A/N: Chap 47 review responses are in my forums as normal. Thanks for the reviews.
The final battle's nigh. Seven more chapters to go.
Chapter Forty-Eight: With Silvery Raiment
Taylor stood draped in a hastily tailored bathrobe in a hall of paintings that let her look upon the world as it was, thousands of years ago. The paintings depicted battles untold, and leaders from times and places centuries past. The paintings were not labelled, but if Taylor touched them, she could find herself there, within the painting.
She could not interact with the subjects within, and in fact stood like a ghost, but she could understand the languages spoken and the names declared and knew that she was experiencing a lost piece of history with each image.
Taylor found it odd that Charlemagne was not actually that much taller than her. She'd always read that the first Holy Roman Emperor was a giant of a man. Then again, compared to all the other men in his court he did stand out. But at 6'3", he had only three inches on her.
A crescendo of harp music rang through the ancient dome. She felt the call and obeyed.
Brigid the Smith worked in her smithy, clad in her burn-speckled apron and metallic skirt. She nodded in satisfaction as Taylor entered promptly. "Take the bowl, child, and throw it into the cauldron, bowl and all."
The bowl the goddess spoke of rested on a table of ancient oak just inside the entrance. The bowl was made of similar wood to the table, and within Taylor saw thick, viscous black fluid.
Ichor. This is my blood, from my eyes. She lifted the bowl carefully and carried it to the boiling cauldron of mithril. The magical metal boiled like quicksilver, but when she placed the bowl into the fluid, the wood vaporized away almost instantly. The blood mixed with the metal, and it suddenly turned black as night.
Nearby, the fire of the smithy burned white hot; within its flame sat one of the embers of Muspelheim. A blade sat next to the ember, glowing with white actinic light. The second ember, though, waited on a little tray of steel set on the floor. The steel glowed red as it tried to contain the primordial heat of the ember.
"I would warn you of the pain," Brigid said. "But there should be none. Lift the ember, child, and place it in the cauldron."
The runes on Taylor's fingers took on a dull red glow as they fought to resist the heat of this last piece of Muspelheim. She dropped it into the cauldron, and this time the metallic fluid began to spout flames and turned a grinding red color.
"That mithril has been waiting a thousand years for this day," Brigid said. "It's time, child. Climb in."
Taylor did not question. The ancient goddess spoke the First Tongue, and the truth and command of it allowed nothing but compliance. With a spread of her wings, Taylor dropped her robe and floated above the cauldron.
"Put aside your mortal name," Brigid commanded. "Put aside your mortal loves. You are Taylor Hebert no longer. You are now only Telos. Enter the cauldron, goddess of hope."
The mithril felt...cold. She didn't understand it, but the cold of it bit her like the jaws of Hel wind. Still, she sank further in as the boiling, red-black-silver fluid enveloped her feet and legs. The cauldron grew larger as the volume increased. She stood with the fluid to her waist and met Brigid's gaze with her crystalline one.
The ancient goddess nodded, and with that Taylor tucked her wings tightly against her back, closed her eyes, and sank wholly into the mithril.
The moment her head submerged, the cold turned warm and soothing. Welcoming, even. Memories began playing across the back of her crystalline eyes; of her parents and the love she felt from and for them; of the agony of hearing her mother die and the anguish of nearing death herself. It dwelled briefly on her victories, but whatever it was that touched her memories seemed to dwell for the longest time on those she loved.
"Rise, sister."
Blinking, Telos realized that she now knelt down not in a cauldron, but on the flagstones of Brigid's shop. She stood and looked around, but the cauldron was gone. "See, my sister," Brigid said. She motioned to a far wall of her shop where a mirror stood, and Telos saw.
Shining silver armor clung to her. On the surface, it resembled her Protectorate-made costume, but only on the surface. Because the material covered every inch of her body like a glove, and from there expanded out into features like a breastplate with her cruciform-winged symbol in the middle, or a Roman-style militant skirt that hung down to her knees where the grieves of her boots met it.
"The armor is alive," Brigid said. "It is and will forever be a part of you. You will never have need of clothing again. See yourself as a mortal."
Telos did as bidden, and the armor shifted and changed until it was Taylor Hebert who stood in front of the mirror. Jeans and a pale green blouse covered an exceedingly normal-looking girl. She stared with perfectly normal human eyes, and not a hint of wings behind her.
"The greatest magic of the children of Danu is our magic of illusion. With mithril armor bound to you by blood and fire, you can be whatever you wish to be."
