Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods (18 page)

“Yes, but if we leave our assets twiddling their thumbs, we’re not going to get ahead. And even if I go to ground, I can’t guarantee I can keep the Heart safe on my own. I’ll take the backup,” Sveta said.

I found myself wondering what Sveta did outside of this life. If she had been a guardian since birth, was she allowed hobbies of her own? To marry whom she saw fit? I suspected such inquiries would not be met receptively. They were undoubtedly too personal, as Tessane had said when I asked about her dating activities.

Carter had school; Antoinette had her friends, the roller derby, and seemed to be on her way out of the magical world, as best as she could.

That led me to thinking about Dorothea, another life dashed on the rocks by my family’s greed and ambition. And my carelessness.

“So if I go with Sveta, will you be okay with the pack?” Carter asked.

“No problem,” Antoinette said, standing. She turned to our hostesses. “Thank you for your hospitality. Please let me know if you need anything from the shop.”

Sveta hugged both of the hostesses, showing more tenderness than I’d seen from her, and then we prepared ourselves for the road again. Which would mean more subways.

“Is there a way to avoid the ferry this time?” I asked. “There is a tram, yes?”

“You want to be a couple hundred feet up in a steel box if Esther is around? Ferry’s safer.” Antoinette clapped me on the shoulder. “Sorry, Jake. We’ll bring you a bucket.”

Sarah’s face brightened. “Seasick? Just a moment, I can do something about that.”

A minute later, she returned with a finger of ginger. “This should help. Leave some for the trip back.”

I thanked Sarah for the assistance, and we four weary travelers conferred on how to communicate, then made our farewells.

CHAPTER

THIRTY

T
he ginger helped. It may have been as much a placebo as anything else, but I was not about to second-guess Sarah’s remedy. My misery was greatly reduced for the second ferry trip to Staten Island, which allowed Antoinette and me to speak, to work through our conversational approach with the pack, which was again for me to mostly keep my mouth shut and be on the lookout while Antoinette did the actual talking and we both tried our best to give absolutely no reasons for the pack to take us for their dinner.

We made our way from the ferry station to the bus, and from the bus stop to the park. Antoinette produced a flashlight, which she lit once we’d left the range of streetlights, entering the darkness of the park. Unlike the other municipal parks I’d seen, there were no posted lights here.

“The lack of lights? Why is that?” I asked.

“Not sure, but I bet you fifty bucks it’s the pack’s doing. They can see just fine by moonlight.” If so, their local influence was as substantial as the first display of power had led me to believe.

This time, we took the path that the wolves had shown us on the way out, which was far less steep. My knees and pride were grateful.

It did, however, involve walking along a deer trail, looking directly down to keep the path, following Antoinette’s light. I could have used a working to see in the dark, but my reserves were already taxed, even after the excellently-greasy dinner.

Just fifty yards into the trail, a bark cut through the background noise of the park at night.

“Was that . . . ?” I asked.

“Yep,” Antoinette said. “Looks like we know where Esther went.”

Antoinette sped up, crashing through the branches, hopping over roots, and ducking over thicker tree limbs. I flowed through the path in her wake, more comfortable in the thick brush than I’d ever be in the streets of New York. Animals made sense. Forests made sense. This place was only partially shaped by the hands of men; it was still more wolf than dog.

Another pair of barks came from ahead and to our left. They sounded like orders, the wolves coordinating.

I overtook Antoinette, longer legs letting me tromp through a shortcut.

“Now would be a good time to call upon some friends,” I said, heavy breathing puffing up clouds of crystalizing breath as I pounded my way through the forest, up a medium grade.

More barks, a yowl of pain, and a sharp cracking later, we broke into a clearing to see three wolves facing off against a spirit formed of sludge. The spirit was the size of a brown bear, but was composed of trash, septic waste, and spent needles.

I recognized one of the wolves as the pack leader. Her muzzle was bloodied, and there was a broad burned wound across her flank that looked like a chemical burn. Her two companions were similarly wounded, one of them limping on a hind leg, the other missing an ear. But still they fought. Ten yards to the side, I saw the still forms of two more wolves, and beyond them, a mass of sewage reminiscent of the trash barges I’d seen on the Hudson.

