Chapter Thirty-Four
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Val
“ I ’m coming with you.” I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but it’s not my fault Theo left the bedroom door cracked, and seriously with the number of supernatural ears usually surrounding them, Theo and Nic should’ve expected someone to notice they were planning to go somewhere intimidating enough to be called the Valley of the Gods.
Nic shakes her head. “It’s too dangerous.”
I shove the door open. I might be wearing nothing more than a sheet, glittery boots, and a lab coat—yeah, Theo and I will need to discuss that kink—but I’m not getting left out of this conversation. “I?—”
“She’s coming with us,” Theo says.
“Yeah, I’m…what?” I couldn’t have heard him right.
Nic’s wide eyes meet mine. “I second that with what the fuck ? What happened to keeping your mate tucked safely behind a million wards and threatening to kill me for having her practice her magic on Cousin Reginald?”
“I still haven’t forgiven you for that,” Theo tells her. “But I promised Val I wouldn’t leave her again, and we have to make this trip because?—”
“The fate of the world’s at stake,” she says. “Isn’t it always?” She glances to me. “Ready to roll out your magic on an epic level?”
I clutch the sheet to my chest where the burn might be healed, but the memory of the pain lingers. “I can try?—”
“No.” Theo goes into full bossy prince mode. Just when I thought he’d quit ordering me around. I barely open my mouth when he says, “Not until we figure out a way for you to use your magic without hurting yourself. The healing potion hardly touched that burn.”
“Oh my gods,” Nic says. “Are you okay?”
“I am now,” I say, not wanting to fill Theo’s sister in on the details of how we played doctor. I mean the lab coat I’m wearing on top of a gathered sheet has to be clue enough.
“ All better.” Theo winks at me.
“Ew.” Nic wrinkles her nose. “I could’ve gone forever without knowing that.”
Monty flies into the conversation, and I’ve never been so glad to be saved by the soul guardian and his unicorn.
“Get changed,” Theo tells me. “You’ll need protective gear. Nic?”
“On it,” she says.
He nods. “I’ll rally whatever troops can make the journey. Most won’t be able to travel to the Valley with its wards. We meet back here in five minutes, ready to portal.”
Five minutes? I’ll never get all the demon lovin’ off me. I need at least an hour, a dozen loofahs, a sea salt scrub, and oh my quantum physics , I realize we’re portalling to a realm where actual gods live when Nic shoves clothes at me. With her help, I change into a layered outfit that looks like leather but moves so much easier and without all the creaking. The black pants fit snug enough, easily allowing me to strap on a thigh holster for a blade.
“Silver,” Nic says when she hands me a dagger. “Guns would just piss off the gods, and any weaponry needs to be blessed silver. Don’t ask. If anything gets close enough to stab, we’re already in trouble. Your vest is crafted from the real-life version of Tolkien’s Mithril.”
“Like Frodo wore in the first Lord of the Rings movie?”
“Or in the book. Sure. But don’t use that comparison around Ora. Dwarves get testy about what you call their precious metals.” She hands me a jacket. “Put this on next.”
I slide it on, noticing metallic patches on the shoulders, elbows, and over the heart. “This more fantasy fiction stuff?”
“Celestial alloy,” Nic explains. “Nothing will get through that, although Theo will probably make you wear a helmet.”
“Whatever.” I’m excited he’s letting me go. Nauseous and terrified, but excited. “What’s the Valley of the Gods like?”
Theo walks into the suite before Nic can answer. “Impressive, solemn, and far too serious. It’s a resting place for the gods who have slept for centuries. Millenia even. Drink this.” He hands me a pink potion with a handwritten Drink me, Val tag hanging from it.
I down it without even making an Alice in Wonderland joke. “So this realm must be super chill.”
“Hardly,” he says. “We’ll land in the only spot approved for a portal to keep from being killed on sight by the warriors who guard the Valley.”
“Badasses?” I ask. “Special forces?”
“Demigods,” he says while pushing potions into the utility belt Nic fastened around my waist. “Led by the king of the Viking undead, your friend Meg’s father.”
“What?!?” I realize my shriek was deafening when Monty flies backward and even Nic flinches. “Meg’s dad is a monster? My Meg? Romance-book loving, game-piece carving, always has paint on her clothes Meg?”
“Time to go,” Theo says.
“Is Meg’s mother there? Didn’t you say once you took her there?” Maybe. Or perhaps my perma-motion mind made that up.
