Destroyer Rising (16 page)

“Is me.”

The demon nodded. “If you channel through the Pack
Marks, you should be able to reach Hugh.”

I looked around the Burning Lands. There were no ley
lines here. “Channel what?”

“Souls.”

The thought made me shiver. Intentionally channel a
soulart through my pack marks? I cursed and crossed my arms.

“It is the fastest way,” Mike said. “We have ten
hours at most before darkfall.”

Ten hours. It sounded like a lifetime. I looked at
Vicky as she ran her hands through Happy’s fur. Ten hours until
that girl might vanish into the creature known as the
Destroyer.

I raised a fist to my chest. “Then we have to
try.”

“Use us,” Maggie said. “We can lead the others if
Carter’s connection is strong. Take my hand.”

I wanted to say no. I wanted to say no fucking way in
hell would I ever do anything to hurt them again, but if we failed
… if the Destroyer claimed Vicky …

I slammed my palm onto Maggie’s. She took one of
Carter’s hands and Jimmy took the other.

“Ready?” I asked.

The three wolves nodded in an eerie unison. I laid my
fingers on the curved line of pack marks on my left forearm. All I
had to do was
think,
and the scars glowed. Knowledge I
shouldn’t have had flowed into my consciousness, and I understood
exactly what to do.

I pulled on Carter’s soul first, and his body
stiffened. I wrapped a thread of that golden light around my arm
until it touched every scar Hugh had left on me. Maggie’s came
next, and then a small piece of Jimmy’s. Only small pieces, so
small that no one would be hurt.

My mind opened to the roar of souls trapped within
me, but instead of bringing me to my knees, they flowed freely into
the pack marks. I felt the Seal as my consciousness passed through,
trailing into the Abyss until it locked onto a golden star in that
black infinity.

The world collapsed onto itself, and Hugh was
suddenly there, looking as if he were a brilliant golden member of
the Ghost Pack. He stared at me, his eyes wide.

“Damian? You are supposed to be inside the Burning
Lands.”

“I am.” I heard the words echo as though we huddled
inside a cavern. I concentrated on the ghostly shadows behind Hugh,
and the werewolf den on Howell Island came into focus. Hugh stood
before the square sectional couch, a monstrous shadow waiting
behind him.

“Is Alan there?” I asked.

He glanced over his shoulder and nodded. “You cannot
see him?”

I shook my head. “Can you see Carter, or Maggie or
Jimmy?”

“Barely,” Hugh said. “I cannot hear them. How can
this be?”

“We don’t have time.” I rambled at the wolf, crashing
through the theory of the Timewalkers, what we needed to bind Vicky
to one, how we needed a volunteer, why we needed Ward, and how
close the Destroyer was to taking everything away.

“How long?” Hugh asked.

“Ten hours until darkfall. I still have to find the
tenth circle, and Prosperine herself.”

Hugh sighed, and a wave of emotion hit me like a
truck. A wave of despair rolled over me before acceptance became
determination. “Carter and Maggie and the others … they have
already agreed to this?”

“Yes.”

“I will not dishonor him by contradicting his
decision, but his loss will be immeasurable.”

My heart sank. I knew it would, but we were out of
time, out of options.

Hugh flinched and held out a hand. “Damian, I can
feel your thoughts. It is … you are blinded by anger.”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to lose them,
Hugh. I don’t want to lose anyone. I’m not blinded. I’m
focused.”

Hugh shook his head. “How you can live balanced upon
such turmoil inside your mind … you need calm.”

“Once Prosperine is dead, we can talk about
that.”

“So be it. You hunt a devil in its own realm, Damian.
Beware the world around you.” Hugh frowned and leaned on the couch.
“We will find a volunteer. I know what saving the girl means to
you, and I know what failing means for the rest of the world. How
will you return here for them?”

“I will take you to them when the time is right,”
Mike said. I couldn’t see the fire demon, but his voice filled the
void.

I nodded. “Mike will bring me over.” Mike had once
offered to send me into the Burning Lands. I had little doubt he
could walk me out of them.

“How long do I have to gather everyone?”

“No more than four hours,” Mike said. “The journey
may take as long.”

“Four hours,” I said, watching Hugh’s golden spirit
before me. “You have four hours at most.”

