"You!" the policeman shouted in Turkish. "Put your hands up!"
Octavian complied, raising his arms as he slowly spun around to glare at the cop. Fat droplets of black fire rained down from his hands and melted the paved path at his feet. The policeman gaped at him, tried to form words and failed, and then began to back away.
"Run!" Octavian snapped. "Get out of here!"
Turning, he lifted his hands and muttered under his breath, feeding the dark flames with more magic. The red-black fire jumped from tree to tree, turned the thickest trunks to cinders and charred the grass down to dead earth.
"Keomany!" Octavian screamed. "I know you can feel this! And if you feel it, then you can hear me! Show yourself! Come and meet me face to face or I swear to you that I will decimate every wild acre on the face of this planet until you do!"
He fell silent. Sirens wailed in the distance and the fire roared around him, consuming everything that grew in the park at unnatural speed. Patches of ground had already burnt down to gleaming embers. The heat seared Octavian's skin but he ignored it and glanced around . . . waiting.
"Keomany Shaw!" he shouted, but there was still no reply. The sirens were getting closer and he did not want to have to defend himself against cops or firefighters who were determined to stop him.
Octavian exhaled. He did not want to do this.
"All right," he said quietly. "If that's how it has to be."
He went to the edge of the cracked and melting pavement and lowered his head, chin almost touching his chest as he let his eyes close. His upper lip twitched, as it always seemed to whenever he prepared to speak the ancient tongues. The spell would be effective in any language, but the Scythians had perfected it in the sixth century B.C. Historians believed that the scorched earth policy they instituted when retreating from battle with the army of Darius the Great had meant merely setting fire to crops and killing livestock so Darius's troops would have nothing to eat, and burning dwellings so they would have no protection from the elements. But the mages employed by the Scythians had one other trick. One spell that made the land useless to all who came after them.
Muttering in that guttural tongue, Octavian felt beads of sweat pop out on his forehead and his stomach roiled with nausea. The blight came into him, the disease, and for a few moments he carried it alone. Then he dropped to his knees, feverish and withering until he put his hands into the blackened grass and pushed his fingers into the soil. Scipio had forced his sorcerers to do the same thing to Carthage. The blight came out of him, seeped into the soil, and the burnt grass turned from black to a dead gray.
The poison spread, so vile and powerful that it snuffed the remaining fires. The few skeletal trees that still stood crumbled to pale ash like the powder at the end of a cigarette. Nothing would ever grow in the park again; Octavian had effectively killed it. Regret surfaced in the back of his mind and he strangled it, suffocated it, forced it back down.
"Come on, you bitch," he said quietly to Gaea. "Send your girl to parley."
The ground began to shake. A crack appeared in the poisoned soil a dozen feet from where Octavian stood, and then a green shoot appeared from the crack, stretching upward. It darkened and grew bark and within seconds it turned from sapling to fully grown tree, towering thirty feet over his head, the leaves sprouting so quickly that they made a rustling noise that sounded quite like a cluster of whispering children.
Octavian stared at the tree, waiting. His magic had power, but not so much that he could prevent Gaea from making something grow when she wished it. She was the soul of the Earth itself. The spirit of nature. But at least he'd gotten her attention.
On the side of the tree facing him, the bark had formed with a strange curvature, but Octavian recognized it immediately. He had thought that when this moment came he would want to hurt her, but as the bark cracked and arms and legs pulled away from the tree trunk, he felt only sadness. The crimson fire that had roared around his fists flickered and diminished and died, snuffed out by sorrow.
A slender female figure separated from the trunk of the tree. Some of her skin was bark, while other parts had the smooth sheen of bare wood. She opened her eyes and Octavian saw that they were the green of fresh grass. The air of calm and elegance that lingered around her made him think that she might smile, but those eyes held only contempt and anger.
"You bastard," she said.
"Hello, Keomany," Octavian replied.
He wanted to return her anger but now, after all of the destruction he had wreaked upon the park, there in the shadow of the hated palace of the Sultans, he missed her. Once they had been friends, and Keomany Shaw had been beautiful, kind and brave, caught up in a supernatural maelstrom. She had been an earthwitch of uncommon innate power, possessed of a spiritual rapport with Gaea unlike any Octavian had ever seen. Their bond had been so strong that when Keomany had died in combat against an ancient chaos deity, Gaea had seen fit to resurrect her as . . . this. A creature more of nature — of earth and water and flora — than of flesh. The avatar of nature itself.
"You can't do this," Keomany said, walking toward him, somehow still beautiful though she had only the shape of a woman. "She won't allow it."
Octavian stood his ground. Cocked his head. Felt the crimson fire crackling in his core, burning low but not extinguished.
"And yet here I am," he said, staring at those green eyes. The stink of burnt vegetation filled the air. "I'll do it again, Keomany. And again and again. We were friends once —"
"We're still friends, if you'll only see that."
"No. All of my friends are gone. She took them all from me, dumped them in some parallel world and sealed off all the doors. I don't even know if they're alive or what kind of world they're in now."
Keomany dropped her gaze and for a moment she looked almost human. Her green eyes were moist as if with tears.
