Thoth by Alessa Thorn

5

If it weren’t for the bronze brand that shone on her brown skin, Kema would have been able to fool herself into believing that the encounter with the (maybe) god had never happened.

“This is all your fault,” Kema told the infernal book that was currently on the kitchen table. She had woken up to it sitting next to her bag, as if it knew she was returning it to its master. Or she was meant to.

Kema had gone over their conversations the previous day, including meeting Set, and had come to some conclusions. The main one had been that they could in fact be the gods she had read about in books, and if that was the case, she should do everything in her power to stay away from them.

No matter how handsome, no matter how much he could possibly teach her, no matter how curious she was… she had to stay away. She knew the stories. When humans messed around with the gods, they always ended up fucked over, pregnant with a monster child or dead. None of those outcomes appealed to her.

You know he’s the only one that could tell you what you want to know about magic. Kema tried to push the thought away. The price would be too high. Not to mention, she would have to deal with the moody bastard.

But it’s Thoth, your favorite. Kema looked guiltily at her own bookshelves where she had a collection of books on magic. With the little spare money she did have, she always spent it on books, trying to figure out the stolen tome.

The golden spine of The Hermetica shone out to her and reminded her how she had gone over and over it, trying to find something that would link to the other book, to real magic.

It was meant to be the writings of Hermes Trismegistus, the combined version of Hermes and Thoth that the Greeks and Egyptians alike revered.

Last year, there had been footage that had proven Hermes was alive and well and living in Styx. Kema had been beside herself with excitement at the one glimpse she had gotten of the god of magic and his golden caduceus healing people after Styx was attacked.

There hadn’t been any footage or photos since, and the original videos had all vanished from the web. Everyone knew Medusa had scrubbed it, because she was the only one with the resources to do it.

Hermes was alive, so Kema should have assumed Thoth was too. It wasn’t the hardest thing to believe when you had lived with a magical book for the past thirteen years. It was a shame that the real Thoth was a total prick.

Kema traced the bronze mark on her forearm again and shivered when it pulsed. Real magic, by a real god. A god she seemed to piss off whenever she opened her mouth.

Maybe he had a reason to be pissed off.If Kema had spent the last two years fighting terrifying creatures like the one in the alley, she supposed she would’ve been irritated with the person responsible.

If she did decide to help Thoth, what would happen to her once they had found and banished the twenty creatures she had unknowingly summoned? Would he banish her to the Duat anyway? Kema buried her head in her hands, not knowing what to do.

Whatever you decide, you had better do it soon.

Dusk wasn’t that long away, and her stomach was growling. She hadn’t been brave enough to step out of her small apartment all day to get groceries.

Maybe she could go out, buy food, and then lock herself in before dusk. That way, she wouldn't accidentally run into Thoth, and he wouldn’t know where to find her. He hadn’t found her in thirteen years, and she had been living right under his nose.

Kema thought of the amazing shawarma shop, two streets away, and her stomach grumbled again.

She would be quick, she assured herself, and shoved her feet into some boots. She grabbed her bag, ignoring the book that was now glowing to get her attention.

It’s never done that before. Kema quickly ignored it and shut the apartment door.

Outside it was steamy with the afternoon heat radiating off the buildings. She made it to the shawarma shop without incident, ordering herself two with a bag of baklava so she would have supplies.

Kema was starting to think she had worked herself up for nothing, and then the sun dipped below the horizon. Bronze light flickered in the corner of her eye, and she turned to see the blue and bronze door to the bookshop like she had thirteen years ago.

“Nope, nope, nope,” Kema muttered under her breath. She walked away, ignoring the door. She made it twenty feet before the door appeared again ahead of her. She walked straight past it, clutching her bag of food and picking up her pace.

The door appeared on every corner and lane, following her all the way home. Kema hurried, half jogging back to her apartment building.

As she touched the door to the lobby, it changed to lapis lazuli blue, and she stumbled into the bookstore, the door slamming shut behind her.

“Goddamn it!” she shouted, pulling at the handle.

“Oh good, you’re here.” Thoth was standing by the shelves, watching her struggling with the door with an amused look on his face. He looked better than the previous day, the dark circles under his dark bronze eyes were gone, and he didn’t look so angry at life.

“Not here by choice,” Kema replied, stomping down the stairs towards him.

“You should’ve thought about that before you decided to mess with magic beyond your capability.”

Kema rolled her eyes at him. “Do you really think I am the type of person that would knowingly summon creatures that could hurt people?”

“You’re the type of person that steals from people who try to help you, so I suppose you’re capable of anything,” Thoth replied, looking down his nose at her.

Kema was about to give him a piece of her mind when something thumped against her thigh from inside her bag. She reached inside of it, and sure enough, the magical book leaped into her hand. Kema held it out to Thoth like an olive branch.

Come on, stop hating me so much.

Thoth took the book and smiled at it, fond and full of relief. The effect it had on his face was so jarring that Kema stepped back from him. It was the smile that crumbled the last of her defiance.

“I’m sorry I took it,” Kema said and meant it. “I really was a scared and desperate kid. I did try and return it to you, but I could never find you again. The damn thing wouldn’t leave me alone no matter where I left it or what I did to it.”

Thoth’s smile slipped. “What do you mean?”

“Let me eat, and I’ll tell you all about it,” Kema replied.

“There’s a table this way,” Thoth gestured with his head, and Kema followed him through the stacks. The table turned out to be an embalming table in the middle of what looked like a lab.

