Marlise’s face is pressed to my neck, her breath tickling the skin and her fingers coiling through my hair. We could lie here for an eternity, but the moment can’t last forever.
“Ash?”
“Mmm?”
“Where’s the nearest bathroom in this place?”
I groan, burying my face in my pillow, which is liberally strewn with her hair. She shifts beneath me, pushing me off her so she can sit up. Wordlessly I pass her some tissues. I should have used a condom, but we don’t discuss this as we straighten our clothing. I haven’t asked her if she’s on the pill, during all this time we’ve been together. The guilt nags at me. Surely Marlise isn’t stupid enough to… Uncomfortably I recall Ash’s times with Isabelle. He never bothered asking either, and see where that got him. Those memories with that woman, and more than a few others, crowd me. Strange faces and experiences tumbling over each other like a river over stones.
I shove these thoughts aside and walk with Marlise down to the communal bathroom. The lights here don’t work and the only illumination comes from outside, the streetlights’ glow filtered through thrashing tree limbs outside.
I glare at the wild man in the mirror, his hair loose and falling in ragged black skeins on either side of a too-pale face. How easy it is to have slipped into this other life. Did someone reckless always hide beneath Lizzie’s prim exterior? That other life exists like a storybook I read a long, long time ago, that has very little bearing on the present.
A gleam in the passage catches my eye, a pale figure that shivers into existence—a carbon copy of the Kha I inhabit. Ashton.
I step out of the bathroom, toward him. Behind me Marlise starts running the shower, the plumbing groaning as the water spews in bursts through the ancient pipes. Ashton is almost transparent, his appearance an idealised version of him in his heyday. Not this burnt-out wreck I am now.
“What’s it like?” he asks.
“What?”
“Screwing a woman when you were a woman in your past life.” He sounds almost wistful.
“I- I don’t know. I guess I don’t really think about it anymore. I’ve grown used to having this Kha.” Nevertheless, I rub at my arms, half-stunned by this realisation. And it’s true. I haven’t really given inhabiting a man’s body much thought of late. Much like one would wear in a shoe, I’ve grown comfortable wearing this Kha. If the shoe fits…
Ashton flashes me a wicked leer. “I’d bet you didn’t expect to see me again.”
“I’d wondered. I did worry.” I hadn’t wondered nearly enough, but I keep that thought buried deeply.
“You’d hoped, hadn’t you? You can’t lie to me. I know you haven’t given me much thought since I blew myself to yesterday.”
I lean my head against the door frame, feeling how the splintery wood rubs off against my skin. If it weren’t for Ashton, I would still be in House Montu’s clutches, or worse. Go back to go the beginning, do not collect… “Thank you.” And I do mean those two simple words.
Ashton whispers through me, into me like a cold wash of water. He says nothing, but I can pick up on his spidery sense of relief, lodged in flesh again, albeit as a passenger. On a daimonic level, something snicks into place, some sort of rightness…wholeness. Ma’at could not have foreseen such a peculiar association.
Sometimes it’s better not to question too hard. This day has been fraught with danger and the body is tired, the mind unwilling to puzzle through all the loose ends and half-formed, dog-eared thoughts. Tomorrow will bring its own troubles.
Presently Marlise exits the shower, once again dressed in the clothing she wore earlier, drying her hair with the towel. “Are you okay? You look, dunno…”
“Like I’ve seen a ghost?” I laugh at my own joke. It’s better not to bother Marlise by sharing anything about my truce with Ashton.
* * * *
Something’s wrong. I sit up with a gasp, Marlise mumbling in her sleep next to me, her hand clenching at my side. Before I can pinpoint exactly what the matter is, the light in my room all but blinds me.
Cynthia stands at the head of the stairs, her teeth white in contrast to her mahogany skin.
“Molo umlungu,” she says while she leers at me.
Oh, shit.
