Osiris reached down and wrapped his hand around the grip, and then lifted the sword, holding the blade vertically before him. The warm library light spilled down the blood groove—a valley in its length designed to lighten the blade. It still weighed more than most men could lift with one hand. Osiris twisted it horizontally, testing its weight, and then cradled the tip in his other hand. He’d feel its pull and hear its song.
“It is a hungry, vengeful weapon, much like its owner.” He set the sword down and stepped back. “It will not give up the witches’ souls easily.”
“But you can resurrect them, make them live again, as they were?”
“The witches you killed and had this sword devour? Yes, I can bring them back—if that is what you truly want.”
I did. I wanted them back. I wanted Thoth’s curse and its manipulation forgotten, taking my hatred and renewed urge to devour with it. The weight of the dead, of the people I’d killed, I couldn’t bear it and still be Ace Dante. I didn’t want to be the Godkiller. Doing this, getting them back, was a good deed. This was right. This was more than darkness.
I downed the last dregs of my drink. “Do it.”
“The price?”
“Anything.”
Chapter 12
I don’t recall much of the following days. There was blood, and rain like razorblades, and Shu chanting the old words while I dreamed of swimming in the river of souls. Osiris hadn’t killed me, but he’d come close. He had the balance of life and death down to an art.
Shu didn’t ask. She didn’t need to. She’d scooped me up in pieces and put me back together too many times before, even when I’d told her not to. The curse between us made sure she always would.
We didn’t speak of my wounds or much of anything. But I did recall asking her about the paintings leaning against her apartment wall. She’d painted them. I wasn’t sure why that unsettled me, but it did. After a few days of her background healing spells that helped my body stitch itself back together, I returned to the office.
Cat was sitting behind my desk, wearing cropped jeans and a cream jacket, with my phone cradled between her shoulder and ear. She appeared to be filling in my planner. I scooted around the desk and peered over her shoulder. Jobs. Lots of them.
She hung up the call, scribbled something on the coming Thursday, and then raised an eyebrow at me.
“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable sitting in a box?” I asked.
“You have a four o’clock meeting with an apartment owner on East Seventy Fourth.” She ignored my comment like a pro. “The building is infested with cobras. They’re in the walls. Cujo was informed, and that was him informing us, or me, to be precise. I know you decided to ignore Cujo, but he isn’t ignoring you.”
“What are you…my new assistant?”
She didn’t hiss, but she came close. “I was helping you while you and Shukra took some time off together.”
Oh, there were implications all over that sentence. “Shu and me, we’re not—”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“We aren’t.”
Having Cat believe Shu and me were an item was better than her knowing the truth, so I dropped it, despite the slippery, little smile pulling at the corners of her lips.
“Besides, you need help around here. Word’s gotten out that the Nameless One killed a god and Osiris hasn’t struck you dead. You’re invincible.”
I reached across her and flicked the pages of the planner. The weeks were full, day after day. Shukra would be happy; we’d get to keep the business, at least for another month.
“Why aren’t you dead?” Her words tickled my cheek.
I turned my head and found Cat’s face inches from mine. Her short black hair was a ruffled mess, probably styled that way—or not. What did I know about trends? But her bright green eyes echoed the wildness of her hair, and those eyes were zeroed in on me. “He tried.”
She swallowed. Her pupils widened, soaking up the green. I caught myself falling in and pulled back. Leaning against the desk, I crossed my arms. Pain sparked in all the places I hadn’t yet healed. It would pass, until all I had left were the memories. Those were what the vodka was for.
“This all looks great, but it’ll calm down when these folk meet me and realize I’m a grade-A asshole, or when they figure out I’m in Ozzy’s pocket. Then we’ll be back to waiting on the phone to ring.”
She was listening, but I could tell by her tiny smile that she wasn’t really listening.
“I can’t pay you,” I said. “At least not in cash. Will catnip do?”
“There’s been no news of Bastet at home, so I’m staying here until I can pick up her trail.”
