Forever

by Jacquelyn Frank

  But one week had not been enough. Not by half. And he had not dealt with it well at all. He had failed her then, failed to protect her and keep her safe in life as well as in his heart. But this time he would not fail. This time Odjit had been dead for three weeks and this would be the safest incarnation they would enjoy in perhaps five or six hundred years.

  But none of that would matter if he couldn’t convince her to be a part of this future he found himself captain to. He was home now he thought, as he looked around the grand kitchen and the casual dining nook within it. Beyond was a large formal dining room and other rooms equally made for a big household. And the royal household was always quite large. Now that he was there, the house would fill with friends and staff, and the machinery of a government would begin to take place.

  Not that Ramses did not do well in his stead. As far as he was concerned either of them could have been designated to rule over their people in perpetuity. But long ago the people of the Politic had chosen him. The Templars …

  He despised this war, he thought with vehemence. He was sick to death of it. Why could they not see reason? Why did they fear the right to live their lives for themselves so much that they wished fervently for the god Amun to rise up and destroy them if they were not well behaved? It sickened him that half his people were wrapped up in this blind faith, this dark age of being oppressed by beliefs tempered into them by the fist of that zealot harpy who called herself a priestess. Why could they not see her for what she truly was?

  He had asked himself these questions over and over, incarnation after incarnation and still there was no answer.

  Except …

  “Docia!” he called out as he moved from the kitchen into the main body of the house. The house was all new to him, so he wasn’t exactly certain where he was going to find her. It was a great frustration for him, to feel like he wasn’t completely in charge of matters close to him. But, he counseled himself, patience and time would see him where he needed to be, would help give him the strength and fortifications he would need if …

  “Docia!”

  “What?! Quit hollering at me! Jeez.” Docia shot the command at him with all the exasperation a baby sister could muster, though she was well into her twenties, and her Bodywalker Tameri was almost as ancient as he was.

  “I had a question for Tameri. She has told you that there are others like her who want to defect from the Templars?” At her nod he hurried on. “Just exactly how many Templars are we speaking about?”

  Since Docia was also only three weeks into her Blending, she had to go quiet for a moment and access her Bodywalker’s memory. He watched as her face turned incredibly peaceful, so unlike the turbulent energy of his sister. He realized then that he had missed her terribly since she had done what he ought to have done from the start and had come out to New Mexico with Ramses. It tickled him, actually, that Ramses had, earwww.ballantinebooks.comesihlyly on in their Blending, mistaken Tameri for Hatshepsut. True, these things were hard to discern at times, but the idea that his astounding and dynamic queen would choose someone like the adorable and slightly mousy persona of his sister … well, it wasn’t a likely fit. Of course he and Hatshepsut had once altered sexes, he resurrecting in the body of a female and she in a male, just to see what it would be like. The novelty had made them ravenous for each other and the experience of seeing things from the other’s perspective had been, in a word, wild. The sex alone had been outstanding. But he also remembered it as one of the most turbulent choices in their relationship.

  God, he missed her. He craved her so terribly. Even now his body still ached with the arousal being close to Marissa had engendered. They must be together, he thought with no little amount of heat. Marissa and Hatshepsut must come together. It was the only solution he would be satisfied with. Yes, intelligent, curvy redheads were dying all the time, but he wanted this redhead and no other. This redhead had tormented Jackson with her very presence for so long … and there was a reason for near you when

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Awakening.

  There it was, a small papyrus scroll, probably the most ancient piece of written history in the archive he was presently sitting in. Perhaps even the most ancient of all their written prayers, spells, and other such literature in any of their archives anywhere on Earth; and to be sure, there were quite a few, Kamenwati thought as he held open the reedy paper with the barest tips of his fingers, not wanting anything—such as bacteria or the natural oils of his skin—to come into contact with it. Something this frail and old should not even be touched at all, Kamen thought with a grimace. The Bodywalkers, both Politic and Templar, agreed on one thing, and that was that their history should be preserved at all costs and with all the respect it deserved. To that end there were a dozen of archives dotted across the world. The methods used to preserve what was in them outshone those of any antiquities museum. Light, temperature, limited contact. There had once been a single tremendous library, but after the great London fire had come within a hairsbreadth of claiming all they had collected, they had broken them down into twelve locations. And when the war had begun between the Templars and the Politic, there had been a huge series of battles over each and every one until all of the spoils were captured and relocated into secrecy, each keeping the other from accessing whatever parts of the archive they had wrested away.

  It had hurt the Templars the most, however, when the Politic had ended up with just under seventy-five percent of the ancient written material, because much of their power came from the incantations and prayer spells such as the one he held so gingerly. Maybe if they had the larger majority of the works they would have gained the upper hand in this blasphemous war.

  But there was no point in wasting so much time thinking about what might have been. He must now focus on what was.

