“All right, that’s it,” I say, wiping my hands and holding them up. “I’m at my limit on weird conversations for the day. Release Sekhmet, and let’s see what you’ve got. I’m not stupid enough to think I can take you right now, but I’m willing to try.”
She blows out a little sigh. “I’ve said my piece and planted the seed,” she says, the lighthearted tone returning. “Here’s hoping it grows. Either way, there’s no need for a fight. Like I said, I’ve come to give you a gift.”
“I don’t—”
“Want it, I’m sure,” she says, turning toward the cell. “Nevertheless…”
She nods at Samantha, who touches the control panel. Ares jerks into motion again, panting in pain and healing rapidly. There’s a whirring sound and the glass between us parts, sliding into the floor. Emilia walks forward, smiling benevolently, until she’s standing over the god of war. She grabs him by an ankle, dragging him just outside the cell—and beyond any chance of trapping her in its time-warping magic. She winks at me, then kneels down, raises her hand, and smashes it into his chest with the strength of a landslide.
I can actually see the air ripple from the power of the blow, the force of it sending a thunderclap echoing down the halls. She hits him again, seemingly harder, those flyaway hairs twitching in the rush of air from the impact. Again. Faster. Her arm blurs. Again, again, again, her body a haze of brutality, bludgeoning, crushing, snapping, pulping my greatest enemy like it’s nothing. I’d been inching forward at first, planning on sucker-punching her, but I halt in my tracks as the beating continues.
I am way out of my league, I think, watching the assault with mounting alarm.
The cell behind them looks like a modern art installation by the time she’s finished, a grisly display made on a shoestring budget of a single color: red. I have to admit, as bad as I feel, a part of me can’t help but be pleased to see Ares obliterated like this.
Her work complete, Emilia leans in, moving slowly, deliberately, until she’s barely an inch from his broken body. She watches him for a second, eyes following the spasms of muscle and sinew as he begins to heal, and then her lips part. It’s such a mild, tender gesture, especially in the aftermath of the battering she’s just delivered, that at first I wonder if she’s about to kiss him.
Then a squirming tendril of shadow and scales drips out of her mouth, and I gasp in revulsion. The tendril becomes a tentacle, a shimmering black worm that streams from her mouth to coil on the beaten god’s chest in overlapping folds of writhing darkness. It seems to stretch, enjoying its freedom for a moment, before it raises its tail in a lazy flick, rears back, and drives itself into the ruin of Ares’s face.
His body seizes, jerking and shuddering as more and more of the serpentine blasphemy unspools from Emilia before wriggling into him. It seems to go on forever, a parasite many times the size of its host unfolding, expanding, and rejoicing before it crushes itself into a new body. Finally, a massive glob of midnight oozes from Emilia’s mouth, nose, and eyes, running down and re-forming into the enormous, spade-shaped head of a cobra, eyes searing with pinpricks of laser-bright red light.
It turns, stares directly at me, and I feel a strange sense of elation and expectation from it, like it’s trying to say, “Watch this!” Then it looks away to finish its backward slide into Ares. The shadows that form its body flatten and dissipate, losing shape and peeling apart to fill every crack and pore in my foe’s face.
They vanish, sinking beneath his skin, and Emilia immediately tumbles to the bloodstained tiles beside him, unconscious. For a few seconds, there’s silence as he regenerates, the last wounds and rents closing. Then, a moment later, the god of war opens his eyes.
He sits up, tilts his head, and looks at me.
“For you,” he says, and smiles.
24
TUMBLING DOWN
FREYA
“No,” I gasp, appalled.
Ares/Apep brings himself to his feet. He sways briefly, then straightens his jacket and brushes his dress shirt, arranging the tatters of his uniform as best he can. “Gone,” he says in the voice of my nemesis, spreading his arms. “Never to bother you again. You’ve won.”
“How is this possible?” I whisper, trying to wrap my head around the fact that, behind the face of a man I’ve hated for centuries, something else entirely now pulls the strings.
“Have to admit, we weren’t entirely certain it’d work,” he says, giving Samantha a warm smile. “So we tested it a few months back.”
