Mordred was no pushover as a wizard – much more powerful than me, and I had considered myself pretty fucking impressive, as did many other wizards I had met in my life.
He was also pretty incredible at making majestic rainbows.
A giant blast of color screamed into existence, about as vibrant and profound as any colors I’d ever seen. Almost like I was seeing raw colors for the first time in my life. Mordred poured power into it like he was holding up the world – having no fear he would deplete himself for my execution. He had his Six Souls for that. The land tried to eat at his rainbow, popping and cracking at the surface to dribble liquid paint in fat dollops on the ground. Mordred poured even more power into it, panting as he fought to make the rainbow brighter, to reduce the pitting on the surface.
He shot me a look, gritting his teeth smugly. Then he shouted at the top of his lungs. “I’M ROY G. BIV, BITCH!” The words echoed in both the Dark Lands and the Dueling Grounds not far away. And then he laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.
I was grinning from ear-to-ear, laughing as well, eyes wondrous as I realized I was probably sitting beneath the biggest, shiniest rainbow the world had ever seen. It was a really good way to die, all things considered.
Mordred finally let go, panting as he placed his hands on his knees, shaking his head. He laughed tiredly, before straightening. “That has to be the brightest rainbow the world has ever seen. Satisfied?”
I began a slow clap, smiling. “Christ, man. I couldn’t make one half that bright. You’re like, the king of rainbows, or something.” I mimed worshipping him, and then sat down with a pained grunt or two, utterly exhausted.
He grunted, watching as the rainbow slowly paled, still refusing to die. “I’ll admit, you gave me a scare back there. I underestimated you.” He dipped his head slightly.
I shrugged, setting my hands down behind me to lean on them with a dramatic sigh. “Thanks, Roy G. Biv,” I replied with a resigned wink.
An icy blade suddenly winked into existence in his hand as he began walking closer. He was smiling at the stupid nickname, chuckling to himself. “This has to be the most bizarre dying wish—”
My unicorn hit him like an airplane hitting a seagull on take-off, complete with an explosion of what seemed to be two-billion black and red peacock feathers – just like the familiar lone feather I had found on the ground a minute ago. The one that had scared the hell out of me, because Grimm was supposed to be watching over Alex at Chateau Falco.
Grimm’s gnarled, thorny horn ripped into Mordred’s stomach so fast and hard and close to me that I could almost feel it in my own gut, whipping my clothes and hair about at the sheer force of impact.
The pair kept right on going, shattering through the ring of torches leading to the Dueling Grounds.
And then through the row of nearby bleachers, sending the bystanders crashing and flailing to the ground as the bleachers collapsed into piles of jagged, broken timber. The spectators screamed and shouted, no longer having fun as the errant torches caught the edges of the wrecked bleachers alight with flame.
I ignored their cries and the sudden concussive explosions hammering into the Dueling Grounds. Grimm did that sometimes when he was feeling particularly frisky – riding black bolts of lightning around an area in the same way a dog has the urge to suddenly sprint about like a lunatic after dropping a deuce on the lawn.
And all the while, he was thrashing his horn, tearing Mordred’s gut open wider – I hoped.
I stumbled to my feet, eager to take advantage of the opportunity Grimm had provided to get back to the relative safety of the Dueling Grounds, where I couldn’t really die.
“I came in like a wreeeeccccking balllll…” a familiar voice sang from behind a nearby boulder. A young man in the prime of his life strolled into view, scooping up my Devourer with one foot and catching it. I stared at Alex, all the blood draining from my face as I recalled the implied warning I’d heard from Quinn’s potted house plant.
It had been talking about this moment. Right now. Grimm had taken Alex here, and now he was in the Dark Lands, where he could actually die.
“What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay at Chateau Falco where it’s safe!” I shouted, jogging over to him, snatching away the Devourer, and spinning him around, desperate to get him back to the Dueling Grounds. To relative safety. I shoved him, ignoring his attempts to argue. “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is out here?” I hissed, almost incoherent with anger – anger birthed from my fear for his safety. I shoved him harder, both of us running now, as Alex still tried to get a word in edgewise. I rolled right over him, shouting. “I didn’t even want you near the Fight Club tonight, let alone out here where you can actually die!” I roared, shoving him through what remained of the ring of torches Grimm had destroyed.