Abruptly Brigid herself stood looking at the mirror.
The smith snorted and slapped the back of Telos's head. "Respect your elders, girl!"
Telos returned with a snicker. "This is incredible, sister," she admitted.
"Among my best works, aye. But not the best."
Brigid left Taylor's side and without gloves grabbed the glowing blade from the impossible white-hot fire. The blade looked like a two-handed great sword with runes of both the Celtic and Norse pantheons running its length.
"The pieces I grabbed were a lot bigger," Taylor noted.
"And what good would a sword do you if ya cannae get your arms 'round it, eh? This sword is the essence of Surtr's blade. Distilled and purified."
Brigid reached directly into the fire and grabbed another piece of glowing metal. As Telos watched, the other goddess slipped the rod at the end of the blade through what proved to be the quillons, followed by a glowing pommel. Blinking, Telos realized the pommel was the other ember of Muspelheim itself.
Brigid plunged the blade into a barrel of water—the water exploded into vapor, shattering the barrel. The reaction was so powerful, no actual liquid water remained. As the blade cooled, it turned from smoldering red to pitch-black, as if made of solid obsidian. Touching the surface, Telos felt a bitingly cold blade as smooth as glass.
"If you were to stab this blade into the sun's heart, the sun would die," Brigid declared. "Every shadow of the star in every dimension of time and space would perish. This blade is a killer of worlds. Through all realms; through all dimensions, this sword would strike. And with this blade, my magic is spent."
The last left Taylor stunned. "You're...are you…?"
The goddess snorted. "Child, the blade isn't the death of me. Any more than your mother's blessing on you was hers. I mean the words I say...my magic is spent. Just as your ma did for you, so I've done. I'll not be more than a bleedin' witch for a decade or two. If the Destroyer came, I'd have no chance. But then again-if that blade won't kill him, what have I left?"
Unable to stop herself, Taylor leaned forward and hugged the powerful, ancient being. "I wish I'd known you growing up."
Brigid snorted. "Child, you still are growing up. Besides, your pa's a prickly son of a bitch. I dunna care for 'em. Now, what name shall you give this blade? Demon-slayer? Blood-slaker?"
"Hopebringer," Taylor countered.
Brigid nodded. "Just so. Abhar Dochas."
Laughing, Telos hugged her sister goddess again. "A Celtic name for a sword reforged by the goddess of the Celts. Abhar Dochas."
The last touch was the leather grip, made from ancient dragon skin. When it was finished, Taylor lifted the blade. She could feel its weight, far beyond that of any normal sword, but even so it felt perfectly balanced in her hand. It was long enough that she would not be able to wear it comfortably at her waist, though.
"Place it between your wings, sister, and your armor will do the rest."
Taylor didn't feel the armor move, but when she placed the sword there, it became ensconced in a scabbard of silver. Glancing at herself in the mirror, she couldn't help but admit the perfection of the armor and...and…wait.
Her hand sought her neck. Her mother's Brisingamen remained, but that was all. She looked at Brigid in alarm. Brigid merely nodded.
"Aye, sister. The New World god's charm could not survive the mithril, not weakened as it was. When you leave this domain, the enemies of the world will see you."
"How long have I been gone to them?"
"Two weeks or so by their reckoning. Time moves as I wish it in my domain, though you were gone six mortal days in Muspelheim."
Compared to a year or a month, a week was nothing. "Sister, could...is it possible to get a message to my father? To see him at least?"
Brigid smiled. "Come, child. Let me show you a thing Brigid the artist has done. We cannot affect the past; but the present? That is easy."
~~Theogony~~
~~Theogony~~
Taylor found herself in the filthy, decrepit living room of an unkept house. It looked American, with drywall and wood framing instead of brick or plaster. There was a fireplace with a few logs spitting up a desultory fire. It was the occupants, though, that made her hesitate.
She turned toward the separate kitchen area where what should have been an angelic child spoke. "Watch'ya reading, Jack?"
Though she had never met any of them in person, Taylor knew the members of the Slaughterhouse Nine like every other student in the country. School districts were required to have evacuation plans if the Nine were ever spotted in a community, though history showed such plans never helped.
The child wore a blue pinafore dress with a blood-splattered apron, and had blood splattered along her forearms and even her coifed blonde hair. She looked perhaps ten or eleven years old. She spoke to a lanky man with a stylishly trimmed goatee in jeans and a button-up shirt. He looked vaguely like a move star, but his eyes were empty.
Jack Slash turned the magazine he'd been reading around to show the girl.
