The Paladins (37 page)

Raven dashes after him, in line with the accelerating willow. I let her deal with the tree, because Pan’s mob is busy corralling me.

I whirl one hundred and eighty degrees, and shoot heat from my arms like a human flamethrower. Bodies blur inside a sea of red fire, but my exhale is premature. Charred and blistered, the faceless men pitch forward, continuing through the blaze.

With no eyes to see, they advance in slow, shuffling steps. Fire destroys the stitches sewn through their lips. Mouths hang open from nose to chin, the tattered, fleshy edges blowing in and out with every breath. The air fouls under their curse of decay and living death. Were they ever men?

In my years at school, I never attended any R.O.T.C. classes. I never went to boot camp. No one in my recent family history was in the military, or a cop, but everyone hears the stories. Their bravery and courage inspires us to leave no man behind … I always admired them. People talk about how in the heat of battle, fear and confusion cause panic. I understand that now. Events unfold so quickly, there’s little time to think. You react. Make mistakes. So your training better be thorough, ingrained, and damned smart.

In our reality, my friends and I are willing but untried and untrained. It’s only now that I see our mistake. We’ve been separated.

I peer between the shoulders of two faceless men and locate Pan still standing near the drained pond. With a wave, he’s gone, reappearing directly in front of Raven’s path. Every heartbeat punches my chest as I watch her run right into his waiting arms.

If I attack him with fire, it could scorch her. In frustration, I send another missile into the approaching clones, charbroiling those closest. I need to put something dead through the portal, and fast, but not until my friends are through.

Cole grapples with a willow on the far side of the lawn. He’s distracted by Rae’s abduction and misses the writhing branch hovering at his back. Fear is a cold stab as I watch fine tendrils deftly wrap his neck. One quick snap and he drops, boneless as a sack of corn meal.

“No!”

Heat churns in my abdomen, fueled by fury, pain, regret. I release the power pent up inside me. The blast engulfs the next string of faceless in a second inferno, allowing me to break through their ranks. Cole hasn’t moved. After all he’s come through, to die in The Void …

I ask for help. Send the prayer I think Raven would.
God, if you can hear me. If it’s not too late, please, don’t let him die.
My blood pumps faster as I sprint.

Trees on opposing sides thrash each other in the distance, fully consumed in their own war. Trunks crack and split. A hemlock crashes to the ground and is mauled by the pulverizing limbs of a great oak.

A boom thunders across the field. The ground shakes as tiny cracks spread across the earth and widen.

Raven.

My head whips up as she bolts from Pan’s grasp. He shrieks as mud gloms onto his legs and sucks him down.

Unlike the Minotaur’s gentle burial, Pan’s entombment is an ugly, violent thing. His hands windmill as he sinks. Caught between the will of two wielders, the earth first swallows Pan and then releases him with every alternating command. But who’s stronger?

Safely out of reach, Rae turns, focusing all her attention on the hole Pan’s clawing his way out of. Holding her hands high, she summons her element. Pale roots rise from the ground and curl around Pan’s body.

A ten-foot wall of dirt and clay swells up like a muddy ocean wave hammering him deep into the tunneling pit. High and wide, more soil piles on until the mound becomes a knoll, the knoll a hill, the hill a mountain.

Seconds pass like hours until I finally reach her. Grabbing the arm of the goddess who is also just a girl, I wrench her around and pull her to my chest. The action is rougher than I mean, but relief drives me. My arms wrap her thin shoulders, but there is nothing frail about this girl. My eyes burn as I breathe her in. There’s so much I want to say, but I only press my lips to her head.

“Gideon.” She drags her gaze from Cole’s still form. Water fills her eyes, polishing her gray irises until the tears break loose.

My thumbs brush the glistening trails from her cheeks. “Shh, I know.” I scan the grounds. The dirt summit covering Pan hasn’t moved, but the faceless have. While his army plods forward in drunken steps, I take Raven’s hand and tug her toward Cole.

She pulls free and speeds ahead. Dropping to his side, Raven places her head on Cole’s chest. Nerves jumping, I glance behind us. The willow has disappeared, but I keep an eye out just in case. The faceless aren’t close, yet are tireless in their pursuit. Black and smoking, they swing each wobbly leg forward in a slow but steady motion. I lob another fireball.

“Rae … ”

She straightens. Her eyes lit brighter than candles. “Gideon, he’s breathing!”

I thank God for listening as I kneel and scoop an unconscious Cole into my arms. “Let’s get him home.”

I can only move so fast with my leg and wounded cargo, but we break for the mirror. The faceless change direction, but our lead gets us to the portal well ahead of them. Colors in the scenery shift and waver as we near the doorway.

“Rae, go on through.” Her lips part, but I don’t stop. “It will take one on each side to keep him from falling and splitting his skull. Once he’s through, call 911.”

She glowers at Pan’s charred army.

“We’re okay. I’m right behind you.”

She reaches for my hand, and then she’s gone.

Light refracts off her profile like a laser show as she enters the portal, and again as her dripping hands reemerge. I fill them with Cole’s head and shoulders, and he passes for the very last time from Void to home.

Two down.

When I look back, one of Pan’s men is almost on me. All I have to do is dive through the portal, and I’m free. I nearly do it. But the man’s arm hangs in shreds at his side. Shattered bone protrudes from the blackened flesh. It’s all I need to pollute the door.

I spring for the arm. Wrapping both hands around the elbow, I twist backward until I hear a crack.

His jawbone works up and down in a silent scream. His radius hangs at a wrong angle, but the ligament won’t tear free. As I pull, the dead man’s other hand grabs my throat with crushing strength. Fire is my element, so why does his touch burn? The rotting fingers on my neck sear my skin. The sensation is icy-hot, an anti-burn, as though the creature’s coated in coolant—and my kryptonite.

