Page 36

I t wasn’t over yet.

That was the only thought running through my head as we carried Zara down the nearest hallway, and I attempted to heal her on the fly. To my shame, I’d forgotten about her for a moment, but she had been badly wounded, with a stubborn spell I didn’t know burning a hole through her belly. Only a ward by the other witches, which they’d had to cut her open to insert well below the skin, had kept it from eating her alive.

I finally managed to pull it out, snapping and lunging like a vicious purple snake, and shook it off my shielded hand into the hallway, where it promptly ate its way through a wall. I sealed up the wound afterwards, but she didn’t get back on her feet, having lost too much blood. And there was no time to find something to use as a stretcher.

There was no time for anything.

“Here,” Mircea said, and took her from the flagging coven, cradling the nearly unconscious woman to his chest like a baby.

“Thank you,” Topknot gasped. She was no longer young, and this had already stretched her to her limits, as it had all of us.

Including ?subrand, who was limping badly, and Alphonse, who was struggling to heal a head wound until Mircea brushed his temple and sealed it up, and Enid, who was missing a large clump of her abundant auburn hair on the left-hand side, a testament to the fact that something had gotten through her formidable shields, and—

And everybody, with not one of us less than a bloody mess.

And blood loss wasn’t something that Mircea’s abilities could replace, leaving me and Bodil, who had lost the most, gasping in effort just from making it this far. But we didn’t have a choice because they were coming; Bodil could see that much, or rather hear it, in the shouted commands from the other gods who had dispersed to deal with the threats from our allies. And who were only now realizing that the real threat was behind them.

“How long?” I panted as we started running again, because I could hear them distantly in my head, an echo of her abilities coming through.

“Not long.”

“ How long? ” I needed a timeframe, damn it!

“A few minutes. The death of an elder god resonated through metaphysical space like a bomb going off.”

“How many?” Mircea said hoarsely.

“All of them.”

“Goddamnit!” I snarled.

“Go… ahead,” Zara said breathlessly. “We’ll… hold them…”

“Yeah, for about a second,” Alphonse said, “and that’s if they even notice you’re there before they fucking run you over! You saw what one of those bastards was able to do—”

“That was an elder god,” Purple Hair said. “The others might be… easier...”

“You can’t even convince yourself!”

“They’ve been fighting for a while,” Butch Cut pointed out. “And Marsden was throwing everything he had at them. Maybe they’re exhausted—”

“ So are we! ”

“Do you… have a better… idea?” Zara demanded, as we stopped at the huge bank of golden elevators, which had somehow escaped the renovation. Or maybe the gods just liked the human faces, caught mid-scream, that writhed all over the carved surround.

“Yeah, we get the hell out of here!” Alphonse snapped. “Now, while we still can!”

“Not without Rhea,” I said, frantically hitting buttons. And wondering why none of them were lighting up.

“Fuck Rhea! We don’t have enough time to make it to her, much less—”

“What is wrong with these things?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm. And failing because I sounded like I’d been running a marathon and was reaching mile fifteen.

“No power,” Pritkin said, his own voice clipped.

“Why not?”

“At a guess? The fight triggered the wards, and electricity—”

“Doesn’t play nice with the big boys.” Damn it!

“Can you turn the wards off?” That was Mircea.

“Turn them off?” Alphonse stared at him. “I’d say we’re gonna need ‘em!”

“The gods put them in place. Do you really think they don’t know how to bypass them?”

Alphonse swore. “Turn ‘em off!” he told Pritkin, who shot him the look that deserved.

“They’re new. I don’t have the passwords—”

Alphonse swore some more.

“Can you reach Rhea?” I asked Bodil. “Send her a message and let her know we’re here?”

The dark head shook. “I… have never met her. I cannot… make a link with someone… I have never set eyes on.”

“If we don’t go now, there won’t be time to get away,” Alphonse pointed out, and while Mircea didn’t agree, he didn’t correct him, either. None of them did.

Instead, they all looked at me, as if I was supposed to fix this somehow, when I didn’t have any more left in the tank than they did. But I’d brought them here. This had been my decision, and was now my choice.

Again.

“Go,” I said. “I’ll make it to Rhea on my own—”

“Like hell!”

“Bullshit!”

“You won’t even make it up the stairs!”

“No, Lady Cassandra is right.” That last, surprisingly, was ?subrand. “The rest of you go, and get as far from the casino as possible. The gods are coming here; the peripheries of the city should be largely unguarded—”

“What do you mean, the rest of you?” Enid said, frowning.

“—and prepare to try again later if she fails—”

Enid grabbed his arm. “What are you talking about? What are you going to do?”

“I do not have time to argue with you,” he said sharply, and she flushed puce, the hazel eyes snapping. But then, to my surprise, he took her hand off his arm and held it in his, and his touch was more gentle than I’d ever seen him be with anybody. “You must trust me,” he said softly. “I can do this. I can get her there.”

