The Dark Calling

  "What the hell, Evie?"

  I skirted past Jack, addressing the zombie: "Um, Sol?"

  Loud groan and a nod.

  "Are we in trouble?"

  Nodding. Shooing. "Ohhhhhh. Oh. Oh."

  "Go?"

  NOD.

  I whirled around. "We've got to run, Jack!"

  He grabbed my hand, and we tore off down the path.

  "Kentarch!" I screamed. "Wake up!"

  Halfway to the ground, Jack skidded to a stop, cocking his head. Eyes gone wide, he yelled, "INCOMING!"

  22

  A shrill whistle rent the night as a trail of light and smoke sped through the sky. A missile zoomed directly for the truck. Kentarch and Joules were still in the cab!

  "WAKE UP!" I screamed again. No time left to run. I needed to close my eyes but couldn't look away.

  Just before impact, the truck vanished. "Yes! Go, Kentarch!"

  The missile exploded into the side of the mountain. "Down, Evie!" Jack tossed me to the ground, shielding me. He grunted when rocks landed on his back.

  "Jack! Are you okay?"

  "Been better. Think my bowstring's snapped."

  "Stop covering me," I bit out from underneath him, my ears ringing. "Regenerate here, remember?" But would my kid?

  Jack managed to get free of the rocks, shouldering his busted bow. As he helped me stand, a chopper came into view in the distance.

  There was no mistaking that helicopter; the nose was painted to look like a dragon's roaring mouth. "Zara's here." The earth rumbled beneath our feet. "And Richter." Quakes always announced his presence.

  "We've got to get through the pass before they block it." Jack pointed out the narrow gap by the lake's edge. "Can you run?"

  I nodded, and we hurried down the stony path. Though Jack had a limp, he dragged me along, all but carrying me.

  We'd just made it down to the lake's edge when I spied a fiery light coming up through that pass. I slowed. "Oh, dear God."

  Richter. The King of Hell.

  Not even a hundred feet away, he rode a wave of lava right toward us, blocking our only way out. Even taller than Jack, he was a no-neck bruiser, just as Circe had described. Fire wrapped around his naked body, shrouding him. His beady eyes were flame red.

  Why hadn't he simply bombed us or flooded this rock bowl with lava? As he continued closer, I made out two icons on his right hand: a moon for Selena and the Lovers' overlapping triangles. He'd harvested their icon from the Archer--when he'd turned my friend to cinder.

  Fury engulfed me, but I didn't feel the quickening of my powers. I'd vowed to replace Richter's laughter with screams. I'd dreamed about torturing him. Where were my powers?

  "I finally get to meet the Empress of Arcana," he said, his voice booming in the echoing crater.

  Sweating from the heat, I raised my hands, managing a few scraggly vines. Once they reached Richter, they turned to ash. With a cry, I yanked my hands back. My spores and thorn tornado would simply disintegrate.

  Richter smirked. "Is that all you've got, Empress? No wonder you hide behind Death's coattails. Zara was right--you are the weakest of us all."

  Jack shoved me behind him. "Richter," he bit out. "You destroyed my army. You murdered Selena. I'm goan to kill you slow." He reached for his bow . . . only to drop his hand; must've remembered the broken string right as I did.

  "Kill me, eh? How would you ever get close enough? I'm too strong and hot to die."

  Unless someone struck from afar. Where had Kentarch and Joules teleported to? This was a perfect opportunity to attack!

  Jack had the same idea. He muttered in French, "Stall. Give them time to return."

  I demanded, "Why are you here, Richter?" Zara's chopper had circled back. Was she looking for a place to land?

  "Sol said you were pretty. Pretty doesn't do you justice." Those beady eyes roamed over me. "And you regenerate? Maybe you could live through my special brand of attention. Some last longer than others."

  Vomit rose in my throat. "Sol?" I had to act like I hated the Sun Card. "Where is that coward? Too scared to face us?"

  "He's back guarding our lair with his Bagger horde. When you own as much as we do, it's best to keep watch." He gazed past us. "And where's your ally Death? Trouble in paradise?"

  "On his way here to meet us. He defeated you once before, and he will again. You better hurry along."

