Azeban grabbed her arm as if shocked. "You're letting me have him? Itz?"
Caw. A second crow called from the left, hop-fluttering toward the amate. This one flicked over small rocks, looking for bugs, and Itzpapalotl's eyes narrowed.
"No. Azeban, what is this?"
"I didn't know you had more than one crow." Azeban stepped away from her as if fascinated by the birds. "Is it to keep Kau company?"
Anansi would be in his small spider form by now, working on getting Kau's cage open under Laverna's shadow cover. A third crow hopped out of the cavern entrance, pecking his way toward Azeban. He had no idea which crow was Set, Loki, or Hermes, but it didn't matter, as long as they kept out of Itzpapalotl's grasp. Both Coyote and Dionysus would be watching from within the cavern's gloom. Azeban retained an expression of hopeful confusion as he moved toward the crow nearest the caverns.
That crow hopped closer to the bone cage hanging from the amate, so Azeban followed, keeping Itzpapalotl in the corner of his sight. She seemed to have fastened onto the one on the amate's roots as the real Kau and stalked in that direction as she emitted a high tuneless whistle. Her huge black bats began to issue from the caverns. Don't look… don't look. You're doing nothing wrong here. Nothing suspicious.
The bats had no interest in him though. They zoned in on the crows. All three took flight, zipping between the bats, cawing in counterpoint to the bats' shrieking. They couldn't stay free forever though. Too many bats. Too little room in the grove. Capture. Discovery. Destruction. It was all happening too fast. He hadn't given them enough time.
Barely audible under the cacophony, two more sets of notes joined Itzpapalotl's call to her bats. The one was wavering and eerie—Dionysus' panpipes—while the other was lighter, more direct—Coyote's flute. None of it could possibly be in time though.
The bats knocked one of the crows to the ground. Azeban hurled himself in their path, risking their raking claws to bundle the dazed crow into his coat. A second crow had his wing grazed and slammed into the amate. The third still dove and dodged, evading the bats with expert ease. The fourth—
Fourth?
A caw rang out, so familiar it rattled Azeban's bones. "Kau! Over here!"
But Kaukont was atop his bone cage, a spider clinging to his back. The bats were a sinister black cloud between Azeban and his crow friend. Itzpapalotl made her leisurely way across the root system to Kau's side of the tree. She would reach him long before anyone else could. It was too late. They'd never make it out now.
Azeban kept his head tucked down, trying to avoid the worst of the dive-bombing claws, determined to reach the downed god struggling in the tangle of the amate's roots. A giant bat dove for his face. He fell to one knee to avoid the strike, and a grey-brown blur shot past him. Sharp teeth snapped at the bat and caught a wing, bringing it down.
Coyotes. The grove was suddenly full of coyotes. Azeban feared them almost as much as the bats, but that was all instinct. He knew they were allies and forced himself to go on and retrieve the fallen crow. With yips and eerie barks, the coyotes went after the bats with unholy zeal, shredding wings, biting furred bodies. Itzpapalotl screamed in rage and reached up to snatch Kau from the top of the cage. Her hand neared the top of the cage—and stopped.
The amate had sent a tendril out to wrap around her wrist. Another joined it. Two more slid around her waist to hold her still, and no matter how she struggled and screamed at the tree, the amate wouldn't let go.
Temporary, maybe just a few seconds. Dio had entranced the tree for now, but it was ancient and would come to its senses soon. He scooped the fallen crow into his coat. The still-flying crow landed on his left shoulder.
"Kau! Come on!"
The cawing was as close to cursing as Kaukont got. He launched, saved from a swooping bat by an amazing coyote leap and snatch. The spider on Kau's back clung doggedly through the erratic flight, but they made it safely to Azeban's right shoulder.
"Az, let's go!" Laverna called out from the cavern mouth.
He made a mad dash that way with his four crow passengers and one spider, grabbed Laverna's sleeve as he ran into the caverns, and hoped Coyote and Dio grabbed onto her. The coyotes vanished in a snap of displaced air as Coyote stopped his song, and Azeban hurled himself into the Ways, willing all of his passengers and companions to make it through with him.
