Slay

by Matthew Laurence

  Nathan can’t help shaking his head at the notion. Hi‘iaka’s right, of course, and deep down, he’s sure Freya knows it … but that battle has already been lost. He understands the fury that seizes her soul at the thought of Ares. She won’t be able to take the high road, no matter how much all those years of hiding have eased off the call of divinity. The principles of her faith don’t just influence her; they define her.

  She’s trapped, he thinks.

  A half second later, Freya simply shrugs and says, “No, my friend. I can’t.”

  “You sure?” Hi‘iaka pushes, and Nathan wants to snort at the impossibility of arguing. That ship sailed the moment Ares put a sword through Freya’s neck. “We’ve got a good thing going here.”

  “Am I sure?” his goddess repeats with cold disdain. “I will set this world alight if I can catch him in the flames.”

  And that’s that, Nathan thinks to himself, unable to keep a little stirring of glee out of his head. Maybe it is the influence of their link, but this new endeavor carries an undeniable thrill, the brutal simplicity of the plan calling to him in much the same way it must for Freya herself.

  Find Ares. Kill Ares.

  How very … neat.

  Hi‘iaka shares an unhappy look with her siblings, then turns to Nathan and Sekhmet. He just shrugs and moves to stand beside his goddess. Sekhmet, meanwhile, practically glows with anticipation, claws unsheathed and whiskers twitching as if there’s a chance of finding Ares outside the front door.

  An awkward moment of silence passes as everyone judges just how committed the rest of the room is to the endeavor. Then Pele speaks up, regret filling her voice. “I fear this is a path you must walk without us, my friends. We will support you if we can, but our place is here. We must restore ourselves in these parks and, in time, face the larger threat of Finemdi as a whole. Know that we do not consider this an ending—merely a different trail. The moment you wish to rejoin our cause, you will be welcomed with open arms.”

  Nāmaka and Hi‘iaka nod, and Nathan knows Pele speaks for both of them. He’s a little disappointed but bears the trio no ill will. They don’t have as strong of a commitment to Freya as he does.

  No turning back.

  “I look forward to that day,” Freya says. “But there’s no reason to make this feel so final. I don’t even have a plan, so I’m not going anywhere just yet.”

  Pele smiles, clearly relieved this hasn’t caused a rift between them. “Good!” she chirps. She stands there and fidgets a moment longer, glowing eyes flickering with uncertainty before she moves away. “Well. I’ll, um, let you three get to your plotting, then. Come on, girls.”

  Hi‘iaka turns back before she exits the room to say, “Oh, and we’re having breaded pork cutlets with cabbage and rice for dinner!”

  Nāmaka sticks her head in to add, “And I’m making mai tais!”

  Then the three are gone, leaving Nathan, Sekhmet, and Freya to their dreams of revenge. Nathan shakes his head. “I’ll never get used to that.”

  Freya snorts. “What, their mood shifts?”

  “It’s like living with hyperactive kids.”

  “They are nature spirits,” Sekhmet says with a shrug. “Children of the earth, yes, but children nonetheless.”

  “I’m a little surprised at your reaction, too,” Nathan says, turning to her. “Thought you’d consider that a ‘betrayal,’ of sorts.”

  Sekhmet smirks, and a husky laugh pours from her throat. “My specialty, yes? Well, priest, there must be trust before there can be betrayal. They are friends, to be sure, but only a fool would rely on such … whimsical creatures in matters of life and death.”

  Nathan remains silent a moment before he says, “Sekhmet, you nearly killed the pizza delivery guy last week because he was late.”

  “He promised it would be thirty minutes or less!” she snarls, whipping her head around to glare daggers at him.

  “Okay, okay, just, uh, commenting, is all. Only a comment,” he says, putting up his hands. Smooth, Nathan.

  “Hmph,” she replies, staring him down for another second before turning back to Freya. “What next?” she asks.

  Freya blinks. “Now isn’t that the question of the century?” she says, shifting to look at Nathan.

  “Yeah, you’re going to need to give me some time on that one,” Nathan says, wishing he had a better answer. Any answer, really.

