Wrath of Aten

by S. A. Ashdown

  ‘Exactly.’

  Nikolaj grinned. ‘When do we leave? Don’t looked so surprised! We’re talking about Theo’s aunt and Isobel’s twin. That makes her a Clemensen.’

  Julian sat back in his chair. ‘Travelling is difficult right now so you have arrived at the perfect time. But you can open a portal and—’

  ‘No, I can’t. Did I forget to mention that I’m possessed by land-sprites? My magic is unreliable.’

  Michele licked his long teeth with his tongue. How was it possible for a vampire to look exhausted?

  ‘Maybe the coven could help?’ Nikolaj suggested. It would be risky but—

  Lorenzo came running into the kitchen. ’Nik! Hey, he’s in ’ere!’

  Followed by—

  ‘Redheart? Is that you?’ Nikolaj sprang to his feet.

  ‘Queen Aurelia and His Highness King Freyr request your immediate repatriation to Alfheim,’ Redheart announced.

  Nikolaj whooped. ‘Aurelia? Aurelia? She wants me back? Of course, let’s go!’

  Julian grabbed his arm. Michele blocked his path to Redheart. ‘Nikolaj is happy to return to Alfheim,’ the old vampire said through his bared fangs, ‘via Cairo.’

  25

  Mummy

  Lorenzo eagerly arched his bow, the arrow slotting into place. He felt the strength in his arms increasing as the sun ebbed over the horizon, plunging the desert compound into darkness. Power. Speed. He closed his eyes and imagined tearing over the sand dune and taking flight, dropping inside the barbed wire and electric gates, shredding necks and…

  Below him Michele ripped off his headgear, safe from the sun’s rays.

  At last, Redheart’s signal came. Aurelia’s bodyguard was useful to have around; the patrol outside the gates had learned first-hand the perils of fighting a chameleon-like Fae.

  Lorenzo eyed up his targets and released his arrow, a second notched and ready before he blinked. He emptied his quiver by the time the coven – led by Julian and Michele – breached the compound’s defences. As he prepared to join them, Lorenzo visualised his route, pleased to see the interior guards running in the wrong direction, having fallen for the coven’s illusions.

  He tore down the dune and leapt over the gate like it wasn’t even there. Raphael’s blood was potent enough, but Freyr’s – a god that dined on ambrosia – bestowed upon him another level of power. He hit the ground with a tuck and roll and raced inside the building a second before a guard flew over his head with a wave of Julian’s hand. Telekinesis, now that was a superpower.

  But the compound had witches and warlocks of their own. And guns.

  Lorenzo rounded a corridor – his mission required locating the actual facility where the Praefecti locked up powers stripped from disobedient Pneuma – into a hail of bullets.

  Oh shit.

  The bullets flew round him and then boomeranged back to the shooters. He glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘No need to thank me,’ said Julian as the falling bodies piled up along the corridor. Thanking would take too long anyway so Lorenzo snatched up the nearest gun.

  His humanity misted with the scent of blood and he could feel himself sliding down the dangerous path that Malachi had always intended for him.

  This is shaping up to be a fun evening.

  Remember why you’re doing this. This isn’t sport.

  He reached a door he couldn’t kick open on the top floor. ‘Wonderful.’

  Julian came up behind him, puffing and red-faced, a laminated card between his teeth as he tugged on a white lab coat. ‘Next time you take someone’s weapon,’ he said, ‘take his security pass too.’

  ‘’Ere, where’d you get the coat?’ Lorenzo noted the spatter of blood on the collar. ‘Never mind.’

  Julian pushed past him. ‘Anyone in there?’

  ‘No, sounds empty to me.’

  ‘Good, I’ll inspect. We have minutes until reinforcements arrive. Check on Nikolaj.’

  Lorenzo nodded, slung the machine gun on his back, climbed out of the window, and scrambled up to the roof, collecting the arrows he’d planted in a few…interesting places.

  He looked down upon the compound. The guards and staff were rallying against Michele and the coven, netting them in a web of armed contenders from every corner of the yard. ‘Where the heck are you, Nik?’

  Maria was slumped against Lori, clutching her stomach. Lorenzo could smell the blood from here. Michele zipped to her side and healed her but it cost him – a crossbow bolt ended up in his shoulder, though it had been on course for his chest.

