I looked over my shoulder at Rhett. I could only just make out his eyes beneath his hood, his mouth and nose obscured by the golden mask. He was angry. Those eyes met mine, then flicked back up at the crocodile thing in front of us. A warning.
“Return us to her plane. Let her go, or face the consequences.” Silas was not pleased.
I looked between him and Amos, ignoring the glinting tips of Rhett’s swords that he’d angled over my shoulders, and sighed. I wasn’t entirely sure that it was really happening, but if it was, I couldn’t let them get hurt.
“Are we sure there hasn’t been some sort of mix up, guys?”
“The gods do not make mistakes.”
It was all completely crazy.
Talking cats, magical food, vanishing men, morphing talking crocodile people.
This was a food-induced coma nightmare and I was swearing off competitive eating for life. I would suck it up, get a proper job, and go to work every day. Seriously. It had to be a dream. This shit just didn’t happen.
All this talk of gods and crap. What gods? The ancient Egyptians had some out-there beliefs, but that shit died with them. Even I knew that.
I reached out both hands and gently stroked Amos and Silas on the shoulders before stepping between them. Silas flinched, but I gave a single shake of my head and took another step. Crocodile people didn’t exist.
I’d tell him to piss off and wake up when I was ready.
That’d fix it.
“Alright. Look. You’re an ‘angry crocodile god,’ those three are really genies, and I really am this Ma’at person you’re looking for. What now? You’re going to eat me? Kill them? Can genies even be killed? I dunno, mate. It all sounds a bit fucked up to me. I think we should all just go home and stay away from each other.”
His yellow eyes narrowed and he kind of growled through his long snout. I took another step forward. “What do you think?”
Another step. I was only a couple of meters from him now, and the three guys hadn’t moved. They hadn’t said a word, either. I wondered if they were considering running off and leaving me.
I didn’t see it coming.
One second, he was glowering at me, the next he’d darted forward and grabbed me by the throat. With superhuman strength, he lifted me off the ground. I hadn’t appreciated just how big he was until he had hold of me. That one meaty hand was crushing my windpipe and holding me a good foot and a half from the floor.
I didn’t struggle. I couldn’t. All I could think was that if he gave me one good, hard squeeze he could snap my neck and have done. Instead, I looked at the brilliant white teeth in front of my face.
Fuck they were sharp. And clean.
He was silent. I didn’t hear him move. Nor did Sobek. He came like death on the wind, slicing at the arm that held me. I fell to the ground and felt a hand on the waist band of my linen trousers, then I was being yanked back through the sand. I couldn’t tell which of them had moved me, he was gone before I could look up, but I gawped as I looked toward the brawl that had unfolded.
Sobek had changed form. There was no human body left and he seemed to have grown considerably. Now entirely crocodile, his armoured body deflected the attacks raining down on him from the three djinn. I’d only ever seen movements like theirs in video games. They were fast. But not fast enough. The giant crocodile spun and knocked two of the three of them flying with his muscular tail. They landed awkwardly, leaving just one to fight alone.
Sobek advanced on Silas with a toothy grin. “Just us now, Order. Tell me, is she worth your sacrifice?”
He backed up even more, and I noticed he was missing a sword. I scrambled to my feet and staggered toward them. When I reached my defender, I reached for his waist and tugged one of the smaller blades free, turning to face the crocodile god.
“Enough.” I turned to look at the djinni at my back. “Silas. Stop.”
His eyes widened beneath his red hood, and he looked down at my other hand. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, or what it was, or what I was expected to do with it.
It had been empty a second ago, but now I was holding a massive staff thing, my hand gripping it so tightly my knuckles were white. I glared down at it. I hadn’t felt it appear there. If it hadn’t been for Silas’s reaction, I’d have assumed he’d put it there, but he was as surprised by its appearance as I was.
No, that must have been me. But how? Maybe I could do magic in my dream?
It was beautiful, the head of an animal carved out of silver with glinting red eyes, the long pole made from ivory that split at the bottom into a sort of fork. It was the same as that weird crook thing I’d seen in the hieroglyphs. I should have looked more closely, known its name. It was obviously important; the things were prominent in the images in the museum.
Silas yelled my name, interrupting my thoughts.
A warning.
But it was too late.
The cheating fucking lizard bore down on me with open jaws, crushing my shoulder.
The weight of him forced me to the ground and I screamed. Landing with the thing on top of me, I sucked in a breath and my mouth filled with sand, some of it rushing down my throat. The weight of the monstrous reptile vanished, and I tried to cough, but the pain in my shoulder was incredible. Instead, I rolled onto my back and put my hand on my stomach.
Or, I would have if there hadn’t been a big fucking knife sticking out of it.
The staff was gone.
I heard the deep, rumbling laughter of the self-professed god. I flinched at the clashing of swords.
I lay still, staring up at the perfect blue sky, wondering if I was dying in my food-induced coma-dream…
There was a black dot flitting about, high up, and I focused on that rather than the pain. I couldn’t feel anything in my stomach. Whatever Sobek had done to my shoulder was giving me far more grief.
The dot got bigger.
