I pondered his comment, letting them discuss. When I looked up, I saw Asterion watching me thoughtfully. He gave me a slow nod, and then jumped back into the conversation. I frowned at his back, growing frustrated as I turned away.
To find Achilles watching me. He mouthed one word. Indie. And then he tossed me a bundle of fabric. I opened it to see his God save the Grimms tee from our meeting in the Armory. I met his eyes. “I washed it,” he said.
I turned around and walked up to the bar, refilling my drink in a shaking fist.
Ganesh, Asterion, and Achilles all had conflicting advice, it seemed. I had literally no idea which decision was right. They all had potential positives, and definite negatives.
And I had been avoiding another topic of concern. The Hatter still had my cane. The one with my Beast. I needed to get that back once all this was finished. Bury it deep. Lock it away in the Armory or something. And if I stood against Ichabod, how in the hell was I going to look the Hatter in the face and politely ask him to give me back my cane. Oh, yeah. I stopped Ichabod. Your long-lost son. Can I have my cane back now?
Because if Ichabod and I met on the field of battle, one of us would die.
I looked at my watch, surprised that time was almost up. We had ten minutes to get there. I could Shadow Walk any stragglers, or make a Gateway, but still, it was time to get ready for the dance. “It’s time.”
G Ma suddenly spoke. “Just a moment. Stopping Ichabod is important. No argument. We will battle him and prevail.” She snorted confidently, indicating the room full of extremely powerful people. “But we are neglecting to discuss the other problem. That of the Grimms.”
I cleared my throat. “They aren’t a concern. Trust—”
Dean burst into the room, a frantic look on his face. He stared at me, mouth opening several times, choosing his words carefully. “Carl has been injured,” he said warily.
I blinked. “What? How? Did he fall down?”
Dean was shaking his head, looking frustrated as his eyes darted back and forth to the guests in the room and me, trying to get me to understand something he wasn’t speaking out loud. “No, he’s… where he was earlier when you spoke with him.”
My heart stopped, darting to Mallory, who suddenly looked very, very concerned. Confusion overtook me, overwhelmed by too many moving parts, too many enemies. “He asked me if he could switch with Carl. That Carl had asked him to…” I trailed off, momentarily dumbfounded.
Mallory growled. “Carl told me he wouldn’t dare switch places with them. That something felt wrong.”
“They escaped,” I said, locking eyes with Dean. He nodded adamantly.
“Who escaped?” G Ma demanded.
Cindy looked me in the eyes, assessing, then they flashed in revelation. “His lady love. He had her captive this whole time, the naughty boy!” she turned to the group. “The Grimms!”
Chapter 64
The room devolved into panic, everyone shouting over one another, until the house began to rumble and groan, silencing them all.
“Okay. New strategy. We still have to go stop Ichabod. But now we also have to stop Indie.” I looked up to find everyone staring at me. “We have to split up.”
The room was silent.
Before anyone could argue, I made the decision, wrapping myself in a void of cold, analytical action. My emotions were a danger now. “The Academy and the Syndicate will confront Ichabod. You are the most powerful, the only ones able to stop him, a Maker.”
The two women – enemies of each other – locked eyes, and after a very tense moment or two, nodded. They even shook hands.
“We need at least one magic user here to hold-off Indie. The rest will be shifters. Overwhelming odds. Because it’s not just her, but Helmut and the Elders.”
“A bloodbath,” Achilles grinned. “You don’t bloody disappoint, Temple. Not at all.” And he was suddenly holding his helmet, and a spear butt hammered into the ground in his other fist. He donned his helmet, and Cindy – the silver-haired whatever she was – appraised him like a wildcat studying a lamb.
She really was a cougar.
I clapped my hands. “Go! Shoo! Time is a-wasting!”
G Ma and Cindy were the first out of the room, the rest followed me as I jogged towards the front door. Dean caught my arm, pulling me back with surprising strength. Everyone jogged past me, congregating in the driveway, scanning the grounds, searching for Indie. I noticed Sir Muffle Paws watching me from the hallway, twitching his tail back and forth. He lifted his chin disdainfully, and then turned his back on me, strutting down the hallway, away from the mangy humans.
