Read Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods for Free Online

handle themselves.”
    “Many have underestimated the Greenes and paid with their lives. There is an account of a duel in 1832 between a Chicago magus and my great-great-aunt—”
    “She’s bad news, I get that. But these friends are the most powerful circle of magicians in New York. They’ve got this,” Antoinette said, taking a turn as Igbe led us toward the park entrance.
    When we reached the park, Igbe stopped to consider, turning end over end.
    The crowds beside the park were sparse, as the spirit was not the only wind in the air. A chill wind sapped the warmth from my bones.
    “Where now?” I asked, facing Antoinette, though the answer would come from her bound spirit.
    Igbe stopped, a whorl of air settling on the concrete sidewalk. Then at once, the wet yellow-brown leaves set off in a rush toward the park, showing the creature’s path.

    Less than five minutes into the park, Igbe started snarling and barking. It had stepped closer to our world, its red wispy form flowing as it moved. “She’s here! Faster! I’ll tear her throat out!”
    Antoinette and I broke into a full run, chasing the spirit through the pathways that wound beneath the nearly barren trees.
    Igbe turned a corner, and as I slowed to make the turn myself, lacking the agility of the incorporeal, I saw another spirit waiting atop a moss-covered rock the size of a small automotive.
    This spirit was the mottled brown of mud, and it was large. I felt the air grow thick with energy.
    I searched the horizon for my sister, hoping I might be able to bypass the incipient melee and pursue her directly. But beyond the mud-brown spirit, the path split in two. And without Igbe’s guidance, I would be hunting blind, casting the stones and hoping for luck.
    With a roar that I heard with my soul more than my ears, the mud-brown spirit pounced on Igbe. The smaller spirit grew more concrete, a canine form slipping past the larger spirit’s grasp.
    Antoinette stayed back, fishing through her jacket for something.
    In the park, it could only be an earth spirit, a tree spirit, or one of the higher spirits of the park itself. My studies of New York led me to believe that Prospect Park was not as known for violence as Central Park, so it would not likely be a spirit of death. But New York was a city of many moods, many lives.
    I sorted the factors and possibilities as I rummaged through the canvas bag Antoinette had provided me.
    Deciding on a tactic, I brought out the topaz pendant, the opals in my left hand. Drawing from the opals, I channeled the power through my body and into the topaz, giving it shape and function.
    Beside me, Antoinette chanted methodically in French, other words even more unfamiliar mixed into her Haitian creole.
    The magic of the Greenes was older, more primordial than that of most practitioners. Through our connection to the Gatekeepers, masters of the center of the world, Esther touched the Deeps, the darkness between atoms, the power at the primal core of the earth. An apt comparison would be to say that where a magician might work with diesel to fuel their magic, our power source was closer to nuclear. Esther would outpower me every step of the way, but even a diesel engine can run a bulldozer.
    Using the topaz as my focus, I shaped the power from the opals. I envisioned an arrow the size of my arm, thick and sturdy. Silver-and-white energy coalesced around the topaz, and I cast my hand toward the spirit.
    The bolt shot out, biting deeply into the spirit at the shoulder. Its coloring faded a shade; the creature’s hold on physical reality weakened but was not severed.
    The being roared, charging toward me.
    Igbe leapt to my defense, tearing at the mud-brown spirit with its bloodred claws. It tore at the larger spirit like a pup atop a mastiff, and the larger creature shook Igbe off with a whirlwind of brown smoke.
    The red streak hurled through the air, then split around a tree, fading.
    The earth spirit redoubled its charge, and I