Destroyer Rising (18 page)

The world shook. Cannon fire. I wouldn’t have known
it if I hadn’t heard the guns at Gettysburg. We stood on a plain,
and suddenly the rocks and small clumps of grasses were gone. We
were in sparse woods. Men ran past in worn dark blue military
uniforms, chased by men in gray.

The sky changed to a fiery dawn, turning a smoldering
pillar to a shadow, riddled with light. Bursts of smoke and the
distant pops of black powder rifles sounded all around us. A tree
branch shattered above, sending splinters across the party. Vicky
dove to the side, pulling Sarah with her before the limb snapped
and crashed to the earth.

“No,” Mike hissed as he raised a hand to his
forehead. “No. Sarah? Sarah!” The demon ran over the hill, and we
followed, weaving through the trees faster than any sane person
should. One twisted ankle, one broken arm, and that could be all it
took to die in this place.

“Mike,” Sarah said. “Mike, I’m here!”

I heard her voice, but I didn’t see her. She’d just
been with Vicky, right behind us. I knew damn well she was right
beside her. A shadow formed beside Vicky, and then vanished again.
We crested the hill. I froze.

“No,” Mike said. “This cannot be!”

I knew the place. I’d seen it in history books. The
tree line stopped dead before a tangle of muddy trenches and
makeshift bridges leading away from a gaping hole in the earth. It
was almost exactly as I’d imagined it, as Aeros had described
it.

Blood from a blanket of corpses ran into the earth,
and the humid air mixed with released bowels and burned flesh. I
gagged, but I couldn’t turn away.

This is where Sarah had died. Whatever this illusion
was, it had Mike the Demon by the throat. He dashed out into the
trenches, and jerked when a bullet grazed his arm.

It was then I realized I couldn’t move. I was
trapped, like my friends had been with the Utukku imposter. My eyes
could still move, and I hunted for the Geryon. With so much chaos
and so many bodies, which one would it be?

Down below, huddled in one of the trenches, was a
young girl. She held a bloody bayonet. Four men lay dead around
her. None of them showed the trauma of a bullet or even a deep
wound.

Sarah. Mike’s little necromancer.

The demon’s bayonet must have done its job. She
squeezed her eyes shut and stood to run. I saw her collapse when
the bullet took her. I heard the roar of the demon. The Smith’s
Hammer burst into life. I couldn’t remember if he’d had it at the
Battle of the Crater. What had Aeros said?

Soldiers closed on him, but sides were forgotten.
Union men and Confederates alike emptied their rifles at the demon.
Mike turned his back on Sarah to face the attackers.

But Sarah stood frozen beside Vicky.

Fucking hell.

The Sarah by Mike wasn’t real. It had to be the
Geryon. I couldn’t so much as gesture. A savage grin split Sarah’s
face as she raised the cursed bayonet. Was it really Mike’s
bayonet? Would it kill him?

There was one thing the Geryon couldn’t take from me,
and that was the souls. I opened my mind and let them flood my
consciousness. The visions weren’t defined in chaos like this.
There were only brief flashes of pain and joy and terror and love.
I saw the dead while they still lived, felt their loss as they
died, until all I could see was blinding golden light. The sheer
force of a million wills shattered the black web of power the
Geryon had restrained us with.

I wrapped my fingers around the pepperbox and drew
it, choking back the cacophony of those visions, firing without
hesitation. The first shot missed, but it got the Geryon’s
attention. Did the thing know that gunshot wasn’t one of its own?
What kind of power must it have to pick that out of the screaming,
booming chaos?

A cannon shot split a tree in half beside me and I
felt the splinters cut into my leg.

“It’s the Geryon!” I screamed and fired again. I
caught the imposter Sarah in the shoulder, and she fell.

Mike moved to help her, and she lunged.

My heart stopped. The demon grabbed the Geryon’s
forearm and snarled. His eyes traced our party and settled on the
flickering form of Sarah beside Vicky. She flashed from shadow to
flesh and back again. The Geryon was still trying to hide her, even
as Mike gained the advantage.

He turned to the imposter and snarled, pulling the
Geryon up to his face. “You dare? “You
dare!”