He was much nicer when he slept. Most other times he looked like he wanted to eat your face, but he was kind of cute when sleeping. Like earlier, in my office when he had been sleeping on the book, Through the Looking-Glass, while I made phone—
I froze, eyes darting back to him, but he was gone.
He had been sleeping on my book.
The one I had spelled.
The one that should have zapped the ever-living hell out of him on contact.
Yet I had watched him touch it, and even go to sleep on it.
Dean shook me again, harder, physically shaking away my alarm. “Master Temple! Are you even listening?” He was shoving a pistol into my hands, urging me to take it. My fingers closed around it, and I looked back up at him. He grabbed me by the cheeks, staring into my eyes. “Pull. The. Trigger.” Then he shoved me out the door, closing it behind me. And I knew exactly who he meant for me to shoot.
Indie.
I stumbled down the steps to find Achilles, Ganesh, Asterion, Gunnar, Ashley, Tory and Alucard watching me. They looked at the pistol in my hands, and their faces grew somber. Achilles shook his head very slowly so that no one else could see.
I didn’t consciously know why, but I flung off my jacket and tore off my shirt, replacing it with the one Achilles had given me. Tory rolled her eyes, but Achilles nodded in approval. I shoved the pistol in the back of my pants, but I knew if I was going to use any gun, I was going to use my abracadabra gun. Magic. I silently commanded the Guardians to protect Chateau Falco, since the wards were still down, and there was an unknown force preventing me from bringing them back online.
Indie.
I ran, and my monsters followed.
We reached the tree, but no one was there. Not a Grimm or Elder in sight.
“Where else could she have gone?” I hissed out loud, wondering why the Elders had freed her in the first place.
Then it hit me.
The Elders had been searching for her for a long time, thinking her the key to their freedom. The fact that she had died there, and been brought back had prevented them from feeding on her. Only Carl and a few dozen of his friends had made it over. Kind of like the Grimms. Limited.
They were trying to break free.
But Indie had goals of her own, and wouldn’t be afraid to murder all of them to get her way.
But there were no dead Elders on the ground. Which meant they had agreed on something.
The Hand of God. Pandora had mentioned that the Elders had one. Indie must have made a deal of some kind, like Give me the Hand of God and I’ll free you.
To be honest, it was a twofer. She could possibly get not only an army of Grimms, but another army that the world had decided to banish hundreds – if not thousands – of years ago.
“We might need more fighters,” I said out loud, suddenly very nervous.
“What are you talking about, Nate?” Tory asked, eyes darting around the grounds as if I had seen something they hadn’t. “I could get the students. Do you want me to call Raego? You think we need them?” she asked in a nervous whisper
I turned to face her, to face everyone. “No. We don’t have time for that. Indie’s here. Now. In the tree, I think.” I shouted at the top of my lungs, not seeing Mallory with the group. “Mallory! We’re going to need you down here. NOW!” My rushed breathing was terrifying everyone.
“I think she made a deal. Free her, and she’ll free them. All of them. The Elders.”
“I thought they wanted to kill her and eat her,” Gunnar argued.
I nodded. “That’s what they initially thought, but she’s a Grimm with the power of a Maker. She can do a lot of things. And she’s been training with Ichabod. She could do it. If she can open a Gateway for the Grimms, she can open a Gateway for the Elders. They don’t need to eat her. She’ll open the door for them. And I bet you she asked for their Hand of God as a bonus. I think this whole damn thing has been a ruse. Or a series of unfortunate events. Or a power-play.”
Gunnar turned to look at the tree. “Which means we have two armies coming our way.”
“Worst case scenario,” I agreed.
Tory was already on the phone, as was Achilles. Alucard looked thirsty.
For blood.
