The Gods' Day to Die

by David Welch

  “Wait—Lenka’s working with those nut-jobs who want humans to voluntarily go extinct?” asked Desmond.

  “Looks like,” Ares replied.

  “Why?” Desmond said. “How do you connect vengeful Russian sociopaths with squishy green hippie extremists?”

  “Us,” Artemis said. “We’re the link. We’re their common enemy.”

  Ares nodded. “Makes sense. Chloe somehow finds out about us, maybe even from Lenka himself. This woman thinks normal humans are bad enough; then she finds out there are immortal ones out there?”

  “And given the rate of advancement of medical and genetic technology,” Desmond figured, “it’s not too big a leap for her to worry that sometime in the near future some scientist will figure out a way to transfer your immortality into us normals.”

  “Six billion people living forever . . . an environmentalist’s nightmare,” Artemis said.

  “And like most extremists, things like morality and our right to exist never entered into her thinking, I’d bet,” Ares grumbled. “And being a sheltered San Francisco PC-type, the reality of working with a man like Lenka never registered either. When this is over she’ll either be dead, or Lenka will blackmail her, threaten to expose her dirty activities if the money stops flowing.”

  “Or worse,” Artemis said solemnly. Her mind didn’t fill with images of all the terrible things Lenka might do to Miss Ezra. In fact, she realized she felt very little concern at all. Naïve or not, this woman had made a conscious decision to try to kill her. She deserved what she got.

  “So where do we find Chloe Ezra?” asked Desmond. “We can’t just walk into a public organization, even one as nutty as E.H.E., and threaten her in front of all the staff and interns.”

  “Don’t worry, I got her address,” said Ares.

  “How’d you get her address?” Desmond asked.

  “The whole of the world is on the Internet. Figure if it works against us, it can work against the bad guys too,” he said, then shrugged.

  “How far from here?” Artemis asked.

  “Maybe thirty minutes,” Ares replied, a bit devilishly. “I think we should make a little visit. Best time to find a person at home is in the middle of the night.”

  “Home and sleeping,” Desmond added.

  “People scare much easier when they’re woken up,” Ares said, a hint of anticipation in his voice.

  “No use waiting,” Artemis said, bouncing off the bed. “Let’s go scare straight a hippie.”

  They drove through the streets of San Francisco, past fashionable row houses half illuminated by street lamps. There was no traffic to speak of, and only a handful of people out and about at this late hour. It was a weekday.

  Artemis drove, following the directions Ares had gotten off the Internet. She’d been tempted to use a GPS, but she had no idea if Lenka had the ability to track something like that. She decided to trust to her navigational sense, not wanting to risk it.

  “So, you’ve done stuff like this before, right?” Desmond said. It didn’t really sound like a question. There was no uncertainty to the words.

  “We’ve done a lot,” Artemis replied.

  A smile came to Ares’ face.

  “Yes,” Ares replied. “My sister used to have my back, during my wilder days.”

  “His back?” Des asked, looking at Artemis.

  “Yeah,” Artemis said. “Somebody had to. He would’ve gotten himself killed if I didn’t, no matter how good he is in a fight.”

  “Arty would hang back with her bow and shoot down any punks trying to sneak up on me,” Ares said. “You should see this girl with a bow, Desmond. There isn’t a better shot on the planet.”

  “Goddess of the Hunt,” Desmond figured.

  “I’ve seen her hit a coin the size of a quarter, tossed into the air, at sixty yards,” Ares said. “We were quite the team.”

  Artemis drove on. Ares took martial joy in the memory, but all she remembered was worrying every second that she’d be too slow and some nameless grunt would run her brother through with a dull, rusty blade. And of course he’d always be buzzing like an excited child when it was over. God knows how many times he had burned that excitement off with her in bed afterward. She hadn’t cared about it at the time, but thinking back now, she couldn’t understand the person she’d been. To so casually throw off traditions and taboos, as if there weren’t thousands of years of trial and error behind each one. As if they hadn’t been created by countless generations learning the hard way about the consequences of such stupid actions.