Chapter 12
House Montu
Cynthia’s hand moves so quickly, I don’t have a chance to recognise what she’s holding before a wasp-sting of pain flares on my neck. My vision washes into a muddy blur and it’s impossible to remain upright, let alone gather my daimonic powers. By the time I fall back on the bed, Marlise barely has the opportunity to emit a squeak. After that I gain the sense of hands pulling and pushing, and my body shoved and knocked about. People mutter in low tones. The cold air does little to revive me. I struggle to open my eyes but when I do I focus on inconsequential stuff, like the way a shadow paints the brickwork or a fifth-storey window in the apartment next door that has red curtains.
The black Hummer we’ve been bundled into is driven by a thin man wearing round spectacles and a pinched expression. Hardly House Montu material, but then who am I to judge? The only idiosyncrasy in the vehicle is the small ivory bull’s head hanging from the rear-view mirror. I’ve seen that before, an insignia used throughout the ages—another symbol for the ancient Egyptian war god.
Mesmerised, all I can do is watch the small object jiggle about, most of the rest of the trip blurring into blazing car headlights passing and momentarily blinding me. Cynthia sits between me and Marlise. Symphonic music plays on the vehicle’s sound system, Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht, I think. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to that sort of material. It adds to my sense of dislocation. My thoughts dart like frightened fish.
For some reason I recall the time Richard and I attended a performance in Cape Town’s City Hall. It had been a balmy summer’s evening, and we’d spent the night at a business acquaintance’s home in Oranjezicht afterward, in a stately home with a large garden. The scent of late-blooming jasmine is lodged in this era, and I recall the way we stood on the balcony, and I felt so safe and warm with his arm around me. Nothing could go wrong.
Reality returns with the dull thump of car doors. Marlise and I are hauled out into the rain-swept darkness, but everything is so blurred I can’t really tell what’s happening around me.
Like a fool I watch my bare feet pad and tangle with themselves on the paving. My muscles are so uncoordinated and everything keeps swimming in and out of focus. Tilting my head up, I catch a glimpse of tall pillars from which ornamental wrought iron lamps hang, their warm light separating into blues, reds and greens at the edges. What the hell am I on?
We trade the cold outdoors for an imposing hallway clad mostly in marble, the air surprisingly warm. The bluish veins in the stone pulsate in a most disorientating fashion. A glance to my left reveals a massive floral arrangement, mostly roses and lilies. Are lilies even in season during winter?
Our journey ends in a lounge, the creamy wool warm beneath my soles, suggesting that whoever lives here has far too much money to burn on under-floor heating. A fire crackles merrily in an oversized hearth, the red-orange tongues doing strange things to my field of vision, their after-burn lingering on my retinas.
A man sits silhouetted on a large corner suite, next to him a smaller figure I can’t immediately focus on until a too-familiar white-blond bangs send a shock of recognition through me.
Catherine!
My lips move of their own accord and I realise it’s Ashton who’s in control this time, evidently able to overcome the drugs they’ve pumped into my bloodstream. “Isn’t it past your bed time, little girl?” He twists my mouth into an ugly leer. Hell, he doesn’t like her. That much is the truth.
Granted, he slurs the words, but Catherine’s expression turns to one of pure disgust, as though she’s just discovered that she’s stepped in a dog’s droppings.
She hates me.
Something smashes into my skull from the side, the impact blin
ding. Whoever was holding me lets go and I collapse on the floor in a boneless heap. Laughter tumbles from my lips.
I look up to see the tall thin man holding a semi-comatose Marlise upright. The way her head is lolling—whatever drugs they’ve administered have hit her far harder. When I turn my head slightly, I make eye contact with Cynthia, who stands above me, hands on hips. Her expression mirrors Catherine’s. I’m not popular with the ladies today, I see. Then again, that’s hardly news.
The man on the couch coughs delicately, dragging my attention back to him. I blink owlishly, somehow unable to wipe a foolish grin from my face. Deep inside I know I should be very scared, but it’s as if I view this entire sorry scenario disassociated from the true peril.
“I am told you are Inkarna Nefretkheperi, whom we used to know of as Elizabeth Rae Perry of House Adamastor.” His voice is curiously free of any emotion and the way he annunciates his words suggests a British upbringing.
