High Stakes Trial

by Mindy Klasky

I squared my shoulders and looked Chris in the eye. “I need to know what’s right and what’s wrong. That’s more important than you or me or James. More important than the Den or the Pride or even the Empire.” I swallowed hard, refusing to acknowledge the simmering burn of my bruised throat. “I want to speak with Sekhmet.”

  10

  For just a moment, Chris looked surprised. He’d expected me to listen to his argument and accept his point of view. That’s what sphinxes did when the Sun Lion spoke, even when he didn’t back up his argument with audio-visual aids.

  But I wasn’t exactly a sphinx. And I definitely wasn’t the sort of woman to take a man’s word just because he said so.

  Besides, I’d always had a special relationship with Sekhmet. I’d seen her the first time I slipped into a magical trance. I’d watched her fondle the lion cubs that were her children, my siblings—sphinxes and vampires alike.

  Chris had told me that first encounter was shocking. He hadn’t bothered to say that my next visit—in Sekhmet’s private gardens—was impossible. And I’d never managed to explain to him exactly what I’d seen the last time I visited our mother—the bloodthirsty goddess leading her troops into battle, taking no prisoners in the terrible fight for supremacy in the ancient world.

  Now, he quickly smothered his surprise. “Do you want to work here? Or would you be more comfortable in the library?”

  “This is good enough.”

  I lay down on top of the blanket and accepted a throw pillow to tuck behind my head. I was suddenly reminded of my rank clothes, of the lingering stench from the vampire I’d fought in the Old Library. There was nothing to be done about that now, though. Seeking guidance from Sekhmet was more important than clean clothes. I shifted to a more comfortable position, and tried to clear my mind.

  Seated on the edge of the bed, Chris gave me an encouraging smile. I could tell he was trying to make this easy for me, giving me control over the situation and letting me go as fast—or as slow—as I wanted.

  My fingers closed around my bare wrist, mimicking the hematite bracelet that remained in the court’s custody. In the past, I’d used it as a focus to block out the mundane world, filtering away all the things that truly didn’t matter.

  When I touched bare skin, my attention automatically shifted to my ring finger. Of course, my coral band was gone as well.

  Even as I shoved down my burgeoning case of nerves, Chris passed me his wristwatch, his own insignia. The band was warm from his flesh, hematite and coral the identical temperature.

  It wasn’t the same as my own insignia. It wasn’t even close. But the compassion behind the offering, the simple, straightforward understanding of my need, made my breath come uneven.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Chris said softly.

  I blinked hard and settled the watchband over my wrist. It was large, and heavy too, and I adjusted it three times, trying to find a more comfortable position.

  “You’re safe, Sarah,” Chris said.

  I hadn’t thought I was in danger. Not consciously, at least. But Chris’s quiet reassurance soothed something I hadn’t even realized was ruffled inside my mind. I closed my eyes and breathed in on a count of seven.

  My diaphragm stretched. My lungs expanded. My chin rose, and I turned my face toward the window, with its impeccable curtains. I concentrated on the folds of the sheers. Even with my eyes closed, I knew they were perfectly placed, their soft curves framing the shades with precision.

  “Skepsi,” I said, murmuring the ancient word that initiated the meditation of my people.

  I imagined the glow from the reading lamp filling my head, flowing past my eyes, my nose, my mouth. It filled my throat, hot and pure and perfect. It melted away the roughness in my larynx, all the remnant pain that Richardson’s soldier had left after our battle in the Old Library.

  “Phoni,” I said, offering up my voice in service to Sekhmet.

  The golden light overflowed into the hollow of my chest. It expanded between my ribs, illuminating them like the arches of a medieval cathedral. It flowed over and through me, soaking into the core of my heart and flooding all four chambers, hotter than blood.

  “Pathos,” I said, offering up all the passion of my body, my mind, my being. I was swept along by a fiery tide. I traveled through time, through space, to the ancient core of my memory.

  I reached Sekhmet.

  The goddess held her lion form. I could see her ribs beneath her sleek flanks, rising and falling with every breath she took. She lowered her massive head to the grassy ground, twitching her ears as if bothered by a fly. Her whiskers moved as she whuffed out her breath, each puff resonating in a deep tone I could barely register with my ears.

