The bead ate the spear, turning it into a tiny little puff of ash.
I laughed out loud, only to find a dozen new fiery spears suddenly screaming my way, like an invading army storming the gates of a besieged castle. I desperately reached into my pocket to cast the rest of the beads up in the air, hoping I had enough. They were prototypes, so I had brought what I could when I had raided Grimm Tech after first hearing about the Duel.
I dove to the side, lashing out with my elemental whips at the last second. A firecracker sound ensued mid-air as the beads ate her spears, but several did land where I had been standing, charring the earth in great, big, explosive divots.
My whip latched onto her ankle, and I yanked as hard as I could, not letting go. She gasped as the pain of unbearable ice squeezed her ankles, and then again as she was suddenly jerked my way. I met her face with my Stone Skin fist, shattering her jaw. Her face wobbled, and her eyes began to roll back into her head as she fell, and her hand came into contact with the earth. But then she was suddenly gone. I looked up to find her standing a dozen feet away, dazed.
Wow. Shadow Walking while almost knocked unconscious? That was impressive.
It only took her a second to recover, taking a deep calming breath as a golden orb illuminated the interior of her stomach. Her jaw hung loosely, but the golden orb suddenly flashed from her stomach throughout her body, like I was seeing an MRI of her insides. The golden light touched her face, almost blinding me as it pulsed. I covered my eyes, scrambling to my feet.
I took a few lateral steps, getting out of her immediate attention as I reassessed. Her face was completely healed, but she still looked dizzy, which gave me a minute to check on my partner.
Naked Raego and his grandmother simply stared at each other from six paces away.
Neither moved, advancing or retreating, but stared at each other, horizontal-pupiled dragon eyes glaring with fire. Raego’s eyes were black, making it impossible to tell where he was looking since it was just a shining ebony wall across his sclera.
His grandmother had startling blue and gold-flecked eyes, which I had never seen before. I had only seen solid-colored eyes – red, green, blue, silver, black – up until Yahn, anyway.
But a mix? Nope. I could only imagine what she would look like when in dragon form.
But, of course, that wasn’t happening. Because the lazy lizards just stared at each other.
“Do something!” I shouted at Raego as my eyes flicked back to G Ma. She was rolling her hands together, striding my way with confident, angry steps, a ball of nebulous green power forming. Brief flashes of electricity illuminated the interior of the orb, like she had trapped lightning in a ball.
Raego gasped as his hand suddenly shifted into a long black claw. I was momentarily relieved to see him actually doing something, until I saw his face. It was strained, angry, and desperate. Then I got it.
They were battling in their heads. Trying to force the other to shift.
And I had never seen anyone stand a chance against Raego, because he was the prophesied Obsidian Son, the ultimate shifter dragon.
So, grandma Raego was either incredibly powerful or Raego wasn’t giving it his best.
I continued shuffling until Raego’s grandmother was directly between G Ma and I. “Raego, come on! She’s a little old lady! She’s still holding her purse, for crying out loud. Try!”
He gritted his teeth, snarling, but not meeting my eyes as his other hand exploded into a claw. “She’s… four… hundred… years… old,” he hissed.
That stopped me short. I had no idea dragons could live that long. But I was saved from an academic conversation as G Ma flung her ball at me – but grandma Raego still stood between us, smiling at her grandson with a triumphant grin.
Little old bitty was about to get zapped by friendly-fire.
But the orb went straight through her without harm, and it was suddenly all I could do to defend myself. I threw my arms into a crossing motion over my chest, activating the spelled bracers I wore under my shirt. The orb struck, and rather than killing me, sent me cartwheeling across the clearing.
I skidded on my back, spitting out a mouthful of dirt I had gotten at some point on my journey. The bracers fell off, burned out. I crab-walked backwards as G Ma continued to advance. “Grandma, what psychotic ideals you have,” I quipped, climbing to my feet.
