by S. M. Reine
He stumbled through to the living room while he was still trying to process what Betty had said to him.
My coven.
Elise.
Someone was thumping around in Betty’s kitchen.
Lincoln felt like he was turning to face the sound in slow motion—the nightmarish crawl through molasses he’d felt when rushing toward his father’s dead body.
The woman standing in Betty’s kitchen was about five foot six, coming up to Lincoln’s shoulders. She was tanned from summers in the sunlight, though he could only see the tan on her face, because where Betty was clad in as little as possible, her friend was professionally dressed in a skirt suit with sensible flats and a cropped blazer.
She didn’t look anything like the infernal Godslayer that Lincoln had met so many years in the past—which was in the future now, from where he stood.
But this was definitely Elise Kavanagh.
And it wasn’t a dream.
“Hi, honey!” Betty squealed, exploding out of the bedroom from behind Lincoln. She’d had the decency to put on shorts that said Juicy across the butt, but there was still a lot of exposed woman jumping on Elise in an overenthusiastic embrace.
Elise hugged Betty back. “Looks like you had a fun night.”
“Oh, that guy?” Betty waved him off. “He was helping me, you know, move furniture .”
“For hours, I’m sure,” Elise said.
Betty bit her bottom lip and sighed as she gazed at Lincoln, fanning herself. “Hours and hours . I asked him to come to the esbat with us this weekend since Asshole Mark is busy, and this guy knows witches, but—”
“I’ll come,” Lincoln said suddenly. “If the invitation’s still open, I’ll come with you.”
Somehow, Betty’s smile got wider. “That sounds great.”
Elise didn’t smile.
Part II
Death descended upon Itjtawy at nightfall in a ship.
Anat was there the day they arrived: the Kush nobility and her servants sailing from upriver.
It was a murky night during the flooded season, when water slopped high on the banks of the Nile. A favorite time for farmers and less so for others. If not for her temple’s need of goods from the market, she would have been kept inside cleaning at this time; the biting flies swarmed when the waters rose, bringing plague to the House of Maat if they did not keep the estate immaculate.
It must have been fate that placed Anat on the docks at the right time to witness the ship. The boat was unremarkable, broad and flat-bottomed, powered by oar-men whose flesh shined with sweat in the moonlight. She couldn’t have told anyone why she stopped to stare at the vessel. Her basket was heavy, and the burden should have sent her shuffling back to the estate.
And yet.
Anat’s hair stood on end when her eyes passed over the boat, and she lingered between stalls to watch the men place the gangplank, bridging ship and dock. It was a late arrival. The floating wick lanterns were barely brighter than the stars, and the sailors hurried to prepare for debarkation under the dimmest glow.
Evil.
That was the crawling sensation down her nape, dripping along her spine.
“Right there,” said Inanna. “There it is.”
Anat did not need to look at her invisible companion to know who had spoken to her. Her earliest memories involved Inanna—from her first wobbling steps chasing her big brothers to the bloody day she had arrived in Kemet. Inanna was a steady presence throughout the entirety of her life, more prominent than Anat’s own mother. And nobody else could see her.
“This is why I’m here,” Anat said softly, shoulders aching with the weight of her basket.
“Yes,” Inanna said, “it is.”
Once the gangplank had been placed, the first to emerge was a female servant. She was a slight woman with strong limbs dressed in yak hide. If not for the absence of her jewelry, and if not for the woman who emerged behind her, Anat may have assumed a woman so beautiful must have been some kind of nobility.
She stopped on the dock and bowed her head in obeisance, waiting.
From underneath the awning, a feminine hand stretched forth, emerging into lantern light. The ship’s captain took hold of her delicate fingers. She stepped onto the dock.
The second woman didn’t resemble the other Kushites that Anat had seen trading in Itjtawy. Her skin was too fair. She was draped in fine silks that sparkled with golden threads. Her sleek black hair was uncovered, hanging freely down her back with such gloss that her servant surely spent hours a day brushing it. She was bejeweled with stones so lovely that Anat would have gasped to see them, were her breath not caught in her throat.