  As I watched, she raised one massive paw. Its heavy pads were curled inward, hiding her claws. Flowing like a tranquil river, she stretched her furred leg. Only then did I realize that she was blocking the escape of a naked toddler boy.

  The youngster, though, would have nothing of containment. Instead, he shoved his head under his mother’s paw, wriggling forward with clear intent to reach the sandy plain beyond the lush grass circle. In his chubby hand, he carried a doll shaped out of soft cotton rags.

  The toy was ragged, as if it were well-loved. The head was coming unraveled, and the arms were shapeless lumps. This was a long-established plaything, no recently created treasure.

  Sekhmet’s whuffing sharpened, but the boy didn’t care. He tumbled down the slight incline, barely managing to stretch his legs as he came to a stop. His toy dropped from his hand, but he retrieved it immediately, plucking at it to make sure it was unharmed.

  Only when he knew the doll was safe did he look up the hillock at his mother. When she issued an unmistakable command for him to return, he set his tiny jaw. His fingers tightened on the poppet, and he shouted, “No!”

  Half a dozen toddlers appeared around Sekhmet, peering from behind her lashing tail, from between her braced forelegs. Identical obsidian eyes widened. Identical rosebud mouths puckered in awe. One little girl laughed, and then she shouted, “No!” as she clutched her own cotton doll. They all held them, all the children, and every toy was ragged with age.

  The goddess had had enough. She climbed to all fours and surged down the hill. Reaching her disobedient son, she lowered her head, glaring directly into his startled eyes.

  “N— No?” The child asked, defiance rapidly diluting to confusion.

  Sekhmet opened her mouth wide, showing upper and lower rows of gleaming needle-sharp teeth. When her headstrong son clutched his toy and backed one step away, she roared.

  The sound filled my ears. It resonated through my body. It found the marrow of my bones and shook until I thought I might drain away into the sand.

  The pile of children atop the hill froze, their worn dolls falling from slack fingers. The brave explorer at the bottom of the slope dropped his own toy as he wet himself in terror.

  Sekhmet lowered her head and caught her disobedient son by the scruff of his neck. She carried him as if he were in cub form, her mouth soft, her steps determined as she returned to her awed children. Reaching the top of the hill, she pinned the boy with one broad paw, ignoring his piteous whimper as she licked him, head to toe. The child’s trembling gave way to contented mews, at least until he realized he’d lost his toy.

  I picked it up.

  I cradled the cotton form against my body, supporting its limp neck as if it were a true human child. It was warm in the sunlight, as soft as a sleeping babe. My fingers automatically moved over its loose cloth folds, soothing and straightening. Without planning to speak, I found myself whispering words of comfort, shapeless syllables about peace and quiet and safety.

  When I looked up, the scene before me had transformed. Sekhmet was no longer a lion. Now, she was a woman, tall and terrible in a linen gown that fell in perfect pleats from her shoulders. Her straight black hair was twisted into braids. Her eyes were lined with kohl.

  “Protect them,” she said, but
her lips never moved. She placed the words directly inside my head.

  I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t search for the children behind her. I couldn’t gaze at the doll cradled in my arms. All I could do was shape my own silent words, a question that moved from my mind to the goddess’s. “The children?” I asked. “Or their toys?”

  “There are no toys.”

  And because she was a goddess, she spoke the truth. The instant her words bloomed inside my skull, the doll disappeared from my arms. There was no poppet; there was no toy. There was only an ache, a longing, an emptiness that could never be filled.

  I gasped at the pain of loss, staggering forward to beg Sekhmet for… something. For comfort. For a toy of my own. A child of my own.

  But the goddess only turned away. And now, in the way of dreams, she no longer stood on a hill. She was no longer surrounded by her children or their playthings.

  Instead, she stood, we stood, in the mouth of a cave. With the shadows behind her, she gazed at me. Her eyes were bright. Her mouth curved into a smile. She set a single finger against her lips, urging me to silence, as if we were playing a game.

