by ST Branton
Maya took a deep breath, set her jaw, and stepped forward. “Okay, let’s do this.”
“You’ve come a long way since Washington,” I remarked. “I’m proud of you. This shit’s not easy, but we’re making progress.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line. “I just hate it so much.” Her arm swept out to encompass the empty streets, the subtle and not-so-subtle signs of society crumbling down around us. “I hate all of this. It’s like a freaking horror movie, and everyone here is an innocent bystander.” A big breath released from her lungs. “So many people in harm’s way, but so little I can do.”
“Hey, hold on a second.” I laid my hand on her shoulder. “Look at me. You’ve already done a ton—maybe more than anyone else I know. That group back at the safehouse, that kid and his mom? They wouldn’t be anywhere safe if not for you. You’re the one who’s giving them a fighting chance. That’s something to be proud of. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She still seemed doubtful. I nodded my head with conviction. “Like I said, we’re making progress despite it all. There’s nowhere to go from here but up.”
She laughed softly, humorlessly. “Thanks, Vic. But I’m not sure how much progress there is in killing.”
“We don’t hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it,” I reminded her. “Besides, desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Let’s just help as many people as we can and survive. No matter what that means.” I started to move my feet again, guiding her along with me. “Right now, we’re here. This is something we can do.”
“Okay, you’re right. Let’s do this for real.”
Glass crunched under our feet as we approached the pharmacy entrance. I was fully prepared to clamber through another window, but the front door had been pulled clear off its hinges, leaving an entrance that wouldn’t slice Maya to ribbons.
She frowned. “Who the hell smashes a window if they’re just going to break the door anyway?”
A decent question. The instant after she asked it, I heard the answer. It came in the form of wild laughter that reminded me of an unsettling cross between hyenas and braying donkeys. Of course, it was coming from exactly the place where we needed to go. “Nothing can ever be easy,” I muttered. “Oh well. Nobody’s going to miss these assholes anyway.”
“Do you know who’s inside?” Maya asked, her voice hushed. We slunk down an aisle full of toothpaste and mouthwash, heading for the back where the real medicine was. At least the commotion behind the pharmacist’s counter covered any audible trace of our footsteps. A crash shuddered through the air, giving rise to more insane merriment.
“In a manner of speaking.” Yeah, I know exactly who this is. I had seen only one group so far who could possibly fit the bill. I motioned for Maya to stay low. “They’re having too much fun to notice, but let’s get as close as we can before we crash the party.”
We crept all the way up to the patient side of the counter, past the sign marking out the start of the queue. The pharmacy itself lay behind a scuffed shield of bulletproof glass—a sure sign that we were in a rough-and-tumble part of the city. I popped my head up to get a glimpse of what I already knew to be there: a bunch of jackasses in baggy hipster clothes, tearing up the shelves. Some of them had lost their shoes, leaving their cloven feet on full display.
“What the heck?” Maya breathed.
I stood up and drummed my hands on the counter, pulling back the communication slot in the window. “Hey, you pricks. What’s a girl gotta do to get some service around here?” The closest one had his back to me. I could see a biker’s insignia emblazoned on his leather jacket, a long-faced goat with two vicious, sweeping horns. “Nice jacket. How much did you pay for the self-portrait?”
His narrow shoulders began to shake. A torrent of guffaws rose from a mouth that was hanging open when he turned around. I saw the muzzle of the automatic a fraction of a second before it started to flash.
“Holy shit!” Maya dropped to the floor at about the same time that the glass was dusted with pockmarks. It held, but I wondered how many more volleys it could take. The ammunition sputtered out, and the satyr dropped the clip, reaching into a pocket of his drooping jeans for more.
“You ready, Big Bad?” I asked Maya, without turning around. “Time to put these fuckers back on the highway to hell.” In one smooth motion, I whipped out the Gladius Solis, called the blade, and chopped the protective barrier in half. The two huge pieces shuddered, slid, and crashed to the ground. Through the open space, I chucked my sword like a javelin. A hefty thunk put an end to the satyr’s sadistic glee for good. As the faithful hilt returned to my hand, I glanced over my shoulder to check on Maya, and I found myself having to look up instead of down. She towered over me, her eyes gleaming gold. I grinned. “Awesome.”
