by Nazri Noor
“We’re looking for an artifact that’s in the possession of – well, of unsavory characters. They’ve killed twelve mortals already, and driven a thirteenth into insanity.”
“It is no concern of mine whether – ”
“And they did that by corrupting a god’s possessions.”
She stopped, regarding me coolly. Ah, that was it. Now it was personal, and I didn’t have to actually state the rest of my point in order to make it clear. The silence rang louder: the Viridian Dawn could go for Amaterasu’s relics next. If anyone had divine artifacts worth worrying about, it was the Japanese goddess of the sun.
“We’re unsure of how these people – the Viridian Dawn, they call themselves – came to acquire artifacts belonging to the gods. But they did, and in corrupting one such relic, they’ve killed many. Who’s to say that they won’t go for the treasures of other gods? It’s worse than thievery,” I said, somehow keeping a straight face as I spoke. “They’re playing with things that don’t belong to them, that they don’t deserve.”
“Like Prometheus.” Amaterasu frowned, and her chin lifted even higher. Aha. I hit it on the mark. This would jeopardize her pride. The light from her skin glowed even stronger, reflecting off the pure walls of crystal that made up the barrier to her dimension.
“Yes, exactly. Unworthy mortals, clawing at the things that rightfully belong to divinity? What of Mjölnir, or the Aegis?” I made sure to catch her gaze as I spoke again. “What of the Imperial Regalia?” From out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carver stifle a grin. So he approved. I hid my own smile. See, now that I’d mentioned the jewel, blade, and mirror that signified the very essence of Japan, artifacts handed down to humanity by Amaterasu herself? Now it was personal.
The outline of the goddess’s body wavered, like the air over a hot desert. She was getting pissed. Perfect. Her cheeks burned, but not with the rosiness of flirtation. She bit her lip, pouting, her nose wrinkling, then burst out.
“Fine. Fine! But I demand something in exchange.” She studied us individually, her eyes narrowing. “No, I demand something from all of you. Time. I will have your time. There are things even I don’t know, that I can never see by light of day. And you will reveal those mysteries to me.”
She lifted her hands, and the faint sound of something sliding or scraping caught my attention. Three panels set in the crystal walls around us lifted open. Where the hell had they come from?
Amaterasu pushed her fists into her hips. “Well?”
Gil shrugged and ambled off towards one of the exits. Carver gave me a meaningful look, then nodded at one of the panels, which was the one he wanted me to take. I didn’t know how he could tell the difference. He gave the goddess one last glance, performed a bow and a quick flourish, then disappeared through his own exit. The panels slid shut, leaving no trace that there had been any openings to mar the seamless perfection of the crystal walls.
Amaterasu tapped her foot. “You. Boy. The mouthy one. Go.”
“I’m going. Sorry. Here I go.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly. Maybe I thought that walking through the doorway would take me through a tunnel, or maybe I thought it acted as a portal to another section of her dimension. But it was just like any other doorway, and as soon as I stepped through I found myself in – the exact same room as before.
What the hell? It was the same chamber, with its crisp blue sky, its perfect clouds, its towering crystalline walls. In the center of it all, like the flame in a lantern, stood Amaterasu, still tapping her foot, hands at her waist, like an impertinent teenager. I was caught in some bizarre hall of mirrors. I whipped around, thinking I’d made some sort of mistake, but the gap in the wall was gone. Instead I saw my reflection, and that of Amaterasu watching me with mounting impatience.
She snapped her fingers, beckoning for me to come.
“Okay, geez. Relax, I’m coming.”
Her face twisted up even harder.
“So,” she said. “You think this Viridian Dawn is going to do more damage, do you?” She pulled out her cellphone again, then started tapping at the screen. “I’m searching and nothing’s coming up. Never heard of them.”
“You get wifi here? Lucky.” I thought of the hideout, and how this was probably the most compelling argument I could get for convincing Carver we needed the internet. Honestly, if a sun goddess could get a signal in her domicile –
I scratched at the bridge of my nose. “I mean, there’s a reason you agreed to parley with us on the matter. There’s a reason you split the three of us up.”
