by Nazri Noor
“Kick his ass, Dust!”
Scrimshaw. Fucking Scrimshaw.
I wasn’t going to ask why he’d decided to hide in my backpack with a butterknife. We’d figure out the technicalities of him getting involved in the trial later. I sprang to my feet, shoulder checking Tsukuyomi to throw him off balance. We crashed heavily to the ground. Before he could maneuver again with his sword, I thrust my open palm at his throat, my body acting purely on instinct. At first I wondered why.
Then I saw it: the black blade that had sprung directly out of the wound in my palm. I had conjured a dagger of pure darkness right out of my own blood. My bond to the Dark Room had quickened, somehow. My blood was acting as a conduit for the swords of shadow.
I pressed the dagger against Tsukuyomi’s throat, the hellish black of its blade in glaring contrast to the moon-like pallor of his skin. I watched as a silvery drop of the god’s blood beaded at the blade’s tip. Tsukuyomi grunted. I won’t lie. The sound of his fear and defeat gave me pleasure.
“Concede,” I said. “And you live.”
Tsukuyomi bared his teeth, but he went limp, and he shuddered. “It is ended. The others have lost, anyway.”
An odd clang like the ring of a hollow glass bell sounded through the night, and Nyx’s voice carried over the noise.
“The mortals have won. The Convocation will crown its champion.”
I released my hold on the Dark Room. The blade emanating from my wound dissolved into nothing, the pressure of its connection between my body and Tsukuyomi’s blood fading, but remembered, like a phantom limb. The world brightened as the sphere around us receded. I gazed at the moon, still straddled across its master’s chest, and grinned.
“Get off me,” Tsukuyomi grunted.
“Right,” I said. “Sorry about that.”
Scrimshaw landed on my shoulder, tittering softly to himself. I had every intention of interrogating him later, but I realized that the Convocation had no objections regarding his presence. We’d followed the terms of the trial, after all: I was allowed to bring any allies. There was nothing in the rulebook forbidding the involvement of imps who had snuck their way into my backpack.
Nyx had reappeared over the cairn, and she was smiling. I guess she decided Scrimshaw’s participation was fair, too. Around us, still partially hidden among the trees, were the members of the Midnight Convocation, some angered, some seemingly pleased, but most with unreadable expressions. The two ravens were gone.
Across the arena Sterling was sitting on Susanoo’s twitching body, the god’s own lightning blade piercing his back and pinning him to the ground. It looked like they were having a remarkably friendly chat. Sterling was licking at his fingers. I didn’t want to ask why.
Vanitas returned to me in silence. I could best describe the tangle of his emotions in my mind as disappointment, mixed with concrete frustration. He hadn’t gotten his fill of blood, it seemed.
“Hey,” I thought to him. “Maybe next time, buddy. Okay?”
He harrumphed in response.
Herald was standing about a foot away from the goddess of the sun, his hands poised to blast her if she moved. Amaterasu was encased in a solid block of ice, save for her head and her shoulders. Her sword was stuck in the ground some distance away.
“I swear it’s okay,” Herald said, consoling her. “We just got lucky is all. Besides, you would’ve killed us if you won. Please. Please stop crying?”
Amaterasu blinked away tears of frustration. “I’m not crying,” she said. “You’re crying.”
And closer by, his protective dome of ice half-melted, Gil was stirring, his clothes ripped, already returned to his human form. He planted his elbow in the earth, trying to get off his back, then yelped in pain. “Holy fuck, what happened?” He gritted his teeth as he clutched his wrist, glancing around him. “Did we win?”
I gazed across the battlefield, at the patch of my own blood where I’d left Tsukuyomi. The god remained on his back, staring at the moon, perhaps questioning one or two things about himself. I clapped Gil across the shoulder. He grunted in pain again.
“Oh yeah,” I said, glancing at the wound in my palm. “We won all right.”
Chapter 28
One by one, the gods faded from the hilltop, and slowly the arena shrank again, the ring of dead trees closing in around the cairn. Amaterasu had melted Herald’s ice prison off her body. Her battle raiment was ripped in places, and soaking wet, but apart from some cuts and gashes, she looked none the worse for wear.
