by Nancy Holder
Then he was on her, grabbing her by the throat, radiant in his armor, the God of War in his glory, crushing the life out of her and reveling in it as the two flew through the air.
“Is that all you have to offer?” he mocked. Producing a chain, he lashed her wrists, then swung her around, smashing her into a German tank. Ares raised it in his hands like a child’s toy, and with a single jerk ripped off one of the treads. When he threw the massive strand of linked steel plates at her, it wrapped around her and slammed her to the ground.
He loomed above her. “It is futile to imagine you can win.”
Wrists bound, she struggled beneath the weight, surprised to find that she couldn’t move.
* * *
Click. The sound of a firing pin hitting an empty chamber. Out of ammo, Charlie leaned his weapon against the crate and pulled out his trench knife. Sammy and the Chief ran out of bullets shortly after.
When their firing stopped and didn’t resume, the Germans began to close in.
The team was trapped.
* * *
Still struggling beneath the weight of the metal, Diana heard the sound of a plane and looked up into the sky. Dread flooded her veins. Steve had climbed aboard that plane; he had to be the one flying it. The storm was battering it. She knew he had never flown such a craft before. He must be planning to take it somewhere, land it, hand it over to the English…
…But then why is he climbing so high and so fast? He was screaming toward the moon like an arrow shot from an Amazon’s quiver. What is he doing?
And suddenly she knew his plan.
* * *
In the cockpit, Steve was focused on the altimeter’s needle. It was nearing the mark for 17,000 feet. The engines were starting to misfire badly; the intermittent power loss made the plane shudder and wobble. It felt as if a horse was sitting on his chest; his breathing was hard and fast and he couldn’t manage to fill up his lungs. Waves of dizziness swept over him. He smiled. And then he laughed. He felt a little crazy.
I’m running out of air.
It’s time then.
With numbed fingers he took his pistol from its holster and pointed it at the bombs. He chuckled to himself. He wasn’t afraid. But he was wistful. He wanted to show Diana the beautiful parts of this world. To share it with her. Newspapers and breakfasts. It was not to be.
It was not to be.
Still, he couldn’t stop smiling when he thought of her, and of what he was doing, and what this would mean for the world: Peace.
The world was going gray. He was getting loopy. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger and as he did he said…
* * *
High above Diana, miles up into the sky, there was a brilliant flash of light. So bright that it penetrated the storm clouds. Then a roll of thunder louder than anything the storm had produced. The fireball winked out, swallowed by the black sky.
And then there was silence.
She knew.
The plane. Steve.
From her lungs came a scream of such grief and rage that the stars in space trembled. The scream was like a living thing, clawing at the sky.
She exploded, a half-God bent on vengeance, and in one savage push, she freed herself from the tire tread wrapped around her. Astonished at her display of power, Ares stumbled back.
Diana lifted her face, tears streaming down her cheeks. Now the storm broke out in full force, raging around her, as if it had been waiting to be unleashed by her wrath; she stood in the center of it. Ares was looking on, smiling in triumph. He crackled with lightning, raising his hands. At his command dozens of lightning strikes hit the airfield. Everything was exploding: buildings, trees, planes.
She whirled around to take it all in. When she turned back, Ares had disappeared. Ahead of her, she saw German soldiers closing in on her friends—Steve’s people—and she transformed into a Fury, an unfeeling machine of death. There was no conscience, no empathy to stay her hand. She moved through the gray uniforms in a dead run, faster than they could follow, faster than they could react. With fists and feet, she broke them. Snapped them like twigs and hurled their bodies into the air. Not just the ones who tried to kill her. The ones who tried to run away. There would be no surrender, no mercy. None would escape. She grabbed the last soldier by the leg and flung him, cartwheeling, into the side of a building. Lungs heaving, she let out a piercing cry of triumph.
Then in a voice that bombarded her from all sides, Ares said, “Look at what you’ve done.”
She turned, searching for him. Then overhead, thunder boomed from the dark swirling clouds. Flames and destruction raged around her as the voice rang out again:
“Look at yourself. You came here, Diana, with such determination and hope…”
Panting like an animal, she tried not to listen. And then she saw him ahead of her, silhouetted by the roiling clouds. She thought of all the horrible things she had seen in Man’s World—mud-splattered, hollow-eyed children; mothers reaching out their hands for a crust of bread; stumbling old grandfathers forced to build the bombs that would obliterate their villages. Death and destruction. The antithesis of everything she had known on her island.
“And look at you now. Mankind did this to you. Not me. Weak, just like your Captain Trevor. Gone and left you nothing, and for what? Pathetic. He deserved to burn.”