Her eyes slitted. “You have a smart mouth. But I can’t say I dislike that about you, shadow boy.”
I froze. “You – you’ve heard of me, have you?”
She dangled her phone in my face mockingly. “People talk. And so do gods.” She smiled bitterly. “And gods are people, too.”
“Of – of course they are.”
“And I haven’t heard anything about this Viridian Dawn of yours from the grapevine.”
The grapevine? Charming. Maybe Dionysus was keeping things hush-hush.
“What I find interesting about this,” she said, “is that your master was so brazen about bringing you into my home, knowing who and what you are.”
I ruffled my hair with one hand in frustration. “He doesn’t know what I am. Hell, I don’t know what I am.”
“Lies,” she hissed. The glow of the lantern fire grew brighter, more fierce. I didn’t have to look very closely to see that the tips of Amaterasu’s hair were burning with little flames, never consuming or harming her, just a visual and mildly terrifying manifestation of her displeasure. I needed to tread carefully. “There’s a filth building inside of you, and it threatens you and everyone around it.”
I sighed. “You know, everyone tells me that. I can’t even get a date. Last person I kissed washed her mouth out right after. Can’t a guy get a break?”
I didn’t think it was possible but Amaterasu grimaced even harder, the twist of her mouth making her eyes smolder like a pair of suns. She held her arm out, and in place of the cute little cellphone in her hand was a sword. A katana, specifically, masterfully crafted. Also it was on fire.
Fuck.
Chapter 12
If nothing else, at least I could say that I was a hit when it came to the gods. So far, every single entity I’d communed with wanted me dead within minutes of meeting me. I massaged my forehead, groaning. Why did this always happen to me? Wasn’t I cute enough? Did I smell bad?
No. If there’s one thing Dustin Graves is, that’s handsome. And if there’s another, it’s resilient. Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic, told me that herself, though in slightly less flattering terms. I was a human cockroach – skittish, and sneaky, but durable – and I wasn’t about to go down easily. This was another of those freak entity challenges, and if I made it through I might just seal the deal. That, or get another painful as fuck magical exchange, like that time Hecate set my brain on fire.
Still, I realized that our success was contingent on how Gil and Carver were performing in whatever challenge Amaterasu had set for them. I looked around the inside of the crystal, wondering where the two of them were.
“Better pull your weight, Dustin,” I said under my breath. I checked my bearings, bending my knees in case I needed to run, securing my backpack straps, ready to deploy Vanitas like a screaming death missile if I had to.
“So this corruption,” I said out loud. “Are you talking about what’s been planted in my heart, or the poison that one of your brothers is using to blackmail me?”
“Perhaps both. If one doesn’t kill you now, the other will. In months, perhaps, years. But why look so far ahead?” She smiled sweetly. “Perhaps the poison will take you. Perhaps you will die after all.”
I sighed. “You’re really not helping.”
“Then I could help in other ways. I could cut the corruption out of you.” Amaterasu’s skin was glowing fiercely now, as bright as the
flaming sword in her hand. “Or I could tell you what you already know – that your darkness, the taint inside of you works like a blade. It cuts with two edges. You can choose to use your power to aid those in need, or for personal gain.” She raised her sword to eye level, the hilt clasped in both hands, the fire glinting in her eyes. “Which will it be, shadow boy?”
I should have held my tongue then. Maybe it wouldn’t have aggravated her if I’d said something less inflammatory, but then I wouldn’t have a story to tell you about that time a sun goddess tried to skewer me with a sword that was totally on fire.
Use shadowstepping to help, or for personal gain? I answered with honesty, and okay, maybe a little bit of cheek. “Why not both?”
Amaterasu glowered. “Wrong answer.”
In a flash of sunlight and fire she disappeared from her dais, rushing at me with such speed and slashing the sword in a horrific arc. I tumbled away from her, my heart pounding at the fact that she had very nearly lopped my head off, and oh, how the fire was very, very real. I clutched at my hair and groped at my clothes, checking that I wasn’t on fire, and that I was still in one piece.
