by Angie Fox
I owed it to Marc to push on. It was the only thing I could do for him.
My roommate Rodger had been a geology minor in college. He also collected rocks—somewhere among the Star Trek action figures. He might know what this was, or at least where to look. I glanced over at our hutch on the edge of the swamp. I just hoped he was home.
Chapter Fourteen
I banged into our hutch and tossed my duffel bag onto the floor.
Rodger was still organizing the action figures he’d brought back from his leave. At least that was what I hoped they were doing spread out all over my cot.
My roommate stretched out on his neat and clean bed with an Avengers comic book. “You’re back.” He started to sit up. “Whoa!” He gave a gross-out look. “What happened to you?”
“The minefield,” I said, looking for a place to sit.
Rodger leapt up and began clearing action figures, for their sake more than mine. Heaven forbid the vinyl-caped Jawa from 1978 get fish goo on his original, factory-sealed packaging.
“Oysters or chicken guts?” he asked, making sure the twelve-inch masterpiece edition of Captain Kirk was safe from my stench.
“Sardines,” I said, sitting, not caring about my blanket and sheets. They were washable.
Now that his children were out of the way, Rodger was impressed. “Nice one.” He whistled under his breath.
“I don’t have time to worry about it,” I said, resting my head in my hands.
“Actually, I think you should.”
That’s right. Rodger had an uber-sensitive werewolf nose. He’d just have to suffer.
“I shot Marc.”
“Damn.” Rodger slumped down next to me.
That didn’t begin to cover it.
He sat with his elbows on his knees, trying to get me to look at him. “Marc was the enemy?”
I cringed. Yes, Marc was technically the enemy, but, “No, I didn’t shoot him because he was on the other side.” I explained the horrible mistake I’d made.
Rodger’s eyes were going bloodshot. “Marc might be okay,” he said, rubbing his face with his sleeve. He dropped his hands. “We’ve both seen patients with twenty percent odds pull through just fine.”
But we usually saw them die. “The worst part is, I have no idea.” I stood, unable to sit for one more second. “Before, I knew Marc was dead. I could at least try to deal with it,” I said, pacing the hutch. “Now he could be clinging to life, in pain and alone. He could have gotten caught anyway. He could be getting court-martialed or shot. They could be shoveling dirt over him at this very minute, and I don’t know.” I’d failed him. “I’m not there.”
“I understand,” he said quietly. I stood looking out at the bubbling tar swamp, and we just were. Rodger knew I was right and that he couldn’t make it better. So he just chose to be with me. It helped. Maybe.
I didn’t know anymore.
“Before, there was at least someone to blame,” I said, chest heaving. I felt hollow. “It was the old army’s fault. They took him. They put him on the front lines. It was their fault when the enemy slashed his throat and left him to bleed out on the ground. He left me because they took him from me.” I dropped my head, not wanting to say it. But I had to. I owed it to Marc to at least face what I did. “Now it’s all me. I pulled that trigger. I ran, not knowing if he’d make it. I left him.”
My throat felt raw. I’d been prepared to never see him again, but I wasn’t prepared for him to cease to exist. Not again.
Rodger pulled me into a bear hug. I sank into him, taking the warmth and the comfort, needing it like I needed my next breath. “I just wish I knew somebody on the other side,” he said, almost to himself.
I swallowed hard. “Me too.”
Marc would contact me if he could. He had to. In the meantime, I just had to hope and pray. And help him any way I could.
Rodger pulled back, his face grave. “He could be okay. You have to remember that.”
“I know.” I meant it. I tried to smile as I patted him on the arm. “I have a question for you,” I said, wiping my nose on my sleeve.
“Yes, you may borrow my soap.”
I laughed despite myself. Merde, I was a mess.
“I found something on the other side,” I said, digging in my pocket for the crystal. “I don’t know what it is, but I thought you might.”
He took it and held it up to the light. “Titurate?” He inspected it closer, rolling it over in his hands, exploring every nook and cranny like a kid with a new toy. “It is! Where did you get this?”
I explained while my roommate continued to ooh and ahh over the piece of rock. At least I’d asked the right person.
“So why is this rock so special?” I asked, worried for a moment he was going to want to sleep with it like a teddy bear.
Rodger shook his mop of auburn hair out of his eyes. “It’s the hardest crystal ever,” he said, holding it up as if I was supposed to be able to see that. “Eeeee!” he screeched at it.
Now I’d seen everything. “Please tell me you’re not singing to a piece of rock.” I sniffled.
“Eeeee…” he continued, his voice warbling, sounding like a dying seal. “I’m working it.”
“Try not to work so hard.”
“No, see.” He turned the crystal sideways, as if that would help. “You hit the right sound frequency and poof! The entire crystalline structure collapses. You’re basically left holding nothing. Well, a fine dust. But you really can’t see it and it’s basically nothing. Or so I’ve heard.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to sort through the rock geek code. “So basically, you’re trying to break my crystal.”
