The Wicked Within

NINETEEN

HIS POWER GAVE OUT A few feet above his grandmother’s garden. Not the location he’d been aiming for, but at least it wasn’t pavement. They landed with a thud, his back hitting the ground first, then Zoe’s weight hitting him from the front, knocking the breath from his lungs. He released her, and she rolled off him. His muscles trembled, his mind was exhausted, and pain shot arcs through his brain. Nausea rolled through his gut. Too much power; he’d used too much. It took several seconds for his vision to focus, the blurry night stars finally snapping back into place.

Hell, he hadn’t even realized he could draw that much power.

Zoe sat up and looked around with her possessed eyes as he slowly pushed himself to a sitting position. She waited until he drew in several ragged breaths and said, “Now wake me up.”

Sebastian’s entire body was shaking hard now. Keeping his balance, even in a sitting position, was difficult. “Just . . . give me a minute.”

She grabbed his arm and leaned in close. “I have waited long. Too long.”

“Then you won’t mind a couple more minutes. I don’t even know how to wake you up.”

“You come to me, to my world, and speak my names to my body. Then I will live again in the mortal realm.”

“And then what? You tear into my world and destroy everything?”

“Not everything. You fear for your world, your city, your family. Have no fear, young Mistborn. I have no desire to destroy that which is beyond my goal.”

Yeah. If only he could believe that. Still, the alternative—the city was already being destroyed. People he knew were hurt or dying. Already dead.

Zoe leaned forward and took Sebastian’s hands. Hers were small, so thin and delicate that he could crush them. Zoe closed her eyes and spoke words he could not understand but knew were of an ancient, maybe even lost language. Power gathered around them, the rush of it surrounding them and energizing him. The lights from the garden lanterns dimmed, then went out.

“What are you doing?”

“Hush,” she whispered.

Blackness enveloped them. And then weightlessness.

One second Sebastian was sitting in the soft grass and the next he was standing alone somewhere else entirely. His knees buckled, but he managed to catch himself, gasping and disoriented.

Warmth seeped into his body. It was a rejuvenating sensation that made him stand a little straighter and think a little more clearly. He blinked a few times and pulled fresh nighttime air into his lungs. He wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, but he knew he was no longer in the garden. This wasn’t the French Quarter. Hell, this wasn’t even his world.

Colossal columns were set in a rectangular pattern around a stone floor, with no walls or roof. The columns were as thick and tall as old California redwoods, their bases alone a story high. Every inch was carved and painted in bright colors.

A temple. He was in a temple. One made for giants.

On three sides, the land dropped sharply into black water. Twinkling stars reflected on the surface. There were other islands out there in the darkness, and he could see temples and palaces with fires burning in large basins and torches. Lush gardens fell over balconies, and old reed boats floated in the water with lanterns hung from their high curved ends.

On the fourth side of the temple, the land dipped, leading down into a courtyard filled with tall palms, flowering trees, and plants with blossoms as big as dinner plates. A pool. And beyond that was a long gallery of columns that led into an enormous temple that dwarfed the one where he stood.

The enormity of the place and situation hit him. “Where am I?” he whispered to himself.

“ Sekhet Hetepet. Land of my father. Part of the Egyptian Otherworld.”

Sebastian spun toward the deep voice, ready to defend himself, but his hands fell limp at his side as he got his first look at the god. Bran’s words echoed in his head. Old. Primal. Deity. The god watched him. Even without speech, without movement, he seemed to bleed power through his pores. The god had wings like a falcon and the body of a man. He wore some sort of linen skirt and nothing else except a large collar made up of beads, gems, and gold. His skin was a smooth charcoal black, and the tattoos that covered his body were done in faded blues and reds and greens. Bluish green lined his eyes, and his strange irises glowed bright within the darkness of his face. One eye like the sun, one eye like the moon. They were mesmerizing. Haunting. And they drew him in like a moth to a flame. He wanted to stare into those eyes forever.

Sebastian did a mental head shake. His reaction wasn’t physical attraction. There was no tug in his belly like he had with Ari. But this god . . . being near him was like being drawn to an exotic predator, one that lured you in despite the risks.

Wait. One eye like the moon. One like the sun.

Shock burst in his gut. Oh shit. He knew who this was. Horus. Supreme Egyptian deity. Son of Osiris and Isis.

“You know who I am.”

Sebastian nodded. His mouth had gone dry.

“I am not real, Sebastian Lamarliere. My body still sleeps. This is my spirit form. In your world I have many forms. You must call my true form back from Sleep. You must breathe life into my true names. Names have great power.”

The soft pad of steps somewhere behind him made him turn. A shadow emerged from between the massive columns. Sebastian’s jaw went slack at the sight of the huge black lioness. Her gigantic paws slapped the stone as she paced slowly back and forth.

She was tense and impatient and looked hungry as hell. She shifted suddenly into a sleek Egyptian cat, walked into a dark shadow, then reappeared as a lioness again.

“She shifts when she is agitated,” Horus said. “No harm will come to you here, Mistborn. Wake me up and I’ll set you free.”

“You can’t free me,” he said, finding his voice and facing the god again. “I’m a vampire. I’ve taken blood. My body has already made the change.”