“Come on,” she hissed, nudging at Tsukuyomi with her toe. “Time to get out of here. We’ve lost to these humans again. I never would have imagined.” She shook her head, frowning. “If the Conclave of the Sun ever hears about this, I swear to our mother – ”
“Imagine,” Susanoo said, coughing as he clambered to his feet. “Imagine if the Riders of the Storm found out.” He shook a finger in our direction. “Well played, mortals. Perhaps another time.”
I shook my head violently. “Nuh-uh. No way. Not for a long time coming.”
Especially not if this Conclave, or the Riders – by my guess the little book club to which the entities of thunder and the elements belonged – came calling for some kind of special vengeance. I didn’t like that mention of their mother, either. Izanami was essentially the matriarch to the Japanese pantheon, a supremely powerful goddess of the underworld. If she ever took interest in us – yeah, best not to think about it.
Tsukuyomi took his brother’s outstretched hand, getting to his feet at last. The handsome, laughing god from the beginning of our fight had sloughed away, leaving this dispirited creature. I almost felt bad about it.
“We’ll meet again, Dustin Graves,” Tsukuyomi said. “You have earned my respect, and the right to wear the Crown of Stars.” He raised his sword to the sky, then vanished into a shaft of moonlight.
“See ya,” Susanoo said, throwing a finger gun salute at Sterling, who, to my surprise, returned it. What the hell had gone on between the two? A bolt of lightning struck the ground, and Susanoo reached out to it. When the flash cleared, he was gone.
“One of these days, shadow beast,” Amaterasu said. A beam of pure sunlight tore out of the heavens, bathing her in its golden radiance. The clouds closed up again, dispelling the brightness, and with that, the last of the warrior gods disappeared.
And that left only Nyx.
“So we won, apparently,” I said. “And I guess you being the last to remain means that you’re my sponsor. My matron?”
“That is correct.”
I shrugged. “You were my first choice, anyway. You seem pretty cool, as far as the night gods go.”
Nyx smiled. “Consider me flattered. Permit me time to channel my power into the Crown, child of man. Dustin Graves, rather. I’m sorry. Perhaps I should begin addressing my champion by name more regularly.”
“There is one other thing,” I said, my head bowing instinctively out of reverence. “The lock of your hair that Arachne wanted.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
Nyx tugged loosely on the end of her hair, measuring out a lock of it near her scalp, then closed two fingers at the root. Somehow her fingers made the faint snipping sound of scissors, and shaking loose in a twinkle of stardust and a swirl of night sky, her tresses fell from her head, landing gently in the palm of my outstretched hand.
Her hair felt as cold as a winter’s evening, like the smooth surface of a leaf that had lived through the spring, and every star in every strand burned with the pale, sharp heat of summer. I stored her hair in one of my enchanted backpack’s many pockets, sealing it for safety.
“I hope she doesn’t have any truly horrific designs for what she plans to do with it,” Nyx said, her eyes narrowed.
“Honestly, knowing her? I bet she meant it as a challenge. After this she’ll throw it on her pile of treasures and forget about it forever.” I half-smiled out of the corner of my mouth, frankly surprised I could still manage it considering th
e fight we’d just been through, plus the blood loss. “So when do you suck my soul right out of my body?”
“Ah, yes. That unpleasantness. On the last night of the full moon, you must go to a clearing, in a forest, just beyond your city’s largest cemetery.”
“Latham’s Cross?” I said. “You want me to go to the woods near there?”
“I will send further instructions before then.” She gestured vaguely in Scrimshaw’s direction. “Perhaps I will send the imp. I understand it will not be such a distant jaunt from your home in Valero, Dustin?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Does it have to happen there? Can’t we just do it here, and now?”
“Patience, champion. You seem too keen to surrender your soul to me. I strongly recommend the forest. It is beautiful, teeming with both life and death: the verdant abundance of nature itself, and rich, ancient soil grown thick and fertile from the corpses of both man and animal across the centuries.”
I grimaced. “Charming.”