  She stepped into the darkness. I heard her laughter. And I heard a rumble, long and low, like a mountain coming to rest after a temblor. Mother Sekhmet whispered, “My love…”

  She was with him. She was with Sheut. She could have summoned him from the shadows, brought him into the light, but instead she kept him secret. She forbade me to meet my sire.

  I waited, because the goddess had not dismissed me. And after an hour or a day or a lifetime, I peered into the cavern, into a darkness deeper than night.

  No. There was light somewhere in that cave. There was a flicker, like a distant aurora in a midnight sky. Like fish scales at the bottom of a pond. Like a rainbow splayed against velvet.

  Still I waited, wondering what form my father took in the darkness of that cave. And all the time that Sekhmet was with Sheut, I nurtured a flame of resentment, a tiny crimson curl deep inside my heart.

  She could have let me meet my father.

  But she was a goddess. And she did whatever she wanted to do. And so I sat beside the cavern’s mouth and tried not to feed the anger beneath my breastbone.

  After forever, a lioness emerged from the shadows.

  She moved like a dream, silent and lithe. She breathed upon me, and I shuddered—a long, slow ripple that cascaded from the crown of my head to the arches of my feet. Her tongue scraped my arm, and I exhaled my breath into two words: “Mother Sekhmet.”

  “Daughter,” she said.

  Those two syllables filled me with wonder. My soul grew light as a feather. My body melted into sunlight.

  I might not know my father, but my goddess accepted me. I belonged.

  Through the magic of my bliss, I heard Sekhmet speak again. “Find the Seal,” she said. “And save the children.”

  “Find what?” I barely summoned the will to set my words in the midst of her majestic presence.

  “The Seal.”

  “I— I don’t understand.”

  She nudged me with her head, pressing her furred brow against my wrist. I looked down to where I’d worn my hematite bracelet, to where I should have seen Chris’s watch.

  Instead of Chris’s insignia, though, I saw an imprint on my flesh. The shape was simple, like a child’s drawing—an oval bisected on the long axis by a single line.

  The lioness whuffed again, the same sound she’d used to command her wayward son. “The Lost Soul has it. Find my Seal and keep all my children safe.”

  As she said the words—Lost Soul—I sensed a being hovering beyond the goddess, a shadow that was ancient and dark and impenetrable. I could feel its savage hunger inside my mind. I could sense its yearning, its lust for power and control. But when I turned my head to stare at it directly, I found nothing.

  “Please,” I said to Sekhmet. “I don’t understand! Who is the Lost Soul? What is the Seal?”

  But she had disappeared. Sekhmet and the cavern and the magic of ancient Egypt—all of it drifted into nothingness.

  I was sitting in Chris’s bedroom. The reading lamp glowed in the darkness, its light barely reaching the edge of the bed.

  “Sarah,” Chris said, and I realized he knelt beside me, holding my hands where they rested across my belly, still curved to protect a toy that wasn’t a toy, a child that wasn’t a child. His fingers shifted, and he started to chafe my wrists. “Sarah,” he said again, and I finally remembered how to speak.

  “I saw her,” I said. “Sekhmet and…” But I couldn’t say Sheut. I couldn’t name my father. I couldn’t share the iridescence, the dark magic of the man I’d barely glimpsed. That was too personal, far too private.

  “And…” Chris prompted.

  I shook my head, trying to focus. “Her children,” I said.

  “Vampires? Or sphinxes?”

  I bit my lip. It was impossible to reduce my vision to words. “Both,” I said. “Neither.”

  I fought to sit up, but Chris spread his hand across my chest, urging me to lean back, to regroup, to gather my strength before I attempted so great a feat.

  I concentrated on words, “They were children,” I said. “Toddlers. But they were lions, too. They had toys, broken-down dolls.” My voice grew stronger. “Sekhmet’s children had toys. And the goddess told me to protect them.”

  “Them?” I knew Chris was asking the same question I’d asked the goddess.

