by Aja James
Perhaps if I knew who Tal and Ishtar were at the time, I would have been driven to do violence. Enough to take a life by my own hands. But they were nothing to me at the time. And Medusa…despite everything, had been the only anchor in my shitty world.
“So, no, I don’t think she’ll be expecting you. Not as a serious threat that can take her down.”
I look back to Sophia.
“Three, your precious Dalair is there.”
She snaps her eyes to me, wide with attention.
And that’s all it takes, folks. Just a mention of her One True Love and she’s putty in my hands.
“She’s likely plying his tortured body with more experiments, maybe even trying to inject fragments of her soul into him.”
She jerks as if someone stabbed her with a sword right through the heart. She feels Dalair’s torment viscerally.
The bastard.
“I’m pretty sure she hasn’t done it yet. She’s lost quite a bit of her soul turning soldiers for her army over the millennia of her existence. It’s probably why she’s entirely insane. It’s also why she needs her Frankenstein lab assistant so much. If you haven’t guessed by now, the traitor is Wan’er, Rain’s ex-handmaiden.”
The open-mouthed shock on Sophia’s face reveals that she hasn’t, in fact, guessed it.
I shake my head at the Pure Ones’ stupidity and innocence.
“What would you do without me?” I deplore rhetorically. “If it makes you feel any better, I have no idea why she’s helping Medusa. What her agenda might be. Just never underestimate her. In some ways, I think she’s even more dangerous. If for no other reason than her unpredictability.”
“She’s making more soldiers,” Tal speaks quietly. “Monstrous creations. And using our…materials to do it.”
“You got that right, General,” I concur. “Which brings me to the fourth and perhaps most important reason you should launch an offensive now. Medusa has access to military weapons projects. Using human science for her nefarious ends.”
I say this more to appeal to the Pure Ones’ sense of honor and protectiveness than anything else. Only when they sacrifice themselves for the good of others do they act.
Ugh. I’m embarrassed to be biologically related to these misguided martyrs.
Yet, I’m proud at the same time. It’s a disorienting combination, to say the least.
“She’s already figured out how to splice animal, human and Immortal genes together. Most of her experiments fail, but enough of them succeed that her army is growing impossibly powerful and vast. At some point, she won’t care that humans outnumber Immortal Kinds millions to one. And then, good luck to us all. Imagine a world ruled by Medusa.”
We all ponder this post-apocalyptic horror silently for some time.
Finally, Sophia rises to her feet.
“Let’s get this done.”
The queen has spoken.
Next, we plan.
Chapter Thirteen: Darkness
*TAL*
Only a few of us embark on the mission.
Inanna, Gabriel, Cloud, Valerius, Ishtar and I.
And the only non-warrior in our group—Erebu.
In anticipation of a potential attack on the Shield while the most seasoned warriors are away, Aella and Tristan escorted the rest of the Dozen, including Sophia, to seek temporary refuge at the New England vampires’ Cove, under the guise of engaging in fierce negotiations with the publicly ambivalent Dark King, Ramses.
Jade, the former Dark Queen, with Sophia’s alignment, managed to secure the aid of three of the Chosen warriors from the king’s personal guard in this mission. I understand that the Pure Ones’ Seer and Scribe, Eveline, who has been gone from the Shield since Sophia’s sojourn to the Middle East, also helped.
We expect the following reinforcements: the Chosen’s Commander, Maximus, who can transform into a giant Siberian tiger, his Mate Ariel, who can turn into a giant black panther, and Rhys, who also possesses an animal spirit that can turn him into a giant golden eagle. The Chosen warriors will rendezvous with us at the target site, coming from a separate direction.
I do not know these Dark warriors, but I trust in Jade and Sophia. Never could I have imagined that Pure and Dark Ones would fight on the same side, against a common foe.
The times have certainly changed. People, too, can change. I feel more hope than I ever felt across the entirety of my existence that better days are ahead.
If we survive this night.
