gasping youth looked up at her with his all-too-human eyes and chattering lips and rasped, “I’m sorry.”
Asha stroked the thin black hair on his head and rocked him gently as he cried into her arm, soaking her sari with his hot tears. She looked over him to Bastet and Isis, and saw them smiling and crying, shaking and holding each other. After a few moments, Horus sat up enough to drag himself over to his mother and they embraced, and cried all over again.
Searching the faces of her comrades for guidance, Asha stood up and went to sit on a crate. Wren sat beside her, and a moment later Gideon and Taziri joined them, and they all tried not to stare too intrusively at the three immortals weeping on the floor. Jiro frowned, nodded once at Taziri, and left the warehouse. Gradually, the emotion of the moment faded and left the threesome quiet and tired, looking vaguely sick and confused as to what to do next.
Asha cleared her throat and said, “We’re all very sorry for what you’ve had to suffer through, and for your losses. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to save the others.”
“It’s not your fault.” Isis rose to her feet. Her hair was tangled and dirty, and her dress was stained and torn, yet she composed herself with a queenly bearing, folding her hands together in front of her and speaking in a calm yet commanding voice. “You’ve all worked tirelessly to protect this city from us, and to protect us from ourselves. And now, you have done the impossible. You’ve given us back our bodies, and minds, and spirits. I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for us, and for Alexandria.”
Horus stood beside his mother, rising half a head taller than her. He was a lean and athletic youth with a handsome face and bright green eyes set between a sharp nose and a shock of black hair. He nodded and whispered, as though he didn’t quite trust his voice yet, “Yes, thank you all.”
Asha stepped toward them. “Do you know everything that has happened? Do you remember the last few days?”
Isis nodded. “The last few days, and all the days before them. Every day that I was in Lilith’s power remains sharp and bright in my memory. Painfully sharp. The things I did. The people I hurt. The lives I ruined. The feeling of the horns on my head, and the hoofs on my feet.” She winced as she reached up to touch her head and smoothed back her dull black hair.
Horus looked up as though he wanted to speak, but instead he quickly clenched his jaw and looked away. Bastet wrapped her thin arms around his waist, and his mother laid a firm hand on his shoulder.
In her dragon’s ear, Asha heard a whispered exchange between the younger immortals. Bastet spoke softly into her cousin’s chest, saying, “I know you didn’t mean to kill him. I know she made you. I know you would never do that.”
And Horus whispered down into her hair, “I’m not so sure. He was so angry, and I… I was too.”
“Oh, uh, excuse me.” Taziri bent down by her magnetic device and from among the sun-steel needles she held up the golden pendants on their thin chains. “I think these belong to you.”
Isis and Horus took the golden hearts, glanced at them, exchanged them to their rightful owners, and hung them around their necks. Asha squinted.
Does Isis have two hearts on her chain?
The mother moved uncertainly, taking very small and cautious steps as though she didn’t trust her feet to hold her up, and she moved her head with equal deliberation. The son, on the other hand, jerked his head sharply as he looked from person to person, and he used his hands awkwardly, his fingers sometimes reaching out at strange angles or missing their targets by a hair or two as he clung to Bastet or touched his own face.
“How long were you… like that?” Wren asked.
Isis paused. “Over two years. Not long, by our standards, but far longer than anyone should ever have to suffer like that. The others, the ones who weren’t immortal, the ones who died… they suffered as much, or more, even if only for a few days or weeks. And after they lost their freedom and their humanity, they lost their lives as well. I remember their faces. I remember their tears.”
Asha asked, “Is there anything we can do for you now? Is there anything you need?”
The regal woman smiled sadly. “No. Nothing. We are healed. We are whole. The only thing hurting us now is the memory, though that too will fade in time. But thank you.”
“What now?” Horus rasped. He coughed and cleared his throat, and then in a much clearer voice he said, “Grandfather is still down there. And all the others as well. We need to get them out. And we need to deal with Lilith.”
“We will,” Asha said. “Now that we know that Taziri’s device works, we can save them all.”
“I’ll go with you,” Horus said.
“No.” Gideon shook his head. “You and Isis and Bastet should stay here. Lilith went after you before and she might again.”
“But I can fight!” Horus glared and struck his chest. Tears shone in his eyes. “That bitch took me, and my mother, and made me kill Anubis. And I let her! I let it happen!”
“No,” Isis said gently. “You didn’t let it happen any more than I did. Lilith taints her needles with shreds of her own soul, giving her dominion over all her victims. None of this was your fault. The blame is hers, and hers alone.”
“Her soul is in the needles?” Wren squatted down and looked at the pile of needles beside the magnet. “All of them?”
“At least one for each victim,” Isis said. “It gives her control over the person, as well as strengthening her own immortality by sealing herself away in so much sun-steel. Even if you were to destroy her pendant, she would remain immortal until every one of these needles was found and destroyed as well.”
Wren nodded and looked up with a playful grin. “I think we can do that. Well, you two can do it.” She bobbed her head at Taziri and Gideon. She carefully gathered up the needles and carried them over to Gideon, who slid out a portion of his seireiken. Wren dropped the needles onto the burning blade and watched them hiss and vanished. “There. That’s a start.”
“Good.” Asha slung her medicine bag over her shoulder. “Then we should get moving. Omar is waiting for us. And so are all those other poor souls down there with him.”
“Wait.” Isis reached out toward her. “What will you do with Lilith when you find her?”
Asha looked at Bastet, and then at Gideon. “You’ve known her the longest. What do you think?”
“We could imprison her down there, perhaps with a very unpleasant cellmate,” the soldier said. “A few hundred vipers might be a good idea.”
“Prisoners can escape,” Asha said.
“Well, actually, I have something to say about that. About Lilith, I mean,” Wren said. “Omar and I came here to Alexandria to put right all the things he had done, to destroy the Temple of Osiris, and to destroy the seireikens. And he never said it in so many words, but I think he also meant to destroy the pendants. To end immortality, for everyone.”
The room was silent.
Wren bit her lip. “So we might do that. To her, I mean. Not to everyone.”
Asha looked around the room at the stern and thoughtful and angry eyes all around her.
First Priya.
Then Set, Nethys, and Anubis. An entire family.
And all those countless, nameless others.
“No,” Asha said. “No prison. No mortality. She’s too dangerous, and her crimes are too terrible.”
“You mean… kill her?” Gideon asked, his normally smiling eyes now tense and sad.
Asha nodded. “Is that a problem? You’ve killed before. Is it because you knew her before, in Damascus?”
“No. No, it’s nothing personal. In fact, I didn’t know her at all in Damascus,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve never killed a woman before.”
Never? In two thousand years of executing criminals and Osirians? Not one woman?
Asha saw the genuine pain in his eyes, the conflict between his sense of duty and justice, and some deeper sense honor and propriety. She said, “Don’t worry about it right now. Right now, let’s just save as many people as we can.”