“All the better to kill you with. I regret this won’t be permanent—”
But I was suddenly gone, Shadow Walking to the opposite end of the ring. I flung my hand down, and a loud cracking sound erupted at my feet. Then I instantly Shadow Walked to another random location, copying the cracking sound. None of these were lethal. Just sounds.
I did this six more times, catching her whirling my way with each one, tracking the sounds.
I did it one last time, but the instant before materializing, I silently flung my hand out across the clearing. There was a small delay before the cracking sound erupted where I had pointed, and G Ma whirled towards it to find only empty air where I should have been standing.
Because she didn’t know I was instead standing directly behind her. I had hoped she would rely on her familiarity with the cracking sounds over her sight. And I had been right.
I used my Stone Skin right hand to hammer the back of her knees, knocking her to the ground with a jarring blow that may have cracked cartilage, leaving her kneeling before me and still facing away from me.
Without hesitation, I swung my other hand to hit her in the throat with the web of flesh between thumb and forefinger, hammering her windpipe. I continued my momentum, spinning in a clockwise full circle as I swung my leg high above my head, casting Stone Skin around my boot. At the apex of the arc, I swung it down in an axe-kick motion I had learned from Achilles.
She was still kneeling, clutching her throat as she gasped for air when the blow struck her neck, hammering her down into the earth. I prepared one last fatal blow to end this farce. I needed to get to Indie stat, to stop her from waking the Grimms. Put a fork in it.
But grandma Raego suddenly lashed out with her wings, striking me with a claw in the face, knocking me clear so that my execution blow sliced through the earth only inches away from G Ma’s head. I turned, wiping the small gash on my cheek to find a majestic beast, a blue and gold scaled dragon, flesh like old stone, and multiple horns forming a fanned crest above her head.
Raego grunted triumphantly, having won their pointless battle of wills.
“This is to the death, Raego. Stop. Fucking. Playing!” I shouted. He nodded, and burst into his own impressive inky black dragon form, scales like polished black glass. The grandma spat flame at the ground before them, drawing a line. It was a combination of liquid blue and yellow fire, like napalm, and I could feel the heat across the ring as she lifted her wings, folding them up into a massive wall behind her, trebling the look of her size, which was already impressive. Like a peacock fanning his tail.
Raego snarled, drawing his own line of black smoke in the earth before him. His eyes briefly flicked my way, and he jerked his neck back, lids widening as he looked behind me.
I didn’t have time to react as something hammered into me, burning, scalding, and shredding my clothes. Like a thousand razor blades coated in liquid nitrogen and acid.
I flew through the air, directly between the dragons, landing on my wounded back, gasping.
I found myself staring up at grandma Raego, who was licking her long, stained, ivory fangs with a thin, red tongue. She smelled like cats and excessive perfume. I saw her purse dangling from a spine on her armored back as Raego roared, hoping to distract her long enough to save me. Her jaws opened and her teeth lashed out as fast as a cobra.
To gobble me up.
Chapter 51
I had subconsciously grabbed the coin in my pocket, willing to do anything to win. Time seemed to slow, but I think that was a common feeling when you were about to die.
I had to win.
Sure, if I
died, I would find myself in bed, get up, walk it off, and head over to meet Indie and her gang of sociopaths, hoping to stop them.
But I wouldn’t be able to interfere as the Academy picked apart my friends. Gunnar, Tory, her students, the Reds, Raego and his dragons, and anyone else I loved. For one week. Which would be long enough for the Academy to destroy them all.
I was magically tapped. At least for half an hour or so. My magic typically regenerated pretty fast, but I had slept little, eaten less, and pretty much drank only alcohol for the last few days, so I wasn’t optimistic.
But my hand held a coin.
A Silver Dollar.
Would it help? What were the consequences? I knew G Ma would recognize the scent from the Library. But it was a powerful artifact, full of power of its own, as Matthias had told me.
But it was also a Horseman Mask, and there was the rub.
I had used it already… kind of. And nothing had happened.
But the only way the Mask was going to save me this time was if I donned it.
