Life continued and things were by now almost normal, with two gods time-sharing the apartment.

Steven had found that Anubis didn't mind him asking questions, which was reminiscent of when he had done the same with Khonshu, but this time it proved to be quite informative in a different way.

This time it was about the mansion that had nearly trapped them and which Marc had yet to go back to.

This time it involved the ushabti's century-long journey through human hands to finally arrive at the place where they had found it.

"You never saw Norman Wyckhoff?"

"I don't know the name."

Steven opened a search for the eccentric billionaire and showed Anubis an older image. The god studied it, then shook his head.

"I'd believe he would come to admire his collection, especially a new piece," Steven murmured, brow furrowed.

Some people just want to own stuff, Marc reminded him. It's all about having it. Not everyone's like you, buddy.

Steven chuckled. "Maybe. But the whole house felt more like a museum than a place to live in. And the magic…"

Anubis' flicked an ear. "The place housed very different magical items. I could feel them brushing against me all the time. Magic, as different as it is, is essentially energy. Too much energy in one place can lead to catastrophic events when the accumulated weight of it all unloads."

"We have to go back there!"

Not anytime soon, was the immediate veto.

"But the Unholy might still be there!"

And the last time we barely made it out alive!

"I know! I was there!" Steven reminded him sharply.

Well, could've fooled me! You want to go back into a place that tried to eat us?

"It… didn't…"

It nearly did, Steven! Marc yelled. We made it out by the skin of our teeth!

Khonshu's presence increased and he was now crouching on the bed, clearly as unhappy about a possible return as Marc was. There was a miniature storm whipping up his shawl. One hand reached out and briefly cupped Steven's face.

"You know Marc is right."

"What about the Unholy?" Steven asked slowly.

"The danger to you, to both of you, outweighs the successful retrieval to find another Unholy, Steven Grant. I will not risk you."

He swallowed, touched by the concern he felt wafting along the connection.

Anubis watched them, brow lightly furrowed. "It would be wise not to return. The power within the place was… always in flux. Dangerously so. Too many items of different origin. Magic can mix and become new in a twisted way. You can't know what you are walking into."

Yeah, we got that new twisted magic. Quite up close and personal, Marc spat.

"But someone takes care of the place," Steven argued. "People must be coming there to clean, to bring new pieces, maybe rearrange stuff…"

"There was no human soul other than yours," Khonshu rumbled.

"Then it's maybe a maid service." Steven was like a dog with a bone.

Because that wouldn't be a recipe for disaster. Anyone bumping into that stuff might set off a reaction. We did.

"We are… different."

"Quite," Khonshu agreed.

"And we tried to steal something. Maybe it was simply a very good alarm system."

Marc snorted. That wasn't for security. You felt it, Steven! It was alive and it wanted Khonshu! he close to yelled angrily. It tried to dig him out of the core, damnit! It was determined to keep him!

Khonshu's presence shifted, uneasy, and the memories of their fight were clear on his mind.

Steven nodded slowly.

We can't get to every Unholy.

"I know. Maybe… later."

Or never, came the infuriated mutter. It's on the bottom of the list. Way down at the bottom! I'm not risking us, Steven! Any of us!

"I wouldn't either!" he protested.

Steven didn't look happy about leaving an Unholy in a collection that was so insanely dangerous. Neither was Marc, but he was assessing the situation differently.

We'll keep it in mind. There's more out there and we can always go back to it.

Yes, they could. And no, he would never risk losing Khonshu to that thing. Ever!


It didn't stop Steven from scribbling down whatever Anubis recalled from his 'journey', though the initial theft was mostly in the dark. He hadn't known the human who had removed the ushabti, nor had he been able to connect him to any of the gods as a former avatar. Since time had no real meaning to a god, Anubis couldn't give Steven even the remotest idea when the theft had taken place.

Khonshu was suspiciously silent about that, but both Marc and Steven felt the fluctuations along the bond. Whatever had happened, whoever it had been, Steven suspected heavy magic had been involved. If it had been a former avatar, what had been his motivation? Money? Power? Or just to say 'up yours' to the Ennead? And if it hadn't been a former avatar, who had found out about the pocket dimension and somehow created a key to it? Finally: why had no one discovered the switch?

