by Tim Waggoner
She looked at him expectantly. He remembered her question then, and he decided to answer it honestly.
“At first I followed her because she threatened to kill me if I didn’t. I knew she’d do it because I saw her kill a friend of mine who’d rejected her. But it didn’t take long before I wanted to follow her. Maybe that’s part of their power, to make us want to follow them, to make us need them. But if so, that wasn’t all of it. It felt good to be able to believe in something—someone—that was real. It made me feel important, made me feel like I mattered, for the first time in a long time.”
“And now?” Renee asked.
Geoffrey looked out the window at the fighting once more. Adamantine and Paeon were surrounded by a sphere of energy, and many of their worshippers lay on the asphalt, hurt or dead. Paeon’s people fought with weapons and speed, while Adamantine’s fought by unleashing the electrical power that she’d lent them. Neither side looked as if it had an advantage, and Geoffrey feared that before the sun had risen very high in the sky, most—if not all—of the people he was looking at now would be dead.
“It just seems so meaningless,” he said softly.
He saw a man break away from the mass of people and then come running toward the building’s entrance. Given the speed with which he ran, Geoffrey knew he was one of Paeon’s people. It appeared that while Paeon fought Adamantine, he had ordered one of his soldiers to abduct the Mythmaker. That was all right, though. Adamantine had anticipated this might happen.
“Stay behind me,” he said to Renee, and then he raised his hands and summoned the energy that Adamantine had implanted within him. Electricity crackled and sparked between his fingers, and he prepared to fight, although at this point he didn’t know why.
* * *
Sam slowed as he approached the entrance to TechEdge, marveling at his enhanced body’s abilities. He’d just run faster than he ever had before and he was barely winded. I could get used to this, he thought.
Sam figured Geoffrey possessed the same electrical power as the rest of Adamantine’s followers. Sam had managed to dodge a number of electrical bolts as he’d run through the fighting armies, but he’d seen their effect on others. The bolts inflicted so much damage so swiftly that even the healing abilities of Paeon’s ultimate humans had difficulty coping with them. Because of this, he knew it would be foolish to go up against one of Adamantine’s people unarmed. He might be stronger and faster than an ordinary human at the moment, but he couldn’t move faster than electricity. He drew his 9mm and reached for the door handle—
—only to be hurled backward as a blast of lightning crashed through the glass and struck him in the chest. He flew twenty feet through the air and landed on his back with the sound of snapping bones. He felt sharp pain shoot through his left arm, and a heaviness pressed down on his chest. I’m having a heart attack, he thought. The electricity from the blast had disrupted the electrical current of his heart, like defibrillator paddles used to harm instead of help. His body bucked as muscles contracted and released, and his vision began to go dark as the pain in his chest became excruciating. Compared to it, his broken bones and the shards of glass embedded in his flesh were nothing.
I can’t die, he thought. I still have work to do.
He watched as a man stepped through the opening where the door had been. His figure was little more than a hazy gray silhouette to Sam, but he thought he was looking at Geoffrey.
“Don’t get up, boy. I’ll kill you if I have to, but I’d rather not. The choice is yours.”
The man’s voice was firm, if not unkind, and although Sam thought he detected a certain reluctance underlying the words, he believed Geoffrey was telling the truth. Paeon’s gift of healing was already doing its work, and Sam’s vision began to clear. The heaviness on his chest lessened, and his bones began fusing together. It would still be a few minutes until he was in fighting shape again, but he didn’t have time to wait. The more time he wasted, the more people died fighting Paeon and Adamantine’s war. He’d managed to hold onto his gun when he’d fallen, and without sitting up—because he wasn’t sure he could yet—he raised his hand, aimed, and fired.
Geoffrey cried out as the bullet struck him, and he spun to the side and fell to the ground.
“No!”
A young woman came out of the building, moving awkwardly because her hands were tied behind her back with a length of thin black cable. This, he assumed, was the Mythmaker.
“Don’t kill him! He doesn’t want to help Adamantine, not really!”
Sam had healed to the point where he could sit up. It didn’t hurt as much as he feared, so he gave standing a try. He was weak and stiff, but he managed to accomplish that maneuver as well, although with more difficulty. He no longer felt any pain within his chest, although the flesh where the electricity had struck him still stung. But that too faded quickly. He felt his body push out the glass that had struck him when the door exploded, and shards tumbled to the ground around him. A moment later, he felt good as new. Better, in fact.
At that instant, he could almost understand why the Underwoods had made their deal with the Lord of the Hunt. He felt strong, confident, able to accomplish anything, and those kind of feelings could become very addictive very fast. For a second, he remembered the hot, foul taste of demon blood in his mouth, and he knew that he had no right to judge the Underwoods. Both he and Dean had made deals of their own with supernatural forces, most of which they’d lived to regret in one way or another.
He thrust those thoughts aside and gazed down at Geoffrey. The Mythmaker knelt down next to him and quickly examined him. Sam could tell just by looking the man would likely live. The round from the 9mm had struck him in the left shoulder, and although the man’s eyes were closed, his chest rose and fell regularly, so he was breathing okay.
The woman evidently came to the same conclusion, for she stood, a look of relief on her face.
