Witches' Bane (The Soul Eater Book 2) (14 page)

D
o
you know what paradise looks like? For some, they find it in their child’s smile. For others, it’s a road trip from coast to coast with no strings attached and no commitments. For me, it’s a beer in one hand, an empty beach, and a star-scattered sky.

I didn’t know what time it was. I could barely remember the day of the week, and I didn’t give a damn. When the breeze changed, it brought with it the chatter and music from a nearby bar. When it switched back again, the ebb and flow of waves washed the sounds of life away. The ocean, the sky—they were timeless.

No gods. No magic. No prophecies. No bullshit.

Just me, a beer, and the Atlantic.

“I could get used to this.” I raised the condensation-drenched bottle to my lips and took a drink.

But like all good things, it would come to an end.

Someone approached, making an effort to be heard. Only Cat had to deliberately make sound as she walked. Her default state was stealth, and her favorite pastime was sneaking up on me and standing close enough to let me know she could have severed my spine with those claws of hers, before I’d had the chance to utter a spellword to stop her.

She dropped into a sitting position on the lounger beside mine, draped her arms over her knees, and stared in that way she did: unblinking and judging, as though she could see into my soul and found me decidedly uninspiring.

I’d pinned my gaze way out at sea where the moon was spilling its milky light across the black. This was my moment, and I sure as souls wouldn’t let her stare my relaxed state of mind out of me. She could sit like that all night for all I cared. I’d earned some peace.

“You turned off your cell,” she finally said.

I hadn’t noticed her faint Boston accent until a few weeks ago, after she’d settled into her role as consultant/assistant/spy. It was an old accent, probably left over from her childhood, and it only came out to play when she was pissed—like now.

“Did I?”

“You brought us all the way out here for a”—she hooked her fingers into air quotes—“‘
vacation
,’ and then you’re never around?”

I side-eyed her and took another swig of beer. “You know, most folks would appreciate a week in the Hamptons.”

“You might have Shukra fooled, but not me.”

Cat was as sharp as her claws. She’d also spent three months watching me from the top shelf in my office, hidden inside her four-legged housecat alter ego as she learned everything she could about me before deciding to reveal herself as a person and save my ass from some priests in the process. Not even Shu had spent that long in my presence, and Shu and I were
soul-bound
.

“Where is Shu?”

“In the hotel casino. Don’t change the subject.”

Shukra in a casino? Odds were she wasn’t playing fair.

Another swig of beer. I turned my head and looked at Cat, and I mean really looked. She had on tight khakis and a loose-fitting sleeveless v-neck top, revealing the type of toned physique the shopping channels employed to sell the latest fad in get-fit-quick equipment. I’d seen her in action, and those muscles weren’t for show. I suspected she kept her black hair cropped short purely to reduce the chances of an opponent grabbing it in a fight. When attacked, she fought back quick and dirty, and did so with vicious efficiency. She was a killer; Bastet had trained her that way.

“Is that a hickey?” she asked. In the low light, I could just make out where Cat’s gaze had landed, and with it came the memory of Bethany-Jane, the woman who’d finished her bar shift a few hours ago and whose apartment I’d left right before taking up my quiet spot on the beach.

My lips twitched around a smile. “Like I said,
vacation
.”

“What are you, eighteen?” Oh, disgust. She didn’t approve of my choices, which was why my new favorite pastime was rubbing her nose in them.

“There’s nothing wrong with two consenting adults enjoying themselves. You should try it sometime, or do you prefer shaking your tail at the local tom cats?”

She barely reacted. My feline quips never got a rise out of her, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

“Do you know what Ammit gave me for my eighteenth birthday?” I asked.

She raised her brow at the mention of my surrogate mother, the pantheon’s bogeyman—or should that be bogeywoman? Technically, Ammit had been more crocodile than person.

“I don’t think I want to know.”

“She gave me Rameses’s daughter. Do you know the name Rameses?”

“There were a few pharaohs by that name,” she replied decisively. I wasn’t sure how much she knew about the old ways, but I could assume her queen, Bastet, had taught her the basics.

