by Eric Asher
Terrence cursed and raised his rifle, firing into the gravemakers at will when the dead, milk-white eyes opened all across the rise.
A crushing weight slammed into Vicky’s legs and she screeched as the gravemakers hit them from behind. Terrence tried to say something, but the bark-like flesh surged over his face, pulling him down into the churning darkness of the colossus.
Vicky shook as she pulled her face away from the gaping maw of a gravemaker’s mouth and screamed. “Damian!”
No one answered.
The tip of Terrence’s rifle was the last thing to disappear, and Vicky knew in that moment she could either do something, or she wasn’t getting out alive. And now, with the blood knot transferred, Nudd wouldn’t lose his weapon.
But there was something more. Something she hadn’t admitted to anyone. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to lose her friends. A long time ago, or so it felt to Vicky, Carter had once told her she had to make a choice. To fade away, to give in to what others laid on your shoulders, or to fight.
She’d made the choice then, that day in the Burning Lands, to join the Ghost Pack and fight beside the werewolves who would become her family. And now, now this thing, this colossus, was stealing away one of the last pieces of that life.
Vicky’s hands curled into fists, crushing the flesh of gravemakers into her palms. She wasn’t bound to the pool of souls inside Damian anymore, but there was another way. Another bond. A destiny left behind.
She called the soulswords, and the darkness closing around her exploded into a violent red light. Pieces of a fate she hadn’t fully escaped screamed to life as the mantle of the Destroyer and the soul of the necromancer twisted together inside her, pulling power from the Burning Lands, from the Sea of Souls, until the blood-red blades of her soulswords flickered with golden light, and she slashed deeper into the flesh of the colossus.
Make the choice.
She could cut her way out, escape, but that wasn’t the reason she’d come. That wasn’t the reason she clung to life.
Vicky twisted the blades, until the crushing weight of gravemakers pulled away, and she slashed through the wave until it curled back from Terrence, the ghost gasping as loudly as she had when the gravemakers fell away from her face.
“Where?” she shouted.
Terrence looked around them and then jammed his bayonet into a place between them, even as the wound in the colossus grew wider and ever deeper. Every slash she made sealed them farther into the beast. She quieted the concern they might never escape with a fury as she cut ever deeper into the roaring gravemakers.
The world shook with the sound, and Vicky recoiled as the dead, ravaged flesh of dark-touched vampires and things she didn’t recognize were revealed in the heart of the colossus.
She squeezed her right fist tight enough that her fingernails drew blood from her palm, stretching the soulsword into a whip-like blade of destruction.
“Stop!” Terrence shouted as the soulsword carved deep into the chasm at their feet. “It’s him.”
Vicky spared a glance above them, cringing at the towers of gravemakers all around them. But at her feet was flesh. The pale flesh of a man, a necromancer, and the shredded remnants of what once was the collar of a shirt.
“Find his arm!” She turned to the walls around them and lashed out as Terrence cut gravemakers away from Damian. Vicky struck out at the gravemakers surrounding them, forcing the creatures back, but the chasm was closing, and she couldn’t reach the top with her blades.
“I have his arm!”
Vicky fell to her knees and took Damian’s hand from Terrence. “Use that rifle to fire at the top of the walls. Keep it open, or we’re not getting back out of here.”
“It’s already closed.”
Vicky glanced up, and her heart almost seized. The golden stars of the Abyss were gone, the only light emanated from her soulsword.
Make the choice.
She pulled a small square of parchment out of her pocket. She didn’t have time to trace the pattern, but she had other ways. Damian’s hand felt cool beneath her fingers, like he’d been outdoors in the depths of winter. She placed the parchment on the outside of his wrist and closed her eyes.
The surge of power didn’t take any more effort than keeping the soulsword lit, but the world went dark when the sword extinguished, redirected into the pattern etched onto the old parchment.
