With a Golden Sword (DFZ Changeling Book 2), page 17
There was no way he wouldn’t be stronger than her here. But no matter how many times Lola told herself that was the reason, a small traitorous voice whispered that Victor had been stronger every time she’d faced him. The only time she’d ever been able to go toe-to-toe with him was when she’d taken over Fenrir, who was also his creation. Every other time, though, every other time she’d defied him, she’d lost. Why should this time be any different?
“There, there,” Victor said, reaching out to pet her hair. “It’s not your fault. You’ve always been a stupid little monster, but I’m strong enough to forgive. Come back to my side. Kneel at my feet again, call me master, and all of this will be forgotten.”
Lola yanked her head away from his touch. “I’d rather—”
“Die?” he finished with a smirk. “You’re so quick to throw that threat around, but is it really your choice to make? You’re not a true fairy, after all. Your gossamer belongs to Alberich, not you. And while that might seem like an advantage at the moment, the fairy king’s attack isn’t going to go the way he thinks. I’m sure Morgan and her foppish knight have already written me off, but that’s how it is with immortals. They always think we’re weak. That’s why they lose, but you’re different. You’ve known from the start that I always win, which is why you’re the only one who gets a second chance.”
“Even if that was true,” Lola said, taking another step back, “even if Alberich does die and take me with him, what makes you think I’d ever come back to you?”
“Because you’re a survivor,” Victor said. “Your ability to cling to life no matter what has always been your greatest strength. But when I crush Alberich and his Hunt—and I will crush them—the gossamer that forms your body will cease to exist. There will be no more second chances after that, so if you don’t want to vanish with the king who’s already written you off, I suggest you reconsider.”
He fisted his skeletal hand as he finished. When he opened his fingers again, the smell of fresh blood hit Lola like a punch. Sure enough, when she glanced down, there was a red pill sitting like a jewel at the center of his withered palm.
“Take it,” Victor ordered, “and all will be as it was before.”
He sounded so sure, so confident she’d do what he said, it gave Lola great joy to turn her face away. As ever, her defiance infuriated him, causing the magic roaring through the room to tighten as Victor grabbed her head with his free hand.
“Do you not see the great mercy you are being offered?” he snarled. “I am the only hero you will ever have. The only one who can save you and the girl at the end of your precious thread from oblivion. She will die in that dreamless sleep, and it will be your fault.” He shoved the red tab against Lola’s hard-pressed lips. “Take the pill!”
She couldn’t tell him no without letting the pill into her mouth, so Lola lashed out with her foot instead, kicking Victor’s legs as hard as she could, but it didn’t work. He might have looked like a walking skeleton, but his body was as hard as stone, probably because it wasn’t actually his body at all. It was a manifestation of his consciousness, and Victor had always had an iron will.
Lola certainly wasn’t strong enough to break it. Even if she’d had all her gossamer here to pull on, she didn’t think she could have made him budge. He really was a god in this place, just like Simon had said.
The truth of that knocked the fight right out of her. She never should have come here. She’d been just as arrogant as Victor, thinking she could beat a blood mage in his own death. He was already cramming the pill between her lips, filling her mouth with the hot metallic reek of—
Pain exploded across Lola’s gums as her teeth shot out like spikes, forming a razor-sharp wall between the pill and her tongue. Something growled inside her at the same time, staring out of her at Victor with colorblind eyes full of rage.
She welcomed it with open arms. There was no hesitation this time, no fear. The moment her creature rose to the surface, Lola threw herself into the change. It happened so quickly, she didn’t even feel the claws growing over her fingers until they lashed out, slicing at the mage’s exposed chest like a fan of scythes.
For the second time ever in Lola’s memory, Victor looked surprised, his wrinkled brows shooting up to what was left of his wispy hairline. For a heart-stopping moment, it looked like she was going to cut him in half. Then Victor stepped back as smoothly as ever, letting Lola’s swipe pass cleanly through the empty air where he’d just been.
