“I do dare. Because you can’t hurt me. And I can hurt you. I saved you, Mr Zoladski. And I summoned you, Vithra. Both of you listen up, because it’s time to have a little talk, mm? You like to see yourself as the first of your kind to rise up out of the Maw-Womb and infiltrate this world. An advance guard, if you will. A lovely delusion, but a delusion just the same. I brought you here and bound you. Maybe it wasn’t me doing the ritual, but it is the ritual of my family – the ofrendas, those offerings, the blood of your kin spilled. And now you – a very powerful old god – are trapped inside an old man’s body. What do you think happens if I decide to terminate that body? Do you think you will wriggle free, a butterfly from its vulgar cocoon? Or do you think that perhaps you will die along with it? Let me answer for you: it is the latter. The body dies. The god dies.”

Zoladski quivers in rage.

His hands move fast–

Black spikes spring from fingertips–

He swipes at Candlefly with enough strength to take Ernesto’s head off.

It scares the hell out of Candlefly. But he doesn’t flinch. And he is rewarded for his apparent fearlessness. The claws stop an inch shy of his face.

Zoladski – Vithra – tries desperately to push further. To get one claw-tip to touch Candlefly’s dusky cheek.

“Can’t do it, can you?”

“I… can kill everything else. Everything around you. Everything you love.”

“You can. And then I can end you. With but a thought. That is my power. To simply wish you dead, and you die. You are not my master. You are my prisoner. All of your brothers and sisters writhing in the Maw-Womb will be. Did you really think my family was summoning old subterranean gods in order to bow and scrape and kneel? Please. Far better to make a god serve you, don’t you think?”

Ernesto laughs. He feels good, suddenly. The loss of Mookie Pearl stings but…

Things still look pretty good from where he’s standing.

The black nails retract into Vithra’s fingers.

“You’ll pay for this,” the god says.

“Yes, likely. One always pays a cost. But I think it will be worth it. For now, I have a task for you.” It is then that he tells Zoladski-Vithra what to do, and the very act of commanding a god feels oh-so-good. The god listens. Simmers with hate. And at the end of it: nods.

Triumph.

He smiles, stretches, then says: “I’m going to go lay my head down. Big day tomorrow, after all.”

Ernesto wants to be well rested when this city falls to him.

Chapter 27

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