by Jenn Bennett
VERA MURRAY BACALL
WIFE AND MOTHER
BORN 1875–DIED 1906
Her coffin lay on the other side of the carved granite door. No crossbar inside, of course. Her father would’ve found it when he defied the law that forbid burial within the city and sneaked her remains into the mausoleum during the chaotic aftermath of the Great Fire.
But the last crypt, her father’s future resting spot, remained empty. If her mother was going to hide something, that would be the place.
“Here goes nothing,” Hadley murmured to herself, and inserted the smaller key into the iron crypt door.
Dread hit her like a slap against the cheek.
Bad energy she’d recognize anywhere. Adam had been right about iron keeping things contained.
She directed the flashlight’s beam into the dark space. The final canopic jar. The human-headed lid representing Imsety, protector of the liver.
What a fine joke her mother played, hiding the crossbar in a place that no one would have reason to open until after her father’s death. When it was too late for him to use the amulet.
She’d never hated her mother more.
After flicking off the flashlight, Hadley hauled the canopic jar out of the crypt and took one last look at the pictograms before dashing it against the granite floor. A flash of gold danced over the ceramic shards and skipped out of the mausoleum chamber, into the muddy ground outside.
Hadley stepped into the gray light and saw the thing more clearly. It wasn’t a plain crossbar like the others. This one had a loop on top, onto which a long gold chain was attached. The top of the amulet. Once it was attached to the other pieces, it became a necklace.
Hadley stepped over a gnarled root of the Acacia tree and stooped to pick it up. Her fingers met someone else’s. She looked up and found herself face-to-face with Oliver Ginn.
“Hello, Miss Bacall,” he said, snatching the crossbar out of the mud.
She jerked away and stumbled to her feet.
“Doing a little afternoon grave robbing?” He wiped mud from the crossbar with the cuff of his dark coat sleeve as drizzle beaded on the brim of his hat.
“That doesn’t belong to you,” she said, grabbing.
Long fingers closed around the chain as he yanked it out of her reach. “If we’re being accurate, it doesn’t belong to anyone but the ancient priestesses back in the desert. Your father was a fool to track down the pieces. A bigger fool to send children out to reclaim it after your mother spent all that effort to keep it out of his hands.”
“She apparently meant to keep it out of your hands as well, Oliver. Or Noel. Whatever the hell you want to call yourself.”
“Ah,” he said, lifting his head to squint at her. The face she’d once thought handsome and young hadn’t changed, but the knowledge that he was unnatural made the hollows of his cheeks seem gaunter; the light behind his eyes, dimmer. “I’ve been Oliver for many years now,” he said softly. “But I won’t lie—I enjoy hearing ‘Noel’ on your lips. Reminds me so much of Vera.”
“Don’t mistake me for my mother.”
“No, you are so much colder than she ever was. But I see now that the aloofness is a defense. You grew up alone, without the warmth that a mother provides.”
“Indeed, I did. Because even when she was alive, she was no mother. She handed me over to the staff and went about her merry way. She was too busy cuckolding my father to bother raising a child.”
“She loved you. You and your father, unfortunately. Archie certainly didn’t deserve the emotion she wasted on him. He was more concerned about advancing his career than giving her what she needed.”
“Yes, he certainly didn’t give her what you did—namely, an arcane magical spell that took her life.”
Oliver’s brows snapped together. “It saved her life. And yours, as well.”
“It also cursed me!”
“Cursed? How? You didn’t die after eight years like your mother. You’re standing here now, aren’t you?” he said, his gaze sliding over her in a way that made the hairs on her arms stand on end. “You know, when I heard the amulet base had been found, I expected to see your father scrambling to get his hands on it. I did not expect to find you—looking more like your mother than I could have ever dreamed.”
“Why? Did you expect the Mori specters to have taken my soul eight years after my mother died and passed along her curse to me?”
