“Perhaps around the back.”
Ptah followed Sabine.
There were more police there, walking from one corner of the lot to the next, as if patrolling the place. When Sabine had their predictable pattern memorized, she clung to the opposite side of the property and slipped inside.
The air was warm, and not from the summer. Heat oozed from what was left of the structure and threatened to siphon her moisture. Her throat went instantly dry. Ash filtered down like fat snowflakes, landing on her face. Despite the stench, she inhaled deep.
“Do you smell it?” she asked.
Ptah had edged ahead of her. In the half-light that spilled through melted windows he looked like he was carved from a piece of stone, his form dark and perfect and his chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly. She could understand how he could have been taken as a god, and that his bearing only added to the notion.
“Wood and metal and char. I smell these things.”
“Nothing more?” Sabine smelled evil.
“Pig,” he said. “Crocodile. I smell these creatures. I smell the dragon.”
Sabine picked her way toward him. “A dragon?”
“The dragon,” he corrected. “He is hungry and he will feast again soon.”
“In two nights I believe another fire will—”
“In less than two hours,” he corrected her again.
She shook her head and he whirled, bringing his face down to hers. The angles and planes of his visage were sharp like a sculptor had chiseled them.
“You summoned me for my wisdom, Sabine Upchurch, daughter of a fire and brimstone preacher. The dragon will eat again very soon. You do not understand the …” He drew himself up to his full height and searched for a word. “Timing. It was why you missed this morning’s blaze. My people, and the Egyptians who sprang from them, far better understood time and the position of stars.”
She knew Egyptian calendars had been incredibly accurate, and their buildings positioned just so that when the sun rose or certain stars were high the light glimmered through openings.
Ptah looked past her, as if he was seeing something far beyond this burned warehouse and Memphis. “And you will need more than my power to stop the dragon.”
This time, Ptah led Sabine out onto the street. He wove through alleys and paused only to watch a homeless man urinating in a garbage can.
“It will be this building or the next,” he pronounced. “Either will finish the engraving of the khet.”
Sabine looked from one to the other, the first an older office building that had a scattering of lights on. She saw shadows moving across a few of the windows, cleaning people perhaps. The second building was ornate and older, a white façade with the carvings of men’s faces and vines. Memphis Repertoire Company, the sign read.
“That building.” Sabine felt a tugging to it. People were filtering in the front. It was seven, the performance starting in an hour. “The dragon will strike here.”
“Where the damage will be greater,” Ptah said.
“A greater loss, this building.” Though she supposed that factor didn’t really matter if its destruction meant the beginning of the End of Days.
They found a way inside around the back and took the stairs down into the bowels of the theater.
“I miss the music of the street,” Ptah admitted. He had to crouch in places, the beams from the low ceiling brushing his skull cap. He cocked his head as the timbers above groaned under the weight of actors and stage crew moving around. “The dragon could strike anywhere in this building.” He batted at a curtain of cobwebs.
Sabine stretched an arm up and pulled on a cord, an old bulb shed a buttery light.
“All of the other fires started in the basements.”
“If this building is the correct one.”
She could smell the evil, the taint not as strong as the building they’d left. That she could smell it meant that the dragon was coming. Sabine sat cross-legged under the bulb and pulled vials from her pockets, uncorking them and spilling the colored sandy powders in front of her in a pattern that looked like a series of hieroglyphs but were something entirely different.
“I am not sure I have the strength for this,” she told Ptah. “So soon after bringing you here. But I will try to call your son. Perhaps he can—”
“Not my son.”
“I understand that you would want to protect him. Your … wife … then. Sekhmet. I will—”
“As much as I desire that they see this garish and stinking Memphis, their power is not enough. You must call Horus. Only he, and perhaps not even he, will be strong enough.”
“Horus.”
“You claim to have studied ancient Egypt, woman, Sabine. Horus is—”
“Horus the falcon,” she supplied. “The son of Isis and Osiris.”
