Chapter Nineteen

Metamorphosis

Texas

A yellow-orange snake as long as a football field roars—yes, roars— from above us. It’s not in front of us just yet. But it’ll be here in seconds.

As it plows closer, I realize it isn’t really a snake, but what looks like the monster of Frankenstein—stitched pieces of a head of a snake but with a long snout, with rows of teeth that snap viciously above our heads.

The thing above us, Aphosis , as Khamari called it, roars. When it roars, a strong, acrid wind creates waves that rock the boat. I run to the ledge and hold tight.

The wind whips stronger. Hot water splashes aboard the barque and stings my skin. “Okay. What do we do?”

“We fight it. I seal it.” Khamari’s voice is oddly calm. Like he’s about to do something profoundly stupid like sacrifice his life.

“Don’t be a hero. We do this together, okay?”

He avoids my gaze.

“Okay?” I yell.

Aphosis is gaining traction, seeming to dance in the cyclone it’s created.

“Okay. You’re right,” Khamari finally agrees.

“You won’t leave? You won’t dive into the sea after another thottie mermaid?”

The rocking boat makes him stumble into me. He grabs my shoulder to steady himself. “We’re not dying here.”

“Agreed.” I step back, then flick the spiked ring around my finger. I slap together my hands and pull out a scythe. It’s as tall as Khamari, long and sharp with a gold-tipped blade that curves into a sickle.

Khamari pulls me to him for a quick, tight hug. “It’s almost here,” he whispers in my ear. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

He kneels to the ground. I backpedal, then speed toward him, hopping off both feet and using the momentum to leap into the air. Swinging the scythe, I slice its underbelly. Ruby-red blood and chunks of guts shower me.

I smile when my feet smack the deck. It can be cut, and it bleeds—which means it can die.

Aphosis roars and the barque shakes. Its head lowers to glare at me. I see myself reflected in its beady red eyes.

It’s so…interesting. Pretty, even. I want to study it. Stare all day long.

“Stop looking at it,” Khamari shouts from somewhere around me.

Oh, yes. The fight. When I try to lift my weapon, I can’t move. My arms feel funny.

Khamari slams into my body and rolls me over. “When you look into his eyes, you freeze.”

Like Medusa? I want to ask him, but I can’t move my mouth, or my legs, not even my toes. But my heart. Yeah, that’s working just fine, and it’s in overdrive.

He lifts me up and moves me under the tarp. “Stay here. I’m not sure how long the hypnosis lasts.”

Don’t leave! I try to yell, but all that comes out is hmmm .

Another spine-tingling roar is on the outside, and the boat rocks and nearly topples over.

“Come, Khamari.” The god who spoke to me earlier returns.

“Menhan.”

The god lowers her head. “I will protect you. You must go into Aphosis’ mind. Seal him in the darkness.”

“D-don’t.” I gasp. “Go.”

Khamari kneels by my side. “Are you okay?”

“I heal fast.” I pull myself up. Still not in fighting form, but I’m no longer a hindrance. “What’s the plan?”

“I’ll trick him to think that he’s won. He won’t attack if he thinks he’s swallowed us.”

“How will you—?”

“I’ll be fine.” He leans over to squeeze my thigh. “But I’ve got to go.”

“What if the god can’t protect you? What if you get stuck?”

“Then wake me up with a kiss.” He winks, then closes his eyes. Despite the chaos swirling around us, he sits with his legs crossed at his ankles, leans back, and his head thuds against the floor.

The boat remains still, and the waters are calm. The snake lets out a loud hiss somewhere in the water. It’s already been thirty minutes, maybe longer, and after sitting for so long in the same position, my legs tingle. I lean over Khamari’s prone body.

He doesn’t look like he’s dream battling a snake, just taking a quick catnap. He’s frowning, but sometimes he does that when he’s sleeping.

“Don’t be gone for too long.” I trace his lips, his eyebrows, and then kiss his forehead. Just ahead of us, I notice a strip of sand. In a few minutes, we’ll hit the shore.

As I get to my feet, Aphosis appears near the boat.

At some point during my fight, I discarded my scythe near the rear of the boat. I roll over to retrieve my weapon. Then I swing before it can swoop down and eat us.

This time, Aphosis hisses and snaps its jaw toward me. Its head lowers slowly in my direction. That effin’ snake is trying to hypnotize me again. Its body plops onto the barque, and the boat groans and sways violently from the weight.

Closing my eyes, I tap into my subconscious.

“I need you,” I tell myself. Then I visualize myself back at the fight at the first gate. The fight with the Beserker Raven, who seemed so menacing at first.

But I drop my sword. Take her hand— my hand. Smiling, she steps through me, inside of me, and we meld into one person.