“Yes.” He pulls me along. “Although I hope we don’t run into her. A god’s candle is the only way to kill us other than beheading. Well, she has one, and she won’t hesitate to use it.”
“Beheading? Is that a risk in this realm? Is Meg’s dad an off with their heads kind of king?”
“I’ll explain your friend’s complicated paternity later.” He points to the multiple bottles tucked into pockets on the utility belt. “The purple potions are for healing. You better not need them. The orange ones are magical grenades designed by Ora to toss and run or fly away before they go off. You really better not need those. Montejanus, stay close to her.”
“You strapped explosives to me?” I ask. “And Meg’s dad is?—”
I don’t finish my question before Theo plops a helmet on my head. The silver falls over my eyes, and before I can push it back, he grabs my hand and pulls me into the hallway outside the suite. We hurry toward a shimmering opening with Shadowvale looking weirdly normal with its plush carpets, crystal chandeliers, and gilded wallpaper on this side and an enormous valley complete with a sprawling castle on a hilltop on the other.
Towering peaks loom in the distance under a full moon. Lush green grass and marble temples cover the valley floor—so close that I could reach through and touch. It looks peaceful. Which makes the ring of metal clashing against metal, distant roars, and battle screams all the more wrong. A soft breeze blows petals through the portal along with the scents of smoke, earth, and death.
“Val?”
I look over at Theo, trying to ignore the sounds of fighting. “Yes?”
“Stay with me, no matter what you see.”
I nod, swallowing hard.
“Promise me, Vicious.”
“I promise,” I whisper, hoping I can keep my word because what the hell can he be expecting me to see? And what’s with Meg’s dad being there?
“And touch nothing . Especially not the hedgehogs.”
I blink. “The…what?—”
Nic says, “Don’t even look those little fuckers in the eye.” She gives a quick shudder.
“Okay. I have so many questions.” My brain pinballs between the possibilities.
But I’ll probably have to wait since Theo strides ahead of the small group of warriors gathered in the hallway, his wings blocking most of the view except the blood red tinge spreading across the distant sky. Monty flies next to me in dragon form.
Nic is in full demon battle gear on my other side. “Don’t ask about the hedgehogs,” she says.
Fine . “Where’s Dupree?” I ask instead, keeping my voice low. I’m giving Theo zero reasons to get pissed off and change his mind about taking me with them.
“He refused to come out of his room,” Nic says. “Wouldn’t even answer when we knocked. Coward.”
Well, I guess that’s one less demon we have to worry about protecting from whatever awaits us.
Ora, my favorite dwarf, shuffles toward us in an impressive suit of armor crafted of gold and is that stone? How heavy must that be? An orc struts next to her, surrounded by a legion of tiny fire sprites. Behind them comes a small battalion of ghosts, she-wolves, a few pig-faced women with tusks, and some crones who I have learned not to call witches because it’s apparently offensive—although hags is perfectly acceptable.
At a nudge from Monty, I follow Theo through the portal. For an instant, everything blurs around us, the colors colliding in a violent rainbow that makes this stupid helmet feel like it weighs a thousand pounds on my head. My stomach lurches.
“Steady,” Nic says. “The potion you drank will help with the portal travel into the Valley so it should just make you?—”
“Vomit-y?” I ask over the sourness in my mouth.
“Or dizzy,” she says. “But you shouldn’t pass out like most humans.”
“Great,” I mutter. That’s all I need, to have convinced Theo not to leave me behind this time, only for my fragile human body to betray me. Monty nudges me along with his nose against my back hard enough his little horns poke into my fancy fantasy armor. “I’m going, I’m going.”
We step onto the lushest grass ever. I don’t want to even imagine how much the gods must pay their landscapers. The air’s heady with sacred oils, and I could swear I’ve been here before. Or maybe I was meant to be here. It’s a home I’ve simply never visited before. My nerves quiet, the knots in my belly loosen, and I can’t help but feel as though I’ve walked into the church to end all churches.
Except a keening cry winds through the air, so devastating I struggle not to sob along with whoever’s making that sound.
Nic slides a look toward me, and the corners of her mouth are curved so far downward, her fangs are visible. “The Kepnir ,” she says. “The beasts who can travel through water to any realm in all the dimensions, to any space and time, and even to the After Worlds and underworlds for every existence.”
“They’re crying?” I whisper.
“Which means they or their riders are dying.”
