“You belong tomenow,” he cried, leveling a shaking finger at the massive writhing fire. “Do you hear me?Mine. I’ll kill her and finish this ceremony. Then you’ll see. You’ll give me what shouldhave been mine all along. These filthy cunts never deserved what you gave them. Poor?” He sneered. “What do the poor have to give the world?” He shook Wendy for emphasis, and the girl whimpered under his grip. “My family is deserving. Not theirs.”
He yanked back on Wendy’s throat, choking her. Veronica screamed and shook the cage. Her cry was nothing like Sucellus’s. The god did more than scream, did more than shout. The sound he made gave me a miniscule idea of what the creation of the universe might have sounded like. The concrete crumbled and crashed beside the exit door. The bolts on our metal cage doors snapped and fell away. And with a billowing wind like a tornado born of Hell itself, he fell upon the altar.
The last thing I heard from Virgil as the god’s cry faded were three simple words, screamed with petulant rage.
“It’s notfair!”
Sucellus swept over him, dragging the man away from Wendy. The girl fell to her knees, holding her throat and coughing, but she wasn’t hurt. Virgil was borne into the air, the flames consuming him, muffling his cries. This time, I watched without hesitation as his flesh melted away, and even when he’d become nothing but bones, some awful eldritch magic from Sucellus kept the man alive and his bony jaws opened and closed, soundlessly screaming in agony.
With one last crack like thunder, the living bones shattered into what must have been trillions of pieces, exploding into nothingness. Along with Virgil, Sucellus vanished, disappearing in a bright flash of light.
“Holy… fucking… shit,” Veronica said as she stumbled out of her cage.
“Yeah. Same,” I said, and followed her out.
Wendy rushed forward and leapt into Veronica’s arms. She sobbed into Veronica’s shoulder as she clung to her. After a while, the girl climbed down. Veronica grabbed my shirt and yanked me toward her, pressing her lips to mine. She kissed me hard, in a hungry way that told me she’d been pretty sure we wouldn’t survive. She was apparently even more relieved than I was, and that was saying something.
Finally, she pulled away and looked at me in bewilderment. “How did you know that was going to happen?”
“What?” I said, my lips still tingling from her kiss.
She threw an arm out, gesturing to the disaster around us. “This. How did you know Sucellus was going to killthemand notus?”
I chuckled ruefully and shook my head. “If I said I was positive, I’d be lying. That’s why I brought those coins. Those, and the prayer, were my attempt to keep us alive if he did try to kill us. Though, with us in those cages, Virgil would have had his men kill us if the god didn’t. It was nothing but a last-ditch emergency plan.”
“But…” She shook her head, still confused. “Why did?—”
“That,” I said, pointing to the paintings on the wall.
She and Wendy both turned to look at the half ruined mural. Most of the wall had cracked and paint had flaked away. The scene I pointed to was Sucellus rising above the Colosseum.
“I don’t get it,” Veronica said, turning to look at me again.
“I remembered what you said about that stupid book of yours. About how Sucellus had been co-opted by the Romans and madeto be a part of their extended pantheon. He was a Celtic and Gaul deity first, though.”
Wendy stared up at me, and gasped, slapping her hands to her mouth. “Oh, holy cow.”
“Holy cow,what?”Veronica said, her tone exasperated.
“He means Mr. Smartypants-I-Know-More-Than-Everyone Virgil screwed up big time,” Wendy said.
“The Celtic calendar and the Roman calendar don’t line up,” I said. “For Rome, at least later Rome, the new year started on January first. But for Celts, Samhain is the new year. Virgil was two months late with his ceremony. That was one of the main things that would make it work. Without the magic of the new year, Virgil’s ceremony would never bind Sucellus.”
“Wow,” Veronica said. “I guess that bookdidhave some important stuff in it after all.”
“Can we get out of here?” Wendy asked. “This place creeps me out.”
“Absolutely,” Veronica said.
“I don’teverwant to think about this again,” the young girl said.
I smiled sadly and patted her shoulder. “You’ll need to see Sucellus at least one more time.”
“Why?” Veronica and Wendy said in unison as we walked to the door.
“Because I managed to get more information from that dipshit priest who worked for Sucellus.” I gave Wendy a sad smile. “He is your family’s patron god. In exchange, you get brilliant minds, success, sometimes money and fame, but at a cost.”
“What cost?” Wendy said, eyeing me suspiciously.
