Havoc Rising

by Brian S. Leon

  The wispy little wizard may have saved Sarah, but I still didn’t trust him. He obviously knew whoever had control over Sarah could act through her. We bound her and covered her eyes, but we left her free to speak. Wizards and witches, and even witchers—those who weren’t born with it, but learned to use magic—were tricky folk, and they always seem to be playing their own games. But it was clear that he and the rest of the Third Order and members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn were afraid of and flummoxed by Medea. I always knew she was strong, but I never had a magical baseline to judge her against. No matter. Using innocents as unwitting assassins put her firmly at the top of my shit list, and I didn’t care how powerful she was—I wanted to watch her try to outrun a fucking bullet.

  CHAPTER 27

  Sarah woke up a short time after Voerig left, predictably and understandably out of sorts and in some pain from the knock to the head. In the first few minutes, she kicked Ab in the groin and came close to cracking Duma’s skull with my fly-tying vise, but she eventually calmed down enough to recognize me. The moment she saw me, she stopped flailing and began breathing so shallowly and rapidly that she began hyperventilating. I walked over to her with a dishtowel full of ice for her head and helped her sit down. She focused on me with wide, confused eyes. She tried to talk in between quick, panicked breaths. “I… I… I… remember…”

  I didn’t have a paper bag to offer her, but Sarah was obviously experienced enough in crisis situations that she managed to regain control of her breathing and calm herself down on her own. After a few minutes of deeper, more relaxed breaths, her eyes traveled from me to Ab—leaning against the living-room side of the kitchen counter—and then to Duma, who was absentmindedly picking at his nails with his karambit as he sprawled over my easy chair. She took a deep breath, and then her gaze drifted back to me, her face full of confusion.

  She gingerly touched the knot on the back of her head and then put the towel full of ice over it. “I… remember everything,” she said slowly, staring down at her free hand, which she kept in her lap. “I just don’t understand any of it.” She shook her head, and tears began to roll down her cheeks, though she didn’t make a sound.

  “It’s over,” I said, hoping that the words would somehow make things easier. I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees, staring at the remnants of the conjuring circle on my carpet.

  Sarah sniffed her runny nose, and I could see her wipe at her face out of the corner of my eye. No one said anything for a few minutes. I got her some tissue from the bathroom, which she accepted with a weak smile. She wiped her eyes and nose and was briefly startled again by the sight of the blood left over from Medea’s attack.

  “Who the hell is Medea, and why was she calling you Diomedes? I thought your name was Steve Dore. And what was that… thing I passed through to get from New York to here?”

  “It’s a long story. Like three thousand years’ worth.”

  “I’m not going anywhere yet,” she said, readjusting the icepack on her head, fixing me with the eyes of a highly trained observer in the drawn face of someone who had just been through the wringer.

  I tried to explain everything to her as simply as I could—who Medea was and what we thought happened, from the bombing in New York until she showed up here. I didn’t mention the various beings and creatures that existed in this world. I just didn’t think it was wise after finding out all she had in such a traumatic way. And I didn’t really say much about me, other than my real name was Diomedes and that dealing with trouble like this was my job. She didn’t say a word the entire time. In fact, even her expression remained constant—and full of uncertainty. I hated having to tell her this stuff, but she had experienced it, and I owed it to her. And I wasn’t about to lie to her again. Not after what had just happened to her.

  When I was done, she just nodded slowly. “Um, do you have anything to drink?” she asked after a minute of silence. “Maybe some aspirin?”

  “Sure.” I hopped up and headed toward the kitchen. “Water, juice, soda—what would you like?” I was thrilled to hear her finally talk again. Given what she’d just gone through because of me, I’d happily have given her anything she asked for.

  “Anything with alcohol.”

  Yeesh. She was not taking this well. As I was about to pull my bottle of scotch out of the cupboard, Duma held up a finger, walked out the front door to his truck, and came back holding a bottle. Meanwhile, I grabbed a few aspirin for her from a bottle I kept in my kitchen cupboard.