“This was the third one. He had twelve bastard children that the pantheon knew of. Not the kindest of pharaohs, but few were. I doubt he noticed the girl was gone.” I drew in a deep breath, bringing with it the briny taste of ocean air and damp sand. “She died of a snake bite. After her soul arrived in Duat, Ammit made her flesh for fourteen nights and bound her to my service. My mother expected me to use her as a slave in every way. The girl…she was terrified.”

Cat’s eyes widened. She didn’t like the way this story was going. Her mind was already concocting the awful deeds I’d probably committed. She’d seen me lose control. She knew just a fraction of what I was capable of. She might have even heard of my underworld crimes.

“I showed her the River of Souls, the Halls. In the waning light, the
mer,
the
place of ascension—you’d know them as pyramids—shine as though they’re lit from inside. I took her to the weighing chamber and guided her through Duat, the underworld city in its terrible glory. We walked in the gardens of
Ah
-
dam.
She picked a date from the tree of life. Osiris’s tree, of course. He would’ve whipped me raw had he known I was trespassing.” I upended the beer bottle and drank down the remnants. “Her name was Aneksi.”

“A lovely name.”

It was. I remembered how it had sounded as I whispered it against Aneksi’s lips. “It means:
belonging to me
. Ammit probably thought she was fulfilling the girl’s fate by cursing her into my service.”

After a few moments filled with the sound of the waves and little else, Cat asked, “What happened?”

“Why should anything have happened?” I asked, bowing my head to hide my smirk. Cat was intrigued—curious, some might say. I had a whole bunch of curious cat quips I’d been waiting to dust off.

She frowned. “You said Ammit only gave her to you for fourteen nights? What happened after that?”

“It was a long time ago…”

She shifted closer. “You don’t remember?”

“Oh, I remember.” I dragged a hand across my chin and scratched at my bristly cheek. Aneksi happened so long ago that it might as well have been a myth for all it meant to me today, and yet a little something fluttered inside. A tiny stutter of emotion left over from another time, another place, another me. “Eighteen and presiding over the Halls of Judgment alongside Ammit, I was an epic asshole.”

I waited for Cat to say I hadn’t changed and then remembered she wasn’t Shu. Her green eyes searched my face, and the sadness in them told me she’d already jumped to the end and guessed the outcome. That was the problem with immortality: the past was paved with the dead of those I’d cared for.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but Aneksi was my first naïve and foolish love.” Love, what a joke of a chemical reaction that was. “I devoured her soul.”

Cat recoiled, knowing what that meant. I hadn’t just killed Aneksi; I’d destroyed her and any chance she’d had at paradise in the afterlife or reincarnation. Souls are eternal, as long as they avoid soul eaters.

“Why?” Cat whispered.

“After our fourteen nights, Ammit summoned her soul to the Hall of Judgment. Anubis, curious son of a jackal that he is, was there. Half of Duat had gathered, so intrigued were they by the soul who’d captured a soul eater’s attention. In Osiris’s absence, and after I’d refused to, Ammit weighed her soul.”

By the gods, why was I dragging this up? This had started as a way to unsettle Cat, but I’d fallen into my own trap. This was what happened when I indulged in too much alone time. My little smile had long since died out, and I struggled to keep the corners of my lips from turning down. “When Aneksi was sixteen, she was attacked on the Waset streets, robbed and beaten. Her life might have ended right there, but she was a brave girl. With the bone knife she carried, she fought the thief off. Had she run, she would’ve lived and her soul would’ve been lighter for it. But she didn’t run. She cut her attacker’s throat and stabbed him in the chest eight times.”

“You knew?”

“She confessed to her sin and begged me to keep her from the weighing chamber.”

“Ace, I—” Cat’s voice caught.

I waved her concern away. “This was forever ago. I barely recognize it as my story.” I swung my legs off the lounger and leaned forward, facing Cat’s shining eyes. “Aneksi was already mine. Ammit had seen to that. I devoured her because it had to happen. She stood in front of the crowd, her head up, her shoulders back, and she looked her fate and me in the eyes. She had a warrior’s soul.”

“I…” She licked her lips and tried again. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You remind me of her.” I gestured roughly in her direction. “Not the face, but the spirit. In the same situation, you would’ve cut the guy in two.”