I glanced back at Ganesh to see he had taken the time to fix long, curved, wickedly-serrated blades to his tusks, a good four or five feet each, arcing out away from his body. His eyes were black orbs, and his ears were tucked back slightly, like a dog when they were in a scrap. His shoulders also bunched forward, and his upper two arms held bone axes, his lower two hands some kind of wicked spiked device over his knuckles.
Brass knuckles?
I shivered at the sight. He was a nightmare.
Then there was Asterion. He had ripped off his traditional robes, wearing only cotton pants that were tied tightly just above his knees, the ribbons blowing freely in the wind like Macho Man Randy Savage from those wrestling events. Matching ribbons were also tied around his biceps, and the tips of his horns had foot-long trident attachments, looking like rough, unfinished steel, blacker than coal. The runes on his nose ring pulsed with golden light, casting a reflection back on his eyes so that it looked like his glare pulsated with golden power. He snorted, shaking his head and squeezing his fists until I heard the knuckles pop. The Minotaur didn’t want a weapon. He was the weapon.
He met my eyes. “Just like the bachelor party,” he grinned.
He must have been thinking of a different bachelor party, because although things had gone sideways at Gunnar’s weekend bash, it hadn’t ended in a full-blown war. But I nodded anyway.
Two dozen black-clad men suddenly raced towards us as if out of nowhere.
“Have they been here the whole time?” I asked Achilles incredulously, recognizing his Myrmidons, the legendary sackers of Troy.
He shook his head. “I had them on standby. Outside the gates. Didn’t want to spook the Elders guarding your walls,” he shrugged. He watched me as his men gathered around him. None spoke, focused on only their spears and shields. White painted stripes splashed down their helm and chest, as if someone had dipped their hand in paint and simply wiped it from top to bottom. It wasn’t neat. It wasn’t perfect. But it looked haunting.
I avoided Achilles’ stare, knowing he was reading me, wondering what I would do about Indie. But I was pretty sure that our relationship had changed to it’s complicated…
As if on cue, the giant pale tree suddenly began to glow, brighter and brighter at a steady rate, and then it began to pulse. And a wide opening slowly materialized at the base.
“Get ready,” I said as wolves began to howl on the edges of my property.
Dragons roared in the skies, but they sounded miles away, more like distant thunder.
Still, I pretended it was dragons. That way I could also pretend we weren’t all about to die.
Chapter 65
Thunder and lightning flashed in the distance, in the direction of the St. Louis Arch. The rumbles were delayed, hitting our ears the moment Indie stepped out of the tree, holding a small object in one hand. Her eyes locked onto us, then my shirt.
And she hesitated, frowning, mouth open to speak, but no words coming out.
Before she could formulate a sentence, a contingent of both Grimms and Elders rushed out of the opening behind her, gathering on either side, and glaring at the small army before them.
The wolves howled, closer, and the familiar roar of dragons echoed them, also closer now.
I looked up to try and find them, but it was impossible with the setting sun. Two dark specks fluttered out from the tree, flapping as they fled the impending war.
Ravens.
The Myrmidons rattled their spears against their shields, and then just began launching them at everyone but Indie, without an ounce of shame at the surprise attack. The enemy broke rank, and raced towards us, blades of bone and steel clashing against Greek metal. Wolves began pouring over the landscape in the distance, darting around bushes as they raced our way, and the familiar explosion of fabric signaled the shifters beside me taking form. Battle form.
Gunnar shook his ruff beside me, and let out a long, drawn out howl, calling his pack to war. They responded, running faster, and howling their support. Then he was suddenly in the thick of it, knocking over one Elder, dodging another’s blade, and then darting back to rip half the face off of the downed Elder. Then he moved on, targeting anyone on the sidelines that attempted to pick off any stragglers in the Myrmidon’s steady formation of advancing shield and spear.
Ashley – also in wolf form – darted between the Myrmidons like a wraith, hamstringing Elders and Grimms alike as they were distracted by the flashing spears and shields, the cacophony of sound as they stomped closer to the middle, a congested pit of sweat, shouting, bodies, and screams.
Both of pain and joy.
“Crazy bastards,” I muttered under my breath.
