My collar fell to the floor, and my body buzzed with divine energy.
I’m free!
I cracked the spear sticking from his body and pulled it out so I’d be able to carry him over my shoulder. But there was so much blood.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I pulled strips of fabric from the bedding and tried to plug the hole, but the blood came too fast.
I flung him over my shoulder, grateful for the return of my powers, which included physical strength, and fled the chamber. Dead bodies were strewn about the temple, and it was obvious Narmer’s guards had taken down a few of his brother’s men before losing the battle to defend their king.
I scampered down the steps of Narmer’s private temple, feeling his warm blood trickling down my lower back and legs. Oh, gods, he wasn’t going to make it!
I ran straight thought the courtyard toward the outer temple that led to the exit, but standing there was a strange, little man. He wore a loincloth and necklace made of human fingers. His hair was pulled into a strange, little ponytail atop his head. He reeked of dark energy, like he’d bathed in evil.
Ugh! It’s one of those creepy Mayan priests! I knew this because (a) we bumped into his peeps quite often given our portals were in their barrio and (b) because these tiny bastards had recently decided that ripping out people’s hearts was a spiffy way to amp up their powers. Remember that River of Tlaloc I talked about? Well, his people had been drinking the damned water for so long, they’d developed supernatural powers. Mostly harmless ones—seeing the dead, making rain, talking to animals, blah, blah, blah—but they were certainly on our deity radar.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
He held out his hand to stop me. “He will die, but I can help you save him.”
I blinked as my mind tried to sort out the pieces. “Mitnal, I presume.”
He smiled and flashed his blackened teeth. “Why, yes, my dear goddess.” He bowed. “At your service.”
“Good. I need to get across town to the Temple of Bastet. I need to get back to my cenote.”
Mitnal slowly shook his head as if he’d achieved some sinister victory. My goddess red flags were flying their colors high in the sky. In fact, if I weren’t so busy, I’d snatch the soul right out of him. He was bad news.
“You will never make it in time,” he said. “He is turning blue. If I may, my goddess, offer another suggestion. One that is guaranteed to save our dear pharaoh?”
What had Narmer been trying to tell me before he’d passed out? It had sounded like a warning. Well, I didn’t need a warning. Anyone could see this man was up to no good.
“He has stopped breathing,” Mitnal pointed out.
I stilled. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I slid Narmer down on the ground and started doing that thing called CPR. Humans in the future had developed the technique, and it did save lives on occasion.
“Whatever it is, do it!” I screamed between puffing breaths into Narmer’s bloody mouth.
Mitnal sank to his knees. He reached his arms high in the sky and began reciting a prayer to the Universe, a prayer to summon the dark energy. Like a godsdamned evil magnet, evil light collected around him and began to swirl around us, kicking up dust and leaves.
Great, fucking great. The crazy priest is going to save him with evil dirt!
“I call to the gods, to the divine Creator of all life,” Mitnal chanted, whipping his arms around, spinning the dark energy into tight circles.
Damn. What is he doing?
Mitnal looked at me. “Rise to your knees, goddess!” he screamed.
I did as he asked, covering my ears. The noise was deafening.
“You have vowed to give your heart to this man, yes?” Mitnal asked.
“Yes! Yes.” I had such a bad feeling about this.
“Then in the name of the divine Creator.” He reached out with his long, blackened fingernails and plunged his hand into my chest, pulling from it my beating heart. I looked at the human organ, unable to react or speak. Mitnal held the heart in the air, and the dark energy whooshed inside it, disappearing. “With this divine spark of life, the blood of the pharaoh shall live forever.”
He plunged my heart into Narmer’s chest, and the sky burst with lavender. I felt my light flicker.
I held my hand over the gaping hole in my chest. “What have you done?” I hissed.
Mitnal grinned. “I saved him, just as you asked. With a piece of your light. And soon, my people will have an immortal army with which we will conquer the world. We will be the greatest civilization ever to rule.”
