Serpent's Game (The Soul Eater Book 5) Read online

  “I was going to forget it until I saw a picture of the girl,” he added.

  “What girl?”

  He rummaged through the stack of papers again and handed over a photo of a young woman about Chantal’s age with straight black hair that had been hacked rather than styled and dramatic cheekbones that were almost too sharp to be beautiful. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  Cujo hesitated, his eyebrows pinching together. “Chuck.”

  “Chuck what?”

  He tossed a throwaway laugh. “What is this? Months ago, you asked me to look her up, and now you don’t remember her?”

  I scanned the picture again for any sign that said I should recognize her. The image was fuzzy, probably cropped and enlarged from another file. Nothing about her leaped out at me. Just a girl.

  Cujo looked at me like the hammer might drop at any second.

  “I asked you to look this girl up?”

  “Man, that trip to Egypt did a number on you, huh?”

  The trip to Egypt had been an eye opener in more ways than one, but it hadn’t screwed with my memories. Only one demon sorceress had done that. “When did I ask you for information on this girl?”

  “Like I said, months ago. Maybe a year ago or more. I don’t recall exactly… Right around the time your ex-wife showed up. You really don’t remember Chuck?”

  There was a reason I didn’t remember. Shukra had stolen days’ worth of memories from around the last time anyone saw Bastet. This girl, Chuck, must have meant something to me. The picture was of her stepping off a sidewalk, a glance cast over her shoulder, her expression alert. If I knew her, if I’d seen her before, even if the memories had been taken, I’d know, right? I scrutinized the picture, hoping something might stir up the memory.

  Damn Shukra. “You think this girl’s connected to the incidents near Allentown and that’s the lead Osiris knows about?”

  “It’s a heck of a coincidence if she was just passing through and isn’t connected, especially with Osiris asking after a child.” Cujo saw the confusion on my face and rolled his eyes. “She was pregnant. You need to quit drinking. All that alcohol is pickling your brain cells.”

  No, I needed a bottle and a dark room right now. Pregnant. Cujo had a lead. And Osiris wants a boy. Why did I feel as though I was a castle of cards and someone had yanked out the card holding me upright? This was significant and it was staring me in the face, but I couldn’t put the pieces together. “Do you have a file on this girl?”

  “On my laptop, sure—”

  Cat entered the room. “She’s packed and ready. We should get moving.” She eyed us. “Is everything okay?”

  “Ace has—” Cujo started to explain.

  “Everything is fine.” I folded up the photo and print out and tucked both inside my coat. The girl had showed up around Bastet’s disappearance, around the same days Shukra had taken from my memory. I couldn’t have Cat knowing I’d forgotten the days after Bastet’s disappearance. She’d vowed to find her queen and, if necessary, avenge her. I’d been so damn sure that Bastet had safely walked out of my office all those months ago that it hadn’t occurred to me she could have come back, and I’d forgotten what—if anything—had happened next. Damn that demon sorceress.

  “I’ll check this lead out on the way to Chantal’s house,” I told Cujo and passed by Cat before she could sense I might have been hiding something from her. Scooping up Chantal’s bag, I added, “Road trip.”

  Cujo drove his modified minivan with Chantal in the passenger seat while I hung back on the Ducati. Behind me, Cat followed in her rental car. Rain hammered against my shoulders and poured down my neck, soaking through my leather coat and seeping into my bones. The Ducati and I weren’t designed for New England downpours, and neither were we designed to be stuck in traffic. Lights blinked red, piercing the thick layer of mist drifting off the roads.

  I could have filtered the bike through the traffic, but that would have meant leaving the minivan, and I wouldn’t risk abandoning Cujo and Chantal again. We hadn’t seen any sign of kurvords, and considering how fast we’d been moving, I doubted a kurvord could keep up. But Chantal had dreamed of other underworldly creatures, some that did move fast across the plains of mu moka.

  I checked over my shoulder and squinted into the mist. Wipers sloshed. Rain hissed against the asphalt. But nothing slithered out from under the cars or swooped in through the haze. Yet.

