Harsh Gods (40 page)

Thirty feet.

Thunder boomed right on top of me, so loud, it rattled my eyeballs. Half a heartbeat later, another peal erupted inside my head.

THE LAST TIME IT TOOK AN ARMY.

Terhuziel’s “voice” struck with such stultifying force, my field of vision bled to searing white. For one terrifying instant, all I could see were his bitter memories of war—a broad, high temple, stairs rising toward its top. An Eye-of-Sauron view of the fields stretching beyond its walls. The clash and stench of battle, dust of the plain churned thick to rusty mud. Every soldier fallen was another offering to his god.

Mercifully, the vision faded, but I couldn’t keep him out for long.

“Contact goes both ways, asshole,” I muttered.

I called up images of his miserable hobo army—ragged vagrants so damaged they’d had no hope to resist his influence—and launched a mental assault of my own. Pulling up the pain from Fish-Knife Lady’s memories, I shoved until I felt him choke. His fury nearly blinded me again—but while we tangled inside my head, my body flew.

Less than twenty feet.

“Broken minds and broken soldiers for a vicious, broken god,” I spat.

I WILL GRASP THE LIVES WITHIN THIS CITY AND CLAIM THEM FOR MY OWN.

“You sure you have enough hands for that?” I stropped the barb with a clear image of Terhuziel, futilely trying to swat Malphael with his jagged stump. Taunting the angry godling as he bellowed in my mind wasn’t exactly a good idea, but it got the desired result.

The Rephaim flew into a frothing rant, the word-sense of his thoughts degrading into little more than a red haze tinged with rage.

Ten feet.

Five…
and no angry bolts of lightning fried my wings before I could land. He was too distracted. I didn’t flatter myself—I knew it wasn’t just my witty repartee. I only had a small shred of his attention. The bulk of his power was focused elsewhere.

That spelled bad news for Halley.

Time sped by too fast.

I hit the observation deck hard, skidding straight into a wall. I caught the impact on my forearms, unsurprised when the stones squished a little beneath me. On the Shadowside even solid objects lacked rigidity. Time and mortal perception had bequeathed substance, but it was still just an echo.

I started to step through to the flesh-and-blood world, but the division pushed back with unexpected resistance.

Taunting laughter filled my head.

YOU STAND IN MY DOMAIN. IT ALL BENDS TO MY WILL.

I shoved again, calling power to my hands as I sought to shred the barrier.

I couldn’t tear through.

Heart laboring, I fought a rising sense of panic. I’d been on the Shadowside long enough that I was really feeling the burn. Much longer, and I wouldn’t be good to anyone.

CURL UP AND DIE, ANARCH. YOU ARE TOO LATE. THE CHILD OF YOUR TRIBE WILL BECOME MY VESSEL.

I WILL BE REBORN AND I WILL HOLD YOUR SOUL HERE AS YOUR FLESH WITHERS TO DUST.

Terhuziel assaulted me with another wave of harrowing images—only these were from the present, not the past.

That made them even worse.

Halley, shivering in nothing but her hospital gown—how she wasn’t hypothermic already, I couldn’t guess. She thrashed on marble tiles in a vaulted chamber. The severed head of a statue—all that remained of Terhuziel’s ancient idol—lay pressed against her thin chest. Another statue loomed over her, so painted with blood that I barely recognized the visage of James A. Garfield.

Corpses spread at the feet of the statue in an untidy ring—birds, cats, a dismembered toddler. The doctor held a knife. He and another man fought to hold Halley down in the midst of all that half-frozen gore. The knife poised above her, ready to make the fatal cut—but the doctor held back.

A manic surge of relief helped me drive Terhuziel from my mind.

Halley was still fighting. Her mind hadn’t yet fallen.

There’s time—there’s still a little time.

It was both prayer and revelation.

“You can’t break her!” I shouted defiantly into the air. “And you can’t break me!” I drew the twin daggers from their makeshift sheaths, bellowing my Name to kindle my power. It was so much easier than calling the weapons from pure spirit. Light blazed forth, licking up and down the curved blades.

I threw my head back, laughing hysterically as I slashed my way from the Shadowside. I spilled into the flesh-and-blood world in a torrent of fire and steel. My point of entry put me directly behind one of Terhuziel’s goons, leaning over the wall, firing inexpertly at someone on the steps below.

