Soul Hook (Devany Miller Book 5) (Devany Miller Series)

by Jen Ponce

  At odd intervals, he would drag his fingernails over his flesh, tearing his skin into bloody rips. The baozaball, still at work, though not incapacitating as we’d hoped.

  I tugged at the chain, tried pulling it from the wall, and attempted a hook. Nothing worked of course. I even dropped down into my control room to wake my Wydling self, but whatever Gaius had done to me had blocked my magic. It was an awful feeling being able to see it but not access it, knowing it was there but unable to do anything but sit and watch the crazy guy combust.

  ‘Ty? Can you hear me?’ No answer. I’d hoped he’d be close enough I could at least talk to him, but though I tried several times I could not connect. I grasped the blue line that was still intact and pulled on that. Energy hummed through it. I felt … something, a presence, an awareness, but Ty didn’t appear, and I let go with a frustrated growl.

  “He’s a little busy,” Gaius said. “I’m sure he’d be here if he could, but you know how fathers these days are. All work and no play.”

  He didn’t even make sense and I worried my last hours would be filled with this lunatic’s nonsense.

  The clink of glass on glass caught my attention. Gaius was mixing something in a mug that said, “Originators give good magic.” He tapped the slender glass pipe on the side of the cup and set it aside, then crossed the lab to me. I only just kept myself from shrinking away from him. “Here.”

  I didn’t bother saying no. If he thought I would drink anything he gave me, he truly was mad.

  “It’s hot chocolate,” he wheedled, holding out the cup with what was clearly not chocolate inside.

  “It’s fucking green,” I finally snapped when he didn’t move, didn’t try to force the drink on me.

  He sighed and tipped back his head, letting whatever gunk it was slide down his throat. He made a big show of smacking his lips. “So good. I can’t believe you didn’t even try it.” He twitched, let out a low moan of pain, then focused on me once more.

  “I can’t believe you’re so stupid,” I returned, then clamped my lips shut. I wasn’t going to talk to him or dignify anything he said with either my attention or words. I ignored him when he brought another cup and pushed it away from me when he left it sitting near my legs. It was almost as if he didn’t remember snapping my neck.

  I sure as hell did.

  I stopped myself from asking about Ty three or four times, then managed to quell my curiosity about what he was planning for me. I hoped to hell he wasn’t going to keep me here for the entire pregnancy. I would be mad after eight months of being chained to a wall. Finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, when minutes had gone by that felt like months, I said, “Let me go.”

  He tsked, his eyes steady and clear when he turned. “It’s almost time. Then you are free to go.”

  Free to go. Right. I trusted that as much as I trusted his green ‘hot chocolate’. “Time for what?”

  He brushed half the bottles off the table. They shattered on the floor, tossing up liquid and shards of glass all around the room. I threw up an arm to block my face, and when I lowered it, I saw I had several holes in my shirt from the goop he’d spattered around. “Time for my ascension! Why do you think I brought you here? Duh!”

  Dear god. I grasped the blue line again and pulled with all the strength I had. This time it quivered, and a warmth traveled up my arms and down to my toes. Ty didn’t show, but that warmth meant something, right? It meant he wasn’t dead, right?

  “Quit trying to bring him here. He’s busy.” Gaius flicked his fingers and the mess disappeared as quickly as it had been made. “He’s playing ‘Find the Fingers’ in my dungeon. Dungeons are the best, aren’t they?” He spread his arms wide as if framing a marquee. “Dungeon of doom! And your Tytan is its star player. Be a good little mommy and you won’t have to see what I mean.”

  I flipped him off which only made him frown at me, puzzled, as if he couldn’t understand why I would be upset with him. I didn’t even want to know what playing “Find the Fingers” meant, but surely he wouldn’t do anything to harm me now? I was carrying his godhood, after all. “What could you possibly want with more power? You already are a god compared to humans.”