“I could get you a cat tree. Maybe some of those little balls with the bells in them.”
“Think of me as your consultant.” Cat picked up a pen and twirled it in her fingers, then popped the end in her mouth and pinched it between her teeth. Dangerous Cat had left the building. This was a new, intriguing, playful Cat, one that had me fighting my own unexpected smile.
“I need a consultant like I need another name.”
She leaned back in my chair behind my desk, and her smile grew into a thin grin that had a lot in common with the blade of a knife. “You don’t have a choice.”
“I’ll get a big-ass dog.”
She might have been about to laugh, but the phone ringing cut her off. She snatched up the handset before I could reach around her and grab it. “Hello, Dante Investigations.” I rolled my eyes. “How may I help you?”
Maybe it would be nice to have someone around who could rip hearts out of chests with her bare hands, besides Shu. Shu and I could do with some distance. I could split the jobs and give Cat some if she proved her worth. And maybe I’d help her find Bast—if the goddess truly was missing.
“He’s here…” Cat held out the handset and finally vacated my chair. “The witch,” she muttered and then slipped out the door, letting it click quietly closed behind her.
I settled into the warm chair with my hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. There was only one witch who would call me, the same witch who’d tried to get me to take the job of saving his girlfriend when no one else would listen.
I lifted the handset to my ear. “Hey, Kenny.”
“She’s back. I don’t know—” His voice cracked. I could hear the TV in the background and wondered if they had Netflix streaming whatever it was they’d been planning to watch the night I cut her open and stole her soul. “She walked right in like nothing happened.”
“That’s good.” I’d meant to sound more enthused, but it was tough smiling when all I could recall were the lashes and burns of a flail digging into welted, bloody flesh. It was worth it, though, now that I could hear the relief in Kenny’s voice as he struggled to stop himself from breaking down. “Does she remember anything?”
“N-nothing. Nothing at all. I just… I can’t believe…she’s right here watching TV. Can you believe it? It’s a goddamn miracle.”
“I’m happy for you, Kenny.” I didn’t sound like it.
Kenny paused, and in the background, I heard a woman’s simple laughter. Was there anything better than a woman’s laugh? Julie sounded alive and free, just like Osiris had agreed. A miracle to some, but miracles come with price tags. I was still paying this one off.
“All the missing witches came back. You did this, didn’t you?”
“No,” I lied.
“But at the museum, what we did to you…you were right. We were afraid. We shouldn’t have trapped you. And what happened with the witches before…did they trap you then too? That wasn’t your fault. You are what you are. You warned us. You told me to run.”
I braced my elbows on the desk and pinched the bridge of my nose. My empty insides churned and uneasy emotions prickled my skin.
“I asked you to find her, and you did. So, thanks, man.” The thanks he whispered, words failing him.
A knot that felt a lot like guilt tightened in my chest
. Kenny had his girl back, but that didn’t change what I’d done. Or what I was. Or how I’d enjoyed devouring the light in her. “I don’t deserve your thanks.”
“Maybe you do, more than you know.” He hung up, leaving me listening to the buzz of a dead line.
More than darkness.
I’d undone the sins of the past few months. That was all. It didn’t change who or what I was, but there was a curious warmth inside me that hadn’t been there before. A feeling of goodness that meant, perhaps, my guilt-laden soul was a fraction lighter.
I picked up the phone and dialed Shu’s office.
She answered on the first ring. “I’m filing my nails into points so I can score number marks into bone to mark all the times I’ve wanted to kill you.”
“The bone is significant?” I asked, not entirely sure whether she was joking.
“Very.”
“How many marks do you have?”
“Ten.”
“That’s not so bad.”
“I started this morning.”
I laughed a rich, deep chuckle, and that felt good too, like maybe, just maybe, things were looking up. “You, me, and my new assistant, Cat. Antonio’s tonight. Drinks are on me.”
Shu paused. Something clattered that made me think she really was carving bone. “Who are you and where’s the real Acehole?”
