Soul Unbound (Key to the Cursed Book 3) (3 page)

Bomani stumbled into the water at the edge of the
pier. He had not eaten, slept or bathed since his arrival. Evading humans in
this city was impossible. Did they never sleep?

Fed up with Bast and her demands, he moved farther
outside the city to a more remote area with burnt out warehouses along the
water’s edge. Humans were still present but not the kind he needed to worry
about. Thieves and drug dealers dominated this area. He kept to the shadows and
the human traffickers went on with their business.

In all his searching he had yet to come across the
exiled goddess. Not that he was looking hard. He wanted to drag this out as
long as possible and in gods’ good graces not have to see Bast anytime soon.
The
odjit
was persistent and clairvoyant of all things.

He pulled off all his clothes and scrubbed them in
the not so clean water. He raked his hand through his thick tangled hair, a
sharp contrast from his usual skull trim. After tossing the soaked clothes
aside, he lowered himself into the water and scoured the dirt out of his hair
and off his skin. Finally, he hoisted himself out of the polluted water, pulled
back on his ragged wet clothes and sat on the aged wood. Small drops of rain
pelted his head and dripped down his face. The cold bore into his tissues the
longer he sat, but he had not the effort to move.

“You’re going to have to get out of those clothes
or you’ll get sick. Temperature’s dropping tonight.”

Startled, Bomani whipped around and rose to his
full height. A bearded human with too many layers of clothes pushed an
overloaded steel cart on wheels up the wooden dock.

“You’re a big one.” The old man’s scrutinizing
glare raked over him.

Speechless, Bomani stared back. He had been
careful never to make direct contact with humans.

Despite Bomani’s imposing size, the man addressed
him again. “I’ve not seen you around before. You from out of town?”

“Yes,” Bomani replied, knowing his accent would give
him away.

“You got a place to stay?” The man’s hazy eyes continued
to measure him from head to toe.

“No.”

“Got any food on ya?”

“No.”

The old man swore and pushed the cart farther up
the dock. The screech of a faulty wheel trailed behind him. Bomani could hear
the man mumbling under his breath even after he turned the corner.

Facing east, Bomani closed his eyes. A mere five
hours and the sun would reclaim the sky, forcing him to find shelter from the
morning’s light. A small fire would dry things out and he could warm up again.

The cramp in his chest and stomach bore deeper
into his body. The prolonged lack of nourishment obviously dulled his powers,
enough a damn human snuck up on him. Since being away from Aaru, he no longer
had the constant availability of living energy released by the souls crossing
over into the afterlife.

Another curse of sorts. A balance between life and
death. The Creation gods exuded life while the Underworld descendants absorbed
it.

Pulling his hood up, he trudged down the street
without any particular destination in mind. The sound of the city boomed louder
and humans crowded the streets. He could not blend in very well with the
indigenous population. His size alone, not to mention his morphed features of
black eyes and fanged teeth set him apart from anything in this world. Hunching
over, he pulled his hood down to conceal his face. He could dematerialize, if
it became necessary.

The wonderful smell of food raised his head.
Although not as sustaining, staples would lessen the cramp in his stomach and
boost his energy for a short time. He slid back into the shadows. Across the
street a brightly lit restaurant beckoned him with a blinking red neon sign and
silver siding. Bomani suppressed his stomach’s protest. The human world was a
commerce driven society.

No money. No service.

Yet if he got desperate, he could always take what
he needed. He turned to leave, but another sensation tickled his senses.

Power rippled in statically charged waves, raising
the hairs all over his scalp.

He evaporated into a black mist. Had Bast lost her
patience? If so, he had nothing to show for himself.

The weight of power grew heavier, well beyond
Bast’s essence. A female two heads taller than the other pedestrians walked up
the street, easily snaking her way through the crowded sidewalk. Her hood
concealed her face, but a dark brown braid of hair exited the hood and draped
her shoulder like a scarf. The goddess bound up the steps of the food
establishment and paused at the door. She looked over her shoulder, enough he
could see the break in her hood, but not much else. The goddess pulled the door
open and walked inside. Disheveled blinds block part of his view, but the
female hugged the hostess. The lady’s cackle of laughter echoed across the
road.

Bomani rematerialized but stuck to the shadows.
Interaction with humans was forbidden. This goddess not only engaged but
appeared to have a relationship with them. Could this be the one? His curiosity
stayed his feet. The goddess harnessed an incredible amount of power, even
stronger than Bast. He did not know of gods stronger than a Protector besides
his father and the Mother Goddess. The woman pulled her hood back, her
silhouette fuzzed by the damn blinds. She chose a seat facing the door but
close to the side exit, and her back remained unnaturally straight, even after she
sat down in the booth.