  "He's not coming," Richter said, sounding so confident I wondered if he knew about Paul. "In our last shoot out, you needed four Arcana to rescue you. Who's going to save you now?"

  "What do you want, Richter?" Circe had said he craved cataclysm, but there had to be more. "Why are you destroying food stores?"

  He shrugged, and a wisp of flame rose from each of his shoulders, taking to the air. "Why does fire burn? Because it consumes to live. I consume to live. Empress, my hunger is never-ending, but there's not much in the world that the Flash didn't consume first."

  He incinerated things to harvest strength? "Why hurt people?"

  A repulsive smile creased his meaty face. "Nothing ever satisfies me, but roasted bodies come the closest."

  My fists clenched. I was facing yet another Arcana who wouldn't respond to reason, who'd just keep killing unless we stopped him. "You don't strike me as a deep thinker, so let me lay this out for you. Sooner or later, you'll have nothing left to burn. Then what?"

  "I'll win the Arcana game. Because that's what I am--a winner. When the world comes back, I'll fry anything new that grows."

  "Then why are we still alive?"

  Richter waved in Zara's direction. Her spotlight swept the ground. She was trying to land. "Right before Zara got to steal your luck, Fauna's creatures arrived. Zara gets pissed when luck doesn't flow her way. She's going to fix that now."

  Jack grated, "So she'll steal our luck, then you'll torch us?" Just as in my dreams.

  "I'll keep the Empress alive for a time. Let her recover between my visits."

  Two games ago, he'd tortured me for months, searing away my regenerating limbs, until he'd finally taken my head. My stomach roiled. "Now I understand what hell is."

  How could I stop him? I kept hearing my grandmother's words: Until you fully embrace your viciousness, you have no chance against the Emperor.

  What else had she taught me? Desperate, I mentally plumbed the earth for buried seeds.

  I could dispatch plants underground. If I made them thick enough, maybe they could reach Richter before burning away.

  There! My eyes widened. I detected seeds deep in the ground, even below the rock--what must be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of potential soldiers. They were ancient. How to fuel them?

  "Hell?" Richter flared brighter, the heat making me lightheaded. "You shouldn't anger me. My temper is truly explosive--"

  "Oi, this is for Selena and Tess!" From the top of the crater wall, Joules hurled javelins at Richter.

  His arm moved like a blur as he launched five--no, ten--no, fifteen spears. They rained down on the Emperor.

  Yet Richter just bowed his chest. We braced for explosions that never came; the spears melted like hot ore. Over and over, silver goop merged with his lava.

  "Show your face, Tower!" Richter produced an ominous fireball in his hand. As he scouted for Joules's location, he bellowed, "Stop being a pussy!" Taking aim, Richter tensed, about to lob that fireball . . . .

  A rifle boomed from the opposite side of the crater. Kentarch! Three thunderous shots rang out.

  Please, God, let this work.

  A few feet from Richter's skin, those bullets turned into a trio of smoke puffs. The bullets had crumbled into nothing.

  Jack muttered, "Jesus."

  Suddenly, I spied Kentarch in the air above the crater. He was teleporting from one side to the other--with a boulder as big as a car. Could the Emperor be crushed? Halfway across, Kentarch dropped it on him.

  I held my breath.

  Flames radiated from Richter's body. Even more smoke erupted around
him as the rock turned to lava. He saluted Kentarch. "Thanks for the top-off, asshole."

  The heat . . . too much. Why wasn't the Emperor weakening? Gasping for air, I stared at the lava bubbling all around us. Time seemed to slow as my mind struggled to process this scene.

  For once, I could see the future. When Richter won, he would usher in hell on earth. Fire and brimstone. Lava and smoke. The entire world would look like this.

  A hellscape.

  Jack stumbled, barely keeping me on my feet.

  I told him, "We've got to get in the water."

  "Non. It'll boil."

  The ice was long gone; steam wafted off the surface.

  Through the haze, I spotted Kentarch and Joules on the crater rim. Kentarch was soaked with sweat, his outline wavering. Moving his truck and that boulder had weakened him.

  Even the Arcana able to strike from afar weren't threats anymore.

  The chopper dusted off in a hurry. In a blaze of muzzle flashes, one of Zara's machine guns spat bullets, eating the stone in a path to Kentarch and Joules.

