Chapter 25
Celia had prayed to whatever gods might listen—including the Egyptian ones—that she would reach the gate to the Duat in time.
That what she’d seen in the Mer-Remet basin had simply been a warning…
If she and Nour and the Ageless Ones flew fast enough, they might be able to disabuse Ezra of the notion that he was on a mere treasure hunt.
But as soon as they landed on the wadi cliffs, it became clear they’d arrived too late.
It was too dark for this hour of dusk. Stars should have been blooming in the violet desert sky, but instead a shroud hung over the air, black as some Victorian widow’s veil.
Celia tried to bite back her panic at how familiar the cloud felt.
She reached for her father’s lighter when she ducked into the mouth of the cave.
Vicious little beast, that’s what she had to be now.
She had to keep pushing forward, into her fear.
The locket of sunshine helped too—it was even brighter than the Sancts’ masques as they rushed through the entry chamber, lighting up outlines of the shattered Anubis and his bloody sword.
The darkness rivaled a London pea-souper; even with her relics, Celia could see only a few steps ahead of her.
Which made stumbling over Biz’s body that much more horrifying.
She let out a shriek when she found her friend splayed on the floor—chest a bright bull’s-eye. Celia fell to her knees, grasping at the sodden fabric of Biz’s dress, as if she might somehow be able to push the blood back in. But it had already started to congeal, going black at the edges…
“Biz!” She gasped, not quite believing the jellied feel of her friend’s blood on her hands.
Ruined. No more vicious little beasts. No more vengeful toothpicks.
No more scaling champagne towers, much less actual pyramids.
That large life Elizabeth Ellington was so set on chasing had shrunk down to a single, awful point.
“No. No, no, no, no.”
It was the most helpless kind of prayer.
There was no saving her friend, not when the blood on her fingers was turning black. It was almost the same color as the curse that had claimed her father. Not that Celia needed that reminder—she felt enough grief already.
Ruined.
If Celia hadn’t been so set on seeking revenge, if she hadn’t pushed Ezra and the rest of them here…
A humanoid shape flickered in the corner of her vision.
Then another.
The dead. Fear joined the guilt in Celia’s throat as she watched ghosts circling Biz’s body.
They were faint imprints of the people they once were.
Charcoal sketches too hastily done—many had no eyes, only hazy sockets, but Celia could still sense their hungry gazes.
One skeletal figure crawled forward, dipping to taste Biz’s blood.
As it did, the ghoul seemed to solidify.
Long black hair sprouted from its skull.
White orbs filled the eye sockets. Fingernails grew, scratching across the floor, closer, closer.
More of the dead followed suit.
Could they take Biz’s body for themselves? Could they take her? Wear Celia like one of the Bright Young Things’ costumes?
Celia turned the lighter’s fire into a ball and threw it at the nearest ghoul. Flames crackled up its hair and danced over colorless eyes. The dead creature kept clawing forward.
This was bad.
Very bad.
Celia started a frantic dig for the Tunguska knife, but shit if her hands weren’t shaking…
Blue blazed through her vision as Nour swept in with her ivory wand.
The tusk cut through the ghouls. The ghost who’d been reaching for Celia let out a bone-chilling scream as its edges curled back into mist. Nour took the wand’s sharpest end and plunged it straight between those white-orb eyes.
The dead thing slipped away, leaving Biz’s corpse cold on the floor.
Celia felt a sob rising from her lungs. She felt herself growing colder too.
The only dead body she’d seen before belonged to Papa—besides the mummies in the British Museum, of course.
They’d looked like dead bodies. But if you didn’t stare too closely, Biz looked as if she was having a lie-in, ready to be roused by a fresh pot of coffee.
“The ankhs I gave you.” Nour gestured to Celia’s belt. “Place one on your friend’s chest. That will keep her body from being stolen by the dead. They’ll protect you too, so long as you carry them.”
Celia picked through her pockets for the largest ankh amulet she could find. It was a pretty piece—made of the same blue faience as the hippopotamus. Something Biz might elect to wear to a party… She placed it, gently, over her friend’s bullet wound.
So small.
So gaping.