  I shook my head. “The children. The toys. It didn’t matter to Sekhmet.” And as I said the words, it all made sense. “Sekhmet wants us to protect her children and their possessions, the things they’ve made, the things they’ve Turned. Even if the Turned are old and ragged.” I swallowed hard as the import of my vision spread through me. “Sekhmet accepts the New Commission.”

  Chris sank onto the floor, as if my words had melted the marrow of his bones. His head was bowed, and I wondered if he was actually praying.

  His weakness somehow gave me strength. I sat up against the headboard.

  “There’s something else, though.”

  “Something else?” Chris was immediately on alert.

  “She told me to find the Seal.”

  “What’s that?” Chris asked, immediately perplexed.

  I stared at his watch, picturing the symbol that had graced my wrist. “I don’t know. She said it belonged to the Lost Soul. She said if we found it, we could keep all her children safe.”

  More confusion spread on Chris’s face, but he didn’t ask me to repeat myself. I thought about the impression I’d glimpsed beyond Sekhmet, the ravenous craving of power. I’d only encountered one creature who’d permeated my mind with that level of desire.

  “Richardson,” I whispered. “Maurice Richardson is the Lost Soul. He has Sekhmet’s Seal, and we need to reclaim it.”

  Chris nodded, and I could see he was bursting with questions. He settled on, “Is the Seal a ring? To seal letters?”

  I shook my head, staring at my wrist, trying to puzzle out the simple shape that had glowed there. “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

  I felt as frustrated as Chris looked. Folding my fingers around my substitute insignia, I returned to my initial purpose in reaching out to Mother Sekhmet. “But first things first. The goddess supports your New Commission. And I will too. But you have to give me something in exchange.”

  Chris was too wise a warrior to agree to a demand without knowing the specifics. He waited, while I found the will to meet his gaze.

  “I have to be the sphinx assigned to James,” I finally said. I didn’t bother to voice my own doubts, my own fears—I might not even be a sphinx. I just knew that if Chris was going to continue with his New Commission, if he was going to bind every vampire in the Eastern Empire, I had to be the one linked to James.

  Chris’s first reaction was to say no. I could read it in every line of his face, in the possessive way he set his jaw.

  “It might not be safe,” he s
aid, reaching for an argument that went beyond the two of us, beyond the tangle of our relationship. I still hadn’t told him I loved him. I still wasn’t sure I could say the words.

  “Nothing’s safe,” I said.

  “He was Turned years ago,” Chris said. It was almost painful to watch him back-pedal, to see him tease apart the program he wanted so badly to launch. “I don’t know that we’ll have anything to teach him, anything for him to learn.”

  “You said it yourself,” I reminded him. “Vampires will be recertified every year. Every single one of them will need an advocate.”

  Chris’s lips pressed into a stubborn line. I leaned forward and set my palm against his chest. I could feel the cotton of his T-shirt, the one he’d been sleeping in when I’d rung his doorbell. I could feel the tension in his muscles as he mustered every argument he could imagine to fight me on this. I could feel his rigid determination, the animalistic jealousy that he only kept tamed because he knew I could leave him in a second.

  I waited until he met my gaze, and then I said, “I’ll be James’s advocate. That’s the only way, Chris. The only way I’ll do this.”

  He knew I wasn’t bluffing. He swallowed, buying himself one more second. And then he nodded. “I understand,” he said.

  I wondered if he did. I wondered if either of us had the faintest idea what we were taking on.

  But we were bound to find out soon. Because I had less than forty-eight hours to break the lock on the court’s ransomed files. And James Morton was the person who held the key.

  11

  The sun was stealing into the bedroom by the time Chris agreed to my ultimatum. The rosy light should have made me tired; I was accustomed to sleeping away the day like a vampire. But when I closed my eyes, I could only see the red countdown clock scrolling away on my computer screen.

  What did we have left? Forty-odd hours?

  I couldn’t sleep. Not yet.

  But I didn’t need Chris watching over me, anxious that I’d back-pedal and reject his New Commission. I insisted that he change into his running clothes, that he lace up his shoes and head out for his usual morning three miles. His daily run kept him sane, giving him the energy he needed to control the most demanding of his sphinx compulsions. I handed him his wristwatch as I sent him out the front door.