Catacombs (The Sekhmet Bounty Series Book 2) (6 page)

The last thing Frost needed was my sympathy, though. She had made it this far in life, so obviously she knew how to deal with it on her own. “Bounty hunters.” I waved off her words like I didn’t feel her pain. “We all have a sob story.”

“Even you?”

“Oh, especially me. My father died when I was young and my mother never particularly liked me. I was quite the black sheep of my family and in society at large. I am quite the disappointment to my people. They never could see my innate awesomeness.”

“Sounds cush to me. But I guess it makes sense why we both became bounty hunters. We were looking for a place to belong.”

I shrugged. “I was looking for freedom to be whoever I wanted to be. I don’t know that I ever thought much about belonging.” I thought back to the day I left. I packed a small bag and left everything else behind. I learned so much those first few years. I had never used money or seen anyone besides other Sekhmets. The nervous anticipation only quickened my steps out the door. No one came out to say goodbye. At most they watched through the windows as I broke every rule we hand. “When I left home, they told me in no uncertain terms I wasn’t welcome back. More than that, no one tried to stop me or even cared that I was leaving. If anything, they were probably relieved to see me go. At least, most of them were. My sister is the only one who seems to believe I should come back, but—”

“But what?”

“But she doesn’t run the house or the kingdom. My mother does, and it’s been a long time since she has considered me her daughter or welcome in either place. It’s fine, though. I found more than I could have hoped for beyond our borders. I don’t want to go back.”

“But you could make up with her. There’s still time. My mother is just gone. I killed her. My father is dead too. I mean, to a degree you are choosing your exile. You are choosing not to see them. Don’t you think you might regret that someday?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Probably not.”

Frost took a deep breath. “I still think the shitty childhood award goes to me. Your plight is a feeble effort at the title.” She managed to keep the censure I knew was there out of her voice.

I laughed. “Too true. You win.”

We walked a bit further in a more comfortable silence than before. It was true that all bounty hunters had something in their past that led them to doing what we did. It wasn’t an easy job and it certainly wasn’t a position that earned you a lot of friends. We were the closest thing the Abyss had to law enforcement, but for a group of people used to being on the outside, it wasn’t much of an adjustment. I was one of the lucky ones. I had friends. I had a family, estranged or not.

“Why won’t you tell me who’s doing this?” Frost broke the silence again. “Why is it a secret? It’s not just that you don’t know me. It isn’t like I haven’t seen you around, and let’s face it, you aren’t exactly known for secret keeping. As far as I can tell, you say pretty much anything that’s on your mind. Is this professional competition or do you not trust that I’m on whatever side you’re on? Just so you know, I don’t have a stake in this game other than stopping people from dying. That’s the only reason I am here. I’m not trying to take your case and I certainly don’t know who put up this bounty.”

I drew a deep breath. I could sympathize with her questions. Years and years of Sy not telling me who he worked for became the mystery I had to solve. It ate away at me until I couldn’t stand not knowing the truth. However, solving that mystery had landed me here. Sometimes the things we want most aren’t the things we should have, but it is a lesson that can only be learned when it is already too late. “Neither. I’m not telling you because you don’t want to know. I know that’s the worst thing to say to a hunter. It would have irked me and I would have stopped at nothing to find out what it was—in fact, it did—but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s the truth. It will fuck up your life and the put the lives of everyone you know at risk, especially your coven. If we can make it through this mission without you finding out, it will be a miracle. But for right now, let’s just leave it as a need-to-know.”

The council already had their eye on the coven because of Sy’s cousin Selene. Frost knowing about them might make them decide the human troublemakers were just that, and eliminate them once and for all. It was a worst-case scenario, but it was also uncomfortably believable. The council obviously didn’t value human life. If they sent fifteen innocent humans to be slaughtered by Shezmu, then what would they do to a coven of troublemaking witches? As I said, Frost didn’t need to know.

“And I don’t need to know even though I’m here with you. I mean, I don’t see anyone else jumping up to volunteer to help you. That’s such crap and you know it,” she groused. “I’d rather know what I am dealing with than go in blind.”

