Chapter 26
I measure time by the beat of my heart. I focus on it and try to block out everything else. One beat. Breath. Another beat.
I tell myself sensation is a lie. Perception is what I make it. It’s not an eleventh-hour attempt to achieve enlightenment, it’s a defense mechanism. The less I feel what’s happening to me—crawling all over me—the better.
Another beat of my heart. Another breath. Something like a sob rolling up from deep inside—
But then, in the distance, I hear it. Maybe what I mean is that I feel it.
It’s possible I scent it in the air. It’s all of these things at once.
Pack.
They’re here. They came. They found us.
I tilt my head back so that I’m closer to Winter and Savi and can make sure Vin?a—still writhing in the air above us—isn’t paying attention to me. Much less to what I’m saying.
“They’re here,” I tell them, low and fierce. “They’re here.”
Winter doesn’t answer, but I can feel her vibrating. With tension, horror, fury—maybe all of the above. She blows out a breath and mutters something. It takes me a moment, beneath the clamor of the goddess’s snapping bones and stretching sinew up above, to make sense of it.
“The tunnels,” she says.
I remember those maps in the den. Not only maps of our expanded North American territory but the ones on the walls that showcase all sorts of geographic points of interest around here.
Including the lava tubes that were blocked for centuries, then opened on the solstice.
Then were used to empty out Crater Lake, washing away structures and lands and flooding the old reservoir at Lost Creek Lake.
Rumor is, it flooded most of the Klamath Basin, too.
Savi murmurs something and, suddenly, it’s like I can see with a different part of my head. I know that my eyes are showing me what’s right in front of me—the dancing acolytes, the red, flowing robes. Now there’s another screen inside my head.
I can see them coming. My heart kicks up a gear. I can see vampires and werewolves, an army of goblins, and shockingly, representatives of almost every other clan of the Kind I can think of. All the denizens of the Rogue Valley. Marching together.
Something that never would have happened before the Reveal.
Almost as if I’m not the only one who would prefer to make this new world we have into something that’s really ours rather than descend into something darker and grimmer. I tell myself it’s worth the creeping horde of nightmares crawling up the length of my body. It’s worth it.
If we make this work. If we end up somewhere brighter.
The moon above knows that everything is brighter than what Vin?a has planned. It’s right there in her title. Death goddess doesn’t exactly conjure up a relaxing beach vacation of a future for anyone.
Though really, I think as I watch the swaying red cloaks in front of me and the approaching Kind army inside my head, what I’m most interested in right now is any future at all.
Savi and Winter tense beside me. Winter is muttering what sounds like come on come on come on.
Deep inside me, I can feel that link I have to Ty begin to hum.
Then they’re here, charging out of the lava tubes with a loud roar. They’re barreling across the parched floor of the crater, heading straight for the cone of light.
And us.
The roaring gets the acolytes’ attention. They turn to look in waves, and they all start shouting themselves. Then they all begin running—straight toward the approaching wave of the Kind.
Here on our rocky altar, we three remained bound, with Vin?a’s little pets wriggling and crawling and pinching as they climb higher and higher.
Vin?a herself is still up above in Briar’s poor body, deep in the throes of some macabre dance.
Run, I think at the Kind as they come. Run as fast as you can.
Then I think I’m having an understandable mental break when I feel water splash on my head. I ignore it the first time. I tell myself it’s probably something disgusting. Another insect coming for the horrible paste on me or Vin?a’s blood or—
It’s really a choose-your-own horror show at this point.
Another drop lands. Then another. Then a few at a time, and I can see when they hit my legs that it’s nothing upsetting. In fact, it looks like—
She’s doing it, I realize. Savi is making it rain.
“Rain,” is all I can manage to say. I sound reverent. I feel reverent.
“This is a decent start,” she says. “That should grow. And continue. And in time, refill this crater.” She sits up straighter. “Hopefully it will soon be as if Vin?a was never here in the first place.”
“It’s also washing this disgusting shit off of me,” I grit out as the rain picks up. “Which is all I care about right now, Savi.”
“Hard agree,” Winter pants.
The rain is a game changer. As the paste washes off, the things on me stop all their creeping and crawling. I may have to tear all the skin they touched off my body later, but that’s a privilege of survival.
We’re not there yet.
