Sins of the Flesh

Dae opened his mouth, looking as if he wanted to say more, but Alastor rested his hand on his brother’s arm.

“Thank you, Aset, O Isis, goddess of motherhood and fertility and magic,” he said in clipped, tight tones, his accent more pronounced because of strain. He made a courtly bow and then he turned to Izanami, bowed to her, and said, “Thank you, Izanami-no-mikoto, grandmother of my mate, and so, my grandmother.”

Izanami laughed softly, the sound incredibly beautiful. “You have gained a small thimble of wisdom in your dealings, Alastor Krayl. You are slightly less brash than when last we met—” she paused “—my grandson.” With those words, she clearly stated that whatever side she chose in her alliance or nonalliance with Sutekh, she would ensure that Alastor and Naphré were reunited.

“Begin,” Sutekh said, and all eyes turned to him. He stood next to the stone table and the body of his dead son. “With the reanimation of Lokan’s remains, my promise of peace will be sealed.”

He brought his hands up before him and blue fire danced along his skin, bright, blinding.

“Now,” he ordered, and the three soul reapers poured blood from the pitchers all along Lokan’s body parts.

Sutekh raised his head, the blue flame growing brighter still, and he pinned his sons with his gaze, each in turn.

Calliope felt her stomach turn over, horror and fear congealing in her gut. There was something wrong. She stared at the body and the blood that dripped down the severed limbs and over the edges of the stone to the ground.

“The blood of Aset,” Sutekh said. “The blood of Sutekh.”

Kai Warin stepped forward with a fourth pitcher and poured that over the body. Calliope thought it must be Lokan’s blood, gathered in the black oblong bowl in the video, reclaimed along with the blood of the murdered Daughters of Aset from wherever the Setnakhts had stored it.

The flame in Sutekh’s hands grew brighter. It swelled until not only Sutekh but the body of his son and the entire stone table were enveloped in blindingly bright light.

Calliope’s pulse raced and bile crawled up the back of her throat. Was she the only one who saw that there was something not right in this? She didn’t begrudge any of them the return of Lokan, but she felt as though something else was going on here, something darker.

Before her eyes, the parts began to knit together, writhing along the stone until severed edges approximated and tissues began to coalesce.

“The blood of Sutekh,” Sutekh boomed and pinned each of his sons with his gaze.

One by one, they went forward.

One by one, they took the blade handed to them by a soul reaper who stood to one side.

Dae slit his palm, cutting deep, and his blood splashed on Lokan’s body. He cut himself again and used his lacerated palm to stroke his blood along his brother’s limbs. Then Alastor did the same.

Stepping up beside his brothers, Mal took the knife. He turned it in his hand, and Calliope saw it had an obsidian blade and carved handle. She gasped, her gaze flicking to Aset. It was the knife she had cut herself with when Beset ordered her to. It was the same knife that had been used to skin Lokan Krayl.

With a gasp, she stepped forward. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. Something held her in place. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

Her heart slammed against her ribs.

The blue flame grew brighter still, a bubble around Lokan’s body and his father, Sutekh.

Panting, Calliope watched. Waited. As did they all.

But nothing happened.

Sutekh’s head swiveled, and he pinned her with his flat, soulless gaze.

“The blood of Aset,” he whispered, only Calliope heard it in her head as a roar.

And she found herself moving forward, reaching her hand toward the knife. Not of free will. By compulsion.

Whose?

Terror such as she had never known crashed through her. If she did this, if she gave her blood with theirs, something terrible would come of this. She felt it with every fiber of her being and she couldn’t understand how the other Underworld deities could just stand there and let it happen.

She looked around, frantic. She felt as though she was invisible. As if they couldn’t see her. Or wouldn’t. All around her was light. She was inside the light that Sutekh had built into a glowing blue-white ball.

Of its own volition, her hand clasped the knife. Of its own volition, her free hand came up, her fist unclenching to bare her palm.

And all the while, her heart pounded in time to the litany that sang in her thoughts. This is wrong. This is wrong. But she couldn’t say why, couldn’t pinpoint what was missing.

Some key ingredient.

Suddenly, Mal’s hand shot out, his fingers closing on her wrist, preventing the slash of the knife against her skin.

His pupils were dilated, leaving a thin rim of gray around an endless dark lake.

And then she knew that he felt it, too. The wrongness.

Dae’s hand closed over Mal’s and Alastor’s over Dae’s.