I couldn’t count how many tried to overwhelm us, but my field of vision was nothing but demon. Tentacles, claws, fangs, tongues, arms, legs, and a hundred other appendages I had no name for.
We were in an ocean of demons, and it felt like we were about to drown. The sheer press of that many other bodies on top of us, many of which seemed to be trying to drain our energy, was nearly overwhelming. We snapped our jaws and roared our defiance, but the press just kept coming. Pushing us down, down, down, against the hot concrete, under the bright September sun. A wave of dizziness swept us and our legs started to buckle.
But we weren’t having that. Oh no. We were not.
Rise. One voice inside us, and our legs tightened against the strain.
These demons were going to learn what it meant to invade Earth.
Rise. Two voices in unison within us. Legs straightening against the horde, and three heads rising above the press.
Yes, they were going to learn, and MOME was going to learn what it meant to try to subjugate humans. And damn it all, this was going to stop.
Rise! Three voices together, and three heads raised to the sky, roaring in defiance and turning to spread flaming death wherever it was needed.
Our thoughts had largely melded, and I really couldn’t tell who was thinking what, but none of us were objecting to any of the decisions being made. And our legs pushed against the onslaught of demons and our teeth started rending any flesh nearby that wasn’t already in flames. And we drove ourselves forward, cutting a swath of destruction with each step, until the demons were scrambling to get out of our way.
Then our legs carried us towards the largest demon of the lot, which—you guessed it—was the one that looked like Cthulhu and a clam’s gory love child.
THANATOS!!! We roared mentally, along with another physical roar that broke glass somewhere in the neighborhood.
And, apparently, Thanatos understood we were coming for him, because he turned his two creepy proboscis-like eyes towards us, and then dropped the tank he had been about to swallow (and yeah, he was as big as some of the buildings around us now, but that was ok, because we were even bigger) and I guess he decided that we would be an even tastier snack, because the next thing we knew, a giant tentacle was trying to wrap itself around our enormous midsection.
So we sprayed Thanatos with three heads worth of dragon fire.
Which he seemed to think was like bathing in chocolate or some shit, because he basically just rolled around and basked in it—absorbing it through his skin somehow—his hold around our midsection only tightening.
Which was when we decided to see how his tentacles held up against dragon fangs, wolf fangs, and panther fangs.
The answer was: not well.
He may have been used to fighting creatures with sharp fangs at a much smaller size, because, sure, when you grew to the size of a city block, a regular-sized panther wasn’t going to do much but feel like a mosquito bite. But when the panther jaws in question were as large as a semi truck, that shit was going to sever your tentacles, no matter how much dragon fire they could absorb.
Which was when Thanatos’ Cthulhu/clam-ass started to look nervous. He was down three tentacles now, and while he seemed to have plenty more where those came from, he did not have an infinite supply.
Meanwhile, we were not running out of teeth anytime soon.
He released our midsection and tried a new strategy, namely wrapping each of our three necks in tentacles. Admittedly, that would probably have been a good move, but he wasn’t fast enough. Each of our necks and jaws snapped at the tentacles wending their way towards us, severing them each time before they ever managed to grab hold of us. We had taken off another five tentacles before Thanatos started backing away, using his largest remaining tentacles to help move things along, while its creepy clam tongue pushed it back towards the tear in the seam.
And that, of course, was when General Aira finally decided that we were worth reinforcing after all. I could hear the roar of a hundred dragons behind me, followed quickly by the terrified sounds of a few hundred demons freaking the fuck out.
Suddenly, Thanatos wasn’t the only one beating a hasty retreat.
The tear in the seam, orange sky framed by blue, loomed larger than ever, now that we’d gotten quite a bit closer to it, and I/we could finally see that it was outlined by a faint red glow that flared and faded in certain areas. The red glow actually looked like a shredded curtain, if curtains were made out of shimmering red light, instead of fabric. Bits and pieces of it hung from above and below in tatters.
