by fox, angie
"Jeffe!" I called, tasting dirt as I half slid, half fell down the rise that separated the burning yard from camp. "What's going on?"
He bounded toward me. "Prisoner escape," he said, his mane flying out behind him, his tail sticking straight up. "Level one emergency!"
"What prisoner? I was having trouble hearing over the racket. "Thaïs?" Please let it be Thaïs. He was a fundamentalist nutball, but he wouldn't endanger the camp.
"No, no, no." Jeffe shook his head. "The patient. Dagr. God of hope and fertility."
Great. Our high-profile babysitting case. He must have been more dangerous than I realized. "How did it happen?"
Jeffe's eyes were wide. "Kosta sent his guards looking for you. They were only gone a minute, but the son of a god was fast."
Shock slapped against adrenaline, muddling my brain. "Kosta sent guards after me?" I wasn't even on call. Even if I was, it didn't make any sense. I was a mortal. Disposable. I could fall headlong into the tar swamp and nobody but my friends would notice.
Jeffe wrinkled his nose. "Not you." He pointed behind me. "You."
Galen. I turned and was shocked to see only darkness.
Jeffe snarled, baring his teeth. "I see you lurking in the shadows. You may be good at sneaking, but you cannot fool a guard sphinx. Well, maybe once. But not twice!"
Galen stepped out from the shadows of a spent funeral bier, his face hard. He wore a stillness about him, a distinct aura of danger.
Galen the man had already morphed into Galen the soldier.
He navigated the rise with a warrior's grace and approached the sphinx, his steps measured. "At least allow me turn myself in," he said.
Jeffe shook out his mane and pawed at the ground. "That I can do. But no more funny business."
Galen stood at my side, his body pressed against mine. "I told you I wouldn't leave you."
"Without saying good-bye," I finished, every word tearing at me.
He lowered his mouth for a bittersweet kiss. I savored it, and him.
"Ack. Please," Jeffe said. "I don't need a show." He nudged our legs with his shoulder. "Now come with me. Kosta is having fits."
We walked hand in hand through camp, ready to face the firing squad.
MPs rushed past in squads of three, going hutch-to-hutch, searching for Dagr, the god who had most likely fled to the front.
Dagr had wanted war. He'd wanted glory. Frankly, I hoped he made it. Let him battle like ten gods, be a hero. Let him try to even the score for the rest of us.
But even I knew that was futile. There were just too many to fight.
A troop truck carrying a detail of red-robed imperial guards sped into camp just as we reached Colonel Kosta's office. They began piling out even as the brakes creaked to a stop.
I craned my neck to watch them fan out in groups of two. "They're going to tear this camp apart." I could see it in their eyes.
"I've heard stories about Dellingr," Galen said. "He has no sanity, no reason where his son is concerned."
"That's what I was afraid of." I gritted my teeth and followed Galen into Kosta's outer office.
Shirley sat at her desk with her head in her hands as two sprites clanged a series of thick bells in front of the PA system.
I touched her shoulder and she jumped a foot.
"Petra." She let out a whoosh of air. The poor woman was frazzled from her twin ponytails down to her combat boots. She pressed her mouth closed when she saw Galen with me. "Go on in."
I wasn't sure if she was only talking to Galen or if it included me, but I pushed into the office behind him anyway. I wanted to know where he was headed, and when.
The door closed behind us with a whomp, and the level of the incessant clanging grew fainter.
Kosta glared at us from behind his desk, his ears red. "It's about godsdamned motherfucking time!" He slammed his hands against the metal and stood. "Do you know what you helped cause here? An incident, that's what." He strode around the desk until he stood eye-to-eye with Galen. "Dagr's daddy's gonna chew my hide and when he gets done with me, you're next."
Galen stood at attention. "I'm aware I didn't report as requested."
"Didn't report?" Kosta reared back. "Didn't report?" He leaned into Galen until their noses almost touched. "You're AWOL, soldier."
"He was with me," I said quickly. "Helping me."
