Blood Glyphs

by Cari Silverwood

  I am me. Yes.

  Her memories were patchy as if told through the minds of thousands of others. The beginning was indistinct, shrouded by fog.

  Blood glyphs? Hieroglyphs?

  Were she and Paru Egyptian? Or past that? The first kill she remembered had been a follower of Set, an ancient Egyptian god.

  Did it matter? Even without that, she now knew in a most intimate, bone-deep way, what they were capable of, what their place was in the world, and that was far more important than the past.

  They were killers with a conscience and the men and women they had cause to destroy knew fear when they tracked them down, as was good and just.

  They’d considered their origins many times and come to nothing. They had simply always existed. Perhaps one day they would find out more. Not now though. Not today. There was someone to rescue.

  “I understand now. What we are.”

  He nodded. “Good.”

  She wrapped her hand into a fist over the other button.

  Her earlier resolution became stone.

  “Your turn. Then we go back and we free that woman.”

  He began to speak and she cut him off.

  “I don’t care. I can’t leave her.”

  Paru sat back. Eventually he nodded. “Very well. I understand the urge.”

  “She might be dead in another day. That man, Joseph, implied their last woman was wearing out, as they called it.” She curled her lip, resisted spitting away the bad taste. “Besides, once they find out that you and I have vanished, entry may get more difficult.”

  She juggled the button spike. “Now, your turn.”

  “Of course. Don’t worry about aim. It always finds the path.”

  “I figured as much. That hurt, you know?”

  He shrugged then dragged his T-shirt off over his head. “Always does.”

  “Just saying it so you’ll know why I’m hoping to make your toes curl.”

  “Oh, you do that, most nights,” he said suggestively, a broad grin spreading.

  And that triggered off so many lewd memories that she had to halt and process them.

  “Uh huh.” Well then. This lifestyle had compensations. “Say cheese.” She let the point waver a moment then shoved. The gold pin tunneled into his chest.

  Paru hissed. “Ow, fucking ow.”

  “That’s not fifty year old slang.”

  “Who the fuck cares. I learn fast when bored. I had fifty fucking years!” He wheezed and coughed.

  His toes had definitely curled.

  A shudder took him. “Finally! He’s gone. I’m rid of his evil thoughts.”

  “Joseph?”

  “Yes. Damn. I want to wash this mind out with soap.”

  She waited while he wiped his hands on his jeans and spat to the side, as if that somehow helped. Perhaps it did. This must have happened to her in the past but it was apparently one of the many things that faded with time – for the best, from the looks of Paru’s reaction.

  “You okay?”

  He steepled his fingers, looking out past them. “Yes. Or close to it.”

  “Need a distraction?”

  “Maybe.” He grunted. “Headache.”

  She smiled, aware more than ever of how attracted she was to her hero. Because that was what he was – her hero, her lover, and her companion forever.

  The sexy man needed her help. The lion button looked pretty next to his nipple. “Can I lick it?” She waggled her eyebrows. “Would that fix your headache?”

  “Later, beautiful. Come here and give me a kiss. I think I need to reteach you how to do that first.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “This.” Then he hauled her to him over the grass and began to make good on that promise. After one infinitesimal kiss that brushed her lips, he lifted away.

  So close, his breath merged with hers. She poked out her tongue and licked the seam of his mouth.

  “Careful,” he murmured. “I bite.”

  “Mmm. I think I do too.”

  “You bad, bad woman.”

  She shut her eyes to better feel the press of his lips on hers, playing games with her tongue on his when he invaded her mouth. Between her legs stirred and she ached to get his hand down there, or better, his cock.

  There were more important things to do, this night.

  She pulled away an inch, just far enough to make him arch a brow.

  “Tease.”

  “Shhh. Can we get weapons from somewhere? I have this craving.” She wriggled in his lap.

  “I can fix that. Lie down on the grass and spread your legs.”

