Black Coven (Daniel Black Book 2) (43 page)

Cerise groaned. “I’m too full. I can’t eat another bite.”

I mussed her hair. “Nut. Keep Grinder, then, and you can just kill things without eating them.”

I took a minute to give everyone in our party a quick burst of healing, enough to stop bleeding and wash away fatigue. Then I started forming a steep stairway up the side of the hole, and we crept towards the surface in single file. It was easy work, compacting loose dirt and pebbles into something like sandstone, and in a few minutes we reached the top. I peered carefully over the edge, and frowned.

We were in the middle of the plaza in front of the High Temple of the Aesir, just a few blocks over from city hall. The plaza was littered with bodies. Hundreds of them, some fresh and others years or decades old. Here and there was the smoking wreck of one of the Conclave’s war golems, its iron limbs pitted and deformed like it had walked through a blast furnace.

But the battle wasn’t over.

On the steps in front of the temple’s main doors a few surviving heroes fought to hold the line. Priests waving spears that crackled with lighting. Knights armed with flaming swords. A single wizard, conjuring shimmering spells like giant soap bubbles that dissolved enemies and healed allies at the same time.

Attacking them were several hundred heavily armed and armored corpses, bolstered by a half-dozen remaining golems. But what caught my attention was the giant two-headed fox leading the assault.

Cerise popped up beside me, and cursed under her breath. “Looks like we found our missing girl.”

She was unstoppable. In the moment I’d been watching she pounced on the wizard, shaking him in her jaws while her fiery aura immolated the defenders around her. One knight tried to run her through with a blade of ice, but the shallow gash it left on her flank healed in the blink of an eye. She batted him away with her tail, sending him tumbling into the back of one of the priests. A golem stepped on them both.

“You sound like you still like her,” I noted.

“Of course I do,” Cerise replied. “Just look at her go. She’s awesome.”

“She tried to kill me,” I pointed out.

“Not very hard. I know, I know. I just wish things could have been different,” she said wistfully.

A bolt of lightning descended from the cloudy sky to strike the giant fox. But she just shook it off, her luxurious pelt smoking, and turned to rush the temple doors.

“Me too,” I admitted. “But we can’t let her destroy the whole city. Come on.”

I led my little force left, trying to flank the enemy so I could fire into them without hitting the temple defenders. But we were out of time.

I’d expected the doors to slow Mara down until we could get into the fight. But instead she grew to the size of an elephant, and slapped her paw against them.

“Open!” She commanded, her clear voice carrying about the sounds of battle.

The temple’s wards, fortified by centuries of prayer and sacrifice, shattered like glass. The doors flew open, the enchantments meant to hold them closed unravelling in an instant. Mara stalked into the temple like an angry goddess, and a chorus of screams rose up inside. The remaining defenders were pushed back from the entrance, and their resistance was clearly about to fall apart.

I raised my gun, and started firing bouncer rounds into the rear of the enemy.

Once again, the whirling force blades were frightfully effective against the packed mass of enemies. Each round tumbled through their ranks in a spray of severed body parts and mangled equipment, tearing long furrows in their formation.

“Follow me!” I ordered, and boosted my speed again.

My limbs burned with magic, but I bounded across the plaza at a speed I could never have managed normally. I switched to explosive rounds as we got closer, and blew one of the surviving golems over. Then we smashed into the remnants of the enemy formation.

I carved a path through the undead with a long blade of force, cutting through swords and armor with equal ease. Beside me Cerise fought with Grinder in one hand and a whip of shadow in the other, mowing down her opponents like they were standing still. Corinna and her dryads fought with inhuman ferocity, their wooden swords hewing through chain mail and beheading moldering corpses with an ease that testified to the strength of their magic.

Then we were through, standing on the steps of the temple.

Cerise’s whip of shadow snaked out to pluck a figure from the back of one of the remaining golems, and lay him out on the ground at our feet. I looked down, and saw that it was Carl Stenberg.

“Ah, I surrender?” He called over Grinder’s scream.

I threw up a low wall blocking us off from the remaining undead, and Cerise deactivated Grinder.

“I’m guessing Mara isn’t your sister, and you’re actually a spy,” I said mildly.

“Lokin resistance cell,” he replied. “Like your girl there, only we follow Loki instead of Hecate.”

Corinna put her spear point in his face. “Shall we kill him, lord?”

I shook my head. “The Conclave would get pissed if I just kill one of their members without convincing them he’s a traitor first. We’ll turn him over to them, if we can.”

I made the flagstones beneath our feet grow into heavy cuffs around his wrists and ankles. Then I remembered that Loki was big on shapechanging magic, and added bands around his neck and waist.

“Perfectly reasonable,” he agreed. “Ah, no hard feelings?”

“We’ll see. Corinna, hold this position. Cerise, with me.” I turned and rushed into the temple, with Cerise at my heels.

There were dead priests on the floor, and a door in the far wall was smashed open. We were barely halfway across the room when there was a thunderclap from somewhere ahead of us, and the whole temple shook.

We burst through into the sanctuary to find Mara standing over a smoking hole in the floor, with a large stone covered in runes in one of her mouths. She was smaller than she’d been a few moments ago, but still the size of a very big horse.

I hesitated, unsure of the best way to attack her. Unsure of whether I wanted to, for that matter. She was tough as hell, and if that was the veil anchor in her mouth I probably couldn’t get it away from her before she destroyed it. But I’d be perfectly happy to see Loki’s forces invading Asgard, if it meant they left Kozalin alone.

“Too late,” Mara crowed triumphantly. “I already have the veil anchor. I have to give you credit, though. I thought the trap in the catacombs would keep you busy for hours.”

