Spirit’s End

CHAPTER 23

Eli groaned and lay back on the lumpy ground, thankful for whatever it was that had broken his fall, even though that kind cushion was now elbowing him in the ribs and cursing at him in a very familiar voice. Obligingly, he rolled off, landing on his knees in the snow with the Hunter’s seed clutched against his chest. He steadied himself and looked up just in time to see a furious Miranda kick to her feet in front of him.

“Good positioning,” he said, rubbing his bruised ribs. “You might have just saved me a broken neck.”

“I’ll give you a broken neck!” Miranda roared, but then the fury seemed to drift out of her as her eyes latched on to the glowing pearl in Eli’s hand. “You did it!”

“ ’Course I did it,” Eli said, sticking out his free arm for her to pull him up. “How much time do we have left?”

Miranda’s hand was icy as it grabbed his, and her voice was no less bleak. “See for yourself,” she said, nodding at the sky as she yanked him up.

Bracing himself for the worse, Eli looked up…

… and realized that there is no amount of bracing that can prepare you to see the sky ripped open.

There were three holes in total, and each one was filled with monstrous black hands the size of mountains straining like starving animals as they reached for whatever they could grab. For a long, confused moment, Eli couldn’t understand how the cracked shell was still holding. Then, as his mind worked its way around the crack and the giant hands, he saw the defenders.

Josef stood on the lowest ridge of the Dead Mountain, the Heart of War flying in his grip like the blade was part of him. Every time he swung, one of the grasping hands lost a chunk, even though they were miles away. But even as one demon squealed in rage and yanked its hand back, another would surge forward to take its place, the new hand just as desperate as the last as it fought to reach the screaming spirits below.

But Josef wasn’t the only one holding the invaders back. Flitting between the enormous black hands were two other shadows that, though smaller, were equally unsettling. Just looking at them made Eli’s stomach heave, but he forced himself to study them long enough to see that the two were different.

One was all teeth and predatory malice. It snarled and bit the invading hands, driving them back with territorial fury. The other was softer, quieter, but no less deadly. Her body was shrouded in a shadow, and her back was dominated by four wings that rippled like black water. Her long claws dragged over each demon she passed, and every place she touched crumpled under enormous pressure, making the demons scream in pain. Eli almost smiled then. Leave it to Nico to stay quiet even when she was the monster in the night.

But the demons weren’t the only monsters fighting the things from the other side of the sky. Down below, where the hands would have broken through to dig into the mountains, a wall of black cloud prevented them, driving them back with arcing silver lightning.

The Lord of Storms carpeted the land in all directions, a barrier against whatever Josef, Nico, and the Demon of the Dead Mountain missed. Every time a claw came near, the lightning would rise up in a great thunderhead that opened like the mouth of a wolf, biting the grasping claws with crackling teeth that flashed out before the demon could eat them in retaliation. Each time one vanished, another took its place in an endless series of lightning strikes that drove the ravenous demons back.

The four defenders were such an impressive sight, Eli almost felt hopeful. The worst had come, and they were still holding. But then his eyes went to the sky again, to the network of shining cracks, the split sun, the black claws fighting for purchase on the rims of the broken holes, picking away at the shell’s edge, and his fledgling hope vanished as quickly as it had come.

He looked down at the seed in his hand. Wherever the pearl touched his fingers, his skin was pure white. White as Benehime’s. Power flowed through him, hot with rage, tingling with promise. For a moment, Eli let it fill him, burning away his fear and exhaustion until he was strong enough to make the decision that shouldn’t have been his to make.

He turned to Miranda. “Call the Lord of Storms.”

“What?” she cried over the screaming.

“You’re connected to him, right?” Eli shouted back. “Call him down.”

“Are you paying attention?” Miranda roared. “He’s the only thing keeping—”

“Now,” Eli snapped.

Miranda glared furiously at him, but then she lifted her head. The storm thundered in answer, and then the Lord of Storms appeared in a flash of lightning.

“What do you mean by yanking me—”

Eli didn’t wait for the spirit to finish his tirade. He lunged straight at the Lord of Storms’ chest. The storm was so furious at Miranda’s infraction, he didn’t even notice as Eli’s shoved the Hunter’s glowing seed deep into his stomach.

