Wardens of Eternity

by Courtney Allison Moulton

  Sweeney eyed her carefully and with disdain. “What did you say your name was, young lady?”

  “My mother calls me precocious. A lot of people do in fact.”

  “I would’ve guessed irritating,” Sweeney shot back. “Though both are more likely.”

  The look Nasira gave him was cold murder and war. As they bickered back and forth, I pushed through the audience to locate Sayer. He was bent over the stela with his left sleeve pushed up past his elbow, revealing one of the scarab cuffs. He’d unrolled several sheets of paper and with a stick of charcoal he created a rubbing as quickly as possible. I tried to do him a favor by blocking him from the view of anyone who might notice him tampering with the stela.

  Sayer glanced at me out the corner of his eye and said, “I’ll spend more time translating at headquarters. If I rush this, I could make a mistake.”

  “We don’t need that,” I agreed.

  The corner of his mouth quirked in a smile. “No, we don’t.”

  “Nasira is very good at distractions,” I noted.

  He snickered. “She’s enjoying herself, isn’t she?”

  “To say the least. The girl was built for battle.”

  A hand clamped around my arm and yanked me around. A man in an usher’s tuxedo and apron filled my vision.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded and pointed at Sayer’s charcoal rubbing.

  “Well,” I started, thinking of a way to stall and give Sayer a few more moments. “Upon closer examination—and I’m no expert mind you—I read something quite interesting. ‘If any man dares disturb my rest and reads this inscription, I shall break his neck like a goose.’ Oh, uh-oh. It’s a good thing I’m not a man. Although my friend here has run into some bad luck.” I gave an uncomfortable, awkward laugh. Sayer grimaced, rolling with it.

  The usher’s face twisted into a scowl. “I’ll have to remove you for touching the artifact.”

  “No, thanks,” I replied. “Taw.” My spell hit him in the chest, knocking the air from his lungs and his back into a curio cabinet. Its contents jangled, and the man toppled to the floor, knocking over guests like bowling pins.

  I glanced at Sayer as pandemonium erupted. He hastily rolled the paper and nodded at me. “Let’s move,” he said.

  I shoved a path through the crowd, and when I reached Nasira, I clamped a hand on her shoulder. “Time to go,” I told her in an unintentionally sing-song voice.

  She gave a curt nod and offered a salute to her red-faced opponent. “Well, Dr. Sweeney, it’s been a pleasure. Best of luck to you, mate.”

  The three of us rushed toward the front door, ignoring the protests of the usher I hit with my spell. The confusion of the guests made it difficult for anyone to chase us into the street.

  “So—did we get it?” Nasira called, taking my hand.

  I tried to reply, but I couldn’t stop laughing, so I merely nodded. I’d never had so much fun in my life! Adrenaline sang through my veins and pumped into my muscles, until cold cascaded through my body and I slammed to a stop.

  The kriosphinx stood not thirty feet from us, appearing from the darkness like a phantom from hell, its spiraled ram’s horns casting a sinister shadow across the urban surroundings. Nasira didn’t hesitate; she dropped to the ground, slipped her asaya from its holster, and snapped it to its full length. Sayer tore open his tuxedo jacket and yanked free the twin axes from the scabbard strapped to his back. I moved slower than my companions, unable to tear my eyes away, as I knelt and retrieved my own asaya from my ankle holster.

  None of the pedestrians had screamed yet. Not yet. They slowed, stopped, and stared. Shock plumed, thick and disorienting.

  The beast raised its snout to the sky, opened its mouth, and bugled a terrible, eerie, high-pitched scream, the crescendo a ghost’s song.

  And the screams began.

  The kriosphinx didn’t seem to notice any of the panicked people running and shouting in all directions. The way it looked at me—not Sayer, not Nasira—was predatory, focusing as if it could see nothing else. Power leaked from it, flowed across the black pavement, and from everywhere people gasped and murmured cries of surprise and fear. It threw back its head again, heavy with horns, and bugled, sending shivers like snakes through my limbs.

  “What’s it doing?” I asked.

  “Calling for reinforcements,” Nasira replied, her tone hard.