His eyes flicked to hers. “I had no idea that would happen. Or that it had. Not until the night of the museum party. When I saw the reapers climbing the walls, I thought they were finally coming for me. Then I thought they were coming for you, that it was happening all over again. I’d just found you, and they were taking you away from me again—”
Hadley opened her mouth to protest, but he was in another world, eyes glazed over and haunted. After a moment, he floated back down to terra firma. “But when I realized the reapers were responding to your command, it was the most extraordinary revelation. Hadley, don’t you understand? You wield the power of a goddess. The hounds of Set respond to your command. You took down my griffin—”
“You sent those magical creatures to kill us.”
“I sent them to fetch these,” he said, holding up the chain. The crossbar swung in the air, dangling in the mist. “Neither would have harmed you.”
“Your fire-breathing golem burned Lowe.”
His eyes darkened. “I said they wouldn’t harm you, not that Nordic cretin. And you should be blaming him for putting you in harm’s way, right from the beginning. Both him and your greedy father—you can’t imagine how furious I was to discover that he’d sent you to meet Magnusson at the train station in Salt Lake City.”
Hadley recoiled. “You sent those two goons after Lowe?”
“I paid them to retrieve the amulet base using whatever means necessary. Magnusson should’ve been dead in Chicago, and if it weren’t for their incompetence he would have been. I only learned after the fact that the woman with whom he escaped on the train was you. And when your loudmouthed lover, George Houston—”
“George?” Dear God! His name alone was enough to flip her panic into a true anger that stirred up the Mori. She felt them sniffing from the hedgerow, beyond the great Acacia tree.
“Oh, yes. A lout who can be bought with a single drink is no one you should be sharing a bed with,” he scolded in a manner that exposed the old man hiding behind his youthful facade. “Houston told me he’d overheard your father instructing you to meet up with Magnusson at the Flood Mansion party. I couldn’t believe he’d use his own daughter to do his dirty work.”
He was mistaken about that, but she didn’t say this. Her gaze shot beyond Noel’s shoulder to see her father in his wheelchair, blindly cutting two muddy ruts through the dead grass.
“Hello, Archie.”
“Hello, Noel, you filthy piece of shit.”
Noel barked a cruel laugh. And in that moment, Hadley lunged and snatched the crossbar dangling from his fist. The chain snapped—one of the links broke open. But she got it!
“Now, now, my dear.” Noel glanced at her father, but his focus was fixed on her. “That wasn’t nice. Is your allegiance really so firmly entwined with your father? I challenge you to remember that the man betrayed you in front of his peers, selling away your career to the first clod treasure hunter who happened to stumble upon the amulet base.”
“For the love of God, I didn’t do it to spite her.” Her father came to a stop a few yards away. “It was merely a carrot to lure Magnusson. And I’d do it again a million times over if it meant I’d get even half a chance to put your rotten corpse in the ground. Hadley,” he called out. “Stay away from that man. He’s dangerous.”
“I know who he is,” she said. “I know everything. I know about the Deathless magic and his affair with Mother and that she passed on the sp
ecters to me when she died.”
“Hadley,” her father said in a broken voice.
Tears stung her eyes as the Mori crept closer. “Why didn’t you tell me? I had a right to know. I’m not a child.”
“I just wanted to keep you safe. And I didn’t want you to think badly of your mother.”
“Why should she?” Noel said. “Vera was brilliant and filled with endless potential. Her mistake was trusting you’d recognize that.”
“Of course I did—she was my wife!”
Anger tightened Noel’s face. “She may have been your wife on paper but she died in my arms,” he said, thumping his chest.
“A sight I’ll never forget,” her father snapped. “The entire city was in chaos, and I raced home to find you in my bed. My bed. My house. My wife.” His arms began shaking. “And you killed her. You infected her with that disease in Egypt. You made her sick while she was pregnant with my child. And you’re the one who insisted I call that unholy witch—Hadley’s curse is your fault!”