Time was of the essence once Erebu gave us the plot. Because he has fragments of Medusa’s soul within him, just as he can sense her movements and sometimes intentions, he expects that she can also sense his. We cannot risk giving her time to prepare, so a few hours after the Dozen crafted the attack plan, we set out in separate armored vehicles just after sunset.
The drive takes less than four hours at the speed we’re going. It will take another hour to hike through the mountains to Medusa’s lair—an underwater cavern beneath Avalanche Lake situated between two mountainous canyons.
“I wonder why the Dark King didn’t send Lord Wind and his son Ryu Takamura,” Erebu muses in the lightless interior of the “SUV.”
Gabriel is driving the vehicle with Erebu in the front, Ishtar and me in the back. Inanna, Cloud and Valerius are riding separately.
“Lord Wind is alive?” Ishtar huffs a surprised breath.
I, too, had not known this.
“Oh indeed,” Erebu replies. “Very much so. I believe he even kept tabs on you, Ishtar, though perhaps not any more. I haven’t dug too deeply in his personal affairs, but I spied enough on him for my Mistress that I know he helped you settle into Dark Dreams. He has been your anonymous benefactor all this time.”
It is amazing how enlightening four hours in a car can be. This is just the beginning of the secrets Erebu reveals, one by one. It is almost as if he is trying to share all the pertinent information he knows about our nemesis and potential allies, to prepare us for what’s to come.
It worries me that he feels the need to do this now, because it assumes that he will not be around to tell us later.
What are you planning, my son?
“Why would he do such a thing?” Ishtar asks in response to his earlier comment.
I can sense Erebu’s shrug.
“Who knows. Guilt perhaps. My Mistress used and abused him for almost as long as she used and abused—”
He cuts himself off with a clearing of his throat. But we all know what he was about to say.
“Anyway, a couple years ago, shortly before your encounter with Medusa, he cut his ties with her once and for all.”
“He is her Blooded Mate,” Ishtar recalls. “He cannot simply cut ties.”
“It certainly wasn’t ‘simple,’” Erebu admits. “He cut her out of his heart, to be exact. That male has ironclad balls.”
“But he didn’t die?”
“He disappeared for a while. I was tasked with drawing him back out. He was completely untraceable without the link to Medusa. The male is air after all.”
“Did you find him?” It is Gabriel who poses the question.
“I always find what I’m looking for,” he says grimly.
“But you didn’t reveal him to Medusa?”
Erebu sighs and drums his fingers on the armrest of his seat.
“It was tempting, I admit. She would have rewarded me. Probably give me a short reprieve from other…tasks.”
I can hear the unpleasantness of the “tasks” Erebu alludes to from the lowered tone of his voice.
“But she was also recovering from her wounds at the time. She wasn’t ready to try to reel him back in. So she didn’t press me, and I didn’t volunteer. How he ended up at the Cove under the reign of the Dark King is anyone’s guess. I would assume it has to do with his son Ryu being one of the Chosen warriors there.”
“Perhaps he did not join this fight because he still…cares for Medusa,” Ishtar muses.
Erebu snorts
in response.
“Oh, I highly doubt that. He has a new family now with a human Mate. Now that I think about it, it’s likely he didn’t join because he wants to stay back to protect them. And too, even centuries before he gutted Medusa out from his veins, he only fought for her when absolutely necessary. They had a strained kind of arrangement for a very long time.”
From what I recall of the shadow warrior, this is true. He tried to leave Medusa many times, the first of such attempts was during ancient Egypt. I recall some of the conversations they had in front of me. He tried to leave her, but he never could stay away for very long. He was bound to her.
Lord Wind must indeed have “ironclad balls.” Reversing the Bond of a Blooded Mate often leads to death, and if not that, then insanity. He’s taken an enormous risk. It is not the action of a male who has any lingering care for his Mate.
“Or perhaps Ramses held him back,” Erebu continues to contemplate out loud. “Though I doubt anyone, even the Dark King, can tell Lord Wind what to do.”
