Earth's Hope (8 page)

Shock registered on Odin’s sharp-boned face. “What killed them?”

“The six dark gods invaded Earth three years ago.”

Odin thinned his lips into a hard line. “I wondered when those bastards would surface again. Pah! I imprisoned all six of them here in Asgard for millennia, but they escaped. It took almost a thousand years after that, but the Celts helped and we corralled them on the borderworlds.”

Nidhogg knew the tale. Thor had been even drunker than usual one night and had freed the dark gods by mistake. Saddled with guilt, he’d been the one to spearhead finally purging them from Earth. Nidhogg considered jibing Odin about still whitewashing his son’s role in that fiasco, even after all this time. Instead, he muttered, “Lemurians weakened the gates between the worlds.”

“Those pesky reptiles?” Odin shook his head in disbelief. “They never created mischief before. As I recall, they were so relieved to have a retreat point once Mu imploded, they disappeared into that city of theirs beneath Mount Shasta and didn’t bother a soul.”

“Yes, well, they were dying and needed an infusion of power.” Nidhogg blew steam from his mouth. “I must leave. If you wished to gather a group of warriors and venture forth, I’m certain we could use your firepower.”

“You said two reasons.” Odin flashed a grim smile. “What was the other one?”

“I want your guarantee, bound by your blood, that you will never plot to destroy another dragon.”

“If I refuse?”

“I will hunt you until you’re closeted with the dead beneath Valhalla.” Nidhogg paused. “And there will never be another Norse dragon.” He gazed at the crowd that had gathered around them and raised his voice. “I recognize many of you. I flew to war with the Valkyries, and played with your children. Dragons are an integral part of Norse tradition, but I will not be hunted, nor treated with anything less than absolute respect.”

He returned his attention to Odin. “This is a onetime offer. I would have your answer.”

Odin drew a blade from a leather scabbard that hung by his side. He held a hand in front of him and made a deep cut in the ball of his thumb. Once his blood flowed, he turned his hand so it dripped onto the stones beneath his feet. “Dragons will always have safe passage in Asgard. I give you my word, I will never harm one, nor plot to do so. Nor will I interfere in dragon affairs.”

Nidhogg bent and placed a foreleg beneath Odin’s extended hand. Once blood dripped onto his talons, he brought them to his mouth and licked them. The dragon straightened and gazed right at the Norse god. “A blood bond forfeits your freedom if you break it. I shall hold you to your word.”

“Somehow I don’t doubt you will.”

Ready to be gone from Asgard, Nidhogg summoned teleport magic. As his spell bubbled around him, he narrowed his eyes. “We really could use your help.”

“I shall gather my elite warrior group. Once we’re on your side of the barrier that keeps Asgard hidden, I’ll let you know.”

“Do that.” Nidhogg set his spell in motion and the shining city of Asgard dropped away. By the time he heard the unmistakable din of battle raging around him, it was too late to alter course, so he constructed a ward and took in a scene from Hell playing out beneath him.

Lemurians.

Nidhogg did a quick count and came up with close to eighty. Where had all of them come from? Odin had been correct when he’d called them pesky reptiles. Who would have guessed they’d turn into deadly enemies?

Dewi and Kra managed the left flank from the air, while Royce and Vaughna held the right. The Celts were evenly spaced throughout the field, with magic blazing from their outstretched hands. Humans added firepower from both flanks; their faces held a gritty determination, and they fought with skill and fortitude. Maybe the Celts had been wrong to discount them as not worth bothering with.

“You’re back!” Dewi screeched into his mind and flew toward him.

The other dragons joined her. Just as well. They were much more effective adversaries when they tag-teamed their aerial efforts. Fire spewed from Nidhogg—and bounced off the Lemurians’ scaled hides.

“Save your power.” Kra flew abreast of him.

“My children?” Nidhogg asked.

“Safe within Fionn’s manor house.” Dewi took up a position on his other side. “Berra and Bella are guarding them.”

Magic flashed bright white at the far side of the field. Nidhogg stared at the spot as Aislinn and Rune leaped on two Lemurians, taking them from behind. Rune sank his teeth into a Lemurian’s neck and was obliterated in a geyser of red and green blood. Aislinn had a harder time. The Lemurian she’d targeted threw her off its back. She rolled to her feet, her teeth bared in fury.

“Come and get me, you son of a bitch.”

Half a dozen Lemurians closed around Aislinn forming a circle.

“Shit!” Dewi cried. She banked and flew right above the group where she rained fire on their heads, taking care to avoid Aislinn and the wolf.

