Chapter 33 Eryx
ERYX
From my position behind the van, I took Roman back in, let his power flood me. We didn’t have time for platitudes or goodbyes. If I was right, we had seconds, maybe minutes before the condemned horde crawling out of the netherworld overpowered the Phoenixes.
What I wouldn’t give for Tanith to show up right about now and save us. As usual, the Saints had no time for me, but Roman was ready. I could feel it. Let’s do this, he said from within me. Lock onto Magnus, and Ares will do the rest.
I took a deep breath, allowing Roman’s power to mingle with mine, feeling it infuse me as I let him take the wheel. I was still here, but it was better to let Roman direct his own power, using my auric energy—my spirit as a living, breathing being—to channel it.
He pushed my aura outward, and I felt a surge of power go through me like a wave as rain beat into my body.
I closed my eyes against the extra stimuli, feeling only Roman’s power, searching for Magnus’ aura.
When he found it, my aura locked onto Magnus.
There was a brief moment of struggle while Ares adjusted to my aid, recalibrating his efforts to allow me to hold, while he prepared to strike.
The dead’s screams increased, and from within the pit, a new noise emerged, a bone shaking growl. With the noise a putrid stench curled out of the pit. My eyes flew open.
The smell and the noise could only mean one thing—one of the fiends had come loose. But that was impossible. As I’d told Rhiannon, they were legends. Scary stories to scare necromancer babes.
Ares had been distracted by it too, and Magnus had the upper hand again. I moved quickly, letting Roman stay focused on helping my brother. For now, it seemed we could split our focus well enough.
The van I hid behind had a ladder on the back that allowed access to the roof. I climbed it for a better view. The breach was widening, and now there were only a few feet between me and one ragged edge of the opening to the pit.
Atop the van, I could see all the way down.
The view was dizzying. The dead climbed over one another in various states of monstrousness and decay, lit by the neon glow in the rain, and the unearthly light of the netherrealm.
Deep in the vast hole, a figure moved, tossing the dead aside as it climbed over them.
Legend came to life before my eyes, dripping in gore, mouths in haphazard locations all over its thorax, full of razor-sharp teeth. It had eight spindly legs, giving the impression of the world’s most heinous spider.
My heart slowed as I watched the teeth rotate in its mouths. As far away as it was, the creature was still huge. Mind-bogglingly huge. If that thing got out, we were going to have bigger problems than Magnus.
I raised my face to the rain and shook my head. “If a single Saint wanted to pitch in, now would be the time.”
Inside me, Roman’s laugh was wry. They’ll never come.
“They came for Ares before,” I murmured.
They came for his woman, Roman answered. The gods haven’t a care for us—but the Maere are their daughters.
Perhaps he was right. Still, I whispered an old prayer to Tanith.
What I was going to do was foolish, but like Roman, my soul needed cleansing.
Rhiannon had helped me to see things differently about Frannie’s death, but I could never move on until I’d done something worthy of wiping my ledger clean.
Don’t do this, son, Roman cautioned. Our connection must allow him some view into my mind.
“Tell Ares to explain to Rhi if I don’t make it out,” I said, drawing the Admiral’s guns and leaping straight into the pit.
As I fell, I heard my brother’s roar of anger above the din. Roman left me then, and I was on my own, rain hammering into me as I aimed for the fiend. There were thirteen bullets in each of the pistols. I had exactly twenty-six shots to make this right and get out.
I shot from each gun simultaneously as I fell, aiming straight for the fiend’s biggest mouth. Two shots. Four. Six. Eight. They were landing, but it wasn’t disappearing the way it should.
It was possible it was too big to exterminate this way, or that more time was needed for the bullets to penetrate.
I had no way of knowing, but I had to keep trying.
When my feet slammed into the roiling dead, it took everything I had to stay upright.
I stomped hard, shooting one of the dead who extended something that looked like a tentacle to wrap around my ankle.