My heart goes heavy. I don’t know those creatures, yet I mourn them.
“Shields up,” Theo says.
I have no idea what audacious superhero move to take in response to his order so I plant my feet, tug the magical jacket closer, and run my fingers toward the explosives.
He drops his wings from blocking my view, and I realize what he’d been protecting me from seeing.
Dread steals my breath, twisting around my lungs in a lockdown tighter than any compression garment I squeezed into for red carpets. My pulse launches into a dizzying speed as though one of the catapults I’m seeing—actual, friggin’ medieval catapults—decided to launch my heart into the thick of the bloody battle happening to the right of the castle, down near a lake that’s probably calm when it’s not being lobbed with flying—are those? I stare harder. “Are they shooting people at the lake?”
“Goblins,” Nic answers without sounding shocked or even remotely surprised. Like firing live creatures through the air is normal .
Worse than using people as ammo…Are goblins people? Or is the socially acceptable term monsters? Is monsters’ rights a legal thing here in the realm because I’m thinking it should be?...okay, concentrate. Worse than shooting monsters like cannonballs, giant snakes slither everywhere. Over tombs, through temples, toppling boats, and towering over people because these aren’t regular snakes…shudder…No, they are the size of the mythical snake who gobbles worlds. Taller than buildings, wider than my family’s tour bus for the show, and side-winding as though they own this place, they wreak destruction with every twist.
“Troll’s tits,” Ora grumbles. “We’re too far from the action.”
Crazy dwarf. I’m running on all systems overwhelmed and debating throwing myself back through the portal, but no, I asked for this, to be included in their fight against the traitor and to save Gilly.
“We hold and assess,” Theo says. “I’m not having us killed by magic-happy demigods who see us as part of the threat.”
“Or worse,” Nic adds. “Assume we created the threat.”
Oh gods, that would be bad. Fight or flight both seem too much to handle right now. Maybe I could go with freeze like Monty sometimes does in mongoose form where he plays dead rather than owning up to whatever mischief he’s made.
My little dragon flies close enough that the flap of his wings provides a soothing alternative to the Kepnir cries and the shouts of warriors.
“Hold,” Theo yells.
“What? Where’s the danger now ?” I ask, then feel moronic because obviously we are surrounded by scary, impossible things.
A swarm of squirming, wriggling beasts heads our way, darting around the snakes and through the battle in a mass of shiny spikes. The moonlight reflects off their sharp, dagger-like points. I think of a horror movie about thousands of blood-thirsty locusts who come in a living, undulating cloud of death. At least this atrocity sticks to the ground.
“Here come the hedgehogs,” Nic calls. “Don’t move. Don’t flinch. Don’t breathe unless you must.”
I freeze, unsure whether I’m being punked or if I’m in actual peril from cute little pets like the one Rosemarie fostered in the dorm our first year of college together. A tiny ball of fluff and quills, she would run on her exercise wheel or do hedgie dances, her tiny bottom wiggling and bouncing from side to side. She would curl in Rosemarie’s lap, her quills going soft while she let us rub her belly and boop her snoot as she splayed her little legs.
“Hedgies!” I cry. I can’t help it. I rush forward, eager to sit amidst the cute critters and sweet talk one into a cuddle.
Theo snags me around the waist with his tail. “Don’t let them fool you,” he says. “These aren’t pets. They’re magical attack beasts raised for the sole purpose of defending the sleeping gods. Those pests are trained to swarm their enemies and take out eyes before crushing them to death?—”
Squee . Monty’s sound of delight needs no words. He lands, hopping among the hedgie army. They surround my feet, and I stretch my fingers to run over their softened quills.
“I love them.” I reach to pet as many as possible.
Theo loosens his hold. “Perhaps they’ve become more mellow with time, ow. ” They stab at him with hundreds of needle-sharp quills. “I can see you why you’re kindred spirits, Vicious.”
For a few seconds, between the hedgehog purrs and Monty’s happy chirps, I can almost forget the awful situation we landed in.
Except the hedgies on the edge of the crowd shriek and Monty goes into full defensive mode. Theo yanks me back, shoving me behind him.
The hedgehogs morph into giant versions of themselves with sword-like quills where the cute bristles had just been. Monty breathes fire, and a portal ripples to life in front of us with more of the snakes writhing to pour out of it. But first, a demon steps through.
“Couldn’t miss the fun, could you, cousin?” a familiar voice drawls.
Dupree.