  “If Ares truly has become the beast we fear, my vengeance won’t come easily,” Freya says, idly tapping the keyboard beside her. “I need strength, and a lot more of it than even a decade at these parks will provide. I need people to believe in me, not at me. I need worshippers again.”

  “But how?” Sekhmet asks, sounding a little distraught. Nathan has a feeling she’s spent a long time considering that very problem. “How do you reveal yourself to the disbelievers of this modern world and not die in an onslaught of cynicism? There’s no room for new religions now, no appreciation for magic and wonder. The only fantasies humankind will accept in this day and age are of their own creation: books, movies, and games built to entertain, not answer prayers.”

  “Well, magic isn’t gone, if you think of it that way,” Nathan says, drawing their attention. “Sure, yeah, the rules have changed, but people will believe. I mean, I’m still waiting for my Hogwarts letter. It’s just … we don’t buy new gods anymore. We never lost our faith; these days, it just goes elsewhere.”

  “Why is that?” Freya asks, a blend of frustration and curiosity in her voice. “Why can you so easily accept a fictional character from behind the safety of the page or silver screen but can’t bring yourselves to embrace the real wonders that walk among you?”

  “Hey, I did.”

  “Yeah, but you needed me standing in front of you to do it,” she says, frowning. “And okay, you’ll allow fictional characters and settings and such into your hearts, so fine, maybe there’s belief there, maybe even worship of a sort, but it’s celebrity worship, not—”

  She stops mid-sentence, mouth agape as a thought strikes her. “Oh,” she murmurs, a smile curving the edges of her lips.

  “What?” Sekhmet asks. “What is it?”

  “I think I know how to gain the strength I need to destroy Ares.” She laughs. “I know how to get worshippers. True worshippers, Sekhmet, not mental patients or distant cultists.”

  The goddess’s eyes grow wide, and Nathan can practically feel the desire radiate from her. “How?” she whispers.

  Freya turns to the computer and pulls up a map of the United States. Then, she traces a line from Florida to California, to a dot labeled LOS ANGELES.

  “I’m going to be a star.”

  4

  CHASING THE SUN

  FREYA

  Our farewell party has gotten a little out of control. Actually, it got out of control a few hours ago. Now it’s approaching “really fun natural disaster.”

  Finding an isolated place in central Florida isn’t much harder than driving thirty minutes away from civilization, so we weren’t too concerned about random onlookers walking into our midst … but I’m starting to worry this will show up on satellite. What began as a mash-up of Hawaiian luau, Egyptian banquet, and Viking feast has devolved into a drinks-fueled, magic-boosted, music-blasted riot. I may be a minor player, but the other goddesses with me have more than enough mystic might to compensate. Have you ever seen three drunken nature spirits and a berserker cat goddess compete to see who can do a better job of firing up a party?

  Besides the five of us, we’ve also brought a few dozen of our friends from Disney to this isolated patch of forest. I’ve made a lot of great connections in my time there, and there’s no way I’m abandoning them without a little good-bye celebration. We were a tiny bit concerned about letting them see us wield our supernatural skills, however, so I agreed to use a touch of my gift to befuddle their memories. Most people seem to think this is a test for a new Disney attraction, anyway, but just to be on the safe side, we also had
everyone leave their cell phones in their cars. After Sekhmet ferreted out the handful of social media addicts who tried to hold on to their gadgets, food and drinks began to flow, and my friends cut loose.

  Waitresses of sculpted water mingle with the revelers, wielding platters of barbecued meats and fizzing drinks. Each moves with Nāmaka’s liquid grace, and the concoctions they bear are tweaked and tuned to intoxicating perfection. Pele dances before a grand fire pit, surrounded by a throng of ecstatic revelers caught up in her addiction to music and movement. Balls of light twinkle and throb high above us, ten thousand flaming fireflies pulsing in time with the beat and lending the event a unique, arcane rave atmosphere. The songs themselves shake the trees with their power, amplified, channeled, and enhanced by Hi‘iaka’s mastery of wind and air.

  Sekhmet has already torn through a lake of cocktails and is in the process of entertaining a crowd of awestruck cast members by dueling an escalating series of elemental golems. Forged by the Hawaiian sisters from water, wind, and fire, the beasts steam and slosh in an enormous fighting arena prepared by the Egyptian goddess herself, pummeling wood and earth with thunderous blows in their single-minded attempts to flatten her.

