Heat beat at me when I stepped from the mansion into the greenhouse—a vast indoor tropical garden easily the size of the main house. Exotic butterflies flitted around, fans gently circulated the air, and occasionally the drip-drip of water tapped on large leaves.

I yanked off my coat and undid a few shirt buttons. The heat wasn’t my only problem; I’d devoured two souls in less than twenty-four hours. One dark and heavy, the other light and clean. Loosely translated, the immense magical high was twisting into a crippling comedown. And here I was about to have a voluntary talk with Osiris. I’d have preferred to wait a few days until the aftereffects had stabilized, but a few days could have meant the slaughter of more of Bast’s women. I had enough darkness in my putrid soul without adding that.

“Nameless One…” Isis’s slippery voice curled through the jungle foliage and brought me to an abrupt stop on the winding path.

“By Isis, all that has been, that is, or shall be; no mortal man hath ever unveiled.” The proper greeting fell off my tongue as flat and empty as the countless times I’d said it before and would again.

She emerged from behind the large leaves of a tropical fern, trailing her fingers along its edges and lifting her traditionally kohl-accented eyes to mine in a way that had a small skitter of nerves shortening my breath.

“There are no mortal men here. Would you like to unveil me?”

There’s no right way to answer a goddess—ever. Whatever I said next would be the wrong thing. If I said yes, she’d have me flailed for lusting after her divine body. If I declined, she’d be offended and would probably make me spend the next six months telling her how I did, in fact, lust after every inch of her. And that was if she was feeling generous.

Fucking gods.

“I’m here for Osiris.”

“Mm…” She pulled the leaf with her and then let it fall away as she approached. “I didn’t know you preferred the male form?”

Well, that was one way of escaping her word trap. But as she came forward, her slip of a gown parted up her thigh, revealing a trail of studded gems, and by Sekhmet, I made the mistake of imagining how I might follow that trail with my fingers and mouth. I clamped my teeth together and steered my thoughts away from dangerous territory, only to have them land on her lips and how she might taste beneath my tongue.

Those soft lips lifted at a corner.

“No, it is not men you prefer,” she said, stopping too close to me. Her fingertips touched my thigh and then her nails raked higher. “No need for words, Nameless One.” She found what she was looking for and pressed in, eliciting a sharp inhale from me. “I have my answer right here.”

“Stop.” I hadn’t meant to add the compulsion—it was pointless, of course—and all it did was widen the pupils of her eyes, as though she got off on my pathetic effort to control an eternal being like her.

“We could fuck right here, against this tree. I’d bend for you.” With her alarmingly hot hand still resting on my arousal, she used her free hand to pluck at my shirt buttons. “You despise my husband. Wouldn’t this be a fine way to hurt him?”

Oh, it would. She was painting a very fine image, one that I struggled to sweep from my thoughts, which had currently funneled right to where her hand was resting. Screwing Isis appealed to the part of me that had never truly left the underworld, the being I’d been before, a creature of power and want, worthy of fear and worship. That part of me had no trouble imagining how the Goddess of Light would taste, or how she’d feel bent over with my hands on her hips as I pounded into her. But it wouldn’t last. She’d tell Osiris a patchwork of lies, and as perilous and exhilarating as screwing the goddess Isis would be, it wouldn’t be worth the centuries of fallout her husband would rain down on me.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she whispered. Her breath fluttered across my lips. “But what else could he possibly do to you that he hasn’t already done?”

I caught her hand, the one cupping my cock. “Stop.”

This time I pushed more weight behind the word. I’d devoured two souls in a few hours. Surplus magic was something I had in swathes.

Her beautiful eyes widened in alarm. I released her hand and watched her briefly war with the compulsion. It lasted a grand total of two seconds before it broke.

With a gasp, she stepped back. “How dare you!”

“You seem to have forgotten where I came from, Your Highness. I’m glad I could help you with that unfortunate mistake.”

Color flushed her cheeks and fury flashed as hard and fast as lightning in her eyes. I didn’t think for one second I’d escaped her wrath, but to see her taste some of her own poison brightened my day immeasurably.

If my soul wasn’t already cursed, my actions would have earned one. I smiled and meant it. “Please inform your husband I’m here.”

She left, striding down the path and out of sight. I waited until I was sure she was gone before slumping against the tree and gulping down several shuddering breaths. One god down, one to go.

Needing to set my mind on something other than my neglected cock, I roamed the garden, walking the winding paths beneath heavy palm fronds and around deep-throated exotic flowers.

