“What, by the gods, was that?” Lillian asked as the feeling slowly receded. It took another ten thunderous heartbeats before she could convince her wings to fold tight to her back again.
“A gargoyle just returned to Lord Death,” Gregory said as he closed his eyes and tilted his muzzle to the sky. After half a minute, he glanced back down at her. “Shadowlight and Anna just journeyed to Lord Death this night. May they find him ever merciful.”
“My brother is gone?” Lillian felt dismay and a new kind of fear because while she was glad he wasn’t still trapped as a slave to the Battle Goddess, she wasn’t sure if Lord Death was much of an improvement.”
Major Resnick circled around in front of Gregory and looked the tall male in the eye. “You’re telling me Anna and the kid are no longer down there?”
“Yes.”
“You’re absolutely certain?” Resnick asked, disbelief clear in his voice. Lillian didn’t blame him. The humans had to take what the magic wielders said on faith.
“There is no one down there to save.”
Still looking unhappy, Major Resnick got on the radio. “We’re aborting the mission. I repeat mission aborted. We’re falling back to the secondary site.”
“What will happen to Anna and my brother now?” Lillian asked with growing dread. Gregory had wanted to avoid meeting Lord Death until he’d had a chance to better understand all the changes in Shadowlight and Anna. Now it was out of their hands.
“I will go before Lord Death and learn what has become of Anna and Shadowlight. If they have been granted mercy, I will beseech the Lord of the Underworld to return them both to their families.”
That was more ‘ifs’ than Lillian liked, and Gregory hadn’t said what he’d do if Lord Death decided to keep them. Lillian refused to believe anyone the Avatars considered a friend would be so cruel as to kill two innocent beings who had no control over what fate had unleashed upon them.
“Lillian, Daryna,” Gregory gestured towards the human team already making their way back over the treacherous ground. “It’s time we returned to the Mortal Realm.”
Lillian was devastated to be leaving without her brother but consoled herself with the knowledge they weren’t exactly leaving empty-handed. They’d learned that the Battle Goddess was building an even greater army than they’d expected. They’d even managed to save one human family. That had to be worth something, even if it didn’t soothe her fears about Shadowlight and Anna.
A deep, reverberating tone issued from somewhere within the city. It took Lillian a few seconds to recognize it as a horn. One really big-ass horn by the sound of it.
Gregory bumped his muzzle against Lillian’s flank to get her moving. Yep. Time to go.
The human soldiers took the lead, Lillian followed close on their heels while Gregory and Daryna brought up the rear.
They’d only just clambered down from the rocky ground surrounding the overlook when Lillian heard Gregory call Daryna’s name.
Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted Daryna running back in the direction they’d just come. Gregory dropped to all fours and raced after her.
“What the hell?” Major Resnick took the words right out of Lillian’s mouth.
Lillian turned and gave chase. Behind her, the humans did the same. She leaped over a boulder in her path and on the other side Gregory had Daryna pinned down. The Sorceress was using magic, attempting to toss him off.
She ran to Gregory’s side and then locked her jaws around Daryna’s throat. Gregory was too damn gentle when dealing with his other half. They didn’t have time to waste if Daryna was planning a double cross.
“Behave, or I’ll tear out your throat. That would be one way to take back my soul and my magic.” Lillian tightened her grip and gave Daryna a little shake to reinforce her words. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You will remain calm and explain to Gregory why you were attempting to get captured.”
“I wasn’t trying to get captured.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Gryton is in danger. The Battle Goddess is breaching his shields even now.” Daryna started to fight again.
Lillian bit down hard enough to draw blood. “Rushing off and getting yourself captured won’t help Gryton. Besides, how can you be certain this isn’t just an elaborate trap set for the Avatars?”
“It’s not. I can feel Gryton’s agony,” Daryna whispered, her eyes growing distant as she turned her head in the direction her son lay.
Crap. Shadowlight and Anna escaped the Battle Goddess’s clutches and suddenly Gryton was getting tortured.
Lillian released Daryna and looked to Gregory instead. “Gryton must have helped Anna and Shadowlight escape.”
Suspicion still hovered in Gregory’s expression, but he nodded.
Lillian turned her focus back to Daryna. “If Gryton helped Shadowlight, then he deserves our aid. I don’t like to be indebted. We need a new plan. If we just rush in blindly, we’ll probably get someone killed, maybe even Gryton.”
Reason returned to Daryna’s gaze. “You’re correct. We need to prepare. They now will be on alert, hunting for Shadowlight and Anna. They will not know for certain that the gargoyles went to Lord Death.”
“This is madness,” Gregory grumbled.
“He is our son,” Daryna countered. “We must save him.”
“She’s right,” Lillian said unhappily.
“Fine,” Gregory agreed. “There is the blood witch to deal with as well.”
Major Resnick join them. “Ah, hell. We are going down there, aren’t we?”
Chapter 37
He’d always known his life would end in fire as his power raged out of control. Though, he’d also thought it would be in battle against his Avatar parents or the Lord of the Underworld. But, no, it was the Lady of Battles that wanted him dead this time.
That the Battle Goddess would be so foolish as to exterminate him in her own kingdom just reinforced how unstable she truly was.