Bonesaw looked like she should have been adorable. Her large, innocent-seeming blue eyes stared intently at him from the porcelain face. For all her looks, Taylor knew she was feared throughout the nation. She made the term "worse things than death" literal.
The cover of the magazine had a picture of Taylor from her first new conference. PARAHUMAN? GOD? PROPHET? THE STORY OF TELOS.
"Oooh I want to get a hold of those wings," Bonesaw said with an excited, girlish clap of her hands. "You've been making us wait so long, when can we go? Huh, Jack? When can we go?"
"What day is it now, Bonesaw?" The mass murderer's voice sounded lazy and indulgent.
The little girl's eyes glistened. "It's been so long. Pretty please? I want her wings so badly! You said for Christmas, but you lied."
"Now dear, it wasn't my fault she left the country. But she's coming back soon, it'll be good to be there to meet her. Now, let's go talk to the group."
"Yay!" Bonesaw exclaimed.
She skipped from the kitchen into the living room of the house with Jack Slash only a step behind. Taylor recognized Burnscar as the girl left her spot by the fireplace and walked to the kitchen, as if switching places with Jack, until she stood by the gas oven and played with the burnders with a single-minded focus.
Shatterbird sat in a bright green chair reading one of the books they inherited with the house. Taylor remembered reading somewhere that, of all the Nine, Shatterbird actually had the highest kill count. She could shatter and use glass as weapons for miles around, and had wiped out an entire city when she triggered in the Middle East.
The mass murderer laid herself out with a nearly fluorescent orange pillow supporting her head, while her feet were crossed on the other end of the couch. For a girl whose power could shatter whole cities, she looked peaceful and calm.
Mannequin stood in a corner, unmoving. His featureless white head brushed the low ceiling, while the separate, armored carapaces that made up his body gleamed in the sunlight eking through the lime-green curtains of the front window. Once the tinker named Alan Graeme, he'd been on the verge of taking humanity out into space—until the Simurgh twisted his soul.
Their latest addition sat on a chair, pretending to read. Taylor had no idea who the girl was, but she had a Gallic beauty to her, with a shapely face and dark, curling hair. Her soul was ugly, though, filled with hate, fear and a deep loathing and contempt for all those around her.
And within Jack Slash's broken, vile soul, she saw that he knew exactly what the newest member of his group thought of him and planned to do.
"Where's Siberian?" Jack asked Bonesaw.
"She got bored," the blood-splattered little girl said.
Siberian. The nude, striped cannibal was the only being ever known to defeat the Triumvirate. She didn't just defeat them—she scarred Alexandria and ripped out her eye, and killed the first and most famous Tinker, Hero.
"Well, she's already told us what she thinks," Jack said. "My friends, I think it's time to go find god."
"That was bad," Shatterbird said from the couch. "She's not a god. She's just another cape like us."
"With wings!" Bonesaw said. "Do you want wings, Shatterbird?"
"No."
"Ahh, you're no fun. You have 'bird' in your name, why don't you want to look more like a bird?"
"Because I'm not a fucking freak."
"Hey! No swearing!"
"Ladies, ladies!" Jack said. "Before we get too excited, this is going to be a recruiting trip as well. Think about who you want to nominate from Brockton Bay."
The front door opened, and suddenly Taylor understood why Brigid led her to this painting.
Jack started to speak until he turned and saw who entered. "Ah, and here comes dear Siberian…hello, there."
Taylor's breath caught in her throat. The man who raised her bore only the most casual similarity to the god who walked through the door into the lair of the Slaughterhouse Nine.
He'd shed his long-sleeve, button-down shirts and fedora. He'd let his beard grow until the thick, pepper-gray bristles hung like a steel brush to his chest. He wore his dragon-skin pauldron over his shoulders with his Leviathan axe against his back. His Swords of Chaos hung at his belt. But more importantly, he made no effort to hide who and what he was.
The mantle of war hung about him with flecks of orange-yellow flame.
Jack Slash seemed to recognize him. The fool actually grinned; his mortal hubris was unable to comprehend the finality of the being he faced. "We were just talking about your daughter!" Jack said with a happy grin.
"Yes." The word rumbled up from a deep chest.
Shatterbird jumped to her feet, all the glass from her previous excursions already in the air swirling in intricate patterns around her. She could summon more with just a scream.
Mannequin moved silently from his corner, while the fireplace exploded in flame as Burnscar teleported from the kitchen. She glared at Taylor's father as if he'd offended her personally.