  Sayer put his back to us and we had all our sides covered. The second kriosphinx emerged from a flash of shadows. Erratic headlights strobed at the beasts, reflecting off their yellow eyes with demonic glints.

  Stuffed delivery wagons, canary yellow taxis, and cars of all kinds screeched to a stop as they careened into one another, blocking both ends of the street. Drivers and passengers flung themselves from their vehicles and darted in the opposite direction of the two monsters and we three poor fools were trapped between them. Soon, the roar of the city was a distant dream and we were abandoned in a wasteland.

  “Three Medjai in one night,” the first kriosphinx mused, its ram-mouth moving in a terrible, not-right way.

  “One of them is the scion,” the second said, nostrils flaring. “I smell queen’s blood.”

  Something scraped across the pavement from the darkest corner of the street. I turned my head only to feel my insides contract and twist with horror. An enormous cobra appeared, gliding fluidly, black diamond scales flickering like starlight, and a sandstorm of fear unleashed its wrath inside my chest. The snake stopped and coiled into a tight knot before rising tall toward the sky. It disappeared in a flash of spiraling shadows and eerie netherlight and emerged as a woman. Not a woman—an immortal like Anubis.

  “Oh, have I waited eons to meet you,” the goddess said, her words slow and savoring, seemingly disembodied from the sculpted, unmoving mouth of her war mask. “I have lived every one of my infinite days waiting for the time I could present you to my king.”

  Shadowy flames licked up the folds of her dress of glittering black snake scales and the streetlights reflected off the vertebrae bracelets sheathing her forearms. Her starless midnight hair bloomed around her with growing magic, and from behind a mask of solid gold, her carnelian eyes settled on me in a disquieting, eager way. The face carved into the mask was serene and almost sleepy, the painted brow frozen without emotion, the mouth curved into a smile sweet with malice. Those shadows plumed behind her; her body melted into them as though they were a physical part of her, the gold of her mask shining. She was a beauty too terrible to behold.

  “I am Kauket,” she said to me. “I am Darkness.”

  The kriosphinxes launched forward, their eerie screams cutting through the night, and bounded toward both sides of us. Nasira met the first hard; she whirled her asaya faster than I’d ever seen, and the whistle of the staff rose above the beasts’ cries. The second kriosphinx reared, forelegs and talons outspread to bring Sayer down, but he swung one ax and it tore through shoulder meat. Sayer whirled aside and dropped, and the beast flew overhead. He spun back around and buried his other ax into the barrel of its chest. Obsidian glanced off bone with a crack but gleaned its share of blood.

  A pair of patrolling police officers appeared with their revolvers already drawn, arguing over whether or not they ought to shoot the “dangerous animals” before their backup arrived. No doubt they’d been on the lookout since the night I was first attacked. No matter how they’d prepared for the beasts’ next appearance, the police department could never fathom the destruction wrought by the immortals.

  The officers fired, and their bullets hit the kriosphinxes, who shrieked with anger. Kauket lifted a hand to the mouth of her mask and blew gently, as if blowing a kiss. The officers’ bodies exploded into golden sand that scattered across the pavement.

  These beasts in New York . . . This wasn’t their world. This wasn’t our world. Manhattan was diesel and bullets, not magic and gods. They didn’t know what to do about us, or we about them. We could tear this city apart.

  C
HAPTER

  8

  My pulse kicked up inside my skull, a steady overwhelming rhythm promising to draw me away from reality if I let it. My mind grasped at a different world. My bare feet were sinking in mud. The Nile kissed my toes. Tiny fish dared to nibble the tips. But I smelled pavement and garbage and fuel. I was here and now, not then, and I needed to do something.

  My hand tightened on my asaya and I shot forward and slashed left. Kauket pulled herself out of reach. I slashed with the other end, but she knocked my weapon away with her hand.

  I needed to be faster, but this dress was too tight around my thighs. I kicked off my shoes. With a whirl of my asaya, I slashed a line through the fabric across the length of my leg, feeling relieved with the newfound freedom of movement.

  The masked goddess tsked at me. “Hmm. That looked couture.”

