Spirit and Dust

34


A BODY?

Ancient Egyptians didn’t go for human sacrifice. But there I was, in the middle of the semicircle of brethren, tied to the statue of the jackal like some kind of offering.

I’d managed to sit up with my back to the pedestal, my arms stretched behind me, wrists bound to something yielding but inescapable on the other side. I gave a few experimental yanks and the something yanked back with a very annoyed grunt.

Oh. That was where Taylor was. I was relieved he wasn’t lion chow but otherwise was not happy to hear from him.

And Carson … Carson still hadn’t looked at me. His jaw was set, his muscles tight. Surely he would find a way to give me some clue as to what he was planning.

Suddenly Ivy was there beside me. I jumped, then pulled at my bonds, and barely remembered not to talk out loud to her.

“I am so very sorry I didn’t stay to watch your back,” she said, guilt flavoring her apology but not prolonging it. “I thought it was important to reconnoiter for you.”

Get out of here! I told her. It’s jackal central! Are you nuts?

“I will. But it’s important I tell you what I know.” She glanced at the Maguire family behind the altar. Everything seemed in stasis, but it was only in comparison with the speed Ivy’s shade was telling me things in psychic time. “The young man won’t look at you because he doesn’t want them to use you against him. He has a plan. It’s a catastrophically stupid plan, but I have no way to stop him.”

How do you know? I asked, still terrified for her. But I had a hunch that made me terrified for all of us.

“I spoke with him.” She absorbed my reaction to that even before I could. “You mean he doesn’t share your ability to speak with the dead?”

No. He has the ability to borrow it, though.

Until now, he’d only done it when we were touching, or close. But he had the Jackal’s mark, and it was a whole new ball game now. My horrible hunch said my talent for speaking with the dead wasn’t all he’d borrowed.

He’s planning to push the Black Jackal back through the Veil.

“He thinks he can, yes.”

That wasn’t all. I knew what Maguire meant about offering the Jackal a body. Not a sacrifice, but a host. If Maguire thought he would remain in control of all that power, he would take it. And I didn’t think Carson cared if sending the Jackal back to the afterlife sent Devlin Maguire, too.

Psychic time or regular time, we were out of both. I could feel the Jackal prowling within the bonds I’d anchored to the foundations of the building. This room was the limit of his tether, but not a stretch.

Go, I told Ivy. If I could force her away, I would. He’s coming.

She went, with a fleeting touch of her spirit to mine, spending no time on words. Then she was gone, really gone, and safe.

I looked at the altar, subjective time back to normal. A pulse beat in Maguire’s neck, above the collar of his shirt. He wore his suit like a vestment. There was something else, a muted psychic hum. I’d felt it once before in his office. However he’d contained the soul of Carson’s mother, he had it here. Here, where he was about to raise a soul-eating monster.

What an arrogant ass.

I didn’t think Carson could sense it. I’d had seventeen and three-quarters years to learn how to use my gifts. What made him think he could master them instantly?

Simple. He was the son of an arrogant ass.

The air stirred with a shimmer, the Black Jackal appeared inside the semicircle of his brethren. He wore the guise of the jackal-headed god, but I could See through the illusion to the shade of Oosterhouse. Handsome, young, fit … and bare-chested, like a Yul Brynner Rameses.

He put his hands on his hips and studied the surroundings with a sneer. The tomb had seemed very real when I’d awakened to chanting, but behind the genuine artifacts were black exhibit walls, and the torches were merely flashlights and electric lanterns. It was all just set dressing next to the self-proclaimed demigod.

Maguire spoke from the altar like it was a boardroom table. “Welcome, my lord. As you see, we are ready to proceed with the ritual.”

The Jackal encompassed Maguire in his disapproval. “You managed to secure the book?”

“I never lost the book,” said Maguire, cool and in charge. “I always knew where it was.” He placed one paternal hand on Carson’s shoulder, the other on Alexis’s. “My son had it, and my daughter translated it, and together they brought you Miss Goodnight.”