“How?” That was Pritkin, sounding sharper than usual.

“You know how.”

“No, in fact, I don’t.”

“I don’t, either!” Alphonse said.

“What a surprise,” Gray Curls snapped, causing Alphonse to snarl at her. It did not appear to faze the old woman.

“What is it?” Enid demanded, but was already looking like she knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

The silver prince glanced around our group, as if hoping for a way to avoid this, but I guessed he didn’t find it. “There is a reason the gods didn’t want the fey to combine magics,” he finally said. “Why they worked so hard to keep the elements from mixing, and why any triskelion they found, they killed.” He paused, and then came out with it. “Triskelion isn’t just a symbol, it’s a spell. One that kills the caster.”

“What?” Enid said politely, as if assuming she had misunderstood.

“Along with anything else in the vicinity, even gods,” ?subrand continued. “Several lost their lives to it in the past, which is why mixing bloodlines was forbidden. Only those of us who possess at least three of the four elements can cast it—”

“Which includes me,” Pritkin said, looking shocked. Because I guessed that was one spell he didn’t know.

But ?subrand only smiled. “After what I just saw? No. You are needed for the final battle, all three of you, whilst I… am not.”

Enid had something to say about that, had a LOT to say, in some language I didn’t understand because my translator was acting up. But I didn’t need to. It was all over her face, in the rapidity of her conversation, in the way she raged and clutched his arms and shook him hard.

It was in her terror and her tears.

She wouldn’t leave him. I knew she wouldn’t. And ?subrand knew it, too.

He slipped a ring off his finger, a simple thing with a symbol carved into a flat black stone set in silver. And took her hands in his before closing them over it. “Lady Bodil will bear me witness. I choose you as my rightful heir, and whilst that won’t afford you much as things stand, if you return to our time, my people will protect you, including from my father. They will fight for you, die for you if need be—”

“I’m a slave! ” Enid raged. “And I won’t— ”

“You are no slave!” Pewter eyes flashed. “You are the heir to two kingdoms, and a queen!” The eyes softened. “You will be a great queen—”

She slapped him—hard. Mircea gave an aborted laugh I didn’t understand and turned away, and Bodil smiled briefly, pained as her expression was. ?subrand looked shocked because I guessed he still didn’t know who he was dealing with.

“I’ll do no such thing!” Enid snarled, jerking him down to her by the fall of bloody silver hair. “I will stay here and fight , and so will you!”

And then she kissed him—passionately—and Alphonse cursed some more; it was becoming almost constant with him. But I barely heard this time, being too busy focusing on something else. Something distant, just on the edge of my hearing, but that sounded a lot like—

“What was that?” Bodil asked, her head jerking up. Because she’d heard it, too, which meant that maybe I wasn’t completely losing my—

“ Son of a fucking bitch! ” Billy’s furious voice broke over me, louder now. “Can you stay in place for half a goddamned second? ”

“Billy!” I screamed and looked around frantically, but didn’t see him.

Until I did, boiling down the corridor toward me with what looked like a hundred ghosts at his back.

“Who the hell do you think?” he snarled. “And what did you think when you came here without me? We were supposed to rendezvous! ”

“I know, but—”

“Which would have allowed me to tell you that freaking Poseidon was holding down the fort, along with like three dozen damned demigods! But you don’t show, and then Hansen comes flying in to tell me—”

“Yes, but—”

“—that you got dropped off blocks from the freaking hotel on one of the streets Jonas—damn him straight to hell—is bombing the shit out of! And then, just when I’m pretty sure he’s killed you, a portal goes off—”

“Billy!”

“—and blows up in my face when I go to investigate! I thought you DIED. I almost DIED—”

“You’re already dead, and I’m trying to tell you—”

“—and when I finally decide to check here anyway, ‘cause why the hell not, WHAT DO I FIND IN THE FREAKING LOBBY?”

“You know, I can’t even talk to you when you’re like this,” I snapped. “Do you have any idea—”

“When I’m like this?” Billy cut me off, more pissed than I’d ever seen him. “Do you understand that every god in the goddamned city is converging on this hotel right now? That they’re coming to—oh, fuck it!”

That last was because of a bunch of gods, tearing in through the lobby doors and stopping on a dime, so fast that the ones in back started piling up on those in front, and they began cursing each other. Until the rest saw what I no longer could, because the corridor walls had hidden it. But fortunately, it seemed to catch the eye, with them all staring with open-mouthed astonishment at the carnage we’d left behind.

Or at least, most of them were.

Some minor deity I didn’t know with a mop of bright black curls, olive skin, and a sweet young face, caught sight of us, screamed a word I didn’t know, and pointed. And then they were all coming, and Billy was screaming, and Alphonse was yelling, “I told you so, I told you so!” And I was considering pissing myself, because I’ve never particularly wanted to go out all stoical and heroic.