A knowing unlike any she’d felt before boiled up into her mind. These were not the snippets of life from a stranger, but the life of a friend, of family, laid out in full. She saw Damian and Sam, chasing a ball of dust around a room strewn with Lego, a dust bunny with teeth. She saw Sam die, felt the vampire tear out her throat before Damian stitched her back together. Felt the loss of Carter and Maggie all over again. Experienced the failure at Gettysburg, the wave of souls from the dead cities. Felt the impossible power unleashed to bring low the Destroyer, to save her, to save Vicky. And in the end, she felt Damian lose himself as he fell into Nudd’s trap.
But between the horror, the struggles, was the love of friends and family, and the concern for their wellbeing. A small light in a world of tragedies, a darkness so vast nothing would escape it, and somehow he continued on. He held on. Some piece of him remained.
The power faded and Vicky gasped, snapping a soulsword back into life.
There, beneath the falling ashes of the parchment, the symbol had been cut and cauterized into Damian’s exposed flesh.
“I would have liked to see the river one last time,” Terrence said, tears glistening on the ghost’s face as the chasm ceiling fell toward them.
Vicky wrapped the ghost up in a hug as the gravemakers screamed into furious life. She held a soulsword toward the rain of death. Perhaps she could cut a way up as well as they had cut a way down. But if this was the end, she’d made her choice. She’d returned a favor she could never repay in full.
The chasm fractured above them. Golden light etched its way out from the center of the collapsing ceiling as gravemakers became ash, and a light so brilliant Vicky dared not look upon it exploded all around them.
She felt something crash into the ground beside them. Felt the heat as it wrapped itself around her, and felt the reverberating howl of a mad god as they launched into the air like a rocket.
Vicky dared to open her eyes, seeing the chasm below lit with brilliant fire before the light winked out, swallowed by the gravemakers.
She turned her head to find Edgar’s golden armor beneath her cheek, Terrence gripping her arm for dear life. They drifted back onto the path, where Luna wrung her claws together.
Gaia kneeled and studied Vicky. “You take many risks, child.”
Vicky looked up at Edgar. “How did you find us?”
“Gaia lit the way.” He glanced at the Titan and then to Vicky. “We could have lost you both if she hadn’t.”
“You placed the mark,” Gaia said. “That was enough to find you. Our fate lies in the hands of the priestess now.”
Luna pounced on Vicky, wrapping her up in those soft wings. “Don’t you ever do that again.”
Terrence grunted and muttered. “And if you do, don’t take me.”
Vicky smiled. “I’ll try.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Sam and Jasper wandered. It was an old habit, one she’d often taken to when things went bad. For her, wandering aimlessly through the world was better than meditating, lost in her own thoughts with only the rhythm of her footsteps to keep her company.
Today the furball trilled on her shoulder as they walked down the main thoroughfare in Boonville. Flickers of gray followed them, traces of ghosts she couldn’t make out as clearly as Damian would be able to, but enough she knew the ghosts were there.
It was when those shadows scattered, fleeing into alleys and down toward the old cemetery that Sam bristled, the hairs on the back of her neck crawling like ants. Jasper gave off a low chitter, flattening out and curling around her shoulders like a gray stole.
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br /> A tree on the nearest corner, beside the old war monument, twisted and stepped forward, its branches coming together into a knot of spiky wood that was an obvious threat to everything around it.
Sam backed away, only to hear a low hum and catch a flash of dark green light behind them. She glanced over her shoulder and found a gateway, but what would be insane enough to portal in this close to Gaia’s defenses? She understood the threatening stance of the green man now, and she squared off against the portal.
Bark and branches and thunder followed through that gateway, the steps of a forest god cracking the sidewalk as Dirge stepped through. He turned toward the green man with the knotted branches, who quickly unfurled his weapons.
The portal snapped out of existence, and the violent gashes that formed Dirge’s face focused on Sam.
“I would have expected you to be at Rivercene.”
Sam relaxed, scratching Jasper between his eyes when he reformed into a toothy furball on her shoulder. “We’re heading back. But what are you doing here?”