They burst out into the late-afternoon sunshine, just up the path from Lord Hades' bridge, all of his companions with him. No trickster left behind. The bats were only heartbeats back in pursuit.
"Go! Go!" He called to the crows on his shoulders. They launched and reached the safety of the bridge with ease.
Only a few steps. Charon was there with his hunters. A few more steps… a few more steps…
Heavy black claws sank into his shoulder. He screamed in pain and despair. So close, damn it. He'd been so close. Another set of claws closed on his arm. No!
A terrifying roar came from up ahead, and a blur of white and black surged past him. The claws vanished, and Azeban found himself scooped up—and on the far side of the bridge. Charon set him on his feet and 'ported back into the fray, pulling down one bat after another as both Artemis and Zagreus shot them out of the sky, and Ingeborg pummeled the few that got through with her makeshift club.
The few seconds it all took seemed a hundred painful heartbeats long, but finally no more pursuers flew at the bridge defenders, and the loudest sound Azeban heard was his own sobbing breaths.
Crrrrrreh. Kau had returned to his shoulder, combing his beak through Azeban's hair.
"You're here. You're safe." Blood dripped in a steady beat from his arm to the ground. Azeban collapsed to his knees under the weight of relief and guilt. "You're safe."
Caw caw rrrrk.
"Of course I came for you. You're my friend. I couldn't—" Azeban had more words, but they were all tangled in his constricting throat. He wanted to get up, but tears insisted on blurring his sight. Out of energy, out of resources, he settled for kneeling on the ground and letting himself cry, cradling Kaukont in his arms.
Once again, Azeban was a bloody mess. Charon sighed as he scooped up the raccoon god and his remaining passengers, telling himself sternly that it was his own fault if he insisted on wearing a white shirt to a skirmish. His heart skittered to have Azeban cradled against it again, though Charon struggled to sort through the jumbled mess of his thoughts. The whole expedition had taken perhaps seven minutes, and he didn't think he'd drawn seven breaths the whole time, waiting with his claws out and his weight on the balls of his feet, cursing himself for not being able to go with them.
Azeban was… made him feel… The kiss at the bridge had been unlike previous ones. There'd been a desperate quality to it, as if Azeban had been trying to convey everything in that brief contact. It kicked over the warm basket of coals in Charon's heart, the one that had been warming there since Azeban had first crawled into his lap, and sent feeling embers flying everywhere. He knew he wanted to protect the raccoon god, to keep him safe, warm, and fed. He wanted so many things, but it wasn't the time to try to sort out the extent of those wants or the specifics.
Since Set stood smug and unharmed in his human aspect on the path, Charon had to conclude that the two corvids cradled in Azeban's coat were Loki and Lord Hermes. Anansi had taken on his human shape as well, though he appeared rather shaken, leaning on Coyote's offered arm. Laverna dabbed at her cheek where one of the bat's claws had strafed her, but she appeared more annoyed than hurt. All accounted for, at least. The bats that had been dispatched melted into mist and dust, and Charon thanked the universe for magical constructs. At least I don't have to clean those up.
"I offer my lordship's hospitality," Charon said to the scattered group of gods. "Since I'd rather not debrief out here."
"Might be the first sensible thing I've heard today," Zack said with a snort. "Artie, Ing and I need to stash our arsenal, and we'll meet you up there. Probably better if you 'port the folks up who securit
y doesn't know already."
"Very good, my young lord. Won't take me a moment."
He waited to be sure Artemis had snagged Dionysus, also wandering in a shocky daze, before he shifted through the planes to deposit Azeban in the guest bathroom. Two trips later, he had delivered the remainder of the cabal to the living room just as Zack knocked on the door.
"My young lord, thank you for assisting today." Charon waved them in and took Dionysus by the arm to settle him on the sofa. "I expected pursuit, but I may have underestimated the ferocity. Not to mention the size of the bats."
"Glad I could be here. How's Dad?" Zack wandered to the kitchen and put the teakettle on without being asked.
"Stabilized, I guess you could say." Charon gave a one-shouldered shrug. "He doesn't seem to be getting any worse, at least. You could look in on him if you like, but I doubt he'll wake. You'll have to excuse me a moment. I have a raccoon god crying in the bathroom."
