Wicked All Night

by Jeaniene Frost

  Ruaumoko.

  He was here, not Phanes, and he’d decided to take out the council by blowing up the whole damn mountain!

  Chapter 29

  I sent everything I had into extending more of my time-bubble over the mountain. Only suspending everything in a single, frozen moment would hold back the fiery eruption. Vampires could survive a lot, but being blown to bits and immersed in red-hot lava would definitely kill us.

  Agony bashed me from the extended effort, until I felt like I’d explode along with the mountain. I tried to hide that from Ian as I gasped out, “Save the council. Can’t . . . hold this long.”

  Ian cursed in three different languages, but set me down at the base of Mount Lycabettus, away from the immediate eruption danger. Then, he teleported away.

  The ground shook. People started pouring out of their houses shouting, “Earthquake!” I looked around in despair. All the lights that had made up the gorgeous skyline when viewed from Mount Lycabettus now seemed like potential headstones. This was one of the most populous areas in Athens. Even if the residents somehow escaped the exploding rock and deadly lava flow from the eruption, the wide-spreading gasses and ash would still kill thousands.

  I stretched my power to the limit. I had to stop this long enough for the people to evacuate to safety.

  Ian reappeared with Hekima and Sanjay. He dropped them near me and disappeared again. Hekima came closer, freed from immobilization now that she was outside of my time-bubble.

  “Veritas,” she said in concern. “You’re badly burned.”

  I didn’t spare the concentration to reply. I would heal, if we survived this.

  “Are you not speaking because you’re somehow trying to stop this?” she asked in a sharper tone.

  My head jerked in a nod.

  “Sanjay,” Hekima said in that same sharp tone. “We must clear the surrounding buildings of as many people as possible.”

  Ian reappeared again, almost throwing Lucius and Fion, another council member, down. Lucius grabbed on to Ian’s leg before he could teleport away.

  “I demand to know what’s happening!”

  Ian gave Lucius a savage look. “One of those ‘unproven threats’ you were dismissing just detonated a volcano under your arse.”

  Lucius’s eyes bulged. “Impossible!”

  “Not for a god of earthquakes and volcanoes. Now, release me, or I’ll throw you into the volcano’s flaming center like I’m sacrificing a bloomin’ virgin!”

  Lucius let Ian go as if he were suddenly scalding him. Ian disappeared, and Hekima took Lucius and Fion by the arm.

  “Come, help us get the people to safety.”

  They left, Lucius still arguing that this couldn’t be happening. Sweat burst out of my skin as more agony rolled over me. I tasted it on my lip and felt it beneath the remains of my burned clothes as it drenched my body. I hadn’t broken out into a sweat since I was human. I hadn’t known I still could. My time-freezing power had reached its limit; it wasn’t enough. The volcano Ruaumoko had instantly transformed the mountain into was too big and volatile for me to hold back much longer.

  Ian appeared with two more council members, dropping them and vanishing almost instantly. The council members peppered me with questions that I ignored, using all my concentration to hold back the deadly eruption as long as I could.

  Hekima called out, directing them to come down to her. They left, and moments later, Ian dropped off two more council members, and then in mere moments, reappeared with Haldam and Xun Guan. Haldam’s eyes were still smoking from the demon bone sticking out of them. Ian must have decided to finish him once and for all.

  He’d saved the council, but there were over a dozen Law Guardians up there. Ian could probably save them before I lost control, and Hekima and the other council members might be able to get a few hundred people to safety, but that still left tens of thousands in the eruption zone. I couldn’t keep the mountain from detonating long enough for the majority of the people to evacuate. I could already feel my control slipping, but . . . this didn’t have to all be on me, I realized.

  As Ian had repeatedly reminded me, I wasn’t alone anymore.

  I summoned up the additional energy to whisper. “Ian.”

  He knelt by me at once, shoving Xun Guan away.

  “Mencheres and Vlad.” I could barely get their names out from how tightly I’d clenched my jaw against the pain. “Vlad can . . . extinguish lava, while . . . Mencheres holds . . . mountain together.”

