Rocks crunched underfoot as I stayed the course. I’d never been good at judging distances, but I had to be at least ten minutes away. Maybe twenty. I had no way of knowing if my perspective was skewed until I got close enough to the house to understand its scale. At least the walk would give me a few minutes to think. Though about what, I wasn’t sure.
I ran through everything I knew about the man.
Apep, the great serpent, was solely responsible for the end of the world.
He had no wife, no consort, no people.
He was the only god who had no temples that praised him, but many temples specifically dedicated to cursing him, to praying against him, to keeping him down.
I could work with that.
If the antichrist and the sun-swallower worked together, there was no telling what we could achieve. Recruiting him would be an undeniable win for our side as we toppled power structures and upended the pantheons. But if I couldn’t win him over…could he end the world on his own? Would everything I’d done have been for nothing?
I pulled myself out of the despair spiral to focus on what we had in common. After all, I ran on a platform of unfair subjection. And if our intel was right, he had Ella. He had Kirby.
And I had little more than audacity and a fragile dream.
I’d scarcely made it two minutes into my walk before a moving column of dust billowed from somewhere near the house. It expanded, scattering to the sky as its source moved. It grew closer and closer until the reflection of sunlight on glass and metal helped me understand what I was seeing. The sounds of rubber, rocks, and an engine’s purr hit me next. I jumped to the side of the road as a vehicle whipped around the corner, kicking up stones and creating a brown, powdery haze.
All hope of preparing a speech evaporated.
The Range Rover speeding toward me would have cost a pretty penny before the bells and whistles, but I knew an armored vehicle when I saw one. This baby was ready to drive into a war zone. I’d expected Apep to be stacked against the gods, but there was something particularly ominous about human-proofing his belongings. It was as if he looked at the world of gods and men and said,I don’t care who you are, or what you wield. You have no power here.
The vehicle slowed and came to a stop fifty feet away. Two men exited and remained poised by the car. Between their black suits and sunglasses, they looked almost comically villainous. The urge to laugh at the absurdity of everything gnawed at me, taking the sting out of the fact that I was almost definitely going to die.
I lifted my hands and flattened my palms to show I meant no harm.
“State your business,” said the driver, acting every bit as a video game character trapped in his guardian loop.
“I…” I swallowed. What could I tell them that might gain me admission? Did I lead with being the Prince’s human? Did I feign ignorance over Ella and Kirby?
Threats wouldn’t work. Bribes and good graces had no place here.
But everyone wanted something.
“I think,” I began at long last, “your master and I have a common interest. He’s going to want to hear what I have to say.”
I hadn’t realized they were armed until the men exchanged glances. It was only through the subtle motion of rotating toward one another that I caught the holster of a gun in the sun’s glare. A new cloud moved in, chilling me once more as I waited.
“State your business,” the driver repeated. This time, there was venom in his words.
“I seek an audience with Apep,” I said, leading with Maribelle’s self-assuredness. “He’s always made his wants perfectly clear. He’s set to overthrow those in power and reign for a new, golden age. What if I told you I was here to help him achieve those goals?”
It was the passenger this time who said, “You stand against Ra?”
“I stand against everyone,” I said coolly. “I’m aiming for much bigger fish. The biggest.”
A victory bloomed within me the moment I knew mywords had landed. Even at fifty feet away, I saw the microscopic relaxation of their shoulders, the tilt of their heads, their openness.
Bingo.
“How could you offer anything of significance?” asked the driver. He left two words unspoken:You’re human.
“Because,” I said, voice dropping just enough to force them to listen. “I’m the antichrist.”
***
January 29, age 22