We jumped the counter.
Maya landed with a roar, seizing the corpse of the newly dead satyr and hurling it at his swarming friends. They came out from the back like a cluster of roaches, screaming, howling, and chanting in their infernal language. She waded into them without fear, even as several brandished similar firearms. I followed in the path she created. The sword met resistance from neither bodies nor weapons. Guns with hands still attached rained bullets on their way to the floor. The sound of ricocheting was constant for the next twenty or thirty seconds.
The Gladius Solis danced, ribbonlike, in my hand. I knew better than anyone how far I still had to go in terms of becoming a master swordsman, but Maya wasn’t the only one visibly improving. That feeling Marcus always talked about, of being one with the weapon, was steadily taking hold. Wielding the sword felt as easy as waving my own arm. In close quarters, I had to be a little more careful about doing the fancy spins and flourishes to which I was becoming accustomed, but the solid bulwark of Maya’s form provided a welcome advantage. The bullets simply didn’t faze her.
I used my werewolf bodyguard as improvised cover. She had apparently learned to harness the strength of her default angry were-state while I was gone. Her glorious berserker rage seemed to make her impervious to intimidation of any kind. She just picked up the leering satyrs and crushed them together, throwing them around the pharmacy. Not quite the refined fighting style that Marcus liked to encourage in me, but I wasn’t about to complain. There was definitely something invigorating about watching sweet little Maya clean the floor with a bunch of baddies.
The satyrs didn’t stand a chance. Maya tore through them, and I made sure the job was done. By the time they were all dead, the pharmacy looked worse than when we found it, boxes and bottles of meds scattered everywhere. I hoped we hadn’t accidentally overdone it.
While I was taking stock of the scene, Maya returned to human form beside me. She swept the hair from her eyes and then immediately began hunting through the supplies. She was too busy to notice, but I saw one of the bodies out of the corner of my eye start to change. The crooked horns crumbled away from the man’s temples as the ragged, wiry beard melted from his face. Those creepy cloven hooves, no longer obscured by his boots, morphed back into human feet.
Weird.
“Found it!” Maya announced triumphantly. “Thank goodness. All of that was worth it now.”
“I hate to tell you, Maya, but you’re a pretty huge badass. That was some serious work you just put in.”
“Yeah, well, you said it first. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ll put it in a box for now and handle the horror later.” She ran back and forth between the shelves for a couple minutes longer, collecting supplies for the safehouse. “I think this is about as good as it’s going to get. We should go back.” Moving toward the counter, she glanced for a moment at the bodies littering the pharmacy. Her lips tightened, but she said nothing. I noticed they were all people now. Bending down, she picked up an oversized coat that had gotten discarded in the chaos. She wrapped it around herself after a brief inspection. “I really need to start carrying some backup clothes,” she murmured, half to herself. “It’s a learning process.” I
gave her a smile “Hey, what do you say we get to the safehouse? I think there’s a life you’ve got to save.”
Chapter Nine
The air outside the safehouse windows was edging down toward actual cold when I finally slipped back out into the encroaching evening. Twilight lit the sky to the west in reds and oranges and purples. Beautiful, but also strangely menacing. I felt like I could sense the gods watching me, tracking my progress north toward my loft. How many eyes did they have out right now, prowling the city unseen by humans? More than I wanted to think about probably.
That didn’t mean I was going to let stealth go by the wayside. There was always the possibility that they were getting cocky, and I could slip under the radar. Maybe I was the cocky one for thinking I could go unnoticed, but I clung to my optimism as I hopped across a never-ending series of slowly darkening rooftops.
Very few lights were on in the hundreds of windows that I passed. Once again, I was struck by the feeling that I was trekking through a ghost town. The thought made the hair rise up on the back of my neck. We were all hurtling through uncharted territory toward an even bigger unknown.