  “Try this.” Duma walked over and set the bottle on the counter.

  I grabbed a glass and poured her a couple of fingers of the pale green liquid and presented it to her along with the painkillers.

  She took them, sniffing the drink. “What is it?”

  “Just try it,” Duma responded.

  And she did. “Wow, is that good.” No hack or cough, no hoarse voice—nothing. “What is it?” she said, holding her glass out for more.

  “Nope. One is more than enough for a pinky,” he said, putting the stopper back in the bottle. “In case you don’t remember, my name is Duma. I assume you are Sarah Wright of the Department of Homeland something or other, yes?”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, feeling like an idiot that I hadn’t formally introduced them since she’d woken up as herself. “Sarah, that’s Duma and his brother, Abraxos, but we call him Ab. Guys, this is Agent Sarah Wright of the Department of Homeland Security.” I squinted at Duma as I gave him the official title.

  “What are you? And what did you mean by ‘pinky’?” She shook her head as if trying to clear it and winced.

  “Ab and I are… not human, as you obviously noticed,” Duma said, drawing his hand outward for emphasis. “We are fae or fairy folk. Peri, to be more precise. And by pinky, I mean your kind.” At that, he waved his hand dismissively.

  “Nice, dipdunk.” I glowered at Duma in a way that I hoped conveyed my desire for him to shut up. “They are my friends,” I said to Sarah, who sat on the opposite end of the couch.

  Sarah bowed her head as if processing the information, and then her brow furrowed deeply. “So, ‘pinky’ is some kind of derogatory term for a woman?” she asked with a slight edge in her voice.

  “Whoa, relax,” Duma replied. “It’s a derogatory term for your race.”

  “What?” Sarah was suddenly standing, a bit shaky but holding the shot glass as if she were about to throw it at Duma. She was acting outraged but was on the defensive, as if she were trying to fight her way out of a corner she felt she’d been backed into.

  “Not your color, woman,” Duma said. “The fact you are human.” For reasons I couldn’t fathom, he closed the distance between them faster than she could blink.

  She dropped the ice pack, scattering cubes everywhere, and practically fell back onto the couch, but I raced to catch her before she did. Startled, she gawked at me and at Duma and then pushed herself loose from my grasp and back to her own feet.

  “The drink is diluted and fermented wyvern blood with a touch of single-malt scotch.” He was being uncharacteristically brash.

  “Whoa, just relax, Duma,” I said, trying to step between them. “What crawled up your butt?”

  Whatever was going on was completely unlike Duma. In fact, I had never seen him act like this before unless he was trying to bait someone into attacking first. He winked at me and gave me a wry half smile. I shook my head slightly, letting him know I had no idea what he was up to.

  Sarah straightened, pushed me aside, and stepped up to him till their faces were inches apart. “I may not have a clue what the fuck is going on here, but I will not stand here and be insulted by some kind of… whatever you are,” she said with a gleam in her eye. She poked him in the chest repeatedly with her finger. “And hey, aren’t you the one that hit me in the fucking head?”

  Her te
nacity and tone, especially the last comment, actually backed Duma up a step toward the conjuring circle in the middle of the carpet as she railed at him, but she wouldn’t let him get far. That was when I finally figured out what he was up to. He wanted to see how she’d react in the face of adversity, given what she’d just learned. Would she fold, or would she keep moving forward? Clearly, she wasn’t about to fold. I just stood back and started to laugh.

  Stupid move. Her attention shifted to me. Her eyes got wide, her brow raised, and she pointed her finger at me.

  “And you…” She started in on my erratic behavior and how I’d lied to her back in New York, used her, and then assumed she wouldn’t understand what was really going on. She backed me across the living room and into the kitchen counter. Twice, I thought I might actually have to physically defend myself, and I had to fight my instincts to keep from doing so.

  I was way out of my element. Duma began to laugh uncontrollably. Again, Sarah redirected her attention.

