Zola made her way over to it, the octagonal sides with seven small holes surrounding one large in the center. One bolt was all that held the chain together now. One seal to lock the beast away.

  She looked up when an engine started, catching sight of the tourists leaving the area. It was time. Zola waved to Luna when the snow-white head peeked around the side of the cabin. Luna grabbed Vicky on her way, and soon enough they were standing beside Zola.

  “That’s it?” Vicky asked. “I thought it would be bigger.”

  “It’s a few feet high with plates nearly as big as your head, girl. How big do you think a mooring post needs to be?”

  “I might have a better guess if I knew what a mooring post was,” Luna said.

  “You anchor a ship to it.”

  “Then what’s an anchor for?”

  Zola blinked at the death bat. “Let’s not worry about that for now. Let’s worry about the thing we’re about to wake up. Intentionally wake up, at that, gods help us.”

  She didn’t say it out loud, but the thought that Philip had betrayed her here too crawled through her mind. So much damage that man had done to the world. He’d wanted to change things, but damn if she’d ever seen someone go about it in worse ways.

  Zola tapped away at her phone briefly.

  Last core at Corydon. If we fail, find the Old God.

  She slid the phone back into her cloak, only to find Vicky had been watching her text.

  Vicky shook her head. “If we fail, we’ll be dead.”

  “No girl. If we fail, you run like hell from this place. Go back through the Abyss and come back in force.” Zola grimaced. “This is my mess, girl. And I intend to make it right.”

  Vicky didn’t press her again, but Zola doubted the girl had any intention of running, no matter what happened.

  “So this thing is under the post?” Luna asked.

  Zola leaned toward the mooring post and laid a hand on it. “If you dug beneath us, you’d only find iron and mud. Once the bond is broken, the Old God will awaken. Keep your distance. He’s more molten metal than stone.”

  “We’re fighting a volcano?” Luna said.

  “Ah wish that description was less accurate. Now back the hell up.” Zola moved her hand to the bolt holding the anchoring chain down. “Fulvus, god of metals. Ah’ve come back with your fate.”

  With one swift twist of her wrist and a spark of crystalline ice, the bolt shattered in Zola’s hand.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Earth and mud and stone erupted like a crate of dynamite had been set off. A wave of heat rolled off the nine-foot-tall mass as water and mud sizzled on the creature’s skin. Fists and the sleek bronze of the Old God’s flesh grew clear as he stretched, releasing a roar to shake the earth around them.

  Where Aeros was bulky and stone, Fulvus was made of smooth planes of metal that slid silently over each other. But as they separated, or the beast flexed, Zola caught glimpses of stone and the molten core within. One might mistake Fulvus for an abstract collection of polygons until the steam forced the remaining debris away from the god’s face.

  She’d seen Fulvus once before, when he’d escaped his original imprisonment and they’d had to bind him once more, decades later. She hadn’t realized why his eyes looked so different then, like shattered orbs, too small for that angular face of bronze.

  “Oh fuck, that’s creepy,” Vicky said.

  Zola growled in agreement. “We only need his eyes. The rest is fair game. Take him!”

  Fulvus didn’t speak. He moved. Diamond-like structures of aged bronze shifted forward as if they were armor upon his legs. The Old God splayed his fingers and jets of molten metal burst forth toward Zola.

  “Old tricks,” Zola muttered. “Impadda!”

  An electric blue shield sprang to life, sizzling as the metal crashed against it, only to solidify as it fell to the earth. Fulvus changed the angle of his attack, and Zola cursed when the molten metal hit the top of her shield and bounced over it.

  Tiny drops of superheated iron and bronze scorched her cloak, and she shouted as some of the metal found her skin. Another shield formed above her as Vicky slid in behind Zola, creating a shell nothing would get through.

  Fulvus roared, and between one beat and the next, the god glowed with fire, his fist smashing into Zola’s shield hard enough to slide her back. Another blow, and a tiny webwork of cracks etched their way out from the electric blue center.

  The Old God pulled back again, only this time Zola dropped her shield and slammed her staff into the earth.

