I swallow hard, pressing my lips together.
“Ah, youwerepoking around there.” Lloyd grins, triumphant. “Everything I told you and Dorian was true, except for my professed disbelief in the gods’ existence. In fact, I’ve been a believer for a long time now. There are no relics, Baz, and the skriken didn’t want your energy for themselves but for the god they serve—the god who was desperately trying to swallow enough energy to manifest in true corporeal form, with his powers intact. See, the gods can’t raise their bones, not with all the iron and shit piled over their graves, but with the right combination of elements, I theorized that their essence could detach from their carcasses and take on a new form. I’d been working on this one for a while, priming him for an awakening, but it seems I was missing a key ingredient—you.”
This has to be a nightmare. A weird-as-shit nightmare that I’ll wake up from any minute. That seems easier to accept than the alternative—that there never was any ancient relic…that instead of the One Ring, we’ve been dealing with fucking Sauron himself, clawing his way out of an ancestral grave to gulp blood from my veins and call me his “daughter.”
“Your physical proximity to the god woke some latent allegiance, some remnant of your forebears’ worship,” Lloyd says. “You had a genetic memory within you, an ancestral echo of the god’s image, the form he used to take among humans. When you drew him, your ancestry, coupled with your unique artistic magic, manifested a partial incarnation. With an infusion of your blood, that incarnation can be complete. That’s why I brought him here. On the mainland, he was too weak to hold his visible form very long, and he couldn’t exercise his full influence over you. But here, surrounded by the sea, he can exert the power of his will and voice. Not too much now, my lord. I need her for the future world.”
The big red-haired man lifts his mouth from my arm, tipping back his head. Blood glazes his lips, trailing in scarlet rivulets through his beard.
“It is done.” The words break from him in a groan of relief.
Lloyd raises both hands, his eyes gleaming. “A god is reborn. The first of several I plan to awaken. Thank you, Baz. Thank you. You’ve shown me the missing element in my attempts to resurrect them. Not just any human blood or worship is needed but the devotion and blood of a direct descendant, one with inherited power.”
I clamp my palm over my bleeding wrist and back away from both of them, finding my voice at last. “What…thehell?”
“Hush, child, and kneel,” commands the big man, who seems to be growing bigger by the second.
My knees fold automatically, as if someone else is in control of them. “Shit,” I whisper. “Who are you exactly?”
“You should use honorifics when speaking to your god,” he growls. “This world has lost its reverence. Since I began to wake, I have learned more than your new tongue. I have learned of your poisonous machines, your rebellious minds, and your foolish pride. Your reeducation will take time. For now, know that I am Manannán mac Lir, lord of the Tuatha Dé Danann, god of the sea and of illusions.”
His voice is fuller now, richer, with an undercurrent of rumbling thunder. “I must leave this place and reacquaint myself with the sea. I ache to be free of this small form, restored to my true aspect. We will speak again.” He nods to Lloyd, who bows as the god strides past him. Though Manannán’s head and shoulders are hunched, he still brushes the ceiling.
As I struggle to my feet, Lloyd saunters into the room, nudging Dorian’s body with his foot. “I see our lovely idiot met his end or isin the process of meeting it slowly. May as well hurry it along.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a lighter, flicks it—
And drops it onto Basil Hallward’s turpentine-soaked painting of Dorian Gray.
Flames leap from the canvas immediately, illuminating the room in macabre orange light.
A scream rips from my throat, and I lunge forward, but Lloyd pushes me back, both hands gripping my upper arms. “Now, now, Baz. Can’t have you burning those talented hands.”
Struggling, sobbing, wrenching in his grasp, I stare past him, trying to blink away the blur of tears, fumes, and smoke.
What if my magic didn’t work? What if he’s…
My gaze drops to Dorian’s body, lying a few feet from the blazing portrait.
He hasn’t ignited.
And the cut I made on his hand is gone.
Lloyd is looking at Vane now. He hasn’t noticed that Dorian isn’t burning, but he’s going to realize it the minute I stop fighting him.
I need to keep him distracted while Dorian’s body finishes whatever it’s doing.
“You were his friend,” I seethe into Lloyd’s face.
His lip curls. “Dorian was an oddity. Someone to keep around for further study or in case he ever decided to cough up the names of Basil Hallward’s descendants. Truth be told, if none of my other ventures paid off, I was willing to torture the name out of him. But as it turns out, there was plenty to keep me busy until he destroyed himself so thoroughly that he was forced to go looking for you.”
I twist, grimacing and glaring at Lloyd, throwing a glance over his shoulder at Dorian. Is it my imagination, or do Dorian’s blurredfeatures look even sharper now? High-definition instead of soft and melted.
It’s working. Maybe I secured the soul bond by signing the portrait; maybe I triggered the healing transference by cutting Dorian’s hand. I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I care about is the ferocious hope surging in my heart.
“I’m going to kill you,” I spit at Lloyd. “Like I killed Vane.”
“That was unexpected, I’ll admit. Hush now, little gold mine.” Lloyd gives me a grim smile. “Don’t hurt yourself. I need those pretty eyes and those clever fingers. I’m not sure why you’re so angry, sweetheart. I gave Dorian extra time, after all. Once he found you, his purpose was fulfilled, and I could have disposed of him immediately. But I gave him a chance to charm you, win you over, get you to paint for him willingly. I prefer gentle methods to violence. But we don’t always get what we want, do we?”
He shoves me backward onto the love seat under which Dorian’s new portrait lies. I struggle, making Lloyd keep his hands on me to pin me down. Forcing him to keep his back to the fire, which has died down as the old portrait crumbles to ash.
