Gods old and dark Read online

  "You'll spare yourself a world of hurt if you keep it in mind."

  "Probably. You spare yourself any hurt over Molly?"

  June Bug's eyes narrowed, and she looked dangerous for a moment. "She was too young for me—but she looked and sounded exactly like Marian. Exactly. I know why she did now, but it didn't help then. In any case, you're too perceptive by half. I think perhaps I need to look a little more closely into the other secrets you're keeping."

  "Maybe not," Pete said. "I'll keep your secrets if you'll keep mine."

  "I'm not going to promise anything right now. As long as you don't pose a danger to the Sentinels, I'll let whatever you have buried in your closet stay there."

  "I don't pose a danger to the Sentinels. We're both on the same side—me and the Sentinels," he said, and he meant it. And he tried not to think too hard about the FBI, which did pose a danger to June Bug and her secret society and its goals.

  "Sides are tricky things," June Bug said. "They can shift suddenly. I don't want to suddenly discover that you're one of the bad guys."

  "Not going to happen."

  The conversation moved on. They talked for a while about the old gods, and about the keth, about the gold of the resurrection rings, about Lauren's bringing magic back to Earth, and about Molly.

  "You've seen her?"

  "Yes."

  "How is she?"

  Pete sighed. "Different. She looks different, and there's this aura of darkness around her that wasn't there before. I can still see a lot of the person she was before she died. But there's something else there now, too. Something dark and strange and frightening."

  "Death changes people," June Bug said, her voice a whisper.

  Which, Pete thought, pretty well summed up not only June Bug's problem, but his. And Lauren's. And, for that matter, Molly's.

  CHAPTER 10

  Night Watch Control Hub, Barâd Island, Oria

  REKKATHAV KNEW HOW TO WORK HARD, and he had worked harder in the last half day than he'd ever worked before in his life. And the work had paid off, to the point that he dared to go home and face the Master of the Night Watch with some hope that his head would still be attached to his body when he'd told his tale.

  He bowed low before Aril. "I have the information you required—both bad news and good news."

  Well…?

  "Bad news first."

  I'll have all of it together, the keth said, and went for his mind with the ruthlessness that had made him Master.

  But Rekkathav was still a truly living creature—never resurrected, with the breath of his birth still in him and his soul still bound to his flesh. Aril could suggest to him. He could compel to a certain extent. But so long as Rekkathav was braced and shielded with his soul standing guard over his thoughts, Aril could not rip into Rekkathav with the same ruthlessness he had employed on Vanak. Rekkathav was capable of keeping secrets—as long as he didn't try to keep them too long.

  "Bad news first," Rekkathav said, hanging on to his plan like grim death. Or grim life, in his case.

  He told Aril about the return of the immortals, about their team of mortals, about the deaths of the keth and the Beithan, and about the destruction of their resurrection rings.

  Aril sat frozen, disbelieving. He stared into Rekkathav's eyes with that cold death-hunger that was as close as he ever came to genuine fury. The whisper in Rekkathav's mind was gentle.

  Rekkathav didn't relax. "I found the source of the magic. The source is incredibly vulnerable."

  The death-hunger in the Master's eyes did not lessen. I could do as much.

  "I did more. I also found out about the source's protector. I could not locate the protector, but I can tell you how to find her, and what she is."

  Tell me.

  Rekkathav told everything he had found out about the purely mortal Lauren and her child, and about Molly, who was both dark god and dark god hunter. He noted that Molly could be connected with the disappearance of the Night Watch team stationed in the Orian technical development center down in Fyre, as well as some solo disappearances, and was probably responsible for more.

  And this is your good news?

  "The good news is that there are only two of them. And you only have to kill one to win. Our enemies have no backup, no second system in place ready to carry on if anything happens to their mortal. She's it. She's a freak. A fluke. And she's tender. Wait until they've relaxed, until they think this business with the keth gave you pause, and then go in with an all-out assault—everything we can throw at them. Be prepared to take some losses from the two immortals and don't get sidetracked by anything they throw at your people, then pump the whole of our force against that one mortal target on her home planet with not the first bit of her own magic to protect herself, and she'll die. We'll pay something for it—maybe even a lot. But they'll pay everything."

  Aril watched Rekkathav for a long time without giving any response at all. Then he asked, How long a wait would you suggest?

  "Two weeks minimum. Maybe a month. No attempts at all during that time, then a hundred gates simultaneously and everything we have poured in on top of her in one rush."

  Aril nodded. A sound plan. You surprise me. I thought you had more of a secretarial spirit. He paused, and tipped his head to one side so that his hair, floating around his head in a thousand braids like living snakes, coiled and slithered. The effect always gave Rekkathav the creeps, and this time was no different.

  You may put the team together and lead the charge. I believe—he smiled just a little, and his gaze never left Rekkathav—that initiative should be rewarded.