At last Carson’s guarded gaze flicked toward me, as if to see if I believed that he’d been working with Alexis. I trusted he hadn’t, but I was still pissed about everything he had done, including delivering the Jackal exactly what he wanted. Not me, but the power to open the Veil.

The Jackal finally gave me his attention, and the air crackled between us with opposing psychic forces. He strode to where I was bound and stood over me, his shadowed eyes glinting. It hurt to look at him, as if the twisted magic that made him burned the answering magic in my soul.

His gaze roved over me in a vile way. “You’ve brought her,” he said, “but you haven’t broken her. How will you convince her to play her role?”

Maguire’s voice was a smooth, ringing promise. “If she does not unbind you, Agent Taylor will die in disgrace as part of the plot to kidnap my daughter.”

Taylor tensed at the threat, pulling at the ropes that bound us. More than that, I could sense the horror the threat gave him—not the death, but the dishonor. Though I was guessing he didn’t much want to die, either.

I managed to twist one hand until I could link a few fingers with Taylor’s as Maguire continued. “However, if she complies with the ritual, her friend will merely be killed in the line of duty.”

Wow. He wasn’t even pretending he wasn’t going to kill us. Taylor’s fingers squeezed mine, but I didn’t find that reassuring. My choice was doom him to disgrace or doom him and every other soul in this world to oblivion.

Maguire stood, shoulders back, supremely confident. He saw himself as the pharaoh here, and Oosterhouse as his pawn. Beside him, Alexis glowed with the same conviction of control, and in his own way, underneath his mask of compliance, Carson seemed steady in the idea that he could turn the tables.

They were all cataclysmically wrong.

“I like the way you think, Maguire,” said the Jackal, indulging him. “The problem is your sense of scale. I know a man like you understands the importance of, what do they call it now? Shock and awe.”

As quick as a thought, he plunged a spectral hand into my chest. Icy cold punched through my ribs, burning, cracking, seizing my heart. He twisted, tearing a scream from my vitals. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life, but worse still was the moment when he grabbed the threads that connected Ivy to me and used them to pull her shade from thin air.

“Hello, Professor Goodnight,” he said. She dangled from his grip on her throat, her hands grabbing at his thick, tanned forearm.

“Oosterhouse.” Aunt Ivy managed to wheeze with contempt, as if they were academic rivals and not one spirit choking the afterlife out of another. “I should have known. No one who likes to hear himself talk as much as you do has altruism at heart.”

“I’m so glad this turned out to be you,” he snarled. “Women—and Goodnights—need to know their place.”

He tightened his fist, and Ivy screamed. I did, too, straining at my bonds until my joints threatened to pop. But I was helpless to stop the Jackal as he pulled the remnant essence of my aunt into his fist like he was wadding up paper.

Her image shriveled but her scream multiplied. It reverberated in the chamber, shook the walls until they began to transform. The ancient panels of stone on display spread like spilled water, covering the walls until the tomb was no longer curtains and plaster but stone and dirt and stuffy air. The electric light warmed, turned to smoking flame and dancing torchlight.

And the scream still didn’t stop. The air shimmered around the Jackal’s hand, and every cell in my body shuddered in recognition and resonance. Through my link to my aunt, he used me to call the Veil. It didn’t hum. It shrieked as he dragged Ivy’s soul from beyond like a magician pulls a never-ending scarf from his pocket.

Her soul.

“Stop!” I screeched around the cloth gag between my teeth. “I’ll do it! Just stop—”

Stop before there’s nothing left. I sobbed the last, unable to form the words. Tears blinded me, and I blinked them away because I didn’t want to be sightless in front of this monster.

The scream, the Veil, and all trace of my aunt vanished. With a cutting smile of victory, the Jackal opened his fist. He waved, and the gag in my mouth crumbled to foul-tasting dust. Leaning close he hissed in my ear, “Now do you believe I am a god? Submit, or I will destroy every dead witch in your interfering family. I don’t think even you realize how close they are, thinking they can protect you. But they can’t. Not from me.”

