Crom Cruach caught my wrists in his left hand. His skin gleamed like polished silver, and he stood about my height. His head was shaven except for a trail of silver bangs that fell along the left side of his forehead. His eyes gleamed like rubies set into a face that reminded me of those sculptures of Greek gods.
“I’m not as short or hobbled as the stories say,” he murmured, and the sound of his voice washed over me like rotten eggs, turning my stomach and making me want to retch.
“Is this where you say size doesn’t matter?” I asked, trying to push him off me, but it was like being held in place by a bulldozer. Which, let me tell you from experience, pretty much means you aren’t moving.
His lips spread into a grin that made my stomach sink as he ran his right hand along my face.
“I’m a god. I can be any size I wish. In a land of towering giants, appearing small makes me seem inconsequential among my brethren,” Crom Cruach said as his hand drifted down over the flesh just above my left breast. “Stop now, Hisen Mattoc, or I will yank your soul chain out from the roots of this girl.”
Though I couldn’t see Mattoc stop moving, I knew from the expression on Crom Cruach’s statuesque face that he’d complied. I took that moment to drive my knee upward into the death god’s crotch. His eyes bulged just a fraction, and his grip loosened from bulldozer-esque to something more like a small car.
I jerked my hands from his grip in a surge of power that exploded around me like a cyclone of maple leaves and ripped Shirajirashii free from the sheathes strapped to my back. Set and Isis exploded to life in my hands, moonlight and sunlight streaming from the blades as I pointed them at Crom Cruach.
“You will not take Mattoc from me,” I screamed and the force of my words threw sparks of crackling purple lightning between us. “Kuroman'etsu!”
Energy exploded from me, flinging crimson sand into the air and making the great Crom Cruach stagger back half a step. A strange smirk crossed his lips as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Go ahead little Dioscuri. I will wait,” Crom Cruach said. “Pull out all your power. Face me at full strength and know that it is as inconsequential as the wind against a mountain.”
I screamed, and the sky above us exploded with blood-colored lightning. Thunder cracked and boomed as the color drained from my body, leaving me as pale as alabaster. Blood began to pour from my wrists, dripping down toward the twin blades of Shirajirashii, and black light exploded from them. They crackled and popped with power as the scent of ozone filled the air.
“Go down there and find Warthor and Kishi,” I said without glancing over my shoulder to Mattoc. “I’ll keep you safe up here.”
“Lillim,” he said and was quiet for so long that I knew he was debating telling me something. “Don’t pass out until I get back.”
I grinned, my eyes never leaving Crom Cruach’s amused face. He could’ve told me anything and that’s what he went with. “Okay,” I said and launched myself at the death god.
Chapter 23
Crom Cruach caught the burning blades of Shirajirashii in his hands as they came at him, and, for a moment, he started to laugh. Pain flashed across his face, and he tore his gaze from mine and glanced at his hands. The black energy flowing from Shirajirashii wormed its way over his silver flesh, causing it to bubble like molten metal.
The great god Crom Cruach shrieked and released the blades, throwing himself back several steps. His eyes narrowed in anger, and the sky above us darkened to reflect his mood.
“You hurt me,” he said, and the words sounded strangely confused. It was as though he had never felt pain before.
“Yeah, I’m going to do a lot more than that,” I said and took a step toward him.
Crom Cruach flicked his wrist at me, and my breath tore itself from my lungs. I fell to my knees, struggling to pull in oxygen as the air around me grew heavier and heavier. It was like trying to breathe in lead. A red haze filled my vision as I pushed myself to my feet.
“You may be able to draw enough power to hurt me. But I am not Sobek. I have nothing to fear because I am death. Death fears nothing. In the end, death will claim all things.” Crom Cruach sauntered over to me and grabbed me by the chin, twisting my head to such a sharp angle that I was completely balanced on my right foot. “And you can’t even remember how to breathe.”
I drove the twin blades of Shirajirashii at him, and they stopped. Just stopped. They hovered a few inches away from his flesh, and I couldn’t move them any closer. He released me then, but my body didn’t move. I stood there, unmoving as he took a step around me as if admiring a new statue.
