by Unknown
“You’re thinking something.” Athos grinned, lumbering toward Helikon who crawled backward. Athos lowered his hand to the ground and it tremored. Soon after, another light seeped up from the ground and bonded with him. It was Parnes’ essence. “Why are you so afraid?”
“Why have Ra resurrect us if you’re only going to kill us?” Helikon stopped moving, pushing up onto his knees and bowing his head. “I thought you were tired of being alone?”
“At first I was lonely. But then it all became something else.” Athos moved his fingers along Helikon’s face, turning it upward. “Immortality is a joke. Especially when the rules say you need to suffer it quietly. I was once in a theater when I heard a poem say it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. I would argue that—for immortals—to love is only to lose. And if Zeus had one thing to teach us before he abandoned us, it would be that life is nothing without love.”
“I love you, my brother,” Helikon said, grabbing Athos’ hand, kissing it. He rubbed Athos’ palm along his cheek, sobbing. “I want only to start anew.”
“I want only to be done with it all.” Athos rolled his eyes, bored. He looked down at Helikon, pulling his head back by the hair. “The years have left me jaded to existence. We were never as bad as the humans. It’s time for a big bad divinely-inspired soldier to come down here and smite me.”
“I thought you said they were done interfering?”
“One thing is for certain with their kind. If you make enough noise, they’ll all eventually heed the call.”
Athos wrapped both hands around Helikon and drained him of his essence. Helikon’s body shriveled until it looked like it was no more than bones wrapped in dry skin. Athos dropped Helikon to the ground, leaving him on the verge of death.
“I owe it to you to allow you to see the end,” Athos said, stumbling forward as he stepped over Helikon’s body and walked away. “The essence of five immortal beings. I need another.”
Chapter 12
Emma reared back and slapped Nambitu across the face, waking him up. He shook the dizzy and cold feeling from his head, blinking his eyes. His body felt like it had been peeled apart and reassembled. Several hazy human outlines sat and stood around him.
Am I in a pub? he thought.
“Never seen a rift do that to someone before,” Harold said, walking around Nambitu’s back. “He’s useless. We shouldn’t have brought him here.”
“Tell me, you bastard.” Emma grabbed Nambitu by the shirt and tossed him backward. The wooden chair split apart and Nambitu’s head bounced off the cobblestone floor. Emma knelt over him and struck him again. All she could think about as she prepared to rip her prisoner apart was Jonas. “I want to know the Ourea’s name.”
“That’s no way to get what you want.” Harold wrapped Emma up and moved her away from Nambitu. Oreios looked on, watching from his perch atop the bar. Harold sat Emma down at a table. “Calm yourself.”
“I don’t know. I was entertained.” Oreios hopped off the bar and over to Nambitu. He got down on a knee next to the archeologist. “And mildly aroused. Weren’t you?”
“His name is Athos,” Abayomi cried, his body convulsing.
“What?” Oreios snarled, grabbing him by the throat. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” Abayomi responded with a forced croak.
Oreios stood straight, lifting Nambitu off the ground. His arms and legs extended as he made himself taller. He pulled Nambitu in close to his face.
“I saw him die,” Oreios whispered angrily.
“You’ll have to accept that he’s telling the truth.” Harold stood up, grabbing Oreios at the waist.
Oreios looked down at the half-blood, sick of the discussion, and then at Nambitu. He tossed their prisoner across the room. Nambitu landed on a table, splitting it in half. Oreios shrunk back to normal size, looking over at the blonde girl with a strange aura. He was drawn to her, scared even, but decided to take a cautious approach. She covered the eyes of the small boy in her grasp—feeling him tense up—in case he was afraid of all the calamity.
“What is it?” Emma looked back at the two and then toward Oreios.
“That girl...” Oreios said.
“She’s pretty,” Emma replied. “A little young, don’t you think?”
“Baby, you’re all young.” He winked at Emma and approached the teenaged woman and child. “What’s your name?”
“Come, Jaden. We shouldn’t be in here,” she said, turning the boy around and walking away. Oreios grabbed her shoulder to turn her, but she quickly spun and punched him through the torso. A gaping hole erupted in his chest and blew him back several feet. He skidded to a stop. Shocked, she spoke, “I’m sorry.”
“Sometimes a woman really means it when she says no,” Harold laughed.
“Screw you,” Oreios panted, pushing himself up. He analyzed at the young woman, noticing her aura sparkle as her emotions fluctuated. It was almost like he was looking at Zeus. He shook his eyes and opened them again. Madame Patricia approached. “What was that about?”
“You have to understand something, Oreios. She isn’t to be spoken to or touched,” Madame Patricia said, leaning Oreios into a chair. She put her hand over his chest and dust from the ground rose up and made him whole. He looked at her, bewildered. “If Zeus could be considered your father, then the truth is I would be your mother.”
“How?” he asked, grabbing her hand.
“I was the Architect charged with the blueprint to build the Earth. It was the dirt formed from my labor that was fashioned into mankind.” She stood up and looked over at the young woman and boy, motioning with her head for them to leave. “When Zeus had the idea to create his own version of humanity—you—he came to me for guidance. That’s when I showed him how to make the first of you.”