“The dream,” I say, soft and brittle.
“A world in shadow, a slanderous prayer,” he says, nodding. “Provocative, wasn’t it? Hothead showed up—some Celtic war god. Made a fine guinea pig. After Finemdi’s tampering, I knew I could possess mortals, but gods?” He shrugs. “Worth a shot.”
Emilia groans, twitching beside Apep. He steps aside, moving to let Samantha examine her mother.
“Ah, Emilia,” he says as he shifts. “Sacrifice and bravery like yours is rare.”
“S-Sam?” the woman moans, opening her eyes to see her daughter.
“Hi, Mom,” Samantha says, eyes shining with tears. “Hi.”
“Good,” Apep says softly, seeming caught between pride and sadness. He turns back to me. “Her memories were mine—I knew how much it hurt her, giving up that girl to entrap me all those years ago. Glad to see them reunited, if only for a moment.”
A chill runs down my spine, and I see Samantha’s shoulders hunch as if she’s just been hit. “Wh-what did you say?” she asks in a broken, hesitant voice.
Apep kneels beside her. “I’m sorry, Sam. It’s time to say good-bye,” he says, not unkindly.
“But you said—”
“She sacrificed herself to me, opened her heart and made a beacon of her lifeblood.” His features harden as he turns to Samantha’s mother. “Bait. A trap, a physical shell to hold a god of shadow and spirit. Brilliant, really.”
Emilia’s eyes widen, darting between Apep and her daughter. “Sam, no,” she whispers. “Tell me you didn’t—”
“I said I would return your mother to you, Samantha Drass,” Apep says, standing up. “Exactly as she was before I took her. Her fate is none of my doing, yet a spark of my strength holds it at bay, so take the gift that is this moment, steel yourself, and say good-bye.”
“No, please!” Samantha screams, clutching at her mother’s clothes. “Everything I’ve done, the years I’ve spent, the friends I’ve—” Her eyes dart to me, and the words seem to die in her throat. “You can’t—”
“Shh, Sam, shh,” Emilia says, reaching up to caress her daughter’s cheek. “It’s going to be okay.”
Samantha turns to stare at her mother, and in her eyes I can see the full horror of what she’s unleashed slam home. “Oh god, Mom, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I just—”
Emilia sits up, reaching out to cradle her daughter in her arms. “No, no, shh. I love you, my little genius. Never forget that. Never apologize to me.”
“No, Mom,” Samantha croaks, tears streaking her cheeks.
I wince, feeling powerless to help. Despite everything she’s done, my heart goes out to her. Even now, facing a god of genocide wrapped in the skin of my oldest foe, I find myself wishing I could do something to spare the girl who aided it. Forcing this creature to find mercy is beyond my pathetic talents, however. All I can do is watch alongside Nathan as the inevitable creeps in.
Apep gives them a moment, lets Samantha hold her mother tight, and then draws near. “Sam,” he says, promising the cruelest of certainties in a single word.
Samantha twitches at his voice, defiance flashing in her eyes. She darts a hand into her lab coat, fingers fumbling for—
And Apep is suddenly there, gently holding her wrist with breathtaking speed. “Ah-ah,” he says. “Accept it.”
She pauses, staring at him with raw, blasted hate, but does not move. Then his fingers tighten ever so slightly, pressing into her skin, and she seems to realize the per
il that crouches before her. She deflates, dropping her hand with a soft sound of hurt, and looks at her mother with miserable impotence.
“Bye, Mom.”
Emilia smiles, then hugs her daughter one last time. “Bye, Sam,” she whispers. Then her gaze shifts, looking to Apep, and her teeth pull back from her lips. “Mindless slave,” she spits at him. “Do it.”
He frowns. “Such a poor note on which to end,” he says, then shrugs and snaps his fingers.
Emilia’s body heaves and spasms as a deep gash splits the center of her chest, a decades-old gesture of sacrifice replayed. Blood flows from the injury, staining her sleeveless white shirt and dripping down to mingle with the godly ichor that coats the cell beside them.
“No, no, NO!” Samantha screams, trying to stem the flow.
