Wolves and the River of Stone (22 page)

“Why do you follow him, Zachariah? You were a good man.”

“Adannaya ...” Zachariah laughed in a slow rhythm. “Philip is going to change the world. He’s going to cleanse the evil from the earth—the Fae, the wolves, even the humans—they’ll all be gone. Only the necromancers will be left in a glorious world of the dead.” His hand moved by degrees, creeping toward the seam in his robes. If I saw it, I knew Zola did too.

“He’s at Stones River?” Zola said.

Zachariah didn’t answer.

“Damn him.” Zola ran her fingers over the ashen knobs on her cane. “You were a good man.” Zola’s eyes widened slightly as she said,
“Modus Fustisatto!”

Zachariah raised an arm and his mouth formed an O. His arm crumpled and burst into bloody strips of meat as the force of Zola’s incantation hit him. I didn’t hear him call a shield, but one flashed up before the force of the blow could kill him. The shield caught the worst of it and sent him backwards, bouncing off the tip of the earthworks, and tumbling about forty feet into the tree line with a shout.

The vampires and I ran after him. Before we cleared the glen, there was a burst of light like a flash grenade. By the time I could see again, Zachariah was gone. I looked back at Foster. “Can you track him?”

He closed his eyes for a moment and then shook his head. “He’s masked, or teleported, or something, like Philip was. I’ve never felt anything like it before. They’re just
gone.”

Hugh slipped into the woods and looked around. “He’s right. No tracks. The man is gone.”

“It is an old magic,” Aeros said. We all turned to look at the battered demigod. He rubbed his forehead to the sound of crashing boulders. “Those spells were demonic. Only the old ones were disturbed enough to use them.”

“Shit,” Zola said.

Foster turned to her at the same time she looked at him.

“It can’t be,” he said.

“It has to be,” Zola said. “Someone has the arts.”

“No, there’s no path,” Foster said as he gestured at the tree line. “There’s nothing left behind. When the old king used the arts that started the Wandering War, he created permanent wormholes. Yes, they could be sealed, but we can still tell where they are.”

“It wasn’t always so,” Aeros said. “There were others, before the Fae king.”

“Nudd be damned!” Foster kicked a nearby werewolf corpse. “How the hell are we going to counter something like that?”

“You just need to know someone fluent in demonic arts.” My lips pulled up in a devilish grin.

Foster cocked an eyebrow and flexed his wings. He winced and patted the tear in his wing gently before his eyes widened and snapped back to me. “Mike the Demon!”

“Huho!” Aeros said. “You know the fallen smith?” His rocky face smiled.

“We’ve met,” Zola said.

“Quiet!” Hugh said. I followed his gaze to the vampires. All three were tensed in a defensive posture. A minute later I could hear it. Pounding footsteps and heavy breathing in the woods.

A bloody body clothed in boxer briefs crested the hill a moment later. Everyone let out a sigh of relief as Carter came into view. “Look what I found!” he said as he held up the decapitated head of the other Alpha.

I grimaced and said, “Carter, you don’t know where that’s been.”

Zola laughed and a humorless smile crossed Foster’s face as Carter let the head bounce down the embankment. Dominic kicked it like a soccer ball and I suddenly had visions of vampires in shiny shorts. Hugh jogged over to Carter and started looking his Alpha over.

“Enough, we need to find the soulstone,” Zola said. She looked around the piles of earth and dead and frowned. “It’s the whole reason for this ... mess.” She glanced at Aeros. “Can you tell if there’s a soulstone here?”

“I am sorry, Adannaya, but I cannot. They are not of my realm.”

Zola nodded and turned to the vampires. “Dominic, help me dig.”

Sam looked at Dominic and cocked an eyebrow. “Are you going to take that?”

Dominic smiled. “She’s the most powerful necromancer I’ve ever seen in a fight. I’ll pretty much take whatever she wants to give.”

Vik laughed and dragged Sam toward the torch. All three vampires got down on their knees and started tearing up handfuls of earth.

