“There!” I pointed, but he had already seen it. We dropped through the smoke and landed on the ash. Heat scoured my face.
A twelve-foot-tall pillar rose in the middle of the ravaged field, a translucent column dusted with ash. Within it, an orange glowing liquid flowed. Glass, I realized. The pillar was glass, its outer crust solid, but inside it was molten.
Christopher made a choking sound.
I looked up.
There was a human being in the pillar.
Oh dear God.
The body was encased in glass up to the shoulders. The head and neck were free, smudged with soot, all the hair burned off, but the body itself floated, submerged in the molten glass. It wasn’t burned. The molten glass should’ve boiled the flesh off the bones, but I could see pale legs dangling in the glowing liquid.
What the bloody fuck?
The head opened its eyes.
Still alive. How?
The dry cracked lips moved. “He . . .”
Ghastek’s vampires slid to a stop next to me and froze.
“He . . .” the person in the glass said. “Help.”
Rowena.
Every hair on my arms stood on end.
I concentrated on the pillar, pulling magic inside me to shine at it like a light. I couldn’t see it the way Julie did, but I felt the veins of glowing power twisting into the pillar in a complicated web. Inside, Rowena was coated in it as if she wore a skintight bodysuit. The web cradled her, winding through every inch of the pillar. The whole thing was bound together. Shit.
Ghastek’s left vamp charged to the glass column.
“No!” I yelled.
It turned to me.
“If you break the glass, she’ll burn to death.”
“Are you sure?” Ghastek asked, his voice clipped.
“Yes.”
A Jeep rounded the bend of the road. Julie and Derek jumped out and ran toward us.
“Can we drain it from the bottom?” Christopher asked.
“She’s wrapped in a spell. It’s clinging to her like a second skin. The skin is connected to the pillar. We break any part of it, she’ll die instantly.”
The vampire spun around. “Get her out of there.” Ghastek’s voice vibrated with steel. “Kate!”
“Quiet.”
If we broke the pillar, she died. If we tried to lift her out of it, she died. If tech hit, she died.
Vampires dashed out of the woods on the northern edge of the town. The People catching up with Ghastek.
Julie reached me, looked up at the pillar, and clamped her hand over her mouth.
What do I do?
The awful sound of groaning wood rolled through the air. I turned. On the south side, the trees shuddered. Green branches twisted and dropped. Something had snapped the decades-old pines like toothpicks.
Something huge. The druid carving flashed before me. I pulled Sarrat from its sheath.
“Form on In-Shinar!” Ghastek snapped.
The undead lined up into a wedge behind me.
An oak split, spun on its trunk, and plummeted down. A massive snout emerged into the light, six feet across. An enormous head followed, shaggy with brown fur. Two curved tusks big enough to skewer a car flanked the snout, followed by three pairs of shorter tusks. Short spiked horns protruded from the beast’s skull.
Well, of course. That’s what this party was missing. An enormous, pissed-off pig. Fuck me.
Behind me the Guild Jeeps tore around the bend of the road and sped across the burned ground, raising a cloud of ash.
The colossal boar took a step forward. Ragged gashes crossed its hide, cutting through a network of faded scars. Here and there, spiked balls punctured its hide, half-sunken into its flesh. Someone had tortured this boar.
The beast swung its head toward me. A broken chain dangled around its neck, as thick as a lighting pole. At its end hung a huge metal symbol, Neig’s shackles.
“It’s a god.” Julie took a step back. “Its magic is silver.”
I hold gods prisoner, tormenting them for my pleasure.
Neig had captured a god, kept him prisoner for a thousand years, tortured him, and now he’d loosed him on us. There would have been only one boar god on the British Isles for Neig to capture.
“It’s Moccus,” I said. The Celtic Boar, guardian of hunters and warriors, the Caledonian Monster. A god, or rather its manifestation. Killing it wouldn’t kill the deity, but it would banish it from our reality. A tech shift would rip him out of existence instantly. It would also kill Rowena.
“Does it have any weaknesses?” Ghastek asked.
“No.”
The boar opened its mouth and roared. The bellow slapped my eardrums, a mad blast of rage. It reverberated through the burned-out town. Ash trembled.
Just what we needed.
Moccus pawed the ground. Another bellow smashed into us.
The bloodsuckers waited, unmoving.
Nothing I had would deliver a punch strong enough to one-shot him. We’d have to bleed Moccus. It would take hours. We didn’t have time to fight him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three Guild Jeeps barreling down the road toward us. They went off the pavement and tore through the scarred town, raising clouds of ash.
“We have to kill it fast,” I said.
“Fast isn’t an option,” Christopher answered, his voice detached. “He’s too large and he’s a god. He will regenerate.”
“We have to try. Rowena doesn’t have time.”
Moccus sighted us. His deep-set eyes ignited with fury. The boar was finally free from confinement. Free to punish. Neig had driven him mad.
“Protocol Giant,” Ghastek said, his voice calm. “Prioritize damage over undead casualties.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Rowena whispered from the pillar. “Go. Leave.”
Moccus started forward.
Here we go. I pulled magic to myself.
The leading Jeep slid to a halt. A single man jumped out and sprinted to the boar. I would know that sprint anywhere.
Hi, honey, we’re over here, but please ignore us and run at the magic boar all by yourself. It’s only a giant enraged animal god. No need to worry. Nothing bad ever happens in situations like this.
“Curran!”
He ran past us at breakneck speed. As if we weren’t even there.
“Damn it.” I unsheathed Sarrat.
“Idiot,” Ghastek volunteered.
Moccus bellowed, giving voice to pain and insane anger, and broke into a full charge. The ground punched my feet and I stumbled to keep my balance.
The boar charged toward Curran like a runaway train.
I broke into a sprint. He’d need backup. The undead followed me.
My husband jumped. His human skin tore. Magic punched me, like the first ray of sunrise coming over the horizon. Fur spilled out, a whole cloud of it, black and huge. A colossal lion smashed into the boar.
I blinked. No, the giant lion was still there.
What the hell? What in the bloody . . . How?
He was as big as Moccus, solid black, a majestic mane floating in the wind, sparking with streaks of magic.
What . . .
The lion opened his jaws, fangs glinting in the sun, and plunged them into Moccus’s neck. The boar and the lion rolled. The ground trembled.
“Kate!”
The two colossal creatures snarled and roared, trying to bite and gore each other.
How was this possible?
“Kate!”
I realized I was standing still. My vampire army had come to a halt.
“Rowena!” Ghastek’s vamps screamed in my face.
Rowena was my friend. Rowena had held Conlan just yesterday, and today she could burn to death. I couldn’t let her die. I knew exactly what I had to do. I just had to do it. It was that or she would be boiled alive.
A clump of dirt the size of a truck flew past me. I ducked and spun back to the pillar. “Get wood. As much as you can. We need a fire. A huge fire.”
The vampires spun around. There was nothing to burn except for the distant trees. They would take too long.
“Does it have to be wood?” Ghastek asked through his twin vamps.
“No. As long as it burns. We need a big flame.”
The mercs had piled out of the Jeeps and stared at the battle raging only a few feet away. Barabas was on the front line. I caught a glimpse of his face, touched with awe.
I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t afford to process it now. There was no time. I turned to Rowena. She stared at me.
“Leave me,” she said, her voice breaking.
“Not going to happen.”