New Olympus Saga (Book 2): Doomsday Duet

by C. J. Carella

  “Okay, that sounds like a plan. Be careful, John, okay?”

  “You too. I’m not happy about leaving you in the care of a pack of vigilantes and killers, but…”

  “Hey, those are my friends, even if I’m not one hundred percent behind their life choices, okay? So don’t be dissing them. We’ll be all right. They’re all good people, even Kestrel, in her own perverted way.”

  “If you can, stay put until I get in touch with you.”

  “I wouldn’t mind chilling out at the lodge for a few days, but I don’t think we can just wait for you for long. What if things don’t go so well on your end?”

  “I don’t know what you and your friends can accomplish other than risking your capture,” John said.

  “We’ll work it out. We’ve done okay so far.”

  “Tell the others to be careful. I’ll be in touch.”

  “You’re not going to say goodbye?”

  “They’d probably try to talk me out of doing this, and arguing with them would just waste time. I have to do this. We can’t afford to be on the run from the Legion and the US authorities, in addition to our shadowy enemy. I have to set things right, before they get completely out of hand.”

  “Okay, okay. Go be uber-macho and stuff. Stay alive.”

  “I will. Scout’s honor.”

  She smiled at him. It made him feel warm as he flew away.

  Chapter Four

  Hunters and Hunted

  New York City, New York, May 15, 2013

  He is dead, dead and gone, nothing left to do. The thought ran through her mind with every breath, with every step. She repeated those words to herself even now, as she sprang from the shadows onto the unsuspecting group of armed men gathering at a warehouse.

  He is dead.

  Instincts honed by two decades of wet work took over. She flung her arms out and a dozen energy stars flashed towards the startled men. Flesh burned and exploded; the stars tore through their bodies, leaving behind broken twitching meat where living beings had stood moments before.

  Dead and gone.

  Before all of this, she would have laughed in delight at the carnage and savored the screams of terror as the survivors of her onslaught realized what was happening. Now she went about her business with cold dispassion. Some men ran, and her energy stars struck them from behind and sent their smoldering corpses tumbling to the ground. A couple, braver than the rest or simply too stupid to know they were doomed, drew weapons and tried to fight back. Most of their shots went wide or high. One bullet struck her forehead, right above her right eye. The impact, and the flare of pain as the spent round bounced off her skull, would normally have made her snarl in anger, and she would have given special consideration to the unlucky shooter’s final demise. Now, she merely finished him off as all the others, with as much passion as a farmer slaughtering his livestock.

  Dead and gone.

  The screams faded away one by one. The last man, both legs severed at the knees, kept on crawling away, praying all the while in a high-pitched voice. “God, please God, please, oh, God.” She caught up to him and finished him off with a stomping kick to the back of his neck. The crunching sound cut off the prayer with sharp finality. Her assignment was complete.

  “Well done, Lady Shi.”

  He must have shown up at some point while she was distracted by the slaughter. She turned towards the hated voice, and saw the massive form of her lover standing a few feet away. She was intimately aware of everything about the body looming in front of her, his hardiness and relentless strength, and the surprising tenderness it was capable of, when the time was right. The mind and soul that had once dwelt within that body were gone now, however.

  He is dead.

  “I came to fetch you, my Lady, but saw I was a bit early and contented myself with watching your work,” Mr. Night said through her dead lover’s lips. “Always a pleasure to see a professional in action, although, I must say, you seem to be lacking your customary joie de vivre, my dear.”

  She said nothing. The only thing she wanted was to tear that hideous smile off her lover’s face, to kill Mr. Night in the most gruesome manner she could conceive. She was a connoisseur of torture and dismemberment, and she could imagine a hundred ways to make the little monster pay for his actions. She wanted to kill him – but she was too afraid to try.

  “Your restraint is wise, my sweet Lady.”

