Ride the Storm

by Karen Chance

  What had to be a couple dozen boiled pigs’ feet slapped us in the face as we barreled through the man’s big metal cauldron and kept right on going. Right at a bunch of kids who had been playing in the street, but who were now just standing there, mouths hanging open. Probably because they’d never seen a burning, speeding bed before.

  I grabbed Rosier, who was trying to free himself by pulling the footboard apart, where it had been scored the deepest. “Shift! Shift!”

  “Would you give me a minute?”

  “No! Do it now!”

  “We can’t do it now! We’re not clear yet!”

  I didn’t ask clear of what, because there wasn’t time. I grabbed his head and forcibly jerked it up, pointing at the kids. “Now!”

  Rosier’s eyes got big, maybe because we were close enough to see the whites of theirs, and he gave a little screech—

  And the next second, we were back in the Shadowland.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I’d never been so glad to be in hell before.

  Until a virtual hail of swords clanged off the bed frame from in front, hard enough to dent it. And a bunch of fireballs lit up the sky from behind. And the only question was, which group was going to kill us first?

  The answer was neither, because we abruptly shifted back to earth again, Rosier shrieking and the bed burning and now sword-riddled, and speeding more than ever because it had just gotten renewed life from its brief stint on the hill from hell.

  A lot of life.

  Like a Mach 2 amount of life, or maybe that was just the impression conveyed by all the shrieking. And the clackity, clackity, clackity of the cobblestones. And the neighing.

  Neighing?

  We burst out of the pedestrian-only street, which I guess had been closed off for the market, into one filled with horses and carriages and buses and—

  And then our luck ran out. Or maybe it was the horse’s luck. I don’t know. I just know that I saw a flash of rearing horse belly and flailing hooves and the screaming white face of a cabbie. And then we were careening off course and heading straight for—

  Well, crap, I thought, as the fetid stench of the Thames hit my nose, right before we broke through a barrier and took a flying leap—

  Back into hell.

  The bed hit down from maybe six feet up, hard enough to bounce me back up to the point where we’d flashed in, before I smacked down on top of Rosier.

  Who dumped me onto the side of the street with a breathless snarl.

  I just sat there for a minute, clinging to the now stationary bed. We’d passed down the hill and almost made it to the top of another, and the angle plus the bounce seemed to have absorbed our momentum. We weren’t moving.

  We weren’t moving!

  I stared around, half disbelieving. I was so dizzy that the street still felt like it was undulating beneath me. But it wasn’t, and that was good. And the lack of swords and fire and mayhem was even better.

  It looked like the crazies had dispersed while we were gone, either following us back to earth or spreading out around the area. Because all I saw were dark, vaguely modernish buildings, like a back alley in a normal city. Because the Shadowland pulled images from your own mind to cover up whatever the heck it actually looked like.

  But the illusion only went so far, because a very unearthly wail suddenly rent the air.

  My head jerked around. “What was that?”

  Rosier didn’t answer.

  I looked up to see him frozen in place, dirty knees on the bed and the sword he’d pulled out of the footboard clutched in both hands. And staring in apparent dumbstruck horror at something down the street. I looked back around, but there was nothing there.

  Except for another haunting, skin-ruffling howl that had me clambering back onto the bed really fast.

  It came again, and our heads whipped around in unison, looking at nothing some more, because the top of the hill was in the way. And then it came from the left. Or maybe the right. Or maybe—

  I couldn’t tell. The buildings were closely packed and tall enough to act as an echo chamber. Which wasn’t fun when the echoes were like these. The horrible sound came again, closer now, and I felt all my skin stand up, preparing to crawl off my body and go find somewhere to hide.

  I seconded the motion and grabbed Rosier. “What is that?”

  “Hellhounds.”

  “And those are?”

  “Well, what does it sound like?” he snarled, and finally, finally, he was back with me. White and shaking, but back. Angry and scowling, but back. Chained to the bed, but back.

  I shook him some more anyway. “So take us somewhere else!”

  “Like where?”

  “Like anywhere!”

  “I’m not you! Without a portal, I can only take us back to earth—”

  “Okay!”

  “—and I am chained to a bed, in case you didn’t notice. An iron bed—”

  “So?”

  “—and we were headed for a river! I will drown.”

  Damn it!

  “Then give me the sword!” I tried to grab it, but he jerked it away.

  “It’s our only weapon—”

  “I know that—I just want to get the cuffs off you. Will you listen?”

  But Rosier wasn’t listening. Rosier was freaking out again. Maybe because those sounds were suddenly a lot closer, and there were more of them, and they were coming faster now, a baying pack of something that had picked up a scent it liked—

  “Give me the damn sword!” I yelled.

  “Get your own!”

  And then a terrifying howl almost on top of us caused him to drop it.

  We both went for it, but he grabbed it first, and I grabbed—

  God, I thought, as something gelatinous and porky oozed up through my fingers.

  And then it was too late.