  I could see Chantal’s outline through the minivan’s rear windows. The girl was too young to have had her world irrevocably altered. She should have lived through another decade of ignorance at least. If—when Seth and Osiris clashed, there would be many more like her. Naive and vulnerable, completely unprepared. The gods had the element of surprise. Any uprising would cripple humanity. Osiris hadn’t been kidding when he told me how fragile this world was.

  The traffic inched forward, and my mind drifted to another young girl. Chuck. Her photo was burning a hole in my coat pocket. Conclusions were too easy to grab at. I’d investigated the girl before, and she’d happened to be in the same place we suspected Osiris’s “boy” could be. My memories of her were missing for a reason. Coincidences in my line of work happened, but usually, the gods manufactured them.

  My cell chimed. I dug it out of my pocket and read a group chat from Cat. Take next rest stop. Need gas. I sent Cat a thumbs-up and saw Cujo reply with the same.

  Some twenty minutes later, we peeled out of the traffic into a gas station. I topped up the Ducati’s tank, paid for the gas, and then parked the bike beside the adjacent diner. Inside, the smell of greasy food and the sound of endless chatter washed over me as I cut through the lines and headed for the men’s room.

  I’d unbuttoned my fly when the sweet scent of orchids and a hint of lime overpowered the stink of urinals and bleach. The lights flickered and the bolt in the door slammed home with a thwunk, locking firm.

  I didn’t need to look to know who’d joined me in the men’s room. “I can’t piss without you intervening?”

  A hooded woman lingered by the door, her face hidden in shadow. All the stalls were empty. It was just me and her. She could hide all she liked. I’d know the touch of Isis’s power anywhere. There was only one god whose magic had a slippery caress designed to put her victims at ease before she struck.

  I considered continuing what I’d come here to do, but being glared at by the Goddess of Light would put any man off his performance.

  I buttoned my fly back up and turned to face her. “I figured Osiris had you chained somewhere.”

  “He does not control me.” She pulled her hood back and let it pool on her shoulders. Her husband might not control her, but he’d done something. She’d lost the warmth that always glowed beneath her skin, turning her flesh from glossy to matte. And her eyes were a washed-out yellow, not the shimmering gold belonging to a being of power. Defiance still burned, but Osiris had done a number on her and, Sekhmet save me, part of my insides twisted at the sight of her so reduced.

  “If you’ve come for my help—” I started.

  “I don’t need your help.” She lifted her chin in defiance, but our centuries-old power play had burned to imaginary ashes. I’d almost taken her soul in Egypt, and only the tiny fragments of good left in me had stopped it from happening. In the past, she’d reduced me to my knees, but I’d done the same to her. Looking at her now, a curious, unfamiliar softness settled in my heart: pity. I pitied the Goddess of Light, an ageless being who had once presided over the greatest of all civilizations. I wasn’t sure if that was confirmation of how far I’d climbed or how far she’d fallen.

  I started forward. “Then why are you harassing me in the men’s room?”

  “I spent the last thousand years preparing for my husband’s downfall. I came to…” She paused, noticing how I’d stopped inside her personal space. At the same height, our gazes locked.

  “Ask for help?” I asked.
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br />   The goddess’s unblinking eyes fixed on mine. “He sowed seeds”—she swept a hand out as though tossing seeds into the wind—“as he invariably does. But this time it was different. He knew it was different. So I had the mothers and their unborn children killed. They all died like pigs. All but one. I let one live.”

  Up close, Isis’s flowery scent smelled sickly like overripe fruit.

  “For one young woman,” she continued, “I allowed the illusion of death so she might escape. It is time to bring her and her prophesied son back to New York.”

  “Is it?” I studied Isis’s once flawless face, now etched with fine lines. If I hadn’t known she was immortal, I would have assumed she was aging. But that was impossible. I reached out a hand, intending to touch the corner of her mouth to smooth the lines, but she caught my wrist. A small “oh” formed on her lips. She pulled the sleeve down, exposing my slave cuff, and then lifted her gaze for an explanation.

  “Precautions.” I smiled, letting a little of my true self bleed through.