  “You’re barking mad,” he snapped. “Even if they both could, I’m not leaving you alone long enough to fetch them. Ruaumoko is clearly here, and Phanes and Morana could be, too.”

  “Have to,” I gritted out. “All those innocent . . . people.”

  Xun Guan pushed herself to her feet. Then, she faced Ian.

  “Go. I will protect her.”

  Ian looked at her as if she’d suggested he lop off his own head. “Think I trust you? You tried to stab her heart out half an hour ago. If I didn’t think she’d hold it against me, I would’ve left you right in that blast zone, and good riddance!”

  Ian was shouting, and still, it was getting harder to hear him. I was folding myself into the power to maintain it, which meant everything else was fading away.

  “I love her, too,” I heard Xun Guan snarl. “And I was not trying to kill her. I was incapacitating her to protect the rest of the council, but I swear on my life that she will survive this, even if I have to fly her away and leave everyone else.”

  “Swear on more than your life.” Even though I could barely hear Ian’s words anymore, the death that stalked his tone was clear. “Swear it also on everything you hold precious because I will destroy all of it if she dies.”

  “If she dies, everything I hold precious is already gone,” I thought I heard Xun Guan say, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Hands gripped my shoulders, and then a mouth pressed against my ear.

  “Listen to me, Veritas.” Ian’s voice, raised and insistent. “Someone threatens you, you rip open the netherworld and hurl them into it. Don’t bother about more veils cracking. We can fix whatever you break later, but you survive now, understand?”

  After that, something soft brushed my cheek that might have been his lips, but I couldn’t be sure. My vision had narrowed to pinpricks, and the white-hot pain made me feel like I was being blasted by those superheated gases again.

  Hurry, Ian. Hurry!

  I repeated that as shudders wracked me. More sweat ran down me, making my clothes feel sodden. The ground shook harder, faster, until its insistent vibrations felt like a heartbeat pounding in my chest. Pain took turns turning my blood to ice one moment and fire the next, making me almost insensible. Even my brain ached as if trying to split through my skull.

  I couldn’t stand this. I had to drop the time-bubble. I had to. It was too much, too much, too much . . .

  Cool fingers dug into my temples and face, finding pressure points and massaging them. Hadn’t Ian left yet? What was he waiting for? Didn’t he know I was at the end of my strength?

  Above the roar in my ears that could have been the mountain breaking apart or my skull shattering from power overload, I caught snatches of words, and realized they came from Xun Guan.

  “. . . can do this, my beloved. Nothing has ever defeated you. Nothing ever will. Hold on a few moments longer, just a few . . .”

  A few moments longer. I ground my jaw tighter, ignoring the continuous taste of blood. Yes, I could do this for a few more moments. The council members might be able to save another dozen more lives in that amount of time . . .

  “What fresh hell is this, Ian?” an annoyed voice said with a noticeable Romanian accent.

  If pain wasn’t ripping me apart, I would’ve smiled. Vlad Dracul, better known by his hated moniker, Dracula, had just arrived.

  “See that mountain?” I heard Ian reply. “A mad god turned it into an erupting volcano. Unless you want to see thousands of people burn,
use your fire-controlling abilities on a real challenge instead of just incinerating anyone who annoys you.”

  “If I did that, you’d be ashes,” Vlad muttered, but then I felt a blast of power that knocked me back against Xun Guan. Before I could recover, I felt a second blast. My hold over the time bubble splintered. The ground heaved like it was vomiting.

  “Keep the mountain together, Mencheres!” Ian roared. “She’s losing her grip on it!”

  Not losing, I thought as agony smashed me apart. Lost.

  Chapter 30

  I opened my eyes. Ian’s face was the first thing I saw. At some point, he’d knelt and gathered me into his arms.

  At once, I looked beyond him. Mount Lycabettus still rose over Athens like a huge stone sentry. Relief almost made me pass out again. No poisonous gases, no deadly pyroclastic flows, no building-smashing tephra, and no molten lava. Just the familiar landmark that had towered above Athens since before the wheel was invented. The only sign that anything ominous had happened were a few new boulders around the base of the mountain and the small, fading plume of ash rising above Lycabettus’s peak.

