“Hello?” Loki yelled, waving his arms frantically. “We had a deal. You have my sword. Let me out of here. And pray that you keep it perfect and polished, or I will have your head, Dustin Graves.”

Carver snapped his fingers, and the sealing flames vanished. Loki launched instantly into the sky, his body hovering above us as he fixed each of us with a death glare, the dirtiest looks of all reserved for Odin, Carver, and me, in that order of magnitude. He turned his face to the sky, then took off like a bolt, disappearing into the night.

I looked from the sky to Odin, one eyebrow raised. “That’s funny. I thought you would have gone after him immediately. You gods hold very long grudges. Literally an eternity.”

Odin clambered to his feet, his huge beard moving with him as he shook his head. “I believe you mortals. There are matters to attend to, if the Old Ones truly are to return. I will speak to my peers, see what can be done to stave off the coming of their corruption.”

I was taken aback, but I wasn’t about to look a gift eight-legged horse in the mouth. “Thank you,” I said. “Any help we can get is worth so much right now. Thank you.”

Odin reached his hand out, clasping his fingers around an invisible pole. His spear, Gungnir, appeared in his hand as he spoke his last words to me. “Pray that you comprehend the true meaning of what you are doing, boy. Do not take your fate lightly.” He tapped Gungnir’s butt against the ground once, then, like Loki, went rocketing off into the night.

Mason scratched his head, staring at the gap in the clouds that the All-Father left in his wake. Then he looked at me with a frown, the question clear on his face. “What the hell was that about?”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

“That’s a pile of bullshit and you know it, Graves,” Sterling said, stepping between us, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into my face as he turned to address Mason. “The Apotheosis is going to kill Dustin. That’s what Odin meant.”

Cat was out of the bag. It felt as if the night had frozen over. Gil, Mason, and Asher stared at me wordlessly for a long, tense moment. Then Mason stepped forward, his eyes crinkled as he struggled to focus on my face, watching for signs of deception.

“Is Sterling right? No more lies this time, Dust. Are you really going to die?”

I stood there, watched, it seemed, by the lingering spirits of an ancient mountain. For the first time in what felt like weeks, I told my friends the truth.

Chapter 23

The air was almost sweet on the hilltop outside of Valero. It was the same one where Bastion had shown me his little trick with his arcane grenades, and the boys and I picked it to make sure we could perform another communion without stinking up the entire Boneyard. Granted, our offering for Scrimshaw this time around wasn’t going to involve burning raw onions and garlic, but we thought it was best to make sure.

Gil and Asher were as polite and supportive as they could be when they learned the truth about the ritual. They were being good friends, in that sense, and I imagined that they would have reacted the same way if I’d told them that I had a terminal illness, that we only had so many more months to spend together.

They were doing their best. I was very careful to explain to the boys that Sterling had exaggerated, that the Apotheosis wasn’t meant to kill me, but only remove me from reality for, well, a while.

“How long?” Mason had asked, his eyes stern and hard.

Grudgingly, I had to answer with the truth. “Decades. Possibly a century.”

That didn’t soften the blow for anyone. In the minds of my mortal friends, that still meant that I was as good as dead. We would never see each other again.

Sterling had gotten snippier with me about the entire situation, making even less of an effort to speak to me, glance in my general direction, or acknowledge that I existed at all. But I didn’t expect such a negative reaction from Mason, of all people.

He’d come out that night, the same as all the others, I suppose to ensure that we’d have enough hands on call just in case our communion somehow went sideways. Carver and Banjo stayed back at the Boneyard for the night, but Asher and Gil were up there with me on the hilltop, roasting marshmallows on a little campfire that Gil had built himself. Sterling was there, too, sulking quietly into the fire as he used it to light cigarette after cigarette. Farther off, a little ways away from the flames, Mason sat alone, his arms folded, his face as dark as the night around us.

Which didn’t bode well, truthfully, considering Mason was our best option for seeking out the final sword, the celestial one. It was bad enough that we weren’t exactly in good graces – pun intended – with the angels. The only two I’d ever met weren’t in any condition to help, clearly. Samyaza gave his life for me, and was the primary reason Mason was our friend at all. The other one, Adriel, was bent on wiping out mankind, and was completely insane from the outset, to boot. We didn’t even know where he was.

Plus, I had to imagine that if someone like Zeus had picked up on me being in touch with demon princes, then it wasn’t a stretch to assume that the heavenly host would be clued in on that juicy little factoid themselves. They probably weren’t very happy about it, either.

“I cannot, in good conscience, essentially participate in assisted suicide.” Those were Mason’s exact words to me, that night on Mount Kinabalu, just after Sterling dropped his truth bomb. I was still mad at Sterling for that, actually – it was my truth to tell, my burden to explain to my own friends – but he really only expedited the revelation. I knew myself well enough. I probably wouldn’t have said shit until the very last moment, if at all.

I popped a toasted marshmallow into my mouth – tried to, rather, since it was burning hot right out of the fire. I got some of the crispy bits, but also the scalding lava of molten sweetness smeared over my lower lip. I cursed, wiping myself off on the sleeve of my jacket. That was as good a sign as any to get the communion out of the way. Bite the bullet, as it were.

“We should get started,” I said.

“Consider it finished,” Gil replied

.

He helped Asher spread the contents of the various packets we’d hauled up to the hilltop with us, arranging them in a circle around the bonfire. I thought it was sweet that they even bothered to alternate the pattern, putting down a graham cracker, a square of chocolate, and then a jumbo marshmallow in the grass. It was all the same to Scrimshaw, who was one hundred percent going to smash it all into his face anyway.

I contributed the blood, dripping a bead of it directly into the fire. I hadn’t even made my way through half of the Puppy Yum biscuits incantation when the smell of brimstone overpowered the scent of wood fire. Similarly, the sound of kindling crackling and sputtering in the flames was quickly replaced by the scandalous and vaguely repulsive noises of our little imp friend enjoying his delicious bounty.

Tags: Nazri Noor Darkling Mage Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net