CHAPTER 12

It was close to noon when I finally walked through the doors of the office. Kate sat at her desk. Grendel sprawled by her feet, an enormous black monstrosity that had more in common with the hound of the Baskervilles than with any poodle I had ever seen. He saw me and wagged his tail.

I paused to pet his head. “The Consort in the flesh. You grace us with your presence, Your Majesty. I’m so honored.” I pressed my hand to my chest, hyperventilating. “I shall alert the media posthaste!”

She grimaced. “Har-de-har-har. Did you have lunch yet?”

“No, and I’m starving. I could eat a small horse.”

“Acropolis?” Kate asked, rising.

“Way ahead of you.” I grabbed the file off my desk and went out the door. “By the way, we have a nice police tail that we aren’t supposed to lose.”

“The more, the merrier.”

When we had both worked at the Order, Parthenon had been our favorite lunch joint. It served the best gyros. Unfortunately, now we were about forty-five minutes away from Parthenon, but we had found Acropolis, half a mile away, which was just as good if not better. It didn’t have Parthenon’s outdoor garden, but we made do with a secluded booth near the window in the back.

We ordered a heap of gyros, tzatziki sauce, a plate of bones for Grendel, and yummy pink-drop fruity drinks. Even with my shapeshifter senses, I had no idea what was in them and we both had decided it wasn’t prudent to ask. Our police escorts, an older woman and a man in his twenties, were seated all the way across the room, by the window. For now we had privacy, at least.

I took the picture of the knife from the file and pushed it toward her. “Ancient knife.”

She pondered it. “This is not battle-ready.”

“Raphael thought it was ceremonial.”

She nodded. “It’s a fang.”

“What?”

“It’s a fang.” She turned the picture toward me. “Wolf, maybe. Here, look.”

She reached down and pulled Grendel’s upper lip up, revealing huge canines. “Exactly the same.”

She was right. The knife was shaped just like a canine tooth. “How did I miss this?”

Kate wiped her hands on the cloth napkin. “I wouldn’t have connected it either, except Curran gave Grendel a pork chop last night and this doofus wolfed it down and got a bone shard stuck in his gum. I had to pull it out and got a close look at his teeth. I can’t seem to impress on the Beast Lord that giving him pork chops is not a good idea. He says wolves eat boars. I say that wolves never had a boar sliced into chops, which makes pork bones very sharp.”

I unloaded the whole story on her, sparing no details. Kate’s eyes kept getting bigger and bigger.

“And here we are,” I finished.

“The place smelled of jasmine and myrrh?”

I nodded.

Kate thought for a long moment. “You said the millionaire’s name was Anapa?”

I nodded. “I checked on it. It’s some sort of small town on the Black Sea in Russia.”

“It’s also in the Tell el-Amarna Tablets,” she said. “In the late 1880s clay tablets were found on the site of an old Egyptian city. The tablets dated to about the fourteenth century BCE. They were probably part of some royal archive, because most of it was pharaohs’ correspondence with foreign rulers.”

“How do you even remember this stuff?”

“Most of the tablets are from Palestine and Babylon,” she said. “It was part of my required education. Anyhow, the tablets are written in Akkadian, and the name Bel Anapa is mentioned. ‘Bel’ meant ‘master’ or ‘lord’ in Akkadian, similar to the Semitic Ba’al.”

“Like the demon Baal?”

Kate grimaced. “Yes. They had this thing where only priests were allowed to say the god’s name, so they just ba’aled their gods. Similar to the way Christians use ‘Lord’ now. So some Greeks ended up thinking that Bel or Ba’al meant a specific god, but it doesn’t: Bel Marduk, Bel Hadad, Bel Anapa, and so on.”

Great. “Which god is Anapa?”

“The Greeks called him Anubis, God of the Dead.”

Whoa.

“The one with the jackal head?” I asked, raising my hands to my head to indicate ears.

Kate nodded.

Okay. No god that had “of the Dead” attached to it could be taken lightly. Hades, Hel, none of them were cuddly puppies.

“He can’t be a god,” I said. “There isn’t enough magic for gods. We’ve established that.” Gods ran on the faith of their worshippers like cars on fuel. The moment the magic receded, their flow of faith was cut off and the gods dematerialized.

“He could be just using the name,” Kate said. “He could be the child of a god.”

I stared at her.

“Saiman is the grandchild of a god,” Kate said. “Anapa could be also.”

I thought of the office in Anapa’s mansion. That otherworldly office no human being could’ve made. “Do you think the knife might be modeled after his fangs?”

“It’s possible.”

“Does Anubis have any sort of helper animals?” I asked. “Like something about five feet tall with the jaws of a crocodile and…”

“Body of a lion? With a mane?” Kate asked.

Damn it. “Okay. Drop it on me.”

“Demon Ammit, the Devourer of the Dead, the Eater of Hearts, the Destroyer of Souls.”

I put my hand over my face.

“Supposedly after receiving the soul of a recently deceased, Anubis weighs the heart against the feather of Ma’at, the Goddess of Truth. If the heart is heavier, it’s not pure and Ammit gets a delicious treat. The soul doesn’t go to Osiris, doesn’t receive immortality, and generally doesn’t get to collect its two hundred dollars. Instead, it is condemned to be forever restless.” Kate squinted at me. “Let me guess, you nuked the Devourer of Souls.”

“Yup. And since he was guarding Anapa—”

“She.” Kate drank.

“Ammit is a girl demon?”

“Mhmm.”

I sighed. “Well, in any case, Anapa definitely isn’t just using the name.”

And if Anapa was Anubis, that meant I had officially pissed off a deity. I had never done that before.

I tapped the picture of the knife. “It could be an Egyptian knife. Ancient Crete and ancient Egypt traded. Even I know that.”

“It could be Greek, too,” Kate said. “The worship of Anubis actually spread through Greece and Rome.”

“So I have an Anubis of some sort, a possibly Egyptian knife, and snakes. Lots of snakes: snake people, vipers, flying snakes…and a Russian staff with a serpentlike head. How does this all fit together?”

We stared at each other.

“No clue,” Kate said. “But it’s not good.”

The gyros arrived. Kate pushed the plate toward me. “Eat.”

“Why?”

“You’ve lost at least ten pounds since I last saw you.”

