Vesik 04 - This Broken World (13 page)

“What? But he … no, he’s an overgrown dust bunny who likes to make Sam’s stuffed animals dance for her.”

“He was probably drawn to you both,” Foster said. He slid the helmet off his head and ran his hand through his platinum blond hair. “Reapers have a knack for finding people with a whole lot of shit headed straight for them.”

Foster set his helmet on one of the stones Aeros had raised.

“Yeah,” I said. “That pretty much describes our lives.” I shook my head. “I thought all the reapers were killed in the Wandering War.”

“So did I,” the Old Man said.

Foster turned to look at each of us in turn. “Reapers aren’t really Fae, you know? We’re not sure where they came from. They can use ley lines, they can feed from them, but they don’t have to be near them to survive.”

The Old Man scratched at the scars on his arm and said, “Their bones are supposed have useful properties.”

Foster looked at the Old Man. He started to open his mouth, and then he looked away.

“What?” I asked.

He looked up at me. “Nothing, it’s nothing.” His eyes flicked to the Old Man, who concentrated on his pipe.

I nodded. Apparently Foster had something to add, but he wasn’t talking in front of the Old Man.

“Let’s see how much damage you’ve managed to take on,” Foster said. He started prodding at my shoulder.

I winced away at the sudden, sharp pain.

“You’ve either got some screwed up muscles or a torn rotator cuff.” His hand moved from my shoulder and poked my lower rib cage.

I gasped. It felt like I’d just taken an uppercut in my abdomen.

“Buck up,” he said.

“Buck up?” I said between gritted teeth. “Did you seriously just tell me to ‘buck up’?”

“Yes,” he said, jabbing another rib.

I cursed and glared at him. “Why are you hanging out in super-size mode?”

Foster stepped around me before stretching his back. “I’ve been small since we went to Faerie. You can’t just walk around in your Proelium state. That’s considered a challenge, at best, and an act of war at worst.

“Alright, you’re not looking so bad. Two cracked ribs are the only real damage. That shoulder won’t do you any favors if we let it go.

Foster stood up. “You better take off the kid gloves, Old Man.”

“Kid gloves?” I said. “Bloody hell, you just said I have two cracked ribs.”

Foster flashed me a grin. “The Concilium Belli is going to convene in two days. That means you’re coming over to Faerie tomorrow.”

“It was only a matter of time,” the Old Man said.

Foster nodded and cracked his knuckles. “Let’s patch you up. Ribs are going to hurt.”

I took a deep breath and braced myself.

“Socius Sanation!”
Foster said, extending his right palm. Warm white light bathed me for a split second. My breath hissed out between my teeth when it felt like Aeros had just jabbed me in the ribs.

I gasped for air, grabbed my chest, and groaned.

Foster shifted his focus to my shoulder. My arm spasmed and there was a tremendous pop before the light of his incantation began to fade.

“Do you have the hand of glory?” Foster asked. He was nonchalant, as though he hadn’t just healed my cracked bones in a span of seconds.

I nodded. My teeth were still clenched.

“Good. I know Nixie told you not to let go. Seriously, do not let go. No one will come to fish you out of the Abyss.” He turned and scooped up his golden helmet before seating it on his head once more. “You need to watch your tongue when you’re in Faerie.”

I stuck out my tongue and tried to look at it. “Difficult.”

Foster groaned. “Don’t make me call your mom.”

I smiled as Foster crossed his arms. “As long as you don’t call
your
mom, I’m good.”

Foster laughed quietly.

I think the Old Man was getting bored. As he walked away, he turned and said, “Meet me in the front field once Foster leaves.”

I watched him walk around the side of the cabin where the sheds used to be. Smoke trailed after him, and it reminded me of the smoldering crater from our fight with Azzazoth.

Foster snapped back into his smaller form. “Levi still kind of creeps me out sometimes.”

“What didn’t you want to say?” I spoke into the wind, making it unlikely any sound would carry around the cabin.

Foster fluttered to my shoulder and his voice was not far above a whisper. “The bones of the reapers are tied to a very old legend.”

My mind flipped through a dozen of the oldest Fae legends I knew. None of them matched up with the description of a reaper.

“They’re Magrasnetto,” Foster said.

“What?”

