Earth's Hope (34 page)

“Bastards!” she squealed. “You planned this.”

“You bet we did, sweetheart.” Perrikus nipped her ear. “Be nice, and I won’t hurt you.”

“Fuck you.” She writhed in his grasp, kicking, scratching, biting, but his grip only tightened.

Dewi pushed toward her, but demons blocked her. “Fool,” she screamed. “I told you to stay put. I can’t help you now.”

“Goddamned dragons!” Perrikus shouted. “Nothing but trouble.”

“The demons will take care of her—eventually,” D’Chel said.

Because he was close enough, Aislinn aimed a kick and caught him square in the groin.

“Ooph.” He cupped his genitals. “You little bitch! That does it. We’re moving to Plan B.”

“What’s that?” she inquired sweetly through clenched teeth.

“We kill you, cut out your ovaries, and use your eggs that way.” D’Chel’s expression was so chilling he was hard to look at.

“We’ve wasted enough time.” Perrikus sliced downward with one of the hands he had wrapped around her, and heat gushed down her belly, soaking her clothes.

Blood. Hers. A lot of it.

Pain filled her, hot, white, blinding as he wrenched something from deep inside her. The taste of bitter ashes flooded her mouth and she vomited bile.

Fear battled fury. She was going to die in this underground hellhole on an alien world. And there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it. She directed Healing magic inward, but the extent of the damage was enormous. Tears clouded her eyes. Fionn. Rune. Maybe once she was gone, the dark gods would let them go.

“Please.” She clung to consciousness so she could ask.

“Look at that,” D’Chel chortled. “Dying brings out the best in her.”

“We should have jumped on that bandwagon a long time ago,” Perrikus cut in. “Saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”

“Please.” More blood sheeted down her stomach. “Let Fionn and Rune go back to Earth. You have what you want from me. It’s a fair trade. A good one.” Her vision was shading to black.

“We’ll think about it,” D’Chel said. His mocking laughter, and the dragon’s outraged scream, were almost the last things she heard as consciousness slipped away. Just before she let go, she thought she heard Rune howling, but it must have been a trick of her dying brain, neurons firing willy-nilly as she faded into the nothingness of death.

* * * *

“Close,” Rune howled mournfully. “Aislinn’s hurt. Hurry.”

Fear closed a fist around Fionn’s heart. “How bad?”

“She’s dying.” The wolf howled again just as they burst into an enormous cavern. Fionn had no idea where they were. It might be beneath the fortress, or on another world. Or in Hell from the piles of demons stacked around Dewi.

Nidhogg ripped his way out of Fionn, trumpeting his rage, and cut a path through the demons. Rune sprinted away from Fionn and launched himself at Perrikus, sinking his fangs into the dark god’s throat.

“This way.” Fionn told Bran and hurtled toward Perrikus, D’Chel, and Aislinn. She’d been sagging in Perrikus’s arms until the wolf attacked him, but now she lay on the ground. Blind fury drove Fionn and he wrenched a metal pikestaff from a dead demon’s hand and drove it through D’Chel, pinning him to the wall.

Rune must have taken Perrikus by surprise. The dark god pushed power at the wolf, but Rune held firm. He’d ripped a six inch length of both jugular and carotids open along one side of Perrikus’s neck. Blood geysered everywhere, and the dark god was weakening.

“Take care of them,” Fionn snarled at Bran and knelt to gather Aislinn into his arms. Was she still alive? Praying to every god and goddess in the pantheon, he sent magic auguring into her, relieved beyond measure when he found a weak heartbeat. He retreated to a corner and rocked her against him, deploying Healing magic to try to keep life in her body.

“Leannán,” he whispered. “I love you. Doona leave me. Fight this.”

He poured magic into her, but she didn’t rally. Blood. She needed blood. She’d lost too much. He ripped the dirk from her waist sheath, intent on cutting into a vessel to feed his own blood into her, but Dewi lumbered to his side.

“Bran has the dark gods under control. I breathed dragon fire into them. Nidhogg is taking care of the demons. Give me the MacLochlainn.” She bent low and held out her forelegs.

“Nay!” Fionn gazed at the dragon, and his soul twisted with anguish. “She will die in my arms, not yours.”

A blood-coated Rune raced to Fionn’s side. “She yet lives. Can the two of you fix her?”

“I’m trying,” Dewi said grimly. “Fionn, give her to me. Hurry. We’re running out of time. If you let me have her, she won’t die.”