  The Master of the Night Watch dismissed Rekkathav from his presence with the flick of a finger.

  Rekkathav scuttled back to his own chambers, keeping his thoughts tucked close. He was still alive. Still alive—but the Master might as well have signed his death warrant. Him lead the charge against immortals and well-armed mortals; him, who had read every battle history and tactical treatise he could find, but who had never been in so much as a mating duel.

  He studied the heavy gold band clamped into his hide. The band that had promised immortality, that had promised that he would stand among the masters of eternity, that had made him one with the dark gods of the Night Watch. It had felt like his own pair of wings when they'd first clamped it on him.

  Now it felt like shackles.

  The Wilds of Southern Oria

  Molly woke in leaves and dirt, and this time she remembered where she was and knew what had happened to her. Dead again. She stood and looked up, and up, to the top of the rock where she and Baanraak had fought. She could go up there, see if he was still there, if he had resurrected more slowly than she, so that she might take another shot at destroying him.

  She stood naked in a forest a long way from her home. But she did not need to remain in that state. She closed her eyes and willed the magic of Oria into her body, and summoned hunter's clothes—comfortable jeans and sturdy walking shoes and a good, stretchy knit shirt. She visualized that dagger that Seolar had given her, the one with which she had once killed herself to save her existence, and brought it and the sheath and belt to hand, and found her weapon covered with dried blood and much the worse for wear.

  A touch of her hand, a focused command, and the dagger was both clean and self-cleaning, sharp and self-sharpening. A weapon worthy of a hunter. She looked up toward the top of the rock again and judged distances. Two hundred feet, perhaps. Maybe a little more. She could get there in the blink of an eye. But what would she find when she got there? She felt for Baanraak's thoughts, but could find no sign of them. She tried to recall the memory of his flesh, which she had both touched and, when she hid within his mind, worn. She could not bring it back, either. He might be lying atop the rock, halfway through his resurrection and helpless. He might be all the way through, and blocking her attempts to locate him.

  She floated up the rock face, hoping it would not be the latter. She had no wish to confront him when he
knew she was coming—he had size and age and experience and built-in weaponry all in his favor, and if he also had warning of her arrival, she would have no chance. But she could not ignore the possibility that his resurrection rings might be lying atop the rock, waiting for her to pick them up. She could end his pursuit of her for good.

  But atop the rock there was nothing but a single black scale. She picked it up. It shimmered in the palm of her hand—about the size of her thumbnail, iridescent, translucent, too beautiful to be part of such an evil creature. It was Baanraak's—she could feel what he had been when she touched it, but she could not feel him. She shoved it into her pocket, frowning. He'd resurrected and gone, or something else had beaten her to the rings.

  Then from down in the forest she felt what she'd been seeking. Baanraak's mind, fogged and bewildered, crawling back to consciousness. But still vulnerable.

  The explosion. He'd been blown clear of the rock like she had—he'd resurrected in the forest.

  Molly didn't waste time pondering alternatives—she ran to the edge, jumped in the direction of the waking mind she felt, and let herself drop in free fall, pretending she had a parachute strapped to her back again, holding her arms and legs out and controlling the direction of her fall. She visualized a cushion that would slow her fall, but did not put it into place until the last instant, when she'd broken through an opening in the canopy of trees and could see Baanraak below her, one wing flopping, legs twitching, neck outstretched. He wasn't quite finished resurrecting, she realized, and blew the cushion spell into place beneath her, over him. She whipped out her dagger as her spell brought her in for a smooth landing, changed it into a sword in the blink of an eye, put weight behind the blow she aimed at the joining of his huge head and serpentine neck, willed the sword through him in one smooth blow.

  She'd learned from experience—she kept out of Baanraak's way as his body thrashed in its death throes. When the thrashing and the twitching stopped, she willed him to flames and burned him to ash, and when it was done, dug through the ash until she'd located two heavy gold rings.

  She held them in her hand for a long moment, feeling the greasy darkness of them, the weight that came from the taint of death magic heavier than the gold that bound it.

  She could not destroy the resurrection rings with magic alone—she already knew that. She did not wish to take them with her because already they called to her, their magic mingling with everything that she was to twist her farther toward destruction. So she created a kiln, spinning it upward out of local bedrock, and summoned the ingredients to build a hot enough fire, and used magic to light the wood. The fire was not magical, though, merely hot. She put the rings into it and let the gold run down and collect in a small square mold. While it melted, the hellish magics coiled around her so tightly she almost couldn't breathe; she could feel Baanraak's touch, his hunger, his power, and she wanted them. Nor were they beyond her grasp. Not yet.

  She clenched her teeth until her jaws ached and shivered at Baanraak's invisible touch. To fight the call of the magic while she waited, she created the grinding apparatus she would need later, and when the gold had melted, used more magic to cool and harden it. Used the grinder to rasp the bar down to gold dust, and felt the spells weaken as she did. She put the gold dust in a bag and willed herself to a river she knew of that fell straight down the side of the mountain into the sea. She stood on a boulder beside the crashing, racing water, bag of gold in hand.

