Paladin (Graven Gods 1) (26 page)

He wouldn’t hear me, but still I tried, sending the magic pouring out of me into the howling dark…

The flaying power storm abruptly died to a hot wind, then finally ceased altogether. I staggered and almost fell on my ass.

The silence after the roar of her anger almost seemed like its own kind of assault. I looked down at my hands, dreading what I’d see from gripping that burning hilt. To my astonishment, there were no sign of burns at all. Not on my hands, not anywhere. The crisping skin and singeing hair had been an illusion.

“
I couldn’t burn Barbara’s child
.” Eris sighed, sounding weary. Probably tired out from beating the hell out of me. “
And you still wouldn’t give in, no matter what I did to you. I’ll give you this, you don’t lack courage
.”

“
Do you really think my mother would have raised a coward
?”

“
No, I don’t suppose so
.” She fell silent for a long moment while I tried to recover my breath and shake off the effects of the battering. “
You are so much like your mother. Too much so. Otherwise I wouldn’t have tried so hard to get rid of you. Her loss… She reminded me of Aaron, you see. So selfless
.” That last sounded a little bitter.

Wait, she’d damn near killed me because I
wasn’t
a coward?

“
If you expect logic from gods, child, you’re looking in the wrong place. We’re creatures of faith. Faith is never logical
.” After another pause while I fought to recover my breath, she said, “
This plan to save that idiot god of yours is dangerous, you know
.”

I straightened in hope. Had I convinced her after all? “
We can’t just let him go mad, Eris. He’s suffering
.”

“
Did it ever occur to you that he deserves to suffer? Look
at
what he’s doing to you
.” She gave a disgruntled huff. “
He’s taken in too much evil. I’m not sure even I can filter all of that, and even if I could, it would have to flow through you. It could destroy you
.”

I snorted. “
Damn near everything I’ve done tonight could have destroyed me
.”

“
I noticed
.” Eris emitted a bad tempered growl. “
Very well, you romantic idiot, I’ll help you save your god
.” Her mental voice dropped to a mutter. “
Your mother loved that great lout almost as much as she did you
.”

My shoulders sagged, and I sighed in relief. Becoming aware of the pain in my hands, I eased my grip on her hilt one finger at a time as I started looking around for the sheath. I spotted it on the floor, picked it up, and slid the rapier into it.

“Are you all right?” Calliope’s tail lashed in anxiety.

“I think so.” My skull thudded like a drum line, and the room revolved around me a couple of times before steadying. “Everything seems to be working.”
Kind of
.

“Thank the Elder gods,” the cat sighed. “That was entirely too close.”

I gave her a tired smile. “Worked, though. She’s going to help us. Now all I have to do is find Paladin.” I raked one exhausted hand through my hair. “How long was I out of it?” I needed to figure out where he could be.

Calliope’s tail flicked. “About an hour.” She grimaced, as if at an unpleasant memory. “Which you largely spent screaming, by the way. Listening to you was one of the ugliest experiences in a very long life full of ugly experiences.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t exactly a party from my end either.” I rubbed my forehead in frustration. “How the hell am I supposed to find him?”

“You could always try his cell.”

“Damn, why didn’t I think of that?” I started to reach into a pocket, only to remember it wasn’t that easy. Just like everything else tonight.

Calliope figured out the problem about the same time I did. “Oh, hell. Paladin doesn’t have a phone.”

“And if he does have one, it belonged to Valak. Can you imagine the calls he’d get?”

“Eeeeewwww.”

“Exactly.” I slumped. “How the hell am I going to find him before he does something to himself or someone else?”

“Well, you two have been psychically linked for the last twelve years. Try to sense him.”

It was worth a shot. I closed my eyes and tried to quiet my racing mind. Remembering the calming technique Paladin had taught me, I pulled in a deep breath and held it, then blew it out slowly. I breathed that way for a few minutes until my panic began to ebb and I could concentrate enough to reach for my magic. “
Paladin
?”

Nothing. I poured more magic into the probe and pictured his handsome face, letting my need fuel the search.

And there he was, a blaze of dark power just a few blocks to the southwest. I tried to touch his thoughts, but his only answer was a roar of fury.

