Soul Fire (Darkling Mage 8)

Carver yelled something at me, which is to say that I only barely understood the things he was motioning at me with his lips. Now I’m not the best lipreader there is, but any idiot could have interpreted what Carver was trying to say.

“Odin,” he screamed. “All-Father.”

The entire Boneyard was rumbling, dishes and mugs clattering around in the kitchen cupboards, my plate crashing to the floor as it shuddered and jumped off the table. No earthquake had ever frightened me quite this much, and I spent my entire life in California.

I watched, helpless, as Banjo took more air into his tiny lungs, but instead of throwing his head back to howl, he turned towards the abyss just beyond the platform of our kitchen, and made a single, decisive bark.

The sound of it should have shattered my bones, if not my eardrums. Instead it shattered dimensions.

Cracks began to spider all across the abyss, hairline and fine, at first, but immediately fracturing into huge gaps. Light poured into the Boneyard – sunlight from the world outside – as great chunks of the void fell away, crumbling and eroding in a way that my mind couldn’t entirely grasp. As the last of the abyssal rubble fell, I saw what was left: a rough, circular hole, just large enough for a train, or maybe a truck to pass through.

Banjo had barked a hole that led straight into Valero.

And then silence. Banjo had stopped howling. His eyes were back to normal, but the blue rune Odin left on his forehead was still there. He rushed towards the hole, breaking for freedom. Even with my dulled sense of hearing I could clearly make out Carver’s desperate cry.

“No, my baby!”

A net of fine amber fire leapt from his fingertips, launching clear across the room and towards the hole, but Banjo was too fast, bounding for the outside world on tiny, stubby legs, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. It was almost funny, seeing Asher and Mason sprint after him, the three members of the Boneyard who hated being stuck in it the most. A nephilim, a necromancer, and a corgi walk into a bar –

“Do something,” Carver screeched at me, his eyes

wild, his hair in frantic disarray.

“Okay,” I yelled back. Carver never panicked. Ever. This was important shit to him. Time to get serious.

I checked for Banjo’s trajectory, spotting the shadow of a trash can on the sidewalk outside. I sank into my own shadow, rushing through the Dark Room, expecting to jump out through the sidewalk pavement and possibly tackle Banjo into submission, preferably without roughing him up.

My foot went through the exit point within the Dark Room, and the hot light of the morning sun splashed across my back as I emerged in Valero, just on the sidewalk outside Mama Rosa’s restaurant. Banjo stopped dead in his tracks, looking up at me with his tongue wagging.

“Good boy,” I said, bending down to scoop him up. “Good Banjo.”

“Dust,” Asher screamed.

I locked eyes with him just in time. He was pointing at something just behind me. No time to look. I grabbed Banjo – and my ass – and ran directly away from whatever had frightened Asher.

A massive, ever-loving crash banged behind me, the collision so powerful that I swear the air rippled.

I tumbled like a gymnast – don’t let anyone convince you otherwise, that was what happened – while cradling Banjo safely against my chest. Didn’t matter, though, he started yowling like a motherfucker anyway. I rushed to join the others before turning around to survey the destruction.

The crash had come from the impact between an enormous truck and the twisted remains of what used to be a lamppost. The trash can I’d targeted for its shadow was all but flattened underneath the truck’s many, many wheels. If Banjo and I had been in the way, we’d just be two red smears on the pavement by now.

I glowered at the truck, the angle of the sun making it hard to see through the glare of the cab’s windshield. I didn’t have to guess who the driver was. Banjo’s heralding was a good enough sign, as was the image of an eight-legged horse painted on the truck’s hood and sides.

The door opened, and out stepped the All-Father himself, laughing deeply from inside his huge chest. His laughter thundered, making nearby awnings and trees shudder, their leaves rustling as he guffawed.

“There you are, little mortal. I said I would find you, didn’t I? The All-Father keeps his promises.”

I couldn’t imagine how the god had fit into the truck. He must have been seven feet tall, so muscular that he looked like he’d been carved out of a side of beef. His beard and hair were lustrous white clouds, his enormous, terrifying frame contained in the flannel shirt and denim jeans of someone who could have been a lumberjack, or, well, a truck driver. He barely looked like someone who owned a bed and breakfast, much less the leader of the Aesir, the entire Norse pantheon.

“You’re not what I expected at all,” I said.

Odin’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing, his attention drawn by Banjo’s incessant yapping. The little guy was thrashing in my arms, growling and baring his teeth at Odin. The god gave the corgi his power, sure, but it felt as though Banjo could sense that Odin meant him harm. The All-Father had promised to kill him, after all.

“You’re not hurting Banjo,” I said, proud of myself for not pissing right into my pants as I spoke. “And you’re not taking him away from us, either.”

Odin lifted his head and sneered. “Give me one good reason to spare the little abomination’s life.”

Banjo growled a little more, than gave one huge, decisive bark. Even Odin reacted, stumbling away from his truck as it was pummeled by an invisible wave of power. The cab caved in on itself, as if colliding with some unseen wall, its windshield crashing into a thousand glittering pieces.