Chapter 24
Quinn
“These ones can move the earth,” Lance said proudly, pointing to two beings he’d identified as ogres, who looked just as rocky as Crag’s gargoyle form but were much more… lumpy about it. They squatted on the dry earth in the desert outside the house with their heads cocked curiously atop their stocky bodies. But at least they were here.
“That could be useful,” I said. “For pushing the leviathan around or holding him in place if he’s near the shore. Or even if he’s not. There’s earth under the ocean too.”
Both of them nodded in jerky motions. “Yes, yes,” the one on the right said. “We’ll do our best. Mostly we crack things, but we can also make them collide.”
And my magic should amplify whatever effects they could normally accomplish. I gave them a weary but grateful smile. “Thank you for coming.”
As they waddled off, I turned to Lance, who was beaming. “They were a good find. I’m starting to feel like we might actually have a proper army here.” If we could get them all working together in unison without having their powers collide with each other. It wasn’t as if we could easily practice our strategies without any leviathan around and on terrain pretty much the opposite of the coastline.
The dragon shifter grinned even wider. “I think so too.” Then his good humor dimmed. “Crag said the biggest wave hit Rollick’s city.”
I grimaced with a lurch of my stomach, remembering the images I’d seen from the news websites this morning. “Yeah. The leviathan finally threw that tidal wave he’d been building at L.A. Thankfully they’d already gotten a lot of people evacuated, but there were still some deaths, and it destroyed a bunch of property. The storms are still battering the whole area… It’s a mess.” I couldn’t help feeling guilty that I’d been able to escape to someplace so comfortable and, well, dry.
“We should go challenge him right now,” Lance said, rolling his shoulders as a fierce light sparked in his violet eyes.
“And that’ll just add to his army,” Rollick said dryly, coming up behind us. “I’d rather not make a contribution to his cause. You know we need to wait until he’s focusing his sorcery elsewhere before we have a real chance.”
Lance grunted with annoyance, but he didn’t have any more solution to that problem than the rest of us did. I swallowed thickly, folding my arms over my chest just shy of hugging myself. “I guess now that we know he’s accumulated all the sorcery he’s likely to, we should get ourselves closer to California again so it’s less of a trek when we need to reach him. Do you have any houses that?—”
Before I could finish my question, a clanging like a warning at a train crossing split the air. I spun around to see a familiar RV in the distance, roaring along the narrow road that led to the house and kicking up dust under its wheels. A figure I could barely make out appeared on the top of the vehicle, heedless of its speed, and brought his arms down on something protruding from the roof a few times. Whatever he’d smashed, the clanging sound cut out.
Rollick sighed, but my lips twitched with a smile. Sorsha’s vehicle might be unusual, but she and her companions were the last definite allies we’d been waiting on. It’d be better to start moving toward California with them already with us.
As the RV approached, my other two men emerged from the house, Crag striding over from the doorway and Torrent only wavering into physical form when he could stand with us. The tentacled man had all four of his supporting tentacles out, his posture still a bit unsteady.
I moved to him, grasping his arm. “Are you sure you shouldn’t keep resting?”
Torrent slipped his arm right around me, the damaged hand on that side resting against my waist, and pressed a gentle kiss to my temple. “I get the sense that final plans are being made. You’re not leaving the cripple out of them.”
I narrowed my eyes at his self-derogatory wording, but he’d said it lightly enough that I wasn’t too worried about his emotional state. All the same, I had to say, “Don’t beat yourself up. The jerks back in the shadow realm already had that job more than covered.”
A startled laugh tumbled out of Torrent, and he tightened his sideways hug for just a second with a ripple of affection through our connection. “As I’m well aware.”
I had the sense that all of the shadowkind gathered around the house were watching the vehicle’s arrival, even though most of them remained in the patches of gloom beyond my sight. It was hard not to find the RV kind of momentous with its various streamers and spinning accessories. I’d gathered that most if not all of those were the result of previous trips through rifts, which would explain why Sorsha might not have been super keen to travel by that route again.
