by Kyle Olson
Her tunnel vision widened just enough to spot movement beyond the serpent. From the shadows a familiar form emerged.
Tarkit smirked at her.
Every wrinkle, every hair, every blemish was a perfect match. The scent! Her nose wrinkled. It was… close. So very, incredibly close. A difference between two pots of soup, only one had a pinch more salt.
Sejit’s whole body went taut, a bowstring at the verge of snapping. Fangs stretched, bone and sinew popped and creaked as her form drifted further away from that of a human.
Wretched creatures! How dare they?!
Yes, you understand now!
Tear them apart! More!
Yes, yes, let us go wild!
…No. No! I’m in—I am in control!
No!
“Wio! Do not taunt her!”
Daontys’ voice dawned, radiating throughout the room, “Have you no respect?”
“Respect?” The serpent hissed, “She intrudes!”
“It is a small miracle we are not standing upon the ruins of a mountain,” Daontys said, words heavy and pointed.
The figure parading about as Tarkit shrugged. Shadow twisted and danced, tied and unwound, and where Tarkit once stood, was a woman of entirely average dimensions and attributes, save for a head of long, red hair. “As you wish,” she said, drearily.
“Now then,” Daontys continued, taking a few steps closer towards Sejit.
She growled.
He elected to keep his distance.
“Did you not receive my letter?”
“I did,” came Sejit’s harsh, guttural voice.
The snake. Hu’phed. We were correct all along, she thought, tail scything about. Hu’phed tried to match the intensity of her gaze, but under her countenance couldn’t help but turn away.
Hmph. As I remember. And that is… Wio? Someone I do not know.
Unlike Hu’phed, Wio had no intention of getting into a staring contest. She fidgeted with her long hair, looping it round a finger.
“Then I must wonder,” Daontys said, gesturing his arms wide, furrowing his brow, “Why have you come? Do you presume that I would boast idly?”
“Heh heh, ha ha ha,” Sejit’s laughter came coarse as gravel, “I should hope not, else this will be a boring trip.”
He cocked a brow, “Then you willingly consign your country, people, and temple to ruin?”
“Not at all, not at all. I have someone in place.”
“Tess? Hah! If you’re relying upon her, then there is no hope. Whatever you aim to achieve, it will fail.”
In the background, Wio had wandered close to the polearm stuck fast in the ground. Fingers outstretched to touch the haft—
“Touch it and your torment will be endless!”
Daontys whirled, “Wio!”
“What? You’re gonna fight her anyways, that was the point of this whole set-up.”
“A set-up? I did not know how much I wanted this,” Sejit said, padding on slow, trundling steps towards the group. Hu’phed slithered back, as did Daontys, “This has been a long time coming.”
Careful, she reminded herself, even as she licked her chops.
This is foolish, too foolish. Why be careful? Why suppress me? Let us show them the meaning of power.
What would you know of strength? No, I know how your means end.
…I will be watching.
“Indeed. I suppose we never did resolve our differences from back then, did we?” said Daontys.
“Our differences? With your dying empire’s last breath you attempted to hunt me down. Not that I do not appreciate the strength you wielded against me, but,” Sejit tilted an ear to a shoulder, “We see the result of your efforts.”
Daontys’ amber eyes reflected the burgeoning pink skies of a new day. “Oh, I admit it was a desperate attempt. You were to be a focus to unite my fractured children, instead… Well, no matter. That was then, this is now. Soon, I will usher in a new, prosperous era.”
“So your neutrality was a bald lie. Considering your pet snake here,” Sejit’s eyes flicked to Hu’phed, “I wonder how deep your schemes delve.”
“I do not scheme! Ahem,” he cleared his throat, smoothing down his ruffled, short-crop of hair, “We do not scheme.”
Sejit paced, keeping him and the others at an equal distance. “Is that so? If you do not scheme, then why do you talk so much?”
