Earth's Hope

by Ann Gimpel

  “We got into an argument,” Andraste said. “No one wanted aught to do with the Norsemen.”

  “If ye felt the same”—Arawn stomped to her side—“why are ye here?”

  “Never could let a battle pass me by.” One corner of her perfect mouth twisted downward. Her gaze settled on Dewi. “Where are your younglings? By my count they’re nearly old enough to join us.”

  “On our borderworld.”

  “What?” Andraste squared her shoulders. “Why?”

  “’Tis a long tale,” Gwydion said, “and one which we havena the time for just now. Our first order of business is to wipe out something wicked that’s taken up residence too close for comfort.”

  “I’m all for wiping out darkness”—the goddess’s smile was as predatory as one of Dewi’s own—“but why is it ye doona know exactly what ye face?”

  “They’re underground,” Dewi said, “and we didn’t want to look too closely. In fact, we should be shielding our conversation.”

  Humans trotted up in small groups, followed by Fionn and Aislinn. Dewi considered asking what took them so long, but her tone would’ve been snappish, and it would kindle the Maclochlainn’s ire. Not the best idea on the verge of a major skirmish. Instead, she resurrected the earlier wards and outlined the plan. Before they moved out, she asked Bella if the location was where she’d found Lemurians.

  For once, the raven looked rattled. “No. The group I found was in an old castle south of the gates, between here and the ocean.”

  “Hear that,” Nidhogg cautioned the group. “Watch your backs. We have no idea what we’ll find out there, and there may well be a second faction that’s lying in wait to trap us.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Fionn’s muscles tensed with apprehension, and his nerves came alive like they always did when a fight loomed. He angled his head toward Aislinn’s ear. “For once, do as I instruct. I canna split my attention, and if I’m worried half to death about you—or worse, doona know where ye are—it might prove tragic for all of us.”

  She tapped the side of his face with two fingers, and her face lit with a determined expression that made her look much older than her twenty-two years. “I’m not making promises I can’t keep, but I will keep you apprised of what I’m doing if it deviates from your orders.”

  He swallowed the lecture that rose to his lips. No time, and it wouldn’t make any difference. Lemurians may have trained Aislinn, but they’d trained her in guerilla warfare where she fought alone and made her own decisions. Nothing he could say would alter that.

  The group around them melted into the night and the rush of dragons’ wings created a torrent of wind until they were airborne. Aislinn took off at a lope, following a bunch of Hunters. Rune trotted next to her.

  Bella’s talons tightened on Fionn’s shoulder to the point of pain. “What are you waiting for?” the bird asked. “We’ll miss the party.”

  Except it wouldn’t be. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he told the raven and bolted after Aislinn.

  Bella switched to mind speech. “Since when does that excuse us from fighting?”

  “It doesn’t. Quiet. I need all my senses.”

  For once, the bird didn’t argue, but he sensed her tension from the death grip she maintained on his shoulder. He reached the others in short order and noted the power circle they’d formed around the area Dewi had discovered. Fionn positioned himself next to Aislinn. Eve and her cat were on his other side. After a brief hissing and cawing match, Bella and Tabitha settled down.

  The first bolt of dragon magic thundered down, and the ground shook beneath his feet. As they’d planned, the dragons piled charge atop charge with bare seconds in between. Fionn homed in on the patch of greenery before him, every nerve on edge. Something felt wrong. It was too silent, too devoid of life. Normally, small creatures—owls and rodents—would live in bushes like those, but they’d deserted it long since.

  With an eerie, thrumming, cracking noise, the earth split open. Heather and gorse blew into the air, and an unholy, shrieking moan rose, grating against his ears and making his stomach clench. Bile blasted the back of his throat as he drew power, balancing it between his hands, ready to annihilate whatever rolled out of the hole.

  Next to him, Aislinn’s ragged breathing tore at his soul. Even though Northern Ireland looked nothing like the Andean mountainside where she’d lost her father, death had crawled out of a hole in the earth that night too. Sulfur and the rotten stench of road kill left in the sun to rot belched from the fault.

  “What the holy fuck?” Aislinn snapped.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Fionn ground out, ready for anything, but mostly wanting whatever it was to show itself.

