kick butt and take names, and he was all done taking names. But not of thundering one from the top of the stairs, his arms raised like Moses, if Moses had wielded a sword in either hand.
“Sokkwi you were, and Sokkwi you are, and ever shall be, no matter how many times you return. But you will not return again, Little Fool. Today will see your end.”
He didn’t even raise his voice, not that he needed to with those acoustics. And yet I was shivering. And skidding around, throwing an absolute wave of sparks into the air from a fender sliding across rock, which the tide of vamps rushing at me didn’t even flinch away from.
I guess fear was relative, and nothing looked intimidating next to what was chasing me.
So, I didn’t understand why, instead of running to back up the boss, they grabbed me and started dragging me back. “That thing will kill him,” I said, fighting. “Don’t you get it? It will kill him!”
“No, it won’t,” Louis-Cesare said, pulling me back, pulling me away. Leaving the tiny looking man in the burnt and filthy robes, standing all alone at the top of the massive staircase.
But not for long.
The wall I’d just driven through exploded, sending huge stones tumbling over the floor, each as big as a small house. Fortunately, we’d retreated out of the way, into the shadow of a lion headed goddess whose name I couldn’t remember. Right now, I could barely remember my own.
Because the giant shadow of the great beast had just fallen over the stairs, blocking out the light, leaving Hassani all alone in the darkness.
“We have to help him,” I whispered.
But Zakarriyyah was shaking his head. “He has all the help he needs,” he said softly.
I had no idea what he meant. There was nobody else here. And, worse, the trip through the crypts hadn’t put a mark on the creature. That armor-like hide was a little dustier, but if it had picked up so much as a scratch, I didn’t see it.
How did you fight something like that? How did you even start? If massive boulders hadn’t hurt it, I doubted any weapon we had was going to do any better. Not that I had any left in the first place—
And then the snake started talking, and I forgot to care. I forgot everything except the words echoing and echoing—inside my mind.
It was like a thousand voices speaking at once, each in a different language. But the English words were louder, or maybe they were just louder to me. So loud they hurt, like nails scraping the inside of my brain.
Until Louis-Cesare’s arms tightened, and the screaming became softer. More like a shout in the ear instead of a megaphone. Not pleasant, but bearable.
“I won’t have to come again, young one. This time, I am not leaving. This time I will carve a bloody path of vengeance through those who have wronged me. Their corpses shall litter the Earth, as will those of any who—ah!”
The voice broke off abruptly, I wasn’t sure why. And then I heard it, another voice behind the first, too quiet to make out. But whispering, whispering.
“Save your breath, mage!” the monster hissed. “You do not control me. Did you think you could use a god as your puppet?”
Jonathan, Louis-Cesare mouthed.
“I will take your power,” the thing that had been Sokkwi said, “and once I am back in the sun, I will add to it such a mighty sum that all the Earth shall tremble!” The huge head was suddenly back in Hassani’s face. “But you first.”
I started fighting again, knowing what was coming even if the others didn’t. I’d just seen it, and it had been memorable. And, sure enough, the burst of caustic venom hit Hassani dead center barely a second later . . .
And kept on going.
“What the—” I stared. I’d seen that shit dissolve solid rock! How was he just standing there?
“One of the Teacher’s master powers,” Zakarriyyah murmured. “To project an image somewhere he is not.”
“So, where is he?” I asked, because I only saw one of him, standing calmly in the middle of a torrent of poison that couldn’t hurt him, because he wasn’t really there. But he was somewhere, and I didn’t think playing hide and seek with a demigod was going to work for long.
And neither did the demigod.
“I don’t have to look for you,” the voice in my head echoed again. “You will come to me. The only question