“Son of Hathor,” Ptah corrected. “God of the sky of war, god of protection and—” Ptah turned and faced the far corner, where the buttery light did not reach.
The scent grew stronger and nearly choked Sabine.
“I smell it,” Ptah said. “The pig and the crocodile and the dragon. Hurry, Sabine Upchurch, daughter of the fire and brimstone preacher.”
Her fingers danced inches above the powder, the movement stirring it into new patterns. Her unblemished skin sprouted age spots and the lines deepened at the corners of her eyes. Her smooth skin became rough and brittle looking, as if she were having the life drawn out of her. She breathed shallowly and continued her work, her shoulders hunching and her back rounding, her hair turning wispy and her ice blue eyes taking on a rheumy cast.
The shadows darkened, and a patch of blackest black glided forward to face Ptah. The darkness snarled and released a gust of brimstone.
“Dreamer of creation,” the blackness rumbled. “I will dance upon your corpse.”
Sabine’s fingers whirled faster and she gasped for air. Her chest felt tight, as if a constricting band had been placed upon her. “Come Horus,” she implored. “Join Ptah in Memphis.” She’d never called two such powerful beings to her time at the same juncture. The farther back in time she stretched, the more of her energy it took, and the stronger the being pulled, the more of her soul lost. “Come Horus, god of war.”
The powders swirled and rose as if picked up by a tiny whirlwind. They separated, then coalesced, became diaphanous and sparkled like miniature stars. Sabine seemed to fold in upon herself, becoming smaller, more hunched, more of a husk of a woman.
The powders took on a manlike form with a falcon’s head, and grew larger and more substantial now. Opaque one moment, and then bright solid with colors, the dark, polished skin shining in the light from the lone bulb.
“Set,” Horus pronounced. The god of war was not quite as tall as Ptah, but he was more imposing. His chest impossibly broad and rippling, his arms long and deeply muscled, the veins standing out on them like thick cords.
“Set,” Sabine whispered. “I should have realized.”
In a faraway part of her memory she’d placed what she’d read about Set. Worshiped as the god of the wind and desert storms, the Egyptians had prayed to him asking for strength. Portrayed as dark and moody, he was not always thought evil. But that had changed a long time ago, when he chose to conflict with Horus.
“Apep,” Horus said. “Set and Apep in one.”
The blackness took shape, first becoming a monstrous boar.
The pig Ptah had said he smelled.
Then transforming again and taking on the aspect of a man with the head of a crocodile.
Ptah had said he smelled that, too.
Sabine inched back, her body aching and her breath coming ragged. The second summoning had sapped nearly everything. What little energy she had left she used to hold the two gods in this Memphis.
The darkness changed again. This time it was a snake, so great it took up nearly the entirety of the basement, as thick as an elephant and with a head that resembled a Chinese dragon.
“Slay
er of Osiris,” Horus said. “My eternal enemy. Deification of darkness and chaos, contester of light and life.”
Sabine recalled that according to ancient Egyptian history, Set had slain Osiris and scattered pieces of the body throughout Egypt, claiming the god-throne as his own. Horus had struck him down then, and he was working to do so again. Set-Apep was believed to hold sway in the underworld, called the Eater of Souls. The devil, Sabine’s father would have called him. Egyptian priests built effigies of Apep and burned them every year. They had a guide for fighting him, called The Books of Overthrowing Apep. Sabine had read the version called Book of Apophis, the translation in Greek. In it was an explanation for dismembering the god. Horus was trying to do just that, ripping at the darkness.
But this Set, or Apep, or whatever he was called, was not falling.
It spat fire, the flames incinerating Horus’s tunic and burning Ptah’s chest. The once-smooth walnut skin bubbled and oozed. Neither cried out, though Sabine was certain they must have felt intense agony. The heat alone pained her and she tried to scoot farther back, but she stopped when she bumped into a stack of crates.
Sabine smelled an intense evil now, but she also smelled char. The dragon had caught something on fire. Smoke roiled along the basement’s ceiling, its tendrils reaching toward her like living things. Tears spilled from her stinging eyes. Sabine closed them and prayed.
