The Cost

by R. W. Holmes

  “Lord of the bloodthirsty, sire of war dogs and anguish alike, cry out from the fire of the first circle and speak with me!”

  The mercury shimmered slightly, and the image reflected within turned reddish as it displayed the brilliantly deep red walls of War's palace.

  “Still alive” War said approvingly. “That's good. Victories create respect, and respect from one's enemies creates breathing room.”

  “Yeah, about that still alive part...” Gael started awkwardly. “You remember Angelica, right? Because she's alive again.”

  Angelica maneuvered around the room so that she was visible to the reflection and waved nervously.

  “Is that a future thing?” asked War. “Because-,”

  “No, that's what I'm calling you about” Gael interrupted. “Death sent her back, and now he says she owes him a favor.”

  The corner of War's eldritch lip twitched slightly as he repressed a scowl. “That is not good” he said plainly. “If Death knows, then the other horsemen know. Avoid contact with them at all costs, or they'll start tempting you with things when you're desperate.”

  “Is that what he did to me?” asked Angelica. “What does he want?”

  “I don't know” War replied honestly. “But it is more than you want to pay. Death is an extraordinarily smart thing when it wants to be, so I don't imagine you'll realize what you've given up until far after you've done it.”

  Emily scoffed and shook her head. “I still can't believe you give all of this for free.”

  “As long as Gael is alive, there will be more like him” replied War. “That's good enough for me. Pestilence and Famine and Death may want it all, but I am not greedy.”

  “To be fair, you all have been roped into a war” said Cypress.

  “I'm almost a little disappointed that Angelica has returned” War continued nonchalantly. “That baphomet spawn of hers would've been wonderful to torture, what with there being a purpose for it for once...”

  “I had no way of knowing!” Artemis bellowed fearfully. “You told no one of-,”

  “Shut up!” hissed War. “You have evaded being made an example of for now, but rest assured: if Angelica ever returns to Hell before her proper time, I will see to it that you waste away in agony.”

  Gael leaned back where he sat, putting his weight on his arms as they stretched back behind him, and sighed. “Somehow I was hoping you'd have something to say about how we could get the R'lyehans and The Fae to fuck off.”

  “So you could return to a normal life?” queried War. “Of course I know how to do that, but it involves you recruiting several additional summoners and crushing your enemies beneath my iron fist.”

  “How about one imp with all nine fires of Hell?” asked Zinerva. “What would that do?”

  “An incredible amount of damage” admitted War. “But you're still decades away from that, Gael. I should probably warn you not to try any of-,”

  War never finished what he was saying, as Zinerva had conjured the blue flame of the ninth circle for him to see.

  “How?” he asked instead.

  “It killed me” admitted Gael. “But I reverse summoned my soul back to Zinerva, who was still alive, and she put my soul back in my body.”

  Angelica looked to Kennedy in shock and whispered, “Oh my God, I really thought you were kidding...”

  War, meanwhile, had been sitting stone-faced with a level gaze set upon Gael.

  “You just outclassed King Solomon” he said plainly. “And you didn't need a magic ring from an archangel to pull it off. I should have expected more from the man who discovered how to summon demons with nothing to go on, but I couldn't have imagined your instincts for this being that strong. I'm almost disappointed, really.”

  “Why?” asked Gael. “Isn't this a good thing?”

  “Of course!” exclaimed War. “But you've done it. You're at the end. I don't believe there is anything I could teach you that you wouldn't just 'figure out' as you went along. What point is there to learn when you've found a way to cover any life-ending mistakes you might make along the way?”

  “Well then what am I supposed to do?” asked Gael. “Just sit here and enjoy my superiority?”

  “No, absolutely not” War insisted. “You push. I've never heard of someone reverse summoning themselves back from a soul ejection, and I've been around since the beginning. Look for more to learn, and I will help you in any way I can.”

  “That's good” said Kennedy. “Because, you know, no one told Gael or I that trying to do too much would kill us.”

