by S T Branton
“What was her name?” Of all the things Brax might have told me, a love story was the thing I least expected. He looked ready to staunchly deny any hint of romance or soft feelings, but I could not be fooled.
“Elissa,” he said. “A widow with children to care for alone. As repayment for her kindness, I took up residence on her small farm and tended to her flocks and raised her children in her late husband’s stead. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t grow to enjoy it. She was a warm, compassionate soul. All her little ones were bright and curious. Gentle things, those kids. We might have remained that way for a long time—the rest of their lives. It’s impossible to know.
“Belen didn’t stay away forever. When he finally showed himself on Elissa’s land, it was to say that he had observed me, watched, and waited for a weakness to reveal itself. He patiently allowed me to form bonds with the fragile humans I came to know, and then he struck. I was ordered to comply with his every demand or see the whole region burned to the ground.” Brax’s face was a stone mask. “All he asked was that I give myself up and return to Asphodel. That was all he had permission to ask. If Kronin’s authority hadn’t tied his hands, he might have killed them regardless, simply to punish me. That’s the kind of man he was, deep down.
“I’ve never hated anything more than I hated Belen at that moment. But I did what he said because I wanted Elissa and her children to be safe. As far as I know, he honored his end of the bargain, but that’s another thing lost. My next escape was far too late. She was gone from this world, as were all traces of her family line. Belen remained. And so did I.”
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. “I’m sorry, Brax.”
I, too, must offer as sincere an apology as I am able. I had no knowledge of the details of these events. Had I truly understood their gravity, perhaps I would have acted with more sensitivity. I am sorry, Abraxzael, for the cruelty of my predecessor. Belen was not a perfect man.
“It hardly seems worth fretting over now,” said Brax in response to my empathy, “but I appreciate the sentiment.” He moved his hand to his coat pocket, and I figured he would put his glasses back on. Instead, he withdrew a slip of paper, which he handed to me. “You wanted to know what your friend gave me. Take a look.”
I unfurled the sheet. It was a poem written in Jules’s precise handwriting, about a beautiful girl and the “rough” man who saved her. It was sweet. Underneath the verses, Jules had noted, Mediterranean region, twelfth century BC?
“Where does she find this stuff?” I folded the paper and returned it to him.
He shrugged. “It is a kinder gift than any I’ve received in thousands of years. Maybe the kindest gift of my lifetime.” He gazed thoughtfully at the trees. “I believed what Belen said that day for all the years to follow, that caring for others is a weakness. I still want to believe it today. Things are easier with an unmoored heart.”
“I used to think so, too,” I told him. “Then I got thrown into this batshit crazy mess, and I learned it’s exactly the opposite. Think about how fucking badass you looked, saving that family. Think about how they’ll always remember what you did for them. You’re building a legacy, Brax, with every incredible, selfless thing you do.”
He mulled that over quietly.
“It’s not a weakness,” I emphasized. “We both know you’re the furthest thing from weak. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s why you keep jailbreaking Asphodel like it’s nothing. You care, and it makes you stronger.”
He remained silent, lost in thought.
“She asked about you over the radio,” I said.
Brax grunted. “Good for her.”
I smirked. “Okay. I wanted to let you know.”
A beat passed. Then he asked, “She’s doing well?”
“Yeah.” I patted him on the shoulder. “She’s doing really well.”
Chapter Thirty-One
We didn’t come down from the bell tower wreathed in the sunshine and rainbows of best friendship, but Brax and I rejoined our team with a new, deeper understanding of each other. I was grateful that he’d displayed enough trust in me to open up and be vulnerable for the first time in countless ages. For his part, he had lost some of his permanently sullen aura. Although he didn’t say so, I was sure he liked to know that Jules was thinking about him.
And the small blessings continued to pile up. Given our track record for such things, I half-expected to descend to some type of chaos in the church. Another fire or the roof caving in. What we found was a slew of soldiers doing a painstaking inspection of the equipment from the caravan. The one in charge had a clipboard in her hand on which she recorded notes about every individual weapon.
