The Isis Knot (48 page)

Sera ran a loving hand over her belly and she could’ve sworn she felt him move in response.

The second set of pylons loomed beyond. Just outside their entrance stood the Roman-built Christian chapel. The source of so much pain for Ramsesh and Amonteh. The start of everything, really.

On the other side of the pylons grew a forest of giant stone columns—what Nasir had called a hypostyle hall. Ramsesh had rushed through here, frightened and worried that she hadn’t prepared herself properly to enter the antechamber and temple. Indeed, Ramsesh balked at entering now; Sera could feel the woman’s resistance.

Sera, however, harbored no such doubts and refused to listen to anyone else’s, and stepped into the cool dimness of the roofed temple.

Modern ground lights illuminated the intricately carved walls and doorways, all pointing toward the sanctuary at the very back.

Save for a French family—two teenagers and parents—the sanctuary was hushed and empty. At last the family wandered out, their mouths and eyes opened wide in amazement, leaving Sera alone with a grand pedestal void of Isis’s effigy.

She didn’t need a stone version of the goddess. She had Ramsesh’s memories and her own faith in what must be done.

There was little time. The island was crawling with tourists and Nasir would find her soon. This was her last chance, her final plea.

Approaching the pedestal, she reached into her bag and took out the thick slice of bread she’d stolen from the breakfast buffet that morning. She knelt as Ramsesh had done and closed her eyes.

“Isis, I bring you a humble
hetep
, as Ramsesh did once. I offer it because I have done all you asked. I fulfilled what you chose me for, even though I didn’t want it.” She touched her stomach. “I love what you’ve given me and promise to cherish it the rest of my life. But…” The words choked out and she swallowed several times to bring moisture to her dry throat. “I need to know. I need to know what happened to him. If he knew that I…loved him.”

Nothing moved except for Sera’s chest, her breath laboring. She waited. And waited.

He knew
.

The whisper rolled in from the darkest corners of the sanctuary, gathering like a storm.

Sera fell forward, clinging to the pedestal base and staring up at the emptiness on top. “Please. Tell me more. What happened after he sent me away?”

In the heavy pause, Sera could just barely make out a shift in the atmosphere atop the pedestal.

He died. They hung him.

A deep sob racked her body, sending the awful sound bounding about the chamber. Once she started she couldn’t stop. She’d come to this place specifically to hear this answer. Now that it reverberated in her ears, she wished she could erase it.

And she started to hate Isis because of it.

The tears sputtered out. “I want you to do something for me this time. I was given this thing”—she raised her arm with the gold and her sleeve fell back to reveal it—“against my will. I was thrown about, used. I was invaded by magic I didn’t want, and a presence who isn’t me.”

Isis was silent, the pedestal empty.

Sera kept going. This was why she’d come, and she wasn’t backing down now. A goddess didn’t scare her. “I want you to take it all back. Your
ka
and Seth’s awful powers. Ramsesh, too. Let me keep my son, but take all the rest. You don’t need me to have them anymore, and they only make me think of what I was forced to leave behind.”

After a great pause, Isis asked,
You truly wish this?

“Yes! Please! I did everything you asked. You manipulated me into having a baby for your own purposes. You won, but this child is still mine. You
owe
me this.”

The quiet that followed was thick and heavy, and Sera started to curse herself for letting her mouth run…but then she stopped. Because even if she didn’t get what she wanted, nothing else would change. She’d still leave Egypt and go back to the U.S., have William’s baby, and—

Very well.

There was no transition, no more questions, no time to ponder.

The world blacked out. In the darkness Sera sensed the division of her body and mind, as Isis pulled Ramsesh’s
ka
from her body. For the briefest of moments, Sera could see the other woman standing before her. Gorgeous and young and sad, draped in beads and braids. And then Ramsesh disappeared, taking Isis’s magic with her.

The temple burst back into light and Sera swayed on her feet. Though the pedestal was still empty, she gazed up at the space.

She touched her head and her heart, noting the absence there. The purity of her thoughts.

And the remaining ache for William.

Not Ramsesh’s love for Amonteh, but Sera’s own longing for the man who’d jumped in front of a bullet and had touched her like no one else ever possibly could. She’d warned herself not to love him, but she did. So very much. And not having the excuse of Ramsesh’s presence and influence to fall back on made everything hurt that much more.

Do you still want William, now that Ramsesh is gone?
Isis’s voice was monotone, almost detached.

This time Sera didn’t cry as she drew herself up and stared hard into the emptiness. “Yes.”

It seemed to Sera like the goddess sighed.
Then…I will give you the chance to save him
.

Sera blinked, sure she hadn’t heard right. “What?”

Do you want William more than the life you have here?

Her heart pounded, the sound nearly deafening in her ears. “I want him more than anything. I want our child to know his father. I want William to live, to have the life that was taken from him, too.”

The ensuing silence stretched an eternity.

I will send you back.

This time when the tears leaked out they tasted of happiness. Of fathomless relief.

Beyond that, I cannot help you. If you do not get to him in time or if you fail to save him from the gallows, you cannot return here. Ever. His time will become yours.

Her answer came almost immediately. “Yes, Isis. Please. Take me back.”

Shuffling footsteps approached from the antechamber behind her. “Miss Wilhemina?” Nasir. “Miss Wilhemina, are you all right?”

She slowly turned toward Nasir, wiping away her tears. He wore a faint look of exasperation, the same one he’d used when looking upon the foolish hippie types they’d encountered in other temples. The ones who wore store-bought
ankh
charms and prayed with false words.

