Chapter Twenty

Heartbreak Anniversary

Khamari

The souls of the departed stand on either side of the bank, waving at us, throwing roses, and offering gifts of goods.

A blue, glowing soul wades through the river and offers a small plate that looks like small, fried dough balls. I take the offer and give my thanks. When it remains still and watches us, I lift it to my mouth to eat, but then Raven slaps it out of my hand.

“We don’t know what their kitchen looks like.”

The nonplussed soul wades back in the water and returns to the bank.

The barque picks up speed.

She leans to my ear and whispers, “Can I tell you something weird?”

“Go for it.”

“I kinda had fun.”

“You had fun? Here? With all the snakes and eels and that mermaid?”

“Whatever, I still had fun.” She shakes her head. “Think about it… We haven’t been with each other in a long time.”

“Two years.” And twenty days, sixteen hours. But who’s counting?

“Yeah. And now we’re leaving this place and I don’t know what to do about you…” She looks at me. “About us.”

“First thing is that we’ve got to kill Alexander.”

“You and I will kill him for sure.”

“You’re confident.”

She nods. “For once, I am. I mean, if you can basically hypnotize a snake god, surely, we can kick Alexander’s ass.”

“Hmmm.”

She lifts her head from my shoulder. “What? You don’t think we can do it? Let me guess, you don’t think I’m strong enough.”

“It’s nothing to do with you. It’s that I don’t know his strengths or weaknesses. That’s the issue.”

“In theory, he probably possesses all the powers of vampire royals.” She stretches her fingers and counts it off. “So you’ve got the Saqqara clan that can fly and teleport. Your clan, the Ankhs, can screw with the minds. Telepathy and all of that. And the Hekau clan can leverage electric energy.”

“The Hekau clan can also control someone’s body.”

She snorts. “Like a puppet. That seems a little unfair, if you ask me.”

“Good thing there aren’t a lot of them.”

“Why is that?”

“They keep killing each other off.”

“Okay, so he’s like the avatar of vampire royals.” Raven shrugs. “And guess what? I’ve killed off a vampire of each kind.”

“When you lost control of yourself.”

She shrugs. “I just hadn’t figured out myself. I know what to do now.”

“What’s different?”

She sighs. “Back then, when it happened, it was like nitroglycerin, and I couldn’t control my emotions. All I could comprehend is destruction and death.” She shakes her head. “It’s happened twice in two months. And I feel like one of those stupid work accident signs: forty-eight days since Berserker.”

From her tight expression—tight lips and clenched jaw, I know she’s disappointed in herself.

“This entire experience should’ve made you lose it, but you’ve kept your cool,” I commend her.

“The souls from the stone helped a bit.”

“They still haven’t spoken to you down here?”

“Weirdly, no.” She snorts. “I think maybe the gods stripped me of the power, or maybe they just can’t speak to me way down here. Or they won’t.”

Then she smiles. Soft and sweet. “But yeah, between the souls and Anton, they’ve put a lot of work on me. The meditation and breathing techniques have helped. And you know…now that I think about it, the fighting has helped me grow, too. It’s given me confidence.”

“He’s given you confidence?”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Look, Anton’s my teacher, and I care about him.” She looks me straight in the eye.

“Are you together?” My throat is tight, but I ask.

“Do you think I would’ve let you feel you up if I was with ole dude?”

“No. But you do have feelings for him.”

“Anton’s over two centuries’ years old. Ask me again if I’m still alive in eighty years.” She smirks. I can tell she thinks it’s a joke, but it’s not. Life is too short. I know that. My parents knew that, and Khaven’s living with that reality.

“Are we together or are we not?”

“The way that you’re shouting at me, I’m thinking not.”

I squeeze my fists and lean over. “You don’t understand…” I breathe over the pain. “When I first met you, I knew you were it for me.”

“Me too.”

“Then come here.”

“Khamari.” She leans away. “Maybe we’re in over our heads.”

“Come here, Queen. Just let me hold you.”

