When I got close enough, I shot what would be a kneecap on a human, but the bullet lodged in the stony overhide. Wrong angle, or not enough exposed flesh on the legs. I didn’t have time to try again. The arm shoved me toward one of the gaping mouths. I wished I dared detonate the last frag, but there was no way I could get out of range before it went off. I shot the screaming face instead. Acid muck rained everywhere, scalding my arms. Between boiling lakes, dry pipes and the distance to the nearest hospital, I was going to come out of this one scarred.
Scarred was fine. Dead wasn’t. I shot another face and came up empty on the second squeeze. The faces screamed again, but this time in triumph, and then the whole demon folded shut again.
Around me.
It was not how I’d planned for this mission to go. I didn’t dare breathe. My ribs began to throb, adrenaline or no. I squirmed an arm back, trying not to think about the burns scoring my arms with each move. They’d gone beyond pain already, reaching a dull red state that would later burst into flame. Later was all that mattered.
I fumbled, tugged, and found it: the switch that activated my space blanket. Solar power radiated out, heating Asag from the inside.
He’d been defeated by a god of healing and sunlight, back in Sumer. Maybe I was smart after all.
Five seconds passed. The rotten fish stench changed to cooking rotten fish, permeating my nostrils even when I held my breath. I gagged and bit my tongue to keep from either vomiting or breathing. Ten seconds had gone by. Normally I could make it for three minutes, maybe four, without breathing, but that was with preparation, and without cracked ribs. I figured I was good for thirty seconds, maybe forty-five, and then I was screwed.
At thirty seconds, a howl vibrated through the demon, and he erupted. I flew into the air like a geyser was propelling me, coming down hard on pointed rocks. Agony ripped through my back muscles, spasms tugging at my ribs and taking away any chance of drawing a comforting breath. I couldn’t even whimper. Teeth ground together, I stared at the sky and thought hoo-ah, hoo-ah, hoo-ah, until a spasm released me and I could suddenly move my toes again. Nothing critical was broken, then. I was going to have a bad night exposed out here on the mountain, but at least I’d survive.
Stone slipped near my head. I twisted just enough to see what was coming at me.
The golem. The one I’d blown the leg off but hadn’t killed. Stone was patient, crawling down the mountainside toward me while I fought the father demon. I closed my eyes, thought fuck, then whispered, “Hoo-ah,” and opened my eyes again, because damned if I was going to die with my eyes closed. I had one last frag. At least I could take the bastard with me. Inch by painful inch, not much faster than the golem was moving, I tugged my backpack out from under me and dug down for the frag. When the golem was five feet away, I pulled the pin.
At the count of five, the golem disintegrated in a shower of blue.
At the count of eight, the frag did not go off. It should have. I was still staring in bewilderment at where the golem used to be. I hadn’t put the pin back, or even thought to. Stones rattled, sliding and cracking against one another as footsteps pushed them out of the beds they’d settled in. I stayed on my back, clutching a grenade that should’ve gone off. Thin white clouds spun across the sky. If Asag had re-amalgamated and was coming back, I was in trouble. He didn’t seem like the type to creep up cautiously after one defeat, though, and I was sure he hadn’t destroyed his own golem.
My spine hurt.
After a minute or so a face intruded into my line of vision. Green eyes, a thin scar on one cheek. Pixie-cut hair scattered with iron grey that stood out sharply against the original black. A few lines around the eyes and mouth, but not that many for a woman pushing fifty.
When I was a kid, I’d thought she was beautiful. Now, as an adult, I could see she wasn’t. Attractive, yeah, but not beautiful. Her nose was too beaky, her chin too sharp, her height too great and her shoulders too wide for anybody’s idea of conventional beauty. Put it all together, though, and I still thought she was beautiful. Some of that was hero worship. Some was the power that lit her from within. But mostly it was just Joanne Walker, who had taught me there was magic in the world.
Politely, even solicitously, she said, “Mind if I take this?” and removed the frag from my death grip on it. Only when she lifted it did I see a glimmer of silvery-blue magic stuffed in the pin hole, keeping it from detonating. She gave it a casual toss that had great upper body strength behind it, and a few seconds later it exploded at a safe distance. Then she looked down at me. “I hope you don’t mind me putting the kibosh on that last thing. I’m sure you could have handled it, but I was in the area. I take it you defeated the bad guy?”
I nodded.
She crouched. Her hands dangled in front of her knees, above my sternum. “Got your ass kicked doing it, too, hm?”