We crossed the line of safety, and I let out a sigh of relief. But I didn’t relent, shoving Alex onward, harder this time, eventually knocking him sprawling on his face as he tripped over some of the bleacher wreckage from Grimm’s path of destruction. I placed my hands on my hips, ignoring the groans and cries of the attendees who were trying to claw their way out from the debris. Many of them saw me, cried out in terror, and ran without looking back. I even ignored Grimm’s tirade of imaginative curses as he slammed Mordred into the base of the tree, pinning him into the trunk. Mordred was coming out of an apparent daze, and punching Grimm in the head weakly as Grimm thrashed back and forth, tearing the gut wound wider as Mordred tried to draw on his Six Souls to heal him faster than Grimm could gore him.
I stepped over Alex, snarling down at him as I made my way towards Mordred. “When we get home, you’re grounded, Mister—” I cut off abruptly, realizing I’d been rambling on autopilot, repeating what my mother had told me about seventy-thousand times.
Then I tensed as I heard a heart-wrenching neighing sound.
Chapter 53
I looked up as Mordred grabbed Grimm by the neck, his arms suddenly consisting of vines and roots as thick as tree branches. His legs were firmly rooted to the ground – literally – like two tree trunks. My eyes widened, impressed, despite the situation. He was using some hardcore earth magic to give him the strength to stave off Grimm. I watched, too far away to help, as he heaved, picking up Grimm by the neck, and then tossed him across the ring, destroying the Carl’s Heels sign.
He noticed I was back within the safety perimeter of the Dueling Grounds – where he could no longer permanently kill me – and his eyes flashed with outrage, his jaws clenching hard enough to actually shatter his own teeth.
“Your turn, Ruin!” Alex shouted at the top of his lungs, interrupting the wizardly Wild West stare-off. “For Kai! For Falco! For Temple! FOR YOUR FAMILY!”
Mordred and I both rounded on Alex, wondering what in the blazes he was shouting about.
And that’s when a fuming, crackling, sizzling cloud of pure, celestial piss and vinegar drifted out of the Dark Lands with a loud burp.
“That’s what I get for eating my food too fast. Now, I have an upset tummy,” B growled, bolts of lightning blasting into the ground beneath him as he stretched, growing darker and wilder.
Except… judging by the look of anticipation on Alex’s face, Ruin was my Baby Beast’s fancy new name.
It might say something about me that I momentarily flushed with pride that my kind-of-son had named his first kind-of-pet. Just like I had done with my first kind-of-pet, Talon the Devourer.
Mordred shot a look at Alex, frowning briefly, likely wondering who the fuck he was. Alex grinned back at him. “My Thunder Buddy is about to ruin your whole night, bub.”
I burst out laughing.
Which didn’t make Mordred any happier, but he was soon distracted by Ruin. The Beast formerly known as B looked to be searching for a mosh pit to break up with his own addition of excessive violence – the world’s angriest little thundercloud. His form morphed to that of what I could only describe as a giant Pac-Man, his jaws stretchi
ng wide, full of stone, needle-like teeth as long as I was tall. Then those teeth began to grow longer and sharper with new offshoots of spikes and needles growing off the original fangs, like eons worth of crystallization happening in the span of seconds – enough time for him to close the distance to Mordred, unaffected by the blasts of power Mordred was hurling at him like a fireworks display.
Ruin didn’t waste time on theatrics or witty repertoire. Neither did he seem concerned as the bolts of power flew right through him without any effect.
He just gobbled up Mordred in one cobra-like lunge, his teeth gouging through some of the earth and tree, causing a thump of twenty trillion toothpicks and clods of sod to explode outwards. I barely threw out a weak shield in time, using mere fumes of my magic, to protect Alex and I from getting splintered to death.
Most of Ruin’s teeth shattered on impact, and all was silent for a few heartbeats.