It proved impossible to stay at a consistent height, and I found myself climbing up more fire escapes, getting closer and closer to the sky. I had never been more grateful for the nectar Marcus had given me to save my life. That seemed so long ago now. I barely remembered who I was then, what I felt like, or how I saw the world. I’d spent half a decade seeking justice for what happened to my parents, but their killer, Rocco Durant, was little more than a distant memory.
Don’t relax, a little voice whispered in the back of my mind. The road ahead will be even longer.
The difference between then and now? I was prepared to face it.
Seconds later, I felt slightly less prepared to face the obstacles right in front of me; namely, the widening gaps between rooftops. I made the rookie mistake of peering down over the edge of one, and vertigo instantly clamped down on my stomach. “Don’t be a baby, Vic,” I scolded myself. “You’re like, basically almost a god now, right?”
Okay, that might have been a stretch. I could run fast and lift a lot of super heavy shit, and I could also see pretty well in the dark. My reflexes were crazy good—climbing, swinging, and jumping were all second nature on almost any surface. But the sight of the ground so far below me and the gaps bridged by nothing except open air? That got to me a little.
My heart pounded in my chest, more from adrenaline than fear. I backed up along the concrete terrace and settled into a sort of runner’s stance on the starting block. The countdown began in my head. Three... two… one!
On the imaginary crack of a starting pistol, I shot myself forward with all my strength, catapulting into a dead sprint toward the edge of the roof. A low wall stood between me and nothingness. I cleared it without a second thought, and then I was flying. The urge to yell out bubbled up in my throat, but letting it out would blow my cover. I kept my mouth locked shut until I hit the next rooftop running, both exhilarated and alive. The breath burst out of my lungs. I leaned over for a moment, hands on my knees. Did I really just do that?
Fuck yeah, I did.
I straightened up and checked behind me to see how close it had been. To my surprise, the edge of the roof was some twenty or so feet back. Sure, I had run for a bit after landing, but the margin for error had been way bigger than I expected. This realization filled me with renewed confidence. I felt a twinge of guilt for doubting the gift Marcus had given me, and I made a mental note to thank him again once we were reunited.
Evening continued to fall. The rooftop route was not quite as direct as just running through the streets, but I couldn’t risk being seen by someone who might report back to one of the head honchos. It bugged me that I still didn’t really know who the main players were. My top priority, besides Marcus, had to be finding that out.
I could safely assume that the bronze guy calling himself Beleza had to be a major force. Who else but a god would walk through downtown Manhattan with his dick out, shouting about his own greatness? But what about the woman I’d seen with the chain in her hand? Was she the source of the branded demon infestation?
There was obviously so much I didn’t know, and I hated feeling like I was truly out of the loop for the first time since the slaughterhouse. One thing was abundantly clear: the days of fighting one god at a time were over.
I was so lost in thoughts of the Forgotten that I almost didn’t notice the newest obstacle coming up into my path. I’d fallen pretty quickly into the rhythm of hopping from roof to roof, but the gap that suddenly stretched before me was more like a chasm. Deep in the concrete valley, broken red and white lines of headlights and taillights snaked through the street. The drop was significant. I made myself stop looking down.
The brisk air filled my lungs, chasing the maelstrom of worries from my mind. If I was really about to attempt this little stunt, all my focus needed to be on my body. In the midst of psyching myself up, I noticed with some pride that even after one hell of a day in the middle of a city now at war, I felt decent—or at least no worse for wear. But it was reasonable to expect that battle would be par for the course with these physical enhancements.
Now I was finally getting a chance to figure out what my new limits were. All the leaps so far had been a breeze, including the one that scared me at first. But there was maybe thirty feet of open space between me and the next roof. Maybe this was pushing it. I glanced around to see if an alternate path existed, just in case common sense got the better of me for once.
No such luck. Time to pfut up or shut up.
Ignoring the rise in my pulse, I fixed my eyes straight at the spot where I wanted to land. My feet carried me backward until I nearly lost sight of the edge of the roof. Once more, I fell into that starting position, one leg bent, my hand on the rooftop. The voice in the back of my head counted down. Three… two… one.