“We’re here to help!” Antoinette shouted. I prayed her speech would remind the wolves who we were, in case battle rage had pushed memories of our (more likely my) face from their minds. The sewage spirit turned, needles pointing my way like eyes.

The limping wolf leapt, tearing into the thing’s back as it charged me.

“Oh,” I said, not thinking the thing would abandon the wolves and attack directly.

Instinctively, I pulled at the Deeps. I caught myself, then snarled, and relented. Holding back had likely gotten Dorothea killed.

If I had to sully my hands to protect these people, to protect the city, then so be it. I would sooner live with the shame than wear the shroud of guilt for their deaths.

The power came readily, as if it had been waiting for me. The electrical chill flowed up my arms and hit my heart like a wave of frigid ice.

One hand went to the pouch for a crystal, any crystal. My fingers found a hematite. That would do nicely. I drew the stone and shifted my stance, channeling the Deeps once more, after more than a year of abstinence.

I unleashed a burst of pure energy, striking the refuse spirit across the face with the force of an out-of-control motorcycle. A gallon of sewage broke off, scattering on the ground, but the construct kept coming.

My stomach churning, I drew more power as the spirit loomed large in my black-on-black view.

“For the books!” said a defiant voice, and Igbe jumped over my shoulder to tackle the sewage spirit, checking it off course. I scrambled back as the red-streaked spirit clawed at the sewage spirit, joining the bloodied pack.

Ever-more-familiar chanting filled my ears as Antoinette began her incantation. I registered “Papa Legba,” and the rest was lost on me.

I paced back, steadying my breath through effort-strained lungs. The lungs and heart took a toll in drawing upon the Deeps as the power seeped into breath and blood to be channeled and released. My mother had the voice of a lifelong chain smoker and the only thing she’d ever smoked was Ayahuasca.

How could I help the pack defeat this creature with the least effort? I was not Esther, who could wield power like a Wall Street banker wielded money. I had to be smarter.

Sewage creature. Pollution. Disinfectant, bleach, fungus. Water. But we were a mile from the water already, and fairly well above sea level. But if there were a stream nearby . . . I searched my memory of the park, flashed to an image of a brook flowing off to the right of the hill we’d taken to get to the pack the first time.

But converting the Deeps into water or drawing upon an aquifer would be even more difficult.

“Push it to the stream!” I shouted, hoping the wolves understood human speech even in their original forms. Igbe at least responded, circling around and pushing the creature, lashing out with claws and bites, putting the thing’s back to the river thirty yards away.

Foot by foot, inch by inch, the wolves and Igbe contained the beast, three keeping their distance while one struck, the others always close enough to respond when the sewage creature lashed out in response to one of their attacks.

It took a minute that felt like an hour, but the pack maneuvered the creature to the edge of the river. I looked over to Antoinette, who was chanting something in French, sweating.

The water close now, I drew the Deeps and forged the power into a ladle, as wide as my wingspan. The power shifted from intangible to a semisolid muck, then crystalized into a beaten-steel texture, close enough for my needs.

I lifted the ladle with another measure of power, grunting, then dumped thirty gallons onto the creature.

Much of the creature washed away with the water, leaving behind a creature a third smaller than it had been when we arrived. I dropped to a knee, gasping for air as my alveoli screamed in protest at the punishment I’d put them through today.

A serpent of water reared up from the steam, leaping into the air and then showering down on the creature, diminishing the sewage-thing by another third.

“Hell yeah!” Antoinette said from behind me, her chanting ceased. I looked up through tear-blurred eyes to see the pack tearing the sewage creature to pieces, refuse flew from claw-swipes, Styrofoam disintegrating, garbage and septic fluid spilled like blood on the muddied grass.

The clearing was ruined, but faster than I could have imagined, the pack and Igbe demolished the creature, and the rest of the mess dropped to the ground, as if below a certain mass it lost its magical viability, the enchantment broken.

I focused on breathing, willing my lungs and pulse to normalize. By the time my heart settled down from feeling like it was going to combust, the pack leader had changed into her human form, wounds carrying over. A stomach-churning burn plastered the jacket and shirt to her body across her left hip and onto her back, and her face was a mass of bruises and cuts.

“I’m sorry we could not be here earlier to help,” Antoinette said from my left. I nodded in agreement, my eyes slipping off to the side to the fallen wolves back toward the deer path.

“Tell that to my brother and sisters,” she spat back, her voice still husky.

