The Isis Knot (40 page)

Before, Viv had kept her cocooned in his farm. And then, after her memory had been returned, William had made her feel safe. He’d brought her knowledge about this time and place. He hadn’t ever babied her. He trusted her to learn, to be able to stand on her own, and it was that solid, quiet encouragement and sharing of stories and information that had made her feel more comfortable in this world.

Now she was alone.

The fort looked deserted, but she hid herself behind a tree until she knew it for sure. When it was clear there was no one around, she ran across the open space and ducked into one of the roofless rooms. She sat herself against the wall and drew deep breaths, concentrating on remaining calm. Concentrating on not fearing for William’s capture, or his life.

She closed her eyes, but not to sleep. In her mind’s eye she imagined William at sea. He talked about it so lovingly, and with such frustration over having to have left it too early. He deserved to be on the water again, after all that he’d endured. Maybe one day he would be.

A smile touched her lips. Her body shivered in sensory recollection. The heat of his mouth on hers, all over her skin. The tender roughness of his hands. The perfect grip and slide of their bodies.

Her eyes opened. She waited for Ramsesh to intervene, to make Sera doubt what she felt…but the woman was silent. Blissfully silent. Terrifyingly silent.

Because now that Sera could claim no other influence over her emotions, William’s presence inside her was rising and rising, becoming all consuming.

No
. She would not love him. She
could
not love him.

She had just managed to separate Ramsesh from herself; it was impossible for her, Sera, to love someone so quickly. If she loved him, it would only be harder once they were apart. Sitting here alone, just a short distance from William, was already difficult enough. What if—

Sera choked, one hand going to her throat.

What if she was sent back? What if Isis—because that was who she now knew was pulling the strings—had brought her and William together, giving Ramsesh and Amonteh their long overdue reunion, only to whisk Sera away again?

She didn’t know what disturbed her more: the possibility of that happening, or the fact that she wasn’t so sure she even wanted to go home again.

Wrapping her arms around her shins, she lowered her forehead to her knees and focused on breathing. Something her therapist had taught her what felt like ages ago, how breathing was vital to calming a mind and helping you dissipate all the things that weighed on you. So she breathed. And breathed. And breathed.

When the whistle sounded, floating through the night, she lifted her head with a gasp. She’d fallen asleep. And that was no birdcall.

She scrambled to her feet, wondering if the whistle had been a dream or not. When it came again, she knew it was William. Peeking out of the doorless entry, she saw him coming up the slope of the hill, the intermittent lights of Sydney Town less than a half mile behind him.

Her heart revved up to a thousand beats a minute. Until she saw what he was dragging behind him, and her heartbeat nearly stopped.

At the end of a short rope, her wrists bound together, her mouth gagged, stumbled Elizabeth.

CHAPTER 25

Elizabeth’s eyes shot bullets of rage, which Sera easily deflected with her own determination and anger and disgust. Elizabeth shouted into the gag and struggled hard against William, but he held on tight, dragging the woman inside the fort. Elizabeth fought and kicked, and he eventually had to pick her up and lay her on the ground. Sitting on her legs, he grabbed the loose end of the rope and twined it around her ankles, hog-tying her. She flopped on her side, her face red from restraint, her stare spearing into Sera.

He stepped back and his hands were shaking. He’d fight a willing man to a bloody pulp and take pleasure from it, but restraining a woman—no matter how crazy and dangerous she might be—seemed to bother him greatly.

At last he swiveled to Sera, and she fell into his arms. He took her face in his hands and kissed her with ferocity, as though they’d been apart for days or weeks or centuries, not most of the night. The low groan in his chest sounded like music.

Don’t love him
, she warned herself.
Whatever you do, don’t love him
.

As though he’d heard her, he pulled away and glared at Elizabeth.

Sera pointed to the large ring on Elizabeth’s thumb. “That ring…is it…” She didn’t want to get any closer.