At the moment, warmth fell upon his back as clouds broke, silhouetting him in a halo so bright it forced Sejit to squint.
“Because you have become soft!”
His patience had been worth it. Arms stretched wide, Daontys let loose the shrill cry of a hunting falcon.
Dazzling dawn light scorched and seared as it washed over Sejit like boiling oil. Roaring in pain from smoldering fur and sizzling skin, she threw herself blindly towards her ancient love’s gift, plucking it from the ground and dodged behind a dividing wall for cover.
Flesh healed over and fur regrew in the span of a breath. It took considerable will to keep from charging out in a mad, frenzied rush.
Fucker! When was the last… No, doesn’t matter. What should I—
Hu’phed had darted around to the other side of her cover and struck again, but Sejit, even in her awkward position, managed to turn him aside and knock him to the ground. Bouncing to her feet, she readied a decapitating strike, but as the blade arced down, Wio again assumed the form of Tarkit and threw herself in the way.
Sejit got a two-for-one.
Hu’phed’s body fell slack, but his head thrashed and chomped impotently at nothing. Wio’s waist and legs were no longer attached to one another, and the form of Sejit’s son had vanished.
“How could you?!” Wio gurgled.
“Pathetic.”
Daontys was halfway there, another three or four long-legged footsteps and his searing light would follow. She could not ensure their complete death in time, but a few more hacks would keep them out of the fight for hours, at least.
Blood splattered and dripped from her blade. She took off to round the corner just as Daontys did the same.
For Sejit, however, a goddess of death and war she may have been, a century of inactivity was not something that could be shaken off in a few seconds. Her foot slipped on the blood-slicked stone with a short squeak, costing her precious, fleeting time.
Sunlight impacted, bowling her over into furniture that splintered and shattered under her mass. Radiance consumed her, set every nerve alight with agony. She cries out and thrashed, desperate for cover. For every moment she spent under it, the pain and heat doubled.
Reaching out with every limb, the tips of her paws found purchase on something solid and sturdy. Dragging it or her, it didn’t matter which, she found respite under its cover—a granite table.
Balled up behind the barricade, she gasped and panted. All around her the air sizzled. The damage to her body took mere seconds to mend, but the mental impact was not so quick to heal. It’d been an age since the last time she felt pain like that. Inaction had sapped her resilience.
Daontys tried to maneuver around, but Sejit and the table spun to face him. Around her, metal fixtures began to sag and wilt. A few came apart entirely. Her cover would not last.
The other two may have been nothing, but they had served their purpose. A distraction.
Careless! How could I forget the time! Fuck it! Need to think. Think!
Worse yet, the floor itself was beginning to glow. Even if her slab held out, the ground itself would begin roasting her.
There was one out, a clear, easy path.
Yes. You see now.
…but to go that route would almost certainly mean undoing all she had worked for, all she had become. Sejit was not sure she could pull herself back should she let go, even for the barest of seconds.
Did she have a choice?
Fortune smiled, expanding her options.
The windows behind her shattered and howling wind off the cliffside rushed in. Lamps were knocked
over, rugs blown about, and debris and dust were kicked up into a miniature storm.
The brilliance washing through the room abated.
Sejit vaulted from cover, coming down on stone so hot it charred her feet and fur in an instant. Two great bounding strides put Daontys just outside the range of Mun’skit. Just one more—to his credit, Daontys had already taken the first steps in his retreat and the air began to glimmer once more.
Overriding all the agony, Sejit commanded her body to cooperate, coming down on her third stride in a pirouette, lashing out with her poleaxe in a wide, murderous arc to cut down anything in its path—such was its fury a shock-wave cracked off the edge, shattering vases, cleaving from the walls all the paintings the wind hadn’t blown away by the inrush of wind or incinerated by the sun. The blade had found its mark, but only just so, tearing through Daontys’ clothing to leave a shallow gash across his belly. He’d hissed out and his hand shot to his gut, but the wound wasn’t enough to slow him down.
