Pears and Perils

by Drew Hayes

  Yeah. He’s going to kill us all when he’s done.

  “What?!” Clint’s voice echoed across the stone chamber, bouncing down the hallway to ears unknown.

  He doesn’t want witnesses. He’s not trying to start a religion; he’s trying to covertly seize power. The only reason we all aren’t dead yet is that he’s smart enough to save crimes that carry a life in prison for after he no longer has to worry about mortal authorities.

  Clint’s head swam and for once it wasn’t just at frustration from dealing with Kodi. They were going to die. Everyone. Kaia, Mano, Falcon, April, even Thunder. And it was his fault. If he’d just gone to a shrink to talk about the voice in his head instead of going off on some crazy adventure, Lawrence would have never known about gods. They’d all be drinking cocktails made from Kenowai Pears and watching the sun drift below the horizon. Now… now they were probably living their last minutes of life because of Clint.

  Hey, are you okay? Things are getting a little… swirly in here.

  “Your voice thing. We can use that, can’t we? Free ourselves, go off and stop Lawrence?”

  I told you: that relies on ambient faith. We’re in the temple of one god with another binding us. Even if I could channel enough juice to pop us free without completely shredding you, there’s no way we could beat the full power of a god. Not even a half-breed could do that, and those are way stronger than we are right now. For that sort of thing you need direct Belief fueled by one hell of a Want.

  “No… no, I don’t accept that.” Clint’s breathing was getting hard; he could swear he was beginning to see spots at the corners of his vision. “There has to be something we can do. Those people are our friends.”

  Clint… you need to calm down, kid. I can see inside your head and let me tell you, things are beginning to get kind of crazy.

  “I don’t care.” Clint realized his legs had stopped hurting; then he noticed that at some point during his mini freak-out, he’d managed to sit down. He tested his legs and found them still completely immobile. Weird. Very weird. “I don’t care about how much power he has. I don’t care how hopeless this is. We’re going to do something. I will not let him win. He is not going to hurt anyone.”

  Kid, what the hell is going on with you? This is getting seriously… Oh, shit.

  Kodiwandae finally recognized what was happening inside the mind of the mortal where he had set up shop. What had begun as a light blaze of panic had fed upon Clint’s fears and guilt, building until it was a roaring inferno tearing through the young man’s thoughts. Kodiwandae was seeing something truly miraculous. He was actually witnessing the manifestation of a mortal’s first Want. Much like the first Love and the first orgasm, this was going to be a doozy.

  It shredded all coherent thought, engulfing every aspect of who Clint was, consuming every memory and dream and hope that comprised what made him Clint until all of him, every last piece, was burning with the same desire:

  I Want To Keep Them Safe.

  Kodi felt himself growing warm, his attempts to hold it back beginning to falter. It was enveloping him too; he could sense himself being filled by Clint’s Want, an unspoken prayer of desperation practically vibrating with need. As the last of his defenses fell and Kodi began to be swept away into the blaze, he felt his own existence expand, filling him with a tingling sensation of power he’d nearly forgotten the flavor of. That was when the jist of his own earlier words came back to him and he realized just how crazy things were about to get: “Mortal’s Wants direct and power gods.”

  Well… This is going to be interesting.

  * * *

  “So bro, what’s the policinaltude on last requests?” Thunder asked.

  Lawrence stood at the altar, arranging a few final touches for the ceremony. He presumed most of it was formality; however, his careful nature refused to let him skip something that might be important. This was a one-shot opportunity and he refused to see it fail because he’d lit the wrong color of candle. He was momentarily surprised at Thunder’s voice; he didn’t recall releasing their ability to speak. Perhaps his control weakened as his attention faltered. Something to keep in mind after his ascension.

  “Last requests apply to the condemned. I have no intention of killing any of you; I just want to proceed with my business uninterrupted.”