“Me…” Oreios swallowed, breathing heavily. He stared over at Emma and their eyes locked for several seconds until their exchange became awkward. She turned her eyes downward and walked outside. Oreios looked back at Madame Patricia. “The others—”
“—Were his idea.” She offered her hand and led Oreios back to Nambitu.
“I saw Athos die. It was the day of the last great battle. When Michael and the forces of Heaven decimated Vishnu and Zeus’ Legions. I was there when the Elemental Knights of fire, water, wind, and static were wiped out.” He stood over Nambitu, clenching his fists. “I was only able to save a small portion of those who were like me. I searched for centuries for signs of more of my kin. So you see, you must be lying.”
“The Giver of Day brought them back,” Abayomi coughed, wiping the blood away from his face. “He was approached by Athos...”
Oreios raised his hand to smack Nambitu, but Madame Patricia put her fingers to his fist. Her motherly and reassuring demeanor knocked him off-kilter. Her touch carried emotions that had been withheld from his development. He wanted to repel such weakness from within, but reluctantly lowered his hand, calm.
“The others were reborn, but it was Athos who approached the Giver of Day first,” Abayomi said. “I swear it on the life of my family. You see, that’s why I am doing this. I don’t want to help the Giver of Day or Yasser and his band of radicals. Please, I am not the enemy here.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Madame Patricia said.
“How do you know?” Harold asked.
“Because she can see it,” Oreios said, standing in shock.
“What makes you certain?” Harold rolled his eyes.
“Because now he can too.” Madame Patricia smiled, touching Oreios on his face. She looked back at Nambitu, rubbing his shoulders. She asked a question, already sure of the answer. She was hoping to reaffirm her doubt. “Who is this Giver of Day?”
“I don’t know,” Nambitu cried, covering his face. “He can black out the sky and create light from nothingness. They say the first day was his. His skin smelled like char.”
“You know who it is,” Oreios said, looking at Madame P
atricia’s blank expression.
“What did Athos want?” she asked. “Why did this Giver of Day recreate the Ourea?”
“Just four more of them.” Abayomi looked up, sniffling. “That way there would be one for each element.”
“Where do you come into all this?” Oreios walked away, rubbing his face. “Why did they need you?”
“Because I’m an archeologist. I can go places without being looked at twice and retrieve things they need.”
“Like the starstone,” Emma replied, walking back into the room. “Tell us why.”
“For the power to merge a soul and an essence,” Madame Patricia added, nodding. “Ra is too smart to drain his own star to make it happen. Using the power of another Architect and the soul of a pure human, the Ourea can combine their powers.”
“They weren’t doing this for the Ourea to combine powers. They were doing it for the Ourea to gift their abilities to Yasser’s men. They wanted each individual sleeper cell in their organization to be its own weapon. They could walk into any place on the planet to wreak havoc and no government entity would’ve been able to interfere.” Abayomi sighed, taking a calm breath. “I guess in the end, I’m glad Athos betrayed them. Could you imagine what they could have accomplished as an army of religious fanatics willing to lay their life down at a moment’s notice?”
“Like angels,” Oreios quipped under his breath.
“So the killings weren’t religious,” Emma said, confirming her theory. “They were just made to look so to cover their tracks.”
Nambitu nodded. Emma sat down and covered her face. Harold went to put a hand on her shoulder, but she flung her hand up and brushed him away.
“I need a second.” She stood and walked out of the pub. This time, Oreios was on her heels. She turned to watch him follow her outside, rolling her eyes. She put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it. “What do you want? You’ve found your closure. You’re home. Mommy is here.”
“Why is all this important to you?” Oreios asked, pulling the cigarette out of her mouth and stomping on it.
“Hey, I was going to smoke that.”
“It kills.”
“So what? I thought you didn’t mind.” She pulled the last one out of the carton and he smacked it out of her hand.
“Maybe I don’t...”
“And?” she asked.
“Maybe I do,” he said. They stood in silence for a few seconds.
“All of the sudden, your dirty heart has been washed clean?” She laughed, dropping to her bottom. She looked out at the morning sky. “I didn’t think you were capable of love.”
“Very capable,” he said, sitting next to her. The sun rose over the horizon, reflecting off the smooth, rippling waves. “All too capable, in fact. You think about the ones you lose and it doesn’t get any easier with practice.”
“You ever loved someone intimately before?” She looked at him, and he at her. He nodded and she continued to speak. “How did that work out?”
“I’m immortal. She wasn’t. Those relationships always end with heartache.” He put his hand over hers and rubbed her palm with his thumb. “You still have people. Your father needs you...”
“He looks at me and doesn’t know who I am,” she replied, leaning back on the grass. “The last person in my life that could look me in the eyes and call me by name was murdered by your kind. You know what it’s like to look at your dad and have a different person stare back?”
Oreios shook his head. After all, it’d been ages since he’d last seen his father and Zeus still remembered his name.
“You said your father was a traveler.” Oreios lay down beside her, staring at the sky. “What for?”
