I fought a sob. Surely, he couldn’t be so flawed, so evil from what I saw. Petty things all mortals were burdened with.
“And the small sins, they are as copper. The coins add up and weigh far more than one great sin. Yet a thousand small kindnesses cannot undo that great sin.” Anubis, one by one, dropped fat, clanging copper coins onto the plateau, each one sinking that side lower. “In this, it is not fair to the soul, that a thousand small sins of inconsequence outweigh that of mortal sins.”
I choked a sob, but I didn’t interfere.
From a plinth aside him, resting on a heavy plate, was a great feather, gilded with fine gold, enameled and resting on a golden platter.
Anubis waved a hand, and the coins disappeared and carried over the plate holding the feather. And ever so gently, he laid it upon the scale and waited.
Nothing moved at first, as if heartbeats stilled in time and the feather sank the scale ever so slowly to a resting position, lifting Gre’s heart high and defiantly.
Anubis smiled. “My companion needn’t have offered her aid.”
“Platter,” Gre’s ethereal voice spoke, a moan of a word. “It is not the feather I am lighter than, but the platter.”
Anubis stared at the thing and shrugged, an almost elegant but indifferent gesture. “It all depends on where you stand. The Earth is full of mortal temptations, and the platter holds no more significance than the ground you sinned upon. You are not blameless, child. You are as rife with sin as any young male would be, but the choices you made have lightened your soul.”
A hungry creature paced somewhere out of sight, lost in shadows and growling.
Anubis took the heart and offered it back to Gre. “Ammit will go hungry this night.”
“It is not my heart to take.” Gre bowed his head, and Diana stepped forward from her place, eyes locked onto the thing.
Another trial?
“I may own his heart, but it is his choice as to who holds it. Who do you wish to have your heart, Mage of Gray?” Diana held her chin high and stared at the glowing mass that Gre refused to take.
“Esmeray, vassal of Bastet and Diana, who does this heart belong to?” Anubis turned to me as the witness, and my breath wavered.
“It is as the g-goddess says. I—I…I wish to hold his heart. I will protect it as my own, but it is Diana’s, as Gre has bartered.” Saying it hurt, but I wanted him so badly.
“And you will take his heart. Willingly?” Anubis stared me down.
“He is my mate, in this world and the next, and where he goes, I go. In my heart is shadow, if a demon has one. Were I not bearing his child, I would weigh my own, trade my own to spare him. He gave me life, a choice, and purpose.” I kept my voice as steady as possible.
“Then come, child of dark moon. Feast upon this heart that is yours.” Anubis held the dripping thing out, and Lionel pushed me forward. “Eat, so that he may become part of you.”
“This isn’treallyhis heart, is it?” I whispered to Lionel, who pushed at me to approach.
“Do you honestly care at this point?” Lionel sneered, and he was right. I didn’t. “Either eat it and become one with him once more or not, and the gods can decide what happens.”
I glanced toward the towering mass of black shadow, vines, and golden eyes, and I reached for the offering from Anubis. As his giant paw, sleek with night-black skin and claws, tilted the thing into my hands, it stained them with the gold-dripping fluid. My instinct was to retch and refuse, but my stomach churned with hunger that made me more ravenous than I’d ever been in my entire life, and I cupped the beating mass in my fingers and brought it to my mouth and bit, sharp teeth tearing through flesh with a huff of satisfaction.
I couldn’t explain the texture any more than I could the flavor. It was him, all warm flesh, sweet, filling, and satisfying. The way my teeth sliced through it, how I barely had to chew or swallow. He became part of me bit by bit until the last morsel crossed my lips. “I love him.”
Those words crossed my wet lips from a hoarse throat, a line in the proverbial sand. Gre’s only place was by me.
“The contract is settled. Diana, owner of his heart, has made case for the care and place of it to be permanently with EsmerayFaust, a child of a dark moon. And as you, a demon, have no soul, no heart, and no presence past this form, you have taken of his soul, his heart, and will share them as your own. His sins become yours and yours become his. You do not damn yourself. You damn him, too.” Anubis opened his stained hands, still slick with golden blood, and beckoned me to approach, and I did so happily, almost running up the steps to the dias to embrace him, sinking into warm blackness, shadow, and tiny vines.
“And now there is the matter of the fate of his body and life on Earth.” Anubis put the feather and plate away, waved his hands to dismiss the scale in a rush of a breeze, the thing melting away like a dry sand sculpture.
“I ask those who hold pieces of our Mage of Gray to state their case.” Anubis stood tall and placed his hand atop mine and Gre’s heads. His steady, rhythmic breaths oddly mortal for the spirit of him.
Bastet approached first, kneeling quickly before Anubis. “Master of Secrets. I took control of the soul of Greginald Hawthorne sixty-four years ago, a mere boy at the time who longed for a goddess and thought I would be kindlier due to his hybrid form.”
Anubis nodded. “As we are all hybrids of legend, born of kings and beast.”
“In exchange for my power, he does service in my name and sees to my children.” Bastet referred to all cats, cat shifters, and especially cat shifter hybrids as her children. “He has never once faltered. And upon reaching their final days, Gre has been known to bring my little ones into his home, to let them die warm and comforted. He treats my followers as they wish and responds to my call. So, as owner of his soul and dependent of his skill, I call for him to be returned to the mortal plane to continue his good works.”