  And she had dismissed it as nothing. The arrogance of it, of her. She didn’t know how Ares could still get that little note of nostalgia when remembering it, especially with him being Christian and all. She was pretty sure murder, rape, and incest were high up on the sin list. Of course, if she ever called him on it, she knew exactly what he’d do. He’d shrug his shoulders, and tell her the point of Christianity was that imperfect people could have their sins forgiven, be given another chance. Then she’d wave him off and tell him she wasn’t interested in converting. Twenty centuries had passed, and he still played that line.

  “So where exactly did you fight?” Desmond said, breaking her thoughts. She smiled at the sound of his voice. There was no weight of experience behind his questions. No guilt, just curiosity.

  “Oh, lord, we fought everywhere,” Ares said. “Half of the battles were before anything you’d call ‘civilization’ really existed. Let’s see . . . places you’d know . . . well, Troy. And Marathon, Thermopylae, where I luckily did not stick around and fight with the Spartans. Plataea . . . Leuctra . . . and we marched with Alexander all the way to India.”

  “You weren’t Alexander, were you?” Desmond asked.

  “No,” Ares said. “No, he was all mortal. And kind of crazy . . . and he tried to rape Artemis once.”

  “Tried,” she said. “And lived just long enough to regret it.”

  “Huh?” Des said. “I thought he died of some sickness.”

  “He did,” Ares said. “The fever came from an infection brought about by the spear Artemis rammed through his groin.”

  “They didn’t write that part down,” Artemis said. “Wouldn’t be fitting for the world’s great conqueror to be killed by a woman.”

  Ares shook his head at the memory, then said, “Well, that was around the time Artemis grew tired of following her brother around. So I went to Rome and fought with them for a while, marched through Gaul with Caesar. Then I got to Judea . . .”

  “And suddenly realized what a bastard you’d been,” Artemis said.

  “Well, no. I didn’t realize it. Not by myself, anyway,” Ares replied. “But Jesus has a way of radically altering a person’s outlook.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Artemis replied. Ares stuck out his tongue at her.

  “Okay, but you’ve fought since then,” Desmond said.

  “He became like Athena,” Artemis said. “Only fighting in wars he considered just.”

  “At least I’m consistent,” Ares said. “Athena’s standards on ‘just’ change every century, when she learns some new ideology and forgets what little common sense she has!”

  He sighed. Artemis could hear worry in that sound. The two might not always have gotten along, but there was no mistaking his concern for his sister, stuck in the hands of Lenka and his men.

  “Anyway,” Ares said, “I have fought since then, Desmond. Fought with the Byzantines for centuries, joined the Crusades, fought the Turks in Eastern Europe, at Vienna; lots of fighting Islam. When it became clear the Ottomans would never overrun Europe, I came over to the New World. I’d always wanted to see it. I was stunned when word of it reached Europe. All these centuries alive, all I’d seen, and I had no idea something like America existed. Since then, I’ve been in a lot of America’s wars. The Revolution, Civil War, World War
Two—”

  “Not World War One?” interrupted Desmond.

  “No. The Kaiser was just another monarch fighting for land and power. The Nazis and Japanese were literally trying to exterminate anybody who was not them. After that there was Korea and Vietnam.”

  “Fighting Communism fell under ‘just’?” asked Desmond.

  “Communism killed more people than the Nazis and Japanese combined. And it destroys a person’s soul,” Ares said. “And it’s incredibly stupid. A teenager can see it doesn’t work, yet they keep trying it . . . and it always ends the same.”

  “If Athena had ever bothered to figure it out, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Artemis grumbled.

  “Well, she didn’t,” Ares groused. “Since then, Des, I’ve done some tours in the War on Terror.”

  “Fighting Islam again?” Desmond said.

