Omens Bite, page 27
“Even if that includes getting Khenti out of here alive, too?” Mercy shot the question at the god.
“I will not be an obstacle to anyone leaving Duat who has been wrongfully banished here,” said Anubis.
“But you won’t help us?” Mercy wanted to scream in frustration.
“I cannot help you leave. I will not force you to stay” was his evasive answer.
“Can you advise us?” Khenti asked.
“Ah, that is the correct question. My advice is to flee the storm and when the hooded figure beckons—go to her.” Anubis raised his sword. It gleamed black, like ice on a dark pond. “Go with my blessing, grandson and his Green Witch companion.” Then he brought the sword down once more and the swirling cloud he’d materialized from engulfed him. A gust of wind blew the darkness away and there was nothing left of the great god Anubis except his slowly filling footprints in the never-ending sand.
“I used to wish I could hang out with Freya and my mom’s goddess, Athena, and even my sister’s ex-god, Tyr,” Mercy began.
“Ex-god?” said Khenti.
“It’s a long story. Anyway, now I’m pretty sure that it’s better not to be too damn friendly with immortals.”
“I am beginning to agree with you.”
Mercy brushed sand off her dress and as she did she noticed both of her henna horns had faded to nothing. “Oh, crap. Time passes differently here, too?”
“I imagine so, but as this is my first time in Duat I can only speculate…” He shrugged.
“Uh-oh!” Mercy reached into her pocket and breathed a relieved sigh when her hand closed around her phone. She lifted it out and checked the screen. “Bloody hell, now it’s Monday afternoon. I missed school! Xena is gonna kill me, and my cell doesn’t have much power left. Wait! Xena!”
“Your familiar?”
Mercy nodded enthusiastically. “She and I are connected. Hang on, let me see if I can feel her.” Mercy closed her eyes and grounded herself with three deep breaths in and out. Then she thought about Xena—about how magnificently big she was in feline form and how motherly and kind she was in human form—how she’d been completely devoted to Abigail, and now was similarly devoted to Mercy. She also thought about how pissed she’d been that Xena had chastised her for being harsh with Hunter … tears leaked down Mercy’s cheeks as she tried to find her connection with her mama cat who had probably been right about Hunter. I’d give anything to go back there—to say sorry and let Xena pull me into a mom hug and surround me with love and Abigail’s robe. Mercy opened her eyes and wiped at her cheeks.
“Did you feel her?” Khenti asked.
Mercy couldn’t speak. She only shook her head and looked away.
Khenti took her hand. “Do not despair. Perhaps she is asleep. She is a feline—they do sleep a lot.”
Mercy sniffled. “Yeah, Xena definitely sleeps most of the day.”
“You shall try again later. And we must find shelter.”
“Which way do we go?” Mercy stared around them. Everything looked the same—endless wavy dune after endless wavy dune. It was like they were in a giant cat box which, ironically, her familiar would love.
“Does that sky seem darker to you over there?” Khenti pointed behind them.
Mercy studied the dreary sky. “Well, yeah, I think so. I mean, it looks muddier than the sky in front of us.”
“Could be a storm, and Anubis did say to flee the storm.”
“So, the opposite direction it is.” Mercy put her phone back in her pocket. Her other hand rested firmly in Khenti’s as they began to descend the far side of the dune. “I wonder who the hooded woman is your grandfather mentioned. Do you have any idea?”
Khenti shook his head. “The only spirits who are sent here are those who lived such terrible lives that their hearts were weighted down with the darkness of their evil deeds. It’s difficult to believe anyone sentenced to Duat would grant us aid.”
“You don’t think Anubis would—”
“Wa-hu! Wa-hu!” A horrible barking sound echoed around them.
“Mercy! Return to the top of the dune!” Khenti surged back up the sandy hill.
Mercy tried to keep up with him, but Khenti was stronger—faster—and he practically pulled her arm out of its socket as he hauled her with him.
“Wa-hu! Wa-hu!”
The snarling bark bounced against the sands making it impossible to trace where it came from. Khenti crested the dune with Mercy, who fell as her foot tripped on the hem of her dress. She was on her hands and knees when the thing scrambled to the top of the dune just a few feet in front of them.