Kosta leveled a glare in my direction. "Shut your fucking mouth."
He stepped back from Galen as if he couldn't bear to breathe the same air for one second longer. "You screwed up, Commander. And I just got your punishment straight from the top."
Kosta shot me a glance as he made his way over to his desk. It was as if he was daring me to try to stop this.
I knew better. Jumping in would only hurt Galen.
So I waited, stomach twisting, hands at my sides, helpless once more against the wrath of the gods.
Kosta snatched up a sheet of parchment from his desk. I knew that golden glow and the way the red script stood off against the page. It was directly from headquarters. He held the missive out in front of him. He glanced up and I almost caught a glint of sympathy. Or maybe I imagined it.
Kosta tightened his fingers on the page until it crackled and read in a clipped, rusty tone that brooked no argument.
Galen of Delphi
Rank: Lokhagos
Decorated unit commander and head of the Green Hawk Special Forces
Is to join his unit immediately at Grid N1738.5.
I couldn't help it. I had to ask. "Is that by the Mountain of Flames?"
Kosta gave me an almost pitying look. "Kid, that's inside it."
He looked almost weary as he returned to the dispatch.
As punishment for his vile act of disobedience, Galen of Delphi will be stripped of his immortal status. He will lose all rights as a demi-god and be forced to live out the remainder of his life as a mortal.
I turned to Galen. He was visibly shaken. It was the first time I'd ever seen him knocked off his game.
Kosta did his best to ignore us as he cleared his throat.
Signed, Huitzilopochtli, god of war and the sun
Co-signed, Pele, goddess of fire, lightning, dance, volcanoes, and violence
"This is a death sentence," I protested.
"Yes," Galen said, his expression unreadable.
"Don't tell me you're accepting this." He'd served those gods for more than five hundred years, fighting for them, killing for them. He'd been viciously wounded time and time again, gone back without question—and this was how they treated him?
Kosta dropped the golden parchment on his desk. "None of us would choose this," he said, "but orders are orders."
"I broke the rules," Galen said, his jaw tightening with the emotion of it. "I was the perfect soldier for five hundred twenty-three years. And now I'm not." He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. "And I don't regret one second of it."
My heart swelled with his admission, even as it threatened to break. "What they're doing to you is wrong."
He gave a small smile. "I can still fight."
As a mortal. At the mouth of Hades. Against an overwhelming immortal army.
Kosta opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a squat jar with a round gold lid. It was filled with some kind of blue liquid.
A shiver ran down my spine. "What is that?"
"My punishment," Galen responded, his voice tight.
"Heaven have mercy," I murmured as the bravest soldier I'd ever known stepped forward to accept the judgment of the gods.
Kosta placed the jar in Galen's hands and stepped back two paces.
Galen held it, his lips pursed together as if in prayer. Then he slowly raised it to the level of his heart and removed the stopper from the jar.
I forgot to breathe as a thin blue cloud of smoke wisped from the opening. The temperature of the room plunged. Goose bumps raced up my arms as the cloud unfurled around Galen, sending his collar ruffling, whispering through his hair, calling out to him with a
thousand ghostly voices.
My heart ached for him as he held on, brave and still.
Bit by bit I saw silver flecks in the cloud, like dew caught in a spider's web. I realized with a start that it was his immortal essence. They drew it out of him until it hovered, suspended and naked in front of us.
We watched as it was sucked up by the bottle until Galen stood before us, mortal.
For a moment, no one moved.
"On the desk," Kosta said.
Galen placed the jar on the edge.
With a crackle, the jar caught fire. Heart pounding, I was ready to jump in, to put it out. But Kosta stood stoic, wiping the sweat from his brow. Galen waited in silence, letting it burn. And so I did, too.
I watched it grow into a bright blue flame.
The letter caught fire as well, burning gold.
Within minutes, they were both consumed, leaving nothing on Kosta's desk—not even ashes.
Kosta cleared his throat. "They know you've accepted your fate. You have to go now. There's a jeep waiting outside."
