Shadow Blade (15 page)

“No, he just wanted his blade back.”

“Of course.”
He gestured toward
her own
weapon. “If you’d lost your Lightblade, would you not do anything within your power to reclaim it?”

She looked down at the blade, gleaming with her extrasense. She could clearly remember the day Balm had introduced her to it, how it had been a prize she’d had paid dearly to earn. Earn it she did, through days, weeks, and months of hard training and harder discipline, and that made it all the more precious.

“This.” She jerked her head toward the stairs. “This has happened before?”

“Yes, the last time was about fifty years ago.”

“And I guess he always comes back, right?”

“Do not worry, Chaser Solomon. This is a tale that has been told before. Although the details may change, the ending is always the same.”

He glanced at the open cabinets above her stove. “I notice that you have quite a collection of teapots. Does that mean you might have some rooibos?”

“Of course.
How rude of me. I always break out the chai myself while I’m waiting for someone to rise from the dead.” She dialed back her extrasense, placed her blade on the coffee table, and started to rise from the sofa to make her way to the kitchen.

Nansee quickly rose from his chair. “No, please, allow me. You need to rest your ankle.” He beamed down at her. “And you still have your humor. That is a good thing.”

“Keep my humor but lose my sanity?” She used a small burst of power to charge the crystal before balancing her blade on the points,
then
settled back down, shifting a pillow behind her back. Nansee had already removed the kettle from the stove and was filling it with water from the tap. He set it back on the burner to boil. “Don’t know if that’s a fair trade-off or not.”

“You’re not losing your sanity, Chaser. These are strange circumstances, to be sure, but really, you’d be more comfortable if you could just change your definition of death as it concerns Khefar.” He opened a cupboard door and located the canister of loose red tea without asking its location.

“Sure, I’ll work on that. In the meantime, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I can tell you some, but the rest will have to come from him.” Nansee found two mugs and set them on the counter.

“Those mysterious ‘rules’ of yours again?”

Nansee smiled. “One might say so.”

“Okay, let’s start with something basic then. Why did he jump into my fight with the seeker demon?”

“It’s what he does.”

“Why? My extrasense protects me. He doesn’t have that.”

“His blade protects him.”

That stopped her cold. “But he didn’t have his blade. That makes it doubly my fault that he died.”

“Kira.”
Nansee leaned on the counter that divided the kitchen from the “living room.” “May I call you Kira?” She nodded. “This is not your fault. This is who he is, what he does. This has been his way for scores of centuries.”

“Why? Why is he doing this? Why is he still alive? Why does he come back to life every morning? Is he a solar vampire or something?”

“His story is not mine to tell, Chaser Solomon,” the old man said. “What I can tell you is that the Dagger of Kheferatum is his, a gift that became a curse he’s had to bear for four millennia.”

She stared at him, watching as he plucked a kente-patterned teapot from her collection. It clicked in her head then, softly and completely.
“Oh my gods.”

He turned to her, a decided twinkle in his eyes. “Yes?”

“Nansee.
That’s what he calls you. But that’s not your name, is it? Not your whole name.”

The kettle whistled. He lifted it from the stove,
then
poured a bit of steaming water into the teapot to warm it. “It is one of them. I’ve had many names over the centuries. A few of them have stuck.”

“You’re Anansi.
Kweku Ananse.
The spider god of the west.”

He bowed low with a flourish.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

She had a real live demigod in her kitchen, making tea. She must have cracked or this was all a dream and she was still sleeping off the previous day’s trauma.

“Funny, you don’t seem like the trickster god of all the folktales.”

“Times are different now,” the old man said, his ever-present smile fading at the edges. He poured out the warming water,
then
spooned loose tea into her teapot. “Even gods have to grow up sometime. Besides, we are, at our essence, what people believe us to be.”

“But I believe you’re a god. Khefar
knows
you’re a god.” Bitterness flooded her, along with a healthy dose of anger. “So why didn’t you save him? Why didn’t you save Bernie?”

