“Do you know how rare I am, Natalia? Only one percent of the population are mages. Magic as an innate talent is dying as we mingle with the human populous. So hard to track all of our bloodlines down these days.” Ewan shook his head once in disappointment. “And only one percent of the population are psychopaths. Psychopathy and magic? I’m one percent of one percent.”
I tightened my grip on my Beretta, nausea churning in the pit of my stomach. I could see the picture he was painting, and it was grim. A small, cowardly part of me wanted to shove my fingers in my ears. I didn’t want to hear this. Whatever he said next was going to shatter the vision of the past I thought I’d known. I’d never been proud of what the Five had done on the Trust’s orders. It had stretched my morals to the breaking point, forcing me to bend over backward trying to justify it all to myself. In the end, I hadn’t been able to live with it and chosen work as an assassin for hire. At least Landon and his people were honest about what they were.
“You can’t be. I’ve seen you with your mom and sister, Ewan. You took us to barbeques, for Christ’s sake. Psychopaths can’t feel empathy.”
Ewan grinned fiercely, baring his fangs at me. His eyes flashed open and those guileless baby blues twinkled with undisguised amusement.
“Oh, you mean Rhonda and Mary? They’re actors, Nat. You’d be surprised how easy it is to disguise your murderous intent with a little pickle relish and old-fashioned charm. I never had a sister and my mom is buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Independence.”
The casual way he said it set my teeth on edge. I’d never been an upright or moral person—I wasn’t Dom—but this whole thing was just wrong. I still blamed myself for Cat’s accident, which had nothing at all to do with me, and the weight of the guilt had nearly crushed me to death. And Ewan was bragging about killing his own mother, like it was no big deal.
“You know, under other circumstances I would probably have ended up in jail,” he mused. “I’d be another curiosity in the menagerie of twisted minds. The next Bundy, BTK, or Zodiac Killer. When I found the Five, it was my dream come true. A buffet of lives, mine for the taking. And I filled my plate every chance I got.”
The distant, dreamy look in his eye had my finger twitching on the trigger. The visceral need to shoot this son of a bitch was overpowering. He was the one who bound Valerius to Cat in the dark ritual I’d been blamed for, leaving my sister in a coma and me wandless and destitute. Ewan had single-handedly ruined my life and was downright gleeful about the evil he’d helped perpetuate.
“So what, you got tired of killing people so now you’re going to destroy everything?”
“Bryne is going to. I’m merely along for the ride.”
“You’ll never have control. She’ll grow more powerful with each death. You’re like a furnace, you have an on and off button, that’s it. You’ll burn, and raise Cipactli.” I shivered, remembering the image Valerius had shown me earlier of his monstrous, tentacled mother. She was like Godzilla met a kraken, then fell into a nuclear waste silo.
“Exactly. She’s basically a global reset button. Imagine it, no cities, no pollution, no technology… just pure, raw power. We can do it together. Don’t you get it, we were made for this.”
“What do you think that’s going to accomplish? Cipactli will eat anything and everything on earth. There will never be enough to satisfy her. She’d even eat her own children if it came down to it. You think she’ll spare some puny mortal with a god complex?”
“There are other planes, you know,” Ewan said wistfully. “Most of the gods live amongst the stars. When I’m through with Earth, I plan to battle it out in the cosmos until I’m the last god standing. Fuck the world. I want to make my own. And if Cipactli eats the people I create, it just proves they didn’t deserve to live. I’ll keep going until I get it right.”
Dread tapped a rhythm up my spine as I tried to envision it. What did a killer’s utopia look like? What sort of Lovecraftian horror would he turn the world into? Life would be short, filled with fear and anarchy, and come to a sticky end for most involved. That wasn’t a life, it was a living nightmare.
One that would never come to pass, if I managed to end Ewan. But fighting him, killing him, would just speed up the distraction. The man I knew was nearly gone, mad with power. And I was still a ticking clock. This went beyond vampires and werewolves. Ancient Aztec gods were about to play marbles with the human race.
