Vampires Don't Sparkle: Deathless Book 3 (34 page)

“Do not concern yourself,” Osiris said, giving him a crooked smile. “I have just the thing for the fodder.”

Osiris looked skyward, and Trevor followed his gaze. Something twinkled above them. Whatever it was, it was getting larger quickly. At first he thought it was a meteor, but then he recognized it.

“Holy shit,” Trevor said, looking at Osiris. “You’re using the Skyhammer aren’t you?”

Chapter 60- Last Stand

Anubis twirled his fan-bladed axe in lazy arcs as he waited for Set to approach. The ebony-armored figure walked slowly toward him, despite the fact that he could have blurred across the distance in the space between heartbeats. It was hardly surprising; Set loved theatrics.
 

Dragons? Anubis thought with a chuckle. Seriously? Each took centuries to grow and consumed an enormous amount of flesh daily. They were notoriously difficult to keep and, while they were impressive in combat, a god of any decent age could best one easily. They were hardly worth the effort. Yet Set had a fondness for them.

Anubis glanced up as a sudden downdraft tickled his fur. For a moment he thought one of the dragons was attacking, but all three had passed him in pursuit of Ra and her companions. The wind came from a strange glittering object that plunged from the heavens like a star.
 

A molten hunk of metal the size of a small mountain screamed to the earth, catching all three dragons. The first creature took the full brunt of the blast and was crushed easily. The other two were caught in the wake, knocked spinning from the air like lions kicked by an elephant.

Anubis laughed, a warm hearty laugh. Little had impressed him in this new world, but it seemed these moderns had invented at least a few interesting weapons. He turned toward Set, who’d paused in his approach to study the carnage where his dragons had been. Anubis couldn’t see his face, but he imagined it locked into a rictus of rage, and that pleased him.

“How many more dragons do you have, Set?” Anubis taunted, walking slowly toward the demonic god. Ra was safe now. Set and his terrible wife Nephthys wouldn’t pursue so long as Anubis lived, and by the time Set killed him Ra would long since have fled.

“Don’t goad me, jackal,” Set snapped, his armored visor turning to focus on Anubis. His eyes were twin pools of flat black, utterly alien. What had he done to himself? “Your death will be painful as it is, but if you push me I will keep you alive for centuries. I will make you eat your own entrails. You will beg for death, whimpering like the cowardly animal you resemble.”

“We’ve battled before, Set. Have you forgotten? Perhaps if you removed the helmet occasionally you could see the scar I gave you all those millennia ago,” Anubis taunted, enjoying it perhaps more than he should.
 

“Ah, I forget,” Set said, barking out a sudden laugh. He reached up with both hands, removing the demonic helm and tucking it under one arm.
 

All mirth crumbled to ash. Set had been handsome once, perhaps the most handsome of all the gods, excepting only Osiris. The only thing marring that had been the single scar on his right cheek, a wound Anubis had the dubious honor of having given him. The scar was gone. Everything that had made Set human was gone.

A bulbous head of ashen grey housed eyes of flat black, and Anubis found his death reflected there. Set smiled, a sea of shark fangs glittering as he spoke. “You’ve slumbered for thirteen millennia, jackal. I have not. See the changes the Builders have wrought. See what I have become, the power I now wield.”

“What are you?” Anubis took a cautious step backwards.

“You ask the wrong question,” Set said, stepping forward with a terrible smile. “What am I becoming? The progeny of the Builders have shared much with me. I am being shaped into their image, so that I might join the Builders when they return. All that I do, I do to further the return.”

“As a slave?” Anubis growled, spitting in the dust at Set’s feet.

“Oh no,” Set corrected, taking a step closer. He waved a hand dismissively, and Nephthys retreated to a safe distance. “As an overseer. I will enslave mankind to my will. All will become demons, an extension of my mind. Those who do not will be slain. I will present a vast army to the Builders upon their return, to execute their will in reshaping this world.”

Prudence said Anubis should have let Set come to him, that he should have waited as long as possible to prolong the battle. Yet he could not. Everything in him cried out to end the abomination before him. He charged, executing a hundred-blade attack.

Countless images burst from him, each a perfect mirror, down to the fan-bladed axe. The images attacked from a hundred directions. Only one was real, but to deal with that attack the victim had to be able to pick out the real Anubis. It had been precisely this attack that had given Set the scar all those centuries ago.

