A Taste for Blood (The Godhunter, Book 6)

by Sumida, Amy

  “Okay,” I walked over to Rain. “Thank you guys for coming. You didn't have to be here. This isn't your fight.”

  “Aw, we haven't had a good battle in awhile,” Constantin laughed and nudged Adriano in the shoulder.

  “Figured you might need some good mounts,” Rain gave me a sexy grin and I immediately recalled his prediction, that one day we'd ride into battle together.

  “Guess today is the day,” I stared at him.

  “Guess it is,” Rain began to undress, followed immediately by the others.

  I turned away to give them privacy, which was ridiculous since we were on a battlefield filled with people. I guess I did it more for myself. I really didn't need to see any more gorgeous men get naked. So while I mused about naked, gorgeous men, they transformed. I felt the shift in energy and turned around to find four black stallions, looking very sleek and a touch arrogant.

  “No saddles,” I sighed and Rain, I think it was Rain, lowered his front end so I could mount easier. “Alright, thank you.” I pulled myself aboard and gripped his mane as we started toward the front lines. We got there and Rain trotted back and forth so I could address everyone. “I feel like I should be wearing blue paint and a kilt,” I whispered down to Rain, who snorted and pranced. Then I raised my voice to speak to everyone. “We've fought together before but this time you've come to my aid and for that, I thank you,” there was an answering cheer. “I don't have the words to encourage you. I don't have an impressive speech ready. All I can say is that death may lie in wait on that field for us but I will fight to my last breath beside you and count it as an honor. Oh fuck that, let's kill them all!”

  A roar rose and blasted through me but it was met with an answering cry from across the field, and I turned Rain around to face it. There, spreading out before us, was Eris, gods that I assumed were her children, and the biggest fighting contingent I'd ever seen. There were thousands, hundreds of thousands, of men, women, and even children, standing behind Eris, waiting for her signal. They were dressed in clothing from every time period in history, beginning with Grecian warriors in sparse armor and going all the way up to modern day soldiers in camouflage. I felt my jaw drop and I uttered the three words I tried to never say.

  “Oh my god,” I felt Rain tense beneath me and I guided him back over to Trevor. “Who are they?”

  “The Ignoble Dead,” he ground out. “All those who have fallen prey to Eris or her children's manipulations. The three who were killed at Moonshine are no doubt among them.”

  “Why ignoble?” I felt my heart begin to race beneath my leather vest. How would we fight all of them?

  “They are considered impure,” he explained as he stared at them, “taken in the heat of rage or whatever else they've been tainted with. Their souls are not the same as they were when they lived. They've been polluted by Strife's magic.”

  “Great, this is just fucking great,” I gestured to them. “How do we kill the dead?”

  “They'll be just as corporeal as Odin's warriors are here. They can be killed but there will be no more of an afterlife for them. They will simply cease to exist.” He looked over and noted my pallor. “It will be a mercy for them, Vervain. Look at them, they're enslaved and trapped in a twisted existence.”

  “Right,” I sighed. So I was going to kill innocents for their own good. Yay. When had I become Roman?

  A horn blast rolled across the field from Eris' side just as I noticed a presence coming up fast on my right. I jerked my head over and for the second time in less than five minutes, I felt my jaw drop.

  Anubis was riding toward us in a golden, Egyptian chariot pulled by two jackals. He was in black, Egyptian, leather armor and beside him in the chariot, was Ma'at, resplendent in silver plated leather. Riding with them, or maybe I should say floating beside them, was Re. He stood in gold leather and plate, shining as if a spotlight was beaming down on him, as he rode in a small boat that just floated along a foot above the ground. He held a spear and shield at the ready. Behind them, more jackals swarmed, leaping over each other in their haste to get to the battle.

  The army across the way had paused to watch the newcomers arrive. How could you not? They were damn impressive. I myself, gaped at them until they came to a stop in front of me.

  “What the hell are you guys doing here?” I blurted and Ma'at gave a sexy laugh.

  “Your angel called upon us,” she gestured behind her.

