Hand of the God

by Sonya Bateman

  Rex watched him for a few seconds with wide eyes, and then shook himself and scowled. “Using magic is cheating, Unseelie,” he said. “What are you gonna do if it runs out? And besides, we’re just going to leave more tracks when we drive away. I told you we should be going on foot.”

  “I will not ‘run out’ of magic, human,” Taeral shot back. “Just as you apparently will not run out of madness. You and your friend seem to have endless wells of that.”

  “All right, gentlemen. Let’s just finish this so we can get out of here,” I said.

  Rex grunted. “Finish what, exactly? I’m pretty sure you said you were gonna ask the dead people what happened to them. And your brother thinks I’m crazy.”

  “Er. Actually, he can do it,” Chester said. “Talk to dead people, I mean.”

  Rex flashed him a look. “Yeah, right. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  I had a few misgivings myself. Mostly because I had no idea how I was going to get through to almost five hundred panicked souls, if they just kept on screaming the way they were. But I had to try.

  We crossed the arroyo, and I could hear them even stronger on the other side. Now it sounded like a party gone bad in an apartment building, if I was three or four floors away. At least the sound wasn’t physically in my head. Still, I knew no one else could hear them.

  “Maybe we should just go,” Calla said, catching up to me as I stood at the edge of the slightly disturbed, distressingly large patch of ground, where dark, damp stains that had no business being in a desert seeped through the dirt. “I mean … we know they’re dead.” Her voice caught on the last few words. “Do we really have to find out anything more? And we’re too exposed out here, anyway.”

  She was probably right. Still, I couldn’t leave all these people like this. They were dead, but they sure as hell weren’t at peace. There had to be something I could do for them.

  I had no idea what, but I planned to try anyway.

  “I have to do this,” I said as I knelt at what was probably the edge of the pit. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to be fast.”

  Calla folded her arms. “What exactly do you have to do?”

  “I wish I knew,” I muttered, and pressed a hand against the ground.

  The screams flooded me instantly, agonizing and deafening. But it only lasted for a few seconds before I blacked out.

  Chapter 10

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been unconscious, but I didn’t expect to come back to nothing but green fog all around me. This wasn’t the desert. It was the Mists. The roving emerald fog bank, a place you could step into and become lost forever, usually stuck to Arcadia. But not always. I’d been swallowed by it once before — in Louisiana, when I went to help the Duchenes fight a god.

  Kelwyyn, the DeathSpeaker before me, was in here somewhere.

  “Well met, DeathSpeaker,” a familiar voice said from the mist. I couldn’t tell which direction it came from. “What brings you here?”

  Those words were a shock, galvanizing me to my feet. I thought he’d brought me here, like the last time. But he sounded surprised to see me, and I didn’t think that was good news. What if I couldn’t get back out? The Mists swallowed everyone and everything it came into contact with. No one had ever escaped except the DeathSpeaker — namely, me — and even that wasn’t guaranteed.

  He hadn’t been positive, but Kelwyyn thought if I stayed too long in the Mists, I’d become part of them. Like he was.

  Kelwyyn’s figure formed in front of me. A tall Fae without glamour, pale purple skin and pointed ears, with brown hair in a long braid to the waist of his tunic. He was also translucent, like a ghost. I could see the swirls of the Mists through him, dark shifting shadows rippling across his body.

  “I didn’t come here on purpose. I just … passed out. And this is where I woke up,” I finally said. “Am I really here? I mean, I could be —”

  “Dreaming? No, I’m afraid you are truly with me,” Kelwyyn said with a chuckle. “But ‘here’ is relative in the Mists, my young friend.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, and then drew a startled breath as I remembered why Kelwyyn was here. He’d wanted to die, but the Fae were physically unable to kill themselves. So he’d walked into the Mists and become whatever he was here. Not dead … but not exactly alive, either. “Er. Am I dead?”

  Kelwyyn gave a slanted smile. “You do not seem dead. Did you wish to be?”

  “No. Definitely not,” I said. “I was right in the middle of something, and then I was here.”