"Has to be one damn good copy," Marc concluded. "Can magic mimic a real ushabti?"

"No," Khonshu rumbled.

"Sure?"

"Yes."

Alright. Yes, it was.

"That means no one checks on those statues," he deducted. "Was Anubis the last to be imprisoned?"

"No."

Khonshu was the last, Steve said quietly.

Marc swallowed, looking at the tall entity. "Yeah. Which means someone was in that chamber where they keep their sick little line-up. How come no one goes to check more often? How come no one noticed when they put you in there?"

There was no reason to, Steven told him reasonably. No one expected this. It should be impossible.

But it had happened. The impossible had happened.


Steven finally worked out a way to narrow down the timeframe of the theft, but it wasn't really helping them now. It had most likely been over a thousand years ago.

The trail's gone cold, Marc told him, having the backseat as his alter researched. Whoever it was is most likely gone. We have no clue who the god involved was.

Or if another god was involved at all. As Khonshu had said, some avatars retained knowledge from their time of servitude, and some had skill sets that hadn't been given to them by a god.

Steven sat back, frowning. "We got nothing, know nothing, and nothing will probably come out of it, right?"

Yeah.


Something else that cropped up throughout Steven's interview with an Egyptian god of the afterlife was Anubis' avatar.

It started slow at first. Small tidbits, little pieces of information here or there, and most of the time the jackal-headed entity simply stopped and changed the topic, or disappeared.

Sore spot. Delicate topic. Steven understood.

But Anubis was slowly opening up, consciously or unconsciously, and Steven learned more about the man who had come to be this deity's avatar when he had come of age. Unlike Steven had believed, the young man hadn't been a priest of a temple dedicated to Anubis. Not even a part-time priest. He had been a scribe, able to read and write, and of social standing.

The deity revealed how he had chosen the young student, how Kimas had accepted the offer to serve Anubis as his avatar. Anubis spoke of daily life, about what it was like to live in that time, and Steven soaked it all up.

They reached the point how the god had offered to release his avatar from his oath when Kimas had met his future mate.

"Is being… single a condition to becoming and staying an avatar?" Steven questioned, brow lightly furrowed.

"Of course not!"

Because a family can be used as blackmail material. To keep your avatar in check and subserviant, Marc griped, though without anger. Just lately, he had taken to listening in.

Steven blinked. "Why would… oh!"

Layla. Of course. Khonshu had used Layla as a means to an end, threatening Marc with whom he would choose as his next avatar should Marc Spector revoke his oath. Back then, in a bad state and tethering on the edge, Marc had believed the threats. That a god couldn't force himself onto a human and make them his avatar wasn't something Marc had ever considered.

Anubis watched him, slightly curious.

"Uh, well, Marc had… well, Khonshu and he… they had… issues?" he stammered. "There was some blackmailing involved."

Anubis stared at him, eyes widening slightly, and a muscle in his cheek twitched.

Steven waved his hands. "No, no! It's all good now. They… we… worked through it! There was a lot of misunderstanding going around, and not talking about things. Especially not talking. About so many important things. The whole work relationship was basically threats and stalking and hovering… lots of stalking and hovering." He trailed off when Anubis made a disbelieving noise that held a low growl.

"And you still serve him?!" the entity finally spat.

Something shot through him. It was a flash of anger Steven wasn't normally prone to. Marc was the one who had a shorter fuse, but this time it was Steven fronting. And it was Steven who felt the outrage and insulted.

"First of all, we don't serve Khonshu!" He sat up, meeting the white gaze. "We are partners. We bloody chose him that second time! We worked through all those issues and we made it work! Khonshu is our soul-bound as we are his! Don't go judging what you have never been part of, Anubis!" He jabbed a finger at the tall entity.

"You chose him again," Anubis said softly. "After all he did. After all the abuse and mistreatment."

"Yes, we did." He squared his shoulders. "And we will choose him again. Everything before… it was a misunderstanding! And the whole matter with Ammit… there was so much pressure… it got worse and worse."

