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We didn’t have to look very far.
The sending spell teleported us to the edge of the cemetery. The pillar of eerie white light humming up on a hill gave away Thea’s position. There was no point questioning her adherence to the Veil.
She’d abandoned any pretense of hiding the arcane underground from the normals a long time ago, the way she’d forsaken her humanity. Briefly I wondered whether Latham’s Cross had a night caretaker. Knowing Thea, he would have been dead long before we arrived.
The open space, the grass,
so many gravestones – it just made the night feel colder. The small dose of healing Carver had granted me was enough to staunch the bleeding, but my palm still felt wet.
I flexed both my hands, testing if I still had the strength left to swordfight with Vanitas. Just in case I had no magic left to give, just in case I needed him. I checked on my backpack, keeping pace with the others as they rushed for the hilltop.
“I’ll rip her heart out through her throat,” Sterling said. “I’ll crush it to a pulp and watch her die.”
“Steady,” Gil said, clapping Sterling on the back. “Keep your head on straight. You’re no good to us if you go wild.”
“Says the werewolf,” Sterling muttered.
“Enough,” Carver said. “There. Do you see?”
We were close enough to be heard, and certainly close enough to be spotted, but the element of surprise wouldn’t have helped us anyway. Stealth was pointless. Thea would know we were coming, which explained why she had a horde of homunculi gathered on the hill.
They stood in a large ring, facing outwards, like sentinels, guarding the wavering beam of light in their midst. A white figure moved among them. I couldn’t find Diaz, but I couldn’t spot an altar, either. I decided that it was at least a good sign.
“Asher, to the rear,” Carver said. “Dustin, you follow behind me. Sterling and Gil, to my side.”
We formed wordlessly into a loose cross as Carver instructed, a flimsy arrowhead with him at its center. I counted at least forty homunculi from the half of the circle facing us alone. I couldn’t make out how densely they populated the hill. For once I wished we had the Lorica for backup.
“Follow my lead,” Carver said, stalking up the hill. Twenty, forty pairs of eyes turned to follow us, but the homunculi didn’t move from their positions. They might have been waiting for us to approach striking distance. Maybe Thea had given them instructions to stand their ground.
Carver spoke a word that was somewhere between a hiss and a shriek, then flicked his hand in a narrow arc. Pale fire cascaded from his fingers, lancing across the front ranks of the homunculi, filling the night with the horrific crack of breaking bones. Some bent over double, others collapsed to the ground, but none, not one, showed any signs of pain. They only stared at us, every mouth frozen in an awful rictus grin.
“These things are messed up,” Gil said.
“You think so? They all have my face. Try that on for size.”
I reached over my shoulder, digging into my backpack’s pocket dimension for Vanitas. Maybe it was a reflex. I knew he still couldn’t fight on his own – and truthfully I had no guarantee that he ever would again – but having him in my hand made some strange difference. I felt armed. I felt almost prepared.
The homunculi parted, or at least the ones facing us did, creating a gap in their ranks. Slowly, like some demented empress, Thea strode forth, calm, confident, regal.
It was only through the traces of her facial features that I could recognize her. She must have completed the transformation that the Eldest had intended. Plates of gleaming white chitin covered her torso, arms, and legs, like armor. Her eyes were totally black, completely insectoid, reflecting the light from their many facets, like shards of obsidian. And in place of hair her head had grown horned protrusions, twisted into the shape of an ivory crown. Yet if this was what the Eldest had planned for her, then Thea should have considered herself fortunate. I remembered Agatha Black, and I shuddered.
As she approached, I caught a glimpse of what looked like junk, piled into a heap on the hilltop, just at the base of the pillar of light. The light hummed and whistled, giving off a dissonant, alien melody. As we neared the top of the hill I saw what the junk really was: all the trinkets, relics, and magical artifacts that the homunculi had gathered for their White Mother. This was another one of her rituals.
“Come now,” Thea said, her voice drifting down the hillside. “Let us not be so violent with each other. I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement.”
The flatness of her voice, her outright mockery drove a spike through my heart. I gripped Vanitas harder, my hand slipping over his hilt from sweat.
“We haven’t come to talk, abomination,” Carver said, his voice booming. “We have come to exterminate your filth.”
“Ah,” Thea said, her eyes glittering with malice. “Then let us speak in your language.”
She snapped her fingers. Two of the homunculi emerged, dragging Diaz between them. One punched him in the stomach. Diaz fell to his knees. Thea grasped him by the hair, then settled her talons across his throat.
“Let him go,” I shouted. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“On the contrary: he has everything to do with this. Come closer, and I kill him.”
Gil growled, his claws extending as the flesh of his fingers burst into spurts of gore. Sterling was visibly shaking.
