Oathbound

by S W Clarke

  Ever since we’d slain the birds, Justin’s and Hercules’s fates had been entwined. If one died, the other did, too. At least, until Hercules completed one more labor: avenging a great wrong. He had wanted to slay the goddess Hera—his nemesis from antiquity—but she was gone. All the gods were gone. Which was why he had chosen to stick with me until that labor was complete. If it ever would be.

  But just because I knew that Herc was alive, I still didn’t know if he was safe. He could have been captured, or—

  I cut off those thoughts as we approached downtown. Please be there, I thought. Please be there.

  The buildings rose tall and taller as we came into Manhattan. Along the way, I saw no evidence of the World Army. Of course, you rarely did—they mostly remained unseen until they chose otherwise. And New York City made that easy. Here, everyone on the sidewalks wore black, as though permanently in mourning. In five hundred years, I had never seen such a monochromatic city.

  When we arrived at Penn Station, the sun had just risen high enough to refract off the windows of the skyscraper above it, half-blinding me as I stepped out of the taxi. Please be there. Please be there.

  While Justin paid, I stepped inside. New York City’s Penn Station was nothing like Montreal’s Union Station. Where Union Station bore high windows and a domed ceiling, Penn Station’s stairs swept underground to a wide, flat vista. Shops encroached on the edges, and the ceiling sat almost suffocatingly low.

  Before me, a janitor swept detritus, an elderly couple surveyed a postcard stand, and various folks in black carried briefcases in and out of the station’s main hall. In a hurry—always in a hurry.

  Justin came up behind me. “See them?”

  “No.”

  His hand came over mine, and we walked through the entrance. “They’ll be here,” he said. “We’ve got all day.”

  All day. Well, that called for a little pick-me-up. “Let’s nip in there and keep out of view.” I pointed at a small cafe and started us toward it.

  “Woah there.”

  “I … didn’t sleep last night.”

  Justin eyed me. “Not at all?”

  “Or any of the nights in the rowhouse,” I admitted.

  As we approached the cafe, he gripped my forearm like I might faint right there in Penn Station. “Isa, why?”

  “I needed to keep vigil,” I said. “Don’t worry—we encantado don’t need eight hours to recharge like you humans.”

  He let out a vague snort as we came into the cafe and stepped up to the counter. “A large,” I told the barista when it was our turn to order. “The largest you’ve got.”

  Afterward, we sat down at one of the tiny tables, our large coffee cups in hand. “Remember this?” I said. “Our first date.”

  He gazed into the cup. “You mean my date with Kat.”

  “It was with me, though. I just looked like Kat.”

  “Of course, Isa.” His eyes lifted to me, and I read something there—a certain sadness which he covered over with a smirk. “You were just using your magic to look like my girlfriend because you were so obsessed with me.”

  I forced a smile. He’s joking, Isa. Don’t get miffed.

  But it stung. It stung in the way all poked vulnerabilities do, especially when they contain truths. Yes, I had used my encantado magic to look like Katrina Darling. I had wanted to see what it would be like to be loved by Justin Truly, whom I had an aching crush on.

  But he was making it silly. He was making it into hyperbole. And from what I knew about Justin, he resorted to humor when he wanted to deflect from what was really going on inside him.

  Like the fact that he missed Kat.

  From somewhere outside the brooding recesses of my mind, a man’s voice sang through the cafe’s interior. “Good morning!” To which the barista returned her own good morning. She sounded twice as happy as when we’d ordered.

  My gaze snagged on a brown—not black—trench coat, a young man’s lithe, wide-shouldered form, a head of jet-black hair. When he stepped to the counter and his face came into profile, I was reminded why men’s faces were sometimes carved into marble statues. To commemorate power or beauty.

  In this case, beauty.

  His face turned toward me, dark eyes catching mine. A perfect canvas of severe eyebrows overlooked those clear eyes, a straight nose on down to full—eminently kissable—lips and a hard jaw below.

