by ST Branton
“Like this?” I pushed the sword in deeper.
The harpy goddess’s eyes widened. “Step away!” There was no hiding the panic in her voice. “One mistake, and we will all be killed!”
“That’s funny.” I put out a hand and touched the surface of the pedestal. It thrummed with energy buildup. “Too bad I’m only Human. We’re very accident prone.”
I gave the platform a gentle shove and the platform bent slightly at the pressure. The drill rocked on its base.
“No!” Lysiani rushed me in a hail of feathers. Her long legs made short work of the enormous vault—I had only a second or two to prepare my attack. She reached to shove me away, and as she did so, I drove the sword deep into the flesh of her upper thigh. Time slowed for just that instant, granting me the rare opportunity to savor my vengeance.
Like always, the blade passed clean through organic material, but I still wrenched it free. Scarring even one part of her body gave me enormous satisfaction. Screaming, she twisted away. More feathers fell in clumps. Her right wing half-dragged along the floor.
“Weird,” I said, tailing her as she tried to scuttle away. “I figured you’d be the biggest challenge, but your offspring I killed a couple hours ago put up a way better fight than this.”
The goddess kicked viciously at me, aiming to tear at my legs with her spiked heels. I planted Kronin’s sword deep in the center of the injured wing. Her whole long body went rigid with the pain. When I took the sword out, she fell back, gasping.
“It is the sword, not you. You are nothing.”
“We’ll see about that. Maybe this will relight your cold, dead heart.” Taking the time to line up my shot, I reared back as if I was about to throw it. This monster, more than all the others before, needed to stay down.
A familiar, two-part racking sound was what stopped me.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” said Silas Monk. He held a twelve-gauge shotgun, and although it was certainly nothing to scoff at, I could tell by the way the barrel weaved that his grip was amateur and unsteady. Too bad with a shotgun, he barely needed to aim to shred me to pieces. “I’m not much of a gunman. I don’t want to shoot you.”
“Shoot her!” Lysiani commanded. “By order of your Goddess Queen, shoot her!”
Hesitantly, Monk raised the gun. His thumb wavered on the safety for a minute until I heard it click off. Unwilling to risk waiting another second, I grabbed the chunk of metal I had cut from the drill-base and hurled it overhand at him.
He flinched at the same time that he fired, driving the shot wide. I was too focused on him to notice Lysiani had gotten up behind me. She sank her claws into my shoulders and took flight on her jacked-up wings.
My shoulders were in agony. “You’re an asshole!” I hollered. “Put me down or drop me. I don’t care which!” When that failed to get a response, I started hacking one-handed at any part of her that I could reach. But she was healing; I felt the magic working beneath her skin. Even the burns from Kronin’s blade dissolved quickly into new flesh.
My upper hand was fading fast. I tried not to let myself panic, but I knew if I let her get back to full strength, she would likely finish me then and there. Down below, the LIGHT drill still sat collecting energy.
That was the last trick up my sleeve.
As she flew higher, I reached up with one hand and grabbed ahold of Lysiani’s robe. Then I stabbed upward with the sword, attacking the arms that held me.
She screamed as she released me from her grasp, but I kept my grip on her robe.
The pain of my attack and the sudden shift in weight threw her off balance. We began to plummet toward the ground.
As we fell, she lashed out at me and I at her. We tumbled together, a blur of fire and fury. There were only seconds to prepare. With all my strength, I pulled, trying to get on top of her, keeping her body between me and the drill that was waiting for us down below.
I barely felt the explosion when we hit. One second I was hanging onto Lysiani for dear life, the next I was flying through the air, the world spinning around me. My whole back struck the wall with a resounding thud. There was a moment of ringing calm. Right after that, the wall I’d hit crumbled on top of me.
The silence under the debris was curiously muted, not unlike being underwater. I could still breathe, but my legs were pinned and so was half my torso. The Gladius Solis was buried in my right hand. I was terrifyingly stuck.