Then we were distracted from the rip in spacetime by watching Thanatos get closer and closer to the tear between the two worlds, along with all the demons who’d been close enough to him to notice his retreat. It didn’t seem like any official retreat had been called, though. A huge host of demons were still plowing their way through the torn seam into our realm, even as half of those that had arrived in the earlier waves were viciously attempting to push their way back through the crowd, most showing little regard for the well-being of their fellow demons who hadn’t made it through the tear yet. I saw more than a few limbs, tentacles, and mandibles go flying in various directions as the two throngs collided.
I was relieved that some of the demons were retreating, but it was becoming increasingly clear that if we couldn’t close this seam, we had no way to ensure that the whole host wouldn’t be back as soon as they’d had a chance to regroup.
With surprising unanimity, we launched ourselves skyward sharply and then dove with singleminded fury for the clam/Cthulhu creature getting ready to slither back into his home realm.
Thanatos apparently hadn’t been expecting that, or else he’d been too focused on pushing his way back through his fellow demons to notice our approach. We snapped down around him with a force that shattered a few car and office windows nearby, and sent many smaller demons tumbling away from us. I don’t think we stepped on any, but I didn’t really check.
Where ya headed, Bunny? we asked, hoping he understood this form of communication. I wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to reply, since clams didn’t exactly have vocal chords, but…
Please! Don’t attack! I wish to negotiate!
Looked like we didn’t have to worry about tentacle sign language after all.
Funny, it looks like you want to run away, not negotiate.
Yes, well, I had hoped to run away, but if you’re going to pin me here and threaten to rip off all of my remaining limbs, I’d rather negotiate.
And, yeah, I could kinda see where he was coming from with that.
Do you surrender? we asked.
Yes! Most emphatically.
Then call an official retreat. Order the rest of the demons back into the hell realm you came from.
Well…I’m not technically in charge of them, you see, I’m more like—
All three of our heads snapped at Thanatos’ proboscis eyes, roaring.
I suggest you exercise your leadership skills, we growled.
Erm…yes. Quite.
Thanatos’ tentacles waved manically for a bit, then he made a series of strange trumpeting noises, and… well, not much changed. At least, not immediately. Some of the nearest demons piling through the seam stopped and tried to turn around, but the ones behind them just plowed into them and pushed them through. However, the roar of dragons increased behind us, and soon it wasn’t just Thanatos’ cries that were egging his fellows on. He made the same weird bugling call again, and that, accompanied by the fiery death being rained down behind us, seemed to seal the deal. The demons who were trying to push their way through to our realm finally noticed that our realm was no longer the free buffet they’d likely been promised, and those who hadn’t already been leaving attempted to disengage with whoever they were fighting and make their retreat. An attempt that was aided by the fact that MOME’s forces were quickly becoming overwhelmed by our newly arrived dragon army.
Is that acceptable? Thanatos ask
ed, still doing his best to shrink back into his shell.
We didn’t release him, but I nodded the dragon head, while the wolf and panther remained within close range of a few of his tentacles.
Now promise that you won’t be returning here.
You cannot cut my people off from Earth! We would starve if we could never venture here.
I’m not saying your people can never come here, if they stick to whatever rules bound them before today. I’m saying, never come here as an army. Never another invasion. I don’t care how wide a hole some asshat tears in your seam. You stay back and enjoy the view without sending in an army.
And what if some “asshat,” as you call them, decides to invade our realm?
If that happens, and it’s an unprovoked attack, you are welcome to defend yourself. You can even call on me for backup.
That response got a few warning rumbles from Sol and Seamus, so I decided to clarify.
And when I say “me,” I mean Vic. I can’t promise that Sol or Seamus will answer your call.
I couldn’t fault them for not wanting to jump into a cordial relationship with Thanatos. I was wary of it too, but I had a feeling that Thanatos—as cunning as I was sure he was capable of being—hadn’t been the mastermind behind this plan. He seemed to have gone out of his way to attack MOME wherever possible, plus he’d eaten Dryer’s soul at the first chance he’d gotten. I didn’t know much about how demon summoning worked, but I had a sneaking suspicion that he’d done what he could to help me today, and while I didn’t particularly like the guy, I didn’t think making an enemy of one of the most powerful demons in the hell realms was a good plan either.