“Thanks for not killing him,” she said.
Sam didn’t tell her that he’d been aiming for the man’s heart, but his vision had been so poor and his grip so unsteady that he’d been lucky to hit the guy’s shoulder.
“What’s your name?” Sam asked.
“Renee Mendez,” she said. The air was filled with the sounds of shouting and screaming, along with the pop-pop-pop of gunfire and the crack-sizzle of released electricity. She looked past Sam at the fighting, and an expression of horror came over her face. “Did I cause this?”
So she knows she’s the Mythmaker, Sam thought. Good, that’ll make this easier.
“It’s not your fault,” Sam said. “None of it is. But I think you might be able to stop it if you’re willing to trust me and do what I say. I won’t lie to you, though. It’ll be dangerous.”
Renee gazed upon the battle once more, and her expression of horror was replaced by one of determination.
“Okay. What do we have to do?”
FOURTEEN
Dean ran as fast as he could, firing off low-level blasts of electricity to force people to get out of his way. But even so, he wasn’t able to reach Paeon and Adamantine before Lena did. He watched as she raised the shotgun, aimed it at the pulsating sphere of energy surrounding the warring gods, and began firing, pumping shells into the chamber one after another until she’d used them all. Dean was impressed. Not many people could stand and fire upon a pair of gods without so much as flinching. If she ever decided to give up medicine, she’d make a hell of a hunter.
He wasn’t sure what Lena hoped to accomplish with her bravery, though. He’d seen Paeon heal the burns he’d suffered when Flare attacked him, so he doubted a few shotgun shells would do much more than tickle him. And as for Adamantine… well, her skin was made of some kind of metal, and if it wasn’t impervious to damage, it had to be resistant as hell. But then, as if the energy sphere itself had been angered by the attack, a tentacle of black light combined with silver electricity emerged from the sphere and whipped through the air toward the doctor. It
coiled around her with the speed of a striking snake, and she threw back her head and screamed.
Dean reached her then, and he thrust out his hands and released twin bolts of electrical energy at the tentacle. His efforts seemed to have no effect, and so he gritted his teeth and gave it everything he had, unleashing every ounce of power that Adamantine had given him. But the tentacle, being made of energy itself, appeared to absorb all the electrical power that Dean sent into it without any harm. And still Lena screamed…
Then, as abruptly as if someone somewhere threw a switch, her screaming stopped.
The tentacle released her and retreated back into the energy sphere. She fell to the ground, limp and lifeless, and Adamantine and Paeon continued to stand toe-to-toe within the sphere, locked together in motionless combat, neither showing any sign that they were aware of what had just happened.
Dean felt exhausted, as if he’d been drained of energy—figuratively and literally—but he went to Lena, knelt next to her, and put his fingers to her neck to check her pulse. Nothing. He wondered why she wasn’t healing like the rest of Paeon’s people. Maybe the combination of the two gods’ power had been too much for her system to handle, even with Paeon’s upgrades. Whatever the reason, she was dead, and there was nothing… He had a sudden idea then. He’d tried to pour every bit of electrical power his body possessed into his attack on the energy tentacle, but if he had some left, even if only a little…
He rubbed his hands together and placed them on Lena’s chest. Energy released, her body convulsed, and then she fell back and was still once more. He was about to try again when her eyes flew open and she drew in a gasping breath.
Dean smiled. “Welcome back, Doc.”
* * *
Sam and Renee had an easier time reaching the energy sphere than he’d expected, but that was because the followers of both gods—those who hadn’t already fallen in battle, that is—began to collapse like falling dominoes, and there were few left to impede their progress. He saw Gayle the paramedic go down, and he wished he could stop and see if she was all right, but he knew they were running out of time, and he pushed on.
“What’s happening?” Renee asked.
“I think Paeon and Adamantine are drawing on their worshippers for extra power,” Sam said.
“Are they dying?”
“I don’t know.” One thing he did know: They had to hurry before the gods got around to draining him and Dean.
They found Dean kneeling next to Lena, who was sitting on the asphalt. She looked as if she were fighting to stop herself from passing out, and Dean had a hand on her back to keep her steady.
Dean looked up as they approached. “About time you two showed up.”
Lena frowned as she looked at Renee. “Who’s this, Sam?” Then she looked at Dean. “And who are you?”
“Short version?” Dean said. “Sam and I are brothers who hunt and kill monsters for a living. This young lady is Renee. She dreamed up the gods that have been crawling all over your town like super-powered cockroaches lately.”
“I didn’t mean to!” Renee said. “I don’t even know how I did it!”
“Like I told you,” Sam said, “it’s not your fault. It’s just something you were born with. But we need you to tap into that ability now.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m interested in hearing the answer to that one, too,” Dean said.
“The process that’s happening here—the Apotheosis—isn’t complete yet, and I think that means we can still stop it.” Sam gestured to the energy sphere. “You created the gods. Maybe you can uncreate them, too.”
“Now there’s an idea,” Dean said, rising to his feet and helping Lena do the same.
“I didn’t create them exactly,” Renee said. “I painted them. One after the other, as if I was in some kind of trance. As soon as I finished one, it would disappear from the canvas, and I’d start another.”