Emilia says nothing, seeming to want little more than to savor their final moments together. A faint smile lingers on her lips as she dies, unseeing eyes left locked on her daughter.
Sobbing, Samantha hugs her mother to her, rocking back and forth with all the pain of love and life denied.
Apep sighs, then turns away. “I do not delight in suffering,” he says, almost sounding defensive.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Nathan snaps, looking furious.
“I don’t recall asking,” Apep replies, giving him a cool stare. Then he shakes himself, rolling his shoulders. He looks to me, stretching, and bounces on his heels. “Her pain passes with every breath. The hurt this god”—he gestures at himself—“caused you is just as dead, and when my work is done, none shall weep again.”
“None will be left to weep,” I say.
“My, he’s a strong one,” he says, ignoring me as he examines his new body. “Future’s bright, Freya. Very bright.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, feeling ill. “Why did you need me for this? Why put this on me? You didn’t really—”
“Of course we could’ve done it without you,” he says, flexing his arms above his head. “Any god could have activated that marvelous little device. You were never a necessity, but when we realized the beacon required divine energy, well … you happened to be on the short list.”
“What, because Samantha knew me? Knew about Ares and how I’d ignore all reason to bring him down?” I say, staring at the girl with wretched understanding. This is why she was so willing to help me get my revenge, to stand at my side against him? She wasn’t doing it because she cared about me or my survival—she just did it because she knew it would be the perfect opportunity to accomplish Apep’s goals.
Everything was calculated, I think, going over her actions in my head. All to bring us to this.
“In part,” Apep says, waving a hand. “But don’t blame her. I had to get you something nice after you helped me escape, after all, and I figured being instrumental in the destruction of your old foe would fit the bill.” He pauses, staring at me with drained, emotionless eyes. “How’d I do?”
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” I moan, realizing just how much power I’ve handed this atrocity.
“Now let’s see…” Apep says, looking at the prison around him. “Time we took this one for a spin, no?”
He closes his eyes, concentrating, and something thrums in my chest, a dark, decadent omen of power being gathered, channeled, readied. There’s a pause, a perfect little moment of peace, and then I feel the spike of destruction explode from him like a hurricane. Thundering lances of energy sink deep into the underbelly of existence, anchoring themselves in the world around us, pushing, pulsing, cracking.
The Stormer of Walls, I think, realizing my foe’s specialty. He’s trying to bring it all down.
The very air throbs with the force of his assault, and tiny cracks spiderweb the floor around him in concentric rings. From all directions, the wards of Finemdi shove back, trying to contain the bubble of annihilation in their heart. The ground rumbles, lights flicker, and the fissures spread, traveling up the walls.
Apep seems to swell, chest expanding with power. Centuries of warfare, millions lost, and he pours it all into the defenses around him, trying to snap them, to shatter the foundation they protect and bring this miracle of magic and engineering down upon our heads. Sweat beads his brow and he grits his teeth in exertion, bending every ounce of strength to his purpose—
And fails.
Try as he might, the wards stand fast, invincible cliffs undaunted by the waves of a stormy sea. Apep blows out a sigh, panting with exertion, and releases his hold on all those spears of ruin. The tremors stop in an instant. A few chips of plaster clatter to the cement around us, the only proof of his vast effort.
“Wow,” he says, looking up with admiration. “Built to last. My strength and his, and still nothing. Ah, well.”
He inhales sharply, then turns back to the cell. “Sam, you mind?”
Samantha jerks her head up, staring at him with red-rimmed eyes, and words fail me in describing the depths of the foaming hostility that burn behind them.
Apep smiles faintly. “Perhaps you do.” Then he darts forward, moving with absurd speed to reach a hand inside her coat, pull out a shimmer of metal, and step away before she can even react.
“No, stop him!” Samantha yells, and I recognize the object in his hand as he brandishes it like a trophy: It’s a detonator, and I have no desire to find out what it activates.
“Nathan!” I yell, hauling my twin’s gun out from the back of her jacket and snapping off a round at Apep.
