Destroyer Rising (14 page)

The dragon raised his head, curling his neck back
until it was upside down. Bubbles sucked her tongue in and sniffed
at the inverted dragon snout. Jasper slowly uncurled his neck
before turning the black eyes in his broad head to me. The dragon
shuffled his butt backwards and lowered his tail, making a perfect
ramp up to the cu sith.

“What am I doing?” I asked as I stepped onto the
tail, and made my way up to Bubbles. Jasper stood up, and I yelped
as I slipped backwards. I managed to lock my legs onto the dragon’s
shoulders before I fell to the earth.

I peeked over the edge of the dragon at the ground
far below. “It looks higher than I expected.”

Mike flashed me an entirely inappropriate smile.

“We’ll meet you at the sixth fortress,” Carter said.
“Try not to fall. He’s … fast.”

“Have you seen him—”

My question cut off with a squeal when the dragon
lunged forward. I would have fallen off if not for the cu sith’s
quick thinking. She used her tongue as a pink seatbelt, and I did
my best not to judge her godawful doggy breath.

Bubbles pulled me down and I grabbed onto her ruff as
her tongue released its somewhat abrasive hold. I glanced behind us
once I grew familiar with Jasper’s bounding movements. The Jaws
were nowhere to be seen. A gentle slope replaced the sudden drop of
the canyon, and another forest rose off to our left. I wasn’t sure
which way was north or east or anything. The bone-jarring pace of
the dragon left little time for anything but remembering to hold
on.

In a matter of minutes, my thighs ached. I figured
I’d look like a bow-legged cartoon cowboy by the time I stepped off
the dragon.

***

I squinted into the distance, unsure of what I was
seeing. It looked like a black mountain range stretching from one
horizon to the other. I wondered how we’d cross it, and how I’d be
able to hold on to the dragon any longer.

Carter and Maggie and the rest of the Ghost Pack had
been fighting the devils of this place for over a year now, or was
it two? They’d freed trapped pack members and recruited others,
apparently at the cost of the River Pack’s strength. I wondered if
that was why I hadn’t seen Hugh as much. Was that why so much of
the River Pack stayed away from Gettysburg in the fight against
Hern and Ezekiel?

Jasper slowed as we reached the towering black
mountains. Now that we were close, I could see they weren’t
mountains at all. Massive obsidian cones stretched from the earth
up into the sky. Entirely unnatural towers rose from the cones’
surfaces in various spots.

Another minute and I could make out a humanoid shape
standing outside another gate. I wondered if Carter or Mike had
beaten us here, but that seemed unlikely when broad wings stretched
from the figure’s back. Power flashed through the gated cones
behind him.

I’d expected an army to be waiting for us at the
sixth fortress, just like the fifth. Instead, a lone demon stood
outside that towering gate. A few souls flickered into being
outside the fortress before they sighted the demon and dashed
away.

“Go no farther,” the demon said.

At first, I’d been concerned that the figure was the
dark-touched vampire we’d encountered earlier, but he was not. This
creature stood like any other man, set apart only by the fleshy
wings on his back and the deep burgundy skin that glowed dimly with
its own light.

“Return from whence you came,” the demon said.

I patted Jasper’s neck and the dragon came to a halt.
Bubbles hopped to the earth first and I slid down Jasper’s neck
beside her, landing on a soft bed of clover-like flowers.

I wondered if being polite to this apparent
gatekeeper was the best strategy, or if I should attack him
outright.

“That would be unwise.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Your thoughts are a simple thing for me to pluck
from your mind. Your necromancy leaves you exposed in this
realm.”

“Try this,” I said, narrowing my eyes and letting the
ocean of souls inside me rise up uninhibited. The voices were still
quiet here. Perhaps the Burning Lands provided some kind of
inherent barrier to the utter chaos in my head.

It was plenty to throw the demon off. At first he
frowned. His jet black eyes shot wide open a moment later and his
clawed hands slammed over his slightly pointed ears. I let the
whispering voices overwhelm my thoughts, losing my own self to the
tide.

Only when the demon stumbled and fell to a knee did I
lock the souls away once more. Ten steps carried me to his
side.