  “They did it,” I whispered with overwhelming gratitude.

  Ian’s light snort tickled my cheek. “Only after you did.”

  Then Ian leaned back, and Vlad Dracul came into view.

  Vlad’s espresso-colored hair reached the shoulders of his storm-cloud-gray suit, where a charcoal scarf hung with casual elegance around his neck. His jaw was shadowed with one of those growths that was more stubble than beard, and the dark contrast against his pale, creamy skin made his cheekbones look even more chiseled. Vlad could be mistaken for any other handsome man in his mid-thirties, if you ignored how his hands were alight with blue-white flames that somehow didn’t burn his jacket. Vlad’s control over fire was all-encompassing, down to it never even scorching a hair on his head.

  “Veritas.” A faint, sardonic smile curled Vlad’s mouth, and his eyes darkened from glowing emerald back to their normal coppery color. “My compliments on an unusual morning. I’ve never been tasked with extinguishing an erupting volcano before.”

  I smiled, though even that simple gesture felt exhausting. “Next time, I’ll have Ian kidnap you for a nice brunch instead.”

  “Xun Guan is gathering the council. Once they reach us, we should leave,” Mencheres said, moving into my line of view next. His long black hair blew around his shoulders as if from a strong breeze, when in reality, it was from the crackling energy Mencheres still emanated. Vlad’s pyrokinesis might have extinguished the volcano, but Mencheres’s telekinesis had kept the mountain from blowing apart from all that building pressure.

  “Yes, so does anyone have a flask?” Ian asked.

  Vlad gave him censuring a look. “Why would we have portable containers of liquor on us at six in the morning?”

  I let out a tired laugh. “Ian isn’t trying to get drunk. He must want to summon Ashael to help teleport the council.”

  Vlad stiffened. “Ashael the demon?”

  “Ashael my friend,” I corrected him.

  I didn’t trust Vlad enough to tell him about our shared lineage. Ashael was still passing as a full demon among his kind, and demons were even less accepting of mixed races than vampires and ghouls. Still, exhausted or no, I wasn’t going to let the disgust in Vlad’s tone go unchallenged.

  “Eh, someone in one of these houses must have a bottle,” Ian said, then disappeared.

  Vlad turned to Mencheres. “You have no objection to him summoning a demon here?”

  Mencheres opened his mouth to reply. Ian returned before he could get a word out, holding a half-full bottle of ouzo.

  “Don’t,” Vlad said in a warning tone.

  “Sure,” Ian said sarcastically, and then took a drink. “Ashael, we need you!” he said right after he swallowed.

  Ashael seemed to leap from the shadows, wearing only silk pajama bottoms in, of all colors, baby pink.

  “Thought I could sleep now that it was almost dawn,” Ashael muttered, and then stopped short when he saw me. “Veritas,” he said in a conversational tone. “Why are you half barbecued and covered in blood?”

  “She was sweating it while time-freezing a volcano that Ruaumoko detonated beneath us,” Ian replied.

  That had been blood? I glanced down. My burns had healed, but yes, my remaining clothing was charred, and I also looked like I’d rolled around on a slaughterhouse floor.

  “Someone tell Mr. Sparky Hands to put his flames out,” Ashael added without even glancing behind him at Vlad.

  I looked. Yes, Vlad’s hands were alight again.

  “Do you mind?” I asked in the testiest tone I could manage.

  “I do,” Vlad replied coolly. “The last time I saw Ashael, he was trying to convince me to sell my soul to him in exchange for removing a deadly spell on my wife.”

  My eyes widened, but all Ashael did was laugh.

  “I was so close, too!” he said, finally turning to face Vlad. “I would’ve been the toast of my species if I’d negotiated that deal. Ah, well. Maybe next time.”

  Vlad’s expression darkened, and the temperature suddenly spiked around us.

  “Vlad,” Mencheres said in a stern tone. “Do not attack him. Ashael is a new ally of mine.”

  “A demon?” Vlad let out a harsh laugh. “You’re joking.”

  “I’m not,” Mencheres said, his hand on my shoulder silently adding, Let me handle this.

