Red reckoning, p.26
Red Reckoning, page 26
His words broke the tentative spell hanging over our heads.
I clipped one of the stolen radios to my belt and handed the other to the arch-mage. “I’ll be on channel four. Only radio in an absolute emergency.”
She offered me a tight-lipped nod.
Winona moved over to the arch-mage and Darlene, extending a dainty hand out to either side. “I will shelter us,” she said. As the women accepted her outstretched hands, a purple light bled from Winona’s skin, enveloping the other two in seconds. In less than a heartbeat, the three were gone, or at least invisible—all without even the barest whiff of the Vis. Without a word, the lock to the door clicked and the door swung inward on silent hinges.
“Looks like we’re up next.” I breathed in Vis and Nox, drawing both into my veins. Life and death, ice and fire, flowed through me in a torrent, carrying me right to the edge of oblivion. I breathed out worry, fear, pain. Those weren’t emotions I could afford to have right now. Now was the time for action and survival. Not just for me, but for the whole world. I pressed my eyes closed and wove a complicated dome of spirit, air, light, and will, braiding the strands together into a seamless mesh, which I extended out in a dome. Winona wasn’t the only one who could cast a mean concealment spell.
Sure, glamours had always been more my thing than the subtle art of physical illusion, but I’d picked up a few things during my time in Hell. Azazel might have been a royal pain in the ass, but they didn’t call him the Lord of Dark Magicks for nothing
As the dome passed over Sullivan, Levi, and Ferraro, they blinked out of existence. Maybe not quite as neat and clean as Winona could manage, but it was sure as hell good enough for government work. I pressed my eyes shut tight, drawing that same working around me like a warm blanket in the heart of winter. When I opened my eyes again, my body had become an opaque mist. The others, likewise, appeared like dim phantoms of their former selves. We’d be invisible to any outside eyes, but I’d inverted the weaves so we’d be able to see each other.
“You’re getting pretty damned good,” a disembodied Sullivan said from nearby.
“I won’t be able to hold this thing together for long, though,” I said. “Levi, you take point.”
The MudMan mumbled a noncommittal reply and pulled open the door, leading us out of the executive bathroom and into a wide hallway free of prying eyes and fellow partygoers. The floors were polished red marble, and the walls were an odd mixture of obsidian stone and cloudy glass panels covered with intricate angelic script. Golden candelabras burning with Vis-conjured green flame lit our way. The place was a maze, and seeing the Mad King’s handiwork up close and in real life was even more disorienting then it had been when seeing a scale model of the place. There were corridors that went nowhere, floating stairs that ended in sheer drops, inverted archways, and doors affixed to the ceiling.
It was like walking through a Salvador Dali painting while high as a kite on a bad peyote trip. Even worse was that gravity and space seemed to bend and distort as we moved through the compound, drawing inward toward the center where the ritual room was located. At one point, we had to walk up an inverted staircase, our heads hanging upside down—something that defied all known laws of physics—but the stairs held and carried us upward, twisting and twirling until we eventually righted ourselves. It was weird with a capital W.
But Levi led us like a bloodhound with the scent of prey in his nose, never wavering or second-guessing himself.
Because of the unique design of the building and all of the supernatural heavy hitters in attendance it was hard to sense the ritual until we were damn near in eyeshot of the chamber door. We rounded a corner and all of a sudden the vile presence hit me like a cannonball—a crushing ball of power that seethed just out of sight. It grated against every preternatural sense I had, set my teeth on edge, and raised my hackles. I glanced at Sullivan and saw the man gripping his stomach, as though in physical pain.
Yep, I could sympathize.
The dark energy flowing from the room beyond the double doors at the end of the halls was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I glanced down to the watch on my wrist. Twenty to midnight. We didn’t have long.
Barring our path was a pair of guards. A man and a woman. The former stood head and shoulders above the latter. He had huge arms, pale skin, and long blond hair intricately braided like some kind of Viking supermodel. The woman was his opposite, short where he was tall, thin where he was broad, skin dark as turned earth, her hair cut short and shaved on one side. Although neither wore uniforms, they both radiated a dark sort of power all their own. It was the same force of presence I’d felt when tangling with Akiya back in Moorchester.