A black splotch spread across my line of sight, and then death swallowed me whole.
* * *
In a rage, I emerged several days later from the Mexican cenote. That’s where deity souls end up when our human bodies are destroyed. From there, we can choose to return to our realm or have the cenote provide us with a new human suit.
In this case, I’d opted for a new body. Not only did I want revenge, but also I needed to know if Narmer was all right. And I wanted answers. Because while my new humanlike body, which included a new heart, felt fine, my light felt slightly weaker.
I immediately set out for the Mayan village just a few hours away by foot. I would find one of Mitnal’s cohorts and torture the truth from them. What horrible, dark magic were they using? Why did they believe it would create an immortal army? But when I arrived, the village leader said that the priests had disappeared many moons ago. No one knew where they were. One could only assume somewhere in the jungle, planning world domination. Idiots.
As soon as I knew Narmer was all right, I would call a summit and propose the gods take action. The priests would have to be taken out.
Chapter Six
One year later… (Yep, still somewhere around 3000 BC.)
Clothes tattered, hair matted into giant, platypus tail–like clumps, skin charred and covered in grime of the most unimaginable sorts, I schlepped my way up the steps of Narmer’s temple. My new humanlike heart pounded like a war drum inside my chest, mirroring the roar of thunder booming through the air. Rain and lightning showered down on everything around me. I couldn’t stop it; my overflowing emotions had to be released somewhere. Gods, what I’d been through this past year. All just to make it back to Egypt. Back to my beloved Narmer. I could only hope he was all right.
I stopped at the entrance of the outer temple and looked around. Where were Lefty and Righty? Granted they’d likely been killed during the attack on that fateful night one year ago; however, I would have expected the pharaoh to have a new set of hunky-skirts guarding his door. Yet there was no one. In fact—I turned and looked back toward the muddy avenue bathed in the gray light of the fading day—the crowded scene of merchants carrying their goods had been replaced by an utter lack of human life. Where had everyone gone?
Goose bumps erupted on my skin, and the air became electrified with dark energy. Oh, gods, please let him be all right, I prayed.
I entered the dank, dark temple and quietly made my way through the maze of chambers that would lead to the inner courtyard. The place was a damned mess. Broken vases, dirt, leaves, and sand covered the once pristine stone floors. Dried-out weeds sprouted alongside wilted potted plants.
What had happened?
“Narmer?” I called out as I reached the foot of his private temple.
No response.
If that godsdamned Mitnal did anything to him, I’d rip out the man’s innards with a spork. No, those wouldn’t exist for thousands of years until the colonel blessed the planet with a socially acceptable reason to publicly lick one’s fingers; however, I’d find some creative way to pass the time until such sporks were available to carry out my revenge. Torture was a good time-passer-byer.
I made my way up the steps, trying to ignore my throbbing, cracked feet and the aches and pains jabbing each muscle of my shivering humanlike body.
Almost to Narmer’s private bedchamber, a muted whimper caught my attention.
; “Narmer?” I whispered. The coppery scent of fresh blood filled my nostrils. I reached the doorway and looked inside. My heart sank as my eyes registered the scene before me: Narmer. On the bed with three naked women. The body of one dangled off the edge, her eyes vacant with death and a dribble of blood running down the side of her neck onto the floor. The second woman lay with her wrist wedged into Narmer’s mouth, and the third—well, the third moaned beneath him as he pumped himself between her thighs.
“What the…?” I gasped.
Narmer’s head lifted, and he stared like a wild beast, continuing the rhythm of his hips. “What the fuck do you want?”
My heart cracked in two. “I-I…” I didn’t know what to say.
The woman beneath him reached up, grabbed his hair, and yanked his face toward her demanding lips. The other female, the one who was still alive, obviously, grunted like a cavewoman and shoved her wrist between them, back into his mouth. All the while, Narmer continued hammering.