Something slithers and wraps around my body. Constricting me so tightly I can’t breathe, can’t move.

“Get up,” I tell myself. Or at least the voice sounds like me.

Opening my eyes, I find myself eye-to-eye with Aphosis.

“I wonder how a slayer tastes.” It hisses in delight.

I struggle in its hold. I can move, but I’m like a fly with a plucked wing caught in a sticky spider web.

Blood drips from my temples down to my chest and arms and hands.

Hands.

“Gladius.”

Gripping the hilt of the sword, I muster all my strength and power the sword through its belly. “Ahhh!”

A muscle tears in my shoulder (I think), and my right arm dangles uselessly at my side. Flaming-hot pain slices through my shoulder. It’s shredded. I brace my hand against the painful tear. It’s hot to the touch, and I feel my muscles rolls under my skin like waves in the sea. Good news is I’m healing, but I’m too afraid to move, let alone fight.

I could heal it, but I’ll need a minute. And a minute with an ancient, bloodthirsty creature equals death.

Panting with pain, I scan the area to find a way out. Luckily, we’re near the shore, and the boat slaps against the sandy dune. I turn, hop off the boat, and close my eyes, listen to the vibration, and remember what Remington taught me.

This is my field. I don’t need to get close.

Aphosis’ body slithers from the boat onto the sand. I feel the vibration it creates. There’s a pattern.

If I run away and quickly climb, I can partially heal.

“Metamorphosis,” I whisper to the sand. The sand sinks deeper, startling the giant snake. I crack open my eyes at the sound of the grumble. It snaps its head in my direction but then swings it back to Khamari.

He’s close. Too close.

“What the hell is going on, Khamari?”

I whistle at Aphosis.

“No need to whistle, human.” Its voice sounds ancient and angry. “I can hear you. I can hear your lover, too.” Its laugh is like a low rumble. “I may not defeat Ra, but I will defeat you.”

“Well, then, come and get me.” I run toward a tree with a thick trunk that splits into a mass of branches. The tree’s trunk resembles a pyramid, with a wide base and branches and leaves that taper to a point like an arrow at the top. I scramble up and climb and slip when I reach a branch and grab hold of a large conifer that sprouts between the branches and green leaves of the tree. My right arm is healing, but the progress it’s making goes up in flames from my tree-climbing.

Aphosis lets out an evil ha-ha-ha . And let me tell you, a ha-ha-ha coming from a snake-slash-crocodile is something to be feared.

“More parlor tricks, is it?” Aphosis quickly reaches the tree in no time and wraps its scaly, spiked skin around the tree so hard the branches snap and fall like snow.

It snaps its mouth near my feet but then suddenly stops. It hisses. “Out of my head, vampire.”

“Move, Raven!” Aphosis shouts in a warped voice. I know it’s Khamari in there somewhere. The snake smacks its head against the tree. I quickly crawl back down while Khamari screws with its mind. A few feet above the ground, I grab the tree with both palms and tree and yell, “Indurabo…resinae.” Then I push myself from the tree, fall, thump, and roll onto the ground.

The tree oozes with clear, translucent liquid that looks like raindrops.

Sticky raindrops. Well, more like resin. And though it usually takes much longer to harden and become sticky, with a little help with alchemy, Aphosis is stuck like chuck.

The creature howls as it attempts to pull its body off the tree. It just manages to unstick its head, and it swings like a pendulum in a bell tower. I step away, looking for my weapon.

“I’ve got it from here.” Khamari grabs my scythe.

His sudden appearance startles me so much I swing my fists. He catches one with his open hand.

“Sorry.”

He drops my hand.

“When did you—”

He doesn’t answer me. Just swings down and chops off its head. A red storm of blood drenches the ground. Apohsis’ head thuds and topples on the ground, and I’m oh, so tempted to kick it like a football.

Apparently, Khamari doesn’t have the same instincts. He simply kneels, checking the headless creature, and grunts when he confirms the headless thing is dead.

“Sana.” I plop on the ground, grabbing my injured shoulder, and work on myself to accelerate my healing. “Give me a minute or two. Need to handle this.” I use my Internist powers, and the warm energy flows into my shoulders. But the healing isn’t easy or pretty. Like an overenthusiastic hair braider, the power tugs the fibers in my muscles until my arm jerks back. The tugging is so hard it snaps, pops, and then somehow weaves my muscles back together.

After a few minutes, I stand and shake out my arm and flex. “Good as new.” I smile at Khamari, who’s grinning at me.

“Thanks for saving me…again.” I walk beside him and bump his shoulder with my newly minted one. He stops, eyes me with so much humor bursting from his expression it jolts my heartbeat.

