Blackhearted Betrayal (10 page)

Anupu—an old name for Anubis, one often used by Egyptian purists among his Warhound worshippers. I gave a grudging nod. “Fine, have the three of them meet me just outside the temple half an hour before midnight tonight.
Just
those three. The smaller our number, the better our chance to get in, find the proof we need, and get back out undetected.” Fat likelihood of the
undetected
part, but a girl could dream. Otherwise, I would have given up on life long ago.

Though if we
didn’t
make it into and out of Anubis Central undetected tonight, life might very well give up on
me
.

RECRUITING MAC TO THE CAUSE WENT AS
smoothly as expected. I merely had to call him and say Mom and I needed his help for a dangerous mission, and he leaped at the opportunity. That boy had a Fury inferiority complex that wouldn’t quit—not until (I refused to think
if
) we managed to get him inducted into the Sisterhood. Then again, considering that his fifteen-year-old niece would automatically make it into the Sisterhood by virtue of her double-X chromosomes, perhaps the inFuriority made perfect sense …

On the other hand, he didn’t take the need to keep the mission secret from his wife, Elliana, quite so well. “Wait, you’re saying I can’t even
tell
Elle I’m going? She’s going to notice when I don’t come home tonight.”

“Thought you said Ellie”—(oh, how she
hated
that
nickname, which was why I
loved
using it)—“was on some overnight job with Scott. He told me yesterday he had some bodyguard gig for the next few days.” By now, he might even have managed to find out what the hell was
up
with his baby brother.

“Yeah, but normally we text each other when we leave unexpectedly.”

Aw, what conscientious spouses.
Of course, considering their risky employment for the Murphy-run mercenary company, the precaution made sense. Ellie served as Scott’s second-in-command in the Shadowhounds.

“Just tell her you’re helping me out with family business that might take a day or two and you’ll call her tomorrow.”

“I don’t like lying to my wife, Marissa.”

Two could play the annoying sibling game. “It’s not
lying
, Patrick. What I need your help with has
everything
to do with Mom and Nan, so very much
is
family business. I need someone I trust at my back, and it can’t be Scott or Elle.” It took everything I had to use her preferred nickname, but I figured every little bit of persuasion helped.

“Can’t? I figured you didn’t want to involve them because they’re otherwise occupied.”

I checked my watch and impatience flared. Quarter past seven. Not a whole lot of time to rally the troops, show up unannounced on Liana’s doorstep, and make it to Temple Anupu for our midnight rendezvous. On the plus side, being an official demigoddess meant I didn’t have to stop for meals or other pesky mortal concerns. “Look, Mac, this is too complicated to get into on the phone. Can’t you just trust me as your sister and let me explain in person?”

“Well, when you put it that way, it’s not like I can say no without being a complete jerk-off. So yeah.”

“Great. Why don’t you meet me at my MCU office in, say, three hours? I’ll leave word with the front desk to expect you.”

“Fine. See you soon. But be ready to spill it, big sister.”

I clicked
end
on my cell without responding.
Two troops down, one to go.
Mom and Adesina had left the Pantheon for the Palladium a while earlier thanks to their Super Secret Elder Travel Power, while I had commandeered the room where we’d—okay, Adesina had—summoned the Triad in order to make my phone calls. Sahana, unsurprisingly, was still buried liver deep in some unfortunate arcane’s corpse and would meet us at my office. The next discussion, however, was one best done in person since Charlie was weird about answering his cell phone. Go figure. A seven-foot-tall, several-hundred-year-old warrior who didn’t embrace cell phones with the same enthusiasm as my fifteen-year-old niece, who had hers practically grafted to her hand.

