Return of the Hunters (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 4)

by Sonya Bateman

  He bent slightly to snatch his cane. His hand shook as he drew it back. “What are you?” he said, in a much smaller voice.

  “I’m the new god in town. And your reign is over.”

  Moving quickly, I tore the cane away from him and drove it through his chest.

  CHAPTER 37

  Papa Legba didn’t die.

  He thumped to his knees with his cane jutting all the way through, a good six inches of it sprouting from his back. Blood pooled on the flagstones below him, thick and nearly black in the moonlight.

  But he was breathing. He was laughing.

  He wrapped both hands around the cane, just below the silver skull, and pulled. It came out of him with a horrible sucking sound. Then he planted the end on the ground, pushed himself up to one knee, and stood with his white suit soaked in red.

  With one hand, he calmly wiped the blood from his cane. “Perhaps you have some power, child,” he said. “And perhaps you do not know my true name. Even I do not, as it is lost to the ages. So I am, and have been, Legba.” He smiled again. “But you see…I am immortal. Even with your power, you cannot destroy me. I will never die.”

  Movement behind him drew my attention—Zoba, approaching his back with an upraised dagger. I caught his gaze and mouthed don’t. Legba could still murder any one of them with a gesture, and I refused to take that chance.

  “Fine. Maybe I can’t kill you,” I said. “But unless you release the Duchenes, I’m going to make sure you wish you were dead.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “You wish me to release them, no?” he said. “Very well. I will release them to oblivion.”

  My heart seized. I understood exactly what that meant.

  Gideon! Senobia called in my head. His true name. You can control him with it.

  Glad as I was to hear from her, I wasn’t exactly relieved. “One problem. I don’t know it.”

  The Old Soul knows.

  “The what?”

  Legba’s features twisted in fury. “Have you gone mad, child?” he said. “Who are you speaking to?”

  Shit. I had to keep him from following through on his threat, at least long enough to hear what Senobia was trying to tell me. The old encounter with Reun was fresh in my mind, so I decided to cast one of the spells he’d used on me. “Na boegth,” I said, gesturing at Legba.

  He went completely still and silent.

  “Christ, what happened?” Denei said. “Is he—”

  “Be quiet. Please,” I added as an afterthought. Hopefully the spell hadn’t affected the souls, because I knew it wouldn’t hold him for long. He was already struggling to break free. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

  After a pause that was long enough for me to suspect I’d frozen them all, Senobia said, The Old Soul. First one he claimed. That one, she’d know Legba’s true name.

  “Great,” I muttered. “So I’ve only got to interrogate all however-thousand souls he has in there, right?”

  Me and Rex, we gonna try an’ hold her.

  I frowned. “You can see all these…souls?”

  Kinda. This time the voice was Rex. She down at the core. We almost there.

  “Um. Try to hurry.” Legba was starting to twitch. I looked at the rest of them, and saw Denei and Isalie helping a groggy Reun to his feet. At least he was still alive. Zoba and Bastien were both armed with daggers now, and they watched Legba with fiercely glittering eyes.

  They weren’t going down without a fight.

  At last I heard Senobia again, much fainter this time. We got her, she said. Do what you do, cher. Get his name.

  “Right,” I said. Except what I did was pull souls into my head—and I wasn’t in contact with this particular one. Rex and Senobia were.

  So maybe if just one of them held the soul, I could pull them out and bring other one along. Two at a time was going to be hard enough. I really didn’t think I could do three. “Senobia, can one of you let go without losing her?” I said.

  There was another pause…and Senobia said, She ain’t fightin’ us.

  She kin, Rex said with a touch of awe. She a Duchene.

  “What?” I blurted.

  Then a new voice spoke in my head.

  DeathSpeaker. The voice was vaguely female, and barely there. Thin as paper. You wit’ my people, boy?

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said automatically. Weak as it was, that voice demanded respect. “Who are you?”

  Aurelia Duchene. And don’t be compelling me, boy. I got centuries over you.