“Their bones. When they die in a certain form, they leave bones behind. The bones bond to iron and form Magrasnetto.

I narrowed my eyes. “The Magrasnetto in the shop that was shaped like an irregular cone?”

Foster nodded. “It was probably a piece of a tail.”

“That’s interesting, but why didn’t you want the Old Man to hear?”

“I just …” He looked away. “Damian, you’ve never seen him lose it. I don’t like the idea of him knowing even more things he could use to gain power.”

“He seems pretty stable these days,” I said.

Foster glided out in front of me and hovered with a slow flap of his wings. He shook his head and pointed at me. “Do you remember how close he came to losing it at Rivercene?”

The Old Man’s encounter with Ezekiel at Rivercene. The thunderbird had prevented any real fighting from happening, but the Old Man had practically been frothing at the mouth.

I nodded.

“When we fight Ezekiel, and you know damn well it’s coming, will he be able to hold back? Would you?” Foster crossed his arms. “After two thousand years of hatred …” Foster frowned and his brows drew down beneath his helmet, hiding his eyes in shadows. “I wouldn’t hold back. I would break the world.”

I thought about Azzazoth and Devon. How, for all intents and purposes, they’d enslaved Sam and turned her against me. I’d gone head to head with Azzazoth. I’d brutally dismembered his lackeys and used their auras against him, along with a metric fuck ton of dynamite. If it hadn’t worked … If it hadn’t been enough … If I’d lost Sam …

I shivered and closed my eyes.

“No, I don’t think I could.”

Foster nodded and glided to the nearest protruding stone. “How are you dealing with the dead?” he asked.

I shrugged. “They’re a bit more active than usual, but it really hasn’t bothered me. They’ve kept their distance. Maybe it’s the Old Man?”

“Maybe,” Foster turned his armored head toward the pond. “Aideen said Dell was in pretty bad shape. Why didn’t the dead leave him alone?”

I frowned. “I don’t know.”

“You should ask the Old Man. He may have some idea. Don’t know if he’ll actually tell you if it was his doing in the first place. He can be a pretty secretive son of a bitch.”

“Says the fairy who wouldn’t talk about Magrasnetto in front of him.”

Foster cast me a lopsided grin. “I didn’t say it didn’t have its uses.”

“How long can you stay?”

“I can’t,” he said. He glanced down and frowned slightly. “The courts are divided, Damian. Some of them think Ezekiel’s actions will benefit Faerie.”

“What?” I said, unable to keep the utter disbelief from my voice. “How could any Fae support Ezekiel? After what happened in Falias?”

“There is a lot about Faerie you do not understand. If Ezekiel destroys humanity, or enslaves it, the Fae will be free to walk the earth with abandon.”

“What does that have to do with Ezekiel?” I asked. “They could do that regardless.”

“If Ezekiel succeeds, he will be the only god left outside of the Old Gods.”

“He is not a god,” I said.

“He is as much a god as any man can become. Take that for what it’s worth, but he is a god.” Foster sighed and lifted his helmet slightly to scratch his head. “I have to go, Damian. Take care of yourself. I’ll see you in Faerie.”

***

Foster left without circumstance. He glided into the woods, there was a brief spike in ley line energy as he entered the Ways, and he was gone.

My eyes looked after the path he’d taken, up through the rut Zola’s fiery execution of Philip had created. I sighed and started around the cabin. The longer grass whispered along my jeans. A small brown lizard scampered up the cabin’s shingles. It blinked once, and then vanished behind some firewood.

The Old Man stood with his hands behind his back. The lower branches of the oak tree framed him in the afternoon sun, a mottled image of sunlight and darkness.

“Why was Dell so heavily affected by the dead here?” I asked.

“There are reasons,” the Old Man said before he turned to me.

“No shit,” I said.

His thick beard curled up and I knew his scarred face was smiling. “What you may not know, and your master may not have realized until recently, is that you are no mere necromancer. We seven sons of Anubis are all something more. The Fae teach you arts no born necromancer should be able to access. Using those arts breaks the very concept of necromancy. Why do they teach you these things? To what end? It’s best not to trust any Fae that can still draw breath. Even dead Fae can be … problematic.”