  She chuckled and lightly smacked his shoulder. “Not that! I want a gun, a big one. Maybe...” She rolled her eyes upward, thinking. “An RPG? An MP5?”

  “What? A rocket launcher? Here? No. But there is a gun store around the corner.”

  “Now you’re talking. Can you get in?”

  “You ask me that? The man who can vanquish evil trapdoors? Of course.”

  “Good.” She clicked her tongue. “We’ll put them back after.”

  His eyebrows popped up. “Just not the bullets?”

  “Heavens no, not those. Come on.” She scrambled to her feet. “We have things to do. You might think we’re weak, but I feel like superwoman right now.”

  He hauled himself up to stand beside her. “What have I started? You have to be careful. These folks have been playing with dark forces and we are still not at our best. That takes days.”

  “I will.” She set off, jogging backward. “Catch up!”

  Paru groaned then followed. “If you so much as get a scratch, I’m tanning your backside.”

  Now that sounded interesting.

  Inconveniently, the flaw in all this came to her. What happened if they both died? It must have already happened at least once. She must ask him later.

  Chapter 4

  Head back, Nefer observed the house for the second time that night. Except now was different. She was herself, not some drunken and confused female recently emerged from a grave. In a small safe at the back of the gun store, they’d found an MP5 with a neat, custom-made silencer. That had to be some cosmic signal telling them to go for it. Even Paru had agreed, after muttering and rolling his eyes.

  The .357 magnum and Sig Sauer he’d acquired did not look anywhere near as wicked.

  “Be careful,” he told her, lightly smacking her denim encased butt. “We are not bulletproof, just fast and strong, and capable of doing fancy shit with the forces of good and evil.”

  Without looking away from the house, she answered, “You make that sound so sexy.”

  “Huh. Let’s go.”

  They emerged from the shadows and strode up the steps in time with each other. The steps barely creaked, which was so wrong, seeing the two of them weighed a few hundred pounds. She grinned. James Bond on fairy juice, that was them.

  Singing I’m cool, I’m cool and doing handstands off the ceiling might be inappropriate right now. Was resurrecting intoxicating? Best to calm down. She sucked in some of the night air and held it as they sneaked like ninjas down the hallway.

  “Fuck, we’re cool,” she whispered at Paru.

  The alarmed look on his face made her giggle.

  “I forgot. You’re high aren’t you?” He grabbed her elbow. “New life can do that to us. Don’t. It’s dangerous.”

  “I can tone it down. I can!” She gave him a thumbs-up and remembered to breathe again.

  He released her arm. “Good.”

  The red-teethed trapdoor was a piece of cake for Paru to open. They leaped down, ignoring the ladder, to land knees bent and alert at the bottom. Their weapons traversed the corridor that went on for some incredible distance – far enough to make her eyes cross. Miles away, the stone walls appeared to meet at a pinpoint. Red or yellow light glowed from subtle cracks between wall and ceiling all the way along.

  When Joseph had brought her down here, she hadn’t spared a single glance at this, or on the
ir escape. For the first time, she sobered, and she listened and watched with her full capacity. There was nothing happy about this little underground world.

  How long were they gone? Two hours? Was time paced the same down here as outside? What had happened to that woman?

  A screech and a series of not-so-distant gasps made Paru creep forward and beckon her to follow.

  Step, step, step. Slow like an elephant on eggshells, she thought to herself – which should totally be a saying for ancient kung-fu masters.

  Oh my. She paused to deep breathe. No more crazy.

  Though doorways were spaced all the way down, perhaps even to infinity, it was the third one along that the sounds came from. They checked the doors on either side to be certain, then waited a moment outside before Paru booted the massive door in with one kick. Timber splintered. The door fractured at the center and crumpled.

  A montage of men turned beasts confronted them. Five men. Not true beasts but their occupation made them less than human to her. Some still stared at a bloodied woman splayed out and bound to a tilted rack. Blood tracked wiggly red lines over her naked body, like a completed jigsaw, or one about to be taken apart. The ruddy light flowed into the crevices of their skin and lent a bizarre texture to their faces.

