Sins of the Flesh

She studied him, her expression contemplative. She knew something. He could feel it.

“I figure the hawk symbolism is Horus, Aset’s son with Osiris. He turns into Lokan, Sutekh’s son. Then gets cut into fourteen parts just like Sutekh cut up Osiris. But the rest of it…I got nothing.”

“The women in your dream,” she said. “The night we went after Kuznetsov. There were Topworld grunts there, sent by Big Ralph—”

“Who works for Asmodeus, demon of lust.”

“Yes. So that could explain the women’s presence in your dream.”

“And?”

Calliope met his gaze, her expression shuttered.

“You know something. What? Tell me.”

“You said that you only dreamed when you saw what I saw. Perhaps this dream too was colored by my thoughts.”

She paused, and he had the feeling that he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.

“The two soul reapers left standing in your dream. Your brothers. You said you felt afraid.” Her expression smoothed, and that ramped up his unease because the cool, remote Calliope mask meant she was hiding her emotions. Which meant that whatever she was about to say, it was not going to be good.

“The Matriarchs said that there is a traitor among your kind.”

“There is. Was. Gahiji. Sutekh’s former second-in-command. He’s been dealt with. He’s dead.”

She shook her head. “Not Gahiji. Another.”

“You have my full attention now.” He meant it. Every nerve in his body was humming on high alert.

“The Matriarchs believe the traitor is one of Sutekh’s sons.”

For a second, Mal didn’t even process what she’d said. Her words made no sense, and he turned them over and over in his thoughts trying to see some hidden meaning. But there was none. She was actually saying that her Matriarchs thought Dae or Alastor had killed Lokan.

“What the fuck?” The question just exploded out of him and he stared at her, feeling as if he’d been kicked in the head by a horse. “Seriously. What the fuck?”

She shook her head, opened her mouth—

His phone rang. His gut churned. He almost ignored it, but in the end he snatched it up.

“Yeah,” he snarled.

“Bad timing?” Dae asked.





THE SUN WAS A GIANT BALL of flame in a yellow sky. A sheet of sand, white and smooth, reflected the light, sending off a piercing glare. Mal tipped his head back. The single sun shivered and danced until the shapes separated and became three suns.

He turned, shading his eyes as he studied the steep rise that erupted out of the sand. It was improbably covered by a thick tangle of high grass and creeping vines, and Dagan was already halfway up and climbing, catching hold of the greenery as he went. The heat and the blistering suns should have fried it all brown. But in this place, “should have” didn’t apply.

Following Dae’s path, Mal climbed.

The higher they went, the denser the vegetation grew. They topped the rise, panting, sweating.

Nothing stirred. The air was still and heavy and damp. Again, that made no sense. He’d have thought desert air would be dry.

Mal shot a scathing look at the suns and scraped his forearm across his forehead, wiping away sweat.

“I don’t fucking get it. Who set the weather control in this place? The humidity’s like a rain forest and the sun’s blistering like the desert. And the damned grass is growing out of sand. The place is creepy.”

Dagan shot him a look over his shoulder. “Creepy?” Amusement laced his tone. “It’s the Underworld. No one said it has to make sense.”

Pulling his drenched T-shirt off over his head, Mal used it to wipe his face then strung it through the belt loop of his jeans and let it hang.

“Not exactly the Underworld,” he muttered. They were actually in what was effectively a null zone, a realm that wasn’t quite part of the Underworld, or Topworld, but a pocket somewhere in between.

“True enough,” Dagan said. “Funny, but if Naphré and Alastor hadn’t made that unexpected trip to Jigoku—” a sort of purgatory associated with Izanami’s realm “—none of us would have thought to search for Lokan’s remains in these little patches of unclaimed territory.”

“You tell Sutekh about this place?” Mal asked.

“Don’t want to get the old man’s hopes up.”

“You think he has hopes?” Mal asked, incredulous. “I don’t think he has any capacity for emotion.”

Dagan shrugged. “Whatever. If we find something, we’ll tell him. If we don’t…” He shrugged again.

Mal grunted a reply. Alastor and Naphré had found the lead casket with Lokan’s partial remains that now sat in Sutekh’s greeting chamber, but he wasn’t counting on having similar luck. He didn’t feel Lokan here, didn’t sense him.

But then, Alastor said that when he’d found Lokan’s remains, the energy signature had only become stronger the closer Alastor had come to the box.