Inwardly, though, Shireen’s mind was in turmoil. By Sraosa, the god of the afterlife, she’d taken solace in the knowledge that her sister would be protected, but, as anyone in her situation would feel, her faith had been shaken. All those to be brought back from the dead with the Book of Eternity had, so far, failed, and she feared her powers were too weak to preserve her sister’s soul. Regardless of the confidence she lacked, she didn’t have a choice. Her dominant hand twitched with anticipation.
The room was large and completely silent; the various priests scattered across the marble didn’t even dare to breathe. Each man was bedecked in gold robes to stand behind Shireen for the ritual, but it was evident that they were reluctant. Use of the Book of Eternity for this purpose had angered the Gods before and they knew this sacrifice could, and would, bring the wrath of the God of Darkness and personification of evil itself, Angra Mainyu, down upon them. Lady Shireen had warned them all earlier that this was inevitable. Fortunately, the priests were devoted enough to her that they had agreed to help despite the risk.
At the far end of the room, a stone table was organized in the center of a plethora of offerings to the Gods, from flowers to the preserved organs of rams. The table was grey, but stained with the remnants of blood from past offerings, all of which was unseen beneath the long, white silk of Ziba’s robes. The younger girl’s hair, as fair as the glorious desert sunshine, cascaded over the edges of the table in long ringlets, brushing silently against the floor. Her chest rose and fell evenly with each of her breaths and her long eyelashes painted black half moons against her porcelain cheeks. Coal symbols marked her forehead and cheekbones for the ceremony.
The priests in gold advanced toward the altar ahead of the High Priestess, beginning to chant the spell in Old Persian, “Spenta Mainyu who breathes life, now releases you. May our holy sister, Ziba, be held in the safe, merciful arms of the Gods, and be returned to the land of the living anew. Deliver her from the lust of Angra Mainyu. Protect her, your holiest servant. Spenta Mainyu who breathes life…”
Shireen picked up the chanting as she approached the altar and lifted the long dagger on the altar into her hand. She stared down at the petite form with an expression that could freeze the sea, and brought the dagger up into position over her sister’s body. Shireen’s free hand pushed passed page after page of the Book of Eternity beside Ziba’s body until she found the spell to bring a soul back from the dead.
As she flipped through the pages, the body on the stone began to stir and a light voice murmured, “Shireen?”
Ziba’s unusually blue eyes stared up at the High Priestess and filled with tears. Her sister bit the inside of her mouth to keep her own emotions behind closed doors and continued to read. With the words of the blessings on her lips, Shireen lifted the ceremonial dagger above her head while Ziba looked on without any other option. The other men and women standing around the altar inconspicuously closed their eyes and didn’t look again until the screaming had subsided.
It seemed to Lady Shireen that the stain of blood sprung forth from Ziba’s white robes before the damage had even been done. The dagger came down swiftly into Ziba’s chest, bringing forth an ear-splitting screech that would haunt Shireen until the day she died as she watched the life leave her sister’s hypnotic eyes.
But, she knew it was for the best.
Even as she waited, though, she never felt another sting of doubt over her powers until the last moment. She had hoped for a small sign or hint that the ceremony had been successful, but there was nothing. She had expected the white vapor of her sister’s spirit to float into the jar they had set forth for that exact purpose, but it never happened. Instead, the cork tied to the bottle’s neck closed the opening on its own, closing off any sanctuary to Ziba’s soul. The entire building began to shake like an earthquake beneath their feet, and the sound of a man’s cry of pain reverberated through the tense air. All at once, they knew that Angra Mainyu, the immortal lover of the newly deceased Ziba, had found out what they had done to the young priestess.
All at once, they knew they would suffer for it.
Claire Strong bolted upright in bed, skin slick with a sheen of sweat, heart racing. The back of her throat burned with the memory of a scream, a feeling she’d become grossly familiar with in the previous few months, and, just like all those other nights she’d been plagued with this nightmare, she reached blindly through the dark for the glass of water on her nightstand. She downed the entire glass, coughing when she sucked in an accidental breath. The teenager threw her legs off the side of the bed, doubling over to expel the liquid in her lungs. She squinted away the burning tears in her eyes when the light suddenly flickered on.
It was every night, now, that her dreams turned her waking world into a hell. With each passing day, she was becoming more and more exhausted, physically as well as mentally, and she’d been late to school so much that her first hour teacher just taught her after school instead. The administrators didn’t bother with detention, anymore, since her father always called to get her out of it, anyway. She’d been sent to the guidance office so many times, she had a weekly rotation.
They told her it was stress that brought the dreams on. That she dreamt of her best friends in period character because she was dealing with their impending separation in a ‘different’ way. Their graduation would be upon them in a few, short months. They’d have the summer, then, they’d be going to college. Claire would be attending County College. Her best friends would be leaving New Jersey for Columbia in the fall, and she’d be alone until Thanksgiving. She would’ve loved going with them, but her lone parental figure had assured her that it just wasn’t in the budget.
Though it was a concern that weighed on her when she woke, she knew it wasn’t what caused her nightly concern.