  The flight, relatively long as it was, began grinding to a halt as the ship collided with Mars's atmosphere. To those of a far past era, Mars having an atmosphere might sound strange, but the process of terraforming planets had been one of the finer, if not dated achievements of humanity overall.

  To everyone on Emily's ship though, the fact that Mars had an atmosphere didn't even warrant being mentioned. It did, however, wake the group up from a much needed nap.

  “Oh!” Emily exclaimed as the ship lurched against the sudden arrival of air resistance. “That's my cue. Everyone, take a seat and brace for landing. I've rented a private hangar to keep the ship at, so you might want to think about how we're going to drive everyone in to Eiffel.”

  Like the dart the ship resembled, Emily's vessel soared into place over the hangar at several hundred miles per hour, before coming to an abrupt and off-putting stop directly overhead. The hangar's roof opened then, its cheap, thin metal ceiling lifted by the ancient motors powering the doors.

  Set against the backdrop of long fields of tall, yellow grass and a red sky, Gael and co. finally landed on Mars's surface.

  “This is your captain speaking” Emily called out over the ship's intercom. “We are now landed on Mars, fourteen miles from Eiffel's city limits. The skies are clear, and the weather is a cool sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit. The hangar's address is 443 Wamapoke Road, and as luck would have it there is a vehicle rental center across the street. Welcome to Eiffel.”

  “Ugh...” Shay groaned as she rolled her eyes. “She does that every time. Even when it's just us.”

  “It's nice to know the weather though” said Kennedy, a smile on his face as he stood up and stretched. “Who here knows how to drive?”

  “I do” said Angelica. “Don't you?”

  “No, I always had a chauffeur” Kennedy replied with a shrug. “Also, I need to call my dad to ask for more money, and I'll be talking about what happened on Enterprise Island for an hour when that happens.”

  Angelica, eyes raised incredulously, looked to Gael next.

  “I'm from Boston!” exclaimed Gael. “They have auto-rails going everywhere there. Heck, my family hasn't ever even owned a car!”

  Emily returned from the cockpit then, and was relieved to see everyone getting up to go.

  “Yes, good” she said approvingly. “We need to get you all settled. Oh, and Shay? Go run a loop on the security cameras. I don't want there to be footage of a group exactly our size landing here.”

  “And what about me?” asked Artemis. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Show off” Kennedy replied with a smirk. “Eiffel is the body modder capital of the galaxy. There's going to be a lot of strange looking people, and the best thing you can do is just pretend you were born human and own it.”

  “Having Zinerva and Cypress around you will help” added Emily. “And learn to smile. Smiles make everyone appear more friendly.”

  Artemis smiled, and everyone else resisted the urge to scream. His smile, like every other smile he'd ever made, was a bloodthirsty mess that left everyone in the room feeling like they were his next victim.

  “On second thought, try your hardest to look tough and unapproachable” said Emily. “People will think it's an act.”

  “I am tough and unapproachable” Artemis stated proudly.

  “He did kill one of us” Gael added in agreement. “You can see the murder in his eyes.”
>
  “Don't listen to him” Zinerva said to Artemis. “You have very pretty eyes. It's actually kind of weird, because I've looked up pictures of goats, and their eyes are very different. “

  The short walk off of the ship felt longer than expected for Gael and Kennedy, if only because getting to where they were had taken far longer for them than anyone else. Even there, on the outskirts of some random city far off from where any R'lyehans might be, they still felt themselves convinced that some enemy was waiting around the next corner.

  It wasn't, though, and before long Kennedy had succeeded in renting a pickup truck, much to Zinerva's delight.

  Like Artemis, she hopped in the truck's rear exposed bed and enjoyed the feeling of the wind in the air as plains of yellow grass fell away to the brilliantly reflective skyscrapers stretching up from downtown Eiffel.

  “Wow...” Zinerva mumbled in awe. “It looks a lot better when you're actually on the ground.”

  “A castle of ignorance” remarked Artemis. “Built by fools who care more about how others see their accomplishments than how they see them themselves.”