“I’m getting fashionably slender from all the exercise,” I told her.

“That last time was three days ago. You’re not slender, you’re starving. Eat the damn food.”

For ten minutes we did nothing but eat.

“How did it go with Aunt B?” Kate asked.

“I caved in,” I said. “I went to see her, sat real calm by her feet, and let her put a collar on me. She was surprisingly gracious about it.” My cup was empty. I raised my glass. A waiter appeared and refilled it. “Thanks.” I looked back at Kate. “I’m not actually all that bitter about it. It cost me a big chunk of my pride, but I’m not bitter. I’m now a Bouda beta.”

“Congratulations.”

We clinked our glasses.

“Why the hell not? I decided that’s what I want and if I have to wear Aunt B’s collar for a few years to get it, so be it. I’ll learn everything she knows. I’ll figure out how she thinks, and then I’ll use it against her. That’s the bouda way.”

“And Raphael?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t decided. Anyway, Roman mentioned that the witches were all upset over a vision of the Witch Oracle. They heard howling and saw a spiral of clay. I’m thinking since Anubis is involved, maybe that was a jackal howling. Would Anubis have any sort of influence over werejackals?”

“I don’t know.”

I’d have to call Jim and warn him to pull any jackals he was using out of the team working on Anapa. No need to tempt fate.

“Don’t change the subject.” Kate fixed me with her stare.

“What subject is that?”

“Raphael.”

“Ah, that subject.” I popped a piece of gyro into my mouth. “I said I haven’t decided. It’s complicated.”

Kate put her fork down, leaned her elbow on the table, and rested her cheek on her fist. “I’ve got time.”

It wasn’t right to lie to your best friend. Even if it was lying by omission. I chronicled my wonderful romantic adventures.

“I can’t believe you kissed the black volhv,” Kate said.

“It was tepid.”

“Tepid?”

“You know, not hot, not cold, just kind of moderately warm. I feel guilty about it, actually. Roman is a good kisser. I should’ve enjoyed it more. Besides, locking lips with him was the least of my problems.” I counted things off on my fingers. “Going to an IM-1 zone, breaking and entering into Anapa’s office, killing Anapa’s demon, breaking and entering into a crime scene, stealing evidence from the crime scene, threatening a human civilian with being hung by his intestines…I’m afraid your friend is gone and she’s never coming back. You’ve got a crazy bouda instead.”

“What are you talking about, you moron? My friend never left.”

That was Kate in a nutshell. Once she became your friend, she remained your friend. Always. I bared my teeth at her. “Who are you calling a moron?”

“You. Let me summarize: so you and Raphael had a fight and didn’t talk because you hurt each other’s feelings, then both of you got your feelings hurt again, because neither one of you apologized, then Raphael pretended to have a fiancée who didn’t do anything for him, and your feelings got further hurt, so you got him back by telling him that you were done, after which he went nuts and scratched MINE into your table, so you kissed a black volhv, who didn’t do anything for you, and now Raphael has moved his things into your apartment.”

“Yes.” That about summed it up.

Kate leaned toward me. “When I was little, Voron took me to Latin America. TV still ran regular programming back then, and they had this really dramatic love story on during the week. It was full of very pretty people…”

I pointed my fork at her. “Are you implying that our relationship is like a Spanish soap opera?”

“I’m not implying. I’m saying it.”

“You’re crazy.”

Kate grinned. “Have you traded any significant, tormented glances lately?”

“Eat dirt, Kate.”

“Perhaps he has a twin brother…”

“Not another word.”

She cackled over in her seat. I tried to smile back, but my smile must’ve been frightening, because Kate stopped laughing. “What is it?”

“I’m all fucked up.” I didn’t mean to say it. It just came out. “I fought and fought against joining the Pack, and now I’m in. I’m not dumb. I’m smart. I knew it would come to this, and joining the shapeshifters is to my benefit. I don’t understand why I resisted it for so long. Now there is Raphael. He’s behaving like an irrational lunatic, yet I’m even more obsessed with him. It’s like an addiction, Kate. I could just give in and make up with him, but I can’t. What is wrong with me?”

“You hate being forced,” Kate said.

“You’re wrong. I have no problem with authority.”

“You have no problem with authority when you voluntarily choose to accept it. You accepted the Order’s right to give you commands. If someone had come and tried to force you into the Order, you would’ve fought them tooth and nail. Aunt B tried to force you to join the Pack, so you balked. But now you’ve joined on your terms, voluntarily accepted her authority, and you’re okay with it because it was your decision, not hers.”

“And Raphael?”

“Raphael is an asshole, no doubt about it. Spoiled, irrational, difficult. And you love him and feel pressure to fix things because the two of you had something great and you helped to screw it up and now you feel guilty. It’s kind of up to both of you to put it back together, but you’d have to forgive each other first.”

“When did you get so wise?”

Kate sighed. “I spend all my Wednesdays listening to the shapeshifter court issues. You wouldn’t believe how often they try to use the Pack court to settle their love problems. Look, Andi, whatever you decide, I’m on your side. If you want help, I will help. Just tell me what to do. If you want to sit here and mope, I will find you a hanky.”

A hanky, huh? “Just for that, you’re going to come with me.”

“Where?”

“To Raphael’s house. It’s payback time.”

“Oh no. Another case of breaking and entering?” A mischievous light sparked in Kate’s eyes.

“I don’t have to break and enter.” I pulled Raphael’s spare set of keys out of my pocket and jingled them. “He left me this lovely set of keys. Seems a shame not use them.”

Kate laughed.

I had already made the calls before I left for my meeting with Aunt B. My evil plan was already set in motion.

I raised my pink drink. “To revenge!”

Kate raised her glass and we clinked.

“It has to be really good,” she said.

“Trust me on this. It will be epic.”

The front door of Raphael’s house swung open. A moment later Kate appeared in the doorway of the master suite’s bathroom. She was wrapped in a plastic biohazard suit.

“Still clear,” she reported. “It’s twenty past midnight. He’ll be home soon.”

“Almost done,” I told her.

“We would be finished already if you hadn’t insisted on doing the tub.”

