“What are we going to do?” Miranda asked, her grip adjusting on the Blade of Bane.
“First off,” I said, “you are not to use that weapon on anyone unless I deem it necessary.”
Miranda’s chin rose. “Excuse me, Mr. Scarapelli, but I’m off the clock, so I don’t have to listen to you. And the sword was entrusted to me, so I believe I’ll defer to my own judgment. I do not kill indiscriminately.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose as I pushed back another flare of power that threatened to overtake me. “If you take the life of a god, it cannot be undone. We must handle this matter in a manner that does not threaten the balance, and therefore, we must find some other means to subdue Bast other than that weapon.”
Miranda practically snarled at me. “You mean the goddess responsible for Jamal nearly dying?”
“Yes,” I snapped back, my death mask flickering wildly. Her son had, in fact, crossed the veil, but I did not correct her. Miranda was no stranger to death, and she didn’t look away from my deathly visage. Aaron, on the other hand, stepped back and averted his gaze. I tried to maintain a calm tone. “I mean that even she will answer for her crimes, but I intend to send her to the cradle, not to absolute oblivion.”
“And how are we going to defeat Sekhmet?” Vivien asked. “Did you find Osiris? Can he come help us spank them back into good little gods?”
I rubbed at my temple. The desire to crack the souls from the bodies of the two mortals near me was overwhelming. My power raged like a stormy ocean. It took all my attention to keep it in check. “Unfortunately, what you mentioned Fallon said is correct. Osiris is gone. He could be anywhere, for any length of time. We cannot rely on him to act. That is why he put me in charge of this realm.”
Vivien licked her lips, her brow furrowed. “Now is the time to give up the big secret we’ve been dying to get to. How did you defeat Sekhmet? Because mommy vampire needs to go down.”
“I…” I had never revealed how I defeated Sekhmet to anyone. It was a long-guarded secret. “It won’t work again.”
“Well, tell us what you did,” Vivien urged, “and we can at least use it as a jumping-off point.”
I looked away by reflex.
“Grim, it can’t be that bad,” Vivien said, coming to hold my hand. I turned and studied her adoring face, knowing her sentiment would be fleeting once she learned the truth.
“I bound her by blood,” I said.
Vivien stiffened, then her hand slowly pulled from mine. I instantly missed her touch, but I didn’t reach for her.
“You said you’ve never created a blood bond before,” she said, her voice and shoulders now stiff.
“Not to a sekhor, no,” I explained. “For as bloody and gruesome as the war had been against the sekhors, the way I subdued Sekhmet was far simpler.” My skin tightened over my bones as I prepared to confess everything. “I invited Sekhmet to partake in some ale with me. She expected, after we imbibed, we would enter our own showdown and the loser would submit to the other’s power. Instead, I slipped my blood into her ale.”
Vivien’s eyes rounded, her mouth parting as she shook her head and took a step back.
“I wasn’t even sure it would work,” I went on, “but the blood bond was instantaneous. And I used that connection to put her into a deep slumber. And there I kept her all these years.”
“So not only did you lie to me about never having a blood bond before, but you drugged her in the same way I was by the master vampire who turned me. All so you could control her?” I saw in her eyes that she wanted me to change the story. Tell her I hadn’t done the very thing she detested.
I stepped forward, reaching a hand to touch her, but Vivien flinched. Something inside me fractured as she did so. A crackling sound came from behind me. Aaron and Miranda took a step back, while Vivien barely glanced at what I’d done. The glass of the hotel’s front entrance spider-webbed in a thousand small cracks. Then a thunderous crack echoed through the lobby as a fissure shot from the doors and up the slanted pyramid wall.
Fantastic. If I didn’t get ahold of myself, I could bring the entire place down.
I rolled my shoulders, coming back to myself. “It had to be done, Vivien. Humanity was at stake. Sekhmet’s thirst only grew. Everyone she sinks her teeth into turns into a sekhor. And those turned violent, razing a bloody path through any and all in their mission to kill the gods. The protectors of humans, like your friends here,” I said.
“Don’t bring my peeps into this,” Vivien snapped, then took a few steps back.
Darkness flooded me from the overflow of power and the emotion churning inside. I hurt the woman I cared most about. But the omission had been necessary. The bond formed between Sekhmet and me was literally ancient history and had become so unconscious I almost never thought of it.
“Vivien, the bond with her, it is nothing like what I have experienced with you,” I said in a soft voice.
When she turned back around, she wiped away at her eyes. Her words came out business-like. “You don’t want to run Galina through with the Blade of Bane, so how do you plan on defeating her and Sekhmet this time? Because I doubt Sekhmet will take another roofie-colada from you.”
“Roofie-colada?” Aaron asked Miranda in a quiet voice, with a confused look.
She explained in an equally low tone. “Like a pina colada but with roofies? You know? A roofie-colada?”
I hardened at Vivien’s coldness and focused on the path forward. “We are going to do what they did to me. We’ll discover Galina and Sekhmet’s secretum mortis and send them back to the cradle.”