Galen nodded, and drew me in for a long embrace. I held on tight. I could still smell the musk from our lovemaking.
"Are you sure they really changed you?" I asked.
He held me close. "Yes," he said against my hair.
"Let's go. Now," Kosta said.
Together we walked outside to the waiting jeep.
Dawn was breaking as Kosta gave Galen a final salute. "It's been an honor to know you, Commander. Fight well."
He returned the salute. "I will, sir."
Galen turned to me. With regret and determination in his eyes, he kissed me on the forehead, the cheek, the chin. I reached up and gave him one last, long, aching kiss before he pulled away. "Good-bye." He gave me a small, faltering smile.
"Good-bye," I choked.
"I love you," I whispered. As I watched him depart for the mouth of Hades.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I walked back to my hutch, empty and aching with the hopelessness of it. I'd done everything. I'd accepted fate. I'd braved the Shrouds. I'd given Galen my heart. I'd let him go.
Would it be enough?
I didn't know anymore.
How many times had I faced this in my career? The wrung-out knowledge that I'd done my best and it still wasn't enough? I'd given everything and still the armies marched.
Rodger leaned over his footlocker as I banged into our hutch. "What are you doing here?" I grumbled. He should be watching PNN with the rest of the masses.
Rodger gave me the kind of look people usually reserve for funerals. "I was just hanging out with Shirley, trying to get a message to my wife."
"I didn't see you."
"You walked right past." He closed the lid. "I figured you and Galen needed some privacy," he said, sitting down on my cot. "And that you might want some company now."
I joined him. "I don't know what to do."
He swallowed hard and nodded. "There's nothing more we can do."
That part hurt worst of all.
We sat for a moment, no words coming. I watched the tar bubbling up in the swamp beyond Rodger's window.
"What did you want to tell Mary Ann?" I asked. It was almost impossible to get any messages out, except by letter, and that could take weeks.
Rodger wiped at his eyes. "Topanga is on a fault line, or near one anyway. I told her to pack up the kids. Now. And take them to her sister's in Utah."
I rested my elbows on my knees. "Did she get the message?"
He stared blankly ahead. "I think so." He dropped his head. "I don't know."
The world had gone to hell and all we could do was stare at tar. "Do you want to go see what's happening on PNN?"
He caught my eye. "Do you?"
Now that he mentioned it, I wasn't sure.
"Rodger!" Holly the charge nurse pounded on the door. She opened it before we could bother to tell her to come in. "You've got to take these." She backed in through the door, holding a box of squeaking, wriggling swamp creatures.
"Rodger!" Had he been giving them out to the whole camp?
Rodger leapt up to take the box. "I told you to separate the boys from the girls."
"They're babies," Holly protested. "What are babies doing having babies?"
"I don't know," Rodger said, nudging an escapee back into the box.
"Which is why they need to go back into the swamp," I told him.
He shook his head. "I tried it. They climb back out. See for yourself."
The three of us went outside to the edge of the swamp. "Now watch," Rodger said, as if he were some kind of high school science teacher. He turned the box on its side and nudged at least twenty little scaly monsters back into the tar.
They'd barely gotten their feet wet before they glopped right back out, squeaking and trying to climb Rodger's legs. "They think I'm their mother."
I took in the situation, trying to comprehend. "How many are there?" He'd had six, which had probably turned into sixty, and then Holly brought hers. Add that to the two I saw Horace carrying around...
"Don't we have bigger problems?" Rodger asked, in the shameless diversion of the year.
Unfortunately, he was right.
Rodger's footlocker was already packed with a throng of sea creatures, so I lent him mine. He set a water bowl down into it as I cleared out my clothes and snagged three pennies from the bottom. We didn't want the babies to choke.
"I suppose we can leave the lids open," Rodger mused as a handful of the relocated sea serpents immediately went to sit in their water bowl.
"As long as they stay in the hutch," I ordered, already knowing we were doomed.
Marius was going to have a fit when he came back from his lair.