Warriors of the legion stowed their weapons along their
spine and usually had additional armaments hidden about their waist. A long
broad sword would straighten the posture of the wearer. There was not much her
cloak could not hide. Stupid of him to leave Aaru without even a simple dagger
to wield. He would need to keep his energy masked if he wanted to observe her
undetected.

The blinds split open and sharp eyes framed by
dark brown hair scanned the street. He jerked back. Did she sense him? Bomani
remained cloaked and shifted in the darkness to the end of the road before
reappearing in an alleyway.

A boy slammed into his chest. With the amount of
speed, the youth, no more than fifteen, bounced off and fell to the mud slick
pavement. Bomani met the kid’s wild and panic stricken eyes. The boy launched
up, his bare feet slipping against the ground before he gained leverage. A
youngling from the looks of it, dressed in ragged clothes. Yet despite looking
average, he was anything but. He was a full bred god.

What in
duat
was going on here? Before he
could snatch the boy to ask, the youngling sprinted down the street. Shouts and
heavy footfalls echoed from the direction from which the boy came. Bomani
shifted into a dark mist just as three human youths ran into the alleyway.

“Which way,” the tallest of the boys asked. The
street lamp illuminated the gold cross hanging around his neck.

“Down here,” the other called out.

The young god had a hard lesson in survival
awaiting him. Builds character, Bomani thought bitterly and moved in the
opposite direction. He hunkered down and followed the less populated path,
attempting to circle around the diner and wait for the goddess to exit. Maybe
he could collect enough information to keep Bast happy. He crossed the street
to avoid a line of scantily clad women. At the next alleyway he pushed through
a door to cut through to the parallel street.

The smell of urine burned his nose. Several humans
lay curled on the floor. One sat on a mattress with a needle hanging from her
arm. Her out-of-focus eyes stared through him.

Sickened, Bomani scowled and exited the building. If
this was humanity, why were they fighting to save it?

“Thanks, Fay. The pie was delicious. Can you
package a piece to go?” Siya smiled at the overworked waitress. Despite her
gray hair and heavy stature, the Jamaican woman worked from morning until
midnight.

“You’ve been away too long, Siya,” Fay chastised
and tucked her pencil behind her ear. “Earl feared you may have gone to the new
diner uptown.”

“How could you think that, Earl? After all we have
been through?” Siya gasped.

Earl leaned down to look through the open window.
A spatula in one hand and lid in the other, the man winked. His dark brown skin
wrinkled at the corners. After hours of cooking, his cheeks shined like a
mirror. “You’re not cheating on me, are you sweetheart?”

“How can I be cheating on you? We are not
married.”

“Wanna be?”

“You are married, Earl.” Siya smirked when Fay
rolled her eyes. The old woman wobbled down the aisle and set Siya’s to-go box
on the table.

Fay squeezed into the seat opposite Siya. “Earl,
lock up,” she called over her shoulder, apparently planning to stay seated for
a while.

“Damn woman, you are right there,” Earl complained
but yanked off his apron. He shuffled from the back and engaged the deadbolt on
the door. Heavy shutters slammed down over the windows and front door. Earl
flicked the sign off. The flashing neon lights dimmed and then finally
extinguished.

Siya rubbed her eyes. The light always gave her a
headache, but it added to the charm of the place. She looked around the dingy
little diner. The luster of the silver and red Naugahyde on the stools and
booths had dulled and cracked with age. The asbestos tile had black wear marks
from years of foot traffic. The yellowed countertop brandished multiple
cigarette burns. Yet despite its setbacks, Siya loved this place.

Fay’s brown eyes ringed with bluish halos focused on
Siya. “You seem out of sorts. Everything okay?”

Siya nodded, despite the ache in her chest. Fay
had a sixth sense about her. Siya wondered if she had been blessed by the gods
in some way. “How are things here? No troubles?”

“Nothing for a month.” Fay’s crooked smile and
missing tooth chased the chill from Siya’s bones. The woman had an endearing
quality. Siya couldn’t get enough of this place and the emotional warmth bathing
the worn out diner booths.

“I am glad to hear that.” Siya had given half her
savings to help fund the metal security shutters. It was one of the few areas
reclaimed after the quarantine. Curfews had been lifted over a month ago.
Unbeknownst to Fay and Earl, she and the younglings had patrolled the streets
to keep the revens at bay. If not for their efforts, the diner and surrounding
area would have been infested with the undead.

Despite the victory over the revens, crime
polluted the streets. The human police rarely frequented this side of town.
This diner with its red glaring light was a beacon among the darkness, filled
with hardworking humans who wished for a better world and trudged forward
despite the carnage around them. Maybe that was what kept her landlocked. Who
would protect Fay and Earl when they moved on?

