Destroyer Rising (24 page)

The spell turned on me. The power changed from an
exhilarating surge in my core to a pain that should have rendered
me senseless. Every fiber of my being caught fire, and the city of
souls inside my head screamed with me.

The very earth rose up, filtering through my aura and
taking little pieces of me with it. I could feel them fly away. I
knew what they hunted. They travelled to the Seal.

Beware the gifts of the Fae.

I screamed again, but no sound escaped my throat. I
tried to summon a shield, a soulsword, anything, but the
incantation was already consuming me. It locked down my aura as
surely as it had destroyed Vicky’s bond to Prosperine.

Mike shouted somewhere nearby. Was he here too? “That
wasn’t the Demon’s Sacrifice!”

The fires did their work, and it wasn’t long before I
couldn’t feel anything. The world became a numb and vague
impression to my blistering eyes.

Dying didn’t hurt like I expected it to. I knew
something was wrong. Perhaps it was the blood of Anubis that flowed
through my veins, the same sense that told me things I could not
possibly know as I walked through the Burning Lands.

“
Damian!”

I saw the flash of red when they appeared in the
vision. Foster. Cara. Brought here by an exhausted-looking
Elizabeth.

Tears of fire ran down my cheeks as the Key of the
Dead brightened into a golden sun. This was the Demon’s Sacrifice.
I knew it with all my being. Mike was wrong. There could be no life
without death.

I slowly turned my gaze back to Vicky. A stream of
golden soul flowed into her, while another line of gold vanished
into the ether above me. I could see Sam there, ghostly and pale.
This was the right thing to do.

“
Damian!”
I felt the hands on my cheeks.
Things felt thick and heavy there in the Darkfall. I wasn’t sure
what was real anymore, and what was simply my mind shutting down,
giving in to the darkness.

“Vicky will live,” I whispered.

I smiled at Cara’s face. I saw her turn and scream at
a black shadow behind her. It looked like it had antlers. How
odd.

Consciousness crashed back into my body, and I felt
nothing but pain in the horrid white light, the light come to
punish me. An angel’s wings spread out before me. Black and white
and … and …

I screamed as the sword cut through me.

“It is done!”

Foster? I knew that voice. Foster wasn’t here,
though, was he? My memory fractured, and I began losing track of
who was with me, who was alive, who we’d already lost. Vicky was
all I could remember as the burning intensified, and the world
turned golden.

“No no no, he’s too far gone.”

“I have to try,” Foster said. “I have to try.”

The healing hit me like a truck. Some part of me came
back together and my vision cleared for a moment. It felt like
seconds, but it could have been hours. My mind was in ruins.

“I can’t let him die,” I heard someone whisper. “This
is my fault. I didn’t know.”

A beautiful face appeared over me, hidden within
magnificent golden armor.

“Mom?”

Cara smiled. “I’m sorry, Damian. I only just learned
of his plan for you. I tried to get here. I tried.” She held my
face and the tears flowed down her cheeks. “You have to grow
stronger. Don’t face him now. He knows not what he’s done.

“When it begins, draw your sword from his chest.”

Sword? I tried to ask, but I couldn’t speak anything
more. My eyes wouldn’t move to look at my chest.

“I don’t want to lose you.” Foster, that was Foster.
My vision faded again with the roar of power in my head. The
fairies couldn’t save me. Nixie … Sam …

“I love you, Foster,” Cara whispered.

Light and warmth wrapped itself around me. The souls
inside my head quieted as the healing took hold. It pulled my aura
back together, repairing things that shouldn’t be reparable. I felt
the sword jerk out of my chest.

I heard the scream of the fairy, and my own scream
joined it. The light faded, and the screams died.

“It is done,” Cara whispered. The fairy rolled off of
me, snapping one of her wings beneath her own weight.

Foster stared at his mother. “I can heal you.”

She shook her head once. “I … am done.”

I looked up. Gwynn Ap Nudd stood beside a shattered
throne, a pair of dark-touched to either side of him. He could have
saved her. I was sure of it. Instead, he stepped backwards into a
black vortex, his horned helm vanishing into the Abyss with the two
vampires.

“What is that?” Mike hissed.