“What’s so funny?”

“You…being all shy and bumping my shoulder like I’m your friend.”

“You don’t want to be my friend?”

He shakes his head. “My first day of school freshman year, I saw you lugging that saxophone case, and everyone seemed to just move out of your way. I wanted to know you, even then.”

Laughing, I recall the new boy in town with the beautiful Jamaican accent staring at me. I thought he had a problem, or maybe he heard one of many rumors about me and my short stint at Juvie. And that bothered the hell out of me. I didn’t want the stink of the town to taint his opinion of me before he could know me.

“Well, you asked to be my study partner for lab,” I concede. “So, technically—”

“Nope. Not as a friend. A partner. And that was just step one to get you to go out with me.”

“It worked,” I confess softly.

God, did it work. He’d leaned over at some point, his fingers grazing mine when he grabbed my pencil to correct my work.

“We’ve never been friends—”

“But we’ve been enemies,” I cut him off.

It’s a good thing I’m all healed because he grabs my shoulder and pulls me close to face him. Now I’m up close and personal, and there’s no denying what’s etched on his face. The love and longing that live in the depth of his brown eyes.

I try to move, but he tugs me right back. I can’t deny it. He loves me, this I know. He longs for me so much that I can feel the ache of his pain.

But there’s one my “L” I need, because love isn’t enough. I need loyalty. For once, I wish I could use Khamari’s powers and erase the fact that he plans to take the tablet.

My heart spirals from my chest down to my feet because I know I have to tell him. We have to end this deadly dance.

“You think I’m your enemy?” Khamari tightens his grip on my shoulders. It’s not rough or gruff, but I can tell he’s afraid I’ll run away.

“I know how you…how you feel about me, but—”

“Hear me now, Raven. I’ll never be your enemy. Even when shit gets dark, I’ll find my way back to you.” He swallows, and I can tell it’s painful. “Say you believe me.”

Does that mean he’ll give up the tablet? That’s the only thing that’s standing in between us. But things are so good, so happy right now. I can’t bring myself to challenge him. “I…I…”

Menhan, the god that appeared on the boat a few hours before, stands near the shore. “Come, Khamari. It’s time for the next trial.”

The god returns to the boat. Khamari follows, and so do I.

I lace my hand with his. “We’ll talk all about it after these trials.”

“Yeah.” He nods, but from his face, I can tell he’s in game mode.

“Stay back and do not interfere,” the god warns me.

I nod and move back a little further than an arm’s distance from Khamari.

“Khamari, lie down.” She points at the tarp on the other end of the barque.

Menhan chants. Other beings appear out of thin air. Their bodies are translucent and glowing an iridescent blue. They crowd Khamari and lay hands on him, joining the chant.

“What’s going on?” I ask the god.

“These are souls. They’re removing the scarab from his chest.”

“What?” My attention dodges between the god and Khamari. More like ripping it out.

“I’ll do it.” Khamari puts his hand over his chest. The tips of his claws clench his chest as if he plans to rip his heart out. “Out, you.”

The scarab pushes through his chest. Khamari squints his eyes and clenches his jaw. He exhales slowly, pushing through the pain. It topples to the floor and scuttles away.

I rush to his side, ignoring Menhan’s protest.

“We’re on the home stretch now.” He grabs my hand. “We’ve got less than an hour left.”

The glowing souls toss flowers into the water as we blissfully sail away, sans eels and snakes and crocodiles. Just us and the stars. Khamari glances at his watch and then back at the sky.

“You’re tense.” I break our silence.

“I merged my consciousness with a snake. There’s a lot of bad stuff in there. Souls it’s eaten. People it’s tortured. It feels…slighted. It’s the reason Alexander survived.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I saw some flashes of memories. Conversations. They believe the gods betrayed them. And Alexander…”

“What?”

“He promised to open the door for Apophis. He promised chaos. I didn’t know that part.”

“Ah. That’s why he wants the tablet.

I shudder, imaging all the pain and devastation both Apophis and Alexander could cause. “I know you mean well, but you can’t hand it over to him.”

Khamari shakes his head and looks like he’s kicking himself. “There’s so much evil that exists. So much between Heaven and Earth and beyond. And this here…” He waves around us. “This is Hell and Aphosis is the devil.”

“You really think so?”

“A being that perceives itself as a god. Wants to be the sun god, ring a bell?”

I nod. “A little.”

He sighs. “There’s no way that Alexander survived down here for centuries with his sanity intact.”

“Why does that scare you? Maybe we can use that to our advantage.” I shrug. “A little mental warfare.”

“He’s crawled from the pits of Hell. He’s got nothing to lose, and he won’t go down without the world burning.”