Chapter 3
Lioness Graves had seen some weird things in Central Park—joggers in dinosaur pajamas, marriage proposals written by bad poets, a guy once trying to catch pigeons with his bare hands. But today? Today blew all of that out of the water.
The world lurched. Not a rumble. More of an honest-to-Goddess tremor that made the trees shiver and sent a flock of birds blasting upward like confetti out of a cannon.
Lioness stumbled forward, catching herself on the caution tape that she and Sahara had not been authorized to put up but did anyway. Her sketchbook slipped from her fingers and flopped onto the grass.
“Okay,” she said aloud, because sometimes narrating her life helped. “That was not normal. That was ‘something is waking up, and it’s out to get us’ levels of abnormal.”
The cracked earth in front of her split again. A sharp seam zigzagged across the ground like a lightning bolt.
“Lioness!” Sahara called, barreling toward her from the far side of the site, ponytail whipping. “Back up. Now.”
Lioness didn’t argue. Mostly because the ground was shifting under her boots, and arguing required stability. She hopped backward just as the crack widened and released a gust of air so cold it slapped her across the face.
She reeled. “What the—? Did someone leave the door to Antarctica open?”
“No,” Sahara said, sliding to her side. “Worse. I think the obelisk seal ruptured.”
Before Lioness could respond, a spike of nausea slammed into her gut so hard she hunched over. Her vision blurred at the edges. Heat prickled across her skin. Hot, then cold, then hot again, like a thermostat having a seizure.
Sahara swayed beside her. “Lioness? Do you feel—”
Lioness didn’t hear the rest. A wave of dizziness crashed over her, sending her to her knees.
“Okay,” she gasped, “I officially feel like I’ve licked a subway pole.”
Sahara’s hand trembled as she pressed it to her forehead. “This isn’t a normal illness. Something is—”
She didn’t finish. Both witches were hit by a synchronized punch of ancient magic, sharp as stone, and it felt like breathing in electricity.
Lioness clutched the grass. “Am I dying? Don’t let me die looking like this. I haven’t fixed my brows for a month.”
“It’s a curse,” Sahara managed, voice tight. “An ancient Egyptian one. I can feel the glyphs vibrating under the soil.”
“Well, tell them to stop,” Lioness snapped, then immediately gagged, because she felt the world had tilted in a way physics never intended.
Sahara dropped to her knees beside her, breath shallow. “It’s not removable. Not without… not without the counter-glyphs.”
Lioness blinked hard. “And I’m guessing you don’t have those lying around in your Gucci bag?”
“No,” Sahara said weakly. “And I think whatever’s buried down there just woke up enough to sneeze on us.” Sahara collapsed onto her side. “Great. Cursed by dirt. My mother told me this was how it would end.”
A vibration rippled through the soil again. Deeper this time. Almost sentient. The ground pulsed like something beneath it had a heartbeat.
Lioness forced her head up and saw the crack widen one more inch. She screamed.
Sahara Nadir prided herself on two things: her ability to translate almost any ancient script, and her ironclad refusal to panic. The first was intact. The second was currently bleeding out on the field like a wounded soldier.
The nausea kept coming in sickening waves. Lioness crouched beside her, sweating, shivering, looking like she’d run through an ice storm. “Hey,” she rasped. “You alive?”
“Debatable,” Sahara muttered.
The air above the crack shimmered. Heat ripples bent the morning light into a column of distortion—and within it, movement. No shape yet. No form. Just the suggestion of something long and coiled, like a white shadow learning to crawl.
Sahara squinted. “That’s not good.”
“You think?” Lioness wheezed. “Because I’m getting the vibe that whatever’s coming out is not here for tea.”
A high-pitched keening started under the earth. Not loud. Not even audible, technically. More like something pressing directly on their eardrums with a cold fingertip.
Lioness gagged again. “This curse is a mutha.”
“It’s reacting to magic,” Sahara said, fighting to upright herself. “Specifically, ours. It knows we’re here.”
“Oh, good,” Lioness said. “I always wanted to be noticed by a subterranean demon.”
Sahara steadied herself and forced her mind to focus on glyphs, symbols, and patterns. She needed something she could analyze instead of feel. The curse signatures were familiar but distorted. It wasn’t a death curse. It was a weakness curse, designed to cripple, not kill.
Lioness crawled over beside her. “On a scale of one to ‘we’re screwed,’ where are we?”
“Somewhere between ‘mildly doomed’ and ‘actively descending into greater doom,’” Sahara whispered.
