Chapter 13

House of Leverage

Nina's POV

I should have known better than to think we could leave the homeland of the gods peacefully. In the week between when they found out and we were supposed to leave, all of our friends disgruntledly agreed that it really was best for us to go. They didn't like it, but they knew it was for the best.

When I fell asleep the night before our plane was scheduled I had honestly thought things would be okay. But, like I said, things never go smoothly for me.

I didn't wake up in my bed. My eyes fluttered open to find myself and a still asleep Patricia in some sort of underground ruins. "What the heck?" I muttered as I went to wake up my friend. Shaking her awake, I scrutinized my surroundings more. Books lined the colorful walls and, if I was remembering my hieroglyphics properly, we were inhabiting a non-existent place. Library of the gods:Library of Alexandria I translated. Just great.

"Nina?" Patricia began once she realized our predicament. "Where are we?"

"I think we're beneath the city in a chamber of the Library of Alexandria that was never burnt down. 'The library of the gods'," I told her hoping that she'd stick with the questions I knew the answer to.

Of course, she didn't, but Patricia instead asked the question we had both been wondering, "Okay then, why are we here?"

Eddie's POV

"Nina, Patricia, you girls need to get up or we'll miss the plane." It was so unlike them to sleep in I'd been both concerned and surprised when I found Fabian alone in the kitchen. Still, I hadn't known there was anything wrong until they didn't answer the door and I walked in finding the door empty except for one nasty surprise.

"What are you doing here Raet?" I growled at the goddess. "Where are Patricia and Nina?"

"Relax," the goddess told me with a wave of a hand. "They're alive and shall remain that way unless you decide to have a repeat of last night's predicament." Raet got the reaction she wanted as guilt over my decisions weighed upon me.

I'd come home from the library as normal discouraged by the fact that I still hadn't found something to save Nina. With us leaving the next day I'd stayed late in my last fruitless search, so, when I got back to the house, everyone was already asleep. As I assembled a sandwich in the kitchen, Raet had appeared.

I hadn't seen her since we got back from the Du'at, but my hasty words continued to replay in the back of my mind. I'd been so worried about Nina who was dying in my arms that I would have said anything to get Raet to send us back to our side of the Du'at, but in hindsight what I'd promised… it probably is what got Nina killed.

We'd been stuck and I'd had no choice but to give Raet what she wanted-my vow of undying allegiance to her. I knew what she'd want would be bad, but I'd never expect her to ask what she did.

"It's time for you to fulfill your vow to me. What is Nina's ren?"

Spinning, I laughed in the goddesses face (which, let me tell you, did not make the situation better), "You think I'd tell you that then you're insane. I promised to help you, but I'm not going to give you complete control over Nina!"

"Fine," the growled. "Then what's your secret name?"

"Do you think I'm a fool?" I'd cried back loudly. "If I tell you mine you'll just invoke it and make me tell you Nina's! No way in hell am I telling you any secret names so get out."

"You'll regret deifying me Edison Sweet," Raet had warned and now, in the face of the two people I cared about the most missing, I knew she was right.

"What did you do with Nina and Patricia?" I growled as I grabbed the goddess by the throat and pinned her against the wall. To my surprise as soon as my hand reached the wall she suddenly was no longer within my clasp. Instead, she stood on the other side of the room a murderous glint in her eyes.

"You really shouldn't have done that. All I have to do is snap my fingers and Nina's leg breaks…oops." Before I could stop her with my lunging body, Raet snapped and though I couldn't feel the pain of Nina's broken leg like I used to, I knew none-the-less that the goddess wasn't bluffing.

"I can't tell you her secret name or mine!" I repeated with all the cockiness of yesterday gone from my voice. "Even if I wanted to I couldn't! It would lead to Nina getting hurt and my entire being forbids me from hurting Nina!"

"I don't want the name," Raet announced to my great surprise. "I want you to figure out how to open that little box of Nina's. Its contents could very well be the turning point of the war."

"What war?" I asked of the goddess trying not to think of the box and its contents.

"The one I'm about to start." If Raet's face usually held a look of cold calculation, it now exemplified pure ambitious evil. Raet-Tawny was about to start a war for leadership over the disbanded gods, and she wanted to use Nina's box as a weapon.

"But what's inside isn't a weapon," I reminded her as if she could forget. No one who looked upon that box and knew of what it held could ever forget it.

"If by not a weapon you mean it can't hurt anybody then yes, you're right. But that doesn't make it useless. If I have the box I can use it to… persuade Anubis to side with me. If Anubis sides with me then Osiris sides with me. With the two of them backing me I'll have all the death gods too add to my army of forgotten deities. We'll reclaim the throne from Horus in the name of Raet. I'll even let you, your Chosen One, and your friends live so long as you cooperate."

"I've spent the past 3 months trying to figure out how to open that box and will continue researching until I know how. Once I do, I'll share the secret with you gladly. Now please, bring Patricia and Nina back."

Raet brought a finger to her mouth as if for a second she actually considered it, but eventually she shook her head. "How about no? I keep your wife, child, and Chosen One until you figure out how to open the box. This way you'll be motivated to keep working and smart enough not to consider ignoring my request." As the goddess went to leave, my audience over, she cast a final few despair catalyzing words, "By the way, your wife will be going into labor within the next few hours. When little Alice is born she'll need medical attention to survive; therefore, I suggest you work quickly. Goodbye Eddie."

She wasn't even gone before I'd made a break back towards the library in a desperate hope that I could find something, anything, to save my child.

Ha ha suffering! Enjoy!

On the bright side you'll probably find out in the next chapter or so what's in the box... but that too will cause suffering so I guess it's not really a bright side...