'Till Death Do Us Part

[Sadie] A Bad Idea. A Very Bad Idea.

Anubis and I emerged from the darkness onto a small hill that overlooked an empty graveyard. It was empty as in there were no mortals around. Plenty of dead people though.

All around the small graveyard, there were ghosts partying, laughing and talking loudly. No doubt that no one else would've been able to hear or see them. 

"How come they're all here?" Thankfully, Anubis understood my question perfectly. He set his wary eyes on the party going on before him. It wasn't exactly a normal thing for ghosts to resurface into the mortal world. Well, as far as normal goes in a world where gods and magicians co-exist.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Please, sit." He waved his hand at a dead tree that sat on top of the hill and next to it, toilet paper appeared from thin air and formed into a picnic table.

Mummy linens. I thought, suppressing a shudder as I sat down on one side, Anubis sitting on the other. He still had his eyes set on the ghosts dancing and chatting down below, the sound of them partying sounded faint from above the hill. With that, I took the opportunity to really look at him this time. And no, not in the creepy way. (Stop snickering, Carter.)

Beyond his dashingly good looks, I could actually see hints of concern and stress. There were worry lines stretched across his forehead as his eyes darted across the graveyard, his lips pressed together into a thin line,  which he only ever did when he was under immense stress (which, he hardly ever was. I mean, come on, he's a god.) The last time I had seen him this agitated was..no, it couldn't be.

With a small voice, I called for his attention. "Anubis?" I wasn't sure if he heard me, so I did the most nerve-wrecking thing I could think of; I grabbed hold of his hands and clasped them together with mine. 

The action surprised both of us, but at least he was finally focusing on me, an actual living being, instead of on the group of spirits down below.

"I'm sorry, Sadie, I must have zoned out," he said, but I could sense it was much more than that.

"What's wrong? Why did you want to talk to me about all of this?" I nodded my head towards the graveyard party. A group of ghosts were now playing a game of limbo with one of the fallen branches of our dead tree.

Anubis sighed. "Right, I'll get straight to the point."

"Wow, that's a first. I mean, no offense to you or the other gods or anything, but beating around the bush is definitely a power all of you have-"

"The spirits of the dead have broken out of the Duat," he said blankly.

I must've been gaping like a fish, my eyes wide open as I opened and closed my mouth, trying to find the words to say. "I- what?" was all I could muster. A million thoughts rushed through my mind, but one question stuck out from all of them.

"Is mum okay?"

A sort of warmth filled in Anubis' eyes, replacing the anxiousness within them. "Yes, she's fine. She's with your father." The simple answer was enough for me to finally breathe properly. I hadn't realised I was holding in my breath.

"Okay, so spill. This isn't like when Apophis was unleashing Chaos and was feeding off of the spirits, is it?" My body let out an involuntary shudder when recalling the events from three years ago.

Anubis shook his head, looking down at our hands that were still clasped together. He made no attempt to pull away, so neither did I.

"No, it's nothing like that. At least with Apophis, we had someone to battle against and set things right. But in this situation, Lady Kane, I'm afraid we gods are quite...how would you call it? Stumped?" He involuntarily tilted his head slightly to his right, looking confused. The sight made him look like a puppy, but I decided to keep that bit of information to myself and nodded encouragingly for him to continue.