The second it was inside, the Lord of Storms froze. Overhead, the clouds stopped swirling and the lightning hung midflash. On the ground, the Lord of Storms’ body was still as a statue, his silver eyes wide and unreadable as they watched Eli remove his now-empty hand and step back, drawing Miranda back with him.

She tried to protest, but he forced her down behind Gin with the last of the Hunter’s fading strength. Good thing, too, because not a second after he’d gotten her to shelter, the Lord of Storms’ face broke into an enormous grin and the Hunter’s rage filled the valley with a white flash.

The light was blinding, filling not just the Lord of Storms’ body but the thunderclouds as well, washing out even the lightning flashes in a flood of pale brilliance. It was so bright Eli didn’t even try to watch. Instead, he kept his head down, crouching behind Gin with Miranda huddled against him, her eyes closed tight against the light and her hands clutching her chest like she was trying to staunch a wound.

On and on and on it went until, finally, the light began to fade. Eli was about to peek over Gin’s back to see if his plan had worked when Miranda grabbed his shoulders and whirled him around. “What did you do?” she screamed in his ear.

“I made him the Hunter,” Eli said, wincing.

Miranda’s furious face grew horrified. “That’s it? You just made him the Hunter? Don’t you think you should have asked first?”

“I did!” Eli shouted, prying her fingers off him. “Sort of. Anyway, we had no time and it’s not like he would have said no.” He pushed up and glanced over Gin’s back. “There, see for yourself.”

Miranda shot up, and then nearly fell back again in surprise.

The Lord of Storms was standing exactly as he had before, sword in his hand, his face suffused in an enormous grin, but he was now pure white. His coat, his sword, his skin, his long hair, even his silver eyes were now whiter than moonlit chalk, so white that the snow around him looked ashy by comparison. The light of him filled the valley with harsh, cold radiance, and though the fear was still thick in the air, the spirits around him had stopped screaming. One by one, they bowed down, trembling before the presence of a newborn Power.

The Lord of Storms ignored them completely. He sheathed his sword and strode forward, white eyes locked on Eli. “Where is she?”

The hatred in his voice was like a knife against Eli’s ear, and he didn’t have to ask who the Lord of Storms meant. “She’s fighting the Weaver,” he answered. “And you’d better hurry.”

The Lord of Storms nodded and lifted his arm to make a portal through the veil. This time, though, instead of forming the usual neat, white line, the Lord of Storms took a handful of air and ripped it sideways. The veil tore open with a sound that made Eli wince, but the Lord of Storms paid it no mind. He kept tearing, splitting the veil until he’d made a hole large enough for him to step through.

“Wait!” Miranda cried.

The Lord of Storms froze and turned on the Spiritualist with a look that would have killed anyone else. Miranda just glared back. “What about them?” she snapped, pointing up at the remaining three defenders. “They need you.”

The Lord of Storms’ white lips split into a blinding grin. When I’m done, there won’t be anything left for them to fight.

Eli closed his eyes. The voice was still the Lord of Storms’, but it filled his mind with that strange echo he now recognized as the hallmark of a Power. Miranda must have recognized it, too, because her face went almost gray. The Lord of Storms only smiled wider.

Come on, both of you, he said, marching through the hole in the veil. We have unfinished business.

Eli and Miranda exchanged a look and silently followed the Lord of Storms into the Between. Gin tried to go, too, but Miranda shook her head, motioning for the dog to stay as they walked into the blank nothing. The ghosthound watched them until an unseen curve of the Between hid him from view. It was only then that Eli realized with a cold, creeping dread that the veil had not closed behind them.

Nico closed her claws around the demon’s enormous wrist and twisted. The creature screamed as she sliced through the hard tendons, and she smiled beneath her mask as the black hand retreated. She followed it, twisting again, cutting again, until the hand pulled back through the hole completely.

A new one took its place immediately, shooting past Nico toward the ground. She fell after it, but Josef got there first, severing two of the six fingers with one strike. Nico smiled at him, but Josef didn’t see. How could he? Her face was hidden beneath the mask of glowing eyes and sharp teeth.

