Endless Knight (Darkling Mage 9)

“Besides, if you perish now, then how will you see what we truly have in store for the earth?”

“How will you witness the glory, the true beauty of the coming of our masters?”

The Agathas spun around us in a slow circle, eyes and smiles burning with evil, green from the sickly light of Mammon’s hellfire, like some dreadful parody of a child’s zoetrope. A golden spear and a huge bone spike erupted from our midst, both projectiles heading directly for one of the Agathas. All thirteen clenched their fingers lazily. The spear vanished, and the spike crumbled into white dust, drifting away in the wind. Mason and Asher cursed. We were basically defenseless.

“It will be very amusing to watch you try and stop us. But do be reminded that when we last fought, you could barely stand against a single manifestation of our greatness. What hope do you have against the full power of the lioness?”

“Oh my God,” Sterling cried out. “You’re so boring. Are you just going to monologue all night long? Are you just going to talk us to death?”

Silence, for a moment. Then one Agatha laughed, then another, until all thirteen were cackling, their voices laced with mirth and menace.

“We shall kill you last, vampire. We only want you to live long enough to see the fruit of our holy labors.”

“Then tell us,” I shouted. “Tell us why you had to murder so many innocents. Was that just you going on some mindless killing spree? What was the point?”

I found myself flinching when the circle of witches around us tightened, closing in as they hovered above us, their feet barely touching the licking tongues of Mammon’s flames.

“Surely you already know, little one. My gods demand blood, a massive circle with which to summon them, to invite them into this world.”

I shifted uneasily. She confirmed it, then. They were all sacrifices. Offerings. Then that meant –

“Thea Morgana didn’t think big enough. She attempted to destroy your home, Valero. But why inscribe a circle around something as insignificant as a city? Why only sacrifice those mortals? Why not the entire world?”

“Oh God,” I muttered. “No.”

Thirteen mouths sneered at me as they opened and spoke at once. “Yes.”

The witches pointed their hands at the sky, each issuing a beam of red light that pierced the clouds like spotlights. Up in the stars, the lights expanded and swirled, curved lines connecting each point until they formed into a complete, blood-red circle.

“All those decades of slumbering madness,” Agatha said. “Oh, the things that we’ve seen, little sheep. Let us show you.”

The circle in the sky began to spin, as the clouds around it grew red to match the color of Agatha Black’s magic. Then a line appeared in the center of it, bisecting the circle into two halves. My heart seized with terror as the line split apart to reveal a bright yellow pool, a slit of black at its center. The slit swiveled around, rolling, until it found the thirteen witches far below, until it found us.

I held my breath and looked on, helpless, as the great eye blinked once more.

Chapter 27

The thing in the sky was the size of a stadium, its horrible, sl

itted pupil flitting about, a grotesque reminder of the fact that it was attached to something much, much larger. There was no way in hell that anyone within miles could ignore its presence. You don’t look up in the sky, shrug, and go back to binge-watch TV shows after you see the massive eye glaring back at you from the heavens.

The Lorica was going to have a hell of a time cleaning this one up. I wondered if they even had enough Mouths on hand to wipe the memories of that many civilians.

The more pressing concern, of course, was whether any of those civilians were going to survive the night. Whoever – whatever that thing in the sky was, there was no question that it was summoned for the sole purpose of destroying and consuming the world. Agatha’s laughter reverberated from thirteen equidistant points around us, like we needed another reminder of how badly this one-sided fight was going.

I hurled a fireball at the closest witch, pouring as much of my spirit as I could into the flames,. It only snuffed out before it even made contact with her body. The thirteen were shielded, either by their own magic or by the unholy gift of their insane masters. Still, I knew that the key was to deactivate them, one by one. Every Agatha was a pylon holding the doorway open for the Eldest, one corner of the thirteen-sided gate that gave them passage between dimensions.

“Where the hell are the others?” I said, my eyes searching around the hilltop, barely able to see through the hellish green fire that Mammon had left behind.

Asher fumbled with his phone with one hand, gesturing and drawing mystic symbols with the other as he called out more spikes of bone from within the earth. At one point, exactly thirteen of them erupted from the ground to strike at the witches, a feat of arcane power that would have made even Carver swoon. But they only shattered before they could make impact.

Calling on the Vestments, Mason hurled more spears at the surrounding horrors. Every one of his spears splintered into pieces, then vanished into wisps of gold, returning bent and broken to the armories of heaven. I fired balls of flame from both hands, cursing harder and harder at how the Dark Room wasn’t responding. Our attacks were only tickling the Agathas. We were just flies to her, worthless little insects.

The flash of black and silver streaking towards another of the Agathas gave me some hope. This had worked before, both Gil in his werewolf form and Sterling with his lightning sword acting together to break Agatha’s shield. Both claws and katana struck the air just around her, sending up a shower of sparks – but nothing. Either Agatha was on to their trick, or there was a greater source powering her protections. Likely both. Sterling and Gil landed lightly in the grass, totally ignored by the witches.

But the gap in the sky was growing larger, and now the Agathas had lifted their arms, chanting in unknowable tongues as more and more of the blood-red magic leaked from their souls, feeding the ever widening rift. I cast more fireballs as Asher summoned more of his spikes. The witches carried on as if nothing had happened, uncaring.

They didn’t even react when the first of several snowflakes drifted out of the sky – when that gentle, mostly innocent manifestation of ice magic was followed by a terrifying hail of icicles. I fell to the ground, taking Asher with me, and Mason raised his shield over our heads as Sterling and Gil – returned to human form, thank God – rushed for shelter.