Horus raised an eyebrow. “Reversing the effects of blood on the body is as simple as healing. Doubting me . . . I am not used to such things.”

“You might not be used to a lot of things,” Sebastian said carefully. “People don’t really believe in the old gods anymore. The world is not as you might remember it. You might not like what you find.”

“I know what I will find. I have only been asleep for a short time.”

Sebastian was pretty sure his idea of a short time and the god’s were totally different. “Can you kill Athena?”

“She is a worthy adversary, with many of her father’s talents and powers.” The god shrugged. “We shall see.”

Horus stared out over the dark, glittering landscape of the Egyptian Otherworld. The only sound was the water lapping at the cliffs and the lioness pacing behind them, randomly shifting from huge predator to small feline, her footfalls telling him when she was lion and when she was not.

Sebastian tipped his head back, amazed at how clear and how impossibly bright the stars were in this place. As he looked, a subtle shift happened, and the sky took on the appearance of a roof, a dome over the landscape made of inky blue tiles painted with yellow and white stars. So close. He lifted his hand.

“Reach. Jump. Fly for days, months, years,” Horus said. “And you will never reach them. It is the Sleeping Sky. Painted by the first gods, then given life and infinite space. This is the sky in which gods go to sleep. They are the brightest stars. . . . ”

Sebastian stared hard at the glittering stars. They glowed and winked and burned like diamonds held up to a flame. In one moment, they seemed as far away as the stars in his own sky and in another, close enough for him to touch.

But he hadn’t come here to sightsee. He’d come for help. And that meant making sure Horus knew exactly what was required of him if Sebastian was going to wake the god from his sleep.

Sebastian began his long-winded terms of the bargain he was about to make, knowing he treaded on thin ice. He felt like he’d spoken for hours, covering every possible angle.

Horus, surprisingly, agreed to everything, which made Sebastian relieved and suspicious. But there was no turning back now as the god began the ritual necessary for Sebastian to speak his names. Sebastian followed him through the lofty columns to the center of the temple. There was a table there, one he hadn’t remembered seeing before. On it was a tall golden idol of a male with the head of a falcon, the body of a man, and a large sun disk on his head. In his hand was a staff with a painted eye. Beneath the lower rim of the eye, a line curved down and around like a tail. Next to this line, another shorter line had been drawn straight down and closer to the inside corner of the eye.

He’d seen this eye many times before in books and on statues. The Eye of Horus.

On the table were three bowls: one of black liquid, one of red, and one of bluish green. Horus picked up a small dagger from the table.

He offered Sebastian the blade. “You must squeeze a drop of your blood into each bowl.”

Sebastian slit his finger, then squeezed three drops into the bowls.

Horus dipped his finger into one of the bowls. “Close your mouth and face me,” he said.

Fear spiked through him at the god’s words. He had to concentrate on keeping his feet planted. But he’d come this far. He thought of what was happening in his world, the fighting, the chaos, the fires. . . .

Horus’s strange eyes grew brighter as he lifted his finger and touched Sebastian’s mouth. The contact sent the creepiest buzz through him as Horus traced the blue paint over the outer edge of Sebastian’s top and bottom lip, making the shape of what felt like an eye. Horus took another finger and dipped it in black, making a small line down his chin, and then, with the red, he made a second line. Just like the eye on the staff.

“You speak now through the Eye.”

When Horus instructed him to draw the eye over the god’s mouth, Sebastian went cold. He wanted to bolt, to get the hell out of there, but he didn’t move. As much as he didn’t want to touch Horus, he dipped his finger in the blue and, with a shaky hand, drew the eye around Horus’s lips, followed by two lines down his chin in the red and black.

Sweat rolled down his back. The eye around Horus’s mouth looked eerie and grim, almost violent in a way. Like war paint, something with meaning and power.

“I too speak through the Eye, and thus my words are binding.” Horus then repeated everything Sebastian had requested in exchange for the awakening, word for word. “Should I break this vow, my spirit will be pulled by the Eye, through my mouth, releasing me from my body once again. Now you must wake me or suffer the same.”

Sebastian’s heart was pounding so hard he thought he saw stars of a different kind. He gulped. The paint on his lips felt strange as he gave a sharp nod, wondering if this was the smartest thing he’d ever done—or the very worst.

Horus began to say strange and ancient-sounding names. Sebastian repeated them slowly. One after another. The air warbled. As he said the names, he felt the paint sinking into his skin and tingling around his mouth, then down his throat, and into his chest as though it had settled into his lungs. Sebastian felt as though he was breathing life into the names as they came out of his mouth.

Then, carefully, he reached up and felt his mouth. It was dry. There was no paint. It had disappeared.

Beyond Horus’s shoulder, one of the stars in the painted sky grew brighter. Slowly its light was pulled downward in a long stream, growing more brilliant as it touched Horus. The more names that were spoken, the brighter the light that filled him.

As the last name was spoken, Sebastian shielded his eyes. The light surrounded Horus, illuminating his form. Then, in a flash, the star was gone, and before Sebastian stood the tanned figure of a man with a shaved head, dressed in linen. Horus was just as impressive and intimidating now as he had been in his spirit form.

“Now let’s go get my child.”