Do not panic, Victoria. Call on your sword.
In the heat of the fight, I’d forgotten about Marcus. His voice calmed me and stopped my heart from hammering out of my chest.
A breath in, a breath out.
The blade.
It obliterated the rocks above it immediately. I used the tip to carve a doorway out of the debris. The air that rushed in was dusty, tinted with hints of chemicals and burning plastic. I freed my arms, planted them on the floor, and heaved my way out of the concrete prison.
The vault was a mess. Where the pedestal with the drill had stood, there was only a blackened square surrounded by the blast pattern of the explosion. Most of the walls were missing chunks and marred by soot and ashes. I wondered vaguely if Monk was okay.
No immediate signs of him surfaced, but, of course, Lysiani burst from a fortification of rubble the moment she heard me. Debris turned into shrapnel from the sheer force of her entrance. I shielded my head.
“You.” She glowered as if this had been solely my fault. “Where is Monk?” A long arm snaked in a flash toward my throat, but I caught her wrist just in time. The tendons flexed beneath her skin as she strained to overpower me, her hand inching closer to its goal.
I bore down.
“Hell if I know. I didn’t see him before we all got blown sky-high.” I smirked. “Are you just now realizing how fucked you are if he’s dead? You don’t know how any of his shit actually works, do you?”
Her talons swiped for my heart. I struck back with the flat of my sword. The blow knocked her to the side, sending her unbalanced ass to the floor. When she fanned her wings up, thrashing, the wall of wind beat me backwards with a force that took me by surprise. The gale wasn’t enough to prevent me from severing her flight feathers, consigning her to the ground. This did not make those wings as useless as I hoped. She flapped them at me with the fury of a thousand storms, hurling curses from between her teeth. The wind rose to a whining howl.
“The strength is the sword’s,” she seethed again. Her words cut through the rushing air. “Not yours. Never yours!”
“Yeah, you said that one already. It doesn’t seem to matter, does it?” Gripping the hilt overhand, I pushed forward and gouged out a slash in each wing, so large that I knew she’d be grounded for good—and maybe she’d stop calling up a damn tornado every second. She screeched. Her fierce rhythm faltered.
But she still managed to club me in the head with the bony top ridge of a wing. I reeled back, dazed as she made her escape. Both wings dragged limply behind her.
I climbed to my feet, ready to finish this thing, when a weak voice stopped me in my tracks.
“Help,” Monk whimpered. “Please.”
I turned to see the scientist in the firm grasp of a certain sun-glassed, man in black.
A knife bit at the soft skin of Monk’s throat.
Brax pressed down on the knife until a thin rivulet of blood trickled from its underside. “Yes,” he said, a little smugly. “I think our friend here really needs it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“We’re definitely not friends, Abraxzael,” I said. “I need Monk alive, and if you’re not going to cooperate, then we’ve got problems.”
He seemed so taken aback by the use of his real name that he almost dropped Monk straight to the floor. The mirrored sunglasses focused intently on me. “So, you finally found me out. I have to say, that takes a certain amount of guts. Most people don’t have ‘em.”
I smirked. “I got ‘em for days, man. Which means I’m not going anywhere. You’re not
taking Monk out of my sight.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. Drop the sword, and I’ll consider letting this puny man go.”
“Not gonna happen.”
He shrugged. “Then we’re at an impasse.”
“Don’t I get a say in all this,” Monk whimpered.
We both glared at him and shouted, “Shut up,” simultaneously.
Vic, what are you going to do?
“I don’t know,” I muttered under my breath.
“Ah,” Brax said with a smile. Talking to your invisible friend again? I’m sure he’s the one who told you all about me. Brax the Betrayer, Criminal from Hell, or some shit like that. Kronin’s lapdogs always have a flair for the dramatic.”
“Says the guy in a trench coat and aviators.”
He nodded. “Touche.”
“And he told me that you’re the lapdog. Let me guess, Lorcan sent you here, right? I thought the Marked hated the gods. I thought you fought a war just to free yourselves from them. Why the hell would you serve them now?”
