Oathbound

by S W Clarke

  I wanted to be cool, but right now, I couldn’t be.

  I remembered why I had come to this car: to be alone.

  Instead of answering him, I rose. The train was slowing as we approached a station somewhere in the plains of the midwest. “Sorry,” I said, “but I need to head back to my room.”

  Daiski rose with me. “I want to show you something first.”

  Next to each other, I realized how tall he was. The top of my head barely reached the middle of his chest. Ah, tall men—they certainly could reduce you to thoughts of physicality. Of being overwhelmed, overpowered, ravished. In a sexy way.

  I blinked hard. Even as an encantado I wasn’t normally this bad. GoneGodDamn Cupid’s arrow.

  I looked up at him. “Show me what?”

  He offered his hand as the train came to a full stop. “It’ll just take a second.”

  And so, still arrow-drunk, I did. I followed him down the aisle to where the train’s outer door had opened and the conductor had stepped off onto the platform. Hot air blew in, tall wheat waving in a field beyond the middle-of-nowhere train station.

  “This,” Daiski said, “is where Indiana borders Illinois. It’s right here.”

  I stared out. “The state line?”

  He pointed off into the distance. “Just beyond where we can see.” Then he turned to me. “Want to see it?”

  The train’s horn blew. That sound meant we were departing in two minutes.

  “I … What?”

  Daiski turned to me, those blue eyes full of possibility. “Do you want to get off here with me?”

  I stared at him, two teams warring inside me. Around us, passengers were filtering off the train onto the platform.

  There was Team Isabella, which narrated all the horrendous ways I could die by running off with a strange man. Team Isabella had a litany of names for me, all delivered with a mother’s sternness. You idiot! Why would you get off the GoneGodDamn train with him? That shouldn’t even be entering your cosmic conception of reality. Just walk back to the Cupids and drink your hangover away with bad train coffee.

  And there was Team Cupid, flouncing around inside me and tearing down all my papier-mache walls. Here was young, sassy Isabella, flanked by Cupids, pointing a finger at me. Treat yourself, girl. (When had I ever used that phrase?) He’s hot. You’re hot. Run through that wheat like you’re separating it from the chaff.

  What did that even mean? I didn’t know, but it sounded great. And it spoke to my runner’s instinct. Encantado were masters of avoidance, and with all our inhibitions removed? Well, dumb things happen. Like the word that was hanging on my lips—”OK”—just as someone appeared behind us.

  ↔

  “Hold up just a GoneGod minute,” came a voice. I paused before I went down the steps, but Daiski grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the platform.

  Three other hands had found my arm and were tugging me back.

  The Cupids.

  “That’s my encantado,” my Cupid yelled.

  “What in Zeus’s name is she doing?” Philia asked as they tugged.

  “She’s under the effects of my arrow,” my Cupid said. “And this guy is apparently hot enough to make her act stupid. Who the hell are you anyway, Hot Guy?”

  Daiski hadn’t let go of my hand. “We’re getting off here, cherubs.”

  “We’re Cupids,” my Cupid spat. “We just look cherubic, idiot.”

  Justin’s face appeared behind the three Cupids. Worry etched lines across his forehead, and a pang of guilt bubbled up. “Isa?”

  Then Hercules appeared next to him. “Let go of the lady.”

  The train’s horn sounded, drowning us all out.

  “You’ll need to step off or get on, sir,” said the conductor to Daiski.

  “Well, it looks like I’m getting back on.” He stepped back onto the train with such suddenness that the Cupids all fell back together, and I with them. Justin caught me, and the conductor packed up the step stool on the platform and stepped in behind Daiski.

  “Who the hell are you?” Justin said, helping me to my feet.

  Daiski remained silent until the conductor yanked the outer door shut and disappeared into the next car. When we were alone, he turned back to us. “I’m the guy who’s here for her.” Daiski pointed at me. His other hand reached into the breast of his jacket. “And it looks like I’m also the guy who’ll have to deal with the lot of you.”

  Two of the Cupids unslung their bows. “Excuse us?” they said in unison.

