As I gave Sol and Seamus one more hug, before turning towards the warded piece of concrete where our present leadership stood, I promised myself it would just be a few more minutes. That I would go debrief with the remaining leaders of the magical community, and then I would go home and take a three day nap.
If only.
The first thing I did when I reached that group of magical leadership was throw my arms around Siara. Judging by how stiff she went in my embrace, she hadn’t been expecting the move, but before I could back away and apologize for invading her space, she relaxed and returned the hug.
“How did you get here?” I asked, when I finally stepped away from her.
She laughed. “I’m afraid it’s not a terribly exciting story. I waited until I felt my body had passed the Technetium from my system, and then I climbed out of the canyon.”
“How could you tell that the—”
“Then,” Siara continued pointedly, before I could finish my question, “I found a mass of demons collecting around a rather unremarkable piece of desert near the top of the canyon, and decided it was suspicious enough to be worth my attention. It would appear that I was right.”
It would also appear that Siara’s return had been the only reason that the Dragon reinforcements had finally come to our aid. She had tracked Aira down as soon as she was through the seam, then insisted that her dragons join the battle.
“General Aira has much to answer for,” was all that Siara said about that particular infraction, after describing her arrival. I got the feeling she didn’t want to talk about it in front of the non-dragon folk. That was fine with me.
“What do you wish to do with this?” Thanatos asked, as if anticipating the need for a change in subject, holding up the still-unconscious, balding mage that he’d routed out of MOME’s forces.
That had seemed like a pretty significant tack away from the topic of demons amassing for an invasion to me, but everyone else let it slide, and I was too tired to bring it up myself. Besides, I was more pissed off at the MOME shitchip that Thanatos was holding than at Thanatos himself, so if he wanted to deflect, I was happy to let him.
“We need to interrogate him,” Lizzie proclaimed. I hadn’t seen the woman with olive skin (and I meant that literally, not as an unclear reference to Mediterranean heritage, but, like, actually the color of a green olive) enter the fray earlier, but I’d been distracted, and she was covered in enough blood and… dark goop that had probably come out of a demon, that I was fairly certain she’d been battling her heart out with the rest of us. “He can explain how they ripped open that seam, and how they made a deal with those demons in the first place!”
She sounded pretty angry for someone who helped run Unterberg, which was basically the Switzerland of the magical world and usually stayed so far outside of these types of conflicts that we’d had to essentially beg them to get involved in this one. Or rather, we’d tried and failed to beg them to help us. I thought they’d turned us down, but they were here now, and they’d definitely fought with us, so…
“I can speak to both those points, I’m afraid,” said Thanatos.
It still startled me to see him in such a human guise, giant feathered wings notwithstanding. Granted, I’d only known him for an hour or so (less than that, if we only went by Earth time, instead of whatever weird timeline my life represented), but I’d seen him so often as an electric blue bunny or a giant clam/Cthulhu monster that the implacable angel look was definitely throwing me off.
“It is my understanding that the Ministry of Magical Entity officials had originally planned to inject an entity who possessed a surplus of dark matter with Technetium near the seam in La Paz, in order to attempt an invasion on Unterberg, the closest seam there being a relevant one. When that failed them, they tried to do the same thing on a smaller scale in Sucre. They succeeded, marginally. They managed to tear a small hole into one of the more icy hell dimensions, or so my subordinates reported at the time. Whatever they managed, they failed in finding a useful force for an invasion, and found nothing worth invading themselves. Our ice-dwelling brethren are often reluctant to leave their own world for any but the coldest regions of this one. They are… rather susceptible to any amount of warmth.”
Those of us that weren’t demons all exchanged looks. I, for one, wondered if Thanatos was really about to give us all the answers, and if so, why.
“Regardless,” he continued, “they decided to try again, as I’m sure you’re all aware. I was not truly cognizant of their intentions until word of their little attempted coup made its way even as far as my own realm.” Thanatos turned his attention to me. “I did not lie to you when we first met, Vic. Their apparent plans for Technetium terrified my people. So, when a MOME representative offered my people freedom from such attacks in exchange for a small invasion—one which basically amounted to a free buffet lunch for my people—I accepted at once.”
He took a deep breath, returning his attention to the whole group.
“However, MOME made it clear quite quickly today that they weren’t planning to stick to their original offer. Rebecca Dryer—wearing someone else’s skin—summoned me from my hell realm, even as my people marshaled for invasion. Then she injected me with Technetium, and only failed to destroy me, in the very way her people had vowed not to, thanks to the efforts of Vic, here. I believe I was summoned the second time in hopes that the Technetium would still be in my blood, but thankfully my metabolism is rather quick. However, I wasn’t the only one summoned. As you all no doubt witnessed, another demon was summoned and injected. And we must all be grateful that the pour soul was rather starved, for they did far less damage that they might have—even less than a weak magical human would have, in all likelihood. The explosion must have been right on top of the seam when it happened, however, as it was sufficient to cause the rift MOME was hoping for. And… I believe you all know the rest.”
