CHAPTER28
Temple
I’d fought gods before. Even killed one, an upstart deity of greed and technology who’d cropped up in Silicon Valley.
This R’gngyk fellow made the Silicon Valley godling look like a mosquito.
Everything hurt. My bones and joints ground like an old car that hadn’t had an oil change in decades. The gash Alex had torn through the foundation of the house and the foundation of our reality filled my guts with ice. The two trapped thralls felt like insects beneath my skin.
It wasn’t pleasant.
But I also felt the strength and the history of this place. The echoes of my ancestors, the generations of care and power. The courage and love and determination of everyone here with me.
A thick tentacle shot toward me. Before I could react, a two-by-twelve beam dropped from the ceiling to knock it aside.
The thing on the other side of the rift was strong. It was hungry. It was ancient and alien and fascinating, and a part of me wanted to stick my head through the portal and study it.
I didn’t, of course. I was old, not stupid.
I felt the power and love Jenny and Annette had shared. Not just today. For twenty years, they’d given so much of themselves. They’d turned this old building into more than it ever was before.
I felt the fierce protectiveness flowing from Jenny’s patients. They’d come to see this house as a sanctuary. I felt their strength and the different strands of their power: stone and wood and death and more flavors of magic than anyone could count.
This wasn’t just the Finn homestead anymore. Second Life Books and Gifts didn’t belong to me. It hadn’t for a while now. It belonged tous, and we belonged to it. Its roots had always been deep, but thanks to Jenny and Annette, its branches had grown so much farther than I ever realized, touching so many.
Power rushed through me in a way I hadn’t felt since I was a kid living here with my family.
Power enough to destroy an eldritch god? Not even close. But I only needed enough to close a door.
I released my hold on Phile and approached R’gngyk’s portal. I was dimly aware of others fighting the limbs that tried to tear the wall apart stone by stone from within. I heard their shouts and curses and the angry snarl of a chainsaw.
I sent a mental request to the house. A pair of old reading glasses fell through the ceiling to land in my outstretched left hand. I removed my current glasses and tossed them aside, unfolded the reading glasses, and placed them gently onto my face.
The spell etched into the lenses shifted my vision. The rift in the wall turned to static made of popping white sparks. The glasses couldn’t handle so much power. It was like pointing a telescope at the sun.
But when I turned away, I saw trails of magic cutting through the air like fishing lines made of black fire. The thickest line connected from the rift to Alex Barclay. Smaller trails shot off into the distance.
Two others reached for the trapped thralls, straining to pierce the barriers Jenny and Annette had been clever enough to repurpose.
As always, the book in my hand opened to precisely the spell I needed. Casting the spell frayed me like a tattered dishcloth, but I made it through the words.
A spectral axe appeared in my hand. It was little more than a hatchet, really: two feet in length, with a crescent blade almost a foot long. I hadn’t summoned the Vorpal Axe in so long, I’d forgotten how good the weapon felt to wield. It was light as air but as solid as Thor’s hammer. The handle’s texture was like the softest leather, contoured to my grip.
I swung once, severing the first of the thinner trails. R’gngyk’s connection to Morgan snapped.
A stronger line led to Alex Barclay. This one was thick, a twisted branch of ancient oak. I needed two swings to sever it.
Alex arched upward like his pelvis was trying to fly free from his body, then collapsed.
Again and again I struck. Each cut severed another source of R’gngyk’s power and weakened his link to our world.
My own world narrowed until there was nothing but my magic and R’gngyk’s assault. I stopped hearing the voices of the others, stopped feeling the cold of the air.
A shout of triumph built in my chest. If I’d ever had a theme song, it would have kicked in at a deafening volume right about now.
When I’d cut the last links between R’gngyk and his servants, I turned to the god himself. While others battled the extremities that clung to my basement wall, I hefted the Vorpal Axe with both hands.
In our world, this spell could cut flesh, stone, magic, and even thought. I had no idea what it would do to a being like R’gngyk. The rules of magic—of everything—were entirely alien on the other side of that wall. But if it could reach through to physically assault my world, I could do the same.