  If I weren’t having trouble sitting up, I would’ve argued. Since I was beyond exhausted, I gave Mencheres a “go for it” wave. Mencheres was Vlad’s honorary sire, so if anyone could control the world’s most bad-tempered vampire, it was him.

  Besides, all my abilities except my soul-ripping one felt depleted, and I wasn’t about to do that, no matter how Vlad’s rudeness annoyed me.

  “You would not disrespect me by attacking an ally of mine without provocation, would you?” Mencheres asked Vlad.

  “No,” Vlad said after a seething silence. Then, he flashed a cold smile at Ashael. “You’ll never get another chance at my soul. My wife discovered what she needed to know after your foolish attempt to drive up the price on your information.”

  Ashael laughed again. “That’s what you believe I did? Aren’t you supposed to be brilliant as well as deadly?”

  “No insults, Ashael,” I said as Vlad’s hands blazed again.

  Ashael rolled his eyes. “Fine, but I liked his wife, so it was no accident that I directed Leila to the one person who had the information she needed.”

  “Change the subject,” Ian said, spotting Xun Guan leading Hekima and the rest of the council up the hill to us. “Ashael, I need your help getting the council to safety . . .”

  Ian stopped talking and slowly turned. I followed his gaze, but I didn’t see more council members. I didn’t see anyone after them except humans milling around outside the entrances of their houses, still wary about entering because they thought the previous shaking had been an earthquake that might not be over . . .

  My arm suddenly stung as if I’d been bitten. I looked down, expecting to see a snake slithering away. No, nothing moved on the ground near me, so what was it . . . ?

  My tattoo rose from my skin, unwinding itself into a three-dimensional set of wrist cuffs attached to a long, steel-colored chain. Mencheres stepped back with a hiss.

  “What is that?”

  A big damn Heads-up! from my father, that’s what. I’d wondered how I would get the cuffs out of the arm tattoo to use them. I should have known the Warden had a solution. He’d also made it a perimeter warning system for Ruaumoko or Morana, judging from the cuffs’ sudden appearance.

  I followed Ian’s gaze again. He hadn’t looked away to see what was happening to me, and he’d been the only one not to.

  There. Not on the ground, but on the roof of one of the taller buildings tightly clustered around this section. A dark-haired man of average height, medium build, and indistinguishable featur
es. I wouldn’t have even noticed him except for his eyes. They were lit with a vivid orange glow.

  That alone would’ve told me who this was. Vampire eyes glowed green, demon eyes glowed red, my father’s eyes glowed silver, as did mine and Ashael’s on occasion . . . but I’d never seen orange before.

  “Ruaumoko,” I whispered.

  “Ashael, get the council out of here now,” Ian said in a low, urgent tone. “With them gone, he won’t try to blow up another mountain. Mencheres?”

  “My powers don’t work on him. I’ve tried,” the former pharaoh said, sounding slightly baffled.

  Mencheres’s powers might not be effective on Ruaumoko, but my handcuffs were supernaturally made for him. I staggered to my feet. Ian’s hand landed on my arm without him once looking away from the ancient god.

  “No. You’re too knackered to fight him right now.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I gritted out, trying to knock Ian’s hand away and failing. “This could be our best chance—”

  Ian’s grip tightened, and the city spun away before I finished the sentence.

  When it stopped, Ian and I were back in Spade and Denise’s house. In their parlor, to be exact. One of Spade’s servants nearly tripped in shock at our sudden appearance, but Ian just dropped me onto the nearest couch and said, “Tell Charles that Veritas is here.”

  “Wait,” I said, trying to grab Ian.

  He twisted away and vanished.

  Chapter 31

  “Dammit, Ian!” I shouted at the space where he’d been.

  Spade came into the room, wearing a long dark blue robe. “Veritas,” he said with a touch of wariness. “Before we get to why you’re here, tell me something that proves this is you.”

  “I’m going to kill Ian for dumping me here when I’m the only one who can stop the deranged escaped god!” I snapped.

  Spade relaxed. “Good enough. Only the real Veritas would be that brassed off at Ian.”