“Why did you bother helping MOME at all, if Rebecca had already betrayed you once?” I asked, more than slightly baffled at Thanatos’ casual explanation.
“It seemed her side was the winning one,” he replied easily, as if it were just a simple truth and anyone else would have done the same. And maybe any other demon would have. I only knew one other, and it wasn’t difficult to believe that Az might be an exception to the rule.
Thanatos smirked before continuing, “Although you quickly made it clear to me how wrong that assumption was. I corrected course accordingly.”
I laughed. I had to. I mean, Thanatos was remarkably consistent in his self-preservation tactics, I had to give him that. And with so much evidence as to the duplicity of humans confronting him, I could hardly blame him for not holding out any loyalty to me, after I’d refrained from killing him gratuitously one time. That was a pretty low bar to pass, really.
“We will still need to confirm that story with Agent Elgby,” Albert replied, gesturing to the unconscious mage. “I’m sure you understand.”
Thanatos nodded, not seeming the least bit offended.
“But where can we store him in the meantime? Not to mention all the injured MOME agents being pulled off the field right now,” I asked. “It’s not like we can trust that the MOME folks don’t know a bunch of tricks for getting out of their own dungeons. Even if we could, it’s not like we’ll have locked them all up. And if any of them remain free, they could easily break the rest of their buddies out.”
Albert and Lizzie nodded, though I noticed that Lizzie wasn’t offering up storage options in Unterburg. Thanatos said nothing. And Gwen. Damn it all, Gwen had left again.
I almost groaned in frustration. I had so many questions for her, I couldn’t even tally them all up in my head. I wanted to find out where she had taken Trev, why she had showed up so many times without just fixing everything, since she was a freaking goddess anyway, and why she couldn’t have warned me about any of the damned things I’d had to deal with lately, like, I don’t know, turning into a dragon and then, more recen
tly, a chimera.
And, oh boy, did I have questions about the chimera form. How was it even possible? Was that the whole reason that Sol, Seamus, and I had been thrown into this weird mating bond? Or could anyone do what we’d done? If it had been the reason for the mating bond, were we going to stop caring about each other, now that this whole thing was done? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. I had big plans for interrogating Gwen, hells yes, I did.
But all of that was going to have to wait.
“You could stow everyone from MOME in Hel’s dimension, maybe. She owes me one, I think. Or maybe my parents could talk her into it. You should ask them, be—”
As if on cue, Gwen chose that moment to show up with both of my parents.
And I didn’t know what to do or say to them, so I started backing away, so I wouldn’t have to say anything at all. They could sort the rest of this stuff out. My parents knew more about the Hel realm than I ever would. It was possible they knew even more than Renata did, so, yeah. That just about ate up my reasons for needing to stick around this debriefing. They really didn’t need my help.
But then my hand went to my forehead, as the thought of Renata reminded me that there was another group of people out there who really did.
UNFORTUNATELY, MY BODY didn’t seem to care that a hundred people were barely going to be able to take care of their most basic needs without me. I managed to reach for my Gwen-given powers and use them to transport myself to a familiar bit of abandoned desert in Northern Arizona, but as soon as I arrived my legs collapsed and my vision tunneled ominously.
A set of hands shrouded in mist caught me, before I hit the ground.
“Thanks,” I muttered to Renata, while inwardly cursing the demons who’d tried to drain us at the end of the battle. I’d known I was weak, and second-guessed shifting my way out here instead of flying in dragon form, but I didn’t see what choice I’d had. There was a whole group of people here who were going to literally be stumbling around the desert without me, and the longer I left them, the harder it would be to find them all.
So, here I was, and Renata’s grip held me firm as I blinked the scrubby red desert and clear blue sky back into focus.
“I was hoping you’d be here,” I said, trying to fill the silence while my body finished silently screaming at me to stop using my power.
Renata’s voice was its normal sincere monotone.
“I assumed you had the battle under control.”
I really couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but I laughed anyway.
The puzzled arch of her brows when I finally stopped, and stared at her, suggested she’d been serious.
“Did you not leave the battle victorious?” she asked.
I chuckled again, because I couldn’t help it, then finally admitted, “Yes. Technically, I guess you could say that, but… I wish I had, at any point, felt even half as confident about my ability to pull that off as you seem to.”
“You have many powers and many allies. There was little reason to think you would not succeed.”
“Sure, except for the part where I have no idea what I’m doing, and where I was up against an entire army of mages and demons, and—never mind. You’re right. We won, I guess, and I’m here now.”
Renata smiled, as though I’d finally said something that made sense.
“Yes! Are you here to give me the whistle?” she asked.
I frowned.
“I hadn’t planned to ditch you with over a hundred mind control victims,” I said.