“He took pictures. And one day he photographed my mom as she retrieved water from a river just outside a small town near the border of Syria and Turkey. That’s how they met.” Emma’s smile turned to tears. “They didn’t know it, but that’s what would lead to my mom’s death. She was killed by her own father.”
“I’m sorry...”
“You see, my mom wasn’t supposed to talk to men, much less strangers from the west. Old enough to make her own decisions in the eyes of the modernizing Turkish government, she left with my father and they married. After years of watching her homeland adjust itself to a more western lifestyle, her sister sent word that their father had died and that their mother was ill. It was my grandmother’s dying wish to see her two daughters reunited.”
“What happened?” Oreios rolled to his side, grasping her hand tightly.
“It was all a lie.” Emma sat up, rubbing her forehead. “Even though Turkey was western, there were still parts in the Kurdish regions where Sharia was the law. To keep the peace and the country whole, the authorities turned a blind eye. My father would have traveled with her, but I was only six and sick. The last time I saw my mother she was waving from the back of a taxi.”
Oreios took a deep breath, contemplating. Emma reached into her pocket and removed a coin.
“When my father started to lose his memory I moved in with him to help out. I was going through items he’d collected during his travels and came across this coin.” She briefly handed it to Oreios to let him feel it. “It was the leftover change from the first meal he had shared with my mom. I carry it because I can’t let things go. I’ve got this fear that I’ll always be as helpless as the day I last saw her getting in the back of a taxi. And now Jonas is dead because I could never distinguish what we did from what happened to my mother.”
“No, he’s not...”
“Yes, he is.” She wiped her cheeks and looked at Oreios. “Because I couldn’t accept that things just aren’t fair, I ended up alone.”
“You’re not alone,” Oreios said, pushing himself to his feet. He offered his hand. “There’s always someone.”
“Is that what you’ve found to be true?” she asked, looking up at him. He pulled his hand back, looking away deep in thought. She smirked and shook her head. “That’s what I figured.”
Chapter 13
Emma threw her coat onto a recliner, yawning as she leaned against the wall. Her dad’s things were scattered everywhere again. She briefly thought about picking them up, but smiled and stepped over the piles of clutter.
The ceiling light in the kitchen was swaying back and forth, so she moved around a stack of books and walked in there. The room was empty. A teapot sat in the sink underneath a running faucet. She turned the water off and closed her eyes, listening for her father’s footsteps among the noises of the house.
“Daddy?” she called out, heading through the other end of the kitchen into the hallway. She marched down to his office, finding it empty. “Dad, are you there?”
She stepped into the room and the floorboards creaked beneath her feet, giving way as her foot dug into the spongy wood. She bent down and peeled away chunks of the soaked floor. Her stomach turned. She spun around and ran down to her father’s bedroom. He wasn’t there. She looked out into the back garden. Again, he was absent.
She stumbled forward, dizzy from the stress. Her hand caught her fall as she braced against the doorframe. She looked up and Athos stood in front of her. Her heartbeat quickened and she took two steps back. She could feel the mark on the left side of her chest throb.
“It’s been a while.” He smiled, looking at himself in the mirror as he adjusted his dark hair. He looked at her from the corner of his eyes. “I supposed you’re as shocked as anyone to see me again. You do remember, don’t you?”
“How could I forget?” She clamped her fingers over the back of a chair, holding herself up. She felt helpless, but wanted to fight through it. Doubt entered her mind as she began to think that maybe she had been helpless all along. She pulled the chair out from under the table and sat down. “Did you kill him?”
“Goodness no. Your father is a hoot. He does the crazy talk.” Athos laughed, holding his hands up as he walked toward Emma. “Did you know that back in the twelfth century they used to think people
like your dad were possessed by demonic spirits? Can you imagine?”
Athos laughed, sitting across from her as he grabbed an apple from a bowl that sat atop the table. He took a bite and leaned forward, propping himself up on his elbows.
“It’s not too shocking, I suppose. It was less than a hundred years ago that you apes were still using leaches to cure sicknesses.” He swallowed and spun the apple around. It rotated on the table like a drill, trying to burrow into the wood. “But back then they used to take people like your father, strap them down, and beat them relentlessly. The Vikings were the best at it. They really went to town, so to speak. The best part about it was that the child-like minds of their rambling victims had no idea what the hell they had done to deserve any of it. Can you imagine how frightened they were?”
He leaned in closer, looking her square in the eyes with a stone-cold gaze.
“Can you?” he whispered.
“Why are you here?” she asked, staring blankly into space. “My father didn’t do anything to you. He’s not involved.”
“You got him involved.” Athos pointed at her. He slapped his hand down and stopped the apple from drilling into the table. He took another large bite. “That night when we first met, it might have been the soul we had just consumed, but I felt some energy between us. I must have left an impression on you—no pun intended—to leave you craving answers rather than cowering in fear. Most people see what you saw and find religion. You hunted me. That’s awesome.”
“Doesn’t make any sense...”
“At first I thought our connection was all in my head. But as the years went on and word kept filtering through the grapevine that you were looking for me—for answers—I knew the infatuation went both ways. So I allowed the occasional bread crumb to be placed here and there, knowing one day this would all be worth it. That day is today.”