I wiped the sweat off my forehead. I had put in nearly twelve hours of work, using every iota of my shapeshifter strength and speed. Kate had helped, especially with cutting things, but I wanted my scent all over this place, not hers, which was why she was wrapped in plastic, and I wore a tank top and a pair of capris, sweating and leaving my scent signature on everything.

“Almost done,” I promised again.

Kate turned. A moment later I heard it too, some sort of rumble at the front door.

“I got this,” Kate said and went out with a determined look on her face.

A moment later I glued the last strip in place and stuck my head out.

Kate stood by the door with her arms crossed.

That was an anti-Curran pose. What the hell was the Beast Lord doing here?

I padded to the door.

“First, you didn’t come home.” Curran’s voice held zero humor. “Second, I’m told that my mate is lingering in Raphael’s house. There can’t be any good reason for you to be here.”

“Are you spying on me, Your Furriness?” Kate asked.

“No,” I said, stepping into the doorway. “Jim has Raphael’s house under surveillance.”

Curran looked at me, then looked at Kate.

“Revenge,” Kate said. “I’ll explain later.”

Something hissed. The three of us looked up. A dark shadow rose on the neighboring roof, and I recognized Shawn, one of Jim’s people. Speak of the devil. “He’s coming,” Shawn hissed. “Raphael’s coming.”

Oh shit.

“Help!” Kate held her arms out.

Curran grabbed the biohazard suit and ripped it in half, stripping it from her. Kate thrust the suit into the nearest trash can.

I ran inside the house, locked the front door, ran upstairs, lowered the attic ladder, climbed into the attic, pulled the ladder up behind me, and dashed along the beam to the corner over the living room. My surveillance nest waited for me. I’d bugged the entrance and every room in the house, and now the images from the house filled my tablet. I was going to record this for posterity. I plugged the earpiece in.

Curran and Kate stood by the door.

“I can’t believe you decided to come down here and check on me,” she said.

“The guy once handed you a fan and told you to fan yourself if the sight of his naked torso was too much.”

“That was like a year ago. Will you let it go already?”

“No.” Curran grabbed her and pulled her to him, kissing her. “Never.”

She kissed him back and smiled.

Awww. Kate and the Beast Lord sitting in a tree…

The sound of a car pulling into the parking lot.

I scooted on my pallet of plywood. Showtime.

Raphael approached. My heart skipped a beat. He looked good. He was also carrying something long and wrapped in canvas.

“Hello,” Raphael said.

Now that I looked closer, he seemed a little tired. There were slight bags under his intense blue eyes. Yeah, those sleepless nights of breaking into people’s apartments and rearranging furniture must be killer.

“Hi,” Kate said with a big fake smile.

Don’t overdo it, woman. Come on.

Curran just stared. Jesus Christ, those two couldn’t lie their way out of a paper bag.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked.

“We have something important…to discuss,” Curran said.

I hit my hand on my face. Brilliant, Your Majesty. Not suspicious at all.

“In private. Inside,” Kate said.

Raphael looked at Curran then slowly at Kate. “Please come in. I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. For some reason all of the plumbing in the Clan Bouda House came apart and my mother called me.”

“What do you mean, came apart?” Kate asked.

“I mean that every coupling and fitting in the house has been pulled open,” Raphael said.

“I didn’t know you were in the plumbing repair business,” Curran said.

“I’m in the good son business. I couldn’t leave my mother in the house with no running water.” Raphael opened the door. “Some idiot likely pulled a prank. It’s a house full of boudas.”

“What’s this?” Kate asked pointing at the bundle.

“An apology for being a selfish asshole.” Raphael unwrapped the canvas, revealing the instantly identifiable shape of a high-tech compound bow: low-tech bows were bent outward, like a crescent, but this bow’s center bent inward, toward the archer. I zoomed in. Lightweight, a hollow carbon fiber riser with the telltale Celtic knot grid pattern, dampers to absorb the recoil vibration, ornate cams, string suppressors…Oh Jesus Christ, he was holding an Ifor compound bow. Sleekest, leanest, meanest bow on the market, with pinpoint accuracy and a vibration-free shot delivered in complete silence. It wasn’t a bow, it was death wrapped in a dream and twenty-first-century engineering. They were made in Wales by a single artisan family, one at a time. I had been trying to buy one for ages, but there was a waiting list a mile long and UK buyers were given a strong preference. How could he even get one? Where?

“Do you think she’ll like it?” Raphael asked.

“She’ll love it,” Kate said. “But I don’t think buying her things will work.”

For me! The bow was for me! I dropped my tablet.

Raphael glanced up. “Did you hear something?”

Oh crap.

“No,” Curran said. “Can we come in?”

“Of course.” Raphael wrapped the bow back up.

I switched to the foyer camera.

The door swung open.

I held my breath.

Raphael stepped inside.

I tapped the screen, splitting it in two and zooming the right half on his face.

Raphael opened his mouth and froze.

The entire house was covered in purple ultra-long shag carpet. It wasn’t just purple, it was bright, vivid, psychotic grape-purple. It made my eyes bleed after a mere five seconds. Medrano Reclamations had pulled miles of it out of some warehouse they had reclaimed, and Stefan had sold the entire lot to me dirt cheap, because nobody in their right mind would ever buy it.

I had covered everything: the floor, the walls, the ceiling. The elegant couches, the dark rough-wood coffee table, the swords on the wall, the fireplace. I had wrapped the logs in the fireplace.

Raphael just stood there and stared, his face a mask of utter shock.

Behind him Curran froze in place. Kate put her hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh.

Slowly Raphael walked inside over what once had been his pricy tile and now was just a sea of cushy, hideous purple, and looked at the kitchen.

The island was a block of carpet. I had wrapped his pots and pans hanging from the frame identical to the one he had installed at my place. I had wrapped the frame. The fridge. The stove. The butcher block, each knife handle wrapped lovingly in the purple nightmare.

“Wow,” Kate said. “I had no idea you liked carpet so much, Raphael.”

“What is it that you wanted to discuss?” Raphael asked, his voice monotone.

“We’ll do it later,” Curran said. “You’re obviously too tired. Come on, Kate.”

She hesitated. “But…”

“We need to go and do that other thing we need to do.” He pulled her away and they went out. The door clicked shut.

Slowly, as if in a dream, Raphael opened the carpet-sheathed cabinet. A stack of carpeted plates looked back at him. I didn’t have the time to do absolutely everything, so I had only done the plates. I knew he would open that cabinet. That’s where he usually went first.