  “Well, the extremist ones keep starting fights,” Ares grumbled. “And now they’ve got these nut-jobs willing to blow themselves up just to take innocents down with them . . . how could you not fight that?”

  She heard her brother take a breath, no doubt about to continue. She tapped the brake, pulling up before a town house.

  “We’re here,” she said, before her brother could get going.

  Ares’ head swiveled around, spotting the house.

  “Oh,” he said. “So we are.”

  They sat motionless, looking at the house.

  “So,” Desmond said, “are we going in?”

  “Yes,” Artemis said. “I don’t see any cameras, do you?”

  “Nothing I can see,” Ares said. “Doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

  “Worth the risk,” Artemis said.

  “Get the hats,” Ares said.

  They filed out of the car, retrieving three broad-brimmed cowboy hats from the trunk. To anybody watching it would seem a strange sight: three people putting on cowboy hats in the dead of night. Luckily there weren’t many people out in the Marina district this late, and very few lights on in windows. They’d have anonymity enough.

  They moved toward the door, walking at a normal pace. They paused at the door. A small plastic sensor greeted them, part of a security system.

  “Guess she’s not that worried about safety,” Ares whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Des said. “Won’t that send out an alarm?”

  “That,” Artemis said, taking a multitool out of her pocket, “is one of the cheapest systems on the market. Watch.”

  She quickly unscrewed the panel and snipped a pair of wires inside the device. A small LED, green in color, faded into nothing.

  “Had she put any money into her system, what I just did would’ve sent out a signal, and we’d have cops here in a few minutes,” Artemis explained.

  “But she didn’t,” said Ares simply. He dug into his pocket, pulling out his keys. He singled one out. It looked like a key, but it was actually a small, flathead screwdriver. Ares slipped it into the knob, jimmying it about carefully.

  “You do this often?” asked Desmond.

  “Not really,” said Ares. “But doing something once or twice a decade, decade after decade . . .”

  They heard a click, and the door swung open.

  “Ah, we’re home,” Ares said, just loud enough for anybody within earshot to hear. They stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind them. It was dark, with the dim glow of streetlights giving them a shadowy view of the main staircase. They moved up the stairs on soft feet, Ares first, Artemis last. She noticed Desmond’s hand clutching his gun.

  “Just keep your head together,” Artemis whispered.

  They came to the top of the stairs. A short hallway led to a single bedroom. In front of the door stood a compact, muscular man in a leather coat. He had a gun in his left hand. Instantly Artemis’ arm shot up, pistol in hand. So did Desmond’s. Ares kept his hands in his pockets, showing no reaction to this new wrinkle whatsoever.

  “You’re trespassing,” the man said simply.

  “We know,” Ares said nonchalantly. “The woman who lives here is trying to kill us.”

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t leave,” said the guard.

  “Maybe me,” Ares said. “But you’ve probably noticed the two guns pointed at you. Now I see by the bulky jacket that you have body armor on, which is wise. But these two are good shots, and no doubt aiming for your head.”

  “You think you’re the first people who’ve pointed a gun at me?” the man asked.

  “No,” Ares said. “And I have no desire to be the last. Question is, is this woman paying you enough to die?”

  The man made no sound. Ares slipped a hand slowly out of his pocket, pulling out a money clip stuffed with hundreds. He tossed it on the floor in front of the man.

  “You get to walk out of here with whatever she paid you, plus that four thousand on the floor,” Ares said.

  The man remained motionless. Behind him they could hear a muffled cry of shock. Artemis figured it was probably Miss Ezra, no doubt hearing all that was being said.

  “I do this, and word gets out that I let my people die,” said the guard.

  “We’re not going to kill her,” Ares said. “That kind of attention I don’t need. We just need a private word.”

  The guard bent over and picked up the cash. He looked at it for a long moment.

  “You kill her, and I’ll have to kill you when you try to escape,” the man said. “Or people would think I didn’t even try to protect my client.”

