24 Bones
Michael F. Stewart
Michael F. Stewart
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Supernatural Thriller
Publisher: Non Sequitur Press
ASIN: B00BGCQGNG
Number of pages: 305
Word Count:
85,000
Cover Artist: Martin Stiff of Amazing15
Book
Description:
Every five hundred years the phoenix dies.
Samiya, born-into-shadow, is soon to battle her born-into-light brother. Abandoned by their parents, neither wishes to play the preordained role of beast and hero. When their loved ones are taken hostage, they are forced to follow the path laid out in myth, culminating in a battle first fought six thousand years ago in ancient Cairo. A mythic clash where one defeats the other and both become gods.
To break free from their fates, Samiya and her brother must unravel a mystery twisted by cults, greed, and magic. But myth is a powerful force and failure to live up to it may not only destroy their lives but the lives of the ones they love most.
When the phoenix dies, the only certainty is flames.
“Terrific! A successful blend of genres, complex and fascinating characters, and loads of suspense make 24 Bones a must-read.” Nate Kenyon, bestselling author of The Reach, Prime, Bloodstone, and The Bone Factory.
“'24 Bones' is a winning debut. It's well-written and well-plotted, studded with drama, action, history and mythology. There's even a little romance. The conclusion is thrilling with the final outcome of the battle between good and evil held over until the very end...leaving you guessing until that very last page.” SF Crowsnest.
Samiya, born-into-shadow, is soon to battle her born-into-light brother. Abandoned by their parents, neither wishes to play the preordained role of beast and hero. When their loved ones are taken hostage, they are forced to follow the path laid out in myth, culminating in a battle first fought six thousand years ago in ancient Cairo. A mythic clash where one defeats the other and both become gods.
To break free from their fates, Samiya and her brother must unravel a mystery twisted by cults, greed, and magic. But myth is a powerful force and failure to live up to it may not only destroy their lives but the lives of the ones they love most.
When the phoenix dies, the only certainty is flames.
“Terrific! A successful blend of genres, complex and fascinating characters, and loads of suspense make 24 Bones a must-read.” Nate Kenyon, bestselling author of The Reach, Prime, Bloodstone, and The Bone Factory.
“'24 Bones' is a winning debut. It's well-written and well-plotted, studded with drama, action, history and mythology. There's even a little romance. The conclusion is thrilling with the final outcome of the battle between good and evil held over until the very end...leaving you guessing until that very last page.” SF Crowsnest.
24 Bones Excerpt
Present
day—Coptic Cairo, Egypt
“I want the tablet, Tara.” Sam pointed at her mother, the
accusing finger tipped with a razor-sharp nail. Her other hand gripped a
hound’s leash, and she heeled the dog to her hip when it threatened to lunge.
On the bed, a second hairless dog straddled her mother and
slavered drool across Tara’s cheek and lips. She twisted her head away from the
hound’s hot panting.
Sam knew her jackal mask and assumed accent did not conceal
her identity. She trembled at the look etched on her mother’s face. With most
of their forces deployed elsewhere, Pharaoh, the leader of the Shemsu Seth, had
honored Sam with the task of retrieving the Tablet of Destiny—her first
important mission in which she was the commander. Sam thumbed the heavy gold
ring on her finger, reminding herself of her goal. Her sentiment was a barrier
to her mission’s success. She coiled her rage inward.
“Where’s the damned tablet!”
Tara flinched, then kicked the hound as she jumped upright.
With a yelp, the dog slipped from the bed and curled underneath.
Sam’s canine headdress obscured her peripheral vision, but
it also prevented her mother from seeing her face, the sweat on her brow, the
strain about her green eyes. Sam’s emotions, like the veins criss-crossing her
dark neck and cheeks, ran too near the surface.
The window framed Tara’s age-thickened body, the street
light shining through her thin cotton nightgown. Outside, riotous cheers
clamored. A procession wound through the alleys of Coptic Cairo.
The hound under the bed barked. Tara tossed back the
mattress and snatched the dagger laying on the bed’s wire frame. She stabbed
between the wires until the hound’s howls died.
Sam knew she should kill Tara—set the other dog onto her
back and cut her throat. Sam’s knuckles were bone white. Her mother turned.
Blood from her blade dripped onto the scorpion hilt and her fist. She blinked
away angry tears and glared.
“Get out, Samiya.” Her lips barely moved. “The tablet isn’t
here.”
“Where,” Sam insisted and let the dog take a foot of leash.
Its front paws scratched at the air as the black iron collar dug into its
scruff.
Tara waggled the dagger in the direction of the hound like
a master readying to toss a stick. Sam had expected repentance, that age would
have stripped her mother of stature. Sam shook her head and whistled to the men
she led.
