“It’s funny how shit works out,” I said.
Oberon glanced over at me and smiled. “It’s almost enough to make you believe in fate, isn’t it?”
“It’s not that funny.”
“What are we waiting for?” Honey said. “Let’s kill them.” Her sword was in her hand, and red and orange pixie dust fell from her wings. She was wearing bright blue war paint, though I guessed it was only glamour. Oberon’s sidhe warriors were similarly decorated.
“Settle down, William Wallace,” I said. “Let them come.”
“I’m worried about Jack,” Honey said.
“I know. That’s why we have to let them come.”
The south end of the park had become a twisted nightmare of darkness and fire, obscene flesh and corrupted biology. There were more of the demon mothers there, and while I didn’t look at them, I saw the crawlers they spawned moving forward to the front of the pack. Fire giants, like the one we’d fought at the Carnival Club, formed up behind them.
“Time for the artillery,” Oberon said.
I looked over at him. “What kind of artillery?”
“Me,” he said, and grinned. He walked forward to the edge of the building, raised his arms and began singing in that strange, haunting language he shared with Honey and Jack. A wind blew in from the coast, tugging at our exposed position and kicking up dust from the infield of the small baseball field. Clouds rolled in overhead, so fast it looked like vapor from a smoke machine crawling across the sky. The clouds undulated and turned in on themselves, and lightning began to flash in their bellies.
Across the field, the demons raised a terrible cry, a discordant symphony of screams, shrieks, roars and stomach-turning moans that crawled along my spine to the base of my brain and flushed my body with cold, stark terror. It was the sound of all the worst things humans had ever imagined waiting for them in dark places since they first dared to climb down from the trees.
Oberon tilted his head up to the sky as the rain began to fall, and the wind whipped his long, auburn hair around his face and shoulders. He began to glow, to shine, as if moonlight had been trapped beneath his skin and was straining to be free. The look on his face was rapturous, orgasmic, and his chant built and swelled with magic until the beautiful, secret words drowned out the demonic cacophony from the far side of the field.
A wave of crawlers raced forward, swarming across the grass and concrete toward us, and the glowering sky attacked. Jagged, crackling lines of blue-white lightning flashed down from the roiling clouds and caressed the scuttling crawlers almost gently, outlining them in fairy fire and reducing them instantly to smoking puddles of black tar. Only a handful made it through, and the sidhe warriors stepped forward to meet them, blades flashing and deadly glamours tearing into the crawlers like wild beasts.
“You’re supposed to hit those guys with countermagic, first,” I said to Oberon. “You got to soften them up so they don’t shrug off your spells.”
The fairy king laughed. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said. Oberon threw back his head and sang, and the sky growled like a belligerent animal in answer to him. A slender funnel cloud formed in the twisting gray blanket overhead and reached for the demon horde assembled below. The tornado split in two and then another uncoiled from the angry sky. Emerald light flashed within the three vortices, and when they touched the south end of Wilson Park, the twisters spat forth an airborne brigade of piskie warriors. The piskies swarmed over the demons and the red-orange pixie dust was so thick it looked like burning snowfall.
“My people,” Honey said. “We kick ass.”
“Join them, if you will,” Oberon said, inclining his head and raising his sword in salute. “Your House is pardoned and it is your right to stand with them. To war, Princess, and red glory!”
The blue war paint on Honey’s face and body pulsed alight and green fire danced along the edge of her sword.
“Until death and darkness and the world’s sorrow, my King,” she said, and then she was off, blazing across the field like an emerald comet falling into the sun.
“Yeah, Honey, don’t let me hold you back,” I muttered.
Despite the piskies’ ass-kicking prowess, the fire giants pressed forward, tromping across the field and churning the turf into mud. They were armed with an array of the Dark Ages’ most advanced weaponry: massive black iron swords with serrated edges, spiked balls on the ends of heavy chains that looked like they could demolish a house, mauls the size of small trees. The twisters roared through their ranks, scattering earth, foliage and playground equipment, but the fire giants leaned forward into the storm and marched on.
“What else you got, Oberon?” I said. “We had trouble with one of these guys in the club, and there’s six of them here.”
“Seven,” Terrence said. “There’s another one behind that big guy.”
“They’re all big guys, Terrence,” I said.
“The really big motherfucker with the big fucking ax.”
The figure striding across the field at the center of the giants’ ranks towered over his fellows. He wore an ornate iron helm engraved with leaves and vines, and topped with a crown of fire that twined and branched like the antlers of a great stag. Flames burst from his eyes and from a mouth that was nearly hidden in a full beard that wreathed his craggy face like a wild tangle of spun silver.
“Oh, him,” I said. “Is this guy someone we should know about, Oberon?”
The king shrugged. “Some lesser hero of the Fomoire. They have no shortage of them.”
“Lesser hero, huh? Dime a dozen. That’s great.”
The Fomoiri hero roared a challenge and fire engulfed the front ranks of sidhe warriors. Defensive glamour flashed and glowed and most of the sidhe were spared. Some of them burned. A rumbling, baritone chant went up among the giants and rattled the windows of the VFW building below us. The giants began to run, and the earth trembled. I felt the tremors in the soles of my feet, thrumming bone-deep through my ankles and my legs.
Below, Ismail Akeem danced on Palmer Street, his thin body convulsing as he disgorged the spirits he had eaten.
Amy Chen released phantasmal beasts and monsters that drifted silently through the rank of charging giants, vanishing completely within the massive bodies when they darted in to strike at their relentless, unwavering quarry. When the fire giants were only a few strides away, the sidhe rushed forward and attacked, lashing out with spell and blade to savage the demons’ deformed and burning flesh.
For a moment, it appeared the sorcerers and sidhe warriors would stop the charge and cut the Fomoire down where they stood. Then the giants’ blows began to land, and sidhe blood and crushed bodies fell on the grass like detritus scattered by the tornadoes.
“Time to pay the rent,” Terrence said. He dropped a levitation spell and floated down to the street, and he was already spinning attack spells when his feet touched the pavement. Adan flashed a fierce grin at me and then leaped down after him.
I’d have preferred to battle the Firstborn as I had in the Carnival Club-from the Between, and with Ned in my hands. I’d decided against it because I didn’t want to leave my helpless body lying around anywhere close to the battlefield. I was pretty sure I couldn’t hide so well that no demons would find me, and it would only take one to ruin my day.
On the other hand, I didn’t really want to see a repeat performance of the slaughter at the club, multiplied by seven and not even counting the rest of the demons on the field.
I knew what they could do and I knew how effective our weapons and magic would be against them. The demons were relentless, unstoppable, and I did not believe we could stand against them.
That’s why I came prepared to cheat. Mr. Clean’s TV sat on the rooftop behind me. I wasn’t planning to let the jinn have a piece of this fight, but I did need all the juice he could give me. I also carried the walking stick I’d taken from Papa Danwe when I killed him, for the same reason. I was physically recovered from what the demon had done to me on the bridge and I didn’t need the stick to walk. I just needed the juice.
“Your first day of prison, they say you should find the biggest, baddest motherfucker on the cell block and take a shot at him,” I said. “Maybe you do a little damage, maybe not, but you prove you’re not a punk and the rest of the convicts will leave you alone after that.”
“And that really works?” Oberon asked.
“No, it just means you get your ass kicked on the first day. The secret is, it’s really for you-you prove to