Mike slammed the imposter into the mud while soldiers
fired their rifles into the demon. Mike stood on the Geryon’s chest
and raised his arms. The Smith’s Hammer splattered the Geryon’s
head like a rotten tomato. The battle around us faded. Soldiers
collapsed and vanished until only the terrain was left beneath the
splattered body.

Sarah stumbled forward, almost flying down the hill
to Mike. She threw her arms around him. “I thought it had you.”

“It nearly did,” Mike whispered into her hair.

Sarah pulled back and ran her fingers over Mike’s
wounds. “You’re bleeding.” Trails of black blood wept from the
bullet holes across his side. Mike didn’t even seem distracted by
them.

The demon held a hand over the wounds and hellfire
flashed up around him. When he lowered his arm, even the holes in
the leather armor he wore had vanished. “I am fine, Sarah. The
Geryons have no power over me.”

From what I’d seen, that wasn’t exactly true, but I
sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything about it.

“Come,” Mike said, sliding the hammer back into his
belt. “We make for the eighth circle.”

***

We crossed two more chasms bridged by the stuff of
the Old Gods before Mike spoke again.

“This is the final chasm. Beyond it waits the Sea of
Souls and the eighth fortress.” He turned and looked at the rest of
us. “They won’t come for me again. It will be one of you.”

“They already tried me,” I said. “So I’m off the
hook, right?”

My mom used to say that. “Take the phone off the
hook.” We’d be on the old green couch and she’d shoo Sam or me to
do it. Why was I remembering that now? We’d sit down to watch a
movie and she’d tell us to take the phone off the hook.

A sudden pain felt like a dagger in my eye.

Take the phone off the hook.

The world shook again, and we stood on a suburban
street beside a quaint home. The vision was a part of me this time,
the house where my parents raised Sam and me. A shadow stalked
through the yard before casting a glance over its shoulder.

Silver fangs flashed in the moonlight. Even though I
knew it wasn’t real, it wasn’t really happening, I moved
forward.

The earth rumbled and split, and what had been a
distance of only a neighbor’s yard became a chasm of fire. It rose
up to become a mountain, spouting ash and flame into the air. A
memory flashed through my mind. Sam and I had watched footage of a
volcano burning a city to cinders.

This nightmare was born of it.

Take the phone off the hook.

I had to cross the mountain. If I didn’t, everyone
would die. My parents would burn in their beds and Sam would join
them when she tried to help. I’d seen it happen a hundred
times.

“Forward!” A distant voice shouted.

I turned my gaze to the left and saw another shadow.
This one was small and scared and glowed with a golden light.
“Damian! Don’t leave me!”

The voice pulled on me, and my mind reeled. Something
was wrong here. Something was unhinged. I needed my parents. I
needed my sister. I’d never feed her toys to Jasper again.

I ran toward the mountain. It was easy climbing,
especially for a seven-year-old who was practically a monkey. Mom
liked to call me her monkey, too. I scrambled across a loose gravel
slope and paused at an outcropping of rock.

Strange animals came up through the fiery vents,
rabbits with fangs and snakes with fur. A gray cloud with teeth the
size of my hand swallowed them all. It didn’t make sense, but they
didn’t matter. I ran past them, focusing on my house. I could see
the roof in the distance.

Take the phone off the hook.

The phone rang.

The world boomed and the mountain cracked open. Heat
from molten lava seared my face as it flowed past. My arm blistered
in the passing steam. This wasn’t right. There should be rocks here
to jump across. I knew this place. I turned away, and when I turned
back, the rocks were there, jutting up over the river of fire.

I climbed up it. My hands fit into tiny cracks as
small as I was. The red rock—Dad called it granite—lay fractured
and split, forming large rounded swells. I hopped from one to the
next. When I reached the top, the house was already in flames. I
crouched down, ready to jump, ready to save Sam and my parents.

It was a wide gap, but I could make it. I’d made the
jump before. I could do it.

Something hit me. Something hit me hard enough to
knock the wind out of my lungs and send the world spiraling around
me. My thoughts cleared, but the nightmare held fast. A blonde
child’s face stared down at me, her forehead scrunched up like a
worried mother. My mom would help her. I had to get her to Mom. The
nightmare broke when I remembered her name.

“Vicky?” I whispered. “What … what happened?”