In the hallway, a figure emerged from Lord Hades' room and limped toward Charon in determined fashion, leaning heavily on a silver-handled cane. Michael gave him an anxious smile as they drew up alongside each other. "Everyone all right?"
"Zack's fine," Charon offered first to relieve Michael of his biggest worry. "Az got the worst of it, but I think most everyone else is unharmed-ish. How is himself?"
"The same." Michael leaned against the wall to ease his cane hand. The change from arm crutches to a single cane had only been in the past week. "I guess it's not fixed yet, whatever it is."
"Not yet. Though I do believe we can get some reliable information now."
Michael nodded, and with a pat to Charon's arm, continued his slow, deliberate way out to the front room.
Soft voices murmured in the main part of the condo as Zack nudged various tricksters into an account of what happened in the amate grove, but silence greeted Charon at the bathroom door now. He nudged it open to find Kau at the sink trying to turn on the taps and Azeban huddled in the corner with his head on his knees. Loki had regained his human aspect and lay on the bathmat beside the sinks, while Hermes leaned over the tub, trying to remove his shirt with one hand.
"Glad to see it looks less four-and-twenty blackbirds in here," Charon muttered, then waved off Kaukont's offended caw. "Yes, yes. I know you're not a blackbird."
Difficult to know whom to assist first. Charon settled on helping Hermes out of his shirt so the god of thieves could clean the claw gouges in his arm. "Please call Fafnir when you have a moment. The last thing I need now is a worried dragon landing in full flame on the balcony."
Hermes' voice was muffled from bending over the faucet. "He's in his writing cave on a deadline. Probably hasn't noticed I'm gone yet."
"Oh, lovely." Charon rolled his eyes, then took Loki to the guest bedroom to rest in a more comfortable spot than the bathroom floor.
When he returned, only Azeban and Kau occupied the room, the crow hopping around Azeban's feet, cocking his head this way and that. Kau hopped over to Charon with a worried croak.
"He's had a rough time, Kau." Charon lifted Azeban by the forearms and set him on the edge of the tub to start the process, again, of getting him out of his torn coat and shirt. Charon tossed both out into the hall where the coat landed with a distinct clank, and Charon began the process of assessing claw wounds. "We'll talk about what's in your pockets later. Not too bad this time. Certainly not as bad as getting stabbed in the back."
"Char?" Azeban shivered violently by the time Charon had him cleaned up and the bleeding had stopped. "I have to tell you. Now I can tell you—"
Charon held up a finger to stop him. "Let's do this once, with everyone."
"Okay."
That single word was so quiet, so subdued, Charon worried that the telling might not happen without a flood of tears. He wrapped Azeban in one of the bathrobes hanging on the back of the door and pulled him into his arms. "No platitudes about how everything's going to be all right. We don't know that. But I think you want to do the right thing. I'm right here to help you with that."
Azeban clung tight, face buried against Charon's no-longer-clean shirt. He heaved a few long, shuddering breaths, then tilted his head back. "I'm ready."
"All right, SpongeBob. Let's get out there." Charon held out an arm. "Kau, you too."
Caw caw!
"I'll get you food. Do you like dog food?"
Caw!
"Perfect."
In the living room, Zack had managed to settle most of the gods on the sofa and the surrounding chairs, though Artemis and Set bookended the French doors to the patio in a duet of staring at the river and brooding. Ing had taken one of the stools at the kitchen island, where she could observe but avoid interaction. Charon placed Azeban between Dio and Hermes on the sofa and took up the spot behind him as guardian and arbitrator.
"We got Kau back, Az," Coyote drawled from where he'd draped himself over the arms of his lordship's leather recliner. "And you're welcome. Now spill. All the deets."
A rattle and an irritated crow grumble came from the hall. Kaukont hopped around the corner, heaving at the collar of Azeban's coat to drag it across the floor. He dropped the collar and flipped the coat open, working with beak and claw to drag one of Azeban's juggling knives out of the inside pocket.
Caw caw crrre-eh caw!
Azeban dropped his head in his hands. "You've got to be kidding."
Caw!