“When I die, I’ll take out your kingdom—cities, towns, temples, and army. All of it razed down to the bones of the earth.” Gryton said, his voice strangely calm.
Perhaps this had always been her plan.
He fought against the chains, only to realize they’d melted away long ago as the demigoddess continued to pour a vast amount of her magic into him. Even now a torrent of magic held him pinned to the altar, no other physical restraints were required.
“You won’t,” the Battle Goddess countered, her voice sounding like it came from far away.
Gryton would’ve laughed if the pressure on his chest had allowed. As it was, he could barely draw breath. Simple suffocation, unpleasant though it was to experience, wouldn’t kill one such as him.
However, the amount of power she was pouring into him, that would eventually overwhelm his control. Even now, he could feel his fire magic seeking to slip his control. Only the knowledge the Sorceress had shared with him in her few brief lessons allowed him to maintain mastery over his magic this long.
Soon, even that wouldn’t be enough, and his destructive power would cascade out of control. The force would be enough to destroy the Battle Goddess’s domain. Perhaps even destroy this entire world.
Lord Death and the Avatars would be able to curtail some of the damage, but certainly not all of it.
“Do you think my death throes will obliterate the duality curse that holds you here?” It wouldn’t. She had to know that.
Gryton hoped the demigoddess would come to her senses. If he could reason with her, he might be able to survive a little while longer.
“No. The duality curse is woven from pure Spirit Magic. The Divine Ones had to sacrifice their Avatars to create it. It will take a far greater death than yours to break the spell.”
“Then why sacrifice your army?” He’d shed no tears over many of them, but Vaspara, Sorac, and a few others had been fair to him.
If it was in his power, he woul
d spare them. Unfortunately, if the Battle Goddess didn’t stop force-feeding him power, the choice would be out of his hands.
“You are almost ready,” the Battle Goddess whispered into his mind. She didn’t stop the power transfer, although it was less than it had been.
Gryton turned his head and studied all the captains where they circled the altar, looking on with neutral expressions. Only Honnan and Ninara were missing, devoured by Taryin’s magic to give her life once more.
Interestingly, the blood witch wasn’t watching him as he glowed like a living ember, his armor melting in rivulets off his body. No, the blood witch’s gaze was assessing the Battle Goddess.
“My goddess,” Gryton whispered along a private link. “You exhaust yourself to destroy me, but for saving me from Lord Death all those millennia ago, I will offer one last word of advice: look to the blood witch for your next betrayal.”
“She is loyal.” But the Battle Goddess looked at the witch with narrowed eyes.
“So too was I, once,” Gryton agreed. “I betrayed you to save family. The blood witch will betray you, not in the name of honor, but ambition.”
“Lies.”
“I’ve never lied, not even when I helped Shadowlight escape. You ordered me to protect him from those in this kingdom who would do him harm. I did that.”
“Your gilded words will not save you.”
“I didn’t expect them to,” Gryton said aloud.
“Very well. Since you were honest with me, I shall be honest with you.” The Battle Goddess knelt next to him and he could now see her features through the waves of heat and fire bleeding off his skin. Her features were weary with strain.
“You don’t look so very well, my lady.”
The Battle Goddess laughed. “You’re no longer as handsome as you once were either. I can see your soul shining through your ravaged flesh and bones.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“It does have a strange beauty to it, but that will not save you.” She sat and stroked a finger down his chest. “When your body is ready to surrender, I shall transport you to the Sorceress’s hamadryad tree. She will sense danger and the Avatars will come running. The harsh trip to the Mortal Realm will shatter your willpower and seconds after that you will become a mindless, raging elemental that will consume the world. When all is done, you will rise to take your place in the sky in a binary dance with that system’s sun.”
Ah. So that was her plan.
“The flesh and blood Avatars will not have time to react and will find themselves back in the Spirit Realm, and safely out of my way for the time I need.”
Sudden understanding struck Gryton. “You always planned to use me.”
“Yes. Had things gone as planned, it would not have come for several seasons yet. Shadowlight would have been fully trained when I sent you to the Mortal Realm to destroy the Avatars. Once they were out of my way, I would send Shadowlight and his Kyrsu to crush my brother’s army.”
As long as she was talking, she wasn’t pouring as much power upon him, so he’d keep her entertained because he sensed something she did not. “What about your plans to enslave the Avatars?”
She jerked back, her eyes narrowing in rage like he’d slapped her. “Plans change.”
“Did you know my mother captured me when I was in the Mortal Realm? She knew me. Knew I was her child. The one thing she had been waiting an eternity for. What do you think the Avatars will do to you in retaliation when they leave the Spirit Realm and are reborn one day?”
“You lie. The Avatars would kill you the moment they recognize what you are. They know their duty.”
“Actually, they didn’t kill me. At first, my father was shocked, and his initial gut reaction was to destroy me; though, even he came around and didn’t swat me out of existence. I came here to free Shadowlight and his pet human. I lived up to my end of the bargain. The Avatars are honorable. They will avenge my death. That pleases me.”
The Battle Goddess’s howl of rage made him smile.