“Valerius,” I hissed. “Any ideas on how to kill these two nutburgers?”
It cannot be done on the mortal plane, he responded at once, his voice a gravelly rasp in my ear. He’d become more vital and vibrant in my head, as if the battle at Chateau Lamonia had infused him with new life.
“So we’re screwed,” I said.
Maybe not… Valerius voiced inside my head. Powers here are different from the underworld.
My mind conjured an image of that sulfurous black limbo I’d so often found myself trapped in between deaths.
“Why would he agree to that though? There’s nothing down there that he wants.”
He’s not the one we need to barter with. Besides, you did promise we’d wake her.
“No, I promised I’d help you avenge her death, kill her enemies or whatever. Where are they, by the way?”
In Mictlan.
Of course they were. Valerius had saved my sister’s life, but not before making me promise I’d help him get vengeance on his enemies. I wished I’d asked for the specifics of that deal, but there hadn’t been time. I was slightly annoyed at the fact that Valerius seemed to be manipulating me, and I realized I really couldn’t trust him. He obviously had his own agenda. But then so did Bryne. Maybe I could use that against Ewan.
“Are you about done muttering to yourself?” Ewan asked, yawning casually.
“What about your revenge?” I said. “Don’t tell me she hasn’t mentioned it. Tried to make deals with you; vengeance for her mother’s death. I bet she’d be a lot more agreeable if you help her out. Plus you’ll have the opportunity to kill me for real.”
“What are you talking about?” He growled, his eyes lighting up with fury.
“Listen, there’s no situation where you end up a god. I’ll fight you forever, even if we’re the only things left. We’ll both keep getting stronger until everything is destroyed.”
“Sounds like either way I’ll win.”
“If you think I’m a pain in the ass now, wait until you spend a thousand years fighting me.”
Ewan sombered at the prospect.
“The point is, you’ll never rule. Even if I can’t defeat you, I will annoy you to death. Or we can end this, for good.”
“What do you propose?” he asked, rubbing his jaw.
“Mictlan,” I blurted. “You want revenge, right Bryne? Well I know where they are. I’m in the same boat you are. I made Valerius a promise. So let’s go get them.”
“The road of death is barred,” Ewan said. “We cannot pass.”
“I can get us in,” I blustered. “Fighting on Earth is pointless. If either one of us dies, they will come back stronger and more capable than before. If you really want to kick off the apocalypse, you’re going to have to go through me. And in order to kill me permanently, we need to be in Mictlan. And while we’re down there, we can get revenge on whoever you want. Two birds, one brimstone.”
Ewan’s grin was back, wider and more eager than before.
“You challenging me to a duel, Valdez? Cause I ain’t never lost a fight in my life. I was playin’ possum last time we fought. This time I’m taking the gloves off.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I answered, cocking one hip out jauntily, trying to appear more confident than I felt. It was quite apparent that Byrne and him were of one mind; destroy everything. When it came down to it, would I be able to rely on Valerius to have my back? I had been working at cross-purposes with him for so long.
I was half surprised he’d agree to this a
t all, but maybe Bryne was chomping at the bit. I’d dangled the one carrot she could not refuse; the one thing she wanted more than power and destruction. Revenge on her enemies.
“Terms, Valdez. This deal needs terms.”
“The terms are simple. I win and you die. The world goes on spinning.”
“And if I win, you die and miss my glorious ascension into godhood. Or, if you’d prefer, I’ll beat you to a pulp first and when you’re begging for mercy, I’ll let you live—but only so you and Val can help me raise Cipactli.
I shuddered, folding my arms across my chest.
The dead don’t return from Mictlan, Valerius warned, sending tingles up my spine. It was a stupid plan, but it was all I had right now. At the very least, it was a cease-fire until I had time to think and talk to Dom.
I nodded slowly, hoping I wasn’t condemning myself.
“Shake on it,” Ewan said, holding a calloused hand out to me. “No funny business or back-stabbing on the journey. Bryne says there’s an arena down there we can use. A proper, fair duel.” I stared at it for a dubious second, half-convinced he was going to burn my hand off. Well, two could play at that game. If he tried anything funny I could melt his face like candle wax in a hot second.