“Still me, but a little improved.” More than darkness. I could do this. I had to do this. I’d seen the alternative. The future would be different. I’d be different. There was hope for the damned yet.
Continues in See No Evil. Read on for an exclusive excerpt.
See No Evil - Soul Eater #3 Excerpt
Chapter 1
Do you know what paradise looks like? For some, they find it in their child’s smile. For others, it’s a road trip from coast to coast with no strings attached and no commitments. For me, it’s a beer in one hand, an empty beach, and a star-scattered sky.
I didn’t know what time it was. I could barely remember the day of the week, and I didn’t give a damn. When the breeze changed, it brought with it the chatter and music from a nearby bar. When it switched back again, the ebb and flow of waves washed the sounds of life away. The ocean, the sky—they were timeless.
No gods. No magic. No prophecies. No bullshit.
Just me, a beer, and the Atlantic.
“I could get used to this.” I raised the condensation-drenched bottle to my lips and took a drink.
But like all good things, it would come to an end.
Someone approached, making an effort to be heard. Only Cat had to deliberately make sound as she walked. Her default state was stealth, and her favorite pastime was sneaking up on me and standing close enough to let me know she could have severed my spine with those claws of hers, before I’d had the chance to utter a spellword to stop her.
She dropped into a sitting position on the lounger beside mine, draped her arms over her knees, and stared in that way she did: unblinking and judging, as though she could see into my soul and found me decidedly uninspiring.
I’d pinned my gaze way out at sea where the moon was spilling its milky light across the black. This was my moment, and I sure as souls wouldn’t let her stare my relaxed state of mind out of me. She could sit like that all night for all I cared. I’d earned some peace.
“You turned off your cell,” she finally said.
I hadn’t noticed her faint Boston accent until a few weeks ago, after she’d settled into her role as consultant/assistant/spy. It was an old accent, probably left over from her childhood, and it only came out to play when she was pissed—like now.
“Did I?”
“You brought us all the way out here for a”—she hooked her fingers into air quotes—“‘vacation,’ and then you’re never around?”
I side-eyed her and took another swig of beer. “You know, most folks would appreciate a week in the Hamptons.”
“You might have Shukra fooled, but not me.”
Cat was as sharp as her claws. She’d also spent three months watching me from the top shelf in my office, hidden inside her four-legged housecat alter ego as she learned everything she could about me before deciding to reveal herself as a person and save my ass from some priests in the process. Not even Shu had spent that long in my presence, and Shu and I were soul-bound.
“Where is Shu?”
“In the hotel casino. Don’t change the subject.”
Shukra in a casino? Odds were she wasn’t playing fair.
Another swig of beer. I turned my head and looked at Cat, and I mean really looked. She had on tight khakis and a loose-fitting sleeveless v-neck top, revealing the type of toned physique the shopping channels employed to sell the latest fad in get-fit-quick equipment. I’d seen her in action, and those muscles weren’t for show. I suspected she kept her black hair cropped short purely to reduce the chances of an opponent grabbing it in a fight. When attacked, she fought back quick and dirty, and did so with vicious efficiency. She was a killer; Bastet had trained her that way.
“Is that a hickey?” she asked. In the low light, I could just make out where Cat’s gaze had landed, and with it came the memory of Bethany-Jane, the woman who’d finished her bar shift a few hours ago and whose apartment I’d left right before taking up my quiet spot on the beach.
My lips twitched around a smile. “Like I said, vacation.”
“What are you, eighteen?” Oh, disgust. She didn’t approve of my choices, which was why my new favorite pastime was rubbing her nose in them.
“There’s nothing wrong with two consenting adults enjoying themselves. You should try it sometime, or do you prefer shaking your tail at the local tom cats?”
She barely reacted. My feline quips never got a rise out of her, but that didn’t stop me from trying.
“Do you know what Ammit gave me for my eighteenth birthday?” I asked.
She raised her brow at the mention of my surrogate mother, the pantheon’s bogeyman—or should that be bogeywoman? Technically, Ammit had been more crocodile than person.