My pulse picked up speed as I made my way out of the by-then-quiet Pantheon.
Oh yeah, time to test drive the new superpowers.
Okay, so maybe I had a little teenager of my own lurking inside. It wasn’t every day that one became (even temporarily) immortal. Evening breezes caressed my skin as I slipped out into the Pantheon’s rear courtyard. I’d chosen a backyard retreat for the privacy, knowing my new form might take a little getting used to. In light of the way ingesting ambrosia had kicked my ass earlier,
might
was most likely an understatement. I braced myself and initiated the shift before I could scare myself out of it.

On the plus side, it didn’t hurt like becoming immortal had. Shimmery silver light spread along my body in place of the normal Fury sapphire glow, and breathing became a little harder.
Funny how I no longer need to eat or sleep, but my body still thinks it needs to breathe.
My skin seemed to stretch uncomfortably—no, that wasn’t really right. It felt as if muscles I’d never known existed suddenly roared into use, like magic I’d never touched beat against my outer flesh in an attempt to escape its inadequate confines. Silver light vanished, leaving me to stare down at my arms and body beneath the courtyard’s dim safety lights. I’d expected something different, but what I saw had me gaping. Glittering black serpents with ruby red eyes twined along my arms, tongues flicking furiously and chaotic thoughts bombarding my brain. They
felt
like my Amphisbaena—my magical familiars—and yet, they were different. The simple mental pictures and emotions that made up our usual form of communication seemed more sophisticated. Practically verbal.

And why not?
an amused voice whispered into my brain.
We are very verbal creatures; you are simply too unskilled to hear us usually.

I stared down at my left arm in amazement, certain she had been the one to
speak
. “N—Nike?”

Her tongue flicked out in clear amusement.
Very good, Marissa. You may make a proper Nemesis yet.

Not to be confused with
me, a differently
flavored
mental voice inserted.

“N-nemesis, of course.”

Dizziness had me move my gaze from my arms to the leather uniform clothing my body. It was way darker in color than my usual bloodred vest, pants, and knee-high
boots, a black as deep as my made-over serpents although not as shimmery. Other than the color, though, it seemed the same as ever. I stomped my low-heeled boots experimentally and ran my hands along my upper thighs.
Check and check.
I wondered if anything else about my new form was outwardly different but couldn’t be sure without a mirror.

Nike laughed inside my mind.
If you’re done admiring yourself, Marissa, I believe you have an appointment to keep.

Okay,
that
was definitely going to take some getting used to. I’d always suspected that Elders could communicate with their Amphisbaena on a level we younger sisters couldn’t manage, but I’d never dreamt
this
was possible. Not only could they speak directly into my mind, they apparently could read it without my conscious intent as well.

Nemesis let out a little hiss.
We always could, silly Fury.
You
just didn’t know it.

“Okay, well then, guess we’d better track down Charlie.”

Magic responded to my touch in a seething torrent, inspiring a miniature cyclone that hurled me a hundred feet into the air before I could even blink. “Shit!” I screamed, fighting down panic to beat my wings double time and catch my balance midair.

Gently,
my Amphisbaena admonished in unison.

No shit!
I thought it but kept the words unvocalized. Not that it
really
mattered …

Remember, you are much stronger now.
Nike, who seemed the more—motherly—of the pair; if a magical serpent who was born of the blood of a dying predecessor could be considered motherly.

Stronger, but not correspondingly smarter.
Nemesis, it seemed, played the annoying big sister to Nike’s
mother
. Gee, just what I never wanted …Amusement flooded my mind, and, just like that, communicating with them on a verbal level felt natural—as if we’d always done it this way. I turned my attention to our flight, having to adjust for my greater magic, strength, and speed. The trip to Charlie’s apartment building on the opposite end of the Belly took half the time it normally would have. I suspected I could have shaved the flight time even further had I been actually used to my new abilities. For all I knew, I could have
teleported
there in another eyeblink, but it was too late to find out. My feet touched down roughly on Charlie’s tenth-story balcony, and I sent thankful prayers skyward. This Nemesis thing wasn’t coming quite as easily as I’d hoped.

Wait, you mean there’s a learning curve to becoming immortal, just like there was when you became a Fury? Shocker!