“Claire!” the unmistakable voice of her father called above the slam of her door against the wall. She jumped and her coughing fit continued with a new fervor, but she stayed seated on the bed, waiting for him to take a seat beside her. His hand rubbed soothingly up and down her back while he held her inhaler before her eyes. Frantically, she grasped for it, breathing slowly in and out. Her head spun, but, slowly, she regained her grasp on the real world.
“Baby, we can’t keep doing this,” Pierce Strong sighed, watching his daughter breathe unsteadily without her rescue inhaler.
He was a tall man, around forty years old with thin, grayish hair. His blue eyes were filled with concern and rimmed with dark bags, having spent many nights awake with her. He wore a full pajama set; he’d made the switch from underwear when she’d started having night terrors in anticipation of sleepless nights with her.
Claire burned with humiliation, wishing she could go a week without waking him in a panic. She knew as long as they were living together, though, that it would never happen. Worrying her friends and family was what she did best, ever since she was born.
She’d always been sickly, it ran in the family, and it terrified her father, especially since her mother’s death. Her mother had died in childbirth, bringing a four pound, two-ounce baby with asthma, congenital heart defects, and an inferiority complex into the world.
“I…I know,” she stuttered, the shakiness in her voice a product of her speech impediment rather than her struggle for breath.
“I think,” he took a long breath, “maybe, we should look into a psychiatrist.”
“No!” she cried, back suddenly turning erect. “No! I’m n…not crazy!”
He tried, unsuccessfully, to comfort her. “Shh, shh, I know. I know. You’re not crazy.”
She fervently shook her head breathing another puff from her inhaler. “I don’t n…need a doctor!”
He tucked her head under his chin, gently rocking her. “Shh, I know. Shh. It’s not that. You’re not crazy. But, sweetheart, it’s every night now. Maybe a doctor can shine some light on—”
“I don’t need a d…doctor!”
“Alright! Okay,” he murmured, kissing
the top of her head. “No doctor, I get it. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she grumbled, falling over onto her side, though she desperately didn’t want to go back to sleep. Her father stood, crossing the room quickly. He turned in the doorway, flipping the light switch.
“Try to get some sleep, sweetheart.”
She curled up, facing the opposite wall. “You, too.”
The door creaked shut, reminding Claire that she was alone. She didn’t let her eyes close, staring at the alarm clock beside her. She could still feel that knife hitting home in her chest, right in the heart. Three a.m. She’d have to be getting up for school in four hours. Growling in frustration, and giving up on any chance of peace for the rest of the night, she forced herself to her feet and made her way to the bathroom.
She didn’t make sound when she walked down the hall, but, even if she had, she knew her father wouldn’t care. He was a deep sleeper. The first thing she caught in the huge bathroom mirror when she walked in was her haggard appearance. Her face was sallow and her hair was a wild mess on her head. She noted dryly that she looked like the bride of Frankenstein. Shivering with distaste, she turned away from the mirror to turn on the shower.
Steam quickly filled the room, already soothing her tense body. She turned back to the mirror and froze.
A huge stain of red began to mar her white shirt just over her heart and, as she watched, it deepened. Pain split her chest like a knife and, horrified, she clawed at her shirt as it sopped up more precious blood. She screamed, but her body began to sink limply toward the floor, preparing itself for inevitable death.
“No!”
Claire’s eyes snapped open to the shrill cry of her alarm clock her white shirt flawless and her body curled in the same way she’d fallen asleep. She squinted against the blinding light coming in through the window and realized that she was late for school. Again.
Chapter Three
London, England; December 20th, 2011
The timing had been perfect.
Closing had come about an hour before and only two guards remained in the silent building, awaiting the replacements that would be relieving them in another half hour.
Harris and Reyes had worked this shift together every night, excluding weekends, for five years, and the two had become good friends. Both men had been sitting in the security room, eyes flickering between the wall of surveillance feeds and the portable small screen television Harris had brought from home, when the lights and video monitors concurrently died. Cursing softly under his breath, Harris stood in the dark and pulled the small flashlight from his belt, suddenly hyper aware of the limited space around him.
"The back-up generator'll take care of it," Reyes assured him, lazily stretching back in his chair and rifling through his pockets for batteries. "Just give it a minute."
Henry Harris was the older and much larger guard, just shy of fifty and well over six feet tall. Despite his age, he was a burly man with a permanently angry expression on his face, unless you, by a miracle, got him to laugh. His hair was salt and pepper, but only where he allowed it to show. In order to beat impending baldness, he’d shaved his head back in college and had never gone back. Short stubble covered his head and grew longer toward his chin, around which he had organized a neat beard. Small, dark eyes were sunken into his withering face.
Fred Reyes, on the other hand, was comparatively meek. The younger man had only just celebrated his twenty ninth birthday the previous week and was still cleaning up his apartment from the surprise party his brother had thrown him, one Coors Light bottle at a time. Reyes stood above average height but resembled more of a toy soldier than a security guard while standing beside Harris. His long, wiry muscles swam in the extra material of his black uniform. He wore his hat over his head, masking his shaggy, dark hair, and allowing only his dull brown eyes to show. Reyes was clean-shaven, retaining a boyish quality that Harris lacked.