It would be harder to say goodbye when the time
came. Siya could not afford the emotional connection, yet found herself unable
to break away. “How are your boys?” she asked. The woman had raised five boys
as a single parent. Her first husband had died of a heart attack fifteen years
earlier when the last boy was born.

“Oh, you know. Getting along in life. I worry
about Edwin, though. He’s hanging out with boys who are up to no good.” Fay
touched her forehead, chest and both shoulders in the outline of a cross. “Herold
would be turning over in his grave, God bless him.”

“I am sorry to hear that.” Siya ached for the
woman. Fay worked so hard for what little she had, and to have the extra stress
of a rogue offspring, only made matters worse.

Without thinking, Siya touched Fay’s hand, yearning
to comfort the woman in some way. Usually she was careful not to touch humans
because her power could harm, or worse, kill them. But Fay captured her hand
before Siya could correct her mistake.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” She patted Siya’s hand,
refusing to relinquish her hold.

“I should get going.” Siya forced her hand free,
despite a part of her wishing not to. “Thank you for the pie.”

“I’ll let you out, sweetheart.” Earl leaned the
broom against the wall and pulled the ring of keys from his pocket while hiking
up the waistband. “You sure you’ll be okay?” He regarded the break in her coat.

Earl had seen her dagger before but had assumed
she was prior military. She towered over and had more muscle mass than the average
human, so she never dissuaded his beliefs. “I will be fine. It’s a short walk.”

He inserted the key into the keyhole and pushed
open the iron gate. “Don’t hurt anyone,” he said with a raise of his eyebrow.

“I will try not to.” Siya stepped clear of the
door and waited for him to reengage the deadbolt. She scanned the alleyway in
both directions before pulling up her hood and stepping off. The cold air
filtered down her back through the opening at the neck. The sacred sword
chilled the length of her spine.

Her feet found their natural pace along a route
she had walked many times before. The crunch of the pavement underneath her
hard soles bounced off the brick walls. She crossed the street and ducked down
a dimly lit alleyway.

Dark energy lashed at her like a whip. She froze,
her breath taken from her. She reached towards the base of her neck and wrapped
her palm around the hilt of her weapon then freed her other hand of the to-go
box. The security lights dimmed and plunged the alleyway into darkness.

No matter.

A full spectrum of color based on the heat
signature lit up the landscape before her.

“Reveal yourself.” She unsheathed her sword. With
her knees bent she turned in a circle, zeroing in on the malevolent presence.
She hissed with the surge of power in her body. The rush fed a craving in the
deepest sense.

“You are losing your edge, Sekhmet.”

“Do not call me that.” Siya pointed the tip of her
blade at the darkness. Although there was no physical form, the threat was very
real.

Lethal.

“It is the name
I
gave you.” Menthu
solidified and smacked the point of her blade away.

Siya’s heart pounded in her chest. She had not
seen her father in five thousand years. Rumblings of his treachery, even his
death, had reached her ears.

Too bad the rumor was false.

The War god shifted among the shadows, never quite
revealing himself.

“What do you want?” she sneered. Her father’s
appearance did not bode well.

He stopped, his red eyes flaring brighter in the
darkness. “A father cannot visit his daughter?” His statement resonated
something darker than concern because he never gave two shits about her.

“Father?” She snorted. “Hardly.” Unfortunately,
she could not wish the fact away. She lowered her sword. For all her power, she
would never be able to defeat him. He played by a different, more wicked set of
rules. “You should not be here.” He should be in Horem, the prison of the
Underworld.

“Is that a threat or a warning?” Menthu stepped
forward. The moonlight shimmered against his black and white mottled skin, a
huge beast created for war, carved from both sides of life and death. She’d
forgotten how gruesome he looked. It was hard to believe she was his daughter.
On many levels.

Her very blood.

Black power along with the smell of bitter almonds
rolled off of him. Open flesh ran the length of his jaw and cheek and black
blood glistened against his chest. She retreated a few steps as he filled the
street. Now would not be the time for humans to happen by.

“So does he have it all?” Siya asked, glancing at
Menthu’s chest, where his soul flickered a dark red. Very little white light
remained. Her heart sank, realizing her instincts were right. Apep was amassing
his army and he had found his General.

Menthu stopped and loomed over her. “You cannot
save these pitiful humans.”

“I have and I will again.” Fury burned through her
veins. If she was not careful it would take control of her. Instability and a
predilection for anger were a loving gift from her father.

“Yes, you did.”

Siya glared at him. Her victory in the ancient war
against Apep was the only reason he sought her out after her mother’s death. It
was not fatherly concern, but his need to gloat.