  “Sorry, ma’am. I can’t help it.” The more she spoke, the more Legba shivered in place. He was really fighting it now. “I’ll just—”

  I do the talking. You do the listening, Aurelia said. First off, he got no name. He nothin’ but a bug wrapped in shadows.

  My gut sank like a stone. “So we don’t have a chance.”

  You no good at listening, are you, boy? My kin, they say you got the power over souls. I got the power over creatures. You pull me out, an’ together we make him let the living go.

  Legba’s face twitched, and his mouth drew down in a stone scowl. He managed to move one arm.

  There was no time to think this over.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  It was still easier for me to do this with physical contact, so I grabbed Legba’s wrist. And thousands of voices immediately filled my head with agony. “Aurelia,” I gasped. “Keep talking. I need to hear you.”

  ALL YOU SOULS HUSH YOUR MOUTHS, RIGHT NOW!

  The piercing shout made my nose gush blood. But the voices fell silent.

  Quickly, boy, Aurelia said. I’m right here.

  I focused on her voice, and pulled her into me.

  The instant the pressure filled my head, Legba shook of the last of the spell and snatched his arm away from me. “Foul thief!” he shouted. “Give her back to me, child, or I will make them pay.”

  My mouth opened. But the words that came out weren’t mine.

  “Renonsé-ou pouvwa sou fanmi mwen.” It was my voice, but it wasn’t. Aurelia’s husky drawl underscored the words, echoing through dead air. “Movè lespri sou, renonsé-ou pouvwa sou fanmi mwen. Renonsé-ou pouvwa sou fanmi mwen!”

  Legba threw back his head and howled. A jet of black smoke plumed from his open mouth and bent in mid-air, billowing toward the Duchenes.

  “Movè lespri sou, renonsé-ou pouvwa sou fanmi mwen!”

  The plume split off into four streams. Each one slipped into one of the Duchenes’ ears, incorporeal snakes diving into living burrows.

  “Renonsé-ou pouvwa sou fanmi mwen!”

  All four of them jittered and shook like holy rollers with the Spirit on them. Their mouths opened in perfect synchronization—and three-foot long, hideous black, stone dead centipedes poured out and splattered to the ground.

  But the Duchenes were still very much alive.

  I gasped and staggered back as the pressure pounded my head. “Gonna let you go now, Aurelia,” I said roughly. “I think they’ll be fine.”

  Thank you, boy. ’Bout time I got out that slimy cesspool callin’ himself Legba.

  I barely had to push, and she was gone.

  And now, there were only two more Duchenes to set free.

  CHAPTER 38

  In the few seconds it took me to get my breath back, Zoba and Bastien must’ve decided they’d had enough. They ran at Legba, blades flashing, and knocked him to the ground. Bastien jammed his dagger deep into Legba’s side.

  Zoba carved his throat open.

  I’d never seen so much blood come out of one person. Legba lay still beneath them, fingers twitching and eyes rolled back as the dark pool spread rapidly around him. He was still breathing, but in ragged, erratic sips of air.

  Zoba stood first, with Bastien close behind. The younger brother stood over the still body and spit on him with pure contempt. “Immortal, my ass,” he drawled. “He look mortal enough to me.”

  With a grunt of agreement, Zoba glared down at Legba.
Then he raised his bloody knife to strike again.

  “Whoa! Let me get Rex and Senobia out of there first,” I said. “It might not work if he’s dead.”

  Zoba stared for a minute, shrugged, and steered Bastien back to the rest of them.

  I took a careful breath and walked around Legba. At least I knew for sure that I could get souls away from him—but I really didn’t know much more. Maybe his claim of immortality was another bluff, and maybe it wasn’t. Because he was still breathing. “Senobia? Rex?” I said. “You guys still there?”

  He ain’t dead!

  I noticed it the same instant Senobia shouted in my head. The pool of blood had stopped spreading…and now it was getting smaller. He was drawing it back in just as quickly as it’d drained.

  Legba blinked once and grinned.

  “Watch out,” I shouted, and gestured at him. “Mahrú à dionadth!”

