“Okay.” She gave a sharp nod. “The first thing we need to do is make this place more conducive to healing. I don’t suppose we can move them?”
He shook his head. “It took several of my men just to get them here. We caged them for their safety as well as ours. Does this mean you can help them?”
“I can try.” She turned to face him. He really was a slab of a man, but in a very nice hot damn sort of way. It made her wonder what his jackal looked like. “I need to go home, get some stuff.”
“No.”
She bristled, even though she knew he wouldn’t agree. “I’ll come back.”
He clearly didn’t believe her. “The answer is still no.”
“What you want me to do is a big deal,” she spat. “I can’t just wrinkle my nose and wish them back to health! Did any of your jackals train with your healer?”
“No.”
“Do any of them possess any talent for healing or spell work?”
“No.”
“Are there any female jackals who can help me perform the chants to Isis?”
He folded his arms, a stubborn expression crossing his features. “No.”
She blew out a frustrated sigh and settled her hands on her hips. “Are you telling me no because it’s the truth or because you don’t want me to know? Because I gotta tell ya, if it’s the second reason, you truly suck.”
The left side of his lips kicked up in a smile as if he found her pissiness amusing. She wondered if he’d smile if she kneed him in the nuts. “There aren’t any female jackals available to help.”
Great. He was dooming her to failure before she even started. “Look. You want to save them, right? So do I, since that’s the only way I’m getting out of here. So help me here. Do any of you at least know of the ancient hymns and prayers?”
He uncrossed his arms, just to cross them behind his back, military style. “We’ve kept up our prayers to Anubis, mostly for protection and guidance as we go into battle, prayers and blessings as we send the dead back to Duat, and thanksgiving when we return home safely.”
Tia knew painfully little about the Sons of Anubis, but she didn’t think their war prayers would work, or their fellows jackals would have healed already and she wouldn’t be here. Still, she’d take anything she could get.
“Okay. Maybe those will help to invoke Anubis. Do you have the right incenses, the right altars to make prayers to Isis and Anubis? If someone here doesn’t have a sistrum or know how to use it, I need to have my recordings. All of that stuff is at my house—you know, the sanctuary that you defiled and kidnapped me from?”
“Yes, the sanctuary that had an entire wall in your sunroom dedicated to Isis?” He again folded his arms across his chest. “I had my men gather up many of your things. We were respectful,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “They have all been carefully arranged in the next room. And we have medical and spiritual supplies our healer left behind, in those cabinets against the wall. We can set up whatever you need.”
The thought of these jackals manhandling her altar made her stomach churn. Her shoulders sagged. “Strangers, enemies, touching my personal stuff, my sacred things. I can’t begin to use them until I purify them again.”
He didn’t offer an apology, not that she expected him to. Someone willing to kidnap a person wouldn’t give a damn about her belongings. “Can you start without those?”
“Probably. I can at least try to find out what’s wrong with them.” She looked at him again. “If I do, will you let me go?”
“Of course.”
The words flowed from those gorgeous full lips too easily. “I would have your word, sworn under the watchful eye of the god you hold dear, that you will let me go once I heal your men. In return, I will swear to Isis that I will do everything I can to break the sickness that taints them. Deal?”
Amber eyes bored into hers. She kept her gaze open, honest. She’d already shown that she was willing to help heal the afflicted men, but she wouldn’t be able to focus completely on what she needed to do if she had to worry about whether or not Markus planned to keep her prisoner, or worse.
“Done.”
“Okay.” Breath rushed from her lungs in relief. She’d have to accept his word—if he had meant what he had said about doing his sacred duty with the Lost Ones, then swearing to his patron god was no small thing. She had to believe he would let her go.
“Tell me what happened to them.” She knelt on the floor beside the cage with the fully human jackal. Glazed eyes stared unseeing as minute tremors shook his thin frame. She spread her fingers against the bars, reaching for her healing ability. “You said something about a curse?”
“Yes, they were cursed. By an Isis witch.”
* * *
“Liar!”
The Isis witch leaped to her feet. “A Daughter of Isis would never attack a jackal warrior!”
“Of course not.” He put his fists on his hips, goading her further because he needed to get the accusation out before it poisoned him. “Direct action has never been the way of an Isis witch. Your kind prefers stealth and tricks.”
“You don’t have the right to be angry, jackal,” she spat. “We have done nothing to you but what we had to.”
“The Daughters of Isis abandoned us!” he thundered. “You turned your backs on your own people, your own men and gave yourselves to the people of Greece and Rome! Left us to protect the temples while the Two Lands fell. We were there, fighting the undead and the curse of Ammit while you were being feted in Athens and Pompeii!”
“We escaped with our lives!” Tia shouted. “We had no choice but to flee after your clan declared war on us by murdering our high priestess!”
He drew back, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, and for a moment, she thought he meant to strike her. “What. Did. You. Say?”
Her hands settled on her hips. “I. Did. Not. Stutter.”
“The Sons of Anubis have never taken an innocent life!”
The door crashed open, men and jackals flying into the room. Tia flinched as they surrounded her, guns and teeth bared. Memories slammed into Marcus, memories of a time when the children of Isis had stood hip to hip with the children of Anubis, fighting with them instead of against them. He remembered his mentor, Sekhanu, with his mate, the Isis High Priestess Asharet, and how their love had united the witches and jackals. Just as he remembered how their deaths had separated both sides forever.
Hector stepped forward, placing himself between Markus and the furious witch. “Do you need us to remove the witch, my lord?”
Eagerness drenched his tone. Markus knew how much his second wanted blood, especially an Isis witch’s blood. “No. She’s already sworn to help us. She just learned the origins of the curse, and didn’t take the news well.”
“How can you be sure one of the Daughters caused this?” She gestured to the stricken men, ignoring the weapons pointed at her. “What proof do you have?”
“Your magic has a scent, unique to Isis witches,” he told her. “As we can smell the Lost Ones even in the Great Western Desert, so we can smell magic cast by one of you. Our men reek of it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Here.” He grabbed her forearm, dragged her to the cell holding