45. Rodan

45

Rodan

A shield was raised the moment they were aboveground, keeping all of them safe from what was unfolding around them.

The world was awash in fire.

It was the vision they had all feared, only this did not have the roiling columns of Nyx, of darkness, that had spread after it.

No, instead the sky had turned to a sea of stars, as the many glimmering lights that had lit the city the night before were fully extinguished now.

And from the sky, from the ground, from the very air—pathways were wide open. Showing worlds like some he himself had traversed in his initial hunt for a home, and for Maeve.

Worlds full of monsters, of endless hunger.

Once the party was out of the cave, they were able to see what was happening inside and at the outer edges of the park. That creatures, large and small, were showering through portals and attacking civilians in every direction. The emergency services tents were torn to blood-soaked ribbons, and everywhere there was screaming. Endless screaming.

Rodan glanced at the woman who had been on the altar. Troy carried her, the woman close to or over six feet, her legs dangling from their grip.

He met their eyes, and Troy shook their head. "I don't know what she is."

They set her down gently on a bed of leaves, and the group largely hovered near her, everyone suddenly unsure.

They were winded, the lot of them, tired from what seemed like days of fighting and intrigue. Now there was something happening on such a grand scale that even with their considerable combined powers, Rodan was not sure if he and Maeve could do much good.

For he knew that if the portals to different worlds were open here, if the pathways were lain bare, it was not just in the city of New York. This was worldwide.

Maeve said softly to his side, "I think we need to decide if we're staying to fight, or if we need to go home."

Gladys was so pale she was ashen, her lips bloodless as she beheld the carnage. "They're going to kill almost everyone," she said.

Seventy-five out of every one hundred people. That was what the vampires had spoken of.

Ankou stirred at the edge of their group, his gaze locked on Lydia. "It is time we depart," he said, the words firm but gentle. "What remains is not for you. Say your good-bye's."

Lydia did not tremble, did not falter or shake in any way. She beheld the horrors of the world, then turned and flung herself into Rodan's arms.

He did not want to let go. He clutched her tight, and did not loosen his grip until she began to pull away.

Tears glimmered like starlight in her dark eyes, and Lydia said, "I'm so very glad I met you."

Rodan could do nothing but let her go, and do nothing but feel his heart crack as she said farewell to everyone in the group, even Gladys, Thea, and Corra.

She got to Maeve last, and through the trickle of connection of the bond, Rodan sensed her profound pain. She palmed Lydia's cheek, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. Whatever she whispered to their daughter in that moment, it caused Lydia's tears to fall, and after their embrace was concluded he could not help but come to their side.

They held one another, the three of them, while hell unfolded around them.

Lydia pulled in a shaky breath, but smiled at them both as she finally stepped away. "Thank you," she said. "I understand… so much more now."

Ankou placed a hand on Lydia's shoulder, looked to Maeve?—

And they were gone.

Rodan felt as though the air had been pulled clean from his lungs.

Maeve's cheeks were stained with tracks of tears, and when she reached for him, he crushed her to him.

"I'm so sorry, you two," Jen said.

Rodan hauled in a shaky breath, trying to compose himself.

There was still a world aflame.

The woman from the altar, the one whose small contribution of blood and power had helped jumpstart this event, stirred again. She had been doing that with ever increasing frequency, and as Rodan's attention was drawn to her, he could not help but feel the need to… run.

Whatever this woman was, it was not something they could face, not if it turned aggressive.

"We need to go back," Pike growled. "There are too many of the creatures."

As he spoke the ground rumbled, and Rodan looked up to see a monster the size of a small building lumber by, sharp taloned hands dragging in the ground to create furrows in its wake. It had several winged creatures the size of large eagles perched on its back, and as Rodan watched one of them swooped to the gaping maw of the massive beast and pulled a child's arm out from beneath jagged teeth.

He felt his face pale as the bat-winged creature threw its head back, taking to the skies again as it swallowed the arm whole, then settling to roost once more.

"They're demons," Thea proclaimed, a hand to her throat. "Creatures that know nothing but hunger. I agree with Pike Stoneman. We need to return home. This world is doomed."

And they had stopped the spread of the darkness, the thing that crept through all the worlds and consumed them, one at a time.

They had eliminated the threat of Ninack and the Nyx.

They had saved their home.

Rodan yearned for that soil and air, to feel a sentience beneath his feet. He looked to Gladys. "You're coming with us," he said, not a question.

