Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods (20 page)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

T
he force of the blast lifted me off my feet, slammed me into Antoinette.

We slid all the way back into the stairwell door.

This time, I kept hold of the stones, and raised them into position before pulling myself up. My crude shield in place, I found my footing.

By now, the ruby was flush with power, and I was tired of being thrown around like a rag doll.

I fished in my pocket and plucked out the amethyst, associated with air.

“Choke!” I shouted in Enochian, and slammed the ruby into the amethyst, channeling the absorbed energy through to the other stone and shaping a dome of solidified air around the elementals. I clenched my other fist, collapsing the dome down and in on the elementals.

Deprived of air as fuel, the spirits sputtered, flames flickering and eventually giving out entirely. I left the dome intact for several seconds after the flames had died out, then released the effect, exhaling.

I turned to Antoinette, who smiled. “Nice.”

The agate continued to point through the conflagration, but we decided it was better to try to work around, heading up a floor, across the building, yelling for people to evacuate as we went, and then descending back to the same floor, where the agate pointed us into the fiery hall.

“It was worth a try, I guess,” Antoinette said, her voice muted by the gas mask.

I wiped soot from the plastic surface of my own mask, then held the ruby tight, saying, “I’ll head in myself. Only follow if I call for help.”

“I can handle the ruby enchantment, Jake. You don’t need to take everything on your shoulders all the time.”

“It usually ends up there, regardless, but by all means,” I said, turning and walking into the flame, the ruby burning as it drew in incredible amounts of energy. The enchantment would fade within minutes, and with that, I’d no longer be able to draw off such levels of heat just through concentration. We needed to find our companions, and soon. There was also the possibility of the building collapsing on us, given the conflagration.

In summary: Not my best day ever.

I stepped into the fire, the ruby burning again. It wouldn’t actually cause tissue damage while the enchantment lasted. Hopefully.

The agate turned and pointed at one of the doors. I pushed on it with my elbow, and the door refused to give.

“Carter!” I shouted, the crackling fire and alarm drowning out my voice. I pounded on the door with my elbow and yelled again.

I was leaning into an elbow strike when the door opened and I stumbled face-first into Sveta, nearly bowling her over.

Sveta closed the door and pushed me up against it with puissant ease, and as I hit, I realized that this apartment wasn’t burning.

At all. The air-conditioning was even on. Over Sveta’s shoulder, I saw Carter sitting on a couch, his arm in a sling. Across from him were several more South Asian men and women, all loaded down for war.

“What?” I said, unable to be much more articulate.

“Magic, kid. Where’s Antoinette?” Sveta asked.

“She’s in the hall. What’s going on?”

“We’re hiding out from that crazy bitch, that’s what we’re doing.”

“Why not head out the window?”

“I don’t have climbing gear here is why,” Sveta said. “Plus, this time, we’re taking the fight to her. We just need some more time. Get Antoinette in here.”

“What about the fire?” I asked.

Sveta rolled her eyes and stepped past me. “Fine. Take a seat.” Wisps of hair crawled up as if charged by static electricity, then her whole head of hair started moving like a flickering flame.

Sveta opened the door and stepped out into the fire.

“What?” I said, realizing I’d become something of a broken record.

“Greater Raksha. Fireproof,” Carter said.

“Of course!” I said in a full voice, talking over the incessant fire alarm.

I went to take a seat by Carter, nodding to my roommate. He returned the gesture, then I remembered myself and stood again, offering my hand to the weapon-sharpening, rifle-reloading others.

Carter made introductions. “This is Husna, Rahim, and Usman.” The three nodded in turn as they were named. Husna was a small, round woman with an assault rifle; Rahim was of middle height, had a prominent nose, and was polishing a silver-handled talwar. Usman had a metal shield not unlike Carter’s, and a spear laid across her lap.

“What was Sveta talking about in terms of waiting?” I asked, looking between Carter and the armed trio.

Husna stood and pointed behind her. On a shelf was a candle set atop an altar, flame sticking out of a melted mass of red wax. Judging by the width of the wax, it seemed that the flame had been burning for quite a while.

“And that is?” I asked, not familiar with the effect.

Antoinette and Sveta walked back into the apartment. Smoke should have rolled in, but it hung flat against the plane of the apartment, as if it were contained by a glass wall.

Husna continued. “The candle is devoted to Shiva. When it burns out, the prayer will be complete, and Esther will be cut off from a portion of her power.”

“And then we kick her ass,” Carter said.

“How much longer are you expecting before the prayer is complete?” I asked.

Sveta said, “It will be done when it’s done. We don’t rush these things. Divine intervention is not something that can be expedited or rushed to fit a human schedule.”