Outside, snow patted lightly at the glass. With its heat and damp, earthy richness, I understood why the couple might like the gardens. The greenhouse smelled like the old world after the rains, when the Nile would flood, bringing much needed sustenance to the riverbanks. The people would revel in the sudden flourish of color and life, in celebrations of rebirth and festivals of plenty, giving thanks to the all-powerful gods for their generosity. Those had been joyous days and nights, but all that had changed when the gods grew bored and turned inward, allowing the worst of them to rise. Seth. The rains had stopped. The floods had failed. Crops had wilted under the relentless sun. And while the gods warred and bickered, Seth had cast his shadow over the land, the people had faded into dust, and the desert sand had devoured what had once been the greatest civilization on Earth.

I would often walk the riverbanks, running my hands through the miles and miles of wheat. I’d watched the children with baskets around their necks, singing as they scattered seeds. Occasionally, I’d join them and their families, never revealing who I was and keeping my power wrapped close. Though I had never belonged among them, I didn’t care, not then. I’d spend evenings admiring the sailboats, listening to the slosh of oars, and watching, admiring, and living a normal life through the wonder of normal people.

But those memories were distant, like dreams, stories, myths. Today, those long-dead people and their fevered worship meant nothing. The gods were gone, relegated to religious texts and the occasional website selling fake protection spells. Now the gods, once so feared and revered, were confined to academia or the awe-filled eyes of tourists filing through barren tombs and crumbled temples.

The man who I had been before, he was dust and dreams. Perhaps he always had been.

I pulled up suddenly as Osiris jogged down the greenhouse steps, dressed in a tux and holding a cell phone to his ear. The image clashed so acutely with my memories that I forgot about the curse and my blind hatred of him and saw him how he had once been: the greatest of gods, worshiped and admired by his people as well as his pantheon. Armies had marched in his name. He was the god of all things. Life and death had played out inside his hands—decay and rebirth.

“I know… I’ll be there. I don’t care when the cameras are rolling. I will be there when I am ready. They’ll wait.”

Where had it all gone so wrong?

He hung up the call and frowned at my presence. “What by Sekhmet did you say to my wife?”

“Only that which she asked of me,” I answered, avoiding the truth as best as I could, given his ability to extract answers out of me.

That didn’t appease him. I hadn’t really expected it to. “She’s in a foul mood and I have a gala I’m due to attend with her at my side. You have no idea what it’s like.”

I could imagine being married to Isis was a lot like sleeping in a bed of snakes: exhilarating, until it wasn’t.

“I’d like to visit my mother,” I said, veering the conversation away from Isis.

His smile was all perfect teeth. “Ah, yes, of course. I thought you might.” He half turned but hesitated, and then slowly, purposefully, he slid his gaze back to me. “There are some conditions.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

My heart sank.

“You should join us at the gala. We can talk more there.”

I forced what I hoped looked like a smile on my lips and not a sneer. “I’m not dressed for fine dining.”

“I’ll soon change that.” He turned, clicked his fingers, and said, “Come.”

I plodded after him, trailing behind the god like a slave on an invisible chain that I’d keenly felt for five interminably long centuries.

* * *

If the underworld was my home, a charity gala was my idea of hell. Smiling faces, fake laughs, chinking glasses, and every word a weapon wielded for social ambition. I did my best to smile back and muster through painful small talk while the space between my shoulder blades itched for Alysdair’s weight. I recognized a few faces from the orgy beneath Osiris’s house. Thankfully those faces didn’t recognize me all scrubbed up in a tux.

“Poison” blared from my cell phone, and probably for the first time in my life, I was grateful for Shu. Excusing myself from yet another conversation regarding politics, I stepped behind the table of canapés and hid away in a corner.

“Shu, kill me now,” I growled.

“Where are you?”

“In hell.”

She paused. “You’re not, are you?”

I sighed, tucked a hand in my pocket, and slumped against the wall. “They don’t have cell reception in the Hall of Judgment.”

She grumbled a curse. “Did you get anywhere with the Montgomery kid?”

“Cujo will let me know if he gets any leads.”

“Okay…”

“Why?”

“I think we might have a bigger problem than a scared kid.”

The way the last few days had been going, I couldn’t have been less surprised. “Are you going to keep it to yourself or share with the class?”

“Did you get a look at the spell they were casting?”

“Yeah, as accurate and deadly as they come.”

“Did you keep it?” She didn’t bother to hide the intrigue in her voice. Once a sorceress, always a sorceress.