Like before, I burst forward on one, pumping my legs as hard as I could. All that distance I’d given myself disappeared like nothing. My foot hit the edge of the building, and then I was sailing up toward the first emerging stars. The rush was intoxicating until I realized I had already hit my zenith and was beginning my descent. I looked down. The other roof wasn’t quite below me.
I gasped, and my stomach flipped. It was impossible to tell if I was going to make it or not. The wind howled past my ears as I plummeted, arms outstretched to maximize my chances of grabbing onto something. I was coming up short.
“Shit. Shit!” My palms slapped against the concrete siding, sending sparks of pain shooting up my wrists. Then the inertia from the rest of my body propelled me forward into the side of the building, knocking the air out of my lungs. I struggled to find a solid hold with my hands and feet. When I managed to haul my ass over the ledge at last, I celebrated the victory by lying on my back for a minute, waiting for my heart to stop jackhammering in my chest.
Man, was I glad Marcus wasn’t there to see that. I would have never heard the end of it. I closed my eyes just for a second. A weird rattling noise filled my ears, and I opened them to see a slender, elegant face directly over mine. Pupils like slits floated in the center of bright yellow eyes. I swore I saw a brief glimpse of a forked tongue flicking in and out.
“Well, well.” The delicate mouth curled into a smile, lips pulling back from the tips of pointed fangs. These were not the brutish fangs of Lorcan’s vamps, though. They were fine and curved, and they gleamed in the dying light. “I was wondering when you might introduce yourself, Earthborn. I am most delighted to make your acquaintance at last.” She drew herself up to her full height as I shot to my feet. The smile didn’t budge from her features. “It’s not very often that one of your kind gets your little hands on a god’s weapon.”
“What do you want?” I was fairly confident that I already knew the answer—so far, they’d all wanted variations on the same theme. To kill me or steal the Gladius Solis. Sometimes both.
She slip
ped one long arm behind her back, withdrawing a pair of familiar iridescent feathers. “I want to talk.” The woman spoke soothingly. “Is that such a crime?” She held out a feather toward me. Her tongue whipped in and out. I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
“The last guy who gave me one of these ended up dead,” I told her. She didn’t rescind the offer or even alter her expression. The yellow eyes bored into me. Unlike the rest of her demeanor, they were cold, relentless. The eyes of a ruthless killer.
I reached out and took the feather. “Look,” I said. “I know the deal. You want a truce of sorts. You think we can join forces, work together, take over the world as a team. You’ve got an offer to make me. I’d be a fool if I refused. I’ve heard all this shit before, and like I said, that guy’s dead now.”
The woman cradled her cheek in her palm, gazing at me as I talked. With every second, her placid smile widened until it finally split into a melodic peal of laughter. Those sharp teeth seemed to dance in her mouth. Again, her tongue flashed. “Oh, you sweet, naïve child, thinking I came here to negotiate with you.” Her golden stare burned. “Not a chance. The sword in your hand may be powerful, but it cannot disguise your true nature. You are still a human, after all. And humans have an annoying tendency to simply… get in the way.” She flicked her long hair. “Besides, I’ve done my research. I knew it would be useless to try to trap you with such obvious bait. No.” The smile disappeared from all but the very corners of her lips. “I’m here to warn you.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Okay, I’ll play along. Warn me about what?” This lady was definitely creepy, but she didn’t make me afraid. Lorcan had talked a big game too.
“The gods are fighting for your city as we speak. Rocca and Beleza believe they will be unequivocally victorious, but they are grievously mistaken. I am the one who will rise above the fallen. I have already claimed this world as my own—it’s only a matter of exterminating the pests. Once wiped from the face of this planet, they will be forgotten, as is their fate.” She took a step toward me. “It would be convenient if I did not need to deal with you as well. Think of it as a matter of deference to your new ruler. This place is my territory. You do not belong. I think it would be mutually beneficial if we could come to an agreement.”