Antoinette leaned back into her heels, her frame shrinking in on itself as the wolf-woman puffed out her chest. The alpha shook her head and spat, splattering blood on the ruined park grove floor.

“Like I said, we’re sorry. Especially for your loss. But I need to ask, did she—”

“She got the fucking Heart, since that’s the only thing you care about. Yes. Tore it right out of Nathaniel’s chest, then left her abominations behind while she ran like a coward. Now get the fuck off of my island, you meddling hairless idiots.” She pushed me with both hands. I took the blow without resistance, faltering back several steps. She needed the victory more than I needed my pride.

I looked to Antoinette, stepping back from the pack, not yet ready to turn my back on them, give the remaining wolves any reason to perceive disrespect. Half of their pack, gone in an evening, and along with them, one of the most crucial treasures, something they’d been tasked to protect against all invaders. I’d failed the only person worthy of loyalty, but my empathy could only fall flat, soured by the hollowing pain of loss.

And if they knew what I’d called upon in my too-late efforts to help me, they might decide it was better to have one fewer Greene in the world, even if I wasn’t the one they should truly fear.

With her victory on Staten Island, Esther would have three Hearts. She would be in a position to complete the second circle, activating the ley lines and locking the city off from the rest of the world while the ritual completed. And once the city was so locked, the Hearts would allow her to find their mates in Manhattan and Queens.

When drawn together, the Hearts’ spiritual inertia pulled them toward rejoining. It would not bring the Hearts out of their hiding places, but she would be able to get close enough to search the square blocks by foot, spoiling our limited advantages.

The pack leader barked her words, spittle at her lips. Her whole body spoke aggression, rage, but also mourning. A wounded animal in all ways. “And when you see that bitch, you tell her that the Bloodied Paw is coming for her, and that I will see her body left out for cockroaches. Then I’ll shit on her grave and carve her skull into a bowl!” One of her packmates shouldered into the pack leader’s leg, and the trio turned away, their leader still frenetic, grief exploding out of her in violent bursts.

“That went from bad, to worse, to much better, and right back into worse,” I said as we walked away. I spotted the deer trail and forged ahead to lead us out of the park. Another Heart in Esther’s hands, which meant that she could only be heading one of two places—Manhattan, or back to Queens. And knowing Esther, it was time for us to get back on the F train.

“That . . . that was the Deeps, wasn’t it?” Antoinette asked as we left the park, following her single light.

“It was. I acted on instinct, but this time I didn’t stop myself. With the Deeps, I might have been able to save Dorothea. I apologize for not informing you first that I would do so. . . .”

“You did the best you could,” Antoinette said. She turned for a moment, illuminating my face. I raised a hand to block out part of the light.

“When we run into Esther next time, you give her fucking everything you’ve got, okay?”

“Indeed.”

After a wait for the bus, we arrived near the coast of Staten Island. Our return plans were somewhat interrupted when we discovered that the pier was on fire.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

T
he sound of fire trucks rang into earshot as we arrived at the pier.

There was a ferry in port, wreathed in flames. A handful of workers were on hand, hoses turned on the ferry.

I saw something leap up out of the water, and the picture of what had happened at the pier became very clear. A Vexl tore into one of the transit workers. The beast knocked the man down, slashed his neck with its snaggletoothed incisors, then howled through bloodied teeth.

The Vexl were attack dogs for the Gatekeepers, indefatigable hunters and agents of chaos. They were the coyotes of the Deeps, so to speak. Vexl were built like Irish wolfhounds, assuming the wolfhounds had all-black fur, another fifty pounds of mass, and overstuffed mouths like anglerfish. They could not sing the song of un-making, thankfully.

“Shit,” I said.

“Shit?” Antoinette repeated.

“Those are Vexl. They make Exxeven seem quite docile and manageable by comparison. And they breathe fire.”

I reached into the satchel, taking the time to fetch the most appropriate stones this time. If I were going to be channeling the Deeps, to use the tools of the enemy in earnest, I would not waste a bit of power.

“Can you call spirits to contain them, herd them away from the civilians?” I asked, fumbling by hand and then shoving my entire head into the bag. I pulled out several stones and a bag of sand. Much better. Had I the time later, I would organize the bag properly. Had I even more time, I’d speak with a jeweler and prepare rings like a proper sorcerer.