“This is death?” Anat asked after too long.
“For me, she was,” Inanna said.
Now Anat turned to Inanna in surprise. Her companion was a wisp, little clearer than a reflection in turbulent Nile waters. Inanna was as serious as Anat had ever seen her and grimmer still.
“You know this woman?” Anat asked. They couldn’t have originated from similar lands. Inanna was a dark woman with bold features. The woman traveling under a Kushite flag was moonlight-pale, luminous in the humid night, with a subtle nose and sweet chin.
“I know her,” Inanna said. “We owe her.”
Resolve weighed heavily within Anat’s heart. She hugged the basket tighter, though it no longer felt so heavy. Excitement and starlight soaked her in burning determination.
A name came to Anat’s mind: Nügua. She was not Kushite, though she may have served the kingdom. She’d been born in far-flung places ridged by wet mountains. She traveled freely, unbound by the strictures of mortality, and always had.
The silk robes draped all the way to the ground so that Nügua’s feet were not exposed. No matter how closely Anat watched her, the silks never parted to expose legs or whatever else may have propelled her graceful slide onto the dock. Through Inanna, Anat felt doubt; it was likely that Nügua did not have feet at all. This woman with lips the shape of a puckered rosebud was not human.
“She hurt us,” Anat whispered. Inanna had watched Anat’s entire life because she was Anat. A spirit within who suffused her. Insult to Inanna was insult to Anat.
They would dispense justice together.
Anat turned away before the Kushite noble could see her. She needed to take her load back to the temple estate before she was missed.
She hurried through the stalls paralleling the river. The flat-bottomed boat was visible through the gaps in turns. Its colorful awning, the Kushite flag, Nügua sharing a quiet conversation with the captain.
The last time that Anat glimpsed the ship, she realized that Nügua had two personal servants, not one. She had also brought along a man—someone who looked exactly like the first woman, from the dusky ochre of his skin to the charcoal hair that hung along his spine. Three of them who had come together to Itjtawy. It was a number Anat committed to her heart.
Anat would, she decided, bring death to all three.
It was in her soul, this drive for justice, and she would not be capable of living unless she chased it. It was the reason that Inanna had chosen her from the other Canaanites. It was why she had survived her tribe’s destruction. It was why she persisted through servitude to the House of Maat, knowing that there was more to come.
These three would die.
But first she would watch.
Once she knew her enemy, she would hunt.
Anat soon came to regret her hesitance that night. Rumor said that Mentuhotep had died, and a new dynasty was maneuvering to rise, bringing Kemet’s capital from Waset to Itjtawy—a better position for defense against invaders from Heracleopolis. Whether or not this was true did not matter to the citizens of Itjtawy. The city seemed to lose its mind.
She couldn’t slip out of the serving chambers when infantry sent from Waset patrolled the streets so closely, nor could she risk being caught in the revolts that lit Itjtawy with flames at night. She laid on a mat between other women w
ho tended the estate, and kept her sleepless gaze fixed upon the roof as the sounds of change echoed throughout the reed walls.
Had things been quieter, Anat could have begged a poorly stomach and slipped out the back. Her fellow servants were understanding. Nobody would stop her. She had stashed men’s linens in the kitchen and would conceal her hair under rags. In the past, Anat had managed to connect with informants like this. They would tell her where the wealthy Kushite woman was staying.
Instead, she was forced to wait. Inanna was silent in her impatience, and Anat missed her in the quiet.
Without Inanna’s words to guide her, Anat found herself listening to the words of those who worshiped Maat instead. The estate was busy during the day. Between the numerous scribes busying themselves in the scriptorium and the dance celebrations honoring Maat, Anat was never bored.
Cleaning the public areas gave her opportunities to hear gossip as well. The vast majority of people who passed through were low priests of one form or another—economically bound to the House of Maat, but not physically. The priests and priestesses spent only one of every few months at the temple. Those who had just returned from a tenure at their family’s farm were not shy about their opinions of the world outside.