  She shivered and let go, but instead of backing off, she pressed a hand to my chest, spread her fingers, and slid her touch downward, dragging my damp shirt beneath her grip. “I once drove a dagger in”—she pushed her thumb underneath a rib, eliciting a hiss from me—“right here. You would have died from that wound had my husband not revived you.” She eased her hand lower and sank it inside my waistband. “I knew he would bring you back. The monster… you are a fine distraction. He frets over you, the Nameless One, and the return of our brother. He fears you will combine your forces against him and rally his enemies. And yet he does not banish you?”

  She didn’t know how Osiris had sealed me inside a sarcophagus. “Oh, he tried.”

  I caught her hand, stopping its roaming, and now we stood locked in a battle of wills, my hand on hers. I had no recollection of her stabbing me in the chest, but I wasn’t about to argue considering everything else I’d forgotten. “If he’s so afraid, why doesn’t he kill me?” I asked. “Why bring me back?”

  “It is because he fears you that he does not kill you. Should you fall, you will rise again with all of Duat at your command.”

  I chuckled. Rise with all of Duat at my command? “I don’t have the power over life that he does.”

  “No, you have power over death. You are all that is dark. Something just as formidable, if you would let yourself believe.”

  There was no point in denying it. I had summoned a wave of souls to defend Luxor in Egypt. Nameless soul eaters couldn’t do that.

  Isis’s yellow eyes glittered. “You don’t remember the girl you tried to save, do you? You don’t remember how you begged me to let her live and offered me anything. As that man, Ace Dante, you tried to curse me. Do you remember?”

  I blinked back at her. None of her words meant anything. Damn Shukra for taking my memories. Without them, I didn’t know if Isis was lying. Had I tried to curse her? It seemed like a crazy-ass thing to do. I must have known the punishment would be severe, yet I had no memory of that either.

  “Mm, I see nothing but questions in your eyes. Then it is safe to assume you do not recall the punishment Osiris delivered?” Isis cocked her head, reading everything on my face and my attempt to cover it up. “Intriguing.”

  She plucked her hand free from my grip and touched a finger to my lips. “I know how much you despise him. We are kin in that. Light and Dark, united by revenge. Bring me the girl and her child, Apophis, and together we will sunder a king.”

  Chapter 7

  We were losing light by the time we rolled into Allentown. Chantal’s home was less than an hour away, but I couldn’t convince either Cujo or Cat to go ahead without me so I could get the drop on the boy. I wasn’t sure whether the two of them trusted me alone. Cujo was also reluctant to linger at his ex-wife’s house longer than necessary, so we picked a roadside motel in Allentown as our base of operations for the next few days and would head to Chantal’s home in the morning.

  Cat had checked out every inch of the room and left without a word to, I assumed, check the perimeter. Chantal flung herself onto the motel bed, her face illuminated by the glow of her cell phone. Cujo tapped away on his laptop.

  I stood at the window and watched the parking lot through the blinds. Bring me the girl and her child, Apophis, and together we will sunder a king.

  It was tempting.

  I’d give anything to end Osiris, and I believed Isis when she talked about revenge. I’d help her in an instant if I didn’t think Seth would fill the vacuum Osiris’s death would leave. Osiris was the devil I knew. He could be reasoned with—to a point. Seth was a whole other level of crazy. As Egypt had showed me, there was no reasoning with the Lord of Red.

  Outside, sand piled against the cars, climbed over the hoods, and washed across the windshields. My heart caught in my throat. I parted the blinds, but at the rattle, my vision of hungry sand vanished. There was nothing to see, just glistening wet asphalt and the occasional passing car. Just normalcy.

  “Here.” Cujo shifted his laptop, revealing a picture of the girl whose photo was still burning a hole in my pocket. “Like I said back when you first had me look her up, Chuck’s had a few brushes with the law. She was homeless, probably a recovering addict considering the possession charges on her rap sheet. You asked about any hint of magic, but there’s nothing on file to suggest anything like that.”

  Same girl. Same unkempt black hair. But in the photo on the laptop, something like a lens flare had caught in her eyes.