  If Thunder doubted the man’s words, he kept such worries to himself. He’d felt something a few minutes ago, a strange ripple in the force holding him down. Testing had revealed that while his body was still slow to respond, as though he’d beer-bonged a bottle of vodka, it would move under his command. Lawrence’s cronies were on the wall, but they hadn’t stepped up to guard more closely, so Thunder had a suspicion something had weakened Lawrence’s power. If there was going to be action, this was the time.

  “Well, then how about letting us get our refreshment on during the shizow? Still a few brewskis in the backpack.”

  Lawrence resisted the urge to sigh in frustration; it was unbecoming for men such as him. He’d tried to quiet Thunder once more, yet the boy still responded. It was worrying; however, at this point, the most opportune scenario was merely to press ahead in an expedient manner. That meant quieting the boy so Lawrence could think.

  “Fine,” Lawrence said, walking over and grabbing the satchel. He quickly checked inside, but Thunder was telling the truth. It held nothing more than eight cheap beers, now hot after their lengthy trek. He tossed the bag over and turned back to the altar.

  “Thanks, bro. Mind letting us have an arm each as to funkcilitate the drinkage?”

  Lawrence smiled inwardly. He’d wondered if more than their mouths had gotten free, but if Thunder was resisting beer then he must still be bound. Knowing that, there was no more reason to play along, but then again, Thunder could be rather annoying when he wanted to be.

  “One arm each, and if anyone gets any ideas, I’d like to remind you that you are still surrounded by men with spears.”

  “Totes,” Thunder agreed. After a pause he moved his right arm and grabbed the backpack, unzipping it with his teeth and pulling out a beer. He handed them out, though it involved tossing in some cases where the recipient was too far away. Everyone looked at him with uncertainty; they’d noticed the growing freedom in their appendages as well. He gave them a smile and cracked his beer, then carefully mouthed the words “Not yet.”

  The others nodded then opened their own beverages. Thunder plucked one more beer from the bag and put in his lap. He wasn’t sure what everyone else was going to do when shit got real, but he’s already figured out what his best move was.

  April found it strange that she was taking her cue from someone like Thunder; then again, he was the only one who’d actually taken any action when he noticed their freedom. Admittedly, it was just getting them beer, but she supposed if she had to witness their demise, it might as well be with a buzz. She didn’t believe for a second Lawrence intended to spare them. The man was too rational and that was April’s wheelhouse. That and studying. She’d done a lot of reading about Kenowai after learning about their trip. Legends, stories, local agriculture, everything she’d been able to find had been consumed by her brain. Lawrence had likely done the same; he was the type of man to go so far as to learn a new language just to know what the baggage carrier was saying about him. Maybe something he’d found was letting him do all this, which meant if April had read it too then she might be able to stop him. She took another sip of beer and focused the razor-sharp mind that had left her alienated, strange, and academically unstoppable for the majority of her life. This was what she did.

  Mano, for his part, was just enjoying the beer. He wondered how his shark friend would be after this crazy white man killed them all. It was too bad; he would have bought the shark a whole case of good dark beer and poured it into the ocean as thanks for his help today. He mentally added a bottle of smooth rum to the list of things to pour. It would end up in the shark’s belly, but he could probably still count it as thanks to
a god, if he survived. Which god didn’t matter so much at the moment; it just seemed unlikely they were getting out of here without someone’s help.

  Falcon Rainwater had taken a momentary leave of absence; in her place, Valerie Quinn was employing the deductive skills that had made her a terror of a litigator before moving into the world of CEOs. Lawrence wasn’t a madman; that would have been a much more preferable scenario. He was simply working off the facts as they were presented before him. Whatever he was doing with the pear would be based on something with the gods, a prospect that would have ruled in lunacy if not for the fact that they were all working under similar beliefs. His movements were graceful and deliberate; the man had received training in his youth and had applied it through his years. Still, there were little giveaways here and there that his age was slowing him: the way he ever so slightly favored his left hip, the one-inch difference in his left shoe that indicated an orthopedic insole, the well-hidden wince when he gripped tightly. He was still a powerful man and could likely have killed them all even without thugs or magic, but he had weaknesses. Valerie had found a few; she kept right on staring, though. She was going to find every last one.