“Please.” Rune nipped him. “If there’s a chance. Any chance at all…” A desolate howl burst from him.

Fionn handed Aislinn’s boneless body to the dragon. It might have been his imagination, but she was already cooler than she’d been when he picked her up.

“Thank you.” Dewi’s eyes flooded and a pile of gemstones clattered to the dirt at her feet. She crooned in the dragons’ tongue and turned one of her talons to her own breast where she cut through scales and flesh. Once her blood, a deep red-black river, began to flow, she angled Aislinn’s wound beneath it and let her blood seep into the gaping hole that had been Aislinn’s stomach.

“Do you understand what she’d doing?” Rune asked softly.

“Not entirely. I was on the verge of doing much the same. Giving Aislinn my blood.”

“What she needed was mine,” Dewi said and handed Aislinn back to Fionn. “It is done. She will live.” The vertical tear in Dewi’s chest closed as if it had never been there.

“Dewi!” Nidhogg bellowed. “I could use a spot of assistance.”

“Take care of her.” Dewi’s voice was as gentle as Fionn had ever heard it. “Coming,” she called over her shoulder and waded back into the battle.

Bran made his way to Fionn’s side. “I heard most of that. Dewi may have fixed one problem, but we’re a long way from out of the woods. The only one having a good time is Nidhogg. I swear, that dragon thrives on battles. Those damnable demons are pouring in here as if we’re having a fire sale on pitchforks, and he’s killing them and laughing his head off. I’d hoped when we took Perrikus and D’Chel out of the action, those portals into Hell would close.”

“Why would they?” Fionn asked. “Adva’s the one controlling them.”

“Och aye. I hadna exactly forgotten about him, but he wasn’t at the top of my mental list, either. Where the hell do ye suppose he is?”

“I’ll watch over Aislinn,” Rune said, “if you need to fight.”

Fionn wanted to teleport them all the hell out of there, but he couldn’t leave the dragons to face Hell’s denizens alone, not after Dewi had saved Aislinn’s life. He experimented with the teleport spell, but it bounced back at him. Apparently, Adva was still controlling the game with his warped house of mirrors.

Aislinn moved weakly in his arms. “Fionn? Or did I die and I’m dreaming you?” Her voice was the barest whisper.

“Nay, love. I’m real enough. Ye dinna die, but it was much too close for my taste.”

“Put her down,” Rune demanded. “I want to clean her wounds.”

“Rune?” Aislinn twisted her head to look at her wolf. “Aw, Rune.”

Her eyes flooded with tears, and Fionn’s heart shattered at how close he’d come to losing her.

Smoke and fire thickened in the cave. Fionn caught glimpses of other fell creatures: incubi, succubi, gnomes, trolls. Kneeling, he placed Aislinn in an alcove. “I have to fight, love. I’ll return as soon as I can. Rune will keep watch.”

“Nothing will harm her,” the wolf said with a simple dignity that touched Fionn beyond words.

“Where…” The single word trailed off, and Aislinn tried again. “Where did all these things come from?”

“Hell,” Bran said shortly. “’Tisn’t enough to kill them. We must subvert Adva’s spell and shut the gateway.”

A flash of light nearly blinded Fionn, and he shielded his eyes with one hand. “Shit! Fuck! We do not need more demonic bastards in here.”

“’Tisn’t,” Bran said, and a grin bloomed on his face. “By the goddess, ’tis the baby dragon horde come to bail us out.”

“I knew you were out there somewhere,” Nidhogg roared at his brood. “You wanted war. This is war. Dive right in. No one’s stopping you.”

“But they’re my babies,” Dewi wailed and shot a swath of fire through a dozen undead who incinerated in a stinking flare of ghoulish bits.

“They were old enough to join their power to escape from Royce and Vaughna,” Nidhogg said. “This is their birthright, Dewi. Dragons were born to rid all worlds of evil.”

With the black dragon leading the troupe, the seven younglings fanned out. Fire and magic spewed from them in a mix so potent, it cut through at least fifty demons before they gathered themselves enough to fight back.

“I’m impressed,” Bran cried. “Go younglings!” He fist pumped the air, pulled magic, and three trolls blew up, scattering rock everywhere.

“See?” Nidhogg shouted at Dewi. “Our brood will be just fine.”