Shiawase stood above Vicky, his sword drawn.
Something moved near the line of thrones, green eyes glowing amidst
a body that looked like smoke and fur. I tried to focus on it, but
Cara’s voice drew my attention back.

“Damian … grow stronger. Don’t face Nudd now. He
knows not what he does, and he must … be stopped. The wolves said
goodbye.”

When I glanced behind me again, the creature was
gone. I looked around for the Ghost Pack, but they were all gone. I
already knew where they were: destroyed by the Demon’s Sacrifice.
There was a whisper of memory, a final goodbye from Maggie and
Carter.

Jasper huddled up beside Cara as her face slackened.
Her hands fell away from her chest and it was only then that I
noticed the gore marks. Glenn had murdered his own wife.

“Cara?”

“Mom?” Foster whispered as he fell down beside the
fairy. He touched his mother’s pierced cuirass and winced as though
he’d been burned. “Iron? No …”

Her body rose into the air, and I watched the fairy
disintegrate. Power exploded from her fading form. Lances of white
light shot through the walls around us, killing dark-touched
vampires I hadn’t noticed a moment before and crumbling the walls
behind the throne. When Cara’s armor crashed to the ground, empty
but for her screams, only two figures remained standing.

I didn’t need to know who they were. I understood
that only devils resided in the enclave. Tessrian would have her
choice of thrones.

I looked back at Foster, screaming over the motes of
being that were all that remained of his mother, at the unconscious
girl who would have been the Destroyer, at the ghost panda sworn to
protect her, at the wounded demon who fought to save his love, and
at the blood mage who risked god knows what to bring the fairies
here. Carter and Maggie and Jimmy were gone, sacrificed to these
fucking
things.
My
friends.

In that moment, a rage settled over me. I felt the
mantle of Anubis claim its new bearer. I understood the power that
Ezekiel had once wielded, and I understood that the mantle had
never been his to bear. It had always been mine.

The earth around me dissipated into little more than
a cloud, swirling out and up only to slam closed over my head. When
the darkness cleared, I saw with the eyes of the Jackal. Not the
corrupted imitation Ezekiel had been, but the sleek obsidian helm
of power that mantle was meant to be.

When I opened my jaws and cried out Cara’s name, the
Jackal roared with me.

“You dare stand in this place?” the first of the
devils said. He was broad and thick where Prosperine had been
slight and agile. He would die first.

I closed my right hand and the scepter appeared, long
and golden and sharp enough to carve rock. The Jackal roared and,
before the devil could move, the end of the scepter had already
split his skull. A low sweeping kick shattered the knee of the
other devil.

The second screamed while the first made wet sucking
sounds.

“I can’t heal!” The devil grabbed at his knee and
recoiled. “What have you done?”

I breathed out as I turned the mantle to face the
second devil. “My friends are dead and, because of it, you will
never heal again. Warn your people.” I released the scepter and it
vanished, letting the first devil crash onto the stone steps.

“Enter our realm again, and I will reduce your world
to ash. I leave you as gifts for Tessrian.”

The devil cowered behind the shattered throne as the
shadow of Anubis left them behind.

I heard whispers and slowly turned my head to the
throne once more.

Two glowing green eyes opened in the gray rug to
either side of the throne. I took a step back as the rug arched its
back and stood. I didn’t know what it was, but the massive shaggy
gray form drifted forward. At the edge of the platform, I could see
its human-like feet. The creature paused and leaned forward on a
too-short arm. The head rotated from one side to the other, until
it finally rotated in a full circle.

Apparently losing interest in me, the creature turned
back to the devils. It wandered to the dying one and started
eating
it. The crunch was terrible. Bone and cartilage
ground and shattered as the fur on the thing vibrated and
shook.

I envisioned a wall rising between us, and so it was.
This realm bent to the mantle’s whim. I turned back to my friends,
and let the head of the jackal decay around me. Trails of black
dust fell down my shirt, staining the vampire skull and pooling at
my feet.

I stared at the fairy. My friend; bent over the armor
of his lost mother.

“Foster.”

He looked up at me. I’d seen rage on the fairy’s face
more than enough times, but here it looked broken. His loss was a
loss to us all.

“It was a
trap,”
Foster snarled and punched
the dirt. “The marks carved by Ward reacted to the Key of the Dead
because of your bloodline.”

