Chapter Fourteen #5
I spun around just as he raised it, not wanting to see someone decapitated, not even the most heinous of all demon lords, but the red cloud a dozen yards away and moving fast had me shouting a warning.
“Your mom is coming back, and she’s got someone with her!” I shouted, digging through my bag for a hardcore compliance will glamour.
Bael snapped out of insensibility at that moment and, with a snarled obscenity, lunged at Yrian.
“Mate!” Yrian yelled, twisting to try to protect me at the same time he slashed at Bael.
“Right here, and about to let fly with another glamour—” Just as Tenite on her motor scooter—and the dark-haired Xavier behind her—came to a fishtail stop, I threw the compliance glamour on her, feeling she was the more dangerous of the two.
“I should have killed you myself when I had your brother take care of that whiny mate of yours,” Tenite snarled to Yrian as she flung the scooter away in order to stalk toward us.
Evidently, my glamour wasn’t strong enough to overcome her demigodhood.
She wore black and bloodred robes that looked like they were straight out of a video game, her hair twisted into several braid loops that poked out all over her head.
A sensation of rage poured out of her as she headed straight for Yrian, along with Xavier.
I didn’t like Yrian’s odds at all. The man might be a demigod, but so was Tenite, and Bael was no slacker.
I felt in my bag for another glamour, hoping that if I stacked a few on Tenite, they might have an effect, but before I could do so, Yrian spun and slashed off her right arm, kicking out immediately with enough force to send her and Xavier staggering backward.
Before they had stopped moving, the sword flashed in the air, and Bael’s head went flying off to the side, bouncing twice in the furrowed field, finally coming to a stop next to a flat rock.
Tenite screamed, a sound so filled with rage I doubled over in pain, my hands on my ears. Yrian staggered back at the sound, but lifted the sword again as he faced Xavier and his mother.
I swear I saw a moment of utter stupefaction in Xavier’s eyes before they went blank, but Tenite evidently read her fate in Yrian’s face as he moved toward her, the sword high over his head.
“You are even stupider than I thought you were, but you will not ruin our plans. We have put too much into them to be destroyed by a dragon.” She almost spat the words as she snatched up her severed arm and flung herself into the golf cart, slamming her foot on the accelerator, clearly intent on running us over.
It wouldn’t kill us, but it could do enough damage to maim or hurt us, so when Yrian jerked me out of the way of his murderous mom, I didn’t protest. I did, however, try unsuccessfully to throw a sleep glamour on her.
She was gone on a cloud of dust, Xavier leaping into the back as she sped past him, the inevitable dust cloud rising around us, obscuring our view for a few seconds.
When we could see again, I turned back to find Yrian kneeling at Bael’s headless body, going through pockets and inside clothing, no doubt searching for the blood moon.
“Is it there?” I asked, my adrenaline finally starting to subside.
“Desi’s relic? No.” Yrian’s lips tightened as he gave the body a second, equally fruitless search. “This makes no sense. He has to have it. It is too valuable for him to leave it in his house.”
“Let’s go look again,” I said, feeling twitchy from both the fight and an odd buildup of magic.
We searched first Bael’s house, then the other three, but found nothing. I examined the area around the buildings, finally returning to where Yrian now stood over Bael’s lifeless body, his head propped up next to his feet.
“I didn’t find anything out back, I’m afraid. How are you going to keep him from coming back?” I asked.
He glanced at me, obviously confused.
“This is the underworld. You can’t truly die here,” I pointed out. “One of the ladies on the boat said that if you die, you simply return here, whole again.”
“Ah,” he said, looking back at the body. To my complete surprise—and horror—he lifted the sword and sliced off Bael’s arm. “There is one way. If the body is chopped to bits and spread around the Duat, it will not be able to re-form. Go back into Kashi’s house, Becket.”
I weighed my options, decided I really didn’t want to see a dismemberment, and hurried into the empty house, my arms wrapped around myself as I danced out my twitchiness, mulling over the events of the last half hour.
We might have taken care of the biggest of the threats, but Xavier had escaped, and evidently now Yrian’s mom was going to be another problem.
“It’s like we can’t win,” I said to my shoes as I sat on a hard wooden chair, ignoring the sounds of a body being hacked to bits by a magical sword. My inner narrator pointed out that Yrian had fulfilled his goal. Bael was dead, so there was no reason to be glum.
“My brain is warring with the rest of me,” I told Yrian a few minutes later, when he appeared in the open doorway.
“Over the death of Kashi?” he asked, brushing a bit of black blood off his hand.
“No. Yes. It might be related. I’m happy you did what you wanted to do, and yet ...” I stopped and tried to pinpoint the sick feeing in my belly. “I guess I’m a bit down that we have more work to do.”
“Xavier, you mean?” He didn’t nod as I expected, just looked down at the hand holding the blade. Despite having been used to lop off bits of Bael, it wasn’t in the least bit stained black by demon blood. “There is good reason for your feeling such. Come. We must leave before Tenite finds Asfet.”
“You think your mom’s going to attack us?
” I asked, following him outside. To my relief, he’d bundled the pieces of his brother into several bags used to hold grain.
I averted my gaze from the black stains growing along the bags, instead watching as he doled out money to a handful of workers he’d evidently gathered, giving them instructions to spread Bael’s remains around the Duat.
“Yrian?” I asked when he pulled the motor scooter up from where Tenite had thrown it, dusting it off before swinging a leg over the seat.
“We must leave now,” he repeated, his legs braced on either side of the scooter, obviously waiting for me.
“Do you know how to ride that?” I asked, pointing at the machine.
“Yes. Before I was imprisoned, a mortal donated his motorcycle to me.”
“Donated?” I asked, slowly approaching.
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “He decided it was better to give it to me than be set on fire.”
“I had a feeling it was something like that. I have at least twenty questions for you to answer, the first of which is where we’re going.
The second is what we’re going to do with your mom and Xavier.
” I climbed on behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist, my head tucked in behind his, relishing the scent and feel and heat of him despite the worry still fussing in my stomach.
“Xavier is not an issue,” Yrian shouted as we sped off down the road. I pulled out a silk scarf I’d bought from the Wepwawet’s shop, and, without blinding him, managed to get it wrapped around his nose and mouth before tucking my head behind his again.
“I know you’re angsty that your mom was being an asshat and took Xavier with her, but I don’t see why you’re beating yourself up over the situation. You did what you wanted to do—you killed Bael, and assuming spreading him hither and yon does the job, then he’ll stay dead.”
“That wasn’t Kashi.”
The wind was whipping past us at such a rate that I wasn’t sure I heard him. I tipped my head so I was speaking close to his ear. “It wasn’t? Who was it? It was definitely someone with demonic power, Yrian. He bled black blood, but even without that proof, I could feel the dark power in him.”
“It was Xavier. Kashi must have switched bodies with him.” Yrian’s fire poured out of him, leaving a blazing trail on the dirt road behind us. “And now, thanks to Tenite and Asfet, he is about to return to the mortal world.”
I swore into his neck, my stomach giving up all hope of ever feeling normal again.