She blinked, her lips slightly parted and her expression the most confused I’d seen it. “Is my soul damned?”

I smiled, enjoying her fumbling for a response. I could let her sweat, another me might have, but lately, I’d been trying
good
on for size. “I’ve seen your soul—briefly,” I added after her whole body had tensed to either attack or defend. “I’ve also seen you kill, but you did so for the right reasons. What I saw in you was light. You’re a good person beneath all the homicidal tendencies. You’ve struggled with your moral compass in the past, but it’s steered you right so far.”

“I…you saw all that?” She laughed a little, awkward laugh.

I’d thrown her off her stride. I’d have to remember that and try it again. We had a few days left in our vacation. I could fill it with making the warrior cat squirm, especially if she insisted on tracking me down and crashing my alone time.

“Yah know…” She looked out at the ocean, throwing her face into profile. “I think the housekeepers are trying to summon a demon. I’m pretty sure I heard chanting coming from the room next door last night.”

Changing the subject. I’d shaken her all right, and considering the weird little ache inside, I’d unsettled part of myself too. When too many memories vie for attention they each stirred the other, lifting old emotions to the surface.

“They can go right ahead.” I scooped up my empty beer bottle, got to my feet, and started back up the beach. “I’m not on the job. Unless locusts start raining from the sky or some asshole parts the Atlantic, I couldn’t care less.”

“Ace…”

I stopped and glanced back. She was still sitting on the lounger, looking at me like I was the mystery here, not her reasons for sticking closer than my shadow.

“Are we hiding? This place, this vacation…in six months you never once took a day off.”

“Enjoy your vacation.”
While you can.

I saluted her with the empty bottle and trudged up the beach. Like I’d said, Cat was sharp, and absolutely right. I may have neglected to mention the warning I’d received from a few underworld contacts. Anubis had waited long enough for me to come to him. His jackals were on the offensive, and I was hiding under a resort–shaped rock until I figured out how to survive the God of the Damned and the shitstorm he was stirring in the underworld. Add to that my newfound notoriety as the godkiller, and suddenly the pantheon’s spotlight was on me.

“Did you feel that?” Cat’s concerned tone halted my steps.

The breeze continued to toss the bar sounds of laughter and chinking glasses around the beach, but I couldn’t
feel
much of anything beyond a mild sense of contentment brought on by the beer and Bethany-Jane’s company.

“I swear, I—”

A tremble rumbled beneath my boots. Cat shot to her feet and looked down at the sand.

“Earthquake?” she asked, looking to me for answers.

It wasn’t an earthquake. I scanned the length of the beach. Stark white loungers tracked left and right. Lights from the hotels and beachfront homes illuminated the sand, stretching long shadow-fingers toward the surf.

The sand shifted around my boots, sucking me down an inch.

I bolted for Cat. “Get off the sand!”

Her eyes widened, and she looked down. All around her, the sand rippled. She lifted a foot. “What the—”

I caught her by the arm and yanked her onto the lounger behind me. The damn thing rocked, threatening to topple us over. Cat bumped against my shoulder, knocking me sideways. I gave her a shove, trying to maintain some balance, but the seat rocked the other way and tipped like a boat. Cat dropped a foot onto the sand. A fleshy, wrinkled tentacle shot out whip-quick, snagged her ankle, and yanked. She staggered, teetering on the edge of the warped lounger.

“Hold on!” I hooked an arm around her waist and pivoted, pulling her back.

The tentacle knotted tighter, its thick skin creaking.

Magic burned the air—a quick blast I recognized as Cat’s. She twisted and her claws, as sharp and precise as daggers, caught the light.

Too late I realized her plan. “Don’t!”

She sliced through the tentacle, cutting clean through it, and then kicked the flaccid appendage off her shoe.

“What the hell was that?” Cat panted.

“A
vurk,
and you just pissed it off.”

“What’s a
vurk
?”

A mound of sand swelled a few feet away, rising up and towering over us. Sand poured down the vast worm-like body.

It opened its massive circular mouth and loosed a thunderous roar, flinging out countless wriggling tentacles from deep inside its cavernous throat.

So much for paradise. “Run!”