  “I would expect nothing less,” Ares said. Artemis fought the urge to smile. Once upon a time anybody who spoke like that to the God of War would be dead before they could finish the sentence.

  “I’ll be downstairs,” the man said solemnly. He eyed them each as he walked by, his gun still in hand. Artemis turned, facing him as he descended the stairs backward, to make sure he didn’t try to shoot them in the back.

  Ares moved to the bedroom door and tried the handle, finding it predictably locked. With a sigh he stepped back, planted his right foot, and sent a heavy kick into the door. Wood splintered, and the door flexed inward an inch, but it held. A second kick knocked it off its hinges.

  Inside Chloe screamed and scrambled back toward her bed. She had a gun in her hand, which shook violently. She held it at arm’s length, as afraid of the weapon as she was of the intruders. Ares smiled.

  “Back off!” she shrieked. “Get out of my house!”

  “Tell us where Lenka Sidorov is,” Ares replied.

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Save it,” Artemis said. “We found your PI. He told us all about you, helping smuggle foreign mercenaries into the country, giving them your organization’s money to hunt us down.’

  “Hunt, what? Y-you? You mean—”

  “Yes,” Ares replied. “We’re the immortals you’re so afraid of.”

  For a moment the woman seemed to freeze, unsure what to do. Panic and amazement flashed over her face, battling for supremacy. Finally she hardened, glaring death at them. Or trying to, anyway. This woman may have been used to getting indignant at protest rallies, but she didn’t know how to do intimidating. Artemis could see her brother biting back a laugh at the sight of Chloe’s game face.

  “I—I should kill you right now!” she shrieked. “End the threat to the Earth once and for—”

  “You’re not going to shoot us,” Ares interrupted.

  “Shut up!” she screamed. “I’ll kill you where you stand!”

  Ares rolled his eyes.

  “I mean you’re not going to kill us because you’ve obviously never used a gun before. Your safety is on.”

  A confused look came over Chloe’s face. She took the gun off them for a split second, to look and see. That was all Ares needed. He shot forward in a blur, snatching the gun and wrenching it out of C
hloe’s hands before she could open her mouth to shriek. His other hand licked out, shooting an open palm to her sternum. She tumbled backward, falling onto the bed, crying in panic. The whole thing was over in a second or two.

  Desmond shook his head in disbelief.

  “How the hell does he move like that?” he said.

  Artemis smirked. “He’s like a ninja to ninjas. Without the black pajamas.”

  Ares pulled his gun from his waist and loomed over Chloe. The woman had her hands up and was hyperventilating.

  “I honestly didn’t think that trick still worked on anyone,” Ares said. “You should watch more action movies.”

  “You’re going to kill me?” she asked.

  Ares sighed. “Didn’t you hear us talking to your guard? No, we’re not going to kill you. We’re here to tell you that you’re going to stop helping Sidorov and his people. And maybe to get his phone number. So we can track him down and kill him. Understand?”

  “You’re an idiot,” Chloe sneered. “Why should I do anything you say when you just made it clear you won’t hurt me?”

  “I never said I wouldn’t hurt you,” Ares said, his voice going cold.

  Chloe swallowed, inching back on the bed.

  “I don’t care!” she snapped back with surprising vigor. “You can’t be allowed to survive! You’re too much of a threat!”

  Desmond laughed and stepped forward.

  “Are you serious? They’ve been here for centuries, and the Earth has gotten along just fine,” Desmond replied.

  “Back then it didn’t matter, moron!” Chloe sneered. “People died left and right. Slaughtering each other and dying from any old common cold! But now, with our technology, they’re a threat. If their genetics are used for medicines—”

  “You think we let people come up to us and draw blood?” Artemis asked.

  “If a big corporation or government finds out about you, what you want won’t matter! They’ll lock you up and take what they need by force!”

  “You truly believe we’d let the American government forcibly imprison us and run medical experiments?” Ares asked, not bothering to hide his chuckle anymore.