My offer of help made Thanatos cease his constant twitching, for a moment. Then, to my eternal shock, the clam/Cthulhu hybrid beneath us blinked out of existence and was replaced with an imposing winged figure, very much like Az’s, but only male (as far as I could see), and with golden skin and charcoal colored wings. Thick black hair fell in curls around his shoulders, and his eyes shone gold in the sunlight.
“You continue to surprise me, Vic,” the nine-foot-tall winged man declared, flapping his wings until he was hovering more or less at dragon snout level.
I snorted a bit of smoke out of my nostrils, not wanting to incinerate anyone at the moment, and gave the dragon equivalent of a shrug.
Join the club, I projected to this winged Thanatos, hoping he could still understand me. I hardly know what I’m going to do or say, half the time.
“Ha! That may be true, but it is not your choice of words that surprises me. You have had multiple opportunities to destroy that which you did not understand today, and yet, every time, you have chosen… to treat me and my people with respect.”
Um… did you miss the part where we wiped out a few dozen demons? I asked, cursing my own honesty. I mean, if Thanatos had somehow missed that part, I really shouldn’t be the one to point it out to him.
“You did what anyone would do when their home is attacked. But you also offered us more mercy than we deserved, given the circumstances, and you didn’t attempt to kill a small blue rabbit when you had the chance, even once you realized what I was.”
I didn’t really have a response for that. It was true, though I hadn’t done it out of some higher sense of honor, I just… why would I kill someone who wasn’t trying to kill me?
You should have seen how long it took her to get fatally pissed off at Edik.
And, ok, it seemed like Seamus could project our thoughts too in this form. I guess that only made sense.
Thanatos merely chuckled.
“Do you require any assistance in restraining the remaining forces from MOME?” he asked, casually, like he was offering to help clear the dishes after a potluck.
Nah, I think we’ve got this, I replied, before an idea struck me. Unless… unless you know who has been leading the MOME forces since we got rid of Dryer? That would save us a whole lot of time.
Thanatos smirked, nodded, and then shot up into the sky and out of sight.
I HAD JUST enough time to wonder if I’d made a terrible mistake when Thanatos shifted his angle, pinned his wings back to his sides, and dove through the mildly hazy Phoenix sky with alarming speed. He flared his wings just in time to avoid colliding with a flaming set of concrete barriers that appeared to have been turned into some kind of command post, and then fluttered gracefully inside it.
A few moments later, he popped back up with a screaming, flailing, balding man, who I was quite startled to recognize as the short dude who had been aiming a wand at me when I first pushed out the door of MOME at the beginning of this fight.
Which should have been impossible.
Because I had burned that man to ash.
A fact that was quickly explained when Thanatos brought the screaming, flailing man into our hearing range.
“WE HAD A DEAL! THAT WITCH KILLED MY BROTHER! YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME! I’LL DESTROY YOU ALL! I’LL MAKE MORE TECHNETIUM AND TEAR THIS WORLD APART! I—”
I was fairly certain that the man would have kept going for as long as we let him, but Thanatos shifted his grip on him, one of his hands venturing to the man’s neck, performing some technique that caused his eyes to close and his head to loll to one side like a doll.
“This is what’s left of MOME’s security council—at least, of those who were bold enough to join the battle. I believe you’d already met his brother. Where would you like him?”
Again, Thanatos’ tone was polite and casual, as though asking if I’d prefer this pile of dishes rinsed in the sink or placed straight into the dishwasher. And I was at a loss as to how to reply, because… what was I supposed to do with a prisoner of war? I wasn’t part of any governing body. I didn’t think I had permission to admit people into the dragon realms’ prisons, even if Siara was technically my grandmother now, or whatever. Apparently, Sol and Seamus didn’t have any great ideas either, and the silence was just getting awkward when Gwen materialized in midair, arm in arm with Albert.
