by Nazri Noor
Sparks flew off the barrier, metal and magic colliding with an ominous clang. The impact reverberated up my arms and through my bones. I may as well have attacked a block of stone. I struck again, crying out and regretting the second blow immediately. Arcs of lightning flashed where the blade met the barrier. I thought I saw the shield waver, but nothing had changed.
But I had to keep trying. Mundane means weren’t going to take Olivia’s defenses down. I raised the sword again, gritting my teeth as I readied myself for the futility of a third attack. I shouted as I brought the blade down, a kiai for the ages. This time the clearing filled with white lightning. The barrier felt like it was giving, bending inwards, weakened. This time, Olivia flinched. Her eyes flew open, meeting mine with disbelief. Then they trailed a few inches to my right, and then I realized why the shield was beginning to show signs of cracking.
Someone else had joined in on my attack. There were two of us now, bashing away at the barrier with two magical weapons. Where mine was a sword, his was a hammer. What I found interesting was how our weapons of choice were shrouded in similar enchantments. His hammer was electrified, too.
I glowered at Roth, grateful for his help, but more suspicious of his motives than ever. He wore something similar as he did the previous night, just jeans and flannel, his blond hair left to hang in loose curls against his collar. In his hand was a common carpenter’s hammer, its metal head crackling with electricity.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?”
He shrugged. “I was out for another walk. You’d think you’d be more grateful for the help. Should we try again?”
No sense turning down his offer. I prepared my sword for a fourth slash. He raised his hammer. The light shifted, the sparks on its head fizzling brightly enough for just the fraction of a second. When the electricity cleared, its shape had changed. It wasn’t just your average hammer anymore, not the thing you used to pound nails into a wall.
This thing was huge, and heavy, an instrument of war. In the right hands, it was a weapon of mass destruction, an actual force of nature. An artifact of legend.
“Mjollnir,” I muttered.
32
This time I was sorely tempted to turn my sword on Roth instead. Roth. What a stupid alias. All he’d done was rearrange the letters.
“Are you fucking with me right now?” I said, my sword hand jittery, itching. “You were Thor all along?”
He grinned at me, shrugging and raising his hands. “Guilty. I’ve been Thor for as long as I can remember.”
A cackling imp made a break for my face, beating its drum, ready to throw it at my head like a tiny grenade. I swatted it aside with the back of my hand, relishing its little scream as it zigged through the woods and slammed into a tree trunk. The impact exploded its stupid drum. The imp shrieked, dying in a blaze of its own hellfire.
“You lied to me,” I said. “All this time you’ve been pretending.”
He tossed his hammer in his hand, frowning, then pointed a finger in my face. “Hey, man. I never lied to you. Not once. I said that I wasn’t from around here, didn’t I? That I moved here to help my dad set things up for himself?”
I smacked myself in the forehead. “The All-father. You helped Odin set up the Twilight Tavern.” I wrenched at my hair when another realization hit. “That’s why you could handle my sword without frying yourself.”
He tapped the side of his nose. “I know the guy who gave you the sword, too.”
Of course. The gods of storm and thunder were all buddies. “Then this means you knew who and what we were from the beginning.”
He put on the smarmiest smile and shrugged.
“And the electricity back at the cabin. That’s why it came back so fast. You repaired it by magicking it, and that’s why you brought your hammer, because you don’t actually know jack shit about being an electrician.”
Thor grunted, smashing his hammer against the barrier in frustration. Olivia jumped, but kept on chanting.
“I’ll have you know that I am a goddamn authority on electricity. How dare you accuse me of knowing nothing about the subject?”
I brought my sword against the barrier in a horizontal slash. The cylinder quivered. Olivia shook her fist at me.
“Fine. If you know so much: what is a watt? What is an ampere?” Like I knew shit about the answer myself. I was only confident about confronting him because I knew that he’d be even dumber.
“I – well, a watt is. You know what, fuck this. Neither the time nor the place for you to be quizzing me about such obvious shit.”