Slapped it right against my rosy cheeks.
I noticed that grandma Raego’s head hadn’t moved any closer, and it snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked around, and found no one moving.
Well, except for four shadowy figures steadily approaching me. No one paid them any heed, both the crowd and contenders frozen like statues. My old friend knelt beside me, wincing after he pulled me up into a sitting position and assessed my back.
He met my eyes. “It’s bad.”
I blinked. “Did you stop time or is there a Grimm here?” But I knew better. His brothers stood a few paces away, watching me from beneath their hoods.
Death shook his head. “This is a moment of choice. You didn’t have all the knowledge necessary before to make an objective decision.” He flicked his head at my hand.
I pulled out the coin, not looking at it. He gazed at it with wonder, eyes momentarily distant, and… eager. I closed my fingers, not tapping into the power. He nodded back. I wanted to shout at him for not telling me about the book, his past with Matthias, him creating the Mad Hatter.
But this wasn’t the time or place for that.
“Tough call…” he offered.
“I put this on, and I’m a Horseman. I won’t be able to help my friends the way I need to. So, I’ll win this fight, but not be able to do anything.”
He smirked. “It will heal you. But you could still get your ass kicked by these two old gals. Even with the Mask. You are untrained,” he admitted. “The mask amplifies what you are, it doesn’t make you into something you are not. That’s why we are chosen in the first place.”
I frowned down at it. “Other than possibly still getting my ass kicked, the rest was true, right? I won’t be able to help them. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” I repeated his quote from a few days ago in Chateau Falco.
A wisp of a smile flittered across his face. And for the first time, it registered with me that none of them were wearing their masks. He studied me thoughtfully. He even took a second to glance back at his brothers. After a silent exchange, they each nodded once in encouragement. “We do not know. Perhaps wearing the Mask only this one time will not make you a Horseman. We’re also at the Dueling Grounds, not the mortal realm…” he shrugged. “Who knows?”
My mouth fell open. “You’re shitting me…”
He shook his head, sitting down himself. He was a tall guy, and he was now sitting pretty close to the dragon’s open mouth. A small drip of saliva had built on the tip of one tooth, ready to drop and land on his shoulder. He looked at the drop, and casually placed his palm against the offending tooth. Like clay, her entire head slowly pivoted until it was out of his way, and she was no longer looming over me, but was instead a foot away from me so that her bite would strike only earth.
Death unconcernedly wiped his hand idly on his robe of black cobwebs. “As I was saying, when I was offered my Mask, I was immediately given the choice by an Agent of Heaven and an Agent of Hell. I was the first, so it had to happen that way. I accepted, asking only that I complete my vengeance first.” He held out a small bone in his fist, rubbing it nostalgically with his thumb.
A carving made from the bone of his son. I had found it for him. What felt like a decade ago.
I shivered at the thought of him just carrying it around. Morbid and macabre to the extreme.
Then again, he was Death.
Still, it felt akin to Jesus carrying around a crucifix or a crown of thorns as a keychain.
“I chose to accept.” He indicated his brothers with a casual motion of his hand. “They each received different summons. War actually wore his Mask quite often before he was recruited.” He shrugged. “Well, several times, anyway.”
“I can put on the Mask… But what will it do to me? What will it allow me to do?”
Death shrugged. “No one ever asked my opinion about a Fifth Horseman,” his eyes were distant as he answered, not telling me the full truth. Before I could press, he met my eyes again. “At some point, probably a very obvious point, you will know when donning the Mask is final, and what that would entail. At that moment, you may even still be given the opportunity to decline.” His face morphed into a grin. “I’m sure there will be… consequences for sampling the cookies, but not buying anything,” he added drily. He scanned the clearing. “Any longer and our talk could negatively affect those present. Are you ready?” he asked, anxious to hear my answer.
I reached into my pocket, withdrew a small object and placed it in the dirt directly before the dragon’s mouth. Then I slowly met Death’s curious frown, and winked.
With an echoing laugh, he was gone.
