Rachel Aaron - Spirit’s End

“You always did have a flare for the barbaric,” the Demon of the Dead Mountain said, his handsome face broken by a sharp-toothed smile.

Nico snarled at the comment, but Josef just set the Heart point first into the snow at his feet. “Any time you feel like holding up your end, feel free.”

The Demon of the Dead Mountain began to laugh, a two-toned cackle with that missing harmonic that made Miranda’s skin crawl, and the more he laughed, the less human his face became. His cheeks split as his teeth lengthened, the white crowns fading to jagged, black points. His clothes stretched and changed as his body grew. He doubled in size, and then doubled again, and with every inch he grew, the fear that crawled over the world thickened.

It took forever, and yet it was finished sooner than Miranda would have thought. One minute the demon had stood before her looking too much like a young Banage to trust; the next all she saw was the monster. It towered over them, so large and so terrifying she couldn’t see the whole of it at once.

Unlike the thing outside of Izo’s, this demon was no mad, stumbling horror. Nor was it like the hand in the sky, all thin desperation and hunger. This was a monster in its prime, cold and compact and radiating predatory menace. Its arms were triple-jointed as Den’s had been after the change, and the creature balanced delicately on them as it rocked back on sturdy legs braced by nine-foot claws that dug into the screaming ground. Its head was a long, hard muzzle covered in a glossy black shell and filled with row after row of jagged black teeth. On top, three enormous, golden eyes narrowed in anticipation as its six-clawed fingers tapped against its snout.

When the demon had finished growing, its yellow eyes roved down and focused on Josef. The swordsman glared back without flinching. The demon smiled at his bravado, showing its thousands of teeth, and moved its gaze to Nico. Unlike Josef, she shrank under the unblinking stare, and the demon’s smile grew wider.

“Well, then, daughter.” The horrible mouth didn’t even move as it hissed the words. “Show the good people what you’ve made of yourself.”

Josef started to raise his sword but stopped when Nico’s hand landed on his arm. She shook her head and said something Miranda couldn’t hear over the screaming. Josef’s face tightened, but in the end he nodded. Only then did Nico begin to change.

Her change wasn’t like the other demon’s. There was no stretching, no horrible bending of her human form. She simply vanished into a column of shadow, her body washed away beneath a torrent of liquid black.

Pain shot through Miranda’s chest, and she looked to see the Lord of Storms straining against their bond, his teeth clenched as the shadows around Nico grew solid. Like the Demon of the Dead Mountain, her skin was glossy and black. Unlike him, however, her form was almost human.

She stood on clawed feet that reminded Miranda of a raven’s. Unlike the other demon with his four legs and curled, stout body, Nico’s two-legged form was straight and tall, her long torso hidden beneath a cloud of swirling shadows that shifted and spun in the memory of her coat. Her shoulders were sharp and narrow beneath the flowing shadow, and her arms, while still proportionally too long and clawed, had only one joint at the elbow.

Her head, however, was totally different. It sat on her shoulders like a mask, a great, horned carapace with two narrow, angled eyes glowing like golden lanterns above a narrow, jackal-like snout filled with even, razor-sharp black teeth.

“My, how fancy,” the Demon of the Dead Mountain said, his horrible voice thick with laughter. “You can’t do anything normally, can you?”

Nico didn’t answer. She simply looked up as the darkness around her began to spread. It rose and solidified, forming four enormous, swirling wings that blacked out the sky. The Lord of Storms sucked in a breath as she rose with one, slow flap and began to climb toward the hole in the sky. “Daughter of the Dead Mountain.”

He spoke the name with such fury that Miranda didn’t dare ask him how he knew the thing that Nico had become. Instead, she focused on the cracked sky where the wounded arm was still thrashing. By this point, other clawed fingers were working their way in, worming past the squirming arm of the injured demon to pry at the sky in an attempt to break the hole wider.

Josef gave a shout and swung his sword again. The blow shot past Nico and sliced the end off one of the newcomer’s claws. The creature’s scream was lost in the roar, and the new hand vanished only to be instantly replaced by another. Josef frowned and glared at the Demon of the Dead Mountain. The demon smiled back wide enough to show every one of his uncountable black teeth and then, almost lazily, stretched his long, stocky body and jumped after Nico.

Miranda was trying to decide if she should cheer or cry at that when a loud snap cut through the screams. Her head shot up so fast she almost broke her neck, and she cried out in alarm. A second crack was sprouting from a small branch of the first one, spidering across the crumpled dome of the sky directly over their heads. Almost as soon as the crack formed, the sky broke, and two more hands just as large as the first burst through.

They shot screaming toward the ground, one of them coming straight for Miranda’s head. It happened so fast, she didn’t even think to move out of the way. She just stood there staring as the hand came down to squash her like a bug. She was imagining how the black claws would rip through her when something strong and painful clamped on to her arm and jerked her around.

Despite that she was on Gin’s back and he was standing on the ground, the Lord of Storms towered over her, his hand like a vise on her arm. “Time to honor your part of our bargain, woman,” he said, his voice fading into thunder as the wind began to pick up.

Miranda didn’t have to ask what he meant. She could already feel her link with him tightening as he began to pull, draining her through their bond. His hand vanished from her arm, turning into cloud as she watched. The rest of him followed, and the sky filled with enormous thunderheads lit up with bolt after bolt of branching, tree-thick lightning.

Gin went stiff beneath her, and Miranda was glad. It made him easier to cling to as the storm rolled through her, taking everything it could. She gave herself gladly, pouring her will into the storm as she had poured into Mellinor back on the beach at Osera. That time, she had been one with her beloved sea. Now she was nothing but the ground the storm rose from, the wind that lifted the heavy clouds.

The Lord of Storms took and took, drinking everything she was without apology. She let him, clinging to Gin’s fur with her soul roaring open and her spirits cowering in their rings. Around her neck, she felt the Spirit Court’s Tower distancing itself, probably to avoid being sucked in by the Lord of Storms’ ravenous thirst for strength.

She let the stone spirit go, pushing him away so she would have more to give the storm. As her eyes closed, she promised herself that if she survived this she was never letting another Great Spirit other than Mellinor into her body ever again. That was her last thought before the air flashed white and something heavy and kicking landed right on top of her.

Eli groaned and lay back on the lumpy ground, thankful for whatever it was that had broken his fall, even though that kind cushion was now elbowing him in the ribs and cursing at him in a very familiar voice. Obligingly, he rolled off, landing on his knees in the snow with the Hunter’s seed clutched against his chest. He steadied himself and looked up just in time to see a furious Miranda kick to her feet in front of him.