I let everything soak in. Was Typhon really telling the truth about everything? Could he really cure my mom? Would he really give my familiars right back, better than before once he finished with them?
What had Gan said the previous night? Don’t do anything reckless? Play your part. Did playing my part involve me handing over my familiars? My family?
Well screw Gan and his vague wheels-already-in-motion speech. Handing over my familiars wasn’t just about betraying family. If Typhon was able to harness their powers for his own benefit, the world would be irrevocably changed—and probably not for the better, no matter the positive spin he’d put on it.
Power always corrupts.
“So what’s your answer, Sport?” Typhon said.
A sudden thought struck me: Was I betraying my family by not curing my mom? I hope Father forgives me …
Simon tugged at my hair. “Uh, Theo, you’re not seriously considering, are you?”
“Yeah,” Garfunkel agreed. “You’re taking a long time in answering him. You can’t really be considering it. I mean, I probably would if I were in your shoes …”
“Well?” Typhon said.
I looked him square in the eyes. “No.”
Typhon’s cheek quivered like it had before he’d shoved his hand in that investor’s chest.
I steadied myself, preparing to sidestep or defend myself when Echidna stepped over and placed a hand on her husband’s arm. Typhon’s serious face eased into one of joviality. He threw up both hands.
“I don’t expect you to make up your mind on the spot. I’ll give you until 6:30 p.m. to think it all over.”
“And Orion enters the Arena at seven?” I said.
“He doesn’t have to,” Typhon said. “If you take the deal, I’ll still have plenty of time to find a replacement combatant for him. Of course, if he does enter the Arena, I have quite the challenger lined up for him.”
An Oni demon locked me in the guest room. Since I didn’t hear footsteps receding, I knew he remained just outside. With my sole priority being to contact Arachne, I tiptoed over to the bed and pried up the mattress to retrieve the cell phone.
It wasn’t there.
And the bedroom didn’t have any windows so that ruled out sending Arachne a letter via carrier pigeon.
Kameno tost!
I massaged my temples. “There’s got to be another way to contact the outside room.”
Garfunkel glanced about the room. “Window … nope. Ventilation shaft … nope. Not even a TV to pass the time.”
“Not helping,” I said.
“Well,” Garfunkel said. “I can loosen the door hinges and you can duke it out with the Oni demon on the other side.”
I sighed. “I’d lose the element of surprise then. Of course if we weren’t worried about surprise, I’d say why don’t you two hulk out and smash through the door and we’ll go from there? As Libra, you guys are quite the force to be reckoned with.”
Now it was Simon’s turn to sigh. “Theo, each time we morph we risk the chance for something really terrible to happen. It’s only for the direst of circumstances.”
“This is pretty dire,” I said.
With a glance at the magic tattoo on my arm, Simon tapped at his chin. “I think I may have a solution to our communication issue …”
The Minotaur peeked in just before 6:30 p.m. “It is TIME.”
I followed the Minotaur to the elevator. The Oni demon stepped aside at a low growl from the bull-man, and while we were arena-bound, I tried one last trick.
“Hey Minotaur, you don’t happen to have a phone on you, do you?”
“I do NOT. The CONFOUNDED devices do not FIT in my HOOVES. I’ve RUINED a great MANY of them.”
“Have you ever heard of Siri?” I asked. “You know, hands-free operation?”
“Siri? What is this SIRI? Theo, your womanly WILES will not work on me, friend that you are to ORION. I need this job—I am SORRY I cannot help you. Or him.”
The elevator came to a stop, and when the doors opened I found myself in the makeshift laboratory under the Arena.
I stepped out and Typhon greeted me with a wicked smile.
“Just Business”
Typhon crossed his arms. “Your answer then?”
“Are you sure you’re ready for it?” I asked with the hint of a chase in my voice. I looked around at the lab room of the Arena-down-under. It was just me, Typhon, Echidna and the scientist lady in the lab coat. The room was darker than it had been earlier this morning, and although I couldn’t see them, countless bodyguards waited in the shadows along the walls, insurance no doubt. They whispered among themselves in some Other language I didn’t know. No worries, I’d anticipated them being present. All the same, they lent a creepy air to the laboratory.
