Such a powerful memory. But it had led to this moment, where the last bit of promise and possibility burned to ash in an instant.
“You can’t get to the sixth seal,” Willow growled, glaring at Sekhmet. “Not on your own.”
“That’s right,” Penelope said. “We’ve each protected it with our elemental magic. Magic which can’t be undone without us. And we’ll never help you restart the Apocalypse.”
Sekhmet stared at them for a moment, and then she began to laugh. “Oh, my darlings. Never say never.”
She made a simple gesture, and Dynah felt a burning heat lash around her neck. It felt like a cattle brand. A line of magic ran between her and Sekhmet like a lasso. Dynah gasped and fell into Sekhmet as she yanked her backward.
“We’ll see how willing you are,” she said.
And with that, she vanished, dragging Dynah with her.
Dynah felt a squeeze and a pop as everything around them disappeared. They rematerialized a moment later. The air was about ten degrees cooler, and she could see mountains rising up along the horizon. Earth and aspen trees scented the air. They stood at the entrance to the mines at Ruby Mountain, just a short distance from Hawk’s Hollow.
Sekhmet released the magic that encircled Dynah’s neck. “Might as well relax while we wait for them.” She cast Dynah a wicked smile.
Dynah coughed and reached trembling fingers to her neck. She could feel burn marks rising up along her skin. “You already reaped so many souls when you broke the fifth seal,” she said, when she felt she could speak again. “Why break the sixth? Why destroy the world even further?”
“If you had lived as long as I have, you might understand,” Sekhmet said. She stood and stared off into the mountains, closing her eyes for a moment as a breeze blew down from the north. “This world is a beautiful place. But over time, its inhabitants have forgotten what it means to live. They think such a thing is free.”
Dynah frowned, her brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
“See, even you don’t realize what I’m talking about. You think the world is free, too. Or maybe you’ve begun to sense that it is not. There is a price for everything, after all.” Sekhmet paused, and her dark eyes burned into Dynah. “And that price is worship. It’s all we ask. A small penance for guiding humanity through the dark early years, their eyes still dewy from the birth of creation, barely more than animals, stumbling through life. Climbing up from their base existence, not a clue about the true meaning of things. They’ve come so far now. There is knowledge. Discipline. Art. But as they evolved, they forgot. And you know, it makes a creator a bit cross to be taken for granted.”
Dynah stood there a moment, dumbfounded. “So, all of this is because of your vanity? Because your feelings are hurt that your people aren’t cowering in fear and crawling around in the mud anymore?”
Sekhmet straightened her spine and sniffed disdainfully. “I hardly expect you to understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” Dynah laughed. “And I thought I was conceited.”
“Soon, you won’t care about any of this. About these pathetic people.” Sekhmet circled her. Dynah remembered back in her temple, when the goddess had inhabited her own body, with the lion’s head. She felt very much the prey in this moment. “Once we complete the spell, all of that will be behind you. All of your weakness.”
“You’re just like the angels,” Dynah said. “All of you looking down your noses on humans, but wanting so desperately to be loved by them. Talk about pathetic.”
Sekhmet’s eyes flashed and a wave of power rocketed over Dynah, forcing her to the ground. But her fear was fading, and now she was just getting angry. She was tired of being pushed around. Being controlled. She’d thought all of that was behind her now that she was a Rider, but it was the same, just with bigger bullies. Dynah’s days of quiet acceptance, however, were far behind her.
With her anger came a roll of her own magic. She forced her way to her feet, pushing back Sekhmet’s power inch by inch. When she reached her full height, Rider and goddess stared each other down, magic sparking between them.
It was at that moment that the air around them rippled, and the Others appeared just a dozen feet away.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Willow
Willow stared at the empty spot where Sekhmet and Dynah had stood just moments before.
“Felicity is possessed,” she said aloud, the words tumbling in a surreal fashion out of her mouth.
“And the goddess possessing her has kidnapped my sister,” Penelope added.