  Were they experimenting with vivisection, about to sadistically fuck her, or performing some hell born rite?

  “Bullet time, boys,” she spat.

  Killing evil, Paru had called this? For sure.

  Their hands moved, but slow. Way too slow.

  Nefer smiled. Yesss.

  This might have been more efficient with swords, certainly quieter, less dusty. They’d used edged weapons many times, in days gone by.

  As always, she took left, he took right.

  A leap to the left...and she found out she really could walk on walls and ceilings, even in flip flops.

  Upside down shooting confused the hell out of people, though at least two of them reached for their weapons, their necks craning back to follow her flight.

  Bullets sprayed in an arc from the muzzle of her gun, chattering and pocking at the walls but most of the little missiles spun to where she aimed. They sank into flesh, then burrowed out the other side. Stone powdered and was flung in all directions. The air filled with the roar of gunfire, blood, twirls of smoke, and men’s screams.

  Keep running. She skipped around the light.

  Bullet casings flew sideways in fountains of gleaming bronze to land, tinkling, on the floor below.

  Five men. Five fell. The woman – unscathed.

  She did a somersault on the way down, landed lightly on the floor, and paced toward the woman, swinging the muzzle of her MP5 across the crumpled men. None did more than take a few last gasps and bleed messily on their clothes and the floor.

  She met Paru in the middle of the room at the rack and watched as he freed the captive.

  Her flip flops seemed so out of place. “Fun. Next time I’ll get black knee-high lace-up boots – so much more pizazz.”

  “Nefer.” His voice was tight and as nasty as someone screeching chalk down a blackboard. “Come down, please.”

  “Oh.” She stared at the naked woman in his arms. Blood trickled from her many cuts, some decorated her face, other gashes ran across bruises and welts. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, glancing at him, horrified at how she’d behaved.

  At least the woman...girl, seemed unconscious.

  “She needs a hospital. Fast.”

  “Mm-hmm.” She didn’t quite trust herself to speak and hurried to the door. “Safe. It’s clear.”

  No other sounds and no one running. No alarms of any sort.

  They exited without fuss, climbed up the ladder. She carried the woman. He’d swapped roles so he could open the trapdoor then prise it from its nest on the floor. What Paru could do with evil never failed to fascinate her. He rolled it and rolled until it became a heavy red ball that he could squash into a pocket on his jeans.

  With the trapdoor removed, the floor was unmarked. No hole, no way down anymore. If any men survived, they were lost to this world. They snagged a sheet from a chair to cover the woman and marched out.

  Leaving the house and being under the sky again made her feel like she’d shucked off a massive pack, and yet she was still carrying the woman. The weight had been the suffocating presence of evil. She paused on the steps and breathed, eyes closing.

  “No time for that, Nefer. Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Was he planning to walk to a hospital? She adjusted her hold on the woman, while shuffling through her memories of this time. “Phone for an ambulance. Have you got one?”

  “A phone?” He patted himself. “Ah!” From a pocket, he extracted a flat phone. “Hmmm. Now, which buttons?”

  She snorted. They’d both figured out the weapons in an instant. A phone could puzzle them?

  The girl whimpered, her breathing shallow, her face seeming even paler than before. How old could she be? Twenty?

  “Shh. You’re safe now. Hang on. Please.”

  Blinking back tears, she trudged to the shadows, on the lawn to the side, and carefully lowered the girl. Nefer wiped her face with her arm. So much for being tough. A few passersby’s regarded them but they probably thought this was some promotional exercise.

  “Give me the phone.”

  “No. I have it.” Light glowed from the rectangular thing. He put it to his ear and spoke for a minute then tucked it into his pocket. “They’re coming. We need to go.”

  She stared until he frowned at her.

