“No, about this.” She waved a hand vaguely. “Us. The dragon people. Mrs. P. The whole world evidently trembling on the verge of destruction if you don’t take a ring from an old lady who needs it to get to her long-lost love? What are we going to do?”
He lay back and pulled her into his side, reveling in the sensation of her snuggling into him, her body warm and soft and infinitely comforting. “I don’t know, love, I don’t know. But we’ll figure something out. We have to.”
She said nothing to that, but he knew she was worried.
Not as worried as he was, though. Because now there was more at stake than just making his sister happy, and incidentally saving the mortal world from a demon lord.
Now there was Sophea.
Thirteen
“So, let me see if I have this straight in my brain: Duat isn’t just the name of the cruise line, it’s also a place.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Gilukhipa (who I learned was called Gilly), lay stretched out on a lounge chair next to the small pool on the upper deck of the ship. We were both in the shade, the morning sun being a lot stronger than what I was used to in northern California, and on my other side, Mrs. P lay on an identical lounge, rubbing lotion onto her bare legs. Scattered around and in the pool, the other ladies either sunbathed, swam, or sucked back fruity beverages of an alcoholic nature.
“And it’s the Egyptian Underworld, this Duat place?” I asked, wondering why I wasn’t surprised to find out that there were such things as cruises to Hell. Then again, in the last few days, I’d discovered I was a kick-ass dragon’s mate, had witnessed a perfectly normal man turn into a dragon, and met an actual god. A little cruise into the Underworld was nothing after all that.
“It is. People’s Ba and Ka travel through it, you see.”
“Ba and Ka? That’s… what?”
“The Ka is the soul,” Mrs. P answered suddenly, causing me to skew around in my own lounge chair and look at her. I frowned. There was something different about her. Something else different than the night before.
“And the Ba is the physical form that houses the Ka,” Gilly said, nodding. “You must have both to travel through Duat and reach paradise. That’s why those ancient mortal Egyptians mummified bodies—it was their way of preserving the Ba so it could meet up with the Ka, and be put back together in the divine realm.”
“Did you get a wig with your costume?” I asked Mrs. P, still trying to pinpoint what it was that was different. Earlier this morning, we’d dropped our clothing off at the ship’s tiny cleaning service, then trooped into the shop and come away with a cowgirl outfit for Mrs. P and a female swashbuckling ensemble for me (which had a gorgeous black frock coat with metal fastenings at the front, red sash, white lace at the wrists, and a short above-knee lace skirt). But it was the tricorne hat and cutlass that sold me on it. The other ladies declined getting costumes, but did give the shop lady a run for her money on sunscreen.
Mrs. P touched her hair, which was gathered into a low bun. Her hair when I first met her was short, white, and floofy… now it was a pale brown with threads of silver, and probably down to her shoulder blades. Her eyes also seemed different. They were still a soft blue, but the outer rings of her irises were darker, the color of which appeared to be leeching inward. And then there was the fact that she seemed to have lost even more wrinkles on her neck and face.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was growing younger right before my eyes.
“I don’t need a wig. My hair is long enough to sit on, although I kept it short for my hoochie-coo dancing. Teddy used to tell me I was his little tomboy.” She covered her mouth as she giggled. “He was such a bear of a man. Hahaha.”
“Yeah, I get it,” I said, nodding but still watching her closely, just in case she was going to change any more. “Teddy Roosevelt. Bear. Ha. Did you get contacts, too?”
She smiled at me, but said nothing, just closed her eyes and settled back for a nap.
Gilly was more than happy to fill the resulting silence. “I like your costume. And how clever of you to wear a different one every day! It makes the cruise so much more fun, don’t you think? I just hope you don’t get blood on it.”
I was still pondering the changes to Mrs. P when Gilly’s words sank in. I swiveled around to look at her. “Blood? What blood? I’m not due for that for a few months, when my shot wears off. Sorry, that was TMI, but if you’re worried about me messing up this pretty lace skirt—”
“No, no, of course I would never mention something so intimate!” She looked downright shocked at such a thought. “I meant, of course, the first challenge. That’s why you’re here, right?”