  “Well, I do hope you were not in the middle of dying.”

  “Yeah, me too.” At least I couldn’t hear the screams anymore. But whatever was happening to me, the rest of my friends were still exposed out in the New Mexico desert with Milus Dei looking for them. For us. “Listen, Kelwyyn, it’s nice to see you and all,” I said. “But I can’t exactly stick around for a chat right now. Any chance you could tell me how to get back to where I was?”

  Kelwyyn’s brow went up. “Perhaps I could, if you tell me how you’ve arrived here in the first place.”

  “I said I don’t know! Damn it, I don’t have time for this,” I spat, starting to pace in front of him. Everything around me was roiling green smoke, just like the last time, but maybe there was a door or a portal or something I hadn’t noticed before. There had to be a way out. “I have to get back. People are hunting us, and my friends are in trouble. You know, like always,” I added bitterly.

  “Gideon.” Kelwyyn spoke firmly and laid a hand on my arm. That was when I noticed that like him, I was semi-transparent. I’d definitely been solid the last time I was dragged into the Mists. And somehow, I understood why.

  Not all of me was here. Just my soul.

  “Tell me what’s happened,” he said. “With context, perhaps we can determine how you have come here.”

  I drew a long, deep breath. “Okay. I think I figured out part of it, anyway,” I said on an exhale. “I’m not really here — at least, my body isn’t. Have I got that right?”

  He cocked his head. “Aye. I hadn’t noticed, but you do seem to be discorporated.”

  “Fantastic. That doesn’t have to mean I’m dead, right? Don’t answer that,” I said quickly. I refused to be dead before I ended Milus Dei. “As for the rest, I’ll try to give you the short version.”

  I told him about the weapon and my decision to go after them first for once before they did something awful, and how they’d done something awful anyway. An entire town dead. The mass burial pit in the desert. “They were all screaming,” I said hoarsely. “I heard them, even before we reached the grave, and I had to do something. But I didn’t know how to help them. I mean, I’ve accidentally worked with a shitload of souls before, with Legba. You remember him, right?”

  Kelwyyn shuddered. “Aye. He still wanders the Mists, upsetting the natural order by refusing to die. I see him on occasion,” he said. “I cannot say I look forward to those instances.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” Legba, false voodoo god and soul-eater, was not a pleasant whatever-he-was. Giant bug, once you took all his souls away. “Anyway, when I dealt with him it was different. They wanted to get out. I just had to start a few off, and the rest left by themselves. But I can’t do whatever I did then. I tried, but these guys just keep screaming.” I closed my eyes briefly. “I reached out anyway, and …”

  “And here you are.” Kelwyyn gave a gentle smile. “Now I see what’s happened. You’ve summoned me for help.”

  “Um. Not on purpose,” I said. “No offense, but I wasn’t exactly thinking about you and I have no idea how to summon you.”

  He nodded. “Of course you don’t. I’d no idea how to summon the DeathSpeaker before me, when I first needed her help,” he said. “But it happened regardless, and I recall being just as confused as you are now.”

  “Well, that’s great.” I decided not to mention all the times before now that I sure as hell could’ve used help from an experienced Death
Speaker, and yet had never managed to accidentally summon Kelwyyn. “If you know how this works, then just tell me how to get back. I can’t stay here.”

  “Do you not wish to know the answer to your question?” he said.

  “I didn’t ask you anything,” I snapped.

  “But you did. You’ve asked how to help all those people.” A look of concern flooded his smooth features. “Perhaps you should take a moment to calm yourself first, Gideon,” he said. “You’ve such anger in you now. Your soul is black with it.”

  “You’re damned right, I’m angry!” My fists clenched hard enough to hurt. “Those bastards just murdered five hundred people, and I couldn’t stop them. I’ve never stopped them. All I do is try to salvage what I can from the destruction they leave behind, and I’m sick of it! I need to —” I broke off suddenly, remembering the first conversation I had with Kelwyyn. The warning he gave me, and the Word powerful enough to destroy a soul. “It’s Dante, isn’t it?” I said. “Dante is the great evil who can destroy all of creation. He’s the one I have to use the Word on.”