  Kaia chugged her beer like an alcoholic coming off a stint at rehab. Everything had gone to hell, nothing was turning out right, and she didn’t even know what was real and what was made-up anymore. All she knew was that she was tired of this bullshit: tired of running, tired of being uncertain, tired of not knowing what to do. She’d taken two years of self-defense courses back in New York, and the rule with dealing with male attackers was to go for the balls and the eyes. As soon as the group moved, that was exactly what she intended to do. Kick Lawrence in the balls, get her damn pear, go find Clint, and then see if her friend, Kelokin, back on the island still made his pear moonshine. It wasn’t much, but it was a plan, damn it.

  “I beleive,” Lawrence announced. “That it is time to begin.”

  * * *

  There is a point in the human mind where all logic, fear, and self-preservation are driven away like demons of failure. It is the place people enter when they do things we consider heroic, things like charging through a hail of bullets to recover a wounded friend, or fighting off a stronger attacker in order to protect people they love. It is one of the few great redeeming qualities of the creature called man. Unfortunately, its use rarely ends well. We prize those examples of success because they are the exception, not the rule.

  Most people who decide to win or die almost universally end up doing the latter.

  Most people were not currently playing taxi cab to a stranded god.

  Clint wasn’t sure what had happened, not really. All he knew was that one minute he was bucking against his invisible enclosure with all his might, tormented by the thoughts of his friends being killed, and the next he was free and standing atop the pit. The two guards who had been assigned to watch him were slumped over against the wall, their snores echoing off the stone walls.

  “Kodi? I feel kind of strange.”

  That is probably the least surprising thing anyone has said to me all day.

  “It seems like things are sort of… glowing.” He glanced down at his skin and realized his mistake. “Oh, never mind. It’s just reflecting my glow.” That should seem strange, shouldn’t it? Why didn’t that seem strange?

  Focus, kid. We’ve gone all in on this gamble, so let’s make the most of it. We need to find our friends.

  “Right.” Clint’s voice sounded heavy; he ignored it for now. His friends. His friends needed to be free. They needed to be safe. He was going to find them.

  He might have said may the gods help Lawrence if they were hurt when he got there, but the gods had already chosen their side. So instead he just hoped it was enough.

  * * *

  “Nature, Constant, I summon you!” Lawrence’s voice bounded through the room, the pear in his right hand glowing more intensely with each passing second. His left hand he kept dug into his pocket, a fact that only Falcon/Valerie and April noticed. “I call you here to fulfill your bargain. In the name of Kodiwandae, I summon you!”

  “It’s considered rude to steal other people’s mail.”

  Lawrence turned to find Clint standing at the entranceway, eyes burning with a golden light that looked suspiciously like the one pouring out of the fruit in Lawrence’s hand. His skin rippled with illumination as well, swirling about like candles reflected off a pond. Well… this was unexpected.

  There was a clatter of tools crashing to the ground as the guards passed out, collapsing on the spot. Lawrence tried to rouse them, but found a power pushing back from the one coming out of his pearl. So Kodi had found a way to block him. This suspicion was confirmed as the rest of the idiot brigade scrambled to their feet, clearly freed from his binding.

  “Get him, Kodi!” Thunder yelled, finishing off his beer in celebration.

  “I’m… trying,” Clint spat, his words forced out under a weight of stress. For the first time the others noticed how furiously he was sweating and how his legs were beginning to tremble. “He’s… strong.”

  Lawrence smiled. So it seemed this little rally of theirs could only last for so long. That made it easier to deal with. Absentmindedly, he set the pear onto the altar and faced his unchained captives. It was just in time: the tall native woman made a beeline for him, rearing back and delivering a kick that would have put a football through a field goal post from the fifty yard line. He side-stepped easily, resisting the urge to smile as he heard the painful smack of her foot connecting with the stone altar. The island boy was next, flying at him with a clothesline that Lawrence blocked, then replied to with a series of quick punches to the kidney, the pearl still clutched safely in his fist. Mano began coughing and dropped to the ground in pain.