The world was filled with the crackling, popping sound of fire and with thrashing—the great beast fighting Horus and Ptah. Things stored in the basement splintered and caught fire, props were bashed into pieces and chunks of the ceiling fell. Flames licked up crates, flowing like water, Sabine saw the brilliant red-orange of them through her closed lids.
The conflagration was at the same time horrifying and obscenely beautiful, the heat blistering and the air so thin there wasn’t enough of it to sustain Sabine. She drifted mercifully into unconsciousness.
And awoke to the sounds of sirens.
She was on her back in an alley, the pong of urine and spoiled things nearly overwhelming and mixed with the scents of ash and burned wood. Ptah propped her up and pointed to the alley’s end, where she saw the glow of red from a fire truck’s light.
“It was not within us to stop the fire,” Ptah told her. “The building is lost.”
“Set-Apep.”
“But it was within Horus to stop him. Slay him. I scattered his pieces, a fitting tribute to Osiris.”
Dismembered him, like the ritual, Sabine thought.
There was little light in the alley, some filtered down from the stars overhead, some came from the lights of the fire trucks and rescue vehicles. It was enough to tell that the once-beautiful creation god was so scarred his skin looked wet.
“Horus, is he—”
“Forever dead. Died in the struggle, Sabine Upchurch, daughter of the fire and brimstone preacher. Gave his life that the End of Days could be stalled.”
“Stalled. But not stopped.”
Ptah helped her stand. She was healing, the age spots vanishing, her skin becoming soft again, her shoulders straightening, years melting.
“Summon me again, woman, when the threat arises once more, when another source of evil seeks to fulfill the ancient prophecies. Ptah belongs in Memphis, and though this is not my Memphis, I have found that it will do.” He cocked his head and listened. Music seeped out an open window above and behind them, an old Elvis Presley tune. “And summon Sekhmet, too, I would have her see this amazing, stinking place.”
Killing Osuran
Christina Stiles
Killing the priest would not be easy, but he would die soon; Kaja Dawne would see to it. She just needed to get him alone in his magically warded temple, kill him away from the eyes of the innocent people of Farik. Then she could steal his last breath and eat his heart, forever freeing the citizens of Farik of the despicable man who had inflicted a plague on them in order to set himself up as their priest-king redeemer.
Lamps and torches bobbed down the street below Kaja, breaking through the morning’s gray light. The townsfolk were flocking to the temple to hear their cunning priest’s morning proclamation, to discover what their savior bid them do this day. In preparation for her attack on Osuran, Kaja had observed this morning ritual for the past three days. She watched Farik’s people walk, ride, and even limp to the temple’s heavy, wooden, well-guarded gates. The town’s grimy, skinny street folk in their smelly, tattered rags arrived first. The bathed, sweet-smelling rich in their fine garments of deep reds and purples, high headdresses nodding above the crowds from atop their mounts, soon followed. The townsfolk’s intermingled scents, like pomegranates rotting under the heat of the midday sun coupled with the strong reek of horse, wafted up to Kaja Dawne as she perched atop a roof across from the temple. When the day’s heat chased away the cool desert winds, the worshippers’ smell would be a hundred times stronger. To Kaja’s superior senses, the smell would be overwhelming. She intended to be long gone from the square by that point.
She focused her eyes on the man who had brought her to the town: Osuran Malul. The Dark Priest. Her target. He stood a few inches over six feet tall, towering over his fellow priests. His face was handsome, strong, and confident. A dark beard and mustache, both neatly trimmed, framed his features. He wore a white turban, and his blue tunic and trousers looked clean and well-made. They weren’t overly opulent, but they appeared finer than the clothes his companion priests wore. Those others hovered behind him as awestruck, she noted, as the followers gathered before the man-god. Four well-muscled men flanked the priests. Two held crossbows with quarrels nocked, while the others held gleaming spears. Kaja could feel their desire for a fight; let just one man touch their priest-king, and the guards would gleefully spill blood.