  “Orbis Tego!”

  A circle shield exploded into life around them, crashing against the Old God’s waist and arm and sending him to the ground.

  Zola caught a glimpse of white from the corner of her eye. “Stay back!”

  “I do not take commands,” Fulvus said, rising to one knee before stretching to his full height. “Zola Adannaya.”

  So he hadn’t realized it was Luna she was talking to. Good. The last thing she needed at that moment was a way for Fulvus to leverage them out of the circle shield.

  Time imprisoned had not taken a toll on the Old God.

  “You free me only to imprison me once more?” The craggy bronze mouth lifted into a mockery of a smile. Above it, the glowing crystalline eyes of the shattered bloodstone. The molten flesh within gave the stone an eerie red glow, stained with green. “You are a strange people.”

  Vicky let her shield fall, its golden light tracing spirals and jagged runes through the air before flickering out. “What the hell is he talking about?”

  “It doesn’t matter now, girl.” Zola whispered. “Ah’ll tell you all about it when we aren’t dead.”

  “This will be your last opportunity for that,” Fulvus said. “But tell me, why have you released me? Your logic appears as flawed as the bearded one’s.”

  Even though Fulvus hadn’t named Philip, it was like a punch in the heart. It didn’t matter the distance she had, how many wrongs he’d committed, there was always some small part of her that remembered the man he could have been. And perhaps, for a brief time, the man he was.

  Did Fulvus understand how much time had passed since those days? Did the Old Gods sense time the same way the rest of the world did? Or was this simply Fulvus waking up and assuming the same things were still happening.

  His eyes flared brighter in the shade of the forest. “Why awaken me now?”

  “Ah need your eyes,” Zola hissed, and the words held enough promise to make the Old God stand up straighter.

  Fulvus held out his left arm, and Zola watched as the planes of his skin split and molten metal poured forth. White-hot legs rose before a paunchy torso took shape, and a bearded head.

  In moments, Zola was staring into a simulacrum’s face, one that wore Philip’s likeness. The metal cooled, and the resemblance faded somewhat as crystalline planes of metal obscured the golem’s appearance.

  “You bastard,” Zola whispered.

  Fulvus gestured with his right arm, and a shower of molten metal formed the body of another golem. This one was smaller, younger, and as the face of the child Zola had once cared for took shape, rage washed over her. She knew those tight curls, those doe eyes, and she knew the werewolf he’d become.

  “When Ah tell you to run, girl, you get Luna and get the fuck away from here.”

  “I’m not leaving you, Zola.”

  Vicky flinched when the old necromancer looked at her.

  “This is my fight. Now run!”

  The instant the shield fell, Vicky darted into the forest line.

  “Emotional creatures, aren’t you?” Fulvus said. “Kill them.”

  The two golems started forward. Zola dropped her cane and held her arms out in front of her, index fingers and thumbs forming a triangle, a focus. She closed her eyes and whispered to herself as heat washed against her face.

  Zola’s eyes snapped open and she felt the snarl on her lips as the words tumbled from her mouth. “Magnus Glaciatto!”

  The shift from the heat of molten metal to deepest cold of the Abyss splintered grass and earth and the mud around their feet. Zola’s incantation rose into a scream as her eyes flashed wide and she channeled more line energy than she’d ever dared.

  A frigid vortex of ice and power tore through her focus, stealing the warmth from her fingers, blistering her flesh with cold. Frozen daggers of crystal and death punctured the golems, sending sprays of molten blood to splash back onto Fulvus, who himself reeled in the storm.

  Memories returned unbidden. Times when she’d been forced to murder people for the mere chance they might endanger her family, the children they’d taken under their wing. And it was times like those, in the darkest moments, when she had sometimes understood the misguided actions of Philip Pinkerton. Had the Confederates caught them in Corydon, they would have been slaughtered. At best, hung. But more likely tortured, raped, or a litany of both.

  And now … and now this thing, this Old God, this mistake, stood between her and Damian. One of the last children she’d sworn to protect. One of the last people she’d promised to never fail.