“Make another X.”

She drew a big X over a spot of graffiti. “You don’t trust me because I’m a necromancer, just admit it. Do you have any idea how unfair that is? I can’t help what I was born as. It’s not like I want to kill people. I didn’t choose this life and I have done everything I can to protect the people around me from what I am.”

I stifled a sigh. This was why having a partner sucked. Granted, I didn’t care much for the idea of being sent here with a necromancer, but I wasn’t judging her. She wasn’t the first necromancer I had known. We had a few among our priestesses. As general rule of thumb, though, I avoided all clergy. It just wasn’t my scene. “Have you ever wondered how Sy can do the things he does? They aren’t half-elf qualities. Can Selene be in two places at once? Can Selene read your mind? Did you ever think about who Sy works for?” I glanced over at her. “There’s a bigger picture.”

She stared at me, eyes like slits. “I don’t see how that has anything to do with—” Her mouth snapped shut. Blood rose to her pale cheeks as she moved away from me. “Are you accusing Sy of something? Because whatever it is you think he has done, I can tell you without a single doubt that he would never do anything that would hurt someone. Sy is the kindest, best person I have ever met. How dare you? You’re supposed to be his friend.” She looked genuinely pissed off, like at any moment she’d take off her gloves and come at me. “I can’t believe what you are telling me.”

“Relax. I am not disparaging Saint Sy.” Her violent reaction wasn’t overly surprising. Sy had a tendency to save people, and with that came unwavering loyalty even from the most unlikely miscreants. If they didn’t give in to his charm, his personality tended to win them over because everything Frost said about him was true. It was hard to know Sy and not fall at least a little bit in love with him. But the conviction in her voice was definitely more than that of a regular bounty hunter. Frost seemed more than a little bit in love with him. “I am his friend. That’s why I have his back, no matter what stupid thing he gets himself involved in. He’s not infallible.”

Her mouth worked back and forth as she chewed on my words. “If Sy is in trouble, I want to help. Tell me everything.”

I shook my head. “It’s not like that. He believes he knows what he’s doing. I think the people he’s working with are dangerous and not be trusted. But there isn’t an immediate threat, and I don’t even know if he would agree with my assessment.”

“Have you told him what you think?”

“Not yet. I am collecting evidence right now. All I have is my gut, and I trust it. Sy’s character is in no way in question here. I’m always suspicious of people who do things for the greater good because more often than not, that ‘greater good’ turns out to be the best outcome for them, rarely for anyone else. Funny how that works out. But Sy isn’t going to listen to me until I can prove my suspicions. That’s part of what this mission is about for me. I know they are involved.”

“It sounds like you think you’re explaining this, but nothing you’re saying makes sense. Who is ‘they’ and why is Sy working for anyone? He has the bar. What sort of evidence would you find down here?”

As we came around a corner, a bright light glared up ahead. Wordlessly, we stopped and listened. There was light murmuring, like before. “I think we’ve found the voices. Want to meet them or scare them away?” I whispered to Frost.

Frost pulled at the fingers of her left glove. “If the same thing that is forcing us in this direction is guiding them, I don’t know that they have a choice about whether or not to be here. They might not be able to leave, just like we couldn’t go down the wrong hallway. Who knows how long they’ve been stuck? Let’s not scare them. Let’s get them somewhere safe.”

Valid points and a worthy goal, but that said, I didn’t want people behind me that I hadn’t at least vetted in the most basic sense. Human or not, no one was down here without a reason. And while that reason might be innocent, it might not be. If we were going to have a problem, taking care of it now was better than later. Not that I wanted to kill them, but I wanted to know they couldn’t leave where I put them until I let them out.

“Let me go first. If they’re human, they won’t know I’m there, and I can see what they’re up to. A little eavesdropping might be more revealing than hours of conversation.”

“Especially if they were talking to you,” Frost said, shooting me a look.

