Sins of the Flesh

“Tell me,” Mal ordered, and as she focused only on his eyes, she found she could speak.

“He isn’t trying to bring Lokan back,” she said in a rush. “He’s trying to use Lokan’s body as a vessel. He wants to put himself inside it and wear it as a suit. Mal, you had it right. Not an incorporeal demon, this time, though. An incorporeal god.

“Don’t you see? In order to reanimate your brother, his soul needs to enter his body. Where is it? Where is his soul?”

“Fuck me raw,” Dagan snarled, rounding on his father. “This was it all along, wasn’t it? Your plan. You planned this back when Gahiji took Roxy’s mother to Frank Marin. You planned this for decades. You knew all along you would sacrifice Lokan.”

“I knew it would be one of my sons. It was not until your brother revealed his growing power, the threat of it, that I knew it would be Lokan who must be sacrificed.”

Each of the three brothers recoiled in shock, and Calliope felt as though Mal’s pain was her own. His own father had betrayed him. Betrayed them all. He had sacrificed his own son and had, by his own admission, been willing to sacrifice any one of them.

“Growing power?” Mal asked. “What are you—” He broke off. His eyes widened and he whispered, “Dana. His ability to sire a child. You saw it as a threat.”

“No soul reaper can beget progeny. Only a human or a supremely powerful god.”

“So you killed him.” The horror and pain in Mal’s expression tore at Calliope like jagged blades. She wanted to help him, to heal him, to ease his torment.

“It is the prophecy,” Sutekh said simply, and he reached for Calliope.

“No,” Mal snarled and pushed her behind him, placing himself between her and his father. Then he said, “Call him. Dae. Alastor. Reach for Lokan. Reach now. This is our chance. Our one chance.”

They did. Calliope felt the massive surge of energy that emanated from the three of them, and she felt the power of Sutekh’s wrath as he built the blue flame higher still, trying to take his son’s body before Lokan’s brothers could find his soul.

Beyond the bubble of light, the Underworld deities stood watching the tableau unfold, and Calliope realized they were in a separate place, isolated from what was going on here, within the microcosm Sutekh had created.

“There,” Mal yelled. “I feel him. Lokan!”

The power was so intense that Calliope couldn’t breathe. She felt as if the weight of it was swirling around her and through her, and for what little it was worth, she added her will to theirs, willing them to find Lokan’s soul and draw it back.

And then she felt it, a flash of prescience bright and clear. The blood of Aset. Her blood. The blood of Sutekh. Mal’s blood. Together. Inside her.

She felt the thread of Mal’s connection to his brother’s soul, and she lunged forward, slashing her palm deep as she moved.

She slammed her hand down on Lokan’s body. She smeared her blood across his chest to the wound that had allowed his heart to be torn out, then down over the inverted ankh that had been tattooed in his skin. She saw it now for what it was. An insult to Aset. And a red herring to throw Lokan’s brothers off the trail.

She heard Mal screaming her name. Screaming at her to come back. Calling to her that he didn’t want to live without her. And she realized that she was spinning through nothing, through a black hole cold and vast and before her was an endless zigzagging staircase and a night-black sky dotted with stars.

“Mal.” She screamed his name and reached for him with her blood-streaked hand.

Lokan’s body spun away and she didn’t try to catch it. She let it go. She had done what she could. She had given him the blood of Sutekh and the blood of Aset.

She reached with all she was as the hole grew smaller and smaller behind her. She could no longer see Mal. She could see only the tips of his fingers as she reached hers toward him, and she thought, I love him. And he’ll never know that. He’ll never know.

Love.

There was no logic in that.

But there was great power.

She surged forward and caught his hand and she felt a terrible pressure, as though she was being crushed beneath an unbearable weight. Her skull. Her chest. The bones of her pelvis being compressed until they felt as if they would shatter. Then she pushed through, into the vast blue light, into Mal’s arms.

“I thought I lost you, Calli. I thought I lost you.”

His face was pale. Drawn. His eyes so dark they looked black.

Behind him was the table, empty now of his brother’s remains. They had been sucked into the hole as she had been sucked into the hole. And she realized in that second that he had been forced to choose only one, and he had chosen her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “He’s gone. I’m sorry.”

He kissed her, his mouth hard on hers. “I’m not. I’m not sorry. We gave him a chance. There’s a chance his body was called to his soul. He has a chance.”

“I’m sorry you had to choose.”