Soul Unleashed (Key to the Cursed Book 4) (7 page)

“Kamen.” Kit dug
her fingernails into his skin as she fought to free herself from the siravant.

Nebt stabbed him
repeatedly in the back. His grip loosened, so only her fingers were in his
palm. “Don’t let go.”

Her eyes widened
further. “No!”

He bellowed as the
siravant plunged talons again into his torso. One hard jerk and Kit slid across
the floor back down into the bowels of the warehouse and into the darkness.

Nebt pulled her
dagger from his back. “I do enjoy a good hunt. So does Apep and Kit will learn
that first hand.” She laughed and evaporated into a black mist.

Kamen forced
himself to his hands and knees. He crawled forward, chasing Kit’s cries until
he could no longer hold his weight. Collapsing to the floor, darkness enveloped
him.

He had lost her.

“Kamen,” Asar yelled, distant and muffled.

Kamen forced his eyes open. Fog colored his
vision. A thick pool of blood encircled him, along with several hundred dead
snakes stretched out over the floor. Nothing moved, except the scent of death
swirling in the suffocating air. He had somehow made it back to the temple’s
vestibule.

“The huntresses are dead. All dead.” Lilly’s
shrilled voice sent daggers through Kamen’s skull.

“Lilly.” Asar lifted his hands off Kamen’s shoulder.

She ran into the hall. “Kamen! Where’s Kit?”

“We will find her. She may have escaped.” Asar
intercepted his wife. “In the meantime we need to get Kamen back on his feet.”

Kamen squeezed his eyes shut, knowing the truth.
He had failed in his promise to protect her. “Nebt ambushed us.”

“Brother, do not move. Your injuries…” Asar’s
voice trailed off, his expression stark. “Lilly, can you heal him enough to get
him to stand?”

Lilly’s distraught face came into view. “We need
to find her.”

“I know.” Asar grasped her hands. “We cannot do
that without Kamen.”

Lilly nodded. “I need to touch your back.”

“No,” Kamen growled, angered and ashamed of his
failure.

“The sooner I heal you the sooner you can find my
sister.”

“You will accept Lilly’s assistance.” Asar pulled
Kamen’s shredded shirt free.

Kamen gritted his teeth as the fresh air hit his
wounds.

“Oh my god.” Lilly gasped.

Kamen did not need to see their faces. Based on
the amount of blood and pain, his injuries were severe. His healing powers were
still muted by the venom.

“Avoid touching the black blood. Kamen is
unaffected by it, but it can still infect you.”

“If the siravants did this to him, what of Kit?
And, Nebt. You saw what she did to Siya…” Lilly trailed off, anguish stealing
her voice.

Kit was as good as dead
, Kamen finished but
could not speak the words. His thoughts drifted to Siya and her concern over
her unborn child. Apep’s blood poisoned the victim’s soul until the darkness
consumed it completely. Even the strongest gods had fallen to the Dark Lord’s temptations.
Kit was only half god and more than receptive to a means of escape from her
current life.

“I need to find her.” Kamen surged up, only to
stumble and crack his knees into the floor.

“Not like this,” Asar said, gaining hold on Kamen’s
arm.

“She does not have time.” Kamen met his brother’s concerned
stare.

“Nor do you when the venom wears off. I need you
well and clear headed. Time is of the essence. Allow Lilly to heal you. You are
no good to Kit like this.”

“Let us get this done,” Kamen growled, fearful
they were already too late. Unable to hold his own weight, he sank back down
onto the cement floor. Gods, he should have never left Aaru. If he had stayed,
Kit would still be with them.

With him.

He would never forgive himself. He had failed her,
just as he had failed to protect Asar from Set. Rage had consumed him then, as
it would now.

Asar grabbed his shoulders and held him down.

“This is going to hurt,” Lilly said before laying
her hands onto his back.

Kamen hissed as her healing energy burned through
his tissue. It hurt, but nothing compared to what he would do when he found
Nebt and the siravants responsible for Kit’s abduction. He would take it all
the way to Apep.

To the fiery depths of Duat, leaving a trail of
blood in his wake.