"Hell," she said quietly. "They're in one Hell or another. We pushed the demons back to where they had come from, and the vampires — all of the vampires — were pushed with them. Wherever those incursions were coming from, that's where Allison and Charlotte and the others have been sent."
Octavian nodded, jaw tight with anger. It was just as he'd feared.
"Bring them back," he said.
"You know I can't —"
"Not you," he snapped, and then he looked up at the branches of the new tree, this impossible growth. "Her! Bring them back!"
"That's not going to happen, Peter. I'm sorry, it just —"
Octavian took two steps toward her but Keomany didn't flinch. He scraped the heel of his shoe in the gray ash that had once been Gulhane Park.
"I can do this everywhere," he said. He felt the crackle around his hands as red-black fire began to ignite on his palms, and now it filled him so completely that a veil of red fell across his eyes, a burning mist that spilled out of him. "All I need is time."
Keomany softened and a change came over her. The bark texture of her skin smoothed to a glossy sheen like newly sprouted leaves and for a moment her eyes seemed almost human. He remembered how tough she'd been, and how funny, and the way she and Nikki had laughed together in that way only women who'd been friends for a very long time ever managed.
"She'll kill you, Peter," Keomany said. "I don't want that to happen."
Octavian took a step back. "She can try. I've fought gods before and I'm still here."
"You're powerful, I know. And you could hurt her; Gaea realizes that. But you're talking about trying to combat nature itself, the earth and the elements. Do you really want to try to exist in a world where the whole planet is against you?"
Octavian almost fell into trap of thinking the woman who stood before him was his friend. He shook his head and took another step back. Keomany — his friend — had died, and this thing might have her face and her memories and even some of her emotions, but the avatar served Gaea, not itself.
"I understand why Gaea did it," he said warily, blood-black fire raging around his f
ists. "Without her I don't think we'd have been able to push back the demons. That invasion might have been successful. Hell might've overrun the Earth. But I've been fighting for over a century to prove that there's a difference between Shadows and vampires. Some of the people shunted into Hell — damned, for lack of a better word — are good and decent. They're not monsters, Keomany. They're fucking heroes, and they deserve a chance. I'm not asking for Gaea to reverse what she's done or throw the doors open again. I'm just asking you to let me through. I've tried every spell I can think of to open a portal so I can go and bring them back, but the barriers between worlds are just too strong. So I'm pleading. Let me through, and then let me come back with a handful of Shadows who strive to be worthy of their divine heritage instead of falling victim to the demon side of their nature."
Keomany closed her eyes for a second, breathing, listening to some inner voice.
"I'm sorry," she said, opening her green eyes, some of the bark-like ridges returning to her skin. "This is the world as it is, now, and you've got to accept it."
The sirens grew louder. A distant noise grew into a roar and Octavian glanced over his shoulder to see a helicopter approaching. Desperation sparked within him. Whatever he was going to do, it had to be now. He did not want to have to defend himself against the Turkish authorities.
The wind blew off the Bosporus, stirring the ash at his feet and shaking the branches in the towering tree that Keomany had caused to grow there in the devastation.
"Just remember that I tried talking," Octavian said.
With a wave of his left hand, he froze Keomany in ice, her eyes wide with shock. Then he turned and let loose two arcing blasts of blood-black flame that engulfed the massive tree. The fire roared so loudly that for a few seconds it drowned out the noise of the chopper's rotors. An amplified voice shouted warnings or commands in Turkish — someone on board the helicopter trying to take control of the situation — but Octavian did not even turn. He strode toward the burning tree as the blaze rendered it down to that same gray ash.
"I'm not going to stop —" he began.
The ground shook so hard that it threw him sprawling on his hands and knees. Startled, he glanced around and saw green shoots pushing up from the ruined gray soil. Grass grew beneath his hands and a tree emerged so close to him and so swiftly that its rapid growth knocked him aside.
"No!" Octavian shouted.
But his screams would do no good. Trees and bushes and grass and flowering plants went from saplings and seeds and shoots to a lush expanse of wild flora more like a newborn jungle than some city park. The black-red fire still raged inside of him, but as Octavian stood, he faltered and lowered his hands. The crackling flames around his fists abated.
"Peter," a voice said, and he spun around to see a newly grown Keomany tearing herself away from another tree, a deep frown on the bark of her forehead. "Don't do that again."
Keomany had grown herself up out of the ground, all roots and vines and leaves, now, a creature made from layers of plant life, but her hands were made of stone and there was a flinty edge to her teeth when she spoke. The thing he had frozen in ice had been left behind, an abandoned husk in the shape of a woman.
"I swear I'll —"
"They're not welcome here," Keomany interrupted. "Gaea has made that clear."
"Then send me with them!" Octavian snapped. "I was a Shadow for hundreds of years. I spent a thousand years in Hell. Isn't there enough of the demonic in me?"
"You're not a demon," she said.
The amplified voice came again, but the sound of the chopper's rotors had dimmed thanks to the hundreds of trees that were around and above them now. The canopy dulled the noise and hid them away from prying eyes.
