Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,97
me, recognition lit her face.
“Daisy! Good grief. You look awful.”
“It’s been a rough couple of days,” I said, wondering how to even start to explain.
“Did you find it?” she asked urgently. “The Jackal? Did you get to it before the Brotherhood?”
“How did you know—” The question confused me, and not just about how to answer it. “Are you the same shade from the Institute?”
“Of course,” she answered impatiently. “Don’t sound so surprised. Goodnights go where they’re needed. I told you: you’re never alone.”
I didn’t know how to wrap my head around that. And she was waiting on my answer to her question. “It’s really complicated. The Jackal isn’t a thing … Well, I’m not sure what it is, exactly, I just know that everything is a huge mess and it’s my fault and I have to make it better.”
The words came out in a guilty rush. I hadn’t just been naive. I’d been overconfident, so sure I knew everything, could handle any spirit. I’d created this situation by playing into Oosterhouse’s hands, and all I’d been able to do since was plug holes on a sinking ship.
Ivy’s shade walked through the table and laid her hands on mine. Sensation raced up my skin and sank into the heart of me. Reassurance. Willpower. Permanence. A steady foundation in a rocky world. “Anything you need is yours. You have generations of Goodnights at your back, Daisy. More than you know.”
While I still reeled from that, she stepped back and dusted off her hands in a down-to-business way. “Now. What do we have to work with?”
Feeling more confident—except for the part where I realized Carson had heard all of that—I told her, “We have the Book of the Dead. Oosterhouse’s book. At least, I’m pretty sure.” I gestured to the laptop, where hieratic writing filled the screen. “Can you read it?”
She leaned in, fascinated by the computer. “What wonder is this! Is it some sort of electronic tablet?”
“Not exactly, but we have those, too. It is electronic, though. The writing is stored inside.”
“Hmm.” She tapped a finger against her cheek. “Ordinarily, it might take a few days. But let me see.…”
Before I could stop her—remnants and electronics don’t always mix well—she placed her hand inside the laptop. The screen flickered and flashed, and the picture writing scrolled upward, faster and faster until it was nothing but a blur of pixels.
The blur became swirls and fractals and finally resolved into letters. English letters. Ivy staggered back, her image wavering. I reached to steady her, and the air she occupied was frigid.
Carson had sat back to let me work, but at that he straightened, as if he would help. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Everything,” Ivy answered him, her voice still weak. “With the secrets in this book, one could achieve what the pharaohs only dreamed of—innumerable worshippers, eternal power, and eternal life.”
“How?” I asked, giving her as much of my strength as I could. “I’ve guessed at some of it, but until I know exactly what’s happened, I can’t undo it.”
She sat in one of the chairs, as if she had substance. “The soul, according to ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs, has three parts: the akh, which journeys to the afterlife; the ka, which remains in the burial tomb; and the ba, which can fly about and pay calls and such.”
“Okay.” That sounded at least a little like my understanding of remnants, except the flying-around part.
Ivy nodded to the computer. “This Book of the Dead contains a ritual that allows one’s akh to come back from the afterlife, and by rejoining with the other parts, become a creature of both worlds, able to call on the power of the dead to work magic.”
“What about the Brotherhood?” Carson asked. “Where do they fit in?”
Ivy tilted her head to study him before she answered. “The deceased needs a priest and acolytes to help him reunite his spirit. Since he is, after all, deceased. Whoever bears the mark of the pharaoh—though really it could be anyone with enough riches and power to rate acolytes—holds a share of this power.”
“Ha!” I slapped my hand on the table. “It is magic tattoos.”
Carson didn’t quite roll his eyes. “But the Brotherhood have been doing magic since we met them in the cemetery.”
Ivy might not know what he meant exactly, but she seemed to follow well enough. “The mark gives some small power, but the more pieces of the pharaoh’s spirit the priest possesses, the more easily he and the acolytes can work magic.