He paused to reload his rifle. It was a single-shot. Break action.

Bad luck for him.

I didn’t look to see who he was trying to shoot. I just lunged forward and let the blades do their work. Their power sang upon the air, a ringing counterpoint to Terhuziel’s cries of frustration.

The first guy went down in a welter of blood and gore. He was dead before he could even scream, but more of Terhuziel’s mind-fucked hit squad still guarded the platform. I counted three.

Blades trailing blue fire, I moved with swift muscle-memory. With sure and practiced motions I slit the throat of a woman who carried a cheap hunting rifle like the kind sold at Wal-Mart. It discharged over the ramparts and clattered to the frozen ground below. She died while still blinking away the arterial spray from the guy next to her.

The woman got out a gurgling cry before jerking out of my grasp to dramatically pitch over the edge of the platform. Her fatal swan dive seemed incredibly slow, blood jetting from her severed carotid to stream like a scarlet banner in the frigid air alongside her.

Time snapped back to its regular pacing when the woman’s body folded around a metal railing set into the stairs far below. The impact tore the structure from its moorings. Her blood painted the snow.

I’ve done this before.

It wasn’t a memory—it was a sick realization, and the moment I stopped the slaughter long enough to consider it, I lost some of my easy momentum.

Terhuziel’s mind surged into mine.

YOU WILL DIE, ANAKIM!!!

The remaining two minions jumped at the call of their master. The first was a rangy guy with bushy rust-colored hair and a beard to match. In his black-and-red checked flannel, he looked like a lumberjack—or a hairy checkerboard. His companion was shorter but half again as broad, with powerful shoulders and a deep chest. He was dressed like he’d been plucked from some arctic expedition, complete with parka and ski mask.

Checkerboard fired wildly with his rifle, clearly unused to its kick. His single shot arced into the sky, well over my head. He fumbled to reload the thing, patting down his pockets frantically before breaking it open to get at the chamber. He dropped the slug. While he scrambled, Ski Mask aimed more carefully. He had a shotgun—single barrel, still cheap as fuck, but definitely not something I wanted pointed at my head.

No time, and no cover—I was just lucky these guys had been set up for range.

Arcing forks of lightning reflected in my blades as I streaked forward in a crouch. Ski Mask struggled to get a bead on me as I zigged left, then right, faster-than-human quick. Each time he readjusted, he hesitated half a second too long. That was no good for me—I needed him to waste the shot. With the weapon empty, I’d be on top of him before he could even break it open to reload.

For a breathless second, I froze. It left me wide open—and that was the plan. The world narrowed to the surge of my pulse and the matte-black barrel of the gun. Ski Mask’s mouth split into a rictus grin, finally sure he had me. Finger twitched on trigger. Before the motion was completed, I threw myself to the ground, hitting the icy stones hard with one shoulder as I tucked and rolled.

A hail of pellets sang over me, tearing stone chips from the far wall. The blast of the shotgun punctuated the desperate fury of Terhuziel’s storm.

Before Ski Mask could even dig for his ammo, I slammed into him, knocking the gun to the ground. With a sweep of my boot, I sent it skittering in the direction of the pellet-scarred stones. Ski Mask stumbled backwards, narrowly avoiding my blades. Beside us, Checkerboard bellowed unintelligibly. He’d never managed to reload. I couldn’t vouch for the state of his brain before Terhuziel sank his hooks in it, but the man had all the reasoning powers of someone lobotomized with a rusty screwdriver. Wildly, he swung his useless rifle at me and I smacked it from his hands.

One problem down.

Unless Terhuziel could magically reload their guns while the two dodged my blades, the weapons were useful only as clubs.

Roaring like a wounded bull, Checkerboard struck out wildly with a haymaker, while the stumpy one tried to get my legs out from under me. I dodged the first but ran afoul of the second, spinning a little as I fought to shove him away and remain standing.

Terhuziel stepped up his game, wrapping power around his soldiers till the speed of their reflexes was a match for my own. Their eyes blazed with borrowed light, and an answering flicker began building around their hands. I lashed out, laying open Checkerboard’s forearm to the bone, but he just kept fighting. Blood speckled the snow, so dark, it looked black. The man’s slack features registered no pain.