Great, more Overlords.
We needed a distraction.
Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait too long...
Déjà Vu
THE ECHOES OF A DISTANT boom rattled through the halls and shook the floor. A heartbeat later, a walkie-talkie riding the Viking’s hip chirped and a panicked voice squawked to life.
“We’ve got intruders in the west corridor... Fuck me! Everything is on fire...”
The radio squealed static and cut out, replaced by another chirp.
“We’ve also got a problem in the south banquet hall. Goblins, out of the Unfettered court.” There was a squawk followed by the garbled sound of shouting and the clatter of breaking plates and falling silverware. “The little bastards are starting a goddamned riot!” Crackle... “Oh shit, Arawn the Horned just challenged a bunch of the New Wave Mages to a duel—and it looks like the goddamned arch-mage is here somehow! We need backup, over!”
The Viking stole a sidelong glance at his partner. They seemed to communicate without ever speaking a word. After a long beat, he simply nodded and set off down the hall, moving with speed and purpose, slipping past us by inches. I held my breath the whole while, afraid that the slightest noise might give away our position, but the Viking seemed entirely preoccupied with the chaos in the banquet hall and disappeared around the snaking bend in the hallway without even glancing in our direction. That still left one shithead Vampire Overlord to deal with, but thing was, we didn’t need to kill her—just get past her.
Sullivan looked at me, his face grim as he drew his new rapier. “I’ll do my best to join you as soon as I can,” he whispered into my ear. “Just try not to die until I can get free to pull your asses out of the fire.” He breathed deeply and opened himself to his power—immense flows of energy funneled into him. The Overlord at the end of the hall visibly stiffened, clearly sensing Sullivan’s magic. She growled, dropping into a crouch, eyes squinted as she searched the hallway. “Wish me luck,” he said softly, stepping forward and casting off my veil.
He appeared in a flicker, sword raised at the ready, an easy lopsided smile now riding his lips. “Well hello there, lovely,” he said. “I seem to have gotten a tad lost, care to show me the way back to the party? Maybe we could dance?”
“The only party you’ll be attending,” the woman replied, stalking forward with the fluid, graceful movements of a jaguar, “is a funeral reception.”
“Unfortunate,” he replied with a shrug, “but I suppose I can prepare a few words for your eulogy.”
She hissed and launched herself forward, summoning a jade assegai with a flare of Vis. The leaf-bladed spear formed in her outstretched palm and in an instant thrust straight out, the blow aimed squarely at Sullivan’s chest. The thrust was fast as a cobra strike, but Sullivan had been fighting against things like her for the better part of ninety years and there were few better with a blade than him. He danced away, deflecting the spear with the edge of his rapier before responding with a quick series of feints, cuts, and lightning-quick lunges to get inside her guard.
She looked contemptuous at first—a cat toying with a mouse who’d grown ballsy enough to attack—right up until Sullivan scored his first hit. He parried a lazy slash, sidestepped, and passed to the outside, bringing the true edge of his fancy new rapier down along the outside of her arm. Dark flesh parted with a searing hiss, black blood welling to the surface of the wound. She was one of the Five and probably hadn’t suffered physical pain in a century or more. Hell, she probably hadn’t even gone toe to toe with something that could hurt in a century. She snarled, eyes narrowing.
“Impossible. Helwing’s Brand.” She padded back a few steps, suddenly uncertain.
“Improbable, perhaps,” Sullivan said. “Impossible? No.”
He slashed again and she flinched. An Overlord. Flinched.
Damn, apparently the arch-mage really had hooked us up with some grade A badass gear. Sullivan exploited the moment of weakness, thrusting his free hand out and unleashing a wrecking ball of raw force that coldcocked her like a Muay Thai fighter. She careened into the nearby wall, leaving broken tile and a crater of black stone in her wake. She stood, glaring daggers at Sullivan, and summoned fire to her fist. She wasn’t playing around anymore. Nope, Sullivan had proven himself to be a tiger, not a mouse, and she was entirely focused. A drawn sword at the ready.
