Chapter 26
Quinn
The Everymobile didn’t feel as if it was moving faster than a regular car. The engine’s thrum sounded strangely soft within the steel walls, and the floor only swayed a little with bumps and turns of the road. But when I eased back the curtain to peek out through one of the windows, the blur of the passing landscape made my mind whirl and my stomach flip over.
As I yanked the curtain shut, Sorsha came up beside me. “I find it’s best not to look out there when we’ve got the special boost going,” she said with a wry smile. “Unless you enjoy car sickness.”
“Ah, that would be a no.” I flopped down in the C-shaped seat around the RV’s table and willed my queasiness down. “How much longer do you think it’s going to take to get to the coast?”
“We’re pulling out every possible trick we can. I don’t know how long we can keep this speed up for, but if the Everymobile holds together, we’re on track to arrive in the area your demon friend indicated in a little more than an hour.”
My mouth pulled into a grimace that wasn’t only because of my lingering nausea. “It’d be a lot easier if I could travel through rifts.”
Or if my shadowkind allies had left me behind in Texas, I thought but didn’t say. But maybe I didn’t need to express that doubt out loud for my current companions to pick up on it. Ruse appeared in the short hall between the living-dining-kitchen area and the driver’s cab where Omen was at the wheel. The incubus cocked his head at me.
“We all have our flaws. Our phoenix still isn’t great at navigating the shadow realm herself.”
“The fact that the rulers of that realm spent most of my life trying to kill me doesn’t exactly bolster my motivation,” Sorsha muttered.
Ruse shot her an amused glance before turning to me again. “It’s good that you’ll be out there with the rest of us. And not just because of the benefits you can obviously offer to us shadowkind going into battle. You’ve given those beings a heroic leader to focus on. Shadowkind aren’t great at working together. I think we need a focal point even more than mortals do.”
“Yeah.” And I knew that the increased strength I could offer our allies with my sorcery might make the difference between stopping the leviathan and not. It was just that with every passing minute we were on the road while I knew the others had to be gathered and waiting for us, my gut clenched tighter.
Sorsha dropped into the seat kitty-corner from me. “We can do this. It doesn’t matter how powerful that asshole is—there’s just one of him and tons of us. The fight will determine how many lives continue or end in the process of stopping him, and I don’t think there’s any way every being with us will make it through alive, but we will stop him. I promise you that.”
Her confidence eased my nerves just a little. I nodded. “Good.” There wasn’t any point in mentioning that I was pretty sure my life was forfeit no matter what else happened.
Maybe that was the other reason for the heaviness in my gut. Sorsha and her guys were perfectly fine company, but I wished I was spending my last hours with the men I loved. I didn’t know how much I’d even get to see them or talk to them once we leapt into the fray. The brief embraces we’d exchanged before I’d hurried onto the RV might be our last. My emotional connection to them only seemed to work when they were nearby—I couldn’t sense anything at all from them now.
A lump rose in my throat. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t let it matter. I’d gotten a lot out of our short time together. If all this craziness hadn’t happened, I’d never have gotten to have them in my life at all. I couldn’t lament the events that had brought us together, as horrible as those events might be.
The alarm on my phone went off. I startled, almost having forgotten that constant reminder of my mortality. Sorsha didn’t comment as I popped my pills, including the new one from Rollick’s doctor that didn’t appear to be doing a whole lot to stave off my heart’s impending failure.
Okay, that might not be fair. For all I knew, I’d already be dead without the new medication.
But Sorsha and her friends were aware of my transplant. They knew it was the reason for my powers. I set my hand against my chest, feeling the shudder of energy rippling from behind my sternum all through my limbs and up across my scalp like a static charge. It was hard to imagine that it was completely contained in that one organ now.
“I don’t know if my magic will work on you,” I said to Sorsha. “Because you’re part human. The things that work against shadowkind don’t normally affect you, right?”
“They don’t,” she agreed. “And shadowkind powers that work against humans often do affect me if I’m not taking steps to protect myself. But in this case, that works in our favor, because the leviathan isn’t out to brainwash mortals. We’ll see how he likes a boiling bath.”
Her smile turned sharp. I guessed a phoenix with enough power to burn down two realms didn’t need any sorcery to amp up her strength.
Snap slipped into view, peering at me curiously. “Do you want anything to eat? We didn’t have time to pick up much before we left, but we always have fresh fruit.”
Sorsha grinned. “Because this one is a fructose addict.”