“You look busy,” I said to her. “I told Amber she could call me if she needed help.”
The soldier laughed. “Oh, she ran off to do some more espionage a while ago. Besides, this isn’t hard work, merely tedious. We’re used to this kind of thing.”
I glanced around for Smitty and didn’t see him either. “Well, we might as well make ourselves useful.” Brax and I stationed ourselves at an available crate and sifted through boxes of bullets. My mind still reeled a little from the demon’s tale but gradually settled into the comfortable humdrum of menial tasks. I got into a rhythm—pick up a box, note the brand, number, and type of bullets, repeat. If there wasn’t anything on the packaging, I made my best guess. Neither one of us talked, but we didn’t feel the need to. Brax had already said more words than I’d ever heard out of his mouth.
The dull tranquility of the afternoon shattered as the doors to the church flew open and banged against the stone walls. Smitty’s white Were form hurtled across the threshold toward me. The ridge between his shoulders was raised, every hair on end. Dark streaks of blood matted his fur.
“Come quickly!” he roared, and his voice echoed through the sanctuary. “Amber’s in danger. She’s been taken.”
Brax and I both leapt to our feet. “What the fuck?” I spouted incredulously.
Smitty was fairly frothing at the mouth. “She was far behind enemy lines, deeper than she’s been before. Lord knows what the girl heard to make her go that way, but she was ambushed in the trees. That fool Oxylem has her strung up somewhere.”
“He’s soft-hearted, but he’s not stupid,” Brax said. “Oxylem has eyes everywhere. It’d be more surprising if he didn’t know about her by now.”
“My granddaughter is in mortal danger,” Smitty bellowed. “Her radio broadcasted for a while after the attack. I heard the son of a bitch castigating her for using wolves against him and turning ‘nature against nature’ or some cockamamie shit. He sentenced her to a public execution.” The blacksmith’s wild gaze rolled from face to face. “Please. We can’t leave her to die. She’s all the family I have left.”
“Okay.” I grabbed one of his massive paws in both my hands. “Just breathe for a minute. Clear your head so you can think rationally. Amber needs that from you. We’ll figure this out.”
Smitty huffed and shook himself vigorously. “If they kill her…” he growled.
“They won’t,” I said. “I refuse to let that happen.”
Victoria, wait a moment. If we abandon our current plan to attack Delano’s forces in search of Amber, we run a great risk of alerting him to our presence, thus destroying our entire objective. I need not remind you what is at stake here. Delano’s machinations have spread across the world.
“We need to do something, Vic,” Smitty urged. “Now! I won’t gamble with Amber’s life.”
I looked at Brax. His glasses were firmly in place and his face had become the blank canvas I was used to—except that his fists were clenched and his jaw was set. He knew the stakes as well as I did. Our goals, I was sure, were essentially the same. And yet, it was painfully obvious what he wanted to do.
He had sacrificed himself for a woman he cared about once. Now, he was willing to do it again. Maybe not so much for his own sake as for Smitty’s, but still. The guy deserved credit.
>
“It’s a trap,” he said and made eye contact with me. “She walked into it. He’s using her as bait to goad us into attacking.”
“Delano might be there already,” I said. “He might’ve been there all along and simply bided his time until we made a mistake.”
“This is not Amber’s fault,” Smitty snapped. “She did nothing she hasn’t done a hundred times before.” His harsh, beast voice had cracks in it. Tears glistened in his fierce eyes. “They got lucky this once, and I’ll make them pay.”
“We might be walking to the slaughter,” Brax told him. “There’s no telling what’s waiting for us when we get to wherever Oxylem wants us to go. We can’t act like this is a predictable situation. He’s not in his right mind.”
