The Curse in Her Blood

Chapter 9

Robin

When I'm done eating, I'm taken to a grand room where I'm told I will bathe, change and then meet Set in the court yard. When I'm done bathing and I refuse to change into the black see-through whatever the hell he left for me and choose to don my dirty sandy white sterile night gown I had been wearing before.

When I join him in the court yard he looks far from pleased with me but I merely smile at his perplexed stare and wonder why he's still wearing Bradley James' face. More importantly, I wonder if he's going to switch his face every day, because if that's the case I figure I can give him a list of other people I find pleasing to look at and the ones that I never want to see again. Cause if he puts on one of my exes faces, he might get punched.

"What are you wearing?" he asks me and he is clearly not impressed.

"If you thought I was going to wear that see through bit of fabric you left on my bed, you had another thing coming."

"It is standard garb in the Old Kingdom. I can't take you wearing that," he says and then snaps his fingers.

When I look down, I am in fact in the see-through black sheath I had left behind. I covered myself immediately.

"SET!" I hiss but he seems unaffected. The snap of his fingers has changed him as well. He is now in the same black clothes from the dream state, except his kilt isn't see-through. What double standards that is.

"There, now you look presentable."

"I don't care if I look presentable, change me back!" I order.

"No."

"Set. I'm not comfortable like this," I whine. Though the silky fabric feels light and flowy against my skin I'm not comfortable being as exposed as this. "If you're not gonna change me back can you just... could you maybe make it a bit more opaque?"

Set looks me over as if he doesn't see a problem. "If I do this... you can't complain about anything else."

I raise my hand like I had seen the boy scouts do and say: "Scouts honor."

This confuses Set. I can see it in the way he cock's Bradley James' eye brow. "You were a scout for your army?"

I just stare at him. "Uh... sure..."

"I find it hard to believe that any army took you on."

I forget to be modest and put my hands on my hips. I plan to tell him off, to tell him that I could too be in the army. To ask him what it was about me that made it hard to believe I could make it into the army and if he said anything about flabby arms, I was gonna deck him. But then he smiled, wide and toothy, almost in an animalistic sort of way and I remember that he can see everything and my hands go back to covering myself up immediately.

"No, an army didn't take me. And yes, I promise not to complain if you fix the dress," I cry and he snaps his fingers again. When I look down it's no longer see through.

"Nice to know that I can bend you to my will somehow."

I narrow my eyes at him but he's looked away so he can't get the full burn of my disappointed glare. He's staring at a small but elaborate fountain. The water so dark and blue it almost looked like it might go down forever.

"What do you think?"

"It's a very nice fountain," I tell him. The dry glare he shoots me tells me that he knows I'm patronizing him so I just smile sweetly. I promised him to stop whining about the dress I said nothing about being difficult in general.

"It's a portal," he answers. "Its how I'm going to get you to the underworld."

I look back at the fountain suddenly much warier of it than before. "So, I'm gonna swim down? I'm gonna tell you know, I'm a good swimmer but I can't hold my breath too long."

"You don't have to worry about that... you'll be dead before we reach the bottom."

WHAT?!

He must have seen the look on my face because he was smiling again. "I told you a mortal cannot pass into the Underworld without being dead."

"So, your plan is to drown me?"

"Sort of," he answers. "Not entirely."

As if by magic, probably by magic, Anubis, still looking cocky and way too happy about this situation, appears with a gurney beside him.

Judging by all the attached medical equipment he was going to try and keep me in a coma.

"Ah I see you got it," he said. "Dead but not really. Quite ingenious. What advancements you mortals have made. I'm quite impressed."

"That's not all he's impressed by," Anubis sang, if I didn't know any better, I'd think that Anubis was teasing him.

Set responded by turning. Those pools of ebony practically boring holes into Anubis, who just stood there grinning like an idiot. Whatever the joke was I didn't get it. Set turns back to me and his smile is cool and though there is no outward sign in his appearance I can tell Anubis' comment has shaken him.

"So, uh... how do I know this is going to work? No offense... you've been in a... I unno where you've been but you haven't been up here in a while. Do you even know how this stuff works?"

"No, but I do," Anubis answers me. I turn back to him and almost surprised. Who would have thought that the gods kept up with mortal advancements?

"If we could get on with this, that would be greatly appreciated, I do have business to attend to," Set sighs gaining my attention again.

I turn back to him but I don't smile. I stare at the almost black-blue water suddenly very afraid.

"It's uh... not going to hurt is it?"

"No."

"Are you lying to me?'

"Probably."

"Wow... okay well thanks for the honesty. Uh... and you're sure this isn't going to like properly kill me?"

"Yes."

"Is that a lie too?"

"Get in the damn fountain!" Set thunders and carefully I make my way in. When I find that I can't touch the ground any more I turn. Set is in the water behind me, the water even darker around him, his shirt gone. I'm sudden very, very warm and I assume it's because of him being near-by. Maybe he radiates a sort of heat, gods do that right? I swear I've read that in a book somewhere. Probably some smutty romance novel of some sort, but every fairy tale as a bit of truth to it right?

Or maybe he just makes me hot.

"I'm going to need you to trust me," he whispers. I only get to nod and then he's holding my head underwater. Until the water burns, until my arms and legs stop thrashing, until all I can see is the blackness pulling me deeper, deeper, down.