I raised my eyebrows at the golden-curled man because the question sounded so like one I’d been getting repeatedly from my own men. “Is this typical hospitality or did someone tell you to keep me fed?”
He dipped his head, abashed. “The rocky one said I should make sure you keep up your own strength.”
Well, that was totally on brand for Crag. And he wasn’t even wrong. My stomach gurgled right then as if to join their conspiracy.
“I probably should eat something,” I said in resignation. “Thank you.”
I picked from the broad assortment of fruits Snap brought out and also accepted a yogurt cup he exclaimed over when he found it in the fridge, still a few days shy of its best before date. By the time I’d eaten as much as I could handle in my anxious state, I got the sense that the motions around us, dampened as they were, had started to slow. I perked up, glancing toward the front of the RV. “Are we getting close?”
“Almost there,” the hellhound shifter called back in his curt voice. “Don’t get too excited yet. I still need to figure out—oh, wait, there they are. Of course.”
There was a faint lurch as the RV veered to the side. I gripped the edge of the seat cushion. It seemed like only seconds before we were jerking to a halt. My pulse stuttered, and I propelled myself toward the door automatically.
Sorsha stepped ahead of me with the athletic swiftness she could bring out in an instant that transformed her into something a little more than human. She poked her head out the door, peered around, and then bounded out with a motion for the rest of us to follow her.
When I stepped onto the shoulder of the road to find all four of my men waiting for us, a deeper relief than I’d ever felt before swept through me. Quivers of the same happiness reached me from each of them. I couldn’t stop the smile that was stretching across my face, even though it probably looked manic, even though we were about to enter a battle to the death.
We’d made it this far. We were in it together.
“The leviathan is at the rift,” Rollick said without preamble, grabbing my hand to give it a quick squeeze of welcome. “Carving up dozens of beings by the hour. The rift has grown noticeably just since we’ve arrived. But he hasn’t cast any more sorcery since then, and his minions are clustered pretty tightly around him.”
I dragged in a breath. “That’s all what we were hoping for. So we follow Plan A. Divert the minions, make sure the path is clear for our souped-up crossbows to get in place, and harass the leviathan enough that he can’t summon the Highest while keeping him in about the same place for when the weapons are ready.”
I raised my voice, ignoring my tremor of nerves at the thought of the responsibility I was taking on by acting as the leader of this group. Ruse had said the shadowkind might need a figurehead to look to even more than mortals did, and humans liked their figureheads a lot.
I could be that for this group. I was going to need to speak to all of them anyway.
“Come to me in the order we discussed yesterday,” I said to the crowd I had to imagine waiting in the shadows beyond my mortal vision. “As soon as I’ve given you your command, get started with your part of the plan. We have to move quickly. We don’t know how close the leviathan is to taking his final steps.”
Lance sprang in front of me as the last words passed from my lips, shifting into dragon form as he did. That wasn’t totally according to plan. We’d discussed starting with Rollick and Omen, since they were the most ancient of the shadowkind on our side. But Lance would have come soon after, and something about his haste and the way he dipped his gleaming reptilian head to me told me that he was making some kind of point, something he felt was important.
My sorcerer energy crackled at the base of my throat. I urged it into my words. “When you attack the leviathan or his allies, let them feel your speed and strength and the heat of your dragon fire.”
Lance flashed a dragonish grin at me and leapt away. He showed no sign of discomfort, but my stomach twisted anyway. We’d agreed on the “When” part of the command to allow room to maneuver if, for example, it wasn’t a great idea for any particular being to be attacking at some specific moment. If I’d just told them outright to attack, I wasn’t sure if they’d be able to do anything else. But I still didn’t totally understand how the magic worked. I didn’t want to inadvertently cause more of the lives around me to be lost.
We’d been as careful as we could, and it was too late to re-think the plan. Rollick stepped forward next, stretching into his full demonic form. He held my gaze with total trust in his darkened eyes, and the anxiety inside me loosened a little. Another sizzling sentence traveled over my tongue. “When you’re attacking the leviathan or his allies, let them feel all the demonic force you can aim at them.”
He inclined his horned head, and then he was vanishing into the shadows. Omen was already stepping forward to take his place. I squared my shoulders, willing more magic into my mouth to give a similar order.
I drew up more and more energy, giving command after command with sparks of electricity dancing through my nerves. The beings were soon flickering in and out of view in front of me so swiftly I barely had time to think between each jolt of sorcery. But I’d prepared well. On sight, I knew which of our allies was meant for which part of the plan and what powers I was supposed to enhance in them.