“We’re too late.” There was a look of agony on Nour’s face as she held the ivory wand aloft. It pointed to a part of the cloud where Celia could make out looming lionesque figures. “The seal has been broken.”
Sphinxes.
The figures were sphinxes. The exact same statues from her vision… and the floor at their feet, that was glowing with blood… which meant…
“Nooooo!” Her scream was so savage that even the ghouls shuddered backward when Celia plunged deeper into the cloud. Ezra.
Ruined.
Whereas Biz appeared to be sleeping, Ezra Bright was clearly dead.
She found him on the floor, arms spread wide, as if he was about to take flight, only instead of feathers it was blood weeping down into the stones’ channels.
Holes riddled his flesh. The sphinxes had taken far too much…
The knees of Celia’s safari suit went damp as she fell to the floor.
She shook him, as if that might bring the light back to his eyes. They no longer looked green.
“No… No!” Celia kept shaking him.
His arms flopped like a rag doll’s.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to end. Ezra Bright was supposed to find his power, his purpose…
“Wake up, you stupid slab of bacon!” She let her hands slide up to his cheeks. Cold as marble. “Please… I didn’t mean to take your mother’s things. I brought them back. I brought her! I—” Oh, it hurt too much to go on. How close they’d come.
How far away he was now.
Flashes of light pierced the cloud around them—silver, scarlet, gold.
The Ageless Ones battled like a thunderstorm, pushing the ghouls back.
Celia could only see pieces of this battle.
Spell by blazing spell. Relief snagged her chest when she caught sight of Vincent, poised between a set of sphinxes.
Alive. Of course he was—the bullet-heir always bent the rules, but Celia wasn’t sure how long he could get away with it.
His face was pale, and the dead were drawing in.
An ankh. She fumbled at her belt. I need to get him an ankh!
But before Celia could lunge, between one dark moment and the next, Vincent vanished.
Ghouls swarmed the place where he’d stood. Celia bit back a scream.
Ruined. Again.
She couldn’t save anyone, could she?
The Ageless Ones, at least, seemed to be gaining ground, herding the dead toward the fog’s darkest center. The door, Celia realized. The door into Death…
Nour was headed there too, slashing back ghouls with her scythe. She stepped around her son’s body without so much as a downward glance, though there were tears carving through the blue light of her cheeks.
She’s going to get Ezra back.
I’m not too late.
Celia’s hands fumbled at her belt again, finding the next best ankh—gold, it was—and placing the relic on Ezra’s chest. She wasn’t sure how many amulets she had left. There wasn’t time to count her collection.
Not if Celia wanted to make things right.
Nour’s masque light faded to a pinpoint as she stepped through the gate—the faintest of stars. Ghouls were already beginning to cram the entrance. A few were solid enough to snag at Celia’s clothes and hair as she rushed forward, their fingers like February frost.
The Duat was even colder.
Celia hadn’t been sure what to expect. Tiny red devils dancing around with pitchforks? Nine circles à la Dante? Harp music drifting down from pillowy clouds? A lush pastoral field?
None of these things greeted her when she passed through the gate.
It wasn’t hard to see why the ghouls were so desperate to escape this place…
Everything was flat—the same wretched color of Ezra’s dead eyes.
Sky and ground blended together. There was no sun or moon.
There were no trees. The only thing that stood out was a river, its waters shimmering like an oil spill.
The Greeks must have been onto something.
Celia clung to this thought, if only to ignore the dead that kept crowding around her.
They were mostly mist. This should have made them easy enough to walk through, but Celia found that if she moved too quickly, she started remembering details that didn’t belong to her: A nursery rhyme in singsong French.
The first bite of Mother’s pan-fried schnitzel.
Spring in the Alps, when edelweiss replaced the snow.
There were awful things as well: The hard jab of a bayonet in your chest, jiggling a bit like someone trying to carve up an Easter ham.
Flesh rotting straight off your feet while you slogged through trenches.
Most of these ghosts had been soldiers, which wasn’t a surprise given just how many men had died on the Western Front.
They still moved in a formation, trying to storm the gate.
Could the Ageless Ones hold them back?
Could they close the gate again?