Days of Borrowed Pasts Page 10

  Leon narrowed his eyes and pointed his fork at him. “We don’t have time for wild goose chases. There are gods and hunters after us, and if we can’t get —”

  “I trusted you,” Thomas interrupted. “We based two break-ins on your own connections, and we ran with it. You’re going to have trust us, too.”

  Leon glanced between them and sighed loudly. “Fine. But you do realize that if even one ingredient is wrong, the spell won’t work and we won’t know which ingredient doesn’t belong. We’ll end up having to start over.”

  “That’s assuming there’s a spell at all,” Ayla countered. “Or that you can figure out how to use these ingredients.”

  “Oh, I can’t,” Leon corrected.

  Ayla blinked at him then sighed loudly at him. “What the hell are we doing if you can’t actually learn this spell?”

  “Um…” Thomas stammered. “Since only the League Masters know it, we’re kinda going to kidnap one.”

  Ayla rolled her eyes and hissed, “They’ll die before opening the veil.”

  Leon nodded as if of course he already knew that, and Ayla resisted the overwhelming temptation to reach across his hotel room table and strangle him. Thomas cleared his throat and said, “We obviously need more help. We can’t be the only gods who want to cross the veil, and we’d always figured once we had the items we needed for the spell, we’d recruit help. Psychics, gods of death and resurrection —”

  “Whoa,” Ayla interrupted. “I am so not cool with murdering people, especially if you’re thinking we’re just going to kill them over and over again until they cooperate with us.”

  Leon tossed his fork onto his plate and arched an eyebrow at her. “Ayla, if you can come up with a way to do this that doesn’t involve murder, then we’ll try it your way first. But I’m going to die eventually anyway. Comes with the whole ‘being human’ thing. You two have a hell of a lot more to lose, so I’d think you’d be even more eager than me to cross the veil.”

  Ayla folded her arms and scowled at him, because she wouldn’t allow him to emotionally manipulate her. Thomas cleared his throat again and tried to redirect their conversation to Brazilian gold, but Leon still seemed completely unconvinced it was worth pursuing, and she couldn’t concentrate on finding gold or extinct plants or anything else when the end result would be someone’s death. Thomas rubbed his eyes and sat back in his chair, surrendering in the face of Leon’s stubborn refusal to engage in conversation about auctions and Ayla’s anger that they continued to hide components of their plan from her.

  “I’m going to Dallas for an auction,” Thomas finally said. “Ayla, if you want to come with me, I’m going to the bus station this afternoon. Leon, don’t get into trouble while you’re here and leave Aphrodite alone if she returns. She will smite you. I’m spending what money I have left on a gold bracelet, so there’s no bail money and I don’t know anyone who can bring you back to life.”

  He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up, and Ayla immediately rose as well. She followed him into the hallway and stopped him, whispering, “We don’t need him anymore, Thomas. We can do this on our own.”

  “Ayla, you’re the only one who’s convinced Leon is lying. If he’s been telling me the truth, that’s a terrible thing to do to him… just leave him here while we escape.”

  “We don’t know what will happen to a human in the Otherworld anyway,” Ayla protested, but it was a feeble argument. There were plenty of legends about mortals being brought to the Land of the Gods, and not only surviving but achieving their own sort of immortality. She’d never met a mortal living there, and she’d never asked her mother about it because she never could have imagined she’d one day find herself on the verge of trying to escape Earth with a human.

  “Leon knows the risks he’s taking,” Thomas whispered back. “But my promise to him has to stand unless we have proof he intends to betray us. You can’t ask me to betray him. I don’t want to be that kind of god, Ayla.”

  Ayla took a deep breath and acquiesced, even though he was apparently willing to torture someone, which seemed a far worse kind of god. But he was right about Leon, at least for now. She couldn’t ask him to turn his back on someone he’d considered a friend for three years. But if he needed proof that Leon intended to lead them into a trap, then she’d find it by bringing her own god into the mix.