Then the tree began to fall, toppling down in slow motion with a long, drawn out cracking sound. Those spectators who had paused their escape to stare in awe at first the unicorn, and then the belching, talking thundercloud suddenly resumed their mass exodus, screaming and running to get out of the way, or ducking into any semblance of shelter they could find. They didn’t look half as scared as they should have been. Likely, they considered themselves safe, here at the Dueling Grounds – that if they happened to get squashed by the giant fucking tree, they knew they would wake up safe-and-sound back at home.
Immortal and long-lived types have a strange fascination with danger and carnage. Always pushing the envelope to see how close they could get to kissing the Reaper on the nose without letting him grab them by the cojones.
However, some instincts are hard to break. When you see a massive tree falling right at your face, you’re probably going to run rather than give yourself a motivational pep-talk that it won’t really hurt that badly. The tree thundered down into the last set of bleachers, and I saw a beautiful piece of knitted fabric whip up into the air. It said TEAM TEMPLE on it, right below a cute little recreation of my family crest. I couldn’t help myself. I began to laugh, running a hand through my hair as I watched it fall to the ground only a few paces away from me.
That cute little old vampire had knitted me a doily!
I knew I’d liked her for a reason.
I waited anxiously for Mordred to come back to life, for one of his souls to by torn from his body.
Nothing happened.
Had we just done it? Had B just ended the battle with one freaking bite? One move?
I felt my Devourer quivering, jolting, and almost seeming to whine, but still, nothing happened outwardly to B or Mordred.
I turned to look out at the remaining faces, spotting Midas, Asterion, Baron Skyfall, the two Chancery members who had been with Alvara, and Drake and Cowan. They stood well back, but obviously had no intentions of leaving before the show was over. To bear witness to the true, full story of what had to qualify as the craziest Fight Night ever. Many of them looked dazed, cut up, or even sported cringeworthy wounds. The crappy part was that if they were injured, the only way to make sure they didn’t stay injured was to kill them, here.
That way the Dueling Grounds could send them home safe and sound without a scratch.
And I was fresh out of magic to make those friendly executions quick, which meant I would have to use a sword or something, because defeating Mordred wasn’t enough for one night. And it would have to be me, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Alex do the honors. Have his memory of his first kills be of his friends and allies.
Even though it wouldn’t be real, the memory would be. And nightmares are born in memory.
I helped Alex to his feet, brushing off his shoulders stiffly like a mother hen. No, a cock of the walk. “We’ll talk about this later,” I told him in my dad voice. “But… thank you.”
He smiled crookedly, realizing that now was not the time to jump and shout for joy.
I was definitely embarrassed that I had chastised him like a worried, boring dad. But… I was beginning to accept that that’s just what I was, now. Maybe not so much the boring bit, I thought to myself, surveying the carnage that remained of the once lucrative Fight Club.
Midas stormed up to me, shaking his head as he did the same, likely tallying up the costs as efficiently as a calculator. He locked eyes with me, and although he looked glad to see me back out of the Dark Lands…
I had no doubt who would be the first volunteer to kill me tonight to send me back home.
“Good thing you have the golden touch, right?” I said, attempting levity. “Shouldn’t cost you a penny,” I said. He grunted unhappily, glancing over at the bleachers. I picked up a broken branch at my feet and promptly poked him in the belly while he wasn’t looking. “Boop!” I cooed in a playful tone.
He jolted instinctively, spinning to snatch the offending branch with his bare hand, and the wood instantly turned to solid gold, too heavy for me to maintain my grip. I dropped it and, of course, it landed on Midas’ foot. He cursed loudly, shouting out in pain as he hopped around on his good foot. I winced, taking a step back, holding up my hands. He rounded on me, face beet-red in both pain and outrage.
“Sorry. I didn’t think… I mean, to be fair, you kind of overreacted—”
But I cut off when I saw his face suddenly change, staring over my shoulder.
I spun to find B – no, Ruin – vibrating like he was having a seizure, arcs of gold, yellow, green and blue ripping back and forth from end to end of his cloudy mass. He began to stretch wider, and I saw that his jaws were slowly opening, as if forced.