It was a creature of nightmares. It was the size of a baboon or monkey—and had the hunched shoulders of that kind of an animal, but it looked all wrong. Its flesh was rotten. Big hunks of brown fur were missing from its diseased coat. But beneath the hunks of putrid flesh were corded muscles and it moved with a deadly grace. Khenti raised his spear just as it bared two rows of glistening fangs and charged, racing toward them on all fours, while it barked eerily. “Wa-hu! Wa-hu!”
Khenti moved with blurring speed. He lunged to meet the creature, whose red eyes widened with surprise as the spear skewered it through its chest. Still the thing barked and strained and kept coming! It reached long, knifelike claws for Khenti as it impaled itself, driving the spear farther and farther through its body in its manic quest to reach him. Khenti dug his heels into the sand and leaned back, yanking the spear free from the thing’s bloody body. Using the momentum of the movement he pivoted and sliced the blade across its neck. Scarlet spouted and the thing gurgled and staggered. Khenti spun and kicked the creature so that it rolled down the side of the dune where it left a rust-colored trail before it finally collapsed, motionless, and then it dissolved into the sand leaving only a red stain to show it was ever there.
Mercy struggled to her feet and ran to Khenti. “Are you hurt? Is it dead? What in all the bloody fucking hells was that?”
Khenti pulled her into his arms and they held each other tightly. “I am uninjured. I defeated it, but an In-tep demon cannot be killed by anyone but an immortal. It will return, and probably not alone. We need to move.”
“It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.” Mercy stepped out of his arms and ran a shaky hand across her face. “It looked like a monkey on crack.”
“I do not know what crack is, but an In-tep is a demon who possesses and then changes into a baboon.”
Mercy shuddered. “It was vile.” She sniffed and then covered her nose with her hand. “And it reeks.”
“In-teps cannot possess humans. The closest they can come to us is to infest a baboon, and their infestation kills the poor beast so that the demon can then reanimate it.”
“Zombie baboons—it’s like we’ve been dropped into Jumanji.” Mercy gazed around them, terrified of what might come after them next. “What other kind of demon does this—” Her words broke off as she stared at the sky over Khenti’s shoulder. “Shit!”
Khenti turned. “Sandstorm! Run, Mercy! Run!”
Khenti took her hand and began to sprint away from the encroaching wall behind them that looked like it was filled with mud. Mercy cursed her beautiful, goddess-gifted dress as she tripped over it again. She yanked her hand from Khenti’s and quickly wrapped the diaphanous skirt up and tucked it into her jeweled belt like it was a diaper, then she scrambled after him. The two of them slid down the other side of the dune, Khenti took her hand again, and they raced along a narrow path of hard-packed dirt. Behind them the sandstorm gained on them. As it got closer and closer the air battered their backs and howled like a living being.
Everything was getting darker and darker. Khenti stopped and bent so that he could shout into her ear. “The skirt of your dress! I must cut it. If we wrap our faces and huddle together we may survive.”
“May?!” Mercy shouted.
“It is the only chance we have!” Khenti changed his grip on his spear and dropped to his knees as he reached to tug her skirt out of her belt.
“Here! Come!” The voice bounced from the dunes.
Khenti and Mercy looked wildly around as they tried to follow the voice.
A cloaked figure seemed to step from the inside of a dune just yards in front of them. The person gestured for them to come.
“It’s what Anubis said!” Mercy yelled against the thunder of the wind. “A hooded woman!”
Khenti nodded. Though he kept his spear raised and ready, the two of them ran to the hooded person, who turned, still beckoning, and disappeared into the dune.
Mercy didn’t hesitate. She rushed into the strange entrance with Khenti close behind her. The sound of the storm was too loud for speech, so the hooded figure kept gesturing for them to follow deeper and deeper into the dune until finally they turned a corner that led to a circular chamber where a fire burned in a small hearth. The hooded figure moved behind them and loosed a thick length of linen so that it covered the entrance, then dropped to her knees as she quickly began placing rocks, the size of loaves of bread, along the bottom of the covering to secure it. As she did so, her hood fell back, exposing long, dark hair. When the rocks were all placed she stood and then turned slowly to face them.
