by R. C. Murphy
Deryck pushed a hand through his hair and let out a deep breath. He was running out of places to search. A notepad affixed to the refrigerator fluttered in front of him. Reaching out, he held the pages down and read the note on the top of the front page. “Eight PM, Pure.”
Relieved to have found something, Deryck tapped into his powers and transported himself half a block away from the address scribbled on the bottom of the note. He took form in a large parking lot, one providing parking for a number of businesses in the area. Only a handful of cars remained in the lot. He checked his watch. It was later than he thought. If Herryk did have Shayla, time was running out. Soon he’d have everything he needed to complete the ritual.
A grey car on the opposite end of the parking lot stood all by itself. Deryck closed in on it, his heart beating in his throat. For a miserable second, he expected to find Shayla slumped over the steering wheel, blood pooling in her lap. He took a breath to steady himself and leaned down to peer into the window of the car. There was nothing, no one—unless one counted the debris leftover from a woman who lived in her car during the workweek, leftover coffee cups cluttered the drink holders and food wrappers filled the ashtray.
Deryck made a slow circle around the car, searching the ground for signs of a struggle. He checked the doors. They were locked. Whatever happened to Shayla happened after she’d parked her car.
The sounds of people talking and walking caught his attention. Deryck left the car, heading toward the front entrance of the restaurant at the end of the parking lot.
“Excuse me?” he called to a group of young women.
One of them turned. A smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “Hi. Sorry, we’re closed for the night. You can make a reservation in the morning.”
“I’m actually looking for someone who was here tonight.”
“Do they work here?” The girl tucked a stray strand of hair into the bun at the crown of her head.
“No, she dined here tonight with a mutual friend, but I haven’t been able to find them since.” Deryck pulled his phone out of his pocket. He called the screen to life with a push of a button and held it up for the woman to see his background picture—Shayla, taken the night before while she was watching the movie and not paying attention.
The woman leaned in and shook her head. “Sorry. I work in the kitchen and don’t get to see who comes and goes.” She tapped the arm of a man beside her. “Dwayne, did you see this woman earlier?”
Dwayne turned and studied the picture. “She was here. I didn’t see them leave, though. It was insane on the floor at that time.”
“Thank you, both of you.” Deryck pocketed his phone.
The restaurant staff thinned out, heading toward the remaining cars in the lot. One by one, they drove off, leaving him alone. He spent a short time looking up and down the sidewalk, waiting for Shayla to step around a corner. She never did.
Deryck leaned against the side of her car and closed his eyes. The tattoos on his wrist stung as he tapped into his powers to search for the part of her that called to him.
There. A flicker of awareness prodding at the back of his mind. He tried to coax it to bloom, to solidify. The sensation grew more grounded and he knew she was east of him, far east.
Suddenly the connection to Shayla cut off. It’s already too late.
Deryck pulled at his power and tracked the fading thread leading toward Shayla. As he vanished from the parking lot, he hoped to hell and back he wasn’t transporting himself into the middle of a trap.
Dust-coated mud brick walls bounced past. The bricks were not a uniform shape, unlike ones made for modern homes. These were all roughly the same size, but the shapes varied slightly—handmade. Millions of handmade bricks stacked together in order to form the place that’d be her tomb. If she had an ego, she’d be flattered to die in what was surely an important, ancient place. Whatever the hell it was.
The pressure in Shayla’s midsection made her queasy. Harry shifted his shoulder under her stomach, sending her sliding forward toward the odd-shaped bricks below until her hip bones caught on his shoulder. She held onto the back of her dress to keep her bound arms from flinging forward and doing more damage to her dislocated shoulder.
“Put me down or I’m going to puke down the back of your pants.”
Harry’s steps faltered, but he kept moving. “You will do no such thing.”
A wave of nausea made Shayla’s mouth fill with bitter tasting spit. “Too late.” She dry-heaved. Her abused stomach clenched tight, preparing to evacuate the chicken Parmesan and cheesecake.
