I pray to you. Come back to me.
When my feet connected with the ground, I felt how young it was compared to me. The ever-shifting exchange of life and death churned through and around me. Nothing stayed the same.
My connection to the cradle, to the realms beyond, was too strong. It called me back, throwing off balance. But I was here now. I was Anubis, the god of the dead, and I controlled the souls of this realm. I reached out and pulled the power back to me. Someone else had been holding it for me, but it wasn’t theirs. It was mine.
The soft brush of a feather caressed my forearm. Then I felt the souls everywhere, all at once. They cried out for salvation, for order, for guidance. And I would do just that.
The ground moved under me, travelling a thousand miles an hour, but when I looked, it appeared to be still.
The one who called me forth stood at the opposite end of the cradle. The woman’s auburn hair fell around her in thick waves and her eyes shone like sea glass at dawn’s first light. She wore jeans, and a black buttoned shirt she’d tied at her navel because it was too large for her. Her expression held both expectation and affection.
The alcove held my power, even as it thrashed about me with violence. My body crackled with it. This skin was fresh, as was this muscle. Everything was too new, too raw. I should not have returned like this. Darkness roiled at my center, unstable.
The devotee standing there desired something from me. She likely believed I would be her salvation. Able to grant her wish, whether that meant a boon of crops, or to heal an ailing relative.
But she must not have known who she’d summoned forth.
Death.
And Death answered to a higher power than hers.
“You shouldn’t have brought me back,” I said. My voice came out in layers and echoed menacingly through the alcove.
“I think you mean thank you,” she shot back in irreverence. Though she licked her lips nervously and shifted from one foot to the other.
The woman held a small, onyx-colored puppy who leapt from her arms and ran up to me. I regarded the little animal. I knew this creature. A reaper. But this pup was too young to reap souls, so I turned my attention back to the woman who summoned me.
Prisms of light danced and circled about her. Her soul was special. No longer transient, the spirit had crystallized. Now diamond hard, it had grounded in her vessel. This was no woman; this was a sekhor.
Fragmented memories assailed me. Blood, war, and loss swept over my mind in horrific waves. Hordes of these magnetic creatures thirsting for freedom, for blood, for power, and I could not allow it.
The sekhor’s eyes widened with fear as I advanced. “I need you to remember me, Grim. Please. Remember me,” she begged.
The name she used was unfamiliar to me. I was Anubis.
I didn’t slow down as I reached for her. The sekhor anticipated my move, rolling out of reach, before popping up behind me.
Annoyance glimmered in her eyes. “For crying out loud, you are going to make this hard, aren’t you?” Sand coated half of her body from the tumble. The sekhor’s gaze dropped to stare between my legs. “Well, I guess you are pretty hard already.”
I lunged for her again, and she tried to dodge my grasp. But this time my hand clasped her throat. I raised her until the sekhor’s feet dangled in the air. The reaper jumped at me, yipping in protest, but I paid the pup no mind.
Still, the reaper was insistent. I could hear the small pup going on about forgetting, or remembering, someone named Vivien. Reaching my limit with the distraction, I swept my free arm out and Cupcake careened through the walls and far away to where the other reapers would keep her out of trouble.
Cupcake? What kind of name for a reaper was that?
Was I forgetting something?
“Grim,” the sekhor gasped out, even as I squeezed her neck. Though I could rip her head off and be done with the sekhor, I paused. Her crystalline aura intensified, magnetizing me to her.
The permanence of a sekhor’s soul called to the gods. Like attracts like. Some part of me wanted to acknowledge that we were meant to pair, to walk into the ever after, united. It was as natural as seeing the missing shape that would complete my own. What a mere child would view as two blocks needing to be clicked together.
Still, blood and screams continued to assail my mind. Were these memories from long ago or had it been yesterday? I couldn’t be sure.
I leaned in, examining the sekhor more closely. Bold, fierce passion flared in her eyes like flares off a star. So many allowed themselves to die before they ever crossed the veil. I found the girl herself even more compelling than her soul’s aura.
A wave of my own power crashed into me like a wrecking ball. I released the sekhor, stumbling back as my body transformed into my god-likeness. My hands elongated into beastly claws, black fur sprouting along my flesh as I expanded into my full form. Eight feet tall, with dripping fangs, my god-likeness was part monstrous jackal, part man. I struck fear into the hearts of all. In this frame, I could handle the surge as I fought to calm my rioting magic.
Too soon. I’d emerged too soon.