  A giant head appeared over the hill. And for a second, I thought it was the hill. Because it rose out of nothing, like all the darkness in the world had decided to congeal in one place. One great big slavering freakishly huge place. I’d seen houses smaller than that, only houses didn’t have evil yellow eyes and an enormous drooling maw and weren’t jumping for us—

  And then stopping, halfway through the motion. And gulping and swallowing. Because I had reflexively thrown the pig foot I’d been holding, like that was going to help somehow.

  Only it had.

  The hound had stopped and was just standing there, steaming and black and blocking the view of everything with its enormous face.

  Which was suddenly in mine.

  The breath could have stopped traffic for a ninety-mile stretch. Drool was drip, drip, dripping onto the bed linens in slimy strings. Eyes bigger than my head were reflecting the still-burning fire, along with a vision of my body as I slowly, slowly, slowly bent down. And picked up another foot. And held it out—

  And felt a wash of hot breath over my arm, which was somehow raising goose bumps anyway, maybe because my skin was still trying to get the hell out of there. And then a tongue, big and heavy as a rug, wrapped around my flesh. And withdrew, along with the tiny, tiny offering, but not with the arm itself, because I guess I didn’t compare with good old pork.

  And really, what does? I thought hysterically. If I had bacon, I could probably make him fetch—

  Rosier grabbed my arm, his fingers like a vise. “Get. On. The. Bed.”

  “I . . . am on the bed.” Well, I was pretty sure.

  “Oh.”

  He snaked a leg off the side and gave a little push. I felt the hell wind start to ruffle my hair as we started down the hell road with the hellhound shaking the street behind us, while I lobbed pig foot after pig foot into its gaping maw. It didn’t miss a one.

  Until the darkness overhead suddenly congealed into
a second hound, even larger than the first, which went for its throat. And then another crowded the street, which was almost too small to hold them despite being big enough for a couple city buses to pass each other with room to spare. But hellhounds are not buses and there was no room here, and that was before the council’s guards decided to show back up, running up the hill toward us.

  And abruptly turning and running back the other way as we began picking up speed, the night boiling behind us, all black smoke and sleek, shifting fur and firelit eyes.

  And sailing pig feet, because I was throwing them both-handed now.

  “Put out your hands!” I told Rosier frantically.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean no,” he said, grunting and straining, trying to break through the damn Victorian ironwork, which must have been forged in the same factory where they made tanks if they had tanks. I didn’t know. I just knew it wasn’t freaking budging.

  “That isn’t working!” I yelled the obvious.

  “You can’t throw those things and get these damn cuffs off me at the same time!”

  “And when I run out? What then?”

  “You’re not going to run out. As soon as we get far enough to clear the river, I’m going to shift us back!”

  I blinked. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay! Sounds like a plan.”

  A slight bit of color came back to his face. “Yes, okay.” He grinned at me suddenly, wide and relieved and startlingly like the younger version of his son for a second. “Okay! We’ll do that!”

  I nodded.

  And then the street erupted in fire.

  Chapter Three

  “It was a good plan,” Rosier said.

  “It was.” I ate pork.

  “The Victorians weren’t the most hygienic of sorts,” he told me, eyeing my last trotter.

  “They boiled it.”

  “And we carried it through hell.”

  “It was on a bed,” I pointed out. “It didn’t get anything on it.” Except for a few fuzzies.

  I picked one off and kept eating.

  “I don’t know how you can eat with that stench down there,” he said, peering over the ledge we were sitting on, and glaring malevolently at the Thames.

  It was shining under a full moon, which was glistening off the water. And off the streets, because it must have rained while we were gone. Time worked differently in the hells, so that might have been anything from a couple hours to a couple days. But whatever it was, it had left Victorian London looking almost pretty, with roiling gray clouds and shining streets and fresh air because the rain had washed the coal dust away.

  We were sitting on the edge of what I called Big Ben and Rosier called the Clock Tower, overlooking the city. It wasn’t a choice; I was feeling a little clearer-headed, but not enough to shift back yet, which was why I was eating. It seemed to help.

  “I don’t know how you can smell anything with no nose,” I said.

  “I have a nose.”

  “You don’t even have a body.”

  It was true. The mages had shown up, unseen by us, and collectively lobbed a spell we hadn’t noticed until it nuked the air around us. Rosier had thrown himself over me and shifted us back to earth, all at the same time, and in doing so had saved my life.

  And lost his.

  Well, his body, anyway. Fortunately, a demon lord’s spirit is a bit sturdier, meaning that he could generate a new one . . . eventually. In the meantime, I was used to hanging out with ghosts, so the fact that I could see the city through the shimmering veil of my companion’s form didn’t wig me out too much.

  Unlike his sacrifice.

  I knew he’d only done it because he needed me, but still. I couldn’t figure Rosier out, and it bothered me. Half the time, he was oh, so easy to hate, a rotten, self-centered, narcissistic asshole I could have cheerfully pushed off the ledge if it would have done any good. But the rest . . .

  The rest of the time I just didn’t know.