  "We're done," she said to the shadows of Baanraak that remained. "We're done, and it's over."

  She poured the gold into whitewater. She felt the last of the magic leave her, and watched the powder gleam and sparkle as it poured away from her. Beautiful. Achingly beautiful. And finally gone.

  She pulled the scale out of her pocket and stared at it. Baanraak was gone. This tiny thing was all that remained of him. She should be rejoicing. So why did the hollowness inside her feel worse?

  She needed to go home.

  She held the scale over the water, thinking to toss it away—but at the last moment she could not. She spun a little stainless steel chain out of air and magic, not a magic metal or a binding metal like silver or gold, but a simple metal that would let her keep the little scale with her. She edged it with a delicate stainless steel frame, and held it up when she was done to watch the dark rainbows move within it, and then she donned the necklace she'd created. A trophy, she told herself. A tangible symbol of her triumph over her first great enemy.

  Molly stood atop the cliff with spray from the falls cold and sharp as needles against her skin, touching the rrôn scale at her throat, and tried to think of anything else that she might do to put off the inevitable. But she had to go back. She had to let Seolar know where she had been for the last…well, she did not know how long she'd been gone. For the last days, then, or maybe weeks.

  She had to face him. Hollower inside, with the darkness at her core spreading outward, with her feelings for him numbed and with the knowledge that she was being ripped away a little at a time, like an onion stripped of successive layers until nothing remained but the memory that an onion had once been there.

  She was diminished; the darkness had spread. And this would keep happening, because even with Baanraak dead, Molly could not give up and stop hunting the Night Watch, the other dark gods. If she quit, the result would be the same as if Lauren just quit. The worldchain would fail, and her world and Oria and everything she had ever loved would die—and even though the ability to love faded inside her with each death, and she lost more and more of her passion, she still…remembered. She remembered caring.

  She stared out at the sea that sprawled before her, glittering like a vast sapphire. It was beautiful, and alive, and already forces worked knowingly toward its destruction and the destruction of the rest of Oria as well. This world, like Earth, would die without her help. All the beauty before her would pass away, while she would go on, knowing all the while that she could have been the difference.

  Molly turned her face to the north, lifted her chin, and gathered her resolve. She would face him. She would find a way to talk to him. She had to, for both their sakes.

  The Wilds of Southern Oria—and a Band of Hunter's Gold

  Baanraak woke, hungry, with late afternoon sunlight in his eyes. He looked up at the trees overhead, at the vast natural rock tower that rose over the forest to his right. He sniffed the air, felt for life. Nothing edible moved anywhere near him—something had scared off all the game. The air stank of dark magic and of the destruction of dark magic. A dark god had died nearby, and not long ago.

  He should hunt for Molly, but at the moment his hunger was all-consuming. He would find her without difficulty, he decided. And then he would destroy her for what she had done to him. Everything had become clear to him—he couldn't imagine why he'd had such a struggle deciding on his path of action.

  He looked up through the trees, found a clearing, and leapt into the air. He headed south.

  The Wilds of Southern Oria—and a Band of Master's Gold

  …and Baanraak woke, hungry, with the sun creeping down the far edge of the sky. He looked up at the trees overhead, at the vast natural rock tower that rose over the forest to his left. He sniffed the air and caught the stink of dark magic and the death of a dark god some time earlier, but fresh enough to be worrisome.

  He breathed, deep and slow, feeling the life fill him again, feeling the rush of blood through his veins, the power in his muscles, the flex of talon and wing.

  The world had become clear to him; the choices lay before him, obvious and logical. He could remember his confusion before Molly blew him into bits, but he could not understand why he had been confused.

  He had become annoyed with the Night Watch, with the ineptitude of its leadership, with its pathetic cultivation of unripe downworlds and its sloppy harvesting of prime worlds. But he had no need to be annoyed; he had walked away from the Mastery. It was time to go back.

  He would eat fir
st, and then he would pursue his new destiny.

  He looked up through the trees, found a clearing, and leapt into the air. He headed west.

  The Wilds of Southern Oria—and a Band of Beginner's Gold

  …and Baanraak woke, hungry, to early twilight. He sniffed the air and found the faint stink of the destruction of dark magic. Someone had slaughtered a dark god a while ago, though the scent had cooled and would be gone for certain by morning.

  He knew how he had come to be where he was. He knew who he was. But he felt incomplete, as if the vast stretches of who he was had been erased. He knew that he had known more, but he did not know what he had known, only that he was a vessel that had once been full but was now nearly empty.

  Game moved through the forest, however, and his hunger chased other thoughts from his mind. He tucked his wings in tight and stepped lightly along the path toward his dinner.