Blackhearted Betrayal (16 page)

Though to be fair, he probably would have made the same choice if another Fury had been the Nemesis putting that
do-or-die
choice in front of him. Probably.

I forced my attention onto my immediate surroundings. Humanity has this image that the Underworld is some vast underground pit filled with perpetual doom and gloom, but that’s not entirely true. Portions of it
do
conform to that stereotype—like the portal room we’d stumbled into after fleeing Temple Anupu. Other areas could have been picked up and plunked down into the mortal realm with none the wiser. Each Death Lord’s territory corresponded for the most part to the flavor of hell envisioned by the early followers of his or her particular mythos.

Which was how we wound up trading the dank underground cavern housing the shattered portal for …another dank underground cavern. Duat, the Egyptian version of the Underworld, consisted of a series of interconnected chambers beneath the earth that wasn’t too far off from what most mortals pictured. Unlike what mundanes tended to imagine, however, Duat’s landscape teemed with geographical features as plentiful as those found on the mortal realm: fields, meadows, rivers, lakes, islands, and mountains, just to name a few. Of course, there were supposedly also fantastical lakes of
fire, walls composed of living iron, and Technicolor trees to save the place from total mundanity. Not that we’d come across any of those yet.

Durra matched her pace to mine at the front of the group. “I didn’t want to gainsay you in front of the others—”
Since when does
she
care about making me look good in front of people?
I guess since we became the only two Furies along for the ride. “But are you sure this is a wise idea?”

Ah, now
there
was the Doubting Durra I was used to. “I’d say more like it’s my
only
idea at the moment. We lost any chance of stealth we might have had, and Anubis is going to send every single one of his dead and undead minions to hunt us down if he hasn’t already.”

“True, but if proving a deity is guilty of a crime were a simple enough matter of invoking the Scales and Feather, why doesn’t the Triad do that every time? Why go to the trouble of involving Nemeses at all or conducting an actual trial?”

I barely managed to hold back an eye roll. “A
simple enough matter
? First of all, the Scales and Feather can only be invoked by one who was actually born a mortal—meaning the only ones who haven’t actually died and can successfully accomplish that are, for the most part, Furies. Second of all, Ma’at will only allow the weighing of hearts to be done for those with either Egyptian blood or true believers of the Egyptian mythos.”

“Then how—”

“I may look as pasty pale as they come, but there
is
Egyptian blood in my heritage. Plus, I’m going to actually invoke the Scales to weigh
Anubis’s
heart, and it doesn’t get much more Egyptian than him.”

She frowned. “But if the Scales only work on those born mortals—”

“I didn’t say they only
worked
on those groups, I said the Scales could only be
invoked by
them. Deities
can
have their hearts balanced against Ma’at’s Feather. Yet another glaring loophole in immortal law, though one that is rarely taken advantage of, which brings me to the other reason your calling this a
simple enough matter
is so laughable. If it really
were
that easy, don’t you think we would hear of its happening more often?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“And yet we haven’t. Because typically the only ones who can
find
the Hall of Two Truths are spirits who have actually died. Those who travel there in living form have to do it the hard way: making it safely through Duat until they reach its heart, where the Hall is reputed to reside. Even
if
we make it through everything Anubis is going to throw at us and find the Hall, we’ll then have to prove we’re worthy to step before Ma’at.”

“Won’t just our—your—being a Nemesis prove your worth?”

I snorted. “If
only
it were that easy. And again, assuming we
do
pass whatever tests she throws at us, she’s going to demand a price in exchange.”

“What sort of price?”

“Not sure, but it will most likely suck and be way worse than we can imagine. Asking Ma’at to weigh a fellow deity’s heart is no small thing to ask.”

“So then—”

A soft rumble was the only warning before the ground gave way beneath our feet, and we went pitching forward at a crazily steep angle. “Stay back!” I shouted for the benefit of those behind us. My body banged against
rock outcropping after outcropping as I tumbled for what seemed several minutes but couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds, at most.