  “Wow again” said Zinerva, this time with a completely different sense of awe. “I didn't know you had opinions.”

  Artemis scowled. “Would you tell these jokes if there were no one around to hear them?”

  Zinerva paused uncertainly and said, “I don't know. I'd still think them, though.”

  “Then you are no different from the fools in the city” said Artemis. “You agree to look amazed at each others accomplishments purely because you desire it for yourself. I am not weak, so I do not need such things to prop me up.”

  Zinerva stared back at Artemis thoughtfully for a second, before saying, “You care an awful lot about people thinking you're strong, don't you?”

  Artemis raised his chin defiantly and sullenly turned to face the skyscrapers in the distance, snarling all the while.

  “Don't worry” Zinerva said as scooted across the truck bed and cozied up to him. “I think you're strong.”

  Within the vehicle, Kennedy was bracing himself for the conversation to come as he dialed his father's number on the clear, plastic rectangle that was his phone.

  “This might get messy” he said aloud. “So, uh, don't freak out if things get loud.”

  Shay leaned forward from where she sat on Emily's lap and asked, “Are you telling us that, or yourself?”

  “Myself” admitted Kennedy. “I just-,”

  The other line picked up, and Kennedy was forced to respond.

  “Hey, dad, yeah it's-,” Kennedy started, before a very violent burst of noise erupted from his phone and forced him to pull away.

  “Lots of screaming about how you're okay, I'm guessing” Gael mumbled knowingly.

  Kennedy nodded back, and then moved the phone a few more inches away from his ear.

  “Yeah, I got off okay” said Kennedy. “Also, dad, you need to know something. This stuff was really messed up. I was at ground zero! And Allen Olmstead was there!”

  “I know!”

  Kennedy, and everyone else in the car jumped slightly as Kennedy's father's voice screamed through the phone.

  “What do you mean you know?” Kennedy asked in bewilderment.

  “I think we'd all like to hear that answer” Cypress said quickly.

  “Dad, hold on for a second” said Kennedy. “I'm with friends, so I'm putting you on speaker.”

  “-n speaker!? Why the hell do your friends need to know there was a firefight on the front lawn of our villa ten minutes ago?” Kennedy's father screamed angrily. “I had my bodyguards run a background check on the ones we killed, and they all had connections to Olm Industries!”

  “Yeah, well, they're the ones who brought down Enterprise Island” said Kennedy. “This guy I met, Gael-,”

  “Hi” Gael called out awkwardly.

  “Yeah, that's him” continued Kennedy. “He, uh... Listen, it's hard to explain, but Allen kind of wants to kill me just for knowing what Gael does. We're trying to hide out right now while things calm down, and it's really fucked up, because there's a third organization and... Dad, listen, we need to lock down a place to stay. I want to explain everything to you, but right now we've got a whole lot to worry about and I've only got, like, four thousand dollars in my account.”

  “Fine, fine, just tell me where you are” Kennedy's father said quickly. “I'll send someone to help pro-,”

  “This call might be being monitored” Emily called out quickly. “If you're willing to wait, Mr. Adams, I can set up a secure line for you and your son to talk.”

  “Who the hell was that?” snapped Kennedy's father.

  “That's Emily” said Kennedy. “Don't worry about her, she's great. A bunch of people showed up when everything started getting crazy, and she's the only one who didn't try to kill us. Mostly because her organization is made up of victims from the other organizations...”

  “Then this isn't a ransom call?” Kennedy's father said suspiciously. “If it is, say it. I can afford the ransom, and-,”

  “It's not a ransom call!” Emily and Kennedy shouted back in unison.

  “I live on my ship” added Emily. “The ship that I used to get your son to safety. I will never see a cent of the money you send your son.”

  “Fine...” groaned Kennedy's father. “This works out, actually. Your mother will be here in a few hours, call me back then.”

  The phone clicked off, and Kennedy was left staring at in surprise.

  “What?” Gael asked with a smirk. “Did that go better than you thought it would?”