  Daiski dropped to the ground and kicked Justin’s shins before he rolled away. With a groan, Justin hit the floor, and I grabbed his arm as he went down.

  It all happened fast then. Hercules swept past me, making to leap on Daiski. A pair of arrows left the Cupids’ bows, but Daiski wasn’t there anymore. The space where he’d been was empty.

  The arrows hit the ground and pinged off, and Hercules grasped air.

  I and the three Cupids watched open-mouthed as Daiski rose to his feet three feet from where he’d been a second ago. He pivoted himself from a standstill into the air, his body turning like a gyre above us before he landed in the aisle behind the Cupids.

  It was like he had flown. It was like he wasn’t human at all.

  With a rap and an “Ow!” one of the Cupids sailed in amongst a row of seats and hit the window. When we turned, Daiski stood there leaning on a cane. “Between four demigods and one DNA-spliced human, I had expected more.”

  “Who are you?” I breathed. The train started into motion, and I braced myself in a kneel. I slipped El Lobizon’s claw from my boot and held it in my grip like an extension of my hand.

  “He’s a World Army operative,” Justin said. “And he’s spliced just like me.”

  “I prefer the term ‘spy,’ ” Daiski said. “It sounds much more exciting.”

  “He just hit Agape,” Philia cried.

  My Cupid buzzed up into the air with a guttural roar. He had an arrow pointed at Daiski’s head. “Nobody—and I mean nobody—but me hits my brothers.”

  Daiski swept the cane up into the air, one pointy end aimed at my Cupid. “Oh, you’re angry. Right now your little cherubic body is filling with fury, isn’t it?”

  “Stop talking,” Cupid said. “You irritate me.”

  Daiski pivoted off the seat beside him, spun around with the cane and struck Philia on the shoulder before he could get away. My Cupid’s arrow just missed his head, brushing his black hair as it flew by. With that cane, the man moved like he’d stepped straight out of an action film.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Quit hitting the Cupids.”

  Daiski ignored me, his eyes on Cupid of Eros. “I mean to irritate you. All that adrenaline doesn’t make for good aim, does it?” Daiski straightened, glancing toward the arrow now lodged in the far wall of the car.

  Just as he turned back, Justin’s fist came sweeping toward his head. Wow, my boyfriend had moved so quickly and quietly, even I hadn’t noticed.

  Daiski leaned away, and the two of them danced down the aisle together, each throwing blows and countering, the cane rapping off surfaces and Justin’s shins and forearms. It was the first time I’d seen him fight like this. I didn’t know he could fight like this. And I realized he was tapping into his power again, taking on some of Daiski’s strength and quickness.

  The key word being some. Finally the cane caught Justin in the chest, and his breath was knocked out of him. As he fell back, Hercules swung himself over a row of seats and landed next to Daiski with a thud so resonant the whole car rocked.

  His club was out, and man oh man could he use it. I had seen him fight a hundred-headed dragon with that club and win, but of course, that was in a wide-open space. Here he had to fight in the aisle, avoiding the seats. Well, trying to avoid them—he took out an entire row with one furious swing. Daiski had to dodge all the debris, leaping onto the wall of the car and running horizontally along it back toward me.

  “What the hell is this guy?”
my Cupid yelled, shooting arrows off in Daiski’s wake. All three Cupids’ arrows lodged at intervals behind Daiski, marking his path. “Some sort of parkour master?”

  Daiski dropped between me and the others. “That’s kind of you to say.” His gaze turned on me, and he winked as he started toward me. “Come on, Isa—let’s get out of here.”

  I had time to do one thing before I turned and booked it down the aisle: I spat on the ground between us.

  No way was I going anywhere with that guy. Ever.

  Then I spun, and I did what I do best. I ran away so I could buy us enough time to figure out a plan.

  Chapter 8

  As I raced down the aisle of the next car, dodging passengers, I thought about what I had seen Daiski do. He was a master with a blunt weapon, he was lithe and aerobatic, and his reflexes were super-human.