  I launched at her, whirling my asaya as fast as I could—up, right, behind me, left, in front of me, down—until confusion filled the goddess’s face when she couldn’t predict my moves. The asaya spun and my hand shot forward with a powerful taw spell that slammed into her chest. Kauket wailed in fury as she was forced back. She skidded to a crouching stop, her fingernails screeching against the pavement. She lifted her head and her shining eyes locked on mine. I leapt forward and swung the asaya in an arc toward Kauket’s chest, but a spell cast by the goddess smacked it out of my hand so hard my own weapon ripped a deep gash into my exposed thigh. I cried out in pain and one knee buckled beneath my weight. Blood poured down my leg.

  Hot adrenaline pushing me through my pain, I threw up my hand, casting a benu spell into the goddess’s face. She screeched as the blinding sunlight exploded like a bomb’s flash, illuminating the entire street. Kauket stepped aside, shielding her eyes and cursing.

  I reached toward the darkened sky, clenched my fist, and brought down a setekh spell. The lightning bolt cracked as it struck the goddess, whose screams were drowned by the spell’s resulting roar in the raging flash of light. It slammed through her body and into the ground, splitting a gorge that rocketed through the asphalt toward me. The force blasted me off my feet and I was blown backward through the air. I landed hard and the wind rushed from my lungs, leaving me gasping.

  A hush of darkness and quiet settled on the street, and in the distance, sirens wailed, growing louder and louder. Magic buzzed and crackled in the atmosphere like electricity. I caught my breath, rolled onto my side, and sat up. My hair had been torn from its chignon and was long and wild around my shoulders. Kauket lay on her back like a fallen angel, the charred black wings of her dress splayed and withered beneath her.

  “Ziva!”

  I turned my head toward the direction of Sayer’s panicked voice and called back, “I’m all right!”

  His face was bloodied and his tuxedo torn, but the kriosphinx looked worse. It scrambled some yards away from him, bugling a strangled, pained sound, its head jerking to its right over and over, reaching for the ax buried between its ribs.

  Kauket loosed a low, angry growl and stirred. As she pushed herself to her feet, her hair spilled over her shoulders. From behind her war mask of gold, her eyes glowed a violent red.

  “Ow,” Kauket grumbled with malice, and bared her shining fangs. “That stung.”

  Tires squealed as a stream of paddy wagons maneuvered around the smashed and abandoned cars. Officers poured out, guns at the ready.

  One of them, standing behind an open door, spoke into a megaphone. “I need everyone to move away from the—the—wild animals and lay their weapons on the ground.”

  I exchanged an uncertain look with Sayer. He said nothing but gave me a subtle shake of his head. I searched the area for Nasira and found her crouched in front of one of the beasts, both of them battered and bloody, their gazes set on each other, deadlocked.

  The kriosphinxes whined and something began to stir in the street—shadows and gloom, netherlight and pulsing magic. Kauket’s low chuckle curled the hairs on the back of my neck as she summoned her power. The officers shrank at the sight of the goddess of darkness, several lowering their guns to look at each other in fear, but some held courageously. She raised both trembling hands, as if to welcome the crowd, and her magic detonated like a bomb.

  The blast knocked the officers off their feet and charged into the ring of paddy wagons, shattering windows and headlights, exploding glass and ripping open doors off their hinges. I toppled to the ground and flung up my arms to shield my head from debris. The officers scrambled. Shots rang out and bullets embedded in netherworld flesh and twisted American metal.

  Kauket loosed a roar of frustration and transformed into her colossal cobra form with a flash of shadows and netherlight. The pandemonium in the street exploded into a violent riot of panic and madness. The goddess thrashed, hurling her pure-muscle body into the side of a car, sending it flying into the front of a building. It crashed and rolled down the stoop to slam into a streetlight. Kauket spread her hood and screamed, baring her fangs at the shell-shocked police officers.

  “Kauket!” I yelled and pulled Anubis’s amulet free from my asaya’s holster.

  Some horrible rasp and howl of rage erupted from deep within the goddess, a cry strangled by the lack of vocal cords in her serpent’s throat. I bolted, darting away from the police, weaving between smashed cars. I felt Kauket’s eyes burn lightening-hot on my back as she launched into pursuit.

