Ascending Passion

by Amanda Pillar

  “You could just be a figment of my imagination.”

  He stood, his hands filled with little plastic bags of colorful powder. “If I am, why am I wearing clothes?”

  She blushed. “Because I don’t imagine all the guys around me naked.”

  She would never admit to him that he had been one of the guys she did.

  “Sure, sure.” He opened a bag and threw its contents into the air, the powder sparkling in the light. “Cat on a Broomstick, Manhattan.”

  The glitter rained onto the floor. Nothing else happened.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. How would they ever get that stuff out the tomb? People thought mummies were forever, but it wasn’t true. Glitter was.

  “Trying to open a Devilsgate to your grandmother’s store.”

  “A Devilsgate.” She may have heard her gran use the term before, but she’d never paid too much attention to her gran’s products, not unless she was ringing them through the till.

  “Yes, it’s a magical portal.”

  “You’ve gone nuts. Or I am dreaming. Yes, I’m dreaming.” She nodded. That had to be it.

  Yael pinched her.

  “Ow!” She glared at him. “Why did you do that?”

  “When you think you’re dreaming, you’re meant to be pinched.”

  “You’re meant to pinch yourself. Not have someone pinch you.” She rubbed her injured bicep.

  “Oops,” he said, but he didn’t appear exactly remorseful.

  “What are you doing now?” she demanded, following him. Yael stopped in front the Anubis statue Rowan had touched just before the flash, and threw some dark purple powder on it.

  “Why did you do that? You’ll have contaminated…”

  The dust fell through the figurine onto the floor.

  “You aren’t dreaming, and you aren’t hallucinating. You’re trapped in a magical bubble.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Then leave.”

  “I will.” She grabbed her backpack and flashlight and stormed to the doorway. Without pausing to look back, she hurried through into the passageway.

  She was still inside the tomb’s main chamber.

  Again, she tried to leave the room, only to feel her body waver for a second, before she found herself facing the doorway again, from inside the main chamber. The backpack fell from her shoulder, the thud loud in the quiet tomb.

  There has to be a way to explain this, she thought. Other than magic.

  But as she stood there for seconds, which turned to minutes, she couldn’t find a single rational explanation.

  She turned slowly back to Yael, tiredness a heavy cloak on her shoulders. “It won’t let me go.”

  He nodded, face grim. “I don’t think we’re leaving here anytime soon.”

  She walked over to the wall opposite the door and sat, staring at the side of the sarcophagus. Twosret. They’d found her.

  Yay.

  “I can lean against this,” Rowan said, realizing she hadn’t fallen through the wall.

  “Probably because it’s the boundary of the trap. A spell like this would have limits.”

  Rowan wanted to refute him, say he was wrong, but she’d tried leaving, and she couldn’t. And the pinch he’d given her, well, it had hurt. So, the only thing she could conclude was that she was awake, and if this was a hallucination, it was so believable she’d be hard-pressed trying to come to terms with ‘reality’ after.

  How many people are diagnosed with mental illnesses because this has happened to them?

  Well, not the tomb and the mummy and the…spell, but something that couldn’t be made clear with logic and science, something that was so inexplicable they had to just believe in the evidence before them.

  She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on them. What were they going to do?

  You have a cellphone.

  Desperately, she wiggled around until she could reach her handset in her pocket, and pulled it out, triumphant. Triumphant until she spotted the lack of signal, at least. She tried dialing the international number for search and rescue—which was supposed to work without reception—nothing.

  Was this really magic, she wondered. If all this was real, how much must her family have laughed at her over the years? The only one in their huge, widespread network who refused to believe. The only one who insisted science had all the answers, the only one who’d sit at a huge Beltane feast thinking it was all a sham.

  “You’re quiet,” Yael said, sitting down next to her.

  “Just reevaluating my life.” She stared out over the tomb. “So, you believe in magic? Is that why Gran hired you, cos you’re in on it?” The picture of a severed arm oozing blood flashed before her eyes and she shuddered. “Were those people who attacked us at the restaurant even part of a cult?”

  He shook his head slowly. “They weren’t part of a cult, no. They were demons.”

  “Demons?” Rowan’s voice grew high pitched. “You expect me to suddenly accept magic is real and now you want me to believe in demons?”

  Yael’s voice cut through her growing hysteria. “Your entire family thinks magic is real, so it isn’t a new concept. And yes, demons. They weren’t human. And that skull in the passage? Demon.”

  That skull was strange, she couldn’t deny it.

  “So how did you come to believe in magic, then?” Rowan demanded. She took three deep breaths, to calm herself down, to not shout he was crazy and she was even crazier for listening to him.

  “Because I’m not human.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not human. I never was.”

  He’s always been too handsome to be real. So were his friends. So was Luke. But… “What are you then?”

  “An angel.”

  She laughed. She couldn’t help it. She laughed until she cried, and all the while, Yael sat against the wall next to her, a silent presence. It reminded her of the dream she’d had; Yael had told her he was an angel then, too. “You’re not serious, are you?” She shook her head, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  “I am very serious.”