  He shuddered. “Aye, that’s the one,” he said softly. “But you’ll not face him yet.”

  “I want to face him,” I ground out. “I want to kill him, and end this.”

  “You will encounter this evil one directly, in time. Sadly, I suspect that time is not long from now. And perhaps you will use the Word to end him — but perhaps you will not,” Kelwyyn said. “You may find another way.”

  “There is no other way!” I shouted, and then forced myself to throttle back before I could try to murder the ghost of Kelwyyn, or whatever he was. “All right. I’m sorry,” I said when I saw the look of dismay on his face. Even I was starting to feel a little shocked at the depths of my anger. That wasn’t like me. “Yes, I’d like to know how to help these people,” I said as calmly as I could. “And then I have to get back.”

  “Very well, then.” He still looked uncertain, reserved, but he took a breath and plunged on. “You must release their souls from their bodies, so that they can move on,” he said. “With so many unnatural deaths, so near to one another, they are caught in the last moments of their lives. Reliving their deaths, the pain and the fear. Over and over again. They are unable to escape.”

  My stomach clenched like a fist. “So, if I wasn’t here to release them …”

  “Their souls would suffer this torment for eternity.” His dark eyes stared at me. “The DeathSpeaker is more than a conduit for the dead, Gideon,” he said. “You can still save them.”

  Maybe I could, but releasing their souls wouldn’t make them any less dead. Or Milus Dei any less evil. Still, I nodded and said, “Tell me how.”

  “There is a spell that can forcibly separate a soul from where it does not belong,” he said. “It is not Fae magic, but yours alone to wield. The magic of the DeathSpeaker. Beyond the words, it will require a great deal of strength, of willpower and compassion — all that you have. It will not be easy, or painless, particularly because of the number of souls involved.” His mouth drew into a grim line. “But first, you must get them to listen.”

  So I listened. And he told me.

  Chapter 11

  I didn’t know exactly what Kelwyyn did, but one second I was in the Mists, and the next I was back in the desert, on the ground with both Calla and Taeral looming over me. “I’m fine,” I said instinctively, sounding anything but. “How long was I out?”

  Calla frowned. “Maybe two or three minutes. We were about to load you in the truck and get the hell out of here.”

  “Not yet. There’s something I have to do first.”

  Taeral held a hand out as I tried to push off the ground, and I let him help me up. “Whatever you have planned, brother, I’m not certain you should follow through,” he said. “You’ve already begun bleeding again.”

  I shook my head and staggered. I could already feel the edges of the screams probing their way back into my head, poised to explode again. “No, I’ve got to. It’s my job.”

  “What job?” Calla said angrily. “Committing suicide? Gideon, you’re barely on your feet. And if it’s about these people, there’s nothing you can do to help —”

  “Yes, I can,” I grated as fury surged through me, just as strong as it had in the Mists. Part of me knew I’d have a lot of explaining to do later, but right now, I had to get through this. Before the screams drove away the words I was desperately hanging onto.

  I closed my eyes to block out the living, and the press of the dead clamped around my mind like a vise. This time it wasn’t just the screaming, though. I felt them dying, caught flashes of images racing across the darkness — black-clad men in gas masks throwing canisters that belched billowing smoke, running and screaming, the occasional harsh bark of guns. People gasping, clutching their throats, writhing and convulsing on the ground.

  Parents desperately trying to shield their children, even as they died.

  It was too much, too fast. Their pain filled me until I couldn’t even remember how to think, much less concentrate enough to speak. But then I heard a distinct voice, separate and above the horrific din of dying.

  First, you must get them to listen.

  My head cleared a little, and I managed to drag a breath down my constricting windpipe. “Eihs’techet,” I called out, forcing as much magic as I could into the spell — enough that I felt the drain on my spark.

