CHAPTER 15
In the morning I awoke alone in the hospital room. Doolittle delivered a huge breakfast to me and stood over me while I ate every last piece of scrambled eggs, sirloin tips, and pancakes. I gobbled it up and escaped the medical ward to go look for Roman.
I found the priest of the Evil God in a corner of the northern courtyard. It was one of those small outside spaces within the Keep, shielded by a tall wall and made to provide relative privacy. To get to it, I had to pass through the stone arch, cut in the bottom of a stocky tower, and midway to it, I heard high-pitched giggles.
The black volhv sat on a bench, surrounded by a gaggle of kids, and was making small things disappear from his hands and reappear behind their ears and in their hair. A female werejackal discreetly watched him from the wall. Visitors to the Keep were never left unsupervised, especially around children.
I leaned against the wall and watched the volhv, too. There was something so joyous about Roman. It was as if part of his life was so bleak and dark that he felt the need to live the rest of it to its fullest, squeezing every bit of fun and happiness out of it. Even his martyred, put-upon sighs had a slightly mocking quality about them, as if he only pretended to be upset.
Roman saw me. “Okay, that’s enough magic for today. Scatter now. Scatter, scatter, scatter.”
The kids took off. Roman spread his arms. “Can’t help it. I’m just popular.”
I smiled and sat by him on the bench. “I have a serious question.”
“I will give a serious answer.”
“Can a god be killed?”
The humor drained from Roman’s face. “Well, that depends on if you’re a pantheist or Marxist.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The first believes that divinity is the universe. The two are synonymous and nonexistent without each other. The second believes in anthropocentrism, seeing man in the center of the universe, and god as just an invention of human conscience. Of course, if you follow Nietzsche, you can kill God just by thinking about him.”
Ask a priest a question, get an enigmatic answer. Didn’t matter what religion…“Roman,” I said. “Can I kill Anubis?”
“I’m trying to answer. Anubis is a deity, a collection of specific concepts and beliefs. You can’t kill a concept, because to do so you must destroy every human being who is aware of it. Your best bet would be to identify everyone who entertained the idea of his existence and shoot them in the head.”
“So the answer is a no?”
Roman sighed. “I didn’t finish. You want simple answers to very complicated questions. The wrong questions. The question you should be asking isn’t whether a god can be killed, but what is Anubis. You must understand the nature of a thing before you can end its existence. In Anubis’s case, his divinity is partial. He requires a mortal form to survive the periods of technology. His mortal form is just that—mortal. You know its nature. You know where to cut and how you can break it. You can end Anubis’s mortal form. Will it end Anubis? There are no certainties in this world, but I would theorize that no, it will not. As long as there is a cult of Anubis, devoted to veneration of his specific concept with a specific image, he will continue. He will be reborn.”
“How quickly?” I asked.
“How quickly will he come back if you nuke him?” Roman frowned. “His grasp on his corporeal form is tenuous. The fact that he could be killed in itself is devastating to his divinity. People don’t like to believe in gods who can be murdered and remain dead; they much prefer to believe in rebirth. If I were him, I would’ve waited a couple hundred years before I decided to get my toes wet in this magic and technology mess. So the simple answer is, he will return. But not in my lifetime and likely not in that of our children or grandchildren. I would prepare anyway, because when he does come back, he’ll be pissed off.”
“So his mortal body can die?”
“Yes. It’s just a body. Unfortunately, it’s a body with huge magical potential. I don’t know what his reserves are, but he’ll use every drop of them to defend himself. He’s been very conservative with his shows of power so far, which probably means he’s hoarding it for this final battle with Apep in case we fail.”
If the mortal body was the most likely target, then fighting him in my dreams would be futile.
Roman patted my back. “Cheer up, deadly girl. Things have a way of working themselves out.”
Not this time. But I wouldn’t go meekly to the slaughter. No, I would fight him for the lives of the people I loved to the bitter end. Win or lose, Anapa would regret meeting me.
Raphael strode through the arch, followed by Ascanio. Raphael was in black jeans and a black T-shirt that complemented his hair and showed off his carved biceps. Ascanio had somehow managed to copy his outfit so precisely he looked like Raphael’s younger brother.
Raphael saw Roman, registered his hand on my back, and focused on him like a shark.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m sitting and talking to a pretty girl.” The volhv regarded him with a slightly mocking air. “We were having a lovely time until you showed up.”
“That’s nice. How about you go somewhere else,” Raphael told him.
“I’m really tired of you telling me what to do,” Roman said.
They’d bickered the entire way back from the fight with the draugr. My arm hurt too much to pay attention, but apparently during the battle on the hill, someone had run the wrong way and the two of them had managed to collide, which disrupted Roman’s binding. They blamed each other. The fact that Raphael and I had barely gotten back together and he wasn’t inclined to tolerate men in my vicinity wasn’t helping either.
“Go. Away,” Raphael said.
The volhv leaned back, his arms behind his head. “How about you go fuck yourself.”
Nice repartee. Not.
Raphael smiled. “Big talk for a man in a dress.”
“It’s not a dress. It’s robes, which are my work clothes. You know, work? The thing real men do?”
Uh-oh.
“Real men, huh?” Raphael was still smiling, and the hint of insanity in his eyes made him look slightly unhinged.
“What was your job again?” Roman frowned, pretending to think. “Ah yes. Don’t you stand there and look pretty to impress female visitors? You’re really good at that. No real skill involved. Not much of a retirement for that kind of thing, though. Doesn’t help to keep a wife and kids fed either. Unless you find a rich old lady and hope she puts you in her will…”
He did not just say that.
Raphael froze, momentarily stricken speechless.
“How old would the old lady have to be?” Ascanio asked. “Old like forty?”
“Go back to Aunt B and stay with her,” Raphael said. His voice was eerily calm. Uh-oh.
“Yes, Alpha.” Ascanio spun on his heel and took off.
Raphael had removed him from immediate danger.
“What are you two doing?” I asked them. “Don’t we have a bigger fish to fry?”
“Stay out of it,” Raphael told me. “This is between him and me.”