Set simply vanished. A hundred copies of Anubis struck nothing but empty air. He took a moment to regain his balance, then began to spin. Set was behind him, and he was already attacking. His gauntleted fist punched through Anubis’s chest, ripping out his heart.

Anubis stumbled back, propping himself up with his axe. As a deathless he no longer had a heart that beat, but the blow still staggered him. He expected Set to press the attack, but instead the abomination began eating his heart. Slowly, as if relishing a great treat.

Anubis roared, blurring toward Set in a fury. This time his attack was unsubtle, but as fast as he could make it. As expected, Set disappeared again. This time Anubis studied the movement. He wasn’t blurring. He was in one place, then he was in another. Just like a vampire.

Again Anubis attacked, a powerful strike, as fast as he could make it. Again Set teleported, laughing this time. That laughter ended when Anubis drove his axe backwards, ramming the second axe head through Set’s chest. Armor crunched, twisting as the sunsteel found flesh.

He capitalized on the attack, swinging a clawed hand at Set’s still exposed face. He felt a moment’s elation, but then Set’s jaw distended. His mouth opened impossibly wide, and he struck like a snake, snapping his jaws around Anubis’s outstretched hand. There was a moment’s pain, then Anubis fell back with a roar as he stared at the stump where his hand had been.

Set gave him no quarter, driving brutally forward. He slammed a gauntleted hand into Anubis’s jaw, shattering it and knocking him backward. Set snatched Anubis’s fan axe out of the air, whirling it over his own head once, then down in a low sweep. The move severed both Anubis’s legs at the knees, spilling his mangled body to the dusty earth.

Anubis used his one good arm to pull himself backward, but it was a feeble gesture. He was about to die, and he knew it.

“Not so, jackal,” Set said, leaning close with that bizarre, alien grin. By Ra, was Set in his head somehow? That was a trick for Ka-Duns, yet he’d clearly heard Anubis’s thoughts. He displayed powers from Isis, Osiris, and Ra. What did that mean? “Oh, yes, jackal. I can hear your thoughts. But what you will find more terrifying? I can control them as well.”

Set plunged all five fingers of one hand into Anubis’s chest. White fire flooded Anubis’s body, and his back arched. He screamed and screamed, praying for death.

Chapter 61- A Fitting Fate for Baldy

Irakesh came to with a groan, pulling himself from under a singed section of the pavilion. Everything ached, especially his head. He stared around dumbly, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Smoke rose in little plumes, a whole sea of them. Each came from a cooked corpse, a mixture of humans, anakim, and…worse things. One looked like a creature he’d heard of but never seen, one he’d longed to test himself against. A dragon. The corpse had no head, and its sickly green blood had congealed into a great stinking pool around its body.

“Hello, nephew,” came a feminine voice from behind him. Irakesh froze, unable to even turn and face the voice. He recognized it from his early childhood, and it still terrified him. “Are you not happy to see me?”

You must face her, and quickly, my host. Convince her you are her servant, or she will burn us to ash.

Irakesh turned, painting a smile on his face. “Ahh, Aunt Nephthys. You are looking radiant. It would seem you and Mother had a bit of a disagreement.”

“Not so,” Nephthys said, cocking her head to the side. She wore form-fitting black armor, a million tiny scales much like that of the dead dragon. The armor highlighted her generous curves, but one look at the inhuman face erased any beauty an observer may have found there. Ebony eyes, lacking an iris or cornea, latched onto him. Her skin was the pallid white of a new corpse, her head disproportionate to her body. Somehow the worst part was her hair, which had fallen out save for a few stringy patches of grey. “We were in perfect agreement. She ran like a frightened child, so I didn’t kill her.”

“Ahh,” Irakesh said, feeling queasy in a decidedly un-deathless-like way.
 

“Husband,” Nephthys called, her melodious voice at odds with that strange face. She turned to face another figure, one that would have made Irakesh wet himself were he still human.

Set approached, face grim. What a face it was, too. It looked almost exactly like Ka, the servant the Builders had left behind. Save where Ka appeared harmless, Set was terrifying. It meant Set was shaping his helixes to match that of the Builders.

Set carried a limp body in his hand, dragging it through the dirt as he approached. Irakesh blinked, recognizing Steve’s bloody form. Steve still breathed, but he hung there limply. Set had a hand around the back of Steve’s neck, his fingers curled around the golden collar, which he was using to carry the Ka-Dun.