Mike leaned away from the words like he’d been struck
a physical blow. “What? That’s impossible. I would have known.
Someone would have known.”

“Glenn knew,” Foster said. “He’d fed it to Koda years
ago. That son of a bitch has more backup plans than … than …” The
fairy let out a frustrated shout.

“How did Cara know?” Shiawase asked, sitting down
beside Cara’s armor. He kept a hand on Vicky’s shoulder. Jasper
rolled up beside the samurai, nestling into the crook of Vicky’s
arm.

“He told her,” Elizabeth said. She sighed and fell
onto her knees beside Foster. “That pompous ass told her.”

Foster glanced at the blood mage. He leaned closer
and started cleaning the blood from her arms. Sarah knelt on
Elizabeth’s other side and did the same. Her arms were beyond
bloody. The depths she must have carved her flesh to open that
portal made me cringe.

Elizabeth winced at every gentle touch. “Gwynn Ap
Nudd has been working with Hern all along.”

“Son of a bitch,” I snapped. “Why tell her now?” I
lowered myself to the ground beside Vicky. Her breathing was
steady. I stared at her closed eyes, and dread crawled up my
spine.

“Why now?” Elizabeth asked, wincing at Foster’s
gentle touch.

“He found out you were in the Burning Lands,” Foster
said. Dim light leapt from his fingers as he traced Elizabeth’s
wounds, sealing the deepest cuts.

“Don’t heal the scars or the scabs. Those are for the
Coven.”

“I know,” Foster said softly. “I can see the
patterns.”

“I can’t get us out of here,” Elizabeth said. “That
was a one-way trip.”

“The Seal has been restored,” I said. “Mike can take
us home.”

“The Seal?” Mike asked, raising his eyebrows.
“How?”

“I don’t know. It just … I knew how to fix it. I
think it’s the mantle.”

Sarah frowned. “There are old tales of mantles
passing knowledge to each bearer. I’ve never known a god to ask
them before.”

I looked from Sarah to the empty armor on the cold
stone. Tears burned at the back of my eyes. I turned away and
crawled closer to Vicky. Three deep breaths. I reached out with my
finger hovering above her eyelid.

“What has this price wrought?” Mike asked
quietly.

I pushed Vicky’s eyelid open and almost shouted in
relief. “It’s her. It’s Elizabeth, I mean Vicky before she … it’s
her.” I picked up her hand and held it between my own. “Welcome
back, kid. Welcome back.”

Foster packed Cara’s cuirass and helmet into my
backpack after taking a few moments to heal the worst of our
wounds. He carefully strapped the rest of the armor over his own.
He said nothing of the Book of Blood that shared the space, but he
did pull out a baggy filled with Frank’s jerky.

I followed beside the fairy. “How bad would it have
been?” I asked.

“It would have killed you and Sam and Vicky.” He
stuffed a thick strip of jerky into his mouth. “Maybe Mike and the
others too.”

“Even Happy?”

Foster gave a sharp nod. The panda snorted and walked
beside Sarah. She’d insisted on carrying Vicky. As she was the
least injured of the group, no one argued.

“Where’s Bubbles?” I asked as we left the shattered
outer wall behind us. I hadn’t seen the cu sith since the start of
the battle, and now it worried me.

Foster pointed toward the fortress near the horizon.
“Up ahead. We never would have found you in time if she hadn’t been
with you.”

A flickering flame waited against the soaring towers
of the ninth fortress. Bubbles stared into the structure, unmoving
until we grew close enough to touch her.

“You can stop,” Foster said. “Good girl.”

The burning cu sith spun in a quick circle, sending
her braided tail out to slap against my knees before she leapt onto
Foster. Bubbles whined and Foster slid to his knees, arms around
the fiery cu sith.

“She’s gone,” he whispered into the cu sith’s
fur.

Bubbles flopped onto Foster’s shoulder and rolled her
eyes up to mine. She looked sad, like she knew exactly what had
happened. I wondered if the cu siths simply fed off the emotions of
those around them, or if Bubbles truly understood that Cara was
gone.

“You did good,” Foster said, running his hand through
the bristly green fur. “You let her go home.”