"I wonder where Siberian is?" Jack said aloud, excepting her to appear at any time. "I'm sure she'd love a rematch with the infamous Danny Hebert."
"My name is Kratos," the huge man said. He reached behind his back and removed a still dripping severed head. The head was of a man with graying hair and beard in bad need of a cut and shave that Taylor did not recognize. Bonesaw and Jack did, though. Bonesaw stared at the head in confusion for a moment before looking up at the hulking figure.
"That…you…you meanie!" she screamed and stamped her foot.
She reached into her dress to throw one of her special bacteria vials when Taylor's father moved faster than should have been possible.
His left arm caught fire as it launched a jagged, massive sword on a chain that struck Bonesaw. It didn't cut her; it pulverized her chest into paste and sent her flying against the corner where Mannequin stood just seconds before.
"Jack, look what that meanie did to me!" the terrifying biotinker said breathlessly. Her entire torso had been reduced to bloody jelly, but somehow her head still lived. "Kill him for me, please? For the Siberian!"
"Burnscar, get Crawler!" Jack ordered.
Even as the words left Jack's mouth, the bearded giant slammed his axe into the floor of the living room. In one impossible rush of ice-cold air, every fire in the house went out. Burnscar's attempt to teleport ended up with her running face-first into a frost-covered fireplace mantle.
"Bullshit," Jack said.
"Language, Jack," the mostly but not quite dead Bonesaw said.
Shatterbird screamed even as she attacked. Every item of glass in the house shattered and rushed at Kratos of Sparta. Burnscar, dazed and bleeding from a cut on her forehead, pushed herself to her feet and launched her own attack, flame gushing from her hands with almost white-hot intensity.
The flame ended again with that massive axe that Kratos threw. It sheared the scarred pyrokinetic girl almost in half, bisecting not just her head but most of her chest too. The axe returned through the tornado of partially melted glass before the mauled body even hit the floor, only to immediately swing out at the end of a very long arm.
Shatterbird's head flew across the room, slamming with a hollow thud against the wall. Mannequin was already rushing forward, saws going full speed from his various compartments, only to stall against the ash-white skin.
Kratos snorted in contempt.
Jack Slash backed away as Kratos shattered the central husks of Mannequin's containment spheres with his bare hands. As the tinker tried to get away, Taylor's father just grabbed more parts of the tinker's segmented body, snapping them as if they were made of brittle plastic instead of tinker-made polymers. Legs, arms, abdomen, torso, and finally the head, leaving a puddle of shattered shells and broken organs where once stood one of the most feared tinkers in the world.
Taylor watched as Jack slashed with his knives at his enemy while looking desperately for Crawler, the largest and second most dangerous member of their group. His eyes caught a brief look at the pretty girl with the ugly soul. Terrified into silence, the girl had crawled into a ball with her hands over her head, weeping.
Jack cut the girl's throat with a razor-blade from across the room. Only then did he run.
Kratos crossed the living room in one blurred surge of movement. He caught the belt of Jack's slacks and threw him backward as he crashed through a half-wall into the kitchen.
In the corner, one of Bonesaw's spiders was already working on her shattered chest. Kratos stomped down on the spider.
"I don't want to die," Bonesaw said sadly. "I have too much work to do."
"Neither did those you killed, child," Kratos said. "This is mercy for all."
That massive axe made short work of little girl once known as Riley.
"Where's Crawler?" Jack demanded. Despite his mangled body, he did not sound hurt.
"I did not come alone," Kratos said. "Your pet monster is being dealt with."
"And I never even saw you coming," Jack admitted with some small embarrassment. "Normally I can sense capes coming."
"I am a god." The huge axe cleaved down.
With the Slaughterhouse Nine mostly dead, Kratos stood and looked around the splattered room. "Show yourself!" he commanded.
Of course he can feel me. Taylor embraced the magic of Brigid's painting. She had no idea what she looked like to Kratos, but as the magic gave her a spiritual form, she saw her father stiffen and stare. "Taylor," he whispered.
Unsure what to say, she settled on inanity. "I like your beard."
Kratos stepped toward her as he stowed his weapons. One hand gripped the beard in question. "Your mother did not care for it. You are well?"
She nodded, fighting back a painful smile. "I understand, Dad. I understand why you left me."
Outside, in the distance, she heard a thunderous roar and explosions. Crawler must have been fighting those her father travelled with. He showed no concern—he had faith in his companions. "We each had our paths to follow. I always hoped your mother would be there to guide you."
