Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(73)

“I am getting tired of tunnels,” Oliver said under his breath. I was inclined to agree.

“Which way do we go?” I whispered.

“Right,” Jie said. “There are a bunch of paintings that way, yeah?”

Sure enough, when I swung my glowworms toward the rightmost tunnel, the light sprayed over a mural on the wall.

My jaw went slack, and I scooted toward it.

It was a mural of a jackal.

“It’s him,” I breathed, turning to Oliver. “That’s the jackal I saw at the pyramids.”

“Anubis.” Oliver spoke with weary boredom. “He is one of the gods.”

Jie’s eyebrows drew together. “Anu-what?”

“Anubis,” I whispered, tasting the name. A god. An Annunaki. Exhilaration shivered through me. “When you called him a messenger, Oliver, you did not say he was also a god.”

My demon shrugged disinterestedly. “I only saw him a few times, speaking to the souls of the dead . . . or . . .” He frowned. “I think that’s what I saw him doing. I find it harder and harder to remember these days.”

A burst of longing twined through our bond. He was forgetting the spirit realm; it frightened him. My mouth trembled shut. . . . The feeling snapped off.

“Come on,” he said gruffly, as if nothing had happened. “We may as well start in this tunnel since we’re already here.” His glowing eyes narrowed, looking ahead. “And if I am not mistaken, there are some cloth-wrapped bundles ahead. . . .”

My glowworms were soon illuminating hundreds of miniature mummies. They were bound in swaddling like babies, their bodies completely hidden.

“What are they?” Jie asked, crouching beside one. It wasn’t much larger than her torso.

“Dogs,” Oliver answered. “They were sacrificed to Anubis. Just as falcons were sacrificed to Horus or bulls to Apis. Whatever the god supposedly looked like, that was what he or she got.” He kicked at the sand on the floor. “It looks like there are even more bones beneath. This is a treasure trove for you, El.” His eyes climbed to mine. “Command me, and we can begin to raise your army and get them into position.”

I swallowed, my gaze flicking to Jie. But just as before, she showed no opposition. In fact, she seemed genuinely curious. For half a breath relief crushed through me that I had one more ally for my magic.

But then fear unwound. When Jie had first seen Oliver, she had gone berserk with terror and rage. Yet now her attitude toward necromancy had completely flipped, and it scared me.

What exactly had Oliver shown her?

I looked back at my demon. “I’ll . . . do this spell myself.”

His jaw clenched. “Not on my account, I hope.”

“Of course not,” I mumbled. “Let’s go outside to do this.” Without waiting for a response, I spun around and began the hike back to the entrance.

Once we were outside, I moved away from the sandy steps and began to call in my magic. Jie leaned against her shovel, and Oliver slouched, arms over his chest. The breeze gusted through our clothes, our hair. The moonlight colored us silver.

I inhaled, and my magic came. Balmy and smooth. I inhaled more, drawing in more power as I did.

Until the wind picked up speed. Until I felt magic course in from around me.

Fear rose in my throat. This wasn’t right—this was what I had done earlier at the Great Pyramid, and I couldn’t lose control like that again. I would hurt everyone, and only Oliver would be able to save me—

Calm. Oliver sauntered toward me, his pose indifferent but his gaze fierce. You can control it. Just focus on the soul inside you.

I tried to gulp, but my mouth felt coated in cotton. And magic continued to spiral in from the sand. The air. The ruins.

He paused in front of me, and as my ragged breaths turned shallow, he laid his fingers on my shoulder. Focus on the magic in your fingertips, El. The magic in your toes. It’s all you need to raise these mummies. Leave the world’s power to the world. Oliver’s eyelids slowly lowered, his fingers pushing into my skin. It is just you and me. Nothing else, no other power.

I closed my eyes and focused on the feel of his four fingers on my shoulder. His thumb on my collarbone. Steady and sure.

The wind settled down. The magic in my chest stopped grabbing for more. I had a glowing, throbbing well of power. . . .

“Awake,” I whispered, thinking about the dog mummies. The buried bones. “Awake.”

It was like fireflies on a summer night. One by one, souls winked into being. I felt them twinkling and collecting below the sand. Ten, then twenty. Then hundreds. Awake, awake, awake.

“Look,” Jie hissed, and cautiously I opened one eye.

A skeleton loped up the stairs. Its snout was lined with chipped fangs, and its barrel-like rib cage had broken in many places. Yet it ran with the ease of a living dog. . . .

And then it stopped before me.

One after the other—some wrapped in fabric, but most nothing more than bones—the dogs ascended the stairs. And just like an army, they gathered around me in rows.

“They’re so fragile looking, yeah?” Jie’s voice held a hint of awe; and, scooping up a handful of sand, she poured it over a skeleton waiting beside her. “It looks like they’ll break from just a little wind, but they don’t.” She glanced at me. “What will you do with them?”