“Why do I get the blame for this?” Osiris asked helplessly.
“Because you're always doing something,” Bastet said.
“Well, this has nothing to do with me,” Osiris defended and pointed to his wives and Neith. “It has to do with you three.”
“Us?” they said simultaneously.
“Yes. From what I've gathered, the malicious soul is Star.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Anubis said. “Star isn't dead.”
“Well, not your current Star, but the previous Star of this world died long ago and has been trying to return to this world. It seems when you three sent Star back to his past in this world, you also manipulated the minds of his friends, didn’t you? You made this world forget about the things the previous Star did. You made them forget his cruelty and what he did to them. Granted, nothing can be done now, but the malicious Star found an opening and slipped through the cracks of that timeline. You three meddled where you shouldn’t have. You were supposed to make his parents reincarnate, not make a deal with them. The Fates had already designed it so that a new Star would have been born in this world, and Anpu would have met him later in life. But your impatience changed it all.”
Anubis listened to what his father had to say. He could tell he was restraining his anger at the women's actions. But Osiris also made Anubis wonder if his own manipulation also played a role in the spirit entering the realm of the living. In his need to be recognized by people he shouldn't care about, Anubis made an error in judgment and possibly aided in the spirit in slipping through the cracks of time.
“You three really messed up this time, and for the past few months, I've been trying to clean up your mess by tracking it down, but it kept evading me,” Osiris said. “Before it left the underworld, it possessed demons and ate the souls of others to gather enough strength to come back unnoticed. Once it reached this realm, it kept leaping from one body to another, eating their souls. Hiding its presence until it found Star.”
“My Neith has nothing to do with this,” Set added.
“Set, when will you stop thinking your wife can do no wrong?” Osiris snapped. “I love Isis and Bastet to the ends of the world, but I know they get up to mischief, and in their desire to help Anpu find a mate, things went wrong. Why don’t you go back to wherever the hell you were and leave this to me and my mates!”
“I would love to,” Set sneered “It's always your damn son that causes fucking issues in my life.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Osiris roared. “When are you going to get over the fact that Nephthys seduced me? I wanted nothing to do with–”
“That’s always your damn excuse,” Set shouted back. “But–”
“Set, stop it,” Neith yelled. “Osiris is right, you need to get the fuck over what happened. You’ve been blaming Inpu for what reason? It happened in the past, and if you keep holding onto your grudge, I will have to wonder if you love me or if you’re waiting for them to come back to you.”
“Neith,” Set went to hug her, but she stepped away from him and looked at Osiris.
“We must have messed up somewhere,” Neith said. “Osiris, what can we do to fix it?”
“How could the spirit have possessed Star without me noticing?” Anubis said, trying to figure out how he completely missed the signs.
“I have a theory that they used an amulet,” Osiris answered. “Has he been wearing anything you never gave him, or was something brought into the house without you realizing it?”
Anubis was about to shake his head no, when he recalled a few weeks ago, Star had received a box that he'd opened but never pulled out the contents. Teleporting back to the penthouse, he rushed to the door where the package had sat for weeks; he sighed when he saw it. Grabbing it, Anubis ripped the thing open, and a figurine fell to the floor, breaking at the head. Anubis bent down and picked up the head, looking at the thing that didn’t seem like anything special. But the symbols marked inside the broken pieces were all the evidence he needed to know how the spirit could possess Star without him or anyone realizing it.
Fuck, I've been so damn careless.Anubis was so angry with himself for not recognizing that something was off with his lover that he crushed the figurine in his hand. He teleported back to Azazel and Uriel's home.
“He was sent a gift,” Anubis told the group. “It was a small angel statue with runes etched inside. The box had been partially opened, but from all accounts, all Star had to do was touch the figurine, giving the spirit an opening to enter his body.”
“Fuck,” Chase cursed.
“Was he acting weird or annoyed easily?” Uriel asked.
Anubis sighed. “Funny you should ask that. I noticed he was acting a bit irritable. I even joked that he was pregnant.”
“Wait,” Chase said, getting their attention. “I thought he was annoyed from getting all those phone calls from someone with an unknown number. I was with him once, and he ignored the call, but there were times before when he didn't think I was paying attention, and the calls came in, but he didn't pick up. I think that's why he changed his number.”
He was getting phone calls. How is it they never happened when I was around?
“Your mate has a terrible habit of holding on to things when it's bothering him, Anpu,” Osiris said. “Try to correct that in the future.”
Anubis had a hunch why Star would keep his problems to himself, but Osiris was right. His mate had to learn to tell him when he was being bothered. They were a team.
“So where does that leave us?” Thor asked.