“Walk with me.”
Sam glanced at the brick building beside her and nodded. She took several steps for every one of Dirge’s, but speed hadn’t been an issue for her since she’d become a vampire. Even before that, she’d been a fair runner.
“As to your question, the resurrection of Gaia is upon us. Vicky and Terrence and the one called Edgar make their way through the Abyss. I am here to witness the dawn of a new age.”
As they reached the bridge, Sam wondered if it could hold Dirge’s weight. The more she thought about it, he likely didn’t weigh more than a few cars. And she’d seen more than that on the bridge over the years.
The forest god didn’t hesitate as he continued across the river, glancing out toward the casino before focusing on the road that would take them to Rivercene.
“I have felt a change, Samantha. I believe Vicky and Terrence were successful in laying the sigil upon your brother.”
Sam had also felt something. A burn on her neck, a line that etched its way around the scar where Damian had used his soul to stitch her back together. It acted up every now and then, either through pain or numbness, but the burn was new. She hadn’t allowed herself to hope, not in quite some time. But Dirge’s words filled the hollowness in her chest with a warmth that had been absent for days.
There was still a chance, however small.
* * *
Ashley was studying the innkeeper’s face when the woman’s lips lifted in a tiny smile. “What is it?”
The innkeeper opened her eyes. “It is time.” She unfolded her legs and stood. “Vicky placed the mark. It is up to you now, priestess.”
Ashley’s heart jumped in her chest. In almost any other setting, she would enjoy having the responsibility on her shoulders. But when it was the lives of her friends in her hands, it was a much harder thing. And though Beth and the others had made a strong argument that she was still a green witch, still worthy, there was a grain of doubt in the back of her mind.
She took a deep breath when she stood, then followed the innkeeper out of the cellar, leaving Gaia’s body behind, and returning to the light outside.
The innkeeper led the way to the back of Rivercene, passing the rear deck until they reached the clearing closer to the woods. Some of the green men waited there: Stump, Whip, and the hunched form of Sequoia.
Whip opened her arms, the long branches of the willow hanging just above the grass. “Join us, priestess.”
The innkeeper turned and cocked an eyebrow at Ashley. She reached out and patted her arm. “No pressure.”
Ashley laughed, and even she could hear the nervous edge to it. She stepped forward, leaving the soft grass for the half-dead clearing of dirt and new growth. Ashley breathed deeply, taking in the scent of earth and humidity of the nearby river.
The innkeeper sat down opposite her, only a few feet between them. Whip loomed above, leaning until she could reach the barest parts of the earth. Her tender willow branches carved the dirt in front of Ashley.
Seeing the earth move, the life inside the green men, filled her with a peace she’d long struggled to reclaim. She followed the movement with her eyes as the circle took shape between two outward-facing crescent moons.
Whip drew back, leaving the symbol of the Triple Goddess behind.
Ashley remembered the old rituals she’d learned as a green witch. This blessing was different, though aspects of it were familiar.
She pulled the coins from her pocket, nestling the piece of eight in the crescent of the left moon, the tetradrachm in the right, and the cale hung below the center moon as if a shadow itself.
Ashley took a deep breath prior to starting. Whatever was to come of their efforts, this was the time to prove she was more than the Blade of the Stone.
But before she could speak the words, the ground shook. A bellowing roar like a falling mountain echoed around them as cracks of wood on wood thundered through the clearing, that brief peace broken.
Ashley stared in disbelief as the spiky branch of a green man who looked like an evergreen tree exploded from Sequoia’s chest. Sequoia stumbled, grasped twice at the spear piercing his body, and collapsed, motionless.
Whip did not hesitate. She did not question. She only struck. The branches of the willow tree that had been so gentle, so precise, became a deadly scythe through the air. The impact snapped off the top of the attacking green man, severing arms and limbs until they swung back around and shattered the falling pieces of his body yet again.