My priest brings up his arm at the same time, steadying his own revolver before firing its last two bullets. His first shot goes wide, flashing off the far wall of the cell with an echoing spang!, but the second flies true, headed straight for the heart of my once and future foe. Mine is just as accurate, winging through the air on a collision course for the creature’s head. I’m aiming high, hoping to nail Apep without hurting Samantha, though with the way those rune bullets detonate, I don’t know if it’ll matter.
Not that we get a chance to find out.
Reacting to shots from two different directions, Apep moves so fast he makes Sekhmet look like an overweight housecat. Little more than a high-speed blur, he darts out a hand, snatches Nathan’s bullet mid-flight, then snaps it to his right, using it to bat mine off course.
There’s a high-pitched scrape as the wayward round ricochets into the ceiling. Apep watches it go, then turns to give me a little smirk. “Haven’t you heard?” he says, raising the first bullet between thumb and forefinger. “Quick as a—”
The round flashes and explodes, blowing his hand apart in a whoosh of violet-tinted napalm. “Agh!” he screeches, surprised and clearly pained by the voracious blaze.
The tongues of amethyst fire bite deep, consuming his arm, and I take the opportunity to dash toward him, charging straight for the detonator in his good hand. I scream with the effort, putting everything into reaching him and that trigger before he can respond.
In what seems to be a recurring trend, things don’t quite go as planned.
Scowling, Apep drops the remote, reaches up to grip his scorched limb with his free hand, tears his own arm from its socket, and then THROWS IT AT ME. The blistering hunk of god flesh smashes into me mid-sprint like a fiery, long-distance haymaker, the sheer force of the impact hurling me off my feet and into the far wall.
Ares, arm already regenerating, shakes his head, bends down, and plucks the detonator from the floor. Then he turns to Nathan. “Honestly,” he says, glaring at my high priest. He points a re-formed finger at him. “Not. Polite.”
He flexes his arm, giving the new hand some experimental squeezes, then nods. “Cheers,” he says, and triggers the remote.
Immediately, tremors shake the prison as a trio of explosions rip through critical points. At first, I think it’s intended to knock the building down, to accomplish what Apep could not, but then I realize you’d probably need something on the order of a nuke to even put a dent in this place. Besides its impossibly strong building materials and
designs, the gigantic dog pile of defensive spells alone would—
I blink, realizing what’s happened in the wake of those detonations.
The prison’s wards are gone. All of them. That oppressive, unstoppable cliff of magic I mentioned? Destroyed. With just a few days of planning and execution, Samantha’s managed to undo years of effort from entire pantheons of gods. It’s such a simple, elegant solution to all those troublesome magicks, too: Blow ’em up. When they realized Ares had made this prison his headquarters, she must have planted a bomb at every last warding nexus around the level, rigged them to pop when they received the appropriate signal, and then kicked up her heels and waited for Apep to tell her when to send it. The perfect backup plan in case he couldn’t manage to rip this place apart on his own.
Speaking of which …
The floor rattles beneath my fingers, bowing and flexing as pure desolation spirals out of the infested god before me. Apep has a massive grin pasted on his face, a child with a new toy. Even as the prison’s space-warping magic fails, dunking the entire level in a cold bath of reality, he adds his own little push to the devastation. The place begins to vibrate, coming apart at the seams. Dust and rubble roar into the hall, pouring from the ceiling.
As chunks of cement pound the prison from above, Samantha locks eyes with me, mouths, “I’m sorry,” and triggers another well-planned contingency in her pocket.
A flicker of magic, a brief distortion that bends the air around her and Emilia’s body, and then the pair whip apart into nothingness, disappearing with a mild whumpf of air. She’s gone, abandoning me and my friends to the oncoming tide of destruction.
Even now, after everything, I don’t know if I pity or despise her.
Walls crack, floors crumble, and something enormous groans far above, stressed beyond the greatest nightmares of its engineers. The lights flicker and die as the entire prison collapses in on itself—and onto us. Above it all, the laughter of Apep rings out, gleeful and victorious, carrying on as the sounds of disaster rise, peak, and fade; a joyful conductor amidst a symphony of chaos.
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