I blinked, and Amaterasu slashed again, the searing heat of her blade only inches from my face.
“Lady, seriously, slow down.”
“Show me what makes you so special, shadow boy. Fight back. Show me why your master would risk bringing you into my home.”
I had seconds to think. The scorching brilliance of Amaterasu’s sword burned brighter than even her skin, or the light from the sky itself, casting just enough shadows for me to maneuver. Was that what she wanted? Was this the test? Because I could always fall back on a Sneaky Dustin Special and end this as non-violently as I could: step into the shadow, reappear behind her, then knock her out cold.
But with what? She had braziers set around her dais, conveniently where one of the largest shadows in the chamber was located. Each burned with what looked like magical flames, similar to those in the Lorica’s great library, or the ones hidden in the alcoves of Carver’s hideout. If these fires behaved similarly to those and gave only light, but not heat, then I could use them as blunt weapons. Perfect.
I stepped into Amaterasu’s shadow, the remnants of my body lingering long enough for me to hear her gasp in surprise. Maybe I smiled to myself a little, because any opportunity to impress someone and bask in attention always makes my heart grow that little bit bigger. I shrugged off the mists of the Dark Room as I ran once more into the light of reality – Amaterasu’s reality, that is.
If Sterling was to be believed, attempting to shadowstep right out of her domicile would kill me. Escape wasn’t an option. I emerged right by the dais, only a step behind her, and lunged for one of the braziers. Its metal was warm to the touch, but not enough to burn me. Excellent. I gripped it in both hands like a mallet, then swung my body in a tight semicircle. The brazier sang through the air –
And it burst into flames.
“Holy shit, what the – ” I let the brazier go just in time. I whacked at the sleeve of my jacket to extinguish the bit of it that had caught fire, grateful that the only real casualties were the tiny hairs along my arm.
“So that’s what the shadow boy can do,” the goddess said, a mocking bend in her voice.
“I mean, yeah. I don’t know what you were expecting.” And I don’t know why I still insisted on being a smart-ass knowing that I was constantly minutes away from having the eyeballs melted right out of my skull, but I never said I was very smart. Handsome, yes. Smart? You be the judge.
“A curious trick. But we can’t have you running all day, can we? It wouldn’t do well to tire you out.”
Amaterasu lifted her hand, and a mirror slipped from the folds of her robes. It rose of its own accord into the air above her, spinning slowly. She gestured with her fingers, and the mirror shattered.
“Well that seems like a waste,” I said.
The goddess smiled in a way that told me I was about to regret everything leading up to this point in my life. The fragments of mirror spun faster and faster in midair, catching the light from every source in the chamber – the sky, the sword, the braziers, Amaterasu’s skin itself. Every shard reflected the light back into the chamber, rebounding and building in intensity until everything was awash in a blinding, blazing rainbow of brilliance.
For a moment I panicked. The suffusing, almost suffocating radiance reminded me of how Thea had plunged the city of Valero under a similarly choking mantle of light. Then I started again, understanding that I had an entirely separate reason to panic. The shards of mirror were casting a light so intense that every shadow in the room was gone.
“Goodness,” I said.
“Quite.” Amaterasu raised her flaming blade once more. “No more running, mortal. Defend yourself. Stand and fight.”
I swallowed thickly. This was always so awkward. I knew from my time at the Lorica that the only way to truly kill an entity was within their own domicile. I didn’t want to have to do that. But the last time I killed a goddess it turned out to be a ruse, anyway. Hecate was just playing a game. Still, something about the flare of fire in Amaterasu’s eyes told me she wasn’t kidding around. Also, the alternative to defending myself was death, which was never one of those options I liked very much. I looked at the tattoo on my wrist. Hmm. Die now, or die later.
I set my jaw. As if. I still had a chance to get out of this. I raised my chin, defiant, daring the goddess with my bravado.