  At the same time I spoke, he extended an arm. The cane that had fallen a few feet away flew into his hand. For a few seconds the shield spell pressed down on him, mashing his features into a grotesque parody of a snarl.

  He tapped the shield with the head of the cane, and it shattered like breaking glass.

  Legba was on his feet in seconds. “Freedom you may have,” he said. “But you will not defeat me, children. I am, and I will be!” He raised his arms.

  All four of the Duchenes charged him.

  I was about to plunge into the fray when Rex spoke up in my head. Won’ do no good. You cain’t beat him by knockin’ him down—he jes’ get back up.

  “Yeah, I’m starting to see that,” I muttered. “Any ideas?”

  You gotta free the souls. All of ’em. They his power.

  “Jesus Christ.” I watched the brawl for a minute, a writhing mass of scuffles and tosses, punches and magic ranging all over the square, and glanced back at Reun. He was on his feet, pale but determined, and headed toward the fight. “Hey,” I said. “Maybe try to minimize the damage out there, okay? I think I know how to slow him down.”

  Reun nodded as he limped past me. “Do what you can, Gideon.”

  “Yeah, you too,” I said.

  But it still didn’t feel like anything we did would be enough. He really was immortal. Even if we slowed him down, he’d just gather more souls and regain his strength.

  And then he’d come after us. Over and over again. Forever.

  Right now I couldn’t think about that. I had some souls to free. I focused on reaching out with invisible arms, searching for Legba. But they were all moving so fast. I felt him for an instant, heard the short, sharp cry of a thousand voices. Then he was gone again.

  So I closed my eyes.

  Searching in the dark took a few minutes, but I finally grabbed something. The sensation of hot, squirming flesh was real enough, even though my hands were empty. And the souls filled my head with their screams.

  “Calm down,” I said through gritted teeth. “Please.”

  The volume decreased to a dull roar. I’d already started to bleed again, and holding Legba without the ability to physically touch him took most of my concentration. He was fighting me just as hard as he fought the rest of them.

  I managed to pick out one soul from thousands and pushed it from my head. The process was slow. I did it again, and again. Every release tore at me some and left me a little weaker. As I kept going, sweat streamed down me along with the blood. I couldn’t even tell if I was making a dent in the bastard’s power.

  Then my chest started to burn.

  “Goddamn it, I am keeping my promise!” Hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but it pissed me off. I released another soul, then another, and stopped to gasp for breath. “I’m getting to them, okay? Eventually.”

  The burning intensified—and I realized with a start that it didn’t hurt. It was just really warm. I glanced down and saw a bright blue glow beneath my shirt in the shape of an X. And I remembered what Reun said about a gealdht working both ways.

  The closer you are to realizing the promise, the stronger you’ll become against the challenge.

  It was trying to help me. Because promises wanted to be kept.

  Acting on pure instinct, I seized the glow inside me and channeled it into my head, with all the clamoring souls. And they started streaming out effortlessly. Almost like I’d drilled a hole in my skull for them to escape.

  A terrible roaring screech erupted from the direction of the fight. Reun and the Duchenes flew back all at once, like a bomb had gone off in the center of them, and a completely blood-drenched Legba charged at me from across the square.

  But something was wrong. Bits of him were falling off…and skittering away.

  His run slowed to a shambling stagger. The closer he got, the more horrifying he looked. Every inch of his skin bubbled and writhed beneath the surface, stretching into impossible shapes and distorting him into something utterly inhuman.

  He took one last step that brought him within five feet of me. “DeathSpeaker,” he said in a voice like a buzzing hive of hornets. “You cannot destroy me. I AM.”

  A vast ripple moved through him like an earthquake, loosening his skin and breaking him apart completely—into a giant, squirming pile of bugs.

  CHAPTER 39

  I stared in horror at the heap of bugs, watching it shrink steadily as they crawled, wriggled, squirmed and skittered in every direction.

  They were all centipedes. Some of them were those nasty three-foot horrors, and a few were even bigger. Tons of smaller ones, countless writhing black worms with far too many bristling legs, all tangled together and crawling blindly over one another as they trundled off.

