"Shay," she said, in an utterly neutral tone. "Thanks for helping me focus."
"Jandra?" he asked.
"Guess again," she said. She turned her back to him and slammed her foot down onto the hilt of the flaming sword. In the center of her back there was a bulge. It looked almost like a woman's face, crisscrossed with chains. Jazz looked up at the Atlantean god, who glowered down at her.
"To answer your earlier question," she shouted to the giant, "I dare!"
The god shook his head slowly, as if pitying her. He crouched and reached toward Jazz with his impossibly huge hand.
"You no doubt thought I'd attempt to crack the jamming code of your signal," the god said, his thunderous voice causing the flowers of the bushes to tremble. "A more elegant solution is simply to destroy your antenna."
The god's fingers closed upon the golden disk.
Instantly his fingers vanished, then his arm, then his torso and shoulders and head. Shay was again aware of a tremendous surge of energy in the air.
"Sucker," said Jazz. "I knew you could still control the nanites you were in contact with, since you could transmit your commands through physical connections. Touching the disk gave me access to these physical connections. I've knocked you back to your core form. And now, I'm going to flush you."
Shay had no idea what had happened, but he was pretty sure it wasn't good. From his vantage point in the air, he could see into the giant temple. Where the god had stood, there was now a small, naked, white-haired boy, perhaps no older than five, slumped on the ground. He looked dazed.
Jazz suddenly appeared next to the boy, even though she also continued to stand by the fountain. The Jazz by the fountain looked down, as if the boy was standing right at her feet, and said, "Underspace gates have so many uses." The boy looked up at the Jazz in the temple, a frightened look in his eyes. "Traveling to the moon in a blink is one. Disposing of unwanted gods in the reaches of interstellar space is another."
She snapped her fingers. A perfectly circular rainbow appeared around the boots of the Jazz standing in the temple. A black pit opened beneath her, expanding outward. The white-haired boy opened his mouth as if he were screaming, but Shay couldn't hear him. The boy tried to crawl away, but made little progress. The only sound coming from the temple was a terrible howl of wind. The circle expanded ever outward. Shay was tugged toward the temple by a sucking wind. The black circle was now fifty feet across, and stars shimmered in its depths.
The flowers in the courtyard beneath him all leaned in the direction of the yawning pit. The boy's desperately grasping hands found no purchase on the marble. He splayed his body out, searching for any handhold, as his small form was dragged by the air rushing to the gaping void.
Shay ground his teeth and tilted toward the temple. The boy would reach the edge in mere seconds. Could he fly fast enough to save him?
Before he could find out, there was a flash of copper as Skitter raced up the steps at the side of the temple. Zeeky leaned down from her saddle, extending her hand. The boy's legs tilted over the side of the space pit and he closed his hand around Zeeky's.
The force ripped Zeeky from her saddle. Skitter slid to a halt on the polished marble floor, whipping his head around, snapping his mighty jaws shut on the back of Zeeky's tunic as she, too, tilted over the edge of the space pit. Skitter's claws left scratch marks in the marble as the wind caught him. The boy dangled from Zeeky's grasp as she dangled from Skitter's jaws.
"Oh, the suspense," said Jazz, giggling.
Skitter's first pair of claws slipped over the edge, then the second. There was a flutter of dark motion in the shadows at the rear of the temple. Shay's heart leapt as he realized it was Bitterwood's cloak. The archer was perched in a tree on the other side of the temple, his legs securely wrapped around a branch to resist the wind. He glared at the Jazz over the black pit.
He let an arrow fly.
It sliced straight through Jazz's head and kept flying, burying itself to its leafy feathers in a marble column beyond.
The Jazz near the fishbowls winced. "Ooh, that would have stung. Good thing Ven wasn't the only one who knew parlor tricks."
The way Jazz turned her head as she spoke drew Shay's eyes. She was looking at the fallen body of a sky-dragon who was tangled in the twisted branches of a thorny bush. He couldn't tell if the dragon was breathing.
Jazz began to twitch.
"Calm down," she growled.
The face on her back bulged out further, its mouth opening to scream, "Vennnn!"
Jazz closed her fists and clenched her jaw, concentrating to push pack Jandra's ghost.
Shay was torn. Should he attack Jazz again? Last time, physical pain had helped her focus. He decided to rescue Zeeky. But when he looked back to the temple, he saw a long bright pink rope tied to the tree where Bitterwood had stood. The hunter himself was gone, but the rope stretched in a straight line to the edge of the pit, where Skitter had his claws wrapped around it. The giant beast had inched himself out of the void, dragging Zeeky, who still held the boy. They were only feet from the pit, and the wind was beating them mercilessly. Still, for the moment, they were safe.
A physical attack on the goddess hadn't done him any good. Could an emotional appeal make a difference?
He dropped from the sky, coming to rest before Jazz, who had her eyes closed. The turmoil on her face was gone. She looked almost peaceful.
"Jandra," said Shay, barely a yard from Jazz's face.
Jazz opened one eye to glare at him.
"Remember Lizard," said Shay.
Jazz fell to her knees as a howl rose from the face on her back.
Hex picked himself up from the sandy beach where he'd come to rest. He was astonished to find he had no broken bones. There were scratches on his golden shell from his flight through the buildings, but no cuts or gouges. Just how tough was this armor?
He tried to flap his wings, but found he didn't have the strength to lift into the air. The fault wasn't his golden shell. He was still too weak from having had nothing to eat or drink. Jandra-or was it Jazz?-had said the shell would multiply his strength by ten. Unfortunately, ten times nothing was nothing.
He limped back into the city of towers. All around him, men and women in exotic hues wandered around, looking dazed. Many had simply collapsed where they stood, staring into the night sky, paralyzed by fear. He could hear the cries of men and women rising from unseen chambers beneath the earth as the lights of the city fell dark.
He came to a fountain. He lowered his jaws to drink, then halted, focused on the strangeness of seeing his countenance in gold. His green eyes weren't coated by the metal. He opened his mouth. His teeth were covered, but the metal stopped just inside this gums. His tongue was unprotected, still purple and raw.
He didn't care about the pain. He thrust his snout into the water and gulped until he'd had his fill. When he lifted his head once more, he heard a howling sound, like wind rushing through a cave. The flowers in the garden around him fluttered as the breeze picked up.
With his belly full of water, he felt even more sluggish than before. Yet, he couldn't afford this weakness. He, more than anyone, was responsible for Jandra's condition. This meant he, more than anyone, was now responsible for the fate of the world.
Digging into the deep reservoir of strength that only guilt can provide, he beat his golden wings and took to the air. Quickly, he gained his bearings. He could see the temple in the distance, though he couldn't tell what was happening in its shadowy interior. As he weaved his way among the towers, he soon spotted the silver form of Jazz, down on her knees beside the shattered fountain. A winged man stood before her. One of the angels?
He dove closer and realized it was Shay. He was talking to Jazz. Jazz was shaking her head. Her silver shell was bubbling up on her back. What was happening? He had only seconds to decide on a course of action. He knew his strength would fail any moment.