The so-called Everymobile jerked to a halt just shy of the garage that held Rollick’s multiple cars. The door chimed as it opened, and Sorsha strode out with the unflappable energy I was starting to expect from her, her appropriately fiery red hair swinging in its wavy ponytail. The four shadowkind men who I suspected were more than just friends of hers followed more cautiously. They flanked her with a mildly protective air that seemed a little absurd if Rollick was right that this woman had enough power in her to destroy both realms all on her own.
They were certainly a varied assortment of beings. One loomed as tall and brawny as Crag, his pale blond hair contrasting with his burnished brown skin. He’d had wings at least once before, but darkly feathered ones, so he definitely wasn’t a gargoyle. At the moment his only obvious monstrous feature was the crystal-like surface of his knuckles. I didn’t think it’d be fun to get punched by that guy.
An equally tall but much slimmer guy rested his hand on Sorsha’s shoulder, his golden curls as sunny as his smile. A forked tongue darted briefly from between his lips. I had no idea what kind of being he was either.
The dark-haired guy, who had his leanly muscled frame clothed in a posh button-up and slacks combo like he was about to head to a fancy nightclub, eyed us all with a faintly amused expression that didn’t seem to fit the situation. Sorsha had mentioned he was an incubus. Two short horns poked from his chocolate-brown locks.
And then there was the well-built, tawny-haired man who didn’t show any shadowkind features at all, though I knew he had to have one somewhere. His mouth was tight as if he was holding back a growl, and I had a flash of a memory to seeing him transform into that human-like shape from that of a monstrous, glowing dog. A hellhound, one of my guys had said.
Seeing them all in front of us, feeling how much more powerful they were than the vast majority of the beings who’d already joined our “army,” I couldn’t help finding it twice as ridiculous that we’d only just called on them for help. Rollick and that stupid shadowkind hesitation to ever depend on each other.
The demon himself stepped forward with an air that was all polished charm and a wariness I could sense underneath it. “Welcome to my humble home. Although we’ve just been talking about leaving it.”
Sorsha nodded with a swish of her ponytail and a flex of her toned shoulders. “I heard about the tsunami that hit L.A. overnight. The leviathan’s still out there, you figure?”
“That’s where his favorite rift is, so that’s where he’ll be.”
She glanced around, and I could tell she was aware of the beings lurking around us too. “Quite the motley crew you’ve assembled. We were talking on the drive down about how we could best pitch in. Feel free to make suggestions, since you’ve all dealt with this prick firsthand and we haven’t. Ruse is probably best on crowd control.” She motioned to the incubus. “He can make sure all mortals steer clear of the battle grounds, if there are any around.”
I hadn’t even thought about random mortals getting caught up in the clash. “That would definitely be useful.”
Sorsha patted the slim guy’s hand on her shoulder. “Snap can use his ‘tasting’ skill to see if he can pick up any useful impressions that would tell us more about the leviathan’s plan of action, what steps he’ll take next, so we can anticipate his movements. And also figure out if there are any deadly surprises he’s arranged. Unfortunately the whole devouring souls skill seems to mainly work on mortals, not other shadowkind.”
Rollick raised his eyebrows. “It sounds as though he’ll be quite helpful all the same,” he said, while I re-evaluated the cheerful-looking guy.
Sorsha jabbed her thumb toward the big dude. “Thorn can give the leviathan a shove if you need him on the move and generally distract him with a good pummeling. His wings allow him a lot of maneuverability.”
Crag let out a grunt and dipped his head to the other hulk. “We’ll coordinate our attacks, then.”
Thorn nodded in return, his expression even more solemn than the gargoyle’s. “It will be an honor to fight alongside such courageous beings.”
I decided not to ask what century he’d come from. The sentiment was appreciated.
