Odin obeyed in silence, but he made no effort to leave. Drake and Cowan burst into the room in their four-legged werewolf forms, snarling at the door as our visitor banged again, knocking dust from the rafters.
THUD…THUD…THUD!
I glanced at Gunnar. Surprisingly, the gauntlets still fit his significantly larger claws. I grunted. That was handy, no pun intended.
But it wouldn’t be enough to keep him safe. I couldn’t risk losing my friend, so I prepared a bit of magic to knock him out of the way in case he got too excited.
Despite my concern for him, and my respect for his power, I couldn’t help but admire him. He was the true Alpha of St. Louis, no matter what anyone said or thought. Only a true king could abandon his crown for his people.
And I’d never met a werewolf stronger than Gunnar. On the other hand, I’d met many werewolves who had briefly believed they were stronger than Gunnar.
I hadn’t ever visited their graves, though. There hadn’t been enough of them left to bury.
“Everyone get out of the way.”
They stepped to the side, forming an arc with me at the center.
With a blast of magic, I yanked the doors open and threw a shield up between us.
Grimm stood in the opening with Talon on his back. Talon held his spear in his fist, and had obviously been using it to pound on the door. It looked like my two hours had come and gone.
Everyone let out a sigh of relief. “Could you have knocked any goddamned louder?” I muttered, lowering my shield.
Talon locked eyes with me, lowering his spear. “They followed us here. Hurry.”
It took me a moment to process his words. “The Knightmares? All of them?” I gasped, my heart suddenly racing.
Talon shook his head. “No. Just three.” Like that made any real difference. “We chased them all over town, but I think it was just a game to them. There was no pattern to it. I think we were set up.”
I gritted my teeth. “And now they are here. Yeah. I think you’re right. Mordred is trying to divide us. Confuse us. He thought I was in Fae, so he sends his Knightmares here, knowing you two will follow.”
“Exactly,” Grimm said. “So, let’s get moving. Alex is facing them all by himself right now.”
My eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”
And that’s when I sensed it. I could feel the walls from the hallway outside the Armory shaking and groaning.
Falco, the Beast inhabiting my mansion…
Was screaming.
Gunnar took two steps and lifted up Drake and Cowan by the ruffs of their necks—one in each armored claw.
“Your lives before hers!” he roared, his drool spraying their muzzles. They whined in submission, their ears folded back, and their tails tucked between their legs. But their lips were curled in an obedient snarl.
Odin spoke up as Gunnar dropped his lieutenants to their paws. “Go! There is nothing left for you to do here. We will care for your wife.”
“No one can get inside the Armory, Gunnar,” I urged. “She’s safer than anyone in here. Safer than Alex right now.”
Gunnar roared, his chest heaving as he settled a murderous glare towards the door, staring beyond Grimm.
I ripped open a Gateway in the hallway. A vibrant, manicured lawn appeared on the other side, and I was sprinting before I considered what might lay on the other side. I was first to leap through, gripping my rainbow staff in one hand. My friends shadowed me, prepared to preach the Gospel of Falco to the unenlightened heathens on the other side.
The first lesson in our religion was death.
Slow, excruciatingly painful, death.
Chapter 27
The first thing I realized was that it was cold as hell outside.
I knew this because I had suddenly acquired the ability to make etched glass artwork.
Using my nipples.
Since I had forgotten to put on a shirt or shoes.
The next thing I noticed was that three Knightmares were on my property, about thirty paces away, striding forward with their weapons out.
Alex faced them squarely, holding Excalibur in front of him, and looking as calm as can be.
They all turned to look at me and my crew at the exact same time.
“Get off my lawn,” I growled at the Knightmares, my staff suddenly rippling with rainbow light. Grimm snorted indelicately and took a pointed step away from me, eyeing the light out of the corner of his eye with immense disdain. I pointedly ignored my rainbow-hating unicorn.
Chateau Falco rumbled unhappily behind me—a warning.
Three Knightmares against Alex was not a fair fight, no matter how badass he was. I glanced quickly at Grimm, eyeing his horn with a sudden grin.