  Nothing for it. Gotta shoot the bastards. Guns hadn’t exactly been on the curriculum when he’d been in the scouts, but he reckoned it couldn’t be too hard to kill people.

  But he hesitated. Distance made the act cowardly, unfair.

  They won’t hesitate to kill us, he thought, kneeling down at the edge of the roof.

  Redheart appeared behind him and shoved wax plugs into his ears just as the coven huddled together, forming an energetic shield above their heads.

  Nikolaj materialised on the outer wall of the compound. He waved manically at everyone below him and screamed into the megaphone in his hand. Except it wasn’t Nik screaming. No, it was so much worse. Lorenzo had suffered at the shrill preternatural screech of entombed land-sprites once before. This time the terrible, awesome, sonic terror was coming from Nik’s throat. Magnified.

  Redheart clamped her hands over Lorenzo’s head to reinforce the plugs. How was she resisting this? Lorenzo peeked over the side to see people collapsing like dominoes across the yard, passing out altogether while others flopped about like dying fish.

  The screams abated, plunging Lorenzo’s senses into a silence made louder by their absence.

  The coven’s shield melted away. Dizzy, Lorenzo stood up and called to them. ’Top floor!’ he yelled. ‘Redheart, come with me. Julian’s already inside.’

  They found Julian frantically typing into a computer. ‘How’s it going?’ Lorenzo asked.

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised my security clearance has been revoked,’ Julian said.

  The storage facility was long and open, a warehouse in its own right, filled with rows upon rows of sealed vaults, an endless maze of Pneuma magic. The air itself pulsed with it.

  ‘It’s like a mortuary,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Where magic comes to die.’

  Julian slammed his fist onto the keyboard. ‘This is no use. We need another plan.’

  Michele ran into the room, the Lamia flooding in after him. ‘Well?’

  ‘We need a way to locate Elspeth’s magic. I can’t access the system.’

  ‘Blood,’ Lorenzo said, ‘can’t you sniff her magic out?’

  ‘It’s not blood, it’s Essence,’ Michele snapped.

  ‘But it’s related to genetics, right?’ Theo’s magic was passed down his family line, and he was the ultimate source of the stuff. ‘And Theo united his powers to the coven…’

  ‘We are connected to his Essence,’ Lori said, catching on. ‘And Elspeth is Theo’s aunt.’

  Julian abandoned the computer. ‘Of course, amplify Theo’s link and you may be able to track it.’

  ‘I’d hurry up,’ Lorenzo said. ‘The guards that aren’t dead are waking up.’

  Theo’s vampire-witches linked hands and began to chant in Latin, moving with careful steps across the length of the warehouse. Nikolaj burst through the door, his hair fanning out, defying gravity, his eyes cycling through a spectrum of colour. He chanted too, only in Elvish, in an attempt – Lorenzo guessed – to bolster the coven’s link to Theo.

  The sealed vaults began to glow as static electricity built up along the walls. The hairs on his body responded too, acting like Nikolaj’s hair and enhancing his own unease. Without Nik and his sprites outside to keep everyone comatose, they were running out of time.

  Once the electric crackles had progressed halfway through the warehouse, they sharply veered up, a storm cloud focused on one grid of vaults. Niko
laj floated into the air, muttering, and flew to the compartment nearest the ceiling. ‘I would duck, if I were you,’ he said – with many voices.

  Nikolaj flung himself backwards as if strapped to the tip of a rocket. In a way he was, as every ounce of his Elvish magic poured from his fingertips, pushing against the lock.

  Lorenzo dived to the floor as Nikolaj’s back crashed into the opposite wall. The vault door exploded off its hinges.

  And, well, half of the warehouse.

  Dust filled Lorenzo’s lungs and beside him the rest of the coven were coughing and spluttering in the moonlight.

  Nikolaj landed, a sphere of swirling magic secured in the crook of his arm.

  Their luck had run out. Lorenzo heard the click of loading guns and more besides. ‘Redheart, it’s time we bounce!’

  Redheart slammed her palm on the centre of her chest. The air around her ripped apart, creating a portal in the very matter of Midgard itself. ‘Let’s pray that orb takes us to its owner,’ she said as they piled in after Nikolaj. Redheart and Lorenzo acted as the rear guard.