“Okay, the more you talk, the more you sound like me,” I muttered to Nemesis. “And the world only needs
one
of me.”

Amen,
came Nike’s calm response. The
yin
to Nemesis’s
yang
? The two could have been opposing sides of an alternate version of myself, a serpentine alter ego. For all I knew, they actually were.

How do you know
you’re
not
our
alter ego?
Nemesis wanted to know.

“Enough,” I said out loud. “We have work to do!”

Trying to hide my involuntary smile at the mental banter, I leaned forward to knock on Charlie’s sliding glass door. Three loud raps, two soft, four loud, two more soft knocks. The TV, which had been blaring on the other
side of the dark blue curtains obscuring my view, suddenly clicked off. Funny how he couldn’t be bothered with his phone half the time, but he didn’t have the same problem when it came to the boob tube. Not that I could really cast stones, considering I used to ignore my own cell and worshipped at the altar of situational comedy.

I stepped back and waited. Footsteps thumped along the hardwood floor, then the curtain peeled back a few inches. I stuck my tongue out ever so maturely. Several seconds passed, and I started worrying that my face
had
changed as radically as Nemesis and Nike, until the balcony door finally slid open.

Charlie’s dark eyes peered down at me. “Riss?”

“Of course it’s Riss. I used our secret knock, didn’t I?”

He shifted his considerable weight from one foot to the other, clearing his throat several times, almost as if uncertain of himself. A very distinctly un-Charlie-like behavior, to be sure. His eyes widened as they took in my new style. “Holy shit. You went all Nemesis on me.”

Ha. Not a huge surprise he caught on so fast. Giants were nothing close to the slow dimwits human folklore made them out to be, Charlie least of all. The reason he was the top-paid mercenary of his race. The guy had a bachelor’s
and
a master’s degree in engineering “just because,” for gods’ sake.

“You gonna just stare at me all night or invite me in already?” He rubbed a hand over bleary-looking eyes—tiredness could have explained his failure to invite me in sooner—and stepped back so I could slip in past him. “Jeez, Charlie. You look exhausted.”

He led the way through a utilitarian kitchen and into the much cozier living room, decorated in stereotypical bachelor chic although I did catch sight of a few homey
touches—like art on the walls and a couple of vases of flowers—that hadn’t been present the last time I’d visited. Apparently he’d finally decided to do a little nesting. Way past time, since he’d owned this place for several years already.
Hmm, or he could have a new love interest hiding in the bedroom.
That
could explain why he stalled a little before letting me in.
I couldn’t hold back a tiny grin at that thought. Charlie loved love, and his
dry spells
tended to be few and far between.

I settled onto a beat-up but extremely comfy recliner while he plopped down on the fortunately sturdy sofa. “I
am
exhausted. Pulling fourteen-hour shifts for several months will do that to a guy.”

I cleared my throat with a guilty flush. “Ah, yeah, about that. I know you only
just
finished that other gig, but …”

His lips quirked upward. “But you find yourself unable to resist my delectable charms and want to hire me.”

“Um, yeah. Something like that.”

Some of his exhaustion seemed to magically evaporate, and he sat up straighter. “Done.”

“But—wait. You don’t even know what the job is.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ve only had boring-as-hell grunt work since we blew the cover off that illegal cloning factory. Work with you is
never
dull.”

You can say that again,
Nemesis snarked silently. I couldn’t really argue that sentiment. The
illegal cloning factory
referred to the fact my traitorous mentor, Stacia, had founded and manipulated that rogue group of mortal scientists intent on creating genetically-and-magically enhanced supersoldiers (like my brother).
They
had intended to use the resulting army to send all arcanes back to the dying Otherrealms; whereas
Stacia
had
planned to turn on her mortal underlings and conquer earth in the name of arcanekind. In her defense, losing her entire Wing of Furies in the mortal vs. arcane war fifty years ago had driven her batshit insane.