  The words mocked her and reminded her of their confrontation on the lakeside beach earlier that night. Upon realizing what had happened, how her Bear had been violated and destroyed, she had attacked. Her Bear was stronger than she, but even his tough hide was not immune to her fiery blades. She should have been able to tear her lover’s body apart, crying as she did it, but knowing it was the only way to avenge him.

  Before she could strike, Mr. Night had smiled, and spoken a word in some outlandish language she had never heard before. Upon hearing the word, Lady Shi had disappeared, had turned back into the nameless child in a Shanghai brothel that catered to a very special kind of customer. There is no fear like what a helpless, uncomprehending child feels in the face of utter brutality. She had fallen to her knees, broken and helpless, and Mr. Night had laughed at her.

  That humiliation stayed her hand now. There was nothing she could do other than follow orders, bide her time, and wait for an opportunity. From the mocking glint in Mr. Night’s stolen eyes, he knew what she was thinking and was confident that there would never be an opportunity for revenge.

  Nothing left to do.

  “I must admit, the capabilities of my new host body have been unexpected,” Mr. Night commented. “Taking possession of Medved’s body was an act of desperation, you see. My poor mortal shell did not survive my encounter with the Lurker, and a mind unfettered cannot survive for very long in this vale of tears. It needs a home, a place to hang its proverbial hat, if you will. I had opened a conduit into Medved earlier in the evening, and it was a case of any port in a storm, as the saying goes. As it turns out, the range and amplitude of both my personal gifts and the Bear’s own powers seems to have grown through some wondrous synergy. I fear such boons do come at a price, however. Medved’s body is not long for this world. The brightest candle burns out fastest.”

  She remained silent.

  “Do not fret so, my darling Lady Shi. Your Bear is not gone. His essence no longer dwells here, yes, but it’s not utterly gone. He is in another realm, a little place I’ve made for my many devotees, although I doubt he’s enjoying his stay. If you are a good little girl, I might even let you see him again.”

  Hope was a trap. He is dead, dead and gone. Her only hope was for revenge. Still, she let herself look hopeful, to let Mr. Night think he had fooled her. She bowed to him as a loyal follower would to her rightful leader.

  “That’s better. You did a good job here, my dear. The fellows you dealt with were getting ready to strike back at our Russian allies, and we can’t have them distracted while they continue to search for the girl. This little incident should make the remaining members of the Cosa Nostra a bit more prudent, and that’s all to the good.”

  She bowed again in acknowledgement of the compliment, quietly fantasizing about ripping out his throat, as he continued speaking. “Finding the girl continues to be a challenge, even with the remnants of Archangel’s organization acting as our hounds. If she tries to access the Codex, I will have another chance to find her, but if she doesn’t…” Mr. Night trailed off for several seconds, lost in thought. “It occurs to me that there is a small chance our lost bird and her friends will try to strike back. Come with me, my dear.” He extended his hand to her, and she reluctantly took it. She repressed a shiver as darkness surrounded them.

  “We shall prepare a fitting welcome for them, should they decide to grace us with their presence.”

  Christine Dark

  Lake of the Woods, Ontario, March 15, 2013

  The big guy flew away. Bummer maximus. She’d hoped they could chat for a
while longer. Truth to tell, a part of her wanted to do way more than chat. After the whole mess at the island, a part of her wanted to do something primal and life-affirming, preferably with somebody else. Not quite anybody, but with somebody she liked. John had been her first choice, but he’d decided to be a big macho man. It might also have turned out badly, for assorted reasons, so maybe his leaving was for the best. But there was somebody else on the island or peninsula or whatever, somebody who she knew was more than a little interested in her.

  Such a bad idea in so many ways, though. Starting with, it’s not fair to him. Continuing with, he’s your unofficial bodyguard/sidekick, and getting involved with him could mess things up, bad. And ending with the fact that I don’t really approve of lots of his life choices, like killing people at the drop of a hat.

  Yeah, it’d be best to set her near-death-experience-induced rush of hormones aside, and concentrate on the business at hand, she told herself firmly. Concentrate on saving the world, and herself for that matter. She resolutely tabled the matter and headed back to the cabin, all businesslike and stuff.