Sejit’s attack had come at the cost of momentum and Daontys was again out of range. Knowing she couldn’t let him slip away again, she allowed her spin to carry her round, and as she completed her spin, she hurled the polearm like a javelin with as much strength as she could manage while ensuring her aim was true.
And Daontys, thinking himself out of range, had been careless and allowed himself to jump far too high, far too long in his bid to put distance between them. Fast as the gods were, a body without wings could only follow the laws of motion and gravity once airborne.
Mun’skit pierced through, blowing away an entire flank, deep enough to chip away at his spine. It carried on, embedding itself in the wall.
But as her polearm was unstoppable as it left her hand, so too was solar retribution. The glimmering air burst like a star gone supernova for a long second until Daonsys thumped wet against the ground.
The damage to Sejit had been just as tremendous. Falling to her knees, ash flaked from her body. Panting and gasping, she struggled to keep her eyes open, to keep her mind intact. Daontys was still alive. She needed to end this, end him, now!
Let me finish this!
No! The lion couldn’t take over, not now.
As Sejit could not come to her feet, neither could Daontys. Paralyzed below the waist, he cursed, spitting vehement poison as he tried to sit upright, but his hands kept slipping on the slicked, heated stone. Already the gaping chasm in his side was shrinking.
Whoever could stand first held the advantage. Or, whoever elected to drop the charade and invoke their full might would be the likely victor. Both parties, however, knew the inevitable cost.
Time ticked down.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
“So,” Sophia said, once she’d setup an inflatable mattress in a spare room and ordered a late-night, early-morning pizza, “Who was that kid, anyways?”
“No clue,” said Tess, flicking through channels on the television in her room.
It was the first time Sophia had been in Tess’ bedroom. In the past she always made sure to give it a wide berth, but seeing as how it held the only television in the entire place, she didn’t have much of an option.
To say the difference between Tess’ room and, well, everything else was night and day would be a tremendous disrespect, for at least night and day were tidy and regular. Clothing was strewn about everywhere, the bed was a mass of sheets and blankets balled up in the center, a rifle was in a half-disassembled state on the dresser in the walk-in closet, and the room stank of gunpowder with undertones of sex. This was stark contrast to the relatively neat working space of her office. Private life versus public, perhaps.
Sejit and Wophin were equally appalled by the conditions in which she lived, but so long as she contained the disaster to her room, they’d let it slide.
“How come you don’t know? I figured all the gods knew each other.”
“Do you remember every person you’ve ever met? If I showed you a picture of some random guy, could you tell me who he is?” Tess said, her channel surfing coming to a halt. She’d settled on a show about the history of the gun during the early industrial revolution, if only because she liked to chide them for how much they got wrong.
“There’re billions of people! And only what, hundreds of gods? Maybe a thousand?”
“Thousands,” Tess said, drawing out the ‘s’ so long it turned into a ‘z,’ “And most of ‘em are tiny gods. Like Jasupt, God of Lost Things.”
“…I see. Well, who knows how long he was spying on us. He knew a few things about us.”
“That reminds me,” Tess said as she watched the show. As most chairs were occupied by various things, she was seated cross-legged on the bed, “You were real chatty with him. What did you find out?”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
Sophia tapped the ends of her fingers together. In her excitement to tell Tess, she’d forgotten to tell Tess.
“He’s working for either Daontys or Ifon, for sure. He said the Father of Us will burn the lion and the wolf chews on the jackal and that someone is going to show up tomorrow, er, today.”
Like someone unsure of what they’d just heard, Tess blinked once, then twice. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
“And you didn’t tell me this the instant you got here?!” She jumped up from the bed in a rush, startling Sophia.
“I’m sorry! I mean, it doesn’t mean Ifon is going to be the one to show up, right? And even if he is, how bad can he be?”
