Accidentally…Cimil? (Accidentally Yours #4.5)(12)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“Whatever it is, do it!” I screamed between puffing breaths into Narmer’s bloody mouth.

Mitnal sank to his knees. He reached his arms high in the sky and began reciting a prayer to the Universe, a prayer to summon the dark energy. Like a godsdamned evil magnet, evil light collected around him and began to swirl around us, kicking up dust and leaves.

Great, f**king great. The crazy priest is going to save him with evil dirt!

“I call to the gods, to the divine Creator of all life,” Mitnal chanted, whipping his arms around, spinning the dark energy into tight circles.

Damn. What is he doing?

Mitnal looked at me. “Rise to your knees, goddess!” he screamed.

I did as he asked, covering my ears. The noise was deafening.

“You have vowed to give your heart to this man, yes?” Mitnal asked.

“Yes! Yes.” I had such a bad feeling about this.

“Then in the name of the divine Creator.” He reached out with his long, blackened fingernails and plunged his hand into my chest, pulling from it my beating heart. I looked at the human organ, unable to react or speak. Mitnal held the heart in the air, and the dark energy whooshed inside it, disappearing. “With this divine spark of life, the blood of the pharaoh shall live forever.”

He plunged my heart into Narmer’s chest, and the sky burst with lavender. I felt my light flicker.

I held my hand over the gaping hole in my chest. “What have you done?” I hissed.

Mitnal grinned. “I saved him, just as you asked. With a piece of your light. And soon, my people will have an immortal army with which we will conquer the world. We will be the greatest civilization ever to rule.”

A black splotch spread across my line of sight, and then death swallowed me whole.

* * *

In a rage, I emerged several days later from the Mexican cenote. That’s where deity souls end up when our human bodies are destroyed. From there, we can choose to return to our realm or have the cenote provide us with a new human suit.

In this case, I’d opted for a new body. Not only did I want revenge, but also I needed to know if Narmer was all right. And I wanted answers. Because while my new humanlike body, which included a new heart, felt fine, my light felt slightly weaker.

I immediately set out for the Mayan village just a few hours away by foot. I would find one of Mitnal’s cohorts and torture the truth from them. What horrible, dark magic were they using? Why did they believe it would create an immortal army? But when I arrived, the village leader said that the priests had disappeared many moons ago. No one knew where they were. One could only assume somewhere in the jungle, planning world domination. Idiots.

As soon as I knew Narmer was all right, I would call a summit and propose the gods take action. The priests would have to be taken out.

Chapter Six

One year later… (Yep, still somewhere around 3000 BC.)

Clothes tattered, hair matted into giant, platypus tail–like clumps, skin charred and covered in grime of the most unimaginable sorts, I schlepped my way up the steps of Narmer’s temple. My new humanlike heart pounded like a war drum inside my chest, mirroring the roar of thunder booming through the air. Rain and lightning showered down on everything around me. I couldn’t stop it; my overflowing emotions had to be released somewhere. Gods, what I’d been through this past year. All just to make it back to Egypt. Back to my beloved Narmer. I could only hope he was all right.

I stopped at the entrance of the outer temple and looked around. Where were Lefty and Righty? Granted they’d likely been killed during the attack on that fateful night one year ago; however, I would have expected the pharaoh to have a new set of hunky-skirts guarding his door. Yet there was no one. In fact—I turned and looked back toward the muddy avenue bathed in the gray light of the fading day—the crowded scene of merchants carrying their goods had been replaced by an utter lack of human life. Where had everyone gone?

Goose bumps erupted on my skin, and the air became electrified with dark energy. Oh, gods, please let him be all right, I prayed.

I entered the dank, dark temple and quietly made my way through the maze of chambers that would lead to the inner courtyard. The place was a damned mess. Broken vases, dirt, leaves, and sand covered the once pristine stone floors. Dried-out weeds sprouted alongside wilted potted plants.

What had happened?

“Narmer?” I called out as I reached the foot of his private temple.

No response.

If that godsdamned Mitnal did anything to him, I’d rip out the man’s innards with a spork. No, those wouldn’t exist for thousands of years until the colonel blessed the planet with a socially acceptable reason to publicly lick one’s fingers; however, I’d find some creative way to pass the time until such sporks were available to carry out my revenge. Torture was a good time-passer-byer.

I made my way up the steps, trying to ignore my throbbing, cracked feet and the aches and pains jabbing each muscle of my shivering humanlike body.

Almost to Narmer’s private bedchamber, a muted whimper caught my attention.

“Narmer?” I whispered. The coppery scent of fresh blood filled my nostrils. I reached the doorway and looked inside. My heart sank as my eyes registered the scene before me: Narmer. On the bed with three na**d women. The body of one dangled off the edge, her eyes vacant with death and a dribble of blood running down the side of her neck onto the floor. The second woman lay with her wrist wedged into Narmer’s mouth, and the third—well, the third moaned beneath him as he pumped himself between her thighs.

“What the…?” I gasped.

Narmer’s head lifted, and he stared like a wild beast, continuing the rhythm of his hips. “What the f**k do you want?”

My heart cracked in two. “I-I…” I didn’t know what to say.

The woman beneath him reached up, grabbed his hair, and yanked his face toward her demanding lips. The other female, the one who was still alive, obviously, grunted like a cavewoman and shoved her wrist between them, back into his mouth. All the while, Narmer continued hammering.

I turned away. I couldn’t bear to look. I couldn’t bear to let him see me crumble into a million pieces. I didn’t know what he’d become, but that was not the man I’d spent the last twelve months fighting to return to. It had taken me six tries, six bodies to cross the ocean. Each time I died, my light returned to the cenote in Mexico. But I hadn’t given up. It was the worst, most excruciating year of my existence, not knowing if he was all right. The fear, the sorrow, the panic consumed me to a point that I’d had no choice but to cut myself off from my brethren completely, lest the gods be overcome with my grief.