All the air rushed from Khenti’s lungs in a loud “Oof!” like he’d been kicked in the stomach. He swayed and would’ve fallen had the woman not rushed forward and wrapped him in her arms as she sobbed. “Son! My son!”
Mercy felt like an interloper as Khenti and the woman who had to be his mother wept in each other’s arms. To give them some semblance of privacy she turned her gaze away and was astounded by the beauty in the simple room. Wall sconces flickered around the chamber, lighting everything in a soft, yellow glow. Though it had been miserably hot outside, Mercy realized that it was many degrees cooler in this room. Between the sconces the walls were filled with colorful hieroglyphics, murals, and tapestries that depicted scenes from a happy life—a mother on the beach of a wide river with her child—the same mother making bread as the child played with a round, leather ball—the mother and child, a son, walking through a flower-filled marketplace—Mercy looked closer and realized the son was Khenti! These are scenes from his life. Everyday things he and his mom used to do together. Tears blurred her eyes. Mercy understood the love and longing in the murals, and the beauty of remembering simple, daily routines. She would always remember the small things she used to do with Abigail and Hunter when they were a family—when they were happy. I miss her so much. I miss Mom, and I miss Hunter. I have been a sodding fool.
“Mercy!” Khenti’s voice was filled with joy and tears.
She turned from studying the wall art and wiped her eyes. Khenti had his arm around his mother’s slim shoulders. He made no move to hide the tears that still washed his face. He motioned for her to come closer and she was able to get a good look at his mom.
She was so pretty! Khenti had her kind, dark eyes and her high cheekbones. Her skin was lighter than her son’s, but the same burnished color. Her cloak had opened to reveal how petite she was—small and delicate and graceful. Her hair was still mostly the black of a raven’s wing, but it had one silver-white streak that ran from her right temple down to where the length of it waved around her slim waist. Her smile, which she beamed first up at her son and then at Mercy, was almost identical to her son’s.
“Mother, this is my friend, the Green Witch Mercy, who is a Gate Guardian from Goodeville. Mercy, this is my beloved mother, Meryt.”
“It’s so great to meet you!” Mercy said. “Khenti has told me a lot about you.”
“Oh, my dear!” Meryt moved forward and took Mercy’s hands in hers. “Blessings to you.” Then she paused and looked closer at her. “You are not dead!”
“No.” Mercy smiled. “And neither is your son.”
Meryt turned quickly and touched her son’s cheek. “Oh, Tee! I should have noticed before—you, too, are alive! Why are you here? How are you here?”
“Father banished me to Duat, and Mercy with me,” Khenti said.
“Then that makes the three of us, my darling.”
Thirty-four
Khenti explained quickly to her mother the events that led them to Duat. She listened carefully as she motioned for them to sit on colorful cushions that rested against the side of the circular chamber. From an urn she took from a cabinet-sized hole in the wall, Meryt poured cloudy beer much like the drink Khenti had already introduced Mercy to into wooden mugs for them. When Khenti was finished speaking, Meryt shook her head.
“That is why I kept you from him. Upuant rejected love and laughter and joy as frivolity. I was so young when I first met him that I believed my love could show him how to be happy, could erase his sadness. I was a fool, which I realized not long after I discovered I was to bear him a child. I kept him from you and refused to let him take you away to the Land of the Dead because I would not allow him to taint you with his gloom and misery.” She paused and stared into her own mug of beer. “Hathor aided me. That is the only reason I managed to keep you in the mortal realm. I would have kept you there your entire life, but Upuant found a way to circumvent even the goddess.”
“How? What did he do?” Khenti’s eyes darkened with rage.
Meryt looked up and met her son’s gaze. “He killed me, effectively ending the pact I made with Hathor at your birth. I would dedicate my son to her service as long as you were allowed to remain with me. I thought I would live long enough that Upuant would father another son and leave us in peace. I was wrong.”