In truth, Sophia only had to think about the question to know the answer. All manner of vivid scenes played out, most of them ending with a great wolf, or what was probably metaphor or allegory for Ifon, standing alone in what had to be victory.
“Well. Shit,” Tess groaned, dragging a hand down her face, “We need to warn Sejit if it’s not too late and get… something setup for the wolf.”
She was supposed to scare off the small gods, not a tyrant to rival Sejit herself. About now the lion ought to be infiltrating Daontys’ place, so even if there was some miraculous travel system that could get her back in time, chances were slim of getting in contact any time soon. To be safe and sure, however, Tess fired off a series of text messages outlining the new information.
There was no immediate response.
“…Something?” Sophia inquired, unsure.
“Something,” Tess repeated, tapping a finger to her lip, “He’s arriving by jet, I assume? Yes, if he’s coming from Erton there’s no other way… Sophia.”
The sphinx-girl winced, “I know that look. What do you want me to do?”
“Find out what flight he’s coming in on. While you do that, I’m going to setup accommodations for our guest in the city.”
Sophia about collapsed on the spot, “…I’m so sick of working all night.”
And work there was.
The armory in the sub-basement was loaded with guns of various size and purpose, enough ammunition to fight a small war, explosives, and other tools of the trade. The one thing lacking, however, was body armor—which made sense for Tess, but left Sophia feeling vulnerable, at least until she considered a vest of bullet-resistant material wasn’t likely to be much use against a god of war.
They labored through the night, Sophia narrowing down all the possible combinations of flights to the area while Tess left small caches of firepower in what would hopefully be secure locations dotted throughout the city. Having random passersby discover the ammunition and weaponry was not likely to end well, but it didn’t matter if there wasn’t a tomorrow to worry about.
With the end of night heralded by the twittering of birds, they finished their tasks. Aided in part by her gift, Sophia was able to pinpoint the flight Ifon would arrive on, and none too soon—it’d arrive within hours.
The duo departed for the small business airport at the edge of the city, or rather a block of apartments that were just outside the airport’s perimeter. They took up vantage atop one six-story structure and
waited for the jet’s arrival.
Sejit had never responded, which, considering how long it’d been, was slightly worrying. In just under half an hour the jet was scheduled to land.
A perfect opportunity for a chat.
“I gotta say, I’m impressed you joined in on this so willingly,” Tess said, breaking the rift of silence that’d settled into place once they hunkered down.
Sophia had been using a rifle scope, without an attached rifle, to peer at just about everything for the past several minutes. “What do you mean?”
“You could’ve stayed at the penthouse. I never asked you to accompany me.
“Ah,” said Sophia, as if the prospect of not helping hadn’t occurred to her, “I guess I just want to be involved.”
“Funny. Most people would rather not be.”
“Yeah, but that’s boring. And really, it’s probably safer with you.”
“Aw, how sweet, you think I’m going to protect you.”
Sophia settled for a long roll of her eyes, “Don’t worry, if you start to lose I’ll make sure to run away fast as I can. Besides, you did almost kill that one god last night…”
“What makes you think that was almost?” Tess said, peering through her scope into the sky.
“I’m not dumb,” Sophia scoffed, “Even without knowing I’ve learned enough to know someone like Sejit would probably be impossible to kill with a normal gun, so that guy, while he did get splattered, is probably still alive, right? How come you didn’t finish him off?”
“Aren’t we bloodthirsty,” Tess commented, shifting her attention towards the empty airfield. Or nearly empty. A small single-propeller airplane was being readied.
“What? How’s that bloodthirsty? I’m not saying he should die, just…”
“That it’d be better if he did?”
Sophia’s expression became one of difficulty. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“…You’re not wrong. Let’s say I have my reasons.”
The girl rolled her eyes, “That’s such a cop-out excuse. What, do you really know who he is or something?”
“Gods’ privilege,” Tess grinned, exposing the points of her canines, “And no. I really don’t.”