Two and Twenty Dark Tales (15 page)

From behind, my brother nudges me. “Go, Heather. Get her.”

He probably doesn’t understand why I’m hesitating. It’s not like I had a problem plucking old Mr. Lockerby out of the air yesterday, or even cupping the soul of any of the other five car accident victims we’ve had in the last two months. Has it really been five? That seems like too many. But I knew Addison. Something about passing judgment on her doesn’t sit right with me.

Still, when Andy shifts his weight behind me, I know I’ve run out of time. Releasing my black skirt, which I’ve managed to crush a sweaty handprint into, I reach forward. My fist unclenches and Addison’s energy zings just beyond my fingertips. I wonder if she knows me, now that she’s passed on. The thought that she might know it’s me holding her before her judgment gives me a grim satisfaction.

She hovers, like a painfully slow mosquito, and I snatch her out of the air. Beth immediately sets her cello to the side and scowls at me.

“Took you long enough,” she snaps. “I wasn’t sure I had another refrain left in me.”

Ever the peacekeeper, Andy steps between us. “Let’s get a move on, shall we?”

As he pushes through the concealed door in our parlor, it strikes me that I never really think of him as Anubis. Or Beth as Bast. I’d probably have an aneurism if either one of them suddenly sprouted a dog or cat head, like they were drawn by the ancient Egyptians. And with any luck they don’t really think of me as Hathor, because let me tell you how much it pisses me off that I’d look like a cow. A cow? Seriously? I swear the cosmos is still laughing over that one.

Addison’s soul grows warm in my cupped hands. Almost like she’s trying to burn her way free, and I’m suddenly anxious to get to the Underworld and be done with it. Ducking my head, I step inside the darkened passage and follow my brother. In case you were wondering, yes, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but you won’t find any pearly gates there. And the days of having to cast spells to navigate the Underworld are long since over. The whole passage to death has been condensed to a short walk down a hallway, followed by a simple test.

We cross into the chamber of the Underworld. It’s like stepping back into a perfectly preserved, ancient Egypt. The ceilings soar, supported by acanthus scroll columns and massive statues of the gods with their animal heads. Never mind that I’m one of those deities—in some reincarnated form I haven’t fully grasped yet. Even so, the room never ceases to impress me. The long shadows thrown by the blazing torches cast the room in patches of darkness that make me wonder if anything is lurking beyond the light.

I march forward to the golden scale occupying the center of the room with its ominous presence. One side of the scale is weighted down by the Feather of Truth. Horus, standing on a raised platform behind the scale, nods at me solemnly, while Thoth clasps his pen, poised to record the official test results. Thankfully, neither of them have bird heads, and look instead like mean college professors.

Stretching my arms forward, I unclasp my hands and release Addison’s soul. “Addison Clark, I bid you welcome to the Underworld. May your soul be light and your afterlife long.”

Normally, for someone like Addison, I’d rush through the welcoming formalities and earn myself a giant eye roll from Beth, but I’m genuinely worried about Addison’s soul. We haven’t had one pass the test in almost a month, and I’m tired of the carnage.

Addison’s soul bobs forward, alighting on the other side of the scale. The weighted side slowly rises until the Feather and soul are perfectly balanced. I release the breath I’ve been holding, relieved Addison is going to survive. When I turn to smile at Andy, the crashing scales draw me back, making my head snap around. Addison’s soul has toppled the scale, sending the Feather adrift.

As the fluffy, white Feather floats toward the limestone floor, the grinding sound begins. Massive blocks slide open on the far side of the chamber, revealing a dark so black it’s consuming. Nails scrape against the limestone, announcing Amemit’s arrival. Her nickname—Devourer of the Dead—is well-earned. As she emerges into the light, her leathery crocodile snout appears to be smiling. Once she’s cleared her cavern, Amemit rises up onto her hippo haunches, carrying her lioness body like it weighs nothing at all.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my sweet.” Amemit’s accent is heavy, thick with the cadence of ancient Egyptian, which I know she still prefers. Lion claws raise Addison’s soul off the scale, until it hovers at eye-level with the beast.

“You may materialize,” she hisses, and Addison’s soul glows brighter and elongates. The soul takes shape, forming into a translucent image of Addison’s old body, complete with confusion and horror etched across that perfect little face. I don’t know why Amemit insists on playing with her food instead of swallowing the soul like a pill. I do know that I hate—hate—this part of the ceremony, and I step behind Andy to shield myself from it.