Whatever fight was going on nearby got louder, and I closed my eyes.
I was bleeding. I could tell from the throbbing sensation in my shoulder. I could hear Adam’s reaction.
“What have you done today?”
“Oh, just got mauled by a crocodile.”
“Couldn’t just get laid, could you? Antibiotics can’t fix this shit, Mai.”
I heard a cry from above and opened my eyes to see a falcon swooping over me. I didn’t have the strength left to turn my head and look, but I was pretty sure it had entered the fray. The scene was getting more fucked up by the minute and I couldn’t cope.
But, the pain was easing. Small mercies.
Then everything went quiet and it started getting dark. I hadn’t realised it was that late. I hadn’t noticed the sun setting and I’d been looking at the sky for what felt like hours.
“Maia, what do you want? Please tell me what you want.”
It was Silas. He sounded desperate. Sad.
My first thought was cake.
I don’t know what I told him, but I’m pretty sure I gave up and let the darkness take over.
“You entered into a wager with your sworn enemy, Ma’at! Of course, he is angry. How are we to protect you if you put yourself in harm’s way?”
“I was not aware that I answered to my guard.”
Rhett turned away, clearly annoyed.
“That’s not what this is.”
“Is it not, Amos? Tell me, then, why Silas is in a rage and Rhett refuses to answer.”
“With respect, Chaos exists to usurp you. A wager such as this—”
“He cannot win. He places his faith in the might of a tyrant. Tyranny does not win, my love.”
Amos bowed his head and Rhett looked back over his shoulder before shaking his head and stalking from the room.
23
Rhett
I could never have imagined the two women were connected.
A human and a goddess?
My research into the ancient Egyptians had been as extensive as that of the djinn. There was no informatio
n that I could ever find that indicated the two were linked in any way. Yet the mark on our backs matched the feather of Ma’at perfectly.
I had suspected…no, I was almost certain that Maia’s birthmark was the goddess. But there had never been any reason to believe that her mark, or ours, held any weight.
We had seen Ma’at killed. She was gone.
It may have taken years for me to patch the information together from various dreams and recollections, but my research had never been completed. I simply did not have all the pieces. I was still missing considerable chunks, but it was now clear that Maia was Ma’at.
Or a version of her at least.
Silas and Amos would never have studied her mark in enough detail to have matched the two, and admittedly, I had never tried to get a good enough look. I had only touched it lightly, but the effect of just that contact had been agonising. I was still aching.
For her. Because of her.
I could not tell any more, but the instinct that was coursing through me at that moment told me it was for her.
We watched as she stepped forward, none of us daring to stop her. I could not say why I failed to pull her back, why I had not put myself before her, so the vicious looking god would have to fight through the three of us before he got to her. It was not self-preservation, I know that much. I had nothing to exist for until she had arrived in London. I lived and occasionally worked among the people of the city, but I had no purpose. The others had never said as much, but I knew they felt the same. None of it made any sense, but there was no need for it to.
We needed her. I was the first to admit it. Naturally.
I watched in mute horror as he crushed her beneath those jaws. Silas and Amos moved as one, their attack swift and fierce. I held back, reaching for her, and hauling her out of the way of the battle.
She was a mess. The white top Silas had provided her had turned scarlet, the mangled flesh and bone of her shoulder clearly visible. The brachial artery had been damaged, but the way the jaws had crushed her shoulder and upper arm, the bleeding had been slowed. And the kris in her stomach…she could not survive long.
We were also unable to leave. Each of us had tried, but whatever magic held us there was stronger than ours, even combined. We had no option but to fight for her freedom. I hated to, but I left her there to bleed. It would take the three of us to defeat the bastard.
I hated to use force. Amos would use it when necessary, and Silas would use it freely, as was their natures, but I was very different as a rule.
Right then? I was furious.
Where it had come from, or why it had taken over, I had no idea, but my rage at Sobek for attacking her filled me in the five strides I took. Amos and Silas fought seamlessly. We had never understood where our combat skills had come from, but they had always been there. On the few occasions we had found ourselves cornered, our skills discovered, our freedom threatened, we had always managed to fight our way out of it. We never killed. That was something else we had no explanation for. We seemed incapable.
I felt differently this time.
I could kill. I would kill. Sobek would never touch her again. No one harmed what was mine.
My Khopesh felt like extensions of my body, so easy were my movements. I joined my brothers, a third element for our enemy to counter. He was at the disadvantage.
I wanted to check on her, but even the briefest of glances would cost me. He may have been massive to the point of clumsy, but that did not make him less of a danger. He was a god, after all.
It happened so quickly, I had no time to dodge. Silas had seen the opportunity and struck, his kris lodged in the thick hide at the base of Sobek’s tail. The speed that he turned, knocking us back with the impact of the flailing length of muscle, sent both Amos and I flying again. We landed well, exchanging a concerned glance before regaining our balance and sprinting forward. I dropped, spraying sand in the god’s face, as Amos leaped. I heard his Khopesh collide with the crocodiles heavily armoured skull as my momentum moved me directly beneath the beast as he reared. I was thankful for my faceguard as he descended, sand falling from his underside. It saved me from inhaling the particles as I took careful aim with my weapon.