Instinct had me leaping to my feet the moment my uncontrollable descent ended. I summoned Nemesis and Nike into living form and peered into the inky blackness of our new surroundings. The fragrance of lush vegetation hung in the air, and I could just make out the shape of tropical leaves swaying in response to the magical breeze generated from my partial transformation. Goose bumps pricked my flesh as a sense of something
wrong
swept over me. I couldn’t
see
or
hear
danger nearby but, gods, could I
feel
it.

I beat back the urge to call Durra’s name; she was a big girl and would have to take care of herself while I stalked whatever seemed to be stalking us. That had been no innocent fall back there: Earth magic had flared just before we took that unexpected tumble. The wild thought that Charlie might have betrayed us lasted a bare millisecond before I discarded it. No way would he ever do such a thing. I’d sooner believe it of Scott. All right, maybe not the greatest analogy considering my beloved
had
just turned traitor against his personal god …

Not as though he had a choice, all things considered,
Nike pointed out reasonably.

Too true.

Behind you!
Nemesis launched herself away from my body as she mentally screeched that warning. I twisted and saw her coils strike against a solid, man-shaped object—or rather, as evidenced by the voice that proceeded to curse her out, woman-shaped object.

At first I assumed Durra had made the mistake of
sneaking up on us, but then I realized two things. One: The woman currently wrestling with one-half of my Amphisbaena pair had the washed-out look of a
shade
, those souls waiting in the Underworld for their own meeting with Ma’at, after which they’d either be reborn, condemned to suffering in a particularly harsh area of the Underworld, or rewarded by moving on to their specific religion’s idea of heaven. Two: While the woman wore a dingy version of a Fury’s red leather, her serpents were every bit as crimson as my own rather than Durra’s emerald green.

And then the woman succeeded in thrusting Nemesis away from herself, giving me a clear glimpse of her face and inspiring a third, far more shocking realization. This was no random Fury’s shade: It was that of my psycho former mentor, Stacia.

WONDER WHY HER SERPENTS REVERTED TO
Tisiphone red rather than Elder silver?
I rolled my eyes when I realized how ridiculous that random thought was. What difference did
that
make now? Finding myself face-to-face with the bitch who’d betrayed not just me but the entire Sisterhood was wrong on every level. Forget the personal baggage between us that could have filled in the gaping crevice Durra and I had been magically shoved into. How the
hell
had Stacia’s shade popped up here in the territory claimed by Anubis? The souls of deceased Furies went on to a special area by virtue of the fact they swore allegiance to no specific—
Holy shit! Stacia was working for him all along.

Makes sense,
Nike grudgingly agreed.

But—why?

Before either of us could puzzle that out, Stacia sent
me one panicked expression of recognition—as if she were surprised to see me and had been drawn there against her will—and vanished into thin air. I cursed and leaped forward, scooping up Nemesis with one hand. Stacia’s making like Houdini wouldn’t have surprised me had she still been alive, considering the phenomenal cosmic travel powers that came with the Elder schtick. But, as far as I knew, shades trapped in the Underworld didn’t retain their magical abilities once dead …Otherwise,
nothing
would have kept many of them from flitting back to the living world whenever they so desired.

Rustling in underbrush to the left had me crouching in a defensive pose. I squinted, grateful to find that my vision had adjusted to the lack of light, just in time to see Durra creep into the clearing where I had—for several tense seconds—confronted Stacia’s not-so-dearly-departed spirit.

I strode forward so she could see me. “Are you all—”

She frantically waved for me to get down, but it was too late. Several heavily armed shades—all wearing flashy gold armor and jackal-headed helmets—poured into the clearing from two dozen feet away. I realized belatedly that Stacia hadn’t been the one to thrust us into this hasty ambush—earth magic had never been her strength any more than it was mine.