  “I’m the same,” he said, his face contorted. “Same as Baow, same as Ravana.” He looked me over with a sneer. “Same as you. I deserve more, I deserve better. I am better. Do you understand?”

  Not in the least. I’d never understood the mentality of “More, more, more!”

  “I will rule over you all and those who gainsay me will perish. I will be in control of all things. You. Your pretty little children. That spider who weaves the world. All.”

  “You’re going to get awfully tired of playing god. ‘Dear Gaius, I really want my football team to win.’ ‘Oh Gaius, please help my son pass his nukes test.’ ‘Gaius, lord of all, I wish my boobs were bigger or my penis bigger or—’”

  He screamed at me. Inarticulate rage. His face contorted and I saw my death on it. I cringed back against the wall, yanking on magic that wasn’t there. He’d blocked it but … something else came to my call, something purer, smaller, larger all at once. It blew Gaius backward, tossing him through his tables, his experiments, and the far wall.

  What the hell was that?

  Through the hole Gaius’s body created I saw Tytan tied to a bed and missing his fingers, connected to some sort of contraption that was making him scream. The same magic that blew Gaius away, melted the collar around my neck and I rose, free. “Ty!” I dashed over broken equipment, dodging glass and sizzling chemicals, my foot hitting a slick spot that sent me sprawling.

  Gaius’s fingers tangled in my hair. He yanked me up and I screamed in pain, clapping my hands over his to keep him from pulling my hair out. “Why do you vex me so? How did you pull magic? It shouldn’t be possible.” He forced me to the ground, his weight pressing me into broken glass and pieces of metal tables. I cried out in pain, but he didn’t care. His hand snaked to my belly. I bucked at him, but he tightened his fingers in my hair until I shrieked. “It’s happening now! I should have had weeks more. Bastard child. No matter. We can do it now.”

  Magic, foul and dire, filled the air. It gathered around us, kicking up a horrible stench, making me gag with the smell. “No! Stop it. You aren’t going to—I won’t let you do this!”

  He didn’t stop and didn’t listen to me. I tried to conjure magic, but it didn’t come to my command as it had earlier. Gaius’s filthy, grasping fingers poked and prodded at my belly and then they were burning on my skin. I screamed, screamed again, and Ty yelled, “Drop into your control room. Do it now!”

  Drop into my … I couldn’t even think, let alone concentrate, but I tried, dropping down into that place of magic inside me. Gaius was digging into me, how would this help? I couldn’t even put up a bubble to protect myself. I spun in a circle, searching for something, anything that could help me. A door I’d not seen before opened a crack and energy roared forth. It blew me backward, boiled my skin, peeled me apart, ripped skin from bone. Had I been real inside my control room, I would have been dead. As it was, it felt as though my head were exploding.

  He had found his way through to the Source. Through my child.

  “Yes,” I heard him, his voice a million miles away. “When a child gets his soul, a doorway opens, however small, to let in the Source. In this case, the doorway is a highway, massive, huge, big enough for me to walk through.”

  I screamed again as he forced his way inside me, through me, fitting himself through my child’s doorway, ripping me apart to get to the Source he so desired. I couldn’t stop him, I didn’t know how … and so I grabbed onto him as he slithered and snaked his way inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Peace. Overwhelming power. I wasn’t sure how those two things could exist together but here they did—wherever here, was. I floated in a big ball of white. It was both infinitely cacophonous and silent. Up and down. In and out. All time and no time. Everything and nothing.
/>
  “Hello, Devany.”

  I wasn’t surprised to hear his voice. “Tom.” I couldn’t see him, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t see me, either, when I looked down at the place where my body should have been. “How are you?” Silly question, but we fell back on what we knew when faced with the unknown.

  “Why are you here? It’s not your time.”

  Gaius, his hatred and madness, didn’t seem important anymore, not here. “I came to stop a crazy man from becoming a god.”

  Tom’s laughter was kind and it filled me with warmth. “What can he do here? Now?”