“Aha! So you don’t know. I was right. You’re a brat and a papa’s boy.”
Thor ducked as an imp flew past his head, tooting on its stupid fucking flute, nearly burning off the ends of his hair. I speared the little bastard in the stomach, cutting it open in a single strike. It screamed in a tiny mewling voice, unable to decide whether to keep blowing on its flute or use its grubby hands to hold its insides together.
Awfully dramatic behavior, really, from a tiny asshole demon that was only going to reconstitute its physical form back in its home hell after its death. That was the most annoying thing about imps, see? About all demons, actually. Unless killed under very specific and very painful conditions, they always, always came back.
“Very hurtful,” Thor said. “I don’t see why you’re so pissed off about this, anyway.”
“Because we’re supposed to stick together as supernaturals. It’s kind of crappy that you just played us with your fake personality when you knew what was up all along. A little bit shitty, honestly. Technically, the Everetts want you dead, too. We’re all in this together.”
He nodded, no longer so incensed. “That’s fair. But maybe we can save the heart to heart for later.” He rapped his knuckles on the barrier. “We’ve almost cracked this thing open.”
“Agreed.”
From inside her bell jar, Olivia glowered. I knew she could hear us, and if our bickering was a distraction, then that was even better. It was almost comical, watching her lips move with practiced discipline all while she gave us the dirtiest side-eye in all of recorded history.
I drew my sword back, and Thor did the same with Mjollnir, winding up for one final smash. Somehow Olivia knew it’d be the last strike, too. The journal fell from her grasp as her hands flew to cover her face.
Blade and hammer struck the black barrier again. The sound of shattering glass splintered the clearing. The energy of the demon shield fell around us like tinkling shards, then vanished, dissipating into nothing.
“Hell yeah,” Thor shouted, his blood surging with adrenaline, and maybe lots of electricity, too. I pointed my sword at Olivia, saying nothing, but sending her a warning message with my glare. We’d cracked the shell, and now we just had to deal with the nut waiting inside.
We forgot that the nut was still driven by demonic power.
She raised both her hands, blasting both me and Thor off our feet with a surge of black energy. The air rushed out of my lungs, my ribs screaming with agony. It felt like being punched with huge, invisible fists.
She spun in a circle, more of the eerie black smoke rising in a funnel around her, reforming the barrier. I retrieved my sword, then clambered to my feet, my teeth clenched in anger. Thor did the same, gripping his hammer at his side. We were scraped and bruised, but the fight was far from over.
“Not this shit again,” I grumbled. “How many times are we supposed to break the barrier down?”
“As many times as we have to,” Thor answered, lifting his hammer. It crackled to life, wreathed in lightning.
“You will not harm Olivia Everett!”
I turned to the sound of Uriah’s voice, taken aback by the sight of him. His two halves, spirit and corpse, had melded into a horrible caricature of unlife, the decaying flesh glowing with ghostly light. His voice was changed as well, the words intoned out of long-rotten lungs and a windpipe unused to channeling breath. They came ragged and hoarse, at fi
rst, but built back into something that sounded almost human again.
“You will not harm the Everett bloodline.”
“That change in his voice,” I said. “His corpse is revivifying from the inside.”
“And from the outside, as well,” Thor said.
To say that the sight was disgusting was an understatement. The garland of gore had draped itself along Uriah’s body, the faces fraying, their skin coming apart in horrible threads. Like worms, like flesh-colored tendrils, they expanded and stretched, weaving in crisscrosses over Uriah’s corpse, infusing him with new life.
Imps fluttered and flitted around him the whole time, playing their infernal music. Hot breath emanated from the pit below, straight out of Glasya-Labolas’s unseen maw. Beneath the drums and the flutes, I thought I heard canine laughter. I grimaced, unable to look away even as the rot of Uriah’s muscle reversed, turning red with fresh blooms of blood before being enrobed in supple new skin.
“Uriah Everett wears many faces,” I muttered. “Holy shit. It was in his journal all along, and right on his tombstone.”