Raphael drew his hand over his face.

Slowly the shock drained away from his face. He inhaled deeply.

That’s right, darling. Drink me in.

He went back into the living room and checked the windows, one by one. Slowly, unhurriedly he made his way upstairs to the master suite.

I switched to a different camera.

The bed was purple, too. He locked the windows and walked into the bathroom. The tub was carpet. The toilet was carpet. I had cut carpet into a long strip and threaded it onto the toilet paper holder.

He turned and finally noticed a mirror, the lonely spot in the synthetic moss that had sprouted all over his apartment. On it I had written in red lipstick, “Your personal padded room.”

Raphael raised his head and looked up. An evil smile curved his lips. He was almost unbearably handsome.

“Andreeaaaa,” he called, his voice seductive and wicked.

I gulped.

“I know you’re here.” His voice was like a purr wrapped in a growl. “You could never resist seeing me take this all in.”

Bastard knew me too well. I tried to breathe quietly.

His shoes came off. He stretched.

“Andreaaa…”

His voice sent tiny caresses all over my skin.

Raphael raised his face and inhaled, sampling the air. He seemed slightly feral.

“I’m going to find you,” he promised.

Oh no.

He followed my scent out of the master suite.

“You can’t hide from me. I know you, I know how you think. I know you’re watching me. Did you wire the house?”

He was hunting me.

Fear dashed through me, mixed with delicious excitement. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose.

He reached the attic.

My heart was beating a thousand beats per minute.

He reached for the cord.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

The attic’s ladder slid down.

I took a deep breath.

Raphael put his foot on the first step.

I leaped up, tore my surveillance screen away from the cables, and tried to hurl myself through the attic window. And ran right into bars. Trapped.

Raphael’s head appeared in the attic doorway. He saw me.

I dropped my stuff and braced myself.

Slowly, lazily he climbed the stairs. One step, two…

“You’ll never take me alive,” I told him. It felt appropriate.

He stepped into the attic. “You got it all wrong. The plan is for you to take me.”

He pulled his shirt off. His scent hit me. He opened his arms…

I jumped him.

We collided. The smell of him, the feel of him, the heat of his skin on mine, oh my God, this cannot be happening. He kissed me on the mouth, searing hot. “I love you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I was an ass…”

I couldn’t even talk. I just kissed him, running my hands over his chest, over his muscled back, touching his hard ridged stomach, wanting him inside me, wanting to be one. He slid his hands under my T-shirt, and I pulled it off, in a desperate hurry. He touched me again, pulling me into his arms, and it felt so right, so good, so sensual that I trembled. I slid my hands into his pants and stroked the hot hardness of his shaft. I wanted to feel him inside me, sliding in and out. I wanted the ultimate proof that he was mine and that I was his, and I was hot and slick and ready. All of my tricks went out the window, and I just rubbed against him, tasting his skin and purring. He kissed my neck, sliding his tongue along the sensitive spots, and then he lost it, too. Somehow, intertwined, we made it down the attic steps into the hallway.

We had had sex hundreds of times. We had tried dozens of positions, we had flirted with our kinks, we had long ago learned how and where to touch to make each other moan and gasp and to delay each other’s pleasure until the sweet anticipation of release became almost torture…and we used none of it. We made love in the tried-and-true missionary position right there on the hideous purple carpet in the hallway, awkward and impatient, fumbling about like two virgin teenagers caught in a selfless race to make the other happy.

It was the best sex I had ever had.

My eyes snapped open. I lay in the hallway. Raphael’s arm was wrapped around me. The carpet under us smelled like sex and plastic.

The ceiling was steeped in shadows. Raphael’s drapes were open and they streamed down on both sides of the window. Moonlight flooded the city and struck the latticework of steel and silver bars on the window, setting them aglow with delicate radiance. The magic was up.

I glanced at the clock. Two a.m. I’d barely had an hour of sleep.

Something had woken me.

A deep rumbling noise rolled through the house.

My body went from drowsy and tired to full alert in half a second. Next to me Raphael sat up.

The sound came again, a low, deep tone like a muted roar of the bull alligator mixed with the bellow of a bull.

The window.

I jumped to my feet and ran to the window. Raphael got there at the same time. We pressed to the wall on the opposite sides of the window frame and edged the curtains aside.

Ammit stood below, its long-jawed, heavy head raised up. Its eyes stared at us. It didn’t seem hostile. It simply waited.

Raphael and I traded glances.

He slid the window open. “Hi there.”

Ammit stared at us.

“Shoo! Go away, girl!” I said.

“Girl?”

“Kate says it’s female.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an Egyptian demon who devours souls.”

Raphael sighed. It was a dejected, I am so tired of this crap sigh and it made me want to hug him.

Ammit stared at us.

“If only I had a bow,” I murmured. “I could totally shoot it in the eye from here. Boom, arrow to the brain.”

“Your bow is on the table downstairs. Do you like it?”

“It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.” Aside from him and Baby Rory.

“I’m so glad.”

“How did you get one?”

He smiled at me, that handsome, slightly evil Raphael smile. “It’s a secret.”

I ran downstairs to fetch the bow. When I returned, Raphael still stood by the window. “It could go through the door to get to us,” Raphael said. “So why doesn’t it?”

We peered at Ammit.

“What is it, girl?” Raphael asked, his voice coaxing. “Did Timmy fall down the well?”

Ammit said nothing.

“It would be crazy to go out there,” Raphael said.

“We’d have to be insane.”

I pulled on my pants, socks, and sneakers. Raphael pulled out two fresh T-shirts from a chest by the basket of clean laundry and tossed one to me. I grabbed my Ifor, he got his knives, and we took off down the stairs.

Outside, the night was bright. Pale bluish vapor rose from the chunks of concrete that made up the low wall around the house—something magic must’ve been brought out by the moonlight. I drew my bow and we snuck around the building, moving silently, carefully walking on the balls of our feet.

Step.

Another step.

I turned the corner and the tip of my arrow touched Ammit’s nose. It’s amazing how far you can jump backward, if properly motivated.

