Summoned to Rule Read online

  “But—”

  “No. Stay here. You too, Buddy. And it goes without saying that Imp-thing stays here.”

  “Of course,” Imp-thing said while picking his nose.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  They looked like they might want to say something more, each of them harboring a secret thought they wanted to share with me. I assumed Buddy wanted to make sure we were still on friendly terms, and Imp-thing wanted to do something conniving behind everyone’s back. Peter, though, was the mystery; he might want to conspire with me or he might want to kill me.

  I was already tired of dealing with them, and I’d been their leader for a few minutes.

  I walked out before anyone could say anything else or pull me aside. I gestured to Bec and we started walking toward the gate. The others stepped out of the building to watch us leave.

  “That went well,” she said.

  “You don’t get to speak to me right now,” I replied. She was the only reason I had gone back into the gathering and I wasn’t sure I’d made the right choice.

  “Sure, but when I can speak again, I really want to talk to you about the other thing.”

  “Shut up.”

  We walked in silence to the gate and stepped through.

  Chapter 7

  “I call it the heaven next door,” Bec said as we walked across the heaven of the fish-people statues toward the gate back to earth.

  The blasted plain was now connected to the fish-people heaven. Bec said it was something the demon had done, though she had no idea how.

  “The HND, for short.” She seemed happy, walking through the grass under the blue sky. The place bored me but it seemed to suit her for some reason. There were depths to her that I had yet to fathom.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do for them,” I said. I’d made sure Bec was with me because I needed someone to talk to who wasn’t invested in the community I now led.

  “You sounded pretty confident,” she said.

  “That’s because a leader is meant to sound confident. I have no idea what to do with them.”

  “You could block the gate and trap them there.”

  I turned to her to find out if she was joking. There was a good chance she wasn’t; with Bec you could never tell. Her face gave nothing away.

  “I think I’ll need to speak to Artem and see if his vampires can help them out.”

  “And you’ll have to rope in the witches, too. They get annoyed when the vampires overstep, so having a bunch of demons running around isn’t going to go down well.”

  “There is no way the transition is going to work.”

  “Are we looking at a containment unit opening, like in Ghostbusters? Or is it more of a Night of the Living Dead kind of thing?”

  I didn’t even bother looking at her. It was all gibberish to me.

  “So,” she said, letting me know she was about to try having an awkward conversation. “About that other thing.”

  “Stop,” I said, putting my hand out and holding her back as I approached the invisible gate back to earth.

  “I really think it’s something we should talk about,” she said.

  “Not now.”

  Someone had been through the gate, recently. The grass was crushed beneath it but not leading to it, meaning they’d come from earth. Given how much the grass had sprung back I could guess that whoever it was had left again a half hour before we arrived. Which meant they’d seen us coming.

  “Is there anyone guarding the gate on the other side?” I asked.

  “Buddy left an angel there. Some short, fat guy. Or that’s the body he ended up with, anyway.”

  “Stay here,” I said. I closed my eyes and focused on the gate, then stepped through alone.

  It was night in Fairbridge but I could see the empty lot had changed. The rubble had been cleared away and a high wall had been erected to hide it from the street. A large gate hung off its hinges and a black SUV was waiting in the gap.

  “Told you he was coming,” a young black man said to the man beside him. They both wore jackets with a symbol I hadn’t seen before painted on the back: a circle surrounding the letter A.

  There were twenty people in the lot, all of them carrying small firearms. The angel who’d been guarding the gate stood in a magic circle nearby, trapped and screaming at me silently.

  “You should all leave,” I said as I noted their positions and prepared the tattoos for battle. They glowed a dull red, their symbols and sigils getting ready.

  “He’s a big dude,” someone else said.

  “Sure, but he’s trapped and we can still shoot him,” another one said. They were different sexes and races, but all around the same age. They all wore some kind of jacket with the circle A symbol spray-painted on it.

  I looked down to see the circle they’d drawn in the sand beneath the gate. It was a binding spell of some kind, designed to hold me where I was so they could take shots at me. It had clearly worked on the angel, but they were in for a surprise if they thought it would stop me.

  “He’s glowing,” the black guy said.

  “Yeah,” his friend said. “Like a tree ornament. Let him have it.”

  The tattoos erected a magic shield and I ran at full speed for the edge of the circle. I reached the edge and my shield hit the barrier that was supposed to keep me in. The barrier shattered with the sound of a thunderclap. They opened fire at the same time.

  Breaking out of the circle had cost me precious energy; I was still running on the angelic blood Bec had given me and most of that had gone toward healing the damage I’d suffered. I would have to make this quick if I hoped to get some answers.

  I pulled my pistol and shot the black kid in the head as I accelerated to the car. I dropped my shoulder and rammed his friend into the SUV, crushing him and lifting the car up on two wheels. When it came down it landed on the black kid’s face.

  Bullets pinged off the shield; it darkened in response, wasting the energy of the tattoos while I admired my slaughter. I turned and sped toward the next enemy, firing a round at one across the lot. His head exploded as I reached my next target.