Finally looking at our immediate vicinity, after attempting to look into Renata’s eyes through the continuously shifting mist that enveloped her started to give me a headache, I noticed that all of the aforementioned MOME victims seemed to be clustered nearby in various blobs of shade thrown by the occasional boulders. I also noticed that there were far more of them than we had initially dropped off here. Renata must have somehow wrangled the ones who had been on the opposing side back up here during the remainder of the fight…
“Did Gwen help you collect these folks?” I muttered, looking at the crowd huddled in the bits of shade they could find.
“It is noble of you to wish to continue to care for those you led from the dungeons,” Renata said, ignoring my question about Gwen. “But how exactly were you planning to help? You can barely stand.”
As if to prove her point, she released my arm, and my legs instantly rejected the idea of holding me upright any longer.
“Damn it,” I mumbled, sparing myself from landing on my ass by kneeling with one hand on the ground to keep my balance.
I used the hand that wasn’t keeping me from toppling face-first into a cactus to wrestle the whistle from my pocket, and shoved it in Renata’s general direction. I felt it slip from my grip, but my eyesight had gone dark around the edges again.
“Is there a place that you would like me to take you, so that you may rest?” Renata’s voice asked, from somewhere above me.
“Have you ever met a tree named Life?” I asked, shortly before passing out.
~~~
YOU REALLY SHOULD TAKE BETTER CARE OF YOURSELF, VIC.
I blinked a few times. The dappled light of the sun filtered through tree branches, softly warming my face, but also making it almost impossible for my vision to clear.
I sat up. I was delighted to find that I didn’t pass out again, or even feel lightheaded.
YOU HAVE BEEN HERE FOR AN HOUR, NAPPING. YOU SHOULD BE IN FINE FORM NOW.
“Thanks, Life,” I mumbled, even as I pulled myself to my feet.
I was wearing a pair of yoga pants, a well-worn sports bra, and a very soft T-shirt. For once, I was completely happy with the Gwen power’s choice of clothes, although I didn’t remember shifting forms at all, so I wasn’t exactly sure why my clothes had shifted.
“Am I clear to use all my powers?” I asked, turning to see the glowing eyes sunk into the trunk of a tree that was shaped a little too much like the grim reaper for someone who went by the name of Life.
I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND USING THEM IN THE MANNER YOU HAVE BEEN, CONSIDERING HOW CLOSE YOU CAME TO BURNING YOURSELF OUT AGAIN, BUT YOU SHOULD BE FINE OTHERWISE.
“I’ll do my best,” I said, waving another thank you as I closed my eyes, thinking hard about the one place in the universe I really wanted to be.
ONLY TO BE hijacked by a red haired Goddess and snapped into the void.
I had been reaching for a specific destination this time, so winding up suspended in inky blackness with a red haired, green eyed, pale-skinned deity floating before me was more than a little disconcerting.
“What the actual fuck, Gwen?”
“What? I wanted to talk to you and I didn’t want to keep your friends waiting.”
“So, let me guess, you pulled us outside of time and space to have a chat?”
Gwen’s smile made an almost glowing line across her face, and her emerald eyes glittered strangely, for being in a place that appeared to have no source of light.
“Yes! You’re getting the hang of things now, aren’t you?”
I laughed, though I almost felt like crying.
“You mean, now that we saved the world, am I finally getting a grip on how magic works? Yeah, I guess. Though I still have about a billion questions for you.”
Her smile faded a bit, but she didn’t disappear.
“Fire away,” she said, her arms spread wide.
I cocked an eyebrow at her. This seemed suspiciously easy.
“Really? Ok… if you’re really a goddess, why didn’t you just swoop in and stop all of this from happening, instead of just randomly showing up to save our butts when it suited you?”
Gwen laughed, and spun in a circle that seemed to almost stir the inky blackness that surrounded us.
“A delightful question. Deities are willed into being by living things, not the other way around. As such, none of us are omnipotent, and we are all limited by the forms we are willed into. I am dark matter made into seren
dipity. My powers allow me to flit around any realm inhabited by earthlings, and help those who are already helping themselves. My powers won’t allow me to directly affect any outcome.”
My eyebrow rose again.
“Then how have you managed to save my ass, directly, on more than one occasion?”
Gwen clapped.
“Oh yes, that’s a fun one. There are no written rules, per se, so I don’t know exactly what we aren’t allowed to do, but some of us seem to be permitted avatars, and we are allowed direct actions to save our avatars!”
“But the first time you saved my ass, I hadn’t agreed to help you yet.”
Gwen shrugged.
“The universe isn’t as into consent as a lot of folks are these days. You were marked as my avatar the moment I decided to ask you. I waited to transfer my powers to you until you said yes, but the universe isn’t as picky about that sort of thing.”
Right. I supposed something older than time might not care about that sort of thing, if it cared about anything at all. As usual, Gwen’s explanation was leaving me with way more questions than I’d started with, but at least she was answering me.
“Why did you send me on a quest to find out what happened to my parents, when what you actually wanted me to do was overthrow a magical authoritarian regime?” I asked, after a long pause.
That had Gwen cackling, for some reason.
“Oooh! This is so much fun,” she squeed. “Why do you think?”
Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series Page 65