Blake pushed up onto her elbows but did not try to stand. The jolt had loosened strands of her dark hair, and the top button of her blouse had torn free. Her collarbones poked through thin skin, the curve of her ribs visible. He was not the only one disappearing.
‘Tamas, what are we doing?’ Blake whispered. ‘How many are going to be hurt?’
Tamas was conscious of the eyes on him, but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t blush. Didn’t give a shit. He kicked the tablet towards her. Its harsh scrape across the concrete surface was the only sound that reached him. The entire chamber silent. Even the headache had lifted. As though the goddess herself had backed off.
‘Oh come on, Blake, when has that mattered to you? Don’t expect me to believe you’ve grown a conscience now. Bullshit. Your designs bring in millions.’ He gestured to the grimalkin standing at the perimeter of the chamber. The military had paid a ridiculous amount of coin for similar designs. ‘This is just a different kind of war.’ He laughed, the sound rich with scorn. ‘That’s what the whole thing with Azrael is, right? You don’t want them to take your toys away from you. Good luck with hiding him. Believe me, this world isn’t big enough for that.’
He turned his back on her, ignoring her pleas to stop. To wait. Her assistant Weylen was the first to move, giving him a wide berth as she ran to Blake’s side.
Tendrils of energy stroked him, caressed him far more gently than when he’d entered the chamber. Luring him towards the Tier. Ereshkigal flowed into his mind, with far less of a hammer blow than before. A pressure not altogether comfortable, but not about to level him, either. Tamas nodded to the captain, who waited at the crude low brick wall around the Tier.
Captain Nex called out readying orders to his god-soldiers. Eron remained a step behind his captain. His silver hair was pulled tight off his face, accentuating the sharp lines of his features. His lips parted, the fullness of them glistening against the shimmering Waters. It would have been quite breathtaking if not for the drift of his pale white eyes. He could barely pull his gaze from where Blake was being helped to her feet by Weylen.
Even though Tamas stood a pace away, his body alight with the power of the goddess, Eron could not gift him with so much as a glance. To hell with them all.
‘Let it begin.’
Fully clothed, Tamas stepped into the Waters. And no one offered him a single word. He stood, calf-deep, on the narrow concrete platform that ran around the inner rim of the Tier. The atmosphere in the chamber grew weighty, pressing in on him like a wet blanket. He would not bend to it today. He was upright, rigid. Outwardly unafraid. The four carapaces dangled over the Waters, the cranes emitting a low hum as they slowly lowered the bodies closer to the surface of the liquid. He moved down a few more steps, reaching the jutting platform that would allow him to walk to the centre of the Tier. The Tier was not overly large, half the size of an average swimming pool. The bodies hung above him, crowding in on him, adding to the oppressive dankness of the air.
The Waters began to swirl, and with each rotation they grew more viscous. Heat poured through his body as the Waters rose up his legs, covering his torso. Tamas glanced up but caught sight of no one. Only the empty shells hanging lifeless around him. He was alone – save for the deity in his brain. His body swelled, any wrinkles he may have had were stretched clear. The Waters covered his eyes. Drenching him. Drowning him. Calling to his blood.
His blood called back, pulsing as thick as the Waters in his veins. The spasms began soon after. Tamas clenched his teeth, fingernails cutting into his swollen, curled fists. Azrael’s Meld was a toothache compared to this. Tamas knew from the tightness in his throat and the wideness of his open mouth that he was screaming, but he heard nothing. It was complete and utter silence, the most frightening thing of all. His connection to the world had been deadened into nothingness. Vision was gone, lost beneath a blur of emerald. Taste, smell, the sense of the Water against his skin, all gone. He was nothing. He was no one and nowhere. A consciousness masquerading as light. It, he, guided them, pulled them in, dragged them forward. A beacon to lead them.
And they were everything and everywhere.
The Four.
At the eye of their storm Tamas struggled to exist. Losing himself in the maddened rush of ascendancy, eroding. Brilliance moved around him, achingly bright. Buffeting him in the storm of arrival.
All at once the crashing wave dumped him. He choked on the Waters pouring down his throat, gagging so hard that bile filled his mouth. His ears screamed with the pitch of tinnitus, and the concrete steps rushed up to meet him. Slammed against him.
The Tier was done with him. The goddess was done with him. And he cried into the wetness.
Blake - 18
A light mist drifted off the mass of moving water, dampening everyone, and everything, in the chamber. The droplets ran down Blake’s heated cheeks, mingling with her own sweat. Her heart thumped in time with the resonating hum coming from the Tier. Not as manic as it had been back at her apartment, but uncomfortable just the same. Leaving her a little breathless. Her body seemed determined to rattle itself apart.
‘Blake, step back. Please.’ Weylen stood several metres behind her,
