Gaios studied the Stone closely with a wild grin on his face. “Your father may go. You stay until I am finished here.”
Hogarth ran up to help. The manservant gently relieved Jane of the burden of her father. Jane’s expression was filled with disgrace and regret. Tears fell from her eyes in silent sorrow. Hogarth whispered comforting words to her as he hefted the frail man into his arms and started for the house.
Gaios dropped to his knees next to the Stone. He held his hands over the grey surface as if warming them over a fire. He laughed. “Thank you, Archer. Finally the world will be set right. It is time for Ash to pay.”
He slapped his palms against the Stone and there was an explosion. The grey lump of rock and the elemental clutching it disappeared in a flash of white. Great arcs of lightning flared into the sky and ground. All the power that Jane had sent into the Stone now roared out. Simon had runed it to resist enhancement. He felt blistering heat and a tremendous force blasting him back. But his aether-driven strength rooted him to the spot near the Stone. He saw the figure of Jane cast away in the eruption. She had an almost comical look of surprise on her face, but the lightning could cause her no pain.
Gaios screamed and tried to keep his grip on the Stone. The incredible power surging out finally ripped him free as well and hurled him back against the jagged surface of his huge rock chariot and he lay smoldering in the dirt. The burning ozone cracked into the atmosphere and left the ground around the Stone scorched and dry.
Now was his chance. Simon leapt for Gaios. The elemental moved slightly, stunned and barely conscious. Simon raised his left hand to press the powerful rune against the old man’s bare face. His arm jerked to the side with horrible force. He caught a glimpse of a monstrous face, a combination of beast and stone leaking red magma from its crevices. Massive jaws clamped around his forearm. It was one of the doglike stone golems that had pulled Gaios’s chariot. It had appeared out of the ground in an instant to protect its master. The creature shook Simon wildly, threatening to tear his arm from the socket. With a guttural growl, it tossed its jagged head and sent Simon sailing toward the house.
Simon hit the dirt and rolled, holding his singed arm close to his body. He came up on his feet and whirled to face back in the direction of Gaios. The two monstrous dogs stood beside their fallen master. Their huge heads were held low and massive shoulders bunched some ten feet above the ground. Burning stone drizzled from their mouths.
Malcolm raced out for Jane, who was moaning where she had been thrown many yards from the Stone. He reached her and lifted the dazed woman to her feet, helping her back toward the house. One of the dogs turned its head toward him and started into a rumbling lope. Malcolm scooped Jane up and kept running, but the beast came on fast.
A large shape sped past Malcolm in the opposite direction and Charlotte bounded into the air, lunging at the charging monster. The werewolf landed on its snout, knocking the stone head down, causing it to stumble. Malcolm vaulted up onto the portico with Jane in his arms.
Charlotte cried out in pain and leapt into the air from the monster’s head. She trailed smoke and her fur showed red singe lines from the lava secretions. She fell heavily and rolled in the dirt to smother the flames.
The huge dog turned toward her with steam boiling from its nostrils. It opened its mouth to reveal that instead of teeth, both the upper and lower surfaces were covered in long jagged stalactites. Charlotte struggled up awkwardly onto her feet despite the agonizing burns.
A high arcing object spiraled in from the sky with a long smoke trail behind it. The beast glanced up at it, then its head exploded. Penny whooped in excitement from the roof of Hartley Hall and loaded another canister into her blunderbuss. The decapitated stone dog spewed streams of magma from its throat. Charlotte yelped in fear and scrambled away from the moving fountain of lava that wandered in a circle.