Slay

by Matthew Laurence

  “I swore I’d see your fall,” I continue to shout, getting spit on his medals. “Now, my ven—”

  Ares snorts, places a hand on my chest, and gives a little shove. What follows is a deeply humbling experience, because for such a simple motion, he’s able to put an absurd amount of force into it. The air blasts out of my lungs as I rocket backward from his touch, skidding down the hall and tumbling painfully until I come to a stop over fifty feet away.

  “It’s certainly her,” I hear Ares say over the sound of blood rushing in my ears. “Hard to forget such pitiful whining.” He pauses, and as I struggle to regain my footing, I see a hint of amusement touch his features. “You know, I do believe I actually missed it.”

  “Wonderful!” Loki says, clapping his hands. “Freya? You still with us?”

  “Go to hell,” I spit, staggering upright.

  “Been there, done that, got the desk,” he says. “Now cheer up: Do you know how many girls would die for this job?”

  “I’ll kill you. Both of you,” I seethe.

  “You’ll never get a promotion with that attitude,” Loki says, snickering.

  Ares grins, eyes aflame with cruel delight. “Welcome to Finemdi, love.”

  22

  BEST SERVED COLD

  FREYA

  “You can’t—” I sputter.

  “Just did,” Loki says, giving me an irritated wave. “Unless you’d rather rot in a cell for a few centuries.” He turns to Ares. “You play nice, now.”

  “Have I ever?” he says with a laugh.

  “Excuse me?” I shout. “If you think I’ll just go along with this without a fight—”

  Loki’s hand elongates, sprouting extra fingers and flattening before shooting forward on an elastic arm to wrap around my body and lift me from the floor. I’m caught, a crane of flesh hoisting me off the ground and pinning my arms to my sides. His arm is a messy, jagged thing now, far too many joints zigzagging through the air to connect the web of fingers around me with Loki’s shoulder. He laughs, and I bounce in the air in time with his mirth.

  “Of course not,” he says. “There. Gotten it out of your system?”

  There’s a sudden click, and Loki’s chest explodes in a blast of orange-tinted sparks. I tumble to the floor as he staggers to one side, dropping me. He’s re-forming before the gunshot even stops echoing, but those flares of tangerine energy aren’t dissipating; they stay embedded in his torso, burning like chunks of mystic napalm.

  “Gettin’ a little handsy there, pal,” Nathan says, rune revolver smoking in his grip. Sekhmet and Samantha are with him, the latter carrying what looks like an opal cattle prod and dragging our hard-sided case of artifacts behind her. “Where do you find these guys, Sara?”

  Ares’s eyes widen at the development, but rather than leap to Loki’s aid, he simply crosses his arms over his chest and leans against Ahriman’s cell, seeming content to watch.

  I get to my feet. “Tinder addiction,” I say. “You mind shooting him a few more times?”

  “No!” Loki gasps, eyes whipping to Nathan. “I order you to—!”

  My friend cuts him off by unloading another three rounds into his blazing body. Each impacts in a new burst of color, taking enormous cartoon chunks out of him with sizzling pops.

  “Love the timing,” I say, running up to Nathan and giving him a big hug.

  “We actually ran part of the way,” he says, and I note the sweat beading his forehead. “Started sensing major stress from you, figured time wasn’t our friend.”

  “Still isn’t,” Ares says, unmoved by Loki’s writhing plight. “Minions of hers, I presume?”

  “It is you,” Sekhmet says, claws extending from her fingertips. “How convenient. Almost disappointingly so, but then, every hunt must end.”

  “As will you,” Loki gasps. With a ghastly squelch, his head rips free from his burning body, separating him from the effect of the rune bullets. It rolls a few feet before compact, grasshopper-like legs sprout from its stump. His mouth splits and deepens, yawning open like a frog’s, and dagger-sharp teeth branch between his lips. Those insectile legs coil beneath him, and he launches himself at Nathan, maw wide.

  For a decapitated head, he moves fast. From disgusting start to finish, the whole thing takes maybe two seconds. By the time Loki’s teeth are on course for my priest’s face, all I’ve managed to do is blurt out a retching noise; Nathan has no chance to get out of the way.

  Fortunately, he has Sekhmet for a girlfriend.