“Indeed,” Nyx said, nodding. “Also there’s a lovely twenty-four hour diner just off the main road that does this exquisite pecan pie. Ask for the Midnight Special. Trust me.” Nyx winked, and I could swear it was as if the moon itself had blinked its enormous eye.
I frowned. “You just want to have some pie after eating my soul. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Nyx flipped her hair over her shoulder, the stars in her tresses twinkling. shimmering. “Hey. A girl gets hungry, and I happen to love pie.” She trailed her fingers across my cheek, then, like the other gods and entities before her, began to fade into the darkness. “The last night of the full moon, Dustin Graves.” As she faded, as only her brilliant eyes and teeth remained, she said one last thing. “Bring cash, they don’t take credit.”
“What kind of restaurant doesn’t take credit cards these days?” I glanced around for anyone who would listen. “And does she really expect me to pay for dessert after she chows down on my soul? It’s like I’m the main course and she just wants – hey, is anyone listening?”
The others had started their descent from the peak, Gil with one arm slung over Sterling’s shoulder, Sterling happily puffing away at a cigarette, a katana sheathed at his waist. A gift from Susanoo? Dang. Herald held a hand to his hip, tapping his foot expectantly, as if telling me to hurry up.
“Will you hurry up?” he said. “I can’t wait to get off this damn mountain and jump in the shower.”
“It’s a hill,” I offered helpfully.
“Whatever, Dustin. Amaterasu burned me to a crisp. I smell like smoke.” He lifted his arm and sniffed. “Okay, worse than smoke.”
As I walked up to him I did notice that the ends of his hair were somewhat singed. I brushed at them, my eyes going wide when his hair made a strange crunching sound, its deep-fried tips crumbling to dust under my fingers. I laughed.
“Holy crap, you weren’t kidding,” I said. “Still, not the worst look for you.”
“Shut up, Dust,” Herald said, half-smiling despite his protestations. “Seriously though, we need to head back and get some rest. I’m gonna need to do a little healing on everyone, it looks like, and I want to grab some sleep before we bus it back to Valero tomorrow.”
My feet skidded across the rocks on the trail as we negotiated our way downhill. “Tomorrow? Why so soon? The tavern’s doing a pho night and I kind of wanted to hang around for it.”
“They really need to figure out their branding. Vietnamese? Doesn’t make sense.” Herald shook his head. “And no, we can’t stick around. Nyx did say you had to perform the ritual on the last night of the full moon. That’s tomorrow night.”
“You were listening?”
Herald narrowed his eyes. “News flash. I’m always listening.”
“So am I,” Scrimshaw cut in. “Hi. Still here.”
“As if I could forget.” He was still sitting on my shoulder, after all. I fixed him with an even, sincere look. “Listen. Thanks for what you did back there. You actually kind of won the battle for us.”
“Aw, shucks. It was nothing, Dustin.” He scratched the back of his neck. Whether or not he was blushing, I couldn’t really tell. Kind of hard to spot on someone with skin that shone like a copper tea kettle. “So that makes us even. I’m off, then. Call me any time you’ve got some good grub sitting around. Maybe offer up some Italian next time, I love meatballs. You know where to find me.”
Scrimshaw gave us a little salute, clicked his heels, then vanished in a cloud of brimstone. I sputtered at the horrific smell, waving at the air and coughing. That little bastard.
Chapter 29
We made it back to Valero some time the next day, but not before savoring what we could of our last breakfast at the Twilight Tavern and bidding Olga goodbye. The journey home was, thankfully, uneventful.
Gil gave us an update on the cultist situation, passed through to him courtesy of Prudence. Apparently no more rifts had been recorded opening, and therefore, no further attacks from the Heart. That should have been a good thing, but it only got me more nervous. It was like the calm before the storm. I had a hunch that something awful was coming, only that I had no way of telling where or when it would strike.
Carver had greeted us as warmly as Carver could, waving us into the restaurant and physically inspecting our eyeballs and cranial orifices one by one, as if he was checking for parasites. He never did explain why he did it, exactly, but it was the closest thing to affection as he ever showed, so we were mostly glad to let him take a look.
Asher was much more enthusiastic about welcoming us back, especially when he caught sight of Sterling’s new plaything. “That’s so awesome,” he murmured, running his hands over the length of the strange, electrified katana Sterling had earned as a souvenir from the Japanese god of storms.