It also gave him the will to hold on a little bit longer as she resumed pouring a torrent of power into him. While she was distracted killing him slowly, he turned his thoughts inwards.
“Did you get all that, mother?”
“Yes,” the Sorceress whispered back to him and he felt a loving caress accompany her words. “Your father heard it as well and together the Battle Goddess is outmatched.”
“Don’t underestimate the blood witch.”
“We won’t,” she promised and then dropped out of the link, but the male half of the Avatars was still with him.
“I may still have to kill you one day, but I will not let the Lady of Battles destroy what I brought into this world.”
Ah. Such a loving father he had.
“Gryton, I know you helped Shadowlight before you even knew we’d arrived here. That was noble. If you have a conscience, then maybe there is something more buried deep in your soul that’s worthy of salvation.”
“You’re not the type of father who tells his son how much he loves him, I take it?”
“No,” Gregory said with a chuckle. “But who knows. Maybe one day. Let’s live long enough to find out.”
Gryton started to laugh. The Battle Goddess and her captains pulled back in surprise.
Love was a foreign concept to Gryton, but he wouldn’t mind living long enough to determine whether he was capable of the emotion. And if he wasn’t? Well, he’d settle for razing his enemies to the ground and scattering their ashes to the four winds.
He looked up at the Battle Goddess. I’ll start with you.
Chapter 38
Major Resnick and Sergeant Maracle flanked Lillian as they made their way across the valley floor and onto the road. Ahead Captain Stanton, Lieutenant Willis, Gregory and Daryna lead the way while Corporals Laforce and Brown came last. She and Gregory had expanded their shadow magic to hide signs of the group’s passage. Even passersby wouldn’t hear their whispered conversation.
“A year ago,” the major said in an offhanded manner, “if someone had told me I’d be walking down a cobbled road in the company of a female weregargoyle attempting to rescue an evil demigod to halt an even more demented demigoddess from using him like an arsenal of tactical nukes, I’d say they’d gotten themselves some bad drugs.”
“Weregargoyle?” Lillian asked wondering if she should be offended.
“White folk have to label everything,” Sergeant Maracle said with a humorous glint in his eyes.
Lillian was still getting to know Resnick’s new team. Sergeant Maracle was the unit’s closemouthed sniper. Most of what she knew about him was second-hand knowledge from Gran.
No one could long resist Gran’s extrovert nature, not even the sniper, whom she’d learned was of Mohawk heritage.
“Oh, come on,” Resnick complained. “It was funny. Shapeshifters. Werewolf. Weregargoyle. No? Fine, I’m sorry.”
Lillian rolled her eyes and kept walking.
“Major, keep talking and you’ll need a ladder to climb out of the hole,” Maracle commented dryly.
“What? I said I was sorry.”
Obviously still finding Resnick’s antics funny, Maracle grinned and muttered a ‘you’re hopeless’ as he sauntered past the major on his way up to the front again.
Resnick shrugged and looked at Lillian. “Well, you’re a dryad that shifts into a gargoyle when the mood strikes you, so you can see where the confusion came from.”
Lillian snorted. “Weregargoyle has got to go. Scratch it from your vocabulary, or I’m going to bite your ass every time I hear it.”
“Fair enough.” Major Resnick grinned. “Consider it gone.”
A moment later, his jovial look vanished and he groaned. “I have to write a report about this shit with Gryton. I can’t even begin to describe how bad my superiors are going to chew me out for this.” Resnick continued to mutter to himself. Lillian still heard ‘evil shit demigod’ and more cursing.
Lillian
frowned unhappily. “I’m not happy about this new Gryton angle either, but if we don’t do something the Battle Goddess is going to use him to destroy Earth. Mention that in the report.”
“There will still be deep skepticism. Hell. I’m here and have seen more weird shit than most and I’m still having trouble swallowing the whole story.” Resnick shook his head. “And it isn’t that I don’t believe the Avatars. It’s just so—”
“Crazy?” Lillian added helpfully. “Says the woman who thought she was human until six months ago and now I’m a gargoyle. Hmm…yeah. You’ve got nothing to whine about.”
Major Resnick just shook his head and laughed. “Point taken.”
Ahead Gregory suddenly halted and motioned them off the road. The soldiers responded swiftly, and Lillian dropped to all fours a second later. Once everyone was belly down in a small overgrown ditch, Gregory joined them.
With Lillian on one end and Gregory on the other, they spread their wings over Daryna and the humans. Where their wings crossed over, so too did their shadow magic.
Even the most observant hunter would detect nothing. But Gregory still waited until the ten-horse patrol rode past and out of sight before he rose up and signaled everyone back onto the road.
Gregory said once they were inside the city, it would be easier since the city had already been searched and the patrols were now expanding further afield in the hunt for Shadowlight and Anna.
That wasn’t to say they would be safe within the city by any means. If they were discovered before they had a chance to snatch Gryton and escape, it would be a no-holds-barred fight for freedom. Lillian shoved that unpleasant thought aside.
The road climbed an ever-steepening slope until they reached the main gates. During the long climb, Daryna and Gregory remained in contact with Gryton, to give him hope so he would not give up.
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