“And if I am?” I shoulder past Ashton’s control of my Kha. There’s no point in denying anything, is there? A small stab of alarm sends its insistent warning through my system.
I peg the man to be in his eighties, his face deeply lined. His white hair is combed neatly back and almost touches his collar. But his posture is that of one who is much younger, his eyes reflecting the light of the stained glass lamps casting pools of ruby in the room. It looks as though embers are lodged in his face, embers that strip away all attempts at subterfuge.
House Montu has its own tricks. I must be aware, but it is so difficult keeping my thoughts in order. They keep shooting along tangents.
“Who are you?” I ask when the man’s regard grows too uncomfortable. “It’s a bit rude for everyone to know me without me having the pleasure of your acquaintance.” This is the old Lizzie speaking, the slightest hint of a colonial accent slipping through.
He laughs at this. “You may call me Jonathan. Jonathan Binneman. For now, that is. We are not in the business of handing out our Rens in this lifetime.”
I choose this moment to glare at Catherine. Our Rens are something known only to those of one’s House. To have a Ren known by an enemy can open one up to all manner of mischief—enough to last several lifetimes. Names may change, but the Ren is eternal. And if one destroys the Ib… No. I must not think of the stele.
Catherine appears far too smug, a tiny smile obvious. Her attitude is triumphant. Only the fingers clenching and unclenching at the upholstery betray her tension.
“Should you be hanging out with the big people, Inkarna Meritiset? Your Kha is so young, so inexperienced, even if this isn’t your first ride through the Opal Gate.” I put all of Ashton’s supercilious attitude into my manner, recalling that poster in Marlise’s room, though how much of that arrogance I can communicate from where I’m sprawled, I’m not certain.
She stiffens and opens her mouth, but Jonathan raises a hand to still her, and the warning look he flashes at Cynthia behind me suggests the black woman was about to give me an almighty wallop for my bad attitude. What else do I have left to me? Bad attitude and balls. More than what Catherine has.
The tall skinny man holding Marlise speaks. “What do we do with the girl?”
Jonathan turns to gaze at the man. “Put her in the guest bedroom. Dose her up again with more tranquilisers and have one of the initiates keep guard out front. Have him keep his cell at hand, should we have further instructions to terminate her.” He says this so casually my muscles spasm, as though I could leap at him to throttle the last life out of his Kha.
Cynthia’s hand clamps down on my shoulder and she pinches a pressure point hard between forefinger and thumb, buzzing me with a jolt of her power. If this is what an initiate can do, I really don’t want to know what full-blown members of House Montu are capable of.
All I can do is hiss through my teeth as the cold paralysis sends its tendrils down my body.
Jonathan rests both liver-spotted hands on his knees and leans forward, as though he would gain a clearer view of me. His daimonic power brushes up against mine, a bubble of menace I’d shrink from if I had full control of my limbs. The last dregs of the tranquiliser wear off all too quickly as I stare back into those burning eyes.
The man’s irises are brown, but not any shade I’ve ever encountered before, verging so close to red ochre I’d swear he’s wearing special contact lenses. Jonathan, however, doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d indulge in such an affectation.
“You do understand, Nefretkheperi, that we can and will do anything we want to your woman?”
“She’s just an innocent. Let her go.” My words sound pathetic.
A half-smile twitches to Jonathan’s lips. “No one is truly innocent, and everyone has their uses. You of all people should know that.”
Shame burns through me at the memories of my awakening, of how I so callously manipulated Marlise, justifying this as a means to an end. I didn’t mean to start loving her. That stunning realisation makes my breath catch in my throat. She’s not just a friend. Given time she’ll mean more to me than Leonora ever would have. A true life partner through the ages. The thought of her dying, of suffering, makes me squirm.
The man leans back against the couch, his half-smile now full. He’s scored a tactical victory, making me understand exactly how much I stand to lose.
“What do you want?” The words stick in my throat.
“You have something, an item of interest. We would like you to retrieve it from wherever you’ve hidden it. Then we’ll let you go.”
“You’re lying.”