Alucard and Tory stood side-by side, grinning as a trio of Grimms ran straight at them. Alucard suddenly zipped ahead, leaving a trail of light in his wake before punching straight through a Grimm’s chest. He reappeared beside Tory, his blood-soaked hand gripping a heart. He gave it a long lick, then tossed it on the ground, before taking a bow towards the two remaining Grimms, who had stopped short in stunned disbelief.
Tory didn’t waste a second, her eyes pulsing green as the earth exploded around them with pale roots that trapped their feet, before continuing up their bodies to encase them in two wooden cages. She held up a hand, and then clenched her fist.
They were crushed, screaming the entire time, not even having a second to defend themselves. Looked like Tory and Alucard had remembered a few things from their previous scrap with the Grimms. Namely, kill first, ask questions never. Then they moved on, hunting out new enemies.
Ganesh let out a great tremendous honk of his trunk from behind me right as the Minotaur let out a horrifying roar that was a mix between the angriest bull you had ever seen, and a dinosaur.
Then they barreled into the fray, running past me. I heard someone running up behind me and whirled, whips in my fists, but it was only Mallory, panicked, furious eyes taking in the sounds of war. I lowered my hands, not extinguishing the whips. “Can you do something to help? Like you did at the apartments?”
“Casting everyone into a battle frenzy is dangerous when they’re already bloodthirsty.”
“But I saw them attacking themselves last time. Can’t you just hit the bad guys so that they attack anything they see, hopefully each other?”
Mallory nodded. “It will give me away…”
“Then make a grand entrance, goat boy,” I grinned. His response was to explode into a devil on cloven, razor-sharp hooves, standing a good eight feet tall. His arms were wiry, but corded with well-developed muscle. No bruiser like Ganesh and Asterion, but a scrapper. His fists were stained, and I momentarily thought it was blood, only to decide it more resembled the color of wine. The party god had wine hands.
From the waist down he was a swath of matted fur, not clean, and not pretty, but as if he had just spent a decade on an island by himself with only a volleyball to talk to. His hair was wild, and his ribbed horns caught the glow of the moon. He held two clubs in his fist, covered in moss and fungus, but I saw jagged
tips sprouting through the growth, and realized they were living vines of thorns that seemed to writhe and flex like a nest of snakes.
He wore a necklace with a small set of pipes on his chest. With a nod, he held it to his lips and blew out a jaunty little tune, frantically pointing his finger at his targets while he did so.
It hit them like a light blast of water, making the targets stumble in surprise, and then shake their heads from the annoying sound in their ears. Then they looked up, and their eyes were pits of madness. They each tore after whoever was closest to them, friend or foe. Two even went at Indie, who suddenly found herself fighting for her life against creatures she had just liberated.
She destroyed them without much effort, eyes flashing black, but looked suddenly fearful, not understanding the situation.
It may sound like we could handily win this.
But that’s because I hadn’t mentioned that while all this was going down, more of them kept escaping the tree.
“Pan! Close that tree! Do some nature stuff or something!”
He glared down at me, eyes glowing like liquid gold, his lips pulled back into a perpetual snarl. I took a step back until I realized that was just what his face looked like. A hangry face. I pointed urgently, and he followed my motion, with a resolute nod. Then he freaking jumped over the crowd of warriors to land beside Indie, batting her aside like a weed.
“Hey, asshole! That’s my fiancée!” I shouted on instinct, then frowned for a half-second as I realized what I had said, before tearing off after her, darting through the battle with my whips. I caught a stray Elder, yanking his legs out from under him so that he fell to his back, and was immediately stabbed by a spear. My other whip flashed out around a Grimm’s neck, and as I yanked, I felt no resistance, because my whip was now roaring with a never-before-used white fire, and had instantly vaporized the Grimms flesh. I glanced down at my other whip, covered in plain fire. Then I made it match the white fire, so that both charred and scorched the earth as they sat coiled beside my feet.
Tiny Gods: A Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Book 6 (The Temple Chronicles) Page 33