The Pawn of Isis Read online

  ©2019 by Catherine Schaff-Stump

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  First Edition

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  Cover: J.Kathleen Cheney

  Interior art design: Michele Maakestad

  ISBN: 9781794127920

  by Catherine Schaff-Stump

  Chapter One - Berlin

  Chapter Two - Demons

  Chapter Three - Desire

  Chapter Four – Mistraldol

  Chapter Five – Lucy

  Chapter Six - The Betrothal Party

  Chapter Seven - Alliances

  Chapter Eight – Marriage

  Chapter Nine – Duel

  Chapter Ten – The Galts

  Chapter Eleven – Horus and Ra

  Chapter Twelve – Family History

  Chapter Thirteen – Gibraltar

  Chapter Fourteen – Duat

  Chapter Fifteen – Recovery

  Chapter Sixteen – The Defense

  Chapter Seventeen – Octavia

  Chapter Eighteen – Poison

  Chapter Nineteen – The Examination

  Chapter Twenty – Witnesses

  Chapter Twenty-One – Drusus

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Flavia

  Chapter Twenty-Three – Bound

  Chapter Twenty-Four – Sacrifice

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Alone

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Berlin, March, 1842

  Carlo Borgia glided the scalpel through the flesh of the dead man's chest. It tugged a little, like a boat being dragged through a brackish harbor. A plowed red furrow parted on either side of the knife as muscle and blood revealed themselves beneath the smooth surface. Carlo's hand brushed across his forehead; the scalpel resumed plowing.

  "You have blood on your forehead," said the student beside him.

  "Everywhere, really," muttered Carlo through the mask he wore over his nose and mouth. He was certain the other student could read the "of course" gesture in the upward roll of his eyes. After a year of dissection, Carlo himself had become adept at what he thought of as semaphore of the eyes. "It's on your mask, Fritz. It looks like you've been licking your scalpel."

  The room was cool, with the sweet smell of decomposition overlaying the dust of brick. All around them were tables of corpses in various stages of dissection. The twenty or so students in the warehouse were paired up, one cutting, the other sketching. Carlo edged the flap of skin back from the dead man's ribcage and looked at the striated muscle and bone underneath. Thankfully, Carlo wasn't tempted by dead blood. It smelled spoiled.

  Since Carlo had been dealing with secrets all his life, he had no problems keeping quiet about the illegal activities happening all around him, the students in this basement dissecting corpses obtained on the sly.

  "Fritz," said Carlo, "the rib cage is ready for you.”

  While Fritz picked up giant garden shears to snip open the chest, Carlo slipped off stained gloves.

  The students around him were from all over the globe. There were Julii studying here, which made perfect sense, given the base of their magic in transmutable flesh. Two men from Africa, with tattoos slashed across their cheeks, were tight-lipped about the kind of magic they practiced, but Carlo swore they had made a corpse whisper. Everyone was willing to talk about anatomy. It was their meat and drink, their small talk, their conversation over full steins of dark Prussian beer. On a small table next to the cadaver, Carlo's own sketchbook displayed a competent sketch of a foot. His drawings were not daVinci level, but he did have a knack for capturing the essence of the body's interior.

  "Herr Borgia!" Nabrotzsky's voice bounced off the bricks and the concrete floor like a pistol shot.

  Carlo closed his sketchbook and stood expectantly, hands behind his back, rocking on his feet slightly. "Herr Professor?"

  Nabrotzsky strode to their station. His limp hair waved back and forth like a guttering flame, depending on which way he craned his neck. Apron covered in gore, red stains on arms bare to his elbows, mask dangling around his neck. Stooping slightly, Nabrotzsky bent over Fritz's work. "Have a care, Herr Lowe. Try to crack the sternum in a straight line." Fritz's shears chipped away bone and cartilage. Nabrotzsky turned his attention to Carlo. "You have a visitor."

  "I do?"

  "We have a policy about visitors."

  "I know," said Carlo. "I signed the papers."