  “Damn it, woman. Fine. We stay until we hear them close by. They’ll have sirens on, I guess. Then we go. Okay?”

  “Sure.” She knelt beside the woman.

  Locks of her red hair curled across the sheet beneath her head. Her eyes were closed. Most of her seemed a study of red on white. Her lips were slack and pale though plump with the fullness of the young. With the back of her hand, Nefer stroked her cheek, wanting to tell her how sorry she was that men had done this to her.

  “You poor thing.” Blood leaked through the sheet. So many cuts. “I pray they’re fast.”

  “Yes.” Paru knelt beside her and gave her a gentle hug. “Why don’t you see if you can stop some of the bleeding? I’ll keep watch.”

  She sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with her wrist and palm. “Okay.”

  Methodically, she began to tear strips from the sheet ends and tie them over the worst of the wounds.

  At the approach of the siren, they vanished into the shadows like cockroaches. She smiled grimly. The euphoria was wearing off. For the best. This was not a night for amusement, not at all.

  Once they were sure the ambulance had found her, they returned to the gun store and placed the guns back in their cases. The bullets, as she’d sworn would happen, had stayed in the men.

  “Good riddance,” she said quietly.

  Police sirens had followed the ambulance. Whatever would they make of this?

  Chapter 5

  Nefer snuggled in closer to Paru, searching for and finding his hand, while she gazed out over the dark city. Dawn brightened the horizon with yellows and turned the undersides of the clouds into a ruffled pink blanket. Up here, at the top of the hospital, the world was full of promise. After she’d pushed for it, Paru had agreed to come here to see how their saved girl had fared.

  She kicked her heels and let the peace of their surroundings filter in. They had their legs through the guard railing, dangling over the multi-story drop. Birds drifted past to land squawking on window ledges below.

  At their backs was an enclosed lap pool some off duty staff had used to exercise. All had gone now. No one had bothered them. The wind cooled her face and brought a hint of salt air from the beach just visible at the far edge of the city. After the violence of the night this was a wonderful place to unwind.

  If they wanted to stay hidden, people found it difficult to see them. They’d sidled past the police guard and into an observation area
where they could see the surgery and listen to the prognosis. The doctors were pleased with the girl’s recovery. The police were puzzled at the lack of evidence of any assault inside the haunted house

  Though covered in stitches, she would survive. The mental damage would no doubt take its toll. Sad, but they’d done their best. Now that she’d sobered up from the effects of her incarnation, Nefer could see how much this meant to her – taking out the bad guys when no one else could do it, when no one else knew they even existed.

  Yes, it was a thrill but what mattered were the results.

  “We’ll never see the end of them will we?”

  “Who?” He turned to her. “The enemy? No. We were lucky tonight. It was too easy. None of those were capable of manipulating dark forces. If they had been...” His face stilled. “I don’t know who installed the gate, but it was none of them.”

  “You think we could have lost?” If they had, it would’ve been her fault. She shivered.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. We have to be more careful in future.”

  “We will.”

  “Yes. The first days back among the living are rocky.” Paru wrapped his big hand around her neck and pulled her close, kissed her forehead, then tucked her body into his with his arm looped around her shoulders.

  Even with her eyes closed, she was acutely aware of his every move – of the subtle play of their fingers where they intertwined, the shift of his stubble against her hair, of his heavier breathing.

  “Mmm.” She turned to inhale the scent of his shirt. Big warm man and he was hers. “You’re nice. Love you.”

  He laughed then added softly, his words rumbling under her ear, “Nice? You’re funny and mine, and I love you too.”

  A twinge of nausea hit. The bump in his pocket reminded her of what he carried. She leaned away and looked, arching her brow. “Can we lose that?” This close to her, it had side effects. If she touched this sort of pure evil for any length of time, she’d throw up.

  “This?” He rummaged and removed the rolled up ball. Shades of red swirled across the surface. “I don’t want to just discard it. Give me a few days and I can eat it.”