Raphael stepped around me and approached the massive beast. We had killed it. I could still picture its corpse in my mind, fresh and vivid, the blood, the dulled eyes, the great maw gaping lifelessly, spilling the tongue on the ground. Yet there it stood.

Raphael reached out.

“Don’t,” I warned.

He touched its head, petting its cheek. The tentacles of Ammit’s mane twisted toward him and slid harmlessly off his hand.

The beast sighed. Two clouds of moist vapor escaped its nostrils.

It didn’t open its crocodile mouth and bite Raphael’s hand off.

Slowly Ammit turned, trotted forward a few feet, and looked at us over its muscular shoulder.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“No.”

The jaws gaped open and the roar rolled forth, primal and ancient, so much older than the city around it, so alien that I wondered for a second if the illusion of Atlanta would tear under the force of that primeval call and I would end up standing in the muddy, rich waters of the Nile. I could almost see the tall slender reeds shifting in the night breeze.

The roar sang through my veins, urging me to follow.

Ammit took a step forward and looked at us.

“Should we?” I murmured.

Raphael shrugged. “Alright, Lassie. Lead on.”

The great beast started down the slope, and we followed. Ammit built to a fast trot. We ran through the magic-soaked city. My feet were weightless, and we devoured the distance, swallowing mile after mile, tireless and exhilarated.

Tendrils of faint orange vapor curled from the beast, streaming from its mane and back. Its magic enveloped me. It felt so right, running like this, hunting like this, next to Raphael. Lean, muscular, the white T-shirt molded to his body, he ran with grace and power, his long legs in gray Pack sweatpants carrying him forward. His skin almost glowed. Sweat dampened his dark hair. His dark eyes focused on something far ahead.

The compound bow in my hand could be made of horn, wood, and sinew. The oversized white T-shirt Raphael had given me could be a tunic. The asphalt under my feet could be sand or the dry red soil of low hills. The air smelled of lotus and water lily, and sometimes of dew-soaked jasmine, and then of dry desert.

Ammit stopped and I almost cried out. I wanted to keep running.

The reality came back, fading in through the magic. We were in front of the Cutting Edge office.

The magic of Ammit swirled around us, evaporating slowly, like distant notes of perfume dissipating from the skin.

A second Ammit thundered down the street toward us, a huge black horse following it. Roman dismounted next to us, his staff in his hand. He wore a tank top and black pajama pants with an Eeyore pattern.

“I have had it with this shit,” he announced. “I got woken up in the middle of the night, didn’t get any sleep again, rode across the whole damned city, nu na cherta mne ato nuzhno.” He waved his hand in front of his face. “Damn magic everywhere, making me sneeze.”

The Ammit next to him opened its mouth. Roman whacked it with the top of his staff on the nose. “You—shut up.”

The Ammit looked just like a cat who had gotten popped with a newspaper: half-shocked, half-outraged. Roman surveyed the two of us. “What’s the matter with you two? Why do you look all dazed?”

The magic melted, taking the visions of the Nile with it. My mind struggled to formulate a coherent thought, any thought. I opened my mouth. “Your pajamas have Eeyore on them.”

“I like Eeyore. He’s sensible. A sober outlook on life never hurt anyone.”

Raphael shook his head, trying to clear it. “What are you doing here?”

Roman grimaced. “How would I know? Last night I helped Andrea and then a winged gadina took my staff, and tonight I woke up with this varmint howling under my window.”

Raphael turned to me. “Last night? After I called you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you call me to come and help?”

“Why would I call you? You can’t do magic.”

The wheels slowly turned in Raphael’s head. He looked at Roman. “How long have you been helping her?”

Roman’s face took on a dangerous expression. “I’m sorry, since when do I answer to you, exactly?”

The two men squared off. Great. I tried the door of the office. Unlocked.

Raphael stepped forward. Roman did, too. They stood dangerously close.

“I asked you a question,” Raphael said, his voice saturated with menace.

Roman’s voice turned icy. “And I told you to fuck yourself. Which part wasn’t clear?”

“Hey!” I snapped.

They looked at me.

“The door is open,” I said. “You can stay out here and compare inches for the entire night, but I’m going inside.”

I swung the door open and stepped across the threshold.

The office was bathed in a gentle yellow glow. The air smelled of sweet myrrh, fiery cinnamon, balsam, and the smoky, spicy mix of thyme and marjoram. The pungent aroma didn’t seem to drift but saturated the room, hanging in the air, filling the place.

I stepped inside. My desk and Kate’s were missing. Four braziers, bronze dishes filled with some sort of fuel on tall metal stems, burned bright, set on both sides of a large chair. In the chair sat Anapa. He rested his cheek on his hand, bent at the elbow and leaning on the chair’s armrest, one long leg over the other.

Flames played in his eyes. He looked absurd, sitting there in his makeshift throne room, wearing a three-piece black suit. Thought he owned this place, did he?

I crossed my arms. “Love the makeover. The room has so much more space now. How much do we owe you?”

“Who are you?” Roman asked behind me.

“That’s Anubis, God of the Dead,” I told him.

“The name is Inepu,” Anapa said. It sounded midway between Anapa and Enahpah. “The Greeks didn’t bother to pronounce it properly. I always found them very close-minded. Don’t follow their suit, you’re better than that.”

“You aren’t a god,” Roman said. “Gods can’t walk the Earth. Don’t have enough juice.” He turned to me and Raphael. “Trust me, I’ve tried to summon one.”

“Why the hell would you summon a god?” Raphael asked.

“He was trying to kill his cousin,” Anapa said.

“That was a long time ago.” Roman waved his hand.

Anapa’s lips curved, and he smiled a bright genuine smile, suffused with humor. “No, that was last May.”

“Like I said, a long time ago,” Roman said.

Anapa laughed and pointed his finger at Roman. “I like you.”

“Are you a god?” Raphael asked.

Anapa waved his hand. “Yes and no. The answer is complicated.”

Right, we were too stupid to understand it. “I’m sure we can scrape enough brain cells together between the three of us. Indulge us.”

“There is no need for such hostility, Andrea Marie. I’m not your enemy. Well, not yet.”

So he knew my middle name. So what.