I blinked at her, as if that would make my brain work better. “What challenge? What blood?”
She pursed her lips. “Oh dear, weren’t you at the briefing last night?”
“No. I… uh…” My cheeks immediately turned bright pink when I thought of how Rowan and I had spent the night. After dallying in his cabin for a bit, we had moved to mine, since I still felt obligated to keep an eye on Mrs. P despite her clump of priestesses underfoot. Plus, I had a sneaking suspicion that they’d claim my room if I left it vacant for too long. I’d left Rowan sleeping when Mrs. P and I—with the models in tow—had gone off to find clean clothes. “I was busy last night.”
“Aset, darling, did you hear?” Gilly tattled. “Your champion did not go to the briefing last night.”
I shot her a glare before glancing at Mrs. P and immediately doing a double take. Mrs. P, who waved a languid hand at Gilly, appeared even younger than just a minute before. “Eh. She’s a dragon.”
“There is that.” Gilly made a sad face at me.
“I’m sorry if I missed something important, but no one told me there would be a meeting.”
“Her man has sublime buttocks,” Mrs. P murmured, and turned over onto her belly. Even her legs looked younger. The varicose veins and pale white-blue skin was gone, replaced with tanned, supple flesh.
“That’s understandable, but it’s still a shame she missed it.”
“Is there a set of notes covering the important points?” I asked, nervous now that I’d screwed up.
Gilly applied a little sunblock on her perfectly toned legs. “No, but I’ve been on this tour before, so I can tell you what’s what. The captain was sure to have gone over the challenges that will be visited upon you as we travel through the Duat. The first are the carnivorous beasts. The second is the lake of fire. And of course, the last is facing Maat and having her weigh your Ka against her measure. If they don’t balance, why then you don’t get to go to the divine plane, and must remain forever bound to Duat.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” I said, one part of my mind wondering what I would be doing at that exact moment if I hadn’t taken Jian’s cousin (what was his name?) up on the job offer. I certainly wouldn’t be floating down a river in the Underworld, facing monsters and lakes of fire and some woman who wanted to weigh my soul. “So… when do we get to the Underworld?”
“We’re there now. We entered it the minute the ship began its journey,” Gilly said.
“Huh. I had no idea. Wait a minute—this cruise is just for the people who are going on to heaven, right? Or rather, whatever their version of heaven is.”
“Of course. They can’t get to the divine realm without it.”
I relaxed back into my chair, wondering what sort of carnivorous animals were going to descend upon us.
“Mind you, no one can leave Duat until Maat weighs your Ka, but if you have a pure soul, that should not be a problem. You’ll be allowed to leave and return to the mortal world if you so desire. Which I assume you will, because after all, you are a wyvern’s mate, aren’t you?”
“How did you know that?” I asked, feeling like I had the words stamped on my forehead.
“Everyone knows that, silly,” she said, handing the sunblock to Ipy when the latter emerged from the pool and stood next to us to towel off.
“They do?”
“Were we going to have a margarita party before lunch, or after?” Ipy asked, eyeing Mrs. P’s recumbent form.
“Party? Is there a party? I didn’t see one on the ship’s news this morning. Did you see mention of a party?” Ken bounded over to where we were clustered, clad, as was Barbie, in a shop swimsuit. Each woman had a towel, and Ken carried a flowered straw bag filled with sunblock, paperback books, magazines, and battery-operated personal fans.
“Sorry,” Ipy said, glancing at the newcomers and instantly dismissing them. “Private party.”
“Hello! Are you Sophea’s employer? We’ve so wanted to meet you ever since we heard about the destruction to all your lovely things. I’m Ken, and this is Barbie, and isn’t this a glorious day for a swim? So decadent swimming on a ship, isn’t it?”
With a less than tolerant look at Ken and Barbie, Gilly slid off her chair and gathered her things. Mrs. P stretched, jammed a straw hat that she’d filched off another costume onto her head, and, wrapping her towel around herself, padded after Gilly.
