Casanova blinked at him, looking as thoughtful as a guy with that much hell juice in him could. But I just stared at the tabletop, where the flickering light turned the dust that had gathered in the sticky bits into a topographical map. A map of a universe that was suddenly far larger than I’d ever imagined.
“And at the time we’re discussing, power was even more important than it is now,” Pritkin added. “The ancient wars were ongoing, with the few demon races who stumbled across earth losing badly before its discovery. The power they gained from it helped renew their resources, gave them a fighting chance in battles on a scale humans can’t imagine, battles that lasted hundreds of years and spread across countless worlds, battles that, if they had been lost, might have resulted in the destruction of their entire species. So yes, they came, no matter the risk. And the gods knew that they would.”
There was silence at the table for a moment, as everyone struggled to grasp that. I didn’t know how the rest of them felt, but I wasn’t doing so hot. Pritkin was right; I couldn’t imagine war on that scale. I couldn’t imagine something else, either.
“I still don’t see what this has to do with my mother, or with you,” I said, after a moment.
“Artemis the Huntress,” Caleb murmured, his eyes suddenly widening. As if maybe he did.
“Yes,” Pritkin confirmed. “She was the most feared of the gods by demonkind. The most respected, and the most hated.”
“Why? You said all the gods hunted demons!” I said hotly.
“Yes, but she didn’t merely wait at the watering hole for them to come to her,” Pritkin said quietly. “She could open the gates between worlds, a talent that allowed her to take the offensive far more easily than the rest of her kind.”
“She hunted them here,” Caleb said, as if he didn’t quite believe it. “She hunted them in their own worlds.”
“No,” I said, but Pritkin was nodding.
“Every source I’ve managed to find says the same thing. She tore a bloody swath through a hundred worlds. Cassie—” He held up a hand, when I started to protest again. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. You must have seen the souk in Zarr Alim?”
“Zarr Alim?”
“My father’s capital city.”
I nodded, confused and angry.
“Well, if you’d had time to look around, you might have come across small amulets being sold by old women in the marketplace, amulets with a familiar face on them. They are still used as wards against bad fortune by the local inhabitants, even though no one really remembers why anymore. Just that once, long ago, their ancestors wanted protection from the face on those coins.”
“And what a pretty face it was, too,” someone said as a hand stroked down the side of my hair before abruptly clenching in it.
A very familiar hand.
And fuck.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Release her!” Caleb jumped to his feet and threw out a hand—and a spell. Which ricocheted off the demon lord at my side and exploded against the ceiling, leaving a big black mark among the dirt and smoke stains. None of the bar’s regulars so much as flinched, except for the bartender, who hurried over with a bow and another glass.
Pritkin didn’t react, except to pour another drink, so I didn’t, either. We both knew Rosier couldn’t hurt me. He’d sworn a vow, which apparently would kill him if he broke it, not to take my life.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t said anything about not plaguing my existence.
“Sit, sit,” Rosier told Caleb genially, who was looking in confusion from Pritkin to his father, maybe because he’d finally noticed that my assailant and his friend could have been twins.
I guess he’d kind of been too busy before.
Well, except that one twin had never had a chance to clean up after his joyride out of hell. As a result, Pritkin’s bare chest was streaked with dirt, his hair shed little puffs of dust if he moved too fast, and he hadn’t lost his shoes only because he hadn’t had any on to begin with. He had found some jeans somewhere to replace the ridiculous silky pants, but that was about the only improvement.
Rosier, in contrast, was wearing a plain dark gray suit, but the cut would have made Armani weep with envy. His shoes were polished to a high shine. His casual silk shirt was forest green, his son’s favorite color.
Or maybe it was his, too, although probably not for the same reason.
At a guess, Pritkin liked it because it had reminded him of home while he was stuck in the middle of the desert. Rosier probably chose it deliberately, to bring out the vivid color of his eyes. The ones that were so much like his son’s. The ones that were smiling at me as he took a seat.
I had to sit on my hands so I wouldn’t try anything fun—like clawing them out.
“Don’t stop there,” Rosier said, glancing at Pritkin. “Tell her the rest.”
Pritkin ignored him. Caleb remained standing, body tense and ready. The only one who moved was Casanova, slowly sliding under the table.
“Very well. I shall, then, yes?” Rosier glanced around at us, white teeth bared. “Let us see. I believe Emrys covered the part about—”
“His name is Pritkin,” I said harshly, cutting the bastard off.