"No, I know, Kau. I just can't believe I was so stupid."
A warning call came from Kau as he raced across the room in a flurry of wings just as Ti came around the corner holding Cerberus by the middle collar. "What the hell is going on out here? Holy shit. Is this some kind of pre-rumble god meeting?"
Cerberus kept his right head focused on the gathering, the middle and left turned toward Set, and snarled.
"Down, Cerbies. Lie down," Charon told the monstrous canine. "Lord Set is here on my invitation. We're trying to resolve the issues with death."
All three heads looked at Charon, and with many whimper-yips and grumble-growls, Cerberus sat on his haunches and put one forepaw in front of the other until he lay on the carpet. Ti didn't let go of the collar, obviously disturbed by the company and overly stressed over the whole situation. "Damn it, Char. You could come warn me. The dogs are all upset. What did the crow say?"
"Kau says it's my knives. He says she told him." Azeban's bitter laugh was half sob. "She'd spelled my knives, and that's how she heard me. My own fucking knives."
Charon gripped his shoulder, willing him to hold together a bit longer. "That explains how she only seemed to be able to locate you sometimes, and why she didn't know where you were in the library."
Laverna picked up the coat, her hands glowing, and wrapped it into a ball of glowing light. She tossed the still-illuminated bundle of coat and contents down the hallway like a bowling ball. "There. Now she'll just hear the chorus of "It's A Small World after All" sung over and over."
"Oh, like Itz wasn't annoyed with us before?" Hermes grimaced.
"Eh. She can just do a blocking spell." Laverna shrugged, obviously not at all repentant.
Charon tapped a finger on Azeban's chest. "Story, Az. From the beginning."
"She asked first," Azeban said so softly that everyone in the room leaned closer to hear. "And I thought it was something different. Something interesting. But as soon as I started, it felt so wrong."
"What was it?" Hermes nudged him gently. "What did she ask you to do?"
Hands twisting in the terry cloth robe, Azeban told a harrowing story concerning magical golden netting of Itzpapalotl's design, nets constructed to be infinitely expandable and attuned only to Azeban's touch as he set them, of refusal after the initial attempt, of attempts at sabotage, and trickery, and days of flight and terror. He told of how she finally found him and ripped Kaukont away from him, and of the coercion that followed. Step by step, he took them through how he had closed off the paths to death and how she had refused to free Kau, even when he
'd done all she'd commanded.
Charon laid a hand on his shoulder. "But that's not all, is it? When you were staying in the library, you heard things she hadn't wanted to tell you."
"I heard…" Azeban swallowed hard. "I'm not sure I even understand it."
"Just tell us what you heard." Anansi leaned forward, his tea mug clutched in both hands. He looked much better now that he'd had some time not clinging to the back of an erratically flying crow. "We have many different minds here to help."
"She… was looking at charts of lunar eclipses." Azeban spoke each word slowly, his eyes unfocused as if searching through memory. "And Eris and Unhcegila were helping her map a path with them. So she could follow the eclipses and not just experience it in one place."
"More souls to devour, yes." Set nodded to Charon. "So the ferryman and I had already surmised. This doesn't tell us why."
"Male souls," Azeban whispered.
"But she always eats those, right?" Dionysus asked from his blanket cocoon.
Azeban shook his head. "She wants more. She thinks… I dunno, maybe it happens, but she thinks if she devours a soul, it's taken out of the universe. That it doesn't exist anymore. It sounds like… She's so angry. She wants to take away male souls so there won't be as many anymore."
"But that doesn't make sense." Laverna rubbed at her forehead. "Souls aren't gendered. I mean, they retain how they saw themselves right after death. For a while, anyway."
"But souls go through many lives. Many genders," Zack picked up the thread. "At least, that's what I was taught."
"We don't know though." Set drummed his claws on the back of Coyote's chair. "And she wants to mess about with the fabric of the universe. I'm all for death and destruction, but once you start to tear at the weave, there might not be any coming back."
"So what now?" Coyote had curled up in the chair, not nearly as insouciant and self-confident.
Hermes nudged again. "Have you tried to undo it, Az? The nets?"
Brandywine Investigations Page 36