The vestige of the dark alley lay quiet and barren,
except for a few skittering rodents. The siravant’s stench ended here. Kamen
searched but there was no sign of Kit or her scent. Absent to the point it was
as if she had never been in the temple. His hope she had escaped Nebt was a
long shot, but one he had to see to the end. But his optimism waned with every
empty safe house, two hundred in total. One for every reven outbreak. Since the
attack, at least fifty houses were actively boarding huntresses. The other one
hundred and fifty were in various states of decommissioning or disrepair.

Kamen’s skin tingled, warning him the sun would
soon rise in the east. The morning rays would consume everything and drive him
back to the Underworld. He looked at the last house on the list. This entry was
not in the type font of the others, but handwritten. Despite the return of his
strength tenfold, he wearily trudged up the alleyway. His lack of success only
further solidified the worst case scenario. Kit’s trail was cold and she was
probably already dead.

He looked up at the third story window. Black
paint covered the glass underneath the tight rows of iron bars. Each floor had
a similar configuration as the others. Even if just a few rooms or levels were
used, the entire building was purchased or the whole block, depending on the
accessibility.

Despite their small size, he pinpointed the motion
sensitive cameras. If anyone was in the building, the monitors would kick on
the minute someone passed in front. But, he was not just anyone.

Pulling his energy into his chest, he evaporated
into a black mist, blending perfectly into the shadows. He shifted through the
reinforced door to the interior, searching one room after another, leaving the
target room untouched. When he cleared the entire circumference, he pushed
through the final door and materialized on the other side.

Sensing his solid form, a small electric light
flicked on. Not surprising, he found the flat empty, yet Kit’s scent faintly
floated about the room. She had taken him to several of the safe houses during
the time he was assigned to watch her, but he had never been to this location.
From what he could tell by the faintness, she had not been here in some time.
Nor had anyone else.

He walked around the modernly furnished room,
brushing his hand against the furniture and pictures on the walls. A fine white
dust covered his fingertips. Out of all one hundred and fifty, this was the
only room with any personal touches. He pulled open the refrigerator. Bottled
water and small metal cans with a bull on the front dominated the first two
shelves. The cupboards had dry goods and mismatched dishes.

A flat screen television consumed an entire wall
of the room, along with other electronics he had no hope of identifying. A fireplace
with fake logs was tucked in the corner. He paused at the mantle and picked up
a picture. In the center was a younger Kit with an enormous smile. Her arms
were wrapped around her sisters with equally magnificent grins. Pictures of her
and her sisters decorated every wall. The only person missing was her father.

He had never seen Kit smile to the point her eyes
sparkled.

Tucking the picture into his leather pants pocket,
he continued into the bathroom, another sitting room and finally the bedroom.
He laid his hand on the solid wood door. It swung open to reveal a modest queen
size bed. The sheets and comforter had soft blue and red flowers. A teddy bear
with a missing eye and white stuffing poking out his neck sat sentry at its
center.

Grabbing the childhood stuffed animal, he sat on
the edge. There were no male scents anywhere. Surprising, considering how many
men she bedded during the week. How many times had she kept him waiting because
of some puny human? All of them pathetic in his opinion. The last boy Kamen
sent running out the door left a trail of urine in his wake.

Just thinking about it, his irritation spiked. She
deserved better than those sniveling idiots who had no idea from the sounds of
it how to please a woman. Growing more agitated, he refocused on the room.
Bright colors graced the walls. The closet contained the same color scheme.

This was a side to the woman he thought he knew
inside and out but apparently he had missed something. This flat and its
contents contradicted the hard ass, abrasive huntress persona she had put on
since their first meeting. A snap shot of her soul, this room represented
everything she left behind since the war. A life lost.

He was no stranger to secrets and closing others
out. Maybe that was why he gave her the latitude he did not grant anyone else.

Closing his eyes he breathed in her floral scent.
Something beyond beautiful, soft as petals, but get close enough and her thorns
punctured your skin. Memories of their contact before her disappearance
filtered through his mind. Her hard brilliant blue eyes confronting him, arms
crossed over her amble breasts. Even more beautiful when she was angry. She had
no restraint in expressing her disgust, frustration and joy, emotions he kept
locked up tight for fear of losing control. She lived her life on the edge.