He crouched down and reached for Elizabeth’s hands. Now she really fought, bucking against the ropes and his tight grip on her wrists. The gag soaked up her hoarse cries. William pried her thumb straight and yanked off the ring. As he straightened, a visible shiver made its way through his body. His eyelids flipped up and he pinned Sera with a dark stare.

“It’s the same one Tuthotsut wore. It’s Seth’s.”

On the ground, Elizabeth stiffened at the mention of that second name.

“Are you him?” Sera edged a little bit closer. “Are you Seth?”

Unmistakable confusion wrinkled Elizabeth’s brow and she shook her head vehemently.

William held up the ring between two fingers. “How did you get this then?”

Elizabeth moaned something into the gag, tears filling her bloodshot eyes and rolling over the lids, making streaks across her dirty face.

Sera motioned for William to remove the gag, and he tugged it off, letting it dangle beneath her chin.

“Morrrrrre,” came Elizabeth’s wail. “More, more, more, morrrrrrre…”

Something inside Sera stirred and twitched and recoiled. Something different from Ramsesh.

It was Isis herself. She wanted Sera to run, but Sera couldn’t. Not when another piece of the puzzle was sitting right in front of her. Elizabeth might not hold Seth’s
ka
, but the god had touched her in some way and she wore his ring. His taint was lathered thick upon her soul.

“More what?” Sera asked.

Elizabeth continued to moan the same word, the tears coming out in buckets.

“More
what
?” Sera crossed her arms, the motion pulling back on her sleeve. A sliver of gold flashed in the dark room.

Elizabeth saw it and the tears immediately stopped, a look of vile purpose consuming her face. Oh, this one was a master, a real pro, when it came to conning and manipulation. And Sera should know.

“William,” Sera said calmly, turning to him, “go throw the ring in the harbor.”

He played along perfectly. “Gladly.” He wrapped his fingers around the ring and pivoted to exit the fort.

“No!” shouted Elizabeth.

“Why not?” Sera spun back to her. “What is it to you? Who gave it to you?” And when Elizabeth still didn’t answer, she jerked a hand to William, who obediently started to leave again.

“Moore gave it to me!” shrieked Elizabeth. “Mr. Moore. Ages ago. When I was a girl.” Her chest heaved. Spilling all that had stolen her breath.

He slowly stepped back into the room. “Who is Mr. Moore?”

Elizabeth blinked up at him, then her lip curled. “You said you knew him. You said his name. Seth Moore.”

Sera concentrated hard to keep her face like concrete, to betray nothing.

Elizabeth wasn’t Seth. But Mr. Moore was.

Seth’s
ka,
as Amonteh had surmised in the dark of that cave two millennia ago, had skipped from body to body over the ages. He’d been Malik Elsayed in the early twenty-first century—she’d seen the proof on his finger and had felt the presence of the god when she’d stepped out of that cave.

He was Seth Moore in 1819 England.

She turned back to Elizabeth. “Why did Moore give you this ring?”

Elizabeth made a show of pressing her lips tightly together. But her eyes flicked ever so slightly to the narrow stripe of gold peeking out from underneath Sera’s sleeve. Interesting.

She fingered the cloth and nudged it back even more. “Did it have something to do with this?”

Elizabeth whimpered, but still said nothing.

“You said it didn’t belong to me,” Sera said. “In Parramatta, you said it was yours. Why would you think that? What did Mr. Moore tell you?”

Elizabeth’s jaw clamped hard. Ugly amusement danced in her wide, bulbous eyes as she scowled at Sera.

“I will leave this fort, Elizabeth.” William again crouched before her, his voice like iced-over steel. “I will leave this fort right now, toss the ring into the deep water, and then march back to the Rocks and tell the constables about how you killed your husband.”

“She did?” Sera gasped. “How do you know that?”

“Because she bragged to me about it when I found her. Said she’d killed him with a single blow to the head and she could kill me the same way.”

“
Don’t
throw it in the water. I beg you.”

So Elizabeth didn’t care about being charged with murder or having to face punishment for it. It was all about the ring for her.