I grabbed Ferraro and Levi by the shoulder and silently steered them across the hallway, letting Sullivan and the Vampire duke it out in earnest. The massive, studded doors were locked tight—another safety precaution against interlopers like us—but I had the equivalent of a Hand of Glory grafted onto the end of my wrist. Muttering a silent prayer, I pressed my right palm flat against the lock and let the power of the Gate Seal flow through me. The tumblers clicked, and I had to suppress the urge to cackle like a maniac. It was high time I got the upper hand.
I stole one last look back at Sullivan and the Vampire Overlord. The Commander of the Fist of the Staff was beaming, rapturous joy on his face as he pushed the Overlord, deflecting her spell forms and doing his damnedest to skewer her with the blessed blade.
They were totally absorbed in their scuffle. I grinned, feeling a sudden surge of hopefulness as we slipped into the ritual chamber, entirely unnoticed.
That brief flare of hopefulness vanished the second I laid eyes on the horrifying scene that lay on the other side of the doors...
For a long beat I just stood there, my mind reeling as it desperately tried to sort out exactly what in the holy fuckballs I was witnessing. If the hallways and architecture of this place were Dali, then the inside of the ritual chamber was a Hieronymus Bosch painting given life.
The circular chamber was enormous and resembled the inside of a medieval church. Rough stone walls, polished red floors, enormous pillars as big as redwoods stretching up, up, up to support the dome overhead. Scenes of torture, murder, and death adorned every wall and covered the ceiling like some sacrilegious version of the Sistine Chapel. I’d found the missing Scions, which was good news. The bad news was they were all hovering five feet off the floor, suspended in the air and surrounded by a pulsating dome of deathly crimson power, shot through with veins of twisting black corruption.
That dome looked like a force shield, but of a type I’d never seen before—and I’ve seen some shit.
Off to the right was an elaborate chancel with an oversized altar that held the lifeless husk of Achak Kinslayer—former Sasquatch turned cannibalistic Greater Wendigo.
That disgusting furball was even uglier than I remembered.
Nine feet tall and albino white, his hair pale and ghostly with splotches of creamy skin peeking through in spots. His skull was elongated and lumpy, his muzzle more closely resembling a wolf’s than an ape’s, and his eyes... Well, the goofy bastard didn’t actually have eyes. Just maggot-pale flesh stretched tight over his eye sockets. His mouth was stretched wide, black tongue lolling out of the side of his jaws. Hanging above the lifeless shell that had formerly been Winona’s fiancé was a bloody red gateway to Hell—and I’d spent enough time in actual Hell to say that with a fair degree of authority.
On the other side of the portal was a place of smoke and roiling fire—blacks, reds and golds all swirling together in an ever-shifting pattern that reminded me of the inside of a friggin’ volcano. And pulling itself free from the molten fire was a bloated creature as big as a whale and covered with chitinous plates, twitching legs, and ruby eyes—thousands and thousands of ’em. I’d seen creatures like this before during my time in the Pit. The great Wyrms of oblivion that churned in the lake of Gehenna. They were devourers of souls. The final death.
The massive creature was flowing through the portal, twirling and condensing in on itself like some sort of horror tornado, all funneling into Achak’s open jaws. Filling him up.
If I was a betting man, I’d say that had to be Cain, godling of murder, and the asshole who was going to use the power of the Scions to run roughshod over all the partygoers in attendance—unless we could stop him first.
As equally captivating as the creature filling Achak was horrifying, was the woman leading the ritual. The same woman who’d ruined my life and haunted my nightmares. She floated in the center of the ring of Scions, arms outstretched like a blasphemous version of Christ. She had lovely pale skin and long blonde hair that pooled around heavy ebony-black armor studded with cruel silver spikes. The Morrigan. The Irish War-Walker. The Chooser of the Slain. The Raven Lady. The Phantom Queen. She had a hundred titles. They all boiled down to the fact that she was a bat-shit crazy war goddess with the personality of General Patton and the disposition of Vlad the Impaler.
She also happened to be wearing Ailia’s face, which was as beautiful as the day I’d met her.
