Catacombs (The Sekhmet Bounty Series Book 2) (8 page)

“It just seems a little dramatic. I doubt anyone is trying to kill you specifically,” she said. “Now are we just going to stare at this wall for hours, or can we go through the other door?”

“It’s not a wall,” I mumbled. Then it hit me as I took my first bite. I didn’t have to wait to find the lever. I had the master key. I reopened my pack, dug out the dead man’s hand, and pressed it to the wall. Immediately there was a click and the stone slid back. “As I said,
everything’s an illusion
.”

Frost caught my arm with her gloved hand. “Wait, if all the person who placed this bounty wants is for Shezmu to be contained, why are we going in at all? He’s already trapped. Let’s destroy the entrance, then it’s over. They can cast whatever spells they want. If no one can get through, he can’t kill them.”

“And the person behind this gets away with it?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t say it was a perfect plan, but surely we can find who’s responsible through magic. The coven could definitely help. Problem solved. No need to fight underworld deities and probably get killed. I did my research; gods can’t be killed in this world.”

“Well, only if he’s technically a god. There’s some debate. He may be a demon, and if that’s the case, I’ve got it covered.”

“My way is so much easier.”

That was true, but I had a feeling even if we wanted to leave, we had come too far to go back. The labyrinth wouldn’t release us until we beat it or died trying. “The last thing we need is to involve more people in this. We’re already here. Let’s just find Shezmu and take care of him. He doesn’t only kill people. He also likes to drink and make lotions. He loves lotions. I guarantee I can get him to talk and then we’ll know the traitor, no magic necessary. After that, I don’t care if you want to blow the place up or brick in the doors, I’ll gladly help.” Nothing about this case was simple. The solution wouldn’t be either.

“Fine, but if I go with you, I want you to tell me everything you know about this case and who you think is behind it. I’m not asking for a pound of flesh. I just want to know what I’m involved in.”

She had probably earned at least that, if for no other reason than professional respect. After all, she did come back. She had proven she was just as Sy advertised: invaluable. Also, I trusted him. He wouldn’t have sent me with a spy, not by choice, and she didn’t act like someone working for the council—overly helpful. But she also wasn’t cut out to go up against the council or my mother. Yes, the necromancer packed a punch, but she was still very, very mortal.

“I have two suspects.” I took a step away from the door and the stone rolled back in front of it. “It’s either the council or my mother who’s behind what’s happening. I came here thinking it was the council because they blackmailed me into coming and the last mission they sent me on—well, let’s just say they don’t have a high regard for life, especially mine. But now that I’m here, it’s too familiar. A lot of what I’m seeing, I recognize. My mother could have more than a little something to do with it, but I don’t know why she would go through the effort or why I keep seeing her. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

An emotion I didn’t quite recognize crossed her face. Was it sympathy? She looked legitimately sorry. “You think your own mother would try to kill you?”

I was caught somewhere between glaring at her and rolling my eyes. I had made peace with my past—or I had moved on, at least, which was basically the same thing. “I told you, we don’t get along. She’s a warrior and I’m a traitor to my people. I left them. I’m sure she doesn’t have a hard time reconciling her decision.”

Frost looked down. “I didn’t know…”

I shrugged. “No big deal. As I said earlier, there’s always a reason we get into this profession. It only makes us better at our jobs. Besides, Olivia, Holden, and Sy are more my family than my mother ever was. They have never tried to change me.”

Frost chewed her bottom lip, obviously fighting some sort of internal battle that we didn’t have time for. “Just ask,” I said.

She crossed her arms. “Do you think she’s evil?”

Life was never that simple. And neither was my mother. It really depended on whom you asked. She was polarizing. There were those who hated her and those who thought the world revolved around her. “She very much believes what she says, and it has kept her and our people alive and prosperous for centuries, but there is no room in her life for dissent. She doesn’t want to hear that she has bastardized our reason for being to the highest bidder. That instead of being on the battlefield where we belong, we sit back and wait, only siding when the offer is high enough. I’ve always thought the Sekhmets should be involved in the world because we live here too. She doesn’t agree. Everything is about prolonging our lives—even if it diminishes the quality of living. Does that make her evil? Probably not. Does she have empathy? Probably not.”