His head spins around and a scowl mars his honeyed skin. “She has no power over you unless you give it to her, so stop.” He leans in closer and half-hisses in my ear, “Remember who you are. Gods don’t cower.”

Amemit’s teeth click together and her sandpapery hippo feet scrape against the limestone as she advances. Then comes Addison’s scream and the crash of bodies as she scrambles backward into Horus and Thoth. If she’s looking for protection, she’s looking in the wrong place. They’ll simply push her back toward her fate. The scales crash again—Addison must be scrambling over them in her effort to flee. Amemit roars, some kind of deranged, guttural wail, and it’s then that Addison spots us.

“Andy! Beth!” she shrieks. “Heather! Don’t just stand there, help me!” Hearing my name makes my eyes pull open and I peek around from behind my brother just in time to see Amemit’s jaws crash around Addison’s shoulder. Drops of light—her celestial blood—splatter across the chamber before disintegrating as she’s thrown to the floor.

Addison’s new scream is gut-wrenching. She must know she’s dying all over again. Amemit falls down to all fours, perches above her prey, and smacks her jaws together just above Addison’s head. “I’ve been waiting for something sweet like you,” she purrs.

I can’t watch. Won’t watch. Addison’s screams stop as quickly as they came and I know Amemit has finished her off. My stomach clenches and I’m about to be sick. Even though Horus hasn’t dismissed us yet, there’s no way I can stand in that chamber for another second. Holding back the bile rising in my throat, I tear down our hidden passage, through Beth’s music parlor, and straight up the stairs to my bathroom. Amemit may have feasted tonight, but it’s clear I won’t be keeping down my dinner.

***

I know Beth and Andy will be back soon and I’m not in the mood for their why-the-hell-did-you-freak-out talk.

After pulling on my quilted jacket and wrapping a scarf around my neck, I pluck a set of keys from Andy’s room and head out into the night. The door on his rusty Ford pickup squeaks in protest against having to move in the cold. I crank the heater full blast, but know it’ll be another ten minutes before I get enough warmth to have feeling in my fingertips, and I’m not waiting around.

As I back out of the driveway, gravel crunches beneath the tires with a popping sound that reminds me of snapping bones. Broken bodies.

I will not think about Addison. I will drive and sing too loud and forget this night ever happened.

Cranking up the volume on my iPod, I shove in the ear buds and blast myself with Snow Patrol. My headlights push against the blackness of the arctic night, exposing the next feet of road just in time for me to drive over them. With my singing, I’m belting out enough hot air to float a blimp, so the windshield immediately fogs over. As I’m wiping the frosty glass with the palm of my hand, a figure steps away from the side of the road.

The headlamps cut across him and I recognize the boy. His face is familiar, and yet different. Jerking the wheel hard to the left, I manage to keep from hitting him, but send the truck into a wild, fishtail spin. My dad’s driving advice echoes through my head, and I somehow manage to pump the brakes instead of just slamming my foot into them. Even still, I’m spinning so fast, all I can see is the blur of weeds and trees and pavement as the lights swing around. And I just keep thinking: this is how Addison died. I don’t want to die like her.

When the truck comes to rest fifty feet down the road and facing the opposite direction, my heart is hammering hard enough to break out of my ribs. I’m clutching the wheel so tightly it actually hurts to uncurl my fingers. The boy who nearly caused my death is running toward me and I have to know what the hell his problem is.

All but falling out of the truck, my feet crunch into the ice-packed snow and I slam the door shut. “What are you doing?” I yell. “You could’ve gotten us both killed.”

He slows to a trot as he gets closer and it’s then that I realize where I know the guy from. He was in our funeral home a month ago.

Because he’s already dead.

***

Kyle Reese wasn’t the type of guy you brought home to meet your parents. After getting kicked off the baseball team for failing his drug test, he’d barely managed to drag himself to school. And when he did, he was like a red-eyed zombie staggering down the halls.

I don’t think anyone was really surprised when he ended up laid out in our mortuary, a victim of his own drunk-driving. And given his track record, it wasn’t really surprising that his soul outweighed the Feather, entitling Amemit to another feast. But I sure as hell am surprised to see him standing in front of me, a month post-consumption.