At that thought, Nico felt the hunger rising in her again, the black water bubbling from her depths. She snarled and crushed it back down. She’d won that battle already, and she had no intention of fighting two fronts at once. The grasping hands from the sky were almost too much to handle as it was. She closed her eyes and fought the black water of her demon nature back down until her mind was once again a calm, dry field. Only when the absolute control filled her body did she resume her attack.

The most recent black hand was still flailing from the Heart’s attack. Nico folded her wings and dove toward the lashing claws. She’d take it out at the elbow this time, she decided. That was, if the second of the three hinge joints could even be called an elbow.

Honestly, she wasn’t sure if the long limbs were arms or legs. The demons looked nothing like anything she’d ever seen, even herself. They were huge, true, far larger than she, but so thin they made her form look healthy by comparison. Next to their dull, wasted blackness, the Demon of the Dead Mountain positively shone as he took down the limb to her left, breaking the thin appendage with a snap of his enormous jaw.

Even if the Weaver hadn’t told her these demons were starving, Nico would have known. They tore at the sky without intelligence or guile. Any cunning they might have possessed had been eaten long ago, along with everything else. Now they cared only for getting in, and as each scrambled to be first, they inadvertently blocked their only entrance. Had they not been so hungry, they would already be inside.

Of course, it was only a matter of time.

Nico looked up. She had no human eyes now. Spirit sight was her only sight, and through it she could see why the world below shook with panic. The sky, usually full of the enormous, weaving trails of the winds, was now empty, its blue arch a sickening, bruised purple where the pressure of the demons’ hunger had crushed it in. But worse still were the cracks. They were everywhere now, white, jagged lines running from horizon to horizon. They creaked and groaned under the demons’ assault, sending cascades of dust down with each new impact.

The sight of them filled Nico with hopelessness. With the shell so broken, it was only a matter of minutes before another hole opened and more hands thrust out of the impenetrable dark on the other side. They could barely keep the three they had under control as it was. One more, one tip of the balance, and everything would fall.

“Daydreaming, my daughter?”

She bared her teeth at the hateful voice and turned to see the Demon of the Dead Mountain hovering nearly on top of her, his enormous fanged mouth open in a wide grin.

“Go back to your work,” she hissed, digging her lower claws into the demon hand below her. The monster screamed and yanked back, but the Demon of the Dead Mountain didn’t move.

“Is it not natural for a father to show concern for his child’s well-being?” he said, that deep, smooth voice as sweet as honey, just like always.

Nico ignored him, kicking off the now-writhing arm to finish the one the demon had been working on before he’d decided to come and chat. The cold at her back told her he was following, but she kept her eyes ahead, forcing her body down until she was as calm and cold as one of Josef’s blades, even when she felt the demon’s teeth brush her wings.

Horrible as he looked, Nico actually preferred the Demon of the Dead Mountain in this form. Anything was better than the face he’d worn when he walked off the broken seal. It was similar to the one he’d worn before when he’d met her in the dark of her mind, during the fight at Izo’s. Just like then, his features were a handsome melding of Josef and Eli; only now Tesset’s firmness was in there, too.

Looking at that combination, she couldn’t help wanting to trust him, even though she knew better. That face was dangerous. It messed with her control. Every time she thought she knew it, the demon’s face would shift, now looking like Josef that first morning she met him, now looking closer to Eli when she’d woken up on the beach at Osera.

The changes came so fast, so effortlessly that Nico was beginning to suspect the demon didn’t have a true face at all. His human form was nothing but a reflection of the desires of those who saw him. A shifting trap that used remembered trust as its bait. Nico bared her teeth, grabbing hold of the enormous grasping arm and pulling the black skin apart. Nivel was right. The demon could never, ever be trusted.

“You’re thinking awful things about me, aren’t you?”

Nico didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, she fixed her yellow eyes on Josef as she pulled the demon arm straight, giving him a clean shot.

“Of course you are,” the Demon of the Dead Mountain purred, closing in. “I can see it on your face.”

“You can’t see my face,” Nico said, stretching the arm farther.