“Interesting, no?” he said, and I felt him tug on something. I was jerked backward off my feet and fell on my back in the crimson sand. My lungs burned for air, and as I tried to crawl to my feet, he wrapped his hand around Mattoc’s soulchain. He tugged and I was flung toward him, the anchor above my left breast burning with pain.
Crom Cruach waved his free hand at me, and the twin blades of Shirajirashii fell from my hands and clattered lifelessly to the ground. He raised the chain-covered fist above his head, and my body moved, like a puppet on strings.
I felt myself march toward him like a wound-up toy soldier. My body knelt in front of him with my head bowed. I could breathe again, and the feel of air in my lungs was scalding hot in my throat.
“See how nice I am?” Crom Cruach knelt down beside me and grinned. “I am letting you breathe again.”
“You’re just scared I’ll kill you,” I growled. “You’re right. You should be scared.”
His eyes narrowed, and he jerked the chain so hard that I flew forward into the dirt. Then he proceeded to drag me around the mound like a child with a broken kite. After the third loop, he turned and glanced at me with sparkling ruby eyes. “Should we keep going or have you learned how to hold your tongue?”
I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. Probably something like, “please stop dragging me around in the sand kind sir. It’s getting into places I didn’t even know I had.” Instead, as I looked up at him from my sandy perch, the chain in his hand dissolved.
One moment it was there, the next moment it was slipping through his fingers like powder. All of a sudden, I could move my body, and I got to my feet as he stared back at the mound in horror. The flesh above my left breast exploded in pain, and the tattooed sigil of the coiled serpent burst into flames.
I staggered backward, falling to my knees as Crom Cruach turned his attention back toward me.
“It seems your ghost has cut his chain to you. Does he think this is noble, that his sacrifice will aid you in killing me? I am death. I am invincible.” Crom Cruach strode toward me like an avenging god, which, I guess he was.
The pain faded away, leaving me with a vague sense of emptiness as I stared at the mound. Shirajirashii gleamed there between me and the mound, only it looked different.
I crawled toward them and, without looking, I drove my right hand out toward Crom Cruach and screamed, “White Sparrow!”
I’ve never actually done the spell without touching someone directly before, much less tried it on something as powerful as a Celtic God. Even still, power exploded out of me in a swirl of rose petals. It hit him so hard that I heard the breath explode from his lungs. Interesting, since I didn’t know gods needed to breathe.
A shaft of burning white light slammed down around Crom Cruach as I reached Shirajirashii. A scream of pain echoed across the mound as I bent and picked up the twin blades. I swallowed, my heart beating so fast that it nearly leapt out of my chest and ran away. The twin leviathans that normally coiled around the handles were gone, just gone.
I turned back toward Crom Cruach, and my eyes opened wide in horror. Every time I’ve done this spell, the creature inside had been strong enough to smash its way through the solidified light. This time, ebony and crimson roses stretched up inside the roiling flames, seizing Crom Cruach and making it so he couldn’t move.
He was trapped, actually tra
pped within my spell. He struggled, trying to throw off the roses that lashed him down, but the thorny vines wrapped around his limbs pulling him down to his knees.
The smell of maple and roses filled the air as I strode toward Crom Cruach. He looked up at me, the fire so hot that the silver of his flesh was melting together, sliding down his form like molten steel.
“They said gods cannot die,” I said, and the words had the edge of hysteria to them. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I put my hand out toward the shaft of light. “Then we killed one by driving a spear through his side.”
I drove Isis through the shaft of light. It punctured the spell like a hot knife through butter and slammed into Crom Cruach’s side. Black ichor spilled forth, covering the crimson sand in a spray of sticky fluid.
I wasn’t sure how long I stared at the body of Crom Cruach, but it must have been a long time because Warthor and Kishi had enough time to climb out of the mound. I turned to look at them.