Anapa shrugged. “I suppose I will explain this to you, so you will stop wondering about it. We have important subjects to discuss and I’ll need your full attention. When magic began to fade from the world, I took a mortal form and fathered a child, pouring all my essence into it. Then I fell asleep. My child in turn had a child, and he had a child, and on and on, my lineage stretched throughout time, until the returning magic awoke me. As I became aware, I hovered on the verge of existence until my descendant decided to do as most men do and bred with a charming woman. I called to my essence within the bloodline and merged with the beginning life during the moment of conception. In a sense, I fathered myself into being. You could say I am an avatar. Neat trick, huh?” He winked at us.

The human part of him kept him alive during the tech. That also meant he was weak while the magic was gone. Weak was good. “I thought you’d look more Egyptian,” I told him.

“And how do you think the original Egyptians looked?” Anapa raised his eyebrows. “What do you know of us? Were you there at the birth of the glory that was Egypt? Were you there to watch as we mixed with Nubians, Hittites, Libyans, Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks, you dumb little puppy? Colors, pigments, texture of skin and hair, those things are mere glaze. The vessel underneath is always clay.”

This was above my pay grade. “Roman?”

“He might be a nut job,” Roman said. “If he’s telling the truth, he isn’t at full strength.”

Anapa sighed. “So tiresome. Very well.”

Wind swept through the office, streaming from behind Anapa—hot, heavy with moisture, streaked with decay, the odor of spiced wine, and heady aromas of resins. The flames bent away from Anapa. A jackal howled, a long eerie wail that gripped my throat in a ghostly fist and squeezed.

The man on the chair leaned forward. A translucent outline shimmered along his skin, expanded, and a different creature sat in Anapa’s place. He was tall, long-limbed, and lean. A network of muscle bound his torso, crisply defined, but far from bulky. His skin was a warm, rich brown with a touch of terra-cotta. His face with its wide brown eyes was beautiful, but it wasn’t the kind of beauty you wanted to touch—it radiated too much power, too much regal disdain. As he looked at us, the contours of his head flowed like molten wax. His nose and jaw protruded forward and narrowed to a dark nose. Two long ears thrust up. Black and gray fur sheathed his face. The flash of white fangs in his mouth was like lightning.

Magic streamed from him, potent, powerful, overwhelming.

He rose from the chair, an impossibility, a man with a human torso and a jackal head. Outside, the two Ammit roared in unison. The press of his magic was impossible to bear.

The illusion shattered. I realized I had forgotten to breathe and sucked in air in a hoarse gulp.

Anapa smiled at me, sitting in his chair again, languid and mildly amused. “Now, that we have that settled, let’s talk. I have a bone to pick with you. All three of you, as a matter of fact.”

Raphael took a step forward. “I will reimburse you for the beast.”

“The one you killed?” Anapa’s animated face turned puzzled. “Oh, there was no need. I resurrected her the moment the magic wave appeared. I did very much enjoy your battle. A stunning display of strategic thinking.” He looked at me and then at Raphael. “You and you, you work well together.” He turned to Raphael. “Except at the end when both of you went a little mad.”

A muscle jerked in Raphael’s face.

“Don’t worry.” Anapa wrinkled his nose. “Happens to the best of us.”

Raphael took a step forward. I put my hand on his forearm.

Anapa rubbed his hands together. “Now we’ll have ourselves a bit of show-and-tell, shall we?”

The floor of the office between him and us turned lighter. Stylized figures formed on its surface.

“Neat, isn’t it?” Anapa grinned. “I got an idea from an old movie. So, listen and watch. Please feel free to sit down if you wish.”

Brown figures came down from the hills toward the blue river.

“That would be the ancient Egyptian cattle herders. The climate changed, and all of their grass fields are drying out, so they have to go back to the Nile. Look at them, they are so sad.”

The figures fell to their knees and started drinking from the Nile. On the other side a second group of figures started throwing rocks at the newcomers.

“Those are the people who had remained in the valley. They don’t want the poor cattle herders there. See, they are all upset.”

One of the figures held up a crooked staff.

A huge triangular head broke the surface of the water. An enormous brown and yellow snake slithered out of the Nile and began to feed on the newcomers.

Anapa leaned forward. “That would Apep. The God of the River. These guys, the ones who stayed in the valley, they worshipped him, so he wouldn’t eat them. He is a nasty bugger.”

The dismembered bodies of the ancient Egyptians fell in the water.

“But what’s this?”

Four figures appeared, shaking swords and spears. One had a hawk head, the second had a cat’s head, the third a jackal’s, and the fourth seemed to be a bizarre cross between a donkey and aardvark.

“That would be Ra, his daughter Bast, me, and Set.”

“I know that myth,” Roman said. “It was Ra who killed him.”

Anapa looked at him in mild outrage. “I’m sorry, were you there? No. Then hush. Of course, myths say that Ra killed him. That’s what you get when you’re a sun god and crops depend on you, my friend. Look, I’ll prove it to you.” An ancient mural appeared on the wall, showing a yellow spotted cat resembling a mountain cat stabbing a snake with a curved blade. “Supposedly this is Ra slaying Apep. Small problem: Ra has a hawk’s head on his shoulders. He doesn’t turn into a cat, except for this one time. Keep that in mind. Now where were we?”

The four figures attacked the serpent, chopping at him with strange curved swords and poking him with spears. The serpent flailed, knocking them aside, and biting at their bodies. Finally the picture-Anubis turned into a huge jackal and bit Apep’s neck, clamping it down. The three other figures rushed him. The snake convulsed, knocking aside everyone except for Bast. The nimble cat jumped over the flailing body and stabbed the serpent in the heart.

“So why do the myths say that Ra killed him?” Roman said.

“Because priests were men and we can’t have the big enemy getting killed by a girl, can we now?” Anapa winked at me. “Holy texts are written by committee, and Ra had more priests. His cult was stronger. He is the sun, the life-giver, while Bast was only the protector of Lower Egypt. She used to be a lioness. Very fierce. By the time the priests were done with her, she’d turned into a domestic kitty cat. Took them a thousand years or so, but they crippled the lion.”

A bright flash of light exploded from Apep’s body, knocking the four figures down.

“Look at us, all knocked out.” Anapa smiled. “Lots of magic is released when you kill a god. Look at me there. See, I only have one fang? It broke off in the snake’s neck. Took me two days to grow a new one.”