The god fell, unable to avoid the kris that I drove up into the exposed armpit. It was not likely to kill him, but it would slow him down, and that was the best we could hope for.
His roar was deafening, and I was trapped beneath him as he reared again. I moved, rolling to the right, and springing to my feet as he slammed back to the ground. I had lost my bearings, unsure where my brothers were. I had a Khopesh missing and a kris stuck in the armpit of the crocodile, so I made my choice swiftly.
Small and agile, I reached for the other kris. It seemed Amos had the same thought, our small knives colliding as we drove them through his eyes. He stopped moving instantly. I looked up, over his head, to see Amos push back his hood, panting. He read the look in my eyes and gave a curt nod, looking up as a falcon cried and swooped down, landing on the body of the crocodile god at our feet. I knew instantly who it was, and inclined my head before turning and running back to Maia.
Silas was bent over her, obscuring my view, but he was speaking quietly to her which suggested she was still alive. I watched for a moment, and eventually he sat up and looked over his shoulder. His single nod confirmed she was alive. The look in his eyes said only just.
Whatever magic had suppressed our own had lifted. I felt the change.
“Take her home. We shall follow.”
He looked back down at her and ran a hand over her hair before scooping her into his arms and disappearing. I turned back to Amos and sighed. This was becoming too complicated.
24
Amos
The falcon tilted its head and studied me. It didn’t seem to care that it was standing on a dead crocodile, or that it was the remains of a god.
I looked to where Silas crouched over Maia. It didn’t look good. My instinct was to ignore the bird and to go them, but the thing looked like it had something to say. I looked to Rhett. He’d nodded to Silas and then turned back to me. Whatever they’d agreed, Silas was handling her.
When Rhett reached us, he bowed his head. “Horus.”
I watched the bird change shape. The creature it became was clearly male, but he kept his falcon head.
“Rhett. I see you found her. That is a relief. I apologise for not coming to your aid. Had Sobek known of my presence here, it would have been reported back and…” he trailed off and looked at me. “You do not remember?”
I shook my head. I didn’t particularly care. I wanted to follow Silas, to check on Maia. Her injuries were extensive. It would take a lot of work to repair that. Standing there talking to a falcon was not helpful.
“All we know is that she has the mark of Ma’at. We all have the feather inked on our backs; she has the goddess marked on her hip. It looks like a birthmark, but that is no ordinary mark.” I looked at Rhett in confusion. He shrugged his shoulders and continued. “Have you time to fill in these extensive gaps?”
Horus looked back down at the body he stood on and sighed. “Time is short. I must be brief. She made a mistake and you were all cast out. That you have found one another suggests a shift in power once more. Keep her safe. Help return her power, and her memory. The process should not take long now that she has you. The truth will out, Rhett. Justice must be done, Amos. Silas must be with her to bring order. Only then can there be balance. We will help where we can. Until then, maintain a low profile. Return her to her human life, but keep her safe. He failed here, but he has other allies. Ma’at has her allies, too, but we must tread carefully. If we are discovered, we will be destroyed, making her return impossible. Go to her now, before this one wakes.”
I angled my sword at the revelation that the beast at my feet was not dead and flinched as the bird-god shifted and took off. Only then did I look at Rhett. “Did any of that make sense to you?”
Rhett squared his jaw then tu
rned away. “Maia needs us.”
I watched him vanish and looked down at the crocodile.
Fucking gods.
Reaching down, I tugged my blade from the beast’s head and used the pommel to dislodge a large tooth. If he was coming back, he’d come looking for us. I’d be wearing that trinket when he did.
With one more look round at the barren landscape I’d found myself in, I replayed the whole event in my mind. One thing made some sense: she belonged with us. She was ours to protect, always had been. She was what we’d been waiting for and we’d almost let her die.
Rage filled me.
She could have died. I pulled back my foot and kicked Sobek in the side of the head. When he didn’t move, I did it again, screaming my fury at his prone form. Fucking gods. I’d tear them all to pieces or, more likely, be destroyed trying.
Spent, I staggered back and spat on the thing before turning away. It was time to go. Maia needed us all, and I was of no help to her in the middle of a desert raging.
I needed an explanation from Rhett. I needed to see Silas was unharmed. I needed to see Maia was alive with my own eyes. And then I needed rest.
25
Well that was the most fucked up dream… that was my first thought.
My second was that this bed was comfy.
Third…who the fuck is that?
I kept my eyes closed as I tried to work it out.
“Are you awake?”
Silas. It was Silas. Perfect.
The last time he’d spoken to me he’d been pissed off, now he sounded worried. I was still pissed off, so I didn’t answer.
“Maia? I know you’re awake. Your breathing altered. Is there any pain?”
He was sitting on the bed next to me, leaning against the headboard.
“Why would I be in pain? What did you do?”
He looked down at me and smirked. “What did I do? It was more of a team effort, to be honest.” I felt my face heat and he snorted back a laugh. “You have no recollection, seriously?”
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