Ilona Andrews - Magic Binds

And what a wonderful reward Hugh got for his devotion.

“He said the process wouldn’t work on Hugh. His healing power was too strong and would reject the alien magic. We mused about it. We finished the dinner. I don’t remember getting up but when I woke up, we were in Mishmar and he had already started. I remember pain. Excruciating pain. It didn’t stop for an eternity. I decided then that if I lived, Nimrod would never benefit from what he had done to me, so when I absorbed Deimos, I turned all of my power inward. There is only so much terror a human psyche can handle.”

The willpower required to do that to yourself had to be staggering.

“I don’t know what to say. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t seem adequate. My father really hates hearing ‘no.’”

“He doesn’t hear it often.” Ruby light rolled over his irises.

“Did he try to put you back together?”

“Yes. But he failed. The damage was too massive and I wanted to stay broken. After months of treatment and torture he sent me with Hugh to the Caucasus as a last-ditch effort. He didn’t want me in Greece—too many native powers and too risky—but the Black Sea coast was close enough for Deimos to feel the pull of the land. He hoped that proximity to Greece would draw me out, so he told Hugh to put me in a cage, so I could see the sky and feel the wind, and starve me. But I was too far gone. I would’ve died in that cage, and then you took me out, and you and Barabas took care of me ever since.”

The memory of him in the cage triggered an instant rage. No human being should’ve been treated like that, starved, dying of thirst, sitting in his own waste.

“What will you do now?” I asked.

He smiled, baring vampire fangs. “When you fight your father, I will soar above you. I want to be the last thing he sees before he dies.”

So far I had the god of evil and the god of terror on my side. My good-guy image was taking a serious beating. Maybe I should recruit some unicorns or kittens with rainbow powers to even us out.

Teddy Jo walked out onto the porch. “Here you . . . damn it.”

Christopher gave him a small wave.

“Can’t feel him with the tech up?” I asked.

Teddy Jo ignored me. “What do you want?”

“I’d like to come,” Christopher said. “In case something goes wrong. I won’t be any trouble.”

Teddy Jo opened his mouth.

“Don’t be mean,” I said.

“Mean? Me? To him?”

“Yes.”

Teddy Jo’s face turned dark. He sat in the chair next to me. “Answer me this, how do you exist?”

“Forced theosis,” Christopher said.

“How?” Teddy Jo asked.

“Ask her father. I remember only pain. It probably began as implantation, a forced possession, but how exactly he went about it is beyond my recollection.”

“Did you . . . ?” Teddy Jo let it trail off.

“Absorb the essence of Deimos? Yes.”

Teddy Jo shook his head. “It’s not apotheosis. Apotheosis implies reaching the state of rapture and divinity through faith. It’s not an appearance avatar.”

“No,” I said. “That would imply the deliberate voluntary descent of a deity to be reborn in a human body, and from what I understand there was nothing voluntary about the process. Deimos wasn’t reincarnated.”

“There is no word for it,” Christopher said.

Teddy Jo rocked forward, his hands in a single fist against his mouth. “That’s because it goes against the primary principle of all religion—the acknowledgment of forces beyond our control possessing superhuman agency.”

“With the exception of Buddhism,” Christopher said.

“Yes. The key here is ‘superhuman.’ A deity may consume a human or another deity, but a human can never consume a deity, because that implies human power is greater than divine.”

Just another night in Atlanta. Sitting on my porch between a Greek god who was really a human and an angel of death who was having an existential crisis.

“This shouldn’t be. You can’t be Deimos.”

“But I am,” Christopher said.

“I know.”

“It’s the Shift,” I said. “The power balance between a neglected deity such as Deimos and a very powerful human is skewed toward the human, especially if there are no worshippers.”

“It would have to be a really powerful human,” Teddy Jo said.

“I was,” Christopher said. “I suppose I should say I am.”

“Do you retain any of your prior navigator powers?” I asked.

“No.”

We sat together on the porch, watching the universe strip herself bare above us.

“Theophage,” I said.

“What?” Teddy Jo said.

“You wanted a word for Christopher. Theophage.”

“The eater of gods?” Christopher smiled.

“That word is for the sacramental eating of God, in the form of grains and meat,” Teddy Jo said.

“Well, now it’s for literal eating.”

“We should get going,” Teddy Jo said.

“So, can I come?” Christopher asked.

“Where? Where do you want to go?” Teddy Jo asked.

“To Mishmar. I could carry her. She wouldn’t need a winged horse.”

“No. Even if you could carry her that far, you couldn’t get there fast enough.”

“He’s right,” I added. “The plan is to escape Mishmar before my father arrives, but it’s possible he will catch me there. For whatever reason, he is reluctant to kill me, but he won’t hesitate to fight you. If you saw him, what would you do?”

“I would kill him,” Christopher stated in a matter-of-fact way.

Well, he would definitely try.

“So that’s right out,” Teddy Jo said. “You understand why? You come with her to Mishmar, neither of you might get out alive. She’s safer on her own.”

Christopher nodded. “Well, can I come with you to see the horses? I promise to be good and not scare them.”

“Sure, why not.” Teddy Jo waved his arms. “The entirety of Hades can come. We’ll have a party.”

Christopher stepped off the porch in to the backyard, spread his wings, and shot upward. The wind nearly blew me off my feet.

“Thank you,” I told Teddy Jo.

“He gives me the creeps,” Teddy Jo growled.

“You’re the nicest angel of death I know.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get in the damn swing.”

THE FOREST STRETCHED in front of me, a gloomy motionless sea of branches sheathed in leaves. The waters of the Blue River streamed past, quiet and soothing, the light of the old moon setting the small flecks of quartz at the bottom of the riverbed aglow. Thin, watery fog crept in from between the trees, sliding over the water and curling around the few large boulders thrusting from the river like monks kneeling in prayer.

I sat quietly, waiting, a saddle and a blanket to go under it next to me. Teddy Jo had dropped me off and retreated into the woods, adding, “Don’t treat them as regular horses. Treat them as equals.” Whatever that meant.

Christopher glided above me, somewhere too high to see. Watching him in the sky had made me forget about being suspended hundreds of feet in the air with a whole lot of nothing between me and the very hard ground. Christopher had remembered how to fly. He would climb up, bank, and dive, speeding toward the ground in a hair-raising rush, only to somehow slide upward, out of the curve, and soar. Teddy Jo had rumbled, “You’d think he’d act like he had wings before,” then caught himself, and left Christopher to the wind and speed.

Now all was quiet.

Even if I did manage to bond with a pegasi, I’d have to ride on its back as it flew. My stomach tried to shrink to the size of a walnut at the thought. If it bucked me off, I would be a Kate pancake. Life had tried to kill me in all sorts of ways lately, but falling off of a flying horse was a new and unwelcome development.