The guards’ craving for bloodshed flowed through her, awakening her own maraqaze, her bloodlust. She could already taste the coppery liquid on her tongue. She savored it. Knowing she needed to remain in control at that moment, however, she closed her eyes, took a long breath, and quelled the inner beast with a promise: Soon. She had only recently learned to control the maraqaze—and “control” was really not the right word for it. Hers was an eternal struggle against this hunger for death and destruction. She had succumbed to its wishes for many years now, powerless to do anything else, for she was Marathuk, the Killer. The Twelve Faceless Ones had forged her, brought her back from death, in fact, to serve them as a shape-shifting assassin. She was the Deathbringer. And although she had freed herself of their yoke a few years before, her purpose remained the same: to bring death to her targets—only now she chose them.
Lying flat on her stomach on the building’s roof tiles, she continued to watch the priest, her eyes boring into him. He raised his hands to quiet the crowd, and he began to speak. Her hearing was keen, and his voice loud, but still she angled her head toward the scene below to ensure she heard every word of his putrid lies.
“Citizens of Farik,” he boomed, his voice deep, melodic, attention-getting. “Last night I conferred with the Others to learn of events outside your realm. They tell me that beyond our walls, in every direction, trouble brews. War rides the winds in the north. Its blood seeps closer to our doors. Bandits haunt the merchants’ trails to the south and east, also spilling blood and destroying entire families’ livelihoods. And a murderous bird creature is on the rampage from the west.”
Me, thought Kaja. He’s warning them about me. But he did not invoke the name Marathuk. No, that would cause panic. He only wants a controlled fear—a fear that leads to faith and trust in him.
“I have asked the Others to aid me in my continuing protection of Farik. When I arrived a year ago, you were beset by disease and pestilence.”
Disease and pestilence you brought to the people, Osuran.
“The dark plague I have saved you from has abated, no longer threatening to tear you from this world into the next, but more troubles are coming, and we must be vigilant.”
The people c
heered when he spoke of the waning plague. They worshipped him for saving them. They thought him one of the Others of which he spoke: the gods. And he wanted them to. Osuran would not let them forget he held great power—at least against disease and vermin, abilities channeled to him through Argave, the Eighth of the Twelve Faceless Ones, her former masters, in return for his soul.
“Your past tributes have been generous, but more such gifts are required for the Others to secure this peaceful life you have come to enjoy since my arrival. Continued work and sacrifice is required of you, else your town and loved ones will not remain safe. Some of you may even have to sacrifice your lives, offering them on the battlefields in the North War, helping to keep the depredations of war from storming these gates and taking the lives of your beautiful wives and children.”
Yes, make them worry about their families. That always wins over the masses.
“Come. Bring your offerings to the gods.”
Offerings to you, Osuran, you foul, soulless creature.
The other priests moved forward and held out large sacks for the offerings of food, coins, and valuables. Young servants gathered up any offered livestock, herding the animals to the stables and pens in the temple’s courtyard. Kaja watched the god-priest’s smile broaden at the abundance of offerings. Her stomach churned at the thought of the families who’d starve this day in order to feed the priest’s desires. She fought the urge to extend her wings, lengthen her claws, and fly in to attack the horrid man for taking advantage of these trusting townspeople. Killing him in front of the crowd would cause chaos. They would waste their energies on the “murderous bird creature,” leaving them vulnerable to the invaders from the north.
While the parade of tribute continued, Kaja’s sharp eyes spotted numerous black, long-winged zeringes flying in their unusual double-V formation toward the town. A smile crossed her face. The birds had finally arrived, and soon a flock of over a thousand would join these scouts. Kaja had ordered the birds to arrive several days after her, as their presence would signal the Marathuk’s enemies that she was near Farik. The factions all knew she controlled Sorengis’ birds now. At one time, the birds had been sent to track and destroy her, but when she had revolted against the Twelve, killing Sorengis, the Ninth of their number, his birds had become hers to order instead. Her own killer would one day gain their allegiance.
The New Hero Volume 2 Page 25