“I don’t need to,” he answered. “I’m part of you, Nico. I always will be. You’re far more demon than human now, and that’s why I’m going to ask you one last time—”

“No,” Nico snapped, bracing as the Heart of War’s blow sliced the arm she held in half.

“You didn’t even hear my offer.” The demon sounded hurt.

“I don’t have to,” Nico said, tossing the disintegrating arm to the ground. “Unless you’re offering me your life, I want nothing of yours. We are done, demon.”

She turned and glared at him then, baring her black teeth instinctively to drive the point home, but the Demon of the Dead Mountain didn’t return the threat. Still grinning, he jumped backward, putting a hundred feet of empty air between them, and began to plummet toward the storm-shrouded ground.

Nico was about to abandon him to the Lord of Storms when a flash of white blinded her. She froze, yellow eyes rolling as she fought to get her vision back. Slowly, the white faded and the world came back into focus, and as it did, she realized that the lightning-dense clouds that had protected the ground were gone. There was nothing to stand in the demon’s way as the Master of the Dead Mountain landed on a foothill of the now-unprotected Sleeping Mountains and, slamming his enormous claws into the stone slope, began to devour the stone whole.

“No!” she screamed, shooting toward him. But before she’d gone more than fifty feet, a writhing black arm struck her across the back. The blow knocked her off course, slamming her into a valley several mountains away. Hissing in pain, Nico pushed herself out of the crater she’d made and launched back into the air, grabbing the demon hand’s grasping claws as they came down on top of her, desperate for the ground below.

“Josef!” she bellowed, using all her strength to keep the enormous hand from slamming into the ground and crushing her in the process.

All at once, the hand went slack, the dull black carapace crumbling to nothing under her claws, severed in one blow from the Heart of War. Tossing the ruined limb aside, Nico shot into the air and looked frantically for the demon she’d once called Master.

She found him immediately. He was still on the ground where he’d landed, shoveling small mountains into his enormous gaping mouth. Behind him, a long trail of black, dead stone showed where he’d gorged himself already.

Nico’s heart fell in her chest. Already, he was noticeably larger, his great, black body towering over the mountain’s foothills. Another few minutes at this pace and he would be larger than the limbs that shot down through the holes.

With a snarl that grew into a howl, Nico charged.

He kept eating until the moment her claws touched his neck, and then he vanished into the shadows. She felt him move behind her and turned just in time to see him surface again. The size of him was intimidating. He towered over her, a great menace of teeth and powerful muscle even as he sank into a crouch. Fear began to curdle in her stomach, but Nico pushed it aside in favor of raw fury.

“Eating wasn’t part of the deal!” she roared. “What are you doing?”

“Betraying you,” the Demon of the Dead Mountain said, shoving another handful of stone down his throat. “I should think that was obvious.”

His honesty stopped Nico like a wall, and the demon began to laugh, a terrible, dry sound, like wind in dead grass. “Now, now, my dear,” he said. “You knew this was coming.”

This was true, but Nico still couldn’t quite believe he’d do it before the shell was sealed.

The demon sighed. “Don’t be an idiot, darling. Did you honestly think I’d wait politely until you all were free to gang up on me?” The topmost of his three yellow eyes rolled back toward the Dead Mountain. “When I saw the thief return, I waited to see if you’d notice. You didn’t, of course, but then you never were any good at keeping your eyes on more than one target at a time. Still, I thought I’d better take one last shot at bringing you over to the winning side. Waste of time, really, but I’ve always been the sentimental sort.”

Nico started to growl, but the demon shook his head. “Moot point now, dear. Didn’t you see the flash? The Hunter’s been reborn. He’ll undoubtedly be along shortly to take care of this.” The demon swept a clawed hand across the sundered sky and the clawing black arms. “But I didn’t let you free me just so I could go back to my prison. I intend to eat everything I can, and after your Powers reseal the shell, I mean to make myself king of this little feed bowl.”

He paused, his golden eyes roving over her. “This is your last chance, you know. There’s more than enough food here to share. We could rule together. I’d even let you keep your swordsman.” His triple-jointed arm reached out, claw turned up. “Last chance, daughter. I suggest you take it, or I’ll have to end you just like all the rest.”