Taylor brushed her hand against her Brisingamen. "She has been. I have a domain now, Dad. A soul has already entered. I have worshippers, and I can feel their faith strengthen me."
"And you have gained your own armor and weapon," he noted, obviously able to see that much. "You are powerful, child. More so than even I envisioned."
"I've lost Sunny's charms. If I leave Tir Óg Nog, the Destroyer will see me."
Her father studied her for a long moment before nodding. "Then we shall use that against them. I shall pick a site of battle of our choosing, far from the mortals who would be at risk. There you will come, and the final battle be decided."
She was a god of hope; when it came to battle tactics she could find no better adviser than the god of War. "Okay. Brigid will know where you are, even weakened as she is. I…"
Another entered. It was young woman of breath-taking beauty, with luminous green eyes a shade darker than what Taylor's used to be, before she took the bifrost crystals into herself. She wore black military-style fatigues similar to what PRT agents war, though her blonde hair hung about her neck in perfectly straight strands. Her power coiled possessively around her soul, more so than anyone's power save Narwhal. As if the power was somehow proud of cracking the soul of a demigod.
"Hello, cousin," Taylor said, realizing it was Brigid's daughter she now spoke to. "I am Telos, daughter of Kratos of Sparta and Freya of Asgard. I speak to you now from your mother's domain in Tir Óg Nog."
Glaistig Uaine, who in her youth was named Ciara, stared intently at Taylor. "Is she there, this mother I supposedly have?"
Behind the girl, three shades of power appeared. Though they bore human shape, they contained no souls. Her power was not spiritual, but very dangerous.
"She sleeps," Taylor admitted. "She expended her magic to gird me for the final battle. But she knew I would speak to you today. She gave me gifts for you."
The magic required to use one of Brigit's paintings seemed simple to Taylor, but only after Brigid's instruction. She did so now, bringing the items from Brigid's realm into that bloodied American living room.
When the shimmering golden glow faded, Ciara of Kildare stared down at a winged suit of armor similar to that of the Morrigan, but far more heavily enchanted with the ancient Celtic Runes of the Tuatha Dé Daanan.
"When my father last walked among the Norse lands, he fought and killed nine corrupted Valkyrie," Taylor said. "He collected their helms, but not all of their winged breastplates. After Ragnorok fell and the Norse gods perished, your uncle Aengus travelled the lands and collected two such suits. Your mother repaired one as it was and gifted it to your first cousin, Aideen, daughter of Aengus. But of the second, she did not just repair it. She enhanced its enchantments and made if even more powerful than when the Valkyries wore them. She made if for you before you were born; and she bid me gift it to you now."
A spear leaned against one wall—its oaken shaft inlaid with mithril runes, while the blade itself burned with a silvery flame that had both physical and spiritual power. "That is Spear of Lugh, recovered by your mother when the Wild Hunt fell before the Destroyer. It is a weapon of the Tuatha that has no equal among your kin. This, too, your mother has bequeathed you."
Kratos spoke. "Mighty gifts from a powerful god. Arm yourself, child. The end approaches soon."
Ciara said nothing as Kratos took off her flack jacket. He lifted the breastplate of the armor; the girl accepted his help with a bemused expression. When he had the plate secured under her arms, her expression changed to wonder. Before Taylor's eyes, she grew taller and older in appearance, even as she spread massive black and silver tipped wings, moving them as naturally as Telos moved her own.
"I can feel them," the girl whispered.
"This armor was forged by the dwarves of Svartalfheim and reforged by Brigid the Smith," Kratos said. "Only my daughter's wings are more powerful."
He had to show her how to put on her thigh plates, greaves and armguards. They fit perfectly over the black slacks and shirt she wore. The helm glowed with magical power as Kratos fitted it over her. "Take up your spear, Ciara of Kildare," Kratos said.
The much taller, former Glastig Uaine accepted the spear gingerly, only to gasp at the first touch. "It speaks to me!"
"That is the Spear of Lugh," Kratos said. "It is empowered by the souls of its victims and will guide your hand. These are mighty gifts, the equal to any given by any god to a mortal offspring. It is as I told you in the Birdcage. Your fate was stolen from you; now you have the means of taking it back."
Taylor watched with a strange feeling as her father girded another god's daughter for war. It was something he never got to do for her. When he backed away from Ciara and met Taylor's eyes, she could see the longing there—to have done the same for her when she needed him. But it also made her realize that as hard as it was without him, it must have been even harder for him.
He just nodded to her, and with that, said all that he needed.