I slam a flaming fist into his cheek. One last wrench and the arm rips free with a wet snap. Prize tucked into my side, I turn and plunge head first for the portal. My feet leave the ground. I’m flying, hurtling through the gooey plasma wall between worlds.

My head smacks a hard surface as I’m yanked short and stopped mid-air. Beneath the ringing in my ears, someone calls my name.

I’ve landed on my back, but can’t roll over because I’m only partway through the portal. Everything below my knees remains stuck in The Void. I clutch the severed arm with one hand while Raven grabs the other and pulls.

A vice secures my ankles from the other side of the portal. Trapped by one of Pan’s faceless soldiers, I wait for the punishing burn to begin. When I kick to free my feet, something sharp hooks my calves. Raven yanks until my shoulder threatens to dislocate, but we make no progress. And we’re getting tired.

So close to freedom, our frustration merges. We color the air with swearing until a new weight crushes my legs from the other side. Pressure moves along my shins, over my knees and thighs, until a head pokes through the portal. Slowly, the face lifts. Dark hair, slick with oil from the mirror, recedes as two curling horns sprout on either side of a broad head. The nose elongates to a snout, pupils narrow to sharp slits inside yellow orbs.

Not a faceless ghoul, or a man, or even a mere magician.

Pan.

Heat fills my lungs, filters out to my extremities. His arms extend as he thrusts himself onto my torso and snatches at the severed arm.

My fingers slide over the burnt, greasy skin of the arm as I fight to maintain my grip. No way in hell is he getting this back. We play tug ’o war with the slimy limb, fire building inside me all the while. Rae and Cole are too close. I can’t blast Pan without baking them or take the chance the portal will close with him on our side.

The goat-god’s snarl exposes long square teeth. When his neck bends sharply to the side, I jerk to avoid a blow. Instead, his mandibles close over my hip. My scream echoes through the room as he rips out a chunk of flesh and spits it back into my face.

Raven’s boot flashes over my head like a snake striking. Her heel connects with Pan’s eye, plunging deeply into the socket.

Blood pours from the ruined orifice. The house shudders as he bellows, yet, he doesn’t let go of the limb. Neither of us does.

Tree roots poke through the portal. I assume at Rae’s bidding. They wind around Pan, covering his arms and neck. But one command from him acts like an electric shock, and the roots snap back through the door into The Void.

Rae kicks again and misses. His head dips. Catching his horn on her pant leg, it tears through the leather and into her thigh muscle. She shrieks and drops to the floor.

My heart falters as she does. I’m helpless, pinned by Pan’s weight. The heat grows inside me to an unbearable level. A roar climbs my throat.

We’re failing. Pan will continue his reign of torture if we can’t stop him. My ancestors will never be cleansed of their atrocities. Rae and Cole will never be free.

I can’t allow that, whatever the cost to me.

My mind revisits the honor of soldiers, their courage and loyalty to each other. How adrenaline makes a guy strong enough to lift a jeep off his dying friend. Constant horrors of war bind soldiers together so profoundly, throwing yourself on a mine to save the rest is automatic. Automatic …

“Rae.” She lies on the floor near Cole’s body, hugging her torn leg. “Drag Cole out of the room.”

Her head tilts up, flashing eyes searching mine. I’m prepared for her stubborn objections, a debate. I get neither. Her gaze softens. Seconds pulse between us. Much as I try, I’ll never know what she’s trying so hard to say with her eyes. Does it echo what mine convey?
Forgive me. I love you. You’re worth every bit of what I’m about to do.

With a nod, she pushes to a rocky stand. Sliding her hands beneath Cole’s underarms, she clasps them together, and drags him from the room.

Pan and I wrestle over the real estate of a rotten arm. This poisoned thing determines the future of the mirror, and with it, all of our destinies.

“Don’t do this,” Pan whispers, between labored breaths. There’s fear in his eyes, even terror. “Please, please don’t. Good boy. Have mercy. You don’t know what it’s like.”

There’s something truly panic-stricken in his tone that sends a chill through me. What’s so terrible, even a sadistic madman fears it?

I give Rae as much time as I dare to reach a safe distance. A torrid force rises to the surface. I sense my actions copied by Pan. Together, we radiate the power of a quasar. Blood becomes magma, bones liquid steel, our eyes incinerators. The energy rattles the teeth in my head. I cinch the bone in my palm and release the beast I’ve kept chained inside for so long.

Pan bleats a low moan. “Don’t leave me in there alone. It’s dark, so terribly dark.” His lids droop with his lessening grip, yet I grow stronger with each passing moment.

Heat warps the floorboards beneath us. Smoke rises, clouding the air. My enemy’s eyes spark white, yellow, and red. The skin of his face blisters and peels. His fur singes—the stink musty and stale.

A sticky fluid seeps onto my fingers. The flesh on Pan’s hands melts like hot glue. Knuckle bones poke through his fists. And he’s laughing.

Sonic booms pound my eardrums. Once, twice, three times. Everything goes pyrotechnic white.

There’s no pain. I might be dead. It’s not as though I’d recognize the feeling. The weight flees from my legs. I turn and move freely, but I’m nearly blind and deaf. Nothing but a solid white sheet is cast in every direction, that and the ringing.

I’m on my hands and knees, crawling across an imagined floor. My fingers search for the missing bone that pollutes the mirror, but I find nothing familiar.

Two gentle hands clasp mine and stop my searching. Soft and cool they cup my face, stroke my head. Raven? I can’t see her. I don’t need to. Whether real or a dream, she draws me into her lap. One hand drapes my shoulder while the other continues its gentle sweeping of my hair. Definitely heaven.

You’re safe.
I think I hear.
Sleep now.

And I do.