On the screen in my head, I can see the battle is engaged, and already hideously bloody—though the red cloaks confuse the issue.
“What is . . . ?” I shake my head, but I’m still seeing the same thing. “Where did these fucking giants come from?”
As I ask the question, however, I see the answer. Two acolytes run toward each other, chanting wildly. When they collide, there’s a sickening sucking sound. Then everything is gristle and sinew, a rough and wet explosion of viscera and blood.
When it’s done, there’s one larger, scarier acolyte in the place of two.
Vin?a is making giants.
These oversize fighters roar at the moon up above, just peeking over the lip of the crater, sending its light cascading down the still-damp sides. They roar and then they attack, and their weapons involve picking up their foes and crushing them in their hands, mashing them up like fruit.
Everywhere I look, it’s a bloodbath.
I can’t see Ty—but I can hear him.
I can hear him barking out orders. I hear him letting out howls that distract the enemy and direct his own fighters. My people. My pack. They move like the wind. They work in pairs, tearing out throats and bellies, then rolling on to the next.
The vampires are all deadly precision, taking their smoke shifting to even more lethal extremes. Ariel is in the middle of things, moving so fast that it looks like he’s not moving at all.
Yet wherever he casts his gaze, enemies fall.
As long as I can hear Ty’s unmistakable voice, I feel safe.
Or safer, anyway.
With Ty near, the Kind fighting, and those awful things no longer torturing me, I can think again. The rain keeps coming down, and I turn my attention to the way they’ve bound us.
“Can’t you get out of your ties?” I ask Savi.
“They appear to have enchanted my bindings,” she says coldly. So coldly that I figure she’s been working on them awhile. “Spells do not seem to work.”
I wiggle my hands until I find Winter’s. Then I concentrate and practice my half-shifting again. This time I push the shifting energy into my hands, easing them into claws—and it makes me sweat, it hurts so much—so that I can tear through the ropes they used on her.
It’s another searing agony, but I manage it.
Then I slam myself back into my full human form and am glad that Winter takes a moment to untie her own legs. I need that moment. The silver might not be poisoning me, but it burns all the same. It feels like I swallowed fire.
Winter moves behind me, and when I glance that way I see her working on Savi’s enchanted bindings. I’m still sweating, ready to half-shift again and use my claws if Winter can’t get them off—but I hear both of them let out a breath and I take one too, because they’re both untied now.
I check all around us once again. All of the acolytes and priests are busy fighting, save for a small clump of them off toward the back side of the crater. Vin?a is still above us, contorting wildly, though I don’t think she can be the one casting the spell to keep her there.
I nod, and it takes Savi only a quick spell to remove my manacles. I feel the silver fall away like a rush of light all over my body. I feel it inside and out.
The three of us turn toward each other, carefully. We examine each other.
I brush a few worms and something gross-looking I don’t want to identify off Winter’s arm. Savi picks something out of my hair that makes her grimace.
We don’t talk about it.
I hope we never will.
“The three of us must put distance between our bodies,” Savi tells us. “The more distance, the better. The wards I placed on us must have fallen in the cottage, and I suspect what remains is an inability to find us while we’re together. Not ideal in a battle.”
Winter understands immediately. “Put me in a tunnel. The moment you do, Ariel will find me. My mark will lead him right to me.”
Savi looks at me, and I nod.
“Right,” Savi says. She looks up toward Vin?a, then away, and I see a wash of gold move over her skin. “Now, Maddox.”
I jump off the rock.
I shift in midair, hit the ground hard, and run.
I run like every wolf in the world is at my heels and it’s time to prove I’m the queen I should be. I run like I think I can outrun Ty, the swiftest wolf of all.
I run—and I head away from the main part of the battle toward the back of the crater. I’m sure I saw a set of priests in that direction, and every instinct I have is telling me that they’re the ones keeping Vin?a high up in the air, twisting and turning and coming much too close to taking form.
A death goddess walking in a body again is the end of everything.
I don’t need anyone who knew Vin?a back when to confirm that to me. I feel it like I feel my own blood in my veins, pumping hard and letting me fly across the crater floor like I’m my own damn Harley.
As I run, I see a burst of gold in the sky. In my head, I confirm that Savi has removed Winter, and herself, from that altar. It also looks like she’s taken out most of that dome up above Vin?a.