because he’s missing so much blood, but he should be better in no time. He got shot while defusing a bomb that was supposed to blow up the White House.”
“That’s not what happened, my dear,” Browning corrected. “He told me so himself.”
Faye didn’t care. She seemed to prefer her version where Francis was extra heroic. “He’s so brave.”
“Yep,” Sullivan agreed. “That sounds like Francis all right.”
Two biplanes flew down the river and the spotlights of the aircraft carrier Lexington could be seen sweeping down over the city. There would probably be hell to pay tomorrow, but for better or worse, this mission was complete. Dan would interrogate Carr before they turned him over to Hoover. Maybe combined with the testimony of the other prisoners, they might be able to clear themselves. They wouldn’t know the aftermath until the sun rose anyway. It was time to call it a night.
Suddenly, Faye jerked. Sullivan turned to see her weird eyes darting back and forth rapidly. She was normally twitchy, but this was abnormal even for her. “What is it?”
“Something’s wrong… bad wrong. In my head map. I can see.. something… It’s in the river. In the hole. Oh no. He’s alive. He’s getting bigger! He must have gotten out of the sucking thing somehow. He was too strong to get sucked away! He’s growing. He’s climbing out!”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
The girl was absolutely terrified. “The god of demons is coming.”
Death had come for him, but he’d found a way out. It was a great deal. All he had to do was sell his soul.
Crow. It was his only name now. He couldn’t remember the one he’d been born with. Those memories wouldn’t come to him. For almost a hundred years he’d lived a life of debauchery and murder. He had no morals, no sense of right or wrong, no conscience. He lived by the sword and figured he’d die by the sword. That hadn’t scared him back then, but that’s because he’d been young and stupid. When the magic had come to him, he became a lot more valuable, a lot more deadly, and even less compassionate… as if that was possible.
He’d sold his demons to the highest bidder. He’d performed sickening tasks and never asked why, as long as the money was good. As he got older, he knew that his time was coming, and unlike when he was young, the thought of dying terrified him. He could get glimpses of the plane the Summoned came from, and he’d developed an intense fear that if there was life after death, that’s all there was in store for him. Floating in a haze, to be dragged in at some alien Summoner’s whim, only to be cast back into the darkness when the Summoner was done. Crow couldn’t bear the thought.
Money could buy Healers, but not even a Healer could make you immortal. As his body broke down, the specter of mortality had hung over him. As he’d aged, his body had become a prison. The Coordinator had given him a way out with the possibility of using his Power to use new bodies. It had been liberating to have a strong body again, but even then the solutions were only temporary.
The Traveler had shot his real body full of holes. There was nothing left to go back to. The part of him that was still inside the greatest of all demons was all that was left. When that link was severed, his life would be over.
It does not have to be that way. Set me free, human. Become one with me. Together, we will own this world. This world must fear me. I cannot tolerate being unknown. Their fear will make me strong.
Crow knew that he would not die, but he would be consumed by the demon, and that was almost scarier than the thought of dying. While they struggled, the Traveler had dropped them into the darkness. The great one latched onto the edge of this reality and barely managed to hold on.
Serve me, human. Death is cold and silent. You do not wish to die. Give me what I want and I will save us both from this fate. You will be perfected in me. Serve, and live forever.
The darkness stretched on into infinity, and so did Crow’s fear. He gave in.
Freedom.
Crow’s soul began to unravel, and as the nothingness consumed him, he begged for mercy, screaming that the demon had promised him eternal life.
I lied.
And Crow was no more.
Faye watched in horror as the god of demons came out of the river.
The cascade of bubbles was visible clear from the other shore. It erupted from the water on the Washington side, rising from the river like a new island, dark and glistening, bristling with spines and bony plates. It was crouched near the shore, partially submerged, but even then, it was taller than any of the homes along the river. It slithered downstream, jutting bones and horrible angles breaking the surface, then it turned toward the city. First came one hand, as big as an automobile. It hit the ground, and the monster pulled itself out of the water.
It was huge.
Of course they couldn’t hear the screaming of the witnesses from such a distance, but Faye could only imagine.
It was hard to see details in the dark from half a mile away. It was vaguely man-shaped, but wrong: four arms, two legs-all bending with extra joints-creaking and clacking as animated earth ripped from the river bed and filled with demonic smoke meshed together into the semblance of a body. It had taken on the color of the void it had torn itself from, with skin an empty black that seemed hungry to absorb the light. It stood, spread its arms wide, and roared at the city, nearly as loud as the crashing of the temporary waterfall from a few minutes before. Despite its vast size, it was quick, and it lurched over to where the bridge was still burning. A police car was tossed through the air and another was kicked into the river.
Faye rubbed her eyes. It was incomprehensible. Nothing alive could be that big without squishing itself under its own weight. Except Summoned weren’t really alive like we thought of living, now were they? How could it even move? She didn’t know that either, but it was over there tossing police cars like baseballs. Despite what some folks said, she knew she wasn’t crazy. This thing was real. She just couldn’t wrap her brain around it, and her brain was extra good at wrapping around strange concepts.
Sullivan spoke up first. “I’d say seventy feet tall.” As usual, he seemed calm, and Faye was surprised just how much that helped her stay calm.
All the other knights were shocked, standing there with their mouths open as they watched the spectacle across the Potomac. John Browning turned to their Summoner. “Your estimate, Mr. Wright?”
“There’s nothing like that out there. That thing can’t exist.”
“Apparently it can. Is size always proportionate to the difficulty in banishing a Summoned?”
“As far as I’m aware, yes.”
“So, how difficult will it be to defeat such a beast?” Browning snapped. Ian mumbled an inaudible response. “Spit it out, man.”
“It would be impossible. The bigger they are, the more smoke they hold, and the harder they are to hurt. That thing? Christ… I don’t know. If you killed its Summoner, it would weaken it; eventually it would just fall apart and dissipate on its own.”
“I already killed him,” Faye said. “Except Crow’s different. What would happen if the Summoner couldn’t die, like if he was stuck inside his own monster?”
Ian was clearly in over his head. “I’ve got absolutely no idea.”
“What can we do then?”
“Let the Army handle it,” Ian answered sheepishly.
Faye knew that the Army was in the city already. They’d been called up just in case the antimagic marchers turned into rioters, though Mr. Sullivan said they were keeping a low profile because of how awful they’d looked last year when they’d dispatched the Bonus March. She really doubted that the Army would be ready for anything like this.
Gunfire echoed across the river as the police shot at the monster, but it didn’t show any reaction. The knights were silent as they watched the demon attack the homes along the river. It just ripped through houses like they were made of paper. It was nearly three times as tall as the two-story homes along the riverfront. It hadn’t turned so they could see its face yet, but it paused and crouched for a moment, hands moving from the ground to what she could only assume was its mouth. It repeated that process several times, snatching things up from the torn apart houses as it went. “What’s it doing?”
“Oh, dear Lord,” Jane whispered. “It’s eating people.”