  She was beautiful, under her makeup and piercings. I punched her in the head, smashing it like a melon before I turned to the next one.

  “Shit,” someone yelled. They were scared now. This was the right reaction to the situation.

  As they ran for their car I took them out one by one, running around the circle and wasting more of the angelic power. The car pulled away with only two young people in it. The rest lay dead in the lot.

  That was fine; I only needed one to interrogate.

  I told the tattoos to track the car and they attached a locator spell to it. I stepped back through the gate and took Bec’s hand as she started to complain, then stepped back. Whatever she was about to say died on her lips.

  “Do you have a car?” I said. She was stunned by what she saw and I shook her arm to get her attention. “Do you have a car? We need to hunt the remainder.”

  She nodded and stumbled, before finding her feet and running for the street. A sleek red sedan was waiting there and it automatically unlocked as she approached. She slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door when I tried to remove her from the car.

  I hurried around the other side and got in.

  “You shouldn’t be with me when this happens,” I said, but the car was roaring and she was already pulling away. I told the tattoos to display our enemy on the windscreen and they projected a red light in the distance. Bec knew what to do without being told.

  “Those were Chaos,” she said, naming the gang she’d told me about. “What the hell are they doing here?”

  “Looking for me,” I said.

  Tires screeched as she took a corner at speed. She wove through traffic like a crazy person, then took the next corner even faster.

  “How would they even know about you?” she said.

  “A better question, is how did they get throu
gh the gate?”

  The crushed grass meant someone had come through, something that shouldn’t have been possible. Certainly not for a gang of human kids. I could pass through because I had sealed the gate, and the angels and demons could because of what they were. But even the lost souls would need help getting through when the time came. Humans didn’t simply use a heavenly gate.

  The SUV was suddenly ahead of us. Bec’s driving was more manic than theirs and they hadn’t expected us to give chase. A woman leaned out of the passenger window and aimed a small machine gun at us.

  “A car chase,” Bec said in response. “Cool.”

  Bullets tore open the hood of the car, and then the windscreen. Bec swerved into oncoming traffic, directly into the path of a truck.

  The tattoos saved the day, dragging the car back to where it should be and saving our lives. The SUV was further away now, but Bec was determined.

  “That was so cool,” she said. “Let’s get them.”

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  She looked at me, ignoring the road. “We’re partners, alright? Buckle up.”

  I grabbed the seat-belt and fastened it. I was low on energy and being driven in a car chase by a crazy person with no fear of death.

  I’d been in worse situations, but any irritation I had felt about Buddy and Peter was suddenly put into perspective.

  “Cool,” Bec said again, swerving between a bus and a motorcycle.

  Chapter 8

  The SUV was leading us out of downtown and toward the suburbs. We crossed a bridge between the tall buildings and entered lighter traffic.

  “Where are they going?” Bec said. The car’s engine revved hard and she pulled back into oncoming traffic to get around the cars ahead of us.

  “I don’t think they’re going anywhere particular,” I said. “I think they’re just going.”

  The tattoos had erected some protections around the car but they wouldn’t hold if we ran into something at the speeds we were traveling. The cars around seemed to blur as we passed them and I couldn’t keep track of the SUV in the traffic.

  Bec could though. She drove with a confidence I had to admire. I was constantly scared of crashing and I probably wouldn’t die; Bec would be gone immediately if she moved wrong at all.

  I was too low on power for the chase, the little energy I’d been given spent on the gang at the gate and on dragging the car to safety. I wouldn’t be able to protect us if it happened again.

  “So I was thinking,” Bec said. “Now is probably a good time to chat.”

  “Watch the road,” I said. I sent the tattoos out to see if there was something they could do to the SUV to slow it down. But they were too weak and the chase was too fast. The spells etched on my skin had been designed for a different age and there was nothing there for a situation quite like this.

  “Here’s the thing,” she said, ignoring me. “I like you, and I think you like me.”

  “This really isn’t the time.”

  “If we want this to work then we’ll have to make the time.”

  She smiled at me when I started objecting, so I shut up.

  “You and I are a perfect match,” she continued. We roared past another bus, barely missing it before swerving in front of it to avoid another car.

  “Why is the traffic this bad at night?” I said. It seemed like everyone was going somewhere when they should have been at home. Or anywhere else, as long as it wasn’t on the road in front of us.

  “This is the city,” Bec said, as though that explained everything. “Stop changing the subject.”

  The SUV lurched across the lanes and dove through the oncoming traffic to bounce into the entrance of a parking garage. Bec somehow managed to make her car do the same, narrowly avoiding a pedestrian on the sidewalk.

  “So?” she said as she raced up the ramp and into the parking area. “What do you think?”

  “I think you need to spend less time talking and more time driving.”

  “I’ve got this. The car practically drives itself. One of the perks of having money. Answer the question.”

  The SUV was ahead of us now, screeching around the corner and taking the next ramp up. The tattoos had given up tracking them and I worried about losing them in the maze of the building. Bec was driving too fast to let that happen, however.

