She looked, to my surprise, quite human.

Long, straight dark hair framed an oval face with red-bronze skin. The walnut brown eyes blinked slowly, doe-like, as they skimmed over me, and a petite mouth pursed in something like uncertainty. She wore a simple red linen dress, with gold bangles fixed on her upper arms and wrists; no shoes on her feet.

Feathers rustled as she shifted position. I'd tried to work out if they were part of a cloak, but now, as she raised her hands palms out, it was plain the feathers were attached to her arms. From wrist to elbow to shoulder blade, they were a soft mottled brown like a hawk's wings. The longest feathers reached to her knees.

'HELLO,' she said simply.

Unlike the voice of Shu, this word entered the usual way, travelling from her mouth into my eardrums. However, it was so loud that I clapped my hands to my ears against the auditory assault.

She cocked her head. 'Hello,' she said again, volume muted. Her palms remained open in a gesture of greeting.

'Which one are you?' I said, desperately trying to recall my limited knowledge of the ancient Egyptian pantheon.

'I am Nephthys,' she replied. Her voice was now soft and willowy, and tremendously calming. 'I am the Lady of the House, Mother and Protector. Come, let me carry you safely.'

I caught myself walking forward. My hand was already outstretched to grasp hers. I snatched it back. Her warm eyes held me still, projecting a sense of deep love and unending empathy. 'It is time to go,' she said tenderly.

'Go where?' I croaked.

I registered the movement of a security guard. He was crawling toward her on all fours, expression slack with rapture.

Nephthys knelt to embrace him. She cupped his face like a lover, and he shivered under the graze of her wings on his neck. Her forehead met his. Not quite a kiss, but certainly an intimate act. 'You are safe,' she told him. 'I will guide you.'

He gave a long, contented sigh, and closed his eyes.

As Nephthys lowered him to the floor, it was apparent that he was no longer breathing.

He looked so serene. I longed to taste that kind of peace. And her eyes were so inviting. This was the natural end to all things.

'She killed him!' someone cried.

It broke the spell on me. I faltered, inches away from taking her hands, as two of the guards behind me pulled up their demonic net. The rest of their colleagues had decided deity-nabbing wasn't in the job description, and bolted.

Koromodako, if I'm not mistaken, I thought woozily as oily black tendrils slithered over my shoulder. Squid-like creature. Notoriously hard to control. Regulators used to employ them in their work, until too many of their own handlers got eaten by the damn things.

Teeth pricked my arm. The rumours are true, then. The tentacles do have teeth.

Nephthys approached. Her fingertips brushed the unctuous appendage. It pulled away from me and curled around her bare flesh.

She wore it on her arm like an alien accessory, gazing at it in what appeared to be wide-eyed curiosity.

Its handlers hissed amongst themselves.

'Why isn't it attacking?'

'Don't look at me. It wasn't fed this morning. It should be starving!'

'What is she?'

A small, disturbed laugh broke from my mouth. 'She, gentlemen, is a demi-god, rather like the one you've got locked up in a tube elsewhere in this building. I don't know how she's going to take that news, by the way, so you might want to start rethinking your immediate career choices.'

I was rethinking mine, too. The last time I'd encountered a deity from a phoenix egg, Quiet Eyes had reasoned with it and struck a bargain. It would have gone with her willingly, if it hadn't been for the phoenix itself showing up and blasting the goddess to smithereens. What would happen if Baines and Grayle tried to reason with this one?

In a suddenly breathless silence, I watched the limbs of the koromodako shrivel up on the goddess' arm. The rest of its limp bulk weighed down my shoulder. There was a dull slap as its handlers let go, and the tentacle slithered off me onto the floor.

'Oh,' said Nephthys faintly, gently shaking it free. 'I didn't mean to do that.' Her gaze moved back to me. 'Are you next?'

I stumbled hastily backward. 'I don't need to go anywhere, thank you! I'm quite happy in the land of the living!'

The frantic thud of footsteps marked the fast exit of the remaining guards. Nephthys didn't seem at all interested in chasing them. She was more absorbed in her surroundings – which, I now realised, were partially illuminated by a soft yellow glow that emanated from her skin.

She turned in a slow circle, momentarily unconcerned with me, peering at the high ceiling and smooth white walls. Really, I should have taken the opportunity to run.

'What kind of temple is this?' she said.

It wasn't clear whether this question was directed at me or the universe, but I answered it anyway. 'Not a temple, actually. Though I can see your confusion, what with being a god, and all.' I heaved in a breath, trying to draw courage up from my diaphragm. 'Are you Death?'