  They had no choice but to run. As they fled, Joules flung four javelins at her. They sped through the air.

  She banked, but she could never avoid a direct hit--

  Lightning bolts shot down from the sky, striking the javelins, sending each one off course. The Tower's weapons flew harmlessly past her chopper.

  Strokes of freakish luck.

  He howled with disbelief. Before he could launch another javelin, Zara engaged a second machine gun, firing both at him and Kentarch. They had nowhere to run, only a sheer drop-off.

  Kentarch clamped Joules's arm and attempted to teleport, but they didn't budge. Zara unleashed a torrent of bullets at them. Just before the first wave hit, Kentarch went intangible, ghosting him and Joules.

  One second passed. Another. How long could he keep that up?

  Click, click, click. She'd run out of ammo!

  But the last bullet ricocheted rock. Kentarch wavered; the rock caught him right at that instant.

  He yelled, and they tumbled over the crater's edge, out of sight. Would they survive the drop?

  I turned back to Richter, threats dying on my tongue. He'd slithered closer during Zara's attack.

  Waves of dizziness hit me. Sweat stung my eyes. I begged for the red witch to stir. "Jack . . ." He squeezed my hand as hellfire surrounded us. Stay conscious, stay conscious.

  This monster had taken Jack from me once before. Was I about to let him again?

  "Now, where were we?" Richter said. "Oh, yeah, I was telling you how every Emperor gets an Empress. Which means your ass is mine."

  I expected Jack to tell me that this wasn't the end. That we'd somehow prevail. Instead, he reached for his bowie knife and murmured in French, "I won't let him take you alive."

  23

  "Time to lose the dead weight." As Richter faced off against Jack, he made a mistake.

  The Emperor . . . laughed.

  I jolted upright, staying Jack's hand. That hateful sound had pervaded my nightmares. It was a trigger, activating something dark and primal within me.

  Rage unfurled like a blossom, soon as towering as an oak. My vision blurred. My glyphs blazed. The red witch awakened. Embrace my viciousness, Gran?

  Acid laced my veins.

  I called out to those ancient seeds, my body shaking with readiness. New petals tumbled from my reddened hair.

  Keep laughing. When the red witch bayed for blood, I fueled the legions of seeds from within me, power on tap as it hadn't been since I'd made Jack's gravestone.

  Recognition hit me. The tourniquet around my heart hadn't been muting my rage and pain; it'd been damming them up.

  As my legions grew and began to force their way to the surface, a deep rumble shook the ground, as if the earth had growled. A quake of my own. "Come, Richter." My voice turned breathy. "Touch--"

  I never finished the sentence, because I caught a glimpse of something so horrifying that my lungs seized up.

  The true depths of my power.

  A yawning black hole of rage existed inside me. An endless well of wrath.

  Another quake hit. Mine.

  Richter's laughter faltered as he shifted to keep his balance. His eyes briefly widened, then narrowed on me, as if to ask, Was that you?

  Jack muttered, "Evie?"

  Power is my burden. It overflows a bottomless pit.

  If I ever came close to tapping into that well, would I leave collateral damage all around--like Richter with his firestorms? Would I curse the world like Demeter?

  A show of power always took a toll on an Arcana. If I unleashed the full measure of my abilities, would my body give out?

  Like Tess's?

  Richter shook his head, as if he'd just imagined those quakes. After all, I was only a weak little girl. That force couldn't have originated from inside me. "Come peacefully with us, Empress, and live for a time."

  Just as I had a well of rage, so did Richter. Those seeds had been entombed beneath rock; maybe the Emperor and I had already played out this battle centuries ago, or the gods we represented had.

  If I ever matched Richter rage for rage . . . we're the nuclear option. No one wins.

  In all of my battles, I'd never been more terrified than now. Not for Richter.

  I fear myself.

  I'd just recoiled from my connection to those seeds when something skittered up my spine. Hissing sounded, like a giant serpent.

  Had Richter's attention skewed behind us? His sleazy smile faded as he craned his head up. And up.

  A drop of scalding water hit my neck. I glanced over my shoulder at the rising wall of water. "Circe."

  Jack cursed under his breath.