The pointed ears flicked. "Yet when you were free, you wanted him back. Voluntarily."

"Of course! No one can be forced to serve a god!"

Anubis smiled. "No. No one. It is a voluntary choice. And we offer our avatars another choice when they find family. It is to protect them and their mate, their offspring. It is to ease their lives because they would have two lives then, one hidden."

Steven nodded. He had seen what this double life had done to Marc. He hadn't been married when Khonshu had offered him a second chance at life, and things had gone from bad to worse with the many secrets he had had concerning Layla. She had known about the armor, but not Khonshu or the whole deal the armor came with.

"It complicates things," he said out loud. "For the avatar. For you."

"Quite."

"But Kimas wanted to stay?"

"He was devoted," the god said softly. "He wanted to continue as my avatar, despite his new duties. I was honored by his dedication, by how he served as my eyes and ears in this realm."

And then Kenna had died, just days away from giving birth to their twins.

It had been this fateful moment that had changed everything. It had been the moment Anubis had done something incredibly stupid because he had grown attached to his avatar.

Steven watched the agitation flit over the canine features. Inside, he felt Khonshu's own emotional surges. The moon god understood; he hadn't back then, but now he did.

"Would you have offered a bond to him?" he asked, voice soft and full of empathy and compassion.

The pointed ears flattened, then snapped up again. One flicked almost nervously.

"He wasn't what you are to Khonshu." His voice was almost too low to hear. "He was… I never… considered offering him an extension of his service beyond his normal lifespan… He had a family. He would have seen them pass. It is nothing anyone should suffer through."

Understandable. The scribe had died thousands of years ago and Anubis had spent all that time with the guilt and memories of what had happened, of what he had done. He had connected to this one human being and he had considered to offer him more, only stopped by consideration of Kimas' circumstances.

"I'm sorry," Steven said softly. "Really sorry."

Anubis' expression was unreadable. The white eyes appeared flat as they stared at him, and then he disappeared.

Steven sighed. He understood. He really did. And he was sorry about what had happened, even if none of it had been his fault in any way.


Anubis didn't return for the next few days. It wasn't until the moment Steven almost fell over a black hole on the ground that they discovered he was back.

"Anubis?!"

The entity on the floor looked very much like a slender dog the size of a Doberman, with the same large, pointy ears he already had as a bipedal. But this wasn't an animal, that much was clear to see. There were still the golden markings on his ears and face, but now he also had what appeared like a stylized collar painted around his neck.

"What… how… what?!"

The jackal-dog huffed and just curled up again.

"You can shape-shift?!"

"Of course," came the low answer.

Steven was too flabbergasted to really comprehend what was going on.

Khonshu just scowled at the other deity, then leaned back against a bookshelf.

"You're going to stay here as a dog?" Steven tried.

"Apparently." The former guardian of the Duat sounded a little grumpy.

"You could leave," Marc suggested, taking over.

Anubis cracked open one eye. In his dog-shape they weren't milky white, but still rimmed in gold. "You invited me, avatar of Khonshu."

"Ye-eah. Right. Don't expect fun trips to the park or milk bones."

Marc felt Khonshu's amusement and even Anubis had a glint in that one visible eye. He didn't answer, just curled up again. Marc frowned and shot his partner a brief, quizzical look.

"Anything you've kept back? About possibly shape-changing into… what? A bird?"

It got him a glare. "I am not a bird!"

"And Anubis isn't a dog, but he changed into one."

"I do not change shape!" the moon god declared haughtily.

"Good to know. I'm out of birdfeed and old newspapers," Marc teased, eyes alight with laughter.

He felt Khonshu's reaction over the connection between them, the outrage, the affront and the sullenness. Marc gave his god a little poke and Khonshu huffed.

"I am not a bird," he repeated and disappeared.

"Just a big feather-brained jerk sometimes," Marc muttered to the empty air, smirking to himself.


He left the flat not much later.

He had a late-night date with some lowlife scum. If Anubis wanted to spend his time sleeping on a rug on the floor, who was he to stop a timeless deity from doing so?