His nose looks broken and I wonder whether it was from the accident or Amemit. Maybe both. Did it still hurt? As I study his face, something in his eyes is so sad, I can’t tear myself away. There’s an ache in my chest, almost physical, that makes me want to protect this guy. To help him, even though he’d just nearly killed me.

“Kyle? Is that you?” I step closer cautiously, not exactly sure how to deal with the resurrected undead, even though I technically do have some power over their souls. He takes another step forward too, bringing himself within the beam of the headlights. It’s definitely Kyle. I recognize the pinstripe suit and tacky tie his mom buried him in. Although his silk handkerchief is about to take a nose dive out of his pocket, and I know my dad had dressed him better than that.

Before stopping to think, I reach forward to rearrange his pocket square.

“Don’t you touch me,” he snaps, grabbing my wrist to halt my advancing fingers. Guess he thought I was going for his soul again. Couldn’t really blame the guy there, all things considered. But as his hand wraps more tightly around my arm, a blazing pain sears my skin. It feels like we’re being welded together, our skins soldered beneath a heat torch. Kyle’s panicked eyes tell me he has no idea what’s going on either. I can tell he wants to let me go, but he just can’t make his fingers release.

The pain makes my head heavy and dark. So dark the road around me vanishes—sinks into darkness, taking my mind with it. Alone with dead Kyle, on the side of a deserted highway in the middle of the coldest January I can remember, I black out.

***

When I come to, Kyle and I are no longer attached. The finger marks branded into my tender wrist are the only proof that I haven’t hallucinated the whole episode. That, and the fact I’m not sitting by the road in the snow. No, wherever I am now, it’s stifling. What my grandmother would have called “soggy,” where the humidity makes you sweat until your clothes plaster to your body.

I sit up, rubbing at my wrist and trying to get my bearings in the pitch dark. I’m in some sort of cave, maybe. It’s definitely stone I’m sitting on and there’s a dank, cavernous smell assaulting me, but the ground is too smooth to be natural. Straining against the dark, I listen for any sound, any clue to tell me where I’ve landed after Kyle unwillingly transported me gods-know-where.

Or perhaps more importantly, gods-know-why. Why did a dead guy brand me with his touch? Why was he on the side of the road in the first place? Why did he try to make me crash?

As my brain is processing, a noise cuts through the fabric of darkness. It sounds like a rubber-soled shoe scraping against stone. Then the clank of chains. My first instinct is to scramble backward, away from the sound, but a low groan stops me.

“Kyle?” I whisper, hoping I’ve guessed correctly. Hoping he’s not planning on using whatever chains he’s got on me.

“Hey, Heather.” The chains jangle with more emphasis. “I don’t suppose you can get me out of here?”

“Get you—” I start before realizing I’m practically yelling. “Get you out of here? I don’t even know where here is.”

Kyle chuckles this dry, ironic laugh that grates on my nerves in a thousand places. “You don’t know where we are. Unbelievable.”

I scoot closer until my shin butts up against his outstretched shoe. “Look, I’m sorry I had to bring your soul down to the Underworld. Like every other person in the world, I hate my crappy job, okay? But blaming me for not knowing where you brought us when it’s pitch-freaking-black isn’t helping anything.”

“Well then, as you told me a few weeks ago: Heather El Bay, I bid you welcome to the Underworld.”

What? This isn’t right. This isn’t the chamber I’m normally in; there are no torches glowing like miniature suns along the walls. None of this makes sense unless…

The distinct click of claws against stone locks everything into place. “Yes, welcome, little goddess,” Amemit purrs. I can practically see the dry smile curling her leathery, crocodile lips. “It’s so nice of you to come to my house for once.”

Without thought, I’m standing, preparing to defend myself against an immortal creature who could eat me for breakfast. But it seems like that has to be against some sort of cosmic rule. At least I hope it is, because I’m not cowering before Amemit any longer. Not when it’s my own soul on the line.

“Mind telling me why I’m here, Amemit? I’m off duty, if you hadn’t noticed.”

The ground trembles beneath my feet as Amemit advances. Slowly and methodically, each step a heavy death knell. “It seems Kyle here set out to kill the wrong person tonight.” She clucks her tongue like an angry hen. “All he had to do was run one, little mortal off the road. Send one more soul to you, so you could deliver it to me. Instead, he brings me you. It’s sort of curious, don’t you think?”