“Bring him in,” Sam called, watching her mother carefully
from beneath the mask. The old woman’s eyes flicked from Sam to the door and
back.
Two figures entered the room, each wrapped in black robes
with deep cowls. From beneath the hoods poked the masks of a falcon’s beak and
a baboon’s muzzle. Between them, they dragged Tariq, his silver-haired head
bowed. The masked men dropped him to the floor. He groaned when he landed.
A squat dwarf followed the men and took the leash of Sam’s
dog. He restrained another red-eyed hound that slunk ahead of him into the
room. The dog rose to the dwarf’s broad shoulder, its eyes glowing with a
whisper of Void and its hide rippling with muscle. The dwarf’s smile, nearly
buried by his beard, vanished when calls for his third hound failed to bring
him to heel. Whistle-like hisses shot from his lips. The two remaining dogs
settled to sniff at the prostrate man’s buttocks.
“I ask once more. Where’s the tablet?” Sam repeated, her
threat made potent by the quietness of her speech.
Tara looked from the dogs to Sam’s jackal mask and gritted
her teeth. Sam spun and kicked Tariq. Ribs cracked. He cried out, rolling onto
his back.
Tara flung the blade. Sam’s forearm deflected it to the
stone wall. The dagger clanged to the floor. Sam smiled at her mother’s
reaction. She did feel emotion, just not love for her daughter. That made Sam’s
next task easier.
She concentrated, gripping the copper wire Tariq once showed
her long ago like one holds the root of a tree when descending a riverbank, and
then she reached into the chaotic energy of the Void. The primal well brimmed
with dark energy, so near, so easily drawn. Filled with the Void’s rage, she
raised her arms above her head. Tendrils of blue-black lightning crackled
between outstretched fingertips.
Her mother stumbled backward, falling onto the bed frame.
Mouth agape, her eyes reflected the snaking Void. Sam’s hands lowered as she
bent toward Tariq.
“Stop!” Tara screamed.
The plea crashed upon the dispassionate Void. Worms of
energy arced across Tariq’s back. Sam shook, her teeth clacking together with
each shock. The old man convulsed. The room stank of ozone.
“How could you?” Her mother’s chest heaved, and her lips
trembled.
Sam released the Void.
Stooping to retrieve the dagger, Sam drew a deep breath.
“The tablet.”
Her mother remained silent. Sam loomed above Tariq and
placed her foot on his neck.
Tara’s eyes shut. “I don’t have it.” Her tone appealed.
Tariq gurgled as Sam applied pressure.
He signed with his hands and fingers. Say nothing, Tara.
This is no longer your daughter.
I will kill him. Sam gestured in reply. She had not
forgotten the language; she’d practiced it for years in secret, in the dark, in
wait for her mother to return for her. But she never came. No one ever came.
Sam leaned farther on to Tariq’s neck. His fingers clawed
with pain.
Tara’s hand slashed. Stop! Creases radiated from her
tear-filled eyes. “It’s gone, but we have a copy,” she gasped.
Sam didn’t smile. Her mission was unsuccessful, and she had
lost a hound. Its death required blood sacrifice. Tara indicated a rectangular
box, lying on a dresser. On the box lid were a series of squares, some of which
were marked with hieroglyphs, while others were blank. It was the game Senet,
an ancient Egyptian precursor to backgammon. Sam had a dim recollection of
playing it. Her good memories were all dim.
She snatched the box from the dresser and snapped back the
lid. She found not white and black chips, but a sheaf of parchment. The scroll
crackled as it unfurled. A poor rubbing from the original, the hieroglyphs were
distorted. She rolled the paper and banged the box shut with her fist.
“Where is the gold?”
For the dog’s death, the dwarf expected a sacrifice, and
his pale eyes glinted. Sam looked from Tariq to Tara. Once more, her mother was
expressionless.
Sam bent back over Tariq, who wheezed where he sat on the
floor, clutching his side. With the hilt of the dagger Sam struck him on the
temple, and he thumped to the stone. Tara lunged, but the masked men caught her
and held her by her armpits. The dwarf grinned.
Sam opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it. Signing
three quick movements, she accented them sharply. Forgive me, I must.
The tip of the blade traced across Tariq’s chest and
hovered over his heart. Sam’s vision blurred with tears. Tara writhed in the
grip of the men.
“May Seth, god of chaos, accept this sacrifice,” Sam said.
She drove the blade downward until it scored rock.
Tara choked for air as Tariq shook in spasm.
They both fell limp.
Sam knelt beside the corpse. Energy coursed from her
fingertips to her spine. Tariq’s murder expanded her access to the Void. The
charge raced, permeating each cell of her bones, muscles, and blood, arcing
ageless and gnarled. Each caress of the Void changed something, took something,
replaced something.
