Destroyer Rising (11 page)

It left a tangled web of spikes and bodies hanging in
the hall, some five feet above my head, and some so high they were
lost in the shadowed recesses above. But I knew they were there. I
could feel them with every fiber of my being.

As the stone grew thick with the demons’ blood, their
charge faltered. They weren’t prepared for resistance like this.
They weren’t prepared for me. The first turned to run, and the rest
followed, peeling away from the assault.

I considered killing them, but letting them live
would spread word of the power they witnessed here. What creature
would want to engage with a being that could turn their own walls
against them?

As the last of the demons escaped, I released the
hold I’d kept on the world around me. My mind exploded into the
cries of a million lost souls when the power fled. It felt as
though my skull would burst, but I could scarcely remember where I
was. I knew I’d fallen to my knees, but the cries tore through my
thoughts, burying my awareness in a tidal wave of anguish.

The world changed from red to golden to black. Even
blinded, unable to see anything but the shadows and stars around
me, I heard the screams.

***

A deep voice scratched at my awareness. I knew that
voice, but I didn’t think it could be him. We hadn’t found him.

“And then he collapsed?”

I pried my eyes open when someone turned my head.

“Good morning, necromancer,” Mike the demon said.
“You made quite a mess of the gate.”

“They didn’t want to buy my cookies,” I grumbled.

Mike laughed and looked at someone behind me. “I
suspect he’s fine. He likely didn’t know this plane is built from
dead things.

I pushed myself into a sitting position and groaned
before cradling my head in my hands. Everything smelled like
freshly churned earth and burned flesh. I’d apparently passed out
on my backpack, and now my spine felt like a pretzel.

“I should have brought pretzels.”

Something trilled and chittered nearby.

“He’s okay?” Vicky asked. I looked up and found Vicky
and Happy, but the wolves were nowhere in sight.

“As fine as he can be, I suppose,” Mike said.

“Where are the wolves?” I asked.

“You left them behind,” Vicky said. “Happy could
barely keep up with you.”

“What do you mean? I barely took three steps past the
gate.”

“No,” Mike said. “You should perhaps look back at
your path.” He pointed to a fortress, far in the distance. I
realized I was sitting on grass, and not stone.

“What the hell?”

I looked up at Mike, half expecting to see the
terrifying creature I’d once glimpsed in a burst of flame. He still
looked like himself, bulky and thick, as though he could crush
stone in his bare hands. The hammer hung at his waist, suspended by
the braided leather of his belt.

The chittering sounded again, and I glanced at the
ground. “Jasper?” I said, eyeing the rolling ball of gray fluff
around Mike’s feet.

Jasper trilled and swelled before flowing toward me,
flashing his silver dagger-like teeth in the crimson light of the
plain. He spiraled around my bent leg before shooting up my back
and settling on my shoulder with a puff.

I reached up and scratched him between his solid
black eyes. “I thought you were keeping watch over Sam.”

A vision of Gettysburg flashed through my mind. A
tentacle wrapped around Sam, threatening to crush her. Jasper
carried the Leviathan away, shredding it and burning it so it could
never harm anyone again. I shivered as the vision faded.

“Welcome to the Burning Lands,” Mike said. “What in
the hell is in your backpack, Damian?”

I winced as I pulled my arm out of the strap and
swung the pack around. Jasper chittered and hopped over the quickly
moving strap. “Beef jerky. You want some?” I unzipped the pouch on
the front and pulled out some of Frank’s beef jerky.

Mike slowly raised one of his eyebrows.

“Oh,” I said, stuffing the jerky back into the pack.
I opened the largest compartment and slid out the Book that Bleeds.
“It could help.” My eyes flicked to Vicky and back.

Mike frowned. “That is the Book of the Dead. Lost for
millennia. Not seen since the fall of Atlantis, and even then, it
was only a rumor. How do you have this?”

There were few people I trusted more than Mike the
Demon, but I still hesitated to tell him where it had come from.
“Koda,” I said quietly, after a time. “It was hidden within the
Black Book. It only needed the key to open it.”

