And now they’re all gone.
“Well, this is a problem.” Cillian brakes as several cloaked people detach from the shadows of abandoned buildings to step into the road and block our way. They all have shock sticks. Their hooded expressions are hidden from us. “What do I do?”
A car comes screaming around a corner ahead of us. The cloakers aren’t so fanatical they’re willing to be bowling pins. The car squeals to a stop, and my mother and Cillian’s mother climb out. “We got this!” my mother shouts.
Cillian’s mother is holding a canister of pepper spray in one hand and a club in the other. “Don’t let him come back, okay? Whatever his third form is, we don’t want to find out. The portal was the stone at the very center of town. Destroy it. And if that doesn’t work, well, break everything else until something does.”
Cillian nods. “Thanks, Mom.”
She beams at him, then shouts a battle cry as she chases after a few of the confused cloakers, followed by my mother.
We make it all the way to the center of the town without any more foes. But once we’re there, a single figure is blocking our way, his back to us as he stares at the rock in the middle of the meadow.
He doesn’t move. Cillian slams on the brakes and stops just shy of him. He’s white, wearing a pin-striped suit, his hair straight and dark, neatly trimmed. He turns around slowly, tilting his head as he takes us in.
“Da?” Cillian says.
“Oh god,” Rhys says, not inaccurately.
28
CILLIAN’S DAD LOOKS LIKE THE photo of him from Cillian’s shed. He’s an Orlando Bloom look-alike. Not long-flowing-blond-locks Orlando Bloom, but normal dark-haired handsome Orlando Bloom.
And when I say he looks like the photo, I mean he looks just like the decade-plus-old photo. Cillian’s dad has not aged a day. Perks of hellgodhood, I suppose. Cillian’s dad is looking at him with a puzzled, vague expression, like he can’t quite place where he knows him from.
He sees me and gestures for us to follow, then turns and walks into the meadow. The earth swallows him. He disappears into it from one step to the next. We climb out of the car and hurry forward as one. It hadn’t been visible from our vantage point, but the whole meadow has been excavated. A subterranean series of tunnels greets us, with Cillian’s father already disappearing down a metal walkway.
“What do we do?” Rhys asks.
“It’s a trap, right? It has to be a trap.” Jade puts her fingers through the brass knuckle portion of a knife hilt. The members of the second car join us.
I peer over the edge. The metal walkways I can see are all empty. “But why? He doesn’t need us for anything. He’s already here. We failed, I guess?” I can’t figure it out. He wanted us to follow him, and he certainly didn’t seem worried or alarmed that we were here. This whole plan is a moot point. The hellgod is already here, just … wandering around in a really nice suit. Does that mean Leo is dead? Or does that mean he isn’t?
I shrug. “I have no idea what’s going on. But I want to find Leo, so I say we follow the god. Maricruz, Chao-Ahn, and Imogen, will you stay here? Guard our backs? Tsip, stay with them. You can pop in and out and warn us if anything goes down.”
Chao-Ahn and Maricruz nod, gripping their weapons. But Imogen shakes her head. “No way. I’m coming with you.”
“Me too,” Doug says.
Jade pulls out a bag of what I assume are explosives. “GQ Hellgod might already be here, but someone should destroy the stone thing just in case. Keep Doug safe. If anyone hurts him, you’ll answer to me.”
“Don’t you mean they’ll answer to you?” Rhys asks.
“No, you will, because I’ll kill you if you let anyone hurt him.”
Doug grins, black lips in the fullest smile I’ve seen since I told him about the concert tickets. He leans in to kiss her, but she pulls back. “Not right now! This is beatdown time, not happy time.”
He laughs and jumps into the tunnels. Jade and I share a nod. “You have the training,” I say to her and the Slayers. “You all do. You got this. But if it comes to it, run. I won’t lose anyone else.”
Maricruz grins, twirling her knife. “I forgot how much fun the waiting is. It’s like being at the top of a roller coaster. I want to puke and laugh at the same time.”
Chao-Ahn rolls her eyes. “Americans,” she mutters. She gives me a worried look, but then shakes her head as though resolving something. “Watch out for the storm. It wants to swallow you. And the rest of us.”
The storm. The one that’s been chasing me in my Slayer dreams. Thinking about Arcturius’s prophecy, I have to wonder: Is the storm coming for me, or am I the one bringing the storm to everyone else? I jump into the tunnel. Imogen, Cillian, Rhys, and Doug are all already there, waiting for me.
“I feel like you should give us a pep talk,” Doug whispers as we stare down the dark tunnel waiting to swallow us.
“All I can think of are really terrible puns about gods.”
“All I can think is Oh god oh god oh god, so, about the same,” Doug says.
Cillian grips a baseball bat with firmly violent intentions. “He’s just a predator from another dimension. Nothing special, right?”
Rhys puts a hand on Cillian’s shoulder. “You’re okay with this? With whatever we might have to do?”
“I cried myself to sleep for years because I thought he was dead. He left us. Left me. I’m fine with it.” He pauses. “I’m not fine. I don’t know when I’ll be fine again. But whatever he is, he’s hurt—he’s killed—a lot of people. Being my dad can’t outweigh that. We have to stop him.”
“We have to stop anyone in there.” Rhys gives me a heavy look.
I swallow and nod, then draw my sword. I can’t think about Artemis. I have to think about anything else. I’d rather face a hellgod than what I might have to do when I find Artemis. “Well, then. You know what Nietzsche said: God is dead. Let’s put his philosophy into action.”
“I can’t decide which surprises me more,” Rhys says, loading his crossbow. “That we’re about to go fight a god, or that you actually paid enough attention in our one philosophy course to remember that Nietzsche quote.”
“Come on.” Imogen rushes ahead of us, practically skipping. “It’s finally the end, and I can’t wait anymore!”
Doug leans toward me. “She smells really, really off.”
“We’ll look out for her.” But I’m sure none of us smell appetizing to him. Dread fills me as I contemplate the featureless tunnel leading into the dark. Will Artemis be there? Will Leo? And what will I do when I find them?
Before I can be left behind, I jog to the front. I won’t let Imogen bear the brunt of an attack. Rhys brings up the rear, with Cillian and Doug protected in the middle. If it were up to me, we’d leave Cillian and Doug behind. But this is their fight too. It’s personal for all of us.
The tunnel curves sharply. There are temporary lights strung too far apart, so all they do is create deeper, more disorienting shadows. Nothing jumps at us. No fangs or blades greet us. We walk unchallenged. At last the tunnel reaches what I assume is the center of the meadow above us. It opens into a huge, brightly-lit cavern.