“But you really think she could do something like this? Kill fifteen people just to get you into a maze?”

“I couldn’t begin to decipher the inner workings of her mind.” I frowned. “I mean, I hope it isn’t her, more for her soul than my peace of mind. I cut ties with her and I haven’t looked back. It was probably the best decision I ever made in my life. I just know that something like this wouldn’t be a leap for her. She doesn’t care about humans or any beings other than the Sekhmets. If she thought this was a necessary step for our people, she could definitely do it. However, I haven’t figured out what it would gain her. Or why she wants me.”

Frost gave me a side-eye glance. “But you still want to go in?”

“Definitely. I’m not going to let her win. I’ll beat her at her own game.”

She shook her head and paced a couple steps. “If your mother is behind this and got this so-called council to send you here, she’s either using you or trying to kill you. Doesn’t that bother you?”

I laughed, but didn’t feel much humor. “It really burned her ass that I left. It was only a matter of time before she came after me. Through my sister, she has been using guilt to try to manipulate me, but since that didn’t work, maybe this was just the next step in her plan.”

Frost walked around the colonnade, carefully avoiding the flowers. “You’re lucky. You got to choose to leave rather than being left. Now tell me about this council. What are they the council of?”

I sighed. This was where it all got tricky. “Telling you will endanger your life.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you said. My life and the lives of my coven. We can take care of ourselves, or we can if we know where the enemy is coming from, anyway. I want to know.”

I nodded. That would have been my reaction too, and I nodded. I just needed what she was choosing to be clear. I watched her walk around the room, still keeping a wide distance from the flowers. “Fine. But do something for me first.”

She blinked. “What?”

I looked at the pretty plant. It looked like any other plant to me. “Try killing it,” I said.

She sighed. “I don’t want to go anywhere near that thing. I have a bad feeling about it.”

“It’s plant. Just try. I want to see if they die or if they’re an illusion too.”

“If I do it, will you stop stalling?”

“Sure.” I didn’t know what I expected to happen, but there was a nagging feeling that I should at least check.

Frost pulled off her glove and took hold of one of the branches. First the petals fell from the flowers, then the leaves curled and dried until they broke off. As death traveled to the roots, the entire room flickered and faded a little. Instead of a pristine white marble column next to the plant, there was a precarious pile of stones from floor to ceiling. I counted the number of bushes in the room and studied their placement. “It’s all an illusion. The columns, the room, all of it. None of it is actually here.”

She let go of the plant and slipped her glove back on, nodding. As soon as she did, everything went back to how it had been. So the plant could regenerate. Huh.

“Could be,” she said. “What about the ones by the door?”

I smiled. “When we looked in here, we each saw something different on the other side. I imagine they fuel the visions that lure people in, though the subject of mine is still baffling.”

“Maybe we should pull them up? Just to make sure no one else comes in.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Just those two, though. Can I have a piece of your shirt?” I said.

Frost shrugged and tore a chunk off one of her layers, tossed it to me, then headed back to the entrance.

I went to the bush across from the colonnade. Holding my breath, I used my knife to cut off a couple limbs of the plant, then carefully wrapped the pieces in Frost’s shirt and tucked them into my backpack.

I ate three protein bars before Frost came back with the two entrance plants shriveled into clumps in her hands. “Okay, now I’m listening. Tell me about the council.” She tossed the bushes off to the side.

“A while back, I discovered the Abyss isn’t exactly as it seems. Did you ever meet Baker? He was a shifter.”

She nodded. Of course she had. Baker knew absolutely everyone. “I didn’t know him well or anything, but I saw him around.”