“If we go to the mines, she’s going to force us to unlock the sixth seal, with Dynah as leverage,” Willow said, her voice low and gravelly. She reached out and took Penelope’s hand, made her meet her gaze.
“We can’t leave Dynah to be tortured, if that’s what you mean,” Penelope snapped.
“It’s not,” Willow said quickly. “Of course not. But we need to know what we’re walking into,” she said. “Dynah for the whole world. We need to think of something real damn quick. We’ve got less than an hour’s flight to get to the mines, and by then we’d better have some sort of a plan.”
Penelope nodded, but her movements were slow, as if she were going into shock. Then her eyes widened. “The rings!” She lifted her right hand, and Beziel’s silver band flashed in the sunlight.
“Well, I threw mine into the tunnel,” Willow said. “But I suppose, if we were ever going to use them, now is the time.” She hated to admit it, but they were out of options. Everything they’d been working toward the last few days had crumbled to dust in a matter of minutes.
Penelope looked at the ring and twisted it around her finger several times. Willow could see her lips moving as she whispered Beziel’s name. They stood in silence on the top of the butte and listened to the wind move over the rock.
Nothing happened.
Penelope twisted the ring a few more times. “Beziel!” she said, louder this time.
Their only answer was a stronger gust of wind and a snort from one of the horses.
“Why isn’t it working?” Penelope groaned.
“Come on,” Willow said. “We don’t have time to waste. If the Fallen are coming, they should be able to track us to the mine.”
She ran over to Sahkyo, trying not to look into her dead eyes as she picked up the dark key from the ground where it had fallen. She didn’t want to use it, didn’t even know what they’d use it for, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to leave something so valuable just lying around. Especially after they’d nearly been mauled by skin-walkers to get it.
She placed it deep within her duster, and a moment later she was back astride Bullet. She nodded to Penelope and they launched into the sky.
Within less than a minute they’d left the gray dome over Sahkyo’s land, and then the sky was blue, the purest blue she’d ever seen. It seemed strange for the sky to be so cheerful when everything was going straight to shit. The world hadn’t even recovered from the kickoff of the Apocalypse, and now it was about to get a whole lot worse.
And what was more, Sehkmet wanted to perform the spell on them. Why? Was it purely revenge, or something else? Willow didn’t know, and she really didn’t like not knowing.
As they flew, Willow thought back on her own words. Dynah for the whole world. She’d never liked Dynah. Growing up, Dynah had been the source of so much pain for Penelope. Willow had watched Dynah get everything that Penelope ever wanted: clothes, toys, horses. Attention. Love. Dynah had accepted it all as if it were only what she deserved, and she seemed completely oblivious to her sister’s constant rejection.
But then they’d become Riders.
Fate (or Heaven, more specifically) had thrown them all together. Willow had realized, through the bond they shared, and the memories they’d each walked through in Spider Woman’s realm, that Dynah shared the same rage at her core that the rest of them did. Willow hadn’t realized what she’d gone through at Roy’s hands, hadn’t realized that the
pretty face Dynah presented to the world was just a mask.
They were all in this together. They’d started the Apocalypse as one, and they’d end it that way, too. Whether it meant victory or going down fighting, she didn’t know. But when that end came, she would be with her fellow Riders. Her sisters in magic and soul.
So, when Willow and Penelope burst from a bank of clouds a short time later and saw the mountains and the mine below them, she didn’t have the slightest bit of a plan. But what she did have was a fire at her core, a resolve of hardened steel. And what she saw next made every ounce of that resolve very much needed.
The Others stood fanned out around the base of Ruby Mountain. Sekhmet and Dynah blocked the entrance to the mine, which sat at the dead-end of a wide canyon. Magic flew back and forth between them. Penelope whipped her head over to Willow and their eyes met for just a moment. This was it. One way or the other. They steered the horses down into the melee.