  “He said he would take the power and use it to control everything.” I waited for the fear to envelope me at the idea of Gaius in control of us all, but nothing came. The light around me was brilliant. If I had eyes, it would have blinded me. “What happened to my eyes? To my … everything?”

  “This is home to all the souls in the universe and beyond. There’s no room for fleshly burdens.”

  That didn’t sound like Tom at all. Had I only heard his voice because I’d expected it? Now that I was thinking differently, the voice changed.

  “Why did you come, Devany Miller?”

  “I didn’t know how else to save the world.”

  The voice was patient, kind. “Why did you come, Devany Miller?”

  “I just told you.” The silence was thick, heavy. It wrapped around me, or the idea of me, and made me want to cry out. “I came because I didn’t want him to kill my baby.” Once out, the words made me realize how hard I’d been pushing away the idea of this child. How I’d been pretending that it wasn’t mine because I hadn’t participated in the making of it. I wanted to deny its existence because it meant acknowledging what had happened between Tytan and my clone, and how painful that was to think about.

  “It was noble of you to try to stop Gaius from becoming a god. Foolish, but noble.”

  I saw him. Gaius. He was spread-eagled and roaring. He looked ecstatic, like he’d just won the lottery and been juiced up like the Hulk. “He’s going to win?”

  “There are winners and losers here. The dead and the alive. If we ask you what it is you wish, what would you tell us?”

  What I would wish? My knee jerk answer was to answer that Gaius needed to die. But this felt bigger, like my answer needed to encompass the world, the universe. I had no idea what I could say that could help the most people. Maybe I could wish for unlimited wishes. Maybe I’d say the wrong thing and curse myself and everyone I cared about.

  “Would you ask for his death?”

  I stared at the man who had caused so much sorrow and fear. I wanted to say yes, but that felt wrong in this place full of souls. “No.”

  A hum filled me. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or bad.

  “Would you ask for power for yourself?”

  “No.” That was easy. “I already have too much.”

  “Mmm. Would you ask us to take that power away from you so you can lead a normal life?”

  I’d thought about this during those moments of darkness and uncertainty that every person goes through sometime in their lives. Always in the middle of the night, always when I was the most scared and alone. Could I live without the power I now had? At one time I would have said yes. Now I’d seen the things that went bump in the night. If I no longer had my power, I couldn’t protect my kids from whatever might come for them. It was terrifying to think that I might have to watch them die or watch someone else defend them. “No.”

  The hum deepened, thickened. “Anyone who comes here can ask of us one thing. He has already asked.”

  Gaius grew before my eyes. Not just his body but his power. Could he gobble up the Source, eat it all? What would happen then?

  “So I can ask for something too? I ask that you not make him a god.”

  “We cannot undo what has been wrought.”

  “Then, can you take away his power? He can be a god all he wants, just one without power.”

  “Are you willing to give that up for yourself as well?”

  Had they read my mind? Did they want to torture me? Could I give up everything I’d gained and go back to the human I thought I was, once upon a time? The woman who had a nice home, a husband who was cheating on her, great kids, a hard, but rewarding job. Of course, those things were gone now. Everything but Liam and Bethy, of course.

  What would Krosh think if I came back ordinary? What would Ty think? Could I live with the fact that my kids had magic when I didn’t?

  If it kept them alive? If it kept the ones I loved alive?

  Hell yeah. “Yes. I’d give up my power to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone.”

  Cold went through me, then hot. I had the impression I was being evaluated or scanned. Energy ran through the body I didn’t have. My mind buzzed. An itching sensation took up residence at the back of my brain and wouldn’t be assuaged.

  Oh god. How would I live without my power?

  Gaius screamed and this time it wasn’t a triumphant sound. He shrank before my eyes, the projection of his body, anyway. He cursed at me and howled and tried to get to me through the Source but of course he couldn’t. He was as ethereal as I was, and no amount of struggling would get him over to me.

  “It is truly what you wish to sacrifice?”

  “Of course it is. I refuse to let him hurt anyone else ever again.”