  “Okay, Thomas. While you’re in Dallas, I’m going to look for an old friend. I haven’t even talked to her since this war started, so I don’t know if she’s still alive, but if she is, she can tell us if Leon is thinking about turning us over to the League.”

  “You’re going to go look for her on your own?” Thomas asked. “Wait until the auction is over, and we’ll go together.”

  But Ayla shook her head. “Three days. We’ll meet back here, even if I don’t find her. You get the gold from the auction, and try to decipher the next riddle. And if you don’t hear from me, be careful, Thomas. And don’t give up until you’ve opened the veil.”

  “Ayla,” he protested, but she smiled at him and shook her head again.

  “Three days,” she repeated. “Don’t miss your bus.”

  Ayla hurried to her room before she changed her mind. Truthfully, she’d much rather go to the auction with Thomas, because it seemed so unlikely that Ma’at was still living in Luxor. She pulled her phone out of her backpack and bought a plane ticket to Cairo, but with all of the connections, it would take her seventeen hours just to reach Egypt, and she’d still have to travel to Luxor. It left her little time to actually look for the Egyptian goddess of truth and justice.

  She hurriedly stuffed her few belongings into her backpack and called a taxi on her way to the lobby. By the time she reached the airport and checked in, she’d already lost two hours, so she obsessively checked her watch and counted minutes as she waited for her plane to board. As she tapped her foot nervously, people passed by her, completely engrossed in their own lives, hurrying to baggage claim or typing on their phones as they waited to board, unaware that a goddess sat in their midst. It always seemed to surprise humans how unremarkable gods were, how ordinary in so many ways.

  The announcement that her flight was boarding finally pulled her from the soft, vinyl seat, and she clutched her backpack to her chest as she walked down the runway, puzzling through the chaotic turns her life had suddenly taken. Thomas had brought her companionship after centuries of being alone, a potential friend whose very nature assured she wasn’t nearly as alone as she’d long believed. But he’d also brought Leon, a hunter she didn’t trust and who could ultimately betray them both.

  But most importantly, he’d brought her hope for the one thing she wanted most: to be reunited with her mother. She had to find Ma’at and discover if Leon was an asset or a liability. She had to at least try to open the veil, or she’d spend the rest of her life wandering the world feeling more lost than before, redefining what being a lost god really meant.

  Ayla found her seat on the plane, and with seventeen hours to kill between continents, dug Thomas’s stolen book and her notebook from her backpack so she could obsess over the second riddle. After rereading it several times, she copied it in her notebook, leaving space between each line so that she could make notes between the words.

  From the earth climbed men

  whose eternal guardianship is enshrined

  in that heavenly kingdom.

  From their ashes we receive sacred dust.

  Ayla tapped her pen against the page, wondering if the original League Masters had really used cremated bodies to seal off the Otherworld. She scribbled, “crusaders” and “saints” next to the riddle, but if they’d really cast the spell using men’s ashes, where had they found the bodies of long-dead crusaders tasked with reclaiming their holy lands or the ashes of saints who’d been entombed?

  Four hours into her flight over the Atlantic, she fell asleep, her notebook still propped open on her lap. She briefly panicked as she opened her eyes, and the pl
ane had darkened so the other passengers could sleep as well, but her notebook was no longer with her. And neither was Thomas’s book.

  Ayla flipped on the light above her, and the man beside her stirred and squinted. As she ran her fingers between the seats, irrationally hoping the books had somehow slipped between them even though they were too thick, the man yawned and asked, “Looking for your books?”

  “Yes,” Ayla breathed. “Do you know what happened to them?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “They fell on the floor, so I put them in the carryon compartment.”

  Ayla sighed, relieved and grateful. He stepped into the aisle and retrieved them for her, and she thanked him profusely while clutching them tightly. He nodded toward the old, leather-bound book Thomas had stolen and asked, “What’s it about? I don’t read French, but it looks interesting.”