  It was perhaps preposterous to think a spell from ancient Egyptian times could have any kind of hand in reviving Odjit. It was more likely that Selena, Odjit’s host, had suffered such severe brain damage from the dramatic loss of blood that had occurred when that lowborn mortal beast had nearly decapitated her. That was a physical result, not a magical one. And this spell seemed to be meant to awaken someone from a spell of sleeping or perhaps even paralysis. A useful spell to have regardless of what it did for Odjit, but it was still very much worth trying for her benefit.

  He carefully returned the small scroll to its airtight container, then rose to make his way back to his mistress’s side. Of course he made a small detour, stopping in to see what Chatha was up to. To his momentary pique, expression on his facemiibig Kamen saw that the human male was no longer strapped down to the floor. All that was left of his having been there was a very wide lake of blood that was slowly making its way to the drain in the center of the floor. There was a reason Odjit called this her wetworks room.

  After a moment he realized that the pat pat pat sound of dripping blood was not that of the fluid draining away. He saw the droplets hitting the wet floor and looked up.

  Apparently Chatha had grown bored of doing his bloodletting exercises on the floor. He had the human hung up by his ankles, ropes binding his arms down fast to his body in such a thick nonstop coil it was reminiscent of mummification bandaging. The mortal was unconscious, probably on the cusp of death yet again, while Chatha experimented on him for fascination’s sake. To Kamen’s sudden disgust, he realized Chatha had sewn the human’s lips shut.

  “Too loud,” Chatha said by way of explanation as he gave the hanging man a push, sending him spinning and swinging, blood spattering everywhere. Kamen had to step back to avoid becoming part of the bath. “Is it time yet?” Chatha’s eyes were feverish with the question. But Kamen knew Chatha was having far more fun toying with the man than he would if he were given permission to end the man’s life.

  Kamen’s fury toward the insolent creature had eased somewhat, but he was still not satisfied. He could not be satisfied as long as his mistress lay still as death and trapped in an oblivion worse th
an the Ether.

  And that was what was at the crux of this whole agonizing ordeal. At some point he was going to have to decide whether he should keep waiting, keep trying to bring her back to him … or take the life of her host and send Odjit back into the Ether for another hundred years so that she could then be reborn.

  He must delay that choice as long as he could. He knew that if he were forced to push her back to the Ether, it would mean the end for him in this lifetime. Even with her there it had been an effort to keep a grasp on this existence. Had he not loathed having Odjit face the Politic alone, he wouldn’t even have bothered with leaving the Ether in the first place.

  “Do whatever you will,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “Keep him or kill him, it no longer matters to me. He will suffer in the afterlife for what he has done—far worse than anything you have subjected him to.”

  Chatha’s face widened into a beatific smile, all dimples and innocence, his eyes squinting shut. If those eyes had remained open, Kamen knew, there would be nothing innocent within them. The soul of the Down’s male was completely subjugated, no doubt scarred into paralysis as the psychopathic monster dwelling inside of him showed him horrors his innocent mind and soul would never have dreamed of, never mind committing them with his own hand.

  That left a sour taste in Kamenwati’s mouth. On one hand he had to admire the wolf hiding in the innocent sheep’s clothing. It was a stroke of brilliance that allowed him almost carte blanche entry into places and into peoples’ trust that would normally not be so easy to access. On the other … Chatha was as evil an entity as anything he had ever seen. If there were a way to destroy Chatha’s soul forever, Kamen would very much be inclined to see it done. And then he would see it done to Menes, an act that would end the war in a single stroke. Without Menes to flock to, the Politic would swiftly unravel … just as the Templars tended to unravel” she stammered body g. whenever Kamen and Odjit were killed and sent into the Ether. But to do so with permanence … to make a spirit rest once and for all in the afterlife …

  Perhaps he would simply use the method where he craved using it most.

  On himself.

  “Listen, ya big hunk of ignoramus, if you don’t put me down right this minute I’m going to kick you in the balls again and this time your kids are going to be born with black eyes! You feeling me, mister?”

  The loud pronouncement rang throughout the house, alerting Marissa instantly of her sister’s arrival. Marissa had been hiding from Jackson, keeping herself closed away in a sunroom just off the porch that wrapped around the entire house. She found that amusing, actually. What use would these people have for a sunroom? If the sun touched them …

  She shuddered, thinking that he had actually had the gall to ask her if she wanted to be like him. To tell her that was his plan. Well, he could just take his plan and shove it where he didn’t have to worry about the sunshine. She wanted no part of any of this. It infuriated her to think of how much he had screwed up her life and, by association, so many others. Leo Alvarez for one. Where was he? Was he even alive? If what Jackson had told her was true, then it wasn’t very likely. She had met the darkly mysterious man only a few weeks ago … well, she had seen him many times before that, meeting up with Jackson, sitting in his chair with his feet up, looking for all the world like he owned the entire precinct. She had actually met him when Docia had gone missing and had found him to be quite intimidating when the fate of someone he loved was in jeopardy.

  Now Marissa came hurrying through the rooms, the clicking of her heels sounding loud on the tiled foyer floor. She saw Lina up in the air, way way up over the shoulder of the gigantic man who was holding her. He had an arm bound tightly around her legs at the knees, presumably to keep her from kicking him, and she was hanging headfirst down his back.