“Oh, Muta. I am so sorry.” Instead of being filled with anger, Khenti deflated. His shoulders bowed and he bent in defeat. “I caused this. You would still be living in the Valley of the Kings surrounded by your family had I never been born.”
Meryt went to her son and crouched before him. She took his face between her hands. “Listen to me, my precious Tee. You did not cause this. Upuant is responsible for my death; no one else. He is also responsible for giving me you—and I have loved you fiercely and completely since the moment you were conceived. You are the single thing I am most proud of in my life. I would spend a million lifetimes in Duat to know one as your mother.” She kissed him gently on his forehead and stood. “Now, sit up straight, wipe your tears, and let us figure out how the two of you are going to get out of here.”
Khenti straightened and wiped at his eyes. “We go nowhere without you.”
“But we will figure out how to get out of here,” added Mercy. She gestured at the comfortable, beautifully decorated room around them. “This doesn’t seem very Hell-like.”
Meryt returned to resting on the cushion she’d placed between her son and Mercy. She smiled at Mercy. “That is because Hathor still cares for me. She could not overturn Upuant’s banishment, like you and my Tee have already discovered, what Upuant commands in Osiris’s name cannot be overturned, not even by another immortal. But my goddess is loyal and merciful. Upuant burned my Book of the Dead. When Hathor realized that I was not in the Hall of Judgment she knew Upuant had to be responsible, so she slipped into his chamber and discovered he had burned my Book. Thankfully, Hathor rescued several pages from his brazier. I was never judged and sent to Duat because of the evil in my heart, so there is no immortal law against allowing me that which was listed in my Book.” She gestured around her. “I am quite comfortable here, though it is rather lonely.”
Khenti shook his head. “I do not understand. Why were you not judged?”
Meryt sighed wistfully. “It was my own folly. Upuant found me while I waited in line to enter the Hall of Judgment. He said he was sorry that he had killed me—that he had been too impetuous, and he regretted his anger. To prove his remorse Upuant said that if I went with him, he would take me to you, my beloved Tee, so that we could say our farewells until the time when you would join me in my afterlife.”
“Instead he burned your Book and banished you to Hell,” Mercy said.
“Indeed,” said Meryt.
“He is vile.” Khenti’s words were filled with sadness. “And to think of the years that I spent trying to win his approval.”
“You are a good son.” Meryt patted his hand. “But it is not possible to win Upuant’s approval. He loathes himself too much to care about anyone else.”
“Don’t worry,” Mercy said. “He’ll get what he deserves.”
“If only that were true,” said Meryt. “But Osiris dotes on him and refuses to see his flaws.”
“Oh, that won’t matter,” Mercy explained. “I hexed him.”
“Yes, I do remember that clearly,” said Khenti, almost smiling. “What exactly does it mean to hex someone?”
“Well, it’s something that Goode witches rarely do. We don’t believe in using the dark side of the Craft—ultimately it taints the witch who wields it. But every generation learns how to safely hex someone, even though it’s basically a last resort. A normal hex is never cool to cast, like say I hexed my ex-boyfriend, Kirk, because he’s a total jerk. So, I get mad and hex him to get fat and bald. He would definitely get fat and bald, but that hex would return to me times three.”
“Do you mean you, too, would become fat and bald?” asked Khenti’s mom.
Mercy nodded. “Yeah. Three times as fat and bald as Kirk.”
“Oh, I know what you did differently to Upuant,” said Khenti. Mercy nodded encouragement, and he continued. “You hexed him by cursing him with his own actions. ‘Return to Upuant the harm he dispenses with such glee—Three times three return it to he.’” Khenti quoted Mercy.
“Ah, I see,” said Meryt, sitting up straight with excitement. “You didn’t wish outside ill upon him. You only wished his own actions returned to him.”
“Yep, three times three. Which also means that I need to pay really close attention to my actions for the rest of my life, especially when something I do causes me glee.” She shrugged. “The flip side of the hex is that if Upuant changed, if he somehow began to treat Khenti with kindness, then those good things would return to him multiplied by three as well.”