“Clearly we’re safer without it,” Sera said to William, her voice dripping with faux innocence. “Why would we keep it around if it’s a danger to us?”

“Please.
Please
don’t.” Elizabeth wriggled on the ground. “Mr. Moore gave it to me because he trusted me. Because he loved me.”

The god Seth wouldn’t have done that. Love was not in his capabilities. Sera lifted her arm that bore the cuff. “That’s not enough reason. It has something to do with this. You begged your husband for the ring when you saw me wearing this.
Why
?”

More tears bubbled up in Elizabeth’s eyes as she stared at the ring in William’s hand. Sera jerked her chin toward the doorway and he started to leave again.

“Because if I wear the gold bracelet and his ring I will be his forever!” Elizabeth blurted. They turned back to her, waiting. “When I have them both he’ll marry me like he promised when he took me off the streets as a girl. I’ll be his. Forever.”

Elizabeth had been used. Lied to. And she’d learned to lie in turn.

A feel of dread curled like smoke through Sera’s mind. “Where is Mr. Moore? Is he here in New South Wales?”

“No, no.” Elizabeth sniffled. “He…left me back in England. He thought I failed him, but he’s wrong. He’s wrong! I’m here with his ring and the bracelet, and this will prove we’re meant to be together!”

Her tone had shifted greatly over the past few moments, from that of a hardened, vindictive, manipulative woman to that of a scared, desperate, lovesick child.

And if Sera was hearing things right, that was exactly what had happened. Mr. Moore—Seth—had stolen a child from the London streets and poisoned her mind with promises of love and marriage, as long as she helped him find Isis’s cuff.

As long as Elizabeth wore it herself.

“Did he tell you why he wanted this gold?” Sera asked softly.

“I don’t care why,” Elizabeth snapped. “It’s his and it was meant to bring us together. You two already have each other. You would deny me that love?”

The manipulative woman was peeking through the cracks again, devotion glimmering in her trickster eyes. The indignation came across as forced.

William saw it, too, and his voice dropped low. “Yes. We would deny you that. I’m taking the ring now.”

He pushed the hand holding the ring into his pocket, making it look like he was depositing the piece inside. Only Sera tracked his movements like she had back in the Waldgraves’ flat. And just like that night with the coins, the ring surreptitiously slid over the top of his pants and down the leg to land in his boot.

Elizabeth stared at the pocket in which she thought held the ring. “I told you. I told you everything. Just like you wanted. Give it back.”

“And give you Sera?” William said incredulously. “Not a chance.”

Sera took his arm and pulled him outside. Elizabeth shrieked in their wake.

When they were well out of Elizabeth’s earshot, she said to him, “That Mr. Moore was going to use her as a vessel. Remember how Amonteh forbade Ramsesh’s
ka
and the powers inside the cuff to ever inhabit a male body? Seth must’ve figured that out sometime over the past two thousand years. And when he tracked the retrieval of the cuff from the cave to Samuel Oliver in London, he took over a body there, stole Elizabeth from the streets, and brainwashed the poor girl into thinking she was doing things for him because he loved her.”

He studied her face for several long moments. “You feel sorry for her.”

She shook her head at the ground. “I can’t help it. Maybe a small part of me does. She was a child when he started twisting her mind. A
child
, William. And I’ve felt Seth’s disgusting magic. I know what it’s like to be used. Malik was Seth too once, and he used me like that outside the cave. The death of that innocent man is still on my hands, still in my head.” She shuddered, and William ran his hands down her arms. Calm shimmered in the wake of his touch.

“Malik had Seth’s
ka,
” he said, and Sera nodded. “But if Seth was Malik and the cuff was in that museum, under Malik’s control all that time, why didn’t he just use it?”

“Because he needed a woman. More specifically, he needed me. Remember Amonteh’s final prayers, forbidding any man from using the cuff? When I came out of the cave, Malik told me he’d tried to give it to other women, but it hadn’t closed around their arms the way it did mine. He said he suspected that it knew when it was being manipulated. Somehow it knew it was being forced into service and that Seth was pulling the strings.”