  But before she could fully engage Duma, he held up his hands in surrender. “Oh, I like her!” he managed to say in between laughs.

  She froze. I tried to stifle a snicker for fear of her wrath.

  And then she started to laugh. “None of this makes any sense. I woke up this morning and everything was normal. Now, everything I thought I knew…” She sat down in the easy chair.

  “Look, I know it’s not easy to believe, but it’s the truth,” I said. “The world is bigger than you know, but it’s also rife with creatures and beings so foul that the evil that men are capable of pales in comparison. True nightmares. That’s where I come in.”

  She definitely was handling things better now that she had vented a bit. “So you guys are some kind of troubleshooters. I get that,” Sarah said, standing. She folded her arms across her chest and made direct eye contact, her focus laser sharp and her expression resolute. “I want to help.”

  Duma and I both replied at the same time, trying to stop her from going any further with the thought. She held up her hand to shut us up. Beyond her, Ab appeared from down the hallway. I was so wrapped up in our conversation that I hadn’t even noticed he had left the room.

  “Hey!” Ab shouted over Duma’s and my chorus of reasons that she couldn’t help. “What the hell is going on in here?”

  We all stopped instantly. His brow was knitted, and he scowled as he watched us. With his white eyes, he appeared rabid.

  Sarah was the first to speak up. “I’m going with you guys.”

  “Cool. The more the merrier.” Ab reversed direction and disappeared back down the hallway.

  “I don’t think Athena will like this very much,” Duma said.

  “Frankly, it’s my team, and I can add anyone I want. If Athena doesn’t like it, she can kiss my ass.” That was me: defiant to the end.

  Duma smiled at me. He had baited me right into that one.

  “Wait,” said Sarah, whipping her head back and forth between Duma and me, her eyebrows raised and eyes wide. “The Athena? Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare?”

  “Yeah,” I responded. “That’s the one. Why?”

  “She’s actually real? I used to pretend to be her when I was a girl!” She threw her hands up. “She was the coolest Greek god! Goddess! My brothers used to pretend to be Greek heroes, like Hercules and Achilles—”

  “Of course they did.” I rolled my eyes and sighed.

  I could see something dawn on her as her eyes got even wider, and her mouth fell open.

  “And wait, Diomedes—no! Are you that Diomedes? The one from the Trojan War? You can’t be. No way. The one who beat Ares and Aphrodite?” She sounded like a kid who’d just found out she was talking to a movie star.

  “Yep. That’d be me,” I said, focusing on the ground, waffling between being thrilled she knew the stories about me and embarrassed she was fawning over me. Who knew she was a fan girl?

  “Un-freaking-real,” she said, sitting back down in the chair. “You guys were my heroes as a kid. I even dressed up as Athena for, like, five years in a row at Halloween.”

  “I suppose your brothers dressed as Achilles.” I stared at my shoes and crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Well, one did, once, but no one knew who he was supposed to be.”

  “See!” I shouted. “If it weren’t for Brad Pitt, no one would even remember his name.”

  Sarah just looked at me, confused.

  Duma shook his head, holding up his hand to stop her. “Long story—don’t ask.”

  “Athena runs the Metis Foundation,” I said.

  “You’re kidding me!” she said. “All the years I consulted for them, I never had a clue.”

  “Why would you? No normal mortal knows. Most of her employees don’t even know. Sarah, look, I know you want to help, but the guys on the team all have years of training and backgrounds in small-group tactics and assault operations. I’ve worked with all of them before in combat situations. I just don’t know how you’d fit in. I’m not trying to insult you, but DHS isn’t exactly a high-speed combat unit. You even told me back in Brooklyn that you rarely used your gun.”

  “Look,” she began defensively, “I told you at the pizza place that I requested to be transferred to DHS from the FBI, where I worked on the counterterrorism Fly Team. I’ve worked all over the world, and I speak three languages. I’ve even trained with the Green Berets for counterterrorism combat ops.”