“Go even the odds, boys,” I growled, remembering how his horn was also strong enough to break their armor.
Grimm had been snooty about my rainbow staff, and I just didn’t need that kind of negativity in my life.
He didn’t even hesitate, galloping towards the threat with a pissed off Talon on his back. I noticed a two-handed sword on Talon’s back, and I felt a flicker of hope surge within me. Maybe he’d picked up Sir Bedivere’s blade after all—another weapon capable of piercing Knightmare armor.
That meant three weapons for three Knightmares.
They thought they could lead my friends on a wild goose chase, then come to my house and expect an easy fight? They were about to have a very bad day. I would pummel them with magic, distracting them while—
A bolt of lightning slammed down out of the clear blue sky, blasting a shallow crater into my lawn and startling the bejeezus out of me. Thor leapt out from within, glaring furiously at Chateau Falco.
I heard swords striking swords in explosive clangs, and I cursed under my breath. Looked like we now had two groups to deal with.
Gunnar, of course, saw this as a positive development. He flexed his hairy forearms eagerly, clenching his gauntlets as he eyed the man who had hurt his wife.
Gunnar was smiling, somehow. His massive wolf head and ridiculously long teeth turning his maw into something to inspire horror movie directors.
“So, this is where you took my father,” Thor snarled. “He hides. Again! I hope you received your answers, Temple, because Odin dies today—”
Gunnar had closed the distance, hauled back his claw, and used every single muscle in his gargantuan body—as well as the ghostly powers of Geri and Freki—to punch Thor in the side of the head with a crackling zap from the gauntlets.
Thor flew, rolling and stumbling into a bush—and then through it.
I glanced over at Gunnar, arching an eyebrow. I sensed the spectral wolves at his side, hunkered low and snarling.
Thor had climbed to his feet behind the bush, and he was already striding back towards us, drooling with fury. Twigs and leaves stuck out of his head and beard, and I noticed a faint cut on his temple. That was it. Gunnar was panting heavily as he stared down Thor. “This ends here. Now,” Gunnar snarled.
Thor squared off against him, not afraid, but impressed by Gunnar’s strength. “You’re scrappier than the last time we met,” Thor growled, rubbing his knuckles together to create static arcs of electricity that crackled and popped loudly.
My skin was still glowing with golden light, and I wanted nothing more than to tear him to pieces with my godkiller strength. But…seeing how happy Gunnar was, and how he had actually managed to hurt Thor—even if only just a little—I decided to let it play out for a few moments. Gunnar could get his appetizer of revenge, and if the date looked to be going poorly for him, I could step in with the bill.
No credit cards. Payable in blood and teeth only.
Gunnar thumped his two armored fists together, his shoulders bunching forward. Although Thor was huge, Gunnar was significantly bigger, hairier, and looked infinitely more terrifying.
Still, they seemed evenly matched somehow.
The two began circling each other, lifting their fists to settle things the old-fashioned w
ay—dukes up and beards down.
I glanced back at the others, wondering where I was best suited to help. I didn’t dare leave Gunnar alone with Thor, but I wanted to make sure Alex and Talon weren’t down for the count. Not that I could do much about it if they were, but I could use my magic to pull them to safety—long enough to get a breather.
Talon was a whirlwind, spinning his white staff like a propeller as he darted back and forth, and under, his opponent’s slower swings of the sword. He struck hard and fast, CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! Although loud and obviously powerful, Talon’s strikes did little more than make the Knightmare stumble before resetting his posture and going back in.
Alex was paying tribute to the Three Musketeers, spinning and twirling acrobatically as he went strike-for-strike with one of the taller Knightmares. “Fight it! Mordred is using you!” Alex shouted. “You are better than this!”
The Knightmare snarled back from beneath his helmet. “We do not break our oaths!” he growled back, swinging his mighty sword. Alex leaned to the side and the Knightmare’s blade slammed into the earth in an explosion of dirt and grass. “The Summer Queen will soon be dead, and Winter’s Queen will follow. Then there will be no more armies to stand in Mordred’s way. You have already lost.”