Suddenly the world swung upright again. Harry dropped her against a wall like a sack of flour that’d sprung a leak. He backed away, out of upchuck distance. “I’m not going to coddle you.”
Shayla wanted to laugh, but she was afraid it’d finish off her fight with vomiting. “You’re not the fluffy type.” She spat out a mouthful of dirt and bitter spit.
“Fix yourself, female. You will not meet my father looking like a lizard that’s been dragged through the mud.”
“I looked pretty good until you brought me here. Where are we? Don’t tell me this dust bin is home sweet home, Harry.”
He flipped his hand in a dismissive gesture. A wet rag appeared clutched between his fingers. The binds on her wrists loosened and fell to the floor. Shayla slowly brought her arms in front of her. The movement made the nausea swell with a torrent of pain from her shoulder.
At last she managed to grab the wet cloth from Harry. It was nice and cool. She pressed it against her forehead, not caring about the muddy water dripping down her face and into her cleavage. The cool rag was helping her nausea. If only something as simple could get her out of the trouble she’d stumbled into.
This is what you get for picking guys up at a bar, Shayla, she berated herself. What kind of guy did you expect to find there, Prince-freakin’-Charming with a bucket full of the answers to your romantic problems? Stick to battery operated boyfriends.
Where did that leave Deryck, though? Shayla scrubbed the cloth down her face, taking care when she neared the throbbing in the right side of her jaw. She took her time wiping off the grime she could reach—which wasn’t nearly enough. The skin on her arms and chest were sun burnt. How long had she laid unconscious? The thought of what could have happened made her stomach flip dangerously. Now that she’d seen the true side of Harry, she knew he was more than capable of abusing an unconscious woman.
Unable to look at the man in question, she looked down the hall. They were close to another doorway. This one was massive; easily three times the size of a normal set of double doors. One of the large, ornate doors propped up against the wall of the hallway. Whatever held it in place had long ago given up its function. The other door had fallen into the room they were approaching. It blocked a section of the walkway, but not enough to hinder their entrance, though she had a feeling no obstacle would keep Harry from dragging her in there.
If I go in there, I’m as good as dead. The knowledge made her shiver as much as the cold water dripping down the back of her neck.
“That’s good enough.” Harry muttered something under his breath she couldn’t understand. The rag vanished from her hands, gently sucked away by some unseen force. It caught her tangled hair in its breeze. “Start walking. Try not to hurt yourself until I am ready for you to do so.”
He dragged her away from the wall by her good arm and pushed her in front of him. Their footsteps echoed down the hallway and into the room at the end. The sound doubled back at them. It sounded as though an army marched the ancient path, not a doomed woman and her surly captor.
They passed through the crumbling archway where the two-foot thick doors had abandoned their sentry duty to lounge around. The room beyond was massive, larger than she could have anticipated.
Above them was a huge domed ceiling with possibly the most intricate carvings and deepest paint pigmentation of anything she’d seen yet. There were two distinct motifs carved
into the bricks. On the right side was a huge, golden sun. A man stood with his arms wrapped lovingly around the descending sun, like one would cradle a restless child before laying them down to sleep. The other side held the moon, so plain in comparison to the sun. Another man stood behind it, pushing it toward the apex of the domed ceiling. Silent figures on the walls watched the frozen depiction of the sunset and moonrise. Most of the males on the wall had the same face, some of the women as well. Except one, her statue stood at the far end of the room, watching their approach. The empty space beside her felt wrong. Something had been there, but was long gone by the time Shayla and Harry made their journey into what was clearly a temple of some sort.
Why would Harry’s father be there?
Shayla paused and tried to decipher the story unfolding across the walls. The carvings reminded her of Egyptian hieroglyphics. She’d studied them a lot as a child, but these glyphs were completely different, a whole different language. Any knowledge she had as a curious ten-year-old was useless.
“You’re not here to take in the sights,” Harry whispered in her ear. The brush of his breath on her neck made her shiver.