I saw one boot, and then another.
Followed by a pair of hands forcing those jaws apart.
Ruin abruptly released his bite, drifting up into the air, his teeth shattering. And all those arcs of power pinging around him exploded in a thunderous blast of multicolored lightning.
And every single fucking bolt found a target.
Midas was obliterated in a heartbeat, and I thanked my lucky stars that I’d instinctively dove out of harm’s way, tackling Alex into a pile of wreckage and throwing up a shield of condensed air above us. I’d somehow – perhaps entirely by accident – planted my Devourer into the ground so the blade pointed straight up like a lightning rod.
Power slammed into the spear, but it ricocheted off in a multitude of smaller bolts of power, incinerating the rest of the survivors in the vicinity. The eruptions lasted only a few seconds, but they struck so fast and hard that it sounded like one massive explosion – one growling, earth-shattering kaboom.
I noticed the Team Temple doily lying on the ground beside me, momentarily considering snatching it up as a memento.
“Ruin…” Alex gasped when the noise died down, staring over my shoulder. I turned to look and saw that Ruin was now a cloud as white as snow, no longer over-flowing with energy.
“I got one…” I heard Ruin say in a faint whisper, bobbing up and down drunkenly, and then he suddenly winked out of existence with a faint pop like a bubble.
He’d… gotten one. One Soul? Holy shit! That meant… Mordred was now down to Five Souls!
I turned to see that Mordred had spotted me, and the look on his face told me he was done playing games. No more dying wishes granted. No more words needed. Dr. Bedside Manner was here to tell it like it was.
He hefted two of Ruin’s teeth like weapons – one in each hand – and his face was a bloody, furious mask. “This ends here, Temple. Even if I have to drag you back to the Dark Lands by your toes…” he snarled.
I blindly grabbed the nearest stake of sharp wood and locked eyes with Alex. He blinked back at me in confusion.
And then I stabbed him in the heart.
There was no way I was going to let Mordred get the both of us. The least I could do was send Alex home tonight by killing him here and now. Before Mordred dragged him to the Dark Lands with me.
Alex’s eyes bulged with pain as he gasped, staring up
at me.
And if I hadn’t caught that deep, unconditional look of love and comprehension in those eyes, I might have just volunteered to walk into the Dark Lands for Mordred to execute me. Because if Alex had thought for one moment that I had betrayed him…
My soul would have died anyway.
But I saw the love in those brilliant eyes. They were also spiced with a dash of anger at me for sending him to safety rather than letting him fight beside me, but mostly I saw the love thing.
I scrambled to my feet and took a deep breath, surveying the wreckage for a moment, making sure there were no other people Mordred could use against me. Because if so, I would need to quickly kill them before they became leverage. Because Mordred had already displayed he was willing to drag me into the Dark Lands to kill me for good, and letting anyone help me, now, could put them at the same risk.
But, that problem was quickly solved, since everyone had either fled of their own volition or they had already been electro-blasted in Ruin’s unexpected suicide bomber explosion. I even noticed one of Asterion’s boots smoldering in the center of a clear patch of grass.
I gritted my teeth angrily, hoping Ruin was okay.
Because… the air felt strange, now, like the Dueling Grounds was fighting something. And I had a thermometer constantly reaffirming me of this. My Devourer.
It now felt like I was gripping a live wire, and I didn’t dare let it out of my sight. Mordred was scared of it, so I was keeping it close. I was beginning to sense that there was a lot of hangry magic in the air, caused by the Dueling Grounds and my Devourer not being familiar with the term sharing.
I knew that if Mordred had his way, I wouldn’t find myself in bed tonight. He was going to make me pay for stealing any of his souls, let alone Five.
Yahn, Alucard, Gunnar, and Ruin had each taken one of Mordred’s souls. Talon also scooped one up by default, since I had donated mine to him for his sacrifice. Five Souls down, Five Souls to go. Which meant this was round three.
Horseman: A Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Book 10 (The Temple Chronicles) Page 31