“Let us pass.” I gestured with my hand for him to
move aside, somewhat surprised to see golden wisps of power tracing
my arm through the air.

His eyes rolled up to meet mine and he spoke through
gritted teeth. “What are you?”

“I’m not hunting you today, demon,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “A Harrower, one of the Ghost
Pack, come to slay Prosperine.”

I reached for my focus. “Now I have to kill you.” We
didn’t need Prosperine to know we were coming. We especially didn’t
need her to know our plans. This demon had likely plucked them from
my head already, if he was half as good as he thought he was.

The demon slowly stood up. “You are right, and I will
be rewarded.” He crouched and flexed his wings.

“Jasper,” I said.

I couldn’t be sure exactly what the dragon would do,
but he didn’t disappoint. The demon launched himself into the air,
only to scream a second later. The gust from Jasper’s wings almost
knocked me over as the dragon rocketed into the sky, locking his
jaws around the demon before slamming the bastard back to
earth.

Bones shattered at my feet and thick black blood
oozed from the broken body.

“You shouldn’t have been such an asshole.” I slowly
curled my hand into a fist, feeling the familiar pull of the
gravemakers all around me. The Hand of Anubis rose up, a gleaming
obsidian thing in the light of the Burning Lands. The demon
screamed once more as the fingers crushed him and dragged him
beneath the flowers.

Jasper huffed and a curl of smoke rose from his scaly
nostrils. I patted his snout and glanced over my shoulder. The
Ghost Pack stood there with Mike the Demon.

“Christ,” Jimmy said. “Remind me not to sucker punch
him ever again.”

Carter shot him a cockeyed smile. “You’re getting
smart in your old age.”

Vicky wandered up around Bubbles, leaving Happy to
stare at the dragon. She wrapped her fingers into my left hand and
pulled me forward. “We have to go through the gate. Try not to blow
everything up this time.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“I think Sam would say not to believe you.”

Someone snorted a laugh behind me. I turned to find
Maggie walking nearby. “At least I didn’t threaten to kill anyone
the first time I met them,” I said.

Maggie frowned slightly. “I promised to maim you, at
worst.”

“Actually,” Carter started.

“Shut up, wolf,” Maggie snapped. “Now, as I recall,
you just met that demon, and he is quite dead.”

I looked back at the disturbed ground and pursed my
lips. “Touché.”

The black obsidian carried over into the gateway,
changing from a smooth exterior to what felt like brick. I ran my
fingers across it, half expecting the power-laced lattice that had
waited for us at the last fortress. But it was only stone.

“What made this?” I asked, tracing the intricate
lines and patterns that repeated, ever expanding, until they peaked
in a sweeping gothic arch.

“Stone demons,” Mike said. “They were once the most
populous of the demon races. Only a few survived the wars, obsessed
with art and beauty as they were.”

“Are they all gone now?” I asked, stopping near the
center of a pitch black rotunda. A statue that would have been at
home in Faerie’s Royal Court adorned a pedestal. A beautiful
cloaked woman stood with one hand behind her back and the other
outstretched, welcoming all who came through the doors. Her face
stayed in shadow, no matter the angle we approached from.

I paused when we reached the statue’s back. A blade
with a rounded pommel glistened in the hidden hand. I frowned and
stepped closer, having to look almost straight up. The detail was
incredible, every inch of her looked like flesh or cloth, but my
focus stayed on the blade itself. Runes circled the pommel. I’d
seen it before.

I turned to Mike. “That’s a Key of the Dead.”

“Of course,” he said with a nod. “She is death.”

My skin crawled, knowing it was death who greeted us
so humbly.

“Come,” Mike said, passing me by and starting toward
one of the four hallways at the back of the room.

Vicky grabbed my hand again and dragged me away. I
looked back from the mouth of the hall. I could have sworn death
watched us, and her gaze knew no limit.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

Mike’s bulky form didn’t turn around. His voice
bounced through the corridor. “This was the house of the
dark-touched after they destroyed most of the stone demons.”

My steps stuttered before resuming their normal pace.
“How many are here?”

“Were,” Mike said. “Were here.”