Thor swept his hair up and out of his face. “Kind of tough to interpret it like that, if you ask me. The question is, how do we kill him?”
“It’s too late,” said Olivia’s voice. This time she was shrouded behind a barrier so thick and dark that I couldn’t even see her silhouette through it. “He lives once more.”
She was right. Uriah Everett hovered above the pit, restored in all his earthly glory, his hair and beard tousled by the hellish breath of his demonic patron. Floating before him was the Filigreed Masque, levitating far out of reach like some tempting prize. Uriah leered at us, at me, as if he somehow knew how much I coveted the relic. Worse, he was completely naked.
“Have some decency,” I grumbled, scoping out the rest of the clearing.
Asher was helping Bastion limp towards the sinkhole. Was he even ready to fight yet? Foolish, but brave, just like Bastion. Gil’s skin was ashen and scorched in places from squaring off with his quota of imps, and Tabitha was still launching spells from a distance. Between us, there had to be some way to defeat Uriah Everett. But everyone was scattered and preoccupied. How were we supposed to coordinate our plan of attack?
Thor reared his head back and yelled. “Let’s fuck him up!”
Oh. That was how. I followed his charge, shaking my head, but quietly a little impressed by his bravado. Tactically, he and I weren’t exactly all that different.
Tabitha answered the battle cry by sending forth plumes of smoke. I could guess her game plan immediately: choke out Uriah from the inside, now that he had both a human body and human vulnerabilities again. But Glasya-Labolas had other plans.
An ear-piercing howl issued from the sinkhole, bringing with it an invisible torrent of searing wind. Trees shook, imps went flying, and Tabitha’s smoke magic went up like – well. You can probably guess. There was no doubting the power behind the magic of the Bridges witches, but I never thought that a brisk wind could counter it so effectively.
Then again, how often did they have to fight what was probably a sixty-foot dog? That was just one howl. If we didn’t stop the ceremony soon, Glasya-Labolas would finally pass through from his hell and tear himself free from the earth. And when that happened –
An answering howl came from across the clearing. I hadn’t noticed but Gil had forced the transformation to take him once more. He streaked towards the sinkhole, a blur of midnight.
Wolf-Gil snarled as he struck, raking his talons in a flashing crescent. But the blades never met home, only making a sound like claws scrabbling uselessly along metal. He landed on the opposite side of the pit, baring his teeth and growling at Uriah Everett, who was suddenly no longer quite so naked.
His entire body was covered in fine threads of silver, made out of the same delicate wiry material that formed the enchanted Filigreed Masque. It was beautiful, his strange armor of pure filigree, the curls and tendrils like vines, or the roots of some alien tree. Every filament radiated from the Masque itself, now worn on Uriah’s face, completely concealing his features.
But in my heart I knew he was grinning at us, leering triumphantly.
How I wanted to pry the Masque from his face, to punch that evil, stupid grin off his swollen lips. And now that I knew it was magical, I wanted the Filigreed Masque more than ever. Never mind that it wasn’t at all what the Scepter of California expected. I could keep it for myself, pretend to Vilmas that we never saw it. An artifact that functioned as armor, and was stylish to boot? Hell yeah. Gimme.
I raced for the sinkhole. Glasya-Labolas could kiss my ass. If we ended Uriah and Olivia, then there’d be no chance for him to step into our world. I leapt across the chasm, slashing across Uriah’s torso with my blade. Sparks flew as my sword met his silver armor. He cried out, lashing out with his arm, backhanding me in the face. I went flying across the clearing.
“You will not lay your hands on me,” Uriah bellowed. “Tainted filth!”
I felt at my mouth, licked across my bottom lip. Wow. That fucker had drawn blood. Lucky shot. I didn’t think he’d be so strong, or maybe that was one of the benefits the Filigreed Masque imparted. But more importantly, Uriah had shouted in surprise when I struck him with my sword. I knew that the katana wouldn’t penetrate his armor. The electrified enchantment, though? The mere contact had been painful for him.
Which meant good things.