“You see, this is why you need your pills,” he said, shaking his head. “Just look at what you become without me.”
Lola roared in reply. There was no more separation between her and her creature as there’d been at the hospital. She could feel the sharp claws shredding the red carpet like they were her own toes. Just like in the days before Victor found her, they were one body again, only much, much bigger.
No longer was she a terrified lump hiding under her bedsheets from the nurses. This Lola towered over her old master, her roars so powerful, they rattled the pictures on the walls. For one glorious moment, she was huge and strong, a primal force that could tear through anything. And then Victor shook his head.
“Disgraceful,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “I thought you were better than this. But if you insist on acting like an animal, then I have no choice but to treat you like one.”
He flexed his fingers as he spoke. The bloody magic twisted in reply, but not toward Lola. He was reaching out to the pictures, which were suddenly reaching back.
All over the towering walls, the figures in the frames started moving. They bowed their heads and lifted their previously not-pictured hands up toward Victor like worshipers. As they offered him their open palms, the threads tied to the bottom of each portrait shot out to loop around Victor’s fingers.
Within seconds, his hands were wrapped completely in red. When he moved them next, the whole room moved with him, closing around Lola like a fist.
She pushed back with a roar, slashing at the pictures as they got closer. For once in her life, though, her monster couldn’t wreck things. Her giant claws slid harmlessly off the red walls, leaving her stuck like a snatched rabbit as Victor smirked up at her from where he was still standing beside the untouched fireplace.
“Did you really think this would change anything?” he asked, closing his red-wrapped fingers to tighten the room’s grip. “Though I must admit, I didn’t expect you’d be able to bring that thing in here with you.” He flashed her a cruel smile. “You must be even more monstrous than I thought.”
Lola’s answer to that was to start chewing on the red walls that held her prisoner. Like everything else, they tasted horribly of Victor’s blood. They were also strong as steel, but her jaws were stronger. It cracked a few of her teeth to do it, but she managed to dig her fangs into one of the portraits whose thread was tied to Victor’s hands.
The man inside screamed when her teeth sank in. Blood came next. Real, hot, bubbling life’s blood that tasted only slightly of Victor. Lola spat it out at once, and Victor started to laugh.
“I told you you couldn’t win,” he said, waving his hand at the pictures. “Even if you kill them, I have more. There’s no end of greedy fools ready to trade their souls for the Hero’s power. Even if you chew my walls bare, I’d just bring in a new batch, but by all means, keep going. You’ve already killed thousands as Fenrir. What’s a few more?”
He finished with a taunting smile, but Lola kept her mouth stubbornly shut. Victor lied as easily as he breathed, but she’d tasted that blood. Even if they were psychos who’d sold their souls to a blood mage, she’d spent her whole life trying not to be a monster that killed people. She wouldn’t be one for him now, especially since she knew Simon’s portrait was up there somewhere as well.
“Such a soft-hearted monster,” Victor crooned as she backed off. “Though for the record, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Whether you kill them all or not, you can’t escape me. I am your master, body and soul. No matter how far your run or how deep you hide, you will always be mine.”
He clenched his red-wrapped hands as he finished. The room followed the motion, crushing Lola between its walls like a paper cup in a trash compactor. The pressure snapped her bones like twigs, which was a shock because Lola hadn’t realized she had bones in this form until they broke. The cracking filled her with dread like nothing else so far, sending a wave of panic through her creature as both of them realized the truth.
They were going to die here. Victor’s red death was going to grind them both into pulp, and then they’d be stuck drowning in his choking blood forever. But while that was terrifying enough to make Lola freeze up, her creature went absolutely crazy.
It broke away from her with a terrified squeal, leaving her tumbling inside its giant body as it clawed at the closing walls. Victor watched its struggles with a look of cruel amusement, staying just far enough away that its gnashing teeth couldn’t reach him, but not so far that he missed any of the show.