She seemed almost startled by the question. 'No.'

I gestured to the two corpses she'd caused, while carefully taking another step back. 'Excuse me. But it seems like us mortal folks are somewhat allergic to you.'

'You needn't be afraid. I will keep you safe.' She stretched out her arms again.

'No,' I said firmly. I wagged my finger as if to a misbehaving puppy. 'No more of that hypnotic nonsense, thank you!'

'Why am I called here, if not to carry souls?'

'Where do you carry them to?'

She motioned vaguely into the distance. 'Across. Through. Over the divide. From life to oblivion.' Her face became crestfallen as she glanced at the desiccated tentacle monster. 'I am a little out of practice.'

'Ha!' I spluttered.

'Where is the temple? Where are the priests?' she said mournfully. Her glow dimmed. 'Where are the souls in need?'

I tried to slide further along the wall. It looked like the corridor beyond was deserted. Hopefully good news: it meant Ang and her friends had got away.

'Bear with me,' I said. 'I hate to be the one to break this to you, but . . . you're somewhat irrelevant now. Times have moved on since you were last, well, here. Which I'm guessing is a good few thousand years or so. Um. There, there.' I curbed the impulse to reach out to pat her shoulder. The distant alarm had now stopped blaring and one by one the lights flicked back on.

'I'm afraid I don't know what happens to gods after people have stopped believing in them,' I added, a little madly. 'I don't have much experience in this area.'

'Nor do I.' She folded into a neat sitting position in the middle of the floor, knees bent underneath her. 'Do I still have a place in the world?'

'I don't think I'm the one to say either way.' An image of the captive Shu sprang to mind. I was aware of the little dome-shaped cameras dotted along the ceiling, and wondered when more security forces would descend on us. No doubt they would be more heavily armed, next time. I imagined I could hear trucks roaring outside the building. Perhaps they would call for reinforcements. 'I suspect if you don't decide on one for yourself, there are people here who would decide it for you.'

I edged closer. 'Listen. If I come past, will you promise not to accidentally carry my soul off its mortal coil? Only, I want to get to that door down there. If you don't mind.'

She roused from some deep meditation. 'Where do you go?'

'Somewhere far, far away I hope.'

'You do not live here?'

'Nope. And this isn't a good place to stay, by the way. Just in case you were thinking of staring into space from that spot all night – you'll probably be captured by the rather nasty people who own this place. I'd go so far as to call them evil, in fact. And in my line of work, that's not a judgement I take lightly!'

'A god cannot be captured by mortal hands,' she said.

'Tell that to your mate Shu.'

She lifted her head. 'Shu?'

'He's one of your lot, I believe. They've got him locked up here.'

'Take me to him.'

'Would love to, but I need to be going–'

'Take me to him.'

It wasn't a matter of obeying. The command yanked at my very nerve endings, bypassing my brain all together. My legs swung out and turned me around. They marched me back, deeper into the facility. Nephthys rose and followed.

'This is the opposite of where I want to go!' I shouted.

'You will show me first.'

Her footsteps were silent behind me. I had awful visions of her simply touching the back of my neck, causing me to fall down dead.

I recognised the door concealing Shu by the irritating buzz that prickled at my brain as we drew nearer. Nephthys inspected the metal door blankly. Before I could tell her the passcode for the lock, she simply extended a hand, and pushed.

Steel shrieked as it tore from its frame. The door landed with a teeth-knocking clank on the other side, and the goddess stepped over it gracefully. She surveyed the cables and blinking computer lights with a beautiful but impassive face. 'Father of my father,' she said softly. 'What binds you?'

The contained cyclone that was Shu awakened at the sound of her voice.

LEAVE NOW, it bellowed like a gale. DO NOT BE TRAPPED BY THEIR ARTIFICES.

'How do they imprison you?'

WITH VILE MAGICS.

The way Nephthys' head turned from side to side was quite bird-like. She seemed to hone in on the computer console hooked up to Shu's tube, and glided towards it. She bowed over the monitors, her long feathers sticking out at an acute angle behind her.

I couldn't help myself. The invisible puppet strings had fallen away, but now an internal force compelled me to follow her into the room and crane my neck to see what she was inspecting.

A shiny black USB stick protruded from the console. Nephthys' hawk-eyes were trained on it, as thought it were a quivering rabbit frozen in a wheatfield. The transient form of Shu was also transfixed. Swirling dust particles revealed the shape of a head staring level with Nephthys.

REMOVE IT.

A tremulous voice intruded. 'I wouldn't touch that.'

'He means stand the fuck back,' sneered another, all too familiar one.