  Kestrel was back downstairs, sitting on Condor’s lap, about as businesslike as a stripper at a bachelor party, which come to think of it was businesslike in its own way. For the second time since Christine had met her, Kestrel wasn’t wearing her trademark painted-on latex outfit, having changed into a slightly less slutty pair of shorts and a t-shirt, sort of a Sporty Skank casual wear thingy. Kestrel’s vibes had changed, too. She’d gone from her usual twisted nympho ways to a mixture of fear and concern. It wasn’t fear for her own safety; Kestrel did not care if she lived or died, something that made Christine feel slightly nauseated when she picked it up with her empathic senses. Kestrel was afraid Condor was going to die on her. It was shocking that she actually felt something, other than wanting to stage crossover productions of the Kama Sutra and Fifty Shades of Gray.

  Christine caught that burst of emotion despite the fact she kept her empathy senses turned all the way down when looking at Condor and Kestrel. Even the surface stuff coming off them was disturbing enough, a toxic stew of lust, guilt, shame and pain, marinated in assorted bodily fluids. It wasn’t quite as bad as looking at her father’s tainted aura had been, but it was nothing she really wanted in her head, either. A deeper look into their psyches might just drive her over the edge. Mark had been worried about Condor hooking up with Kestrel. He’d been so right it wasn’t funny.

  “Where is the new boyfriend?” Kestrel asked Christine as she came in. Kestrel and Christine weren’t going to start a Sisterhood of the Travelling Tights anytime soon. The super-skank didn’t care for Christine, or maybe she was one of those women who didn’t like other women. A female misogynist. Lovely.

  “If you mean John, he’s gone off to talk to Janus.”

  “Janus?” Condor said, looking up from the computer. “Whatever for?”

  Christine gave them all a quick rundown of her conversation with John. Her empathy-thingy picked up that Condor was dubious and worried about John’s actions, Kestrel didn’t give a crap, and Mark was just glad that John was out of his figurative hair for a while. “Anyways,” she concluded. “Are we doing anything else tonight or can I go get some sleep?”

  “We’ll stay put,” Condor said. “We are thinking about going back to New York to find some Russian mobsters to interrogate, but not until tomorrow or the day after, at the earliest. It might be a good idea to rest up for a day or so.”

  “Or until the Legion beats Ultimate into telling them where we are,” Mark said, being his usual downer self.

  “I’ll keep monitoring all multimedia traffic,” Condor said. “If Ultimate is captured, there’s going to be some chatter about it. We should have some warning, so I think we’ll be safe here for now.”

  “I’m off to bed, then,” Christine said and headed up to her designated bedroom. Someone had left a pair of sweatpants and a shirt for her on the bed, both of them a couple sizes too big but better than nothing. Probably Mark’s doing; he was kind of a sweet guy when he wasn’t being a sour-no-puss or a psycho-killer. She changed, brushed her teeth and got under the covers.

  Almost an hour later, she was still tossing and turning. She was tired but too wired to sleep: her brain kept insisting on running laps around a gazillion fun questions, ranging from ‘Is Daddy really dead?’ to ‘What happens next?’ That wasn’t the worst part, though. Now that she was alone in the dark, she couldn’t help thinking about the magical cube. Nothing will keep you up like finding out about a multi-billion year old cosmic struggle and that you’ve been born – not just born, effing bred – to play a part in it. No pressure or anything.

  She’d asked Mark to hold on to the cube for now. No sense risking it getting activated by her being in close proximity to it, or worse, it deciding to crawl towards her while she slept. Now that was a nice and creepy thought. Doing her damnedest not to think about any of it, she curled up under the covers and tried to sleep.

  No luck. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. Christine distantly heard Condor’s voice as he and Kestrel went into their bedroom. The place was big enough so she probably wouldn’t hear them if they decided to have a little romp or three, but the thought didn’t help with her sleeping problem. Try to think about something else, she told herself. How about home, back on good old Earth Prime?