His hand was broad and tough as boot leather. He let me feel a fraction of his strength as he hauled himself to his feet.
Ewan strode past me, still smirking. He made a beeline for my dinghy and clambered inside, his long sleeves, boots, and jeans protecting him from burns. My outfit was beginning to cling to me unpleasantly. It felt like being stuck in a crock-pot, warming slowly by degrees. I couldn’t wait until I made it back to the boat. I was going to take the longest, coldest shower imaginable until even the memory of this heat rolled right off my back.
We didn’t speak again until we were almost a mile out to sea.
“I have one more term,” I said, shaking myself from the awful reverie. Ewan lay sprawled at the aft of the dingy, watching heat ripple off the rocking surf. He turned his head lazily to peer at me, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“What’s that?”
I waved a hand over my body. “This death curse you placed on me. I need you to take it off.”
“And why would I do that?”
I shoved the sleeve of my shirt up so he could see the most recent mark to appear on my skin. It shone opalescent, seeming to undulate in the stifling air.
“The more often I die, the more powerful I become. It’s in your best interest to remove it.”
Ewan considered my request for about thirty seconds before nodding.
“You’ve got quite a grip on Valerius, don’t you? That trick with the wolves was pretty neat.”
Shit. Maybe he didn’t know about the tattoos or the extra powers.
“Alright. No more dying, intentional or otherwise, until we reach Mictlan. Just leveling the playing field. Right, Valdez?”
I nodded shortly. It probably wasn’t a clever idea to reveal just how much I distrusted him. Let him think that my judgment was clouded by our former friendship. I’d take any chink in his armor I could find and exploit the hell out of it.
Ewan reached into his pocket and withdrew a small skull, about the size of a grapefruit. It was painted black, and half covered with dripping molten gold and engraved runes. My first, irrational thought was that he’d actually stolen the skull of an infant. But the proportions were all wrong.
“You just keeping that on your person for shits and giggles?” I drawled.
Ewan didn’t immediately shoot back with a snarky one-liner and my brain began to churn, going over the possible reasons he’d keep the skull of indeterminate origin on his person.
Some pieces of dark ritual magic required tools in order to be cast, not just sigils and blood. Ewan must need to cast the binding ritual often in order to maintain control over Bryne. I was willing to bet that every time he transfused he had to recast it. Maybe if I could get my hands on the skull, I could at least stop him from casting the spell on himself the next time.
Almost as if reading my thoughts, Ewan’s eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Don’t even try to rifle through my pockets, Valdez. I took a page from your book and had the duster enchanted. You won’t like what happens if you stick your hand in.”
Ewan swiped his index finger across one tapered fang and a streak of dark red blood oozed from the wound. He dragged the finger across the wide brow ridge of the skull, tracing the death ideogram from the Nahuatl language onto the bleached surface.
He stood, shifting the boat dangerously, then knelt in front of me. It took a few moments for the dinghy to settle enough for Ewan to work. When it did, he placed the skull against my forehead, murmuring in a quiet, almost familiar language.
Golden sparks erupted from the skull’s eyes and I flinched away from him on instinct. Ewan seized the back of my neck and held me in place, forcing me to stay put. The sparks pelted my skin, but instead of raising welts as I’d feared, they sank into me.
A weight I hadn’t been aware I’d carried sloughed off of me. The magic bunched and twisted, and my body felt uncomfortably warm as the death curse wriggled off of me, like the skin of a snake.
Ewan eased his grip off my neck, pulling the skull away from me and tucking it into the roomy inside pocket of his jacket.
“There,” he said. “Enjoy your life, while it lasts.”
I nodded, ignoring his ominous comment. Ewan was playing an intricate and thought-out game of chess; one I’d only recently joined. Lifting the curse had to fit into the plan or he wouldn’t have bothered to do it.
