Damaged Gods

“Pia!” Pie reaches down and plucks out a tiny sparrow. “Oh, I am so pissed at you! Where have you been? In my pocket this whole time?” Pie pouts her lips as the bird chirps.

And I’m not gonna lie, those pouty lips are very fucking cute, but we don’t have time for this. I grab the bird, stuff it back inside her pocket, and shove the ax at Pie. “Do it.”

“No! I can’t—”

“Helloooooo!”

Pie and I hold our breath as we turn and look in the direction of the open kitchen door.

They’re inside.

“Helloooooooo!” Grant calls again.

“Pie?” That’s the sheriff. “Pie, are you here?”

I take Pie’s hand, wrap it around the ax handle, and point to her. “Chop it off right now. And then dribble the blood on the scale and tell them to get the fuck out of our home! Do you hear me?”

“Helloooooo!” Grant calls again.

Pie looks absolutely shell-shocked. But she swallows hard, and nods. “OK.”

I kneel down in front of the chopping block, place my face against the scarred wood so my left horn is in the center, and then say, “Do it. Now!”

Pie grunts as she lifts the ax. And then, the next thing I know, it falls. And for a sick moment I think that it’s not enough. The force won’t be enough.

And then my mind goes black.

CHAPTER THIRTY - PIE

Pell slumps to the side of the stump, then to the ground, his body limp and heavy.

I just stare at the undulating knob of flesh and bone that is the stub of his left horn. It’s like lava and it begins to flow. Like he really is made of fire. I can’t take my eyes off it. “Pell?”

He doesn’t answer me. And he doesn’t move, either. Horn blood is pouring out of him. The tree stump chopping block hisses and smokes when the river of monster blood makes contact, immediately burning it. I reach for the chopped-off horn, then pull back. What if it burns me too?

But then, from behind me, a voice. “Pie.”

Not the sheriff.

Grant.

I stiffen, then lean down and, without hesitation, I pick up the horn in my hand. It burns me. Like hellfire. Like nothing I have ever felt before. It sears into my flesh and for a moment, I can see the damage—the dead muscles, and the snapping tendons, and the charred bone.

But then I blink and it’s gone. The pain remains, but the damage is invisible.

Magic?

Maybe. Because so far the only magic I’ve done comes from my hands.

I whirl around, my empty palm forward to ward Grant off, my other hand clutching Pell’s horn to my chest. It hurts my heart—sizzling and searing me. Burning a hole through my flannel. But then Pia flies up.

Grant is distracted. He has never seen her. Has no idea who she is. He looks up and I use that moment to grab the dragon scale at my feet and tilt the horn filled with Pell’s monster blood until the thick, viscous fire drips over the surface, covering it in a syrup of flames.

Grant turns back, smiling. His teeth are no longer human. But they aren’t anything like Pell’s wolf-like canines. They are like the rows of shark teeth inside the dragon’s mouth.

“Who are you?” I ask, taking a step back. I don’t want to look weak and afraid, but that’s how I feel. This isn’t Grant. Or… maybe this is Grant. But Grant is not a human. Grant is something else.

“Say the words. Do the spell.” Pell’s words are barely a whisper. And they are immediately lost because Grant speaks in almost the same moment.

“Do you know,” he says, “how I knew you would end up here?”

“What?” I swallow hard. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“Don’t you know, Pie? Don’t you remember me?”

“No. I don’t know you!”

“The spell, Pie,” Pell mutters again. “Order him to leave! Banish him! Now!”

I hold up the scale, but then Grant says, “You’re not even real, girl.”

“What?”

“Don’t listen to him!” Pell is getting up on his hands and knees. But he’s so weak, I don’t think he’s going to be able to help me. “He’s lying. Don’t listen!”

“You wish I was lying,” Grant snaps. He narrows his eyes on Pell, sneering. “I told you before.” Now Grant looks at me. “And now I’m going to say it to you. You’re not real, Pie. You do not exist. You are a bit of my magic and nothing more. You are here at my request, to do my bidding, to give me that.” He nods his head at the bloodhorn-covered dragon scale in my hand. “And then I will go inside Tarq’s tomb and get that book myself. And when I come back out, this world will once again be mine.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

Grant laughs, throwing his head back. “I am the only god who matters, slave.”