She tried to jump clear but Simon veered with her. He screamed with tremendous effort as his body suddenly shifted, the hardened shell around him cracking and flying out behind him. He collided as flesh and bone with Kate. The hard impact sent them tumbling toward the edge of the lava pool. Kate’s vision went brilliant white. She lay beneath him as he thrust his arms and legs out spread-eagle to halt their momentum. Kate stirred under Simon’s desperate hand and her eyes blinked open. They had skidded to a stop inches from the edge. The heat from the lava seared their exposed skin even through the gel. They came to their feet.
Gaios’s amber prison abruptly shattered, sending shards of it everywhere. Simon covered Kate and a few of the slivers struck them, but none were debilitating. Simon spun back to face Gaios. The elemental straightened, brushing the remainder of the amber from his robes with annoyance. His eyes grew dark and seemed to roll into his head. His fingers stretched taut.
“Come, children,” he pronounced. “I want you to see the end.”
Simon and Kate started desperately at Gaios again, but their knees buckled under them. The singular sound of their footsteps in the rough soil was quickly shattered by a splitting noise that sounded like giant trees cracking open and the ground was wracked by a tremor. Simon crashed into the dirt. Kate tumbled next to him. The earth roared and a huge wave of force washed over them. The roof of the chamber exploded outward. Columns toppled and smashed into pieces. Huge chunks of flaming marble blasted into the sky. Flames spewed forth from the rent ground. The vulnerable humans were thrown about like leaves. They reached for one another, trying to help, trying to support. Chunks of black stone rained down around them.
Then the sky broke open. The blackness split into a grey haze. A burning stench rolled over them in a wave of smoke. The quaking earth wrenched to a stop. The stone walls around them had disappeared and they saw the smashed remnants of the black basalt temple and beyond that, the crumbling bricks and stones of London. Gaios had brought the floor of his chamber to the surface, destroying much of his temple in the process.
Kate pushed herself up on shaking arms. Simon was fighting his way back to his feet as well. She looked around and saw Nick and Charlotte nearby, recovering their wits quickly. The earth shook under her, rattling through her aching bones. Her eyes quickly found Gaios.
A hot wind blew the demigod’s hair and robes. Smoke from burning London swept past him. Gaios laughed wildly. He raised his arms like a symphony conductor calling down the triumphant finale. The ground around him began to crack and magma seeped up to the surface.
Kate and Simon jumped to their feet. Searing ooze rolled toward them. They ran as more geysers of lava erupted everywhere. Terrible heat roared over them. They pounded over the quaking ground, cracks and crevasses opening all around. Nick came at them from one side and Charlotte loped from the other. They all hurdled onto a huge mound of bricks and stones that had once been a building. A sputtering trail of magma lapped at the base. With arms grasping those who faltered, they climbed above the red pools. Their safe harbor was going to be short-lived, Kate feared, because she could feel it shifting beneath their feet.
Over the sounds of destruction and Gaios’s hoarse laughter, stones clattered down the far side of the mound. Kate looked over the crest to see Malcolm and Penny climbing toward them. The hunter carried her rucksack and blunderbuss as Penny labored up the hill. She was smeared with blood and ash. Malcolm assisted Jane, and Hogarth came after Imogen over the rough terrain. Kate ran up and took hold of her sister. A quick examination assured Kate she was fine.
“He’s killing the city,” Malcolm shouted over the roaring wind that whipped his black hair in streams around his head.
Penny dropped to her knees. At first, Kate thought she was too exhausted to stand. Indeed she might have been, but she was working carefully on something. A device of metal and crystal sat in her lap. It was the heart of the altar from Gaios’s island. She had a panel off the back and a small tool inside it. She made frantic adjustments despite the rocking stones on which she sat.
A wave of lava broke from the ground at the foot of their refuge and swept up toward them. Nick shoved in front of the rest and raised a wall of ice, screaming with effort as he did so in the blasting heat. The globs of magma struck the white shield and sizzled it away, but Nick kept it thick until the lava slid back down the stone slope.
Gaios laughed harder from the distance. A huge plume of magma exploded behind him, silhouetting him black against the red.
Nick slumped onto his knees. “I can’t hold it off next time.”
“Won’t be a next time.” Penny stood with the strange device. It glittered in the weak sunlight. “I need a power source and I can knock Gaios on his ass. For a second.”
Simon didn’t question her. “Nick, you’re up.”
The older magician groaned but started to his feet.
Jane stepped forward, staring at the device with shame and anger. “I’ll do it.”
“No, Miss Somerset. You’re—”
“Mr. Archer, please!” she demanded. The once-mousy woman stood with hair astray and face coated with grime. She ceased clutching her torn disheveled clothes. There was an extraordinary force of will behind her eyes. She glanced over at Malcolm, who nodded to her with approval.