“And you’re an open book?” I rolled my eyes. “I am who I am. Get over it.”

She shook her head. “How long do you want me to wait?”

“Give me a couple minutes.”

I jogged soundlessly toward the light, which, now that I was closer, appeared to be coming from a small, hollowed-out room or cavern. It sounded like two people were inside, their voices soft and drowsy, but still muffled. Carved into the walls in this section were tall, narrow figures and faded symbols. Something about them reminded me of home. I stepped in front of the jagged hole in the limestone. It opened up into a room I hadn’t seen in years: my mother’s office. The soft white stone walls were inlaid with murals of gold and vibrant colors, all meant to tell a story of those who came before us. Uncomfortable boxlike chairs with pointed backs surrounded the only part of the room that was new to me, a small bed. My mother lay in the bed, her eyes closed. Her arms were practically skeletal and her skin looked papery thin with a sallow hue. Her lips were dried, cracked, and bleeding.

It was just like her to move her bed to her office rather than convalescing in her bedroom. If she couldn’t get to her work, then she’d choose to stay with it. But looking at her lying there like that was eye-opening. I had seen my mother angry, I had seen her on a warpath, I had even caught her smile every now and then, but she was never weak. She had always been a towering pillar of strength, demanding that I obey her and submit to her will. That wasn’t the woman in the bed. The one before me didn’t look like she could walk across the room, let alone rule. Pain was etched on the lines of her regal, stark face.

My stomach twisted. She was dying. Not in war or battle, as we were meant to go, but of age. How was it better to die from age or sickness than it was to go down in a fight? I had lost lives before. It went fast and sometimes painfully, but at least it wasn’t drawn out like this. I never had to watch my own body betray me and start shutting down.

Dendera entered the room. “I called Femi.” She shifted the stack of files she carried to one side so she could take Mother’s hand. “She’ll come. This time she will not ignore my request.”

My mother pulled away, making an airy noise. “She won’t. She made her choice long ago. Stop calling her.”

“She will be here, Mother. She knows her duty. She will come and she will complete the trials. It’s what the goddess desires; even Femi cannot resist that.”

My mother’s black eyes—the only part of her unchanged—met Dendera’s, as cold and unfeeling as ever. “Do you think I don’t know my own daughter? You believe you know better than me what drives your sister? She will not come. She has forsaken the goddess as she has forsaken us. Do not presume to know the goddess’s mind unless you wish to be struck down for your insolence.”

“That’s not—”

“Hold your tongue or cut it off. I do not want your sympathy or hollow words. I am the one with voice of the goddess in my ear. I alone will choose my successor.” Mother turned her stare back toward the ceiling. Were those tears glossing her eyes? “Leave. Even your silence is disruptive.”

Dendera bowed her head and left. Always the perfect daughter, she would never say what she thought. She always did everything Mother told her, no matter how stupid it was. A follower through and through. Mother wouldn’t choose her to rule the Sekhmets. Dendera was too weak. She wouldn’t command the respect the position required. No, Mother would go outside of the family. Knowing her, she probably already had her mind set on someone else who displayed the traits she most valued.

I took a step forward, wanting to defend my sister who had never been able to defend herself. Not that Mother was wrong. I wasn’t going back. Though I had hardly forsaken the goddess. I always liked to think the goddess watched my life with a smile. At least I was interesting. When I left my people, it was a permanent exile. Mother was the one who told me that if I left, I could never come back. It was a threat that backfired on her. I was more than happy to not return, so I accepted her terms gleefully.

Only Dendera didn’t seem to believe that I wasn’t going to come home. She seemed to think if she found the right words or the right button to push, I’d come back. Why my mother didn’t explain the terms of my exile to her was beyond me. Maybe she didn’t want to look like the bad person. She was happy to allow me to take the blame. Or maybe her plan was to let me keep disappointing my sister until I lost her too.

“What’s in there?” Frost whispered behind me.

