Katila screeched in fury.
I dove for the pagoda—the only solid thing in a sea of rolling land. I went through the opening. Knocked my wings against the pillars. Hit the ground.
Then I felt the Aether reaching for me. I reached back. And I vanished just as Katila entered the pagoda.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Vervain!” Kirill shouted.
They were gathered around the tracing room, Aradia with them. Damn, Al had moved fast.
“Not now!” I shouted and smacked my hands on the tracing wall. “Open ways are now shut against those who are unwelcome.”
As soon as I started the rewarding chant, everyone went silent.
“I, Mistress of this home, declare it so and bind the point before me, that none but those I choose shall pass. Clear the way only for those who speak these words: Banana Pancakes.”
The new ward shimmered into place over the old, the new chant becoming the key to our territory. We were safe. Katila couldn't follow me. I didn't know how he'd gotten past my ward before, but I hoped rewarding would stop him from doing it again.
Just in case it didn't, I fell into a fighting stance, claws springing from my fingertips. Inside my chest, the nine-pointed star pulsed reassuringly. It was with me. Thank goodness.
And it wasn't the only one.
My husbands slipped into the tracing room and spread out to either side of me and behind me. They prepared to fight. A minute passed. Another. There was no sign of Katila, but that didn't mean he wasn't there.
“Al?” I called.
“I don't sense him, Vervain,” Al said through Aradia.
“I don't smell his non-scent either.”
“Who?” Re demanded. “Who is the trickster, Vervain? Who took you?”
I straightened from my stance and looked at my men. Aradia stood just outside the room with my Intare. It looked like they were all there, crowding the entryway and perched on the stairs.
“Our enemy has come back from the dead,” I said. “It's Katila.”
The lions growled, including their god, Kirill. Trevor bared his teeth. The other men let out wicked curses that would have blistered the ears of my children.
Then I said, “And he has Anubis's dagger.”
More cursing.
Cracking my neck, I strode out of the tracing room. “It didn't work on me for very long. My star couldn't be suppressed by Death.”
My husbands trailed after me, but we stopped in the space before the tracing room.
“That, at least, is some good news,” Odin said as he closed the tracing room door.
“I'm not finished.” I turned to look at my husbands. “Katila's back to eating souls, and Al says he's consumed an entire territory full of them.”
“Katila has taken only god souls so far, but the territory he's stolen is an underworld and is full of human souls,” Aradia/Alaric said. “Those souls are bound to him now, and I'm afraid he may start consuming them as well.”
“What territory did he take, Al?” I asked.
“Naraka.”
“Naraka?” I asked. “Who's territory is that?”
