Chapter 25

Ididn't waste any time. Fixing my gaze on the dais, a good fifty feet away from me as we stood at the top of the amphitheater-like arena, I gritted my teeth as my body caught fire and puffed into the efficient, if painful, rearranging of molecules that allowed me to travel from space to space. While the Magician could disappear in a cheery plume of mist, my process was a little more, ah, incendiary.

It remained effective, though, even in Atlantis. With a sizzle and grimace, I dropped into nothing and then reappeared atop the dais. Six feet away, the Moon turned to me, her eyes brightening with excitement and an almost childlike glee, her mouth tilting into a smile, her arms widening in welcome.

I strode toward her. "We have to—whoa!"

My earnest plea to convince the Moon to come with me was abruptly cut short as a compact, leather-clad body barreled into me from the side, knocking me flat on my back and nearly off the dais altogether. I looked up, shocked to see the hard, weathered face of Gamon, Judgment of the Arcana Council, her flat-black eyes bristling with intensity, her dark hair streaked with silver and lashed back in a severe braid. She wore her usual black tactical gear, always ready for a fight, and she lunged toward me as I scrambled back.

"What in the—"

"Just go with it!" Gamon snarled, and then her fist came down, checking only slightly as she clocked me across the jaw. I skidded a few more paces, then came up in a fury, my hands bursting into flames.

"What the hell?" I demanded, swinging away to relocate the Moon, only to be knocked sideways again by Gamon.

"You can't bring her back," she insisted. "You're too strong."

I stared at her, totally confused. "I've got to bring her back. Nobody else can."

"Celestine!" The voice that cracked across the dais chilled me to the bone, a voice I'd grown to loathe, then made my peace with, then loathe all over again in rapidly reducing spirals. I spun around.

"How in fuck's name did you get here?" I demanded of the Emperor, Viktor Dal, who stood in his full raiment of gold-and-silver robes, an honest-to-God crown on his head. I had never seen this asshat dress in anything other than a suit, but across the dais, Celestine's eyes grew wide as she took in his blond Aryan perfection. It made my stomach turn.

"He can't bring her back either," Gamon announced, but he was closer to the Moon, and while I didn't actually know the full extent of the Emperor's powers, I knew he was tight with Tesla, and that changed everything about his ability to move between the planes. He took a step forward, and then Simon, of all people, came bounding up the stairs.

"You're not supposed to be here!" Simon howled, and the bad blood that had long simmered between these two members of the Arcana Council boiled over, the thin, wiry Fool launching himself at the much more physically powerful emperor with a fury that clearly took the elder Council member off guard. He stumbled back, only a few steps, but it was enough to topple them both into the crowd.

I still didn't understand what was going on, but I certainly supported that move. I jolted forward, only to feel a hand wrap brutally into my flying ponytail and jerk me back, nearly separating my head from my shoulders.

"What in the actual fuck," I growled as Gamon whirled me around.

She let go of my ponytail before I toppled into her. "I told you, you can't be the one to bring her back. Nobody from the Council can. It'll reveal the extent of their strength or something, and that's no good."

But I shook my head, furious to the point of hysteria. "What are you talking about? Freeing the Moon is the entire reason I came here."

"Armaeus unraveled another thread of this ball of crazy, and the game has changed. I don't understand it, the guy's a freak. But he shot me into this godforsaken hellhole to warn you and I let him, so he owes me. A lot."

The mention of the Magician caught me up short. But not for long. The first line of attackers broke and surged up onto the dais. Now Gamon and I no longer had the luxury of fighting each other. We had to turn and fight off the rabble, some of whom I recognized, some of whom recognized me, and the fights quickly shifted in tone from a desperate pursuit of the McGuffin into an all-out rumble. Gamon was also not completely unknown to this group, and as we fought with greater intensity, she seemed to come to the same realization I did.

"We don't have too many friends," she gasped as we knocked into each other before roundhousing our current pair of assailants off the dais.

I grunted. "Wonder why that is?"

I got too close to the edge of the dais, threatening to topple, when a pair of catcher's-mitt-sized hands and gorgeously muscled arms shot out of the crowd, attached to the inimitable Nikki Dawes.

"You've got this, dollface," she crowed, and I turned to see Nikki practically climbing on the shoulders of two meaty-looking warriors, using her new vantage point of greater height to wield a long wicked-looking blade. Where in the hell had she gotten that?

It was doing the job, though, clearing a swath of attackers while the hapless men beneath her seemed somewhat stunned, holding on to her thighs for dear life. Nikki had a way of doing that to people.

Throughout all this, the Moon seemed transfixed, watching the fight spool out around her with an expression on her face that surprised me. Delight was the first word that came to mind, as if she was taking unreasonable pleasure in the idea of all these people fighting over her. If that was something she craved, she could have had that any time. Humans were a race uniquely suited for the veneration of the gods, as millennia of true believers could attest.

Yet here she remained, locked away in her own private paradise, a paradise her own most loyal followers were desperate to leave. I'd heard all about the Moon being an enigma, a shadowy, inscrutable entity. I didn't expect it to be quite so on the nose.