  The full lips reformed into the subtlest smile, and he gave me that look. The look men give women they find attractive.

  Hey, I may have been 100% taken, but I was still an encantado. It was in our very blood to admire beauty—and in my case, male beauty. The encantado in me blossomed, and I remembered that sometimes, miracles still occurred in this GoneGod World.

  “What’ll it be today?” the barista asked him.

  The brown eyes swept off me, and his two elegant fingers tapped the counter. “I’ll take the pour-over. Black, no sweetener.” His voice was almost musical, charm dripping off the edges. The barista looked like she wanted to offer him her apron to bathe in.

  Back when I was wild and free, that was exactly the kind of man I would have seduced.

  “Isa,” Justin said. My eyes refocused on him, and I realized I’d sipped away half of my coffee. “You’re doing that thing.”

  I lowered my cup. “What thing?”

  “Where you distract yourself from your problems by eyeing the next best-looking guy in the joint.” He gestured with his thumb toward the exact man I had just been staring at. “After me, of course.”

  My eyes widened on Justin. That was pretty perceptive of him. And funny, which eased the tension. “Sorry,” I said, tapping my cup. What was it I was really upset about? “I guess I’m just bitter that I can’t ... you know.”

  Justin swept a hand over his face like he was throwing off a mask. His way of miming my illusions. “Yeah, I get it.”

  But he didn’t get that one—not in the way I felt it. He was a human recently endowed with Other DNA courtesy of Serena Russo, the World Army’s lead scientist, and he could tap into magic right this moment, if he wanted.

  But that was barred to me. Which was why I couldn’t save myself at the junkyard, and instead needed to rely on my boyfriend to keep me from bleeding out.

  Tall-and-Charming caught my eyes once more as he left the cafe with his coffee, and I kept my eyes firmly on my boyfriend as he walked out.

  Justin grinned at me. “You can look if you want.”

  “I— What?” I took a long sip of my coffee.

  “I know your nature, Isa,” he said. “Sometimes you look, and I’m OK with that.”

  I set my cup on the table, preparing to tell Justin how much I appreciated that, when my eyes fell on the TV on the wall behind him. The morning news was playing, and there, on screen, a black plume of smoke rose into the sky.

  “Merda,” I breathed.

  Justin turned to look, too, and we took in the large-lettered headline together.

  THREE DEAD IN BROOKLYN HOUSE FIRE.

  ↔

  Mari’s face appeared. Roger’s. Selene’s.

  All three of them.

  “She killed them,” I whispered. Across the table, Justin hadn’t said a word. He just stared at the screen, where the three members of the resistance smiled back at us. Roger and Selene on vacation, their arms around each other. Mari at a birthday party, grinning over a cake.

  Then I couldn’t see them properly. I covered my eyes with one of the cafe’s napkins.

  “They did it. The army did it.” Justin turned back to me. “Not just her.”

  “That”—I pointed at the TV—“is Serena Russo’s work. Roger was a human. If the World Army is fighting for humans, then why would she kill a human?”

  “He was the head of the resistance here.”

  “Because it doesn’t matter that he was human.” I balled and tossed the napkin onto the table. “Back when she unleashed Empusa on our campus, it didn’t matter that the students that
monster murdered were humans. She doesn’t fight for humans, Justin.”

  “Then what does she fight for?”

  “Something far more dangerous,” I said. “Her son’s future.” Collin. Collin Russo.

  “Her son?”

  “I saw him. He’s a disabled boy.”

  Justin’s eyebrows knit. “What do you mean, you saw him? Back in Montreal? On campus?”

  No—in Serena’s home. In her son’s bedroom. That all sounded patently wrong, but I hadn’t broken in. Not my corporeal self, at least. A few days ago, the Oracle of Delphi had shown me a vision of the past, of Serena Russo helping her teenage son with his homework. Such a simple thing, but it was all I needed to know about her obsession with mapping Other DNA.

  He was a quadriplegic. He would never walk again.