  The others had picked themselves up and were moving slowly across the square, their expression reflecting the same horrified disgust I felt. For a few minutes, Congo Square seemed to be paved with a living carpet of centipedes.

  At last the heap dissipated. And where Legba had stood was the biggest, nastiest bug of them all.

  The thing was fish-belly white, gleaming sickly, and at least eight feet long. It was impossible to tell the real size of it, because it was coiled like a rattler. The head lifting from the center of the coil sported grotesquely oversized pincher mandibles and huge, milk-blue filmed eyes. Blind eyes.

  It rose up slowly until it towered over me. A strident chittering sound split the air.

  All the scattering centipedes abruptly changed direction and began to slither back to the host.

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I groaned.

  He was reforming. Again.

  Reun and the Duchenes ran the rest of the way, crushing some of the bugs in their wake. But it didn’t seem to slow things down—if anything, the centipedes slithered faster, hundreds of legs propelling them toward Papa Bug to be absorbed into the growing, mutating monstrosity. The more bugs it sucked in, the bigger it got.

  We gathered in a tight group, and started backing away slowly.

  “What the hell are we supposed to do?” I shouted in sheer frustration. “This thing won’t die. And my spark’s just about gone.”

  “Mine as well,” Reun said.

  Denei frowned sharply. “We all ’bout tapped out. Maybe somebody ought to set that thing on fire.”

  The creature loomed large now, slithering toward us with wicked intent. It reached the center of the smudged chalk summoning circle and let out a bubbling shriek, almost like it was hurt. Its forward momentum slowed, but it didn’t stop.

  Reun drew himself straight and walked forward calmly, staring the monster straight in its blind eyes. “There is still power here, in this circle,” he said. “You can feel it burning you.”

  I recognized that hypnotic tone. The same one he’d used against me in the subway.

  And it was working.

  The Legba-thing screamed. There was a hissing sound, and smoke curled from its corpse-white flesh. It lunged at Reun, but he sidestepped casually out of range. “You cannot leave this circle,” he said. “You are trapped here, and you
will burn as you break apart.”

  More hissing, more smoke. More unearthly screams. A handful of foot-long centipedes squirmed loose from the main body and crawled away, bursting into flames mid-skitter. The thing got a little smaller as it lost bugs. But not much.

  Reun backed up a step, shaking with effort. “I cannot hold it for long,” he said. “Somehow, we must destroy it.”

  We can’t.

  I thought it, but I refrained from saying it aloud. Because I had an idea.

  Maybe we didn’t have to kill it.

  “Reun,” I said as I walked into the circle. “Do you remember where the Mists are now?”

  He stared at me. His eyes registered confusion—and then understanding. “Aye.”

  I nodded. “Do it.”

  When Reun moved back and raised a hand to open the Veil, the Legba-creature let out a bubbling cry of triumph. It was free of the mind control. I was trying to decide what spell to throw at it when Zoba flew past me and tackled the beast.

  His strained grunt said I’ll hold it. Do your thing.

  I glanced at Reun and saw the shimmering rip in the air beside him. Thick green smoke churned a silent storm at the center of it. Breathing hard, Reun went down to one knee and held a shaking hand out. The shimmer pulsed and faded. “Gideon…I’ve not enough power to hold it open,” he said. “You must stabilize the portal. Keep the Veil parted.”

  Jagged panic struck me as I moved toward him. I didn’t know how to do that. I tried to remember what he said before, something about channeling the flame through my hand.

  The flame of my spark.

  There wasn’t much left, but I called on it and pushed it through my outstretched arm, into the rip inches away. “Throw that bastard in!” I called.

  A series of thuds and scrapes sounded as Zoba dragged the wriggling monstrosity over. He let out a fierce growl, and drove a fist into the giant bug’s nightmare of a face. The crack of the impact was louder than thunder.

  What was left of Legba flew into the green fog.

  A violent shudder wracked my entire body. “Okay,” I gasped. “How do I close this thing?”