“Because all the higher forms of life are endowed with free will.
And as such, some choices lead you to an inevitable conclusion, no matter how differently one may want the story to end. You, Kira, take risks every time you remove your gloves. Khefar knew that attacking the seeker demon without the Dagger of Kheferatum put him at a disadvantage. Your friend Bernie Comstock knew the dagger was dangerous, so dangerous that he decided to bring it to the one person in the world he trusted to safekeep it. Each of you knew the risks involved.”

She clenched her fists, holding on to her power and her rage by the thinnest of grips. “But you could have stopped their deaths. You could have intervened. Any of you could have.”

“Kira.”
For a moment the old man looked every bit of his supposed years. “Think about it. The Universe is about Balance. If a demigod who stands in Light had interceded on your behalf, what would Shadow have brought in to balance me?”

He was right. Of course he was right—he was a demigod.
Her body shook as her anger churned, needing a target, an outlet. Finally she just threw back her head and screamed, long, loud, and raw.

Silently he came around the counter and handed her his handkerchief, a tiny spider embroidered at the edge. The urge to laugh bubbled up, the remnants of releasing emotion. “Nice touch, that.”

“Thank you.”

She wiped at her eyes, wrestled herself back under control. “Well, since the Nubian isn’t running down the stairs brandishing a towel bar he ripped off the bathroom wall, I can only conclude that scream wasn’t loud enough to wake the dead.”

“It was close. We’ll have tea in just a moment more. Would you like toast with it, or do you have something else?”

He was being nice and it made her feel guilty. Gods were good at that, she supposed. “Just the tea will do. I don’t think I could eat anything right now.”

She tried to hand him back his handkerchief but he demurred. She thrust it into her back pocket,
then
blatantly changed the subject. “So, how did you, a West African demigod, get involved with a warrior from Kemet?”

“He fascinated me and since I collect stories, I wanted to acquire his. More than that, I like to think that I have kept him company all these centuries. No one should have to walk through this world alone.” The demigod set the teapot and mugs on a tray and brought it into the living area. He set it on the coffee table.

“I’m sure he appreciates that.” Her vision blurred over again, no doubt from the steam coming from the mugs as he poured the hot brew into each. Maybe no one should have to walk the world alone, but sometimes a person chose a solitary path because it was simply the safest way. Besides, in the end, facing final judgment, everyone was alone.

She wanted to go downstairs, sit before her altar, and commune with her goddess. It seemed a fitting tribute somehow, with a warrior of the Two Lands lying in state upstairs making his sacred journey through the underworld.
Ma’at, guide him safely.

“Kira, have you ever been to a wake?”

She blinked rapidly. “No.”

“Then let’s have one, now. We can sit, drink tea, and I shall regale you with tales of wonder and
awe .
 . . and bring you fresh ice packs.”

A surprised laugh broke free, probably just as he intended. “You just want an excuse to share your tales with a captive audience.”

“And here I thought I’d perfected the whole ‘mysterious ways’ persona.” He smiled at her. “Drink your tea. I have a god’s lifetime worth of history to choose from.”

Chapter 12

G
old-white light pierced the darkness, the promise and potential of a new day. Next
came
the warmth, driving back the cold of death and night. Then
came
breath, the most precious of air. Light, warmth, breath—the triple gift of life.

Khefar dared to open his eyes completely. He lay sprawled on a large bed, his torso swathed in bandages. Blessed sunlight streamed through large windows, bathing the bed and giving the pale walls an airy feeling.

He turned his head, expecting to find the trickster grinning over him. Instead he found the Shadowchaser. She’d changed out of her layers of leather and into gray cotton pants and a white T-shirt. Curled up in a chair beside the bed, she looked so soft that he almost didn’t recognize her.

She leaned forward as he stirred, the morning sun catching the tortoiseshell-brown flecks in her eyes. “You’re awake.”

“As promised, Isis
be
praised.” He pushed himself upright. “Seeing you instead of Nansee is a most welcome change. Surely you didn’t watch over me the entire time? And where is the old man?”