"I've got nothing left here, Keomany," he said. "I'm alone. An artifact of a different age. Without Kuromaku and Allison and the others, it's like my time has passed."
"Your time passed around the beginning of the seventeenth century," she replied. "But you hung on."
Octavian shivered. For the first time in ages, he felt human. All too human.
"Then why won't she just let me through?"
Keomany made as if to reply and then halted, closing her eyes, consulting with the goddess.
"I'm not supposed to tell you this," she said.
"But you're going to?" Octavian asked, surprised.
Keomany opened her eyes. "Here, in this world, she can keep the barriers strong. But she's worried that you might be able to find a way to break through from the other side."
Octavian smiled, the tiniest spark of hope igniting within him. He looked up at Keomany, intending to thank her, but the light had gone out of her eyes. Another husk stood before him, little more than a scarecrow. The stone portions of its hands weighed too much for the roots and leaves to support and after a moment they broke off and fell to the ground and the whole thing turned dry and desiccated and broke apart with a puff of dust.
"Thank you," he whispered to a friend he had thought no longer existed.
Then he turned and strode through the new wilderness of Gulhane Park. If he wished to, he could pass by the police unseen, or masquerading beneath a different face, so leaving Turkey would not be difficult. He had more important things on his mind.
If Gaea feared what might happen were he to break through the barrier that separated Earth from other dimensions — if it worried her — then he felt sure there must be something for her to worry about. There was a way after all.
He just had to find it.
CHAPTER TWO
Salzburg, Austria
Just after eight a.m., two days later, Octavian stood in the shadow of the great cathedral at the heart of the Old City of Salzburg, and watched workers beginning to construct a stage at the other end of Residence Square. Metal piping made up the substructure and a truck had brought in half a dozen palettes of heavy plywood sheets that would be fitted together to comprise the stage. The work went so smoothly that Octavian imagined that these men and woman must have done the same job multiple times in the past. He figured the city must be hosting an open air concert that evening, though he supposed it might be a political rally or something even more unsavory.
The sky hung blue and bright above the city and the breeze brought clean, pure air down out of the mountains. The Hohensalzburg fortress stood sentry on the horizon, looming over both old and new parts of the city. In most of the gardens he had seen as he wandered through the narrow roads this morning, there were still flowers in bloom. October had arrived, but only very gently. Soon, the autumn would take full hold, but not yet. The flowers persevered.
Octavian breathed in the air that came down from the mountains and wished that he could enjoy Salzburg the way a new visitor might. It would have pleased him to be able to sit outside at a café and listen to an orchestra playing Mozart in the square — Mozart, in the city that had been his home. The previous afternoon he had seen a tour bus driving up toward the Nonnberg Abbey and heard the voices of children and adults alike singing "My Favorite Things." The Sound of Music tour. The film had been based on the true story of a Salzburg family, and it seemed to bring joy to so many, drawing tourists from around the world.
The city had an old world quaintness and a beauty that spoke of fairy tales and noble ideals. If only Octavian had not witnessed so much death here, he might have been able to enjoy it. After his time in Hell, Meaghan Gallagher, Alexandra Nueva, and Lazarus had descended into the inferno to bring him back to the world. Alex had died down there, dragged into a pit of needle-toothed mouths, and Lazarus had been consumed by living, burning crystal, but Meaghan and Octavian had survived.
They had returned in the midst of war. The sorcerer-priest Mulkerrin had brought the demon lord Beelzebub across dimensions and into the world of man. Shadows — what the world thought of as vampires — could transform themselves on a molecular level, becoming anything they could imagine. To prevent Hell on Earth, Meaghan and John Courage and a handful of others had entered the g
igantic demon's body, turned themselves into liquid silver, and solidified around Beelzebub's two hearts, killing themselves along with him.
The acid of Beelzebub's blood had eaten away at the silver even as the purity of the silver had destroyed the flesh of the demon's heart. In the end, all that remained were two small puddles of solid silver in the midst of the wreckage of Residence Square. It amazed him that the fountain of Triton had not been destroyed in the battle, but there it stood, water spouting from the mouths of horses, with dolphins alongside and giants holding up the statue of the god of the sea. He felt sure it must have been damaged, but it looked precisely as it had in the years after Tomasso di Garone had first sculpted it.
Residence Square was a peaceful place.
Here, he thought. Right here.
Friends and allies had died out there in the square where people now strolled on their way to offices and cubicles, and where workers built a stage for a night of music yet to come. Octavian, Will Cody, and Allison had been among those who managed to walk away. Now, looking out over the square and remembering it all, he wondered if he was more a survivor than a warrior.
Last man standing, he thought, turning away from the view of the square. No curse could have been worse.
Octavian walked west through Cathedral Square, crossing in and out of the cool shadows thrown by bell towers and long roofs, and then onto Franziskanergasse and past the Franciscan church and abbey. Turning right, he strode along Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse, studying the windows of shops and banks until he saw the small, intricately-carved marble owl in the window of a shop with doors tall enough that the giants carrying Triton would not have had to bend to enter.
King of Hell (The Shadow Saga) Page 2