Sullivan was nowhere to be seen, but Eddie Bellinowski was there along with some other men, his eyes narrow with anger as he watched, leaning on his car. One of the coppers came up to talk with him for a few minutes. Bellinowski nodded and shook his hand, no doubt slipping him some money in the process.
Once the copper was gone, Alistair strolled across the street to where Bellinowski lurked. “Any suspects?” he asked.
Bellinowski grunted. “Nobody will own up to seeing anything…but with that damn look-away hex out there, that’s no surprise. Doesn’t matter—we all know who did it.”
Alistair nodded. “I guess we do at that.”
Turner called Sam early the next morning with orders for the hexworks to continue to put out as many counterhexes to the look-away as possible, but also have the remaining hexmen and women focus on hexes for pain, keeping wounds free from infection and guns from jamming, and all the other things Sullivan would need to go to war.
Alistair had been uneasy when he came home in the early hours, smelling faintly of smoke. He hadn’t said much, other than the florist shop was a complete loss, along with anything in it, but Sam could imagine his concern.
The Pride was in Sullivan’s territory, was beholden to him for liquor once their current supply ran out. All of them turned into big cats—dangerous fighters—and Sullivan wasn’t likely to just let them stay on the sidelines.
Things were spiraling out of control, events moving faster and faster, and he didn’t know how to apply the brakes.
He passed Sullivan’s orders along when he arrived at the hexworks, then went to the lab and found Glenda already there. She barely looked up when he entered, just said, “I heard about the bombing last night. It was too late to make the morning papers, but everyone’s talking about it.”
It was only the two of them in the lab now. He hadn’t come any closer to picking a replacement for Luke last night. With the hexworks supporting Sullivan’s war with Fabiano, it wouldn’t make sense to pull someone away from their current assignment anyway.
“Then you know why we’re switching focus for today.” He opened the cabinet containing the inks and the raw materials for making more. “We’re going to be copying the look-away hexes, since they’re the most complicated and easiest to mess up. That will take some pressure off the scriptoriums.”
“The hex Luke used.” Glenda stared unseeing at the supplies he put in front of her.
“Yeah.” Sam sat down heavily. “Let’s just…just try to get some copying done. I’ll charge them so they’re ready to go.”
Ordinarily, Sam found it easy to get lost in such work, transcribing every elegant line, feeling the rightness of the shape as the hex took form, going from ink and paper to a container for magic. Today, his thoughts wandered, and he had to throw away three hexes that he didn’t get quite right. Glenda was no more focused than he, also making unaccustomed errors, but by the end of the day they had a neat pile of charged hexes.
As Glenda left for the day, Sam handed over the hexes to Paladino. He dithered between gathering his coat and hat and going home to rest his hands, or staying to get more hexes finished.
A knock on the door made him jump. One of the guards stood there, accompanied by Doc.
Doc’s expression was bright with excitement as he hurried inside. “I think I found the answer in one of the papyri!” he exclaimed, carefully setting a briefcase on the table, nudging aside some of the inks to do so. “I got permission to remove it from where the rest of the tomb’s items are being held, because I want to match some symbols to the Aten Disc, but I’m certain I’m right.”
Sam wished he could share Doc’s enthusiasm. “I’m sorry, I should have had someone get in touch with you and saved you the trip. Right now, we’re focused on, um, other things.”
Doc shook his head. “This won’t take long.” He glanced up and met Sam’s eyes, his gaze challenging. “Don’t you want to know?”
Sam wavered. He did want to know, the thrill of discovery whispering through the fog that had enveloped him since Luke’s betrayal.
If it wouldn’t take long… “Okay,” he said, and waved away the guard at the door. “Let me get the disc and box, and you can tell me what you’ve found.”
When he returned to the main room, Doc had opened the briefcase to reveal a fragile-looking sheet of papyrus paper, covered in hieroglyphs and symbols. “Before and after the Amarna Period,” Doc said as he peered at the box first, “the Egyptians had a fairly consistent idea of what the afterlife would be like. The souls of the dead traveled to Duat—the underworld. There was a whole journey, outlined in The Book of the Dead, which included various perils during which the gods would aid the sojourner. Eventually, the soul was brought before Osiris, the lord of death and rebirth. Virtuous souls would get their just reward, while the evil would be punished. Are you following me so far?”
“It seems straightforward enough,” Sam said.
“I’m about to make it more complicated. The Egyptians believed the soul was made up of multiple parts: the shadow, the intellect, the personality, the vital essence, and so on. The personality, or ba, would use its tomb to travel back and forth between the land of the living and the dead. Now, even after death, it was thought the soul could starve, so offerings were left at the tomb, usually by relatives, to sustain the deceased.” He retrieved a magnifying glass and squinted at one of the images on the inside lid of the disc’s box. “Of course, pharaohs had entire mortuary complexes dedicated to keeping themselves fed and happy after death.”
“People couldn’t possibly feed all their dead ancestors, could they?” Sam asked, trying to imagine the scale that would reach after four or five generations.
“No, as time passed, even the tombs of the wealthy fell into disrepair and were covered over by sand. I imagine the process was much quicker for common folk.” Doc glanced up at him. “Now, what do you remember me saying about Akhenaten?”
He felt like he was back in school, being called on by the teacher. At least he knew the answer this time. “He got rid of all the other gods, except for Aten. And made himself the focus of religion, as he and his family were the sole conduit between Aten and everyone else.”
“Exactly.” Doc smiled, though since he was looking at the disc now, Sam wasn’t sure if it was directed at him or the symbols. “There’s no more Osiris. No more Duat, even. There is only this world, ruled over by Aten, and hence by the pharaoh. So what happens to the dead now?”
“I…don’t know?”
Doc straightened. “Akhenaten proclaimed the souls of the dead must leave their tomb and journey to the temple of Aten in Amarna, to partake of offerings every sunrise, while he conducted the morning rituals along with his family. The gods no longer judged the dead—he did, and if he felt any were insufficiently loyal to him, they would be forbidden from partaking of the offerings at the temple. They’d starve alone in their tombs.”