“Finish the ritual.” The innkeeper’s voice was not rushed, not harsh. There was a steel, a resolve that Ashley did not feel herself. But the innkeeper did not look away from the priestess.
The ground shook beneath Ashley’s knees. She tried to close her eyes and block it all out, but that was an impossible task. Whatever came of this, it would come in the chaos of battle. The world trembled, and when she opened her eyes, the harsh lines of the face of the forest god Dirge appeared beside Stump.
Ashley froze as the forest god swung his hands, formed into wrecking balls of solid wood. A green man lunging for Stump crashed into the forest god face-first. Bark split, the fresh green of a sapling revealed underneath before his entire head collapsed and fell to the earth at Stump’s feet.
Stump did not slow; he took two wide steps past Dirge and met another of the incoming evergreens. The green man bent around Stump’s first attack but did not expect Stump to raise his leg in a slow kick that took the evergreen to the ground and snapped it in two.
“Ashley,” the innkeeper said. “You must finish the ritual.”
Ashley squeezed her eyes closed, and let the chaos of the battle flow into her. She didn’t try to block it out, didn’t try to go somewhere else, simply let the violence of the world around her come and go as it would.
Her words were a whisper in the middle of a war. Her will steeled, an unbreakable thing at the footfalls of gods.
Upon this altar of earth
I give my blessing
Upon this altar of earth
Restore what was lost
Upon this altar of earth
Reborn the Titan
Gaia
So mote it be
There were more words to speak, more actions to open and close the circle properly, but Gaia’s words hung in Ashley’s mind. Make it your own. And so she did.
Ashley slammed the point of the dagger into the center of the Triple Goddess. The innkeeper, sitting across from her, vanished in a dim cascade of golden light.
Dirge screamed, for there was no other word for it—the sound like a train emanating from an ancient tunnel. His golden eyes flared into tiny suns as the world tilted around them.
“What’s happening to him?”
Ashley turned to find Sam standing beside her, and Beth bleeding on the deck beyond. The blood mage slashed at her arm, and shadows rendered another of the evergreens into matchsticks.
“I don’t know,” Ashley said. �
�I don’t know!”
The scream quieted, the hulking form of the forest god swelling and falling like a man gasping for breath. The battle seemed to pause around him as he raised his arms and then threw them out to the sides.
Javelins of wood erupted from the trees all around the clearing, splintered missiles that cut through every visible evergreen in that place. Sap and fluid and chunks of wood collapsed. Stump and Whip turned in a slow circle, eyeing the remaining green men, only focusing on Dirge when nothing else moved.
Dirge looked to Ashley, a savage grin splitting the bark of his face. “Gaia lives.”
“The body under the house?” Sam asked as she stepped toward Rivercene.
“Gone,” Dirge said. “The pieces made whole once more.”
“Damian,” Sam whispered. “Come back to us.”
CHAPTER SIX
Vicky wasn’t sure what had happened. One moment they were talking to Gaia, and the next she was gone.
“The ritual is done.” Edgar looked up at the colossus before returning his gaze to Vicky.
“Then where is she?” Vicky wrung her hands together before clenching them into fists. “She’s supposed to grant Damian her powers to get him out of that thing. I’ll cut him out if I have to.”
“You already know it’s not that simple.” Edgar hesitated and then spun, turning his back on the colossus. Rippling fires raced down his armor until he glowed like the sun itself.
Vicky squinted into the Abyss, trying to see what he was focusing on. But it was no good, the glare from his armor was too much, and she had to turn away. Only when the light dimmed, and a shadow loomed beside them, did she turn back to the path.
Before them stood a giant. A Titan. Gone was the ethereal glow from Gaia’s body. Her peaceful expression had been replaced by one of harsh resolve.
“Gaia?” Vicky whispered.
“I’m here, girl. For all that I am, and all that I was, and all I have promised.”
“The compulsion?” Edgar asked.
Gaia looked down at her hands, her skin pale brown with hints of a green hue. “It is no more.”