“We can’t wait,” Gideon said. “We can’t wait at all. We have to get him out of there. We can figure out how to help your family later, but we need to get him out before she does something to him. How long has she had him?”
“Since last night. Half a day,” said Wren.
“Half a day?” Gideon grimaced. “Damn it. She could have done it already. I need to get down there, now!”
“No!” Bastet yelled, planted her palms on his stomach and shoving him back. “No one is going down there, not alone and not without a plan.”
“But!”
“No buts!” she yelled, pushing him again. “This isn’t like the Osirians. We’re not talking about some idiots with robes and swords. We’re talking about Lilith. We’re talking about fighting immortals, monsters, and insane slaves. You’ve never done anything like that before, none of us has! And she hasn’t had any trouble defeating us before. As soon as she took Set, it was already over. After him, how easy was it for her to get Nethys, and Horus, and Isis? And now she has Grandfather too!” She beat her fists on his stomach as the tears burned her eyes. “So you’re not going anywhere near her! I’m not losing you too!”
“Shh, shh.” He knelt down and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here. It’s okay.”
She folded against him and cried, but only a little, only for a moment. She wiped her eyes and smelled the leather of his jacket. “I like your jacket,” she said softly.
He laughed. “Thank you, that means a lot to me.”
After another quick squeeze they separated and sat back down on the wall beside Wren.
Gideon sighed. “Oh, Lilith.”
“Did you know her?” Wren asked.
He nodded. “Bashir made us immortal within a day of each other. It was about two thousand years ago, in Damascus. I was actually assigned to be his guide and bodyguard while he was in the city visiting the prince. We got to be friends, mostly because I kept pulling him out of bar fights.”
“Omar? In bar fights?” Wren smiled a little.
“Well, I don’t know about your Omar, but my Bashir could be a sloppy drunk when he wanted to be, which was most nights, actually,” he said. “He was in a dark place. Having second thoughts, having a lot of regrets. He didn’t explain why, really. He mentioned another immortal in India, but it was all a bit vague.”
“What was Lilith like back then?” Bastet asked. “You never talk about her.”
“No, I don’t.” He paused. “She was a royal courtesan. She slept with the prince, and sang, and painted. I knew her name before we met. She was well regarded as a great beauty as well as a talented artist. Everyone seemed a bit taken with her, though she had a temper and didn’t like to be ignored. She enjoyed having the room’s attention when she walked through the door. She was definitely beautiful, but she never really caught my eye.”
“Why did Omar make her immortal? I thought he only did that when he thought someone was really special, or could really make the world better, somehow,” Wren said.
“Bashir wanted people to help him with his studies,” Gideon said. “He wanted me to experiment with sun- steel, and he asked Nadira to study aether. These were fairly straight-forward sciences, really, they just needed to be explored more. But there was a third part to Bashir’s strange world, which was not so straight-forward, or scientific.”
“Soul-breaking,” Bastet said.
“Omar hasn’t told me much about that,” Wren said. “But he does make it sound more like a craft or an art than a science.”
“And that’s why he picked Lilith to study it for him,” Gideon said. “Because she was an artist. And because he thought she was pretty.”
“That sounds like him,” Wren said.
“The trouble was that Lilith wasn’t like us,” Gideon continued. “Nadira and I cared about our tasks, for a while. We thought it was good and noble work, but eventually time caught up to us. You start to see the world a bit differently when years cycle past as quickly as days. Nadira gave in to the pain of it. She gave up her work, gave up her dedication to the Mazdan Temple, and became a wandering soldier, a living ghost who hunted thieves and murderers, trying to push back the darkness with her own two hands.”
“What about you?” Wren asked.
“I guess I swung the other way.” He grinned sheepishly. “I stopped worrying about the big picture. I figure, let history take care of itself. Of course, I deal with the occasional Osirian, but beyond that, there are just so many things I want to see, and hear, and taste. It’s really an amazing world out there, and I’ve been trying to enjoy every little bit of it. Meeting the people, eating the food, playing with the toys.”
“Toys?” Bastet asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” Gideon said seriously. “You’d be amazed by some of the toys they make for children in some places. Beautiful dolls, hand-carved animals, funny little mechanical things in Marrakesh.”
Bastet put her fists on her hips and pouted. “And why haven’t I ever gotten any of these toys?”
Gideon grinned. “Well, I don’t usually take any with me. I just play with them for a while.”
“Uhm, sorry, but, Lilith?” Wren asked.
“Right, Lilith.” Gideon nodded. “Well, she threw herself into learning everything about soul-breaking, and she never came up for air. Every time I saw her, she was more excited than the last time about some new discovery, some new masterpiece. But it wasn’t until much later that I learned what exactly she was doing. Blending men and women together, blending animals together, blending animals with people.” He shuddered.
“She moved around a lot,” Bastet said. “Mostly around Syria, Babylonia, and Turkiya. But then, a few years ago, she came here. I think it was so she could get more sun-steel from the Temple of Osiris. Then she started taking people from the streets and turning them into monsters, and letting them roam around the undercity. That was bad enough. But then she took Set, and everything fell apart.”
Gideon put his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, little one. Uncle Gideon will put it all right soon enough. I promise.”
“Nephew.”
“What?”
“If we’re family, then I’m your aunt and you’re my nephew,” Bastet said. “You’re half my age, remember?”
He smiled. “Whatever you say.”
“So I guess we just need Asha and Anubis now,” Wren said. “I wonder where they are.”
Chapter 8
Asha knocked on the door and then stepped back into the street beside Anubis. There was little traffic on the road itself and most of the noise of the city rose from the water just a hundred paces away to their right. Steamers blasted their horns and trawlers rang their bells, and men were shouting about ropes, fish, and oil.
The house in front of them was an ancient stone block with a flat roof standing shoulder to shoulder with half a dozen other stone blocks. The doors were all neatly spaced apart, and there were no windows to give them any hint of what, or who, might be inside.
“What if he isn’t here?” she asked.
“Then no one will answer the door,” Anubis replied.
She frowned at him just as the door clicked and swung open, revealing a very tall man. Asha recognized him as an easterner, though he didn’t quite look like the doctors or monks she had known in Ming. He had shaved his head, but not recently judging by the darkening stubble on his scalp. He wore no beard, and his cheeks and eyes were marked with many fine lines that could have been from laughing or squinting, but didn’t appear to be from