“We will be ready.”

The connection vanished. Had Hugh broken it? My
consciousness spilled back through the Abyss, crashing through the
damaged Seal, and finally smashing into my skull on the stones of
the Burning Lands. I cracked an eye open and sat down hard.

The Burning Sea churned and spun below me. It felt as
though I had an icepick lodged in my eye.

“That was … unsettling,” Carter said, rolling his
neck and flexing his arm.

“I couldn’t move,” Jimmy said. “What was that?”

“That wasn’t normal?” I asked, holding one eye closed
against the brutal headache. “I could feel emotions coming off of
you, and Hugh.”

“Then you know our determination,” Maggie said. The
pain began to subside as she patted my shoulder. “And no, this was
not the same. We couldn’t move, or speak.”

“You’ve all returned,” Mike said. The surprise in his
voice told me this might not have been the safest way to go about
things. Bubbles nestled in beside me, her black snout sniffing at
my arm.

When the pain in my eye receded, I noticed the
burning sensation beneath her nose. I held up my arm and stared at
the smoldering pack marks. “What the hell?”

A warm puff of air blew my hair back. I glanced up to
find Jasper in his full dragon form, looming over me.

“Uh, hi.”

He leaned down and sniffed at the scars. Shiawase
stood beside him with his hand on his sword, having abandoned the
form of the panda.

“I told you he’d be fine,” Vicky said.

“We could not be sure, little one,” the samurai
said.

“What happened?” I asked.

No one answered.

“What?” I snapped. “Tell me.”

Sarah stepped forward, leaving Mike’s side to crouch
down beside me. “It looked like you were becoming a gravemaker,
only instead of looking like a dead tree, your skin turned to black
obsidian.”

“What?” My voice shrank. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said. It started at your fingers.” She
traced a line, just above my skin, from my fingertips up my arms.
“I could see it inching up your neck before the souls poured back
into you.”

Mike and Vicky nodded at Sarah’s description. I
looked up at Jasper. “You were going to eat me if went crazy,
huh?”

The dragon sniffed and cocked his head to the side.
Bubbles growled. Jasper collapsed in on himself until only the gray
furball remained. He took up residence on my shoulder once more,
staring down the cu sith.

“Stop it, you two,” I said, putting a hand on the cu
sith’s snout. I scratched her ruff and she laid her head on my leg,
almost burying me beneath her floppy ears.

“Then it is agreed?” Shiawase asked. “Our goal is the
tenth circle?”

“We don’t have time to get all the way there before
darkfall,” I said. “I’ll be taking a shortcut later with Mike. For
now, we need to get you across the Burning Sea.”

“Quickly,” Mike said, “for darkfall is upon us.”

I followed his gaze up to the crimson sun. A ring of
black outlined it, a shadow over the world’s light.

Shiawase offered me his hand and pulled me to my
feet. “What now?”

The Burning Sea didn’t look lower. If anything it
appeared to be higher on the cliff side now. “I guess I try my hand
at bridge building.”

“You’re in no condition for that,” Mike said. “If you
disable yourself, the battle is already lost.”

“If I don’t have my friends at my side, the battle is
already lost.”

The demon said more, but I didn’t hear him. The roar
of the seas below and the hum of the land around me drowned his
words as my necromancy crawled forward and spread out across the
cliff. A world full of the dead, a world at my beck and call.
Ezekiel should have moved here instead of trying to kill off
humanity.

I thought of the old bridge that crossed the Missouri
River by the shop. I held that image in my mind. I’d walked by it
more times than I could count, and I’d stood beside it. I’d buried
bodies beneath it with Foster.

Earth flowed forward and a golden trickle of souls
flowed with it. The bridge arced out several feet before a pylon
shot down into the Burning Sea. It continued like that, chaff and
earth oozing across the bridge, the unfinished edge rolling slowly
forward. Pylons and roadways and framework shot up all around us
until the earth stopped moving.

I blinked, and the bridge was there. It was a dark,
black, ominous thing, wider than we could possibly need. I stared
at my hands. I wasn’t channeling anything. The bridge still stood.
The fiery waves below us lapped at the structure without
effect.

