Page 9 of Autumn L.A.W

Lioness didn’t hear the rest. A wave of dizziness crashed over her, sending her to her knees.

“Okay,” she gasped, “I officially feel like I’ve licked a subway pole.”

Sahara’s hand trembled as she pressed it to her forehead. “This isn’t a normal illness. Something is⁠—”

She didn’t finish. Both witches were hit by a synchronized punch of ancient magic, sharp as stone, and it felt like breathing in electricity.

Lioness clutched the grass. “Am I dying? Don’t let me die looking like this. I haven’t fixed my brows for a month.”

“It’s a curse,” Sahara managed, voice tight. “An ancient Egyptian one. I can feel the glyphs vibrating under the soil.”

“Well, tell them to stop,” Lioness snapped, then immediately gagged, because she felt the world had tilted in a way physics never intended.

Sahara dropped to her knees beside her, breath shallow. “It’s not removable. Not without… not without the counter-glyphs.”

Lioness blinked hard. “And I’m guessing you don’t have those lying around in your Gucci bag?”

“No,” Sahara said weakly. “And I think whatever’s buried down there just woke up enough to sneeze on us.” Sahara collapsed onto her side. “Great. Cursed by dirt. My mother told me this was how it would end.”

A vibration rippled through the soil again. Deeper this time. Almost sentient. The ground pulsed like something beneath it had a heartbeat.

Lioness forced her head up and saw the crack widen one more inch. She screamed.

Sahara Nadir prided herself on two things: her ability to translate almost any ancient script, and her ironclad refusal to panic. The first was intact. The second was currently bleeding out on the field like a wounded soldier.

The nausea kept coming in sickening waves. Lioness crouched beside her, sweating, shivering, looking like she’d run through an ice storm. “Hey,” she rasped. “You alive?”

“Debatable,” Sahara muttered.

The air above the crack shimmered. Heat ripples bent the morning light into a column of distortion—and within it, movement. No shape yet. No form. Just the suggestion of something long and coiled, like a white shadow learning to crawl.

Sahara squinted. “That’s not good.”

“You think?” Lioness wheezed. “Because I’m getting the vibe that whatever’s coming out is not here for tea.”

A high-pitched keening started under the earth. Not loud. Not even audible, technically. More like something pressing directly on their eardrums with a cold fingertip.

Lioness gagged again. “This curse is a mutha.”

“It’s reacting to magic,” Sahara said, fighting to upright herself. “Specifically, ours. It knows we’re here.”

“Oh, good,” Lioness said. “I always wanted to be noticed by a subterranean demon.”

Sahara steadied herself and forced her mind to focus on glyphs, symbols, and patterns. She needed something she could analyze instead of feel. The curse signatures were familiar but distorted. It wasn’t a death curse. It was a weakness curse, designed to cripple, not kill.

Lioness crawled over beside her. “On a scale of one to ‘we’re screwed,’ where are we?”

“Somewhere between ‘mildly doomed’ and ‘actively descending into greater doom,’” Sahara whispered.

The shadow in the shimmering air twitched, then elongated.

Lioness inhaled sharply. “Oh no. No, no, no. Do not snake. Do not snake in my direction.”

“It’s not a snake,” Sahara said breathlessly. “It’s… humanoid. I think I see bandages.”

“Like a mummy? Sahara, this is why I don’t dig things up.”

The shimmering haze thickened, and a distorted silhouette flowed partway out of the crack. It looked like a smear of shadow wearing the hint of a crown.