He took my broken sob as an answer and stood, swollen with pride and malice. I had underestimated him. And underestimated how much I had angered him by leashing him like a dog.

And he’d treed me like a cat. Now I had to keep my balance in gale-force winds until I figured out a way down.

I got up enough spit to talk and enough backbone to brave this out. “I’ll do it. But keep your paws off my family.” I looked toward the altar, where Alexis and Maguire waited. Carson’s facade had cracked, his face pale and his gaze tortured.

It would have been nice if I’d had more than the SparkNotes version of the Book of the Dead. I could only extrapolate from what Ivy told me and try to make it sound good. The final step, Ivy had said, was to unknot the pharaoh’s ka from his resting place and bind him to a host. There was still a wisp of a thread binding Oosterhouse’s ka to the statue—but that hardly seemed to matter next to the far greater binding I’d worked on him and would now have to undo.

“Choose your host,” I announced to the room, hoping that drama would pass for authority. “To unbind the Jackal, I have to bind him to something else, or he will fade away.”

Carson looked at his father, expecting him to step forward. But Alexis spoke first.

“I volunteer,” she said. Power and dynasty, she’d told me she wanted. What had the book promised her that she thought the Jackal’s power would be hers to exploit?

Her offer shocked Carson, and he stared at her as if another illusion had shattered. But he didn’t have time to re-form the pieces, to realize the full scope of her deception, because Maguire dropped the next bomb.

“I volunteer my son,” he said, one hand on Carson’s shoulder, the other spread in a theatrical gesture of offering. “As a sign of my faith in our accord.”

“What?” shrieked Alexis as every shred of emotion leeched from Carson’s face. “I’ve been loyal to you this whole time!”

“Yes,” said Maguire, in an implacable tone, fully believing her and fully not caring. “And I know you will be loyal to your brother—your knowledge and his innate talents will build our assets beyond what anyone could possibly imagine.”

Dynasty. Maguire wanted it, too.

“What’s going on?” Taylor said around his gag, while Alexis raged with escalating hysteria. The Jackal was enjoying it, drinking in the drama as if he had all night.

“Trouble,” I whispered back. “And worse trouble if I can’t figure out what to do about it. Carson had a plan, but Maguire just cut him off at the knees.”

“Man, can you pick ’em.”

“Shut it, Taylor. You don’t even know.” My eyes were on Carson, who’d gone still with leashed intensity. “If you get loose,” I told Taylor, “make a run for it.”

He laughed—actually laughed. “Do you know me at all?”

Okay. So none of us were runners.

I was watching Carson for signs he was about to act. I was watching the Jackal for the same thing. I should have been watching Alexis.

I should have remembered that she must wear the Jackal’s mark, too.

Suddenly the air crackled with remnant energy, and Maguire was airborne. With a gesture, Alexis had slammed him into the stone wall, loosing a shower of pebbles and dust. Maguire’s oak-tree body dropped to the floor with a bone-shattering crack and didn’t move.

Neither did anyone else. We watched in shock as Alexis picked her way over the rubble she’d released and bent over her father, reaching into his jacket. When she stood, she held a small glass vial. In it I could sense the muted blaze of a woman’s soul.

The Jackal began to laugh. Around us the brethren shuffled in confusion, not sure whom to back in this mutiny.

Alexis ignored them all. With chilling efficiency she grabbed one of the museum’s mummification tools, then placed the fragile vial onto the altar and raised the ancient hammer over it.

“Yield to me, Carson,” she said. “Or I let the Jackal have your mom.”

“No, Alexis.” His fury finally boiled to the surface, though he reined it in with clenched fists. “Let her go, and then I’ll yield.”

I tore my gaze away and looked at the Jackal, who watched the drama hungrily. If Alexis freed the soul, he would take it anyway.

