Last Rites (Darkling Mage 6)

I took a swig of my beer to hide the fact that I w

as gulping. Consume? Yikes.

“Medical advancements and progress in the codes of war – in morality in general, truthfully, have given us slightly less to do in modern times.” She closed her eyes momentarily, her lashes fluttering as she sipped in a breath and shivered. “Ah. There goes another one. Each time you mortals finish sexual congress, there is a pause in the biological system, when all the breath leaves your body, when it goes perfectly taut, and rigid, and still.” Her lashes fluttered again as she blinked, gazing meaningfully up into my face. “Like a corpse.”

I chugged another mouthful of beer.

“So,” Gil said. “One of Dustin’s friends in the underground told us to come here, and we can only assume that this is connected to you. What can we do for you?”

Sterling slunk onto the stool next to her, flashing a charming grin. “What can these humble ones do for a goddess of death?”

“It’s more a question of what I can do for you.” Izanami’s eyes burned with black fire each time she smiled. Her beauty could stop hearts – literally, I assumed – yet something about her grin seemed so terrible, frightening. “I think we’ve exchanged enough pleasantries by now. The Old Ones are coming, and I am no fool. They must be stopped at all costs. I will offer you the ritual you require to seal them away.”

“For a price,” I said, softly, politely. “Surely this comes at a price.”

“Entities and our whims, yes? Offerings and sacrifices?” The goddess waved her hand. “Surely this is no longer a surprise to you.”

“With all due respect,” Gil said. “Why do this? Most of the entities we’ve spoken to refuse to even lift a finger.”

“Even the All-Father,” I said. “Odin himself.”

“Because the gods of death understand what the others do not,” she said, her voice cold. “Oh, the underworlds would be safe, and perhaps for a moment we might even profit from the influx of souls filling our realms. But once all mortals are dead, there will be no one to reproduce, to create more souls. Soon the Eldest will seek to ruin us, too. Soon there will be nothing left.” She tilted the cup back, finishing the last of her sake. “And that includes a good drink.”

“Okay,” I said, licking my lips. Half a beer down my gullet, yet there I was, mouth dry. “What’s the price we have to pay?”

“That you have to pay, Dustin Graves,” Izanami said. “This is, after all, your problem. The shard of star-metal in your heart is what started all this.”

No, I almost spat at her. It was Thea stabbing me in the chest and planting her poison there that started all this. But I couldn’t say that. The corner of Izanami’s mouth lifted in a grin, like she knew what I was thinking.

Sterling rubbed my upper back in what I took to be a reassuring manner. “Sorry, pal,” he said, for once sounding genuinely contrite. “You know how these things work. A communion it is, between you and the entity.”

“Correct,” Izanami said.

Gil clapped me on the shoulder, then turned back to the bar, heading off to talk to Jonnifer. Sterling squeezed me by the back of my neck, reassuring. “It’ll be fine, Dust,” he whispered, like it was only for me to hear. “We trust you.”

I blinked, looking him in the eye, wondering where all this niceness was coming from. Sterling grinned, then winked at me.

“We trust in Dustin.”

And stupid, impressionable me: that was all I needed. But it was good to know that, despite the push and pull of our friendship, how often we bickered, Sterling still had my back.

Literally. His hand, cold and dry, pressed like ice into my nape.

“Right,” I said. “You can let go of me now.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He released my scruff, nodding at Izanami, then going off to join Gil, Jonnifer, and the Fuck-Tons, who all seemed to be enjoying a round of drinks – but I could sense the tension in the air. They were watching, waiting for what Izanami was about to do.

They were never meant to see. The goddess took my hand, then snapped her fingers, and the world around us erupted in green fire. A conflagration the color of old jade, of horrible, pale venom. But it was cold. So cold.

And all around us, the screaming. The hairs raised at the back of my neck, all up and down my forearms as an infernal shrieking scraped at my very soul, as of a thousand, no, millions of voices screaming. There we stood on a blasted plateau of black, cracking rock, massive gouts of cold, poisonous fire reaching for a sky that we couldn’t see, for a heaven that had forsaken all that dwelled there.

“What is this?” I muttered, fully knowing with dread where we were. “Where have you taken me?”

Izanami’s hand pressed tighter around mine, like it was meant to be a reassuring gesture. “This is home, Dustin Graves,” she rasped.

My stomach churned. Rasped. Izanami’s voice had taken on a different quality, not the smooth, whispered soprano she used in the bar, but something old, crackling. Something dead.

I turned to her slowly, already knowing what to expect. And yet it still didn’t prepare me for the sight of her true form.