Night Huntress 06 - Eternal Kiss of Darkness (37 page)

She was running on fumes when it came to blood. She’d depleted more of her limited resources by injuring and healing herself, and she still had another hand and two feet to go.

Kira gave a bleak look at the room where the guards were.
You can do this
, she chanted to herself. Radje thought she was just an average new vampire, helpless against these restraints and his guards. She’d show him just how much he’d underestimated her—and Mencheres.

She looked at her other hand. Then, with gritted teeth, Kira began to pull.

M
encheres sat cross-legged inside a circle, his hands on his knees, his attention focused on the late-afternoon sun. He faced west, the direction from whence death came. Directly in front of him lay a silver knife and an empty cup. Vlad stood several feet from the circle’s perimeter, his jaw flexed and the scent of smoke emanating from him.

“This is madness.”

Mencheres picked up the silver knife. “I told you not to watch. You chose to regardless, but you must not interfere. You risk more than your life if you do.”

“We’ll go to Radje,” Vlad all but growled. “You’ll hold him with your power, and I’ll burn him until he begs to tell you where he has Kira.
That
is a viable plan. Not attempting to summon a god from the underworld with a bizarre black magic ritual that will probably kill you.”

“Radje is no fool,” Mencheres replied. “He knows if he reveals where Kira is, I would kill him as soon as I secured her. Or Radje would refuse to reveal her location long enough to break whatever time limit he’s set with her guards, so they would kill her. He’s dared too much not to see this through, and even if I give him what he wants, he will still kill her.”

“Kira could still get away. She’s stronger than any of them realize. You do
not
have to do this.”

Mencheres almost smiled. “Yes I do. In fact, I know now that it’s been preordained.”

Duat and the god of the underworld lay just beyond the edge of that silver knife. He picked it up, watching the blade flash in the moonlight. Then he picked up the empty cup with his other hand.

“Registered in their names, known by their bodies, engraved by their forms are the hours,” Mencheres began to recite from the Amduat in his native Egyptian tongue. “Mysterious in their essence, without this secret image of the Duat being known by any person. This image is made in paint like this in the secrecy of the Duat, on the southern side of the Hidden Chamber. He who knows it will partake of the offerings in the Duat. He will be satisfied with the offerings to the gods following Osiris. All he wishes will be offered to him in the Earth.”

When Mencheres finished speaking, he shoved the blade through his chest, directly into his heart. The silver burned with a fiery agony that felt like it filled his every vein in an instant. The last time he’d performed a dark ritual, he’d used steel instead of silver. But to summon the ferryman of the underworld, Mencheres required more payment than his blood and the bones of murdered comrades. He required the knowledge of sacred symbols drawn in blood that flowed from the edge of death.

“Aken,” he chanted. “Ferryman of the dead, ruler of Duat. I summon thee.”

He willed out his blood from the wound in his chest, holding the cup underneath it. His blood flowed in a steady, aching stream that felt like acid pouring from him. When the cup was full, Mencheres could barely move from the pain, but he needed to, even though the slightest shift of the blade would shred his heart and kill him. He couldn’t use his power to hold the blade immobile, or to do what needed to be done next. His power was useless inside the circle.

He dipped his finger inside the cup, coating it with his blood. Despite the danger that jostling the blade would bring, he bent forward and began to draw the first of twelve symbols that would call forth Aken.

As soon as the first symbol was completed, shadows began to form inside the circle.
Akhs,
the damned souls of the underworld. If he wasn’t strong enough to complete the ritual by drawing all twelve symbols, the
akhs
would consume him, sweeping his soul to Ammut, the Devourer goddess.

The darkness in his vision seemed to taunt him. Was it the endless River of the Dead that the ferryman would arrive on, if Mencheres were successful? Or was it the never-ending darkness of Duat, where he’d be condemned as one of the eternally restless
akhs
? Had his failure been fated long ago, and he’d spend all eternity trapped like the shadows that now encircled him?

“Mencheres,” Vlad said, ignoring the warning not to interfere. “Stop this now.”

“It is too late,” he gritted, dipping his finger again in the cup of blood. Even that slight movement felt like it rammed the knife deeper into his heart. He tried to concentrate on the crimson liquid as he drew the next symbol instead, attempting to ignore the blistering pain and the overwhelming compulsion to pull the knife out
at once.
If he pulled the knife out, the
akhs
around him would immediately become corporeal and devour him. But the longer it took him to draw the symbols, the more power the
akhs
derived. They fed off pain, and with the silver in his chest, Mencheres was a feast for them. The stronger they grew, the more solid they would become.

Mencheres dipped his finger back in the cup. Kira’s blood was part of him, her essence mixed together with the blood from the other donors he’d fed from. This would
not
be the closest he came to being with her again. She’d believed in him enough to risk her life with Radje, a person who’d already been responsible for her death once. He might have failed her that first time when he took her mortality, but he would not fail her this time.

He drew the third symbol even as the shadows of the
akhs
began to swirl faster around him. Mencheres shifted position to make the symbols circle him, the pain that caused almost making him convulse. He forced it back and slowly drew the fourth symbol. Each had to be precise; an error would nullify the ritual and condemn him. The silver in his heart felt like it began to grow tentacles, trying to destroy him with its own terrible will. He gritted his teeth, concentrating on the lines of the next symbol he drew. Seven more left before he was finished.

That pain continued to burn inside him in merciless waves. As the
akh
shadows increased their swirling dance around him, they lost their vaporous appearance to form hazy, manlike shapes, mouths opened in what looked to be snarls. Vlad muttered something, but Mencheres didn’t listen. He was too focused on keeping his hand steady as thunderbolts of pain wracked his body. The longer the silver was in his heart, the more it would break him down, shattering either his ability to draw or compelling him to end it early by snatching the blade from his chest. This ritual wasn’t designed for the wielder to succeed. It was meant for failure, which was why Patra never used it against him when she sought to kill him through magic.