“I trust my friends,” I said, thinking of Foster, Aideen, Cara, and Cassie. My friends who fought with me, laughed with me, died beside me. “You’re wrong.”

He crossed his arms and walked up onto the porch and into the cabin. “Come, let us talk indoors.”

I followed him inside and sat down on the green couch as he leaned back into the old orange chair.

“Let us hope you are right about your friends. Regardless of what you believe, you are changing.”

“What do you mean?” I leaned forward, elbows on my thighs and hands hanging in the empty space between.

“Tell me,” he asked as he leaned forward, “when was the last time you studied an aura? The last time you needed the Sight to tell you exactly what you needed to do?”

His words hit me like a slap in the face. “I …” When I’d trained with Zola, I always had to focus on the aura to perform any remotely complicated incantation. It had been so damn hard to use the vampiric zombie auras to injure Azzazoth, but I was pretty sure I could do it blindfolded now.

“When was the last time you really had to think about manipulating an aura?”

When did that change? “When?” I said aloud.
When?
I thought to myself.

“When?”

My eyes widened as my mind pinpointed the exact time. “When I killed Prosperine.”

The Old Man leaned back in his chair and smiled. That smile made my skin crawl. “Welcome to godhood, brother.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I
snorted at the Old Man’s claim.

“It is time to leave your playthings behind,” the Old Man said as he walked to the front door. “Come.”

“What did you mean by ‘godhood’?” I grimaced and lifted my bruised yet recently healed ass off the couch. The glorious, glorious couch that I missed immediately. I don’t think godhood meant the same thing to me as it did to the Old Man.

“Bring your staff.”

I grabbed the staff as I passed by it on my way out the door. The screen door slammed shut behind me and startled an unsuspecting bat. It climbed deeper into the darkness in the corner of the porch, squeaking in what I can only imagine was annoyance.

“That it? Are we done talking about this?”

“Bring up a circle shield,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I would prefer this not kill you.”

I groaned and began dragging my staff through the dirt to form a circle. I touched one of the Magrasnetto ferules to the indention and said
“Orbis Tego.”
A flowing dome snapped into existence, distorting my vision of the Old Man ever so slightly.

“This is called the Hand of Anubis.” He closed his eyes and reached out with his right hand.

The earth rumbled. For a brief moment it felt as though Aeros was speaking. Then the earth around my feet exploded. Five gravemakers rose up around me, slamming into the shield, and I screamed as lightning bolts of electric blue energy shot off into the air. The shield began to bend, and then I rose into the air. My heart thudded in my chest as the flashes of power illuminated the gravemakers.

But they weren’t gravemakers.

Oh, it was the stuff of gravemakers, looking like worn and rotten bark off a dead tree. But each of the five was connected below me. One was shorter than the others. I realized I was standing on a hand made up of gravemakers’ chaff.

“Fuck. Me.”

I heard the Old Man’s quiet chuckle, but I couldn’t see him through the arcing power and the darkness around me. I felt myself being lowered before the fingers began to disintegrate. Slowly they degraded into piles amid the grass before seeping back into the earth.

I slammed the end of my staff into the ground to break the circle. It fell, and I stared at the Old Man. “What. The hell. Was that?”

“There are only eight beings that have walked this earth that can control a gravemaker. Anubis and his seven sons.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “If necromancers are destined to become gravemakers, some of them had to be able to control the damn things before Anubis.”

“None that I am aware of,” the Old Man said. “And I
have
looked. A butterfly does not control the caterpillar that bore him.”

I stared at the Old Man. “That sounds like something Hugh would say.”

The Old Man nodded. “It is something Hugh said to me a very long time ago.”

“What will you do when we find Ezekiel?” I asked.

“I will fight him. I may defeat him, or he may defeat me. It is a long road we have walked. It is time for that road to end.” He turned and walked toward the pond. “Come, show me the Fist of Anubis.”

“You haven’t explained it yet,” I said.

“You have seen it. I doubt you need more than that. It is one of the few gifts you will enjoy from our father.”

It was night by the time we finished training. I was pretty sure the Old Man had been right. Between shield training and close quarters combat, he had me focus on the Hand of Anubis as he summoned it and showed me its variant, the Fist of Anubis. I was sure I could do the same, and that frightened me, and exhilarated me, which frightened me even more.