“Shut up and fight,” Dewi growled, and cast her gaze Fionn’s way. “Speaking of which, Celt—”

Fionn grabbed Bran’s arm and they waded into the fray. Somehow, they had to track Adva down, but maybe if they dished out maximum destruction, the god of portals would get discouraged and leave. Behind him, twin flares went up, lighting the cave bright as day, and he knew it was Perrikus and D’Chel, burning form the inside out, courtesy of the seeds of dragon’s fire Dewi had breathed into them.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Gwydion gnashed his teeth in frustration. The blasted Persian mirror tunnels had led them to three dead ends, but their current path looked like it might pan out. They’d passed this point in the central tunnel before. He recognized it because he’d carved a gash in the flesh-like material lining the passageway last time they’d been there. It had really pissed off whatever breathed life into the passageway because the damned thing had ejected them back to the room they’d started from.

“If I ever get my hands on that fucker Adva, I’ll choke the life out of him.”

“Same thing I was thinking,” Arawn mumbled. “There’s a battle. I feel it in the pit of my stomach, and we keep walking around it.”

“We just passed where we’ve been stymied before,” Timothy said from behind him.

“Tell me something I doona know.” Gwydion pushed power through his staff until it glowed brightly. “Hold a moment. Tell everyone to concentrate as much magic as they can and focus it there.” He jabbed the tip of his staff forward. Power bubbled so sharp and bright, the tunnel walls actually retreated a foot.

The walls turned silvery, and then pink. Suddenly the tunnel fell away to nothingness and they were in an enormous chamber full of smoke and flames and littered with bodies.

“Goddess be praised! We hit the mother lode. Finally.” Gwydion stabbed the air with his staff and hurried into the melee. It was hard to see much of anything until he fine-tuned his magical senses.

“Holy crap!” He came to an abrupt halt, surveying the impossible. “What the hell? How’d they get here?” he muttered.

Arawn pitched up against his back. “Why’d ye stop?” the god of the dead demanded.

“Of all of us, ye should be able to see in the dark.”

“I can. I was fixated on the dragon brood. How do ye suppose—” Fire flashed past his head, and Arawn ducked.

“The mystery will keep till later.” Gwydion focused power through his staff and sent lethal energy into a troll, a gnome, and a pair of undead glued to one another in the throes of sexual ecstasy. It looked as if someone had emptied Hell into this cave, and he cursed Adva for creating a portal.

“Fight well.” Arawn loped into the fray, with Andraste on his heels keening a battle cry.

Gwydion scanned the room to see what was needed. Demon spawn poured from half a dozen gateways. A young dragon had stationed itself in front of each and was dealing death to whatever popped through. The black youngling circulated among his eggmates, urging them on and killing at the same time. Damn, if he didn’t look like a junior version of his father. Gwydion smiled wryly, recognizing truth in his thoughts.

If a new Norse dragon’s been born, it bodes well for the world.

Fionn, Andraste, Arawn, and Bran traded blows with trolls and demons. Nidhogg and Dewi had split up their brood and looked like they were providing backup and encouragement and doing their damnedest to make certain nothing happened to any of them. It made sense—this was their offspring’s first major battle.

The humans had fanned through the room killing whatever stepped into their path. Where were the dark gods? And Aislinn and Rune? Gwydion let his power guide him to a spot a little away from the worst of the fighting. Looking pale, but determined, Aislinn sat with her back against a wall. Rune sat by her side, ears pricked forward and his gray-black fur drenched in the dark gods’ blood.

Gwydion tried to breathe through his mouth. The dark gods’ blood had a nauseating stench: decayed flesh mingled with rotten grease. Because the battle seemed to be moving along all right without his immediate assistance, he sat next to Aislinn. “What happened, lass?”

“Long story. I was certain I was dying. Tried to Heal myself, but there was too much damage. D’Chel got tired of trying to fuck me and decided to carve one of my ovaries out.”

Fury roiled through Gwydion at the atrocity of it. “That son of a bitch. I’m surprised ye remember aught.”

She nodded, her golden eyes somber. “I am too. Something shifted once I passed out. It was like I’d moved to my astral self, but the color leached out of the world. It looked like how I always imagined death’s dream kingdom from some poem I read in high school.” She twisted her head to meet his gaze. “It isn’t important, but who wrote it?”

“T.S. Eliot. What did ye see in your astral form?”

“Fionn had me, was doing everything he could to Heal me, but he ran up against the same roadblocks I found. Once over half the blood in a body is gone, it’s impossible to reverse things. Dewi showed up and ordered him to give me to her. At first he didn’t want to, but Rune sided with the dragon.” Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment. “I would be dead—actually, I think I was—except Dewi gave me her blood.”