Marisa Chenery: Her Eternal Warrior

After a long night of hunting evildoers, Tor was more than happy to call it quits with the coming dawn. Las Vegas wasn’t called Sin City for nothing. Most nights he found more than enough prey to keep him on his toes. There were so many tourists around. Evil liked to stalk them, try to steal from or harm those who were weak or unaware of the danger that lurked around.

Tor now called Las Vegas his home, but that hadn’t always been so. He’d been born in ancient Egypt. He was also the very first warrior of Anubis. He’d given his vow to the god of the underworld when mortally wounded during a military expedition to Sinai Peninsula in Egypt while serving his pharaoh, Djoser. Tor had been a soldier during his pharaoh’s reign in the third dynasty in the Old Kingdom. He’d stayed in the land of his birth for thousands of years before moving on to the New World.

Tor spotted his sports car ahead and his steps lengthened. The car was a flashy red, and a recent purchase of his. Since the invention of the motorized vehicle, he’d always had an automobile. Every couple of years he’d see a newer model and would have to have it.

Tor got into the car and the engine roared to life with the turn of the key. He pulled away from the curb and headed for the center of the city. He knew it was stupid of him, but from time to time he liked to take a drive by the Luxor hotel to look at the pyramid-shaped building and the Sphinx outside it. The hotel was the closest thing to remind him of Egypt and the time he’d been born into.

As he drove closer to the Luxor, Tor felt the familiar pull of evil. He knew he had to follow it. Once felt, he couldn’t ignore it, had to follow it to the evildoer and ultimately determine if he had to send the mortal to Anubis in the underworld to be judged. It was his duty, what he’d vowed to uphold to the Egyptian god, to protect mortals from those who would harm them.

Tor followed it to the hotel’s parking lot. He parked his car and got out, the pull of evil growing stronger. He headed for the darkest shadows, spotting the figures of two people—a man and a woman. He heard the man say, “Give me all your money, bitch,” as he threatened her with a knife. When she didn’t hand over her purse, his prey tried to snatch it from her, breaking the strap, but the woman didn’t let it go.

The change tore through him. He shifted into his half-human and half-jackal form. The pain of it washed over him, but Tor didn’t even break stride, he was so used to it by now. Even after going through it for thousands of years it still felt as if someone took a shredder to his skin and a knife to his insides—the sound of his bones shifting and realigning loud in his ears.

Reaching the pair, Tor grabbed the man by the shoulder with a furred hand and yanked him away from the woman. He threw him against the nearby wall, stunning his prey. He barely glanced at the woman as he grabbed the man again and pulled him to his feet. At seven feet tall in this form, he towered over the evildoer. Tor forced the mortal to look into his eyes. He pushed into the man’s mind, not caring if he caused him pain.

The man yelled, “My head, god, stop. Let me the fuck go!” He tried to throw a punch at Tor, but Tor easily deflected it with a brush of his arm.

Tor took hold of his prey by the throat, the scent of evil that only he could smell wafted around him as he finally succeeded in getting into the man’s mind. All the crimes and assaults his prey had ever perpetrated flashed through Tor’s head. The screams of the man’s victims echoed inside it. Tor lived each one as if he’d been the one on the receiving end. He felt their pain, their terror.

“Guilty,” Tor said in a voice that was much deeper and gruffer than his normal one. “Time for you to face your judgment.”

He held up his free hand and willed a hardened gold dagger into it. The blade had hieroglyphs carved on it—the spell Anubis had infused to send evildoers to the underworld. All it took was one cut to do its job. Tor didn’t hesitate. He sliced it across his prey’s chest, cutting through to the skin.

The man gasped before he let out a scream. His body slowly lost solidity before he disappeared completely. He’d been sent on his way to face the god of the underworld. There, Anubis would weigh the man’s heart on the Scales of Justice. If he was evil, his heart would be fed to Ammit to be consumed.

That done, Tor turned in the direction of the woman. He willed the dagger away as her gaze seem to land on it, her eyes widening. The sound of her rapid heartbeat was loud in his ears. She slowly backed up, as if she thought she could get away from him.

Tor caught her by the arm and took his first real look at her. He found her beautiful, and was instantly attracted to her, his cock going hard under the snow-white Egyptian-styled kilt he wore. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had stirred his body so quickly. Her hair was long and blonde and fell over her shoulders in a river of silk. Blue-green eyes stared at him with fear clearly showing in their depths. She was a small thing, only standing around five-foot-four. Dressed in a blue short-sleeved blouse—matching the color of her eyes—and black dress pants, her figure was slim and curvy.

The sound of a soft whimper brought Tor’s gaze back up to her face. Her fear was thick between them. By how fast she breathed, he could tell she was on the verge of hyperventilating. If he’d been in his human form, he would have calmed her down by kissing her senseless. He could almost feel her soft, pouty lips under his, the taste of her on his tongue. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t shift again until he’d finished the job at hand—wiping himself from her memory and everything she’d seen associated with the evildoer.

Tor gently took hold of her chin and forced her to look him in the eyes. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. Let me in.”

He carefully pushed into her mind. Her name was Kenna and she worked at the Luxor at the reception desk. She’d just gotten off her shift when the evildoer had accosted her at her car before pulling her into the shadows. She was also scared out of her wits of him.

For the first time in the long time he’d been one of Anubis’ warriors, Tor didn’t want to wipe his memory from a mortal’s mind. He wanted Kenna to remember him. Not necessarily in the form he was in now, since she was terrified, but some part of him. But he knew it had to be done. Anubis didn’t allow his warriors to let a mortal retain the knowledge of what they were.

Tor ran his fingers from her chin, then across her cheek in a caressing stroke. He sighed deeply. Reluctantly, he set to work wiping Kenna’s mind. Once he finished, she stared off into space, deep in the daze he’d put her in. She’d stay that way until he left the parking lot.

Backing away, Tor hissed in a breath between clenched teeth as the change overtook him. Now back in his human form, he stopped his backward movement. His gaze remained riveted on Kenna. Why the hell did he find it so hard to walk away from her?

Tor shook his head and mentally kicked himself as he closed the distance between them once again. He cupped Kenna’s face in his hands and placed a soft kiss on her lips. He groaned as that simple touch had his cock jerking in his jeans.

He released her to back away again. He turned on his heel after giving her one last look, memorizing Kenna’s face. Tor got into his car and drove out of the parking lot before he did something stupid like bring her out of her daze and make her remember everything he’d erased from her mind.

Kenna blinked and looked around her. She found herself standing in the shadowed corner of the Luxor’s parking lot. Hadn’t she been at her car not a second ago? She had no memory of walking to where she now stood. She shook her head as she headed back to her silver sedan. She must be a lot sleepier than she’d thought. By the end of her shift she’d caught herself falling asleep on her feet a few times. She guessed that was what she got for trading shifts with someone who worked nights. And the worst part of it all was she had to come into work in the morning, back on her regular hours. Never again.