But I didn’t stop.
Not until my body betrayed me. My legs tangled together. I plummeted forward, my single hand lurching out to catch me.
My face hit the dock. Wood stabbed my cheek. My teeth chomped through my tongue, and blood splattered onto the deck.
I dragged my head up.
Daniel walked on, his pace constant, his silhouette never vanishing.
His name shredded over my vocal chords. “Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.” I screamed it, and my tongue gushed blood.
But still he walked on.
Then came the sound I knew would arrive eventually. A muffled baying, far out over the black waters.
Gritting my teeth, I staggered upright. The Hell Hounds could not have my soul, and they could not have his.
Daniel was mine. He was my Daniel, and I would not let this death claim him.
I shambled back into a run, shouting for him. Begging him to wait.
Even when ice gusted into me, I stumbled onward.
Even when howls splintered my skull, my course stayed true.
But the Hounds would reach me at any moment. Their frozen storm kicked at me from behind. Harder, colder, and louder with each second. They would claim my soul and blast it into a million pieces.
But they couldn’t shatter an already-broken soul.
And then I saw the opening—the jagged hole that cut into the dock. I could keep going. I could escape the Hounds. . . .
I lunged low, hitting my knees and sliding over the wood. My pants shredded, my legs sliced open, and I choked on the blood that surged from my tongue.
I reached the hole; I toppled through.
The Hell Hounds’ fury screeched overhead, exploding through my eardrums. Ice clawed into my hair and yanked chunks from my scalp.
But my eyes were blanketed in darkness. My hearing cloaked in thunder.
I hit the boat.
You found the way.
I snapped my head up, and in the gloom a figure formed.
It was the jackal—yet he had the body of a man. He sat on a bench at the opposite end of the boat. In his hand was a pole that sank down into the gentle waves. His tanned chest was exposed, and he wore nothing but a small flap of fabric around his legs.
“You,” I snarled, pushing to my knees and gulping for air. “Take me to him.”
He is gone.
“I saw him!” Blood hit the boat’s floor. “Take me to him.”
You cannot reclaim his soul.
“Of course I can.” I scrubbed my left hand on my pants, ripping flesh off my palm with each vicious wipe. “I know what you are, Annunaki, and I know that you hold the power of life and death.” I thrust my face at him. “I want life.”
The jackal cannot do this for you.
“Yes you can!” I screamed. “Why would you show me this boat if not for this moment? You knew it would come to this.”
The jackal did not know. He only showed you the boat so you could bring him the Emperor’s clappers.
A harsh laugh broke through my lips. The boat shook. “I don’t have the clappers, and even if I did, why the hell would I bring them to you?”
They are not meant to be in mortal hands.
“Then,” I growled, “you shouldn’t have given them to us. Was it you? Were you the one who fell in love with a human?”
The jackal would never do this. Mortal souls are weak, and that is why the balance has been disrupted.
“Balance?” I repeated. “I don’t give a damn about balance or clappers or you. If you will not take me to Daniel, then I will find him myself.”
No.
A new voice flamed through my mind, and the boat tilted back. I lurched around—and froze. A second Annunaki had joined us. It was the god Oliver had mentioned. The god with the head of an ibis but the body of a man.
“Thoth,” I whispered, shock briefly overcoming my fury.
Yes. The ibis head bobbed.
And rage instantly curled back through me. “You are the god of balance, no? So you take care of this.”
Only the jackal may enter the earthly realm. His eyes rolled, just like a bird’s but with fire flickering inside. And even the jackal may not interact directly. He is nothing more than a messenger.
I shook my head. I didn’t care, and I was wasting time. But when I tried to rise, both Anubis and Thoth blasted their thoughts at me—so bright and loud, my body locked into place.
The jackal and the ibis do not care about you, yet Hathor’s clappers were never meant to be in the earthly realm—
“So punish Hathor. Not me.”
Hathor has been punished. Two layers of Annunaki thoughts, like fire searing through my brain. She was punished more harshly than you can even fathom, mortal. Yet now the imperial clappers have chosen you, and the queen’s clappers have chosen your demon. The magic within them has spent millennia drifting and seeking the ones who could bring them home.
“Ridiculous,” I gritted out. My arms would not move. My legs were trapped in time.