“I think painting was a way to help you focus your power,” Sam said. “I don’t think you actually have to do anything but… imagine.”
A wave of weariness came over him then, so intense that the world seemed to spin and the next thing he knew he was lying on the ground.
“Sammy!” Dean started toward him, but then he stumbled and fell to his hands and knees.
Lena knelt next to Dean and put her hand on his shoulder. She looked at Sam and said, “What’s wrong?”
Sam struggled to answer her; he didn’t have enough strength left to speak. He watched as Dean slumped onto his side, still conscious, but no more able to move than his brother.
Lena looked back and forth between the brothers, panic in her gaze. “I don’t…” She trailed off then, took a deep breath, and when she next spoke, her voice was calm. “The gods must’ve done something to them.”
“They’re draining the boys’ energy to use against each other,” Geoffrey said.
Sam couldn’t turn his head to look at Geoffrey, but he managed to shift his eyes enough to see him. He had one hand pressed to his wounded shoulder, and while he looked barely able to stay on his feet, he managed to keep standing.
“They haven’t gotten around to us yet because we’re their priests,” Geoffrey said. “But I imagine it’ll be our turn soon.”
“What can we do?” Lena said.
“You can’t do anything,” Renee said. “But I can. At least I can try.” She closed her eyes and furrowed her brow in concentration.
At first nothing happened, and Sam feared that he’d guessed wrong, but then the energy sphere began to flicker, once, twice, and then it began to flash rapidly on and off, like a strobe light. Sam felt his strength returning; only a little, but it was enough to allow him to speak.
“You’re doing it, Renee! Keep it up!”
Her brow furrowed even more, and she balled her hands into fists as she concentrated even harder. And then, almost as if it were a bubble that simply popped out of existence, the energy sphere vanished. Paeon and Adamantine stepped back from each other, confused expressions on their faces, as if they had no idea what had just happened, or for that matter, who they were or what they had been doing. They no longer radiated power and strength, no longer seemed much like gods at all. They looked like nothing more than two humans dressed in costumes. Even Adamantine’s silver skin had lost its metallic sheen and was now a dull gray.
Renee might’ve been able to unimagine much of the gods’ power, but it seemed she wasn’t able to unmake them completely. They still existed, and—depowered or not—that meant they were still dangerous.
Adamantine was the first to recover her wits, and she gave the five humans a venomous glare.
“It was a clever attempt, I grant you, but you cannot stop us that way. We have grown much since we were born and have become too strong to be dismissed so lightly.”
Dean sat up and rose unsteadily to his feet. His eyes were no longer silver, and Sam knew that the enhancements that Adamantine and Paeon had given them were gone.
“You mean you both stole enough of your worshippers’ life forces to keep your asses from going poof,” Dean said.
Sam gave his brother a look, and Dean shrugged.
“Sorry. It sounded better in my head.”
Sam felt strong enough to stand now and rose to join Dean. He wasn’t back to his full strength yet, but he was getting stronger by the moment, and he knew his brother was, too. He took a quick glance around the battlefield that TechEdge’s parking lot had become, and while many people still lay motionless, a number were starting to stir, and a few were even up on their feet.
Paeon’s confusion vanished then, and a sly smile came onto his face. He lunged toward Adamantine, dropping his caduceus in the process, and grabbed hold of her spear with both hands. He yanked it out of her grip, spun it around, and drove the point into her chest. He shoved the spear deeper until it burst through her back, dripping with gray blood.
“I am the One!” Paeon shouted. His voice was no
louder than a normal human’s now, but it was strong and full of triumph.
“That’s only a trophy,” Geoffrey said.
Paeon frowned at Geoffrey. “What are you talking—”
His voice cut off as Adamantine sank the sharp fingers of her gauntlet into his throat. She released an electrical charge, and Paeon gritted his teeth as his body began jerking uncontrollably. The spear still jutted from Adamantine’s back, but it didn’t appear to bother her. Still holding onto Paeon’s throat, she crouched, forcing him down with her, and with her free hand she snatched up the caduceus and plunged it into Paeon’s right eye. The god shrieked in pain as Adamantine shoved the rod into his brain. Blood poured from the wound, and Adamantine released her grip on his throat, causing more blood to spill from where the metal tips of the gauntlet had pierced his flesh. Paeon staggered backward, clawing at the caduceus with both hands, but he was unable to dislodge it. He turned toward Lena and gave her a last unreadable look before his body began to glow with a white light. His form collapsed into a small sphere, and then shot forward and disappeared into Adamantine. Her skin regained its silvery luster, she seemed to stand taller, and her features became sharper. Once more, she looked like a god.
Grinning, she pulled the spear out of her chest and tossed it aside. The wound healed almost at once.
“So much for that fool,” she said. “That was the real reason I kept Wyld’s spear in the first place.”
“It was a decoy,” Sam said.
“Yes. But I no longer have need of it.” She fixed her gaze on Renee. “There’s only one thing I need now. Once I kill you and absorb your power, I shall be unstoppable.”
The young woman took a step backward, and Lena and Geoffrey stepped to her side as if to protect her.