“I’m what your people call a demon...we’re not exactly known for our loyalty. My services simply go to the highest bidder, and I’m the best in the business. So they generally bid very high.”
He flashed me a wide toothy grin. His yellow teeth were like small bricks. But there was something about what he said—or rather how he said it that didn’t sit right with me. I’d been dealing with deception and manipulation all week, and I wasn’t buying it.
“You’re lying.”
“What,” he growled. His smile froze and became menacing.
I stood up straighter, lowering the sword by a couple inches. “It’s all a lie. You, parading around like some cold blooded mercenary, but I don’t believe it. You’re nothing more than a pawn in this aren’t you? What’s Lorcan got over you?”
Brax opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He hemmed and hawed for a moment, then his shoulders relaxed. Letting go of Monk with one hand, he pulled down the collar of his shirt to show the very beginning of the chain tattoo I’d glimpsed before.
“I’m Marked,” he said simply. “If you knew my name, you knew that already. You may not know that because of the brand, the Marked are essentially enslaved by the gods. We do what they say, or they send us back to hell.” His smile was grim. “And I’m not going back to hell. Monk here is my ticket out.”
“You guys gonna swap places? I don’t think that’s how the fairytale is supposed to go.”
“Originally, I was supposed to bring back the weapon. But since the LIGHT seems to have gone the way of old broken things, I’ll have to bring Monk back to build a new one.”
“You… you can’t just bring the pieces?” The trace of hope in Monk’s voice was as sad as it was adorable.
“Not if you’re the only one who knows how to put them together,” Brax said. “Lorcan isn’t into his own arts and crafts.”
The name Lorcan perked my ears up. I was glad my bluff worked. Knowing now that Lysiani had slaughtered the majority of his vamps, the rat was probably in hiding, biding his time until he could figure out a next move.
“So you are working for Lorcan?” I asked.
Brax chuckled dryly. “Who isn’t? Guy never does his own dirty work. Most of the gods, they were as surprised by old Kronin’s death as he was. But Lorcan, he’s a crafty son of a bitch. He’s been planning this return from the beginning. This world will bow beneath him.”
“Not if I can stop it first. You could help me.”
Brax’s laughter boomed throughout the ruined room. “You think because you got a few good licks in against that winged bitch that you can take Lorcan? There’s not a god alive that holds a candle to what he can do. And if you think I’m going to get on his bad side, you’re as crazy as those harpies.”
“Better to die fighting than live as a coward.”
Brax’s large upper lip rose in a sneer. “Better to live as a coward than spend eternity in hell. Trust me princess. You don’t know what you’re up against. Now,” he lowered the knife and wrapped his arm around Monk’s neck. Then he started dragging the small man backward. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a job to finish.”
“Like hell you do!” The high pitched scream came from the across the room. All three of us looked in that direction, just in time to see a woman in a red dress pick up Monk’s shotgun. I knew her instantly, despite the new, angry scarring over one side of her face.
What was she doing here?
“Eve?” Monk’s voice was soft and stricken with horror. “What happened to you?”
She turned on him. “You know exactly what happened. And so do you!” This last part was directed at Brax as she turned the weapon toward them. “Why wouldn’t I be here? Someone needs to pay for everything I’ve lost. You’re the only one who seems to have the money.” The shotgun cocked. “So, pay up.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Monk held his hands up. “Let’s not get crazy here. I’m sorry about your face, Eve, but I don’t owe you reparations. He’s the one who broke into the hotel room with a flaming hammer.”
“And yet, I’m not the one she wants to kill,” Brax noted.
The whole scene was weird, to say the least. Whatever I had expected out of this last encounter, pseudo-family drama was not it. I almost felt like I should leave until they sorted it out, but then Eve exploded and drew us all in.