Smitty blew up. “None of that matters to me, boy! Don’t you understand? Those monsters have my little girl in their filthy clutches, and—” He swallowed hard. “And—”
“No, I understand,” the demon said quietly. “We will bring her back safe and sound. I promise you. That said, I feel it would be irresponsible to rush in without acknowledging that the whole situation is designed to ensnare us. We have to be ready for anything.”
One by one, they all turned to me. A soldier came up and tapped me on the shoulder. “You’ll need this,” she said and handed me the Gladius Solis in its sheath. I placed it back on my belt. The comfort of its solid weight made me feel more powerful already.
“He wants us to come after him?” I asked Brax. “Do you feel strongly about this?”
“Absolutely,” he answered. “He could have caught her innumerable times before this moment. As clever and quick as she is, she’s no match for a god. This was orchestrated, either by Oxylem himself or by someone pulling the strings.”
Smitty turned to me and bowed his grizzled head. “Please, Vic,” he pleaded. “I trust you to make the decision, but it has to be made now. Amber adores you. I know she believes you’re gonna come get her. Please don’t let her down.”
I looked into his eyes and around at the huddle that had formed while we debated. “You heard these guys,” I said and lifted my sword. “Let’s give Oxylem what he fucking wants. For Amber!”
“For Amber!” they echoed. The sanctuary drowned in warlike howls as the Weres transformed for battle and swarmed toward the exit after their white-furred leader. They poured down the staircase and loped in the direction of the black, thorny trees. Right at their furry heels, Brax and I kept pace and brought up the rear with flaming hammer and burning sword. Once again, the ashes of our plans lay trampled beneath our feet.
This time, I wasn’t that upset about it.
“You want some, Delano?” I muttered. “Then how about you come and fucking get it?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
We determined quickly that it would be best for me to go in alone at first. Other than a general idea of where we’d find it, no one had any real details about the gods’ base of operations. I was the one with the god-killing sword, so I took point. Only Marcus was with me as I headed down the uneven track toward the heart of the forest.
“I will be pissed if we find out they set up another slaughterhouse-type deal,” I said. “That place still haunts my dreams.”
It should hold a special place in your heart, Marcus said, with the same inflection as a proud parent. That was your first major proving ground.
“You always put the weirdest spin on things,” I told him as I shook my head. The trees closed in tighter with every step until I felt like I pushed my way through a loosely knit blanket of dead sticks and leaves. I hacked through it with a regular machete from the church. Yeah, I was on my way to use the hell out of my huge, glowing sword, but there was no point in blowing it early. If I had a chance at the element of surprise, I wanted to seize it.
Inspiration is an art, Marcus declared. And I am a master.
A wooden barrier snapped and crunched in front of me as I struck it. A hole opened, and I was blasted with a current of cold, wet air. I lined my fist up with the opening and punched outward with all my might. The dense wall caved in, and I stepped through into a new path, much wider and cleaner. The walls on either side of this passage were crude but deliberate in design, made of what looked to be the same dark, corrupted wood that filled the woods around me.
I whistled softly. “They were harvesting trees for material? Damn. Smitty said these used to be humans.”
Not always humans, but living creatures of flesh and bone, yes. Now they are… He trailed off, unwilling or unable to voice the thought.
“Yeah,” I said. “This shit’s fucked.”
At the end of the long, dark passage, a massive wall jutted up into the darkness. Some of the boards on the outside were so fresh, I could smell the cut wood as I approached. Rudimentary parapets lined the top. Through the gaps, I discerned the shapes of waiting soldiers. Others ran back and forth along the elevated footpath, apparently still slapping the fortification together. Wooden planks clattered into place, followed by the bang of hammers.
“I guess we’re a little early,” I said. “Let’s see if they could use a hand in there.”
They appear to be reinforcing the outer wall, Marcus observed. It would seem they consider an invasion to be imminent.
I chuckled. “They’re not wrong. I’m basically a one-woman invasion, wouldn’t you say? And there will be hell to pay once Smitty gets through.”
