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I wrenched on his hair harder. “I don’t think you understand what’s going on here. We aren’t playing games, and I’m done having to watch myself in case some shitty, upstart excuse for a Hound gets a little stabby and tries to poke holes in my body again.”
“This isn’t about Jonah,” Donovan grunted. “This is so much bigger than you could possibly imagine.”
“Try me,” I said. “I’m listening.”
It happened too fast. Donovan’s hand slashed through the air, another knife slicing in the same arc, and before I knew it a wet, stinging pain was welling at my cheek. I let go of him long enough to reach for my face, feeling the beginnings of warm blood flowing. Somewhere from deep inside my chest, the Dark Room began to rumble. I gritted my teeth, reaching out to grab Donovan again, but he vanished.
Bastion spun on his heels, looking around the inside of our personal dome. “What the fuck just happened?”
I wiped the back of my hand against my cheek, my insides a weird mingling of numbness and dread. It should’ve been impossible. The only way to lower Bastion’s shield was to knock him out.
Donovan Slint was gone.
Chapter 14
Bastion could have let the shield down by accident. Maybe he just didn’t notice that there was a gap in the bubble, a crack just big enough for Donovan to slip through.
“I. Would. Never.”
That was what Bastion told me when I dared to bring it up. He matched it with a suitably withering look, too, one you’d save for something that you’re trying to scrape off the bottom of your shoe. I had to admit it was mostly denial that even made me believe someone as powerful and as magically skillful as him could fail at something that simple. Bastion didn’t make Scion for farting around, that was for sure.
We stood in a loose semicircle around Carver’s desk, joined by the boys of the Boneyard. Carver had grown more and more relaxed about who he allowed into our home these days. Even he knew that there was value in learning to trust our select few friends from the Lorica, partly bec
ause we really didn’t have that many friends to begin with.
“I couldn’t make much out of it,” I said, handing Carver the napkin with Artemis’s instructions. I chuckled. “It’s all Greek to me.”
I yelped when Prudence elbowed me in the gut. Carver frowned at me, then down at the napkin.
“I do not understand, Mr. Graves. These directions are clearly written in English for your benefit.”
I sighed. All this time we spent socializing Carver and he still couldn’t grasp modern human humor. “It was a joke. Get it? Because she’s a Greek goddess. And I couldn’t understand what she wanted us to – you know what, never mind.”
From his lap, Banjo growled softly at me. I glared back. “A waste of time,” Carver said coolly, before turning his eyes down to the napkin. “Ah. Yes. We might manage this after all.”
Sterling placed his hands on the desk, standing on the tips of his toes, angling for a glimpse of the napkin. “So, another shopping trip then? We can swing by the Black Market, no problem.”
“Actually,” Carver said, “you may be surprised to learn that we have everything we need for the communion right here. The ritual doesn’t call for anything especially rare or exotic. Crushed gemstones, we can manage. But most important of all is this.” He handed the napkin to Sterling, tapping at something written at the bottom.
Gil peered over Sterling’s shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “The cry of a magical beast. Seriously? Where do we get one of those?” He looked down at his hands. “You’re not talking about me, are you?”
“Not quite, Gilberto. Lycanthropy means that you entirely qualify as a supernatural being, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call you magical.” Carver lifted Banjo tenderly, then placed him on his desk. Banjo snuffled at the desk curiously, doing a little circle, his fluffy tail wagging the whole while. “We have a magical beast right here.”
Banjo looked up at us, then yipped. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bastion jerk in surprise. I tried not to laugh.
Asher reached out to scratch Banjo behind one ear. “The ritual isn’t going to hurt him, is it? This isn’t one of those situations like – well, I just keep thinking about the screams of anguish we needed the last time, and how we collected them.”
His gaze flitted to meet mine, then went down to the floor. I remembered that all too well. We needed a particularly strange ingredient to enchant the amulet I wore around my neck, and collecting it had been an agonizing experience for me, one that involved Carver reaching around inside my heart. I shook my head, clearing my mind of the image of me strapped to a stone table, of the sound of my own screams.
“No,” Carver said. “Banjo will not come to any harm, of that we are assured. The ritual is unique in other ways as well, I should note. It appears that the Great Beasts do not have a tether, no address anchoring a portal from our world to theirs. I suppose the difficulty of acquiring a magical beast was considered enough of a challenge. The good news is that we can perform the communion right here in the Boneyard.”
He rose from his desk, picking Banjo up and letting him rest in the crook of his elbow. Carver chuckled softly as Banjo licked at his jaw, then snapped his fingers. I staggered back as Carver’s desk – chairs included – erupted in a pillar of amber fire. The flames died, leaving nothing in their place.
“I guess we’re doing it right here, then,” Prudence said. “Right now.”
“Correct.” Carver’s eyes swept across us all, and I had a keen feeling that he was examining us one by one, assessing us. “Then one thing remains: who will accompany Dustin on this communion?”
Bastion stuck his chest out and stepped forward. “Me. No question.” By then I was done trying to interpret his motives. Weird behavior or not, it would be good to have someone as competent as Bastion along for the ride. No one had to tell me that this was going to be an extremely dangerous mission.