The shadow in the shimmering air twitched, then elongated.
Lioness inhaled sharply. “Oh no. No, no, no. Do not snake. Do not snake in my direction.”
“It’s not a snake,” Sahara said breathlessly. “It’s… humanoid. I think I see bandages.”
“Like a mummy? Sahara, this is why I don’t dig things up.”
The shimmering haze thickened, and a distorted silhouette flowed partway out of the crack. It looked like a smear of shadow wearing the hint of a crown.
Sahara’s heart hammered. “That’s impossible.”
“Lots of things are impossible,” Lioness said, panting. “Yet here we are.”
A loud buzz vibrated Lioness’s pocket.
Sahara blinked. “Is that yours?”
Lioness fumbled with her phone. “It’s Cal.”
Sahara stared. “The firefighter?”
Lioness squinted at the screen. “He’s texting to make sure I’m okay because he heard about another tremor.”
“Argh, of course he is. Because you saved him from a basement once, and suddenly you’ve adopted a heroic golden retriever.”
Lioness would have laughed if her stomach didn’t feel like it was hosting a tornado. Before she could comment, the shadow-creature jerked toward them. Every hair on her body stood on end. Lioness rasped, “We need to move.”
“No,” Sahara said, throat tight. “We need to seal this. Now. Before it tears fully into our world.”
“Cool,” Lioness croaked. “But maybe we could do that when I’m not cursed and half-dead?”
The creature reached forward, its shadowy fingers spreading like smoke.
Sahara yanked Lioness back. “We retreat. Just far enough to get out of the curse’s immediate radius.”
Lioness breathed hard, nodding. “Then we can cast a containment spell and hopefully come back with the team before this thing gets loose.”
Sahara winced. “And Rayna’s in charge. I know she’ll have something to say about this.”
Lioness groaned. “You know she’s going to say, ‘I told you not to poke ancient things.’”
Sahara staggered to her feet. “She will. And she’ll be right.”
Behind them, the creature hissed—a sound less like breath and more like a quiet threat.
After doing the containment spell, Lioness wasn’t sure how long she and Sahara lay sprawled on the grass like two Victorian widows suffering from “the vapors,” but eventually Sahara spoke in a thin voice. “We need to call Rayna.”
Lioness squinted up at the sky. “You call her. If I try to form words, I’m going to redecorate Central Park in a very undignified way.”
Sahara fumbled for her phone, thumb trembling. “I can’t see the screen. It’s… It’s melting.”
“It’s not melting,” Lioness croaked, rolling halfway onto her back. “You’re cursed. Everything feels melty.”
Sahara didn’t argue. She just groaned.
Somewhere distant, faintly muffled, Lioness heard her phone buzzing. Or maybe it was a bee. Hard to tell when her brain felt like a scrambled egg.
Then the buzzing stopped. Then started again. Then stopped.
Lioness winced. “Ugh. Whoever that is needs to develop patience.”
The buzzing was immediately replaced by the sound of an engine.
Both witches turned their heads with all the speed and grace of dying tortoises toward the path.
A red SUV rolled to a stop at the curb. Cal Monroe jumped out before the engine even fully cut off. “Lioness!” he shouted, slamming the door. “I called you six times. What happened? Why do you look— Holy crap, are you sick?”
Lioness blinked at him. “Cal. Hi. You’re loud.”
He ran across the grass and dropped to his knees between them, his face doing a rapid-fire slideshow of panic and concern.
Sahara lifted a weak hand. “Hello, Lieutenant Monroe.”
Cal hovered over them like he didn’t know who to check first. “What’s going on? Are you hurt? Poisoned? Did something collapse again?”
“No collapse,” Lioness said brightly, or it would’ve been brightly, if her voice hadn’t sounded like a dying accordion. “Just an ancient curse.”
Cal blinked. “I’m sorry… a what?”
“Hush!” Sahara whisper-yelled, then grabbed her head and groaned.
“A curse,” Lioness whispered.
Sahara gave up trying to deny it with silence. “Ancient Egyptian. Very inconvenient.”
Lioness patted his arm. “She means it sucks.”
Cal stared at them both, trying to decide if they were joking. Then Lioness’s knees sagged sideways, and all his firefighter instincts kicked in at once.
“Okay, that’s it. Both of you get up. Now. I’m taking you to a hospital.”
“No!” Sahara and Lioness said together, then groaned at the volume.