  "Given the nature of our work, visitors are expressly forbidden."

  Carlo's head tilted. "No one knows I am here." Not that it mattered. Lucy could find him easily. Octavia. Or his grandpa. Any number of problematic people. Or gods.

  "And yet"—Nabrotzsky chewed his lower lip—"you have a visitor."

  Carlo's stomach fluttered. "My grandfather?"

  Herr Nabrotzsky snapped his fingers underneath Carlo's nose. "If it was Paolo Borgia, I would have told you. This is a younger man. As you know, a visitor results in expulsion."

  Carlo pulled his mask down around his neck. "Don't worry, Herr Professor. All the people I know have too many secrets to turn you over to the law. It would be…hypocritical."

  "Get rid of him, whoever he is."

  Carlo smoothed his mustache as his footsteps echoed across the floor. It would have been too much to expect he would be able to shut the door completely on his past. When your grandfather was an evil alchemist who had double-crossed a family of Binders, killing one of them; or when the woman you loved had been resurrected by the goddess Isis, who turned out to be your grandmother; or when, in the course of your adventures, you had met an efrit who had decided you were a worthy friend, your past would most likely resurface from time to time. Deduction based on Nabrotzsky's description suggested his visitor could only be one person, and although Carlo had decided he was done with his life from before, if anyone had to show up and cause him to be kicked out of school, it might as well be someone he wanted to see again.

  Carlo opened the metal door and closed it quickly. Wouldn't do well to have any visitor see what was going on in the back. He faced the back of an immaculately dressed gentleman in a day coat and long trousers. "Drusus?"

  Drusus Claudian turned. Carlo knew Drusus was good looking, even by conventional standards. Dark stormy eyes occasionally flashed electricity. Brown, almost black hair. Olive, Mediterranean skin. His mouth had a grim, Drusus set to it, but he smiled tiredly when he saw Carlo. "What is that on your face?"

  Carlo was always going to be the younger brother Drusus never had. "It's called a Van Dyke."

  "I suppose you think it makes you look like a man?"

  "More so than the blood." Carlo extended a relatively clean hand. "I try to hide and yet you found me. You should know I've been trying to study some place like this all my life and now you've gotten me dismissed."

  Drusus frowned. "You're joking."

  "I'm afraid not." Carlo shrugged. "It's been a good year."

  "I'm terribly sorry."

  Carlo scratched his head. "I am glad to see you. Why have you come?"

  "I need your help. This is not a suitable place to talk about such things." Drusus' expression settled back into serious: thin-lipped, shadows more obvious under his eyes.

  "Is something wrong with Octavia? Lucy?"

  Drusus should never have married into the Klaereon family. Then ag
ain, Carlo would not know him if he had not.

  "No," said Drusus. "Octavia is well. Lucy is getting married. The problem is with me."

  Carlo's heart stopped for one second. Stop. Breathe. You don't care about Lucy. "Lucy's getting married?"

  "Yes," said Drusus. "Octavia wants you to come home to prevent it, if you are so inclined, but that is not why I am here."

  Carlo blushed. "Why does she think I could do that?" Carlo shook his head to clear it. "You said something was wrong with you. What's wrong with you?" What an idiot he was. The man he considered his brother had told him something was wrong, and all he could do was act like a schoolboy about Lucy Klaereon. Let her marry. His life was much better without her in it.

  "I would rather not talk about it here."

  Carlo raised a finger. "I'll be back in a moment."

  Carlo went through the door into the dissection room, to the edge of the wall where he kept his things. He untied his apron. Nabrotzsky crossed to him and tapped his foot, waiting.

  Carlo rolled down his sleeves, put on his stained tweed jacket. "I'm sorry, Herr Professor. I’m leaving now and will not trouble you any further."

  "Unacceptable, Herr Borgia. You cannot just leave."

  "Am I not expelled?"

  "You are a promising student. I would rather you stayed. I owe a debt to your grandfather, and I would rather not renege on such a debt."