She drags her feet, coming close to me until the tips of her shoes touch mine. I pull her down, scoop her into my arms. “Breaking up with me again?”

“Technically, I’ve never broken up with you.”

I nod. I open my mouth to confess my feelings, but I’ve already done it. She knows. It’s up to her now.

“All this time, you’ve been asking about Anton. But you haven’t asked me how I feel about you .”

Have I done that? I run through conversations in my mind. We haven’t had a lot of time to talk about our relationship.

She shakes her head. “Always focusing on the future. Never focusing on now. That god was spot on.”

“Maybe.”

“I used to hear people say that loving someone isn’t enough. I thought it was something lazy people who didn’t want to put in the work said. The quitters of the world. Because if you love someone, you make it work…right?” she says in a shaky voice.

“Right,” I answer, though I know it’s not what she thinks is the right answer.

She inhales. “There’s the verse in the Bible Grandma Lou always says anytime I got in trouble, and I thought she didn’t like or love me. Love is patient and it’s kind, and it never fails.”

“O…okay?” I don’t know where she’s going with this.

“But…we’ve failed. Repeatedly.”

I squeeze her tight. No. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for goodbye. “You think we’re failures?”

“I think we’ve been set up to fail.” When she rests her head on my heart, I wonder if she can hear it crack.

I know society says guys aren’t supposed to cry. But I want to. I don’t want to be her friend.

A low groaning fills the air.

She raises her head and looks at me. “Looks like this is the end.” Instead of pushing off, her eyes soften.

Just as quickly, it disappears. Fear and fresh tears pool in her eyes.

“You don’t have to say goodbye if you don’t want to,” I tell her.

She laughs, squeezing her eyes shut. “I don’t want to do the mature thing, but I think it’s the right thing.”

The right thing? Then why is every cell in my body screaming out in pain?

“I wish we could go back to school. We’d be getting ready for college now. Maybe we’d fight because we didn’t end up at the same school and we’d wonder if we could make it,” she continues, not knowing the depth of my devastation.

“We would’ve made it,” I grumble. Back then, there was no way I was letting my girl go.

“That would have been the least of our worries. But now we have to save the world.” She opens her eyes, and they’ve changed again. Heated, sexy, without a trace of the humor I love about her.

Fiercely beautiful.

Fiercely mine.

Her lips to my lips, she destroys me. Pulls my memories, demands my presence. And for once, I don’t think about the future. This is it: my beginning, middle, and end.

Heat hits my back. I briefly open my eyes and find what looks like a hellfire shower around us. But there’s a presence just above, fluttering with colorful feathered wings.

It’s Ma’at. And with her wings, she covers us with her body and her grace. A gift.

We kiss. We don’t stop. Urgently, we breathe in each other until…until we can’t.

The groaning grows louder, urgent.

We break away. Raven swipes at her swollen lips.

“Oh great. Another snake.”

The mouth of the snake is as wide as a tunnel. Its mouth is still and open and ready to gobble us whole. Darkness waits for us, and it feels like a rollercoaster before dropping off.

“Hold tight, dear ones,” Ma’at says.

Raven jumps when she notices the goddess. “Has she been there the entire time?”

I nod.

“I will protect you,” Ma’at answers. “Hold on to each other. Remember what you have learned. You will need everything you’ve learned.”

We both nod and stare at each other.

“I hate snakes,” Raven says unnecessarily.

“Then hold on to me.” Embracing her waist, I put one of my lessons to work—to live in the present, remain in the moment. I used the past as a lullaby at night. I feared the future. But I never enjoyed the now.

Until now.

I won’t pressure her about what’s next. The most important thing, what I need most, is her lips against mine.

“I love you,” I confess. “Then, now, always.”

We kiss. As I tease her lips, a soft re-introduction, she grows impatient and presses our bodies together, skin against skin, our arms tightly embracing each other.

I kiss her for as long as time allows. I could kiss her for eternity.