Excalibur blazed brightly, shining like mercury and flickering with golden light, but he didn’t land a fatal strike.
Almost as if he was purposely refusing to harm his foe.
Damn it. That was a losing strategy, no matter what his heart told him. The only way to turn these guys back was to kill Mordred, and if Alex was showing a weakness like this, it didn’t bode well for his future.
I flung a few haphazard blasts of air at his foe, giving Alex an opportunity to strike as the Knightmare batted my magic away. Alex calmly stepped back, shooting me a flat look.
“You can’t save them all!” I shouted at him.
“I can try,” Alex snarled, turning his attention back to his foe. For his part, the Knightmare stared at Alex for a moment longer than he should have, but then doubled down on his efforts.
Damn it.
Grimm cursed loudly, and I saw him hobbling away from his opponent. “Did you just punch me in the ass?” he demanded. The Knightmare held the offending fist out to his side and shrugged. Grimm lowered his head and scraped his hoof against the grass murderously. “I did not consent to that.”
And then he exploded forward. The Knightmare stumbled back a few steps, trying to predict Grimm’s movements, but the unicorn juked to the left and then the right, tripping his opponent up. Grimm took the opportunity to lunge for the opening, and I watched as he head-butted his foe’s bicep, his horn piercing all the way through the Knightmare’s armor. Then he whipped his head upwards, hurling the Knightmare high into the air.
Grimm snorted, calmly repositioning himself as he gauged the parabolic arc of his foe’s downfall. In perfect timing, he reared back and kicked the Knightmare directly in the chest just as he was landing. The Knightmare’s sword slammed blade-first into the grass, but he flew into the huge white tree on my property—the tree that was technically a Gateway to the Elder Realm.
Carl had left to go back home on urgent business, although he hadn’t told me what that business was. That had been back before I fought Mordred at the Dueling Grounds, and the tree had been silent ever since.
Instead of the typical bark look, the tree more resembled a huge, white snake standing vertical. It even had scales and was warm to the touch.
The Knightmare struck the tree with a meaty thud and crashed to his ass. Grimm took one look at the sword, and then grabbed the hilt in his teeth.
The next thing I knew, he was charging, giving me an entirely new take on the Knightly pastime of jousting.
He looked like a triceratops with only two fucks left to give—missing one horn—as he raced towards the Knightmare. His foe looked dazed, clutching at his wounded arm as he struggled to regain his feet.
At the last moment, the Knight looked up at the sound of the galloping hooves and managed to dive to the side before either the sword or Grimm’s horn could hit him.
Grimm veered so as not to headbutt the tree, but the sword sunk halfway into the trunk with an explosion of…
I blinked.
Red blood.
That couldn’t be good.
An errant finger of lightning grazed my ass, making me jump and spin back to Gunnar and Thor, who were bobbing and weaving as they tried to land a solid punch on each other.
Thor struck with the power of lightning, his fists crackling and popping and shooting out sudden fingers of electricity whenever he made contact—which was what had just hit me in the rear. Except Gunnar somehow always seemed to catch the strikes on his armored fist or to bat the attacks aside at the last moment. And the resulting fingers of lightning hit him with no effect. He was either ignoring the pain, or the gauntlets were protecting more than just his hands.
Gunnar’s counter game was strong, though, because Thor’s face was bleeding more than it had been a few moments ago. And I could tell the God of Thunder was very annoyed by that.
I was pleased to see that Thor had regrown his teeth in the last hour.
Because Gunnar’s sudden punch to the god’s mouth looked hard enough to knock them right down his godly throat.
Chapter 28
The God of Thunder rocked back and flung his hand down at the ground, blasting Gunnar’s feet with lightning. Gunnar, not having expected it, was hurled backwards a dozen yards in an impromptu cartwheel.
He jumped to his feet a few moments later, his eye a little wild around the edges, and his fur was sticking straight out, making him look like a mutant Pomeranian.