  But at least his current form was too dim for Gertie to sense, so we were enjoying the view unmolested, if not the noise. The huge mechanism was tick, tick, ticking, almost in sync with my heart. This close, it was uncomfortably loud, like it was yelling hurry, hurry, hurry.

  “How much longer do you think we have to save Pritkin?” I asked Rosier, after a minute.

  “A day. Maybe two. No more.”

  I didn’t say anything, but he shot me a glance.

  “There’s time.”

  I laughed suddenly, and it hurt, because my throat was sore from screaming. One of these days, just once, I’d like to be the cool action figure type, like in all those movies. The one who casually walks away when a building is exploding right behind her, instead of shrieking and ducking for cover and possibly wetting her pants.

  Of course, I’d always wondered how many of the people who made those movies had ever been in an explosion. Had felt the heat, smelled the smoke, and thought for a second their eardrums were going to rupture from the noise. And been sure that they were about to be burned alive any second now.

  Like Rosier had been.

  For me.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, “sitting” on the ledge. Meaning his butt was hovering a couple inches over the top of it.

  I glanced at him. “Time. I’m supposed to be master of it, but there never seems to be enough.”

  “Strange. I usually feel the opposite. But then, I’ve never been human.”

  “Try being Pythia. I’m expected to know . . . so much. Just so much. It’s . . . overwhelming sometimes.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “Like what?”

  I hesitated, because I hadn’t expected him to ask. But it wasn’t like it was a secret. It wasn’t like the whole damn supernatural community didn’t know anyway. “Like everything. Like how to use the Pythian power with no one to teach me. The stuff you’ve seen Gertie do? I can’t do half that—”

  “And yet where are you and where is she?”

  I shook my head. “And even if I could, even if I ever get this stuff down, that doesn’t scratch the surface. I’m supposed to know a couple thousand years of supernatural politics when I don’t even know everybody’s name yet. And to make up for a lifetime of magical training when I can’t even do a proper protection spell. And to understand everything about the vamp world, including how to deal with the senate, when I grew up at the court of the vamp version of Tony Soprano! There’s no time!”

  “I know,” Rosier said calmly.

  “You know?” I adjusted my position so I could see his face again. “How do you know?”

  A ghostly eyebrow rose, in an elegant arch. “How do you think it was for me? I went from carefree, bachelor prince to beleaguered ruler overnight, with damn little training myself. I think my father thought he’d have another son eventually—or a daughter. It’s much the same with us. Someone, in any case, who would be more like him. I was never like him. I was more like my mother, he always said, but not fondly.”

  “They didn’t get along?”

  He smiled slightly. “They got along famously, for as long as it lasted—our kind rarely forms permanent bonds. Her spirit, her joie de vivre, her vivaciousness, were all assets in a consort. But, like fathers for time out of mind, he assumed his son would take after him. Be strong, statesmanlike, astute. When I turned out to be . . . less than that . . . he didn’t bother to hide his disappointment. Nor did he provide the training I was never supposed to need.”

  “And when you did need it—”

  “You think you’re lost? Try waking up one day to find that your father has been slaughtered, your court is in complete panic, and your enemies are taking the opportunity to invade. And that you, with your completely inadequate training and a power you’ve mainl
y been using to seduce sweet young things, are expected to save the day. That day. Right then.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Or maybe it was just uncomfortable on my part. Because my mother was the reason he’d been in that mess.

  As hard as it might be to believe, looking at me, she’d been one of the creatures humans had once called gods. Not because of their morality, which they mostly seemed to find a foreign concept, or their justice, mercy, and wisdom, which they didn’t have any of, either. But because what else do you call beings so powerful that they just mow down everything in their path?

  Including Rosier’s father, powerful demon lord though he had been, because even a mediocre god was on a whole different level.

  And while my mother had been a lot of things, mediocre had never been one of them.

  She’d been the goddess with a thousand names, who showed up in one form or another in virtually every culture on earth. But the one the world remembered best was Artemis, the Great Huntress. And guess what she’d best liked hunting?

  And she wasn’t the only one. The whole misbegotten pantheon had been thrilled when they discovered earth, while exploring a rift between our universe and theirs. Not because of humans, who they thought fit only for slaves. But because earth offered access to their real prey: the demons.

  As I’d discovered on my search for Pritkin, the hells were composed of a vast array of worlds populated by a wide range of creatures, from the mostly innocuous incubi, to beings even the other demons called “ancient horrors” and did their best to lock away. But they all had one thing in common: they fed off other species—humans, other demons, even fey if they could get them. And they stored up much of that power for later.

  Or, at least, they did until the gods showed up, to turn the tables and hunt them instead.

  Most of the gods had stayed on their staging ground, earth, and waited for the demons to come to them. But my mother hadn’t been content to just wait around. She’d gone into the hells themselves, searching out the fattest, juiciest prey, the ones with enough energy stored up to not need to hunt on earth. The ones who had ultimately made her more powerful than any of her kind. The ones who had allowed her to cast a spell throwing the other gods out of their new acquisition, and slamming the door behind them.