Gunmetal Magic(100)

We had had sex hundreds of times. We had tried dozens of positions, we had flirted with our kinks, we had long ago learned how and where to touch to make each other moan and gasp and to delay each other’s pleasure until the sweet anticipation of release became almost torture…and we used none of it. We made love in the tried-and-true missionary position right there on the hideous purple carpet in the hallway, awkward and impatient, fumbling about like two virgin teenagers caught in a selfless race to make the other happy.

It was the best sex I had ever had.





* * *


My eyes snapped open. I lay in the hallway. Raphael’s arm was wrapped around me. The carpet under us smelled like sex and plastic.

The ceiling was steeped in shadows. Raphael’s drapes were open and they streamed down on both sides of the window. Moonlight flooded the city and struck the latticework of steel and silver bars on the window, setting them aglow with delicate radiance. The magic was up.

I glanced at the clock. Two a.m. I’d barely had an hour of sleep.

Something had woken me.

A deep rumbling noise rolled through the house.

My body went from drowsy and tired to full alert in half a second. Next to me Raphael sat up.

The sound came again, a low, deep tone like a muted roar of the bull alligator mixed with the bellow of a bull.

The window.

I jumped to my feet and ran to the window. Raphael got there at the same time. We pressed to the wall on the opposite sides of the window frame and edged the curtains aside.

Ammit stood below, its long-jawed, heavy head raised up. Its eyes stared at us. It didn’t seem hostile. It simply waited.

Raphael and I traded glances.

He slid the window open. “Hi there.”

Ammit stared at us.

“Shoo! Go away, girl!” I said.

“Girl?”

“Kate says it’s female.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an Egyptian demon who devours souls.”

Raphael sighed. It was a dejected, I am so tired of this crap sigh and it made me want to hug him.

Ammit stared at us.

“If only I had a bow,” I murmured. “I could totally shoot it in the eye from here. Boom, arrow to the brain.”

“Your bow is on the table downstairs. Do you like it?”

“It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.” Aside from him and Baby Rory.

“I’m so glad.”

“How did you get one?”

He smiled at me, that handsome, slightly evil Raphael smile. “It’s a secret.”

I ran downstairs to fetch the bow. When I returned, Raphael still stood by the window. “It could go through the door to get to us,” Raphael said. “So why doesn’t it?”

We peered at Ammit.

“What is it, girl?” Raphael asked, his voice coaxing. “Did Timmy fall down the well?”

Ammit said nothing.

“It would be crazy to go out there,” Raphael said.

“We’d have to be insane.”

I pulled on my pants, socks, and sneakers. Raphael pulled out two fresh T-shirts from a chest by the basket of clean laundry and tossed one to me. I grabbed my Ifor, he got his knives, and we took off down the stairs.

Outside, the night was bright. Pale bluish vapor rose from the chunks of concrete that made up the low wall around the house—something magic must’ve been brought out by the moonlight. I drew my bow and we snuck around the building, moving silently, carefully walking on the balls of our feet.

Step.

Another step.

I turned the corner and the tip of my arrow touched Ammit’s nose. It’s amazing how far you can jump backward, if properly motivated.

Raphael stepped around me and approached the massive beast. We had killed it. I could still picture its corpse in my mind, fresh and vivid, the blood, the dulled eyes, the great maw gaping lifelessly, spilling the tongue on the ground. Yet there it stood.

Raphael reached out.

“Don’t,” I warned.

He touched its head, petting its cheek. The tentacles of Ammit’s mane twisted toward him and slid harmlessly off his hand.

The beast sighed. Two clouds of moist vapor escaped its nostrils.

It didn’t open its crocodile mouth and bite Raphael’s hand off.

Slowly Ammit turned, trotted forward a few feet, and looked at us over its muscular shoulder.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“No.”

The jaws gaped open and the roar rolled forth, primal and ancient, so much older than the city around it, so alien that I wondered for a second if the illusion of Atlanta would tear under the force of that primeval call and I would end up standing in the muddy, rich waters of the Nile. I could almost see the tall slender reeds shifting in the night breeze.

The roar sang through my veins, urging me to follow.

Ammit took a step forward and looked at us.