Curse the Dawn

Page 74

Something bit into my palm. I looked down to see that I’d clutched my ward so tight, it was digging into my flesh. I pried it loose and looked up, only to realize that I wasn’t likely to keep it long.
Light spilled over the balcony, bright as the noonday sun. I couldn’t make out what I was looking at, at first. Until it came closer, and then it was nothing like I’d expected.
I’d met Apollo, at least in a metaphysical sense, a number of times before. But he hadn’t been in this world then and couldn’t reveal himself in anything other than mental impressions. And since my brain had interpreted them, he had always been in a form I could understand. This wasn’t.
A glowing tangle of light hovered in the sky, every color and no color, transparent like water, huge and abstract. If anything, it looked like a fractal on a computer screen, constantly changing into new patterns. None of them were particularly menacing, but the power radiating off the creature was enough to scorch my skin even this far away.
Apollo had once told me that I wouldn’t be able to withstand him in person, but I hadn’t known what he meant. I did now. Frozen in place, I stared into the fiery center of a creature my mind couldn’t even comprehend, pitifully aware of my own insignificance, and wondered how I could ever have thought I could fight something like this.
The bands of light thickened, swirling around a central point, and formed themselves into a monstrous head rising clear and fluid against the heavens. Faint points of light glittered in the huge skull, like savage eyes cold and measuring. My breath stuttered in my chest, out of rhythm with the sudden mad pace of my heart. Swaying on my feet, I clasped my hands together so the shaking wouldn’t show.
“Cassandra Palmer.” The voice was surprisingly soft, like a breath of wind. “We finally meet in the flesh. So to speak.”
“Apollo.”
“If you like. This world once had many names for me. Ra, Sol, Surya, Marduk, Inti . . . It has forgotten them all. It will be reminded.” The god’s intense gaze was fixed on me with almost affectionate mockery. I didn’t know if his anger had burnt itself out, or if he was merely savoring the moment now that I was finally trapped.
“I’ve seen it,” I said dully. “The city in ruins . . .”
“I’ve decided to leave it as a monument to your failure. The former seat of the blind Pythia.” He laughed. “You know, even your namesake did better. She understood what was coming but could not convince others. You, on the other hand, have been wandering about as foolishly as everyone else. It has been most entertaining.”
The wind picked up, stinging my eyes. “And I put the power to bring your army here into Sal’s hand. I gave it to you.”
The great face didn’t change, but the air around me shimmered with laughter. “Yes, that is the very best part. I won’t destroy your friends, your world, Cassandra. You will. I wanted to be sure you knew that, before the end.”
The voice remained soft, but the light patterns suddenly changed. The huge face had been almost clear, but now dense blue-black boiled up from the bottom, filling the form like ink in water. No, I thought, staring up in blank terror. It didn’t look like his anger had faded, at all.
I heard the sound of a car engine start behind me. Before I could turn around, an arm reached out of nowhere, grabbed the front of my shirt and dragged me into the seat of Marsden’s roadster. My legs were hanging over the side, my butt still in the air, as we drove straight off the balcony.
“You’re wasting your time, Cassandra!” Apollo thundered. “Where do you think you can hide?”
I was too busy screaming to reply. I grabbed the seat belt in both fists as my legs floated up behind me. I looked down at the concrete speeding up at us and saw no bubble of protection, no jumping blue fire. And then the air tore open around us and we were swept into the middle of the line.
I slammed back down, my legs landing painfully on the trunk as we suddenly leveled off. Pritkin was in the driver’s seat, frantically shifting gears, as I began to slide off the side. He hauled me into the seat with one hand while steering around a very surprised war mage with the other. The ley line was alive with activity. Ships and men were everywhere, still fighting a battle that no longer mattered.
“You do know how to drive one of these, right?” I asked nervously. The car had a lot of weird buttons and gears I hadn’t noticed before. And none were labeled.
“In theory.”
“In theory?”
“I’ve been with Jonas a few times.”
“How many is a few?”
“Counting today?”
“Yes!”
“Er, that would be . . . twice then.”
I bit my lip on a retort and instead twisted around to stare behind us. Apollo wasn’t there. He was right—in a world he controlled, there would be nowhere to hide. I might be able to stay ahead of him for a little while, but he’d find me eventually. I doubted I’d care very much at that point, after he finished destroying everything I loved.