The ship drifted into sight a few minutes later, and I could make out dozens of figures leaning over the side, waiting for my return. I smiled as I watched their eyebrows jump in surprise. I swore I’d find the true culprit, and now I had. It felt good to be vindicated, at least in the eyes of the wolves. Deep down, I knew what happened on the island was my fault. I was responsible for freeing him.
Between myself and Ewan, we managed to rig the dinghy onto the pulley system and were hauled up.
Ewan’s spurs jangled when he hit the deck. Dom stood frozen a few yards away, like he was seeing a ghost. Most of the wolves stared nonplussed at the plaid-clad redneck. Only Cat, huddled into the corner with Sophia and Findlay, displayed a flicker of recognition, of hatred, and that was enough.
“You,” Dom snarled, stepping from the crowd with a truly furious expression on his face. “It was you, this whole time?”
“Howdy there partner,” Ewan drawled easily, unperturbed by Dom’s anger. “Now let’s not do anything hasty. I’d hate to peel you off the floor. I think Nat still likes ya.”
In answer, Dom brandished his electrode and wand, drawing power into himself. The air crackled and all the wolves aboard let out a collective whimper as the Tempest gathered his will.
Dom released the energy in one fluid strike, sending his fury in a blinding wave toward Ewan, who turned and snatched the energy right out of the air. It coalesced into a shining blue ball in his hand.
“Fine,” he said with a shrug. “Want to play? I’m game.”
He stretched his arms wide, shaping the lightning into a wide arc and held it like a crackling, deadly scythe.
“Heads up,” he shot at Dom before sending the electric blade spinning straight for his jugular.
chapter
3
JAY FLEW AT DOM, FLATTENING him to the deck beneath his massive bulk seconds before the crackling scythe of energy would have parted his head from his shoulders. Dominic struggled beneath the weight of the werewolf, cursing.
Ewan wasn’t through. The blue-white energy returned to his hand, arcing back through the air like a boomerang. Ewan caught it with ease and bared his fangs at the assembled crowd of wolves in apparent delight.
“Looks like I missed a few. Now that ain’t right. I made a promise to Lamonia to get rid of you mangy mutts. Even if he’s dead, I keep my promises.”
>
Still more wolves lunged toward Ewan, spines bowing as they shifted forward onto all fours, slipping into their more powerful form in response to the threat the demon mage posed.
Ewan flicked one finger lazily at the deck, where water pooled beneath the dinghy. It rose from the deck in a stream as thick as a garden hose and whipped toward the oncoming wolves, slicing into their haunches like a hot knife through butter. The four wolves who’d been daring enough to face Saunders head-on let out sharp yips of pain and backed away, trailing blood on the deck behind him.
Ewan curled his fingers around the stream of water, as though it was just as solid as a wand. He grinned. “You pups better have more to offer me than that. Don’t tell me a little kick scared you away?”
Ewan brought both water and scythe to bear, cutting his eyes back to where Dom and Jay lay in a crumpled heap. The whole confrontation had probably taken less than five seconds.
Jay regained his feet first, turning to face Ewan with a snarl. Ewan grinned and hefted his scythe up on one shoulder, giving the young man a once over.
“Think you can do any better, Fido?” Ewan drawled.
“Think I’m gonna try,” Jay muttered.
“Don’t,” I cried, finding my voice again after a horrified silence.
“Jay, he’s like me. You can’t kill him. You’ll only make him stronger.”
I may as well not have spoken, for all the good my words did. Jay’s shoulders hunched and fur extruded from his skin, reminding me oddly of the Chia Pet commercials, where fuzz sprouted from the head at superspeed. Watching Jay change in real-time was something to behold. Muscles rearranged themselves in a matter of moments and his jaw snapped, elongating into a snout full of deadly, tearing teeth.
Dom regained his feet next and the rippling, malleable metal that formed his shield spell blossomed from his wand. I felt a little better at seeing it. I’d seen Dom deflect elemental magic before, though never on the scale Ewan was currently displaying. I’d never seen any mage wield more than one element at a time. Ewan was fast, and could often switch between all four without needing a magical recharge, but he’d never been able to commandeer the magic of others, or control opposing elements at the same time.
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