Ipy gave the two older women a bright but wholly false smile. “Pleased to meet you. If you’ll excuse me, I have much to do. Margaritas don’t make themselves.” She hurried off before Ken could do more than coo about how she loved a good margarita.
Both women watched the pack of priestesses go before turning back to me. “The first challenge is about due, I understand,” Ken said to me. “Are you ready for it?”
“Uh… I guess.”
Barbie prodded her companion. “We should find a good place to watch.”
“You’re right, you’re very right,” Ken said nodding emphatically. She said in a confidential tone to me, “That’s our job, watching over people. And helping them, of course. I didn’t catch your employer’s name, but if she wants help with the margaritas, why, Barbie here is a dab hand at the blender.”
Barbie rolled her eyes and pulled her friend away. “You’re boring her with trivialities. Did you remember to pack our rain slickers?”
“Of course I did. We wouldn’t want to get gore all over our espadrilles, now would we? Bye bye, Sophea. Good luck with the challenge.”
“Gore,” I said to myself when they left. “Lovely. And me in white lace.”
I returned to the cabin to find the margarita party in full force, with music blaring from someone’s phone, a conga line proceeding around the main room’s furniture, and much boisterous laughter. I warned them about making nuisances of themselves, then gathered up my hat and cutlass, and went to see if Rowan had returned to his own cabin.
I noticed as I trotted down the stairs to our floor that the ship was docked at another small town. Oh good. Maybe Rowan would want to come with me to find a shop with something to wear that didn’t make me look like a reject from a sexy version of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Unfortunately, his cabin was empty when I got to it. Rowan’s bag was gone, though, showing he’d moved his things to mine, a fact that made me feel warm and squidgy, and all sorts of other emotions that I really didn’t want to face at that moment. I peered out of the porthole, noting that a handful of people were streaming down the gangway to the town, clearly fellow passengers doing a little shopping.
“And why shouldn’t Hell have shops?” I asked myself, counting the money I’d tucked into an inner pocket. “I’ll just go see if they have some skirts or something that I can get for Mrs. P and me.” Then I could find Rowan and ask him about those challenges.
Suiting action to word, I made my way to the lower level of the ship, emerging from its dark depths to the brilliant sunshine of Egypt in late summer.
I felt like I’d been punched with a big fist of pure heat. It was way hotter than on the ship, and I thanked the goddess I was wearing a hat. Maybe I could pick up some fans along with the skirts.
I trotted down the gangway, looking around the town that sat right on the edge of the river. Palm trees dotted the shoreline, along with various shrubs and lots of tall brown grasses that rustled in the breeze. Beyond it sat the village, all the buildings made from the same cream-colored stone (or mud, for all I knew). Most of them were low with flat tops, but there was a central building that had beautiful arches and little domes along the length of its roofline.
From appearances, I could be standing at any small village on the Nile, so much so that I had to remind myself that this was the Underworld, and not reality as I knew it.
Behind the village, the hills rose to their flat-topped plateaus, familiar from many an Egyptian mummy documentary about dig sites. I expected to see dogs and chickens and children running around the village, but as I strolled down the main (and only) avenue, there was no one in sight.
“Hello?” I called out, wondering which building housed the shops. “Anyone here?”
A dog bayed in the distance, and at the same time, a low, deep horn sounded from the ship. I dashed back a dozen steps, prepared to see the ship getting ready to go—leaving me behind—but it was anchored as calmly as ever. The gangway was still in place, held down by ropes and stakes. No one appeared at the entrance of the ship, waving on stragglers.
One of the local dogs must have been wary of strangers, because I heard a spate of barking coming from the other side of the big building.
“Huh,” I said to myself, giving the ship one last look before turning to face the town. Maybe it had been the lunch bell or something. Okay, time to get some shopping done so I could go molest a certain brand-new dragon.
I retraced my steps to the center of the village, hearing more barking. This was louder, and accompanied by some snarling, no doubt the local dogs fighting over a bit of food. I glanced around to see if I could locate them, bracing myself for the sight of feral dogs, but still didn’t see any signs of life.