He sighs almost wistfully.
“It’s a shame. If Enlil, or Eli, as he’s now called, joined in the fight this night, you would have a better chance at success.”
“Don’t you mean we?” Gabriel picks up on the slip immediately.
Erebu laughs softly.
“What makes you think I’m on your side?”
Both Ishtar and I tense at the hissing question. I grasp her hand in mine and squeeze to reassure her.
Erebu would not betray us.
I don’t know this for a fact, but I believe it.
I have faith in him. I just hope that my faith is not misplaced.
“But it doesn’t matter which side I’m on, does it?” he continues, not waiting for anyone to answer his question.
“This opportunity is too good to pass up. When will you have another chance like this? Medusa grows more powerful every day. Her schemes and reach grow ever more expansive. Yes, she might be expecting you because of me, but she won’t have it all figured out. Just like I can’t read her mind despite our connection, she can’t read mine either. She can only guess at what you have planned. And she probably won’t expect the Dark Ones to join.”
I can sense his eyes on me. Perhaps he is looking in the rearview mirror, for I don’t hear him turning back to look.
“She won’t be able to resist the bait—her beautiful Monster, Tal-Telal,” he says softly in a menacing voice.
Ishtar squeezes my hand harder.
“And lucky days—she gets two in one, with her darling little sister here as well. Are you sure you’re ready to confront the serpent again, Ishtar? You couldn’t end her when you had the chance the last time.”
Ishtar’s grip on my hand hardens with the incredible strength of the Great White Beast, almost bending my bones.
“More than ready,” she growls.
“Hmm,” he murmurs, and I sense him looking away again.
“You didn’t both have to come, you know. Nor Gabriel and Inanna. Just half of you would have sufficed. If you don’t survive this night, who will take care of Benjamin?”
It is an odd enough question coming from a virtual stranger, where Benji is concerned, that something inside me clicks into place.
Erebu has a special connection to Benji, of that there is no doubt. Even I can sense it without seeing. Many times, when Erebu visited Dark Dreams in Ere or Binu’s forms, Benji was there with Ishtar and I. He always paid special attention to the boy.
I wonder what that connection is. I know that Benji is not Inanna and Gabriel’s biological son.
Could it be…?
“Perhaps you should make sure you survive the night for that very purpose, Erebu,” I finally break my silence thus far.
I can feel everyone’s pause at my words. I can hear Ishtar’s unspoken question in my mind. I can hear Gabriel’s hands tightening on the steering wheel.
“Ha! Haha,” Erebu interjects with a stilted laugh. He seems to be working his throat to say something else, but only gurgled sounds come out.
“You are his uncle, after all,” I emphasize, for the first time explicitly alluding to Erebu’s relationship to this family, without actually spelling it out.
“Benjamin will miss his Uncle Ere if anything happens to you.”
“Pfftt,” he mutters dismissively.
I can tell that he’s turned his face toward the window.
“Well, it’s too late to back out now,” he says in a low voice after a while.
“We’re here.”
*** *** *** ***
In our nearly silent approach from the forests surrounding Medusa’s lair, I retrace Erebu’s words in my head.
My Mistress will have the forests booby trapped. She has surveillance for miles around. The tech master sees everything. So, expect to get an exuberant welcoming committee starting within a mile of the Lair.
We’ve already encountered some of that “welcome.”
Spikes in the earth. Metal, electrical nets. Poisoned arrows from hidden automatic bows.
Nothing related to guns, however, for the small bullets are least effective in debilitating or killing an Immortal. And the larger weapons will be accompanied by loud explosions. For whatever reason, Medusa wants to advertise our presence in these mountains as little as we do.
She will likely not use the Immortal-killing heat-seeking bullets in the outer perimeter defense. Those weapons are rare, despite her attempts to mass produce them, and for maximum effect, she needs soldiers who can aim to wield them. So, expect the next line to be those soldiers.