“Do you have any Double A's?” Reyes inquired, finally giving up on his pockets with a deep, dramatic sigh.
“Just take 'em out of the remote,” Harris grunted back. “The generator should have come on by now.”
“The rain might've blown out the box,” Reyes shrugged, suddenly pointedly interested in his uniform's broken belt loop.
Harris grit his teeth, pulling back his sleeve to study his watch. Realizing he couldn’t leave the generator for his replacement, he resolved to go, and by the look on Reyes’s face, he’d be going alone. Fixing his hat upon his bald head, he turned on his heel to leave, despite Reyes’s protests. “Harris!” Reyes called as his friend vanished through the door. “The night guy’ll get it! Harris!”
“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” the officer vowed with a roll of his eyes. “Find the batteries,” he added.
Navigating through the blackened halls of the museum was difficult with only a flashlight, but Harris had memorized every door and crevice so attentively that he could’ve done it with his eyes closed. The back-up generator existed in the basement and was only accessible through the ward devoted entirely to Greek artifacts and literature on its mythology. The basement was off limits to the public for its dangerous setup, concrete walls, and the boiler, making it a hell of its own making beneath the feet of the many patrons each day. It wasn’t a place necessarily enjoyed by the staff of the museum, but whatever minor incidence had brought them down to begin with was usually enough to make them overlook this general distaste for the hot and unkempt room. Harris was no exception to those who despised the basement, but he’d never been, and never would be, one to follow orders any less than perfectly.
The smooth feel of the ring of keys in his left hand was as familiar to him as the flashlight in his right. He made to unlock the door but, as he turned the handle, his ears caught a light sound. From across the room, he heard the small clink of something small, a binder clip perhaps, or a pen, skittering across the granite floor. Back going rigid, Harris froze, flashlight poised over the basement door’s keyhole. He didn’t dare to breathe as he spun to face the noise.
There was nothing against the wall but a podium devoted to paintings of the Trojan War. Even as he swung the flashlight back and forth across the display, nothing appeared to account for what he’d heard. And so, as anyone in such a situation would, he passed it off as a fluke and went back to work. Hands shaking, Harris slipped through the open doorway as quickly as he could and bounded down the metal staircase toward the concrete floor below.
Behind him, veiled by the dark, a much smaller figure, clad entirely in black, slid purposefully through the doorway, keeping his arms crossed over his chest so the door slid easily back into place. Black leather gloves shoved the broken clip he’d dropped on his way into the building back into his pocket.
The generator was in the furthermost corner of the room where the wires connecting it to the building’s main box were bolted to the wall. Wiping the accumulating drops of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, Harris passed the boiler to find the generator, gasping with the sudden change in temperature. His loud, clumsy footsteps reverberated through the cave-like enclosure like a sad metronome, or a quickening reminder of his impending demise. The fire raging in the boiler cast a red glow over the room, but that was its only source of light. Harris’s black shadow stretched out from toe to ceiling, covering every inch of the floor before him in a shroud of darkness.
The boiler growled with a flicker of the vengeful flames within, spitting out a small surge of glowing embers onto the concrete floor. As Harris approached the generator, everything seemed normal, the large black square, undisturbed. The building’s central power box screwed into the wall seemed untouched as well. The thick black cords connecting the box to the generator were hidden mostly by the shadow of the machine, but one cord was pushed unceremoniously away from the metal strip bolting it to the wall. Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Harris knelt to its height and trained his flashlight onto the offending wire.
It was cut thro
ugh.
“What the hell?” he muttered. He rolled the wire between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully before a movement on the floor caught his attention. His large figure had cast a much larger shadow onto the floor, but while he was kneeling to investigate the generator, the light from the fire was able to illuminate the room much further. His shadow separated, without cause from him, into another being, moving slowly and silently around the room. The unmistakable sound of an exhale coiled Harris’s muscles to spring. He adjusted his grip on the flashlight as he rose slowly to his feet, skin prickling with the promise of looming danger.
Giving no warning, the guard spun around, flashlight outstretched so it would give a satisfying crack against the intruder’s head upon impact.
That satisfaction never came, for when Harris’s eyes eventually adjusted to the quick movements, he realized that the head of the flashlight had fit itself into the gloved palm of the phantom’s hand instead of his masked temple. His brain didn’t get the message fast enough to respond as his opponent followed this retaliation with a blow to the neck. The tips of his fingers shot out like a snake, connecting harshly with Harris’s windpipe, doubling him over. Ignoring the hoarse gurgle of protest directed at him, the intruder placed his hands on Harris’s lowered shoulders and forced his knee into the older man’s gut with a force that knocked him to the concrete ground and sent his hat flying across the room.
Spitting blood through his teeth, Harris let his body slump flat against the ground. His eyes opened with some difficulty and found his much smaller opponent standing mockingly above him, pulling the black ski mask off his head. The face that emerged, however, was not a man’s, but a petite woman’s with lank, strawberry-blonde hair and light blue eyes; she stared down at him with a taunting smile fixed across her face.
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