Paladin was in combat. I had to get to him, and I had to do it before he killed somebody.

I went to a cabinet, jerked the door open, reached in, and snagged my mother’s sword harness off the hook. It was only as I attached the sheathed weapon and buckled it on that I realized I’d known exactly where the harness was. I hadn’t had any idea a moment before.

“
You have more power than you realize, and more knowledge than you know
,” Eris said in my mind. She answered my next question even as it occurred to me. “
I can touch your thoughts as long as you’re in contact with me
.”

I could touch hers, too. I felt how desperately she’d craved human contact these many years, and how much she’d missed Mom. I also felt her sense of failure that she’d been unable to save her in the end.

Damn
. Eris had blamed herself for my mother’s death more than she’d ever blamed Paladin. She’d only rejected him because he reminded her of her failure and loss. In fact, even as she’d attacked me, she’d desperately wanted me to prove myself worthy. But she was equally determined to keep her power out of the hands of anyone who might misuse it.

I had been afraid partnering with Eris was going to be a nightmare -- that she was such a flaming bitch she’d be hell to deal with. Instead there was a basic decency to her, just as there was in Paladin.

“
Don’t assume I won’t give you hell if you deserve it
,” the goddess told me. “
I may have gotten bored, but I haven’t gone soft
.”

“Well, nobody ever called you the goddess of warm and fuzzy.” I headed for the study door and stepped out into the wine cellar, Calliope at my heels.

“Did you get a lock on him?”

“Yeah. He’s a few blocks to the southwest. Feels like he’s in a bar brawl or something. I can’t get through to his mind, but I’m pretty sure I can find him.”

The cat darted out of the way, and I pivoted the wall to conceal the study again. There were far too many magical weapons in that room to leave the door unlocked.

I took the stairs two at a time, Cal bounding ahead of me. “I’m going with you,” she told me.

I hesitated. “Actually, I think I’d better go by myself. Paladin and I need to have a long talk in private.”

The cat’s ears rotated back, and the tip of her tail flicked once. “I hope you don’t think you can start leaving me at home every time you go off to fight. I
am
a cat goddess, not to mention your familiar. And I can hold my own.”

“Plus you turn into a giant death kitty.” I sighed as she glared up into my face, not mollified at all. “Look, I know you can fight. If you couldn’t, Mom and Dad certainly wouldn’t have used you as our bodyguard when we were growing up. But Paladin is not going to hurt me, and with all the Valakans dead I’m not likely to run into something I can’t handle.”

“They’re not the only bad guys in this city. Wherever there are Demis and magic, there are going to be assholes to prey on them.”

“True, but we’re in for at least a couple of weeks of peace before the asshats show up. And I do need to talk to Paladin alone. There’s a lot of shit we’ve got to hash out.”

Her right ear flicked restlessly. “All right. But you tell him if he hurts you, he’s going to answer to me.”

“He’ll answer to me first. I’m not helpless, Cal.”

“Now, that’s the Elder Gods’ own truth -- just ask Valak. Go bring our boy back.” On a mutter she added, “The idiot.”

To my surprise, the Kia sat in the drive. Evidently some kind Demi had dropped it off, since we’d left it at the Demifair. Whoever it was must have magically hot-wired it, since I still had the keys. Either way, I was grateful. I’d thought I’d have to call an Uber.

Instead I got in my car and followed the sense of boiling rage that led to Paladin.

* * *

It wasn’t hard to find the bar he’d chosen for his drunken brawl. It was Zap, the bar once beloved by Valakans.

Which was now surrounded by patrol cars, parked with their doors hanging open and lights revolving.

Oh shit
. I parked in a fire zone, despite the likelihood of getting a ticket with all the cops around. Flinging the door open, I jumped out and ran toward the building, casting a quick spell to camouflage the sword hanging diagonally across my back. Otherwise, the weapon was guaranteed to get me arrested. This might be an open carry state, but that didn’t apply to giant butcher knives. I was about to get in enough trouble as it was.

I strode into the bar, only to stop short in dismay. It looked like every redneck and cop in Graven County was in Zap. And each and every one of them was trying to kill the others with bare hands and beer bottles.

