by C. E. Murphy
Beneath the snark, though, cold and calm satisfaction rose. The Master had made his first real mistake.
He was half a god now, but he was all of this earth, his bitter, black aura bound to it. Herne had been born to a human mother, and I had brought Cernunnos back to this world in full. The god belonged here, belonged in a way he never had before, and Herne had been his son. The power of those things was tremendous, so great it came off the Master in waves, making it clear to me what had been done. Herne had given up his soul to save his daughter and—perhaps intentionally—to offer the temptation of flesh sculpted to the Master’s preference. Flesh that he couldn’t easily discard, as he’d done with me. Flesh and form, body and bone.
I finally had something I could fight.
A shudder ran over me from scalp to soles. The power I’d borrowed from my counterpart came to full life inside me, and was deepened by the focused will of my friends, my broken city, my god and his granddaughter, who still remained free. I took it and armored myself in it, bracer shield on my left arm and Cernunnos’s silver rapier in the opposite hand. My mother’s necklace, which had never offered more than moral support before, warmed and changed, became the living silver it had been made of, and slipped down my torso as—
I took a quick look to be sure and exhaled in relief. As a silver breastplate and greaves, not a chain-mail bikini. Thank goodness.
My coat, gratifyingly, turned white again.
For some reason that in particular brought a grin to my face. A vicious, sharp berserker’s grin, to be sure, but a grin. I lifted my gaze and found the Master watching me. Not waiting; he wasn’t gentleman enough to wait. I thought maybe he was adjusting. It had, after all, taken him a minute or three to get fine motor control going when he’d jumped into Gary, and a demigod’s systems might work differently from a human’s.
And it was new. It wasn’t Herne, with his stooped shoulders and long sad face. It was a face I knew better than that. Young. Hot. Multiethnic.
My own face, looking back at me with black eyes, black coat, black blade in hand. My blade, but made of obsidian.
“Please,” I said softly. “I’ve battled my demons. You’re not going to get anywhere with that guise.”
“I’ll get far enough,” he said in my voice, and fifteen months of pent-up anticipation burst free in a headlong rush.
In the first minute or two neither of us had anything even vaguely resembling strategy. We got in too close to even use our swords, which both disappeared when it became clear fists were the choice weapon of the moment. We each had one of the other’s lapels and pounded each other’s faces with the free fist, all schoolyard brawl and no finesse at all. Every hit that landed on me was of skull-splitting agony, but every one I landed on the Master carried a fistful of healing magic, and hurt him just as badly. I healed: he didn’t, not exactly, but he was full up of godling power, and it let him repair himself without reaching beyond the two of us to suck the lives out of the people around us.
I had to cut his ability to do that. If I could keep him from draining lives to repower himself, eventually even Herne’s life force would run out and I’d find myself pounding on a sack of meat.
That sounded extremely satisfying. Not easy, but satisfying. A hit cracked my cheekbone and the pain blinded me. I loosened my grip on his coat and he slammed his arms up, freeing himself. I healed as we backed away from one another, and then, like prizefighters with the thirst for first contact satisfied, began to circle each other. He looked wary, which was a lot more than I expected. I tried not to look like I’d already had the crap beaten out of me, in hopes of striking fear into the heart of my enemy.
Then I thought about the time I’d just spent with him in my head, and concluded I didn’t actually want him to fear me. Fear strengthened him. I wanted him to think I was easy pickings, that I didn’t stand a chance of defeating a creature like him. Only then I got scared, which didn’t help, either. I said, “Oh, fuck it,” under my breath, called my sword to life again and charged him.
His black blade reappeared as well, singing with the blow, but not breaking. Not obsidian, then. Obsidian would have shattered under the weight of that blow. I had no idea what kind of metal came in pure and glittering black. The dark heart of a meteor, maybe, which was a lovely image and did nothing for my confidence. My sword was only silver, which wasn’t exactly as hard as meteor iron.