Thor ran up to me, standing over me and staring like he hadn’t expected me to be so stupid. “I’m not sure what you were hoping to accomplish back there.”
“Shut the fuck up and help me up. Riddle me this. Does silver conduct electricity?”
He pulled me to my feet, his brow furrowing. “Well, yeah, sure it does. Really well, actually.”
I tilted my head over to Uriah Everett. He was sending sweeping tendrils out across the sinkhole, extending them into a single braided mass like a wicked tentacle, cracking it like a whip. Holy shit, like I needed more reasons to want the Masque.
“What do you say we fry him up?”
Thor looked down at Mjollnir, then back up at me, his eyes wide. “Oh. Okay. Now I get it.”
I rolled my eyes.
33
Uriah swept his arm again. This time the bunched tip of the silver wires formed into a crude ball, like a fist, or the heavy weight at the end of a flail. It caught Gil at the ankles, sending him stumbling into the grass. He sprang up immediately, but instead of directing his rage at Uriah, he snarled at me.
Translation: “Fucking do something already.”
“We should – we should probably hurry. So how do we do this? Hit him at the same time? Electrify him into the next century?”
Thor nodded. “Same way we took down the girl’s barrier. Same time, as hard as you can. And that sword, it’s from Susanoo, isn’t it?”
I spun my hand at the wrist, twirling my sword in a blurred circle. “A gift, won in a duel.”
“It might help if you think of him – long and hard – while we do this.” Thor winked. “Just trust me.”
“So like a prayer? Haven’t done that in forever, but why not? I’ll try anything once.”
It’s true.
I zigged, and Thor zagged. Uriah was too preoccupied with the thrill of living in a new body and using it to hurt others to marshal his defenses. Thor was tall and muscled, but he moved at a speed that rivaled my own. He was a god of storm and thunder, after all. Maybe that was part of the package – quick as lightning, silent as the wind.
My hand was tucked close to my torso, prepared to deliver a final slash. My mind, though, called out to the Japanese god of storms in a steady rhythm. But what was I supposed to say? I wasn’t lying when I said I hadn’t prayed in a while. Decades, to be more specific. Susanoo did like leather, though, just like me. He manifested as a young man who fancied leather vests, leather pants, and combat boots. Really wasn’t a surprise that we got along, despite the duel.
“You wea
r it well,” I muttered under my breath. “Who’s a stylish immortal deity? You are.”
I whipped my arm out as I rushed past Uriah Everett. My katana struck out like a silver crescent. Mjollnir fell. Something about the simultaneous contact of two enchanted weapons must have been more than the Filigreed Masque could handle. Electricity crackled along the silver cocoon of Uriah’s armor. They could have heard him shrieking all the way in Silveropolis.
And then came the bolt of lightning. That part, I hadn’t expected at all.
The sizzling and sparking of raw divine electricity and the thunder of the massive bolt drowned out Uriah’s screams. I shielded my eyes with my fingers, hardly able to see anything but the twitching, smoking shape hovering in the center of the clearing, Uriah Everett being flash-fried to death in an iron maiden of his own making. The air smelled like ozone, burning hair, cooking flesh.
Within moments the lightning passed, the back of my eyeballs still aching and imprinted with the sight of it. The silver wires threaded all around Uriah’s body receded, slipping back into the mask. When the Filigreed Masque fell from Uriah’s head, it took a good part of his face with it. My heart thumped as the artifact tumbled in the air, down towards the sinkhole and Glasya-Labolas’s waiting jaws.
“No!” I sprinted towards the pit, never once thinking that the Masque could still be charged from contact with so much divine lightning. But I never reached the thing. It flew at an angle, as if struck by an invisible bat, swatted aside by an unseen hand. The Filigreed Masque fell onto a patch of grass, safe, but still with a piece of Uriah’s face attached, a disgusting parting gift.
I turned towards the back of the clearing. Bastion. He had one hand extended, a last expenditure of his power to save the Masque from being lost forever. His arm faltered, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as he slumped forward. Asher, looking very annoyed, caught him just in time.