“Oh good,” she said, smiling. “You figured out the chimera trick.”
Before I could react to that interesting tidbit, Albert spoke.
“Vic, Sol, Seamus, excellent to see you all in such fine form. Thanatos, I am less pleased to find you here, but I am… pleasantly surprised to see you corralling the vermin.”
Nice to see you alive, Al, I projected, eliciting a small smile from Albert before he turned his full attention to Thanatos and the man he was holding.
“I think it would be best if you both came with me,” he said, gesturing back towards the MOME building behind us.
I was honestly a bit surprised that the place was still standing. It was weird to think that so much destruction had been wrought since the start of this battle, but that most of it had missed the nondescript concrete building behind us.
“Vic, Sol, Seamus, you may, ahh…relax, if you feel the need,” Albert said.
“Nice work saving the world,” Gwen added, before she turned away with Albert’s arm still linked in the crook of hers.
Then Thanatos flew off with the prisoner, whose name I hadn’t even caught, and Albert and Gwen (and how could Gwen even fly?) floated off towards the front of the MOME building where Siara (who, last I’d checked, had been stranded on a cliff ledge in hell) was also waiting for them in her human form, along with the green-skinned, large-tusked woman from Unterberg, who I hadn’t seen since we’d first been taken before the council there (who, for all I knew, was now in charge of Unterberg council, since Torrence and Nethia had been... otherwise occupied for a while now).
As our eyes scanned the battlefield, we realized that the fighting had completely stopped. The dragons arriving en masse had cowed even the most dedicated of MOME’s forces, and now the field (or giant parking lot, as the case happened to be) was clearing to show the bodies of the fallen and the injured. Some people/demons were being carried off in various forms of restraint, and others were slinking back through the tear in the seam t
o the hell realm. A few bits of dragon fire smoldered away still, but there was another demon clam, much smaller than Thanatos, but similar in shape, sliding around eating the various flaming bits that littered the parking lot. As it was one of the only demons not retreating, and it seemed single-mindedly interested in dragon fire, I wasn’t planning to argue. It was a harrowing scene, despite the relief I felt at seeing that the fighting was over. So much damage had been done, from the cars and buildings destroyed, to the people lying still all around us, some of whom must have been purely human, though you couldn’t tell now who had been were, mage, or non, from the still forms that littered the ground.
And then, as suddenly as we’d become one, we stood next to each other in our human forms, three separate people, huddled against each other for comfort, reaching for one another with our arms even as our bodies regained their autonomy.
“Let’s never do this again,” Seamus muttered quietly.
“What, become a giant fire-breathing monster?” Sol asked, smiling.
“Nah,” Seamus countered. “That part was badass. I was more talking about the whole war thing.”
I laughed, and then choked on a sob.
“Yeah,” I agreed, my voice cracking. “Let’s skip that part next time.”
THE NEXT FEW days, hell, the next few weeks, were a mess. A serious, life-altering mess for a lot of people.
To start with, I didn’t know where Rhelia and Trevor had gone off to. I also hadn’t seen Torrence lately, and a quick scan of the area around us didn’t help. Az hadn’t shown up since ridding me of a dozen vampires, and I couldn’t see Seamus’ parents, or mine, either.
Sol’s Abuelita showed up to envelope her in a spine-crushing hug, and I decided that was my cue to sidle away, though Seamus gave me a wave that suggested he would stay and look for people.
I didn’t particularly want to follow Albert and Gwen over to where a group of people who’d actually finished high school, not to mention actually understood most of the workings of the magical world, were about to make a bunch of decisions that would affect a huge number of people for a very long time. After all, I’d just fought, and bled, and risked Gwendamned everything, to save the world, and part of me thought I deserved a damned rest, and that those folks didn’t actually need me. They could sort it out, and I could finally go take a nap. That part of me might even have been right, but a more vocal part of me insisted that I should at least make sure they got all the information they needed from me before I let myself relax. I had seen a bunch of shit that no one else had, and it might be relevant to figuring out how we should move forward from here.
Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series Page 64