Rune circled the group, slicing through Achilles’ tendons with his teeth. As Nidhogg watched, he understood the Old Ones’ warding only covered their fronts. Fire still wouldn’t hurt them, but magic could.

“We’ll keep the rest of them busy,” Kra said. “Maybe if we kill a few, they’ll leave. My memory is they aren’t particularly brave.”

“Thank you.” Nidhogg latched onto the fury he’d wanted to loose at Odin and flew to Dewi’s side.

“Land. If we launch killing magic from behind them, it should do the trick,” Nidhogg instructed.

“Our angle is better from up here.” Fire blasted from Dewi’s mouth.

“They’re vulnerable from behind. Not fire, woman. Magic.”

“Got it.” Dewi plonked heavily to the ground not far from Aislinn and screamed her fury.

Aislinn drew the short dirk she always wore in a sheath hanging around her waist. She drove it forward, but it bounced off the Lemurians’ warding. Nidhogg felt when the warding around Aislinn first developed cracks and then fissures. Humans tried to batter their way past the circle of Lemurians to help her, but couldn’t get through.

Nidnogg landed next to Dewi. “We’ve got to get her out of there.”

“Can we help?” Daniel asked. His round, fair face was streaked with blood and soot, and he was panting.

“It’s better if you stay back,” Nidhogg said. “That way Dewi and I won’t have to worry about hitting one of you by mistake.”

Dewi pounded magic into the nearest Lemurian. He shrieked as scales and skin boiled from his bones. Before he was even close to done dying, Dewi snatched his body aside, and waded into the circle.

“Get on my back,” she shouted at Aislinn.

Aislinn dropped her warding and catapulted atop Dewi. Rune kept racing around the outside of the circle doing as much damage as he could. The Lemurians didn’t seem to understand he’d hobbled them by biting through tendons and ligaments until they tried to move and couldn’t.

“I’m taking her out of here,” Dewi called to Nidhogg.

“The hell you are, “Aislinn snarled. “I’m fighting. If you won’t fight with me, I’ll jump right back down.”

“You stubborn little twit,” Dewi cried. A jolt of Lemurian power hit her in the flank and she screeched in outrage.

“Pay attention and fight,” Aislinn cried. “Take us around to the back where my magic can penetrate.”

Grumbling, Dewi backed out of the circle, spewing fire as she went and adding smoke. The air grew so thick, Nidhogg shut his inner eyelid. They needed an organized approach. Why the hell hadn’t Gwydion come up with an attack plan?

Nidhogg screamed, “Fall back. Meet in back of the house.” Just to make certain everyone heard him, he followed the command with the same one in mind speech.

“What are you doing?” Aislinn shrieked at Dewi.

“Following orders,” the dragon said. “’Tis something you don’t do terribly well. Nidhogg is right. We need a strategy. For that, we must be in the same place. Otherwise, we’ll be here a week from now still fighting these bastards.” She spread her wings and flew fifty feet above the manor house yard.

“Protect Rune,” Aislinn said, her voice shrill. “We just left him alone down there.”

“Fuck!” Dewi wheeled until she was over the wolf. Power exploded and a snapping, snarling Rune dropped into Aislinn’s lap.

“I had no idea you could do that,” Aislinn said, struggling to contain the freaked-out wolf.

“I have a lot of other tricks up my sleeve you haven’t seen, either, Missy. Don’t forget it. See to your wolf, he’s tearing holes in my back.”

“This won’t take long.” Nidhogg shouted across the air between them.

Moments later, the five dragons and three Celts ducked behind the bulk of the manor house. Humans trickled in, joining them.

Rune still hadn’t calmed much. He vaulted off the dragon’s back the second she touched down. It was tough to understand him between snarls and growls, but he faced off with Dewi and said, “Never again. Do not do that to me ever again. Do you understand?”

Aislinn picked her way to the ground and wrapped her arms around her wolf. “It was just magic,” she protested. “I asked her to save you.”

“I didn’t need saving. And that magic felt like a red hot poker from my shoulders to my ass. I’ll be lucky if my balls don’t fall off.”

“Ingrate,” Dewi muttered.

“You’re making it worse.” Nidhogg shot a pointed glance at his mate.”

“Enough.” Gwydion faced the group. “If Nidhogg wouldn’t have ordered a retreat, I was verra close to it.”

“Where are they?” Aislinn glanced over her shoulder. “Why didn’t the Lemurians follow us?”

“They’re communing, plotting their next move too.” Bran pinched his lips into a sour expression. “That hive mind deal they have going isna verra efficient.”

Aislinn let go of Rune and strode to Corin and Daniel, nodding solemnly. “Thank you so much for helping. Losses?”

