Page 37 of The Secret Shape of Worship
He wasn’t supposed to be in this part of the necropolis, but he didn’t care anymore. Everything felt wrong. Sending Devon away. Anubis hiding whatever he was hiding from him. The control his father had over him. It wasn’t fair. Anubis had helped him escape the chains he’d been putting on himself. Now it was Mina’s turn to help Anubis.
After about ten minutes, Mina found what he was looking for. The portrait of Osiris the professor had pointed out not long after the group had entered the temple. Mina’s thought was that if the portraits of Anubis had led him to Anubis, then the portraits of Osiris…
Mina stopped cold in his tracks. A familiar sound filled him with an instinctual dread. Voices. Ones he hadn’t heard in over a year. His group.
And then another realization came to him. Mina was a completely different person. Not just in looks, but in every other way that mattered more. He was truer to himself. Bolder and more sure. And despite knowing that his new self would probably not be understood or accepted, there was a part of him,closer to the surface than he would have ever thought possible, that was excited to finally show it to the world. It was a feeling that filled him with hope and joy and everything he knew he was always meant to feel in his old life, but that he could never manage to hold onto.
Mina couldn’t help but smirk as the relentlessly dry and pompous voice of Professor Cornelius bounced down the hall of the darkness ahead of him. Still lecturing after three days lost in the tunnels? Of course, Anubis did say he could manipulate not just time but perceptions. Perhaps to them it had still only felt like a couple of hours.
“You can see here as we walk through toward the center of the structure, the artwork turns toward Osiris, god of the underworld. Not far are the mummification rooms. Perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to come across it as we search for…”
“Mina!” As the group came into view, one of the tallest of the students behind the professor caught sight of him, pointing.
Mina waved and smiled, steeling himself for the reactions and the questions.
Immediately, Mina felt all dozen eyes go up and down his body, taking in his minimal clothing, his oiled skin, his hair pulled up quickly into a half bun so that the rest of it fell in thick shaggy curls onto his shoulders.
“Mina?” said the professor with wide, unblinking eyes. “Is that you? What in God’s name are you… What’s this all about? Where did you go off to? And why are you dressed like a harem boy?”
Mina could sense more than one pair of eyes lingering on him and, having adopted some of Anubis’s sixth senses, caught a whiff of lustful desire in the air that sent a shudder of delight down his spine. Followed almost immediately by a wave of sadness when he realized he’d once been one of them. Sneakingglances. Hiding his true self as a matter of what had felt like life and death.
He had no interest in hiding himself anymore. And he had no plans to reinsert himself back into this old life. He had to find Osiris before it was too late.
“It’s hard to explain. I’ve been…studying, I guess? Yeah, studying. For my thesis. Anubis. Fascinating, truly. And hot.Sooofucking hot.”
A chorus of gasps and stifled chuckles rippled through the group. Professor Cornelius’s face turned beet red as he stammered out a response. “Well, I…obviously you…I think we should…”
“I’m fine, professor. Thank you for looking for me. But you all should leave now. I’m not quite done with…my research.”
“Listen, young man, I think you’d better come with us. You’re not looking so good.”
“I really don’t have time for this, I need to...”
Before Mina could turn to walk away from the group, the professor let out an angry grunt and lunged for him, grabbing his wrist roughly and squeezing so hard Mina squeaked out a cry of pain.
“You’re delusional. Maybe your blood oxygen is low. We should get you to a hospital.”
“Let go of me.” Mina jerked his wrist, but the professor’s grip was iron.
That was when he heard a familiar voice push through the group.
“I knew you were going to be a pain.”
Devon.
Mina couldn’t help smirking devilishly at the boy he’d turned into a spent, come-soaked mess on the temple floor not long ago.
“I don’t know how you managed to shake me, but I knew I should have kept a closer eye on the loner. Why are you looking at me like that? Stop it.”
Mina’s face fell. Was Devon’s memory already gone?
“Devon, don’t you…” Mina started to say, reaching for Devon’s hand, but his classmate snatched it away before he could finish.
And then Mina remembered Anubis’s words.
“Will he remember?”
“He will not.”