  The cat goddess flows around him, darting to intercept Loki. Dozens of needle-sharp fangs clamp onto her upraised arm, sinking deeply into her skin, but she’s already bringing the pain. Peach-gold talons shred Loki’s distorted face, and he warbles in agony before shoving away from her.

  He hits the floor on thick, hairless feet, body bloating and expanding with muscle as his form balloons into an enormous gorilla. Sekhmet ducks a ponderous blow, striking under one shaggy arm and tearing through his abdomen. He roars and brings another fist down, but she simply slides around it, embeds two handfuls of claws into his flesh, and climbs him like a tree.

  Ares raises his eyebrows with mild interest as Sekhmet twirls in the air above Loki, but makes no move to help his supposed ally. My friend crashes onto the ape’s back, reaching down to attack his eyes, and his form deflates immediately, splashing into a pool of skin beneath her before exploding into a thrashing nest of tentacles. Sekhmet adapts her strategy, ducking low and severing the rubbery columns at their base, and the duel shifts gears again, becoming a strange back-and-forth dance as Loki keeps changing his shape to counter her assault.

  I’m really not getting across the speed on display here. Each phase of this battle lasts mere seconds. Sekhmet moves like lightning, but Loki’s shape-shifting and healing are more than a match. For a moment, I wonder why he hasn’t fallen back on his beloved illusions, but then I realize Sekhmet defies that sort of thing, and he probably knows it.

  “Magnificent,” Ares says, sounding like he’d love a bucket of popcorn right now.

  I glare at him, enraged by the notion he’s found my friend’s life-or-death struggle entertaining. “Samantha, mind if I borrow that toy of yours?” I ask, leaning over to whisper to her.

  She passes it to me quietly, saying, “Touch tip to target, add willpower.”

  I take it, give her a tight smile, and begin walking toward Ares, keeping an eye on Sekhmet’s ever-shifting battle as I do. I get two steps before Samantha puts a hand on my shoulder.

  “The cell,” she whispers. “There’s a teleport failsafe for Ahriman. It’ll move him off-site if he’s out for more than thirty seconds.”

  I turn back to her, frowning.

  “Just in case,” she says with a wink, and I finally get what she’s hinting at: a potential assist for the bout to come.

  Beside her, Nathan winces as Sekhmet and Loki slam against a wall, then looks to me, seeming to come to an internal decision.

  “Let’s kick his ass,” he says, moving to follow. Samantha, fantastically enough, pulls out a rune-covered rod with a diamond cap and does the same, intent on involving herself in Ares’s downfall.

  I actually feel myself start to tear up a little at that, dearly touched by their support. I mean, okay, I am Nathan’s god and all, but it’s staggering to see Samantha in my corner. This is a shy, pragmatic scientist we’re talking about; I had no idea she felt that deeply for me, or would care enough about Ares to risk her young life against him. I grin at them both, incredibly grateful, and start walking again, examining my foe and the cell behind him as I do. My pace quickens as I realize what Samantha meant about Ahriman. Even against this overpowered meathead, victory might be possible.

  “What’s this?” Ares says as we approach. “Come for another lesson in your inadequacy?”

  “Centuries, I’ve waited,” I say, brandishing Samantha’s cattle prod.

  “They were not kind to you,” he says, voice dripping with disdain. “Now be aw
ay. Allow me to observe this fine duel.”

  “Oh, am I distracting you?” I ask, venomous. “Deepest apologies, dick.”

  “You are feebler now than when we first met,” he says, getting progressively angrier. “Do not embarrass yourself.”

  “You’re right,” I say, and he rolls his eyes and huffs at my continued intrusion. “I’m weaker, you’re stronger, and it’s going to make victory all the sweeter.”

  “Fine,” he spits, shoving off the wall and turning to face me. “When I grind your smirking face beneath my heel, perhaps it will at last afford me a measure of peace.”

  With that, he lashes out, sending a backhand of titanic power soaring toward my left temple. I barely duck beneath it, flinching at the suction of air that follows in its wake, then jam the cattle prod into his hip and will it to fire.

  There’s a shrieking zzap! and Ares seizes as paralytic, rainbow lightning engulfs his torso. He staggers back, smacking into the glass of Ahriman’s cell, and I follow with him, keeping the prod buried in his side. At the same moment, a flattened, vertical beam of pure white light rips into him from over my left shoulder, and I almost drop my weapon in surprise. The lance of brilliant energy slices up and outward, leaving a cauterized canyon in Ares’s chest, and I dart a glance back to see its source: Samantha and her diamond rod.