Oh, fuckety fuck fuck
. I scanned the heaving, cursing crowd until I spotted a knot of blue backs struggling desperately with someone in the middle of the pile.

One of the po-po went flying, somersaulted over the walnut bar, and vanished behind it with a thud. For a moment I spotted Paladin’s rage-contorted face as he struggled with the shorter cops.

“Hell,” I growled and headed toward him, weaving my way around drunken brawlers when I could, knocking them out of the way when I couldn’t. For the first time, I found myself using my strength in a situation where I wasn’t fighting for my life.

A brawny redneck took a swing at me, apparently seeing me as an easy target. I pivoted out of the way as smoothly as Jackie Chan, then stepped in again and popped him in the face. He went down like a sack of cement. I stepped over him and headed for Paladin.

From the corner of one eye, I saw a man’s body flying at me. I caught him in midair. He felt as if he weighed no more than a basketball as I dropped him on the floor and kept going. I gave him a quick scan, just in case, but I hadn’t hurt him.

I reached the crowd of cops just as Paladin broke free. He had at least two sets of Taser leads stuck in his big body, but the electricity had done nothing whatsoever to even slow him down. A bruise decorated one handsome cheek, and his mouth was curled in a snarl as he elbowed one of the cops in the mouth.
Ouch
.

Which was when one of the po-po stepped back and drew his gun.

Suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore. The spell I needed leaped to mind -- something Paladin had left behind in my head -- and I fired a sleep spell at the cop. He slumped to the floor, the weapon tumbling from his hand.

Now if only I could do the same to everybody else in the room. Unfortunately, the fight with Eris had taken a toll on my magical reserves. I needed more juice than I could generate by myself.

Drawing the rapier in a hurried hiss of steel, I pointed Eris at the ceiling. The spell I chanted grew stronger as it burned up the sword’s gleaming length, then exploded over the room with a rolling crackle and the sharp scent of ozone. Everybody in the room collapsed, out cold.

Everybody, that is, but Paladin. He stared at me in shock, the frenzied rage fading from his eyes.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I gritted in frustration. “Do you really have to take your bad mood out on a bunch of innocent human cops?”

“They’re not innocent,” he snapped back. “They attacked me.”

“Probably because you were kicking somebody’s ass, and the bar had to call them.”

He opened his mouth for a hot reply. Then his eyes widened. “Elder Gods… Is that
Eris
?” To my relief, his fury drained, replaced by appalled shock.

“Yes, damn it.” I started to slide the sword back into her sheath, then had to fumble when I couldn’t find the opening of the leather scabbard.

“That’s not how you do it.” He started toward me, reaching for the weapon. “Here, let me…”

I pulled Eris out of reach. “I wouldn’t. She’s still holding a grudge.” I finally fumbled her back into her scabbard.

“Then why is she here? Did you talk her into helping?”

“Eris? Please.” I snorted. “I had to prove myself.”

He swore, and I felt encouraged at the indication he’d really snapped out of it. “How could you take a chance like that? She could’ve killed you!”

“Well, she didn’t. Not that she didn’t give it some thought, but apparently she was sufficiently bored to let me live.” I looked around at the bar, sweeping a quick magical scan over the crowd. Nobody appeared to be seriously hurt, though from the looks of things a lot of people were going to be nursing bruises for the next several days. “Let’s get out of here and let all these nice cops regain consciousness.”

I turned, and Paladin followed me out, weaving around tumbled furniture and stepping over snoring bodies. Pausing in the doorway, I drew Eris again just long enough to dissolve the sleeping spell. Somebody groaned, and we ducked out.

“You really have mastered that sword,” he said as we walked into the parking lot.

“I wouldn’t say
mastered
. More like
recruited
.”

We made our way to my Kia, sitting demurely in the fire lane. Paladin gave me a
gimme
gesture. “Keys.”

“I don’t think so. You have the anger control issues of the Incredible Hulk right now.”

“I’m fine, nerd-girl. Give them here.”

I hesitated a moment more before tossing him the keys. “Control freak.”