the blades.”
I thought of the broken knives. Sacrificial blades, Amy had called them. “Your blades?”
He nodded. “One slab held silver jars. The other, a young woman’s body, with half a dozen blades sticking out. She wasn’t rotted at all. Her skin was dusty white. Mom took one knife out, and then another.”
“How did she die?”
Tears rolled down his face, and he wiped them away. “She brought the knives back and put them on her desk. Kept tapping them like she thought they’d disappear. And ran back to grab a jar.”
“The heart.”
He nodded. “The moment she touched it, they moved. The guardians. I thought they were statues. Terra-cotta warriors with gold spears, but they moved like cats, gliding through the tomb.”
I waited, my hands squeezing the armrest for what had to come.
“She didn’t see them. She looked at me, and down at the spear sticking through her. She threw the jar to me.”
I put one hand on his, wanting to console him.
“You saw the video. You know what the BSI knows. But there’s more.” Brynner’s voice wavered.
“After a moment, her head slumped over. And then she looked up at me and spoke. But it wasn’t Mom’s voice.”
“Ra-Ame. What did she say?”
Brynner didn’t answer for so long I thought he wouldn’t. “She said to bring it back. She said she’d let my mother go. That we could be together. And I don’t know how to explain it, but the air rippled in waves.”
“What did you do?”
“I couldn’t move. I wanted to. I wanted to bring Mom back. But I was afraid. A moment later, the spell just faded away. The wall was back. Mom was gone. I never told anyone Ra-Ame spoke to me.”
I believe in a lot of things. Good dentists. Honorable politicians, but magic spells that opened portals pushed the limits of what I could accept. Saying so directly would alienate a man I had no intention of pushing away. “You were a boy.”
“I wanted to help her. I could have.”
Spells and other questions aside, guilt was a topic I knew all about. “Could have done what? Against those things? You would have died, too. You were afraid.”
“I won’t be next time. Whether I find Ra-Ame, or she comes for me, next time I won’t hold back, Grace. I’m not a little boy. I’m a man, and it’s time the Re-Animus learned to fear me the way others fear them.” His fingers tightened on the steering wheel until I feared he might break it.
I thought of what Aunt Emelia had said about Brynner. That he wasn’t like other men. “Like God rolled up the desert into a man.” Brynner would never rest. Never forget. Never forgive, himself or the Re-Animus, for what happened.
He didn’t speak again until we reached Seattle. We left the car parked ten blocks back and walked on foot, pushing our way through crowds and police lines until finally we reached the building.
The smoke on TV hadn’t done it justice. Or the lines of field ops in battle armor forming a ring around the building. These men stood ready to defend, but against what? Who? They had the haunted look of a force already beaten.
The ring faced BSI headquarters.
As Brynner passed, the men saluted him, letting out a rousing cheer. Though a shadow of worry flashed across his face, he snapped to attention. “Situation Report.”
“Sir, we were attacked four hours ago. The attacker broke through the building defenses, destroying defending units.”
Brynner looked to the building. “Attacker? As in one?”
“Yes, sir.” The field commander’s voice quavered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You saw the one I killed in Vegas, right?” Brynner put his hand on the man’s shoulder.
He nodded. “Bigger. Much bigger. Not human. Guns didn’t work. Neither did the lab guy’s weapons. Not even the pressure washers hurt it.”
I stepped up and spoke, looking him in the eye. “You’re sure there’s only one?”
“God help us if there were more. We’re forming a line to try to protect civilians, but we’re not going to be able to stop it. Doesn’t mean we won’t try.”
Brynner nodded. “It’s inside, isn’t it?” He looked up at the building, then spoke with new urgency. “Where is Amy Rust? Egyption, Grave Services?”
The field commander’s gaze fell to the ground. “I can’t rightly say. Last time I saw, she was fighting with it on the sixth floor. We got a lot people out safe thanks to her.”
High above, a chunk of the wall exploded, and from the sky, something plummeted to the ground like