“No, I didn’t keep it. I burned it so you couldn’t get your claws on it.” It hadn’t even crossed my mind to burn it to keep it from Shu, but I liked the idea, and her resulting hiss. I chuckled. “It was too potent. The kids didn’t need to know the language. The fact it was there, inside their circle, was enough to bring the demon through.”

“Demons.”

“What?”

“I saw an interview with the Montgomery mother. Her son looked sick before he vanished. The press is trying to blame it on drugs. You know what they’re like. They love a good socialite drug drama.”

A second demon? It was possible. The demon—or demons—had possessed their hosts before I arrived. I could have missed one, especially if it had buried itself so deep its host hadn’t been aware of it. “Damn it.”

“It’s been over twenty-four hours. It would have turned him by now. Get your ass on this with a bit more urgency.”

“I can’t. I’m having canapés with Osiris.” I deliberately omitted the part where women were dying and I needed to get to the underworld to find out why, just to get a rise out of Shu.

“For fuck’s sake.”

It worked.

A compulsion speared into me, yanking my head up, and there was Osiris, eyes fixed on me from across the room.

“Wherever the demon is, it’s laying low,” I said. “I gotta go. I’ll get on it when I get back from Amy’s. You deal with it.”

“What? Amy’s. Why—”

“I gotta go.”

“You bastard. You better come back.”

“I will.”

“It’s my ass on the line too—”

I hung up the cell, already moving at a brisk pace through the throng of people toward the smiling mayor. I would be back. I had to come back. Bast, the dying women, Chuck, and now the loose demon—they were loose ends, all of them. I couldn’t leave them hanging.

“Ace, sit,” Osiris ordered.

I pulled out the chair beside him and sat like a good puppet.

“Who was on the call?” he asked.

“Shukra.”

One of Osiris’s dark eyebrows jerked higher. “You two getting along?”

“Does a viper get along with a scorpion?”

“Which are you?”

I frowned, wishing I’d kept quiet. “Scorpion, obviously. Can we get to the conditions you mentioned?”

His laugh grated like nails on a chalk board. “So eager to get away. Why don’t you enjoy the company and the wine?”

I’d have preferred to spend the evening with a demon, and considering what had happened the last time I’d shared a glass of red with Osiris, I really didn’t want to relive those memories or the experience.

“The conditions?” I asked, doing my best to look innocent to anyone who happened to be glancing at the mayor. He drew the eyes of many. Me sitting next to him was already damaging what reputation I had in my small world of clients.

“Yes…” He breathed in deeply through his nose and leaned a little closer while his gaze roamed the sea of happy, sparkly rich people. “I’m convinced my wife is having an affair.”

My memory flashed to the image of his wife’s hand on my cock. Guilty, guilty, guilty, my heart thudded. I shifted in my seat and cleared my throat. “Oh?”

An older gentleman arrived and rained compliments down on the mayor. How delightful it was to have such a proactive young mayor running the city. He’d had his doubts, in the beginning, but Ozzy had turned the city around.

I squirmed as Osiris smiled, accepted the compliments with grace, and shook the gentleman’s hand.

While they talked, I wondered what Osiris considered an affair. They’d both been screwing the unfortunate girl when I’d seen them together yesterday. Where did the god draw the line? More to the point, what the hell would he ask of me? I couldn’t investigate Isis. She’d tie me up in knots. I knew my limitations. Getting between Isis and Osiris was tantamount to suicide.

The gushing praise faded and the gentleman went away, ruddy cheeked and happy. Osiris chuckled and tasted his wine. “So easily pleased.”

“Isis,” I said, determined not to spend the night dancing to Osiris’s tune.

His smile faded. He spied his wife weaving through the crowd like a snake through the grass. Her green evening gown flowed over her body like emerald liquid. She’d pinned her hair up, twisted it into knots, and planted jewels inside the design. Whichever way she turned, people stopped her, their eyes alight with adoration. She was stunning and made a man forget his thoughts, his vows, his honor. She could have anyone.

She turned her head, sensing Osiris’s gaze on her, and shared a private smile with her husband. She ignored me, thankfully.

“She’s fucking Thoth,” Osiris said, his voice cutting deep into my thoughts. He hadn’t spoken aloud, and even now he smiled back at his wife.

I spluttered. “The lawyer?”

“How many Thoths do you know?” Osiris drawled.

