Page 26 of Harbinger
The Goddess squinted, her seraphic vision rendered sightless for an instant.What is that?
A figure appeared. A man. One with fair hair, blazing white wings, and a dazzling sword swarming with crackling light.
The Goddess blinked. Something fluttered through her skull, a memory slipping through the shadows suffocating her consciousness. It slowed her charge a fraction.
Awake…ner?!
The man frowned, his bright eyes full of resolve. His shape blurred when he got within three hundred feet of her.
The Goddess rocked to a halt and followed his breakneck ascent with her gaze, her mind bent under the will of the one who commanded her once more. A sound reached her ears. The growing roar of water. She looked down.
Her eyes rounded.
A giant tidal wave was headed straight for her and the band of darkness stretching out on either side of her.
That was when the Goddess realized how foolish she had been.
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Cassius’s heartslammed heavily against his ribs as he watched the storm surge he had raised swallow the dark mist and the shadowy figure at its center. The tidal wave crashed back down upon the ocean with a noise like thunder, currents churning with violent eddies that would stretch for miles.
He doubted it would end the plague or the Goddess who wielded it.
Still, so long as it buys Theo the time he needs!
“Here she comes,” Loki warned.
He clung to Cassius’s back. Cassius felt the power of the Eternity Key throb against his body as it extended into a golden sword in the imp’s grasp. The sound of the turbulent sea beneath them was superseded by a rising whine. A dark shape bolted out of the choppy waters.
It reached them in a single heartbeat.
Cassius grunted as he blocked a set of long, curved claws with his blade. The Eternity Key quivered in Loki’s grip, the sword similarly curbing the inky talons that would have shredded the imp’s face.
The Black Fate looked past them to the city, the plague mist bubbling into existence around her once more. A gruesome smile distorted the dark-winged Goddess’s monstrous features. Corruption boiled in her pupils.
“Clever.”
She vanished in the blink of an eye. Cassius’s stomach plummeted.
Shit!
Loki grabbed on grimly to his armor as he went after the escaping deity. She was aiming straight for Eden and Theo where they levitated before the city.
Scarlet flared in Eden’s eyes, the power she wielded reflected in the shimmering, red light that exploded around her body and the staff in her hand. Her hair rose around her head, a golden halo sparking with crimson flashes. The runes on her weapon overspilled the wood and carved their magic into their mage’s flesh.
Her bloodcursed spell bomb found the Black Fate as lightning-charged clouds detonated above her. Sulfur and ozone suffused the air, the devilwood staff blasting open a portal to the Hells. The phenomenon started to spin, creating a swirling updraft that swallowed the plague mist within its inky currents.
The Goddess smashed into Eden. The mage grunted as she was shoved back some fifty feet before she braced to a halt. Her weapon blurred in her grasp, the staff moving of its own volition to foil the counterstrike that would have blinded its mage.
“Bloodcursed Devilwood Summoning Staff,” the Black Fate said coldly. “I see you have found a new Magus.” She brought her face close to Eden’s. “Do you think the power of the Underworld is enough to stop me, little girl?”
A dark smile curved Eden’s mouth. “No. But he can.”
The Black Fate flinched. She moved.
Cassius was faster.
Heaven’s Light exploded along his sword as he raised it above his head and dropped toward the Goddess with a roar. He carved a deep slash across the deity’s back at the same time Loki sprang from his shoulder and stabbed the Eternity Key into her left wing.