  FBI. Fly Team. That was why I had hazy memories of insects eating alphabet soup from of our conversation at the pizza parlor. It explained a lot.

  “I can handle myself in combat,” she said. “The only reason I left the Fly Team was because I wanted to settle down.” She stared at the ground sheepishly. “Guys don’t like women who can kick the shit out of them. Besides, running all over the world at a moment’s notice is hard on relationships.”

  I snorted. Add being immortal and chasing monsters for a living, and see what that does. “Sarah, this is different. These aren’t just terrorists we’re dealing with. They aren’t even all human, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Yeah, but it does explain a few things I saw when I was with the Fly Team, not to mention all the crap I’ve gone through since you showed up a few days ago. And I know it sounds idealistic, but I like the idea of protecting not just the US, but the world. I can handle it. I won’t let you down. Please give me a chance.”

  I eyed Duma. He just shrugged. Some help he was.

  I shook my head and exhaled deeply. Her statement about the trouble she’d endured since I showed up was painful, but the tactical part of my brain pushed through to overrule my emotions. Clearly, she was qualified, and now that she knew, she could make up her own mind. Besides, if she knew everything and could handle it, what did that mean for us?

  “Okay, you’re in. But dammit, you do exactly what I say, no questions asked, understand?”

  She nodded her head only once, her expression deadly serious, and I could see the same resolve in her I had that day at the museum. This chick would have given Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, a run for her money.

  CHAPTER 28

  Ab, Duma, Sarah, and I spent the next few hours gathering and preparing gear before heading to my staging site on the southern end of Andros Island. Before we left, I made one quick phone call to tell Athena to send the Spartoi support team she’d offered me earlier as soon as they could be ready and asked that they also stop by my house and pick up the excess gear. When we were ready, I sent Ab to gather Geek and Frigate as planned while I traveled to the site with Duma and Sarah.

  My staging area was mostly a shanty in the Bahamas that also doubled as a good place to hole up and chase bonefish when I had the time. It was isolated and difficult to get to and was bounded on one side by the ocean and the other sides by thick mangroves, sea grape, gumbo-limbo, an
d palm trees. Sneaking up on the site was nearly impossible.

  Ab arrived with Geek and Frigate in tow about an hour after we got there. Both Frigate and Geek were a bit uneasy from their first trip through the Ways, though it didn’t seem to hamper Geek’s enthusiasm. I could hear him barraging Ab with questions as they approached the shanty through the mangroves. Ab shuffled through, his face drawn and haggard, threw down the gear bag he was carrying, and kept walking down the beach without saying a word. Geek didn’t miss a beat. He immediately began to question me, and I knew exactly how Ab felt.

  I spent a few minutes introducing the rest of the team and then called Ab back in to help me open my armory for everyone to gear up. While my shanty was little more than a few rough walls and a thatched roof, I had spent a decade, nearly half a century ago, carving an underground storehouse out of the coral of the island. I had enough weaponry to equip our team sufficiently and then some, all stored right below their feet.

  The human part of my team stared in surprise as Ab and I opened the heavy reinforced-steel vault door set into the ground under the floorboards. As soon as the door was completely open, a white light lit up the hole, followed by a series of electronic thunks from the fluorescent ballasts turning on below.

  “Get moving. Each of you will pack your own gear, so check it, then check it again,” I said and then got out of the way. Geek, Frigate, and Sarah all peered down into the hatch, wide-eyed and mouths agape like kids gawking at store windows at Christmas time.

  About an hour after the human contingent of my team began outfitting themselves, Athena’s presence on the island became obvious to me. I encountered her and her Spartoi retinue in a clearing fifty yards from my shanty. Her dragon’s-teeth warriors, a dozen of them, carried all the gear from my garage plus their own. Athena wore her hair in a loose braid over one shoulder and dressed in knee-high leather boots, tight gray pants, and a matching athletic top. Her brow was heavily creased over her squinted but intense blue eyes. Something was clearly bothering her.