Page 39 of The Secret Shape of Worship
Despite the icy dread that the awful voice spread through his veins, Mina felt anger rise up. If Osiris was anything like his son, then the god would be able to sense it, and anger was thelast thing he wanted to communicate. Mina tried to channel his feelings into determination and fearlessness.
“And us?” Mina replied. “What will you do with us?”
“I have no use for mortals. And I am tired of them. Before the day is out, I will lay waste this useless stone relic and everything inside. Be gone before you find stones upon your heads and souls ripped from your bodies without the shepherd to guide them.”
“Ok. Deal. The group will leave. Just turn back on the lights and they’ll go.”
In an instant, the warm light flickered on, and Osiris was gone. As if he’d been nothing more than a projected image, suddenly washed out with the flipping back on of the lights.
Mina turned to the group, who all looked a little like reanimated corpses themselves. The professor’s normally flustered red face was ghostly white as he quivered at the back of the group of students. Nothing but hot air, finally deflated.
“Go,” Mina said, pointing down the tunnel. “Follow the lights and don’t look back.”
“What in God’s name was that?” asked the professor. “What evil have you awoken in this place?”
“Not evil. Just something you don’t understand. And unfortunately, in your eyes, those two things are the same.”
“Now listen here, I have a master’s and two doctorates in…”
“Mythology. You’re an expert in one specific mythology, which you’ve convinced yourself is real. Which is totally fine, but defining the rest of the world by your narrow worldview? Forcing people to live in fear and silence for not ascribing to that view? That’s the real definition of evil, professor. You’re worse than any twenty-foot mummified god. I’d take 100 of him over having to hear you talk for two more seconds. Now get out of here before I call him back and have him rip you in half.”
The professor huffed and pushed through the group of students and down the hall like Mina himself might morph into a terrifying deity. The rest of the group trailed behind, but Devon lingered, looking slowly back to Mina.
“Aren’t you coming?” he asked, a strange look in his eye like maybe all of this was starting to ring some distant bell.
Mina stepped toward his classmate, placing a hand on his shoulder. This time, Devon didn’t pull away.
“Goodbye, Devon. And good luck.”
Mina pressed a kiss to his cheek and turned, deeper into the tunnel. Devon was on his own journey now. And it looked like Mina’s wasn’t over yet.
He had no idea if Osiris would even hear him out, but he had to try.
Visions of lakes of fire and monstrous gods clouded his mind, but at the center of it all was Anubis. He had to bring him home.
Hell had been Mina’s deepest fear and source of all his childhood dread. And now he was marching straight for its gates.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OFFERING
Mina ran, following the light in the opposite direction of the group as far as it reached. The god was still down here, he was sure of it. The smell of rot lingered, and a heaviness clung to everything.
Mina followed the paintings of Osiris as they depicted him navigating the various levels of the underworld.
Traveling down a river through wild and mysterious worlds.
Giant serpents.
Massive winged beasts.
Lakes of fire and demons with arms and legs bent at wrong angles.
A creature with the head of a crocodile and the body of a lion.
And finally, a massive temple and the Scales of Justice.
As Mina ran, he realized he was also outrunning the light and soon found himself in almost complete darkness.