“Stop it, both of you!” I shouted. In my family, you learn early how to deal with extreme sibling rivalry. “No one gets anything until I unbind the Jackal. So shut up and let me loose.”

“Untie her,” Alexis ordered the brethren. “But keep a tight hold on her buddy.”

The minions weren’t so confused they didn’t follow orders. They wrenched the ropes off Taylor’s and my wrists and hauled us both to our feet.

“Now,” said Alexis, with the hammer still poised over the vial. “Release the Jackal from his bonds and complete the ritual.”

I rubbed my wrists, shaking the blood back into my hands, and looked from her to Carson. Finally—finally—he met my eye. He gave an infinitesimal glance at Alexis, then the slightest hint of an It will be all right nod.

How, by Saint Peter’s giant gold key, was this going to be all right?

“Enough stalling,” said the Jackal, reclaiming the room. Didn’t Alexis see that he’d allowed her to have her tantrum? His image glowed with power. How did she expect to control that if they were bound?

“Do your magic, witch,” the Jackal said to me, and I didn’t correct him. “Play your role and you will all live to serve me.”

The limb I was on was shaking, and I dug in with my claws.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this thing. Show me your tattoo.”

“Why?” demanded Alexis.

To get her to set the hammer down, away from Carson’s mother, of course. But aloud I said, “For a point of focus, in a place you’re already bound once to the Jackal. I don’t want to get this wrong.”

She exhaled in irritation but pushed up her sleeve, revealing a delicate scroll of black ink on her forearm, just below her elbow. “Don’t screw this up,” Alexis warned. “Or both your boyfriends will wish they’d never been born.”

Maybe I could still make this work. I couldn’t send the Jackal through the Veil until I’d unknit him from the building. But if my timing was very, very good …

“Stop stalling,” said the Jackal. Then to the Brotherhood he said, “Give her some encouragement.”

The sound Taylor made as a brethren’s fist hit his kidney was all the encouragement I needed. With the Jackal to my right and the ancient altar and the Maguires to my left, I closed my eyes, braced my feet, and let the psychic hum of the building creep through its stones and into my body.

The song was so out of tune that it hurt my heart. The once–perfectly balanced orchestra of shades and remnants, of psychic echoes and resident ghosts, had skewed to a jangling garageband cacophony.

The Jackal’s stolen magic had tainted it, and his struggles to pull free had made it worse, snarling the threads that held him. I picked through the tangle, loosing the ties one by one, and tried not to listen to the warnings of the building’s shades.

With one knot left, I instructed them, Tell Carson to open the Veil on my signal; then I opened my eyes a crack to see if he got the message, hoping the ability he’d borrowed from me would last. His gaze flicked to mine, and I knew we were going for it.

Now. The Veil shimmered into being, not smoothly, but there. I snapped my last knot, then formed the threads of the bindings into an arrow and sent it with all my heart, all my strength toward the portal to eternity.

The Jackal roared, and his image stretched and distorted, pulled toward the Veil but caught—snagged on the black jackal statue that had lain with his bones. I’d forgotten the only tie I hadn’t made myself.

I cut it with a thought, but the damage was done, inertia destroyed. The Jackal took control of his own path hitting Carson and knocking him to his knees.

Carson grabbed his shoulder with a cry, shuddering as if he’d been hit by a real arrow, muscles heaving as he breathed through some pain or stress and finally quieted.

“Carson?” I asked, when he still didn’t move.

“Yeah,” he said tightly. “I’m here.”

“And the Jackal?” I whispered, almost afraid to know.

He tugged his shirt over his head. On the back of his shoulder, above his shoulder blade, was the jackal tattoo. Unlike Johnson’s simple outline and Alexis’s girly scrollwork, this ink had character, with a sense of movement and a hint of a wolfish, trickster grin.

More than a hint. In the torchlight, the eyes gleamed with victory.

Carson finally answered, “He’s in here, too.”