Destroyer Rising (33 page)

“You don’t light fires anymore?”

“Of course we do,” the innkeeper said, filling a
perfectly modern coffee maker on top of the contemporary cabinets.
“Take a seat.” She wandered over to the ancient five-shelf spice
rack and pulled one of the jars off. “Powdered creamer?”

“Black is fine,” I said.

“No no, powdered creamer is my guilty pleasure. None
of that greasy taste left on your tongue like real cream. Try it.”
She sprinkled a bit in each mug and stirred them up.

I stared into the fireplace, remembering the roaring
fire I’d seen there in the past. Had the floor looked like that
back then? I couldn’t remember. Remembering the fire brought my
mind tumbling back into the Burning Lands and the hellish seas
within it.

“It is not so unusual for things to get worse before
they get better,” the innkeeper said as she handed me a steaming
cup of coffee.

I looked away from the fireplace and studied the
green mug. “Lately it feels like all things do is get worse.”

“And imagine if you hadn’t been here to stand in the
way.” She sighed and frowned at me. “And really, you just stormed
the Burning Lands and put an end to the Destroyer. I’d think you’d
be less of a brat right now.”

I barked out a laugh and sipped my coffee. The
creamer took some of the edge off, but it still had a nice bitter
warmth. “You’re way too much like Zola.” I sat the mug down and
glanced at the fireplace. “I’m worried. Vicky’s been asleep since
we got back.”

“How is the Devil’s Knot?”

I looked at the innkeeper.

“Didn’t even check it, did you? Well, if your
sister’s still alive, I’m sure the knot is intact. Ward knows the
price of making mistakes. You picked an excellent craftsman, there.
I’ve seen more than one fool get themselves killed with less
dangerous things.”

“What did the woodsman mean about his mother being
buried here?” I asked, sipping from the cup again. “Did he mean
Gaia?”

The innkeeper nodded. “Gaia has made you an
offer.”

I froze with the steam from the hot coffee tickling
my nose. “How did you know that? Did Camazotz tell you?”

The innkeeper shook her head. “I am … tied to Gaia in
some ways. When the Mad King’s spells push her to act, I am aware
of the compulsion, and I am often aware of what that act will be.
Do you intend to accept?”

I started to say
hell no,
but did I really
mean it? If it meant helping Sam? Keeping my family safe? Could I
really throw out the idea completely? I shrugged. “I’m not sure.
She says it would help me battle the dark-touched, but what would
her awakening mean?”

“She has never awoken. I don’t know, but for her to
leave the post of Guardian in this place, it could have dire
consequences.”

“Doesn’t everything?” I muttered.

The innkeeper’s wrinkled face smiled. “That it
does.”

I took another drink of coffee and leaned back in the
chair. “What about the things the woodsman was talking about? I
don’t know what half of those are. Sharp Elbows? Baykok?”

“If you are lucky, you may never find out. You are
more likely to face the shapeshifters. Have you ever seen a
skinwalker?”

“Considering they’re shapeshifters, I wouldn’t know
even if I did, right?”

The innkeeper frowned and bobbed her head from side
to side. “Perhaps if they were fully shifted it may be difficult.
Here.” She leaned over to a short bookcase against the wall and
pulled out an old leather photo album. “Hugh left this here a very
long time ago, when he was friends with the captain who owned the
home.”

“Werewolf Hugh?”

“Is there another Hugh we both know, you idiot?” she
snapped. The innkeeper cleared her throat and unhooked the two
latches on the edge. Runes ran in a circle on the thick leather
cover and the hinges creaked when she cracked open the photo album.
Her voice resumed its easy cadence. “Now, magic has always had a
place in this home. There is a Nexus beneath us that is tied to a
gateway far older than that of the Wandering War. Magical things
have always been drawn here because of it.”

She flipped through the thick pages, each framing an
old black and white photo in an arched window. The innkeeper
stopped and turned the photo album toward me. I flinched. Even
though it was black and white, the skinless skull and muscled grin
peering out was a nightmare incarnate. The man held his own face in
one hand.

“What the fuck?” I whispered.