  There was Azrael, alighting from the sky, looking as gorgeous as ever in angelic armor. His silver breastplate shone, sparkling with the reflections from his diamond eyes and the tattoo on his cheek glowed. His legs were bare like the Egyptian's, just a skirt made out of leather strips and bits of metal, covering his thighs.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” I whispered.

  “Hardly,” Az laughed and kissed my cheek. “I thought Anubis might like a chance at redemption,” he glanced over his shoulder at Anubis and the Egyptian god nodded his head solemnly. “It's not often that I'm able to offer a second chance to a god.”

  “Thank you,” I said to Az before looking at the Egyptians. “And thank you all for coming. You may wish you hadn't,” I waved a hand out to indicate the strength of Eris' numbers.

  “Pah,” Re laughed. “That's nothing, those are all just dead humans. If they're fighting for Eris, we know they died because they weren't good enough to win the fight. We're battling an army of losers.”

  “Huh,” I felt immensely better. “I didn't think of that.”

  “Yes, my beautiful one,” Re smirked, “just leave the thinking to the men.”

  “After we win, I'm kicking your ass, Re,” I laughed and he winked at me.

  “Everyone focus!” Trevor shouted and we all turned our attention to the oncoming army.

  “Should we advance?” I looked over our front line.

  “Why?” Trevor held up an arm to indicate that we should hold. “Let them come to us. No sense in wasting energy on running when they're so eager.”

  “Good point,” I pulled my short sword and gripped Rain's sides with my thighs. I could feel him tensing his muscles beneath me, readying to leap.

  I glanced over at Anubis and he smiled grimly at me. There was a lot I needed to get over, concerning him. Things I hadn't realized I'd just repressed instead of dealing with. Maybe this would help. I looked in the other direction and saw Finn on one of the Dark Horses. He saluted me with his blade and I returned the gesture. Beside him, rode Kuan-Ti and Blue on the other two horses, both men were focused on the incoming army and I decided that was probably the best idea. I turned forward.

  Eris was a tiny woman, wasn't she? Yet now she looked more like an Amazon. As she ran across the expanse separating us, she grew, getting larger and larger until she towered over us all, a giantess.

  “Hey, Loki,” a voice to my right called out. “Isn't she your type?”

  “Loki's here?” I glanced back and saw Fenrir's father wave at me before responding to the heckler.

  “I'll have to ask her out after her little temper tantrum is over,” Loki winked at me and I groaned. Everyone knew Loki had a thing for large women.

  I, however, was a little concerned. Eris was about the height of a giraffe when she finished growing. Her previously waifish form was now thick enough to do serious damage. Then she pulled something out of the bag at her side. It looked round and gold.

  “Heads up!” Hades shouted, pointing at Eris. “Those are the apples of discord. Don't let them hit you!”

  A golden missile came flying toward us and everyone shied away as if it carried the plague. It landed with a splat, oozing black goo all over with a sizzling sound.

  “Well how you like dem apples?” I muttered and Rain shot forward, taking us into the fray.

  A gaunt man, his skin hanging loose over his bones, came at me. His lank, dark hair hung over his glowing, yellow eyes and Rain reared up, then brought his hooves smashing down on Mr. Anorexic’s head. His skull broke apart and seeped a putrid yellow
gunk. Then his eyes blinked open and he started to get up. I leaned down and severed his head from his body before the zombie-fest could continue.

  A good start, I thought, and glanced around to see that my friends and family were having similar luck. Eris' side was sustaining immediate and crippling damage. I sighed in relief and faced the next threat but this time it wasn't a god, it was a throng of people. I started slashing at them, loosing finesse in the press of bodies, and driving them back little by little.

  Maybe I'd been a little hasty in my judgment. Cries of pain started coming from our side and I cringed, wondering which of my friends was in pain because of me. I didn't have time to think about it too long though, I had to turn my attention back to the mob. Rain was faltering, emitting high pitched sounds of distress that had me supremely worried.