Mike looked back at the trail behind us. “That’s
where I’ve seen your attack before. Long ago it was called the
Blades of Ares, wielded by gods and madmen.”

I sighed. “I guess I’m a little bit of both.”

“Vicky,” Mike said, turning to face the ghost. “Go
back to Carter and lead him to us.”

She nodded and hopped up on Happy’s back, glancing
back at me once before the bear trundled off through the
plains.

Mike settled onto the ground beside me once Vicky and
the ghost panda vanished against the shadows of the distant
fortress. “Her time grows short, Damian. Once the Destroyer has
risen, our mission will change.”

Jasper trilled and his gray fluff flashed blood
red.

I eyed the dragon before turning back to Mike. “I
found some passages on Timewalkers that are promising.”

“Hmm.” Mike drummed his fingers on the head of the
Smith’s Hammer. “Timewalkers are not bound to any particular plane.
It is an interesting thought, but we’ve lost months already.”

“We just unlocked the Book that Bleeds, Mike. Every
time I look at it I find something new. It’s like the words didn’t
exist before.”

“I’ve heard much the same from the Old Man and
Homer.”

Knowing the Old Man had some knowledge of the book
didn’t surprise me. He’d been to Atlantis and wandered the halls of
the library at Alexandria. “Homer?”

“The old Greek poet,” Mike said as he spun a blade of
grass between his thumb and forefinger.

I threw my hands up in the air. “Sure, why the fuck
not? You knew Homer. Of course you did.”

Mike didn’t so much as twitch. He held my gaze until
I looked away. Maybe I was being a tad bit dramatic.

“Did Koda tell you of the Demon’s Sacrifice?”

“The what?”

A sad smile crossed Mike’s face, and a black shadow
flickered to life beside him. The little necromancer coalesced.

“No! That is not for his ears.”

“It is not our decision, my love.” Mike reached out
and the ghost took his hand.

“You aren’t corporeal here? But the werewolves …”

“The werewolves are bonded to you, and the Pack feeds
them power through your bonds.” The little necromancer wrung her
hands together. “Damian, Hugh asked me not to tell you, but you’re
weakening the River Pack.”

“What?” I looked from Mike to the little necromancer
and back.
“What?”

Jasper’s dust-bunny-like texture expanded and
contracted as he rolled around my backpack. He finally settled onto
my knee, and I absently scratched his back.

“Not now,” Mike said with a brief shake of his head.
“Your Timewalker idea is a noble one, but I fear we don’t have the
time to perfect it.”

“Vicky will die without a Timewalker bond if her
devil dies,” I said.

“How do you know that?” The little necromancer asked.
“Most of what we know about demons is theory.”

“It’s in the book.” I ran my fingers over the gory
cover. The blood didn’t flow freely here in the Burning Lands, but
its blood was still slick and visible.

I let my aura expand until it brushed against the
little necromancer’s aura. She flared into golden light, and Mike
stared.

“You’ll need Ward,” she said, running her fingers
over her forearm. “He may be the only one left who remembers how to
make the knot.”

Mike stood up and wrapped his arms around her.

“I know,” I said. “Nixie is already looking for him.
If she doesn’t have any luck, we may have to go to Falias. But if
that’s not the answer … what’s the Demon’s Sacrifice?”

“It is an old magic,” Mike said. “It is death and
soularts and all the things one usually thinks of when discussing
necromancers.”

“Dark necromancers,” I muttered. But what necromancer
was darker than me now? I had a million souls bound to me. I ran my
hand over the short blades of grass, half expecting them to wither
and die at my touch. It didn’t matter now. All that mattered was
stopping Prosperine.

“Stop,” the little necromancer said. “You’ve done
more good in this world than most people could do in ten lifetimes.
Listen to Mike if you want to save that girl.”

I frowned and then nodded, turning my attention back
to Mike.

“Even should you succeed in killing her devil, in
bringing an end to the tyranny of Prosperine, another devil can
take her.”

His words hit me like I’d been stabbed in the heart.
“What?”

“The Seal is broken, and that changes the rules of
what can and cannot be severed in this place. You cannot kill all
of the devils, so you need to change the very fabric of their
existence.”