  Hi‘iaka protects the onlookers with an invisible screen of air currents, but they still jump whenever a particularly large chunk of rock or tree slams against the barrier. Nathan, at least, is far from the chaos, DJing the event and trying to ignore the rising madness around him. Every time I spot him looking up from the rented controllers and turntables, I can tell by his look of increasingly bewildered awe that things are rocketing out of hand.

  With all four goddesses trying to one-up one another and our mortal friends getting increasingly hammered, I really hope nobody gets hurt. Or at least, I would, if I were present enough to string that many thoughts together. I may not be able to throw down with my empowered allies, but I’ve been saving up some lovely illusions for this event, and dancing through a field of living fireworks, towering giantesses, and kaleidoscopic cats while pounding mojitos isn’t the sort of thing that inspires sobriety. Oh, well. Sekhmet has the gift of healing, so come what may, we’ll probably make it through the night without any fatalities.

  “Love the fire moths!” I shout to Pele as my pack of dancers crashes into hers.

  “The go-go giants were a nice touch!” she replies, grinning as she bounces a nearby reveler with one lovely hip.

  “I really am going to miss you, you know,” I say, moving to dance with her. “All of you.”

  “Oh, sweet little Viking, you’ll return to us!” she says with a laugh. “Tonight, we celebrate a choice, a quest, and our friendship—and when you return, we’ll do it all again!”

  “Any excuse for a party?” I ask, hair bouncing as the air thrums.

  Inferno eyes blaze with glee. “Life is all the excuse you need!” she yells. “Make sure you remember that while you’re out there on your big adventure!”

  “How could I forget?” I say, throwing back my head and letting the music wash over me.

  Ironically, that’s fairly close to the last thing I can recall with any real certainty. The rest of the night is a very loud, very awesome blur. I’m pretty sure I remember tossing Sekhmet a can of beer and cheering as she shotgunned it while ripping the head off another battle golem. There might have been a drinking contest with Nāmaka at one point (always a bad idea), and I seem to recall a few rounds of ear-blasting karaoke with Hi‘iaka. I might’ve grabbed Nathan’s butt, too. Actually, I think I grabbed a lot of butts.

  By the time the sun rises on the remains of the most shamelessly wonderful evening I’ve had in centuries, we’re all dead to the world. The day that follows is a long and quiet one, and while I bounce back almost as quickly as my fellow goddesses, Nathan sleeps through the entire thing. A shame, because our flight leaves the following morning.

  I’m actually a little worried about it. Not because I have a problem with flying, mind you; it’s just that I’ve never tried to sneak mystic artifacts through airport security before.

  After stumbling home from the party, we finished our packing and started divvying up our haul from Finemdi. It’s a frustrating pile of wonders: glowing talismans, enchanted tools, inscrutable tomes … all of it pilfered from their armory, all of it valuable beyond measure, and all of it completely unidentified. Despite the fact that none of us know what the things actually do, we aren’t about to leave a stockpile of potential “Get Out of Jail Free” cards lying around, so we pour them onto the dining room table and go in a circle, each of us taking a piece until it’s all divided.

  Sekhmet crams her share into her luggage, and I do the same for mine, mixing in a pile of spell components I’ve been building with the help of Amazon.com and some of the local markets. Since I’m too weak to dish out major magic without keeling over, I’ve gotten in the habit of attaching a host of useful spells to keywords (I use breeds of pigs so they won’t go boom in casual conversation) and casting them over the course of hours. It’s a bit of a hassle, requires tons of weird and wonderful ingredients, and most of them are fairly utilitarian—summoning, tracking, illusions, and so on—but considering how much they helped me back at Impulse Station, I’m wary of letting even the least of them fade. I’ve even got a casting schedule set up in my phone; my very modern Mímir.

  Once every mystical party favor and reagent is packed away, we do our best to get one last night of solid slumber, then prepare to say good-bye. Despite centuries of practice at it, leaving friends behind never seems to suck any less. Sure, Sekhmet gets to be all stoic about it, but I’m a mess. In spite of everything, part of me really wishes we could stay. Amid sniffles and hugs in our kitchen the following morning, Pele repeats her command to find celebration whenever I can, Nāmaka cries and asks if we can take a swim in the Pacific for her, and Hi‘iaka gives me, Sekhmet, and Nathan big hugs, tweaks my nose, and tells us we’ll be back before we know it.

