Book of Souls (Gods of Egypt 1) Read online

  Copyright 2017 by Nadine Nightingale

  All rights reserved except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system without prior written permission from the owner/publisher of this book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Editing by Holly M. Kothe with Indie Solutions, www.murphyrae.net

  Proofreading by Murphy Rae with Indie Solutions, www.murphyrae.net

  Formatting by Elaine York, Allusion Graphics, LLC, www.allusiongraphics.com

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  “Unending Love

  I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...

  In life after life, in age after age, forever.

  My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,

  That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,

  In life after life, in age after age, forever.

  Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,

  Its ancient tale of being apart or together.

  As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,

  Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.

  You become an image of what is remembered forever.

  You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.

  At the heart of time, love of one for another.

  We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same

  Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-

  Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

  Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you

  The love of all man’s days both past and forever:

  Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.

  The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours—

  And the songs of every poet past and forever.”

  ― Rabindranath Tagore—

  To Jessy

  and our tragic Friday nights.

  Sacred City of Souls, Egypt, a few years ago.

  Heavy machinery dug through dry soil. Weeks had gone by since the ancient city had been conquered by the Black Flags. They had no regard for the glorious past of a long-lost civilization, no sympathy for the remarkable history engraved in the sandstones. Walls had been torn down, statues of bygone gods diminished in the process. Several lifetimes had turned to dust in their presence. And for what? A book that may or may not exist?

  Adnan, a twelve-year-old Egyptian boy, swung his pickax, penetrating the dry stonewalls of the subterranean hallway. He’d dug for days, mostly outside. The blazing sun had burned his neck and face, leaving blisters on his scarred skin. He was grateful to catch a break from the cruel fireball. Though, the dark narrow hallways belowground, gave him the creeps. Unlike the Black Flags, Adnan wasn’t here voluntarily. His family had been captured by the monsters with the embroidered black flag, and they’d given him a choice: Stand with us, they’d said, or watch everyone you love die. He’d chosen life over death, but soon learned he’d also chosen hate over love. That’s what those monsters were—hate incarnated. They’d beaten him up on several occasions. Once, they’d whipped him so violently he couldn’t stand or move for three full days. He’d begged Allah to end his suffering, to let the fever take him to Jannah—the eternal resting place his mother had told him about. Allah had refused to show him mercy. After he’d recovered from the infected wounds, the Black Flags had forced him to return to the ancient temple to keep on digging until, one day, he’d succumb to the merciless heat.

  “Boy!” The cruel voice of the Englishman roared through the dim hallway.

  Adnan shivered at the sound. He’d met the man known as the beast twice. On both occasions, he’d born witness to his cruelty. The first time, the Englishman had beheaded a foreign soldier in front of a rolling camera. The second time, the beast and a few other Black Flags had beaten and dishonored a girl from Adnan’s village. It had been brutal and merciless. The girl—barely older than Adnan himself—died a few days later from shame and a broken heart.

  “Are you deaf?” The beast dug his sharp fingernails into Adnan’s sore shoulders. “I’m talking to you, boy.”

  Adnan didn’t dare move. He held his pickax above his head, frozen with fear. “S-Sidi,” he stammered, gaze glued to the sandstone. “The machine’s loud.” English was still alien to Adnan. He could barely form a coherent sentence.

  The blue-eyed tyrant ogled the pickax. “You’re not trying to kill me, are you, boy?” he asked, smiling like Iblis—the Jinn who refused to kneel before Adam.

  Not a day had gone by where Adnan hadn’t thought about slamming the ax into one of the Black Flags’ heads. The young boy’s dreams were filled with images of blood and gore—mayhem he’d caused. But Adnan wasn’t like them. To him, life was precious. Taking one, according to the Quran, was the ultimate sin. “No, sidi.” He slowly let the ax down. “Adnan never kill.”

  The Brit scratched his ugly scar, running from his left eyebrow all the way down to the corner of his lips. “Good,” he said, crossing his arms above his black tunic. “Because we both know what happens to the faithless, don’t we?”

  Adnan drew a deep breath and recited the verse of the Quran the Black Flags had beaten into him. “‘I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.’” The words crossed Adnan’s lips but never reached his heart. He didn’t think Allah was that cruel. Not the Allah his mother had taught him to love and respect. Sometimes he wondered if the Black Flags were praying to a different Allah—a hateful god with no regard for humanity.

  The blue-eyed beast patted Adnan’s shoulder. “Good boy.” He tilted his chin at the drilling machine. “You see that?” Adnan glared at the hole in the sandstone and nodded. “I need you to climb inside.”