Bellowing in rage, Diana executed a front flip and tackled him, punching him with her fists. Hard, harder. She lifted a tank over her head. Ares turned toward the runway, toward a military transport truck that was speeding away from the compound. His hand twisted at the wrist and the winds suddenly shifted. He was manipulating them, using them to lift the vehicle to fly off the ground and send it spiraling at Diana. She dodged it. It crashed to the earth, but still kept coming, flipping end over end and breaking apart. Dr. Maru tumbled out of the wreckage, sprawling at Diana’s feet beneath the upheld tank.
“Look at her and tell me I’m wrong,” Ares taunted her, urged her.
Dr. Maru. Mass murderess. A monster who had laughed as men choked and gasped in her torture chamber. Who had sent bombs to the Veld just to make a point.
Diana stared in abject hatred at the evil woman. She wanted to crush her.
I will kill her. It’s the least that I can do for this world.
Dr. Maru put her hands up, cowering, her metal mask flapping off in the wind, leaving her grotesque and pathetic.
“She is the perfect example of these humans,” Ares declared. “Evil. Corrupted. Unworthy. End her, Diana,” he cooed.
Diana stood surrounded by the carnage she had wrought and the wreckage Ares had created—destructors, the both of them. War drums thundered in her soul. Steve was dead. And this woman’s blood was on his hands.
“Do it!” The God of War commanded.
She held the tank overhead, her anger threatening to overtake her. Her hatred.
Then the image of Steve’s face filled her mind. Their last moment together, when she had been deafened by the shower of simultaneous grenade explosions, replayed from the beginning. Now she heard him speaking; she heard it all for the first time:
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe. But I’d given up believing in so much.” His voice caught. “Until I met you. From the first day I saw you, you were everything I ever wanted to believe in. You can do this, Diana. I know you can.” He paused, eyes glistening. “But I have to go.”
“What?” she cried.
“Now!” Charlie yelled.
He looked over at the team, then back at her. “I wish we had more time.”
“No,” she said desperately. “What are you saying?”
“It’s okay. This is what I came here to do. I can save today, but you… you can save the world.”
He pressed his watch into her hand. She looked at it, confused, then looked up to see him running away.
His face reappeared—one last look, lingering, regretful. His heart was breaking. She focused hard, choking back sobs, and heard his voice all around he
r:
“I love you.”
Then she was back in the present, an Amazon again, and not the half-sister of the craven murderer of their father.
I am an emissary of peace. I am not a wanton killer.
She realized then that she was under Ares’ spell. She was caught in his thrall. His poison was filling her mind, her heart, and her soul. She was not a creature made for vengeance. She had been created to bring harmony to mankind. To show them love. She looked at Maru, trembling and panting.
Dr. Poison, terrified, and alone.
And in that moment, she grasped what Steve had been trying to tell her: that, yes, mankind possessed the ability to be destructive, and cruel—but there was goodness in them that could be nurtured, and could grow—that no matter their flaws and shortcomings, they had the capacity to act through love—to be selfless, and kind, and heroic.
To be like Steve Trevor.
Was it the foreordinance of the Amazons to punish humanity for its shortcomings?
“No,” Diana said quietly to herself.
When she opened her eyes, they gave off a golden glow. She had been transformed; she knew what love was. Power thrummed through her as never before. It was so strong. It was more than hatred. More than compassion. It was a force unto itself, and the strongest weapon that she could wield.
“You’re wrong about them,” she told Ares. She lowered the tank. Dr. Maru stumbled to her feet and fled.
Thwarted, he exploded into a snarling, vicious rage, filling the sky with ash and storm. He raised his hand and launched a storm of swords at her—hundreds of them—but she deflected them with the blast from her crossed bracelets.
“No!” Ares howled.
“‘And they were created in his own image,’” she said, reciting the story her mother had told her so many times. “‘They were fair and good, strong and passionate.’”
She walked calmly toward the God, her own power now transforming the storm into harmless gentle rain, as if her very presence was negating his power.
“Lies!” he shouted. Seething with fury, he gathered up the wild storm clouds and within them the fury, power, and majesty of Zeus’s own heavens, and hurled them at her. But they dispersed harmlessly against her once more.
She said, “‘The Gods made us, the Amazons, to influence men’s hearts with love and to restore peace to the world.’”
“Love?” Ares scoffed. “The love my father gave them? The love my father never gave me!”
His shimmering horned form revealed itself, hovering around him like a ghost. His attempted blow did nothing, and Diana continued walking toward him.
“I saved them once,” Ares said. “But they didn’t deserve it. They do not deserve your protection.”
And the words of Steve Trevor echoed through her voice: “It’s not about what they deserve. It’s about what you believe.”
And I believe in love, thought Diana.
Ares crackled with lightning. The blaze coursed down his arms, coalescing in his hands. Again there was a shimmering of his true form and then it was gone.
“Then I will destroy you!” he shrieked.