Cal froze. “Why not?”
“Because they can’t help,” Sahara said. “And Rayna will kill us if we go. She’s our boss this quarter.”
“You have quarterly bosses? Never mind. You can explain later—or not. The important thing is that we get you some help before it spreads.”
Lioness waved a limp hand. “Not contagious, just nasty. It hates magic users. You’re safe. Probably.”
“Probably?”
Sahara grabbed his sleeve. “Cal. We need to get to the mansion.”
He hesitated. “You live in a mansion-mansion?”
“Yes,” they chorused, too weak to lie.
Cal exhaled like a man who knew he was about to make the worst decision of his week. “Fine. But you’re both getting in the car before you pass out.”
He hooked one arm under Lioness’s shoulders. She sagged into the support, too drained to pretend she didn’t love being carried by a strong firefighter who smelled faintly of cedar.
“I’m heavier than I look,” Sahara warned.
“You weigh as much as a pillow,” Cal said, lifting her anyway.
Sahara laughed weakly and immediately regretted it. “Ow. No laughing. Everything sloshes.”
Cal helped them both into the SUV, buckled them in, then floored the engine.
Lioness slumped sideways, cheek against the cool window. “Cal?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good man. Does Cal stand for Calvin?”
“Nope. Caleb. It means dog in Hebrew.”
Sahara burst out laughing. “I told you. Golden Retriever energy.”
He glanced over, worry etched across his jaw. “Yeah, well, try to stay awake until we get wherever we’re going.”
Sahara mumbled coordinates, street names, and a string of directions that were so confusing that Cal muttered, “Got an address? GPS would be better.”
“It’s not on any GPS.”
He sighed. “Of course not.”
A half-hour later, they turned down a quiet Long Island road lined with trees that shouldn’t have been that dense. The mansion was disguised upon approach.
Cal slowed. “Uh, is that it?”
The mansion loomed at the end of the drive—tall, welcoming, and vibrating just enough to suggest it was aware that something was wrong.
Lioness perked a fraction. “Home sweet sentient home.”
He parked. “All right. I’ll carry—”
The front doors burst open.
Rayna stormed out like a five-foot-eight goddess of fury, fiery red hair whipping behind her. Her expression shifted between ‘Who hurt my people?’ and ‘I will hunt them down myself.’
“Oh,” Lioness whispered. “We’re in so much trouble.”
Rayna marched straight to the car. “What happened?”
Cal opened his mouth as he exited the truck, but Sahara spoke first.
“Curse,” Sahara croaked. “Bad one.”
Rayna’s eyes went wide. “In the park? You were supposed to contain—” She took another look at her L.A.W. sisters and muttered, “Goddess help us.”
She yanked open Lioness’s door. “Come on, Tiny Dancer. Inside. Bed. Now.”
“I can walk,” Lioness protested, then tried and nearly slid right out of the seat.
Cal caught her. Rayna helped Sahara. Between the two of them, they herded both witches through the foyer and straight into the lounge.
The mansion hummed anxiously overhead, lanterns flickering like worried fireflies.
Rayna shot Cal a look. “You,” she said. “Thank you. And also, forget everything you saw.”
Cal blinked. “I’m gonna try.”
They pushed the couch across from the loveseat and settled Lioness and Sahara side by side, because Sahara refused to let Lioness out of her sight, and Lioness refused to let the smarter witch abandon her.
Rayna tucked blankets around them. “All right. Do not move until I get back. I’m finding an energy worker. A real one. Preferably someone who hasn’t set anything on fire this month.”
Lioness whispered, “Not Magda.”
“Absolutely not Magda,” Rayna agreed.
Sahara pulled the blanket to her chin. “Rayna, whatever’s under that obelisk, it’s not dormant.”
Lioness added, “It sneezed on us.”
Rayna’s eyes sharpened. “Then I’ll make this fast.”
She strode out, the mansion lights brightening in her wake like an army rallying behind its commander.
Cal hovered awkwardly near the doorway. “Uh, should I stay? Or…?”
Lioness, eyes half-open, pointed weakly at him. “You should come back tomorrow.”
Cal blinked. “Right. I’ll check on you if I can find the place again. If not, I’ll call. Rest and feel better.”
Then he slipped out, the door closing softly behind him.
Sahara whispered, “Lioness?”
“Yeah?”
“You totally adopted a firefighter.”
Lioness smiled faintly. “I know.”
Then both witches passed out as the mansion hummed a protective lullaby around them.