“You wish. I could have taken you. Even then.”
Bathin’s mouth curled in a small smile. “Too bad you didn’t, because that was your last chance.” Bathin lifted his hand. Goap stood stiffly, as if he had been held down by a pile of bricks that were falling away one by one.
“I could kill you,” Bathin said.
“You won’t.”
“If you return to Ordinary uninvited, I will.” Those words were harder, colder. Deadly. This Bathin was the man who could kill a king. A man who could crush another demon under his heel. Goap didn’t seem bothered by the change.
“Give me your word you will not return uninvited,” Bathin ordered.
Goap opened his mouth, closed it, then nodded. “You have my word. If you fight him, if you kill him, you will have no trouble from me.”
Bathin grunted. It sounded like he believed him about as much as I did.
“What are you going to do with me?” Goap asked.
Bathin looked my way again. “Delaney?”
Goap’s eyebrows went up, but he covered his shock with a frown. “A mortal. A Reed? You’re allowing a Reed to decide my fate?”
“I could arrest you,” I said. “That way I wouldn’t have to wonder when you’re going to show up and try to kill someone in my town again.”
“No cell will hold me.”
“Oh, our cells would. But the last thing I need is a demon who doesn’t like my town pacing in my jail. I want you gone, just like Bathin said. I don’t think you’d keep a promise to me, but your word means something to him, and his means something to you.”
“You are sowise,” he said with a half bow, andwisesounded more likefoolish.
Yeah, whatever. Impressing demons wasn’t ever gonna be on my to-do list. I wanted him out of here. I wanted my town unfrozen. And I never wanted to see him again.
But there was one more thing I needed.
“Give me the page of god spells.”
His head jerked up, his jaw tight. “I’ve told you I don’t have it.”
“I think you know who does. And that,” I said, with a nod toward Bathin, “is worth me locking you up, no matter the consequences.
“The gods are angry, Goap,” I said. “They don’t like their houses broken into. They don’t like their belongings stolen. I’m sure they’ll want to discuss the matter with you.”
He straightened from that half bow, and folded his hands in front of him. “I don’t have the page,” he said. “I don’t know who has it.” He kicked, catching the sword, which had been left on the floor.
It flipped up into the air, helicoptering toward me, fast.
I knew, even as I was moving, that I should hold still. It was nothing but instinct, a knee-jerk reaction driving my actions. I threw up my hands to catch the sword before it hit me in the face, but the pain from my bad shoulder twisted and shortened my reach.
I yelled.
All this happened in the same second Bathin shouted, “No!”
Before I could change course of action, or duck the sword, Bathin’s huge hand was there, impossibly grabbing the hilt. He snatched the sword out of the air and away from my head.
“You can’t touch this,” he panted. “No mortal can.”
The world snapped back into motion, the yelling, the pounding footsteps, the swooping Valkyrie all moving again, coming at us fast.
Fire blasted up into the sky in a fountain of sparks, and beyond the pain juddering through me, I registered Goap had disappeared.