Diana leaped into the air as he unleashed a massive lighting blast, not just one strike but hundreds, a barrage like no other. It came at her and came at her and came at her as the bullets and the mortars and the soldiers had come at her; as grief had come at her, and as hatred. Hitting her over and over in retaliation—his vengeance, his grief—a tidal wave of the pent-up fury of a God whose own creator had despised him.
Absorbing the heat and the force, Diana pressed closer, then she swung up her arms and crossed her bracelets in mid-air.
“Goodbye, brother,” she said.
Booooooosh! Ares’s final barrage of lightning hit them; they glowed blue and she grimaced against the searing pain. She held the pose, held it, and held it until, like the release of a coiled spring, the full force of the energy, more powerful than all the bombs ever made, shot back into Ares. His scream was like that of ten thousand men. Then he burst apart in a blaze of light that shook the world, and cratered the ground below.
The God of War was no more.
* * *
Dawn.
The rain washed the blackened smoke from the sky, and rosy colors of sunrise washed the world. Soldiers were rousing as if awakening from a nightmare—the better side of man was returning. They pulled off their gas masks like players in a Greek tragedy. Diana did not see Dr. Maru among them.
Charlie, Sammy, and the Chief stood together, still alive; the Germans were leaving them alone. Then they began shaking hands. Helping one another. Leaving the war behind.
A last flake of ash swirled around the Daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta. She lifted her head to the breaking sun. And in the surround of silence, she heard a greater silence.
Steve’s pocket watch had stopped ticking.
EPILOGUE
“Some say an army of horsemen,
some footsoldiers, some of ships,
is the fairest thing on the black earth,
but I say it is what one loves.”
—Sappho
Wonder. Such wonder.
All over the world, church bells pealed and huge throngs cheered, and laughed and danced in the streets. The Great War, the War to end all wars, was over. And in Trafalgar Square, London, wonderful chaos overtook humanity like a wild bacchanal. Confetti and streamers seeded the sky with joy. Flags whipped in the breeze. Horns and brass bands cheered soldiers wearing crowns of flowers, grabbing pretty nurses for a kiss. Drums thundered, but they were not war drums. They were the chants, the rhythms of peace.
Diana and Etta Candy walked together toward the packed square. Diana was dressed as Diana Prince, hair up, glasses on. Etta had put on something new and pretty for the occasion, and they took in the joy of the celebration.
Charlie, Sammy, and the Chief joined them. Together they reached the recently erected wall of war memorial photographs, photographs of the fallen warriors who had given their lives in defense of England and her allies. Flowers, ribbons, and notes were attached to the lists.
And there he was. Diana’s throat tightened as she spotted Steve’s photograph. A slightly younger Steve in a pilot’s flight gear standing beside a plane. So dashing and happy, eager for his life to begin. So very much alive.
Tears welled; she smiled through them as she touched the picture. Steve had loved her, and he was gone. But the love that he had kindled inside her had not gone. It had grown, and it encompassed all of humanity. These cheering people, this planet of wonder.
Paris
The Present
Power.
Grace.
Wisdom.
Wonder.
I used to want to save the world, Diana thought.
A hundred years later, she was standing in her office in the Louvre, gazing at the photograph she had originally tried to steal from Lex Luthor. She had discovered that he had already known about her and had been collecting information on her, and had somehow acquired the photo. She wanted the sepia print of Charlie, Sammy, the Chief, Steve, and her, in the little town of Veld, for a far more sentimental reason. It was that attempt to take the photograph from Luthor’s headquarters that had tipped off Bruce Wayne—Batman—that she was not of this world. Not precisely, anyway.
To end war and bring peace to mankind.
Her gaze lingered on the image of Steve. The people in the photograph were dead now. They were mortals, subject to the commands of time. If only she and Steve had had more of it.
But now I know… I’ve touched the darkness that lives in between the light. Seen the worst of this world, and the best. Seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred… and the lengths they’ll go to for love.
Now I know. Only love can save the world.
She took a breath.
She lifted Steve’s watch from her pocket, turning it over in her hand, then over again, feeling its smoothness. It had stopped ticking the moment he
had died. That moment was frozen now, forever, in time.
She placed the watch beside the photograph, then typed out an e-mail to Bruce Wayne:
Thank you for bringing him back to me.
So I stay. I fight and I give for the world I know can be. This is my mission forever.
Just as she hit send, she heard the wail of sirens. Moments later, dressed in her Amazonian armor, she stood atop a building, scanning the cityscape of Paris. In the distance, flames colored the horizon. A fire. People in danger.
There. Time to go to work.
Wonder Woman leaped off the roof and launched into action.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New York Times bestselling author Nancy Holder has written numerous tie-in novels for properties including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Grimm, and Beauty & the Beast, and her film novelizations include Ghostbusters and Crimson Peak. A four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, she is the author of dozens of novels, short stories, and essays on writing and popular culture.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Book I: Amazon
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Book II: Warrior
8
9
10
11
12
13
14