  She broke contact with the focus and aimed her powers to the skies above.

  The golems were crawling toward her now, frost set upon their fiery flesh. But above them, the daggers grew into swords, and Zola bade them fall.

  “You cannot match—”

  The words of the Old God were cut off by a shower of icy blades, pinning the golems to the earth and impaling Fulvus’s head. The Old God staggered, and then roared. He flexed, bronze skin shattering along his right arm as he flung it at Zola. Metal solidified in air, and Zola cried out when the javelin pierced her stomach and embedded itself in the tree behind her, pinning her down.

  “That is enough!” the Old God roared as he raised his arm.

  Zola moved to raise a shield, but her arm wasn’t working right. “Impadda!” The shield flickered to life for a brief moment, just enough to deflect another projectile, but the impact slammed her arm against the spike in her gut.

  “Fuck,” she spat, the taste of blood metallic on her tongue.

  Fulvus raised his arm again. “Goodbye, Sarah.”

  Zola grinned at the Old God with bloodied teeth. The name she’d carried when he first met her, Sarah. The name Alan had known her by. The name Philip had whispered when they weren’t alone.

  The strike came fast, but Luna was faster, striking from the sky with her arms outstretched. The razor-like edge of her wing sliced through the Old God’s shoulder, and they roared together. Fulvus’s arm collapsed, still holding the spear of white-hot metal.

  But Luna screeched. A cloud of smoke rose up from the death bat’s wing as she crashed to the earth, spiraling across it, kicking up mud and grass until she came to a rest on the pavement. Blistered flesh and scorched fur ran from her shoulder to the bottom of her wing where it hadn’t been burned away.

  Gunshots rang out, shattering the head of the golem who’d had Philip’s face.

  “Run!” Zola cried out, despair clawing at her chest as she watched the child close on the Old God.

  Vicky pulled the second trigger. Fulvus’s jaw cracked and bled molten metal as the Old God screamed. She lunged with a soulsword a moment later, but the Old God was too fast. He spun to the side, leaving shattered fragments of his legs behind. An iron backhand sent Vicky to the ground.

  Fulvus rose to his feet above her, looking from Zola to the two he’d beaten into the earth. “Passion will always get you killed, mortals.”

  He raised his arm to strike the final blow against Vicky.

  Zola raised a shaky right hand. “Magnus Glacciato!” The world was nothing but pain as the unfocused line energy ripped across the field, piercing Fulvus once more, and drawing his attention back to the old necromancer.

  Time. Time was all she could give them now. Her shout stretched out as she pleaded with Vicky and Luna. “Run!”

  “You offered more of a battle than I expected, Zola Adannaya. Die satisfied, knowing that.”

  Zola spat blood onto the Old God’s feet where it sizzled. “Ah won’t be the last who comes for you.”

  The air distended between them. Zola didn’t know what magic Fulvus was about to summon, but it was like nothing she’d seen before. A pit as black as any part of the Abyss she’d ever seen stretched out before her, the edges fringed in gray.

  A scream rose, and she wondered if it was her own before the winged ball of fire erupted from the blackness. It spun Fulvus around, flames rising from the newcomer’s eyes, but the sharp lines of his face were familiar.

  His scream was not human.

  Fulvus was pulled up into the air in a hurricane of fire that swelled to encase the black and white wings, patterned like an Atlas moth.

  “Foster …” Zola whispered.

  The spiraling mass rocketed down into the log cabin, sending the entire clearing up in a fireball. Vicky was on her feet now, dragging Luna closer to Zola.

  Roars and screams and curses rose up from the chaos of the ruined cabin. A tall shadow stumbled backward, flames streaming from the stump of Fulvus’s shoulder.

  “You bathe me in the fires I was born from, fool!” Fulvus cried out in laughter and pain.

  Foster raised a flaming sword, blue fire spiraling up from the hilt as he closed on Fulvus.

  The Old God hurled a javelin of metal at the fairy, but it melted away in the torrent of power around Foster.