Ski Mask still had a few synapses firing, but not many. He danced back from my assault, diving for Checkerboard’s abandoned rifle. He let Checkerboard take a few more hits, tracking my motions with eyes half obscured behind the cold-weather mask.

As he dug through his pockets for ammo, I closed on him again. None of his shotgun shells fit. Wielding the rifle like a truncated staff, he deflected my flurry of blades.

“You think I’m going to give you time to shoot me?”

In answer, Ski Mask lunged forward, swinging the butt of the rifle in an arc toward my head. I caught the blow on the top of my forearm, pivoting my wrist so the bunched muscles took the brunt of the force. Jabbing forward with my left-hand blade, I went for his belly, but he pulled his torso back just far enough so all I tagged was the parka. Down feathers fluttered on the air, drifting slowly to mingle with the snow.

Too late I realized Ski Mask was herding me toward Checkerboard. The storm above us intensified, peals of thunder punctuating the desperation of our fight. The lumberjack wannabe flanked me, a nimbus of electric power crackling around his outstretched hand.

He sought to wrap that hand around me, little jolts dancing painfully between us. Whatever juice Terhuziel was pouring through them required an element of physical contact. Every instinct clamored for me to avoid it at all costs.

Checkerboard’s sparking fingers brushed the leather of my jacket. My whole arm jerked like he’d tased me, and I almost lost my grip on the dagger.

Not good.

He threw all his weight into a grapple, slamming forward to wrap his arms around me. I sidestepped his first pass, but he pivoted immediately at my back. Ski Mask came at me again with the rifle and in deflecting that blow, I spun straight into the other guy.

Checkerboard seized me from behind, closing his arms in an odious bear hug. The initial contact released a stunning jolt of electricity, and he lofted me a foot off the ground. My legs and arms twitched spastically. Both wrists were pinned at my sides, which made my blades next to useless. I thrashed against him, kicking for any purchase. None of my muscles wanted to work right. Ozone prickled the back of my throat.

Ski Mask danced a manic jig.

“Rumble, heavens,” he cried. “Split the sky. Call the power, make him die!” He spewed ugly laughter as I struggled, revealing a mouth bereft of all but three blackened teeth. Raising the rifle like a triumphant standard, he stumbled back from his buddy. The tang of the ozone intensified until I could taste nothing else.

Too close to my ear, Checkerboard grunted his own supplications to the storm god, spittle and beard hair slick against my cheek. The clouds above us contracted, cascades of lightning whipping through their depths.

With desperate strength, I bucked in Checkerboard’s grip, twisting my whole body until I smashed the back of my head into his face. He staggered with the impact and I kicked away just as a bolt of lightning hammered down from the heavens. It lanced straight through the top of Checkerboard’s head. Shrilling like a teakettle through his teeth, he somehow managed to direct it.

Heavenly fire leapt in a deadly arc, seeking me.

The bearded man jigged and twitched as the Thunderer’s rough blessing flowed through him. Triumph and terror both filled his eyes. I didn’t even know if I could block something like that, just brought my blades up with a startled shout.

Fire and electricity clashed in a blinding display.

All that raw power drove against my crossed weapons like a freight train, arcs of electricity snapping angrily from hilt to tip. Ski Mask held his rifle-club poised but didn’t go after me—even lobotomized by Terhuziel’s power, he was too smart to make contact while I wrestled a fucking lightning bolt.

My feet slid by inches as the assault poured forth. Static crackled in waves across my skin. I couldn’t hold this wild power, wasn’t meant to. Even as I thought it, resonant syllables erupted from my throat. With a defiant shout, I managed to turn the electricity from my daggers, hurling the power back to its living lightning rod.

The punishing bolt rebounded, blinding in its intensity. Snapping arcs looped between the deflected stream and the pillar still lancing from the heavens. The human conduit overloaded with the feedback. Smoke erupted from the top of Checkerboard’s head and he was flung back. He landed to flop like a sock monkey against the far wall. Twin scorch marks marred the stones where he had stood.

Thunder god. Right.

I needed to get the hell off the exposed observation deck. Anticipating that reaction, Ski Mask rushed to bodily block the nearest door leading into the tower. He held the rifle across his squat torso, eyes shining like beads of tar through the slits in his mask.