She glanced over her shoulder, looking away. “You
almost jumped into the Sea of Souls.”

I leaned up and a chill wracked my spine. It looked
like the Sea of Flames at first glance, but then a head would pop
up, or a limb, or other less-whole bits of souls. Golden wisps of
ether hovered over the flames and churned inside them.

“What the fuck?”

Vicky maneuvered herself under my arm and helped me
up. My brain still felt split between the visions and where we
stood. Neither seemed real now.

“They’re here!” someone shouted behind us. I turned,
shaking, with one arm around Vicky.

“Mike the Demon,” I said as the bulky man came
sprinting down the hill.

“You remember me?” Mike asked, narrowing his eyes.
“What did I forge for you and deliver in the presence of the Old
Man?”

“A … weapon.” I frowned, remembering the scene. I
remembered him attacking me with the Smith’s Hammer.

“What was its name?” Mike said, reaching out to pull
Vicky away from me. The girl slapped his hand away.

“The splendorum mortem.”

The demon blew out a breath. “I thought we’d lost
you. Was it the souls? I did not consider the impact the Sea of
Souls might have on you. Was it their nightmares that tried to drag
you down?”

“Their nightmares?” I frowned and shook my head. “It
was mine. An old one of Sam and my parents.” I turned to look out
at the fiery sea. “It felt so real. I was … I was just a kid
again.”

“No sign of the Geryon,” a strange-looking man said,
dressed in old armor.

“Shiawase,” I said, and something felt sharp inside
my brain. “Happy. What … why can’t I think straight?”

“The Geryon is still alive,” Mike said. “It has taken
its leave, but there is still some damage inside your head.”

I winced at another cutting pain behind my eye.
“Really? No one’s going to take the easy shot?”

“Can you make another bridge?” Vicky asked as she put
her hand on the side of my face. “Look at me.” She frowned when I
looked up. “You’re bleeding, behind your eye.”

“How bad?” Maggie asked.

“It’s not good. I can try to heal it. Don’t move.”
Vicky squinted at me, meeting my gaze with the darkness in her
eyes. I ground my teeth. She may have thought I was bracing against
the pain, but I was having a much harder time containing my rage at
that moment.

Vicky’s arms glowed, and I grunted as her healing
threatened to set me on fire.

“Done,” she said.

“Thanks, kid.” The sudden absence of pain was
dizzying.

“So?” Vicky said. “Can you make another bridge?”

“It’s too far, and the sea is too deep here.” I
paused and frowned. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Mike said, narrowing his eyes. “But it’s not
necessary. We can ride the ship of bones from here. I still have
some influence.”

Before I could so much as ask what he was talking
about, Mike formed a circle of fire in the air before him and
pushed it forward. It expanded and rose until it became a beacon as
large as the sun. A series of symbols flashed through the center,
and then it was gone.

“What was that?” I asked.

A drum crashed in the distance, deep and booming. A
second beat sounded close by before the drums echoed each other in
a steady march.

Mike crossed his arm and watched the Sea of Souls.
“It is already time for us to return to Hugh. Once everyone has
boarded the ship, I will take you to him.”

The drums grew louder, and the Sea of Souls roiled
with the damned and the fires. Hell or not, this was as close as I
ever wanted to be. The thick flames parted like water, giving way
to a main mast like something out of a child’s nightmare. A
skeleton manned the crow’s nest, and I didn’t think it was there
for decoration.

It raised a bony arm and signaled Mike. The demon
returned the gesture. I watched that sack of bones lean over the
pale white round of his perch, drumming a sharp staccato on the
ship that sent the crew scrambling across the sinewy lines
below.

The ship rose in earnest, rocketing through the souls
and fires until a mighty bone hull breached the surface. It curved
like the skull of some great beast, turned upside down and set to
float across the fires. More of the skeletons began moving across
the ship, pushing screaming souls off the sides, back into the
fires, like grisly sailors swabbing the deck.

“It is not designed to carry souls,” Mike said,
somewhat answering my unspoken question.

As the ship grew closer, clicks and grinding sounds
echoed up from the vessel. Each came with a gesture or nod from one
of the skeletons, and it wasn’t long before I realized they were
communicating.