The sight of him enjoying this so much was infuriating enough to kick Lola out of her panic. She had to get control back, if only to save her other self from his mockery.
It certainly wouldn’t be to escape. She’d already accepted there was no chance of that, but at least she could make sure Victor didn’t get to laugh at them while they died. But as she was struggling to grab enough of their magic to make the terrified creature listen, Lola heard a sound from high, high above.
Lola Daniels!
Her head shot up. That wasn’t a human voice. It sounded more like a car horn that had just happened to form words, but she couldn’t see anything but Victor and his terrible crushing walls. She was about to dismiss the whole thing as a panic-induced hallucination when Victor looked up as well.
“You,” he hissed, his cracked lips curling into a snarl.
Hope surged inside Lola’s chest. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but anything that made Victor angry was aces in her book. If nothing else, it was a good distraction, buying her some breathing room as she struggled to regain control over her panicked creature. She was actually making some headway when the fist of crushing red walls gapped open a little, and she finally caught a glimpse of what was going on over their heads.
High above them, way, way at the top of Victor’s enormous death, a hand was reaching through the hole that led to the Sea of Magic. Not a human hand. It looked like a sculpture made from pipes and electrical wires, its finger joints clicking like ratchets as it reached down toward them.
Lola! the strange voice cried again as the hand made of junk grew. Its fingers stretched down like snakes, the wires and plastic knotting around each other to form a rope that slid between the twisted red walls until they were dangling right above her creature’s shaggy head.
Grab on!
Lola was desperately trying to. She seized her creature with everything she had, shaking it out of its panic as she screamed at it to lift their arm. She’d nearly gotten their paw up to their shoulder when a golden light flashed in the redness, cutting the dangling rope in half.
It cut Lola too, causing both her and her creature to scream in pain as the light seared their collective flesh. When she turned the creature’s head to see where the strange burning had come from, Victor was holding the Hero’s golden sword in his red-wrapped hands.
He swung it again as she watched, slicing the strange hand with a roar of fury. The fingers shattered when he hit them, raining pieces of broken plastic and metal down on Lola’s creature’s flat face. It looked like a pretty effective attack, but no matter how much of it Victor cut off, the hand never seemed to get any smaller. Every time the sword smashed through it, more pieces came down from the top, rebuilding the damage instantly as the junk-sculpture hand reached down to grab Lola’s creature by the scruff of its neck.
“No!” Victor roared, swinging his sword wildly as the giant hand picked her up. “You cannot escape! I’m the god of this place! You will not take what is mine!”
Under any other circumstances, Lola would have believed that entirely, but the hand didn’t seem to care. It just flew back up toward the hole in the ceiling where the Sea of Magic was churning like a washing machine packed with the chaos of the universe, taking Lola and her creature with it as it vanished back into wild, pounding dark.
Chapter 12
Are you okay?
Lola twitched inside her creature’s shaggy body. Its weak eyes couldn’t see anything in the churning darkness, but she didn’t smell Victor’s blood anymore. That seemed like a good sign, so Lola let her terrified creature run away, leaving herself human again—at least in looks—as she peeked her head up.
Sure enough, she was back in the Sea of Magic, only this time she wasn’t being bounced around like a pinball. She could feel the primal currents rushing just a few feet away, but there was a glowing barrier between her and the chaos. The light was nauseatingly orange and glaringly bright, reminding her of the DFZ’s streetlights.
A second later, Lola realized there was no “reminding” about it. There was a DFZ streetlight shining directly over her head, and standing beside its sticker-and-graffiti-covered pole was a small figure wearing a black hooded coat that glistened like wet pavement.
“Who are you?” Lola asked, scooting as far away from the very strange stranger as she could without leaving the streetlight’s protective circle.
Instead of replying, the figure pushed its hood back to reveal a gaunt face that could have been a girl’s or a boy’s. But while her sunken features were painfully human, her eyes were an unnatural bright orange, shining out of her face with the same glow as the streetlight overhead, which answered Lola’s question.
