Esmerelda: A Rogue Enforcers Novel by Darlene Tallman (phonics books TXT) 📕

the hall, sensing the living in the balconies above and reaching for them. The survivors remained silent, unmoving, standing near the tables. Trying to control their breathing, trying to be invisible to the undead.

Anubis and Bastet turned slowly, lowered their arms, and walked to the rear entrance of the stage, the newly Chosen following in blood-sprayed robes.

The devout followers quietly emptied the balconies, leaving the blood spectacle behind. They joined in the festivities in the main hall of the palace, ready to celebrate with the chosen ones. They had just witnessed a miracle. They had seen his power with their own eyes. They believed.

It was no longer a casino, all traces of the glittering, buzzing machines were long gone. Gauzy linens hung from the tall atrium, plastic pine trees were adorned with fairy lights, and everyone wore robes and burnooses. Music played, people danced, and the recently slaughtered dead weren’t remembered. They hadn’t been worthy. They would be forgotten, their deaths wiped from memory, and most fervently hoped they wouldn’t be called upon to prove their worth. They would all worship a little harder. Show devoutness a little more. That should be enough. They would do everything their leaders wanted and with gusto. They had seen the power, the miracle of walking among the dead, and they believed. Most would do anything to prove they believed, except volunteer to be Chosen.

Professor Harrison relished the attention, the fawning way the women silently ran their hands over his body when they passed by, just as he’d suggested was custom during one of his sermons. He was in his early forties and still had the desires of any man. Before, he could only live vicariously through pay sites on the internet, but now he had a whole harem of women to choose from. He grinned behind his mask and basked in their attention. Nothing like a little spilled blood and rejoicing that it wasn’t you to make even the most chaste women crave the attentions of a god. The LSD didn’t hurt matters, either. The Viagra would help him perform like a god, too.

9

Scarlet

Scarlet locked the door behind her and went over to the windows of her penthouse suite. She’d remained at the festival for hours, acting regal and cat-like, playing for the devotees. By the time she left, couples and groups were already having sex on the couches and barstools. That just wasn’t her scene. Maybe if she’d drank some of the laced wine she probably would have been like a cat in heat, like the rest of the people, but she’d steered clear of it. Dr. Stevens was a mad genius, there was no doubt about that, but just because he could create a mild hallucinogenic aphrodisiac that made you lose all your inhibitions, didn’t mean she wanted to be a part of an orgy. Especially with her dad right there with a girl on each arm. She knew a little about the ancient gods and Bastet and Anubis had hooked up. Gross. That wasn’t going to happen.

She stripped out of her costume and tossed the priceless, three-thousand-year-old jewelry carelessly on a chair. She’d ensured the undead had been rounded back up and caged again, a part of her duties with the security team she took seriously. Another reason not to get drunk, stoned, or tied up in a love knot somewhere. Somebody had to keep this place running smoothly, and her dad no longer bothered himself with the day to day operations. He had long since stopped doing menial tasks, it was beneath him. He was too busy being ‘The Messenger of Anubis.’ Ricketts had promoted himself to Captain and had taken over the day to day operations, but he was in his cups tonight, enjoying his new minor god status. She sighed, rang the bell for her handmaidens, and then sat at the window as they started unbraiding her hair. She needed to get a wig for her Bastet duties, this was too bothersome.

Her mind drifted as they unwove each strand, their fingers working carefully not to pull her hair. She wasn’t even sure how she’d wound up in such a ludicrous situation, being worshipped as a Goddess and having hundreds of people at her beck and call. Pretending prisoners were new converts wanting to be chosen and watching them get slaughtered by the undead. Was that really necessary? Her dad and Doctor Stevens had both insisted it was, so she’d gone along with the charade, but it could have been done some other way. They could have shared the results with everyone, instead of continuing this whole Anubis Cult thing, pretending like it was divine intervention that made them invisible to the undead. They could have embraced science and the future, instead of magic and the past.

She was sixteen but wasn’t a typical teenager, had never really had any friends, didn’t know what it was like to have a BFF. They’d moved around so much when she was growing up, she’d never had time to put down roots or get to know any girls her own age. Most of the time she was homeschooled by her mom because they were out on some archeological expedition in some exotic sounding location that was really just a miserable dig sight in a remote desert wasteland. When they were in the States, they never stayed put for long. He’d be a guest professor at a college for a year, then they’d move to another city where he would help set up a museum. She’d start all over, trying to make friends and the older she got, the harder it got. Finally, she’d just quit trying and became the weird loner girl who rode motorcycles, hung out in the library and ate lunch by herself. No one in America cared that she had helped uncover ancient tombs in places they couldn’t pronounce or that she was a master in Egyptian stick fighting. No one in Persia cared about reality