  Her eyesight no longer blurred, she took in his expression. Tight mouth, slitted eyes; he was insulted, deeply so. She blanched.

  “I—I thought you were joking.” His jaw tightened at her comment. “You don’t have wings,” she blurted.

  “They were cut off.”

  “Cut off?” she echoed. This was creepily familiar.

  He turned away from her and pulled up his black T-shirt, exposing the smooth lines of his back, the taut skin, the bronzed muscles…and the two scars that ran vertically on either side of his spine.

  She gasped. “What happened?”

  He flicked the shirt down. “A precious artifact was stolen from Heaven. And I was blamed for it.”

  Wait. Heaven? As in actual Heaven?

  “Why you?”

  “You don’t think I’d be responsible?” He quirked an eyebrow at her.

  “No.” Yael was a lot of things, but no thief.

  He sighed. “I was part of an elite squadron of soldiers who were set to guard Heaven’s Heart—”

  “Wait.” Rowan held up a hand. It was getting too much. “I’ve dreamed about this. It’s a squat building in the middle of a long hall.”

  Yael turned to her. “You dreamed it, too?”

  “Yes.”

  They stared at each other.

  “We shared a dream?” she asked eventually.

  He told her his dream: it had been the same. She’d woken up with a split lip she couldn’t explain, and it was this, more than anything else, that convinced her. She could be hallucinating everything around her, but she remembered that dream. Plus, he’d offered his version first, which matched hers. It was far too much of a coincidence for it to be natural.

  “So,” she said into the tomb. “You’re really an angel.”

  “I really am.”<
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  Chapter 40

  Yael still didn’t think that Rowan believed him entirely, but her views had been shaken, that he could guarantee.

  Pretty hard to pretend that magic doesn’t exist when you’re sitting in a chamber you can’t escape and where you can’t touch anything.

  “Surely Azrael and Dru will come for us soon,” Rowan said into the silence.

  “How long has it been?”

  Rowan checked her watch. “One hour.”

  Yael ran a hand over his hair. “An hour?” Dru liked to make his life difficult just because she could, but she had been excited about entering the tomb, even though she’d been banned from taking any ‘goodies’. He couldn’t see her waiting for so long, especially when their goal was to get Campbell inside to neutralize any nasty spells.

  “Maybe the door closed again?”

  “That rock I put there to block it weighed two hundred pounds.” The magic on the door surely wasn’t that strong.

  Rowan choked. “I thought you were exaggerating.”

  “I’m an angel, remember.”

  “But Dru threw it to you…wait. Is she an angel, too?”

  “Dru is half-demon, half-human. It means she’s a cambion.”

  Rowan’s brow furrowed. “So, humans and demons can mate? And if Azrael is an angel and Dru is a demon…”

  “That’s generally not allowed. But Azrael is also fallen.”

  “You said you lost your wings with your comrades. But Azrael is your brother—”

  “He’s not my true brother,” he said, although that tasted like a lie. “We were part of the Darts.”

  “When you told me he was, it sounded so truthful.”

  “It’s part of being an angel. We can sense truth, and some humans can feel it when we speak it.”

  “So, he’s not your brother…”

  “Biologically. Since falling we’ve created a family.”

  He hadn’t really thought of it like that before, but it was true. That’s what they had become. Azrael, Seraphina, Raze and him. Z was included as well, yet more like a cousin than a sibling, because he’d spent most of his time in Hell since being rescued. But still family.

  Maybe that’s why Dina’s rejection hurt.

  He hadn’t acknowledged it at the time, but he had been pissed when she’d told the Darts to take a hike. They only had each other, and she had turned her backs on them.

  She could be a traitor.

  Yeah, well, he needed more evidence before he came to that decision.

  “I’m going to study the tomb.” Rowan stood, notepad in hand, and wandered around the room, starting near the doorway.

  He should probably help her, but he was feeling jittery. He started doing pushups instead. At least it would burn off some of his excess energy.

  He’d moved on to burpees by the time Rowan called out his name. “Yael! It’s Dr. Campbell!”

  Looking up, sweat dripping in his eyes, he grinned. Help was here.

  “Dr. Campbell!” Rowan approached the other archaeologist and touched his arm.

  Her hand swiped through him. He didn’t even blink.

  She tried again and again to get his attention, but he barely even moved.

  Yael gently touched her on the shoulder. “He can’t see or hear us.”

  “But how?”

  “Ma—”

  “Don’t you dare say it.”

  “—gic.”

  She crumpled. Right there in front of Campbell’s feet. Huge sobs shook her shoulders, and Yael stood like an idiot, unsure of what to do. Comforting people wasn’t really his thing.

  Last time she was upset she wanted a hug.

  He could do that.

  He picked her up, and she fought him, kicking and flailing, but he ignored it. He dumped her over his shoulder, fireman style, and carried her over to the other side of the tomb. He lowered her to the ground and sat next to her, an arm over her shoulders.

  “Don’t cry,” he said after she’d sobbed for another few minutes.

  “I’m not crying.” She wiped tear-stained cheeks with her fists.

