And, suddenly, a wave of emotion swamped me. I didn’t know where it came from; I didn’t know what it was. I just knew I was roaring in something beyond rage and jumping toward the creature, with no knives, no Pythian power, no weapons of any kind. Just fury so deep I could taste it.
Like I could taste its blood a second later. Because my hands did what the knives could not. They found the nearly closed wound in its side, and I followed, plunging elbows-deep in biting, stinging poison. I didn’t care, like I didn’t care about the creature’s talons spearing into me, over and over, or its great maw snapping at the air, trying to bite. It still couldn’t see worth a damn, but it could feel, and it wanted to tear, to rend me, as it had Caedmon. But he had been a child of the light, whereas I—
Was the firstborn and only child of Hel, goddess of death, which had been the Norse name for Artemis, and a powerful necromancer. I wasn’t of the light any more than it was. Time to prove it.
I clawed my way inside the creature, cracking bones and tearing viscera. And what my hands took, it did not heal. It did run, though, a slashing, slithering motion as it transformed yet again, into something like a giant eel, if eels had intelligent eyes. It tore through the passages with me clinging to its side, screaming in rage as it repeatedly slammed me into the wall, trying to scrape me off.
It didn’t succeed, but I could feel myself growing weaker, power sheering away with every blow. I had my mother’s wrath, but not her power. I wasn’t going to be enough—
But, then, I didn’t have to be.
Because I had help.
I’d barely had the thought when Billy was there, cursing louder and more profanely than I’d ever heard him, and I’d heard a lot. But he had it. Somehow, he’d gotten into the creature’s mind and he had it.
Please, I thought, my power searching for the body the thing had left behind. Just give me this. Give me strength enough for one. Great. Shift.
“Cassie! Cassie!” Light burst over me, so bright it seared my eyes and made me cover them protectively with my arm. And when I looked again, the dark, cave-like interior was gone and I was back in a room full of blood—
And a huge, writhing monster out of a nightmare, its physical body dwarfing the large space, rising up, up, up, until it filled the three-story-high ceiling above me.
Chapter Sixteen
“What the fuck?” Marlowe rasped, being the first to break the silence.
“That’s it!” I panted, clinging to consciousness. “That’s what killed your men!”
The creature had been staring around, its strange, blunt, eel-like face with the terrible human eyes seeming confused by what had just happened. But at the sound of my voice, it refocused downward to where us tiny human types were staring up in shock. And a split second later, it was back in half-man form again and screaming in rage.
If I’d thought that sound was awful in the spirit realm, it was nothing compared to hearing it in person. Or of watching its physical form morph as easily as its soul had, with one long finger suddenly pushing out, elongating even more, becoming a bony spear. One he used to slash down at me—
Only to be met by a glowing, golden sword, wielded by a seriously pissed-off demigod.
“Let’s try that again,” Caedmon said, with blood on his mouth.
I didn’t see what happened next, not because my vision cut out on me, but because it was just that fast. I’d seen vampires look like blurs before, but this wasn’t that. I couldn’t track the two of them at all when they moved; I could only see them when they didn’t, suddenly appearing here, there, and everywhere when they paused for a split second.
But I saw when that golden blade saved me half a dozen times, because the monster seemed to have a serious hard-on for ending my life. I saw when Mircea grabbed the thing’s elongated tail, pulling the huge body away from me and sending it crashing through the doors to the waiting room. I saw when the old knight pulled a sword of his own, as venerable as his armor, but oiled and sharp and deadly.
And, with a yell, jumped onto the monster’s back.
His courage seemed to finally break the shock that had held the rest of the officers in place, their mouths open. They got a clue and tried to emulate him, only to be slammed through the wall and then several others by that massive tail. A bunch of palace guards—no lightweights themselves—came running down the hall and were treated likewise, although they might have been the lucky ones. Because the next group was impaled, armor and all, by those terrible, bony claws, all of which were far beyond spear length now.
We need the army, I thought desperately. Specifically, we needed the demon-possessed force that was spearheading the assault on Faerie. We needed them now.
Because things were already going to hell. People were running and screaming, walls were being blown out, and huge pillars were falling. One of them struck the giant golden orb off its plinth and sent it rolling heavily down the great hall.
We had the numbers, but I wasn’t at all sure that we had the advantage.
Until I heard a great HISSSSSSSSSS coming from somewhere in the air, high above me.
All the skin at the base of my neck ruffled up, my eyes got big, and I swallowed convulsively. Please let that be on our side, I thought, clinging to the floor. Please . . .
It was on our side.
Or should I say, she was.
Because a midnight viper longer than a couple of buses and thicker around than a great oak tree suddenly tore past me, almost too fast to see. Which was fine; I was completely fine with that. But fish man clearly felt otherwise. He turned from smashing the skewered vamps against the wall in time for those slitted eyes to blow wide, and then she was on him.