  Lorenzo glimpsed a man in a turban, the barrel of his gun pointing straight at him.

  He saw the bullet exploding out in slow motion as the portal zipped the fabric of the universe back together from the ground up.

  Lorenzo grinned as the bullet hit the teeth of the portal, sending it straight back into the man’s chest.

  He was pretty sure it didn’t count as murder when the victim shot himself.

  Redheart caught Lorenzo as he toppled out of the portal, almost tripping onto the mummy.

  Wait, he thought, the mummy?

  He straightened up, quickly assessing his surroundings. ‘Are we in a tomb?’

  Michele and Julian were standing on each side of the mummy’s head, their grim expressions illuminated by a series of torches that Nikolaj lit with his magic. ‘Whoever that is’ – Lorenzo coughed, banging his chest to dislodge the dust from his lungs – ‘smells a lot like Theo.’

  ‘It’s Elspeth,’ Michele whispered. He laid his hand upon the mummy’s bound head. The skin on his hand hissed, blistering. ‘Cazzo!’ It didn’t heal. ‘Fuck!’

  ‘She’s protected,’ Julian said, ‘but why?’

  ‘Er, guys,’ Lorenzo said, pointing at the paintings running around the tomb. ‘Don’t suppose any of you can read hieroglyphs? That one in the middle looks a lot like Akhen.’

  Nikolaj – who’d been standing in the corner with the orb – traced the mural with his fingers. ‘Not only Akhen,’ he said. ‘Nefertiti – his Great Royal Wife. The one my ancestors killed.’

  The room fell silent as Nikolaj deciphered the rest of the pictograms. ‘It’s a story about resurrection,’ he said. ‘It’s a lover’s tale.’ He halted by the last series of images depicting a naked man and woman – the woman’s hair russet-red – making love as the enormous tree behind them burned. ‘Yes, yes, that’s it. Yes, it makes sense.’

  ‘What does?’ Michele growled, holding his injured hand limp in front of his chest. ‘Talk sense, Elf.’

  ‘Two people will survive Ragnarök, according to the Northern Tradition. Líf and Lífþrasir, a couple who will usher in the New Age. It appears that Akhen believes he and his Queen shall inherit whatever is left after the Nine Realms burn.’

  ‘But she’s dead,’ Michele said, feeling out the answer, ‘so if Akhen is to fulfil his dream, Nefertiti’s Vital Essence – wherever that is – shall require a body.’

  ‘But why Elspeth?’ Julian asked.

  Nikolaj shrugged. ‘Perhaps because of her connection to the Clemensens and to Theo – Elspeth is as good as his mother, genetically. It’s plausible that Akhen requires a link to the Lífkelda – through a Gatekeeper – to meet the conditions of the myth. Or maybe Akhen needed a strong vessel and the opportunity arose.’

  ‘Or maybe he fancies her,’ Lorenzo added.

  Michele and Julian glared at him.

  ‘How do we wake her up?’ Michele asked. ‘Does it say?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘My Queen may have a way,’ Redheart said. Nikolaj perked up at the mention of Aurelia.

  ‘I’m not trusting anyone to wake her but me,’ Michele hissed. ‘Julian, use your telekinesis to open the binds around her mouth.’

  ‘It’s too risk—’

  In a blur Michele filched the orb from Nikolaj, tore into his bad hand to release his blood, and broke the orb with his fang, pouring his blood into its contents. ‘Now.’

  Julian cursed and unpicked the bandages around Elspeth’s face. Michele eased open her mouth and tipped the fizzing cloud of magic and his vampire blood into her throat. He cast the empty orb aside.

  ‘If this doesn’t work…’ Julian began.

  ‘We’re out of options,’ Michele said. ‘It won’t be long until someone figures out we’re here. Who knows what taking her outside the tomb might do.’

  Lorenzo steeled himself for a sudden gasp or a scream, even a messy explosion. A minute passed in silence.

  The he realised he’d been counting the seconds against a heartbeat – one that had only just started.

  26

  De-Nile

  1336-1332 BC

  ‘Why did you bring me here?’ Akhenaten yelled at the sky, annoyed. The sun disk couldn’t rid itself of the allure of staring at its own reflection in the waters of the Nile, but this time Aten had demanded he go to the river – alone.

