pounding and beating on the monstrous head of his half-brother again and again. Within moments, his arms began to tire, but he pressed through the aching pain as his hands cracked and tore and broke from striking the thick falcon skull and the powerful falcon beak. And yet he fought on.
Horus reeled back, and tried to raise his talons to shield his head, but the blows fell fast and faster, and if he blocked high the strikes would come low, and soon the falcon was gasping for breath, clutching his bruised ribs and bleeding face.
Anubis felt the rage seething through his pulsing hands and aching arms.
This is our destiny. My revenge. His punishment. My justice. The universe has finally come into balance, and I shall be elevated as he is laid low.
Anubis swept the falcon’s legs out from under him, dropping him to the earth, and he planted the butt of his staff in the hollow of Horus’s throat, making him croak and gasp.
“If we were mortal creatures, I would kill you,” Anubis said. “And then perhaps I would kill myself just to end all the pain, and to silence all the memories. But such dramas are beneath us. You will suffer until I decide you have suffered enough, until I no longer care to see you suffer, and then it will end. Take solace in that. It is more hope than I ever had as a child. I lived every day with the question, will today be the day he kills me? So you see, I am kinder than fate itself. I promise you that your torments will end. When I have judged them to be enough.”
Anubis lifted his staff away and stepped back. Horus rose slowly to his feet, staggering up as he clutched his throat.
“Tonight, my task was to find you and restrain you until you could be cured. Restored. Set free.” Anubis nodded to himself. “All that will be yours, and soon. But for now, you shall know pain, until your heart is as heavy and as weary as mine.”
And to hell with the rest of the world.
Chapter 18
Bastet flitted from street to street, from roof to roof, flying gracefully and effortlessly through the warm night’s aether in search of the sounds of violence.
Where can they be? Nethys, Horus, where are you?
She paused on the top of a brick chimney at the end of a new house, a long white estate built in the Italian style with many ornate arches and colored windows and covered walkways. There were two chimneys, one at each end of the main house, and Bastet wondered idly whether the people inside ever felt the need to build a fire in their hearths to keep warm, here on the Ifrican coast.
There was no sign of the beastly immortals. No cries of fear or panic, no crash of breaking windows, no wails of frightened animals. All was quiet.
Bastet stood still, feeling the warm breeze flowing through her skirts and hair as she scanned the heavens, naming constellations and searching for bright planets. She was staring up toward the west when she noticed a star she didn’t recognize. After four thousand years of stargazing, she had come to know them all quite well, and the sight of a bright white gleam without a name startled her, making her wonder if she was even looking to the west at all.
And then she saw the star move.
Squinting and frowning, she watched the star slowly creep across the sky, moving ever so slightly from north to south.
Is it… growing larger?
She went on watching the strange little star until she realized that she was hearing a strange little sound as well. It was a soft buzzing or droning, like an insect, or a wagon rolling through the street, or a steamship idling at anchor.
An engine?
Her eyes went wide.
Taziri!
Bastet clapped her hands and smiled up at the drifting star, watching it grow slowly larger and louder high above the western plains outside Alexandria.
I can’t believe I almost forgot about her.
Bastet skipped across the rooftops, drifting lightly through the aether on her way toward the western end of the city where the railways entered the metropolis from the provinces of Marmarica and Cyrenica, and farther still from Numidia and Marrakesh itself. She headed south toward the small rail yard where she had first met Taziri, huddled alone inside her machine, roasting in the Aegyptian heat. But then she paused.
There’s no reason to think she’ll use the same line again. I’ll have to watch and wait, and follow her.
As the moments passed, the light of the Halcyon III grew larger and sharper, and the droning of its engine grew louder. A faint outline appeared against the thin, silvery clouds and Bastet thought she recognized the round body and long wings of the aircraft, a dark wraith speeding across the night sky.
I wonder what her magnet machine will look like. I hope it doesn’t hurt Isis and the others too much when it removes the sun-steel needles.
The Halcyon banked and began a graceful descent toward the city. Faint streamers of smoke and vapor trailed from the metal wings.
As Bastet stood on the roof of an old Mazdan Temple prayer tower, she felt a blast of wind shove her against the dusty tiles and she nearly fell from her perch as she grabbed the small iron spire at the top of the tower. Turning her head, she saw a huge black shape race past her, flapping its great gray wings as it climbed higher and higher into the sky, racing up toward the Mazigh aeroplane.
Nethys! No, not now!
Bastet ran off the edge of the roof and burst apart into a shimmering white aether mist and slipped upward into the sky as fast as she could will herself. The aether was thin up here and there was no current to speak of, so she had to propel herself by desire and thought alone. Faster and faster, she soared up into the warm darkness, flitting past the winged woman, and pushing harder and harder until she slipped through the metal walls of the flying machine and let her body snap back together again.
Her momentum carried her across the cabin and she slammed shoulder-first into the far wall and crumpled to the floor.
“What the…?” Taziri’s voice was faint over the hideous growling of the engine.
“Turn!” Bastet wheezed. She straightened up as she struggled to catch her breath and blink away the pain in her side. “Turn left, now!”
“Bastet?” The Mazigh pilot twisted around in her seat to look behind her.
“TURN LEFT!” Bastet lunged forward against the pilot’s seat.
“Turning!” Taziri shoved a lever and the entire cabin leaned to the left.
Bastet felt herself floating off the floor for a brief, weightless moment before she fell to the floor again with a grunt.
“Aah! What was that?” Taziri shouted. “I saw something out there! Bastet? Bastet?”
The Aegyptian girl pushed herself up again and this time she wrapped both hands into the little canvas straps bolted into the walls to hold herself in place. “It’s Nethys. My aunt.”
“Your aunt can fly?”
“At the moment, yes.” Bastet squinted through the small windows in front of the pilot, but all she saw was darkness.
“What is she doing out there?”
“Probably trying to kill you. Where is she now?”
“I can’t see her,” Taziri said. “Look out the back windows.”
Bastet loosened her grip on the straps and worked her way back to the passenger seats where there were three small, round windows looking out to either side of the plane over the wings. She checked both sides. “I can’t