He sounded very sure of the fact, but recent events
led me to think otherwise. “What about the one at the Jaws?”

“An outlier, I assume.”

“They are not all mindless aggressors,” Maggie said.
“We have seen sound strategy.”

Mike started to shake his head and then hesitated. “I
will say it is unlikely, but not impossible. I expect the
dark-touched to become a plague in your realm as much as they were
here.”

“Some of the stone demons survived, didn’t they?”
Carter asked.

Mike nodded and led us around a corner, his footsteps
echoing in the narrowing hallway. “Yes, a few.”

The hall thinned enough that Jasper condensed into
the black-eyed ball of gray fur. He perched on my shoulder and
vibrated. I didn’t think he liked the close quarters any more than
I did.

Bubbles stayed close to Jimmy and growled when we
passed a rounded hall.

“What’s that?” I asked, looking into the shadows.

“We are not alone.” I jumped at the voice right
beside me. Shiawase walked effortlessly at my side, as silent as he
could be.

Mike studied the shadows and then picked up his pace.
“They may leave us alone if we traverse the fortress quickly.”

Something creaked in the darkness, like steel dragged
across a stone floor. My heart rate accelerated. “What’s in
there?”

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “It could be anything if
the dark-touched are gone.”

“Or it could be a trap filled with dark-touched,”
Maggie muttered.

Mike gave one sharp nod. “If it is, they won’t be
quick to engage with a dragon.”

I glanced at the furball. “He’s … not very imposing
at the moment.”

Jasper squashed himself up against my neck. If I
didn’t know better, I’d think something out in the shadows scared
him. The thought alone curled my toes. I’d seen Jasper lift a
Leviathan into the air before slamming it into the earth and
flaying it. Maybe he was just afraid of the dark.

Mike’s pace slowed when we rounded the next curve. I
could see another rotunda up ahead. A second statue waited there.
This one held one hand up in warning while the other held the
raised dagger.

Something screeched behind us and I shivered. Bubbles
growled and it shook the air around us. The screeching grew louder.
Mike glanced over his shoulder. His breathing was quicker than
normal. He either didn’t know what was in here with us, or he did
know and he was worried.

“Quickly,” Mike hissed.

Carter sprinted around me and matched Mike’s pace.
“What are they?”

“Servants of the Tenth,” Mike whispered. “They should
not be here.”

“Famous last words,” I muttered between breaths. We
were almost jogging now. Bubbles raised her ears straight up and
swiveled them. Vicky kept up effortlessly, and even the bear raced
on with an odd, trundling stride.

We passed the second statue and entered the waiting
mouth of the next corridor. Something laughed, the sound echoing up
and down the halls around us. At first I thought the voices were in
my head, that the souls inside me had picked the least opportune
time to break my tentative hold on them. Then the things spoke.

The mighty Hephaestus, come home to die.

The voices grated together, dissonant, beautiful, and
horrible all at once. One voice soothed in dulcet tones while
another rang off key, sounding more like squealing metal on a
blackboard. The last meshed with them both, sometimes
complementing, sometimes clashing, and always disturbing.

“Ignore them,” Mike said. “They will speak your
fears. Avoid their fangs as best you can. The hallucinations are
the stuff of nightmares.”

Prosperine has already claimed victory.

The words were stuttering hisses and pops that barely
sounded like a human tongue. The passage narrowed again.

“It sounds like they’re right on top of us,” I said.
My legs burned, pounding the stone floor at a near sprint. The
ghosts didn’t seem winded. The fact Mike’s breathing had grown
heavy gave me some hope that the things chasing us might be
fatigued as well.

Abandon all hope, mortals.

Hearing that voice as we flooded into the next
rotunda almost made me stop before the towering statue. Gone was
the patient look. The pedestal was now a body, and the cloaked
figure’s dagger glistened like blood.

“Fucking hell, this is the same room, isn’t it? Mike!
The corridors are taking us in circles!”

The Destroyer has risen.

“It is their design,” Mike said between breaths. “We
have one layer left before we reach the other side.”

Darkness wrapped around us again as we entered yet
another hallway. Or was it truly the same corridor? I hadn’t paid
close enough attention to recognize the turns Mike took.