While Warthor looked as pristine as always, Kishi’s body was battered and bloody. The entire left side of her face was covered in a huge bruise. Even still, she rushed toward me and wrapped her arms around me.
My eyes moved past her to Warthor. He shook his head once. My body shuddered, and I would have fallen if Kishi hadn’t been holding onto me. “He’s really gone?” The words left me in a choking gasp, and Kishi hugged me tighter.
I broke then. I wasn’t sure how long I leaned against Kishi and cried into her shoulder as she held me, until Warthor started shaking me.
“You look like a raccoon,” he said, grinning as I turned toward him, and without thinking, I slugged him in the mouth. He staggered backward, and I leapt at him. We hit the ground hard, the back of his head smacking against the sand with an audible thud as I shook him.
“Bring him back!” I yelled and above me thunder crackled in the sky. “Do one of your crazy Warthor Ein things and bring Mattoc back!”
“Lillim, stop!” Kishi screamed, grabbing me by the back of my dress and hauling me off of Warthor. There was the sound of tearing fabric as I whirled around. I’m not sure what my face looked like, but Kishi put her hands up in front of her and took a step backward. “Easy, Lillim.”
“We have to leave,” Warthor said, getting to his hands and knees on the ground behind me. I glanced at him and watched as he spit a mouthful of blood onto the crimson sand.
“We can’t leave. I need to go in there. I need to find Mattoc,” I said and started toward the mound.
“He’s gone, Lillim. He faded away when he broke the soul chain. There’s nothing to find, you know that.” Warthor’s voice was firm, but calm.
“No!” I said and curled my hands into fists. “Mattoc can’t just be gone. There has to be a way.”
“Lillim. We have to leave right now. Before the Keeper shows up to claim you,” Kishi said, staring at a spot far in the distance. “I can feel him coming.”
“I don’t care!” I screamed, and as I made my way toward the entrance, Warthor stepped in front of me in that impossibly fast way that he had. He reached out and pulled me close to him, pulling my head into his chest.
“There, there, Bunny,” he cooed. “Let’s get out of here, and I’ll figure out a way to bring Mattoc back.”
“You’re lying, aren’t you?” I asked, looking up at the face of my former master.
“Yes,” he said, and the word echoed in my brain.
“Can the Keeper bring him back?”
“No, I cannot.” The Keeper’s voice boomed so loudly that I couldn’t help but turn to look at him.
The Keeper was standing over the fallen body of Crom Cruach, only now a giant silver elm tree was growing from the center of the god’s chest. It pushed up and up, impossibly high into the sky.
“I won’t let you take her,” Warthor said, stepping in front of me and shielding my body behind his.
“Don’t be silly, Warthor. The only way you could stop me would be if I allowed it.” The Keeper shook his head once and that great mane of hair swung behind him like an enormous pendulum. “You know this to be true. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have tried to run from Fairy. You would have just killed me.”
“That’s very logical,” Kishi said, walking over to the Keeper and taking one of his massive hands in hers as she dropped to her knees before him. Tears lined her eyes, threatening to spill forward down her cheeks as she looked at me. “But there has to be a way.”
“I killed a god.” I said the words in that empty way people told me was my killing voice. “That releases a lot of power.” I gestured at the tree growing wider and taller by the second. “Surely, you can use some of that power to bring back Mattoc.”
I stepped past Warthor, and as he tried to grab me, I backhanded him across the face with such force that I sent him flying across the mound and skidding through the sand. With a flick of my wrist, roses exploded from the bloody sand and wrapped around him like a cocoon.
“I cannot bring Mattoc back. He sacrificed himself to destroy the link between you two. If he had not done that maybe I could bring him back with some of Crom Cruach’s power. But he doesn’t exist anymore. He is gone in a way that can’t really be explained.” The Keeper shouldered past Kishi, knocking her on her butt.
He reached me as I put my hand against the tree that had once been Crom Cruach and felt a spark dance along my skin. The Keeper tried to grab me, and I let him. The moment he touched me, I wrapped my hand around his giant wrist.