I turned away. I couldn’t bear to look. I couldn’t bear to let him see me crumble into a million pieces. I didn’t know what he’d become, but that was not the man I’d spent the last twelve months fighting to return to. It had taken me six tries, six bodies to cross the ocean. Each time I died, my light returned to the cenote in Mexico. But I hadn’t given up. It was the worst, most excruciating year of my existence, not knowing if he was all right. The fear, the sorrow, the panic consumed me to a point that I’d had no choice but to cut myself off from my brethren completely, lest the gods be overcome with my grief.
I stumbled out of Narmer’s temple, fisting my hand over the gaping, raw hole in my chest. Yes, my new body had a new heart, but that mad holy man had ripped away part of my soul and given it to Narmer. The ironic part was that these past months, I’d found comfort in the hope that Narmer might feel a connection and know I was making my way to him.
I am such a fool. I’d believed that he truly cared for me. I believed that when he’d taken that vow, it had actually meant something.
But it hadn’t. Or if it had, the Narmer who’d cared for me no longer existed. I could not begin to process the overwhelming despair, the anger, the confusion over what I’d seen. It was too much. I had to bury it, lock it up where it couldn’t hurt me.
I made my way across the small city to the Temple of Bastet, hoping I’d find Minky. I’d set her free and retreat back to the cenote, back to my world. But what would I tell my brethren? That I fell in love with a mortal and then allowed some decrepit Mayan priest to turn him into a monster with my light?
I entered the eerily vacant temple and began searching the chambers. One, two, three empty chambers. “Godsdammit! Minky! Where are you?” I needed to get out of there. I needed to run from the pain.
“You will not find her here.” Narmer appeared out of thin air right before my eyes, dressed in a simple piece of cloth wrapped around his waist.
I shrank back. “What are you?”
He smiled and wiped away the fresh blood still stuck to his lips. “What are we?” he corrected.
“We?”
“Oh yes, there are many of our new species. My five brothers and sisters were affected by Mitner’s evil sorcery. I can only assume because we are connected by our blood. Of course, the struggle for power began almost immediately, so each of us has created children. My army grows the fastest because I am the strongest.”
“Army?” Great. What had I done? I needed to get the hell home and tell my brethren. I needed to get the hell out of there before I had a breakdown. The man I loved was dead. Dead! Replaced by this cold, power-hungry monster. “My blessings to you and your new scary family. Where’s my unicorn?”
Narmer snarled in my face. “Where the fuck were you?”
“Me? Oh, you know. Here. There. I found a couple of hotties down in the Caribbean,” I lied. “If the palm tree is a rocking, don’t come a knockin’. Where. The. Hell. Is. Minky?”
Narmer slammed me against the wall, knocking the breath from my body. “Your beast is dead.”
Bastard. “You can’t kill a unicorn; they’re made of pure light.”
“I had Mitnal fix that, right before I sucked the blood from his body. Then I drank your little unicorn, too. She was”—he sucked in a breath—“delicious.”
Motherfucker! “That’s impossible. You’re lying!”
“Impossible? Impossible,” he screamed. “Look at me! Look what you have done to me! Nothing is impossible.”
“But I…” I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t about to admit that I’d loved him and tried to save him. “I think you got what you deserved for fucking with a goddess.” And killing my Minky!
I turned away. But then another thought hit me. He was evil. I was a goddess. I could undo the wrong and make it all right. This was not the man I’d loved. This was some dark, twisted version of him.
I reached out my hand, calling on my gift of soul claiming, and placed it on his chest. I’d take back what was given to him.
Nothing.
I stared at him. He stared back, apparently pleased with himself.
“Looking for something?” he asked.
“Your soul? It seems to be missing.”
“I’m dead! I have no soul for you to claim, goddess. You lose.”
Smug jerk! I slapped him across the face. Now, normally that would send a man flying across the room. But not Narmer. His head barely moved. And my hand kind of hurt.
“You cannot injure me,” he said. “I am strong. I am immortal. Just like you.”