I shifted in my seat. “Does anyone know where Esther is, then? I cannot say that I’m comfortable hiding out in a building engulfed in flames for an indeterminate amount of time. I haven’t enough rubies or strength to protect us all from the flame.”

“I’m covered,” Sveta said.

Usman nodded. “Me too.”

“Are you all Raksha?” I asked.

Husna shook her head. “Not I.”

Rahim spoke up, “My grandmother is a Deva.”

“Are there that many of you in Queens?”

“This is all of us. Except for Sariya,” Sveta said.

I turned to Sveta, about to ask a question.

“The Bearer,” she said.

“The woman from your apartment?” I ventured.

She nodded.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

My ears popped, and I leaned to the left to see the candle had died out.

I pointed at the candle.

Sveta’s face stretched into a wicked smile.

“Let’s go.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

W
hen all assembled, our group was the size of a hallway, two-by-two ranks going three deep and more. Rahim and Sveta went first, Antoinette and myself second, and the rest behind.

“How are we going to find Esther?” I asked as we moved through the next floor.

“She’s been burning her way through the building. My people here have been keeping tabs on her. The apartment we used is warded so she’d just gloss over it, think she’d already checked there. And she hasn’t left, which means she’s still searching.”

With our group seven strong, we dispatched several more fire elementals and refuse spirits.

Two floors up, we found her in a common area. The decorations on the wall told me that it was likely used for holiday parties, maybe local outreach events from civic organizations.

But right now, it was where Esther had brought her sacrifices. Bodies lay in several pieces, blood painting over the murals, viscera instead of ornaments.

Rahim and Usman lost their gorge, emptying their stomachs on the floor, but the rest of us charged on.

Five on one, surely that would be enough. Especially if Sveta’s prayer had been answered.

Rahim charged Esther, and with impossible reflexes, she caught the spear in her hands, then shattered the wood in her grip. Rahim fell forward as Esther turned the spear point back on him, embedding the folded steel in his neck.

She stepped aside and he fell dead to the floor. With him, my confidence imploded.

The sacrifices, the blood, it had all been a prelude, a way to make herself ready. She’d drawn us out, and she’d be able to sweep us all away in one night.

Unless I turned the tables. I held out the ruby and the peridot, squeezing them together in my left hand. Drawing out the energy accumulated from fire and heat, I cursed my sister in Enochian, an epithet unsuitable for translation into English or any decent language.

Esther met the blast with one outstretched hand, her expression flat. But the burst overpowered her defense, and she stumbled back, her hand singed. Her eyes widened, and her nostrils flared, and she screamed in a guttural voice, her Enochian unintelligible even to me. But it was enough for the working, which she tossed at Sveta as a coruscating purple net.

Sveta reacted without pause, raising her sword to cut through the net. She dove forward, trying to fit through the hole she’d cleaved. The net collapsed onto her, so she came up with sickly burns across her back and leg, stumbling instead of rising to her feet.

I lashed out with another blast, drawing the Deeps this time, the ruby’s charge depleted. Esther waved the blast off like brushing off a gadfly, then turned to face Sveta.

Antoinette spoke in hurried French, and Carter shouldered by me, sword in his off hand.

“Everyone back!” said Usman over my shoulder, and I leaned against the wall. She stepped forward and raised the rifle to her shoulder, spraying on full automatic.

The sound in the contained hallway was deafening, the gun’s report echoing off every surface and assaulting my eardrums.

I turned to watch as Esther flattened, then waved like a reed in the wind, becoming some impossible cartoon through a working I’d never even read of. The bullets whizzed by her with no effect, hammering into the far wall.

The gun clicked empty, and Esther laughed, mouth moving like a paper-cut doll, her form still flat.

“Surprised, dear brother? Did you think you’d learned everything Mother and Father had to teach? That we’d give such power to the white sheep of the family?” Esther popped back into her normal shape, then reached out as Usman reloaded and snapped. The gun broke in two, shattering in Usman’s hands.

“I have seen wonders that would make these mortals’ eyes turn inside out, brother.” Carter lunged forward, stabbing at my sister. She slapped the side of his sword, knocking the blow off course. Then she reached out and stabbed at his wounded arm. Carter dodged by rolling forward and past her.

“Such wonders,” Esther said. “Give me the Heart, and this power can be yours too. We want you back, Jake. You can finally earn your place.”

Carter came back around with a cut to Esther’s head, and she flickered again, dodging the blade.

Esther reached out and sliced into Carter’s bandaged arm.

My roommate dropped to the floor, crying out in pain. She spun the dagger in her hand, and moved to strike him again.