“You’re the Spirit of the DFZ.”
And you’re Lola Daniels, the spirit of the Living City replied happily, her divine voice filling Lola’s head. Car enthusiast.
Lola frowned. Of all the reasons the city god might know her, that wasn’t the one she would have picked.
Of course, I know you, the DFZ said, orange eyes shining merrily. I’m your city! You’ve lived in me all your life. I’ve always known who you are, though I admit you’ve been much more in my attention lately.
Lola winced. “I’m really sorry about Fenrir,” she said in a rush. “I would have stopped him sooner, but Victor—”
If Victor Conrath could be stopped by trying hard, none of us would be in this mess, the spirit said with a huff like the blasts of hot air that came up through her sidewalk grates. But I’m afraid we’ll have to pause this conversation. The blood maniac is waking up, and he is not happy I helped you. If we don’t get you to Fenrir’s vessel ASAP, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep holding on.
Lola shot a terrified look at the deadly swirling magic and scrambled back to the street lamp.
Good to see you can keep it together in a crisis, the city said, looking around. Now, which way do we go?
“You mean you don’t know?”
The spirit of the DFZ shrugged. He’s your bad doggo.
In no universe would Lola ever call the city-sized, world-ending wolf a “doggo,” bad or otherwise. It was the rest of what the spirit said, though, that made her panic.
“But I don’t know how to get back!” she cried, clinging to the streetlight for dear life. “Victor made Fenrir, not me! The only reason I was able to get in last time was because of my sister.”
The orange-eyed spirit tilted her head in confusion. You have a sister?
Lola was struggling for a way to explain her situation that wouldn’t take up too much of their very limited time when she felt a familiar tugging on her wrist. After three weeks of nothing, the movement made her jump. Sure enough, when she looked down, her sister’s thread was pulling hard against her skin, the silver thread shooting off like an arrow into the dark. It was the same thing that had happened the last time she was here, which didn’t make sense at all. She’d left her sister sleeping safe in Tristan’s barrow. Not—
Is something wrong?
“No, it’s just…” Lola trailed off, pointing at the silver line. “Do you see that?”
The spirit squinted her glowing eyes. See what?
“Never mind,” Lola said, grabbing the glowing thread with both hands. “This way.”
The city stuck right by her elbow, keeping them both inside the protective circle of her streetlight, which floated along behind her like a pull toy. If Lola had had any spare mental capacity, she would’ve had a billion questions about that, but pulling herself along her sister’s thread was taking all of her concentration.
It was much, much harder this time, but that was only to be expected. The last time Lola had jumped into the Sea of Magic, Fenrir had been the most feared thing on the planet. Of course doing this by herself would be harder. If the DFZ’s light hadn’t been keeping them safe, the currents would have ripped her to pieces. But while the city spirit hadn’t been good for directions, she was great at providing cover, buying Lola the space she needed to crawl down the silver thread into a big black hole that looked an awful lot like Fenrir’s pit.
It wasn’t exactly the same. This crack at the bottom of the Sea of Magic wasn’t a tenth as big as the one she’d gone into with Morgan. That made sense, given that the whole world was no longer watching Fenrir act out a monster movie on live TV, but Lola still couldn’t understand why her thread had led them here. She’d busted her butt to save her sister from Fenrir. The glittering line should be pointing up toward the surface or wherever her sister’s soul was, not going down.
Too bad the thread didn’t seem to realize that. It went straight into the depths like a silver anchor chain. Not knowing where else to go, Lola followed it, yanking herself hand over fist all the way down to the pit’s floor, which was the same uneven black stone she remembered from her first time here. It even still had the clawing finger marks left by all the people whose fear Victor had harnessed to dig the place out. But while her silver thread was lying in huge coils all over the ground, Lola didn’t see anything else.