Sorsha gestured between herself and the hellhound shifter last. “Omen and I should be able to have some impact with our fire, even against an enemy who’s all about the water. We can boil the area he’s hanging out in. Flambé any minions that come at the rest of you.”
“As long as you don’t flambé the rest of us too,” Torrent said evenly.
The phoenix flashed him a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve got much better control over my powers now that I’ve had more than a couple of weeks to figure out what the hell I even am.” She paused. “None of us have gone up against anything quite as ancient and powerful as this leviathan before. But we’ll do all we can. Between everyone here, we should be able to kick his butt.”
I realized with a jolt that I hadn’t told her one important part of our plan. “We’ve actually found that we can, er, rev up the powers everyone already has. Well, I can, anyway. Using my sorcery. If I order shadowkind to do something they already want to do, it seems to amplify their strength.”
Sorsha’s eyebrows shot up. “Fascinating. And very handy.”
Omen snorted. “Maybe with beings like this,” he said, tilting his head toward the shadowy crowd around the yard, his voice slightly disdainful. “I doubt it’d do much for us.”
I wavered, not sure that arguing with him was the best idea, but Sorsha clearly had no such qualms. She spun toward him with a sly grin. “There’s an easy way to find out, isn’t there? I think you’ve just volunteered yourself as a test subject. After all, you’re the most ancient being here, except maybe our demonic host. If it works on you, it should work on anyone.”
The man glowered at her, his tawny hair ruffling even though I didn’t feel any breeze. “I’m not sure I can burn things even more to a crisp than I’m already capable of.”
“Ah, but maybe you can burn them even faster!”
“Er, I don’t actually have to use my powers on any of you,” I said quickly. “It’s totally fine if you’d rather not.”
“No, no, our Disaster wants a demonstration, she’ll get a demonstration.” There was a weird fondness to the words despite Omen’s grouchy expression. “Let’s work with water, since that’s what we’ll be dealing with out there. Someone want to bring out a couple of glasses?”
Lance bounded into the house and returned moments later with two large tumblers brimming with tap water. Omen rolled his shoulders and then hunched over into his hellhound form—which was even more massive and unnerving than I’d remembered. He did look like a hound—one whose shoulders came up to the top of my head and whose charcoal gray fur was streaked through with magma-like currents of fire. Lance let out a whistle of approval.
Omen lashed a paw at the first cup, I supposed to establish a baseline. Even as the glass smashed into the hard terrain, the water was sizzling away into steam. Not a dribble touched the dirt. It was pretty impressive.
He looked at me impatiently with eyes that glowed just as searingly as the streaks in his fur. My pulse skipped a beat, but I tamped down my nerves and focused my sorcerous energy on him. A short string of syllables burst out of me. Destroy the other glass.
Omen lunged at the second cup. He smacked at it just like the first—but this time the vessel didn’t shatter. It hissed alongside the water.
We all stared down at the blob of melted glass that now lay on the dirt. A giddy quiver raced through my chest.
I’d helped make that happen. Maybe we really did have a chance against the monster who meant to upend both our worlds.
Ruse started to laugh. Sorsha clapped her hands with a chuckle of her own as Omen returned to his human form. He ran his hand over his ruffled hair and gave me a warier glance. “All right. There’s something to it. I mean, I could have melted the first one too if I’d been trying to. But I did the second without even trying.”
“Yes, yes, you’re very great and powerful,” Sorsha teased. “Now that we’ve gotten the testing out of the way, how about?—”
Rollick’s ringtone interrupted her. The demon frowned and snatched his phone out of his pocket. “What?” he said smoothly, and then his expression tensed. “What? When did this start? Yes, yes. Just keep me updated.”
He hung up, his jaw clenched, and glanced around at the rest of us. “We have to get going, now. The leviathan’s gathering an even bigger mass of beings around the rift and has started slaughtering them faster than before. It looks like he’s making his final bid to bring the Highest through—and he’s not going to wait around for us to arrive before he makes that call.”