Sekhmet stood directly in the mouth of the passage into the mine, with Dynah to her left. They landed a few yards from Dynah. Willow could feel the magic pulsing off of Sekhmet, that same utterly terrifying presence they’d felt when they’d first arrived outside her temple in Egypt. Like standing next to the sun at it went supernova. It was strange and terrible watching Felicity’s body act as the conduit of such force. Felicity’s slender arms and delicate face, her dark hair floating up around her in a wave of power. For a moment, Willow could see a lioness’s head superimposed over that of her friend. Then it flickered and was gone.
Dynah was not standing idly by the goddess. She crouched over the ground, palms flat down. Her lips moved as she murmured something, a fierce expression on her face. The ground began to tremble, and overhead a scream came from the sky. Her army of the dead was on its way.
As Willow took stock of the scene before her, she realized that Beziel wasn’t coming to help them. They were on their own. In order to defeat their four clones, once and for all, they had to side with Sekhmet. At least for the time being.
Willow and Penelope jumped off their horses. A rumbling came from the mountain, and after a moment Willow realized it wasn’t Dynah’s doing. She could feel the metal within the mine calling to her, and if it was calling to her, that meant it was calling to her copy. Her gaze traveled upward, and she saw particles of copper rising off the slopes of the mountain, forming together into a spear.
The spear shot downward toward Sekhmet, and Willow reached out with her own power to catch it. She felt the collision of magic with her copy as if she’d run headlong into a wall, a boom followed by a reverberation, then a shiver as the two forces crushed against each other, struggling for dominance.
The Felicity copy made the earth roll beneath their feet, and Willow fell backward. The spear shot down toward Sekhmet, but the goddess made a gesture with her hand and sent it shooting off to bury itself in the ground. Penelope drew her bow and fired upon the Others as Willow and her copy began to battle for control of the metallic elements once again.
Willow decided it was time to go on the offensive. She didn’t take the time to form a spear as her copy had. She simply pulled tiny dots of metal from the mountain and rained them down on the enemy like bullets. With her mind she hardened them, sent them zinging faster than lightning. They sprayed across their opponents, sending them flying to the ground.
That’s when the sky went black.
“Was that you?” Willow shrieked to Penelope.
Her friend didn’t reply.
Willow turned, but Penelope no longer stood to her left where she’d been a moment before. A cold prickle ran across her skin, just a moment’s notice before a patch of night, a darker shade of sky, rose up in front of her. And then it swallowed her whole.
A scream escaped Willow’s throat, but it just echoed around her, vibrating back instead of dissipating outward. She couldn’t see a thing. Not the ground. Not the outline of the mountains against the sky. Not the moon or stars above. She was completely enveloped in a pocket of night.
She felt it press into her, moving along her skin. Sensing, tasting. It felt like a slug, thick and oozy, slowly creeping over her. The air was thickening too, disappearing moment by moment. Eaten by whatever this thing was, just as she was about to be. Dissolved. Devoured. She tried to strike out, but she couldn’t move. In a matter of moments it had tightened around her, covering every inch. It tickled at her earlobes, her eyelashes, her nostrils. She took a breath, and she could feel it start to slide into her lungs…
Then there came a resounding boom and a bright light. So much light that it hurt. Blinding, radiant, stunning. The blackness burst away, melting off of her. Willow covered her eyes, sucking in a deep breath as the light poured over her, burning up the last remnants of the sludge. When it faded, she blinked, her vision trying to adjust. Stars formed all around her and she swayed on her feet. A winged being stood before her.
Zane.
“What did you do?” Willow asked, her voice raspy. She coughed, realizing she’d swallowed the darkness.
Zane didn’t answer her question. Instead, he stepped forward and pressed his lips to hers.
She struggled for a moment, but then she felt it. That same light, his light, pouring into her, evaporating the last of the night that had tried to devour her. And she let it in, let him in, felt the warmth of it wash through her. Her pulled her tighter against him, clinging to her like she was the one saving him instead of the other way around.
A moment later he pulled back, and their eyes met. “I’ve been trying to tell you,” he said softly.