“What are you—”
“Apep!” I screamed, putting all the power of the wild magic, the Keeper, and the elm tree into the word. “Rise and breathe Apep!” Thunder boomed above me and rust-colored lightning split the sky.
Very slowly, a giant snake’s head rose from the sea of tar and opened one enormous eye. Everything around me froze in place as the snake opened its mouth impossibly wide.
“Go home, Lillim. The Keeper will let you leave if you ask.” Apep’s voice boomed in my ears as I moved toward him.
“Bring Mattoc back. If anyone can do it…” My voice broke, and I fell to my knees in the sand in front of the Egyptian god of darkness. “You can,” I sobbed.
Apep’s tongue snaked out and ran along the flesh above my left breast where his mark was burned into my flesh. “In his final moments, Mattoc transferred me to you. I can no longer feel him. I cannot return him to you.” The giant snake moved to say something more but, instead, fell back beneath the waves of tar as though he’d never been there at all.
I collapsed to the ground as the Keeper walked toward me. Tears clouded my vision as the Keeper knelt next to me and held out a single black rose. “If I could, I’d give him back to you.”
“Don’t talk to me!” I snapped, turning away from him and walking over to the edge of the pit. “I know… I know I never told you how much you meant to me Mattoc… I know I wasn’t the best friend you ever had. Maybe it’s because you were always there with me since I was little. I just… I just never thought you’d be gone.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, and looked up toward the sky.
Very slowly, I trailed my fingers over the burn that had marked the spot where he’d once been anchored to me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a very good friend, Mattoc. You deserved someone… better.”
Chapter 24
“So you’re staying,” I said, glancing at Kishi from beneath the brim of my Yankees hat. She was standing next to the glimmering, golden throne of the Summer Court, but the Queen wasn’t here. She’d left after telling us we were free to go, and that she wasn’t allowing Dioscuri into Fairy anymore. Which was fine by me.
For whatever reason, the Summer throne room felt like a living, breathing thing now. It reminded me of a field of sunflowers just before harvest. Where the walls had been silver gold and marble, they had been replaced by writhing vines and blossoming flowers. Birds flitted back and forth through the air above us, hopping from vine to vine chasing after flitting insects.
“Yeah, I’m staying,” K
ishi replied. “I need to get a handle on this whole Breaker thing. Apparently I have another hand of power which hasn’t even manifested itself yet. I don’t really want to be in Lot being poked and prodded by researchers when I could stay here and learn from someone who knows what they are doing.”
“Fair enough,” I said, shrugging. “I don’t really care what you do anyway.” It came out bratty, but I honestly hadn’t meant it that way at all.
“Lillim,” Warthor said, his voice firm and slightly admonishing. “Don’t be that way.”
“Be what way?” I shouted, my composure breaking as I whirled on him, my hands balled into fists. “Be angry that both of you are staying in Fairy? Be mad that my friend is dead and never coming back?”
Warthor raised his hands in surrender as I walked right up to him and invaded his personal space. “You can be mad,” Warthor said, “but when you leave, you need to be in control. That force Diana is bringing is still coming. We’ll barely have enough time to get you to the border by the time they arrive. If you don’t convince them everything is fixed, there could be a problem.”
“I know,” I snapped. “You told me before. Someone has to go meet the Dioscuri. That someone has to be me since the two of you are abandoning me after my friend died.”
“Stop being a brat about it!” Warthor growled, poking me in the chest with one slender finger. “I am not staying here because it’s fun. I’m staying here to keep the deal with the Keeper. Someone has to stay or he’ll take you away, and as much as you miss Mattoc, I can’t lose you, Lillim.”
“I know,” I whispered, reaching out and pulling him close. He stood there awkwardly in my embrace. “I just feel like I’m losing everything. I feel like this is all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Lillim,” Kishi said, voice strained. “I’ll be back soon and together we’ll figure out how to get Warthor home.”
“If I don’t figure out a way home, first,” Warthor said, finally returning my hug instead of standing there like an obstinate scarecrow.
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