  “Uhh—”

  “I’m angry.”

  “You’re angry-crying?” He didn’t even know that was a thing. She blew her nose on a tissue and then shoved it back into her pocket. Eww.

  “Just give me a second.” She took a couple of ragged breaths and then closed her eyes. But there were no more tears.

  “I—”

  She held up a finger, indicating she wanted silence.

  He turned back to Campbell. The guy had moved four step.

  Four. Steps.

  That isn’t good.

  He hugged Rowan closer, and she let him.

  “Sorry for that.” Her voice was croaky. “I don’t normally do that, but I just got so overwhelmed. Kayla’s dead, we’re trapped here. But I am back in control now.”

  “It was an outlet?” Her face was blotchy, her nose red, and her eyes burned green.

  “Yes. It helped.”

  “Good.”

  It wasn’t how he would have handled things, but he wasn’t human. And he wasn’t her. If she needed to cry to sort through her emotions, then so be it. He’d just done a thousand pushups and around two hundred burpees. They had different ways of dealing with things.

  “Thanks.” She gave him a small kiss on the cheek.

  It should have meant nothing, but his whole body came alive, his cock hard, and his blood thundering through his veins. He wanted to throw her on the floor and taste every inch of her.

  He shut his eyes.

  This isn’t good.

  In fact, his desire for her was just was getting worse.

  I’ve never wanted anyone like I do her.

  And there she sat, snuggled up to him like a trusting kitten, unaware that he was using all of his willpower not to beg her to kiss him again.

  But then he saw it.

  She was breathing quicker too, and her pupils were huge.

  She wants me as well.

  Wonderful. The two of them lusting after each other and trapped in a tomb with nowhere to go. This was going to end badly.

  Hopefully Azrael finds us quickly.

  Because he wasn’t sure how long he would be able to resist her.

  “Campbell just reached the center of the tomb,” Rowan said, her voice distracting him.

  Thank fuck.

  “It’s been around ten minutes.”

  “Time dilation,” Yael whispered.

  “What?”

  “Time is moving slower in here than it is out there.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Actually, according to physics it is. But how…” He stood and strode over to the Anubis statue, scanning its engravings in the hope they’d give them a clue. “Any who touch this statue will know unending torture; hour watchers beware.”

  “The statue is the trigger,” Rowan said. “Hour watches…they were the timekeepers in Egypt.”

  He was about to make a Captain Obvious gag when Azrael appeared in the doorway. “We need to know how fast time is moving here.”

  “Well, it would have taken no more than a minute for Campbell to get to the sarcophagus, even going slowly.”

  “And Azrael wouldn’t have been far behind.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Around fifteen minutes.”

  Yael tapped his fingers against his thigh. “Egyptians had a base ten numeric system, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.” She was now studying the statue, too.

  “So, if we divide an hour by ten we get six minutes.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Maybe for every six minutes that passes in the real world, an hour passes for us.”

  “Can you be sure? It doesn’t say anything like that on the statue.”

  It was true, all Yael’s Clear Sight powder showed him was the spell itself, an
d the statue had no details of how it worked. Raze probably could have identified the design of the magic. It looked like star constellations.

  Yael pointed at Campbell and Azrael. “See how far they’ve moved and how long it’s been for us.”

  He returned to the wall and sat, watching the scene play out before him. Rowan eventually joined him.

  “It’s been an hour.”

  “They had a conversation and Azrael left.” Once the Dart had entered the passage, Yael hadn’t been able to keep track of him. “It might not be six minutes, but this whole scene appears like it would have taken place in under ten.”

  “Let’s say it is six minutes.” She withdrew a calculator from her bag. He’d seen her using it before when she’d been measuring out her trench. “That means that for every day that happens in the real world, we’re trapped here for ten.”

  “Well then, let’s hope they work out we’re missing soon.”

  Chapter 41

  Rowan had to accept it.

  Magic was real.

  It was the only explanation for what was happening to them. And she wasn’t about to deny what was going on right before her own eyes. She’d always said, if she could see it, she’d believe it.

  Well, she’d certainly seen it.

  For hours.

  Dr. Campbell had been slowly—as in, super-slow—moving around the tomb and Rowan had watched, occasionally trying to direct him toward the Anubis statue. Instead, he’d gone to a random selection of items, said some words, sometimes thrown some powder on them, and moved on.

  “What’s he doing?” Rowan asked. They’d fallen into a companionable silence, while she studied the tomb’s objects and Yael either worked out or helped her. She’d tried not to watch the way his body moved when he exercised, but it had been difficult. Too difficult. She’d nearly bitten her tongue off a time or two trying to distract herself.

  “Removing any curses.”

  “You mean spells?”

  “I mean curses. Campbell is a Cornak demon, they specialize in curses. It energizes them.”

  “But he looks human.”

  Yael grabbed a locket from under his shirt—why hadn’t she noticed that he kept it there? She’d certainly been eyeing off his chest a lot—and opened it. A dull gray powder sat within. “Rub some of this over your eyelids.”