She’ll likely use the most disposable ones—the failed experiments from Wan’er’s labs. Werewolves, I call them (sue me for being unoriginal), despite that there are a few survivors from the splicing of other animal species too.
Clumsy, ferocious, no intelligence—what do you expect from canines? As with all of her minions, these frontline foot soldiers will not feel pain. Or rather, wounds will not slow them down. So, aim to kill.
We killed many. Dozens.
All the while trying to make sure Erebu is protected. He is the weakest link amongst us.
We debated whether to let him come. In the end, only he can pinpoint the exact location of Medusa’s lair. Without the physical closeness, he can only guess at the general vicinity. The Adirondacks, as I’m told by Sophia, are one-hundred and sixty miles wide, and about a mile high. We cannot be searching aimlessly through the endless forests.
Now that we’re here, I can sense that Medusa is situated closer to the mouth of Avalanche Creek. We have to hike through a narrow gorge to get to the lake. Expect her to send out the big guns at this juncture to prevent us from getting too close.
He quickly goes on to explain the meaning of “big guns.”
The Paladin will likely be leading a few dozen seasoned and turned Pure and Dark warriors to attack us from the advantage of height. Target and isolate the Paladin if you can. The others will continue to fight without him, but he is their commander. They will be less coordinated without him in the lead.
Oh, and try to wound him enough that he’s close to death. It’s the only way his submerged soul can surface; unreliably, mind you, but at least it can for brief moments. And if you accidentally kill him in the process…well, such is war, I suppose.
But do try your best not to, because if he dies, Sophia becomes the Destroyer and the world will end as we know it.
No pressure.
Like silent death, the Paladin’s forces descend upon us at the mouth of the gorge, just as Erebu predicted. The other trials of the night were “cake walk” compared to the well-trained contingent we face now.
There must indeed be dozens of them, swarming us from all sides as we are forced to journey through the narrow canyon between two cliffs, the fast-flowing water of the creek rushing beneath our feet.
They are armed with ancient, but modernized weapons, far more powerful than the ones I faced millennia ago. Some of them carry Immortal-kill
ers. I can hear the muffled sounds of the guns firing, exploding rock, water and trees all around us.
I cannot avoid the shrapnel from a nearby explosion as I duck and roll beneath the swinging blade of an enemy soldier. A couple pieces of jagged stone lodge into my shoulder and back, but I ignore the pain.
I have Medusa to thank for my training—I am used to the pain. It fuels my strength, sharpens my senses, making adrenaline rush like lightning through my veins.
I swing my double-bladed spear in a circular arc without looking behind me. I know exactly where the enemy is. Just as I intended, their severed head drops into the creek with a thunk and a splash, before disintegrating into ashes or dust.
Even though I can clear out at least six enemy warriors in one go with a swing from the laser sword I have secured to my weapon belt, I do not use it. I only have one shot at Medusa with the device. I cannot waste it.
Too many! Ishtar telepaths in our linked minds. We cannot get past this last line of defense!
I hear her quiet roar of wrath as she dispatches the soldiers that surround her in the form of the Great White Beast.
Vicariously, I feel the blood seeping from her many wounds. By some miracle, she has avoided getting hit by an Immortal-killer. The other wounds will heal, but once such a bullet enters the flesh, it will not stop burrowing until it reaches the heart and explodes it.
I make the same assessment. The skills of these warriors are equal to ours, yet they outnumber us at least five to one. At best, we can take down half or two-thirds of them before our wounds overwhelm us, our strength depleted, and we have made progress toward that end.
But the fight is taking its toll. Even if we manage to push through this last line of defense, we will be too weak to face Medusa in her monster form.
Tal! It’s Erebu! I’ve lost him! Where is he! I cannot see him!
I am briefly distracted by Ishtar’s cry inside my head, nearly getting cleaved in two by a giant battle-axe.
I feint to the left and swoop down, rolling and swiping my spear low at the same time, literally cutting my opponent’s feet from underneath him.