  The discordant cries rose in volume just before bodies pushed through the opening, and Fionn recoiled in horror as trolls and demons thrust their way through. Standing tall as mountain boulders, the trolls hefted cudgels and flails. With their bald heads, they resembled the stones they’d been formed from.

  But they were far from the worst. Fionn gaped at the demon spawn. With hooves, tails, and claws, they wielded fiery scepters and had eyes like burning coals edged with gray smoke. Some were tall and humanoid, but others were perversions of animals, with double rows of teeth and razor shards where fur should have been. The smallest weighed at least a hundred pounds, and they moved with shocking speed. Winged abominations with sharp beaks and shiny, black, scaled bodies like flying dinosaurs emerged next.

  The air around him blazed with magic as dark power met light in smoky, roiling fury. Between soot, grit, and stink, breathing became a challenge. Fionn released power and one of the animals with a lionesque head and a giraffe’s lower body burst into reeking particles, showering him with filth that dripped down his head and burned like hell where it touched him. He stole a glance at Aislinn. Thank Christ she was still by his side and had the presence of mind to keep Rune right next to her. The wolf snarled like a mad thing, clearly furious she’d restrained him from leaping into the fray.

  Truth flattened him like a steamroller. “Fuck! Goddammit!” Fionn didn’t bother wasting magic on telepathic speech. “We played right into their hands. This is a portal straight into Hell, and we opened it for them.”

  Gwydion, Arawn, Bran, and Andraste materialized next to him.

  “Next bright idea?” Gwydion wiped dark slime from his face where something he’d killed had exploded all over him.

  “We have to close the hole,” Andraste shouted, “before any more of those atrocities escape!”

  “No shit!” Fionn glanced at the dragons, who were still circling. “Dewi.”

  But it was Nidhogg who answered. “We understand. We’ll join you on the ground. It’s too crowded down there for us to keep blasting magic. We’ll hit one of you by mistake.”

  “Can ye undo the fault line?” Fionn hadn’t expected an answer, and he didn’t get one.

  Anguished howls and screams rose all around Fionn, and he shouted, “Until we have some plan to stuff the crows back inside the pie, we have to help our allies.” Magic blew through him until he felt like a lightning rod. Around him, the other Celts and Aislinn leant firepower, fanning out to at least try to maintain the integrity of the circle they’d originally formed around the dragons’ blast zone. Bella clung to his shoulder like a shadow. The bird was savvy enough to understand leaving the protection of his warding would sign her death warrant.

  Nidhogg settled to the ground in front of Fionn, fire streaming from his mouth. Explosions shook the ground whenever dragon fire met demon fire. For one black humor moment, Fionn wondered if that was where the phrase fight fire with fire had originated: with demons and dragons duking it out.

  “We have to figure out some way to shut that thing.” Aislinn’s face was streaked with black and red ichor from whatever she’d killed.

  Fionn rifled through his memories like a card shark shuffling marked cards, hunting for the one that would bail them out. He’d been to Hell
a time or two. Once when he was very young—and incredibly stupid—he’d bribed Charon to give him a ride and had a nearly impossible time getting out. Different from Arawn’s halls of the dead, Hell held those with wicked pasts, the ones who’d never played well with others. Abaddon ruled all nine levels with a steely will. It was because of him that his denizens remained caged.

  They’d wanted out so badly when Fionn was there, he’d had to fight his way through hordes of atrocities, each of whom wanted a free ride out of Hell on his coattails. Had Abaddon made a deal with the Lemurians? Fionn annihilated a seven foot tall demon and one of its claws boomeranged back to impale his thigh. With a grunt, he pulled it out before it could poison him. Even after death, demons packed quite a punch.

  Arawn sidled to Fionn’s side, looking as degenerate and coated in grime and gore as Fionn supposed he did, but his dark eyes shone with battle lust, and power crackled around him, turning the air blue with its intensity. “The plot thickens,” he spat.

  “I was just thinking Abaddon crafted some sort of deal with the Lemurians,” Fionn panted in between targeting one of the flying dinosaur things. He ducked so its spinning scales wouldn’t take out one of his eyes.