“Did you hear what happened in the south ward?” asked one priestess.
“It can’t be true,” said another.
A pair of scribes were passing at the time and stopped to join the conversation. “It is true,” said a man. “The infantry can’t stop the killings. It’s said that the whole city has been cursed.”
“Even though the rain has been good?”
“Perhaps especially because the rain has been good. The sun is hiding from us.”
Over the days, snatches of gossip like those slowly resolved into a story.
Husbands found dead in the streets.
Bodies floating in the harbor.
Limbs piled beside doors as if to threaten the people within.
Nobody equated the curse with the arrival of the ship flying Kush’s flag. Nobody said they had seen a strange pale Kushite noble wearing silks during these horrors. Everyone seemed to assume that the unrest of a shifting dynasty had simply put the balance of the world askew, and only heka performed in honor of the gods could set things aright.
But Anat knew the truth.
One day she was listening in on musicians, tucked behind the door to the inner sanctum as she scrubbed the floor. They talked openly about a new horror that had befallen Itjtawy. They said that victims of previous murders had come back to life.
The families had mourned their lost men, wrapped them in a shroud, and buried them in the dunes, as was tradition. Yet several had wandered home days later. One had killed his grieving widow. Another had slaughtered his entire household.
“Surely none of this can be true,” said the lute player.
“I have seen it with my own eyes,” said the guitarist. “A hunter white as moonlight with eyes turned red.”
Prickles spread down Anat’s back. They may as well have been describing Nügua.
“We are all in danger, then,” he said. “What is to be done?”
“Survive until sunrise,” said the other. “None but Husani, the nomarch’s gatekeeper, persisted beyond the time the sun rose upon the black earth. The guards arrested him when they realized what happened but Husani could not be imprisoned. Sunlight struck his flesh and…” His throat worked as he swallowed hard.
Anat’s hand shook because she clenched the rag so tightly. One of the nomarch’s men had been cursed and survived longer than the others. Was it possible that Nügua was staying with the nomarch?
She didn’t notice she was being approached until a priest’s robe swished over her hand.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Hannu asked.
What was there to enjoy in overhearing dark tales while scrubbing a floor? “I find deep satisfaction in serving Maat,” Anat said diplomatically, with all the reverence owed to Maat’s first servant.
“As you should,” he said. “There’s no higher calling.”
Hannu was the high priest of Maat in this temple, and the only one welcome to serve the goddess within the inner sanctum—a fact that he allowed nobody to forget. Somehow the prideful man had risen from the lector priest to supplant his female predecessor, and Anat sometimes thought the temple was cursed for it. She might have blamed the whole city on him if she hadn’t known the truth of it.
“Do you need something, or may I continue my worship?” Anat asked.
He mused the question, fingertips on his lips. “Is this how you can best serve Maat?”
“I serve with all my heart, regardless of the task.” She had no choice but to work there, but her alternative had been to die bleeding in the desert. At least servitude had brought her to Itjtawy at a time she could hunt Nügua.
“Your heart must be shallow,” he said, twisting his wrist. Flame danced over his fingertips. He was holding no lamp, and fat didn’t glisten on his skin as fuel.
She started. “What are you—”
“Don’t pretend you’re surprised,” he said. The fire rolled over his knuckles, and when he turned his hand, it came to rest as a ball in his palm. His skin didn’t burn. He shivered with heka , the magic used to bring maat —order and balance—to the natural chaos of the world.
Anat knew that some priests wielded heka . A high priest with heka was no surprise, particularly one who served Maat herself, but he seemed to be looking for Anat to give a reaction. He waved the flame in front of her, so close that the heat seared the top of her head.
“Stop,” she said, forgetting to be humble before him.
He glanced over his shoulder. The musicians had already moved on, and there were no witnesses.
No witnesses .
Inanna was not there, the musicians were not there, and Anat was alone.