  His front legs went out beneath us and I was pitched forward, landing in a pile of grasping arms. I spun about, swinging my sword in an arc and backing up to my fallen horse, er, Rain. He was being overcome by the dead people and I hacked them back as I took up a stance near his shaking body. A flash to my right caught my attention and I saw Pan gleefully throw his own magic into the mix.

  Pan's ability was to cause panic and usually it was a fine weapon. The enemy would turn on itself, half the time. This time however, nothing happened. I frowned, listening for the sounds of rising panic as I fought off the dead, but nothing came.

  “Dead men don't panic,” Azrael alighted beside me, adding his sword to mine and helping me to cut a circle around Rain.

  “Shit,” I swore as I saw more magic light the sky.

  There was ozone in the air as well as waves of heat. The sweet perfume of roses battled the stench of decay. It was a cluster fuck of godly proportions and the only ones I knew were alive for certain were the two by my side. My heart pounded harder in my chest.

  Then I was being lifted and Azrael's body was smashed out of the way. I twisted in a strong grip and was able to look straight into Eris' face.

  “Hello, little bug,” she smirked as she ran back to her side of the battle with me. “Time for me to squish you.”

  From the height she'd raised me to, I could see the whole battlefield and it wasn't pretty. My side was failing, falling under the tide of the Ignoble Dead. They might have been losers but boy were they determined to win now.

  I cried out when Odin was pulled from his horse, Sleipnir rearing and screaming along with me. No, please no. Then Trevor went down and my wolf howled and tore at my belly, desperate to help her mate. I crumpled in upon myself, tears already beginning to fall. Kirill? Az? Where were they?

  Persephone was amid a circle of green, vines rising from the earth to trap anyone who ventured too close to her or Hades. Then Hades would reach a hand out, burning the enemy to ash in seconds. They made a good team but they too were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. The plants couldn't hold them all and Hades just couldn't burn them fast enough.

  A mound of bodies were suddenly thrown in an explosion of limbs, betraying Fenrir's location. It looked as if the Wolf God would be all right but then the swarm overtook him again and a horrible roar filtered over to me.

  Mrs. E and Mr. T were fighting back to back, her water doing a better job of washing away the dead than his heat was. There was a haze of steam around them and though it looked like they were okay, in seconds, the fog grew so thick, I couldn't see through it anymore.

  Snarls, roars, whinnies, growls, yips, and screams melded with the clang of metal and the pound of feet on hard ground. My war magic was rejoicing but Victory was faltering, knowing whose side those sounds were coming from mainly. Those were the sounds of my friends dying.

  Then I caught a glimpse of my sons. Vidar and Vali were running to their father's aid but they didn't make it five feet before they too were caught in the horde. I screamed when they went down, clawing at Eris' grip on me, desperate to get to my children.

  “Oh, how sad,” Eris threw me to the dirt. “Are your lovers dying? Like my husband?” She screamed, lowering herself so that her face was almost pressed to mine. “Like my children?” She pointed back to the battlefield. “Listen, look,” she yanked me to my feet and I threw my hands down to release my claws, I'd lost my sword when she'd first picked me up. “Watch them fall, not even your angel is still standing,” she began to laugh but she suddenly faltered, choking and sputtering.

  I looked over to where she stared in horror and started to laugh and cry all at once.

  A large tear was hovering about five feet above the heads of the fighters, the rolling black of the Aether a sharp contrast to the blue sky of the God Realm. Through this tear swarmed monsters too horrible to describe. Many-eyed and many-limbed things, with sharp teeth and sharper claws, whose hides were leathery yellow or scabbed red, feathered, or furred, or any combination of all of those things. Liquid oozed and dripped from gaping mouths and bulging eyes, burning wherever it fell. Eyes glowed with horrible glee and the sounds the creatures made as they attacked Eris' army were terrifying, the stuff of nightmares, but the screams Eris' side started to make were even worse.

  The Wild Hunt rode the air and Arach flew at their head, in glorious dragon form.

  Dragon form. Fuck, I'd forgotten about my fire.

  I breathed my flame upon Eris and she too began to scream, dropping me hard and clutching at her blackened face. I rolled but she was on me in an instant, stomping a foot on my forearm and breaking it. I screamed as she kicked my stomach, rupturing something in my belly. Pain shot through my body, even as it started to repair itself. I couldn't even draw breath to roast her again.

