Blood Pact (Darkling Mage 7)

That must have been the seventh time I’d yelled her name. Artemis came trumpeting out of the foliage, screaming unintelligibly, a barbed arrow nocked in her bow, her eyes huge and wild. Leaves were tangled in her hair, but in an oddly elegant way, like they’d been arranged there, and not like she’d been rolling around in the undergrowth.

I held my hands up, standing still as a statue, careful to note that she was aiming directly for my face.

“What is it?” she screamed. “What do you want from me, who are you – wait. Dustin? It’s just you. I let you in already.” She lowered her bow and arrow, frowning at me. “What the hell are you yelling about?”

“Sterling,” I said, little traces of panic returning to my blood. “The vampire. Where is he? The sun’s out, and he came into your domicile before I did. Where is he?”

Artemis’s face bunched up even more, twisting with anger. She thrust her finger out past the trees. “He’s right over there, you idiot. I’m in charge of this place. That thing in the sky is artificial. It’s not a real sun. Magic, dum-dum.”

I ran past her, through the trees, following her finger, following the trail, until I came to a clearing that opened out onto a cliff. The valley below us teemed with green, specked with the colors of distant birds and glimpses of flowers and fruit. The sky was crystalline blue, clouds soaring against its perfection like streamers of pure white smoke.

The view gave me pause, but my body took over, wanting to see and to know with certainty that Sterling was fine. He was standing at the edge of the cliff, his back turned to me, his face raised to the sky.

“Sterling,” I shouted, rushing to him, grabbing him by the shoulders, turning him around. “What the hell, man? Why didn’t you answer? I thought I’d lost you.”

I hadn’t noticed he was crying. Sterling placed his hands on my cheeks. His palms were warm, his fingers soft. Tears spilled down his face as he smiled.

“Dust,” he said, his voice shaking. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen the sun?”

Chapter 24

“It’s for the aesthetics, more than anything. And it depends on my mood. Sometimes I like it bright in here. If not, then I just snap my fingers and turn on the moon.” Artemis pushed her sunglasses up her face, leaned back on her hammock, then sipped from her coconut.

“Please don’t snap your fingers,” Sterling said dreamily, still rapt by the sunlit world around him.

Sterling and I had been given our own coconut shells, both of them filled with piña coladas, with curly straws and tiny paper umbrellas stuck in. Somewhere among the bushes I swore I saw a blender. Where Artemis was getting power in this gigantic combination biome was anybody’s guess. I squinted as I searched the palm trees. Maybe they had power outlets in them.

Her domicile was an idyllic tropical paradise, something that still didn’t quite mesh with my idea of what a goddess of the moon would call home. It was the sun that confused me, that and the very many live birds and beasts just chilling around the place. If some of the animals had gotten up on two legs, broken out steel drums, and started banging out Caribbean music, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. I watched a toucan suspiciously, waiting for it to burst into song.

“No worries, I like it sunny sometimes. Not just my brother who likes a little golden glow, you know.” Artemis stretched her legs, squirting a little more suntan lotion on her arms, then sighed. “But I’ll keep this simple, boys. I can’t help you.”

I shifted around in my own hammock, finding it extremely challenging to get comfy, then feeling guilty for trying to be comfortable when Gil and Banjo were still stuck in the wet cold of the arboretum.

“See,” I said. “That’s what we were expecting. Does the Midnight Convocation truly hate me that much? And – and I’m sorry about Metzli, by the way.”

Artemis lowered her sunglasses, fixing me with an even stare. “Yes. About that. It’s exactly why the Convocation is so pissed. Some of us are more understanding. And generous, clearly.” She nodded at my coconut. “How’s your piña colada?”

“G-good,” I said. “Thank you.”

It was. Very refreshing, especially for such a balmy day – which was weird to think of, considering it was past midnight in Valero. Briefly I wondered if she’d poisoned me, but Artemis didn’t seem like the type of entity who’d do that. It wasn’t her style. She could have skewered me like a pincushion the moment I walked into her domicile, that trick she loved where she’d split one arrow into twenty. Poison would have been too subtle.

“Wonderful,” she said, leaning back in her hammock. “I knew bringing in that blender was a good idea. But yes. Sure, the Convocation knew the risks of just handing you some way of summoning us out in the open, but I don’t think that enough of us had fully considered the possibility that you would call on us to fight one of the Old Ones. Christ on a bicycle, Dustin, an Old One. The Overthroat, no less.”

I sipped on my piña colada. “I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but the possibility was heavily implied, right before you guys gave me the crystal.”

Artemis sighed. “True enough. But a lot of us aren’t done grieving – Chernobog, especially – and Metzli’s death was a horrible reminder of how painfully unimmortal we actually are. It was different, you know, in the old days, when our worshippers could have fed us with their prayers, brought us back. But now? Fat chance. And that brings me around to my point: I can’t help you. Sorry.”

I struggled to sit up, gripping my coconut firmly. “But you’re not pissed at me the way the others are. As far as I know, Nyx doesn’t hate me, either.”

She nodded. “Both facts. Yes. But I’m bound to my brothers and sisters. It’d be a betrayal to the other entities of the Midnight Convocation.”

“Then can you recommend anyone else we could ask? Someone with a similar portfolio. An entity who knows a lot about animals.”

Artemis’s eyes flashed momentarily, and she leaned forward to answer, but stopped herself. She cleared her throat. “Sorry. It would be a betrayal to the other entities.”

I blinked at her, flummoxed. “Seriously?” Well and good, though. I understood that the Convocation still had it out for me, and I couldn’t exactly, in good conscience, rope her into something that would put her in a similarly shitty light. “Fine then.” I sipped the last of my drink, the dregs of it slurping noisily, and set my coconut shell aside. “I guess we’ll have to find help from someone else.”

The big flourish I’d hoped to accomplish by making a slightly passive-aggressive, hopefully dramatic huff, where I would have swept out of the portal in a grand exit, was cut short by the fact that my foot got tangled in the hammock. Artemis watched from behind her sunglasses, unmoved, as I struggled and p