He’d destroy me. Armed with the knowledge locked in the hieroglyphs carved upon the serpentine, he’d finish me. Both Marlise and I are as good as dead.
Jonathan’s laughter makes my gut contract, and I suddenly, overwhelmingly, feel like I’d soil myself. Not just the Sea of Nun. It would be as if I simply stopped existing. Even years spent wandering in limbo pale in comparison. At least in limbo there’s still a chance to return in one form or another.
Catherine giggles. “You’ve gone all pale, Neffie!” How she manages to make the shortening of my Ren sound so pathetic is beyond me. Like I’m the one who’s a child.
“Don’t call me by that name!” Even as I turn to face her, Cynthia’s fingers claw into my neck.
The tall man returns at this point to whisper something for Jonathan’s attention only. Whatever’s said makes his grin even broader. Those teeth of his are too perfect, too white and even.
When Jonathan turns to me, a slight smile tugs at his lips. “Right, well that was easy enough. Why you chose Boomslang cave is beyond me. Really, I expected far more from you. Can’t even give you points for originality.”
The skinny man—obviously Paul—stands behind Jonathan, his hands clasped loosely before him. He watches me with cold dead eyes. Somehow this man must have extracted the stele’s location from Marlise. If he’s done anything to hurt her…
“I, ah…” I hang my head. My entire existence narrows to a pinprick. That’s it. Game over.
“We’re fucked, aren’t we?” Ashton asks.
I daren’t answer.
“That knowledge provides eternal death, doesn’t it?”
I visualise someone from House Montu somehow getting past the compulsion I’ve laid on the cave, decimating entire Houses.
“Oh.” Ashton’s horror matches mine, a spiralling blackness of the soul.
Yet a seed of an idea springs from these maudlin thoughts and I look up. “Even though you know where it’s hidden, you won’t find it. I’ve laid a compulsion on the spot. Anyone else tries, and the curse it contains activates.”
“Clever. You’re lying.”
I hold Jonathan’s gaze without flinching. It’s easier staring at the centre of his forehead, giving the impression that I’m making eye contact, because if I feel the full force of his penetrating gaze, I may well start whimpering.
“I’m not sure whether you’re lying,” he says.
&n
bsp; “Do you want to take a chance?”
Although I can’t muster any of my daimonic powers, I can summon Ashton’s attitude, shoving his futile bravado in the face of the danger. While I won’t risk speaking to my ghost, and so far no one but I am aware of his existence, I have an ace of sorts up my sleeve. No one knows about my angry ghost. They would assume that I act alone in this, that by incapacitating me, they have me under their control.
Ashton follows my chain of thought because I catch a whiff of his approval, and, while I have absolutely no idea whether it’s going to work, I hope I’m giving off that arrogance that probably drove people nuts. It’s bugging Catherine—that much is a certainty—because the girl fidgets, knocking her sneakers together while she shifts about on the seat.
She’s too young to be in this deep. No matter the wisdom of returned memories of a mature Akh, a chance at a second childhood should be grasped. Not for the first time I wonder how it would have been for me had I punched through in the child’s body.
In the midst of House Montu…
I would have been privy to the machinations of a warrior cult, passing on valuable information to House Adamastor. Or it could have been that it had never been intended for me to get in, that it had been Meritiset’s plan all along, to make us trust her so she could find out that one secret that would give House Montu the upper hand.
We’d been guarding a secret we’d kept in reserve, in case of what? Some things were better left undiscovered. Richard’s disappearance may well have had something to do with House Montu.
Or not. He’d still somehow managed to warn Leonora about impending violence. Could it be that they had captured him before he passed through the Black Gate? No, if any House could do that it would be House Thanatos, who are anathema to all Houses at best, though I wouldn’t put it past House Montu to use all tools available to them, if the end justified the means.
Jonathan looks away first, rubbing at his eyes. “Sedate him. It’s too late now to be haring up the mountain. Cynthia, you’ll go with him on the morrow. You, too, Paul. I’m sure that between Catherine and myself and the staff, we can handle our friend’s female companion. Perhaps given time she may even see the light of reason. We could have uses for her here in House Montu.”
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