“I have more than they do,” she said quietly.
He glanced over her to the six people at the pulpit gathered into a tight clump, and turned away.
The doors flew open with a sound of thunder. Beyond them a gory sunset splashed across the sky, yellow and red, the sun a molten coin of gold on the horizon. Hounds slunk into the church, moving one by one, hesitantly, slowly. A man in a dark robe followed them, nearly black against the setting sun, as if cut out of darkness. He advanced at an odd gait, bobbing up and down, as if unsure how to walk upright. The hood of his robe hid his face. He stopped in the doorway and spoke, his voice carrying with unnatural clarity through the building.
Casshorn surveyed the church. “Such a humble, quaint building, this house of the murdered god. I find it oddly fitting that our struggle comes to its end here. It is said that gods inhabit the churches built in their name. So once you have nourished me, I shall raze this structure to the ground, and from the ashes I shall forge the house of a new god. A house befitting me. For you see, I have come to know what I am. I have become a god.” He craned his neck. “Perhaps I shall even hear his cries as he flees from the wreck of his house. After all, he is a god of pity and compassion. He should know how to mourn.”
“You finally lost what pitiful grip you had on this reality, I see,” Declan said, his voice dripping contempt. “You’re not a god. You’re a spoiled child, just as you always have been. You simply stopped all pretenses at adulthood.”
“A child that had seen clear through your trap. It was a good plan for a small mind like yours, Declan. It had only one small flaw. For you see, they had sent a man to me, and before I dined on his magic and body, he told me everything I wanted to know and so much more. I knew their capabilities, and I anticipated their curse, and I had given them the means to cast it, delivered by you. The Universe is clear to me. It has unfurled like a flower before the brightness of my being. You’ve done well, but you cannot kill a god, Declan.”
“We’ll see,” Declan said.
Casshorn turned to William. “My son. Have you finally chosen your side, then?”
“There was never any choice about it.” William shook, snarling. Sweat broke out on his forehead. His eyes had gone deranged.
Casshorn’s voice gained a kindly tone. “I will grant you this one boon, my son, for you are my only heir. Kill Declan, and I will let you run.”
William grinned. His face set into a pale mask, his grin an ugly baring of teeth. He barely looked human. “I served seven years with him in the unit where you lasted a mere fifteen minutes. Had you managed to stay in instead of piss ing on yourself and running like a dog with your tail between your legs, you’d understand. If I owe anyone a crumb of loyalty, it would be him. Not you. It’s good that you decided to be a god, because I’m about to go to a place that suffers none.”
“Then it is decided.” Casshorn raised his arms. “You have no priest to give you your last rites, but do not fear. For I give you your absolution and my communion. I forgive you your past sins, and I shall welcome you into my fold by partaking of your body and power.”
“Get on with it,” Declan said.
Casshorn tore off his cloak. His body was no longer human. His limbs were long and tightly muscled, his digits grotesquely large and clawed. His skin had become purple and yellow hide. Spikes thrust through his spine, rising in a crest above his hunched shoulders. His face had lost all humanity. His eyes glowed gray. A second pair of eye slits, narrow and shunted, shone on his cheeks. He opened his mouth and showed them a forest of bloodred fangs.
Behind Rose, someone retched.
Declan spun his sword in his hand.
Casshorn reared back and emitted a sharp hoarse screech.
Hounds streamed from behind him in twin currents.
With an inhuman snarl, William ripped into them. His face turned demonic. Bodies flew, and silver sprayed. They piled on him, and he cut them down faster than she could see. A psychotic high-strung sound full of mad joy rang through the carnage, and Rose realized William was laughing.
Tendrils of dark magic rose from Casshorn: black veined with polluting streaks of purple and yellow. He clawed at the air. The dark magic streamed to Declan. Declan’s eyes turned white. A wave of flash erupted from him. The two crashed together: the brilliant white against the diseased purplish glow. Immense pressure slapped Rose, nearly taking her off her feet.
The church shuddered.
A support beam split behind Casshorn.
Cuts on Declan’s face bled. She saw a line of red swell across his back.
Casshorn’s face shook with strain. His magic gained a foot. And another. They were too evenly matched, and Declan was tired. If only she’d kept him from that dock . . .
Streaks of silver poured from Casshorn’s eyes. He snarled. His magic gained another foot. If Declan’s flash collapsed, all of them would be wiped out.
Rose stood, untouched, unhurt, in the middle of chaos, listening to the sounds of the church breaking around them and hounds dying under William’s knife, and realized that she would have to watch Declan die. His death would begin the chain reaction. One by one everyone she knew would die as well, and the Edge itself would follow. She couldn’t let it happen.
Rose gathered her power. She had to reach deep, very deep, and drag it out, as if pulling her heart out of her chest. She focused it all into a single point, condensing her magic so tight, she shook with the strain of trying to contain it.
The dark magic advanced. Blood dripped from Declan’s leather.
She wished she could have said good-bye to the boys. She wished she had told them how much she loved them and not to worry and to listen to Grandma. She wished she and Declan had just a little more time.
Rose took a deep breath. It hurt so much she shut her eyes. Then she opened them and let her magic go. She held nothing back. Everything that she was, everything that made her alive, she gave all of it, so Declan and the boys would live. She would have given more, if she could have.
It tore from her in a blinding beam of light, straight as a needle. The beam pierced Declan’s flash and the darkness beyond it. She saw Casshorn’s face, a horrified mask, eyes wide open, mouth dropping downward in slack bewilderment and terror. She heard Declan scream.
The white beam sliced through Casshorn. The two halves of his horrible body stood still for a moment and then fell apart.
Blackness pounced on her and swallowed her whole.
DARKNESS.
Darkness all around, empty, blocking the world like a wall. If only she could break through it . . .
She didn’t want to die. She flailed, willing her hands to rise and tear up the darkness, but her arms were missing and she could do nothing as the blackness dragged her off, deeper and deeper into its depths.
A bolt of lightning tore through the dark wall. For a moment she felt Declan’s arms cradling her, she saw his eyes, heard his lips whispering over and over, “Don’t leave me!”
The darkness pounced, and he vanished.
A dozen narrow streaks shattered the darkness, and she screamed, because she was clenched in his arms, and he was flashing again and again, siphoning his life into her, his magic a dozen white currents binding their bodies into one.
TWENTY-SIX
ROSE opened her eyes. Daylight.
A ceiling stretched above her with an all-too-familiar yellow stain. It had appeared two years ago, right after Jack in his lynx shape chased a feral tomcat up into the attic. She had long suspected it was cat pee.
“Here you are,” Grandma’s voice said softly.
Rose looked at her, wide-eyed. A terrible fear clamped her. “Declan?”