  Foster growled. “You think you’ll leave here alive?”

  Whatever Fulvus had been about to say was lost to the ringing impact of the flaming sword plunging through his face.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “What the fuck were you thinking, Zola?” Foster shouted as he closed on them.

  “My fight,” Zola grumbled. “Get the eyes. Ronwe’s bloodstone.”

  Foster reached out to the spike of metal pinning her to the tree.

  “Ah said get the damn eyes,” Zola snapped. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Foster paused and cocked his head to the side. “Nothing else matters?” He gestured to the inferno that had been the cabin. Vicky and Luna huddled to the side of the asphalt leaning up against the fence. “Nothing?”

  Zola leaned back against the tree and grimaced. “Get the damned eyes.”

  “I’ll get the damned eyes as soon as you aren’t dying on this fucking tree.”

  Zola made to snap back at Foster again, but a seizure of pain silenced her. “Get it over with, then.”

  “On three.”

  Zola nodded as Foster placed his hand on the javelin of metal. But before he even said “one,” he ripped the entire length out of her abdomen. As she fell, the motion sent waves of pain through her body like an electric fire.

  Foster began his work.

  “Socius sanation,” the fairy whispered, and the world dimmed as a light without illumination glowed around Foster’s hands. He moved her again, and this time the world shifted to darkness.

  * * *

  Zola awoke to the sounds of whispers, whispers that grew as her senses returned. Vicky was sitting next to her, while Foster worked on Luna.

  “It looks pretty good,” Foster said.

  “Feels better,” Luna said, flexing the pale pink flesh that had been scoured of white fur.

  Foster turned to Zola when she sat up, the leaves crunching beneath her legs. “You’re awake. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve always been resilient.”

  Zola prodded at her abdomen. The pain was there, but the fact it was only a dull ache made her wonder how long she’d been unconscious.

  “What would you have done?” Foster asked. “What would you have done if I hadn’t come? If Morrigan hadn’t been there to send me through one of her portals?

  She stretched her back and gave Foster a flat look. “Died, I suspect.”

  Whatever answer Foster had been expecting, that wasn’t it. He paused and eyed Zola for a time. “No time to get ourselves killed. You put Vicky and Luna at risk. Why?”

  “To save them. That’s the final core at your feet. With that, we can move the devil’s knot.”

  Foster picked up the lifeless bronze head of Fulvus, the distended jaw bent at a terribly unnatural angle. “We’re spread too thin, Zola. We can’t afford more losses. The leviathans are at our gates, and reports of the Eldritch creatures have been heard more than once.”

  “Nixie fought one at Del Morro,” Zola said.

  “Nudd’s balls,” Foster spat.

  “But we know more now,” Zola said. “Once we move the devil’s knot, we know where to begin to claim the cores to grant Damian Gaia’s powers. He spoke to me, Foster. When I used the key of the dead, Damian spoke to me. He’s not gone yet.”

  The fairy closed his eyes and his wings sagged. He took two deep breaths and unsheathed the dagger at his belt. With one swift strike, he lodged it beneath the bloodstone in the metal face of the Old God. One more strike, and the first half came loose.

  Foster let the jagged edges of the bloodstone roll around in his palm. He closed it in his fist and took a deep breath. “Be more careful next time. And be thankful there will be a next time.”

  Zola looked away for a brief moment. “We can’t let anything stop us, Foster. Nothing.”

  The fairy ran his fingers through his hair, but he said no more.

  “You know we don’t have much time, right?” Vicky said. “Gaia said Damian is fading. If we don’t take risks, we’re all going to die.”

  Foster jammed his dagger behind the other eye and popped it out of the Old God’s face. “I know. Nixie sent word. Honestly if she hadn’t, I might not have come here. And you three might be dead.”

  “Camazotz would’ve taken care of the rest,” Luna said. “Once he’s rested, he could bring Nudd down.”

  Foster offered Luna a smile. “I don’t doubt that he could. But can he take on all the eldritch to get to him? The Unseelie Fae? That I don’t know.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9