  Adnan’s heart galumphed. The sound
of a thousand camels thundered through his ears, and despite the vicious heat, his body grew ice cold. Over the past three weeks, the Black Flags had drilled many holes into the ruins of the old city. Several boys from Adnan’s village—none older than thirteen—had been forced to climb through the tight-fit openings. Not one came back. Adnan could still hear their screams when he closed his eyes, how they’d begged for help with their last breaths.

  The curse had come upon them, Adnan thought. He’d heard the stories of ancient maledictions and wrathful gods—older than Allah himself. Death awaits those who cross the sacred threshold of the City of Souls, his grandmother had warned the children of the village when they’d played near the old temples. Back then, he’d thought they were mere stories—like One Thousand and One Nights. But fairytales didn’t kill, and Adnan had seen firsthand what had happened to those who disregarded the warning. What would happen to him if he did what the beast asked him to do.

  The Englishman tapped his foot impatiently. “Is there a problem, boy?”

  Adnan knew he’d be beheaded if he dared to refuse. No one ever questioned the blue-eyed monster’s requests. Those who had were now rotting in the desert, their flesh devoured by hungry vultures. “No, sidi. No problem.”

  The Englishman smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

  Cold sweat dotted Adnan’s palms. He placed the pickax on the ground and followed the Englishman to the hole. The Black Flags and several of his co-workers had gathered around the narrow entrance. They all stared at him—some grinning, others with a pitiful expression.

  “Here”—one of the Black Flags shoved a flashlight against Adnan’s aching chest—“you’ll need this.”

  Adnan evened out his breath. He wasn’t afraid of death. Anything was better than serving these monsters—even dying. What terrified him was the fate of his family. Adnan knew what would happen to his mother and sister if he moved on to Jannah. The Black Flags would have no use for them anymore. They’d dishonor them just like the girl from his village, or kill them just like they had murdered his father. So, he prayed to Allah to keep him safe for the sake of his family—or what was left of it.

  The blue-eyed monster seized hold of his arm. “Do you know what we’re looking for?” His voice was cold and lethal.

  “Book,” Adnan choked out. A golden book, written by Allah himself—or so the Black Flags had told him on his first day.

  The English monster smiled. “Well, then”—he pointed to the entrance—“make us proud, little warrior.”

  Even if this book really was written by Allah, and even if those men really did it all in his name, Adnan would never take pride in doing the Black Flags’ bidding.

  Adnan’s starved body barely fit in the opening, but he pushed through. Stone bit into his skin, ripping it open. The pain was sweet compared to what he’d felt when the Black Flags had dragged his mother and sister out of their house to slice his dad’s throat in front of their eyes.

  Adnan’s eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. It was cold and damp. He didn’t know what to expect at the end of the tunnel, but he kept crawling farther and farther. The prominent screams of all the boys who had been in this position before taunted him. Sometimes, when he lay under the stars at night after a tiring shift, he wondered what horrific fate they’d suffered. Had they been eaten by Jinns? Had they been struck by the wrath of the primeval gods? Would their bodies ever be recovered? Would his body ever be recovered? It didn’t matter. If he died, no one would be left to bury him.

  Fear dried his mouth. He swallowed it. He wouldn’t die. His mother called him batal—hero—for a reason. He was like the man in the iron suit. The one who survived a shrapnel in his heart. Nothing could bring him down.

  After what felt like an eternity surrounded by darkness, Adnan spotted a faint light. He was close now. The scent of acacia and hibiscus crawled up his nose. He pushed through the last few meters, and when he reached the end of the narrow tunnel, he dug the flashlight out of his pocket and switched it on.

  A massive crystal grew in the center of the chamber, rising high to the ceiling. The rock was the color of sand and shaped like hundreds of rose blossoms. A desert rose, he thought. But he’d never seen one so remarkably beautiful.

  His gaze drifted to a throne, made of pure gold. A female statue, wearing a rectangular headdress and a basket upon her head, sat on the throne. The headdress was decorated with a variety of sparkling gemstones. When Adnan was little, his grandmother had shown him pictures of old Egyptian deities—Ra (the sun god), Horus (the god of air and earth), Sekhmet (the lion goddess)—but none of them bore any resemblance to the statue on the throne.

  The boy’s stomach twisted up in knots. He couldn’t bring himself to crawl out of the hole. There was something gentle and divine, yet eerily dangerous, about the unknown goddess.

  “Boy?” The voice of the Englishman echoed through the tunnel. “Are you still alive?”