  “Anubis,” I called breathlessly. “Anubis, I could use a hand here!”

  When I glanced behind me, the sight of the side-winding serpent smashing her way through parked cars and lamp-posts was enough to make me forget about the broken pavement and pebbles cutting my bare feet. I looked ahead to narrowly dodge the back of a truck, but I smashed into the sideview mirror, hitting it so hard it was torn free and my body careened to the ground. Kauket’s gigantic shadow soared over me as I fell, and she slid across the street and into a vendor’s cart, causing it to explode with goods.

  I scrambled backward, using the grill of a car to pull myself to my feet. Kauket shot toward me and transformed back into a woman to stomp in my direction with hellfire in her eyes.

  Another flash appeared between us and the goddess slid to a stop. A look of surprise lit up her eyes. The shadows dissipated, and I recognized the man in front of me.

  Power rolled from Anubis, spreading from him across the ground like a cold, dark inferno and I felt as afraid of him as I was of Kauket. Death and Darkness faced off and the world held its breath. Again, I was reminded of their unearthliness; they were not mortal, and they were more ancient than the rock this city was built upon.

  “Move aside,” Kauket ordered, the jewels and scales of her dress glittering in the city lights, “or I will cut through you.”

  “You don’t belong here,” Anubis replied, standing his ground, his back to me. “Return to the netherworld with your creatures and leave this human girl be.”

  “How bold you’ve grown,” the goddess of darkness sneered from behind her shining mask. “I was already thousands of years old when your mother whelped you, pup. You make a grave error daring to challenge me.”

  Anubis tilted his head to the side and oh, how I wished I could’ve seen the look on his face when he said, “After how miserably you fared against this neophyte Medjai, I’m not exactly shivering in fright of you.”

  Her eyes grew wide, filling with white, and her body swelled as though she would burst with rage.

  “Ziva! Ziva!”

  “Nasira!” I cried, hearing her voice behind me, and I turned, searching the street for her. “I’m here!”

  Kauket hesitated. She and I realized at the same time her kriosphinxes were gone. Nasira and Sayer burst onto the street and toward me, but they slowed when they caught sight of the immortals. Kauket took a few steps back, finding herself alone and at odds against another god and three Medjai.

  “Your stars will fade!” she shrieked and vanished in a swarm of shadows.

  Anubis faced me, a strange mixtur
e of worry and relief in his topaz eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I’m fine.”

  Nasira dropped to the ground in reverence, her body shaking with disbelief. “Lord Anubis. Thank you for your assistance tonight.”

  He offered her a shallow bow of his head. “It’s my honor to do so. The Medjai have long protected the mortal world.”

  “Well, I for one am very glad you answered when I called,” I told him. “I kept hitting her with everything I had, but . . .”

  “Kauket underestimated you,” Anubis said, his tone serious. “I’m glad she had the sense to flee. A fight between me and her here, in the middle of the city, would be disastrous. I don’t want to consider the collateral damage.”

  “Is she as old as she says?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “She is one of the original eight deities born at the beginning of time. As there came earth and sky, there came light and darkness.” He looked past our heads and down the street. “You must go.”

  We could hear shouts coming from around the corner, growing louder as they neared.

  “The police have reassembled,” Sayer said. “Let’s move.”

  We rushed toward where we left the Delage, limping, battered, and bruised, before we could be stopped and questioned, even arrested. Whatever the Medjai protocol was about that, there was no way I’d allow myself to get hauled away in handcuffs.

  “Did you get what you needed for the translation?” I asked Sayer as soon as we were safely inside the car with Nasira driving.

  He nodded from the passenger’s seat and presented the charcoal rubbings to reveal the markings. “The hieroglyphs I copied remained intact for the most part.” There were smudges here and there, but even my novice eye could make out the symbols. “I’ll transcribe them to a proper notebook once we’re back at headquarters.”

  My mouth twisted as I thought. “Where did Sweeney say he found the stela? The Ramesseum? Perhaps Nefertari’s true tomb is somewhere in that mortuary complex.”