“It’s worth trying. I don’t know any of the locals, so it might take a while,” Antoinette said. “They’re coming this way!”

Pulling my head out of the bag, I saw a Vexl with its eyes locked onto me, springing into one of its extraordinary leaps. I launched off to the side, producing a ruby. I held the gem out toward the creature, and spoke the Enochian for “fire” and “cage.” The Vexl spat fire in a gout, falling through its own breath, untouched by the flames. But rather than burning me alive, the flame poured into the ruby, its energy absorbed by the gem and my working. I stepped to the side and the Vexl landed next to me. With my other hand, I held out a peridot, slammed the ruby into the other stone, and shouted, “Iekan!,” Enochian for “pain.”

The energy absorbed by the ruby channeled through the peridot, which was resonant with workings against creatures of the Deeps (as it was the gem form of one of the dominant rock types in the creature’s home in the earth’s mantle).

The Vexl yowled and jumped backward, spasming. The creature bit off several inches of its tongue, which hit the ground and sizzled.

“Any answer?” I asked, not taking the risk of looking back at Antoinette while the Vexl yet lived. Especially since I was expecting a second one to show its head at any moment.

Her chanting ceased briefly as she switched back to English. “The locals aren’t chatty. The wolves have them scared of outsiders.”

“Marvelous,” I said as Antoinette dropped back into creole French. I slipped the ruby into a pocket in my coat and retrieved the bag of sand. Inside the bag was a hematite, to ground the earth energy of the sand. I gripped the bag tight, then leaned forward into a flat run, dashing diagonally away from the Vexl and to the ferry.

Heat pounded my face even fifty yards away, and I touched my other hand to the pocket, repeating a mantra to activate the ruby and siphon off most of the heat. It was still like sticking my head into a wood-burning oven, but I made it close enough to the bonfire of the ferry to do what I had to.

I tightened my grip on the bag, squeezing the hematite, then shouted, “Smother,” in Enochian as I tossed the bag up and into the flames. The canvas bag caught and burned away almost instantly, casting the sand into the flames. The hematite glistened in the fire’s light, and the sand multiplied, forming a fountain that gushed up and over the entire ferry. The sand fell, covering every surface. I backed off, and in mere seconds, the flames had greatly diminished. Not entirely, but it would now be possible for the fire services to approach the ferry.

I turned and saw the Vexl dashing at Antoinette. Dammit. I’d been too slow. She was sprinting away from the creature, but it was gaining fast.

There was no time for anything else, so I held out the peridot and screamed “Pain!” once more, drawing power from the ruby. The working knocked the Vexl off its feet, but it got up immediately, as I’d not gotten as much power from the heat as from the blast.

But it was enough time for Antoinette to climb up and onto a steel ladder that led to a service crane.

The Vexl jumped fifteen feet into the air, but Antoinette pulled her legs up and out of range of the beast’s bite. The creature dropped back to the sandy floor, and then Antoinette was out of the way, hanging at the door of the crane, which must have been locked at the end of the day’s work.

From her perch, Antoinette tossed down a blue aventurine to the ground beside the Vexl. The stone sparked, and I felt power move behind me.

“Well done!” I shouted, suspecting what was to come.

A wave crested high and crashed onto the dock, depositing a blue-streaked spirit in the form of a yard-wide crab. The spirit scuttled forward, one torso-sized spectral claw held high. An excellent choice.

“That’s not supposed to be here,” the crab said with a thick accent, sounding like the construction workers I would pass on the way to class. The crab made its way toward the Vexl, but the beast from the Deeps could easily outmaneuver the water spirit.

I jogged toward the spirit, one hand out, open. “Greetings! I offer my aid in destroying the interloper.”

The crab’s eyestalks scanned up, then fixed back on the Vexl, which stalked back and forth at the base of the ladder, watching us, growling.

“Sure. Just don’t get in my way,” the spirit said, trundling its slow way over to the Vexl.

A fire truck had arrived, but they were taking the long way around, seemingly to avoid the creature. A wise enough move, if not as much in keeping with the famous bravery of the New York Fire Department. But their training had not prepared them for Vexl. Or water spirits, for that matter. The creature could have escaped, could have attacked the crowd lingering in the distance.