Happy and Vicky came running into the glen. The ghost was giggling and I was glad to see the blood was gone from her arms, though I was still worried what it could mean. Happy ran straight to me and nosed the side of my face.

I smiled and scratched the panda’s chin before turning back to Aeros. “How do you know Mike the Demon? Why did you trust him with the hammer?”

The rocky head ground across his shoulders until he was looking at me. “Ah, that is a story I rather like. Would you like to hear it?” His voice grated together like stones beneath the soil.

I nodded and put my arm over Happy’s neck. I could see Zola in the middle of the vampires, digging with a small spade. I wondered where she’d gotten it until I noticed Hugh digging around in his bundle before he pulled out two more. I laughed and shook my head.

Aeros sat down and I was surprised when the little ghost climbed up to sit on the boulder forming his knee. “I met Mike a fairly long time ago, during the Civil War. Near the time I met your master, in fact. Mike was a very bad man.” Aeros paused and rubbed his stony hand across his chin. “Well, demon, I suppose.”

“From what I know of it, Mike was travelling with a young necromancer in Tennessee. She was just a teenager. She told the army she was a boy and cut her hair short so she could fight in the war. Volunteered with one of Sheridan’s brigades. Seems it was mostly troops from Illinois if memory serves.” He paused and his eyes seemed to unfocus slightly before he looked down at me again. “She was a crafty one, that. She would have to have been to win Mike’s affection. The demon forged a cursed bayonet for her. Even a nick on the skin would kill anything it touched.

“Well, the battle went bad there at Stones River. Many people died in the cornfields, which was not unusual of course, and not something Mike would care about, but ... his little necromancer took a bullet in the chest.” Aeros shook his head and his rocky face frowned. “Something broke inside that demon, boy. In a good way mind you, but he was broken nonetheless. He fought claw and tail to keep the soldiers away from that poor girl. He dragged her into the broken stone trenches they named the Slaughter Pen. In enough numbers though, not even a demon can keep the humans away forever.

“Ah remember,” Zola said as she ran her fingers across the braided rope belt at her waist.

“It is not something I expect to forget,” Aeros said as his gaze shifted from Zola back to me. “Mike’s little necromancer was already dying when two more shots hit her in the thigh.” Aeros looked up at the sky and then down at the circle of torchlight. “She told him he was her friend and made him promise to stop hurting good people.” Aeros laughed and shook his head. “A demon, promising not to hurt people. No matter how long I live, there is always something new.

“Mike held her while she died. I heard him swear the oath. I had seen the demon fall. I gave him back the hammer so he could swear that unbreakable oath. Mike is bound to the hammer now. It gives him power to fight the darker beings in the world, but if he ever kills an innocent, his own hammer will destroy him.”

I watched Aeros for a while as I scratched Happy’s ears. The panda stretched out and laid his chin on his paws.

“That’s so sad,” Sam said. “Did she always fight with the North?”

“Does it matter?” Aeros said. “War is war.”

I yelped as something cold wrapped its arms around my head and said, “Guess who!”

She felt so solid it was hard to believe. I pulled her arm away and turned to find Vicky grinning from ear to ear. She giggled and dove over Happy.

“Zola, what’s going on with Vicky?” I said.

My master stood and brushed her hands together. Her lips curled up into a small smile. “Vicky has become a demigod, Damian.”

“What?” I turned my head toward Happy and stared at the little ghost hugging his neck.

Zola smiled at the small ghost, and then glared at Aeros. “I wonder how
that
happened? Hmm?” I swear Aeros looked nervous and was fighting not fidget. My master can make a pile of rocks nervous. That ... is just ... wrong.

“Yes, well, I think I’ll take my leave, and let you discuss your next adventure,” Aeros said as he stood and bowed goodbye. Vicky waved as a swirl of bluish light rose around Aeros and he sank into the ground in a flash.

“Wow, was he in a hurry?” I said.

Vicky giggled and tugged on Zola’s cloak.

“Yes, dear?”

“My bear wants to go home.”

I thought Foster and the vampires were going to go into hysterics they were laughing so hard. I snorted a laugh of my own and laid down on the grass. Happy nosed the side of my head and I scratched him again. “Now you’re a pet bear, huh?”