Tara sobbed.
Sam motioned for the men to drag her mother from the room.
As she passed, Sam struck Tara’s head against the wall to ensure no surprises
as they made their escape. Sam stopped her tears, embarrassed by the show of
weakness. She stood and took a deep breath before she, too, strode from the
bedroom.
“Place her in the bier,” Sam ordered the men. Two long
handles protruded from each end of the white-draped, rectangular litter
squatting in the centre of the living room. The men turned up its curtain and
revealed a bed of gold and silver stitched pillows.
Sam couldn’t know if the tablet rubbing was authentic, but
she could take her mother and keep their link to the tablet intact. It was the
only excuse Sam could find not to kill her.
Sam studied the surroundings. The living room had not
changed in a quarter-century: pale green couches draped in embroidered fabric,
books, everywhere books, candles, and blown-glass vases. Unconscious, Tara
slipped from the litter’s plush confines, and her head hit the floor. Sam
winced.
Tucked into the corner of a shelf was a small case made of
leather with brass clasps, covered with stickers of flowers and fish. She
squinted at it, then jerked it from the shelf. When she opened the case, a
strangled moan escaped her lips. It was the bag she had packed before her
delivery to the Shemsu Seth.
The lid snapped shut on the dolls and dresses of her
childhood. One of her doll’s legs, a ragged favorite, stuck out of the suitcase
seam. Her mother had been right; Sam had needed none of it.
Sam backed away and then spied a computer tower wedged
between two bookcases. She tossed it in with her mother. Its files would be scoured
for the tablet’s translation and potential location. Sam’s hands left red
sticky fingerprints on the casing. Her stomach rolled at the sight of Tariq’s
blood. The tiny kitchen, complete with miniature stove and fridge, held no
tablet, nor did Tariq’s closet-sized room. Sam whistled to the sentry.
Another robed man entered and stood at one corner of the
bier. After lifting the body of the dead hound inside, the dwarf dashed aboard
with his dogs.
“No,” Sam demanded, her voice cracking. “Leave one dog here.”
The dwarf whistled, and a hound jumped from the bier, crouching when it landed,
ready to leap again.
With the curtains of the bier drawn, Sam and the men each
hefted a corner and shuffled out into the courtyard.
No moonlight filtered through the sycamore branches. A
carving of Saint George mounted on an Arabian horse and spearing a dragon hung
above the yard’s iron-studded door. They exited onto the streets and caught the
tail of the procession. At this late hour, the parade had slowed but remained
festive still, in celebration of some saint Sam could not recall.
She whooped as they joined the end of the train that snaked
its way past the Babylon Fortress and the Convent of St. George. The Coptic
revelers took up her cheer. Sam stumbled, awkward on the uneven cobblestone as
they jostled amongst the partygoers, threading through the streets until they
breached the walls. The procession continued into the next neighborhood, but
Sam’s entourage slipped from the rear and turned toward the tombs.
As they entered the City of the Dead, she nodded to a man
who lurked in the shadow of the gates. The bier’s handle chafed, and she
switched shoulders for the tenth time.
They turned down a thoroughfare lined with windowless
mausoleums. Family names rather than street numbers were inscribed on marble,
granite, and limestone façades. Eyes stared from the safety of their
sanctuaries. A propane lamp’s hiss was silenced. The Shemsu Seth ruled these
people by fear and myth. Sam struggled to her full height, her chin high.
When they stopped in front of a large marble mastaba, they
lowered the bier.
The dwarf and his dog scrambled out and clambered around
the side wall, disappearing into another sandstone crypt, one of the many
entrances to an underworld that stretched from the City of the Dead to the
suburb of Heliopolis and the pyramids of Giza. Other dwarfs would return to
take care of the hound corpse.
The baboon and hawk-masked men slipped Tara’s arms around
their necks. She seemed smaller, but Sam felt no satisfaction in the change.
She was glad she had been given this task; any other Shemsu Seth would have
killed Tara. But as they entered the arched entry of the crypt, unease twisted
Sam’s stomach. Death might have been a mercy.
She watched Tara—her mother—descend ahead of her into
darkness.
About the Author:
After
crewing ships in the Antarctic and the Baltic Sea and some fun in venture
capital, Michael anchored himself (happily) to a marriage and a boatload of
kids. Now he injects his adventurous spirit into his writing with brief
respites for research into the jungles of Sumatra and Guatemala, the ruins of
Egypt and Tik’al, paddling the Zambezi and diving whatever cave or ocean reef
will have him. He is a member of the International Thriller Writers and SF
Canada, and the author of the Assured Destruction series, 24 Bones, The Sand
Dragon, Hurakan, Ruination and several award winning graphic novels for young
adults.