Silhouetted in the doorway was Vincent, holding Rupert the lab technician roughly by the shoulder in his left hand.

In his right hand, he held a gun.

I don't know guns. But I knew this was a large one, some kind of rifle with sights and a long stock to fit into the crook of the shoulder. Vincent held it awkwardly, like he wasn't at all comfortable with the weight or the shape of it.

The barrel tilted askew as he shoved Rupert forward. 'Do the thing!'

Science guy wasn't at all happy with this. 'That's against procedure. We would normally try to reason with an entity of this scale first . . .'

'Fuck your procedure! Do you see there's deity loose in the room? Put it in a goddamn bottle!' The rifle waved disturbingly as Vincent yelled. I hoped the safety was on.

'You're not authorised to make that order–' Rupert protested.

The rifle swung in his direction. 'I'm making the orders right now,' Vincent snarled. 'Because you people are too stupid to deal with these things on your own.'

Rupert froze up. The eerie glow of the monitors made clammy rictuses of all our faces. The human ones, that is: Shu had become an indiscernible storm within his tube, while Nephthys remained quiet and curious as she regarded the scene, as though she was merely observing a play.

Although Vincent now had both hands on the rifle, I noticed it twitch in his grasp. He could barely hold it steady. I could rile him, I thought. He's not actually going to fire it.

'Now you're allowed guns?' I said, stepping forward. 'This is more Quiet Eyes' style, right?'

He lifted the barrel level with my face, perhaps to hide the edge of terror in his. Sweat beaded on his forehead. 'Don't fucking try me, Hansard.'

There was a cold trickle down my spine. I hadn't actually considered what it would feel like to stare down the barrel of the gun itself.

I splayed my fingers and made sure to keep them in full view. It took more effort to keep my tone conversational. 'These guys are mad, right? Do you think they know what they're dealing with, trying to harness the power of gods? And who knows what else, besides.'

There's something quite terrifying about a totally calm voice in the middle of a desperately dangerous situation. I shrugged, for added effect. 'I suppose you knew about the coblynau though, right? And the magic pills and whatnot. Are you saving the world, Vincent?'

'I'm getting paid,' he growled. Not enough, said his eyes. 'It's adapt or die, Hansard. I'm not going to lose sleep over a few ugly beasts who couldn't keep up.'

'Ah. Would you also be classed as an anomaly, do you think?' I said this with a chipper smile, glancing at Nephthys and Shu. 'If you weren't useful to your employers, I mean?'

Vincent's pupils flicked backwards and forwards, from the tube and the wires to Nephthys and the computer console, to the glossy black firearm still pointed at my nose. His gaze hardened. 'Press the damn button.'

Rupert jerked, and I realised, too late, that he was clutching a remote of some kind. His hand shook as he pointed it. A thin beam of red light projected outward, landing square in the middle of Nephthys' chest.

She stared at it with pleasant interest. 'What is this, please?' she said.

'Subject marked,' Rupert stammered. 'Initiate containment protocol Xi3– um, hang on. Let me get this right . . .'

There was a low scurry of movement behind Vincent.

Oh no.

Ang's beady eyes flashed briefly in the doorway. She was alone.

I felt the way my jaw seized up, the strain on my eyelids as they were forced open by instinctual dread. Ang should have been far away by now.

Vincent saw. His head snapped round, followed the trajectory of my stare, and the gun pivoted. He led with the barrel without looking, and had already fired a panicked shot before it was level with the doorway.

Ang stiffened, inches from where the bullet had bitten into the floor.

Vincent's lip curled. 'A rat,' he hissed.

I jumped on him. Arms around the neck, pulling him backwards. The rifle rolled up, shot another round into the ceiling. And then Vincent slipped free, reached out to grapple me–

My ears rang before I heard the shot.

I was suddenly loose, swaying slightly as Vincent backed off. His face had gone positively white. Behind him, Ang looked to have been in mid-lunge for his knees, but now freeze-framed in shock. Rupert too, his mouth gaped open around a half-formed syllable.

I looked down. A vivid red stain was spreading quickly across the middle of my white shirt. It was accompanied by a deep throb of pain in my abdomen.

'Oh dear,' I said.

Nephthys looked up from her inspection of the laser dot. 'Time to go.'

I slithered gently to the floor. My eyes closed just as everyone exploded back into action.

* * *

Author's Note

Laaaaaaaast episode!

Three more segments to come. I think I might upload them as bonus installments throughout the coming week, so we can race through the finale together at a satisfyingly breakneck pace. ;)

Hold on tight~