Happy lumbered over to Zola and Vicky and nosed the little girl until she climbed up his fur and sat across his back.

“Damian?” Vicky said.

“What’s up, kiddo?”

“I ...” she started, but stopped and stared at her fingers, wrapped up in Happy’s fur.

I stood up and brushed my ass off before I walked over and touched her arm. She felt as real as a living being. It made me fight back a shiver. “You can tell us, we’re all friends here.”

“The bad man with the van.”

My teeth ground together and my fist turned white on my staff. We’d killed a murderer last year. Her murderer. Foster had torn him to pieces and trapped his soul in a dark bottle, a fairy bottle capable of trapping the soul and the aura. We’d come too late for Vicky. She’d been dead long before we found the killer.

“He wasn’t the only one. Elizabeth told me so.”

My arm shook and I tried to stay calm. Vicky didn’t need to see me explode. I heard Foster curse and he started pacing.

Vicky’s face glazed over and her expression was more haunted than any child’s should ever be, living or dead. “I want to kill him.” Her voice had gone black and her aura swirled in a twisted mixture of red and darkness.

“No, Vicky.” I grabbed her chin and held her until she met my eyes. “You’re better than them.”

“Maybe,” she said simply.

Foster stepped up beside Happy and put his hand on Vicky’s leg. “Show me.”

The preteen demigod didn’t even hesitate. She turned to Foster and put her small hands on either side of his face. Her aura brightened, and the darkness recoiled as she touched Foster. His eyes widened and his wings flared, with no hint of pain as his wounds stretched. It would be years before Foster would talk about what he saw in that vision. He gagged and his body shook as Vicky flooded his mind with images that defined horror. When she let go, Foster fell to the ground and took heaving breaths. He looked like he was fighting not to curl up into a ball.

“I ... I know him.” His voice was a quiet whisper.

“Kill him for me,” Vicky said.

Happy barked as their forms and auras collapsed onto each other and they were gone; back home.

Foster was on all fours with his head hanging between his arms. His wings looked limp across his back as he raised his eyes to me. “I know him, Damian. I’ve seen him near the Goth clubs downtown that Colin used to go to. He was one of Colin’s
friends.”
Foster closed his eyes and grimaced. “Colin stopped him from beating a prostitute once. Colin never thought, he always looked after the bastard. I never thought ...” Foster punched the ground and the ground lost.

“Stop,” Zola said. “You cannot save everyone.”

“But Zola,” he said.

She held up her hand. “No. You cannot save everyone. Live with it. Correct what you can, but do not dwell on it.”

Foster sighed as he stood up. “Then he dies.”

“Why did Vicky talk about Elizabeth like it wasn’t her?” I asked. “Like it wasn’t her old name?”

“Because Vicky isn’t Elizabeth anymore, Damian.” Zola rubbed her hands on her face. “Ah think Aeros gave her the power to become a demigod.”

“I thought only a god could grant power to a demigod?”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Zola gave me a meaningful look and I nodded.

Aeros was a god, and a lot of the people around us didn’t know it. A god that apparently still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

I watched Carter push himself off the ground with a grunt. He was still clad in his boxer briefs and I couldn’t suppress a smile. He flexed his right arm, nodded to himself, and looked around at the carnage. He eventually noticed me watching and waved. “Who’s going to clean this up?” he said.

As if on cue, “Oh my
god!”
sounded from the stars above us.

I glanced up to find Edgar and two other suits descending into the wreckage of the glen. I’d love to know how they were able to fly. It was always good for an entrance.

I grinned and looked at Carter. “Cleanup’s here.”

“Vesik! Zeus’s balls, what the fuck happened here!” Edgar’s eyes swept from one end of the glen to the other. I could only imagine what it looked like from above. The entire area was coated in zombies, dead werewolves, dismembered necromancers, with enough blood to feed the vampires for a decade, splintered and burned trees, and literal tons of earth displaced from the battle. I scratched the back of my head and shrugged.