“Okay, that doesn’t matter.” Starting at the beginning really wasn’t necessary and we didn’t have time. I didn’t want to be down here forever. “Really, it doesn’t matter how I came to know what I know. Here are the highlights. There’s a group of self-appointed, super-powerful people who actually rule the Abyss. They aren’t widely known, but they covertly manipulate all of us. They are the ones who made the veil between the worlds. They are immortal and scary as hell, but they don’t have the right to make the sort of decisions they make. Like, not that long ago they were worried that the balance had been disrupted in the Abyss. Basically they wanted to hit reset and completely divide us from the human world. Never mind the fact that doing so would abandon God-knows-how-many supernaturals here, as well as potentially eliminate at least half of our population. They couldn’t have cared less…anything to them is justifiable for the sake of what they feel is
balance
.”

She stared at me like I had lost my mind. It was a lot to take in, especially when you hadn’t lived it. But I wasn’t on drugs and it wasn’t a conspiracy theory. It was actually happening. Frost’s reaction only proved that I needed a lot more evidence before anyone would believe me.

“The problem is everyone is like you. No one knows they exist—or believes in them—so they can’t be stopped. But that’s neither here nor there, because that particular crisis was averted, and now Holden in on the council. If they start talking like that again, at least he can warn us. But that’s where wanting to kill me comes in. They know I know about them, so last month they sent me on a case down in New Orleans. It was supposed to be open and closed, but nothing was as it seemed—just like here. I believe they were doing two things sending me there. They were testing my abilities and they were manipulating the vampires. I barely made it out of that one alive and not cursed. Now they’ve sent me to deal with this shit show—a feat they only managed by threatening my family—and I just so happen to keep seeing visions of my mother, which is weird.” I crossed my arms. “Obviously, I’m not just here to deal with Shezmu. That’s not the way they work. We just have to figure out what they truly want and what they would do with it before they get their hands on whatever it is.”

She pursed her mouth as she huffed out a breath. “Let’s say I believe you, which I’m not sure I do. Do you have any idea how much this sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory? But suspending disbelief for a moment—if they’re that powerful, why send you at all? They could just come here themselves.”

I nodded. “I’ve thought about that. The dragon sent me. I don’t think she can enter the labyrinth without getting trapped in it, like Shezmu or any other monster. Also, a labyrinth isn’t just about strength. My people are trained from childhood on to beat them. I’m a natural choice.”

“But if that’s the case, then this dragon isn’t the one who made the labyrinth. How did Shezmu get trapped inside? How did an entrance to it end up here, and who is leading people to it?”

“Right. That’s where my mother comes in. Shezmu killed my father. Not that my mother loved him or anything quite so weak, but maybe she finally decided to do something about it. Or maybe she trapped him right after he killed my father. I have spent my whole life waiting for Shezmu to pop up again, yet this is the first I’ve heard about him since that day. Which is why everything is so familiar and she is around every corner. This is her creation, which means that as dangerous as I thought it was going to be, it’s so much worse now.” I shook my head. “None of it matters. All that matters is why the council suddenly cares.”

Frost crossed her arms. “Do you think they want him freed and that’s why they’re involved? You know, the balance thing.”

That was possible. Hell, it was probably more than possible. “I was thinking they wanted him out of the way so they could get to the underworld, but with the labyrinth that’s unlikely. Because if I kill him or free him, the labyrinth will vanish. At least, I assume it will, because it was made for him.”

“What’s your plan, then?”

“Ideally, we leave him inside and disrupt the maze as little as possible. But we have to talk to him. We have to figure out what they want. The answers to those questions aren’t out here. They’re inside with him, and we have to find them. After that, we’ll destroy any access points to keep this particular problem from coming back.”

She nodded. “Won’t that anger the council?”

“I don’t care. It’s the right thing to do. Once the location is secured, we’ll deal with whoever was behind this to begin with.”

“Why haven’t you told people? Why keep this secret? You’re playing their game.”

“Right now, I don’t have a choice. I don’t have proof.”