“That’s even worse than the terrible ‘John,’” Rosier reproached. “In any case, Emrys is a human name.”
“But he doesn’t like it.”
More big white teeth. “In life, my dear, there is much we do not like but have to accept. It is part of growing up. Something Emrys is long overdue to learn.”
I glared at him. He grinned back. The kind of reckless, insouciant grin I would have thought Pritkin incapable of, before I saw him windsurfing a rug through hell. “You really don’t favor your mother, do you?” Rosier asked, searching my face. “Pity.” He leaned back and a lit cigarette appeared in his hand. “Now, there was a beautiful
woman.”
“Too bad she thought of you as cattle,” I snapped.
Rosier didn’t look perturbed. “Yes, no doubt. And that is part of your problem, isn’t it?”
I debated not answering, but I needed to know what he meant. I needed to know why Pritkin was just sitting there drinking, instead of yelling or conniving or . . . or doing something to try to get out of this mess. I needed to know why he looked like we’d already failed.
“What is?” I finally asked.
“You haven’t put it together yet?” Rosier sighed out some smoke. “But then, you always were a little slow, weren’t you?”
“Then make it simple,” I grated out, wishing I had something, anything, that would work on this son of a bitch. But it’s a little hard to age someone out of existence when that existence is measured in millennia.
“Very well,” he said, suddenly brisk. “The so-called gods might have fed off us, but it seems they weren’t much kinder to their human bait. Except for your mother, who decided that they were destroying the creatures to which she’d foolishly allowed herself to become attached. Or so she said.” He let out a sigh and looked at me through the haze of smoke. “I’ve always found that excuse to be rather . . . paltry . . . for someone decidedly not steeped in sentiment.”
I glared at him. “So? What does any of this have to do with—”
“Think about it, girl, assuming you have the capacity! She wants to protect her beloved humans, she determines that her fellow gods must go, and her gift—which was rather stronger than your little version, by the way—would allow her to banish them and slam the gates shut behind them. The trick, of course, was ensuring that they did not return.”
“She used a spell,” I said, wondering why my stomach had just dropped.
“Yes, a spell. Which she had to cast herself, and then maintain until her little Silver Band or what have you could grow strong enough to do it themselves. And there was sure to be opposition, sure to be a mass of forces battering the other side. By denying her fellow gods the free run of earth, she was also denying them their only way into the hells. No more fat . . . cows, was it? No more free meals. Without earth, they were restricted to the heavens, and if that wasn’t enough, she cut them off from Faerie, as well! I suppose she had to; better to block the whole bridge than half, and she had so many faithful worshippers among the fey. . . ”
Rosier paused, but I didn’t say anything this time. Because he was right—sometimes I didn’t pick up on things as fast as Pritkin or Caleb. Sometimes this crazy new world I’d somehow stumbled into made my head hurt trying to comprehend it. Sometimes I’d bitched about wishing I had an instruction book, something to lay it all out, to make it simple.
Right now I was kind of glad I didn’t.
Because right now my brain was coming up with answers I didn’t like.
“Starting to make sense?” Rosier asked evilly. “A huge spell, a god-denying spell, and not just around one world, but encircling two. And then to hold it, against all comers? To reinforce it as needed, until the weak, pathetic humans could take over? Where did she get that kind of power, hmm? She was strong, yes, but not that strong! Not anything close. So where do you think it came from?”
I looked at Pritkin, but his eyes were on his father. He hadn’t said anything, but one hand was flexing slightly. I didn’t like that. I liked Pritkin loud and bitching, in other words, his normal state. I didn’t like it when he got quiet.
Nobody else usually did, either.
“Where?” Rosier asked, and his hand hit the table, hard enough to make me flinch. “You can’t be that dim-witted!”
“She hunted demons for it,” I said, because he was right; it was obvious.
“Yes” came out as a hiss. “But not just any demons. She’d always gone after big prey in any case, preferring a challenge. Why should this be any different? And, really, small fry wouldn’t help her. She needed so much power, only the biggest, juiciest prey would do. She hunted, oh yes—Artemis the huntress, Hel with her fiery hunting dogs, Diana with her bow! She hunted in whatever name they call her, whatever confused, tortured, muddled memory they have, the people in my world, in yours, across hundreds more, they may have forgotten much, but they remember that yes, she hunted.”