Page 50

Heathcliff

The doors resist when I try to open them. I plant my feet and I pull, straining.

Gatsby steps forward to help, but I grit out, “No!” This is something I need to do.

I haul on the doors with all my might.

Inside me there’s a wall, like a dam, one I’ve been building all my life to hold back the full force of my strength, so I wouldn’t cause irreparable damage to the things and people around me.

Without warning, that dam bursts—explodes like the glass Cathy shattered in the Vague—and a new surge of power gushes into my body.

My muscles swell larger than ever before, my heart pumps faster, and a rush of hot blood through my veins gives me fresh energy.

With a violent heave, I wrench the sanctuary doors open. They rip free of their hinges with a groaning crack, and I stand there, holding the two heavy oak doors in my hands as easily as if they’re a couple of beer bottles.

“Damn, choirboy,” Dorian says appreciatively.

I set the doors against the wall, taking my time about it while the others file into the sanctuary. I’m being a coward, hanging back like this, but I can hardly bear to see the god and what he has done to Cathy.

When I’m done with the doors, I follow the group. They’ve halted just inside the sanctuary, and they’re all staring up at the god.

He’s even taller now. His antlers divide into dozens of branches, the tips of them grazing the ceiling.

His face is Cathy’s, but his body is masculine in shape—a titanic figure formed of solidified shadow, grayish brown in color and ridged in texture like the bark of a tree.

More vines and shadows have emerged from the central column of his body, like secondary limbs undulating and stretching outward.

His clawed fingers are each as long as my arm.

When he speaks, his voice is deep as the bones of the earth. It’s monumental. “Have you come to worship me?”

Gatsby glances at Daisy, a question in his eyes. At her nod, he steps forward. “The body you’re using isn’t yours. It belongs to a friend of ours, and we would like her back.”

“You’re barely friends,” responds the god. “Acquaintances, perhaps. Don’t try to fool me, little abhartach. I know the mind of my host. You have come to worship Cernunnos, god of death, though you may not yet realize it.”

“Worship?” Cody hisses through his fangs. “I worship no one.”

“What is fear but a futile resistance to the impulse of worship?” The god moves closer, stalking slowly on massive legs. “Yield to that natural impulse, and your fear will diminish. Worship, and I will grant you power.”

He’s stalking nearer, taking step after step on his long legs, shadows flowing off him like water.

“Every one of you trembles at the idea of death, and that fear has driven you to become greater,” he intones.

“You are so terrified at the idea of your lives ending that you have done wicked and wonderful things. You have surpassed the state of normal human existence. And yet you still fear the end. You fear being cut off long before your natural span of years. You fear the decline into old age that brings about a slower demise. No matter how the end comes, you will always fear it. You will always fear me. And this one.” Cernunnos bends, grazing Dorian’s jaw with pointed claws. “This one fears me the most.”

Dorian grins, defiant. “You can’t kill me.”

“It’s not your own death you fear,” replies Cernunnos.

“Perhaps once, but no longer. You fear the death of another. You dread it with all your heart, soul, and mind. The terror of that impending loss consumes you. Every second you want to scream at your loved one to protect herself. To become abhartach, like them.” He gestures to the four vampires.

“Dorian, is that true?” Baz steps forward, frowning. “I mean, I know you want me to do the whole vampire thing, but I thought we agreed there was no rush.”

Dorian’s blue eyes dart to each of us, as if he’s looking for someone to help him.

But I’m out. I can’t handle anything beyond my own raw, throat-searing terror for Cathy.

I wish they’d all shut up so we can get on with this and get that fucker out of her body, if that will even help.

The way Cernunnos has changed her… I don’t see how it could be reversible.

And if it’s not…if she doesn’t survive, I can’t either.

“No rush?” Dorian stares at Baz, his words tight and clipped.

“No rush with people getting killed in car crashes every day, contracting cancer, choking to death on a morsel of food? With ancient deities and monsters stalking the coastline? Yeah, Baz, I think you need to become a vampire and soon. Like yesterday.”

Cernunnos cocks his head—Cathy’s head—and stares at Baz with those cold, calculating eyes. “Baz’s fear is less than yours. She accepts life and death as they are, and celebrates both in her art.”

“What are you, a mind reader?” I choke out. “Let’s cut the crap. I want you out of my girlfriend right the fuck now, and I want you to put her back like she was.”

Baz pushes her way in front of Dorian, looking up at the god.

She’s so small compared to him, and her voice is a little breathless but strong.

“I can make you a body,” she offers. “I need to connect with you a bit, and then I should be able to draw the form you used to take among humans—or close enough. I’ve done it before.

I’m not of your bloodline, so I’m not positive it will work, but we can try it. ”

“Why would I want another body when I have this one to build upon? And the little banshee is so intriguing. I don’t think I’ll give her up.” Cernunnos smiles too widely, and the corners of Cathy’s mouth split a little. Blood trickles down her chin.

I want to scream. To roar. To beat my fists against him, but he is also Cathy, and I can’t bear the thought of hurting her more.

Gatsby steps forward with a smile of his own, wide and charming. His canines glint. “You seem to think you have a choice in this, Cernunnos. You do not. You will be leaving the girl’s body, with or without your consent.”