  “The left,” the old woman screamed. “He’s weaker on his left side!”

  Had he not been in mid-battle, Lawrence would have been intrigued by her cool-headed assessment. Instead, he was merely impressed. The next one to come at him was Thunder, of all people, charging across the stone floor in a dead sprint.

  “Thundeeeeer PUNCH!” The boy dropped the half-empty can in his right hand and pulled it back into a fist. The only way the move could have been more telegraphed was if it had been thrown by Thomas Edison. Lawrence easily dodged the blow and swept Thunder’s legs from under him, a subtle cracking sound confirmed he’d taken out one of the attacker’s knees. He glanced over to see the remaining risks, two women and a slowly-wilting man under the guidance of a god. Far from the worst odds he’d faced over the years.

  “If we’re all quite done with this, maybe we can-”

  “Thundeeeeer BOMB!” Lawrence whipped back around, expecting Thunder to have crawled back into some kind of attack position. Instead, the young man was still lying prone on the ground, his only movement a rapid shaking of his left hand.

  Lawrence figured it out about a second after the pressurized stream of beer struck him in the face. He gagged and coughed as he tried to clear his eyes and breathe past the yeasty concoction. This wasn’t helped when he was struck by two soft forms a few seconds later.

  The three of them tumbled to the ground, where Thunder and Mano were able to help by grabbing Lawrence and pulling him down. The whole thing dissolved into chaos for a few moments until Lawrence’s superior practice and training prevailed. He struck unthinkingly, hitting weak points and causing concussions in rapid succession. It wasn’t pretty, but it got him enough time to scramble to his feet away from the crowd.

  “That’s enough!” Lawrence yelled as he wiped the last of the foam from his face. “I have had my fill of you idiots and your pointless struggling. It is over, you’ve lost; now face your demise with some sense of propriety and just lay the fuck down!”

  “Hey asshole,” April said from the ground, her sneer still visible despite the bloody lip she’d gotten in the fray. “Want to know something interesting?”

  “No!”

  “Too bad.” She lif
ted her hand and held up a small pink sphere. Lawrence knew it in a heartbeat, which was a good thing since his heart skipped the next few that were due.

  “You’re not the only one with a good memory for details.” April reared back and slammed the pearl against the stone floor, obliterating it into dust.

  Most pearls do not break quite that easily.

  Most pearls do not have a very pissed off god inside.

  Lawrence felt an iron grip on his shoulder as he was yanked upward, his feet quickly losing touch with the floor. He twisted around to see Felbren’s psychotic grin.

  “I think we need to have a talk.”

  Clint and Kodi smiled together as the god appeared, the weight of their task finally lifted. Clint went to blink his dry eyes and discovered they refused to re-open. He fell to the ground heavily, not even registering the sting of pain at impact as he drifted into unconsciousness.

  20.

  The rest of the recently-freed pear hunters barely had a chance to register Clint’s collapse before his eyes popped open and he jumped back to his feet. There was something different about him, though: his skin seemed darker than before, and though his eyes still glowed, it was like molten gold more than beaming light.

  “We have to hurry,” Kodi said through Clint’s mouth.

  “Wait, what just happened to Clint?” Kaia asked, slowly picking herself up and ignoring the toes she was certain were broken.

  “He used his own prayers to power my divine abilities, then channeled them through himself. Mortal souls aren’t built to handle that kind of energy.”

  “So… is he okay?” The fact that Thunder asked such a question in normal words drove home the seriousness of the situation to the others even more than Kodi’s own explanation had.

  “I have no idea, but I know the sooner I’m out of him, the better his chances.” Kodi strode across the room, pausing only briefly to speak with Felbren. “I trust we’re past the point of petty interference?”