  Not unless she pushed the envelope on her research. My research.

  Now wasn’t the time to explain to Justin what the Oracle of Delphi had shown me. “Yes,” was all I said. “She loves that boy more than anything in the world. She will do anything to make him walk, including using young men like you as her guinea pigs.”

  Justin flinched like I’d beaned him with the napkin. “I wasn’t a guinea pig.”

  “You were among the first humans spliced with Other DNA. They probably didn’t even expect you to survive.”

  His green eyes burned, inflamed by my words. He was so bullheaded when it came to his vulnerabilities, his weaknesses. More so now than ever. Back when I’d had a crush on him, he had seemed softer. Sweeter. Less afraid.

  For the first time, I wondered if they had messed with the core of who Justin was. Tampered with the parts that made him softer and sweeter.

  He sat back in the chair. “I met with Serena regularly. Did you know that?”

  I leaned forward. “About what?”

  “My progress. All the work they did on me.” That flame in his eyes seemed to dampen. “There are things happening to me that I can’t even explain, Isa,” he whispered. “I just wanted to be able to protect the people I care about. And here I am, twenty years old and I feel like I’m falling apart.”

  Twenty. The word hit me like an anvil. Justin was twenty years old and surrounded by Others who were hundreds or even thousands of years old. I’d lived lifetimes longer than him. He was barely an adult trying to make his way through a world that had screwed him up and screwed him over good and well.

  I slid my hand across the table toward him. “We’re going to get through this.”

  He gazed at my hand. “Maybe, but only the GoneGods know the cost.”

  On the TV behind him, they were doing a mini-feature on Mari, the centaur who had helped us escape last night. She was being painted as a delinquent, a drug addict. Why was she staying at Roger and Selene’s home, anyway? Had she started the fire, the anchor wondered?

  Two more faces appeared, and my eyes widened.

  Justin’s face. Then mine.

  We were on the local news as suspected arsonists. Apparently we had been seen fleeing from the house.

  And I knew exactly who had put us up there as suspects.

  I rose from my chair, pushing it back with a screech. I crossed to the TV, hit the power button. All at once, the white noise of the local news disappeared, and the other patrons in the cafe turned from the line they stood in. The barista’s head shot up from where she was foaming milk, her wide eyes on me.

  I swallowed. “Can we just play some music?”

  Justin pushed away from the table, found my side, and the two of us booked it out of the cafe. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  “Did you see what was on that television?”

  “I saw it. And then you drew everyone’s attention to your face.”

  “The World Army made us into suspects.” I was walking us across the center of Penn Station toward a bookstore across the way from the cafe. Hiding with hardbacks in front of our faces would give new meaning to getting lost in a book.

  “I know,” he said as we came into the store and passed along the bookcases toward the back. “But it’s only local news. Once we’re out of here, we’ll be OK. You’ll find a way to regain your powers, shift to a new appearance, and no matter what happens, I’ll …”

  “What?” I grabbed a copy of Crazy Rich Asians off the shelf and pretended to be fascinated by it. “What will you do?”

  He sighed, set his hand on a shelf. “I’ll be here,” he whispered. “I’ll be here with you.”

  His other hand was reaching for mine again. I stared at it. I knew we would be back and forth, back and forth. Angry at each other, making up. It was cyclical, because we were both tired, and stressed, and probably a little depressed. We hadn’t stopped running in a month, and now this.

  Three more people were dead because of us.

  Hercules and Cupid still hadn’t appeared, either.

  But this was what you did. You reached out and you met hands, because the world was hard enough without misunderstandings with the people you loved. And even if you would get angry again, you needed each other.

  “You’re right.” I touched his fingers. “You’re here.”

  That was how we spent the rest of the day: hiding our faces in the shops at Penn Station, staring at books and magazines and cool travel gadgets and waiting for the two demigods to show. We waited as long as we could, but Hercules and Cupid never appeared.

  Finally, our train to Phoenix started to board.