Of course, my sword was also magic, which probably evened the odds. I swung my shield, using it as a weapon, as well. Black lightning smashed into it, absorbed by purple and copper. Nothing more than a faint sting came through to my arm, and even that swelled and altered, purifying and changing from his death power into my shamanic warrior’s magic.
I’d never seen him falter before. It gave me hope, and I pressed the advantage, yelling as healing power roared into my sword. It cut him deeply, magic crackling and shriveling his flesh. He screamed and fell back, but when the sword left his body, the wound remained. Healing fire danced in it, flat lightning snaps as ruthless as his own magic. I had no idea what it thought it was healing, but it hurt the Master, and not in a way he seemed to gain strength from, so I was all for it.
It occurred to me, as we came together again, that this was likely to be a very long fight. It would do me good to not think about every play, every strike, because I would exhaust myself mentally long before the job was done. I fell back myself, looking around. Reminding myself of who and what I was fighting for.
They stood as far back as they could: Gary and Annie holding hands hard, Morrison standing alone with clenched fists, like he was preventing himself from throwing himself into the fray. Coyote’s hands were steepled in front of his mouth. Suzy stood over her grandfather, who knelt with empty, open arms, as if he cradled the ruined soul of his son. The half-wrecked shambles of the Seattle Center stood as their backdrop, a testimony to defeat.
It wasn’t exactly the tally-ho I might have hoped for, but in a way, the ruins and the wrecks of hope bolstered me. What destruction I saw now, what loss and anguish, what fears and worries I saw among my friends, would only be magnified across the world if we failed here.
If I failed here.
I looked back at the Master, whose attention had followed mine. Not for the attack, but out of what—had it actually been on my face, rather than a reflection of me—I would have called perplexity. As if he wondered why I would stop fighting and look to my friends, when the pause could easily kill me.
The fact that it hadn’t made me wonder if function followed form, and if in taking on my guise, he’d made a greater mistake than he’d known. It had been one thing sharing headspace with him. That had been of necessity, in both our opinions. Making himself in my image—
Well. That was what men did with gods.
I chuckled and swept my blade up, nearly touching it to my nose in a salute that would have done my fencing teacher proud. I wondered how Phoebe was doing, anyway, and whether she’d yet been affected by the tremors and troubles rolling through Seattle. I wondered—assuming we all survived this—if she would forgive me for being a magic-user, for being something that didn’t fit comfortably into her view of the world.
If we survived this, of course, there were a lot of people who were going to have to face things that didn’t fit comfortably into their view of the world.
I completed my salute, sweeping the sword out to the side, then lost myself in battle.
A rhythm came into the fight, flow and ebb. I hurt, I healed, I fell back and I struck again. The Master, time and again, took a wound he could not heal, blue fire sparking inside his body. Each time, he reached beyond himself for the power he’d once known, but I had the way of it now. He was of the earth, and I could shield and block things of the earth. His power reached out; mine knocked it aside, placed a wall before it, threw a net around it and hauled it back. Exhaustion burned in my bod
y, muscles laden with lactic acid that, as the moon climbed higher in the sky, even healing magic couldn’t numb. We were matched, better matched, than I had ever imagined, and I thought again of function following form. Had he kept Herne’s shape, or given himself a god’s face, maybe I couldn’t have met him stroke for stroke and magic for magic.
Maybe I could have. Herne and I had danced once, too, and I’d changed him then. Maybe function would have followed that form, too—maybe, maybe, maybe. I moved across broken concrete, scaled shattered glass that should never have held my weight, and I fought on. The Master’s rage followed me, always burning red and black to my silver-blue. Moonlight reflected off water from the broken fountain until the light we struggled in was bright as day, and I became uncertain as to whether we fought in daytime or night. At times I caught glimpses of the watchers. There seemed to be more of them than there had been, but I hardly trusted my vision. I hardly trusted anything, not even the rise and fall of my sword arm, which ached until I didn’t know how I could lift it again. Magic rolled out of me so steadily I wasn’t certain I had anything left to keep my heart beating. The best I could hope for was that the Master was equally weakened, but I saw none of that in the attacks he constantly pressed, or in the defenses he rallied with when I gathered myself to go on the attack myself.