  “Optimist.” Arawn snorted, spun, and took out two demons. “Somehow the dark gods infiltrated Hell. ’Tis the only rational explanation.”

  Fionn’s heart stuttered in his chest as the truth in Arawn’s words arrowed home. “One of them, probably Perrikus, fed us just enough false information to get us to do his dirty work,” Fionn said. “It might have taken him months to get this portal open. It’s the same thing the dark gods did when they teamed up with the Lemurians and coerced all those New Age idiots to chant and weaken the veils between the worlds. Without that, they’d never have been able to infiltrate Earth.”

  A demon hurtled toward them out of the murk. Fionn dodged sideways, pivoting to avoid the worst of the fire shooting from the creature’s hands and mouth. Arawn spoke a word and it vanished.

  “That’s a neat trick,” Fionn gasped. “What’d ye do?”

  “Sent it back to Hell.”

  “Can ye do that for all of them?” Fionn stared at the god of the dead.

  “Aye. How else could I rid my realm of those who sneak into it under false pretenses?” The god of the dead shook long strands of black hair out of his eyes. “It scarcely matters how many I return to their rightful place if they crawl right back out again. We must close the hole. The longer it remains open, the harder this will be.”

  “MacLochlainn,” Dewi trumpeted from his right.

  Fionn had a hunch what was coming next and he hastened to the dragon’s side. “Ye are not taking her,” he said.

  “If you want us to negate our earlier magic, I need her.”

  “Figure something else out,” he bellowed.

  “There’s no time.” Dewi’s tone was implacable.

  “I never promised obedience.” Aislinn straightened her shoulders. “All I promised was that you’d know what I was doing. Remember those times I told you about? The ones where I can’t stop to think?”

  “Aye, but leannán…”

  “Well, this is one of them. I love you, Fionn, but I trust Dewi, and if she says she needs me, she does.” Aislinn vaulted onto the dragon’s back and summoned additional magic to lift Rune into her lap. “Whatever it is,” she cried in a clear, ringing voice, “let’s do this.”

  “Nay!” Fionn wanted to throttle the dragon. Fury and fear formed a burning knot in his belly. “If anything happens to her—” he began.

  Something bumped his back so hard he staggered.

  “Stop whining and ride me,” Nidhogg said from behind Fionn. “What Dewi has in mind will require all of us.”

  “Go.” Arawn shoved Fionn toward the dragon. “I’ll cover things down here.”

  So much power bubbled around him, Fionn just rode it until he was settled on Nidhogg’s broad back.

  The black dragon spread his wings immediately and barked. “Hang on.”

  Bella was obviously listening because she tightened her hold on Fionn until he laid a hand over her feet to remind her to back off.

  After the first lurching swing into nothingness, Fionn tethered himself in place with power. He hoped the air would clear as they gained elevation, but it did nothing but get worse. His eyes teared-up from the thick, smoky murk, and his throat and lungs felt scoured. He looked around for Aislinn, but didn’t see her.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked Nidhogg.

  “Just give me what I ask for.”

  Fion slapped a fist into Nidhogg’s scaled hide. Pain lanced up his arm as the dragon’s sharp scales cut into his hand. “That’s not good enough. Goddammit it all to hell, I can’t even see Dewi or Aislinn.”

  “They’re here. Be reasonable,” Nidhogg switched to mind speech. “Anything we say can potentially be overheard. There’s a dark god somewhere in this mess. I suspect Majestron Zalia. She’s the only one wily enough to waltz into Abaddon’s lair and seduce him with lies.”

  “If it was her, once she was done, Perrikus played us like suckers, luring us to blast a hole into Hell.” Fionn bit down so hard he was surprised his teeth didn’t splinter. ”As I recall, Majestron is quite the looker. Maybe it wasna just lies she fed Abaddon,” he said sourly.

  “It doesn’t matter who she fucks. What matters is closing that rent and piling enough spells on it to keep it shut. Once that’s done, we have to chase down whoever’s still out and either kill them or send them back to Hell.”