When I reached the end of the path, I slowed my pace. The wall’s construction had obviously been hurried. The boards and planks were often rough and unaligned. I spotted a plethora of potential handholds dotting the wooden surface. They were full of potential splinters and bristled with nails, but they’d do.
“That’s it,” I announced. “We’re going over. On my mark.” I dropped into a sprinter’s starting stance. “Three… two… one!” My whole body shot forward, powered by nectar, adrenaline, and grit. I was on the wall and scaled that thing like an angry lizard before the guards up top began to shout about an intruder.
“Too late, assholes,” I muttered and pushed myself to climb faster. Gunshots peppered the air over my head. A bullet slammed into the wood two inches from my right hand, gouged a trough down the wall, and spattered sawdust into my eyes. I squinted and pressed on.
The muzzle flashes, which started as pinpricks in the vertical distance, rapidly grew larger. I clawed from perch to perch and dodged hails of bullets. The gunmen never missed by very much. One or two shots grazed me to leave thin trickles of blood. The skin of my palms had split from hastily grabbing un-sanded ledges. I paid no attention to any of that.
I was too focused on the serious ass I intended to kick once I reached the top. I’d never been more pumped for a fight than I was at that moment. Maybe it was the exhilaration of throwing our plans to the wind. Maybe it was because I knew Amber was there somewhere and waited for us to find her.
Or maybe I was merely sick of this shit.
Whatever the reason for the extra energy that coursed through my veins, I vaulted up onto the top of the wall like a human hurricane and sliced burning arcs through the air with my sword. The men directly in front didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell. Their bodies tumbled toward the ground in pieces before they could even yell for backup.
The others lunged to knock me down, but months of Marcus’s meticulous training had given me incredible balance. I nimbly sidestepped the chaotic assault, cut through one, and sent the other after his doomed companion with a well-placed boot to the back. Then, I bolted along the wall in search of a way in.
At first glance, there wasn’t much to help me. The base itself stood way back against a legion of yet more trees, but I was separated from it by a barren, burned-out expanse. Stumps and tree husks littered the ground. In some places, the gray ash looked deep and pooled in impressions left by countless feet. More workers hunched on the inside of the wall, building up its strength. They were men like the tree gangs, and like the gangs, most were desperately thin. It was no su
rprise that Delano and his cronies were big on slave labor.
Another bullet whizzed past my ear. I glanced over my shoulder long enough to glimpse more guards rushing toward my position. They seemed unsettled as if they didn’t want to fight so far off the ground and were afraid of falling. But their faces also showed the same determination I had, the same fierce loyalty. Too bad they’d chosen the wrong side.
Watch out, Victoria!
Marcus’s warning refocused my attention ahead, and I saw that the surface I ran on dipped down into the well of a parapet in fifteen feet. I stopped abruptly and spun to face my pursuers. Behind them, the whole nearest section of the wall now stood empty. They’d consolidated a whole section of their force to confront me.
I grinned. Big mistake.
The leader of the pack had changed from a frightened young soldier to a tall, slender man whose eyes burned with an eerily recognizable unearthly light. He was the first vamp I’d seen in quite a while with that kind of strength, and he was hungry.
His lips peeled back to reveal the vicious points of his fangs, and he launched into a blur. I stood firm, my blade out. Seconds later, the vamp was on me. He was stronger than any of the stragglers I had battled since leaving New York, and we grappled back and forth. No words were exchanged, only a few choice snarls. The skin on his gaunt face was so pale I could see a map of veins and arteries on his cheeks. He gripped my arms like a vise and tried to toss me off the side. The Gladius Solis wavered between us.
His movements were rigid and almost clumsy as he tried to avoid the sword so close to his flesh. I waited for his balance to shift and jerked my knee into his stomach. He buckled with a cry of pain, and I threw all my weight to the right. When the vamp scrabbled to keep his hold on my forearm, I simply cut his hand off. I pried the clutching, disembodied fingers from my sleeve and flung it to the rest of the soldiers who had formed a line to block the way forward.