Damaged Gods by K.C. Cross, J.A. Huss

CHAPTER THIRTY - PIE

Pell slumps to the side of the stump, then to the ground, his body limp and heavy.

I just stare at the undulating knob of flesh and bone that is the stub of his left horn. It’s like lava and it begins to flow. Like he really is made of fire. I can’t take my eyes off it. “Pell?”

He doesn’t answer me. And he doesn’t move, either. Horn blood is pouring out of him. The tree stump chopping block hisses and smokes when the river of monster blood makes contact, immediately burning it. I reach for the chopped-off horn, then pull back. What if it burns me too?

But then, from behind me, a voice. “Pie.”

Not the sheriff.

Grant.

I stiffen, then lean down and, without hesitation, I pick up the horn in my hand. It burns me. Like hellfire. Like nothing I have ever felt before. It sears into my flesh and for a moment, I can see the damage—the dead muscles, and the snapping tendons, and the charred bone.

But then I blink and it’s gone. The pain remains, but the damage is invisible.

Magic?

Maybe. Because so far the only magic I’ve done comes from my hands.

I whirl around, my empty palm forward to ward Grant off, my other hand clutching Pell’s horn to my chest. It hurts my heart—sizzling and searing me. Burning a hole through my flannel. But then Pia flies up.

Grant is distracted. He has never seen her. Has no idea who she is. He looks up and I use that moment to grab the dragon scale at my feet and tilt the horn filled with Pell’s monster blood until the thick, viscous fire drips over the surface, covering it in a syrup of flames.

Grant turns back, smiling. His teeth are no longer human. But they aren’t anything like Pell’s wolf-like canines. They are like the rows of shark teeth inside the dragon’s mouth.

“Who are you?” I ask, taking a step back. I don’t want to look weak and afraid, but that’s how I feel. This isn’t Grant. Or… maybe this is Grant. But Grant is not a human. Grant is something else.

“Say the words. Do the spell.” Pell’s words are barely a whisper. And they are immediately lost because Grant speaks in almost the same moment.

“Do you know,” he says, “how I knew you would end up here?”

“What?” I swallow hard. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“Don’t you know, Pie? Don’t you remember me?”

“No. I don’t know you!”

“The spell, Pie,” Pell mutters again. “Order him to leave! Banish him! Now!”

I hold up the scale, but then Grant says, “You’re not even real, girl.”

“What?”

“Don’t listen to him!” Pell is getting up on his hands and knees. But he’s so weak, I don’t think he’s going to be able to help me. “He’s lying. Don’t listen!”

“You wish I was lying,” Grant snaps. He narrows his eyes on Pell, sneering. “I told you before.” Now Grant looks at me. “And now I’m going to say it to you. You’re not real, Pie. You do not exist. You are a bit of my magic and nothing more. You are here at my request, to do my bidding, to give me that.” He nods his head at the bloodhorn-covered dragon scale in my hand. “And then I will go inside Tarq’s tomb and get that book myself. And when I come back out, this world will once again be mine.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

Grant laughs, throwing his head back. “I am the only god who matters, slave.”

“Saturn,” I whisper.

“Hmmmm. I guess you’re not as stupid as you look.”

“Fuck you. Get out! Get out of our sanctuary!” I thrust the scale in front of me, pointing it at him. But he lifts up his hand, palm out, and then…

I am pushed backwards with such force I feel like I slip through the fabric of time and space itself. I land hard onto a bare, cracked linoleum floor, skidding to a stop, banging my head on the frame of an iron bed. But it is not until I try to get up that I realize I am in a straitjacket, my arms pinned to my sides. And there are nurses holding syringes, and orderlies holding me down, and doctors pronouncing me insane…

Something flutters inside the straitjacket. Pushing against the tight fabric. And I watch this. I watch the creature pressed against my bare flesh as it wriggles and writhes until a tiny head crowned with red feathers pops out and says, “You’re not crazy, Pie. You’re real and so am I.”

But I hate myself in this moment. Because I remember this day. This really happened to me. They did put me in a straitjacket. They did push me down onto the floor. They did stand over me with their needles and drugs and threaten to leave me like this. Drugged-up and stupid. Insane and alone. Because they had permission from my mother to do these things.

“Say it,” the doctor is ordering me. “Say it, Pie! She’s. Not. Real. You’re not real, either. Say it!”

And I want to say it. I want to say it so bad. Because I know what comes next if I don’t.

The drugs. The therapy. The names, the stigma, the insanity. The abandonment. The loneliness. The loss.

And I did say it. This has already happened. I said it when I was twelve and they left me alone.

This isn’t real. Maybe it was never real. Maybe it was always magic?

Because real is the monsters of Saint Mark’s. Real are my horns and my hooves. Real is Pia. Because Pia is me and I am her.

And we are… monster.

We have always been monster.

I open my eyes and I’m on the ground next to the chopping block, no longer stuck inside my delusion. Grant is bending down, reaching for my dragon scale.

I put up a single palm and from the center emerges millions of moths. They fly out and up in a swarm, swirling around Grant just like they did the sheriff yesterday, engulfing him in a dusty cloud of wings.

I scramble over to the scale, pick it up, get to my feet and thrust it at Grant. “Out!” I don’t know what else to say. So I just say it again. “Out!”

Grant becomes a pillar of fire and I’m just about to think it worked—it’s over!—when the moths just shatter into thin air like they are nothing to him.

He’s hunched over, but he straightens now. And he directs all his attention to me. Then he laughs and puts his hands up, like he’s going to send that spell I just did right back at me.

And it’s going to be bad.

I close my eyes, cover my face with my arm, thrust the scale out in front of me and then—

The whole world rumbles in a very familiar way.

Not an earthquake.

A dragon.

The ground splits, the sanctuary walls crumble, the sky goes dark, and the air goes cold.

And then there he is. The blood dragon of Saint Mark’s Sanctuary is loose.

His mouth opens, aiming right at us, and I can see the smoldering fire inside him. The pool of lava burbles and spits and everything suddenly reeks of sulfur and brimstone.

Several things happen at once.

My moths are back, surrounding me this time, their dusty wings beating against my bare arms and cheeks.

Pell grabs the dragon scale and steps out in front of me, holding his severed horn in the other hand. The moths surround him, putting us into a protective cocoon.

And then, in that same moment, Tomas releases his hellfire and the whole world goes up in flames.