  “Hey!” said one of the train attendants as I darted by. “No running, miss.”

  Nevermind that half the people in this car were buck naked after Cupid-bowl—let’s focus on the girl who’s running. Priorities, right?

  I didn’t slow as I slammed on the button to open the doors, slid sideways through and into the gap between the two cars. I jammed the button for the next door, sliding through that one next.

  Screams followed as Daiski came after me, and the Cupids, Justin and Hercules barreled in after him. I heard them catch up to him, and more fighting ensued. Justin yelled for me to keep running, and when I glanced back, Daiski knock him across the head with his cane.

  Justin dropped, and my heart squelched tight.

  Where were the Cupids? Two were missing. Only my Cupid was shooting arrows at Daiski. But in the tight space he got too close, and took one of Daiski’s elbows to the face. His cherubic cheek flatted against the hard bone of Daiski’s arm and he went spinning out of sight.

  “Enough,” Hercules bellowed.

  “Oh, I’ve heard all about you, big boy,” Daiski said. “Let’s go.”

  Hercules roared, and soon the demigod and Daiski were battling it out, club versus cane. You’d think that cane couldn’t stand up to Hercules’s club, but you’d be wrong. The thing was, Daiski didn’t meet him blow for blow … he deflected like water, sending all of Hercules’s strength past him, around him. He was so fast, it was like he couldn’t be touched.

  And he had something in his offhand. I stared at it as he kept angling that hand toward Hercules’s body. Whatever it was, he was trying to find an opening. All he needed to do was dodge long enough to get it.

  Finally, Daiski got that opening. In the second he plunged it into Hercules’s back and withdrew it, I saw what it was. A needle attached to a syringe.

  At first Hercules kept swinging, but within a few seconds, he had slowed down. Daiski dodged him easily, allowing the demigod to run through what was left of his strength before he couldn’t even hold his club up.

  When he collapsed, I knew whatever tranquilizer was in that syringe must be the most potent stuff on Earth.

  Keep running, Justin had said. But I couldn’t keep running.

  Daiski was winning against all of us. He had the advantage: he knew who we were, and what we were about. We didn’t know a GoneGodDamn thing about him. Everything he’d told me was probably a lie, anyway.

  Soon, this entire train was going to be aware of the fight going down, and we weren’t going to continue on to Phoenix or even Las Vegas. We would be stopped at the next station, the police would board, and if we were lucky, the World Army wouldn’t capture us. If we were unlucky, Daiski had already alerted them to our presence on the train, and they would be waiting at the next stop, anyway.

  I needed to make this fight end quickly. Then the Cupids could go about doing their arrow magic on everyone who had witnessed what had transpired.

  Make it end fast, Isabella.

  What would make it end fast?

  Then it clicked: Daiski needed distance. He was magical with an entire car at his disposal, but what about cornered? That was where the Cupids would shine—they needed a stationary target.

  Which meant I needed a tight spot.

  I needed a bathroom.

  Daiski turned toward me. I was the last one left.

  I glanced back. Down at the end of the car were two bathrooms, one on each side of the aisle. I raced down the long aisle toward them, dodging passengers and, finally, throwing myself against the handle to the rightmost bathroom.

  Then I saw the red symbol.

  Occupied.

  One glimpse showed me Daiski moving like a panther toward me, his lungs barely moving under that unlined, miraculously sweatless button-down shirt. He would be on me in two seconds.

  I thrust myself against the handicap door on the opposite side of the aisle, pulling the handle as hard as I could. It rolled open, and the stench of a hundred different gut biomes rolled over me like a wave. And I fell into that wave, falling to my knees on the toilet-papery, wet floor.

  A second later, I looked around to find that Daiski had appeared behind me. He stepped through the doorway and rolled it shut behind him. He removed something from the breast of his jacket. “Well, the details about you were spot on.”

  I stared at what he held in his fist. When he stepped forward, it glinted under the fluorescent light. Another syringe—another tranquilizer. I wasn’t about to let the World Army stab me with another needle. “What do you mean?” I breathed.