  “Oh,” she whispered. Think of a lie, Ayla… you’ve spent a lifetime hiding behind lies. “It’s a fantasy. Like Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.”

  “That’s a long title,” the man said.

  Ayla smiled, and the lie became longer, too. “This book has been in my family for generations. My mother gave it to me when I was a child.”

  He laughed and repeated, “A child? You can barely be out of your childhood now.”

  She only smiled. The passport she was currently using claimed she was twenty-four, but if he wanted to think she was even younger, she wouldn’t correct him. She’d long ago discovered looking so young could benefit her. Humans tended to be more protective of their youth.

  The man misinterpreted her silence and sheepishly apologized. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just assumed you’re around my daughter’s age, who’s a senior in high school.”

  Instead of insisting she was older than his daughter, she played along and asked him questions and gushed over the pictures of his daughter on his phone. It passed the time and kept her awake, because she didn’t want to risk losing Thomas’s book and her notebook.

  After landing in Cairo, she caught her next flight to Luxor. Another hour lost. Between waiting for her connecting flights and the flights themselves, she’d only have eighteen hours to look for Ma’at once she reached the city where Thebes used to lie, one of the great cities of a vast empire. Not surprisingly, Luxor had changed considerably since she’d last stepped foot in the ancient city, and she no longer recognized the streets or neighborhoods. When she tired of walking where she thought Ma’at had once lived, she called a taxi but even her cab driver got lost trying to find a street that had obviously been renamed.

  She finally asked her driver to take her to Luxor Temple where she snapped photos with her phone, blending in with the throngs of tourists, but she prayed silently to her old friend the entire time. “Ma’at, it’s Ayla… I’m at the Luxor Temple. Please come to me. I need your help.”

  She prayed to her repeatedly, but Ma’at never came, and she never answered her.

  Ayla tossed her backpack onto the ground and leaned against a wall, burying her face in her arms. She needed to catch her flight soon, but her disappointment overpowered her even while she felt foolish for thinking a goddess as old and wise as Ma’at could be found so easily. And Ma’at would be smart enough not to answer any prayers in case her petitioner was lying. Ayla lifted her head and tried one last time. “When I was a child, you took me along the Nile where we watched humans building a great pyramid for a man they worshipped as a god. And you told me that men who believed themselves to be gods would one day destroy the world.”

  But only her own thoughts occupied her mind. Ayla sighed and clutched her backpack as she rose from the ground, brushing the sand and dust from her jeans. She stared at the fine yellow powder on her fingertips and rubbed them together as the book’s second riddle repeated those hints she should have grasped before: men from the earth, a permanent shrine, a heavenly kingdom.

  “Qin’s army,” she whispered aloud.

  Ayla’s disappointment over the failure of her trip to Egypt vanished as she excitedly hurried back to the cab still waiting for her. She may not be returning with the goddess who could seal Leon’s fate, but soon, she and Thomas would have the second part of the spell they needed to leave the world of men behind them forever.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once, there was a land where fruit trees grew like giants and rivers ran like veins through verdant hills. It knew no storms or droughts, no famines or plagues. And I called it home.

  Thomas was waiting for her in his hotel room, and as soon as she lifted her hand to knock on his door, he pulled it open, dragging her inside. “Ayla,” he sighed, “you’re three hours late. Didn’t you hear me praying to you?”

  “Yes, but —”

  “Then why didn’t you answer me?” he exclaimed. “I thought something had happened to you!”

  “Because it’s —”

  “Okay, new rule,” he interrupted again. “When one of us is late, we answer. I know it’s risky, but I thought you were dead.”

  Ayla squinted at him and retorted, “Are you done interrupting me?”

  “Depends.”

  She waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “On?” she prodded.

  “On your excuse for letting me panic for three hours.”