“Daniel is better than that,” Cerise said, completely ignoring the sheer luck that had led us to the surface right next to the temple. Although it might not have been luck. The temple could have been built next to the dragon’s tomb on purpose, and Mara could easily have missed that detail when planning her trap. For that matter, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suspect divine meddling given the situation.

“The dragon was pretty badass,” Cerise admitted. “But he won’t be coming back again. Thanks for the wings, by the way.”

Mara chuckled. “You’re welcome, Cerise. I hope you learn how to fly someday. It’s every bit as good as it looks.”

“You know, guys, it’s not too late to join us,” she went on. “This is the second of my trials, and father made mom promise to give me my immortality if I can finish all three. With your help whatever she gives me for the third trial will be easy.”

“I thought we were going to be trying to kill each other, after the way you turned down Daniel,” Cerise said.

Mara lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry about that. I have to succeed here, no matter what. But I didn’t really want to hurt any of you. No one has ever made me an offer like that before.”

“As beautiful as you are? You’ve got to be joking,” I said skeptically.

“I was raised in my mother’s realm,” she said softly. “It’s… not a good place. But things are going to be different soon! Hel and Jormungandr have both been really nice to me, and father actually thanked me for freeing him. I’ll be rewarded when Asgard falls, and so will anyone who helps us. So what do you say?”

“What happens to Kozalin?” I asked.

Her ears drooped.

“That’s what this was all about, right? Destroying the veil anchor? Once it’s gone, will the attack on the city stop?”

She pawed uncomfortably at the ground.

“I wasn’t expecting to steal a mystic artifact of invincibility, and be able to do this all with just my own minions. I had a whole invasion plan set up with big sis, and it’s too late to call it off now. Even if I could, it wouldn’t do you any good. Mom’s been planning the destruction of humanity for thousands of years, and she already has an army coming to Kozalin. I can’t stop them, and they won’t leave anyone alive.”

“But they’ll leave you alone if you join me. Your island is off away from the city anyway, but I can stay for a little bit and make sure of that. Or you could leave. Father has a place where his faithful are gathering, and I’m sure you’d be welcome there. You could even bring your people.”

“But everyone in Kozalin will die,” I said. “If your mother has her way that will only be the beginning, and all humans everywhere will die.”

“Well, so what?” She exclaimed. “What did the humans do for father, when he was tied to a rock with his own son’s guts and tortured for six hundred years? They praised the Aesir and gave them sacrifices, that’s what!”

“Some of us have spent our lives fighting the Aesir,” Cerise pointed out coldly.

“Most humans don’t worship the Aesir,” I said. “Their followers only rule Europe, and even here there are a lot of people who see them as foreign invaders. Honestly, I don’t see why Loki’s forces are so intent on attacking humanity. You’d think they’d save their energy for the enemy.”

“They are,” Mara said. “Humans are the foot soldiers of the gods, and Hel’s forces have to pass through Midgard to reach the Golden Fields. Besides, the Aesir can’t truly die while they still have human worshippers. The final battle won’t happen until both sides have lost so many worshippers that being killed isn’t just a temporary inconvenience anymore.”

Well, that was a chilling thought.

I sighed. “Mara, I understand where you’re coming from. I’d want to tear down Asgard too, if I were in your position. But I’m not going to be a party to genocide.”

“You’ll die when Gaea’s army gets here,” she pleaded.

“No,” I said firmly. “They will die. As long as I’m in Kozalin any army that attacks the city is going to be destroyed. So if you care about them you’ll warn them to go elsewhere.”

“I’d just as soon they all died,” she admitted. “The ape men are disgusting creatures, and their leader… well, let’s just say that I’m not fond of mom’s sons. If you really can kill him, I hope you do.”

“Fine. I can’t stop you right now, and a fight between us isn’t going to accomplish anything. So how about this? You do what you came here to do, and then give me back my amulet and get out of here. Maybe we can talk again once you have your immortality, and your mother doesn’t have anything to hold over you.”

“Can’t you just make another one?” Mara protested. “Really, Daniel, this thing is amazing. As long as I have it they’ll never… well, it would be really useful.”

The other fox head, the one that had patiently held the stone while we talked, nudged the head that had been doing the talking. She gave herself a startled look.

“What? But this is different.”

I had a moment of confusion, before I realized what I’d just seen. I felt the shock on my face before I realized it might have been smarter to hide it. Mara saw, and gasped.

“No! Fuck, after all this time! Don’t you dare say a word about it, Daniel Black. Not to anyone, not ever! In fact, I should just take you out now so you can’t talk.”

“You can’t,” I said evenly. I reached out to the amulet she had hidden somewhere on her person, and hit the kill switch I’d built into its enchantments when I made it. “You can’t use my own tools against me, Mara, and you know how strong we are. But I’ll keep your secret for you, in the name of friendship.”

She recoiled in shock, staring down at herself as the force shield and healing aura died. Then she processed the rest of what I’d said.

“Friendship?”

Cerise gave me a confused look. “Secret? What secret? Did I miss something?”

“Friendship,” Mara repeated. “Huh. You really are a strange man, Daniel. But I‘ve never had a friend before, and it sounds kind of nice. Alright, it’s a deal. Secrecy for friendship. But you tell no one! Not even Cerise.”

“Agreed,” I said reluctantly.

Two heads. Two minds. I wasn’t sure why Mara was so intent on hiding the fact that she had a sister sharing her body, or why the one that didn’t talk had given herself away like that. But to be honest, most of the theories I could think of only made me more sympathetic to their situation.

Mara huffed. “Alright, then. I’m getting out of here before anything else goes wrong. I still think you’re crazy, to think you can take on mother’s armies. But if you survive somehow, we’ll talk.”

Her teeth ground down on the runestone, and her power flared again. The stone cracked, crumbling into fragments. I felt a flash of magic, a change in something vast and insubstantial that lurked just on the edge of my mystic senses.