Until I rounded one of the buildings, and then stopped dead in my tracks. Beyond the edges of the village proper, scrubby little shrubs swayed in the wind, petering out to nothing after a few dozen yards. And bounding over the dusty shrubs, heading straight for me, was the most ghastly sight I’d ever seen—a big gray and black dog. No, not dog, a beast! A nightmarish hell beast with slavering jaws, bloodred eyes, and murder in its heart.
My murder!
“Ack!” I turned on my heel and ran like hell down the center of the town, screaming as I did so. “Help! Monster! Carnivorous monster! Someone help!”
The village was dead silent except for my screams and the snarls and slavering panting of the hell beast as it bore down on me, its footfalls dulled thuds on the packed dirt of the village. I rounded the last corner to the ship, and took a chance at glancing behind me. The monster—the approximate size of a pony—was about twenty feet back and closing fast.
There was no way I was going to make the ship in time. I had a choice: I could either stand and face the horrible beast or I could be torn to shreds trying to reach safety.
I was a dragon, dammit. I was a kick-ass dragon, and kick-ass dragons did not run from monsters, no matter how many nightmares they were made of.
I caught a flash of movement from the depths of the ship as I skidded to a stop and spun around, whipping my cutlass from where it was stuck into my sash. “Right. If I’m going down, I’m going to do it with style.”
The dog’s eyes lit with an unholy joy when it realized I was standing still, and it gathered itself in a massive leap, obviously about to flatten me before it ripped me into a million bloody bits. I yelled as I lifted my sword, hoping to catch it either in its throat or in its gut, when suddenly I was hit on the side by a blurred shape. I went flying a good fifteen feet, landing in a patch of prickly grasses, cracking my head on a rock. It took me a minute to gather my wits, but when I sat up, rubbing my head, I beheld the most amazing sight.
Rowan was fighting the monstrous beast.
“Rowan?” I asked, getting to my feet, my admiration unbounded as I watched him wield my Xena sword, parrying the monster every time it lunged at him with snapping, razor-sharp teeth. “Great
Caesar’s goatees, Rowan—watch out!”
Just as I spoke, the monster’s body twisted, knocking the sword out of Rowan’s hand. I rushed forward with my cutlass raised high, but I underestimated Rowan. He swung around in a roundhouse kick that had connected with the beast’s neck with a nauseatingly audible crack, before using both hands to pound on the monster’s back, slamming it into the ground with a force that sent dust flying up in a cloud around us.
I choked, coughing like mad, and squinting as I dashed forward, prepared to help Rowan just as soon as the dust settled enough to see.
“Sophea!” Rowan’s voice was hoarse and interrupted by a spate of coughing. “Sophea, are you all right?”
“I’m here. I’m okay. Where’s the hell beast?”
“Gone. He just disappeared.”
I stumbled forward, blind in the cloud of dust until I saw a dark shape loom up in front of me. I hesitated for a minute, then flung myself into Rowan’s arms, and kissed every part of him I could reach. “I thought I was a goner for sure. And then there you were, and you were awesome. Goddess above and below, Rowan! Where did you learn to do that?”
“I have no idea,” he said, panting and coughing and kissing me all at the same time. “I suspect it was the dragon part of me, because all I could think of was grinding that thing into the dust. You’re sure you’re all right? I didn’t mean to shove you so hard, but that thing was almost to you.”
The same low horn noise sounded from the ship as I patted down his arms and chest, just to make sure he wasn’t hurt in any way. “I’m glad you did. I mean, I may be a badass almost dragon, but you’re a badder-ass full dragon. That was seriously awesome, but don’t you ever do it again! You scared at least ten years off my life.”
“I scared you? I scared the shit out of myself,” he said with a little laugh, and then kissed me, really kissed me, his body getting into the act to the point where I forgot the near-death experience we’d just shared, and focused on just how hot were the flames he built within me.
People emerged from the big building, trailing out chatting and laughing just as if nothing momentous had occurred. They passed us, calling their congratulations to Rowan for defeating the first challenge, all of which we heard, but really didn’t pay attention to, because the kiss had turned into something deeper.