“Here.” She turned the page and a cougar’s skin had
been pulled over the skull. The photo next to it showed a twisted
creature in mid-transformation, the cameras of the time far too
slow to capture the movements. She turned the page again, and a
perfectly formed cougar sat in a circle of reeds near a pond.

“They are powerful,” she said. “Their strength goes
beyond the forms they take.”

“How can you even identify them if they’ve already
shifted?”

“There are ways,” the innkeeper said. “Their power
comes from a dark place within the earth, and its magic will look
strange to your Sight.”

“I can’t walk around all day with my Sight up looking
for skinwalkers.”

“No,” the innkeeper said, “and that is what helps
make their camouflage so perfect.”

“And the Nexus?” I asked. “There’s one in my shop,
you know? But we don’t have a sleeping Guardian protecting
it.”’

“It’s not the Nexus here that requires a Guardian. It
is the old gateway, built well before a time when men or Fae
realized how dangerous the gateways could be.”

“Why not destroy it?”

“It cannot be destroyed by any means we know of. It
will outlive the earth, you understand? When there is nothing left
of our world, it will latch onto the bloated sun and let the
Eldritch wander free into our universe. We won’t much care by then,
being dead.

“But the Nexus spawned other gateways around
Missouri, and a few in nearby states. The dark-touched know of
them, and you will have to destroy them.”

“I plan on it.”

“Not the vampires, boy, the gateways themselves. All
manner of vile things can march through those damned things when
the Seals are damaged. We can’t destroy the old gateway here, but
the lesser gateways are vulnerable.”

“Can anything destroy it?” I asked.

The innkeeper paused. “There are things, yes, but if
those creatures ever reached this plane, the gateway would be the
least of your worries.” She sipped at her coffee. “Actually you’d
be dead, so you wouldn’t have many worries at all.”

“What kind of things?” I asked.

“They share some distant lineage with your
dragon.”

“Jasper?”

“No, your other dragon.” She gave me a flat look. I
wondered if she’d taught Zola to make that face. “No one knows.
There have been only two sightings across the realms. One of those
realms no longer exists.”

“How does anyone know it was there if it was wiped
out?”

The innkeeper sighed. “Realms can be observed from
the outside, you know? You don’t have to be standing inside one
when it’s annihilated to know it was annihilated. Did you know
Falias was mostly destroyed by Ezekiel in Faerie?”

“Yes …” I said, looking for the trap.

“Were you there to see it happen?”

I pursed my lips. “No.”

“Indeed.”

“How do you stand just being called innkeeper? Don’t
you want people to use your name?”

“Adannaya warned me about you and your questions. I
should have known, after the last time you came here.”

“I can’t help it,” I said. “It’s so quiet in here.
It’s like I’m remembering all the things I wanted to ask before I
had a small country crammed into my brain.”

She settled back into her chair. “You can thank the
fire demon’s wardstone for that.” She drummed her fingers on the
table. “Very well … I come from a time where a name could get you
killed. Even your master changed her name while she was on the run.
Sarah and …” She frowned. “Whatever the hell Philip was calling
himself back then.”

I turned the coffee mug on the table, trying to frame
a more personal question. “What was Zola like back then?”

“Hard,” the innkeeper said without pause. “Brave,
noble, compassionate. One of the strongest women I ever met. Still
is.” She tapped a finger on her mug. “I’ve seen terrible things in
my life, Damian, some worse than the rise of Falias, though none
that took more lives. I’ve seen tragedies and darkness the likes of
which I hope never scar the realms again, but what she endured?”
The innkeeper shook her head. “No human, no living being, should be
afflicted with that kind of hell. Broken out of her bonds by a
lover who would become a madman? A man she’d have to kill with her
own hands centuries later? If there are Fates among the stars, they
are cruel creatures indeed.”

She took a sip of coffee. “From here, they headed to
Stones River. I think you know how that turned out. Trapping a
demon and losing friends to another, your great-great-grandfather,
in fact, if memory serves.”

The innkeeper looked out the window and sighed.
“Sun’s coming up. You want some food?” She released a quiet, sharp
laugh without looking at me. “Never mind. I’ll whip something up
right quick.”