  The dragon swooped and dove. At first it seemed random, but then Fionn recognized a pattern. The dragon was painting runic symbols in the sky. From time to time, Dewi, with Aislinn and Rune atop her, appeared through the gloom, apparently doing the same thing. Fionn played the configuration through his mind, but came up dry. Whatever the dragons were up to was a summoning he’d never tried—or even heard of, which didn’t engender confidence. Not that he had an eidetic memory, but there were very few spells he hadn’t run across at least once in his long life.

  “Ready yourself,” Nidhogg instructed, his voice harsh.

  Fionn reeled in power until he couldn’t hold any more. Bella threaded animal magic in with his, and he loved her for the effort. Clouds of black smoke billowed from below.

  “Now,” Nidhogg trumpeted. “Open yourself to me. Give me everything you can.”

  Fionn tossed his warding aside and gave the dragon entrance. Nidhogg’s consciousness filled his mind and swallowed Fionn in a tidal wave of memories. Fascination trumped everything else as Fionn paged through thousands of years of history. Valkyries had ridden to battle where he sat. Hell, Odin had flown on Nidhogg. Farther back, much farther, Fionn gazed at an unfamiliar landscape with Lemurians lounging in front of golden buildings and gold-paved streets. Dragons wandered amongst the Old Ones under a sky with three suns.

  Mu. It must be Mu. Unabashed wonder filled Fionn. He’d time-traveled to Atlantis before the volcano had decimated it, but he’d never been able to access Mu.

  “Attention. I need your attention,” Nidhogg dropped a chiaroscuro curtain over his memories.

  “Anything.” A grim smile split his face, and Fionn understood he’d been mesmerized by the ancient dragon.

  “The first part of this is done. It laid the groundwork. The next is a closing spell. I will summon the dragon version, and you will call the Celtic one. They must weave together precisely. A piece of yours and then a piece of mine. Feed me the spell in quarters when I ask for it.”

  “Why did Dewi need Aislinn?”

  “Because her magic is linked to the MacLochlainn and having Aislinn strengthens her. Focus. Give me the first part of your spell now.”

  Fionn visualized the spell, broke it into fourths, and gave the first to Nidhogg. The whole process went much faster than he imagined it would, which was good because judging from the anguished screams coming from below him, they wouldn’t walk away from this confrontation scot-free.

 
“Hurry,” he urged Nidhogg, but the dragon sucked up the last part of his spell without comment.

  “It begins,” Nidhogg said; tension thrummed through his scales. “Timing is everything. Wait until my flight gets so rough you can’t remain on my back, even with magic, and then teleport to the ground, but not too close to the rent or you’ll get sucked into it as it shuts.”

  “Does Aislinn know that?”

  “I’m certain Dewi told her the same thing.”

  “Can ye fly close enough for me to include her in my teleport spell?”

  “No. Be quiet or you’ll undo everything.”

  Fionn forced a calm center by inhaling one smoke-tinged breath after another. A low, sonorous booming joined the screams from below. Nidhogg’s body vibrated between Fionn’s legs. What began as a slow bucking quickly turned into trying to hold onto greased lightning. The air around him exploded with light that seared his corneas, even through his closed lids.

  “We have to go,” Bella cawed, sounding frantic.

  After two more jolting quakes that rattled his teeth, Fionn visualized a spot behind where he’d stood earlier and teleported there. The portal dissipated, and the stench of death—blood, shit, and entrails—enveloped him. Battlefields all smelled the same.

  “Aislinn!” he shrieked, and then switched to mind speech and called her name over and over. He reached for her energy, but the air was so charged with bright magic colliding with dark, he couldn’t get a fix on anything.

  “Not here,” Bella cawed.

  “How do ye know?” he asked, filled with desperation and fury at Dewi for putting his love smack in the center of things.

  “Because Rune’s not answering, either.”

  Someone grabbed his arm. Fionn almost hit them square with a death blow before he realized it was Bran.

  His battle leathers were singed and tattered, and he looked trashed. “Come on,” the god of prophecy urged. “We need help. The hole in the ground’s closed, but there are hundreds of those bastards yet to kill.”

  “Have ye seen Aislinn?”