For a thin minute the world dissolved around me—the ritual gone, Achak just a distant memory—and I was back in a beat-to-shit greasy-spoon dive, over Hub-side playing rhythm guitar for a good-natured blues crew of halfies, run by a buddy of mine named Hadley Okafor. Ailia had been sittin’ in the back, by the bar, nursing a White Russian, listening to us belt out tune after tune, dipping her foot and nodding her head as couples moved on the dance floor, bumpin’, grindin’, grooving’, while tobacco smoke twirled and glasses clinked.
Eventually she moseyed onto the floor all by her lonesome, moving like she owned the place, and started swaying, long limbs and tight body all sinuous grace as she twirled and turned. Dirty red and amber overhead lighting played across her blonde locks—made it look like a halo of fire framing her face. As the number wound down, she stopped, only for a moment, and glanced back over her shoulder at me. Offered me an enticing, cocksure look, then strode off the floor. An invitation if ever I’d seen one: You just gonna stand there, or are you gonna do something?
I’d asked her to dance that night.
I planned to ask her to do the same thing tonight, though it was going to be a very different kind of tango.
She wasn’t my only concern, though.
Sure, we’d made it past the Overlords, but this place was bursting at the seams with nightmares of all shapes and varieties. The world wobbled on the edges as another wave of déjà vu swept through me and I was uncomfortably reminded of my last battle with the Morrigan, in the halls of the Tír na nÓg. That one hadn’t ended so well.
This would be different, I told myself.
It had to be.
Clinging to the shadows around the profane temple were lanky limbed Hatchlings, their eyes gleaming like hot embers. Accompanying them was a small army of Irish nightmares: Pale women, their faces skeletal, eye sockets empty, noses sheared away. The Dearg Due. They strutted about on ropy tentacles of black hair like a school of nightmarish octopi. More of the hatchlings were mounted on squat frog-like beasts of muscle, scales, and bristly hair called slaugh. The Morrigan had ditched the Fomorians, it seemed, but she’d found a new army to replace them.
My gaze skipped past the legion of henchmen and landed on a roly-poly looking son of a bitch with a swatch of brown hair, standing near Achak’s prone body. Doctor Arlen Hogg. The mad-scientist dickhead behind so many of my personal problems, and also the guy responsible for bringing Levi into the world. The MudMan had an axe to grind where Hogg was concerned. And by axe to grind, I totally meant an axe that he wanted to bury in Hogg’s skull.
Then, of course, there was the Savage Prophet. Standing right in my way.
The son of a bitch was a Bond Villain Knockoff of maybe twenty-five, wearing black slacks, a black turtleneck, and a shoulder rig with a compact Beretta. He was fit, broad shouldered, had the muscles of a gym rat, and carried a gnarled shepherd’s crook that radiated a cold, malevolent power. Despite his obvious youth, though, the guy had prematurely gray hair, almost silver, fashioned into a cringey faux hawk and a matching silver beard. The Crook of Winter and the stupid silvery hair marked him for what he really was: Old Man Winter, wearing some poor shmuck’s body like a trench coat. Not so different from Ailia in that way.
I hadn’t seen him since our battle against Ong, the Horseman of Death, but he was exactly as douchey as I remembered. Unfortunately, he was also the proud owner of the Fifth Seal and was one of the most dangerous sons of bitches I’d ever had the displeasure to square off against. Between him, the Morrigan, Hogg, and Achak, we had one helluva fight on our hands—especially if they managed to finish summoning Cain. High past time we put a kibosh on that shit.
I glanced at Levi and pointed at the Savage Prophet, then gestured for Ferraro to post up at the far side of room. “Stand by,” I mouthed to her.
Ferraro nodded and padded forward on silent feet, zipping across the room.
Levi, meanwhile, lumbered into motion before I could say another word. Trying to keep the veil in place on all three of us as we split apart was no easy thing, not even with the power of two demons and an angel flowing through my veins. The construct pushed me right to the edge of my ability and shattered like a delicate vase when Levi was five feet out from the Prophet. The MudMan shifted as he ran, the slick tux and handsome face replaced by gray clay, huge fists, and an uneven scowl.
“We’ve got comp—” the Savage Prophet started to shout, but then Levi hit the son of a bitch like an artillery shell.