But whatever it was he’d been trying to tell her was interrupted by the earth-shattering shriek of Dynah’s bone dragon as it arrived and landed with a boom and a rush of wind. Willow’s head whipped toward it. It was crouched a couple dozen feet away, its claws shredding something beneath it. With a shiver, Willow realized it was the Penelope copy. The one that must have sent the night to attack them.
Well, that meant one down and three to go.
Willow and Zane whirled away from each other and back into battle. Penelope had reappeared a few feet away. Her hands were raised, and she was sending the night away, causing a strange, striated effect in the sky, stripes of day and night intertwined.
“Did the night get you, too?” Willow asked her.
Penelope nodded. “Zane saved me. Though he got to me first, so I didn’t have any in my lungs,” she said with a smirk.
Willow rolled her eyes. “Lucky you.”
She turned and focused on pulling another round of bullets from the mountain. The earth shook as several dozen skeletons ran toward them from across the canyon floor and began to attack the remaining Others. Dynah raised her hands to the sky and began to pull down stars from the night that remained, sending them pinging into their copies. Penelope resumed firing with her arrows, now that they had a bit more light.
They formed a circle around the Others, sending everything they had into them. Willow felt a shiver as she watched their melted faces. Did they feel fear? Did they feel any emotion at all? She had never wanted to end something so much in her entire life, but as her determined fury pressed down on them, she wondered if they knew they were merely pawns in Heaven’s game. As she and her friends were supposed to be.
And then Zane screamed as the copy of her sent a spear through his calf. He hit the ground, a spray of crimson arcing out around him. He was too far away for her to reach him. There was only one way to help. They needed to end this, to end the Others, here and now.
She let out her own yell, pouring every bit of her elemental magic into the task, pulling more and more projectiles from the mountain. Penelope fired arrow after arrow, Dynah sent a blaze of molten starlight, the bone army attacked relentlessly.
Then, abruptly, the three remaining Others dissolved. One moment they were standing there, then the next they had broken into a million tiny pieces, a million specks of glittering black-silver dust. It swirled up into a slow spiral above their heads
, and a soft whisper could be heard on the wind. Willow felt a stab of fear in her gut.
A shock wave burst out across the land, sending them all flying backward. Willow landed hard in the dirt, her cheek slamming into a rock. Her vision faded a moment, then the world spun, and she felt the sensation of falling. She blinked rapidly, and slowly things began to come back into focus. Everything seemed eerily quiet.
In the center of the circle, where the Others had been, the pile of glittering dust that was their remains stirred slowly as if lifted by the breeze. Willow’s head still rung, and her bones ached as she pushed herself up onto her elbows. A wave of dizziness swept over her, and her arms shook. Something moved in the pile of dust.
Smoothly, as if breaking the surface of a body of water, a head rose up from the shimmering debris. A head, followed by a slender body, unfolding like a flower. The being stood there in the center of them all. A woman, skin white as ice, hair black as a crow. Her eyes glowed gold in the dim light, and her red lips curled into a smile as she swept her gaze over them lying prostrate on the ground.
And then, in a flash of amethyst light, she vanished.
“Who in holy hell was that?” Dynah asked, her voice shaking.
Willow didn’t have an answer. She just knew that whoever it was, it meant absolutely nothing good. She forced herself to her feet and stumbled to Zane. A pool of blood soaked the sand around him, and his face twisted in agony. The spear had nearly sliced his lower leg off. She crouched down next to him, her eyes fluttering at the sight of so much blood. She had no idea what to do.
Penelope joined her on the ground. “Don’t try to remove it yet!” she said sharply as Willow’s hands hovered near the shaft.
Zane sucked in a breath and tried to speak, his words coming out in an indistinguishable groan.
“What?” Willow asked. She looked to Penelope and Dynah, but they shook their heads.
“Sek—” he gasped. Gritted his teeth, tried again. “Sekhmet.”
Willow’s head whipped toward the entrance to the mine, along with Penelope and Dynah. Her heart went still as she realized that the goddess was gone. She must have disappeared in the final thrust of the battle. And that could mean only one thing…
A Famine of Crows Page 15