  “I swear to god, I would bite you on your ass if I was close enough!” Then she muttered. “Probably chip a tooth on the damn thing. What the hell have you got in these jeans, a coupla boulders for ass cheeks?”

  “Lina!”

  Hearing her sister’s voice made Lina swing wildly around, pulling herself upright in an impressive show of abdominal muscles and grabbing Asikri by the hair to hold herself up so she could see Marissa rushing toward her.

  “Holy Hannah! They got you too? What the hell—” She broke off when Jackson came into the room. Her eyes widened and she zeroed in on Marissa. “Never gonna happen, huh?”

  “Lina, will you be quiet?” Marissa hissed at her, working furiously to keep from blushing. So what? So she’d had a few illicit thoughts about a good-looking man. Big deal! An active imagination was perfectly normal. Sexual fantasies starring the good-looking man were also perfectly normal. The good-looking man himself? Not normal. Far from normal. Too damn not normal for her. “Will you put her down please?” she asked Asikri.

  He growled, which she could only assume was a reluctant assent. Without giving her time to plan any lethal strikes on her way down, Asikri practically tossed Angelina onto her feet. Lina immediately ran up to hug her sister in a desperately tight embrace.

  “He threw my phone away. A perfectly good iPhone!” she spat over her shoulder at him. “You owe me a new phone! And I want a pink case to go with it! Pink camouflage!”

  “There is no such thing as pink camouflage,” Asikri ground out. “Camouflage by nature of the word means an outfit worn to blend in to the surroundings. And unless you’re in a cotton candy factory, sweetheart, pink doesn’t blend in to your surroundings!”

  “Great. Not only is he rude, inconsiderate, and a fine rendition of the Incredible Hulk, he has no imagination whatsoever!”

  “Lina!”

  Angelina started when Marissa’s tone came out sounding close to furious. Well, she was furious. This whole situation sucked and Lina being there only exacerbated her knowledge of it.

  “Marissa, what are we doing here?” Lina asked with a very pronounced pout.

  “There’s … uh … been a development,” she said carefully, not certain how much she could or should tell Lina.

  “Your sister witnessed a crime,” Jackson said, lying easily and using the cop voice that officers liked to adopt when they wanted to be seen as very official and very serious. “It involves some pretty bad people and when they find out what she knows and that she’s willing to testify to it, it will put you both in a lot of danger. So … we’re putting you both into witness protection.”

  “Witness pro—Oh, hell no! Mari, come on! I have a life! Shouldn’t this be my choice?”

  “No,” Marissa said shortly.

  The finality of the word made Lina go absolutely silent. And that was a very, very peculiar thing for her. Marissa felt everyone looking at her, most especially Jackson. The Egyptian pharaoh. God, this sounded like such a joke! But she had seen firsthand that it wasn’t. And given that Jackson had just lied to her sister, it was very clear that he didn’t want her to know who and what this house was filled with. It would be interesting to see how they were going to manage to keep her very bright and very nosy sister in the dark. She should just tell them to give it up from the start.

  “Come on,” she said, putting an arm around her sister’s shoulders and leading her away from the group. “It’s only temporary. It won’t be that bad. I need to know you’re safe, though.”

  “Tell me, what was it that you saw?”

  Marissa lied by telling the truth. “I saw someone get killed.” Of course Jackson had been the one doing the killing, but understandably so.

  “Oh honey, are you okay?” Lina asked with concern, wrapping her arm around Marissa a at their prie

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “It’ll be light soon. You think you’ve got this covered?” Jackson asked Max, who stood facing him, Ram, and Asikri. Max was one of the very few human mortals who knew exactly what his employers were. Throughout the years they had learned it was best to guard themselves while they slept. Not that Odjit and her kind could walk in daylight any more than the
y could, but she was not above using human assassins to come after them when they were most vulnerable. The house had sun-sensing glass in the windows that kept it dark during the day so they could defend themselves within the confines of their home. But of course, glass could easily break; it was best to have an alternate security force since the various expression on his face. It was ibig Gargoyles sitting as sentries on the properties were as useless in daylight as the Bodywalkers, literally turned to stone at the touch of the sun.

  But Maxwell was the son of a man whose family had been privy to the Bodywalker secret throughout the generations. His family had protected Menes and his loved ones through many centuries. It seemed strange sometimes that he knew more about Maxwell’s lineage than Maxwell himself did. But Max didn’t need to know where he had come from in order to do his job. And he was very good at his job.

  “How hard can it be to keep a young lady entertained?” At Asikri’s snort of derision he said, “I’m thinking as long as I don’t throw her over my shoulder we should be fine.” He smirked at Asikri. “I’ll take her shopping on your credit card. It’ll keep her very happy for at least a few days. She’s damn pretty too. Maybe I’ll take her to Bermuda.”

  “You’ll show some respect,” Asikri grumbled roughly.