“You mean we need to fix the Seal?”

Mike narrowed his eyes before shaking his head. “I
don’t believe that would be enough. It may be, for a time, but
Philip managed to bring Propserine onto your plane through the
Seal.”

Mike was right, and I knew it. “What can I do then?
You’re saying I could kill Prosperine, but Vicky could still become
the Destroyer?”

“No, if you kill Prosperine, the Destroyer will be no
more. That does not mean one of the other devils would not jump at
a free vessel. There are worse things in the Burning Lands than the
Destroyer.”

“You know the dark-touched have already fled this
place,” the little necromancer said. “There are some left behind,
certainly, but most are already on your plane. Their master dwells
in the Burning Lands, and she is a slumbering devil. She could
possess Vicky, or one of the Summoners, or even the fire
demons.”

I ground my teeth together. “Why didn’t you tell me
this before?” I snapped.

“We didn’t know,” Mike said. “It’s taken months of …
of research in the Burning Lands.”

I frowned at Mike the Demon. “Research?”

“We’ve been threatening the people who would know,”
the little necromancer said. “Sometimes it’s the only way in this
place.”

“In this hell?” I said.

Mike slowly shook his head. “This is not the Hell of
human religions. I think you know that. The demons here draw power
from emotion, and they are empowered by suffering.”

“Fuck, Mike. That pretty much sounds like a hell to
me.”

“It is not so unlike your government, Damian. Men
horde power and goods and lord over the people they see as less
than themselves. It may be a different kind of power here, but the
principle is the same.”

“That’s … I don’t know what to say to that.”

“You’ll see more of it as we move through the
circles, and you’ll see the worst the Burning Lands has to offer
when we reach the tenth at the center of the realm.”

“Tell him about the Demon’s Sacrifice.”

Mike glanced at the little necromancer and held her
gaze. She didn’t look away until he sighed and said, “So be it.
This plane is built on rules, not unlike your own, but those rules
were forged by ancient creatures. Changing them would be much like
altering the ley lines in your own realm so no fairy could use
them.”

“That’s impossible.”

Mike gave me a half smile. “Damian, this plane was
designed by one of the first dead gods, a predecessor even to the
creature you know as Hades. Your powers can affect anything here.
It’s how you tore through the fortress and destroyed half a
regiment of demons.”

“How many?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “I remember
the wave, and the spikes, but how many demons were there?”

“Our best guess is five hundred,” Mike said.

“Maybe a bit less,” the little necromancer said, “but
not by much.”

“How do I not remember that?”

Mike ignored me. “To answer the more pressing
question, the Demon’s Sacrifice is a soulart performed using
willing souls. It only works with those who volunteer, and the
belief is that an unwilling soul cannot be destroyed entirely.”

I stared at Mike, expecting some ominous drumbeat to
sound a march around his words. “What do you mean? I have to
destroy a willing soul to even try the incantation?”

“Yes.”

“And where do I find a willing soul?”

“You ask them,” Mike said quietly. He turned his gaze
back toward the fortress.

I followed his line of sight. Vicky led Carter and
Maggie and Jimmy toward us in the distance. A fiery Bubbles pranced
beside them. I cursed under my breath. “No.”

“It is hidden within the cover of the Book that
Bleeds, or so it was some three thousand years past. No one has had
the complete book in their possession since, so it should still be
locked away. You need not decide this moment, Damian, but in the
end it may be your only choice.”

“We need to make camp,” Mike said. “The hour grows
late, and the Burning Lands will soon earn their name in kind.”

“Where should we go?” Maggie asked. “Our favorite
necromancer turned the fifth fortress into a burial ground.” She
jabbed me in the ribs.

“Ha ha,” I said.

“Then we travel to the sixth,” Mike said.

“What do you mean the Burning Lands will earn their
name?” I asked. “And the sun is still in the same spot. How do you
know it’s late?”

Mike pointed toward the disc in the crimson sky. “The
light dims, and soon the black sun will be upon us.”

I glanced up and my neck twitched involuntarily. Half
the bloody sun was covered in darkness. “What happens?”