“My God, Archie,” Noel shouted. “It’s not a curse. She commands those reapers—that’s a gift from the gods. Then again, I suppose this is not something you’d appreciate if you’ve misled her all these years.”
“That spell has rotted your brain.”
Noel shook his head and turned to Hadley, speaking in a softer voice. “Come with me. I can take you to Cairo and show you incredible things. Things your mother loved.”
Smoky shadows circled the base of the Acacia tree and climbed the wet bark as Noel’s voice grew more persuasive. “Think about it, Hadley. I understand if you have doubts about us. I even accept that you’ve taken this Magnusson fellow as a lover. But you can’t deny that there’s something bigger drawing us together. It’s fate, Hadley. We’re two halves that can make a whole—you with the power to wield death, and me, the man death cannot touch.”
Her father made a choking noise. “Are you mad? First my wife and now my daughter? Death isn’t good enough for you! I should’ve dug a hole and cemented you inside.”
“And I should’ve done the same to you, but I made a promise to Vera that I wouldn’t kill you.”
“You’re killing me with this goddamn aging spell.”
“I’m just giving you a shove in the right direction. But if you want an even bigger push, I’m happy to oblige.”
The Mori were making Hadley dizzy. So many of them. Some were pulling on her anger and panic; others were focused on something else. And when she realized what that thing was, she pulled herself together long enough to retrieve the amulet base from her coat pocket.
“Hadley,” Noel warned when he saw the gold gleam.
“Father may have made a lot of mistakes, but my mother obviously cared enough to stay with him. And I guess there are some similarities between my mother and me after all, because I stand by him, too.”
“Hadley,” her father called out in warning.
“Don’t worry, Father,” she said, backing away from Noel into the mausoleum doorway. “I’ve got all the pieces now. You should’ve asked me to find them in the first place.”
“Hadley—”
Bracing for the unknown, she slipped the last crossbar into the top of the amulet. It greedily attached itself, as if it were magnetized. As if it were alive. With shaking, rain-slick fingers, she twisted it together, and the metal snicked into place.
THIRTY-TWO
THE AMULET WAS WHOLE, all the pieces assembled. Hadley expected something big and dramatic and frightening to happen. But . . .
Nothing.
No door to the underworld. No flash of light. No swirl of magical smoke. She wiggled it while glancing around, looking for something that wasn’t there. She shook it, grunting. Still nothing.
Noel’s slow chuckle grew into a laugh. “Oh, Archie. If you could only see the look on her face. Your precious Backbone of Osiris doesn’t seem to work. I’m afraid someone’s been deceived because I don’t see any sort of magical doorway to a dark netherworld.”
Dear God. Had Adam given her the wrong one? Had she just attached the last crossbar to a forgery? She cried out in frustration. Her Mori wailed along with her, teeth gnashing. Wanting to be loosed. A rumbling noise gathering somewhere in the distance grew closer and closer.
“Hadley!” her father bellowed. “Put it around his neck. It must be around his neck!”
She stared at the broken chain. Glanced up at Noel. His slow grin sent a shiver of fear across her skin. Stupid, arrogant bastard. She might not kill him, but she could damn sure hurt him enough to make him wish he were dead.
That distant rumble grew louder, until her bones shook with it. And with a furious wail, she unleashed the Mori and willed them upon Noel with all her might.
Shadows coalesced above the mausoleum as her specters swirled around a tree limb that was fatter than a man’s chest and easily twenty feet long. The grand old Blackwood Acacia shook. Wood groaned. Bark splintered. And with a terrible crack! the hulking limb came crashing down through the misting rain.
Noel lunged to the side as the limb exploded near Hadley’s feet, hitting the ground with such force, it made her teeth clack together. Hadley’s gaze met his over the fallen branches. His mouth screwed into a snarl. His eyes squeezed shut momentarily. “Forgive me, Vera,” he mumbled before whipping around to face her father. A string of familiar words floated from his lips. What was that? Egyptian Arabic?