He gripped my shoulders, pulled me into him, and kissed me hard. I squirmed and released a surge of energy to ward him off. It did absolutely nothing.
He broke the kiss and laughed.
“Let me go!” I wailed.
He did and then bowed his head. “As you wish, my goddess.”
“This isn’t over, and once the other gods learn of you—and they will—you will be exterminated.”
His eyes glittered with arrogance. “By now, I am certain they already know. Your brother Kinich happened to make an appearance the day I was transformed. He spent many months with me, studying our new species. He did not seem bothered by us at all. To the contrary, we’ve become quite the best of friends.”
What? Kinich approved of these soul-sucking demons? “I don’t believe you. Kinich is kind and sensitive. He’d never—”
“He sees us as proof that change is possible.” Narmer casually waved his hand through the air. “He is inspired by our kind. So much so that he’s returned to take his rightful place as your leader to bring forth a new era.”
“You’re lying,” I scoffed.
“You do not need to take my word. Ask him.”
“Oh, I will! You can bet on it, bub! After I take your head!” I lunged, and he threw me to the floor, pinning me beneath him.
Rage flickered in his eyes. “You are so weak. What did I ever see in you?” he growled.
“You saw something you’ll never have. You’re not good enough for a goddess. You never were. And now, you’re nothing but a lowly, bloodsucking insect, no better than a leech or mosquito.”
“Can a mosquito do this?” He moved so fast that all I saw was the blur of his hand as I felt my head detaching from my body.
* * *
Son of a bitch! The rat bastard actually removed my head. Sure, I’d tried to suck the soul from his body and end him, but that was after I had seen that he’d apparently killed that woman by draining her dry and confessed to murdering Minky.
Revenge. It pounded inside my mind, demanding to see the light of day. Revenge was the reason I’d elected to have the cenote create yet another body and spit me out rather than return me to my realm where I was certain my brethren wondered what had become of me. Revenge had replaced every ounce of love I held for Narmer.
What had I been thinking to become so absorbed in this man? I had behaved like a love-starved child, jumping at the first person who came along offering affection.
I’d bet my life that he’d put the evil priest up to the entire thing. A trap. Well, I would never fall for that again. Never. And I would have my revenge. That I vowed.
I crawled from the cenote and flopped down onto the moist dirt of the jungle floor. I listened to the sound of my breath, the sound of my heart, the birds chirping noisily above. I will find a way back, and I will kill him. Yes, this time I will come prepared.
Crossing that frigging ocean again in a stolen dinghy?
Ugh. I groaned. Why couldn’t humans invent faster? I’d happily take the frigging Christopher Columbus Santa Maria special! And that ship would be a rat-infested piece of crap once it came along.
I should’ve gone back to my realm to find out what Kinich really knew.
I rolled over onto my back.
“Hello.”
I yelped as my eyes registered… Me?
“What the hell?” I scrambled back doing a strange little crab crawl as I looked her over. Her dress was pink, shiny, and clearly from the future.
“Yeah,” the Other-me said, with one fist cocked on her hip. “I figured you’d freak out. But let me assure you, it only goes downhill from here.”
“What the hell?” Maybe I’d tripped through the cenote one too many times, or there’d been a malfunction. “What the hell?”
“I think you said that already, so why don’t you shut your piehole so I can explain. Can you do that?”
I nodded slowly.
“Good, because I’m only going to tell you this once. You have fucked up. Big. Time. You stupid, horrible, pathetic goddess.” She cackled. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
This had to be the most twisted thing I’d ever done to myself.
Okay. Time to end this little imaginary chat. I stood up and started to back away.
“Don’t make me pull out the big guns, Cimil. ’Cause I will. You know I will,” Other-me said.
“I don’t have time for this! I’ve got a bloodsucking pharaoh to kill. I’m going back to the cenote—” I looked at the watery portal, but instead of seeing a greenish pool, I saw bodies. Thousands of them piled high and overflowing.
Accidentally...Cimil? Page 5