Sveta parried the blade aside, then dove at Esther, moving with inhuman grace as she cut, thrust, and tore at my sister. Esther matched the other woman’s speed, moving with languid rapidity, blinking between frozen moments in time.

Sveta’s blade caught Esther once across the hand when my sister failed to bat the blade aside, then cut her again at the waist when she failed to dodge quite enough.

After the second cut, Esther jumped back onto her other foot and snarled at Sveta, her tongue twitching like that of a snake.

No. That wasn’t her tongue. The tongue unfolded once, twice, three times, growing and expanding, pseudopods shooting out and becoming limbs, until the creature became a bright pink homunculus a foot tall, with serrated teeth and eyes of onyx blackness. The homunculus jumped at Sveta, biting for her ankles and knee.

From the other end of the hall, we heard a bullhorn. At first I thought it another refuse elemental, but the bullhorn carried words, not just an empty honk.

“NYPD! Put your weapons down and put your hands on your heads!”

A unit of gas mask–wearing police had braved the fire and assembled at the far end of the hall, weapons leveled at our melee.

All I could think was
More gristle for the slaughter.
It was my father’s voice, callous, disconnected. I shut it away and focused.

Sveta speared the homunculus with her sword, then turned and pinned the creature to the wall. She released the sword and stepped back, her hands up over her head.

“Of course, officers. Just one moment.” Esther turned slowly, one hand waving in the air with a subtle working, too small a motion to be noticed by any who didn’t know what to look for.

Even with her back turned to me, I could tell Esther was smiling just by the way her hips shifted and her weight settled into her left leg.

Several of the officers shifted, their shoulders closing up and in toward their faces. One turned and removed his mask, retching.

Esther pulled both hands into fists. Hands of Deeps energy made manifest reached out of the floor and engulfed two of the five officers. The remaining three fired, the guns’ reports roaring over their colleagues’ screams.

I dropped to the floor, keeping my eyes forward. Esther went two-dimensional once more, flowing and waving in the air. Behind me, bullets tore through flesh. The ground shook as multiple bodies hit the floor.

Unable to resist, I turned my head back to see. Antoinette was on the ground, her arm bloody. Usman was also hit, but alert, weapons in hand.

Looking back to the police, I saw Esther waft forward like paper in the wind, headed for the police. The officers left standing opened fire again, but Esther twisted and fluttered in the air, avoiding all of the bullets. I scooted back to Antoinette, who was being treated by a calm Usman, her hands moving quickly, ripping a section off her own shirt to form a tourniquet.

“We need to run before she’s done with them,” I said in a stage whisper, unsure how Esther’s flattened ears could hear.

“No,” snapped Sveta from down the hall. “This ends, now.”

“Did you see what she did? How are we supposed to even slow her down?” I asked. “What happened to ‘diminish her powers’?”

Sveta snarled. “It will work. We have to be faithful.”

“Forget faithful, we have to survive,” Usman said. “Let’s go.”

“It’s time. To run,” Carter said, clutching his wounded arm into his chest, lying on his side.

Looking over the group once more, I saw Esther tearing through the police, a carnivorous smile on her face. Police continued to fire, making a mess of the hall, the bullets sawing through wood and plaster.

“We don’t have long,” I said, and moved to force Sveta to leave with us.

I got a foot from her arms and Sveta said, “Don’t you fucking touch me. I’ll go.” Sveta stood, and I reached out to stop her.

As I called “No!” a lance of blackness shot out across the hall. Sveta raised her sword to block, but the lance sheared straight through her sword and then punched a hole in her chest.

Staying whole, the lance twisted into a tentacle, wrapping around Sveta’s chest and arms. The guardian’s body slumped to the floor, held upright by the tentacle, which retracted slowly. Sveta struggled with the tentacle, screaming, trying to pull something free. I saw the chain that held the casing for the ochre Heart of Queens shimmer against the lights in the hallway.

Tearing the wound open even further, Sveta struggled against her bonds, pulling the chain free.

I stood, drawing upon the Deeps to lash out again, stop Esther at all costs. Someone bound my arms behind me and dragged me back.

“We have. To run,” Carter said, his voice cold. I saw Sveta slump, likely passed out from shock. The chain dropped to the floor, the world slowing to a molasses drip as I reached out to pull the Heart to me, desperate to salvage this disastrous engagement.

The chain bounced, tugged toward me a few inches. Then the suction-cupped end of the tentacle snatched the chain up and whipped it back to Esther. Carter dragged me around the corner.

Sveta called out once more before the sounds were engulfed by another explosion, just one more painful memory of my failures added to the pile.