Even as my voice grew hoarse, a sense of exhilaration spread through me that came from more than just my magic. There were a lot of us. We were powerful in ways most of the leviathan’s lackeys couldn’t be when he was ordering them to fight a battle they didn’t want to be in. We had our weapons; we had a human-shadowkind hybrid on our side.
Maybe we really could win this.
Suddenly there were no more beings to cast my sorcery on standing in front of me. My head was spinning, exhaustion and excitement mingling. Sorsha grasped my shoulders from behind with gentle fingers. “Let’s get you in position now.”
I lifted my arms slightly so she could lower her hands to grip my waist. Then, with a strength that was shocking even after everything I’d already witnessed from her, she lifted me with her into the air. Wafts of heat washed over me from the blazing wings that flapped at the edges of my vision.
I’d seen them before, but only very briefly and before I’d known anything else about her. They’d almost seemed to be a trick of the light. There was no denying their existence now.
“You really are a phoenix,” I said inanely.
Sorsha laughed. “So they tell me.”
We flew over a few low hills. The sounds of the battle reached me before I could see it, penetrating the warbling woosh of Sorsha’s flaming wings. Grunts, snarls, and cries of pain carried through the air. I willed my body to stay as relaxed as possible, knowing that tensing up would make me more difficult cargo.
Sorsha landed on the crest of a hill right over the coastline—the hill where Rollick’s human accomplices were meant to set up the oversized crossbows—and I stared down over the mix of grass and rocky terrain below leading to the frothing ocean waters. In the dwindling daylight, smoky essence gushed from hundreds of forms, some of them still moving, others lying crumpled. I couldn’t tell how many were from our side and how many the leviathan’s.
The leviathan himself had been forced into physical form. The giant sea serpent, as tall as a low-rise apartment building, thrashed and roared as smaller shadowkind lashed out at him from multiple sides. They were doing exactly what we’d planned, keeping him too occupied to carry out his own plan but not letting him stray from this spot.
As we touched down, a ring of guards wavered into being around me. Sorsha wiped her hands together with an air of a job well-done and gave me a jaunty salute. “Off to see about boiling a snake,” she said, and launched herself back into the air.
I had the urge to sit down on the grass now that I wasn’t needed for at least a little while, but I had the sense that position would be undignified. Figureheads could stand on their own two feet, right? Even if those feet were attached to increasingly wobbly legs. Even if both a fever and a chill seemed to be trickling through that figurehead’s veins.
But maybe I wouldn’t have to extend myself any farther. Even though the minions must have spotted our arrival—the blazing wings were a pretty clear giveaway—none even made it far enough up the hill to challenge my ring of guards. Flickers of emotion reached me from my men, but they were all determination and fury, no fear or pain so far.
I couldn’t see any fighting near the road that was the key to our plan. And as I looked along it, headlights gleamed in the distance through the dusk.
The trucks transporting our weaponry. They were on their way—they’d be here in a matter of minutes.
A smile that was outright joyful crossed my lips. We were so close. Somehow, everything had worked out the way we’d imagined it. Now all we had to do was?—
A surge of thicker darkness barreled toward the approaching trucks so abruptly I barely had time to yelp in warning before the vehicle in the lead swayed on its wheels with the impact—and tipped onto its side with a thunderous crash. The other trucks screeched to a halt. Bodies whipped back and forth across the road: a mass of attackers we hadn’t been prepared for racing into the fray and my allies charging to meet them.
Another shadowy surge hurtled toward the leviathan—but not to assault him. The minions who’d either been told to hang back in reserve or who’d only just arrived flung themselves at the beings who’d been harassing their master.
I caught the flash of Lance’s scales as he snapped and slashed at them with a flare of hotter rage. Sorsha soared around the turbulent ocean shadows, sending a being here and there up in bursts of flame—but she had to be careful not to light up our own people, who didn’t look particularly different from the leviathan’s slaves. My knees locked as I watched the struggle in horror, torn between the urge to tell my guards to race down there to help and the fear of what might happen to me without their protection.
Before I could decide on the best course of action, the leviathan shook off the majority of his attackers and reared up even higher toward the spot where the rift must be. Either he’d already been ready to take the final step, or he figured he might not get another chance.
His monstrous voice tore through the night, a feral bellow that reverberated right into my bones. Syllables somehow foreign and familiar at the same time shook every cell in my body. He roared his sorcerous command again, its meaning smacking me in the face with the force of it.
Come to me. Come to the other realm.
Then he plunged his enormous snake-like head right into the rift.