***

I let my fork clatter down onto the plate, victorious
over a soufflé that should have fed four. “Thank you. I can’t
believe I ate all that.”

“Haven’t eaten much since you got back from the
Burning Lands, have you?”

“I guess not, now that I think about it.”

“Not unusual. The transitions can upset your basic
brain function a bit.”

“As long as it’s not serious.”

The innkeeper smiled. “Not at all.”

I grabbed her plate and stacked it on top of my own
before standing up and walking to the sink.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“You didn’t need to cook,” I said. “I can wash a few
dishes.” I scrubbed out the pots while I stood at the sink,
wondering how many people had stood there over the centuries. How
many had lived in the old house? How many had died here?

“How long have you been here?” I asked, casting a
glance over my shoulder. “I mean, how long have you lived
here?”

“I knew what you meant, boy. I’ve watched over Gaia
longer than I care to admit, but I know my limits. I can’t stop an
army of dark-touched. One day they’ll come, and things will
change.”

I set the last of the plates in the dish rack and
dried my hands. I took a deep breath and asked, “Can we see
her?”

The innkeeper looked me over and glanced at the pack
I’d left on the chair. “Leave your backpack here. I don’t want that
arm any closer to her than it already is. Gods only know what the
Mad King did to it.”

The innkeeper stood up and stretched. “Are you
coming?”

I scrambled to hang up the towel. “Yes!”

I followed the innkeeper outside, stepping onto a
small porch that faced east. A sliver of morning sun washed away
the stars at one edge of the world, while the other edge waited in
darkness. We took the wooden stairs down to the yard, and from
there it was only a few steps to the cellar.

Paint had chipped away from the old wooden door. “Is
it rotten?” I asked, wondering at the damage along the top and
bottom edges.

“No,” the innkeeper said, “it was constructed
hastily. It’s likely the sturdiest thing on this property.” She
pulled the ancient brass key ring off the clip on her belt and
unlocked the door.

The key looked simple, with only a couple teeth at
the end. “Looks like it would be easy to pick.”

She let out a short laugh. “Unlikely. There is a
binding magic between the key and the door. Only if Rivercene is
under attack can that door be opened without the key. You’ll have
to duck.”

The innkeeper picked up a lantern just inside the
doorway. Zola used the same kind down at the cabin sometimes, a gas
light, painted green. She twisted a valve and snapped her fingers.
A spark came to life inside the lantern, and the small bulbs inside
glowed, casting a circle of light around us.

“Close the door behind us, would you?”

I ducked through the doorway and walked down three
stone steps before pulling the heavy door shut until it clicked. A
web of light peeked through the cracks near the top of the door.
The only other light was the lantern’s glow.

“They didn’t make this for tall people,” I said,
trying to keep my hair out of the cobwebs and the critters
scurrying through them.

It felt like we’d barely started walking when the
innkeeper came to a stop and turned slightly to her right. “This is
Gaia.” She gestured to a raised patch of earth.

The shadows resolved the more I stared. It wasn’t
earth. There were feet sticking up near us. Roots bound the body to
the floor, wrapping Gaia multiple times in a faint green magic. Her
face lay hidden in shadow, and her left hand lay palm up. I stared
at her right arm, which ended suddenly, her forearm missing.

The innkeeper walked closer to Gaia’s head.

Even through the gray desiccated flesh I could tell
it was her. The same long flowing hair she wore in the Abyss was
here, only covered in dust and dirt.

“Was she never buried?”

“She was,” the innkeeper said. “They stumbled onto
her back when they were building this place.”

“Why not bury her again? Why leave her out in the
open like this?”

“Oh, they tried. Any more dirt than what you see on
her now will flow away like water. I assume it has something to do
with the Mad King’s magic, but I can’t say for sure. We don’t know
much about the Titans.”

I stepped up beside the body. When I was farther
away, I hadn’t realized how large Gaia’s figure actually was. I
knew she was tall, but now I suspected her body was taller than
that of the woodsman I’d recently met.