“That’s why I’m staying,” she said softly.

Kamen stood in front of the large stone altar, looking down on the various containers holding the components the awakening spell called for. He was na**d except for the pristine white loincloth of a true temple priest, the embroidered runic symbols on it done in turquoise and golden threads. He had laid Odjit on the flat surface of the altar, just a little bit beyond his ingredients, so that she was as close as possible to the magic that would be meant for her alone. He wanted there to be no doubt, no misdirection. He was no fool. He knew exactly how temperamental spells and prayer incantations could be. It was always a risk to enter into the use of one, especially one that was so unfamiliar and whose origin was completely lost in history. But he simply didn’t see what choice he had.

He began the spell by casting sand across the altar, cleaning it of any residual magic that might be clinging to it from other incantations. There were almost a dozen mortars and pestles around him and he scattered each ingredient, from powdered charcoal to liquid Dragon’s blood, and used each one’s mortar to grind it into the stone. He also sprinkled each component onto Odjit’s arm, and then very gently rubbed it into her skin. The Dragon’s blood stained her an unusual ebony color, it’s iridescence very reminiscent of a snake’s skin or a fish’s scales. For the last component he used the sharp base of a large cat’s whisker to draw blood at the crook of her elbow. Using the whisker as a quill he began to write the words of the spell in the sandy components and onto her skin. Then using his fingertip he wrote them once more in the gritty mixture that painted the altar.

There, he thought. There could be no mistaking who the spell was directed toward. Now all that was left was the spoken incantation. He read the words in the language it had been written in, the language he had been born to oh-so-many centuries ago. Strange how alien it felt after so many incarnations, so many languages and so many cultures he had been reborn into.

But his memory was long, just as it was far too keen for his liking. He remembered his first death, an ignominious one for a priest purported to be as powerful as the gods themselves. Dysentery. They had called it something else then, but the illness was the same.

There was a small sound, soft and barely there, but Kamen, like all other Bodywalkers, had extraordinary hearing. It was the sound of sand scrubbing against stone. The next sound was louder, but more importantly, he saw Odjit’s finger twitch. He caught hold of his breath, afraid to make the slightest sound or move in any other way. It’s working! he thought, the thrill of delight and pride in his abilities rushing through him for the first time in a very, very long a time. When had he last cared about any kind of achievement? It was so long past that he couldn’t even hazard a guess.

A twitch became a jolt, Odjit’s arm where she had been painted flopping into the sandy, dark spell ingredients. Too late he thought of removing all the heavy stone mortars and pestles out of the way so she would have more room to move without potentially getting injured.

All of a sudden her entire body locked up, her spine arching up off the table so severely he feared it would snap her back in two. But she is moving! Life is coming back into her! His relief knew no bounds, so much so that an alien emotion stung his eyes, an oh-so-rare sensation of imminent tears. He curled his hands into tight, powerful fists until his large and muscular body was just as tight as hers.

Then a roar like that of a rough beast exploded out of Odjit’s mouth and into the chamber.

And that was the first time he realized something was going seriously wrong. That sound chilled him straight to his spine. The way her hands were crooked like talons reaching for flesh, and right before his eyes her nails grew out about an inch in length, thickening and sharpening to a deadly point. About that same moment was when he realized she was becoming larger in her overall stature, her shoulders widening and thickening, her arm becoming more muscular, her height lengthening. Her hair began to change color from the midnight black the beautiful Selena, her host, had been born with. She did not grow grotesque in her features, but they altered into something less delicate, more femininely rugged.

Then, in an instant, she snapped upright, eyes flying open to reveal them just as all the color bled out of them, leaving a negative of black so that the pupil was a milky white, the iris a pale gray, and the sclera around it black. They turned toward him with a scrutinizing look. Kamenwati felt himself grabbed as if by the hand of a giant, fingers tightening, crushing the air from his lungs. Before that could happen he incanted the words for the Curse of Ra, the searing red laser-like fire the Templars had learned to wield from another old scroll another time long ago. Without hands or gestures to direct the blast it burst out of him in all directions at once. It made the creature on the altar cry out as if in pain, but only for a moment. Then that massive hand threw him like a ball against the wall, the force of it like nothing he had ever felt before. He felt his shoulder wrench right out of its socket and the pain that followed was extraordinary. His head smacked into the wall so he saw stars, dizziness swimming quickly around him.

“Insolent mortal!” the thing screeched in that rough voice. “You think you can use the light of Ra on the god Amun?”

Amun. Amun risen? Amun … awakened? He got to his feet, staggering.

“Forgive me, great one,” he said, taking a knee and bowing his head, shaking suddenly with excitement that finally, finally Amun had risen! And he had been the one to find the spell to do it! Morever, he was, as was just and right, using the body of their most powerful and virtuous religious leader. “I did not recognize you in my mistress’s form!”

“You call me forth yet say you do not recognize me?” The demand was followed by a deep-throated laugh … the dreadful kind of laugh a sadistic maniac like Chatha made before reaching to torment its latest victim. Then she turned soft, sliding off the altar and to her feet, walking toward him with a listing gait, showing Amun’s weakness in this new mortal body. What of Odjit? Where was her ka in all of this? Had her soul been displaced or were there now three entities sharing space within that flesh? “So you called upon me. You are not merely mortal then. For only the powerful may beckon to a god. And I have chosen to listen to you. What is your plea?”

This time honest tears came to his eyes, his entire being shaking with relief. Both knees hit the floor now, the emotion in him as overwhelming as the pain in his mangled shoulder.

