Sins of the Flesh

“The van is mine.”


She dropped her end of the carpet and turned to face him. He peeked in his end, saw feet and winced. Looked like she’d just dropped the good Reverend on his head. He almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost. “Now tell me the van is yours,” she said, a trace of steel in her tone, “and say it in a way that makes me believe you.”

“I never was very good at lying,” he admitted.

“You said you were a very good liar. You said you were good at spotting other liars.”

He lifted his brows. “Guess I must have been lying.”

She shot a glance at the Porsche, then looked at the carpet. “It won’t fit.” Before he could vocalize his agreement, she hunkered down, grabbed the edge of the roll and gave a hard tug. The underpad and rug spun out until they lay flat, leaving Pyotr Kuznetsov naked under the star-flecked sky.

“If I fold him, will he fit in the trunk?” she asked.

“Fold him?” He laughed. She didn’t. She was serious. He shrugged. “Doubt it. But you can try.”





CHAPTER EIGHT



As for eternity, it means daytime; As for everlasting, it means night.



—The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Chapter 17

The Underworld, the Territory of Sutekh

DJESERIT BAST FOLLOWED the female servant along the sandstone gallery. Below them a long line of people snaked through the courtyard and beyond. They were silent and still, and Djeserit thought that the sight of them was important, but she couldn’t seem to recall why.

She pressed her thumb and forefinger against her closed lids, the pain behind her eyes so sharp and strong it made her stomach roll. She was dangerously close to throwing up. “Wait,” she said.

The servant stopped but did not look back.

Glancing around, Djeserit searched for somewhere to sit, but there was no chair or bench in sight. She swallowed against the bile that crawled up the back of her throat and the panic that surged in a sudden powerful wave.

She had no idea where she was or why she was here. Wispy memories danced beyond her reach, without shape or form. Had she been in an accident? Had she been injured? She—

A slow, deep breath allowed her to master her fear enough that she could think. She was a High Reverend of the Temple of Setnakht, worshipper of Sutekh. She was a leader, a woman of strength and power. She knew her convictions. And her enemy: her fellow High Priest, Pyotr Kuznetsov.

These bits of information, flickering in her thoughts like strobe lights, gave her comfort. And confidence.

She had the feeling that she was here—wherever here was—on Setnakht business. What business? As she tried to recall, an obsidian wall shot up in her mind, blocking her way. The pain came back stronger than before. Dizziness overcame her and she struggled to remain standing. The servant shuffled back toward her, head bowed, and offered her arm for support.

Ashamed of her weakness, Djeserit took it, because falling flat on her face on the cold, stone floor was even worse.

She wished she could see the girl’s face. Her eyes. But the woman kept her chin tucked and never looked up or said a word.

Leaning heavily on the servant, Djeserit walked on. What seemed an eternity, but was likely only moments later, they reached a pair of double doors. The woman stepped forward and pushed them open then withdrew to one side without lifting her head.

From this, Djeserit understood that she was to enter.

The room was cavernous, with a high ceiling and two sets of columns running down the center. Brightly colored scenes were painted on them, but she was not interested enough to look carefully at the depictions.

Urgency burned in her belly, and cold fear. She could explain neither.

She glanced back at the servant, who had silently entered the room and drawn the doors shut. But her head remained bowed, her chin tucked down to her chest, and she only made a small shooing motion for Djeserit to move along.

There seemed little choice.

Where to go?

At the far end of the room was a small group of chairs, one of them raised on a dais like a throne. For lack of instruction, she headed in that direction then paused as a noise sounded behind her. She spun to see her escort drop a heavy wooden bar across the doors. Wariness slithered through her, and the panic that had threatened her earlier came back full force.

She turned back toward the dais and saw a man sitting on the throne. Graying hair. Weathered skin. He looked familiar, someone she had seen before. He was…

Abasi Abubakar.

She had never met him, but she had seen his picture every day at the Temple of Setnakht. He had been the High Reverend years ago, before her time. He had murdered six young women in a locked room, painted the walls with blood and locked himself in with their rotting corpses.

Until he died.

As she stared at him, a sharp pain twisted in her breast. Her breath came in short gasps. He was dead.

Which meant she was—