Zahra brought in her hook and cord and climbed halfway out of the narrow rectangular window, and noticed that the roof was only a few feet above her head. With no other option, she stepped onto the knee-high sill and reached up and out. Her fingertips just barely found the edge of the building.
Good enough.
Zahra slipped her other shoulder out and snagged the roof’s edge with her other hand. She kicked away from the opening and planted her feet on the rough stone façade. Her fingers protested the coarseness. One of the digits split and bled.
A hand swiped at her leg. Zahra looked between her legs and saw that one of the Damned had made it up to her in record time. She repositioned her feet and pulled with all her might. Her upper body climbed high enough to get an arm over the edge. She flexed the muscles around her armpit and in her shoulder to keep herself in place while she readjusted her grip. Then, she slid over and onto the roof and rolled onto her back, gasping for air.
She held up her raw and bleeding hands. Zahra tried to find a clean place to wipe them off but failed.
Gunshots rang out in the distance. Zahra was confident that none of the Damned could reach her here — she hadn’t seen them climb, and the stairs would force them to come at her one by one — but the others weren’t as protected. She rolled onto her belly and pushed herself onto her knees. The effort stung her hands. She paid the discomfort little attention and tried to locate the source of the gunfire.
More shots echoed around the cavern, but these had originated from near the Anubian monument. The base of it was only a couple of streets over. Baahir, Rabia, and Ali had either run into another collection of Damned, or they were fighting something else.
Khaliq.
Chapter 101
Khaliq
He had successfully evaded Anubis’ test subjects so far, but only by running for his life. Khaliq couldn’t count the times he had almost died, cut off and surrounded. By sheer luck, he had stumbled into the shadows, hidden, and figured something out about the creatures. The shambling creatures couldn’t see well in the dark.
If they see anything at all. Their opaque, lifeless eyes haunted his mind. Their empty stares unnerved Khaliq.
His hands shook uncontrollably.
He was curious how they communicated, or if they did at all. He could see zero evidence of any vocalization, or even hand signals, yet they seemed to move as one. Khaliq had heard of the “hive-mind” theory, where a group of individuals could operate through a shared consciousness. Until a day ago, Khaliq would have thought that to be preposterous. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
He slid in behind a ten-foot-tall wall, just outside the entrance to what appeared to be a common area — a courtyard. The monument to Anubis was on the other side, waiting to be glorified. Khaliq planned to kneel beneath it and silently praise his ancestor for paving the way. Khaliq felt a bond with Anubis. They weren’t so different. Both would do anything to get what they wanted. Though thousands of years apart, their methodology was nearly identical in practice. Perfection demanded experimentation.
Khaliq tried catching his breath before moving again. The air was thick with sulfurous gas, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. His head swam. Khaliq snapped his head back and bashed his own skull into the igneous barricade. The sharp pain of his skin breaking, and the leaking plasma refocused him. The sting of the wound took his attention off that which clouded his mind.
He stood, and entered the courtyard, smiling manically. His eyes opened, and he saw something he had not expected. There, built directly into the foot of the edifice, was a throne. It sat on a stepped, half-moon platform. The throne itself was easily fifteen feet tall. But the seat of power was only a small piece of what held his attention. What truly awed Khaliq was the fact that there was a ragged corpse sitting within it.
Khaliq’s face fell. “Anubis?”
He sprinted toward the foot of the grand monument. A clearing of a hundred feet separated the throne from the city behind him. Khaliq’s mind raced faster than his feet could move. His trek to Anubis slowed as the body count rose. Similar to the ancient laboratory, there were also hundreds of bodies lying about.
No, not lying about.
All of them had died on their knees in adoration to their king. Khaliq slid to a stop and pictured the intricately cut artwork in the trap room. The people there had been shown in the same posture. They, too, had been worshipping Anubis. He had been right to assume that Anubis had experimented on his own people.
Khaliq zeroed in on one of the dead men, or rather, his skin. It was dry and leathery, though still somewhat preserved by the arid atmosphere. Khaliq needed to know for sure. He knelt and examined the man’s left arm and saw what he dreaded. There, tattooed into the corpse’s forearm, was the symbol for the Scales of Anubis. It perfectly matched the one on Khaliq’s own arm. Not only were these people his test subjects, and prisoners, but they had also been his most loyal followers.
They had been Anubian disciples, just like Khaliq and his family before him.
“Why would you want this?” Khaliq asked, picturing his ancestors. “Why would you want this after what he did to us?”
He knew why. Khaliq and Anubis were truly one and the same. Khaliq had done exactly the same thing to so many people over the years. His lineage had been raised to believe that they were born to complete what Anubis had failed to do, to wipe out the unworthy.
But he had succeeded, though the plague was not what anyone had thought. Khaliq imagined his father seeing this — seeing what had become of Anubis’ most loyal followers. Much of them would have been related to the Ayads.
The bile in Khaliq’s stomach rose, and he vomited where he stood.
The act helped clear his mind some, bringing an all-important thought to the forefront of his faltering, cracking mind. If Anubis was still here — and dead — then it meant one thing.
Anubis was never a true god. Gods don’t die.
Khaliq coughed, heaving for air as his vision narrowed and his world crumbled. Gods don’t die! Khaliq spun around and took in the death, recalling what Baahir had supposed. Gods… don’t die. Just a man.
He fell to his knees, joining his brethren.
Gods don’t die. Just a man. Khaliq looked up at the seated corpse. No, ‘not’ a man.
Anubis had just been a genocidal maniac.
Through tear-filled eyes, Khaliq spotted something on the ground next to Anubis’ feet. The thin cylindrical shape matched that of the Book of the Dead. Was it, yet another, version of the scroll, or maybe the one Khaliq possessed was, in reality, a copy of this one?
His personal Book of the Dead?
Khaliq growled and pushed himself to his feet. Whatever it was, he would be the one to see what the false god had left behind.
Chapter 102
Zahra
The crowd below began to clear. The Damned were showing more interest in the noise further ahead. Zahra had been as quiet as a church mouse since scaling the structure, hoping her inaction would confuse — and eventually bore — her mindless attackers.
What had Baahir called it? A pathogenic parasite?
Zahra unclipped her grappling hook.
Gonna have to look that up when we get home.