We tumble as we enter the mouth of a snake and tumble into darkness.

Light filters in. And we’re surrounded by forty-two angry judges.

“We’re baaaaack,” Raven sing-songs.

“In a sense.” I point to our bodies, lying still on a raised golden platform. Nestled on a stand is our prize.

“The Emerald Tablet,” Raven whispers.

It’s right there. Green, glowing, I can’t make out the exact size because it glows so bright. A bare-chest, bronzed god, wearing a bird mask, holds a stack of emerald plates on his lap. Written on it are symbols I can’t decipher. He sits by himself, and the beak of the mask seems to point right at me.

“I am Thoth, the god of writing, wisdom, justice.” His voice is melodic, set to put us at ease.

Nothing about this is easy. Not our journey, not a bunch of gods staring at us.

“I know this one,” Raven whispers, clearly excited. I read about him, too. He is the one rumored to be the keeper of the Emerald Tablet.

Nothing about this is easy. Not our journey, not a bunch of gods staring at us.

“We need the tablet,” I begin. “We’d like to—”

“Change your destiny,” Thoth answers. “I have seen your progression, Khamari St. John and Raven Wright. I have witnessed you ascend and overcome. But the tablet cannot be used as a weapon to defeat Alexander. Only you can. Together.”

Ma’at touches my shoulder, and she looks down at me, a ghost of a smile covering her face. “We paused your judgements. We wanted to give you a chance to prove yourselves. Now we will convene and give our judgments, and perhaps you may use it if you are worthy.”

“Prove ourselves?” Raven snorts. “We have nothing to prove to you. I mean, was killing Aphosis and battling snakes and eels and mermaids not enough for you…you deities?”

I grab her hand and squeeze, not to silence her, but to support. She’s right. “We aren’t dead. Your temple guardians brought us here. We should not have to endure judgment. We’ve been to the afterlife and battled your monsters. But we have a monster here that we need to deal with, and we’ve already wasted enough time.”

“Time moves more slowly here.” Ma’at raises her hand as if to stop us from speaking. “What seems like days to you has only been hours. It’s four a.m., two hours from sunrise. There is time.”

“Not much,” I argue. “Please, let us leave. Let us fight.”

“And that is why we are unsure of you, Khamari,” Ma’at answers without heat. “You, the son of a vampire. The son of a powerful priestess. You who have too much unrealized power. We cannot allow it to be manipulated or used for wrongdoings. You, Khamari, have the potential to save the world or destroy it. What will it be?”

Raven shakes her head. “He has morals.” She looks at me, really looks at me. “He’s a good person. With a good heart. And if he ever goes off the rails, I’ll be there. We will fight Alexander…together.”

I smile at her, drink in her face. “We will.” I turn to face the gods. Near the ceiling, they all sit elevated above us, except for Ma’at. “Trust me, Alexander’s not just going to stop conquering the world. He’s coming for you, too.”

“He’s already here,” Ma’at confirms.

“H-here?” Raven looks around.

“Yes. He’s brought more vampires, and now your allies fight them, along with the guardians. However, Alexander fights now with his son. He seeks the Emerald Tablet.”

“Anton.” Raven shakes her head. “We’ve got to go. We’ve got to help them.”

She looks at all of them. “We don’t have time to waste. Let us go!”

“She has work to do, my slayer.” Another god lowers himself from the elevated platform to the ground.

I’ve seen him before. Green skin, kohl-black eyes. A long gold-and-blue striped staff.

“Your slayer?” Raven says.

“I am Ptah.” He raises a hand over his heart. “A creator. I’ve crafted the world in the design of my heart. I am deity of craftsmen and architects.”

“Are you the Architect?

“I’m known by many names. Many cultures. And you, my champion, have much to do.”

“W-why me?” her voice croaks. “Why not Charlotte or…or Anton?”

“Your lineage gives you an advantage. Your youth. Your heart.”

“Lineage? Like Grandma Lou?”

“Louisiana, yes. But it is your mother and your father.”