Grandma Raego’s jaws slammed down, snapping closed on the tiny object and a mouthful of dirt before her.
This left me a foot away from her very startled eyes, seeing that I was suddenly not immediately before her, and that she was the one who had moved.
“A kiss from me to you…” I whispered as I flicked her in the eyeball with my fingernail. I rolled away as she recoiled in pain. She started to open her jaws to spit out the mouthful of dirt, but I cast a tiny spell into the object clinging to her teeth.
An explosion blew off her snout. Right the hell off.
It sent her reeling and screaming with horrifying, pained animal sounds as blood and burnt flesh rained down around me. I jumped to my feet, and although Raego looked horrified, he shouted, “Purse!” as he slapped his flank urgently with his claws. I frowned for a moment, and then realized that if he had been in human form, he would have been patting his pants pocket.
Where I had gifted him a few of my prototypes ahead of the fight.
I turned to the still screaming Gertrude to see her purse dangling from her back, still stuck to one of her spines. I smiled wickedly, sending out a flash of power at the dangling handbag.
“A woman’s never far from her purse,” I murmured.
The tiny jolt of power exploded like a small supernova, a ring of force erupting outwards from her in a perfect circle, sending everyone crashing to their knees. Except me. A ring of black thorns had formed around my feet, and I realized I was still holding the coin in my fist.
But it was no longer a coin. I was cupping my Mask. That buzzed with power in my hands.
I turned towards G Ma, and as slow as an exotic dancer removing an article of clothing, I placed the crystal Mask over my face. It latched onto my skin like a dozen tiny fairy hands, and the unpleasant buzzing sensation ceased. It still felt unpleasant for a moment, but differently unpleasant. Because it was shifting and adjusting to the contours of my face. It didn’t hurt.
In fact, a cooling sensation rolled over my entire body, washing away all of my injuries.
And if I hadn’t seen the bed of crystals on the interior, I would have told you it had been made of crisp, untouched velvet, so seamless was the space between my face and the mask.
A carnivorous horse neighed from beyond the ring, and I stared through th
e mask – flickers of reflective fog now decorating my peripheral vision – as black bolts of lightning pounded the earth outside the torches, into the wild, untamed void that existed beyond the Dueling Grounds. Thunder crackled and growled across the skies, shaking the bed of thorns at my feet.
Grimm, my unicorn, strode out from the dark void beyond the protective ring of torches, his black peacock mane flaring out to display brilliant crimson orbs on the edge of each feather. Silver and white sparks crackled around his hooves as he strode up to the ring. He licked the tips of his long, razor sharp teeth, but of course, he didn’t enter the arena itself.
Because that would have been cheating. His display was purely an intimidation factor. He did perform an odd kneeling motion in my direction. I dipped my head back, ignoring the silver fog at the edges of my vision.
The crowd had been silent, but at the sight of the unicorn and my Mask, they began to roar.
I slowly turned to acknowledge them, and as I did, whichever section I faced died down to hushed, awed, possibly terrified whispers, only to rise back up like a Leviathan as my gaze continued on. Like the opposite of the wave they did in sports stadiums.
The gorillas looked particularly speechless, likely doubting their decision to join Fight Club.
I turned to face G Ma. Her face was ashen, and she was shaking her head in disbelief.
“You… It was you at the Library…” she whispered, stunned. “You have no idea what—”
“KNEEL!” I commanded, and the thunder boomed above me like an exclamation point.
She obeyed. Immediately. Instinctively. Not as if she had chosen to do so, but as if her body had just reacted to my tone. And the thunder.
A deep gong boomed, an ominous, warning sound. It faded away almost instantly, and I frowned at Achilles and Asterion, wondering if that was a new addition to signify the end of a fight. They looked just as startled, so I played it off.
Raego prowled up beside me, refusing to meet my gaze, but willing to stand beside me.
“Submit,” I commanded the old wizard.
Tiny Gods: A Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Book 6 (The Temple Chronicles) Page 25