“If you serve Maat with true depth, with everything you have to offer, there’s power waiting,” Hannu said. “I’ve heard you speaking to the gods. I know that you are different—carrying a feeble shadow of heka . Wouldn’t you rather be a wab priestess than a serving girl?”
She clenched her jaw. “I serve with all my heart and have nothing more.”
“Stand when you speak to me,” Hannu said.
She stood.
He touched her waist. “You could better please Maat if you pleased me. There’s power in this kind of exchange.” When Anat tried to flinch away from his touch, he simply grabbed her—hard. His fingers were still so hot that they burned through her linen gown. “Don’t play coy. You must know what impact you have on men.”
Voices rose from the fore chamber. He released her.
Anat had only a brief moment of relief—hope that Hannu would forget her.
Then her prey walked into the room.
Nügua arrived with her woman servant on a wind that made Anat shiver.
“I’ve heard you’re the first servant of Maat,” said Nügua by way of greeting. She glided across the stones. Her delicate hands were hidden by the length of her bell-like sleeves, folded below the line of her sash. Her hair seemed to float on a wave behind her.
It did not escape Anat’s notice that Nügua walked the center of the room, beyond the reach of fading sunlight.
Though the noblewoman had made no obvious attempt to assimilate, her servant was dressed in a formless white gown, as any woman of Kemet might wear. She looked so strong—as strong as Inanna must have been in life—though she drifted too, in her way, as if an army banner undulating upon the wind. The sway of her wide hips was hypnotic.
Hannu turned his attention upon Nügua. “Peace be upon you.”
Anat slunk back against the wall, into the shadow.
Nügua’s smile made it look like she was holding a secret under her tongue. “And to you.” She barely moved her crimson lips. Her eyelashes were so long that they shivered when she blinked. “I’m a traveler through this land of black soil. I seek access and information.
I want to know everything the people have made of this.” She swept her hands, and Anat couldn’t tell if Nügua meant to indicate the temple or the world.
“Please, elaborate,” said Hannu.
They spoke, but Anat couldn’t focus on the words.
Sounds faded as Anat’s eyes fixed on Nügua’s moving lips. The woman’s flawless face was everything.
Anat knew that face. She knew this woman.
For a moment, she felt as though Inanna had returned—not to stand beside her, but to share her skin. She was filled with the ghost, and the ghost was filled with Nügua.
Their last meeting had been fatal.
Anat suddenly remembered how Nügua’s mouth had opened wide to expose two long, dagger-like fangs within her mouth. How she had reared back and struck, body pulsing as venom oozed into Inanna’s veins, turning the goddess to stone.
When Nügua talked now, in Kemet, she barely opened her lips so that Anat wouldn’t see fang.
Inanna wrenched free of Anat, standing at her side. She clutched her throat as if she had been bitten again. Her shoulders shook with pain.
Nügua seemed to realize she was being stared at. She looked at Anat.
And then she looked at Inanna.
There was no mistaking it. Nügua’s eyes were fixed upon the manifestation of Anat’s soul, who had never been seen by another human—not once, not in the sixteen hot seasons she had endured. “What is her price?” asked Nügua as she pointed to Anat.
“She is attached to the estate,” said Hannu. “I cannot sell her.”
Nügua’s smile became more charming. “Then lend her to me. I have need of more hands.”
“Are my hands so insufficient?” asked the servant girl.
“Tiaa, you are everything I have ever wanted, and more,” Nügua said. “But remember your place. Here, you are my servant. Don’t speak out of turn.” She shooed Tiaa away, sending her to the street before facing Hannu again. “You should know that I can pay with anything you dream. Spices, dyes, gold from worlds unknown...”
Hannu wasn’t swayed. This was surely not because he lacked the usual human greed, but because he didn’t believe Nügua could be that wealthy. “Will you make an offering before you leave?” asked Hannu. He seemed to be growing irate. Whatever conversation Anat had failed to hear must have gone poorly.