She just nodded, then turned sharp-eyed. "My friends."

They formed a plan quickly. Rodan went through to the Realms with the first group of them. Thea, Jen, Nath, Gladys, and Pike.

The Realms greeted him with a twinge of concern. He sent a reassuring touch back. They had landed in one of the main courtyards of the castle, with enough of their people nearby that all he had to say was a quick, "We will all be back soon. Take care of Gladys," he said, instructing Pike and Nath with a jerk of his chin.

Then he took a fortifying breath of magic-thick air, and went back to Earth.

Gasping as soon as he was back on the unfamiliar soil, unaccustomed to not only the magical drain of the day but traveling thus twice in a row. Pathways grasped at power, sucked it from him as he moved through the between places. He felt as weak as a kitten.

I'll carry you home, when the time comes, Maeve said to him through the bond. Thank you for coming back.

He nodded, panting, and checked over the spellwork his bondmate had lain on the still-sleeping woman. They had leaned her against a wide maple, and Maeve had lain spells of protection around like her own private fortress.

They had also wrapped her in a cloak, pulling the hood up so her fine features were partly hidden in shadow.

"Is it bad that I don't want to bring her home?" Maeve asked aloud.

It was just the two of them, Troy, and Corra.

"My Queen, she is an unknown," said the guard. "And with the warning we were given?—"

"By an enemy," she interrupted.

"We felt her power ourselves," Rodan said, tone gentle. "Just a splash of her blood was enough to put all this in motion. Imagine what she's capable of on her own."

The woman stirred as though she knew they were speaking of her, and everyone took a step back, the motion so quick and universal it cemented the question in Rodan's mind. A quick glance with Maeve confirmed she felt it too.

The woman was too dangerous to bring with them, and something on a primal level made them all treat her as a predator. He would not have them go against that instinct.

"The longer we linger, the likelier it is something happens to Gladys's friends," he said, voicing what they all knew.

So they left the woman, protected with spells that would only wear in the light of full sun. The weaving would shield her from the sight of all who would do her harm. A remarkable piece of work by Maeve, and he said so through the bond.

She sent back a tired acknowledgment.

They traveled quickly, Rodan holding onto Troy while Maeve had Corra. They took the little paths of the world, slipping to the door of the townhouse that held Gladys's roommates and found family.

The place was large and nothing any one of them would have afforded on their own, but there were six souls within. Six who needed immediate assistance and escape.

Two were still sleeping, but the others were awake and watching through cracks in the window coverings as the world turned to chaos and blood around them.

When Rodan, Troy, Corra, and Maeve appeared in the middle of their living room, still armored and covered in splashes of blood, there was at first some screaming. Someone threw a vase at his head he snatched from the air and turned to dust in his hands.

At that, there was silence.

"Gladys sent us," Maeve said, her voice gentle but her psychic abilities unfurling. There was no time. "We're taking you to a safe place."

"Holy shit are you Maeve Almeida?" One of them asked, a tall and lanky boy who pointed a trembling finger at a sagging bookcase along one wall.

Rodan glanced over and saw there was at least one copy of each of her books there, and two duplicates stacked atop them. They looked well-worn.

She gave a smile. "One and the same. Now, come," she said, and there was a power and a pull in the final word.

They came. They woke their roommates, who staggered sleepily into the main congregation chamber.

Seven humans, an elf, and a Fae bondmate. Are you sure you can carry all of us? He asked her through their link.

I know I can , she said back, then explained to them all what she needed. A firm grip, no faltering. Close your eyes.

Rodan sensed it when she reached for the Realms, and how that pathway glimmered in his mind's eye, how it beckoned. But he was cavernous, hollow, his power near fully depleted.

Maeve reached, and the Realms reached back.

The world tilted, one moment filled with screams and the bitter thick tang of smoke on the wind, and the next?—

He caught Maeve before she fell, her breathing quick and shallow. Sweeping her into his arms despite his own exhaustion, he saw they were in the same courtyard he had pulled the others through what seemed like only moments ago.

But it was night, now, and though torchlight filled the space, the guards who were here now were not the same as the ones who had been here before.

They reacted as one, however, converging on their position.

Rodan fielded questions, issued orders, and clutched Maeve close, the only strength left in him that of his physical body.

I can't… she started to say through the bond, and failed to finish.

"I've got you," he whispered. "You're home. We're safe."

She chuckled, but did not say what he knew she would, if she were anything less than utterly exhausted.

No such thing.