Adrenaline and Rage surged, and so did I. My body hurled several feet into the air and a single wing beat thrust me straight at the nearest Anubian. Arrogant certainty that no mere shade could stand up to a Nemesis was soon proven wrong when he didn’t immediately fall beneath me. Death magic tingled, and the unwritten
truth that shades could not channel magic was ripped to shreds.
This one
surely could.

Unfortunately for him, Death magic did nothing to me but tickle. I let not-quite-sane laughter pass my lips—often good for intimidating the crap out of opponents—shoved aside foolish pride, and gave in to the Rage-fueled battle lust taking me over.

He seemed just as surprised by my immunity to his spell as I had been by his failure to fall to the ground in the face of my Nemesis awesomeness. That element of surprise gave me a slight edge. I danced in around the wicked-looking axe serving as his backup weapon and kicked at the hand wielding the axe. It flew across the clearing, landing upon hard-packed earth with a clang difficult to hear among the sudden shouts and curses ringing out around us. I felt like I’d stumbled into some fractured version of
The Twilight Zone
, one where shades could wield magic as well as the living, fight with as much fiery passion, and give battle-hardened Furies (one a Nemesis) the fight of their lives. Because once the shade recovered from that momentary lapse, that’s exactly what he did.

He blocked the second kick I aimed at his vital parts, then tried to grab my foot while it was midair. I jerked my hands forward and blocked his attempt, planting my foot firmly on the ground and trading blow for blow with him over the next few moments. Sweat stung my eyes by the time I managed to sneak through his guard again and snap his neck with inhuman strength. Thankfully, his oddly solid form wavered, then disappeared, presumably popping back to whatever starting zone newly dead spirits went to in this place. Another bizarre realization
that shades could be killed a second time, but damned good to know.

I whipped my gaze to Durra and saw her surprisingly faring as well as I. She had her own opponent down on the ground and crushed his windpipe beneath her boot as I watched. That shade, too, vanished.

A second shade appeared to take his place, and I noticed something else—each waited to challenge the two of us to single combat, either because it was some Underworld rule I didn’t know about (doubtful) or because it gave them the advantage of being fresh to the fight while progressively wearing us down (more likely). I turned to face yet another shade and fell into a rhythm of dodge, strike, parry, and strike again. The enemy tactic of wearing us down didn’t seem to work as well as they expected: on my part because I had the increased stamina and strength of a demigoddess, and on Durra’s probably because she was just a cursed ornery bitch, not to mention a natural-born killer. A trait I could admire in a battle partner in a way I couldn’t my former attempted assassin.

Nemesis and Nike saved me from my own momentary lapse, launching themselves from my body to attack the shade who had jumped forward to replace my fallen foe. Trusting them to handle her quite nicely without my help, I took the initiative to attack yet another shade waiting in the wings. He let out a rather pathetic yelp and went down more like I’d expected the first guy to drop. The two remaining Anubians abandoned the single-combat idea and came at me in unison, and I just let out another berserker’s laugh. The laugh gave them momentary pause, which I used to my benefit by feigning a lunge toward one, then flapping my wings and
leaping instead upon the other. Either I was getting used to my newfound Nemesis abilities or I’d just surprised him that much, because snapping his neck came ridiculously easy this time.

I whirled to meet the remaining shade’s attack only to find it never came. Instead, Durra had downed her second opponent before turning upon the sole survivor (when Nemesis and Nike snaked their way up to my waist I correctly assumed they had taken theirs out already). The other Fury fought with a fierce intensity that rivaled my own, something that had me frowning.
Is it just me, or does she seem to fight just as well in Fury form as I do in Nemesis form?
Durra moved in for the killing blow, and sudden realization had me dash between my sister Fury and her intended target. She hissed at me as angrily as her Amphisbaena, and I raised my hand in a placating gesture. “We should question her first.” Rage continued seething in her expression until she fought it down and gave a grudging nod.