“Why am I here?” She ducked away from him.
Harry pointed over her shoulder. “Your answer is over there.”
Shayla looked back toward the lonely golden statue. Her jeweled eyes were downcast, fixed on an ornate table set in the middle of the room. As Shayla watched, flames flared to life and hovered above it. Their reflection in the polished gold made the vast room a little bit brighter, but not nearly enough to chase away the chill of a long-forgotten place.
Harry nudged her toward to the table. Shayla gaped at the craftsmanship of it. Golden dragons, much like those depicted in the pictograms on the walls, comprised the legs of the table. Their tails wrapped along the front and curled around each other, making it impossible to tell when one dragon ended and another other began.
A human skull sat in the middle of the table, bordered on the backside by an arch of floating flames. Guess he’s never heard of candles. She stepped up to the table and marveled at the intricate designs adorning the skull. It told a story, one far different and darker than the tales along the walls. Bodies crawled over the pitted, pale surface of the skull, reaching for a golden doorway. The story stretched over the forehead, jawbone, and cranium. Its teeth were missing. Not even the dead could smile in the dark temple.
Her abductor pulled a sheet of paper from thin air and laid it in front of her. He muttered something else under his breath. A large knife appeared in his hand. The silver blade caught the flames and reflected them into her eyes. Shayla turned her head.
A wet hiss behind her brought Shayla’s head around again. Harry held the knife in his right hand. The polished edge was red with blood. His left hand dripped onto the floor, the blood beaded in the dirt. He leaned over the table. Blood splattered onto the skull, covering the entire forehead in gore. Slowly, it absorbed into the dry bone like a greedy sponge. The golden doorway painted on the top of the skull shimmered faintly.
“Read from the paper and do everything it says. Skip nothing. Do it properly and you’ll die swiftly. Screw around and I may be tempted to get a taste of what Eros had.”
Shayla frowned. “Who is Eros?”
Harry laughed. “You didn’t think a normal man would want you for a wife, did you? Little girl, you were wed to a god and he used you for that sweet piece between your thighs.”
The world swam around her. Shayla caught herself on the edge of the table. The gold under her hand was strangely warm. She had to be misunderstanding what he said. There was no way this man, a virtual stranger, could know about her life. She’d worked hard to put the abuse she’d suffered behind her. Very few people in her life currently knew about it and they were sworn to remain quiet, unless they saw her diving into the same sort of relationship.
“Cyrus? He wasn’t a god. He was a monster.”
“Same thing in my book. Now shut up and read. I’ll introduce you to a real god.”
Harry slapped the ebony handle of the knife against her right palm. Reflexively, her fingers wrapped around it. He watched her, hovering at her shoulder. If she tried to use his knife against him, he’d win. Harry outweighed her by at least seventy-five pounds—seventy-five pounds of pure, lean muscle, she judged from the way his suit coat moved over his arms and shoulders.
With no other option left, Shayla picked up the paper and read. The more she read, the more panic threatened to overwhelm her. It wasn’t just a set of instructions. There was a spell of some sort for her to read aloud. And the worst part, the spell required blood to kick off the fun and games.
“How am I supposed to work magic when I have none?” She turned the handle of the knife over in her palm nervously.
“Shacking up with a god has perks. Get started, already.”
She set the paper down on the table and brought the sharp edge of the knife to rest against her left wrist. Her hands shook so bad, she didn’t know if she could make a clean cut without doing serious damage. What does it matter? He’s going to kill me anyway. Taking a deep breath, Shayla jerked the blade across her arm. Blood glided over her dirty skin. The sting slowly registered through all of the other pains wracking her body.
Her trembling arm swung over the skull. Shayla tipped it over and poured the blood onto it. The glowing doorway on its forehead brightened. She set the knife down and picked up the paper again.
“Bel Marduk, I summon you . . . .”
“Where the hell am I?”