  Aten returned no reply. Akhen huffed and leaned back in the little boat, arranging his robes. The fits had worsened in the last year. Every day he was forced to watch his wife’s murder. Every day he was warned about the destruction of everything he’d fought for.

  ‘Dear child.’

  Akhen froze as the green-skinned face, which had haunted him since childhood, rose out of the Nile, her locks made from salty reeds. ‘Mother?’

  Not his official mother. No. This sea-beast was his father’s lover, the bestower of his visions, the one whose bloodline connected Akhen with her grandfather, the Sun God. ‘Wadjet? Is that you?’ What had possessed him to come here at night?

  ‘It is I.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you in a long time.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been busy trying to find the answer to Grandfather’s riddles.’

  ‘You have foreseen the future? You have witnessed the death of my Queen?’

  His mother pulled herself – naked – into the boat. While his people believed in her as a snake, he knew she was a water-serpent. ‘Your mission has been a failure, dear child – it aggrieves me as much as you. Your city will fall and Nefertiti will be buried beneath it.’

  Akhen hissed. ‘I forbid it.’

  ‘Calm yourself,’ Wadjet said, touching his arm. ‘I have found an answer. Lean close, my child. I do not wish to speak such secrets loudly lest they carry in the wind.’

  He bowed his head as his mother turned her lipless mouth to his ear. Her hand pressed against the other side of his head. ‘This must be.’

  Then she shoved him off his boat and into the Nile. He thrashed his limbs, vainly clawing for the surface as another serpent’s sleek scales wrapped around his neck and waist and dragged him to the bottom of the riverbed. He fought as he was pulled out to sea, blinded by darkness, his lungs protected by the beast in a way he couldn’t fathom. He lost his sense of time and his will to fight, accepting his mother and Aten had a plan that would make this fate worthwhile.

  And then the serpent slammed him into a bone-dry sarcophagus at the bottom of the ocean. This was where his transformation took place, entangled in the serpent’s limbs and forced to feed upon its milk until he was strong enough to rise again and fulfil his destiny. Fire and water would come together to raise Yggdrasil and birth the New Age. He was the union of Wadjet and Aten, the very symbol the pharaohs wore upon their crowns with pride.

  His mother waited with him, her watery speech seeping into his prison-womb, reporting the slow disintegration of the city he had built, and Nefertiti’s
struggle with those who wished to return to the worship of the old gods. But Wadjet was unable to set foot on land to aid his bride; her sun-kissed blood was the bridge between the Midgard Serpent and Akhen, and it needed to be shed to complete the bond.

  Her life, for his immortality.

  When he ascended anew, he found his family still mourning his death. They didn’t know, couldn’t know what he had become. He carried the sea inside of his veins, and the sun in his heart, but he was a ghost to his people, his true face hidden behind a lie granted to him by Wadjet.

  Nefertiti would see through it, he was sure, and embrace her beloved with recognition and joy. His excitement grew as he infiltrated the palace with ease, nothing but a shadow to the guards at her door. He ran to her bed and pulled back the drapes, passion building in his loins as he yanked back the bedcover.

  ‘Where is she?’ he yelled, frightening the courtesan girl from her slumber. ‘Where is my wife?’

  The girl stared at him with wide, sleepy eyes. He struck her across the cheek, a slow rage building in his chest. ’Where is Nefertiti?’

  ‘Gone to speak with the visitors from the north.’

  ‘What visitors?’

  ‘They arrived this morning.’

  ‘Where are they? Tell me, stupid girl!’

  ‘At the temple!’

  Akhen flung the girl onto the bed and ran, shoving past the courtiers and servants that crossed his path. He sped down the Royal Road, heart pounding in his mouth as his sandals slapped against the ground.

  He heard the screaming before he reached the House of Rejoicing. When he arrived inside, the priests were running around like headless chickens. Akhen flew though the building towards the High Altar, falling to his knees before the horrific sight.

  His sun-blinded choir tearing at their hair and moaning instead of singing.

  His Great Royal Wife – his beautiful Queen – her throat slit over the High Altar, her blood drenching the slab and dripping onto the floor.