  Carlo smiled. "I appreciate that. That would work out for both of us. Right now, though, I am needed elsewhere and I will have to leave for a time."

  Nabrotzsky puckered his lips. "Listen, if it's something with Paolo, you had best stay out of it."

  "It's not," said Carlo. "Not exactly." Carlo picked up his hat. "I'll be back if I can be."

  Carlo slipped out the metal door.

  "The most private place I know," said Carlo to Drusus, "is the loudest."

  Carlo took Drusus to the Prater Garten, where the dissectors gathered after study most nights. Because of the rain, everyone had forsaken the outdoor tables, and the inside was packed as the afternoon slipped into evening. Drusus shot the other patrons a haughty look as he and Carlo edged their way to a table. By the time they were served, there was a bubble of space around them. The blanket of noise would keep their conversation private.

  Drusus leaned his elbow on the sticky table, no doubt ruining the impeccable jacket. Dark beer frothed out of the crease between lid and tankard sitting in front of him. He speared a sausage and contemplated it on its fork. "What do you suppose they make this out of?"

  Carlo sliced his own sausage and popped a round piece, salty and rubbery, into his mouth. "Best not to think about that," he said around chewing. The food was bad, but it was also within his budget. He sawed through another piece while Drusus continued to eye his own plate with suspicion. "You look terrible," said Carlo.

  Drusus retired the sausage link to rest on his plate and sipped from the frothy tankard. In the corner, a group of students sang with vigor and imprecision. "Thank you," said Drusus.

  "You came to me for help," said Carlo. "Not compliments. What is it?"

  Drusus ran his hands through his hair. "You're not going to like it," said Drusus.

  "Let me hear it, and then I will pass judgment."

  Drusus swallowed some of the dark swill in the tankard, looked at Carlo with flashing eyes, and began his story.

  Hathersage, March, 1842

  Drusus bolted up, shivering. The wet grass against his skin was cold. The sky banded orange with sunrise. Where was he, and how did he get here? Acid burned inside his chest. He'd been losing phases of time for a while, the empty spots lengthening, small bits of destruction marking its passage: broken vases, rent drapes, scratch marks on his desk. Drusus knew what was happening to him with horrifying clarity. Years ago, when Lucy used magic to combine him with Khun, she had created a monster. Khun was emerging and out of Drusus' control.

  Drusus buried his head in his gritty hands. Underneath his nails, black. His arms, stained red. He was coated with blood. The heat in his chest froze to slush as panic stabbed his body. This blood…it was not his. Lucy's? He had been talking to her, and that’s where his memory stopped. Something she said had upset him, hadn’t it? He could remember nothing, had absolutely no memory of how he had come here.

  Patchy mist obscured parts of the grass, fresh with morning dew. His bare feet were ice. He wore a pair of shredded trousers, nothing else. He had to return home, make sure all was well. He ran across the field, toward Mistraldol, but stopped. Dread pressed him so much he couldn't breathe. The air around him was thick and his movements were sluggish. He had to know. Why was he stopping?

  Drusus flew as high as he could, amassing clouds, trying to sort out his feelings. A spring rain, cold, bracing, fell upon him, washing most of the blood away, making him shiver. He closed his eyes. Khun was a killer. Was Drusus now a killer too, whether he wanted to be or not? His mind was frantic. Drusus yelled, and lightning fragmented through the sky.

  Memories struck as thunder rumbled. Lucy on the floor in front of him, clutching a wound closed, her slick insides bulging out. His hands were covered in her blood.

  "Let me get some help." His own voice, shocked.

  "Drusus. Please listen. This is important." Her voice, raw. "We are the same. We are dangerous."

  We are dangerous.

  Jagged light flashed around him.

  Lucy shifted and hissed in breath. "You have to leave here. For the sake of Octavia, the children."