“We have been expecting you. We crave your judgment, to see which of your children are just and true to you, and which have lost their way. There is such a war among us that it has lasted millennia. I know, my lord god, that your prophecy says we will be punished if we have dissention amongst us, but there is no reasoning with the Politic. If my mistress still resides within you then you can see how devotedly she has tried to turn them to the true path. The faithful path.”

She narrowed those cold, colorless eyes on him and he bowed his head again, hoping supplication would please Amun. Everything he had done had been in anticipation of this moment.

“She is, and I feel her ka within me, as well as another miniscule soul. No matter, I will destroy them for they weaken me.”

“No! Please!” He threw a staying hand out, looking up in his panic. “She is a true priestess, she has sacrificed everything …”

“She has sacrificed nothing. She is insignificant. She is selfish and hungry for power. Think you know her better than the one sharing space with her soul?”

Kamen stared in silence his jaw slack with shock. “But glorious one, she is faithful to you!”

“She is faithful to herself. Hmm. Perhaps I like her after all. Very well, she will keep me good company.”

“Thank you, glorious one,” he said, not knowing what address he should use otherwise. “I thank you.”

“These other children of Amun, where are they?”

Kamen went still, hesitating as a niggling little alarm in the back of his brain suddenly grew louder. “They are everywhere. I thought … can you not sense them? We are all your children. The scrolls say—”

“I will tell you what to think!” the creature roared, coming up on him so fast he could never have hoped to move in defense of himself. The god grabbed him with that ephemeral hand once more and this time slammed him into the wall and held him there, crushing the air from his lungs and wrenching the dislocated arm on the right until he felt and heard the long bone snap. Kamen screamed from the pain of it, but the sound was garbled from lack of air.

“These other children of Amun, where are they?” The words echoed in his brain, trying to tell him what he did not want to realize. Why, it said, would Amun refer to himself in the third person? How was it possible that Amun didn’t know where the everlasting souls of the children he had created were? Scripture said that he would know all of his children instantly, welcome them all in equanimity as long as there was no discord between them and no faithlessness.

“Tell me what I want to know,” the beast demanded, its face eye level with Kamen, who was a good four feet off the floor. That meant the creature was at least ten feet in height, and though she was still shaped every bit like a woman, there was a statement of power and giant strength within her.

“They are everywhere,” he repeated softly as shame and horror began to fill his damned soul. “But you are not Amun or you would know that.”

The thing threw back its head, laughing roughly, gold and white hair curling all around her face and shoulders like some kind of demented Meg Ryan.

“I would, wouldn’t I? No, no, little mortal speck, I am something you have never imagined in all of your days.”

“My days have been many,” Kamenwati hissed back at the thing, “and I have seen much in the way of evil. I know it when I see it … when it is touching me.”

“Is this true?” It giggled at him almost girlishly, making the sound perverse. “But you don’t believe me when I say the witchlet inside me is evil? Then why am I enjoying her so? She is as wicked as that creature you have toying with the mortal man not two rooms from here. And you are not without sin to be sure.” It turned its back on him, moving away as it inspected its body for a long minute. “It has been some time since we have enjoyed mortal form.” It turned back to him. “Kamenwati. She says your name over and over, pleading like a lost girl, she who has made such a fool out of you. Kamenwati, the dark rebel. The misguided rebel is more like it. You have committed such sins that I should like you … however, you are ten times more pure than she inside me. You at least deluded yourself into thinking your cause was just. And do you know what is infinitely amusing?”—it turned back to him, the impish gleam in its eyes a licking, horrifying thing—“your precious god Amun cannot rise. You awakened me with this, yes?” It lifted a finger, the rewritten scroll he’d put on paper to protect the original fluttered up from the altar. The original was back in his quarters, its fragile spell in its protective tube. The spell went up in a sudden burst of flame. “You could have roused him from his sleep, had you a purer vessel. But didn’t you know, like begets like?”

He did know now. Too late he realized what a fool he had been. He understood that his prophetess and presumed savior was nothing like what he had made her out to be in his mind. All of her flaws which she had excused as necessary things for her faith came rushing up at him.

Fool! Fool! Fool! It screamed at him, from every corner of his wakening mind. What have I done? What have I done?

“You have given birth to me,” the imp replied. “That is why I am going to allow you to keep your life. Your guilt amuses me very much. As does your shame. I understand what you are now. As my power grows, I will understand even more. I know you will live endless lifetimes suffering with that guilt. Delightful. So delightful.” It giggled again, continuing to inspect its na**d body, fondling its br**sts and pulling and poking at its ni**les. “A woman. So different than the last time.” It looked up at him as though suddenly remembering he was there. “You know, I like that one in there. You must bring him to me.”

Kamen was released and he dropped to the ground hard, his legs buckling as his freedom caused a new scourge of pain to rocket through him. A breath inward told him he had likely cracked a couple of ribs as well. But that was so insignificant in the face of this unfolding horror.

“Who shall I say is calling him?” he asked weakly, hiding his true strength, however small it was at that point. It was obvious it could read his thoughts to some extent, so he kept his mind clear of all things except the act of going down the hall to fetch Chatha.

“Clever clever.” It shook a finger at him as though he were a naughty child. “Oh I shall tell you. It makes it more fun. Tell him Apep has come for him. That we will make great mischief together. Then put that toy he has out of its misery, won’t you? It’s far too gone to be of any enjoyment any longer.”