We absolutely need Sabra for this.
I pull open the door to the computer lab, only to find Phoenix already sitting at her console. She’s showered and changed into fresh clothes.
Which really shouldn’t surprise me at all.
“Find anything?” I ask while walking over to stand behind her chair.
“No,” she says without looking away from the screen. “Ammit’s not in Sectors One, Two, Six, or Five, so she’s not headed north or east. That leaves just Sectors Three and Four to search.”
Phoenix pulls up a detailed map of the city on another monitor. I nod while sitting down in the chair beside her. “The bots are working their search pattern outwards from the center. But you might have been right about Ammit hunkering down somewhere to hide. Still, she had to have gotten off the riverbanks at some point to find shelter. Some camera somewhere had to have caught at least a glimpse of her.”
“Or they will as soon as she pops her head up to move,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “Coffee?”
Phoenix nods distractedly while clicking through the data collected from the night before. I stand up and head over to the espresso maker in the corner of the lab.
“You still like it the same way?” I ask over my shoulder.
For the first time all morning, she actually looks over at me. “You remember how I take my coffee?”
“I remember everything about you.” Our eyes lock for a long moment before she tears her gaze away to look back at the screen.
“Yeah, I take it the same way.” Her voice has gone softer.
I allow myself a brief smile as I prep the portafilter carefully. I tamp down the espresso powder and brew four long shots into a ceramic mug. Then I add steaming hot water to make it an Americano.
“What are we going to do when we actually find Ammit?” I ask while pulling another few shots for a second cup. “Have you called Sabra yet to coordinate?”
She’s quiet for a long moment before she finally answers. “No, I haven’t called Sabra.”
I finish making the second Americano and bring both of our coffees over to the console. I hand hers to her carefully.
She takes the cup from my hands and inhales deeply. Her eyes fall closed. I don’t even pretend not to watch her in this moment. Coffee was always one of the few pleasures Phoenix ever allowed herself in her disciplined, driven life. It’s always been a pure joy to watch her pause and actually enjoy a simple cup of coffee.
She slowly takes a sip and lets out a little satisfied noise that does things to me.
Then she opens her eyes and looks at me as if coming back to the present moment and real life after her brief vacation. A small frown settles on her mouth. She finally answers the unspoken question hanging in the room between us. “No, I haven’t called Sabra. Because I don’t want to just send this spirit back where it came from.”
I feel my eyebrows bunch together in confusion, but she continues speaking quickly before I can ask. “I want to kill it. Permanently.”
I sit up straighter in my chair and almost spill hot coffee all over myself. “What? Why would we do that?” More importantly, “How would we even accomplish that?”
“Think about it,” she says while setting her coffee down carefully on the table beside her keyboard. “Opening portals toother planes was what started this entire mess in the first place. If we keep doing it repeatedly, who knows what else could go wrong in the future?”
“Last time, there were extenuating circumstances,” I point out carefully. “Your grandfather interfered with the ritual?—”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” she interrupts with frustration in her voice. “There’s always going to be something unexpected. There are too many variables we can’t control. Too many unknowns and the powers we’re dealing with here are beyond our understanding.” She takes a breath. “Ammit is a relatively small spirit and one we should be able to take care of with comparative ease. Which is why I think we need to eliminate her on sight rather than trying some complicated inter-planar return operation. We just need to destroy her like your brother did with the Devourers. That’s the only real solution to any spirits who manage to break into this plane.”
I can only blink at her in shock. “You really mean that?”
“This world is no place for spirits from other realms. You’ve seen what Ammit does to her victims. She’s a power this world doesn’t know how to handle. Her only language is destruction. Spirits can’t just come to this place and wreak havoc on unsuspecting humans who have no defense against them.”
I stand up abruptly and turn my back to her. Her words are like knives cutting into me.
I thought just like she does now, once upon a time. Back when I tried to send my brothers back to the Great Hall where the angels live. It’s where the Spark of Life inside us originally comes from, yes. But returning them there would have meant separating them from their wives and the mothers of their children. All I could see back then was our destructive natures. I couldn’t see the change and growth and good we were capable of achieving.
“Layden,” she says behind me. “Wait, you don’t think I mean you, do you?”
I feel her hand land gently on my back. I can’t help stepping away from her touch. Even the lure of her hand on me isn’t enough to hold me in place. My shame is stronger than my hunger for her.