A deep chuckle grates from Cernunnos, through Cathy’s throat. “You think you can force a god to obey you?”

Gatsby looks him dead in the eyes. “Not me. But the two women you see here, Baz and Daisy—they can. And from what I’ve seen, the woman you’re holding hostage has a formidable will of her own. I wouldn’t count her out just yet.”

Fuck, I like this guy. The confidence in his tone gives me hope.

And then Daisy begins to speak. Her voice is pitched much higher than when she spoke to me outside. It’s light, bright, and soft, like spring air. “Cathy. Cathy.” She’s trying a slightly different tone each time. “Cathy, if you can hear this, show me a sign.”

A shudder passes over the god’s form, and my stomach flips.

That was Cathy. She responded.

“Cathy, I need you to fight,” Daisy continues in the same tone.

“Resist him. Take back control of your mind, your voice, and your body, and expel him. You may have descended from his bloodline, but your power doesn’t come solely from him.

During the drive here, Nick did some research, and he discovered something else about the source of the banshees—another reason Cernunnos was hated by his fellow gods. ”

Cernunnos is seething, growling through Cathy’s mouth, shadows churning restlessly around his body. Without warning, one of his extra limbs rockets toward Daisy, extruding long fingers as it reaches for her throat.

Daisy leaps aside with catlike grace, her blond hair swinging in a golden arc. But another limb is driving toward her from the side, and more are rising, a forest of arms and sharp-nailed hands racing to rip her apart.

Gatsby springs forward, snarling, seizing one of the arms and raking his teeth along it. Oily shadows spill from the cut like blood, and the arm dissolves within a few seconds.

“Baz, start drawing,” shouts Gatsby. “The rest of us need to protect her and Daisy!”

I don’t need to be asked twice. Judging by the way that first arm dissolved, the extra limbs of the god aren’t connected to Cathy, so I can tear them apart without hurting her. That’s all I need to know. I grip one of the arms headed for Daisy, and with a powerful twist, I snap it clean off.

Daisy steps onto one of the pews, her eyes bright, fixed on Cathy’s pale face.

“Hear me,” she continues, her voice soft and bright and sinuous all at once.

“The gods hated Cernunnos because he seduced the one being none of them could have. The Morrigan, Mistress Fate herself. She was the one woman who did not fear him, the only one with the power over death—the will to control it. You have her courage in your very soul. You are a descendant of Fate herself, and I command you, in the name of the Morrigan, to fight.”

I hope it’s working. I got no time to glance at Cathy’s face because the god is thrashing, sending out a hurricane of arms and vines and shadows.

He’s mostly attacking Daisy, trying to make her stop talking.

Cody, Nick, and Gatsby seem to have Daisy’s defense well in hand, so I pull back to the rear of the sanctuary, where Baz is sitting against the wall, drawing rapidly on a tablet with a stylus.

Dorian is there, too. He doesn’t strike me as much of a fighter, but he has produced a pair of knives from somewhere and he’s poised to protect her.

The god doesn’t seem to be paying Baz as much attention.

He thinks Daisy is the main threat. I don’t understand Baz’s power, but something tells me it’s gonna be the key to getting Cathy back, so I take up a position next to Dorian.

Every time a vine skates her way, aiming to slither around her throat, I grab it and pull it tight while Dorian slashes it in two.

A couple ridged arms shoot along the floor toward Baz and then rise, their knifelike claws aiming for her chest, but I grab one, pivot, and seize the other, smashing them together until they explode in a slurry of shadows.

Dorian leaps lightly onto another incoming limb, bearing it to the ground and whipping a blade through it.

Baz doesn’t look up. Doesn’t speak to either of us, just keeps drawing, her stylus flying over the screen. Sometimes she tips her head as if listening. Dimly I register Cernunnos shouting above Daisy’s voice, trying to drown her out.

Suddenly, a fierce wind howls through the church, blasting toward Baz. It hits Dorian first, sending him flying through the sanctuary entrance. His body crashes into something in the lobby, and I could swear I hear bones crack.

Fuck. He’s down for the count.

The wind is tinted with shadows, and I can see it rising, curling, doubling up for another attack.

As it condenses and rushes toward us again, I throw myself in front of Baz, blocking the oncoming gust with my back.

I slam my palms against the wall, bowed over her, fighting to resist the pressure of that wall of wind.

I glance down at Baz’s face as she sits curled up in the shelter of my arms. She’s pale under her tan, and tears are racing down her cheeks. But she doesn’t take her eyes from the tablet.

“Don’t stop,” I shout over the roar of the wind. “Keep going. I’ve got you.”

It’s on me to protect her, since Dorian’s probably out cold—

But Dorian leaps through the sanctuary doors at that moment, his shirt tattered and streaming from his body, his blond hair torn by the wind.

He glances over and sees me hunched over Baz, shielding her from the ongoing force of the gale.

The ferocity in his eyes surprises me—but what shocks me even more is that he’s not bruised, bloody, or damaged at all.

He’s lost his knives, but he pulls another from somewhere, gives me a nod, and dives into the thrashing storm of tentacle-limbs again.

I don’t know how long this will go on. But I have to believe that we’re not doing this alone. Somewhere in that fucking mess of eldritch magic and flailing limbs and vampire teeth, Cathy is fighting, too.