“Ahh, nephew,” Set said, tossing Steve at Irakesh’s feet. “I can see by the bracelet on your wrist that I’ve found something that belongs to you.”

“Erk,” Irakesh said, staring down at Steve. He could tell the Ka-Dun was awake, but Steve lay there as if unconscious. Irakesh envied him that. He looked back up at Set. “Y-yes. The Ka-Dun belongs to me.”

“I see,” Set said, wrapping an arm around Nephthys’s waist. His voice was warm and friendly. “Tell me, nephew. Would you like to continue your wretched existence?”

“Of course,” Irakesh said, wiping soot from his forehead with the back of his hand. How was he going to get out of this situation? He looked around, but all of his allies were gone. He was well and truly on his own.

“Excellent, I’m pleased to hear that,” Set said, giving him a truly alarming smile. “Swear fealty to me, accept the gift of the demon, and I will elevate you to a commander within my forces. You will answer only to me and your aunt. How does that sound?”

Irakesh considered his options. Set was asking him to betray his own mother. More, he was asking Irakesh to allow Set to sink his hooks in. Those hooks would begin to erode Irakesh’s will, and someday would take over his mind. With each year Irakesh’s will would belong less to him and more to Set, until one day he was a mindless thrall.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Uncle,” Irakesh found himself saying. The words were strange. He didn’t know where they’d come from. Irakesh sank to his knees, and met Set’s awful gaze. “I suppose you’ll have to kill me. I won’t betray my mother, and I won’t give up my identity to be one of your servants.”

Steve leapt eagerly to his feet, dropping the pretense of being unconscious.

“I will.” He was bloody and battered, but his gaze was steady as he looked at Set. “Take me, my lord. I have no love for Ra, and even less for Isis. Give me power, and I am happy to assist you in killing your enemies.”

“Interesting,” Set said, laughing. He stalked over to Irakesh, drawing an enormous black bastard sword from the scabbard over his shoulder. He gave a quick flick, severing Irakesh’s wrist. There was a moment of hot pain, but Irakesh ignored it as the hand with the bracelet clinked to the ground at Steve’s feet. He said nothing as Set turned to Steve. “I accept your offer, Ka-Dun. I will free you from the collar, and give you the gift of the demon.”

Set gave Irakesh a truly wicked smile, one full of tiny razored teeth that made Irakesh’s own look harmless. “As for my quivering nephew here, he will be your first thrall. You may enslave him, just as he so thoughtlessly enslaved you.”

Irakesh watched in horror as Steve approached. The Ka-Dun wore a gleeful smile, staring cruelly at Irakesh as he snapped the collar around his neck.

Chapter 62- Our Best Plan Sucks

Blair stared back over his shoulder, but none of the demons approached. They’d blurred several miles, finally stopping at an empty freeway.

“You were ready for this,” Isis said, gesturing at a massive jumbo jet parked on the road. The cargo hold in the back was open, a wide ramp beckoning for them to enter. A single figure stood there, waving frantically at them to board.

Blair sprinted up the ramp. He was one of the last to board, joining the cluster of figures in the center of the little hangar.
 

The man who’d been waiting had salt and pepper hair. He wore a deep blue Armani suit, one that matched the quality and cut of Osiris’s own—pre-dragon goop, anyway. Whoever it was had the faint green glow Blair had come to expect from the deathless, and his familiar nod to Osiris reinforced that judgement.

“Where’s Commander Jordan?” the man asked, scanning their ranks as the wide ramp behind Blair began folding up into the plane.

“I’m sorry, Mark. He didn’t make it,” Osiris replied, grimly. “He’s trapped in a suit of armor derived from our X-11s.”

“Trapped?” the man asked, raising an eyebrow.
 

“Yes, trapped. Using tech stolen by Set’s spies,” Osiris explained, giving a sigh as he sat on one of the benches set into the wall of the cargo hold. Isis joined him, though Ra and Trevor remained standing.

Blair looked to Liz, who seemed just as shell shocked as he was. He moved to her, wrapping an arm around her waist. She seemed a little surprised, but gave him a tentative smile. At least there was still something good, something to hold onto amidst all the chaos.

“Okay, so they’ve stolen our tech. That’s alarming, but I don’t understand what you mean by Jordan being trapped,” the man Osiris had called Mark seemed agitated, and the flippant way he spoke to Osiris suggested he was used to being in charge.