Suddenly all sound was sucked into a great vacuum. The drumming heartbeat that had overtaken her moments earlier now fell deathly silent.

The edges of her body began to dim and blur. She held out her arm to watch it happen. Nasir’s eyes bulged, his expression transforming into worry. Then fear. The sanctuary flickered like a dying lightbulb. Her heart raced. Nasir reached for her, stumbling forward, but his mouth moved silently.

She whirled back to the pedestal. There, in all her golden glory, rose the goddess. Isis was massive and beyond beautiful, her skin perfectly smooth, her eyes black holes in her emotionless face. Her body and features resembled a human, but she was plainly something
other
.

Isis lifted a bejeweled hand in a movement that defined grace. The gold cuff around Sera’s arm opened along an invisible seam and fell away. Sera caught it before it struck the dirt, and clasped it to her chest.

She wondered, fleetingly, if the few people who knew her back in Seattle would actually miss her. If Nasir would spread the story of her disappearance. What sort of speculation would abound in her absence.

When she lifted her eyes to Isis again, the goddess had disappeared.

And soon after, so did Sera.

CHAPTER 30

Someone shook William’s shoulder, jerking him out of the emotionless void of sleep. He came awake instantly, rolling out of the hammock. Feet planted on the plank floor, fists up, he was ready. Ready for another fight. Whether it was Richard Riley or another one of the many convicts who’d wanted to test a walking dead man.

He’d been fighting for four days, ever since Sera had dissolved into briny air in his arms. Four days since he’d been beaten senseless by the Crown’s soldiers up by Fort Philip and dragged to Hyde Park Barracks.

The man who stood on the other side of the swaying, empty hammock was neither Riley nor one of the other foolish convicts. He was a barracks’ guard.

William glanced up at the high windows, noting it was still the darkest part of night. All around him resonated the snores of the other criminals.

“You’re early,” he said low, glaring. “I’m not scheduled to hang until midday.”

The guard held a sword, his gun strapped to his back. Killing a prisoner by blade would be quicker and quieter, William supposed, but he wouldn’t go without a fight. Surely this guard, who’d watched William beat every single one of his challengers, should know that.

Then, strangely, the guard put a finger to his lips and nodded toward the staircase leading down to the main level. He crept toward it, assuming William would follow.

Curious despite himself, he did.

If four days of extra life—granted to him only because he’d been questioned over and over about the woman who’d reportedly vanished in his arms—would end in this way, under the cover of night, he would be sorely disappointed. He’d been prepared to look with defiance on the faces of those who condemned him, and who would never know or understand the truth of his existence.

He’d been prepared to gaze out over the harbor and Sydney Town and the Rocks, and imagine Sera walking through the lanes one last time.

Downstairs, the guard silently gestured for William to exit the humid confines of the barracks. No weapons, no threats. He edged outside, careful not to give the guard his back.

The crisp New South Wales night air still carried remnants of the previous day’s labor smoke. He inhaled.

This is it
.
The last night I will smell anything.

The thought, shockingly, came to him as a matter of fact. Something a gentleman might say with a shrug and a tip of the hat. But he was no gentleman, and he refused to accept things in that manner.

The guard pointed to the main gate—somewhat repaired since the day Sera had unleashed Seth’s wrath—and whispered, “Through there. Go with those men.”

The two men holding open the gate wore dark colors over their slouchy silhouettes. Not soldiers or constables or anyone else of consequence. Of course. A death in the middle of the night wouldn’t require official orders or an audience. Apparently he wasn’t even worth a public hanging.

William stalked right for them, shoving off the confusion, showing only a brave face. The soles of his bare feet smarted as he made the long walk over the sharp gravel of the yard. At the gate, he snarled, “Enough of the show. Where is this happening?”

The taller balding one threw him a quizzical look before they simultaneously moved like lightning, taking him down to the ground. A single man was a quick victory for William, but two? He growled and struggled, but they pinned him, facedown, in the dirt.

A foul-smelling bag was dragged over his head, blocking out the scene. Blocking out the stars.

The men yanked his arms behind him and rope bit into his wrists and ankles.

He heard the clomp of horse hooves and the crunch of wagon wheels over dirt. The men lifted him up and shoved him onto the back of a cart. The wagon rolled quickly away from the barracks.

Even through the thick, odor-drenched fabric of the hood, he could smell their destination as they drew closer. You couldn’t hide the sea from a sailor.

They stopped so close to the water he heard nothing but the slap and slosh of waves.

“Out you go,” a man ordered in a thick east London accent. Beefy hands grabbed William’s shoulders and dragged him to the cart edge. Then he spun William around so his legs dangled over the side, untied his feet and pulled him to stand on the ground.

“Tell me what the bloody fuck is happening.” William tested the strength of the rope around his hands. Too tight to do anything.

But East London just took his elbow, pulled him closer to the water, and said, “Over here now.”

William could run, of course, but a hooded, bound man wouldn’t get very far. And courage ordered him to remain steadfast.

A tiny cluster of hushed male voices came from where the waves played at the shore, but he couldn’t make out their words.

East London gave him more directions. “Into the rowboat. Leg over.”

So that was how they’d kill him. They were going to take him into the deep, dark part of Port Jackson, tie his hands and feet together, and let him sink to the bottom. How fitting. Death by sea for the disgraced sailor.

He’d always wondered what drowning would feel like. He’d been in his share of bloody awful storms, with water dousing you from every direction, stealing your breath, feeding your panic.

But that wasn’t how he was meant to go. There was limited space in a rowboat which meant one, maybe two, other people would ride with him. His feet were untied. When they tried to throw him over, he’d give them his last battle.