  The silence that followed was heavy and expectant. I could still feel them all around me, filled with the terror and agony of their last moments, desperate and confused. But listening.

  “You’re trapped here,” I said, still not daring to open my eyes. I couldn’t afford to get distracted and start this all over again. “But I’m going to set you free. So if you’ll all try to calm down … everything will be okay.”

  My voice caught on the last bit of my hollow reassurance. None of this would be okay, ever. But this was the last thing, the only thing I could do for them. Now I just had to say the spell and really mean it. Like, strenuously mean it.

  “Ah-dab ilah alnuir.”

  I expected to struggle with the words I’d never spoken, but they came easy, the way that the Fae tongue had the first time I’d visited Arcadia. The rest of it wasn’t so easy, though. As the spell left my mouth, I could almost feel every shred of strength and stamina drain out with it, turning my entire body into a quivering mass — like I’d just run the Boston Marathon ten times in a row. My legs gave out and I fell to my knees, drenched in sweat. To top it all off, everything in me ached and throbbed like a rotten tooth. I swore even my fingernails hurt.

  “Holy shit,” someone said outside the pounding in my ears.

  I forced my eyes open and tried to blink through my swimming vision. Streaks of blue light shot upward all around me, and at first I thought I was hallucinating. Then I decided someone had set off a bunch of flares, probably Chester or Rex. I just couldn’t figure out why they’d do that, or why the hell they were blue.

  “Well, brother,” Taeral said softly from somewhere close. “Whatever you’d meant to do, I believe you’ve accomplished it.”

  I finally realized the blue streaks weren’t flares or hallucinations. They were souls, bursting from the ground and headed for the sky, many of them twisting and twining around each other in what almost looked like a dance. I couldn’t hear their voices anymore, but I could feel their relief … and their gratitude.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Rex demanded in rough tones, taking a hasty step back from the group. “What are those things?”

  I let out a shaky breath and struggled to stand. For the moment, I wasn’t sure I could remember how to make words out loud. I’d never been this exhausted in my whole life.

  “I think they’re souls,” Calla said, saving me from attempting to answer. “Aren’t they, Gideon? The souls of all the people they…”

  I managed a nod.

  “They’re coming.” Sadie’s voice cut in with an edge of worry. “Shit, the
y must’ve seen it, too. We have to get out of here.”

  This time I heard the approaching helicopter almost immediately after Sadie finished talking. Sound carried a lot better out here with nothing around for miles — except, of course, for six very visible people and their equally visible black Hummer, standing out like bullseyes on the flat, pale landscape of the desert.

  Calla hooked an arm around me and started dragging me toward the arroyo and the vehicle on the other side. I stumbled along as fast as I could, still breathing hard, and my gaze lifted to the sky as the chopper’s engine grew louder. It was coming fast from the direction of the mountain range, already more defined than a black smudge against cloudless blue.

  “We’ll never get away from that in time,” Chester half-shouted, jogging to catch up with everyone else right behind him. “We gotta hide somewhere. Do you guys have any camouflage spells, maybe teleportation?”

  Taeral huffed loudly. “It is one human machine. I will handle it.”

  “Yeah? What are you gonna do about that, Mister Magic?” Rex shouted, pointing toward the helicopter. As he spoke, an ominous whine filled the air and a smaller dark shape detached from the bird, streaking toward us fast.

  It didn’t take long to make out what it was. A missile.

  “Everybody, get close!” I rasped as loud as I could, pushing Calla back toward the group. “Taeral. Dome shield.”

  He raised an eyebrow, then nodded and lifted a hand. “Cruihnn à dionadth,” he called.

  A translucent bubble formed around us. Seconds later, the missile slammed against the top of the clear dome, driving the shield at least a foot into the ground. I had time to see the sleek nose crumple and shrapnel bursting in all directions, before a booming blue-white explosion splashed the invisible barrier and rippled across it.

  The air inside the dome seemed to explode in pure noise, and shockwaves scattered us like leaves in the wind. I flew back and crashed into the shield wall — and felt it give way as it spilled me to the ground.