“Downstairs, preparing something he calls a proper resurrection feast.” She shook her head. “And no, I didn’t sit up here all night. Dealing with a dead man in my bed was a little much. Luckily I was entertained by a demigod who likes to be domestic.”

“He revealed himself to you?”

“Once I thought about it, it was easy to make the connection. He decided to keep my mind occupied by plying me with tea and tales.”

“That means he likes you.”
Which, thought the warrior, could be cause for worry.
When Anansi took an interest in humans, especially women, things tended to go downhill fairly quickly.

“He didn’t share any stories of you.
Said they weren’t his to tell.”
She stretched in the chair, bones cracking. “I’m curious about one thing—two, actually.”

“Can I take the easy one first? I did just return from the dead, you know.”

She didn’t return his smile. Instead she seemed almost angry as she asked, “Why did you save me?”

“That’s the easy question?”

“Just answer it.”

“Why would you ask me that?”

“Because I need to know why.”
She
rose .
 . . and he saw his blade grasped in her hand. “You didn’t have your dagger and your immortality is, as I now
understand
, complicated. I had my blade and my extrasense, yet you decided to help me. Why?”

Danger thrummed through the air, heavy and potent. Her easy stance proved that she knew how to fight, both with a weapon and without—something he was already aware of, considering she’d come through a tussle with a seeker demon with nothing more than a twisted ankle.

“I didn’t decide to save you, I just did. Fight, defend, protect. That’s the warrior’s way.”

“The warrior’s way is also to kill, destroy, pillage.” She held up the dagger.
His dagger.
“Especially with a blade like this one.”

“Blades such as that one are dangerous in their own right,” he told her. “Even a good person could be turned by that dagger.”

Skepticism shone plain in her expression. “Is that what happened to you? Were you turned by this dagger?”

“I was turned by my anger.”

“Really?”
Kira tossed her braids over her shoulder with a practiced gesture as she crossed to the bed. “Your blade showed me how it came to be in your possession, gifted by a High King of the Two Lands. Your blade also showed me how you destroyed an entire village,
then
kept on killing, century after century. Your blade also calls itself the Dagger of Kheferatum.”

Khefar sighed. “My blade apparently talks too much.”

In a blink, the tip of the blade pressed against his throat. He felt a slight sting, knew that she’d nicked him. Deliberately too, given how steady her arm was, how flat her eyes, the slight curve of her mouth. He had no doubt that if he so much as sneezed, he’d be dead.
Again.

The dagger gleamed in the sunlight as she turned it slightly. “The magic in this blade is unprecedented,” she whispered. “The power of Kheper combined with the might of Atum, bonded by centuries of bloodshed. No wonder mystics and alchemists and the power hungry have searched for it. I don’t know if I could defuse its magic. I don’t even know if I’d want to.”

This isn’t good.
This was twice the warrior knew of that she’d handled the dagger. Twice that her extrasense had blended with its innate magic. Already he could see the glint in her eyes, the response to the dagger’s call. It meant she had incredible strength, more strength than she probably knew. The dagger killed the weak.

“Now it’s your turn to talk,” she
said,
her voice as flat as her eyes. “Tell me what I want to know. How did you come to own this dagger?”

“I was a Medjay warrior, commanding a group of archers for the king. I saved his favorite son, and he rewarded me with the dagger you hold. While I was receiving my accolades, I got word that my village was attacked. The men left behind were overwhelmed and killed. I lost my wife, my children, my mother and sisters. None were left alive. Even the animals were killed. I vowed revenge, to deal what had been dealt to me. And that is what I did.”

The blade at his throat moved back scant centimeters. “You found the men who raided your village?”

Four thousand years may have dulled the images in his mind, but his heart had never forgotten the pain, the anger, and the need for vengeance. “I found their villages, and I destroyed them. I made sure there would be nothing left.
Nothing.
And, when I was done, there was nothing. I destroyed their families and their homes, slaughtered their livestock, burned the fields, and then salted the soil so that nothing would ever grow again.”