  “Agmundr,” she said when I didn’t speak. “You’re a homicidal barbarian who keeps getting into danger and fights with supernatural creatures every other day. I’m not bothered by you being close to death, and I’ve been tweaking the noses of vampires for as long as I’ve been here.”

  “You’re going to get us killed. What’s wrong with you?”

  “So very much, but none of that is important right now. Hold on.”

  The level we were on was practically empty. A glass structure in the middle containing the elevators to take people up to a shopping mall above our heads was the only obstacle we had to avoid. Naturally, Bec ran straight for it.

  We smashed through the glass and the TV displaying commercials, then through the glass on the other side. She’d risked our lives but we were right on top of them now.

  “Should I ram them?” she said, gripping the wheel tightly.

  “Run them into a wall.”

  She complied, speeding up and hitting their rear bumper. She added our speed to theirs and as they came to a turn they had to take she put her foot down. The engine screamed as the SUV tried to turn, then tried to brake. Then they crashed into the wall and we crashed into them.

  The airbags deployed and for a moment I lost track of the world. The tattoos hardened against my skin, protecting me from any damage.

  I tore the airbag away from my face and checked on Bec. She was conscious, though barely.

  “Stay here,” I said, then clambered out of the car to face the remaining members of Chaos.

  Gunfire. Bullets digging into the concrete at my feet and the car at my back. My shield came up and deflected any that were going to hit me, but I couldn’t see through the darkening of the magic as it took the brunt of the fire.

  I raced forward, using only my human strength in order to conserve what little energy I had left. If they were going to be free with their automatic weapons I was probably going to need it. The woman fired again a moment before I hit her.

  She flew back and into the wall, cracking her head open. I crouched beside her and checked her pulse, but it was weak and I didn’t think she’d wake up soon.

  I rose and looked for the other one. I caught a glimpse of him running up the stairwell and gave chase.

  We were in a public place and he no doubt had a gun. I had enough power left to protect myself but the people around me were going to be in danger. A part of me wanted to back down, to protect them. A bigger part of me wanted to stomp on my enemy, after finding out who had stepped into the heaven before we arrived.

  I raced up the stairs and left through the door at the top. I could tell which direction he’d gone by the angry shoppers he’d left in his wake.

  There were two hundred people between us, at least. The place was crowded and everyone was staring at me. I realized I had blood from the gang members covering my clothes.

  It didn’t matter. I kept running, pushing people out of my way to a chorus of yelling and screeching. I was faster than my prey and I knew now that I would catch him.

  He ran up an escalator to a food court and I followed, throwing some people off on my way up. When I arrived at the top I found him standing still, his eyes closed, facing me.

  “Are you giving up?” I said. I stopped a few feet from him, puzzled and wary about his behavior.

  “The god of anarchy is coming for you, Agmundr,” he said.

  He was mumbling something under his breath and a bad feeling washed over me. Moments later all hell broke loose.

  Every other person in the mall turned to face me at the same time, their eyes rolling around in their sockets uncontrollably. The man nearest to me lurched tow
ard me and tried to claw at my face. I punched him and he went down, but a hundred more were now running toward me. Men, women, and children, all desperate to attack.

  “What did you do?” I called out to the man.

  “I summoned anarchy to smite you,” he said, giggling as he saw the riot erupting around us. “Your days are numbered, old one.”

  He turned and ran for the opposite escalator as a hundred people attacked me at once. I could hear the screams from below as more people tried to get up the escalator.

  I could kill a lot of them if I had to, but I couldn’t get them all. The man had chosen the place of his last stand wisely; even if I was as murderous as I had once been, he’d thrown enough distractions at me to allow him to escape.

  Someone was shooting on the level below and I somehow knew it was Bec. One, two, three shots, and the sound of her yelling, “Got him” over the madness of the crowd.

  I pushed through them, deflecting them where I could, tossing them aside when they wouldn’t get out of the way. The particularly tenacious ones got a punch in the face that I felt bad for.

  I leapt from the food court down to the lower floor, trusting the tattoos to protect me from the fall. Bec stood over the gang member, a gun pointed at his head. He was bleeding from his side and staring at her in bewilderment.

  “What are you?” he was asking her as I approached. He turned to me, a frightened look on his face. “What is she?”

  “That’s a debate for another day.”

  I crouched at his side and put my finger in his bullet hole. When he stopped screaming I made sure he was still conscious with a few light slaps to his face. Maybe not so light, but it didn’t knock him unconscious.

  “They’re coming,” Bec said. I could hear the storm approaching, an endless wave of madness descending on us.

  “Call them off,” I said, digging my finger into his wound again. He screamed, louder even than the approaching horde.

  “Our lord of anarchy is coming for you,” he said.

  I was about to knock some sense into him when he raised his small machine gun, aimed it at his head, and pulled the trigger. Only the first bullet hit him, but it was enough. His head hit the tiles with a wet slap.