“Turn around,” I told Pritkin.
“What?”
I grabbed the wheel and swerved. A war mage shot by us and out of the line, as we banked at an angle that almost had us both plummeting along with him. Pritkin cursed and wrestled the car back into the middle of the stream. “Don’t touch that! And why the hell do you want to go back?”
“Apollo isn’t following us. I’m not sure he realizes I have the ward. I never had a chance to tell him.”
“You want him to follow us?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t get a chance to explain. The wind pushed my hair out of my face, allowing me to see a cloud of pure energy barreling right for us. “I think he knows,” Pritkin said, swerving violently and sending us careening toward the outer edge of the line.
“Back! Back!” I screamed as my half of the car was pushed completely out of the line. I could see Pritkin silhouetted inside all that jumping energy, while on the other side of me the parking lot was racing up at us at breathtaking speed. “No, pull up, pull up!” I screeched as we headed straight for a group of tourists who had just come out of the casino doors.
“Would you make up your mind?” he demanded, fighting with the car. I just stared at the tourists, who were now pointing at us with awed expressions, watching them get nearer and nearer, and—Pritkin suddenly swerved upward, maybe two feet above their heads.
“Building!” I yelled as one of Dante’s towers loomed straight in front of us. Pritkin could sail right on through in the non-space of the line. But I was about to be vertical roadkill if he didn’t—
Pritkin swerved sharply and the building slid by, close enough that I could have reached out and touched it. A couple in bed stared out at us from a third-floor window, openmouthed, and then Pritkin jerked the wheel again. Suddenly I was back inside the line, lying against the seat, panting.
Apollo was right on our tail. The energy lines ran slower at the outer edges of the line, and we’d lost most of our lead. I reached over and jerked the steering wheel hard to the left. “Do not touch the wheel!” Pritkin snarled.
“We have to stay in the center, or he’ll catch us for sure!”
“And if you keep attempting to drive, we’re both going to be—” He stopped, staring behind us.
I twisted around, but other than an angry god, I didn’t see anything. “What now?”
“Rakshasas. They’re following us.”
“How many?”
“Many.”
I was thrown back against my seat as Pritkin floored it. “We need to get him as far away from populated regions as possible,” he told me. “Jonas can rally the Circle. However that creature got in, we can banish him again—”
“You told me that spell takes thousands of mages! There’s no time for that.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“I have an idea,” I hedged. I wasn’t taking any bets on how good it was. “Just get us some distance ahead.”
We left the city behind, speeding into an area of high rounded hills and smooth, empty valleys. The ley line twisted and turned among them, and sometimes through them, and that seemed to give Pritkin an idea. “Hold on,” he told me, and raced straight for the very top of the line.
We left the line, sailing into the vast and brilliant canopy above. So many stars, jeweled and burning bright. A meteor slid eastward. Beautiful, I thought dazedly, as a roar split the air behind us.
I turned in time to see the world go briefly monochrome in a tremendous flash of light, the hills jumping up at me against the terrible whiteness behind. Then we plunged back into the line, and a cloud of dirt and rubble incinerated all around us, throwing burning bits against the car’s shield. “What was that?”
“Slowed him down!” Pritkin said with a little of Marsden’s mania in his eyes. “He took off half the hill trying to follow us. But it wasn’t enough. We need bigger mountains!”
He jumped again just as the line curved around another hill. We went one way and Apollo went the other, taking out the hilltop along with him. But I didn’t care because the ground was racing up at us and there was no line to catch us and—
The line curved around the other side of the hill and caught us.
“You knew that was there, right?” I asked, shaken.
Pritkin swallowed. “Of course.”
I shut my eyes. “Can we make it as far as Chaco Canyon?”
“Even if we could, he would simply hop with us! He can follow us wherever we go!”
“But can we get there?”
“No,” he said tersely. “My weapons aren’t designed for fighting a god, and I’m running out of tricks.”
I opened my eyes and stared at the dashboard. “Then maybe Marsden has a few.” There was a panel of buttons by the steering wheel that didn’t look like standard equipment. “What do those do?”
“I don’t know. Some of Jonas’ meddling. And don’t—”