  It was our way out of here, but it felt all wrong. We walked to the boarding area together, but I stopped before we got to the train. I turned back around, staring at the entrance to the station, hoping they would barrel in off the street.

  “We have to go,” Justin said from behind me. “Remember your promise to them.”

  “I never promised.” I turned back toward the train, and the two of us started toward it. “I just didn’t say ‘no’.”

  Chapter 4

  The most wonderful thing about Amtrak trains in the United States?

  They don’t ask to see your ID.

  The second most wonderful thing?

  Alcohol.

  As we boarded, I noticed a lot of six-packs—not the kind attached to abdomens—and long-necked bottles. Everybody was going to get drunk on this train, it seemed. Which was good for us, since we didn’t want anyone remembering our faces.

  When we climbed aboard, the attendant looked at our tickets. “Two rooms, third car from the back.”

  “Two?” I said.

  “Rooms?” Justin added.

  “I guess there was a reason why Roger had that enormous rowhouse,” I whispered as we passed down the aisles.

  “It’s good being an accountant,” Justin said. He went suddenly quiet after he said it, and I knew why. He had spoken in the present tense, as though Roger was still with us.

  Yes, it was good being an accountant. Yes, he had the rowhouse. But Roger was dead. He had died because of me.

  I had been fighting the urge to grieve all day long, but when we arrived at our two rooms in the third car from the back and Justin swept the door open to the first room—a bed, we had a bed!—and then the second, where a tiny microscope and set of beakers had been smuggled into the corner, I finally broke down.

  There, amongst the little lab, an envelope.

  I,

  We pulled a few strings. Hope this helps with your research.

  IMPORTANT: you’re being rerouted. The resistance urgently needs a scientist in Las Vegas. Ask for Ananda at the Bellagio.

  Go safely.

  -R & S

  Roger and Selene. People I hadn’t even known—not really, not at all, in the way it’s possible to know people—had done this for me. They had done it because they believed in what was possible.

  Creating change for Others, one scientist at a time. One person at a time.

  I focused on the name in the note. Ananda.

  I had only known one Ananda in my life—my encantado sister. But she had disappeared four yea
rs ago. Was it possible she was with the resistance? She had always been the brave one, and if anyone would have joined an organization like the resistance, it would be her.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  I raised my eyes to Justin, who closed the door and sat down beside me. I held up the note. “We’re not going to Phoenix.”

  After he’d read the note, he passed it back. “A scientist in Las Vegas? I thought the only science that went on there was cooking up drugs.”

  “Could be,” I said. To be honest, I didn’t know much about Vegas besides the two staples: gambling and prostitution. “Apparently it’s urgent, though. And we are part of the resistance now.”

  “So we’re kind of obligated to help.”

  I nodded.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll get off at Vegas.”

  We didn’t say anything else on the matter, and I dropped into the seat beside him as the train clanked into motion. Through the window, the bowels of New York City began to pass by as we picked up speed, but my eyes remained unfocused, a hundred thoughts swirling through my head.

  That is, until the two fists slammed against the door.

  We both jumped. Justin swept aside the curtain over our door, and there was Hercules, grinning like an idiot. He waved, and Justin pulled the door open.

  “Sir and lady,” Hercules boomed in the hallway, “I’ve come to inform you that I think we’ve boarded the wrong train.”

  I blinked. “Wha …”

  “We’re on the inebriation train.” He raised a twelve-pack of Mike’s Hard Cider. “A fellow just handed me this. Can you believe that? Said he had brought more than he could carry.”

  Before he said anything else, I rose and threw my arms around Hercules. By which I mean, I spread as wide as they would go, which didn’t even begin to encircle his torso. “You’re here.”

  His warm hand settled on my head. “Did you doubt me?”

  Justin stood. “There’s not even a scratch on you. And I would know.”

  I looked up at Hercules. “Cupid?”

  Hercules’s handsome face reformed as a cloud passed across his features. “He’s not with you, I take it.”