The floor where they now stood appeared to have been taken from some sort of castle or palace. It felt neither old nor martial enough to be one of the old fortresses dotting the English landscape. But neither did it seem new enough to qualify for the term “palace” instead. He considered asking about it, but did not.
Signs that transformed themselves into English when he looked at them listed off various facilities, including an indoor pool that only appeared when a siren-like alien named Helth—or Gelth, Gideon never could master the peculiar consonant in mer name—visited. A moment's sweep across the spacious room told him in which direction the dining hall had relocated, and they went that way.
Two steps into the dining hall, which today had a bizarrely crystalline feel to it, he heard someone with a thick Mediterranean accent calling his name.
“Gideon!” the man called again, allowing him to pinpoint the location of the call.
Gideon's face broke into a grin and he raised the hand not currently wrapped around Catherine's elbow. He waved. “Leonidas!”
At his side, Catherine stiffened for a moment. Unlike her earlier reactions, this one was natural. Her attempt to control it took less than a heartbeat and if Gideon had not been touching her when it happened, he knew he never would have noticed.
“Come,” he said. “Let me introduce you to my friend.”
“Perhaps we should not.”
“Nonsense,” he replied. “I've known Leonidas for years now. It won't delay dinner more than a minute and,” Gideon laughed, “if Sam's working this evening, it won't delay dinner at all.”
Catherine tagged along, lingering a half step behind Gideon the entire way. She was not hiding, per se, but clearly continued to think that approaching Leonidas was a bad idea. She kept her hand in the crook of his elbow and did not attempt to lead Gideon in any other direction, however.
As he drew closer, Gideon noticed that between Leonidas and his tablemate, they had consumed a great deal of food and drink and seemed to be working their way through still more. The Spartan’s personal clock was dramatically different from Gideon’s. For him, it was likely very early morning. He suspected Leonidas had taken a contract and had woken up early that morning to engage in the same ritual in which he took part before every mission since the slaughter at Thermopylae—eat well, for tonight he might be dining in hell.
Leonidas's beard and hair had been freshly oiled, but the tunic he wore looked like any other. Gideon supposed the short, stocky man would be changing into his armor later. Like Ruben, and like Gideon himself, Leonidas preferred weaponry that felt like the things he was born with, despite their enhancements.
His tablemate had a similar air of aristocracy about him, but the other man was clad in only a red cloak and what appeared to be leather briefs. His hairless musculature could not have been sustainable with natural human metabolism, which might have explained the massive stack of plates and mugs next to him.
Leonidas stood up and wiped grease on the hem of his tunic. He extended a hand to Gideon, smiling, then his eyes slid to the side and went wide. He dropped to one knee with his hands clenched into fists and placed on the floor.
“Forgive me, my lady. I did not recognize you.”
“Rise, King of Sparta,” Catherine said.
Leonidas did so, his back ramrod straight.
“Relax,” Catherine said, smiling. She touched Leonidas and he jumped in a way Gideon had never seen.
He took a breath, seeming to force the tension out of his muscles. Another breath and he looked at Gideon again, and again raised his hand to shake. When Gideon took it, Leonidas said, “I apologize. It's simply that I wasn't expecting your,” his eyes slid sideways again, “companion.”
Gideon filed that away in the list of things to ask about later. Aloud, he said, “it's alright. We were just coming down for dinner before heading out. Who's your friend?”
Leonidas laughed and motioned for his tablemate to stand. “Gideon Wallace, allow me, Leonidas of Sparta to present my newest acquaintance.” His grin widened. “Leonidas of Sparta.”
The other Leonidas towered over the one Gideon knew, standing just under Reuben Santiago's height. He extended a hand and, in an accent that was decidedly not Greek, said, “a pleasure to meet you, Gideon.”
“You as well,” he replied, then with a laugh, “Leonidas.”
“Yes, it seems he and I are one and the same man but from very different worlds.” The big man turned to Catherine and extended a hand. She took it and he bent low to kiss it. “A pleasure, indeed.”
After the larger Leonidas sat down, Gideon turned back to the one he knew and said, “I won't keep you. Good luck out there, today.”
“You as well,” Leonidas replied. Again, he gave Catherine a momentary side-eye. “I fear you'll need it.”
They stepped away from the Greeks, but before they were out of earshot, and thus at a distance where Gideon would have asked his question, he caught Leonidas's voice as he raised it for emphasis.
“Gideon... this morning... with Artemis!”
Gideon became aware of the sudden hitch in his step about the time Catherine's iron grip caught and steadied him.
“Artemis?” he asked.
The demure smile was almost frustrating in its mystery this time. “Many people have many names, Gideon.”
“Yes, but that was Leonidas, man from a time when...”
The rest of his explanation was cut short by a portal opening in the middle of the dining room. While it was possible, it was bad form. The Inn had doors for a reason, everyone who came through more than once knew that. Even Gideon's portal generator emptied out into a void on the opposite side of whatever the Inn decided was its front door at that moment.
Opening a portal in the middle of the dining room was just rude.
A figure in black armor stepped through. Instead of a face, a visor, or something that might have been considered appropriate for the facial region, the newcomer simply presented a convex black mesh of metal.