“And you have been rewarded richly.” Menthu smiled,
his jagged teeth showing between the lacerations in his cheek.

The insult burned deep, but she did not back down.
Her father would destroy her if he sensed any weakness. “At least I still have
my soul,” she hissed through her now fanged teeth. Only around him did her
control falter. Her grip tightened around her sword’s handle.

“Why do you fight it? We were born to dominate
this realm. The Mother Goddess has weakened your mind with empathy for these
humans. They are but mere scarabs to be squashed beneath our boots. You are
made for war, just as I am. It is in our blood to command, to conquer, to
destroy. It is why you succeeded in the war when everyone else failed.”

“So, that is why you are here. To recruit me? To
give up my soul to Apep and plead my allegiance to the Dark Lord as you have?”
Siya’s gaze flicked to the gaping wound in his chest. “Have you been richly
rewarded for
your
obedience?”

She held her ground even as the back of his hand
cracked across her jaw. Her head recoiled with the power of his blow. Shards of
pain tracked down her spine as her neck torqued to the left. She stayed on her
feet at least, but her recovery was not quick enough. Large hands seized her by
the throat.

“It is because of me that you still draw breath,”
he hissed in her ear and tightened his grip.

She suppressed her defensive urges and met his
gaze, even as the stars twinkled in her vision. “Fuck you.”

“Soon you will have no choice, daughter. Your
darkness will overtake you.”

Blood flowed from the corner of her lip and filled
her mouth with the coppery taste. She reared back when he leaned in, but he
cinched his hold tighter.

His nostrils flared. “You smell like your mother.”
He caught the drip of blood from her chin with his tongue. “And taste like her
too.”

Her anger erupted into an explosive volcano of
dark power. She slammed her fist into his face, followed by her boot planted in
his abdomen. He stumbled back, a queer mix of surprise and fury contorting his
disfigured face. Rendering her blade at his chest, she backed him up against
the brick building.

“Now that she would never do.” Menthu sneered and
wiped his thick thumb against his mouth.

Siya’s vision blurred red. “What the hell do you
know about my mother, you gods damn rapist.”

“Is that what they told you? I claimed her against
her will?” Menthu snarled.

“Do you deny it?” Siya slammed the hilt of the
sword along his jaw. Black blood spattered against the wall. She swung her
other hand and met solid brick.

Large arms clamped around her shoulders and chest,
immobilizing her with arms pinned to her sides. Siya bucked and struggled for
leverage.

“It is far easier to believe Anuket had been
forced against her will. A beautiful princess could never fall in love with a
monster. She killed herself over the trauma of her captivity, not the forced
separation from her
mate
.”

Siya stilled. No, she refused to believe his
words. Bast had been at her mother’s side when she succumbed to the poison. Her
mother hated Menthu. Her father wanted to confuse her.

“Liar!”

His now black eyes bore into her. “The Creation
Pantheon will face my fury. They will bow before my blade until the heavens run
red with their blood. They will pay for her death.”

She could not breathe for the amount of hatred
suffocating his words. Could it be his own disillusions of her mother’s
affections towards him? He was right. It was easier to hate him than believe
her mother had cared for him. Gods, it could not be true.

Yet, pain shadowed his eyes, clear and true. Her
conviction faltered. The Mother Goddess would have never allowed Menthu to bear
an offspring unless she blessed the union. She shook her head, not wanting to
believe it.

“No,” she whispered. The alternative was too
painful to accept as truth.

“They fear us. It is the very reason they took her
from me. Why you languish here, exiled. Punished for what we were created to
be. They will learn their actions have consequences.” He shoved her away. “You
must join me or be destroyed with them.”

She whirled around to face her father. The monster
standing before her was replaced by a male wounded and destroyed. She blinked,
registering the change. Pity flickered in a barren place in her soul. Little
was left of the god that would have turned her mother’s gaze. Hate and
vengeance had made a home in his soul, filling the part he may have lost in her
death.

Could she blame him when Siya had almost fallen
down the same path? She would have if not for the Mother Goddess. The Mother of
the Gods had taken her in and saved her soul. She shook her head. “I will not.”

“Then you will die along with the rest of them.”

“Stop.” She reached out to him but he jerked back.
None of the male she had seen in his eyes remained, only the monster. “Please,
do not do this. Anuket would not want you to. Whatever Apep promised you is a
lie. He will never let mother go.” The Lord of Darkness had wrapped his talons
around her mother’s soul the moment Anuket took her own life. “We will find
another way.”

“Do not make the same mistake as your mother. Some
souls are not meant to be saved,” he growled and exploded into a cloud of black
mist. Only the scent of sulfur and a dying soul remained.