Six more symbols left. By the gods, he was only halfway there. He’d never finish in time.

Mencheres kept drawing regardless, his vision almost hazy from the all-encompassing pain and the swirls of
akhs
around him. They solidified with every passing moment as they continued to feed off his pain. When they were solid, they would feed off his flesh. It wouldn’t be long now.

A seizure nearly sprawled Mencheres into the carefully drawn symbols before him. His hand shot out, stopping his momentum, but coming within centimeters of smearing one of those symbols. He closed his eyes, taking precious seconds to try to force the pain back into something manageable, but it only continued to spread. His eyes snapped open in growing dread. The more he concentrated on ignoring the pain, the more it grew, as did the
akhs,
who now clearly resembled people instead of formless shapes.

“Kira will be dead by sunrise if you do not
finish this,
” Vlad urged, sounding almost hoarse in his agitation.

Mencheres focused all his attention on drawing the eighth symbol, letting the pain flow freely through his body. It shook him, rustling the blade, sending more agonizing spurts through his limbs, but the only thing he concentrated on was keeping his hand steady. His whole body began to shudder, the suffering building to an intensity that made him wish for death so the pain would cease. He would only need one rogue tremor to jostle that blade too forcefully. One smear in a symbol for it to all end.
It’s inevitable,
the darkness whispered seductively. Why should he suffer trying to stave off something that could not be overcome?

Kira. Dead by sunrise.

He fought to keep his vision and his hand steady. Growls came from the
akhs
now, growing louder as they sensed their victory approaching. Mencheres forced himself not to look at them but to finish drawing the ninth symbol. Those growls grew louder, wisps of their fingers brushing him as the circle they flew around tightened further still. He didn’t look up. He kept drawing even as the pain inside him grew to where all he wanted was to twist that blade in his chest to free himself from it.

“Hurry…” Vlad grated out.

Mencheres’s hand wavered, and his vision clouded as he began to draw the tenth symbol. The
akhs
stroked him now, their hands flicking his back, arms, and shoulders, trying to get to the blade. He hunched forward as much as he dared, the searing anguish from that movement making his vision disappear completely for a moment. He forced himself to keep drawing, using his memory to form the lines, until very faintly, he could see again. His vision was narrowed to only the smallest space, but in that space, he could draw the eleventh symbol.

Fangs sank into his back, tearing at his flesh. He gave a hoarse shout. The
akhs
were solid enough that they had begun to feast.

He ignored the teeth slashing at him as finished the eleventh symbol. Then, using all of his strength to keep them away from the blade in his heart, Mencheres began to draw the last symbol. Agony exploded in him, darkness swam in his vision, and his hand shook while the
akhs
tore at him, but he kept drawing. Kira’s face flashed in his mind, her full mouth parted in a smile. He focused on that with his last conscious thoughts.

Let the
akhs
devour him. Let the blade slip too deeply in his chest. Let the darkness of Duat come. He would still not stop drawing the symbol that led to Kira’s safety.

A great roar filled his ears as Mencheres drew the final lines of the symbol. Then the blackness did claim him, drowning out that roar inside the eternal veil of darkness.

M
encheres sat inside the circle, the knife still in his chest, the symbols finished around him, and the cup still in his hand. All of that was the same, yet he knew he was not on the same plane of existence anymore. The lack of pain was his first indicator. The utter void around the circle, absent of everything except piercing darkness, was the next.

Then the circle was pierced when a slim boat floated through. A tall figure stood at the helm, with the body and face of a man, yet the horns of a ram curled out from his head. Mencheres bowed as much as the knife protruding from his chest would allow.

“Ferryman,” he said. “Lord of Duat.”

When Mencheres straightened, Aken reached out and plucked the knife from his chest as if it were a bloom off the ground. The huge horns neared Mencheres’s head as Aken then bent to lick the blade. All the while, Aken’s yellow eyes burned into his.

“You have paid your blood coin to summon me, Cainenite. What do you seek?”

It had been thousands of years since Mencheres had been referred to as a Cainenite, but the god of the underworld probably wasn’t familiar with how that word had been replaced with the more current one: “vampire.” After all, thousands of years were a mere pittance of time to the gods.

Mencheres bowed again. “I seek another Cainenite named Kira. She rose from my blood and her essence remains in me still. Use my blood to find her, and tell me where she is.”

“Give me your name,” the ferryman commanded.

Names held power. Aken would bind their agreement with his. “Menkaure,” he replied, using the one he’d been born with.

The ferryman gave him a toothless grin that looked more like the open maw of the grave. Again, he licked the knife that still had some of Mencheres’s blood coated on it.

“She is far from here,” Aken stated. That smile widened. “It will take time to reach her.”

The sun had been high in the sky when he began this ritual, but he still might not have enough time. If Radje and Kira were located on opposite sides of the world, he would not have time to reach them both. Mencheres didn’t trust anyone else to secure Kira, either. No doubt Radje left instructions for the guards to kill her at once if there was an attack.

“Tell me where she is,” he said.

The ferryman touched Mencheres’s forehead. Images of a sprawling, decrepit city consisting of crumbling temples and monuments bordered by a vast jungle exploded in Mencheres’s mind, combined with flashes of Kira manacled to a wall and guards milling in and around a large temple surrounded by pillars. His jaw tightened. He recognized those ruins. Kira was in Yucatán, Mexico, somewhere inside the Temple of the Warriors in the ancient Mayan city complex of Chichén Itzá. And he was in Chicago, over a thousand miles away, with an appointment to meet Radje in Atlanta at midnight or he’d order Kira’s death.