The light faded. The four gods still lay prone on the ground. Little figures swarmed Apep, chopping his body to pieces.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Saii. His priests. They’re trying to save parts of him. That one took a scale. And this one got a vertebrae.”

“Those four are eating the corpse.” Raphael pointed at the four figures on all fours biting Apep’s side.

“They are devouring his flesh, so it will live through them. Nasty business.”

The final person pried Anubis’s fang from Apep’s dead body and the figures ran away.

“Of course, we chased them, but they were crafty,” Anapa said. “They scattered to the four winds, hoping to eventually reunite and resurrect their god.” Anapa clapped his hands. The mural faded. “And that brings us to our current calamity, gentlemen and the lady, of course.”

The god smiled and pointed at Raphael. “You cost me my fang. It was dipped in metal and made to look like a knife, but inside it’s still my tooth with the blood of Apep in it. It was in the vault of that damned ruin and you had to buy it out from under me.” He turned to Roman. “You lost the staff carved from the vertebrae of Apep and his rib. They hid it in a room full of magical artifacts, so their magic would mask its location from me. You found it, took it out, and instead of taking it someplace safe, you practically served it back to them on a silver platter. Your own holy relic. Here is your award for stupidity. Congratulations.”

Roman opened his mouth and clamped it shut.

Anapa turned to me. “And you helped them both, stuck your nose where it didn’t belong, set the other furballs on me, and made my life difficult all around. I can’t move around the city, because there are two of your kind following me like a tail follows a dog. And half of the time, one of them is a cat. Do you have any idea how much I despise cats?”

Anapa took a long, calming breath. “Right now, Apep’s cult has the staff, the fang, and likely at least a few descendants of the Saii, the four priests who engaged in that creative gastronomy. So the question is, what are we going to do about it?”

“What happens if Apep is resurrected?” Raphael asked.

“Well, let us review.” Anapa leaned back. “He is the god of darkness, chaos, and evil. Let us agree to put aside philosophical concepts of evil and good, as they are subjective. What is evil for one is good for another. Let’s talk instead about chaos. Chaos, as our priest here will tell you, is an extremely powerful force. Do any of you know what a fractal is?”

Roman raised his hand.

Anapa grimaced. “I know you know. Here.”

A dark equilateral triangle ignited on the floor.

Anapa waved his hand. A smaller equilateral triangle appeared in the middle of the darker one, its corners touching the sides of the original triangle.

“How many triangles?” Anapa asked.

“Five,” I said. “Three dark, one light in the middle, and the big one.”

“Again,” Anapa said.

A smaller light triangle appeared in the middle of each dark triangle.

“Again. Again. Again.”

He stopped, pointing at the filigree of triangles on the floor. “I could go on to infinity. In basic terms, a fractal is a system that doesn’t become simpler when analyzed on smaller and smaller levels. Keep that in your head.”

A system that can’t be broken down to basic components. Okay, got it.

Anapa leaned forward. “To understand chaos, you have to understand mathematics. A lot of your civilization—most of any civilization, really—is built on mathematical analysis, the guiding principle of which is that everything can be explained and understood, if you just break it into small enough chunks. In other words, everything has an end. If you dig deep enough into any complex system, you will eventually unearth its simplest parts, which can’t be broken down any further. That sort of thinking works for a great many things, but not all of them. For example, the fractal. It doesn’t end.”

I felt like I was back in the Order’s Academy at some lecture. “This is surreal.”

“The fractal?” Anapa asked.

“You. Explaining this.”

Anapa gave a long-suffering sigh. “What do you know about me?”

And now I’d been singled out of the class. “You are the deity of funeral rites.”

“And what else?”

Umm…

“Medicine. The exploration of biology and metaphysics. Knowledge. This is my primary function. I impart knowledge. I teach. One can’t just give man fire. It’s like giving a toddler a box of matches—he will burn the house down. You must teach him how to use it.” Anapa shook his head. “Back to the fractal. It can’t be explained by mathematical analysis, so humanity, as it so often does, declared it to be a mathematical curiosity and swept it under the rug. Except the fractal occurs again and again.”

An earthworm appeared on the floor of the office.

“A line,” Anapa said. “So simple.”

He sliced the air with his finger. The earthworm divided in two. Two became four, four became eight, eight became sixteen, more and more. A swarm of worms roiled and writhed on the floor.

Anapa pondered the knot of bodies. “Left to its own devices, nature defaults to a fractal. A human settlement is a fractal. It is a complex system with randomly interacting components that is adaptive on every level. The pattern of the evolution of a single cell to complex organism is a fractal. The way man approaches his quest for knowledge is a fractal. Think of it: biology, the study of living things. A simple concept.”

A straight line appeared on the floor.

“As man accumulates knowledge, the volume of information becomes too much. He feels the need to subdivide it.”

The line split into three branches marked with labels: zoology, botany, anatomy, then split again. Botany grew horticulture, forestry, plant morphology, plant systematics. Zoology splintered into zoological morphology and systematics, then into comparative anatomy, systematics, animal physiology, behavioral ecology…It kept building and building, splitting, growing, branching, too fast, too much, overwhelming…

“Make it stop.” I didn’t even realize I said it, until I heard my mouth produce the words.

The line disappeared.

“And that’s the crux of our problem,” Anapa said, his voice contemplative. “Man can’t handle the chaos. Oh, you can understand it in abstract, as long as you don’t think about it too hard. But at the core of it, whenever humans come against chaos, they deal with it in one of three ways. They hide from it, pretending it isn’t there. They dress it up in pretty clothes. The God of the Hebrews is a fractal. He can do anything, he knows everything, he is infinite in his power and complexity. He is a fractal, so humanity felt the need to compartmentalize him. They don’t tackle the concept head-on. They tiptoe around it by telling little fables and anecdotes about their deity, and then when push came to shove, they invented a new aspect of him, his son, who comes with a more narrow, definitive message of infinite love.”

Anapa fell silent.

“You said there were three ways,” Raphael said.

“I did, didn’t I? Faced with chaos you will either ignore it, dance around it, or you will go mad. Apep is chaos. He is a primal expression of a fundamental principle, a fractal, a force rather than a deity. The priests of Egypt worshipped against him just to keep him at bay.”

“How do you worship against something?” Raphael asked.