And the next thing I knew, Billy had grabbed me and we were inside the Paths of the Dead, and not just him and I—all of us. And we weren’t just barely inside, either. I could only see the world of the living in faint outlines, through all the billowing white nothingness.

Because yeah, Billy was a ghost. He could navigate these paths as well as anyone. He could—holy shit!

“Get us to Rhea!” I said, grabbing him back. “Hurry!”

“What I’ll do is get you the hell out of here!” he snarled. “Before the freaking army full of gods starts to wonder where you vanished to and comes in here looking—”

“No!” I shook him. “You can get us to her before they do! We’re outside of time! They aren’t getting any closer—”

“They’re getting closer, just slower than a second ago. We’re still too close to the border. And I can’t pull us any further in, because your batshit crazy Dad has his goon squads out, patrolling the—”

“I know!” I could still hear them distantly, roaring like a storm on the horizon. Which didn’t matter because they weren’t here! “This will be good enough. Just get me there! Now!”

Billy said some things that had my eyebrows lifting, because he was suddenly rivaling Alphonse’s knowledge of the expletive form. Although that could have been because some of the gods had just ripped a hole into non-space somewhere behind us, causing us all to hunch down in the fog and pray—or at least I was. But they didn’t come this way.

“What are they doing?” I asked Billy in a whisper.

“They don’t come here much,” he whispered back. “And when they do, they stay close to the barrier. I think this place creeps ‘em out—”

“I’m starting to like it,” Mircea said, and yeah.

Yeah.

“My boys are leading them astray,” Billy added, and I only then noticed that his army had dispersed. “But I don’t know for how long—”

“What the hell is happening?” Alphonse asked, grabbing my arm. “How did we get back here? And who are you talking to?”

“A ghost—”

“Is that rat fink Hansen back?”

“No, Billy Joe—” I paused. “Can’t you hear him?”

“I no longer have the strength to broadcast his words,” Bodil told me. “I can hear him in your head, as can Lord Mircea, but I cannot—”

“It’s okay,” I told her.

“It is not okay!” Alphonse said, shaking me. And getting his hand struck away by Pritkin.

“We have to get out of here!” Alphonse yelled before Mircea, who had just handed Zara off to Pritkin, struck him square in the mouth.

For a second, we froze and all held our breath, because if anyone had heard that…

But Dad’s army was still loud as shit, and Billy’s guys sounded like they were dive bombing the gods and screaming. Nobody was thundering this way. Yet.

“Take him out,” I told Hansen quietly, who was the only one who’d stayed close besides Billy Joe. “All the way out—of the city— ”

“Like hell!” Alphonse whispered, his face still bloody from Mircea’s blow until he absorbed it again. “That was stupid, but I’ll be damned if you’re gonna go back in time and leave me in this hellhole!”

Mircea moved forward again, his face terrible, but I waved him off. I didn’t need the help. I so freaking didn’t!

“What I think is that Billy is about to take me to my heir,” I told Alphonse quietly. “The only person who can get us out of this. If you want to go home, she’s the way—”

“Bullshit!” Alphonse suddenly looked more like the master vampire who had been Tony’s chief enforcer. The thick eyebrows were lowered, the dark eyes were bloodshot and terrible, and the fangs were out. “You handled plenty of power back in that lobby just fine, and didn’t go crazy—I saw it! So, you’ve figured that out, meaning you can grab one of those gods over there who’s lost in the fog, suck him dry, and take us back—right now! And you’d better do it, or else—”

“Or else what?” I asked low and vicious, and then didn’t give him time to answer because I didn’t give a shit about his answer. “You act like you’re in charge here. You’re not in charge. I am. And I’m going to see my heir. And let me make something extremely clear. If I do not see her, I am going nowhere, no, not even if I die here. Because without her information, going home does nothing . Home is where all this started. Home is where we lost . Home is where I get to see my world and their world,” I gestured savagely at the fey, “and every other goddamned world die because we fucked. It. Up. But we’re not going to do that this time, and the reason we’re not is Rhea, who is right upstairs. And I didn’t come this far to fail her and everybody else now!

“So you’re going to do exactly nothing except what I tell you. You’re going to fall in line, we’re going to go upstairs, and then, when I damned well feel like it, we’re going home. With the information we need to make sure this hellhole never becomes a reality. Otherwise, I’ll tell you what “or else” means. It means you stay here, right here, and either the gods rip you to pieces, or you bake in the desert alongside everyone else until they do to our world what they did to Faerie. That is the only “or else,” Alphonse. So what is it going to fucking be? ”

He blinked at me. “I… guess we’re going upstairs.”

“Goddamned right!” I looked at Billy. “You have a problem with that?”

“Well, I did until a minute ago.” He tipped his hat back. “Think I’m kinda on board now.”

“Then let’s get this damned thing done!” I said, and stomped off.