None of it felt real.
Ghosts began to visit me, and I didn’t see ghosts. That was Billy’s department. But ghosts they were: my mother, of whom there wasn’t enough left for a ghost. When I tripped and fell, it was the sight of her that brought me to my feet again. She stood as Morrison had in my last glimpse of him: leaning forward, intent, hands fisted as though she could fight this battle for me. I smiled at her, then thought maybe she was another of the Master’s false copies, here to taunt me.
Caroline Holliday came when Mother faded, a sweet-faced little girl whose love for life was written across her face. That was hard: tears flooded my eyes, making the battle impossible to see. It turned out I didn’t entirely need to: I Saw the Master even if my ordinary vision was blurred, and my sword or shield moved again and again to block him, even when my thoughts were turned to offering an apology to Caroline. She shook her head and smiled again, and then she, too, was gone, leaving the sound of a baby’s cries echoing in my ears. The newest Holliday, baby Caroline, who was her dead aunt’s namesake. Little Caro couldn’t possibly be here, but the memory of her cries helped ease the elder Caroline’s passing.
They came faster after that. Jason Chan, whose little sisters would never love Halloween again. Lugh, the aos sí whom the Irish remembered as a sun god. Barbara Bragg, who still looked angry, even after death. Mark Bragg didn’t appear. I hoped that meant he wasn’t dead. On and on, even up to Nakaytah, luckless girlfriend of a power-hungry sorcerer and dead three thousand years before I ever might have met her. More and more of them, coming more frantically, throwing themselves at me as the faces and names of people I had lost or who had died because of me.
They were the Master’s feint. I was certain of that now, but he had made another mistake. Maybe he thought they would weaken me, but instead they gave me more, always more, to fight for. He could give them form, but for too many of them I knew the thoughts that had really lain behind their visages, and I had made my heartbroken peace with almost all of them. It was exhausting, though, seeing each of them, and in the end, they were my undoing.
I knew they didn’t exist, but as they crowded me I became less and less willing to strike through them. Their faces were too real, and there were so many that I lost sight—even lost Sight—of the Master, of my other face. Only for a moment, but that was all it took. He slipped between the ghosts and seized my sword arm, sending black pain deep into the nerves. My hand spasmed and I lost the blade. Triumph blared over my own face, through the black eyes of the other me, and my own smile looked sharp enough to rip my throat out.
I couldn’t rally. I was too damned tired, too worn down with losses and failures. I braced my shields, fumbled for the sword that would not come to my hand when called, and chose my last word on this earth: “Morrison.”
The strike came as black lightning, faster than the eye could see. It hit me in the side, knocking me to the ground. An impressive weight pressed me down. Concrete scraped my cheekbone. I wondered that I could feel enough to care just before the scent of burning flesh filled my nose. But there was no pain, or none besides my banged-up face.
It took a terribly long time to understand that the weight on me was not the weight of crushed bones, but was instead Coyote’s body.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I fell. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, and I fell. I didn’t think. I just fell, fell right out of the Middle World and into Coyote’s garden. It was so hot there, desert sky almost white with heat, and when we landed—gently—on rolling sand, it all but burned me through my jeans.
Coyote was torn to pieces, blackened and burned. His beautiful hair was half gone, even here, in his garden, where he should be as complete as possible. Sobbing, I called for healing power, only to have it turn to dust in my hands. I screamed for Raven, for his ability to slip between life and death, and he didn’t answer. There was only emptiness where he was supposed to be, and terror turning my voice shrill as I clutched Coyote against me. “No, Coyote, no, please don’t, please...please don’t. Oh, god, Coyote...”