Typhon folded his hands patiently in front of him. “Do not try to play games with me. Need I remind you Orion’s entry into the Arena is entirely up to you … I’m ready. What’s your answer?”
“My answer hinges on whether or not I can see Orion first.”
“Theo. You test my patience. Do you not trust me?”
“For some reason, no.”
A hush fell over the unseen bodyguards lying low in the shadows, and I wondered just how many of them there were.
Typhon dropped his head. “Very well. You are a girl in love. That can … cloud judgment.” He glanced over to Echidna who smiled prettily. “I believe I’ve been in your shoes. Fine.” He called Dickie Man into the room, saying in a barely audible tone, “Bring me Orion.”
Dickie Man nodded and then left us.
Typhon cleared his throat. “May I ask what your answer will be when you see that Orion is still alive, that I haven’t harmed him.”
I tried to look as innocent as possible. “As you say, I’m just a girl. A girl … in love.” The words felt weird on my tongue, as if they weren’t mine. I didn’t love Orion, did I? Not in that sense. We were partners. Oh well, I had to be convincing. “I don’t know what my answer will be. Until I see him.”
Typhon stared at me intently, disappointedly, as if trying to get inside my head. I turned away as if that would defend against the gaze. Echidna looked strangely sullen and understanding. Was she siding with me, or her husband? And how could she love such a monster? Was it because she herself was a monster? I’d seen both of these people with their guards down, when their masks weren’t up. I found myself on a dangerous stage and I didn’t know which of us three actors had the better performance. The tension between us clouded the air like—
“I’m bored,” Garfunkel said and began to whistle.
“I’m scared,” came the response from my right shoulder. “What if Orion is hurt? Or dead?”
“Oh, I’m sure Orion is just fine,” Garfunkel said, absentmindedly clicking his fingernails, his eyes not meeting any of the metal examination tables or the vials and jars in the refrigerator shelves. “It’s just that there hasn’t been any action since that Sphinx riddle-off and that was hardly any action. No fists. No blades. Words are the lamest weapons …” His words trailed off as Dickie Man came in, escorting a figure behind him.
When they stepped into the light of the lab room, I saw it was Orion. And he looked … unharmed. Same tamed, chestnut hair I wanted to ruffle my hands through jokingly (he hated that—I loved it!). Same groomed mustache and kempt beard. A lumberjack-James Bond hybrid dressed in ripped jeans with an olive green shirt and leather jacket. Cool composure. Milk chocolate eyes …
“See, told you,” Garfunkel said. “He’s good as new.”
I smiled—I couldn’t help it, but Orion didn’t return it. He was probably told not to visibly react to me, or maybe he’d been tortured in ways the eyes couldn’t detect … or maybe he was drugged, to keep him from trying to escape. That was probably it. That explained it. And he wasn’t technically harmed. Technically. Of course, it would be a slight damper to my plan if I had to carry him out of here …
“Now, you can see that your partn
er is unharmed,” Typhon said.
Echidna was standing close by in case she needed to calm her husband down, I guessed.
“Well,” Typhon said with the hint of a businesslike smirk. “What will it be? Or are you going to ask to smell his hair?”
Come to think of it, I did want to smell Orion’s hair to make sure it was really him. Did that mean I loved him? Nah. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Almost 7 p.m. … “How do I know he’s not a shapeshifter?” I asked.
Typhon’s smile dissolved along with any goodwill I might have built up with him over the past day. “What do you take me as, a swindler?” His voice swirled like a raging tempest.
“Typhon, dear,” Echidna said, gliding over to him, placing a hand on his arm. “Theo’s emotions cloud her judgment. And she does not fully appreciate or understand your ‘friendship’ to those you do business with. The poor thing must be a wreck inside her head.”
Typhon looked only barely placated, and I wondered just why his wife was taking up my defense. I kept thinking back to her clutching Orion by the throat and suspending him easily off the Arena Pit floor and batting my tranq gun away. Just who was this lady?
Typhon seethed with clenched teeth. He coughed and pressed a white handkerchief to his mouth as he doubled over. Then he put the rag away and straightened up, ran a hand back through his hair. His eyes were red.