He raised an armored blue glove, the only color on the entire outfit, and extended a finger. The other hand held a wickedly curved sword whose blade was as matte black as his armor. “Are you Gideon Wallace?”
Gideon's hand instinctively went for his gun. Leveling it, he replied, “I am.”
“Come with me,” the armored figure said. “We have located Vox.”
Gideon cursed silently. To Catherine he said, “it would seem our dinner date has been interrupted.”
“Perhaps not.” She pointed to the table nearest the portal where a young man was leaving two metallic lunchboxes, clearly labeled with their names.
Gideon snatched up the box with his name on it. From the heft, it was either full, armored, or both. “Thanks, Sam.” He looked around, but the Innkeeper was nowhere in sight.
“How does he do it?” he mumbled. Louder, “Catherine? Is he one of yours?”
“Perhaps,” she said, “but most likely he works for our mutual friend, the General.”
With faux hurt, he asked, “I'm not the only one you have looking for Vox?”
“Time is short,” rumbled the hulking, armored figure.
Catherine smiled at Gideon. “You're not, no. You're just the only one looking for Taimethis.”
“Well,” he gestured to the sabre-armed man. “Lead the way.”
***
Gideon emerged into a war-zone. It reminded him of his first meeting with Sid; the feeling of that dense, dark forest was impossible to forget. The darkness punched through with sparks of lights, the shouts of anger and pain, and death on the chill winds all felt the same.
Through it all, shrill and piercing not because of the sound itself but because Gideon knew what was on the other end, chains clattered and creaked. Vox liked darkness; it had no effect on the blind man's ability to fight and kill. The hulking soldier, his work done, disappeared into the darkness in seconds. As he moved, twirling the black saber around himself like a protective wind of ste
el, only the blue of his gloves remained visible.
Gun in hand, Gideon pivoted on his heels to follow the figure into the smothering darkness. He could hear the chains as they moved, cracking and snapping through the air. When he went to bed the night before, Gideon was sure Vox was gone forever—erased from time, ripped apart at the molecular level, or whatever happened to matter caught in Corinthus's portal cascade.
With preparation, he might have changed out some of the elements in his gun. Against an enemy like Vox, Gideon had little need for non-lethal options, especially any that would disorient his target. On the other hand, the focused-gravity cannon masquerading as a twenty-gauge shotgun barrel would come in handy provided he could get a bead on Vox long enough to...
Catherine's iron grip interrupted his thoughts and Gideon realized he had only gone a few paces since exiting the portal. It shimmered behind him still, impossible blackness wreathed in colors the human eye was not meant to process.
“No,” she said. Her voice held every ounce of iron that he felt in her grip and Gideon felt his feet root to that spot. Something more than strength was at work in her hand now. He had felt strong holds, even strength that other universes would have called “heroic” or “superhuman,” but Catherine was something different. Muscular power did not hold him in place, rather it was as though motion itself became impossible the moment she touched him.
The hold permitted him to turn, however, and he pivoted to face her. “No?”
“Like I said, we've got other work to do.”
“I've fought Vox before.”
“Not like this.”
Gideon opened his mouth to ask, but then a flash of thoughts sped across his brain. A million ideas all chained together into a tangled mesh of nonsense. Those ideas, somehow now a physical concept as real as any other, sped away from him, granting him a literal perspective on the bigger picture they made.
Power like heat from a coal stove radiated from the shifting green mass. Even so far away, Gideon could not make out a single discernible shape, then a hole opened next to the green. In the same way that these green thoughts were solid, the hole was everything that matter was not. In the realest sense of the words, the hole was Not Real. It started to swallow the green as Gideon's viewpoint raced toward it.
There, at the fringe of the green, tendrils flowing into his body, hovered Vox. White haired and blank eyed, chains surrounded him like an ever-shifting mass of swords and shields. Across from Vox, on a platform made of the very substance of creation, stood Gideon and his companions. As they fought, pushing Vox ever closer to the hole in reality, more of the green flowed into him.
When Vox finally fell and the hole consumed the green, Gideon saw what he had missed before: Vox never touched the hole. Instead, the green consumed him just shy of the edge of nothingness.
Gideon snapped back to reality and his eyes fixated on a falling leaf, a little island of calm amid the sounds of violence and death ringing in the darkness. His brain knew that leaf had only descended a few centimeters since his vision started.
He locked eyes with Catherine as a wisp of sapphire smoke drifted out of her eyes, lingering on the windless air. That it was her doing was obvious, so he asked the next question birthed by his vision.
“Vox has a piece of Corinthus?”
She nodded. “The last piece, unless he's released it, much like Umbras has a piece of myself.”
“So he's drunk from Mímisbrunnr and I haven't?”
She nodded slowly as a smile crept across her face. “Wrong spring, but you're correct in spirit.”
Gideon did his best to return the sly grin as the reality of his current situation slowly continued to creep in. “I wasn't aware Artemis had a well from which to drink.” He paused. “Catherine.”
She met his eyes for a moment, but did not reply to his comment beyond a slight twist of her lips that might have been a smile. Instead, Catherine gestured in the direction the soldier went. “Umbras is out there with those soldiers. He'll take care of them.”