“Has this been cleaned since the last body?” Kema asked. Thoth looked up from the page he had been reading.

“Of course it has, and Set wasn’t in bad enough shape to leave much of a mess.”

Kema didn’t know how to respond to that. She needed to eat so she could think. She put the bag on the table, figuring it wasn’t like she was going to eat off it like a plate. She pulled out one of the thick wraps.

“Are you really the god of magic, or did you take the name Thoth to be cool?” she asked.

“Why does it matter?”

“Just tell me.”

“Why? You know the answer, but you’re too scared to admit it to yourself. That’s got nothing to do with me.” Thoth idly turned another page in the journal, eyes scanning the lines.

Kema hesitated and offered him the second wrap. “God of magic. Yes or no?”

Thoth’s brows rose a little in surprise but took it. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

“No. I only wanted to be sure. That means Set really is the god of war.”

“And protection. And yes. Maybe in the future, you should be careful who you decide to cross,” Thoth replied.

Don’t react, just eat and think. Kema bit into her shawarma, and her stomach stopped complaining.

“Tell me what you did with this book,” Thoth asked, putting it down on the embalming table.

In between mouthfuls, Kema told him about trying to get rid of the book over the years when she couldn’t find the book shop again. Thoth almost choked on his food when she mentioned how many times she had thrown it into the Nile.

“I could never understand why, if it was magical, did it keep returning to me and not to its real owner. Maybe it knew you would eventually catch up to me,” Kema said thoughtfully.

“It’s not sentient.”

“I beg to differ. It put itself in my bag tonight.” Kema tried to think of a way to phrase what she wanted to say next without offending him and then gave up. “If I help you get rid of the possible creatures I summoned, will you kill me afterward anyway?”

“I suppose it depends on how much you irritate me,” Thoth replied.

“No offense, but you kind of give the impression that everything irritates you all the time.”

Thoth smiled. “Precisely. So you have your work cut out for you, don’t you?”

“Just for that, no baklava for you,” Kema replied, snatching the bag off the embalming table.

“I thought you didn’t want to irritate me,” Thoth argued, his small smile disarming her.

Kema opened the paper bag and held it out to him. “Only because you need sweetening up, sorcerer.”

His smile widened as he took out one of the sweet triangles. He seemed to be in a good mood, despite what he said, so she wanted him to remain that way.

“Demon hunting, what does that involve precisely?” Kema asked.

Thoth’s expression shifted to something sly. “It’s a full moon, thief. We aren’t looking for demons tonight.”

* * *

Lake Burullus waseast of Alexandria and looked dark and calm in the moonlight. Kema stepped out of the bookshop and onto the grassy bank of the lake with Thoth beside her. She didn’t think she would ever get over the awe of stepping through a portal.

Now that she wasn’t freaked out by seeing a demon, she could appreciate just how cool it was.

“What do you think is hiding all the way out here?” Kema asked, munching baklava. She was glad she had worn her boots that day by chance, otherwise the muddy bank would have been all over her.

“A fisherman was attacked yesterday by something he claimed was a chimera,” Thoth replied ahead of her.

Kema stumbled over a rock. “I summoned a chimera!”

“I suppose we will find out.” Thoth glanced up at the full moon. “We need to hurry. You can only successfully hunt chimeras at full moon, so luck is on our side.”

Thoth bent down, found a stick, and started sketching symbols into the wet bank.

“What are they?” Kema asked.

“Sigils that will form a trap. It doesn’t need to hold it for long, just long enough for me to banish it.”

“Cool.” Kema studied them, trying to commit them to memory because it was too dark to take a photo on her phone. “What do you need me to do to help?”

“I need you to go down to the water’s edge and pick five green reeds and seven small stones the size of your fingernail. Quick, we don’t have a lot of time,” Thoth said. Kema hurried down to the water and pulled out her phone to use the torch on it.

“Five green reeds, seven small stones,” she whispered to herself. “How big do the reeds need to be? I’m sure he would’ve said if it mattered.”

Kema was plucking out the third reed when the water rippled beside her. She didn’t have time to react as a huge crocodile head burst out of the dark water, jaws snapping. She screamed, scrambling backwards and slipping up in the mud. The creature launched itself up, and Kema glimpsed hyena paws before a massive tail whipped towards her.

“Run towards the sigils while you have its attention!” Thoth shouted.

Kema threw a rock at the creature as she tried to get back up. Her boots found enough purchase that she scrambled towards where Thoth had been drawing. The chimera roared behind her, and she didn’t dare look back.

The ground shook, and Kema dived through the circle, feeling the jaws snapping at her ankles. Bronze magic lit up the air, and Kema rolled over to see the chimera float above the ground, caught in Thoth’s trap.

“Good job. That worked faster than I thought it would,” Thoth said, hauling her to her feet. Thoth barely looked at her, his eyes studying the floating chimaera with a scientist’s keen interest.

Kema was soaked, scraped, and muddy. She held out the squashed handful of reeds and stones to him that she had managed to hold onto.

“Here, you said you needed these?” she said.

“What? Oh, I don’t need them anymore,” he replied.

“You…you used me as bait, didn’t you?” Kema demanded. When he didn’t deny it, she threw the reeds and stones at him. “You used me as fucking chimera bait!”

“And it worked perfectly. I’ve never seen one like this before,” Thoth replied with a satisfied smile.

Kema shook with anger, but as she went for him, the chimera’s horned tail swung out of the warded barrier and hit her in the side. Kema crashed into the hard bank; bronze light flashed, and all went dark.