“Your wife’s right,” I said, tapping my forehead. “All a mess up here. It’s true. You can appreciate the hesitations and confusion of a little girl, right?” I tried not to sound too sardonic—didn’t know if I’d succeeded—but Typhon started to relax. Echidna picked up a scalpel and touched the flat of the fat blade against the back of Orion’s hand. Orion looked at it curiously.
“It’s silver,” Echidna said, meeting my eyes. “Any shapeshifter-type Other would show a reaction.”
I acted placated. I hadn’t thought Typhon would try to deceive me. Strangely, I’d believed him the day before when he said he’d never lie to me. Of course, judging by Typhon’s mystery illness, one might consider him a desperate man, and desperate people sometimes have less qualms about breaking their personal code, especially when it involves their salvation.
“Well,” Typhon said, again. “What is your answer? It’s a simple exchange. Your familiars for Orion?”
I felt absentmindedly at the tattoo on my wrist. Studied Orion’s passive face, his utterly relaxed broad shoulders and elbows, his knees lightly flexed like oiled joints, ready to spring like a jungle cat at any provocation. Definitely Orion. I just wish Typhon hadn’t drugged him …
Typhon cleared his throat and tapped his foot against the floor. “I can’t help but think you’re stalling for something. That can’t possibly be the case, can it?” He glanced toward the shadows along the wall where his bodyguards stood unseen and alert, waiting for a command.
Simon tugged on my hair. “Uh Theo, where is she? She should have been here by now!”
Typhon raised his voice slightly. “Are you stalling, girl?”
“No,” I said. “Just wondering if maybe it’s time to switch to Plan C.”
Typhon grunted in amusement. “I knew you’d try something. But it is I who control this game. Any move you make will be played into my court.”
“Theo,” Simon said, tugging on my hair again. “There’s an awful lot of things hiding in the shadows around us …”
I tried not to focus on Typhon’s shrouded guards, ready to pounce on us at their master’s command.
Typhon’s face was expectant, hungry. “Are you ready to hand them over?”
I shot Orion a glance but he didn’t return it. Oh how I love unplanned variables …
With a final tapping at my wrist tattoo—and nothing to show for it—I shouted, “Guys, Plan D it is!”
My familiars shared a look. “OK,” Garfunkel said. “But if the world ends, it’s gonna be on you …”
If the world ends … I thought. Didn’t I have enough on my plate already?
Then a pulsing, dynamic glow formed around both my shoulders, piercing into the shadows and the dark figures of Typhon’s bodyguards—more than I could’ve imagined—shivered in along the walls and corners of the room. They covered their eyes as the two glowing balls of light on my shoulders came together with a flash, and then the bright lights were gone, replaced by Libra AKA Lady Justice. She stood nearly eight-feet-tall, covered in splendor, her shiny silver armor contrasting her bronze skin. She wielded a heavy old-fashioned scale in one hand, a mighty sword of justice in the other.
In the afterglow of my familiars’ blast of light, I could see now that the bodyguards surrounding us were black-clad Oni demons, their eyes wide and red.
I felt at my wrist again, tapped out a quick flurry of Morse Code on my magic tattoo. Come on … Come on …
A moment later, the ground shook as the brick wall beside us exploded in a spray of dirt and debris and smoke.
When the dust cleared, Lucy stood defiant in the newly made opening, Clio suspended under her arm in her custom shoulder holster, her fingertips glowing with magic. Daryl brooded behind my ex-partner, his formidable pickaxe—covered in tunnel dirt—gripped tight in both hands, his eyes furrowed, hooded by his bushy brows. He growled. Lucy growled. Clio gave a high-pitched, “Eeeeyahh!”
Lady Justice cocked her head for a confused look. I sighed in relief.
And that’s when the host of Typhon’s Oni demons emerged fully from their shadows, converging on us like a murder of crows.
“All’s Fair in Love and War …”
Lucy tossed several smoke grenades into Typhon’s cavernous lab, sending up curtains of billowing fog. The Oni demons howled and plowed through the smoke, charging at us like … well, demons.
“I see you got the message taped to the bottom of my credit card in Cracker Barrel,” I said as I rushed forward and kicked an Oni demon across the jaw. “Looks like Prepper Joe took care of you.”