Thor took that moment of reprieve to spin towards Chateau Falco again, ignoring me completely. I frowned at that, wondering if I had a Doctors Without Borders badge on my ass—some explanation as to why Thor wasn’t picking a fight with me. Just like in Niflheim.
I glanced down at my glowing chest and grunted. Well. Okay. Maybe he’d started to believe the whole godkiller thing.
Thor glared openly at Chateau Falco. “ODIN!” he roared. “Come outside right now or I will blast this place to rubble like I did to that den of reptiles!” he screamed.
Raego. The motherfucker was talking about Raego.
Before I could show him how I felt about that, Thor flung out a hand towards Chateau Falco. A spiraling bolt of lightning, looking almost like a crackling, baby tornado, reached down to strike my ancestral home.
A tiny black cloud that I hadn’t noticed hovering over my mansion intercepted the electric storm and simply gobbled it down with an audible gulp. I gasped, feeling a smile tug at my cheeks.
Ruin! Falco and Kai’s Baby Beast!
Thor stared speechless at the sudden change in forecast. Welcome to Missouri, where the weather changed at the drop of a hat.
Ruin zipped down to us, pausing to hover about five feet from the gaping God of Thunder.
“Did you just try to hit my mother?” Ruin asked in a cold, murderous whisper. Right now, he was a deceptively small black hole filled with the bottomless, irrational rage of a seven-year-old.
He didn’t wait for Thor to respond.
He belched.
And the exact same blast of lightning Thor had tried to use on my mansion—Ruin’s mother—struck Thor right in the gut. He flew past us at lightspeed—of course—and knocked down all three Knightmares like metal bowling pins before he slammed into the white tree with an expulsion of breath.
Oh, and more blood.
I didn’t know if it was his or from the tree, because the hilt of the Knightmare’s sword was still embedded in the trunk, oozing blood in a steady, alarming downpour.
I glanced over at Ruin. “Thanks.”
He bobbed up and down, seeming to shrug. “No one hurts my mother,” he said as if he was announcing the End Days. “I tried to help Alex, but he told me to come help you two instead,” he admitted in a friendlier tone.
I frowned at that.
Gunnar—still looking like a deranged Pomeranian and shaking his head—finally reached us as we turned back to Thor. The Knightmares were already climbing back to their feet, and immediately began backing away from Thor.
Thor looked at them, and then the sword sticking out of the trunk. He yanked it out, ignoring the spurt of blood, and then lobbed it to the unarmed Knightmare with a chuckle.
I froze. What the hell?
The Knightmare caught the blade, and then the three of them simply disappeared. Alex, Grimm and Talon squared off against Thor.
Thor ignored them, turning to me with a look of undying hatred. “Odin will die by my hand. Only then will I come for you two. You cannot keep him safe from Thor, the God of Thunder!”
Rainbow light suddenly erupted over his body, and he disappeared.
Gunnar howled in outrage.
Alex, Talon, and Grimm finally made their way over to us, sheathing their weapons and scanning our surroundings as if expecting a surprise attack.
Alex glanced down at his dreamcatchers absently. The one with the dragon scale—representing our realm here—was devoid of lights, but the Fae dreamcatcher now showed seven orbs, and they were all concentrated in the same spot.
“They’re all gone now,” Alex said, letting out a breath. He shook his head in frustration before approaching Ruin. “Thank you, old friend.”
“Of course. When he attacked my mother…” Ruin trailed off, sounding emotional.
“You did well. Can you keep an eye on everything out here? Make sure no one else shows up? I need to speak with Nate in private.”
I was staring at the tree, my back to Ruin. I shook my head, not knowing if this was a good development or if we were about to have an army of Elders—a race feared by every pantheon and supernatural group I had ever met—on my lawn.
And whether they would be friend or foe.
I glanced over at Talon beside me because his tail was twitching, and he was sniffing at the air, facing the front gate to Chateau Falco.
Knightmare: Nate Temple Series Book 12 Page 17