  Cujo was watching my face too closely, waiting for something.

  “And?”

  He scratched at his whiskered chin. “When you came back after, yah know, your latest extended stay with Osiris, you were… you are different. What I saw at your place… all that smoke and ash… I gotta be honest with you, there’s more to Chuck, but I don’t know if I should tell you.”

  I understood his hesitation. I couldn’t promise I’d never hurt him or his family because the threat was already in the room with us, and he didn’t even know half the truth. “Is it bad news?”

  “Depends on how you look at it.”

  “Does it make any difference to this case, to finding the boy?”

  “I guess… it might. But it could also tip you over the edge you’re walking and…” He glanced at his daughter, who was too glued to her phone to be listening. I read the fear. Now wasn’t the time to pull the pin from the grenade that was me.

  “Don’t risk it now. Tell me tomorrow.” Headlights swept the sidewalk out front, and a car parked somewhere out of sight. Still no sign of Cat, but she wouldn’t have gone far. I hadn’t thanked her. If she hadn’t shown up when she did, Cujo and Chantal would be dead. I wouldn’t admit it, but I needed her here.

  “Shukra took a few days of memories from me,” I told Cujo, keeping my eyes glued on the parking lot outside. “She says I asked her to, but there’s no way in the Twelve Gates I’d ask her to get inside my head and erase memories. There’s no scenario I can think of that would be bad enough for me to ask anyone to do that, let alone a demon sorceress who happens to be my enemy. I can’t believe her motives were good, but she did take memories from around the time Bastet showed up.” I waited, and when Cujo had nothing to say, I added, “Nobody’s seen Bastet since. And there are… other mentions of things happening. I’m out of the loop of my own past, and I reckon there’s something in my past—something big. Something that I did, maybe?”

  More than darkness. I wanted that to be true, but lately, those words just mocked me.

  “You’ve walked the line for as long as I’ve known you, but you’ve always done the right thing in the end. Always.”

  Cujo had known me for a few years—a second in the span of my long existence. “That’s before I discovered some truths in Egypt. Doing the right thing as Ace Dante… it’s an almost insignificant part of what I am.”

  “Doing the right thing is never insignificant.”

  I finally turn
ed and found Cujo’s expression too damn understanding. How did he get to be so good? After everything he’d been through—the gods almost killing him, his divorce, his career shelved—his soul still shone. I admired him for that.

  “You’re afraid?” He nodded at the cuff peeking out from my sleeve.

  “Yeah.” I pushed my sleeve down. Afraid that I want to be the bad guy, I silently added. Afraid that I can’t escape the plan I set into motion a thousand years ago. “What’s happening here is bigger than the man you think you know.”

  “This girl.” He tapped the laptop screen. “I don’t know the details, but I know she’s alive because of you, as are hundreds of others like her, maybe thousands. That’s got to be worth something, right?”

  As the Nameless One, I’d probably killed as many as I’d saved and devoured their souls as a bonus. Sure, Ace Dante was a decent enough guy trying to get by and do the right thing, but he wasn’t real. I knew the truth that lurked inside me, and it was a vicious, ugly, hungry thing. Monster. As Apophis, there was no good in my soul and never would be. I was made of the dark.

  Clicking heels drew my eye back to the window. A woman ran by. All I caught a look at was the high oil-black ponytail and what looked like glowing hands. Then the diesel smell of Shukra’s magic struck, and with it came an ominous rumbling.

  “Stay here.” I opened the door and stepped out. Streetlights lining the road blinked out one by one, consumed by a cloud of blackness rolling closer. Thunder rumbled on and on like an oncoming train. That was no cloud…

  “Get in!” Shukra slammed into my shoulder and shoved me back. I caught her arm, whirling on the spot, and I might have gotten a word out of her if the thunderous black wave hadn’t spilled over my shoulders and almost yanked me out the door.

  Shukra snarled a few words, lifted her hands, and blasted the rustling, hissing tendrils off. I kicked the door closed and threw myself against it. Shu shut the blinds. Panting hard, we glared at each other.