Well, of course. That’s what this party was missing. An enormous, pissed-off pig. Fuck me.
Behind me the Guild Jeeps tore around the bend of the road and sped across the burned ground, raising a cloud of ash.
The colossal boar took a step forward. Ragged gashes crossed its hide, cutting through a network of faded scars. Here and there, spiked balls punctured its hide, half-sunken into its flesh. Someone had tortured this boar.
The beast swung its head toward me. A broken chain dangled around its neck, as thick as a lighting pole. At its end hung a huge metal symbol, Neig’s shackles.
“It’s a god.” Julie took a step back. “Its magic is silver.”
I hold gods prisoner, tormenting them for my pleasure.
Neig had captured a god, kept him prisoner for a thousand years, tortured him, and now he’d loosed him on us. There would have been only one boar god on the British Isles for Neig to capture.
“It’s Moccus,” I said. The Celtic Boar, guardian of hunters and warriors, the Caledonian Monster. A god, or rather its manifestation. Killing it wouldn’t kill the deity, but it would banish it from our reality. A tech shift would rip him out of existence instantly. It would also kill Rowena.
“Does it have any weaknesses?” Ghastek asked.
“No.”
The boar opened its mouth and roared. The bellow slapped my eardrums, a mad blast of rage. It reverberated through the burned-out town. Ash trembled.
Just what we needed.
Moccus pawed the ground. Another bellow smashed into us.
The bloodsuckers waited, unmoving.
Nothing I had would deliver a punch strong enough to one-shot him. We’d have to bleed Moccus. It would take hours. We didn’t have time to fight him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three Guild Jeeps barreling down the road toward us. They went off the pavement and tore through the scarred town, raising clouds of ash.
“We have to kill it fast,” I said.
“Fast isn’t an option,” Christopher answered, his voice detached. “He’s too large and he’s a god. He will regenerate.”
“We have to try. Rowena doesn’t have time.”
Moccus sighted us. His deep-set eyes ignited with fury. The boar was finally free from confinement. Free to punish. Neig had driven him mad.
“Protocol Giant,” Ghastek said, his voice calm. “Prioritize damage over undead casualties.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Rowena whispered from the pillar. “Go. Leave.”
Moccus started forward.
Here we go. I pulled magic to myself.
The leading Jeep slid to a halt. A single man jumped out and sprinted to the boar. I would know that sprint anywhere.
Hi, honey, we’re over here, but please ignore us and run at the magic boar all by yourself. It’s only a giant enraged animal god. No need to worry. Nothing bad ever happens in situations like this.
“Curran!”
He ran past us at breakneck speed. As if we weren’t even there.
“Damn it.” I unsheathed Sarrat.
“Idiot,” Ghastek volunteered.
Moccus bellowed, giving voice to pain and insane anger, and broke into a full charge. The ground punched my feet and I stumbled to keep my balance.
The boar charged toward Curran like a runaway train.
I broke into a sprint. He’d need backup. The undead followed me.
My husband jumped. His human skin tore. Magic punched me, like the first ray of sunrise coming over the horizon. Fur spilled out, a whole cloud of it, black and huge. A colossal lion smashed into the boar.
I blinked. No, the giant lion was still there.
What the hell? What in the bloody . . . How?
He was as big as Moccus, solid black, a majestic mane floating in the wind, sparking with streaks of magic.
What . . .
The lion opened his jaws, fangs glinting in the sun, and plunged them into Moccus’s neck. The boar and the lion rolled. The ground trembled.
“Kate!”
The two colossal creatures snarled and roared, trying to bite and gore each other.
How was this possible?
“Kate!”
I realized I was standing still. My vampire army had come to a halt.
“Rowena!” Ghastek’s vamps screamed in my face.
Rowena was my friend. Rowena had held Conlan just yesterday, and today she could burn to death. I couldn’t let her die. I knew exactly what I had to do. I just had to do it. It was that or she would be boiled alive.
A clump of dirt the size of a truck flew past me. I ducked and spun back to the pillar. “Get wood. As much as you can. We need a fire. A huge fire.”
The vampires spun around. There was nothing to burn except for the distant trees. They would take too long.
“Does it have to be wood?” Ghastek asked through his twin vamps.
“No. As long as it burns. We need a big flame.”
The mercs had piled out of the Jeeps and stared at the battle raging only a few feet away. Barabas was on the front line. I caught a glimpse of his face, touched with awe.
I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t afford to process it now. There was no time. I turned to Rowena. She stared at me.
“Leave me,” she said, her voice breaking.
“Not going to happen.”
“You have Conlan . . .”
“Conlan will be fine. I will be fine. You will be fine. Everything will be fine.”
I would go to hell for making promises like this.
An armored bus emerged from behind the curve of the road and headed for us. The People’s mobile HQ.
It sped to us and came to a stop. The doors swung open and Ghastek stepped out, followed by two Masters of the Dead and a dozen journeymen. I recognized familiar faces: Kim, Sean, Javier . . .
“We’ll burn the bus,” Ghastek said over the snarls.
The undead attacked the bus, pulling the reserve gasoline containers out of the back and dousing the vehicle with it.
The two giant animals were still fighting. It took everything I had to not run over there and help.
One of Ghastek’s undead grabbed him, wrapping its arms around his legs. The second picked up the first and raised Ghastek to the pillar. He raised his hand to her cheek. His fingers stopped just short of touching.
“Let me go,” Rowena told him.
“Never,” he said.
“Ready,” Javier told me.
“Carlos!” I called.
A short merc turned toward me. I pointed to the gutted bus. “Torch it.”
Carlos leaned back and flexed, bringing his arms together as if he were squeezing an invisible basketball. A spark burst into existence between his spread fingers and spun, growing, twisting, turning into a flame, first reddish, then orange, then white. His hands shuddered. He grunted and launched the fireball at the bus.
The more of yourself you give to the fire, the louder the call will be.
The armored vehicle exploded.
I reopened the cut on my arm and thrust it into the fire. Heat cooked my skin. My blood boiled into the flames, turning them red. Pain hit me, and I sent it into the blaze with my magic, opening a pathway across thousands of miles. The fire roared, bloody, and I screamed into its depths.
“FATHER!”
The blaze snapped, a glowing silk curtain pulled suddenly taut, and my father appeared within the flames, eyes blazing with power.
“WHAT?”
I pulled my arm out of the fire and cradled it. It hurt. God, it hurt. “Help me.”
He stared at me. He chose his own age, sometimes young, sometimes older. Today he wore the face I knew, a man in his late fifties, full head of hair, wise handsome face that could’ve belonged to a teacher, a prophet, or a king. He’d let himself age like this because he wanted to look like a man who could’ve fathered me. He had still kept it, even two years later.