Thoth was perfectly suited to a life of litigation and numbers. I’d never seen him wearing anything other than a charcoal gray suit, and I’d only seen him crack a smile once. He was as rigid and unyielding as stone. The thought of him and Isis together? That just didn’t seem likely. Maybe he was an animal in the bedroom. We all had our hidden talents.

“She’s been…distant,” Osiris confided, watching the crowd swallow Isis. “We’ve had our challenges.”

I could imagine. Seven thousand years as husband and wife would take its toll. Then there was the fact that they were also brother and sister. Relationships didn’t get more complicated than that.

“Isis is”—he swallowed—“insatiable, and I too may have been distracted as of late.” Osiris shifted in his chair and poured the dregs from a bottle of champagne into his glass. “She’s been meeting with him in secret.”

He lifted the glass and continued watching the crowd, avoiding looking directly at me.

“Do you have proof of the affair?”

“That’s what I need you for.”

Great, someone shoot me now. Marital grievances were bad enough without adding all-powerful deities to the drama. To make matters worse, Thoth was Amun-Ra’s son. As gods went, Thoth could rip me a new one in a blink. I’d stayed below the radar of most godly goings-on, but getting between Osiris, Isis, and Thoth? There wasn’t any way I was coming out of that fire unburned.

“What sort of proof?” I asked, thoughts churning.

“All of it. If Thoth is touching my wife, I want every detail, every word, so I can make him eat his treachery.”

Treachery wouldn’t be the only thing Osiris would force Thoth to eat. If he could confine Thoth to the underworld, Osiris would have significant power over him. A clash between titans like that would ripple through the entire pantheon, and such an upheaval hadn’t happened since the end of the old world. A civilization had fallen then. There was no telling what might fall this time—and I’d be right in the middle of it.

I needed a drink. I waved a server over and took a glass of wine. Osiris hadn’t compelled me to work for him. He could, so why wasn’t he?

“There’s more, isn’t there?” I asked.

Osiris blinked and looked at me as though he were surprised. “Of course. Once you have proof, you will kill Thoth.”

I choked on my wine, spilling much of it over my fingers and onto my lap. He’s insane.

I laughed, flicked the wine from my fingers, and dabbed at my pants with a napkin. He had to be joking. I couldn’t kill Thoth. If I were capable of killing gods, I’d have killed Osiris long ago.

Osiris wasn’t smiling and an icy shiver trickled down my back. He’d told me to kill Thoth. His words should have compelled me, but I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t feel the urge to pick up Alysdair and go god hunting.

Had his compulsion failed? “You’d have a better chance at killing Thoth than me. I’m just a mercenary without a name.”

“I cannot strike a direct blow at Thoth. Such an act would start a political collapse. I have no wish to destabilize everything I’ve worked so hard to construct. This realm and our place in it, it is all about to change. I cannot risk millennia of planning because my wife is screwing another.”

I absorbed that information and carefully packed it away for later consideration. “I can’t kill a god, Osiris.”

Godkiller was not a title I’d survive.

Osiris pursed his lips. His long fingers teased the rim of his glass. “I cannot compel you to do this. Thoth’s power rivals mine and no compulsion would stand the weight of a task such as this one. But I will lift a condition of your curse. You’ll be free to return home whenever you wish. Your mother can rest well in the afterlife knowing she has seen you. I am aware of some pertinent confessions she’d like to share with you before her slumber.”

Kill Thoth and this realm would no longer be a prison.

Clearly Osiris believed I was capable, even if I didn’t. That information alone was worth keeping close to my chest. In order to get back to the underworld, help Bast, her women, and Chuck, and see my mother again before she passed on, I had to agree to kill a god. If I succeeded, and that was a monumental if, I’d reduce the curse strangling my soul, but I’d also have the knowledge that Osiris had ordered me to kill a god—knowledge I could use against Osiris. Knowledge powerful enough to keep my daughter safe should any god come looking?

This was a dangerous proposition, one I wasn’t entirely sure I could survive.

“I agree,” I said and then gulped down the last of my wine in one shot. “Lift the realm lock now.”

Osiris’s dark eyes flashed with warning, and something else, something like mischief. I already regretted my decision, but I couldn’t see any other way out of this. He’d never allow me to say no.

“It will be done.”

Osiris stood. Several people glanced our way over their wine glasses. They couldn’t help themselves. The entire room was probably halfway in love with him. Given a few more hours, he could have them all enthralled and probably lining up to join him below his house.

“Come,” he said, paying his rapt audience no mind.

Isis’s intense glare was the last thing I saw in the crowd before I followed her husband out of the room.