  He knelt beside me. “You’re no fighter.”

  Before he could stab me with whatever the hell was on the other end of that needle, I swung around with El Lobizon’s claw and nicked him on the arm, right below his elbow. If Daiski was burning a little time to enhance himself, then I could change that.

  He glanced down at the spot where I’d made contact, a tiny line of blood appearing through the tear in his shirt. “Huh. Maybe you are a fighter after all.” Then he plunged the needle into the meat of my calf and depressed the stopper. “But that’s not very effective, because I’m about 5% Other. The rest of me is just plain old human.”

  I screamed, lashed out again with the claw. His upper body drifted lazily back ahead of my swing. “This tranq works quick, I’m afraid.”

  In the time I had left before I passed out, I fixed my gaze on him. “Watch your back, Daiski.”

  “What do you—” he began before a hard clank interrupted him … the door handle being yanked.

  Daiski’s eyes shifted away from me just as the door rolled open, and all three Cupids, their bows nocked, took a half-second to aim before they pincushioned him with arrows.

  My plan had worked. Getting him in a tight spot was exactly what we’d needed to stop him. Yay me.

  “Well done, boys,” was all I managed to slur before I passed out in the handicap bathroom.

  ↔

  I woke in the same spot I’d woken earlier that morning. Except daylight didn’t flutter through the curtains above me. The only light emanated from a small lamp in the room.

  And this time the headache was worse.

  I became aware of my body one piece at a time—head, chest, arms, hands.

  Hands. Someone was holding my hand.

  My gaze shifted and fell on Justin. He’d fallen asleep on the chair next to the bed. Half of his face was as purple as a grape.

  “Hey,” I croaked.

  His eyes opened, and in a second he was fully awake. “Isa.”

  I tried to swallow, but I didn’t have enough saliva. “Water?”

  He grabbed a cup off the sill, passed it to me. I drank it like I was breathing it in. When I was done, I reached for the bruised half of his face, my fingers floating in the air. “So,” I said. “How bad are things?”

  “On a scale of one to we’re dead right now, I’d say we’re at about a five.”

  Well, on that scale we were doing all right. I rubbed my eyes. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “All day. Something like twelve hours.”

  “So it’s midnight.” I cleared my raw throat.
“And we’re still on the train.”

  “We’re still on the train. Still headed to Phoenix.”

  “Was that the Cupids’ work?”

  Justin nodded. “They’re very good at making people forget that they were aboard Snowpiercer for a day.”

  “Snowpiercer?”

  He waved a hand. “It’s a movie.”

  Another human pop culture reference that I’d missed. I had learned to glide right past them. “What about Hercules?”

  “He’s been out, too. Just woke up about an hour ago.”

  I raised to my elbows. “Daiski got him and me with a tranq.”

  “Daiski?” Justin asked.

  Right … no one knew his name but me. “The World Army operative who tried to kill us.”

  Justin’s eyes darkened. “I’m going to kill him. And it won’t be fast.”

  “He’s not dead?”

  He jerked a thumb toward the wall separating our two rooms. The other one was where Cupid and Hercules were supposed to be sleeping. “The Cupids insisted on restraining him in there. They said you wouldn’t want him killed. Well, Cupid of Eros said that, and the others agreed.”

  “Why would they say that?”

  He shrugged. “They were very insistent. Apparently he’s become quite pliant since he got hit with their arrows. He keeps saying he needs to talk to you.”

  “Me?” If he was hit with each of their arrows, which one was he under the effects of? And how powerful would that effect be on a man like him? “Where are the Cupids?”

  Justin rose, crossed to the door and pressed the curtain aside. Two of the Cupids had their ears pressed to the glass. He turned back to me. “Should I let them in?”

  I nodded. As the door opened and my Cupid and Agape flitted over to me, I struggled up to a seat.

  “Oh, Isa!” my Cupid cried, throwing his chubby arms around my neck. “You were so brave.”

  Agape nodded, flitting like a hummingbird. “Very brave, very brave,” he hemmed. “How do you feel?”