I shook my head. Of all the places this passage could lead, it wasn’t to my mother’s office. It had to be an illusion. Moving a step back, I let her see. She gasped, and her lips whitened as she watched whatever she was seeing, which sure as hell wasn’t my mother, given her reaction. Just like with the invisible hands that touched us, this room was enchanted to affect us each deeply and personally. We were obviously where the web’s master wanted us to be. Primed for manipulation.

“Sy,” she muttered, bracing her hand against the wall.

My ears perked up and for a moment I wished I could see what she was seeing. She got Sy and I got my mother. The world really wasn’t fair.

“What is this?” She tore her eyes away from whatever she envisioned. “It’s not real…it can’t be. I’d never… This wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. What’s doing this?”

Why would she see Sy? And what had she done to him in her vision? I eyed the tiny person before me. She might be able to kill me with a touch, but I could still take her. I just had to be faster, and if she was a threat to Sy, I
would
be faster.

I shook off the thought. It wasn’t real either. This place got beneath your skin and corrupted every thought and feeling. Frost and I didn’t have any reason to fight. I didn’t have or want any claim on Sy. “I don’t know if it’s showing anything real. What I saw wouldn’t surprise me if it was real, but who knows. It’s designed to get an emotional response, to provoke us into entering that hole.”

She nodded. “How much do you want to bet we can’t go any further that way?” She nodded toward the darkness. “So do we go in or go back? Should we break the spell now? I can try.”

I nodded. “Now would be good.” While she moved away to restart drawing her circle with the chalk, I stared into the room and watched my mother. Part of me knew it wasn’t real. Frost was right; it couldn’t be. But it seemed like it was. Nothing was happening in this scene that was out of character. I was simply watching her slowly die. Just like Dendera wanted me to do. I wished Olivia was here. I didn’t know how to feel about any of this, and she was good at picking out the truth even from the most complicated lies. And my brain was filled with years and years of the stories that I told myself and others every day. It was getting hard to remember what the truth was.

Mother’s head slowly turned in my direction, and her eyes seemed to stare directly into me.

“You won’t return,” she whispered, though I could hear her clearly. “But you cannot escape your destiny, no matter how far you run.”

“I’ll return when you ask me to come home,” I whispered back.

“What?” Frost said behind me, but I ignored her.

My mother’s chin rose slightly, then lowered. Was that a nod or a coincidence? Could she hear me? “The trials have already begun. You cannot escape.”

What trials?

“What are you seeing?” Frost asked.

I looked away from my mother. “What was that?”

“You’re standing there talking to yourself. What do you see?”

“My mother. She’s sick.” While walking right into a trap was annoyingly stupid, I didn’t see a lot of other options. We had to get in there. Standing out here thinking wasn’t going to get us anywhere. “How long do you think it will take to break the spell?”

Frost shook her head. “It depends whether or not I’m strong enough. If I am, it’ll be a matter of minutes.”

If we had to bring the entire coven, it could take days that we didn’t have. And going back wasn’t going to get us where we needed to be. No matter what happened with the spell, I was going through this door. It was where I was led, where I was meant to be. More importantly, it was where Shezmu and, hopefully, the evidence I needed against the council were.

“Okay, stand back.” She sat a slender notebook with spells to the side then rolled her shoulders, and her back audibly popped before she stepped into her circle and closed the last lines with her chalk. She went through a lot of mumbo jumbo, lighting candles and holding her arms up toward the sky, muttering. No way were a few candles, a chalk drawing, and some words going to break this spell. We were wasting time.

My mind and eyes went back to my mother. She was standing right in front of the door, leaning heavily on her cane, staring over Frost’s head at me. This was a persistent vision.

“Don’t make the same mistakes as your father. You cannot defeat Shezmu. Leave it be.”

I frowned. This was getting entirely too real. I held my tongue. Talking to the illusion only gave it strength, but I couldn’t look away either. Up close her eyes were encased in darkness and sunken. Her hand holding the cane wobbled. Her hair had turned white and was cut down to nearly her scalp.

“If you ever listen to one thing I tell you, do not do this, Femi. I do not want this fight for you.”