  What did people see when she disappeared? Christine knew she’d had a bit of an audience when she was puking her guts out on the lawn of the Phi Beta Gecko frat house, on that fateful night when she was dragged kicking and screaming into Earth Alpha. March 11, a whole four days ago. She was sure at least a couple of d-bags had been videoing her on their smarty-pants phones. What had they recorded when she went poof? Would people think she had disintegrated, or been abducted by aliens? Which she had been, kind of. Abducted by aliens, that is, not disintegrated. Would the videos end up in a bunch of conspiracy-theory websites?

  OMG, Mom. What about Mom? Christine had been missing for almost four days now. Her mother must be going through hell. With Dad out of the picture, it had always been Christine and Patricia against the world. She loved her mother with all her heart, even when Mom drove her insane. Going to college and leaving the nest had been awesome, but Christine still went back to New Jersey whenever she could, and called her mother at least a couple of times a week. Mom must be going out of her freaking mind. And there was nothing Christine could do, unless Dad wasn’t dead and agreed to help send her back.

  Was there something she could do? There were a few other Neos with the power to travel between worlds, from what Mark had told her. One of them, the Magister, sounded like her best option, even if his dimension-hopping machine was disguised as a Porta-Potty that was a lot bigger on the inside than on the outside; instead of a sonic screwdriver he probably had a laser plumber, or something like that. Of course, she had no effing idea how the hell to find Porta-Potty Man. Even if she did, she couldn’t leave until she and her band of broheims dealt with the a-holes who had abducted her in the first place. So, no Mom, not for a while. That almost made her cry.

  Well, thinking about home hadn’t really done anything to help her sleep.

  Christine realized she hadn’t heard Mark come up. He must be having his own insomnia problems.

  Misery could use some company. She got up, put on her fuzzy slippers and headed downstairs. And yeah, she knew that what she was doing might lead to something that was a bad idea.

  And yeah, part of her didn’t care.

  Face-Off

  Lake of the Woods, Ontario, March 15, 2013

  I looked at the silent woods surrounding us from the lodge’s front porch. No cars driving by, no subways chugging along beneath the surface, none of the faint background noise of the city that was always there even in the wee hours of the morning. It was too quiet, too peaceful. It only served to remind me I was out of my element. Things would be better when we went back to New York. Even if I got killed in the city, at least it wou
ld happen on my stomping rounds while I was doing my usual schtick.

  Going after the guys chasing us wasn’t as horrible a plan as it sounded. If we found them first, we’d have the initiative for a change. If you want to fuck someone up, you don’t challenge him to a duel. You find out where he sleeps, you sneak in and you smash his skull before he wakes up, before he knows he’s in a fight. Not nice, but it works, and your chances of being the one walking away in one piece are a lot better. If we could find the fuckers before they found us, we might have a chance. Of course, they could find us first, or set up a nice reception for us. No guarantees in this life. Used to be I had a psychic pal who really helped stack the odds in my favor, but she’d gotten herself killed while holding off the assholes looking for Christine. Cassandra had thought her sacrifice was worth it, and I wasn’t going to second-guess her decision. But dammit, I missed her, and not because of her precognition.

  I had finally reached Father Aleksander on my comm to tell him the news. He and Cassandra hadn’t hung out much, except for a few special occasions – there’d been a couple Thanksgiving dinners, two Christmases, and a few surprise birthday parties, until I made it clear I really hated surprise birthday parties. I knew they liked and respected each other, though. They were outwardly very different – a blind psychic of possibly Gypsy extraction and an Orthodox priest from the Ukraine – but they both were better people than me, and had tried to help me be better than I was.

  Father Alex had been distraught at hearing about her death, and very concerned about how I was doing. I wished we could meet at his church and drink to Cassandra’s memory. He promised we would, soon. I hoped he was right. After I hung up, I sat on one of the chairs on the porch and looked at the unfamiliar woods and the stars above them.