Later, Asher confessed that staying behind hadn’t been so boring for him after all. Apparently, Carver had used that time to teach Asher to shut the shrike rifts on his own, in case we needed a second person to do that.
“More importantly,” Asher said, “we’ve been spending a lot of time at Latham’s Cross. Just sort of communing with the dead. It’s been fun.”
Gil and I exchanged wary glances as Asher gushed on and on about chilling in a graveyard. But Sterling, ever the supportive friend, clapped Asher on the back and took in his every word. Maybe something in their common undead interests and origins made Asher’s excitement more relatable to vampires.
Strangest of all, however, was how warmly Mama Rosa welcomed us back. Me, especially. She took both my hands in hers, asking an oddly formulaic series of questions as she stared unblinkingly into my eyes. “Have you been eating well?” was one of them. “Did they feed you enough rice?” was a personal favorite, and was basically the same question, only reframed to help Rosa determine whether Gil, myself, and the others were properly fed the fifteen or so bushels worth of rice she habitually attempted to shove down our gullets at mealtimes.
“I have to admit,” I said to Rosa, attempting feebly to retrieve both my hands from her vise-like grip. “I’m surprised that you’re so concerned.”
“Dustin,” she said, her voice deep and serious. “Mama Rosa is always concerned. Maybe I am not good at showing it.”
She let go of my hands, and I rubbed my fingers against each other, grateful that I could return the circulation to them. Rosa reached for something behind the restaurant’s counter: a hot pink women’s leather wallet, one of those huge zippered ones that always looked loaded with spare change and could probably be used to a beat a man to death.
I should have known that Rosa was only part of her full name. Stamped across the outside of the embossed wallet in weathered golden letters was the name “Maria Rosaria Josefina Muñoz.” When she had finally properly unzipped and unclasped the monstrosity, it flipped open to unfurl a series of photographs that had been lovingly slipped into collapsible plastic pockets.
They were pictures of boys of different ages, some in their middle teens, other
s looking like they were in their twenties. From out of a few of the pictures stared Mama Rosa’s stern, stony face, posing amidst the boys like a perpetually grumpy statue.
“These are my sons,” Rosa said. She paused for a moment, then sighed heavily. “They are back home, in the Philippines. I send them money. One day I hope they can come join me in this country. For now, you are my sons.”
That hit me hard. I hadn’t expected that from Rosa, not then, not ever. I took my shot. I reached my arms over her shoulders – no small feat – and hugged her as well as I could. Rosa went as stiff as a boulder as soon as I touched her, but she didn’t shove me off or snap me in half like a twig, which I took as a good sign. When I pulled away, she looked me dead in the face, the corner of her mouth twitching. In all the time I’d known her I knew that meant that a smile was fighting to work its way out of her body. I smiled back.
We spent a little time chatting after that, and I took the chance to ask about her magical background. She was a bruha, she explained – a witch – the Filipino name taken from the Spanish word that meant very much the same thing. Rosa was educated in the tradition by her mother, who was taught by her mother before her, and so on.
It was fascinating to hear her talk about the art, which appeared to be based on sympathetic magic, allowing her to use common kitchen implements and ingredients to cast potentially very powerful spells. I could have listened to her all day, but the lecture had to be cut short by Scrimshaw’s sudden appearance. Mama Rosa tried to swat him with a newspaper, only relenting when I assured her that he was a friend, and not, quote, “an ugly devil baby.”
Scrimshaw had come to relay the Convocation’s instructions. Just as Herald said, my dedication ritual for Nyx was to happen that very night. I just couldn’t catch a break. But the more I thought of it, the more I wanted to get my coronation over and done with.
That meant we could put a stop to any future summoning attempts by the priests and worshippers of the Eldest. My soul was a small price to pay for the world’s protection – but I will admit that the thought of snuffing out so many of the wicked sent just the littlest jolt of excitement tingling up my spine. In a way it would be like becoming a superhero. A vigilante. I tried not to digest that this was my brain’s way of processing what it meant to surrender my humanity.