Wind rustled through her hair as Noel shouted something at the sky.
Her father screamed. His legs twisted around each other. Bone cracked.
“Father!” Hadley stumbled over the mausoleum steps and slipped in the mud as the Acacia tree shook again. She saw her specters rocking another bough a moment before a streak of red flew across the grass.
The rumble wasn’t coming from the Mori.
It was Lulu.
A dark figure leapt from the bike—one she barely recognized as Lowe. His soaked clothes clung to lean muscles. A wild crown of burnished gold curls dripped over narrowed eyes as his long legs carried him across the lawn with dangerous grace. He looked as if he were the devil himself, risen from hell, bent on ripping someone’s heart from their chest.
That someone turned out to be Noel.
As Hadley pushed herself out of the mud, she spied Lowe reaching under the flap of his suit jacket. Silver winked in the mist as he fisted his curved dagger.
“Lowe!” she shouted.
His eyes briefly flicked to hers, but they barely registered recognition. He looked possessed. How in the world had he known to come here? Had Adam told him? She couldn’t remember what she’d muttered to the watchmaker when she left his shop.
“The amulet!” her father bit out between pained breaths. “Get it . . . around his n-neck.”
Lowe charged at Noel and tackled him. Knocked the man clear off his feet like he was nothing more than a leather-bound punching bag, sending his hat flying off. And Hadley nearly slipped again as their combined weight hit the felled tree limb and pushed it backward several inches toward her.
Growling, Lowe grabbed the man’s hair with his disfigured hand and slammed the back of his head against the branches—once, twice. Noel flailed. Struggled. Then regained some strength and struck Lowe across the face so violently that Hadley cried out.
But Lowe just shook it off and changed tactics, spitting out Swedish curses. His bad hand came down on Noel’s wrist. The dagger rose up in the rain as Lowe lifted his arm, grunted savagely, and swung down with brutal force. The blade sliced through the middle of Noel’s palm and jammed into the tree limb.
Noel screamed. He tried to lift his arm and failed as blood pooled in his palm.
Lowe had pinned the man’s hand to the wood.
And the wound was already mending itself, trying to close up around the blade.
“Hadley!” Lowe shout
ed. “Give it to me, now.”
She hesitated, gripping the muddy amulet in her fist. The chain was broken. She needed to tell him that. And so much more. She wanted all of this madness to disappear, for the landscape to be wiped clean. For one minute alone with him, so they could assess the situation together and find a solution, like they had done so many times before everything went so terribly wrong.
Before he smashed her heart into a thousand pieces.
God, how she wanted him to be the man she’d trusted.
More than anything.
Some part of her must have had faith, because her arm jerked forward on its own accord, offering up the amulet to Lowe.
In a flash, he seized it from her hand. Wild eyes met hers. Just for a moment. But when she failed to get a single word out of her mouth, he dropped his furious gaze onto Noel and wrapped the loose ends of the chain around the man’s neck like he was trying to choke him with the amulet.
The Mori let out a collective wail. A warning. Something was happening.
The ground shook. The bough cracked. And the amulet’s nasty energy suddenly intensified as a dark void opened up beneath Noel’s back.
It was working!
The void spread like a black halo over Noel’s shoulders, down his legs. The Mori flew down from the tree and circled the men like dark angels.
Noel screamed in horror. But he wasn’t the only one. Lowe struggled to push himself off of Noel. They were sinking together into the void, as if the darkness was made of quicksand—a hungry, pitch-black mouth eager to swallow them alive.
Hadley rushed forward, and with both hands, grabbed Lowe’s arm and pulled.
“Hang on,” she shouted, digging one heel into the muddy ground and pushing one against the fallen tree limb for leverage. It was impossible. She could feel the dark suctioning energy of the void sapping at her strength. And Lowe was too big. Too heavy. His wet clothes slipped under her hands and she nearly lost him.