“Not too bad.” Corin dragged a hand down her face, leaving a grimy streak. “Three dead and two injured. None of the bond animals were hurt.”

“Excellent.” Aislinn hugged her.

After a surprised moment where she stood stiff and still, the other woman hugged her back.

Watching the exchange, Nidhogg nodded to himself. Perhaps Aislinn held the key to mitigating the hatred that flared from the humans’ eyes every time they looked at a Celt. Rather than viewing her as a turncoat because she’d mated with Fionn, they might come to view her as a symbol of possibilities…

He turned his mind to their current dilemma and said, “The only way to take the Lemurians out is one by one. Problem is there are more of them than us, so some of us need to keep them busy while the rest of us pick them off.”

“That will take too long,” Gwydion countered. “We’ve been at this for an hour, and Dewi only killed one of them.”

“I killed one and then another, and then one more, and disabled a bunch,” Rune said.

“My cat and some of the other bond animals saw what Rune was doing,” Eve said, “but it’s damnably hard to get close enough to those bastards to damage them.” She eyed Rune appraisingly. “You have steel balls, wolf.”

He skinned his lips back in a snarl. “If I have any left.”

Arawn bent and patted his head. “Too bad we all canna simply bite their ankles, laddie.”

Rune growled. “Do not patronize me.”

“Sorry. I dinna mean to.”

“Listen up!” Gwydion sounded hard-pressed. “This may not work, but I say we focus the unmaking spell on a group of them. It should blow through their wards and smear them to kingdom come.”

Bran eyed him as if he’d lost his mind. “If it works. That was what we were tampering with when ye and I ended up on Perrikus’s borderworld—trapped.”

“’Twas the strange energy in that house,” Gwydion grunted. “It sat on psychic fault lines and perverted my magic.”

“Quick tutorial,” Timothy barked. “Is that the one where you mix mostly fire with a bit of earth and stoke air in once it’s percolating?”

Gwydion jutted his chin upward. “Aye. ’Tis the air part that’s tricky. If ye add it too fast, the whole thing can blow up in your face.”

Aislinn bolted upright and trotted to where she could see around the corner of Fionn’s house. Rune stuck to her like a dark, furred shadow.

“Holiday’s over,” she called. “They’ll be on us before I can count to three. Son of a bitch,” she muttered and Nidhogg felt her summon power and anchor herself within in.

“Are you with me?” Gwydion asked.

“We’d be fools to quit now,” Corin said.

“Who do we target?” Royce asked.

“The first bunch that shows their nasty, reptilian snouts.” Arawn’s voice held a flat, dead tone. “I tire of this.” He raised his voice in a chant, and Gwydion and Bran joined in.

It took a moment before Nidhogg recognized both the language and the incantation. It was Enochian, a perversion of Celtic mixed with Hebrew, but the combination held massive amounts of power. He added his magic to the mix, as did Dewi. The humans picked up the chant and magic jumped to their command.

Kra took to the air with Dewi, Royce, and Vaughna. The four engaged in an aerial ballet, dive-bombing the Lemurians to divert them from what the Celts were cooking up. Nidhogg was impressed. The dragons other than Dewi may have been absent, but they’d maintained their intuitive edge during their lengthy exile. Power blasted from the Lemurians. So much power, it shocked Nidhogg. They hadn’t been this strong just a few moments before.

Truth chewed a hole in the back of his mind. “Hurry,” he urged. “One of the dark ones must be close.”

Gwydion focused his gaze on the dragon, blue eyes pulsing with tension, and nodded, but never stopped chanting. The air developed a shimmery hue, and cracks formed in the damp earth as power oozed upward. Between them, Gwydion, Bran, and Arawn shaped the energy as it rose to their call. When it became an amorphous, pulsing mass, they heaved it at the nearest group of six Lemurians.

Nidhogg held his breath. Would it bounce off, just like his fire had done? For a long, wrenching moment, nothing happened, and then audible cracks, piercing as gunshots, rose in a rapid tattoo that pounded his sensitive hearing. As if it were sentient, the mass pressed forward, coating each Lemurian once its warding dissipated.

The timber and pitch of the Celts’ and humans’ chanting escalated. All of them were shouting, and sweat streaked their faces, creating runnels in the soot and grime that smeared across their flesh. Their muscles bunched into hard knots as if they fought a physical foe. The Lemurians were slow to respond, but then they always had been. It was probably why their race was dying out. Just before the first one exploded in a shower of red and greenish blood, sinew, bones, and bits of grit, its kin recognized their doom and tried to run, but the unmaking spell had them in its grip and they couldn’t get away.