I nodded.
“Couldn’t wait a couple hours for me to get down here to help, huh?”
I shook my head. Joanne grinned. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have either when I was your age. I didn’t. All the time, I didn’t. I tell you, Ash, hook up with one of the Holliday kids. Get a little mojo on your side to go with the impressive martial arts skills. Clara’s single.”
I closed my eyes. Joanne laughed out loud and ruffled my hair. “Good news is you’re only bruised all to hell and back, sweetheart. Hang on a second and let me patch you up. It’ll make getting out of here easier.”
The drink-of-water-in-a-desert magic rushed me. It pushed away all my aches and pains, until I could tell my spine hurt because a rock was sticking in it. My feet were numb because of the rock’s location, not because I’d shattered anything. I exhaled deeply, more relieved than I wanted to admit.
Joanne curled her hands around mine and pulled me to my feet. I was four inches shorter, twenty years younger, and with far less magical aptitude than she, but she punched my shoulder like we were equals. “You okay?”
“I think so.”
“Good. There’s a diner with the best milkshakes in Washington about twenty or thirty miles back up the road. Let’s go there and you can tell me all the ways you’re more awesome than I am.” She turned and slipped back down the mountainside, sending scree in bouncing waves before her. I followed more slowly, testing muscle and reflex reactions in the wake of the beating I’d taken. Nothing hurt anymore. I felt like I was fresh out of bed, ready to face the day.
I picked up a tiny stone and winged it at Joanne, catching her on the butt. She yelped, rubbed it, and turned around. “What was that for?”
“I just wanted to say if I had to slay the demon, you’re buying the milkshakes.”
Joanne grinned and waited for me to catch up. Then she slung an arm around my shoulders and tipped her head toward the distant diner. “Absolutely, darlin’. It’s a date.”
We hobbled down the hill together, and went for milkshakes.
Also by C.E. Murphy
The Walker Papers
Urban Shaman
Winter Moon*
Thunderbird Falls
Coyote Dreams
Walking Dead
Demon Hunts
Spirit Dances
Raven Calls
Mountain Echoes
No Dominion**
Shaman Rises (Dec 2013)
*contains the novella “Banshee Cries”
**A Garrison Report
The Old Races Universe
Heart of Stone
House of Cards
Hands of Flame
The Old Races: Origins
The Old Races: Year of Miracles
The Old Races: Aftermath
Baba Yaga’s Daughter & Other Tales of the Old Races
The Worldwalker Duology
Truthseeker
Wayfinder
The Inheritors’ Cycle
The Queen’s Bastard
The Pretender’s Crown
& with Faith Hunter
Easy Pickings
A Walker
Papers/Jane Yellowrock rossover novella
Anthologies
Don’t Read This Book
Dragon’s Lure
The Phantom Queen Awakes
Running with the Pack
How to Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion
Acknowledgements
There are literally hundreds of people to thank for NO DOMINION, but some of you have earned a special and particular shout-out:
Russ Smith, a long-time friend who was NO DOMINION’s first backer
Chrysoula Tzavelas, another long-time friend who mananged to sneak in as the last pledge/upgrade
Bryant Durrell, without whom none of my crowdfunding projects would have ever happened, and who also tipped this crazy ride over the $20K mark
Erica Olson, who told me to squee more
Fred Hicks/Evil Hat Publishing, for the InDesign tutorials that helped put this book in your hands
Mary-Theresa Hussey, my Walker Papers editor, who not only edited NO DOMINION as well, but whose faith and interest in the project was such that she bought in—even after I told her I’d send her a copy of it anyway
Kyle Cassidy & Charles Summerfield, for bringing Gary to life in the cover art
Patrick S. Dixon, Angie Middleton & Paul-Gabriel Wiener, for lending me photography for the calendar
Jim Hameister, for going above and beyond the call of duty
Tom & Rosie Murphy, my parents, who not only did beta-reading & editorial commentary on NO DOMINION, but babysat as well, which became critical as the story ballooned from a 30K novella to a 60K book
and
Ted Lee, my husband, who was serenely confident that in fact everyone would like to read Gary’s story, and who was, as usual, right.
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About the Author
C.E. Murphy began writing around age six, when she submitted three poems to a school publication. The teacher producing the magazine inevitably selected the one she thought was by far the worst, but also told her to keep writing, which she has. She has held the usual grab-bag of jobs usually seen in an authorial biography, including public library volunteer, archival assistant, cannery worker, and web designer. Writing books is better.