Afterward, Rodger walked with me as we made our way to the mess tent. We hadn't talked about it or decided to go, we just knew we should. I didn't say as much, but I was glad to have my friend with me.
There were fewer people inside now that the oracle had been read. We ignored a pitiful-looking donut display and found spots on the floor near the front.
Stone McKay glared down from the screen. "The old god armies are advancing on the Mountain of Flames. The new gods have dug in, as they attempt to thwart the attack. Still, by all estimates, they are outgunned and outnumbered. The best they can hope to do is to delay the inevitable."
PNN cut to footage of a vast army, clad in tan. "When will the new army break out their doomsday weapon?"
They showed the most massive hell vent I'd ever seen. A volcano thrust from the top of it, spitting chunks of heated rock and debris. The steam cut through the desert air, and as the helicopter flew over and panned down, I saw nothing but blackness and lava.
"So that's Galen's objective." Rodger whistled under his breath.
All I could do was nod.
He'd never survive. Not as a mortal.
A giant boom sounded from the mountain, like one of those jaw-rattling Fourth of July fireworks I used to hate as a kid.
"Is it beginning?" Stone demanded. "Where did that explosion come from?"
The camera jerked and panned over the volcano, down the mountain. The old army had almost made it to the hell vent. The new army was dug in right in front. This was it.
I forgot to breathe as the old army attacked. The new army opened up in a volley of artillery fire. It tore into the lines of tan soldiers, but they kept coming. They surged, wave upon wave, like a living mass of death and destruction.
Old army cannons shot volley after volley onto the Mountain of Flame. The impacts sent showers of rock down into the hell vent and left superheated purple fires burning on the volcano.
The two fronts collided, cannons exploded, and the camera zoomed as warriors fought in hand-to-hand combat, to the death. The wounded were crushed under the advance of the old army.
"I can't believe they're showing this on TV," I said, horrified.
The ranks of the new army began to falter and break.
I wanted
to look away, but couldn't. I owed it to Galen to witness this, to watch.
Purple fires raged on the mountain as the new army fell back. "Holy hell," Rodger whistled.
Shouts went up among the troops. "Wait." I clutched the edges of the table. The old army had stopped. "What are they going to do?"
Dragons zoomed overhead, and I half expected an aerial attack to wipe out our side in one deadly, fiery moment.
Rodger pounded me on the arm. "They're falling back."
"No, they're not," I barked. The old army had no reason to retreat. Except that they were backing away. "What the hell?"
A shout went up among the troops. A battle cry? But they didn't charge.
"What in Hades is going on?" I demanded, throat tight.
Rodger simply stared at the television.
They cut to a very confused Stone McKay. He held a parchment with raised red lettering. "We interrupt this, ahem, war to bring you a bulletin." He pulled out his reading glasses and consulted the parchment. "The old gods are calling an immediate cease-fire"—his voice rose in wonder— "in order to meet with the new gods over a more important matter."
"More important?" I choked. I wanted to fall over with disbelief and elation and fear and sheer exhaustion and about a hundred other emotions I couldn't begin to name.
A murmuring went up from the crowd around us. I'd almost forgotten they were there.
"What? I don't get it," Rodger said.
Neither did I. "Wait," I said.
We watched as Stone accepted a rolled parchment. He slipped a nervous finger under the seal and it broke apart with a hiss. "Another highly unusual development," he uttered, trying to fill dead air.
"The gods always could get a letter out," Rodger said, almost to himself.
After seeing the one they'd sent to Galen, I had to agree.
Stone's eyes flicked over the missive. "Cavillace, virgin goddess of fear, patron of the old god army has"—the news-caster's eyes grew wide—"joined with Dagr, god of hope and fertility. The resulting pregnancy scandal makes it imperative for the gods to call an immediate cease-fire to discuss this matter."
I grabbed Rodger. "We have peace?" Is that what they meant? It couldn't be what they meant. It couldn't be that easy.
"Wasn't Dagr your patient?" Rodger asked as photos of the two lovers went up on the screen.