“Then I’ll fight,” I said. “Come at me.”
With all the sweetness of a summer flower, Amaterasu smiled. “With pleasure.”
She rushed at me, but I was ready this time. I sidestepped with ease, undoing the clasp on my backpack, and lifting the flap. If Vanitas didn’t even the odds, I didn’t know what would.
“Hah!” I shouted, prepared for the clash of tarnished, enchanted bronze against the goddess’s flaming steel. But Vanitas didn’t come shooting out of my backpack the way I’d expected. He slipped from the bag’s mouth and, with a clang, fell onto the chamber’s marble floor.
“Vanitas? V? You okay there?”
“My home, my rules. Your toy is of no use here.”
“Hey. He’s a friend. Also my roommate.” I nudged my roommate with my toe. He stayed motionless on the floor.
Amaterasu tutted softly. “When I told you to stand and fight, I meant to do so by your own power. Surely you can find some way of defending yourself?”
There she went again. That phrasing was all too familiar. I watched as she approached menacingly, my eyes narrowing with suspicion, and a fair dose of annoyance.
“Is Carver putting you up to this?”
Amaterasu faltered mid-stride. She raised a hand to her mouth and tittered. “Why – I have no idea what you mean.”
“Only that he keeps talking about how I need to find some way to defend myself. Those are his words.” I bent over and picked Vanitas up. “His exact words.”
“The very nerve of you to suggest that I would pay your master a favor in this respect fills me with a great desire to sever your head from your shoulders.”
“That’s something he would say,” I bluffed.
Amaterasu sneered, then launched herself at me. I raised Vanitas to meet her sword, the clang of metal ringing through the chamber, the goddess’s supernatural strength causing my arms, my bones, my teeth to vibrate with the force of her blow.
Her face was bent too close to mine, her scent like sweet woodsmoke, her breath inhumanly hot on my skin. I shuddered, calling on every ounce of my strength to resist as she pressed the full weight of her blade and her body against me.
“He also says it wouldn’t kill you to do the dishes a little more often.” Her sword scraped against Vanitas as she slid aside and kicked me square in the chest, her cheeks flushed with triumph.
I scrambled to my feet, Vanitas’s heaviness dragging me down. I was strong enough to carry him, sure, but it took a different kind of muscle to wield a
sword in battle. I had to handle him in both hands, and I’d already sapped my strength just parrying Amaterasu’s blows. I hadn’t even attacked yet, not that I had anything to show in a swordfight.
Damn it, I should have worked out, paid more attention to my body. I should have borrowed Gil’s weights when he offered and started some kind of routine. But what the hell, man. I didn’t know I was ever going to have to wield Vanitas myself. And it wasn’t my fault that Amaterasu was straight up cheating by nullifying every trick I could throw at her.
I knew what Carver wanted out of me, but it was clear that we hadn’t come all this way just for him to have me tested by a bloodthirsty sun goddess.
“The dishes? That’s just prejudiced. Easy for him to say because he doesn’t eat. See, this is the kind of shit I have to put up with.”
“Put up with? Pah. Know this, shadow beast.” When the hell had I been downgraded to beast? “If it hadn’t been for your master I would have slain you just as soon as you’d entered my home.”
I twisted again, narrowly escaping as her sword plunged past my body in a flaming arc. I hefted Vanitas in both hands, preparing to fend off her next attack. “Why the hell do you even hate me so much?”
That gave her pause, but not for long. The light in the chamber flickered. Somehow, I knew I’d made her even angrier. Uh-oh.
“Your corruption runs deep, mage,” she hissed. “Perhaps your awakening was stimulated by an introduction of a seed of the taint, from the dagger that was thrust into you. But you have always been tied to the Old Ones.”
She knew about the sacrifice? Wow. Gods really did gossip. “Me? The Eldest? What are you even talking about?”
“So you claim not to know of your parentage? Don’t make me laugh.”
Parentage? “I swear to all the gods I’ve ever met that I don’t know what you’re talking about.”