The Master had struck so fast. Nobody could have beaten him to the punch. Well, maybe I could have, when I had Rattler’s speed to boost me, or in extreme circumstances, Renee’s gift of bending time. I begged for her help now, needing more than the difference in Middle and garden-world time to save my friend. I felt her inside me, folded in on herself, alone and sorrowful, but she didn’t respond. Rage cracked through me like lightning and I shoved the thought of her away, not wanting her help anymore even if she would give it. I could do it myself: I had since the beginning, and didn’t need a goddamned spirit animal to ease the way. Not unless it was Raven, and he was gone. Trembling and afraid, I called healing power a second time. Coyote rebuffed it again, sending it pooling into the golden desert sad.
“Stop that, Jo. There’s no time. You know there isn’t. Too much damage.” He was right. He was so badly hurt, his body burned and broken. I could hardly bear to look, could hardly stand to see the terrible damage of a mindfully cruel lightning strike. I tried again to call magic, and again it sluiced away, running over the hard desert sand and disappearing like water into thirsty earth. “Don’t worry. Doesn’t hurt. Burned out the pain receptors, I think.”
The air was impossibly hot around us, as if maybe it drew the pain from his poor tormented body. Whatever the reason, I was grateful, but my trembling hands called for power again and once more Coyote denied it. “Stop. Just glad I was fast enough. You aren’t the only one with a rattlesnake companion.” Coyote closed his eyes and smiled faintly. “Well, you weren’t. Guess you will be now. Had to use it all up, saving you.”
I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to again. But I tried to laugh, because I thought he wanted me to, and his smile grew a little when I managed a choked sound that might have been construed as laughter. “There’s my Jo. Laughter in the face of adversity. S’what I like about you.”
“Coyote, why...why?”
“Had to do something, Jo. Couldn’t let you die. Be bad...for the world. Sorry.” He fumbled for my hand and I wrapped both of mine around his, holding his knuckles to my lips.
“Don’t. Don’t be sorry. Just let me heal you.”
“No. No. Wanna say it. I blew it out there. Just got so jealous. We were so well matched, Jo.” He opened his eyes again, pure coyote gold in the fading color of his face. “Back when we started? We were a perfect match. The raven, the coyote, the snake. We were a holy triumvirate, twice. Two-spirited. I thought we were two-spirited. Only your spirit wasn’t shared with mine after all. Not in the end.”
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nbsp; “I’m sorry, Coyote. ’Yote. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have...you shouldn’t have...” I bowed over his chest, hands helpless above him. “Won’t you let me heal you?”
The desert beneath me changed from dune waves to hard flat whiteness, and the heat became unbearable. I sucked in a shallow breath and looked up into Big Coyote’s starry eyes. He was solemn, even sad, his precious-metal fur dull for once. “Won’t you let me save him?”
“You shouldn’t even be here, Jo.” Coyote, Little Coyote, my ’yote, spoke so weakly I almost couldn’t hear him. “The fight’s out there. Save me, lose the world. Don’t do that. It would kinda...” He coughed, a fragile sound. “Kinda defeat the point.”
I bent over him, kissing his forehead and smoothing his hair back. “Hang on, okay, ’yote? Hang on. Just hold on and I’ll come back for you as fast as I can. I’ll beat this bastard and I’ll come back and bring you home. Just hold on. Don’t let him die,” I said desperately to Big Coyote. “Just don’t let him die, okay? Just don’t let him die.”
Big Coyote smashed his forehead against mine and sent me back to the real world.
So little time had passed that the Master was still standing above me figuring out what had gone wrong. Hardly even knowing something had gone wrong, until with a howl of hurt and fury I pushed my poor Coyote’s body off me and surged to my feet. Fire burned in me, so much fire I thought I would be consumed with it. My rage knew no bounds: the universe itself couldn’t contain the size of my loss. I came to my feet with my blade blazing blue in one hand and my shield a shining mass of silver on the other arm.
For the first time, I looked into the Master’s black eyes and I saw fear. Not enjoyment of it, not feeding on it, not thriving with it, but the same bone-deep, gut-level fear that drove humans to build fires against the night and stand watch against the creatures that hunted them.