The kid had the pedigree, and he was a ticking bomb in terms of Light. Combine that with Osiris’s power. The stopping-time stunt Osiris had pulled on the highway outside New York, designed to remind me exactly who I was dealing with, had also shown me something I hadn’t realized at the time. The God of Resurrection had been holding out on me. Clearly, he had been worshipped on the quiet. The orgies, the never-ending parade of companions, his position as New York’s mayor. He had been worshipped by mortals in various ways through the more recent centuries. Osiris had the juice to pull this off.
“He always knew this was coming. He told me as much. Power won’t be a problem for him. But we have the one thing he can’t proceed without.”
Cujo and Shukra discreetly glanced over at Nile. We were in agreement. The kid was key. Osiris would be coming for him.
The son was always going to sunder the king, also known as the End of All Things. Nile was prophesied to end me, and if Osiris had his way, his prophecy would be realized.
“So, what’s the plan?” Shukra asked. “How do we stop it?”
“We don’t.”
“What?”
“We make it bigger.”
“Bigger? Are you insane?”
“Have you met me lately?” I flashed her a familiar sideways grin. “I intend to build a trap within a trap.”
Shukra’s lips twitched. “All right. How do we do this?”
“Not we. You.” I explained how she would need to contribute to Nile’s graffiti spree by adding my name on various buildings throughout Manhattan. My written name—the snake-headed jackal—had been erased in all but a few places. The throne back in Egypt and the little box that had held my past locked away inside it. Shukra would bring my name back into the present, ending at my temple. As a sorceress, she would add a touch of power to each symbol, giving them resonance. Those who saw the name, human and creature alike, would know me. Their fear was my power. And I needed all the power I could gather for this to work.
“I’ll make sure no one harasses you at the temple,” I said. “Once you’re there, add every godly name alongside mine. All of them inside one cartouche and then light it up.”
“All of them?”
“Every single one.”
Shukra nodded. “You know, if you collect their names like that, they’ll come looking.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Cujo had fallen silent during my discussion with Shukra, but he was listening. And I suspected I knew exactly what was going through my friend’s mind. Once the trap was set, there would be no escape. For anyone.
“Take Cat,” I told Shu. “She’ll help if you ask her.”
Shukra gave Cujo’s hand a squeeze, and after scooping up her jacket, she left in search of Cat.
Cujo rubbed a hand over his face and slumped back into his chair. “Is there anything of Ace Dante left in you?”
“If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
His gaze wandered to the boy. “That’s not exactly an answer.”
I owed him more, didn’t I? “Yes, he’s here. He’s the part of me that wonders what will happen to you when this is over.”
“I’ll be all right.” He nodded, convincing himself as much as me. “I’m a survivor.”
I believed it. I caught myself looking at the girl, Chuck, standing beside the window. She had pulled the sheet back and was peeking at whatever kind of desolation she saw outside.
Cujo had seen me watching her and offered up a sad smile. “You don’t intend to survive this, do you?”
“If I’m known, if I’m worshipped, I’ll be the worst of all the gods. That can’t happen. This world doesn’t need gods to govern it.”
His smile grew. “That right there, that’s Ace Dante talking.”
The man’s grin was infectious. My lips lifted, just enough to hint at a smile. “I have no right to ask this, but will you look after Chuck?”
“Seems like she does all right looking after herself.”
“She likes to think so.”
He considered it carefully, rubbing at his whiskered chin. “There’s a lot of you in her. She’ll be fine. But I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“Keep her straight. She’s a soul eater. It’s a heavy burden.”
“Maybe you should go talk to her? She’s angry with you, she has good reason to be, but if you explain…”
“No.” My gaze fell on the snake-headed jackal symbol scrawled onto a piece of paper. “I am her father by blood. That is our only connection.” I rubbed a thumb over Bastet’s wedding band wrapped around my finger. Isis had told me that caring was the hardest part of eternal life. She’d had a point.
“Shukra told me everything,” Cujo said. “All that you did. When I lost the use of my legs, I went through months of physiotherapy. It hurt physically and… and in the head, yah know? It’s what it did up here”—he tapped his temple —“that did the most damage. It hurt so bad sometimes I didn’t want to live. I know you did things you hate yourself for. I figure some choices you’d probably make again and do differently.” He didn’t glance at Nile. Didn’t have to. “Nobody else will tell you because they either hate you or they’re too scared to, but… thank you for trying—even if you did maybe fuck it up—but at least you did what you could. Shukra told me she…” He hesitated. “She’s proud of you, her soul eater. Don’t tell her I told you. She hates the thought that she might be catching emotions.”
A light, bright laugh slipped free. “I can’t imagine Shukra handling emotion well.”
“You’d be surprised.” He laughed along with me.
“She should get a hobby to distract her. Taxidermy.”
We both laughed harder until Cujo reached over and squeezed my arm. “Thank you, Ace.”
I planted my hand on his. “It’s not over yet.”
“You’ll beat them. All of them. Screw Apophis. I have faith in Ace Dante.” His eyes glistened. He pulled his hand back and swallowed. “We’re gonna be okay.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “you are.”