The embodied spirit disappeared, leaving only a puff of aura behind, like a wisp of smoke.
The bullets and the guns weren’t faulty then.
I shot another and another, as the dead turned their attention my way.
Twelve shots. Fourteen. I had twelve left and I had to make them count.
The dead hung back, wary of me now. Even in the state they were in, they clung to existence. It wasn’t life, but it was something.
The fiend didn’t have eyes that I could see, but it seemed to turn its attention my way as I scurried beneath its hideous legs.
Up close, the stench was unbearable, and it was nearly twice as large as I’d thought, probably closer to fifteen feet tall.
From this vantage point, I got a view of its undercarriage.
Deep inside the fiend, a sickly green light pulsed. For a moment that felt precariously long, I tracked the pattern of the pulsing. Was that its heart? I thought of Rhiannon, of the way she moved when she fought. How it always seemed that she was three steps ahead of her foes.
How did she do it?
The dead were coming, and I had to wonder if they could sense that I was outnumbered. There was no time to contemplate more. I aimed and fired. Sixteen. Eighteen. Twenty.
The fiend’s abdomen burst open, that putrid gore spilling down on me, but I didn’t stop squeezing the triggers of my guns. Twenty-two. Twenty-four. The fiend exploded, but before more of it could spill onto me, it turned to auric smoke.
The dead screamed. Above me, Roman and Ares were getting the better of Magnus, but still he fought them. The fiend was dead, but there was so much more to do and I was exhausted.
Suddenly, I understood how Rhiannon had become so good, so proficient at killing. She never stopped. For thousands of years, she’d been relentless, burying herself beneath a greater good. And though I had my issues with what it had done to her, I couldn’t deny that persistence was what counted.
My energy felt renewed as I centered myself in her spirit of resilience, of never quitting, even when shit was dire. I began to climb. At first, the dead fought me. And then, it was as though they bent purposely to become like steps for me.
Avaline. My best friend was working the dead like only she could.
My smile was grim as I climbed faster, every muscle in my legs and arms screaming with the effort. But I gained ground. I was almost there. One of the Phoenixes’ hands shot out as I neared the edge of the pit, and a face I couldn’t put a name to yanked me out.
“Thanks,” I shouted as I sprinted for Ares.
When I reached my brother, Roman flooded back into me. Without a word, I nodded to Ares, taking aim at the cloud of writhing hate that Magnus had become, and shot, right as Roman held him steady, and Ares flooded him with the only power in the world that could destroy the dead.
Avaline shouted for one last push from the Phoenixes as Magnus’ spirit began to scream. Goodbye, my sons, I heard Roman say. And then there was a flash of light, and a boom so loud it knocked the torrential downpour back into the sky.
Ares and I collapsed against one another, both of us holding tight to each other’s arms as the world seemed to vibrate off its axis. I didn’t realize I’d shut my eyes until Ares laughed. “Would you look at that?”
I opened my eyes and turned back towards the breach. The street looked as though nothing had happened. And then the rain, which had stopped with Magnus’ banishment, fell doubly hard, washing all of us clean of the battle.
Ares and I scrambled towards Avaline and the Phoenixes. Av was on her walkie. Ares clapped her on the shoulder, smiling, but her face was grim. “Team Two just got to the house.”
“What’s wrong?” I shouted over the sound of the rain.
“No one’s there,” Av shouted back.
My heart, that had lifted with relief only moments ago, plummeted through my body into fathomless depths. We’d saved the city from the dead, but it wasn’t enough.
“Move out,” Ares shouted. “Back to Hemlock House.” He grabbed my arm. “We don’t know that anything bad has happened,” he added. “Sera might have made a tactical decision.”
I nodded. Ares might be right. She might have.
But we didn’t have time to discuss it, or the gut feeling I had that he was wrong.
No matter what had happened, or how tired we were, we had to get there.
One battle was won, but the war to keep our family safe had just begun.
I broke into a sprint behind our people, Av and Ares right by my side.