That was too bad. Shezmu was my problem now. If she didn’t like it, she should have taken care of him back when he killed my father.

“I don’t think it’s working,” Frost said. “I hate this. There has to be a way to break this spell without getting the coven. For all we know, Shezmu knows exactly where we are. You told me to listen to my instincts. My instincts say this has trap written all over it. We’d be fools to go through that opening.”

On the surface, I agreed with her. When all signs point in one direction, it’s best to go the opposite way. Or better yet, break down a wall and make your own path. But there was something so familiar about all of this. It was right there on the edge of my mind, just out of reach. I was missing something that should have been second nature for me to recognize. But my mind wasn’t putting the pieces together like it should. Why couldn’t I remember that?

I reached out and touched the carved figures on the wall around the opening. Frost pointed her headlamp toward the images when she saw I was touching something, illuminating the intricate designs, such a far cry from the natural stone that had been everywhere else. I closed my eyes, tracing the images and picturing them in my mind. That was it. Jackpot!

I smiled, pulling my hand away. It was just like home because this room was made by a Sekhmet. “What do you see?”

“Carvings of tall people and symbols,” Frost said.

I knew exactly what this was. It had been a long time, but how could I have forgotten? The tunnel was messing with my head in a major way. “See this?” I traced the symbols at my eye level with a clawed fingernail. “It’s like a protection spell. And this.” I pointed lower. “This is to trap monsters inside. It’s a labyrinth.”

“Okay…” Frost said. “So like the Goblin King is waiting inside.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. Does it really matter what we call it? I don’t think we should go inside. If this is where we were led, then something is waiting for us. We don’t even know Shezmu is inside.”

It completely mattered. It changed everything. “Labyrinths were designed to trap malevolent spirits. Sound like someone we were sent to find? You said we needed to figure out what changed. It’s the labyrinth. It shouldn’t be connected to our world or any world. The point is to trap. Someone connected it and is feeding Shezmu humans. I agree they want us to go inside, and we don’t have a choice. If we don’t do it, we can’t find out who or what is behind any of this.”

“But why now? Why us?” she asked. “And how are the bodies getting out here? If he can leave to dispose of a body, why can’t he get out? There are way too many unanswered questions. It doesn’t hurt us to postpone. We know where he is. There is no immediate danger.”

I shook my head. “Tell that to the people who were killed. We don’t know who is doing this or what they want. But I’m sure as hell going to find out. This actually explains a lot. Shezmu isn’t leading us, and he didn’t lead the humans either. The labyrinth would neutralize what little magic he could possibly possess in the outside world. That means it is definitely someone else. Someone who knew about the labyrinth and can’t get through it. That’s why they sent me. I was raised doing these things. I can do it. Also, they said to send Shezmu back to hell or kill him. If we do either, it will destroy the labyrinth.” I took a step toward the opening, still seeing my mother on the other side. Maybe the image was meant to repel and not to tempt.

“If they want it destroyed, why play into their hand? Let’s just figure out how to break it free from this world.” She sighed. “Let’s go back, regroup, and see what we can figure out. What’s the rush?”

I shook my head. “More people won’t help inside. And I can’t involve more people.”

“And you still won’t tell me why?”

“I didn’t want you to come to begin with. I’m fine if you want to stay. I’m going.” There was nothing to like about any of this case, including the fact that Leilah brought up my mother, and then, out of everything that could possibly tempt me into the labyrinth, she was shown to me sick and dying, when my sister had just called saying the same thing. Obviously, the spell was pulling information from my own mind.
Why
still confused me, though. If anything seeing my mother made me not want to go inside. I mean, my sister being in trouble, Charlie or Baker being trapped or hurt, Olivia or Sy needing me…any of those scenarios would have triggered an emotional response that was a million times stronger, but no. It was the first person to disown and reject me. Whatever Frost saw was bad too. I could see it on her face. We were being tempted inside. The labyrinth was doing its job and trying to keep people out. “What do you know about dragons? What can they do?”