  Ayla slowly smiled at him and said, “I’m sorry, but I wanted to make sure no god overhead us, and we always run that risk. If you can figure out how to get a secure line, I’ll answer you from now on.”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Probably not,” she agreed. “Did you get the bracelet?”

  Thomas finally smiled back at her. “Of course I got it. Had to fight off a few collectors and one old lady who kept calling me Harold, but you’re looking at the proud owner of an overpriced bangle we’ll eventually melt down anyway.”

  “First of all, it’s not a bangle,” she pointed out. “And secondly, was there really an old lady calling you Harold?”

  Thomas waved her off and produced a small box with a fairly unassuming gold bracelet inside. “Maybe it wasn’t Harold. I was a little preoccupied trying to outbid her.”

  So Ayla nodded smartly and pretended that was clearly more important than the bracelet or her idea on where they needed to go next. “It could have just as easily been Darryl, although I think you look more like a Harold.”

  “Harolds have looks?”

  “No, but I think it means a leader of an army, so it seems more fitting for a god on the run.”

  Thomas blinked at her then asked, “Why do you know that?”

  Ayla shrugged and told him, “I’ve spent the past three centuries on my own. I got bored a lot.”

  “And you couldn’t find anything better to do than study the meanings of names?”

  “Not really. Do you want to know what my name means?”

  “Sure, because this seems terribly important right now.”

  “Now you don’t get to know, smartass,” she teased.

  Thomas laughed and held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, really. I’d like to know.”

  “It’s the halo of light around the moon,” she explained. “It’s me.”

  “Because you’re a moon goddess?”

  Ayla lowered her eyes, still feeling so uncomfortable by admitting she had opposite natures, even though Thomas clearly already knew her mother had to be a sun goddess.

  “Or,” Thomas said slowly, “because that halo effect is created by the sun reflecting off the moon, and your mother’s a sun goddess?”

  She glanced up at him, wishing she’d just kept her mouth shut about names altogether, but he only smiled and added, “It’s a beautiful name. And yeah, it’s obviously fitting.”

  “You know what both of my parents are, so you could at least tell me what kind of goddess your mother was now.”

  “It’s not that exciting,” he said and quickly changed the subject. “Why don’t you keep the bracelet in your backpack? You guard that thing like it’s your baby.”
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  Ayla glanced between the bracelet and Thomas, aggravated that he was still withholding so much about his past and his lineage from her, but she only asked, “You don’t think we should hide it somewhere?”

  “No place is going to be safe from the League. Even if we rented a safe deposit box, all the League would have to do is tell whomever runs the bank what we are and they’ll turn over the keys.”

  Ayla thought about it then begrudgingly acknowledged he was right. She was also beginning to understand why having a human ally had been so important to him. Even though most humans weren’t actively involved in the war with gods, they still resented their existence. She slipped the bracelet inside her backpack and told him, “I think I know where we need to go next.”

  “Me, too.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him again and said, “Don’t steal my thunder.”

  “Okay,” Thomas laughed. “You first.”

  “Xi’an. Qin’s terracotta army. They’re life-sized men made from clay who guard the resting place of a man who’d been revered like a god.”

  Thomas arched an eyebrow at her, so she added, “Yeah, I’m done. You may speak.”

  “Good, because I came up with the same answer.” Thomas’s grin turned roguish, and he asked, “But how long did it take you?”

  Ayla folded her arms and thought about lying so she could win, but he was the only person in her life she even sort-of trusted, which meant she didn’t want to risk their new friendship over any kind of lie. “I was in Egypt, so a day? At first, I thought it had something to do with crusaders or saints, and once I had that idea in my head, it was hard to see any other possibility.”

  Thomas nodded and kept grinning at her. “We’ll call this one a tie then.”

  “Is this a man thing or a god thing that you have to turn it into a competition?”

  “Both?”

  Ayla snickered and sat on the edge of the bed. “What are we going to tell Leon now? That we have another friend who somehow discovered what’s in Beijing’s vault?”