Nico didn’t answer. Instead, fast as a flash, she slashed the Demon of the Dead Mountain straight across his claw, severing it at the wrist. She paused, waiting for the scream, but the demon didn’t even blink. He just grinned at her, his enormous mouth opening in a wall of sharp, black teeth.

“Remember,” he said, “you brought this on yourself.”

And then he was gone.

Nico blinked, focusing on the slimy, cold feel of him as he slipped through the shadows. He moved faster than she’d ever thought possible, popping up north of her. With a roar, she took off after him, slipping in and out of the shadows as she picked up speed.

In the sky, things were quickly getting out of control. Josef was holding all three cracks alone now, and without the Lord of Storms to block them, the hands were starting to reach the ground again, the clawed fingers eating the land wherever they touched. Nico cursed and moved faster. She had to put the demon down and get back to Josef before they were overwhelmed.

But as she closed in on the spot where the demon should have been, his presence vanished. Nico jerked to a stop, confused. She was at the foot of the Dead Mountain’s north slope. She’d felt the Demon of the Dead Mountain sliding up from the shadows here a second earlier, but now he was gone completely. She turned her head in a full circle, roaring a challenge. As her cry echoed through the sky, she suddenly felt him again, coming out of the shadows a few hundred feet away.

Even as she felt him surface, she knew she was too late. She’d been fooled. The black stone beneath her was the Dead Mountain, the demon’s prison for thousands of years. Of course he would know his way around it, know how to slide deep into its roots to avoid her before popping up in another location.

Nico shot into the air anyway, but it was far, far too late. A second after she left the ground, Josef’s scream ripped through her. She cleared the mountain’s ledge just in time to see Josef, her Josef, drop to his knees, the Heart of War falling from his limp hands. Below him, the demon’s claws poked up through the swordsman’s shadow, the enormous, curved tips stabbing through his blood-soaked chest.

The demon emerged fully as she watched, lifting Josef with him. He grinned at the swordsman before he flicked his claw. Josef hit the stone with an echoing crash. He didn’t cry out as he landed, just collapsed like a doll, motionless and limp even as the demon reached down to grasp his head delicately between his talons. He was seconds from twisting the swordsman’s head clean off when Nico barreled into him. The shock of her impact knocked Josef from his claws, and the demon went flying off the mountain.

Nico didn’t follow him. Instead, she crouched over Josef. Gathering his broken body delicately, she lifted him and gently moved him so that he was lying beside his sword. Using the tips of her claws, she wrapped his bloody fingers around the Heart of War’s hilt. She did not allow herself to notice how still he was, did not think about how his chest wasn’t moving. She allowed no thought into her head save two, that Josef would live, and that she was going to make the demon pay.

When her swordsman was with his sword, Nico turned on the demon. He was crouched at the edge of the snowy valley where she had thrown him, his claws spanning the entire swath of mountain that formed one half of the pass where she and Josef had once sheltered. It was only then that Nico realized just how enormous he’d become. He was easily twice her size now, his mouth big enough to swallow her head whole.

Sensing her fear, the Demon of the Dead Mountain grinned, baring his thousands of ragged teeth as his three yellow eyes shone with amusement. “If you want to beg, it’s not too late,” he said, his deep voice almost crooning.

Nico’s answer was to sink into the shadows. She moved like water through the dark, exploding out of the shadow cast by his enormous bulk on the cliff face behind him. Her momentum knocked them both off the mountain, and they fell in a black tangle, crashing into the snowy valley with enough force to rock the foundations of the world.

The demon pushed her off, using his superior strength to peel her claws back. Nico just snarled as she sank her teeth into the black flesh below his jaw. They both roared then, the demon in pain, Nico in furious vengeance as they tumbled in the snow.

Overhead, forgotten and uninhibited, the enormous hands shot down from the sky to dig into the defenseless mountains, lifting them up one by one as the holes in the sky grew larger. As the first mountain left the shell, a chorus of screeches echoed down through the cracks, a great call of victory that drowned out even the panicked screaming of the spirits below.