“Now, now, my dear.” Noel glanced at her father, but his focus was fixed on her. “That wasn’t nice. Is your allegiance really so firmly entwined with your father? I challenge you to remember that the man betrayed you in front of his peers, selling away your career to the first clod treasure hunter who happened to stumble upon the amulet base.”
“For the love of God, I didn’t do it to spite her.” Her father came to a stop a few yards away. “It was merely a carrot to lure Magnusson. And I’d do it again a million times over if it meant I’d get even half a chance to put your rotten corpse in the ground. Hadley,” he called out. “Stay away from that man. He’s dangerous.”
“I know who he is,” she said. “I know everything. I know about the Deathless magic and his affair with Mother and that she passed on the specters to me when she died.”
“Hadley,” her father said in a broken voice.
Tears stung her eyes as the Mori crept closer. “Why didn’t you tell me? I had a right to know. I’m not a child.”
“I just wanted to keep you safe. And I didn’t want you to think badly of your mother.”
“Why should she?” Noel said. “Vera was brilliant and filled with endless potential. Her mistake was trusting you’d recognize that.”
“Of course I did—she was my wife!”
Anger tightened Noel’s face. “She may have been your wife on paper but she died in my arms,” he said, thumping his chest.
“A sight I’ll never forget,” her father snapped. “The entire city was in chaos, and I raced home to find you in my bed. My bed. My house. My wife.” His arms began shaking. “And you killed her. You infected her with that disease in Egypt. You made her sick while she was pregnant with my child. And you’re the one who insisted I call that unholy witch—Hadley’s curse is your fault!”
“My God, Archie,” Noel shouted. “It’s not a curse. She commands those reapers—that’s a gift from the gods. Then again, I suppose this is not something you’d appreciate if you’ve misled her all these years.”
“That spell has rotted your brain.”
Noel shook his head and turned to Hadley, speaking in a softer voice. “Come with me. I can take you to Cairo and show you incredible things. Things your mother loved.”
Smoky shadows circled the base of the Acacia tree and climbed the wet bark as Noel’s voice grew more persuasive. “Think about it, Hadley. I understand if you have doubts about us. I even accept that you’ve taken this Magnusson fellow as a lover. But you can’t deny that there’s something bigger drawing us together. It’s fate, Hadley. We’re two halves that can make a whole—you with the power to wield death, and me, the man death cannot touch.”
Her father made a choking noise. “Are you mad? First my wife and now my daughter? Death isn’t good enough for you! I should’ve dug a hole and cemented you inside.”
“And I should’ve done the same to you, but I made a promise to Vera that I wouldn’t kill you.”
“You’re killing me with this goddamn aging spell.”
“I’m just giving you a shove in the right direction. But if you want an even bigger push, I’m happy to oblige.”
The Mori were making Hadley dizzy. So many of them. Some were pulling on her anger and panic; others were focused on something else. And when she realized what that thing was, she pulled herself together long enough to retrieve the amulet base from her coat pocket.
“Hadley,” Noel warned when he saw the gold gleam.
“Father may have made a lot of mistakes, but my mother obviously cared enough to stay with him. And I guess there are some similarities between my mother and me after all, because I stand by him, too.”
“Hadley,” her father called out in warning.
“Don’t worry, Father,” she said, backing away from Noel into the mausoleum doorway. “I’ve got all the pieces now. You should’ve asked me to find them in the first place.”
“Hadley—”
Bracing for the unknown, she slipped the last crossbar into the top of the amulet. It greedily attached itself, as if it were magnetized. As if it were alive. With shaking, rain-slick fingers, she twisted it together, and the metal snicked into place.
THIRTY-TWO
THE AMULET WAS WHOLE, all the pieces assembled. Hadley expected something big and dramatic and frightening to happen. But . . .
Nothing.
No door to the underworld. No flash of light. No swirl of magical smoke. She wiggled it while glancing around, looking for something that wasn’t there. She shook it, grunting. Still nothing.
Noel’s slow chuckle grew into a laugh. “Oh, Archie. If you could only see the look on her face. Your precious Backbone of Osiris doesn’t seem to work. I’m afraid someone’s been deceived because I don’t see any sort of magical doorway to a dark netherworld.”
Dear God. Had Adam given her the wrong one? Had she just attached the last crossbar to a forgery? She cried out in frustration. Her Mori wailed along with her, teeth gnashing. Wanting to be loosed. A rumbling noise gathering somewhere in the distance grew closer and closer.
“Hadley!” her father bellowed. “Put it around his neck. It must be around his neck!”
She stared at the broken chain. Glanced up at Noel. His slow grin sent a shiver of fear across her skin. Stupid, arrogant bastard. She might not kill him, but she could damn sure hurt him enough to make him wish he were dead.
That distant rumble grew louder, until her bones shook with it. And with a furious wail, she unleashed the Mori and willed them upon Noel with all her might.
Shadows coalesced above the mausoleum as her specters swirled around a tree limb that was fatter than a man’s chest and easily twenty feet long. The grand old Blackwood Acacia shook. Wood groaned. Bark splintered. And with a terrible crack! the hulking limb came crashing down through the misting rain.
Noel lunged to the side as the limb exploded near Hadley’s feet, hitting the ground with such force, it made her teeth clack together. Hadley’s gaze met his over the fallen branches. His mouth screwed into a snarl. His eyes squeezed shut momentarily. “Forgive me, Vera,” he mumbled before whipping around to face her father. A string of familiar words floated from his lips. What was that? Egyptian Arabic?
Wind rustled through her hair as Noel shouted something at the sky.
Her father screamed. His legs twisted around each other. Bone cracked.
“Father!” Hadley stumbled over the mausoleum steps and slipped in the mud as the Acacia tree shook again. She saw her specters rocking another bough a moment before a streak of red flew across the grass.
The rumble wasn’t coming from the Mori.
It was Lulu.
A dark figure leapt from the bike—one she barely recognized as Lowe. His soaked clothes clung to lean muscles. A wild crown of burnished gold curls dripped over narrowed eyes as his long legs carried him across the lawn with dangerous grace. He looked as if he were the devil himself, risen from hell, bent on ripping someone’s heart from their chest.
That someone turned out to be Noel.
As Hadley pushed herself out of the mud, she spied Lowe reaching under the flap of his suit jacket. Silver winked in the mist as he fisted his curved dagger.
“Lowe!” she shouted.
His eyes briefly flicked to hers, but they barely registered recognition. He looked possessed. How in the world had he known to come here? Had Adam told him? She couldn’t remember what she’d muttered to the watchmaker when she left his shop.
“The amulet!” her father bit out between pained breaths. “Get it . . . around his n-neck.”