Gideon raised an eyebrow. “And me? I'm to help you fight this Taimethis character, yes? Why don't we take out Vox first? Surely you, Umbras, and myself would overpower him quickly.”
“We would, but Taimethis would likely escape. Have you ever read those stories, or seen the movies I suppose, where the hero ventures alone into the castle to take out the dragon or the demon or whatever the villain is while the armies battle outside?”
Gideon nodded. “I never much cared for that particular plot device.”
Catherine laughed. “That's too bad, because you're in one of those stories right now.”
Gideon spared another glance into the darkness, ears leading his eyes to the particular patch of black where Umbras and the saber-armed man were fighting Vox.
Turning back to Catherine, he shook his head and laughed. “Lead on, but tell me something.”
She turned as the wind picked up, whipping her lace-trimmed half skirt out to the side like a cloak. Without checking to see if Gideon was following, she replied, “ask away.”
“Why here?”
“Because this is where Vox is and where Vox is, Taimethis will be.”
“Are you sure?”
Her shoulders tensed. “I can feel him, Gideon.”
“I can accept that, but why here?”
“Trust me, I'm going to ask.” Even with her back turned, the sound of her voice carried the tension of a taught neck and clenched teeth.
Gideon sped up. “Catherine, I,” he placed his hand on her shoulder. Beneath the brown silk of her bolero, her skin was inhumanly hot to the touch, like that of someone fresh from the sauna. She had not been so warm before. Gideon reasoned it was a byproduct of whatever she was doing to prepare for the fight ahead.
If she was aware of the unnatural temperature of her skin, Catherine said nothing about it. Instead, she quirked that same perplexing smile. “Yes?”
“I assume you've got a plan.”
Her expressive features fell for a moment. “I have,” she admitted, “part of a plan.”
“Part?” He tightened his grip on her shoulder, conscious of her sauna-hot body temperature and his complete inability to stop her from moving if she did not want him to.
She relented, however, and her temperature started to cool. “In this reality, Taimethis could eradicate you with little effort.”
Gideon narrowed his eyes. “But he won't?”
“Oh, he would. Your last sight would be a ravening surge of energy, from either his eyes or his hands. It would,” the smirk returned, “depend on his mood.”
“Comforting.”
“You fought Corinthus.”
“Corinthus could not shoot death rays out of his eyes.”
“He could have, but when you fought him, you did so in a place that put you on equal footing.”
Gideon eyed her. “And you're going to take us there.” It was not a question.
“It won't be easy,” she admitted. “I can't just take him away.”
A smile spread across Gideon's face. “We've got to trick him.”
“That's where you come in. Standing this close to me, you're masked by my,” she stopped, thinking.
“Aura?” Gideon offered.
“That's not quite right, but it'll do. You're more like a candle standing next to a star. No offense.”
“I'll decide if I'm offended after we're sure I'm going to survive.”
Catherine laughed, smiling. “I knew I went to find you for a reason.”
“But,” he said, “if we're to stop Taimethis, I'm sure there would have been others more suited to your task.”
“I don't believe so,” she replied. The enigma that was her facial expression deepened. A dozen emotions flickered by in an instant. Her black lips curled into something that might have been a smile if Gideon had been capable of understanding her mind just then.
Before he could say anything about it, she indicated the pistol in his hand and the pocket w
here he kept his portal controller. She then said, “you have two weapons. Three, if we count your mind. Allow me to give you another.”
“Ano—”
His question was cut short as Catherine pulled him in close and her lips found his. Her skin, still far too warm to be human, seemed to leech heat into his body in those few glorious seconds.
He stumbled away as she released him. Shaking his head, the fog cleared, and Gideon asked, “for luck?”
“No,” she replied. “Well, perhaps. But now you possess a very tiny amount of my power concentrated in a shield. It will do two things. First, it will hide you from Taimethis until he can see you directly.”
“Useful.”
“Second,” she continued, “it will protect you once from his power.” Her eyes widened. “Now run, hide. You'll know when the time is right.”
Without hesitation, Gideon turned and sprinted into the darkness. A hair-raising feeling on his neck told him which way to go. As long as he kept that feeling of power at his back, his path took him away from Catherine and, he assumed, Taimethis.
After a minute's run through dark trees, Gideon slowed. His eyes were good, but breaking his nose on a tree trunk would be a bad start to this fight. He turned to his right, moving slowly now as the feeling of power pricked at the side of his neck.
Another minute passed and a brilliant blue glow, the same color as the smoke he had seen from Catherine's eyes after his vision, lit up part of the forest. A few meters away from the blue glow, a crimson light source appeared. Neither brightened from dim to full, rather it was like someone switched on two electric lights, instant and without warning.
“Catherine,” a male voice said. He spoke with a warm, honeyed baritone as though addressing an old friend.
“Cut the crap, Taimethis,” Catherine's voice replied.
Taimethis tisked. “Such rudeness. I came to an empty planet so I wouldn't have to worry about any collateral damage while teaching Vox to control his power, and what do I find? I'm not here more than an hour and you've got people trying to kill him.”
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