  "No, Lucy. She can help us. She—"

  "I will not risk it." Her voice shifted to the guttural language the Klaereons used when they commanded the gods, and—

  Drusus dissipated the clouds and soared over the heath on air currents. The idea of leaving Octavia, his sons, Lucy, made him sick. Moving closer to Mistraldol was like swimming through fear, drowning in its darkness. Panic overcame stubbornness and rational thought.

  When he came to himself again, after, he knew Lucy had cast magic on him to keep him away. He ran through his options. Go to Vergilius and the council? If the truth came out about his nature, how he was with Khun, Octavia would pay the price, and they would lock him away. There was one person who could help him, the only person Lucy might trust, the only person who might convince her to undo whatever she had done.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Berlin, March, 1842

  Carlo collected his thoughts. "You were right. This is a story I didn't want to hear. Two questions."

  Drusus gazed into the depths of his tankard. "By all means."

  "Have you lost more time since you left Mistraldol?"

  "No," said Drusus. He pulled a long draught.

  "Does Octavia know about your problems, about the missing time?"

  "I have not told her. I am ashamed of it. I thought I could master it."

  Carlo sipped, swallowed and grimaced. He hated beer, but it was one of the few things you could drink in Prussia. Sliding the stein across the table to Drusus, he said, "You think of yourself as Drusus and Khun?"

  Drusus looked about the room for a moment, avoiding Carlo. When he spoke, he spoke carefully. "There are desires I have which a gentleman does not talk about, beyond the normal desires a gentleman does not talk about." Drusus blushed, almost purple. "These desires disgust and appall me." He rubbed his chin. "In most essentials I remain Drusus Claudian. I cannot account for these gaps in time. Khun has an agenda in which he is not including me." Drusus' hands trembled. "Please, Carlo. You're the only other person like me I know. Help me."

  "I would say you and Khun are a unique case." Now, the question Carlo dreaded asking. "Do you think Ra is controlling Lucy?"

  "It is my best guess."

  "Ra wanted to control the gods," Carlo mused. "Now that Khun is part of you, Lucy can control you. She says you are a danger?"

  "I am a danger, god help me. Maybe I have come to you so you can kill me. I would sooner die than hurt anyone."

  Carlo pointed at Drusus wi
th his fork. "There's the Drusus I know."

  Drusus banged his fist on the table. Both steins jumped a bit and suds frothed down the sides. "This is nothing to joke about."

  "My apologies," said Carlo. He stabbed the final nub of his sausage link. "You are right. We have to get you home. Between the two of them, Lucy and Octavia know more about you and Khun than anyone else."

  "I want to go to Octavia, but whatever Lucy's done," Drusus shook his head. "Every time I try to return…"

  The noise of the tavern washed over Carlo for a second. Lucy had done Drusus no favors when she saved his life. Or was that lives? Carlo lowered his voice. "Let's work with what we can."

  Drusus' head dropped. "I am a monster."

  Carlo raised a hand. "Stop. I won't let you wallow. Let's approach this analytically." Nothing like a little analysis to get Drusus to make fun of him a bit, Carlo hoped. "Khun is not a killer, Drusus. He had the opportunity to kill me, and he didn't. He had the opportunity to kill you, and he didn't. I'm certain he would do nothing to harm Octavia, or your sons. Try to put your mind at ease on that account."

  "I can't risk everything on your theoretical—"

  "You will not risk anything. You'll stay with me for now. If you transform, maybe Khun can tell me what he knows. Drusus, you need to accept the idea your problems could be psychological."

  "What is that?"

  Right. Drusus hadn't been studying medicine. "From your mind," said Carlo. "Here in Berlin there is new branch of medicine. Sometimes emotions trigger certain physical effects, and in your case, the results are dramatic, such as losing time, or blacking out."

  "I don't care what caused it."

  "Finding out what caused it is a way to effect change. We'll make physical tests. See if anything causes it, avoid those conditions. It's a start."

  Drusus' shoulders heaved. "I haven't felt safe in weeks."

  Carlo's smile was wan. "What was I going to do? Turn you out?"

  "After what I did to Lucy? Maybe. I know how you feel about her."