  I hope she’s right.

  A few last jokes and heartfelt sentiments, and then, far sooner than I would have liked, we’re dragging our many suitcases to the curb, packing ourselves into a taxi, and taking a quiet, nervous drive to Orlando International. Even at this early hour, the airport’s a buzzing hive of tourists, families, and business travelers.

  I try to restrain my sniffles as we make our way toward security. I miss those girls already. Sure, they might have been flaky and naive, but they are also joyful, talkative creatures who just want to have fun with life. Now I’m standing in a line of bedraggled tourists, getting eyeballed by apathetic TSA agents, and hoping I don’t set off any red flags. The last thing I need is to be detained and have somebody run a background check on me. Or worse, Sekhmet. Do you think there’s a chance in hell of them strip-searching her? There’ll be blood on the walls in a heartbeat.

  Nathan sighs and shuffles forward a step. He looks exhausted. I think the combination of an early-morning flight and our earthshaking festivities have taken a toll on my poor priest. Maybe it’s because it’s been ages since someone’s thrown a party in my honor, but thinking back on the whole event is getting me choked up all over again. I grimace as a new pang of loss stabs me. Why am I hurting myself like this? Now I miss those delightful spirits even more.

  “Please remove any laptops from your carry-ons and place them in a separate bin,” one of the agents says. Nathan complies sleepily, retrieving his computer from its satchel bag.

  Glad to have something else to think about, I hoist my rolling pink suitcase onto the baggage conveyer, square my shoulders, and move toward the metal detector. Nathan walks through without a problem, and the TSA agent beyond beckons me forward. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as my possessions disappear into the uncertain darkness of the baggage scanner.

  Nothing beeps as I walk through the detector, and I allow myself a sigh of relief. I move to the left and wait anxiously for my suitcase to emerge. The belt stops, jerks back for a heart-stopping moment, and then mercifully pushes its boxy p
risoners into the light. I pull my things down the line and begin stowing everything away, when an agent speaks up.

  “Ma’am, we’re going to have to ask you to step aside.”

  My blood freezes. It’s not what he says that terrifies me—it’s the person he’s addressing it to.

  There’s a horrible, horrible pause that goes on for far too long, and as my head pivots to take in the scene, I hear her reply at last: “Excuse me, but may I inquire as to why?” Sekhmet says it slowly, enunciating each word as if she’s speaking to a child.

  This is not going to end well.

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions about your carry-on, ma’am,” the man replies, unaware of the monumental danger. “Right this way.”

  He holds up a hand. Sekhmet’s eyes dart to it as if she’s considering how easy it would be to rip it off and feed it to him. Then she inclines her head in the slightest of nods and follows him to a secondary security area partially fenced in by glass screens. The man has her carry-on with him, a dark tan rolling bag I picked out for her after an exasperating trip to the mall. (It took us four hours to find something halfway decent—I love the girl, but it’s staggering how indecisive she can be when it comes to fashion.) The agent places the bag on a small table between them and unzips it. Sekhmet bristles at what she must consider an appalling invasion of her privacy, but thankfully that’s all she does.

  I move to get a better look. Frowning, Nathan follows me. The agent, wearing a dark blue uniform that probably offers little to no protection against brutally sharp claws, reaches in, fishes around for a moment, and then closes his fingers around something. He nods to himself and moves to withdraw the object. A bit of metal shines in his hand as he pulls back—and keeps pulling. It takes a moment before I realize it’s an enormous knife, with a blade that seems to go on forever.

  My heart stops. Part of me wants to scream obscenities at the woman.

  “Ma’am, you can’t take this on the plane,” he says in a weary tone, turning the weapon over in his hands. It’s obviously ancient and priceless beyond measure, its hilt decorated with polished bands of lapis lazuli and the business end of it hidden by a sheath of beaten gold. Hundreds of tiny Egyptian characters have been carved into the precious metal, the life’s work of an absurdly skilled craftsman.