“They were human.”

He cocks his head, as if hearing something curious. “One of them.”

“What do you mean—”

“Anton needs you. Go and fight,” he commands in a way that demands obedience.

Raven snaps her mouth shut and nods only once.

I squeeze her hand, returning her attention to me. “Don’t worry. I won’t give the tablet to him,” I tell her honestly.

“Yeah…I know you won’t do me like that.” Raven hugs me.

“We shall see.” Ptah waves his hand. Raven is lifted from the floor.

“Hey!” Raven jerks her body, and it looks like she’s drowning midair.

“We are returning you to your body.”

“What about Khamari?” she yells, still struggling.

“We have more to discuss. Help your friends. They will need you.”

Raven looks at me with wild and wide eyes.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be there soon.” I nod. “Just stay safe. Alexander is going to try to get in your head and—”

“I know. I’ll keep it together.” Her soul returns to her body. She looks around the room, and I imagine she sees nothing.

“Come back to me, Khamari! I mean it,” she yells before running out of the room.

“I will,” I say back, though I know she can’t hear me.

Once the sound of her footsteps disappears, I face my judgment. “What else is there to say?” I address them. “If I do the negative confessions, I’ll be lying. If you weigh my heart, it’ll be too heavy.”

“And that is why—”

“It’s not heavy because I’m bad,” I interrupt a judge that I don’t recognize. “It’s heavy because I have the chance to save my friends, my brother, the girl I love—the world—from certain death. And the more time I waste in trying to convince you, the more endangered the world becomes.”

Ptah floats from to me. “To secure the Emerald Tablet, you must make a sacrifice.”

Anubis stomps forward to my prone, unconscious body. “And we require your heart.”

“My heart?” I swallow.

“Yes. Physical and emotions.” Anubis smacks my chest so hard it’s a surprise it doesn’t cave in.

“To weigh it?”

“No.” This time Ptah speaks. “To evaluate it. We need your permission to remove it.”

“Will I die?”

“In a manner of speaking. This is your choice. Your life. But you must make your decision now. As you said, the world needs your help.” Ptah’s voice is gentle but firm. Like a real father. Not like Alexander.

I nod slowly, and with regret. I can’t imagine my life with Raven, and I don’t want to leave Khaven behind. But this is for the greater good. When it comes to defeating Alexander, my hand-size heart shouldn’t matter. “Do it.”

Anubis growls but, with gentle care, removes my heart from my chest.

“Damn.” I rub at my chest, though I can’t feel any pain. Despite all odds, my heart still beats.

With stomps as heavy as buffalo, Anubis marches to the scale that tips to the bottom. But he doesn’t balance it with a feather. He studies it, circles the scales as if deliberating a criminal trial.

He even sniffs it.

“His heart belongs to her, the slayer girl. This is his test.”

Ptah, who stands beside me, turns to face me. “If you want the Emerald Tablet, it requires the sacrifice of your heart—either the physical or what makes it beat, and she is Raven. Give us the heart of your slayer and you will have your tablet. What’s more, slayers will not need to exist. She can die in peace. And you now know there is an afterlife.”

“No,” I choke out. My throat is tight with pain. “I can’t do that.”

“If not her heart, then yours.” Ptah whispers sound like violence. “You will go in peace into the afterlife. Something you have always feared since you became a vampire. We will wipe everything clean and ensure the tablet remains in the right hands, and honor your wish that all vampires cease to exist. But we require a great sacrifice.”

“If I…if I choose death—”

“In a manner of speaking,” Ptah interrupts.

“If I choose to leave the ones I love behind, what happens next to them? To me?”

“Khamari,” Ptah says, “remember that your spirit is enduring. You are the son of a Royal. But most importantly, the son of a priestess, one who can emulate the powers of a god. As far as your brother and your love, their journey is theirs to discover. The tablet will be given to your slayer. But be warned, there are those who will always seek it. Knowledge has no true master.

“Now, Khamari St. John. Give us your answer.”