But the Vexl did none of those things. It was here for us. Esther’s plan for guaranteeing she could strike at another Heart without having to face our full group, no doubt. Some part of me was still in awe of her cunning, but not enough to split my focus.

I stepped to the side, and held the ruby out in front of me in my left hand, ready to absorb the creature’s flame breath. In my other hand, I held the peridot.

The Vexl waited for us, its bloody maw chattering.

“Ya!” I shouted, shaking my hands at the creature. If it attacked, I could use its power against it instead of taxing myself further by going directly to the Deeps.

This was what truly separated me from my sister. She had blood sacrifices to power her magic, could burn through workings at an incredible rate, using lifeblood stolen from innocents and the power of the Deeps. I had only my own power and that which I could steal from my foes.

The Vexl ignored me, bounding at the water spirit. It batted the spirit’s claw to the side and bit down on at the spirit’s shell but came up empty as the spirit scuttled to the side. The spirit brought its claw around to snap at the beast’s flank, but it dodged too. The two circled each other, the spirit wheeling to keep its large claw between it and the Vexl.

The tight, sudden movements made it hard for me to keep a clear line of fire on the beast. I let the water spirit fight for a few moments, gauging how much help I’d need to give it.

When this was all over, I was going to Carter for combat lessons. Anything to not feel so useless without my workings. Taking the borrowed knife into that fight would be tantamount to suicide.

The Vexl clamped down on one of the spirit’s legs, snapping it right off. The creature hopped to the side to strike again, and I took my shot.

I channeled power through the peridot. “Kera!” I shouted in Enochian, using the word for “force.” Light green energy burst from the gem in a laser-thin blast, knocking the Vexl out of the air and into a support for Antoinette’s crane. The creature whimpered but got to its feet quickly, coming back around.

“About time,” the spirit said, snapping at the Vexl as it charged. The beast dodged the snapping of the claw, but then the spirit brought the claw down flat against the beast’s head, knocking it to the ground.

“You haven’t been fighting all day,” I said, frustration choking my throat. I’d rather it be frustration than strain from overexertion, and so that’s what I called it.

“Don’t argue with the spirit!” Antoinette said, rummaging through her jacket for something while also holding on for dear life in the high winds.

The Vexl snapped at the spirit’s legs as the water spirit scuttled away again. The Vexl caught the end of one foot, and bit it straight off. The spirit faltered, and the Vexl pounced.

“Kera!” I shouted again, knocking the creature out of the air, thankful for the skeet shooting training I’d gotten. Not with guns, as I later learned everyone else did, but with blasts of force.

I dropped to my knees after loosing the bolt, my lungs collapsing inward. I spent several moments gasping, the world closing in on me like an ever-tightening box. Looking back up at the Vexl, I saw the water spirit with its claw around the Vexl’s neck, the creature bleeding as it struggled against the spirit, savaging its face with rapid bites. The two beings were locked in a death grip, and in moments, the Vexl dropped to the floor. The spirit grew transparent, losing its form and flowing back to the sea like fog receding after the dawn.

Breath slowly returning to my lungs like a set of half-inflated tires, I wobbled to my feet and stumbled over to Antoinette.

My partner-in-trying-not-to-die had returned to the ground, looking at the still heap of the Vexl.

Once again, I noticed the crowd, gathered fifty yards away.

“We should leave now,” I said. “We can’t afford to explain this to the authorities.”

Antoinette glanced over to the crowd. Several people were approaching, including a pair of firefighters jogging our way.

“Got it. Run?” she asked.

“Run,” I said, taking off away from the group.

“Hey! Stop!” the firefighters said, but we didn’t look back. We were already minutes behind, and we’d be an hour behind by the time we could make our way back to Queens via the Verrazano.

My lungs resumed their protest quickly, and I fell behind after two blocks, my body refusing to keep up the effort. I looked over my shoulder, but saw no firefighters in pursuit. They’d probably decided that it was better to try to save the ferry than chase after probable arsonists.

“Slow down?” I asked in a thin voice. It carried enough that Antoinette slowed.

“You okay?”

“No, but I will survive. To the bridge?”

“Yep. And we’ll have to get a cab or a bus. No pedestrians on the bridge.”

“Gladly,” I said, looking to the street traffic. No yellow in sight.

It only took five minutes to flag down a cab.

Getting back to Queens took much, much longer.