He sighed.
“Oh, don’t be gloomy.” Lilith took the grip of the seireiken in one hand and the scabbard in the other, and gently slid them apart, revealing a small section of the blade. The charged sun-steel shone with a blinding white light, and tiny crackles of electric energy writhed across its surface. “Pretty.”
She shoved the sword back in and tossed it aside, letting it crash and clatter on the stone floor. “But I don’t want to kill you. I want to talk more.”
“Why Set and Nethys, and the others?” Omar asked. He had only glimpsed them briefly, in quick flashes of torchlight and starlight, as Nethys had carried him upside down, winging through the streets of Alexandria, and then hurling him down into the darkness of the undercity. And then there had been the chaos when the Indian woman showed up, dressed in her golden scales, and he had seen Horus and Isis, with their feathers and horns. “Why do this to them? They’ve never hurt you, have they? And they’re the few people in this world who understand what it means to be immortal. They could have been your friends, your family.”
Lilith shrugged. “I like them better as my servants. More predictable. And more helpful, too. But most of all, they don’t burn out or fall apart. Souls can be slippery things, and striking the perfect stability between the native soul, the invading soul, and the balancing agent can be so difficult sometimes. Using an immortal makes all of that so much easier.”
Omar shook his head slowly. “I’m so sorry, Lilith. I’m sorry for all of it. For you, and for them.” He paused. “What are you using for a balancing agent?”
“What’s this? Now you’re interested in my work?”
“I’m chained to a table with nothing to look at but a gray ceiling and your gorgeous eyes,” he said blandly. “So yes, I’m interested.”
She smiled. “I’ll show you.” She disappeared from his field of view for a few moments, though he could hear her in the next room, moving small metal and glass objects around so that they clinked and clicked softly together. And then she returned and leaned over him, and held up a small golden needle.
“A sun-steel needle?” He peered at it.
So small, so thin. Probably about the same weight as Wren’s ring.
“Exactly.” She rolled the tiny needle between her thumb and finger, letting it catch the light. “The needle draws out the aether from the animal’s blood, along with the soul I want. Careful timing allows me to control exactly how much the soul I take. And then I just insert the needle into the patient.” Lilith reached over and began rolling down his sleeve to expose his forearm. “Very simple, clean, and safe. Nothing left to chance. The placement of the needle and the size of the soul fragment allow me to target and limit the extent of the transformation.”
Omar eyed his bare arm and the needle in her hand. “I’d love to see your notes, if you have them handy. Your journal, perhaps?”
“Notes later. Demonstration first.” She smiled and leaned over him, brushing his lips lightly with her own. She whispered, “I still remember, you know. I remember what it was like to have you inside me, to hold you, to feel your flesh and your excitement inside my body. And now, I’m going to return the gesture.”
Omar’s eyes remained fixed on the needle hovering over his skin. “That’s really not necessary.”
“Oh, but I think it is.” She pinched his arm and slid the needle under his skin.
She did it so quickly and smoothly that there was no pain, only a brief moment of warmth, and then she stepped back to watch him. Omar stared at his arm, feeling the heat building inside his muscles and shaking his bones. A discoloration appeared where she inserted the needle, and it grew quickly, becoming a hard black sheen with flecks of bright blue and green upon it.
“What is that? What did you do?” he asked, trying not to panic. But the fear was already spinning out of control in his belly and chest and it took all of his strength not to scream and beat his arms on the table, and try to shake the needle out of his flesh.
It’s inside me, it’s changing me, and you can’t take one soul out of another soul and I’m going to be a monster like Set and this is how it all ends, because I deserve it, to suffer this way, at the hands of my own creations, to be reduced to an animal, to be a thing, to be a…
“What’s happening?” he asked. His skin was still changing, becoming hard and smooth from his elbow up to his fingertips. The black armor was one continuous shell, with tiny gaps around his wrist and knuckles so he could still move them, somewhat.
“I’m honoring your Aegyptian heritage,” Lilith said. “A fascinating place, Aegyptus. A long history of powerful dynastic kings and warrior queens, the great kandaces of Aegyptus! I wish I could have met them. But there’s also your folklore, your religion. So colorful, so nuanced. Blending stories of family with images of nature.” She gently petted the shining black armor of his transformed arm.
Omar felt his flesh becoming weak and thin inside that armor, barely capable of flexing or twitching. He looked away, staring up at the ceiling, trying to think of anything other than his arm, trying to imagine that he had no right arm at all, never had, and that there was nothing to feel or be afraid of.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“The soul of a scarab,” she said, smiling. “You see? I’ve studied. The scarab beetle is immortal, giving birth to itself from its magic little balls of dung, or something. Well, I didn’t study very hard. Your ancestors had silly beliefs. It’s just a beetle.”
Omar felt his stomach churning like a bowl of cold slush, and he shivered as the first trickles of sweat began to creep down the sides of his face. He wanted to vomit and run and die all at once just to escape the feelings in his own flesh.
Is this what Wren feels? It can’t be. She’s never mentioned anything like this before. Her ears never make her sick. Maybe humans are more compatible with foxes than with beetles. Or maybe… maybe that shred of my soul inside her doesn’t just keep the transformation from spreading. Maybe it helps her to feel stable, to feel normal.
Lucky girl.
“Everything all right?” Lilith asked.
Omar just looked at her, not trusting his voice. He didn’t want to gasp or squeak, or cry, and he could feel his body on the verge of betraying what little dignity he had left.
“You’ll be fine.” She patted his beetle arm, sending sickening vibrations through his shoulder and chest. “I’ll just give you a little time alone to think about your new life here with me, and to think about whether you want to tell me about your little red-haired friend. I’ll be just around the corner, polishing my needles.”
She gave him one last, lingering look filled with a strange muddle of inviting desire and vicious hatred, and then she left.
And Omar turned his head away from her and away from his arm.
Dear Lord, I am sorry for everything I have done, and I will suffer whatever I have to suffer for it. But don’t bring Wren into this. Don’t let me betray her. Don’t make her another victim in this.
Please.
Omar shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut, and waited.
Chapter 17
Anubis stood beneath the endless sea of stars and listened to the rippling of the savanna grasses in the spring breeze. It was a warm night, one that hinted at the promise of far warmer summer nights in the months to come. The plains were alive with the distant growls of hunting cats and the cries of birds and the creaking of insects. Leopards, grass owls, and locusts sang together, heedless of each other, mindful only of the hunt.
“I’ve known for years, you know,” Anubis said. He turned slowly to look down the grassy slope at the falcon-headed youth. “Maybe I’ve always known that Osiris was my father. But I’ve never spoken of it. And why would I? We’re forever. We’re eternal. What is family to a person who is four thousand years old? Little more than a distant memory of devotion, really. An echo of love. A whisper of shared blood. I don’t know anymore.”