  Adnan was smart enough to know they wouldn’t follow him down here and kept quiet. Let them wonder, he thought to himself. Serves them right.

  Minutes flew by until he found the courage to climb into the chamber. The tunnel was so narrow, he had to let himself fall down—head first. His battered palms deflected the impact, but the sharp stones, hidden beneath the cold sand, cut through his palms. Warm liquid dripped from his fingers, coloring the sand a dark red.

  Adnan smeared the blood on his torn jeans and got up. The ray of the flashlight fell onto the wall behind the throne, illuminating strange drawings. Images that created a story. Like in one of those picture books his mother had read to him when he was a child.

  Adnan approached the throne and the drawings with great care. The closer he got, the harder it became to breathe. He shouldn’t have been here. His presence angered the ancient beings that once built this chamber.

  “Boy, can you hear me?” the Englishman yelled repeatedly. “Say something now, will you?”

  Adnan couldn’t reply. He was too mesmerized by the drawings on the wall. A warm and fuzzy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach as he regarded the first two. A young boy with reddish skin sat in the desert all by himself. Sad, he gazed at the blossom of a desert rose sitting in the palm of his hand. In the next drawing, a girl had joined him. She wore the same headdress as the statue on the golden throne. The boy looked at her as if she was his world and handed her the desert rose.

  Cold shivers coursed down Adnan’s spine as his gaze landed on the third picture. Jinn-like creatures rose from a dark water, attacking a slightly older teenage version of the boy. He fought them with his bare hands. Had slain them one by one. And in the next scene, the couple—the girl with the headdress and the boy who had defeated an army of Jinns—sat on golden thrones, blessed by a hand from above.

  They look so happy, Adnan thought. Just like my parents once did. But happiness was a fragile thing. It could break so easily, and it never lasted long. No one knew that better than Adnan. So, he wasn’t surprised when a war came upon the couple, separating them. The boy and a soldier with darker skin and strange symbols all over his body fought off a gigantic serpent in the next picture, while the girl was praying on her knees. They defeated the snake, but by the time the boy came back to his beloved princess, he had changed. His head was no longer human. It was shaped like a weird animal—some kind of dog with a long, narrow snout and pointed ears—and his eyes were a flaming garnet. Severed heads lay by his feet. He walked over a field of corpses, grinning.

  “Adnan, answer me!” The Englishman sounded beyond mad, but Adnan wasn’t ready to respond yet. He needed to know what happened next, and so he studied the rest of the drawings.

  The girl with the headdress and the soldier with the strange, black symbols on his body shook hands. A flash of lightning was carved into the sandstone above their heads. They betrayed her lover, he thought.

  Adnan’s suspicion was proven right. The following drawing depicted the princess, the soldier, and the boy with the animal head in a c
hamber. A deadly snake circled them. The princess lay in the Jinn slayer’s lap, dying. The soldier, whose skin was falling off, pierced a dagger through the boy’s back and into his heart, killing him.

  Anger rose through Adnan. He couldn’t bear to look at the remaining images. Instead, he spun around and glared at the statue of the princess. What had she done? How could she betray the boy she loved so fiercely in the beginning of the story? And why would the Black Flags think Allah’s book was hidden here with her? None of it made sense.

  “If you don’t answer me,” the Englishman yelled, “I will slice your sister’s throat. But first we will have some fun with her. Do you hear me, boy? She will beg for death once we’re done with her.”

  Adnan’s pulse jackknifed against his neck. Fear and panic clawed into his skin. He’d seen what the blue-eyed monster was capable of and couldn’t risk endangering his sister’s life. “Hear you,” he shouted as loud as he could.

  “Did you find the book?”

  “Looking,” he assured him.

  “Hurry up,” the monster ordered.

  Adnan stepped away from the throne and searched the chamber. He only saw sand and stone. He couldn’t return emptyhanded. The Englishman would devour him should he dare return without the book.

  He looked harder, scanning the chamber for any clues. There were none. Just the drawings on the wall, the desert rose in the center, and the throne with the goddess. His belly cramped. He was going to die. His mother and sister would suffer even worse.

  Exhausted, he sank to his knees. Something beneath him made a clicking sound. He didn’t think much of it, until—

  A hissing roared through the chamber. The blood in Adnan’s veins froze. He’d heard a similar sound before, when a horned viper bit a Black Flag in his sleep.

  He swallowed hard as his gaze drifted to the six-and-a-half-foot-long Egyptian cobra, drawing to its full height next to the desert rose. Its broad, black head was lifted, and the wide, round eyes stared right back at Adnan. He stayed very still. Didn’t even move when the creature extended its hood.