“Let me tell you: once a year they got together, made a fake Apep, threw a big party, and burned him with great ceremony. There are actual rules for how to properly defile him. First, we spit on Apep. Then we stomp on him with our left foot. Then we use a lance to stab Apep, and so on. Do you see how they attempted to impose order upon chaos through a complex ritual?”

Anapa leaned forward. “If let loose, Apep will drive humanity insane. You will devolve into primeval barbarism where nothing exists except his worship in its most rudimentary form. You will abandon reason and logic and feed yourselves to him by the thousands like the idiots you are.”

The shadow outline of a jackal’s head flared around Anapa’s head. His dark lips trembled, betraying a glimpse of his fangs. “So you see, I have a vested interest in this venture. In the presence of Apep, no other god can exist. I want to prevent his resurrection, and if he manages to resurrect, I have to murder him again. And the three of you will help me.”

Silence descended. My mind struggled to get a grip. Too much information to process. “If Apep is so terrible, why do they want to resurrect him?”

“Because they are outcasts,” Anapa said. “They are unlike others. They grow snake fangs in their mouths, they have jaws that open too wide, and they know that others are repulsed by it. They seek to belong. They want to know where they came from and they want to take pride in who they are. They probably think Apep will protect them and he will. It’s just the rest of humanity that will be on his menu.”

“I want the staff,” Roman said suddenly.

“Mmm?” Anapa looked at him.

“I want the staff,” the black volhv repeated. “If I do this, you will not harm me and will give me the Bone Staff to take back to my people.”

“Fine.” Anapa waved his hand.

I stared at Roman. “What are you doing?”

“I’m imposing order on a fractal,” Roman said. “If I define the terms of the bargain, he’s bound by them. He can’t do anything else to me.”

Anapa leaned back and laughed.

Raphael stepped forward. His face was grim and I saw determination in the set of his jaw. Uh-oh.

“You have a problem with me over the knife. Why didn’t you just ask for the knife?” Raphael said.

“Because the less you knew about this mess, the better,” Anapa said. “Given half a chance, humans will screw things up, as the three of you have so deftly proven.”

“So you deliberately kept me in the dark, and now you want to blame me for my ignorance? That isn’t fair.”

Anapa’s gaze fixed on him. “I am a god. I don’t do fair.”

Raphael met it. “You have a problem with me, fine. Leave her out of this. She didn’t do anything to you.”

“No,” Anapa said.

Oh, Raphael. Why would you think I would stand for that?

“If you want my help, let her off the hook.” Raphael growled.

Anapa shook his head. “No.”

“Why?”

The ghostly jackal head appeared around Anubis. “Who are you to question me?”

Raphael’s lips trembled, betraying a flash of his teeth. “She goes free with no obligation to participate in your scheme. That’s my price.”

“Rejected.”

They stared at each other. Muscles tensed on Raphael’s frame. I smelled a brawl.

A third of me wanted to rip Raphael’s head off for the insult. I was perfectly capable of holding my own. I didn’t need his help to extricate me, nor did I need his grand sacrifice. Another third was all bursting at the seams with happiness: when facing a god, his first thought wasn’t about saving himself but about keeping me safe. He was willing to fight a god of chaos to keep me out of this mess. The final third of me just howled in blind terror, terrified for my safety, and even more terrified for the idiot bouda who was trying to buy my life with his.

And that was my relationship with Raphael in a nutshell: too complicated.

If I didn’t do something, the fool would throw himself away. In my head I saw Raphael buried under a pile of snakes. It was like a dagger straight in the heart.

No. No-no-no. Not happening.

I cleared my throat. “Girls, girls, you’re both lovely. I appreciate the sentiment, I do. But I will make my own decisions and the two of you will kindly get the hell out of my way.”

Raphael looked like he wanted to bite something. A self-satisfied smirk played on Anapa’s lips. I didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

“Counteroffer,” I said. “You take me, let Raphael go.” No need for both of us to get killed.

“Denied,” the god said. “This is getting tiresome.”

Arghhh. “What is it you want from us, exactly?”

“The priests have my fang, the staff, and the descendants of the Saii. They lack the scale. It was made into a shield. I need you to get it before the priests do.”

“Why don’t you just get it yourself?” Raphael asked.

“Because I am a god. I don’t run my own errands.”

“Did you know he’s a god?” Raphael asked me.

“I had no idea. He hasn’t mentioned it,” I said.

“So modest and unassuming,” Raphael said.

“I will kill you both and make pretty rugs out of your pelts,” Anapa said. “Stop being tiresome and get the scale for me.”

Simple enough. “Where is it?”

“Ask your friend,” Anapa said. “Ask the Beast Lord’s Consort.”

“Kate?” How the hell was Kate involved in this?

“Yes. Tell her to bring another deer. She will know.”

“I’m not going to move a finger unless you give me clear and simple instructions without mystical bullshit.”

“That’s not my way,” Anapa said. “You will take your instructions in whatever form I choose.”

“Then I’m out.” Chew on that, why don’t you.

“Is that your final word?” Anapa said.

“Yes.”

“Fine. We’ll do it the hard way.”

A girl walked out of the back room. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. She moved slowly, as if unsure where her feet were. Her eyes, dark and opened wide, were blank. Her dark skin had an ashen tint.

I tensed. Next to me Raphael bent his knees slightly, preparing for a leap.

“This is Brandy.”

Brandy looked at us with her empty eyes.

“Brandy is a shapeshifter like you. From Clan Jackal. The jackals and I share a certain bond.” Anapa studied his nails, looking bored. “I plucked her out at random. Her parents are frantically looking for her by now, I’d imagine. Why don’t you tell them how you feel, Brandy?”

The child opened her mouth. “Help,” a weak tiny voice said. “Help…me.”

I yanked the bow off my shoulder and aimed an arrow at Anapa’s left eye. Raphael exploded in a riot of fur and muscle, snarling as the monster that was a bouda in a warrior form spilled into existence.

“Let the child go.” I sank the promise of death into my voice.

“Every day you do not do as you are told, I’ll take another Jackal child at sunset,” Anapa said. “If the lion gets involved, the children die. If any of your other Pack friends help you fight, the children die.”

I fired. My arrow pierced the wood of the chair a fraction of a second before Raphael’s claws scoured it. The child and the god were gone.