  She picked me up by the neck, lifting me off my feet and holding me up to eye level. I clawed at her but she just laughed, strangling me and then breaking both of my wrists, one after the other, with a flick of her fingers. She bashed me into the ground and I felt more bones break, my legs, my ribs, my back. I would heal eventually but she wasn't going to give me the time. I had only one option left, only one thing I could manage without breath or limbs.

  I reached for her magic as I hung limply before her and felt it rise to my call. It flowed straight from her hands into my body, draining her of power and shrinking her all at once. I fell, dropped by her now tiny hand, and lay painfully immobile as I stared up into her shocked face. I continued to pull out her magic with grim determination. It was dark, a thick, choking kind of energy that clung to my throat like sour milk, as I drank it down. It filled me from my feet to the top of my head but it just kept coming. There was so much hatred, so much evil, it wouldn't stop.

  I writhed as it flowed over the other magics I held, threatening to drown them all. Had I worried over my dragon nature killing my other magic? The dragon in me was not nearly as threatening as this consuming darkness. At least the dragon had feelings, compassion, and reasoning, this magic was nothing but hate.

  I heard a snarling growl and was able to briefly open my eyes to see a huge black dog with burning eyes, standing beside me. She snapped at anyone who dared come to close, protecting me as I drained Eris.

  My fingers dug into the dirt beneath me, twisting in pain and misery, as I cried out. I couldn't lose my other magics, if I did, I knew I'd be a slave to this evil, completely under the spell of a power that had never been good and so could not be redeemed. It was killing me for my resistance but even as it did, something inside me went soft, accepting, at peace knowing that I'd kept Eris from rallying her troops against the Wild Hunt. My friends and lovers had a chance now and I would happily die for that.

  Just as long as I took her with me.

  At my throat, the emerald heated, pulsing in time with my slowing heartbeat. That sound grew, my whole world becoming a thumping, green haze. I felt the heat sink into my skin and spread, filling me with knowledge, showing me the way to survive. I gasped, following the thread of power and pulling my waning strength together long enough to start the process revealed to me by the stone. The process that would be impossible without the emerald itself.<
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  A green glow surrounded me and I flattened my body to the earth as it pushed into me and then through me, collecting the dark magic along the way and taking it into the ground to safely release. I coughed and sucked in a gasping breath as it left me, the last bits flowing from Eris' mummified body, into mine, and then into the ground.

  It took me awhile to heal enough bones to be able to stand but when I did, I realized there was an unnatural hush around me. I blinked and focused on the army that ringed me in. A pulse of fear shot through me and left just as quickly. They weren't attacking, just standing and staring at me. Even the phooka had gone quiet, like she knew the fight was over. She sat on her haunches, looking at me expectantly. From what I could see of the rest of the battlefield, they were all turned toward me, waiting.

  “Your goddess is dead,” I called out into the still air and heard a few relieved shouts from the other side of the field. Just as I didn't know the fate of my people, they hadn't known mine. “You're free.”

  A man separated himself from the rest of the group, his dress marking him as Greek. Haunted eyes narrowed on me as he shook his head and held his arms out to his sides. I frowned and took a wary step toward him. His expression turned pleading and he held his hand out to me.

  “What is it you want from me?” I looked him over and a child brushed past him, hatred filling his little face. He kicked me in the shin. “Ow, you evil little... oh, I see.” I put a hand out to keep the phooka back. “You want to be yourselves again?” The man nodded, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Fuck,” I swore. “I don't even know where to begin.”

  Then my pendant started to burn, glowing bright from my chest like a beacon and they all leaned forward as one. I gripped it, my hand reaching to the Ignoble Dead at the same time, and I felt the darkness tainting them. I could see it, black spiderwebs spread out through their bodies. I pulled on them, gathering all those little tendrils at once and yanking them free. A keening wail emerged from the mouths of the dead while I siphoned away the dark and let it rush through me and into the earth.