  “Not … enough,” Ares grits, and I whip around to watch as the god of war moves his head in painful, stuttering twitches to stare down at me.

  Baleful black weaves of destruction practically ooze from his skin, and I yelp in shock as the cattle prod disintegrates at their touch. Large hunks of the thickened glass behind him slough away into dust, and even the concrete tiles at his feet splinter and sag at the barest caress of his might.

  Free from the lightning’s effect, Ares pulls himself up and swings a fist down to crush me. Samantha sends another beam through his chest, but he barely seems to notice. I try to throw myself back, out of his range, but my feet slip in powdered cement, and I feel myself falling onto my back, watching as if in slow motion as he swings toward me with a blow strong enough to snap a redwood.

  Then the air turns to shimmering jelly, and instead of converting me into floor pizza, Ares’s fist connects with a half dome of force, courtesy of Nathan. The field crumbles and snaps under the impact, but it’s enough of a delay to let me roll to one side and spring away.

  Samantha carves chunks out of his body and Nathan lashes him with tongues of coruscating fire, but Ares ignores the damage to follow me, wounds regenerating almost as quickly as my allies can inflict them. I back up another step, considering my next move, and my eyes fall on the crystal panel beside the cell. It’s completely unlabeled, but to someone who can see the threads of magic it manipulates, its functions are clear as day—including OFF.

  “Tag!” I say, slapping a hand on the Deactivate Everything trigger.

  Ares’s eyes widen as the remains of the glass partition slide away beside him.

  “—ing whore of—!” Ahriman bursts out, suddenly returned to motion and cutting himself off when he realizes the situation has changed. He spares but a moment’s glance for me, the raging battle between Loki and Sekhmet, and my friends. It’s only when his gaze stops on Ares, the man responsible for his recent suffering, that he reacts.

  A cold, slow smile reveals pointed teeth, and Ahriman launches himself at my foe with an inhuman cry of brutal delight.

  “Subire septem,” Ares coughs at the oncoming predator, voice choked by fire and light.

  Ahriman, dirty arms outstretched, vanishes mid-leap in a whorl of twisted air. My eyes pop at the sudden disappearance, and I wonder for a moment if Ares has learned some measure of spellcraft, as well.

  A trigger phrase, I realize, though the understanding brings me no relief. Samantha said there were teleport contingencies for Ahriman—those words must have set them off.

  Ares winces as another beam from Samantha shears off the back of his head and then he turns to me. “No tricks,” he grates. “Only death.”

  “Spoilsport,” I say, edging away.

  Ares darts for me, and even with Nathan firing off a concussive blast to break one of his legs mid-sprint, there’s no stopping that momentum. He smashes into me like a seven-foot bullet, and I feel something go crack in my chest as we both slam to the floor.

  “Cute,” I wheeze. “Jeju Black.”

  My contingency spell triggers instantly, a hammer of sheer force centered on Ares’s suffocating mass. He’s wrenched away in an eyeblink, hauled across the room by a rocket’s worth of thrust to collide with the far cell in a booming quake of flesh and cement.

  I roll to a sitting position, and my heart drops as I watch my foe right himself, wounds already stitching themselves shut. I really can’t win this, I think, hopes flagging as he starts pounding toward me again.

  Nathan and Samantha pour on the firepower, but it’s barely enough to make a dent in this ridiculous creature, an unrelenting engine of battle in the shape of a man. Despite the constant stream of damage, he’s already made it halfway back to me, and there’s not a thing I can do to keep him from closing that gap. Despair grips me in those final seconds, a sense of terrible truth settling on my shoulders: I never stood a chance. Why did I let my arrogance win out over reason, over the logic and caution of my friend? Stars above, why didn’t I listen? He was right, my priest, at least until my pride and a blind desire for conformity crushed that spark of dissent.

  I’m a god of love, I berate myself, and I thought I could win a war, could defeat its champion at his—

  Wait, I realize, stiffening.

  I’m a god of love.

