House of Earth and Blood

Humans and Vanir alike were running, children in their arms, to any open shelter they could find. Many were already shut, sealed by the frantic people inside.

Hunt asked Isaiah, “How long until the 32nd can make it down from Hilene?”

“An hour,” the angel replied, eyes on the screen. On the slaughter, on the panicking city. “They’ll be too late.” And if Naomi was down, either injured or dead … Fuck.

Flynn thundered at someone on the phone, “Get the Rose Gate surrounded now. You’re just handing the city to them.”

Hunt surveyed the bloodshed and sorted through the city’s few options. They’d need armies to surround all seven Gates that opened to Hel—and find some way to close those portals.

Hypaxia had risen from her seat. She studied the screens with grim determination and said calmly into her phone, “Suit up and move out. We’re heading in.”

Everyone turned toward her. The young queen didn’t seem to notice. She just ordered whoever was on the line, “To the city. Now.”

Sabine hissed, “You’ll all be slaughtered.” And too late, Hunt didn’t say.

Hypaxia ended the call and pointed to a screen on the left wall, its footage of the Old Square. “I would rather die like her than watch innocents die while I’m sitting in here.”

Hunt turned to where she’d pointed, the hair on his neck rising. As if knowing what he’d see.

There, racing through the streets in Danika’s leather jacket, sword in one hand and gun in the other, was Bryce.

Running not from the danger, but into it.

She roared something, over and over. Declan locked into the feeds, changing from camera to camera to follow her down the street. “I think I can pull up her audio and isolate her voice against the ambient noise,” he said to no one in particular. And then—

“Get into the shelters!” she was screaming. Her words echoed off every part of the room.

Duck, slash, shoot. She moved like she’d trained with the Aux her entire life.

“Get inside now!” she bellowed, whirling to aim at a winged demon blotting out the mockingly golden afternoon sun. Her gun fired, and the creature screeched, careening into an alley. Declan’s fingers flew on the keyboard as he kept her on-screen.

“Where the fuck is she going?” Fury said.

Bryce kept running. Kept firing. She did not miss.

Hunt looked at her surroundings, and realized where she was headed.

To the most defenseless place in Crescent City, full of humans with no magic. No preternatural gifts or strength.

“She’s going to the Meadows,” Hunt said.

It was worse than anything Bryce had imagined.

Her arm was numb from the bite of the gun every time she fired, reeking blood covered her, and there was no end to the snapping teeth; the leathery wings; the raging, lightless eyes. The afternoon bled toward a vibrant sunset, the sky soon matching the gore in the streets.

Bryce sprinted, her breath sharp as a knife in her chest.

Her handgun ran out. She didn’t waste time feeling for ammo she didn’t have left. No, she just hurled the gun at a winged black demon that swooped for her, knocking it off-kilter, and unslung the rifle from her shoulder. Hunt’s rifle. His cedar-and-rain scent wrapped around her as she pumped the barrel, and by the time the demon had whirled back her way, jaws snapping, she’d fired.

Its head was blasted off in a spray of red.

Still she ran on, working her way into the city. Past the few still-open shelters, whose occupants were doing their best to defend the entrances. To buy others time to make it inside.

Another demon launched from a rooftop, curved claws reaching for her—

Bryce swiped Danika’s sword upward, splitting the demon’s mottled gray skin from gut to neck. It crashed into the pavement behind her, leathery wings snapping beneath it, but she was already moving again.

Keep going. She had to keep going.

All her training with Randall, every hour between the boulders and pines of the mountains around her home, every hour in the town rec hall, all of it had been for this.

84

Hunt couldn’t take his eyes from the feed of Bryce battling her way through the city. Hypaxia’s phone rang somewhere off to his left, and the witch-queen answered before the first ring had ended. Listened. “What do you mean, the brooms are destroyed?”

Declan patched her call through to the speakers, so they could all hear the shaking voice of the witch on the other end of the line. “They’re all in splinters, Your Majesty. The conference center armory, too. The guns, the swords—the helicopters, too. The cars. All of it, wrecked.”

Dread curdled in Hunt’s gut as the Autumn King murmured, “Micah.” The Archangel must have done it before he left, quietly and unseen. Anticipating keeping them at bay while he experimented with the Horn’s power. With Bryce.

“I have a helicopter,” Fury said. “I kept it off-site.”

Ruhn got to his feet. “Then we move out now.” It would still take thirty minutes to get there.

“The city is a slaughterhouse,” Sabine was saying into the phone. “Hold your posts in Moonwood and FiRo!”

Every pack in the Aux was linked to the call, able to hear each other. With a few keystrokes, Declan had linked Sabine’s phone to the system in the conference room so the Aux might hear them all as well. But some packs had stopped responding altogether.

Hunt snapped at Sabine, “Get a fucking wolf pack to the Old Square now!” Even with Fury’s helicopter, he’d be too late. But if help could at least reach Bryce before she headed solo into the charnel house that would be the Meadows—

Sabine snapped back at him, “There are no wolves left for the Old Square!”

But the Prime of the wolves had stirred at last, and pointed an ancient, gnarled finger to the screen. To the feeds. And he said, “One wolf remains in the Old Square.”

Everyone looked then. To where he’d pointed. Whom he’d pointed to.

Bryce raced through the carnage, sword glinting with each swipe and duck and slash.

Sabine choked. “That’s Danika’s sword you’re sensing, Father—”

The Prime’s age-worn eyes blinked unseeingly at the screen. His hand curled on his chest. “A wolf.” He tapped his heart. Still Bryce fought onward toward the Meadows, still she ran interference for anyone fleeing for the shelters, buying them a path to safety. “A true wolf.”

Hunt’s throat tightened to the point of pain. He extended his hand to Isaiah. “Give me your phone.”

Isaiah didn’t question him, and didn’t say a word as he handed it over. Hunt dialed a number he’d memorized, since he hadn’t dared to store it in his contacts. The call rang and rang before it finally went through. “I’m guessing this is important?”

Hunt didn’t bother to identify himself as he growled, “You owe me a gods-damned favor.”

The Viper Queen only said, amusement coating her rich voice, “Oh?”

Two minutes later, Hunt had risen from his seat, intent on following Ruhn to Fury’s helicopter, when Jesiba’s phone rang. The sorceress announced, voice strained, “It’s Bryce.”

Hunt whipped his head to the camera feed, and sure enough, Bryce had tucked her phone into her bra strap over her shoulder, presumably leaving it on speaker. She wove around abandoned cars as she crossed the border into Asphodel Meadows. The sun began to set, as if Solas himself was abandoning them.