  Another whoosh of power through me. “It is done.”

  I woke still sprawled on the floor littered with debris, glass and metal still poking into my back. The Originator was gone, the room empty. I eased myself upright, unsure what to expect. Would the loss of my power be noticeable in what I did, how I moved, how I felt? Standing felt the same as it always did. I was afraid to try to hook—I didn’t want to know what it was like not being able to do it, not yet.

  “Tytan?” I picked my way through the debris to the next room. He was there, strapped to the bed, missing fingers, missing chunks of his flesh. I wished I’d asked the Source to hurt Gaius as well as take his powers. “Ty? Hey.”

  He jerked when I touched him, then opened his eyes a crack. He cursed. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Plenty. I didn’t answer, instead working on the bindings that kept him still. When both his hands and feet were free, I sat next to him and took one of his savaged hands. “I’m so sorry he did this to you.”

  “They’ll grow back,” he said, “in time. What did he do to you?”

  “Nothing.” At his look, I said, “Really. This wasn’t him.” I shut my eyes and dropped down into my control room. A control room was no longer a control room but a nest. My Wydling animal self was still there—I could work magic, I guessed, as any witch or Wydling could. But my Skriven power? The Originator power? “Shit.”

  “Devany.”

  He wanted to shake me—I could see it.

  “I traded my power to strip him of his. He’d already made his wish, Ty. He would have been a god. But they granted me one as well and I took all his power away. He’s a god without access to magic, which means he will no longer be able to hurt anyone ever again.” I was tired, down in my bones. Withdrawal, maybe? “Isn’t that what counts?”

  He shook his head, anger all over his face. “What about your Skriven?”

  “They’re yours now.”

  “No. Damn it. I don’t want them. They don’t want me. They’re yours. You made them more than just fucking Skriven and now you’re walking away?” When he got up he stumbled, but he shook off my helping arm. “You are a foolish woman. How the hell do you think you can protect anyone this way?”

  I wanted to defend myself, but he was too upset to be reasoned with. He hadn’t seen what I had inside the Source, hadn’t understood the terrible power Gaius would have had. He would have been unstoppable, and I wouldn’t have been able to protect my family with all the power of the universe behind me. This way, they were safe. It wasn’t ideal, but what else could I have done? “Gaius cannot hurt anyone ever again. No godhood. N
o world-destroying maniac. Surely that’s worth my power.”

  He yanked his arm out of my grasp and formed a hook. I started forward but he shook his head. “You can’t even leave the Slip without my help. You can’t do anything without it. I don’t understand—”

  “Ty, I had nothing else to bargain with except my power and this baby’s life. I had to give up something.”

  “You should have given me!”

  The hurt in his voice was palpable. I touched him again and this time he let me. “I would never sacrifice your life that way. You know that. And this way everyone I care about gets to live. That includes you.”

  His shoulders slumped and the hook collapsed on itself.

  I wrapped my arms around him. “It will be okay. You hear me? This doesn’t end anything except Gaius’s insanity. We’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Got it?”

  He snorted, then hugged me back, gingerly.

  He hooked us to the caves and promised me he would get Vasili’s help with regrowing his fingers. I made my way down into the village where everyone was still gathered. “Devany!” someone shouted, and soon I was surrounded by my people. My people. More hugs than I could count, a few cheek kisses, and then I was wrapped up in the arms of my children and Krosh.

  He knew there was something different about me—I saw it on his face. “What happened?”

  “Gaius is gone.” Would Krosh be upset that I was no longer an Originator? He’d always been turned on by my power. “The Source made him a god and then took it all away.”

  His eyebrows rose. “And you gave your power in return for stripping him of his.”

  “Yes. I don’t know what to think about that yet.” It scared me. I wanted to mourn the loss but at the same time, I didn’t want to admit, even to myself, that I missed it. I hadn’t even lost it for more than an hour and I felt like I had lost a huge part of who I was. What kind of person did that make me that I missed such power?