“It’s his fault,” she said, pointing a shaking finger at Monk. “Because he’s the one who built the drill. He’s the one who caught Lysiani’s attention and made her give me away so I could keep him on our side. And he’s the one who abandoned me like trash after I was ruined!” Tears brimmed at the corners of her eyes. “I did everything for you, Silas Monk! I taught you how to dress, how to talk. I helped you facilitate the last phases of production. I found investors. I made sure your dreams came true! And this is how I get repaid.” She sniffled, on the brink of another breakdown.
“What?” I interrupted, confused. “You deserve a fresh start? After all the shit we’ve gone through here because of you? Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Eve broke down into slightly hysterical laughter that took all emotion out of her face when it subsided. “No. There’s no starting over for me. It’s too late.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The red dress flicked around Eve’s feet as she paced the vault with a manic glint in her eye. She was the same woman I had seen at Monk’s side during the gala event at SF Tech only a few days ago, but she wasn’t that woman at all.
The burn scars reminded me of Rocco, but even beyond that, something had changed in her. Where she had been smug and self-satisfied, supremely confident in her own ability, now she was raging at a world that had failed her.
“Once upon a time, I was a beauty queen of great renown. World renown. Every week, it was somewhere different, somewhere new and exotic to explore. And everywhere I went, I had fans. People flocked to see me on the stage. They recognized me in the streets. Men fell over each other to buy me gifts, to be with me.”
A real smile bloomed on her face as she described them, and she spun in blissful circles around the ruined vault like she was back on one of those stages. I kept my eyes on the shotgun, which pointed in my direction at the apex of every spin.
Eve’s movements were too erratic to make a move on her. I had to hang back and keep my eye out for an opportunity to save Monk and myself. When the time came, Brax would be on his own.
Eve slowed, and the smile fell away. The lines around her eyes and face seemed to redraw themselves deeper than before.
“But it couldn’t last,” she said. “The days came and went, and that thrilling lifeblood stopped pumping through my veins. I aged out of the competition arena, losing my spot to younger, more vital girls. No one recognized me anymore, or if they did, it was fleeting. I haunted conversations in past tense: ‘the girl who was.’ My whole life was built on sand in the hourglass, and it all crumbled slowly away.”
Her hands clenched tightly around the shotgun. I cringed, half expecting it to go off. Luckily, this crazy harpy still had enough sense in her charbroiled head to keep her finger off the trigger. Still, she was really taking advantage of her captive audience with this long confession. I racked my brain for a way to overpower her, if for no other reason than to put an end to this pathetic display.
“I got lonely,” Eve continued. “Then, I got angry, and then I just got damn sad.” An inscrutable expression passed over her face like a cloud. “Then I found Lysiani. Or rather, she found me.”
“And you sold your body to her, just so you could look pretty again?” I shook my head. “Lady, you were messed up before you ever became a harpy.”
Eve took a long time to answer that one. “It’s more than my body. She asked for my soul. And I gladly gave it to her. Then, she made me beautiful.” She faltered. “I gave up my soul for this. Now I’m nothing.” Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks, dripping off the scarred line of her lower jaw. She pointed the shotgun at Monk. “Do you know what that means, Silas? To have your life snuffed away in an instant? You’re about to.”
Monk backed off, sort of ducking behind Brax for protection. Brax just eyed the woman in red with a close cynicism.
“Eve, wait,” I said, hoping to keep the shotgun from going off. Monk was still right there. Right in the line of fire.
“I’ve waited long enough.”
The gun roared and threw her backward. Brax covered Silas Monk with the broad shelter of his body before buckling over at the waist amid a spray of blood. This was the chance I’d been waiting for. I sprang toward her, tackling the weapon out of her hands. She fell to the side, and it clattered between us. I kicked it out of her reach as her long fingers scrabbled for a hold.
“That was the wrong choice, Eve,” I said.
The skin on her face was sagging, spidering over with blotches and veins. The wings that sprouted from her shoulders were rumpled and dull, but I knew better than to be fooled by her body’s state of disrepair. The sunken eyes in her skull glinted with malice.