Lucy socked a demon of her own, backhanding another that leapt at her from behind. “Oh yeah! Is he always that skittish? Maybe it had something to do with how we wrecked his store last week—”
“You wrecked his store,” I corrected, stepping out of the way of an Oni demon, his wide-open mouth revealing teeth in ferocious need of dental hygiene. After kicking the demon in the rear, I turned back to Lucy. “I’m just glad you remembered our Morse Code message. It would’ve been a waste after Simon tinkered with my arm tattoo to turn it into a radio signal booster.”
Lucy pummeled a new attacker into submission while throwing another one over her shoulder. “You’ve got style, Theo. You’ve got style.” She rubbed at her black and blue jaw. “But did you have to hit me so hard at Cracker Barrel?”
“I had to sell it,” I said simply as I karate chopped an Oni in the neck. He went down like a sack of coal as smoke from the smoke grenades began to obscure my view of the room.
Lucy laughed demoniacally. “This is just like Berlin!”
I ducked another blow. “This is nothing like Berlin!”
“I know. It’s even better,” Lucy said as she roundhouse kicked a squad of onrushing bodyguards.
A few yards in front of me, Lady Justice swept her scale about in a righteous arc, sending the demons rushing through the smoke and against the wall like a dark waterfall, their limp forms flopping unconsciously to the floor. But for as many who were knocked back, more poured in to restrain us, their red eyes gleaming through the fog.
Another one reached for me and I kicked him in the chest. It yowled and toppled into another demon. Another put its hand on my shoulder and I spun and bopped it in the nose. Luckily, none of them were carrying lethal weapons (aside from their claws which were … gulp, lethal). I had counted on this since Typhon wanted my familiars—AKA Libra—alive. If they happened to die down here instead of in the Arena, there’d be no resurrecting them.
Another Oni demon went for me and I heard Lucy shout, “Theo! Down!”
I dropped to my hand
s and push-upped back and upward into my attacker’s chest. He fell back and two more replaced him from the shadows.
Fwip. Fwip.
I glanced up at both Oni demons, at their glazed over eyes crisscrossing as they converged on the tranq darts protruding from their chests.
Lucy grinned triumphantly behind me. She tossed me a tranq gun and I caught it, pushed myself up to my feet and alternated between using my fists and feet for up close foes and tranq darts for the ones just out of range.
Lucy, meanwhile continued to use only her fists. Beside us, keeping close to the opening in the wall, Daryl was putting up his own fight, swinging his pickaxe sideways so as not to impale any Oni demons. Once, I caught a glimpse of him ducking to one knee and slamming the top of his curving axe against the chin of an Oni demon towering over him. The strike had the same effect as a tranq dart.
“Where’s the cavalry?” I shouted as I dispatched another Oni and found myself face-to-face with Lucy.
“Don’t know,” she shouted back. “But I told them.”
We spun, pressing our backs together to fend off another wave of Oni demons, the room now quite cloudy and choked by Lucy’s smoke grenades. I could no longer see Typhon or Echidna, just the polished reflection of fluorescent lighting off Lady Justice’s sleek armor, and the dark forms darting through the gloom all around us.
“As much as I’d love to continue this little fun,” Lucy grunted, “we’ve got to go.”
“Doubly so,” the dwarf shouted, lifting his jort-covered leg and planting a heavy boot against his current foe’s chest. He might have been short, but that dwarf packed a lot of muscle behind his kick. “Grab Orion and your familiars and I’ll collapse the tunnel behind us.”
Right. I turned to the growing smoke in front of me but I couldn’t see my partner anywhere. “Orion!” I called out.
Oh no, I thought. Typhon’s already grabbed him and taken him away … Then I thought, No, Orion would be able to fight his way out from a couple (dozen) Oni guards. I felt a bit better; then I remembered, Crap, Typhon had clearly drugged Orion. The Oni guards or maybe Typhon or Echidna had probably picked up Orion themselves and dragged him out of the room, had probably locked the doors behind them while their henchmen had at us …
Axes and Angels: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Novel (Better Demons Series Book 1) Page 39