  Ares wraps a hand around my neck, sweeping me from the tiles in one vicious motion to hang, kicking, in the air above him. Fingers capable of twisting steel tighten slowly, their owner savoring every ounce of pressure ratcheting against my throat.

  “Pathetic girl,” he sighs, barely audible above the screams and assaults from my desperate friends.

  “Love me,” I gasp, unleashing every scrap of passion, adoration, and affection in my soul and driving it into his like a freight train.

  I couldn’t do this to just anyone. Against the other villains of my life, misery is the weapon of choice, the only emotion I can bear to bring them, but for Ares…? Centuries of scheming, of striving for his fall have made him more than a man to me—he’s also a goal.

  And you can love to hate a goal.

  So I gather it all, days and weeks and lifetimes of focus and commitment, nine hundred years of unflagging devotion, and focus that epic sum into a single searing burst of mind-shattering revelation.

  Bloodshot pupils dilate, and Ares seems to lock in place, that nasty grin slipping into frozen stupor. I hang there limply for a moment, watching patches of blackness creep into the corners of my vision, and wonder if there’s any room left in this living weapon for love.

  Then I collapse to the floor, dropped by nerveless fingers, and get my answer.

  “What am I—?” Ares mumbles, staring at nothing.

  I hold up a hand to my friends, ordering a brief cease-fire. Ares looks down at the movement, and concern crinkles his eyes. “Freya!” he says, seeming aghast. “My apologies, I didn’t—Here, let me help you up.”

  Those brutal hands reach down to gently grasp my sides, and Ares lifts me from the floor, setting me upright as gingerly as if I were cast from porcelain. He reaches up to brush some wayward hairs from my face, a goofy grin drifting across once-barbarous features. “That … got out of hand, sorry,” he says. “Complete misunderstanding on my part, I assure you.”

  Battle roars from Sekhmet and Loki, the latter currently in the form of an acid-spitting hydra, draw our attention before I can reply. “Want me to deal with him?” Ares asks, frowning at the ongoing brawl.

  “Uh, no, thanks,” I say. Loki probably knows enough about magic to be able to rip my webs of compulsion out of Ares’s mind the second he realizes what’s happened. “But if you co
uld step into that cell, I’d be grateful.”

  “Of course, sweet thing,” Ares says, still grinning. I glance at Samantha and Nathan as the god of war sheepishly pads into Ahriman’s former accommodations. Panting, exhausted by their efforts, they look completely bewildered by this turn of events. Those expressions only get better as I walk over to the controls and flick a switch to seal our former adversary inside.

  The damaged glass slides shut, and he simply waits behind it, seeming content to know he’s done my bidding. I give myself a moment to sigh in relief, then turn my attention to the other battle raging beside us. From start to finish, my scrap with Ares has lasted maybe a minute, but in that time, Sekhmet and Loki have transformed the rest of the hallway into a blood-spattered, ichor-smeared war zone. Clearly, neither of the two has been able to gain the upper hand.

  Then a razored wingtip scores a line across Sekhmet’s upper shoulder, and I realize it’s only one of many injuries she’s still trying to heal. Loki can’t react as quickly as her, but he’s realized he doesn’t need to—his regeneration appears just as unstoppable as Ares’s, and in a war of attrition, that alone will grant him victory.

  Sekhmet, thankfully, seems to have reached the same conclusion. As she dodges the claws and stinger of a nightmarish scorpion-wasp hybrid, she laughs—laughs—in the aberration’s twitching face, then reaches behind her back, around the folds of her Grecian dress, and—

  It happens far too quickly to register. I thought this contest was hard to keep track of before, but the instant her fingers close on whatever’s buried in that cloth, it becomes all but impossible. I can only make out a flash of light from something long and sharp before a blur of slicing, tearing, scraping annihilation replaces my friend. Loki might be a shape-shifting speed demon and an even faster regenerator, but against this new development, even he has no hope of keeping up. Long slashes score his hide and chunks of armored carapace slough away as if by magic, his form shattering and dwindling as Sekhmet obliterates him with terrible swiftness.

  He flops to the ground, seeming unable to control his many limbs. Unwanted skin and chitin crumbles, his form dwindling as he fights to escape the blur of devastation. As more and more of him dissipates, I realize he’s had enough, that he’s winnowing his shape down to something small and quick. He’ll make his getaway, send in his legions, and live to fight another day.