“The Old Man taught you well,” Mike said.

“He didn’t teach me that,” I whispered. “No one
taught me that.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a god now?” Vicky asked.
“It seems like building a bridge shouldn’t be such a big deal. Come
on, let’s go.”

I watched her run past Sarah at the edge of the
bridge, and step out on it. The expanse dwarfed her to an almost
comical degree, but there was nothing funny in my mind. This was
insanity. The bridge had to be miles long.

“Are you going to make me walk?” Vicky asked as
Shiawase stepped up beside me.

“It is times like this I am reminded why I did not
have children.” His hands widened and bloated before his body
shimmered. The bear trundled forward, chasing the giggling little
girl, the demon destined to become the Destroyer.

I clenched my fists and followed them.

***

“This is amazing,” Carter said, touching the bridge
as we walked. “You even made hand railings.”

I didn’t understand how I’d done it, and that fact
unnerved me. Jasper stayed on my shoulder, and I wasn’t sure if he
wanted to be close, or if he was planning on eating me if things
went south.

Bubbles stayed beside Carter. Apparently all it took
for her to like werewolves was for them to be ghosts. I’d have to
tell Alan the good news.

Something is following us.
Happy’s Guardian
voice boomed out across the bridge, rattling through my head.
It
is distant, but it is there.

Mike looked at the sky. “We’ve been walking close to
an hour. We need to move faster. I don’t think we’re more than
halfway yet.”

The thought of jogging was brutal. The heat rising
from the Burning Sea was intense, humid, and threatened to sap our
energy in a heartbeat. I took a deep breath and lifted my legs a
little higher, stretching them out into a slow jog.

I managed maybe fifteen minutes before the sweat and
heat bogged me down. I stumbled to a slower walk and cursed.

Sarah matched my pace. “Are you okay?”

I glanced at her. It was still jarring to see the
dark brown hair and green eyes instead of the ghostly shadow I’d
grown used to. “I’m fine. Just hot.”

She pulled at her cloak and blew out a breath.
“You’re telling me. I didn’t have to worry about that before. Now
I’m a puddle.” She stayed silent for a moment and then whispered,
“It’s nice to feel again. Thank you.”

I gave her a weak smile. “I don’t know exactly what I
did.”

“Some part of you did at the time. I think you’re
tapped into an ancient Nexus.”

I frowned. “Like a ley line Nexus?”

“A bit, but not really. One of the old witches I knew
before Mike found me used to talk about it. He said there was a
vast mind wrapped around all that was. We only needed the door to
find it.”

I groaned. “Sounds like he would have gotten along
fabulously with Zola.”

Her steps hesitated before she shook her head. “He
was fond of slavery. He would have fought for the South in the
war.” She looked behind us, and then turned her gaze to the road
ahead. “I knew good people who fought for the Confederacy, Damian.
He was not a good man.”

“Are they still behind us?” Carter asked, drawing me
out of the conversation with Sarah.

Yes.
Happy slowed ahead of us, Vicky
straightening from a deep crouch on his back.

“Should we hunt it down?” Jimmy asked.

“No,” Mike said. “We have no time.”

“Jasper,” I said.

The furball on my neck perked up and chittered.

“Go see what’s chasing us.” I held my hands out and
he jumped into my palms. A vision flashed into my mind, of me
throwing him off the bridge so he could swoop down below us without
being seen.

I doubted he would be concealed entirely, but I
followed the vision he’d shown me anyway. A trail of loose gray
fluff followed him over the side until his form exploded into the
monstrous reptile and he swooped toward the Burning Sea.

“What’s he doing?” Maggie asked.

“Recon,” I said. “I want to know what’s following us.
He can catch up easily enough.”

We stayed at a brisk walk for another fifteen
minutes. I kept looking for Jasper, but I saw nothing. Bubbles
walked the bridge in front of me, growling and sniffing at every
little bump in the bridge. It was unnerving, at best.

“We are at the seventh fortress,” Mike said. “The
trials here are unique.”

“Should we just climb up on Jasper and fly over?” I
asked. “Seems easier.”

Mike shook his head. “There are terrible spells above
the walls to prevent that. Everything from the Burning Sea on is no
place for reckless speed. You will see, inside here.”