"Watch your six," Nigel shouted, drawing my attention back to the battle at hand. Through an opening in the chaos, I could see Viktor struggling back to the dais, Simon on his back, pounding on his head. There was definitely no love lost between those two, but Viktor was not the Emperor for nothing. He swung back a powerful arm, partially dislodging Simon, and then reached into his robes and pulled out something bright and shiny that he launched onto the dais.

I scowled. We'd been able to bring very little with us into Atlantis, and certainly nothing that would qualify as a weapon. So what had he…

I peered more closely as I ducked under another savage swipe from a hunter I vaguely recognized from the bad old days, and realized the item Viktor had thrown was a bracelet. One of Eshe's intricate arm cuffs, designed to circle the bicep from shoulder to elbow. It was bright silver and studded with a large, milky-green jade stone along with opalescent flashes of green and pink. In my distraction, I barely missed getting kicked off the dais, and I blew my newest assailant back several feet, catching his clothes on fire.

Then I heard it, a girlish cry of pure pleasure, and I turned to see the Moon rushing across the dais, heading for the bracelet. She wasn't the only trinket-obsessed hunter in the crowd, though. A woman pounced on the bracelet, holding it up high to the light, her pursuit of the Moon clearly forgotten in the wake of this priceless bauble. Such was the creed of the smart hunter. You can't always get what you want, but if you can come away from the hunt with something, take it.

The Moon cried out in outrage, and for the first time, her warriors leapt into action. Whereas before they'd seemed content to see what might happen when the Moon's ostensible liberators reached her, clearly, they'd discerned she wasn't happy with somebody taking her toy. They bounded up onto the dais, knocking everyone out of their way. As the female hunter whirled in surprise, her fist tight on her prize, the nearest guardians transformed, converting in a blinding flash of light to creatures with bushy fur and four legs—not to mention giant snapping jaws.

This wasn't the woman's first rodeo, but when one of the creatures crunched shut its heavy jaws on her forearm, she dropped the bracelet with a scream, and the jeweled piece soared away from the dais.

It caught the light as it spun, and another wolf leapt high, its jaws closing around the cuff before it twisted back toward its mistress, flinging it her way.

The Moon thrust her hands skyward to catch the bracelet, her chin tilting up, her hair wild and free around her…and she disappeared. Her warriors, both man and beast, also disappeared, leaving a good two dozen hunters scattered around the amphitheater, with nobody left to fight.

"Where did she go?" the Emperor demanded, finally flinging Simon off his back and turning in a tight circle. "That should not have been able to work without my express direction."

"And where exactly are we?" someone else demanded.

"And how the hell do we get outta here?" a third hunter whined. "I got deadlines, man. If there's no juice here, I'm out."

I heard the battle cry before any of the rest of them did, and I froze.

Oh…no.

I turned quickly, scanning the horizon, but I knew what was coming. Funny thing about Atlantis. It was the one place in the universe where the fight between angels and demons had never completely petered out.

With the Moon gone, natural sunlight returned to Atlantis, and so did the district's intractable foes. Over one lip of the amphitheater, a host of angels appeared, wielding fiery swords. On the other side, a horde of demons boiled over the horizon, fire licking along their gangly arms and clawed hands, their gazes fixed on the opposite side of the rim. They were there to fight the angels, most likely, but considering all the fresh meat in between…

"What in the…" Gamon muttered.

"Roland!" I shouted, turning to find him in the crowd. "Did you have any plan on how to get out of here?"

"You, basically. That's it," he responded, gaping at the host of angels. "Why do you think I summoned you? Nobody said anything about those guys."

"Yeah, well, nobody ever does," I said. "Nikki? The Syx?"

"I've already put out the call," she said, leaping onto the dais for good measure. "Ain't nobody can pray like this bitch, but I got no way of knowing if I connected. We're kind of a long way from home."

The angels and demons launched forward—flowing down the open seats, rushing toward each other, and perforce the mortals in the center of the amphitheater. The knot of hunters scrambled together, climbing up onto the dais, united in their common dread of a new enemy. It took a full ten more seconds, but then a flash of light appeared in six bright points around the dais, and when the spots cleared from my eyes, I could see the six members of the Demon Enforcers team appear, a half dozen demons sworn to service to the Archangel Michael, the Hierophant of the Arcana Council. The Hierophant himself didn't put in an appearance, but there was no way his demon enforcers would have been here without his express permission. So score one for the home team.

The Syx held no weapons. They didn't need any. They roared with delight as they leapt into the oncoming melee.

That gave us just enough time to get the hell out of there, I wagered, but this still was going to hurt. Silently, I threw up a prayer of my own that Armaeus's magic making or my own luck would hold just a little while longer.

"Everybody, get as close together as you can. You want to get home, prepare to get a little fried around the edges."

They crowded tight, and I linked arms with Nikki, Simon, Nigel, and Gamon. Roland and Emilio hunkered in, and at the last minute, a knifelike jab of searing heat slashed across my back, the whoosh of my own fiery wings wrapping around us.

Viktor had already fled, but it was enough. We huddled together, and I closed my eyes and thought of Vegas.

We burst into flames.