Sins of the Soul

That couldn’t be good. He’d thought she knew. Sutekh always knew exactly who was inside his borders. Why would he think otherwise for Izanami? Something stank like fish out in the sun.

Unease skittered up his spine on a million little legs. Then crawled along his shoulder blade. Reaching back, he scratched at the spot. Then he felt them, tiny creatures crawling all over his flesh. Up his neck, into his hair.

He could almost taste Izanami’s anticipation, could definitely feel it vibrating in the air.

He threw back his head and laughed.

“I grew up eating maggot-infested bread, sleeping in a rag pallet that was made up more of fleas than cloth. I grew up with rats gnawing at my toes and bedbugs drinking my blood. You trying to creep me out, Izanami? I don’t creep easy.”

Laughter, so sweet and pretty.

“Your brother is not here, Malthus Krayl. I thank you for the flowers. They are not enough to earn my favor, but they were enough to keep you from my wrath.”

Then the floor fell away. The world fell away.

He found himself spinning through an icy portal, disgorged into a back alley in a Dumpster filled with rotting food.

As he grasped the rim and vaulted out, he thought he heard a final tinkle of her laughter carrying on the wind.

“Fuck.” He raked his hair back off his face, froze mid-motion and looked at his hand. It was striped with filth from the rim of the dumpster. “Fuck.”

Grabbing his cell, he dialed Dae’s number.

“That didn’t go so good,” he said when his brother answered. “I think I fucked up. I’m not sure he’s actually even in Izanami’s realm. I don’t think she knew that Naphré Kurata was with him. And for some reason, I’m thinking it’s not a good thing that she knows it now.”





THE DARKNESS WAS ABSOLUTE. Not like night or a darkened room, but like a cave deep in a mountain, with the entrance blocked. Naphré couldn’t see the water, but she could hear it rushing along with unstoppable power and intent. She’d been in it, and now she wasn’t, and she couldn’t recall exactly how she’d crawled from the churning depths, though she could swear she remembered Alastor’s hands on her ass, pushing her to safety.

She remembered tumbling in the frigid rapids, not knowing up from down, her chest screaming, her lungs threatening to burst. She remembered gasping a breath, Alastor’s hand holding hers, and both of them going under. She’d thought she could hear him inside her head, hear him talking about his life, his family, his brothers. His nearly overwhelming wish to die.

What the hell was that all about?

Maybe it was her own memories that she’d shoved on him. She’d thought she wanted to kill herself. When she’d first realized that in running from the Asetian Guard, all she’d accomplished was trading one hell for another, that she had indentured herself as an assassin for a demon rather than killing for the Guard, she’d wanted to die.

Then she’d done her first kill, her first job, puked all over the place with Butcher rubbing her back, and she’d known she’d survive. A part of her had died that night, but a different part was born.

So maybe thinking she had been inside Alastor’s head was only her own memories coming back to haunt her.

Either way, she had more immediate problems. She was cold. So cold. And dripping wet.

Teeth chattering, limbs shaking, she wrapped her arms around herself and curled into a tight ball, willing herself to get warm.

She could swear that she remembered Alastor heaving her out of the water and screaming at her to breathe.

“Alastor.” Her teeth were chattering and clacking and she doubted he’d recognize that word as his name. She tried again, louder, same results. His name was mangled, and silence was the only reply.

Again she yelled. Louder. Again. The act of shifting and moving and calling out was having a small warming effect.

“Alastor!”

He wasn’t here. She was alone.

No one to rely on but herself. As always.

But she was so cold. Even breathing felt like more of an effort than she could handle.

She needed to get dry. That was the priority.

Her entire body shook with rhythmic shudders. She wanted to curl up even tighter. Instead, she got up on her knees, stretched out her hands and swept them back and forth in wide arcs, inching forward as she sought her pack.

She didn’t dare hope it was nearby. But she didn’t dare give up on it either.

She had no idea how long she searched, moving forward on her knees, then sideway, then back again, mentally measuring how far she crawled each time so she could retrace her movement and end up exactly where she’d begun.

That seemed important, having a baseline to work from in the endless, sooty darkness.

Counting the distance gave her a measure of confidence. Which was actually ridiculous, but hey, she needed to take her comfort where she found it.