“I don’t think I want to know.”
“She gave me Rameses’s daughter. Do you know the name Rameses?”
“There were a few pharaohs by that name,” she replied decisively. I wasn’t sure how much she knew about the old ways, but I could assume her queen, Bastet, had taught her the basics.
“This was the third one. He had twelve bastard children that the pantheon knew of. Not the kindest of pharaohs, but few were. I doubt he noticed the girl was gone.” I drew in a deep breath, bringing with it the briny taste of ocean air and damp sand. “She died of a snake bite. After her soul arrived in Duat, Ammit made her flesh for fourteen nights and bound her to my service. My mother expected me to use her as a slave in every way. The girl…she was terrified.”
Cat’s eyes widened. She didn’t like the way this story was going. Her mind was already concocting the awful deeds I’d probably committed. She’d seen me lose control. She knew just a fraction of what I was capable of. She might have even heard of my underworld crimes.
“I showed her the River of Souls, the Halls. In the waning light, the mer, the place of ascension—you’d know them as pyramids—shine as though they’re lit from inside. I took her to the weighing chamber and guided her through Duat, the underworld city in its terrible glory. We walked in the gardens of Ah-dam. She picked a date from the tree of life. Osiris’s tree, of course. He would’ve whipped me raw had he known I was trespassing.” I upended the beer bottle and drank down the remnants. “Her name was Aneksi.”
“A lovely name.”
It was. I remembered how it had sounded as I whispered it against Aneksi’s lips. “It means: belonging to me. Ammit probably thought she was fulfilling the girl’s fate by cursing her into my service.”
After a few moments filled with the sound of the waves and little else, Cat asked, “What happened?”
“Why should anything have happened?” I asked, bowing my head to hide my sm
irk. Cat was intrigued—curious, some might say. I had a whole bunch of curious cat quips I’d been waiting to dust off.
She frowned. “You said Ammit only gave her to you for fourteen nights? What happened after that?”
“It was a long time ago…”
She shifted closer. “You don’t remember?”
“Oh, I remember.” I dragged a hand across my chin and scratched at my bristly cheek. Aneksi happened so long ago that it might as well have been a myth for all it meant to me today, and yet a little something fluttered inside. A tiny stutter of emotion left over from another time, another place, another me. “Eighteen and presiding over the Halls of Judgment alongside Ammit, I was an epic asshole.”
I waited for Cat to say I hadn’t changed and then remembered she wasn’t Shu. Her green eyes searched my face, and the sadness in them told me she’d already jumped to the end and guessed the outcome. That was the problem with immortality: the past was paved with the dead of those I’d cared for.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but Aneksi was my first naïve and foolish love.” Love, what a joke of a chemical reaction that was. “I devoured her soul.”
Cat recoiled, knowing what that meant. I hadn’t just killed Aneksi; I’d destroyed her and any chance she’d had at paradise in the afterlife or reincarnation. Souls are eternal, as long as they avoid soul eaters.
“Why?” Cat whispered.
“After our fourteen nights, Ammit summoned her soul to the Hall of Judgment. Anubis, curious son of a jackal that he is, was there. Half of Duat had gathered, so intrigued were they by the soul who’d captured a soul eater’s attention. In Osiris’s absence, and after I’d refused to, Ammit weighed her soul.”
By the gods, why was I dragging this up? This had started as a way to unsettle Cat, but I’d fallen into my own trap. This was what happened when I indulged in too much alone time. My little smile had long since died out, and I struggled to keep the corners of my lips from turning down. “When Aneksi was sixteen, she was attacked on the Waset streets, robbed and beaten. Her life might have ended right there, but she was a brave girl. With the bone knife she carried, she fought the thief off. Had she run, she would’ve lived and her soul would’ve been lighter for it. But she didn’t run. She cut her attacker’s throat and stabbed him in the chest eight times.”
Witches' Bane (The Soul Eater Book 2) Page 14