At least they had that in common.

Not that he wished her any closer to her end or
the possibility one existed for her. Unlike humans, he had no end, no finality
to his sentence. As long as Kamen existed, he would bear the weight of the
beast.

He rubbed the ache in his jaw. A force tugged on
his soul with relentless fervor, the beast’s reminder Kamen had gone too long
without feeding. Resisting the call, he swept the room with his eyes,
immortalizing the details in his mind.

He walked out the door and pulled it closed behind
him. Pausing before dematerializing, he pulled the photo free from his pocket.

He rubbed his thumb across Kit’s picture. “I am
coming for you.”

Someway. Somehow. He would find her.

A cool breeze brushed Kit’s cheek, along with the
smell of smoke from an old fire. She lifted her heavy eyelids, past the pain of
her throbbing head. Piles of ash and burnt grass carried in the wind. Once
grand palms curled atop charcoaled trunks. She struggled to sit up but her head
spun. Reaching up to her temple, she palpated the huge lump Nebt left when she
hit her. Kit remembered nothing else after.

The burning at her wrist drew her gaze down to the
five puncture marks marring her skin. Black spider veins tracked up her arm.
She vaguely remembered a siravant clamping down on her arm when she fought to
free herself.

Head swirling, she stumbling to her feet. Ominous
clouds and thunder rolled overhead towards a river in the distance. She stared
across the field of ash to the rushing black water. Recognizing several
landmarks, her heart chilled in her chest.

“No, no, no! This can’t be right.” She gasped and
turned in a circle.

Everything Kendra had described about the entry to
the afterlife spanned out before Kit’s feet—minus the fiery devastation. Her
sister and Bakari had stood in this very field before Lilly and their mother
pulled them from death’s grip. Kit prayed she was wrong. Otherwise, this topped
the scale of
worst day ever
.

She pressed her trembling fingers to her throat. A
rapid bounding pulse greeted her fingertips. She dropped her hand away, unsure
of how to interpret her findings. How the hell did she get here? Nebt, no
doubt, but how did the goddess gain the power to transcend the barriers to
Duat? To Kit’s understanding, no god could. But, Nebt did have the Book of the
Dead, which held some of the most powerful spells.

Kit stared down at her clothing. So much blood.

Kamen.

She scanned the wasteland for any indication he
passed with her. He had battled so hard, used his body to protect her from the siravant’s
deadly claws. The demon pulled and tore until she could no longer hold. At one
point she felt Kamen’s soul within her own, moments before her fingers slipped
from his grasp. The pain in his eyes was her last memory of him.

“Kamen, where are you?” For the first time her
protector was nowhere to be found. She swallowed the lump forming in her
throat. She had fought so hard to remain distant from the ones she loved,
hoping to spare them from her gift.

Well, she fucking succeeded.

“Figures.” She choked out a rough laugh with tears
simmering in her eyes.

The clouds closed in overhead and cast shadows
around her. Fear crept up her spine and cascaded a foreboding chill across her
skin. She wrapped her arms around her abdomen.

“Shit—think.” She weighed her options, uncertain
of where to go. She remembered Kendra’s experience. The cursed souls had chased
Kendra and Bakari in the field. Chances were they were still here.

With the grass burnt to the ground, there were few
places to hide. She stared along the tree line, obscured by the darkness. The
prickling on her neck warned her someone or something was watching from the
gloom. She took a few steps in the direction away from the river but stopped to
look at the black flowing water.

She hadn’t ignored everything her father taught
them. The Underworld River, fed by the Nile, ran to the gates of Aaru. The very
gates she’d stared through days prior. She had two choices. Waste time looking
for the doorway to the human realm or follow the river through Duat. A perilous
journey either way.

A screech sounded in the distance. Then another,
closer this time. She searched the ground for a weapon but found nothing.

Decision time was over, time to act.

She sprinted towards the trees along the
riverbank, praying her instincts were right.