Deryck scanned the land around him and kicked sand out of his shoes. To the north stood a bulking shape—ruins of some sort. The desert had mostly reclaimed it, though it looked as though humans were working to slowly excavate the ruins and uncover whatever ancient secrets it may hold. There were no markers or signs telling him where he’d landed. An internal map was not his gods-given power. He’d give a lot for that gift at the moment, though.
South of where he stood was a building, somewhat modern but worse for wear after time in the ruthless desert climate. He could only see the top third of it over a series of low, rolling hills separating them. Deryck turned back toward the north and frowned. He felt a twinge of recognition, but it vanished.
A nice, cool breeze cut through the baking heat, making him thankful he’d never had to suffer a summer in the land of his father. The breeze brushed his arm again, sending goose bumps over his flesh. Deryck frowned. None of the bushes moved with the wind, or the scant handful of trees atop the nearby hills.
He turned toward the source of the breeze. To his right was a mound, maybe six inches taller than he was. The base of the mound had been dug into, forming a narrow shaft into the earth. Another breeze kicked up out of the hole; not air, not really. It was the sensation of powerful magic being worked.
“No, it can’t be.”
Deryck hunched over and peered down the hole. A concrete tube reinforced the tunnel into the sand. It was approximately four feet high and just as wide. He couldn’t see the end of it, but whatever, whoever was working magic was somewhere under the sand.
Stooping lower so he wouldn’t hit his head, Deryck descended into the makeshift mineshaft. The sunlight took him maybe a quarter of the way down. After, he was forced to blindly feel his way along, hoping like hell there wasn’t anything waiting to eat him in the darkness. He was immortal, but still felt pain. If a snake bit him, for instance, it’d make life miserable until the venom worked its way out of his body. He didn’t have Wolfrik’s healing gift.
After what felt like eternity, but was probably only fifteen or twenty yards at a steady downward incline, a faint light appeared at the far end of the tunnel. Deryck hurried as best as he could. His back ached and he had a sneaking suspicion he’d have issues with confined spaces for a while after.
The tunnel ended abruptly; dumping him into a large, empty room. Shafts of sunlight broke through the ceiling where the sands above were thinner than where he’d entered.
It was warmer in the room than the tunnel, far warmer than he expected. The sense of magic was closer, but not in this room.
Deryck’s eyes swept the floor, looking for something to tell him what was going on. Footprints led from the tunnel he’d taken in to a shaft of light halfway across the room. The dirt on the uneven bricks had been disturbed there, pushed aside by a large shape. On the outskirts of the light was a small mud puddle, though it was impossible for water to get to the arid room—the land above showed no signs of rain. He followed footprints roughly the size of his own through the dirt. A second set of prints joined them at the far end of the room, made by a much smaller foot in a pair of heeled shoes.
Crouching, he measured the feminine footprint with his fingers. “What have I gotten you into, Shayla?”
Standing, Deryck continued tracking the footprints through a hole torn into the brick wall at the opposite end from where he’d entered. The hallway beyond was lit by torches, spaced every ten yards or so. They gave enough light to see by, but he couldn’t see how tall the walls were. The darkness above him seemed to stretch on forever.
Deryck stopped between a pair of torches and examined the images carved into the mud brick walls. The faces of the gods stared back at him. They were dressed in the robes of their respective identities; however, each and every face was the same man with black eyes and curly hair that looked like a thousand springs atop his head. The face was eerily close to Herryk’s.
“You must be Marduk.”
Another cool breeze of magic gusted down the hallway. It was getting stronger. Deryck broke into a jog. The flickering torchlight made it seem as though the various faces of Marduk lurched out of the wall to grab him. A low thrum hummed in his head—the pounding of blood through his body as panic tried to grab hold and yank him to despair.
A voice drifted his way. His heart gave a wild thump. His feet faltered for a moment. Thank the gods, she is still alive. Shayla’s voice fell in rhythmic sways as she chanted a summoning spell. One that’d unleash a god who would level all other pantheons and subjugate their believers the moment he was in the human realm.