  "No, she'll protect us." I hoped.

  Richter's fireball hovered above his palm. "You want some of this, water bitch?"

  Circe's voice sounded from the wave: "That's Ms. Water Bitch to you." Her tone would sound coolly mocking to others, but I could detect her fatigue. "Run along now, fire starter. I'm in no mood for your infantile antics tonight."

  "You don't wanna tangle with me? Too scared to?"

  She gave a bored sigh. "Hmm. I probably should drown you. But then, my fun would be cut short. You start your fires for enjoyment--I delight in extinguishing them. Just as I did when you slaughtered that army."

  "I boiled half of your wave away."

  "And I turned all of your lava back to rock." The water wall crested over our heads toward him, as if she were getting up in the Emperor's face. "Do you know that I can feel my victims' screams in the deep? They always scream, right before I replace the air in their lungs--with me. Tell me, little boy, who will you scream for?"

  His red eyes scanned her wall again, sizing her up. "You'll get what's coming to you, Priestess. My enemies always do." Signaling Zara, he turned to ride away on that lava flow. It undulated snakelike over the ground, leaving a charred scar.

  The chopper drifted for a menacing moment before banking to follow Richter's direction.

  Over his shoulder, he called, "I'm coming for you, Empress." His laughter echoed. "Soon it'll be your turn!"

  Once they'd gone, I cried, "Why didn't you kill him, Circe?"

  Her wave drew back, wobbled, then sloshed over the lake bed. A surge of hot backwash slapped me and Jack, toppling us. He had to hang on to me until the water settled.

  As he helped me to my feet, I sputtered and cursed. "With allies like these . . ."

  Circe sniffed, "You're welcome for saving your lives." A small column of water arose, then shakily morphed into a flat expanse, a window into her temple where she sat on a coral throne.

  On the few occasions I'd seen her through the window, she'd always been perfectly coifed and calm. Now her long black hair was tangled, her fawn-colored eyes harried. Her sea-foam garments looked askew, and she held her trident in a trembling hand.

  Jack blinked at the sight of her, then said, "You might've saved us tonight, but he's got Evie in his cross
hairs now." If he was shocked by Circe's water window, he got over it. More Arcana insanity he should never have to deal with.

  "Well, if it isn't the hunter, General Jackson Deveaux." Her island accent was thicker than usual. "I watched over your fort for some time."

  "Not for long enough."

  "I was busy avenging your army. Speaking of which--aren't you supposed to be dead among them?"

  Tick, tick, tick went his jaw muscle.

  "Easy, Jack."

  "To answer your question, Evie Greene, I didn't try to kill Richter because I'm weak, which means my control is suffering. I didn't want you to boil or drown. Well, not you, especially. Your baby."

  My head whipped around to Jack.

  His lips parted. "You're pregnant?"

  "He didn't know about my godson?" Circe's titter turned into a cough.

  "I-I was about to tell him." I twined my fingers. What to say? "Jack . . ."

  Anguish and bafflement warred in his gray eyes.

  "You two discuss this later," Circe said. "The Emperor might return, and I only have so long." To Jack, she said, "I'd like to talk with the Empress alone. You should go check on the others anyway."

  Jack blinked rapidly, as if regaining his senses. He looked from me to Circe and back. "You safe with her?"

  "Relax, hunter," Circe said. "If I wanted the Empress dead, she would be so. For months, I had her trapped within my watery noose, but I never struck."

  He peered at my face, then in the direction of my belly. "I'll be back, me."

  "Be careful," I called as he started through the pass.

  Shock hammered me. We'd just faced Richter--smoke still oozed up from doused lava--and now Jack knew my secret.

  But I'd learned about another one: my devastating full potential. I'd been playing host to unlimited wrath this entire time.

  Had I actually worried about the lack of sun or Bagger contagion undermining my power? Nothing could undermine it.

  Nothing but me. Aric had been right: I'd bottled up my feelings so totally that I'd weakened my abilities.

  "Oops," Circe said. "You really ought to have told him."

  I was still staring in his direction. "I'm going to get him killed before all is said and done."

  "With villains like Richter around, yes. Unless the Emperor weakens as well. Eventually, that little fire starter will run out of fuel."