  “Uh, no, that was pretty typical” Kennedy replied awkwardly. “A lot shorter, sure... It's just that my parents have been separated for two years now. They haven't been in the same room since.”

  Chapter 12

  Redemption

  “This is the one I really wanted to show you...”

  Gael, Kennedy, and Angelica exchanged hesitant glances as the Realtor they'd rung up ushered them towards a very old fashioned brick and mortar building nestled squarely on the edge of the city's downtown area.

  “It's a duplex” the pert, easily excited woman added excitedly. “It's in a great part of town, too. You can walk practically anywhere! The whole thing is for sale, and the attic was recently converted into a third studio apartment.”

  “That's amazing, Judy” Angelica said as she and the others followed their Realtor up to the door.

  “Oh, I'm not finished” Judy replied giddily. “The best part...”

  Everyone paused, hanging on the Realtor's words as she fumbled with her keys. Finally, the door clicked as its lock was released, and Judy threw it open.

  “It's fully furnished and move in ready!” she declared triumphantly.

  Gael, Kennedy, and Angelica stepped inside and looked around. It was brightly lit, every bit as furnished as Judy had claimed, and lacked any alarming odors. As they surveyed the place and suffered through Judy's feverish and often off topic rambling, they found it also to be undamaged and perfectly capable of housing them and their demons.

  As they finished inspecting the smallish studio apartment that now comprised the building's third floor, Kennedy shot a questioning look to Gael and Angelica. When he received a nod, he called Judy over to speak with her.

  “It's perfect” he said bluntly. “We'll take it.”

  Judy paused. “What?” she said, taken aback.

  “I said we want to buy it” replied Kennedy. “At asking price, if you think that's good enough. Is cash alright?”

  Ten minutes later, Gael and Angelica returned to the pick-up truck where Emily watched over their demons.

  “How'd it go?” Emily asked hopefully.

  “Kennedy is buying it right now” replied Gael. “The owner already accepted, it's just paperwork now. Which is good, because we really can't say no to this place.”

  “It's gorgeous inside!” gushed Angelica. “And yeah, the curb appeal sucks, but we kind of don't
want to be noticed, so that's perfect too.”

  “It's also a... triplex?” Gael added uncertainly. “I don't know, the first two floors are a duplex, but the third floor is one big studio apartment. Zinerva, that's where we'll be staying.”

  “YES! TOP FLOOR!” Zinerva cried out excitedly. “Can we go up to the roof? I need an easel! I wanna paint the city!”

  “Geeze, calm down” said Angelica. “And I'm not going to just sit around like this while we wait for Kennedy's offer to be accepted. Artemis, come on. We're going for a walk.”

  “To do what?” asked Emily.

  “I don't know, check out the neighborhood?” Angelica said as Artemis hopped out of the truck bed.

  Gael narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Emily as Angelica left. She had, the moment Angelica turned away from her, winked twice at nothing. Looking around, Gael then realized that Shay, wherever she might be, was currently invisible.

  “What are you doing?” asked Gael.

  “I'm... sending Shay to keep an eye on her” replied Emily. “Maybe it's because I think she might be up to something, and maybe it's because going out alone isn't all that safe right now. I haven't decided yet.”

  Gael grimaced and shook his head. “If... When you find out she was being honest, you owe her something. Probably an apology.”

  “She knows we have a reason or two to be suspicious” Emily replied dismissively. “She'll understand.”

  “Okay” said Gael. “Then you can tell her you did it afterward.”

  Emily frowned as Gael helped Zinerva out of the truck bed.

  “Come on, Cypress” Gael called out to Kennedy's demon. “It's time for you to find out what home looks like.”

  The job of tracking was one Shay was very familiar with. She knew not to expect much excitement, and her expectations were properly tempered by the foresight to remind herself that she was stalking someone who, until very recently, was extremely ordinary. Unfortunately, no matter how 'prepared' Shay was, going into a church was still difficult for her.

  And that's exactly what Angelica did.