“A friend of mine had a video. It’s gorgeous. The whole thing goes up like a mini-fireworks display and then—poof! It’s the only use for something like this. Other than to put in a collection. Which would be so amazingly cool.” He inhaled like I’d been holding him underwater. “Can I have this for my collection?”
“Not if you break it.”
He grinned like a groupie. “My rock club is going to freak out.”
I knew he was into this, but… “You have a rock club?”
Rodger couldn’t stop playing with the crystal. “Where do you think I go every Tuesday afternoon?”
I had no idea. I was usually on shift.
“Just kidding.” Rodger grinned. “Rock club is every other Saturday. I do LARP on Tuesdays.”
I didn’t care. “Do you think somebody in your rock club will know more about this?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “One thing’s for sure. They are going to have puppies.”
“Seriously?”
“Actually, no. Only I can have puppies.” Rodger grinned. Luckily for him, he got back on track before I slapped him. He held the rock up to the light. “I’ve only seen one other titurate crystal, and that was at a show in Brighton. It wasn’t even for sale. The guy was just rubbing our faces in it.” He laughed. “Everybody kept trying to make it break.”
“You think you stood a chance?” I asked.
“You never know.”
I doubted this guy would have left his rock out where just any eee could smush it. I reached for the stone, but Rodger dodged me. “It must be a hard frequency to hit,” I said.
“It is,” he said, fondling it some more. “Look.” He dug under his bed for a massive box of books. Shoveling through the pile, he found one on crystals and flipped through it.
“You want to hand me the rock while you do that?”
“No.” He found his page. “See here? That’s a picture of it.”
Lo and behold, it was. I did have a genuine titurate on my hands. Although I didn’t know why we were still looking at a picture when Rodger had the real thing in his tight fist.
“They don’t call it the Crystal of the Gods for nothing.”
Okay, well, “Can you find what else it does? Other than turn to dust?”
“How about I go do it while you shower?”
/> Ha, ha. “I’d actually like to go with you.” It was my rock. My responsibility. “I want to hear firsthand what your friends have to say.”
Rodger cringed. “Um. Yeah. I don’t think you’d be welcome with some of these guys.”
He had to be kidding. “I’m not hip enough for rock club?”
My roommate gritted his teeth. “I had to make up a few stories while you were away.”
I had a bad feeling about that. “What kind of stories?” I asked slowly.
He clutched the crystal to his chest, but his eyes were on me. “You were gone for two days.”
“A day and a half.” And he was stalling. “Rodger?”
His eyes grew wider. “Nobody could figure out why I’d come back from vacation and volunteer to work two double shifts.”
“Rodger!”
“I told everyone that you were in the minefield, setting pranks,” he said quickly. “That worked…for a while. But then a bunch of people saw Marius come out of there smiling, so they thought you two were out hooking up.”
Glory be. “And you told them what?”
“I told them maybe you were,” he said, voice rising, shoulders up around his ears. “It seemed like a good cover.” His teeth clenched in a nervous smile. “But then Marius said no way he was with you and he thought he saw you with Shirley.”
“At least I have good taste.” Shirley was an awesome person.
“You did,” Rodger said, gaining confidence when he realized I hadn’t tossed him through the hutch wall. Yet. “But then Kosta asked Shirley if that was true, and you know she was thrilled because she’s been wanting him to get into her for months, so she said that you were out there hiding things.”
“What?” I gaped.
“You know, like pranks. Maybe storage.”
“Why didn’t she just tell him I was in my lab, working on the anesthetic for immortals?”
Rodger sucked his lips into his mouth. “That would have been a great idea.”
“Okay,” I said, pacing again, “so now I’m hiding gods-knew-what in the minefield.” I could live with that.
Rodger took a deep breath.
I stopped. “What?”
“It would have been fine except that things are disappearing all over camp.”
Unbelievable. “I’ve only been gone for two days!”
“A day and a half. And there’s no reason to yell,” he said, getting his hackles up. “I know you’re not a thief.”
“But everybody else?”
Rodger cringed.
He’d been lying for me, along with Marius and Shirley, and all of their stories stunk worse than I did with fish on my head.
“I’m going to kill you,” I said, going after him.
He zigzagged out of my reach. “Not if you want to find out about your rock.”
“I’m going to toss all of your action figures out into the swamp.”
“There’s no need to get nasty.”
“Everyone is talking behind my back.”
“Now, that part is true.”
There was nothing sacred in this MASH camp, nothing private. And that was when we were dealing with boring little details like who switched shifts with whom and who had one too many shots of Hell’s Rain at the officers’ club.
“The gossips are going to have a field day with Petra the vampire lover/friend-crushing/klepto who spends all of her time in the junkyard.”
“At least you have a sense of humor about it,” Rodger offered.
“I’m going to get a shower,” I grumbled.
I got more looks than I’d ever gotten walking the fifty feet to the shower tent.
“How’s your boyfriend?” A clerk in a yellow robe winked at me as she ducked out of the shower tent.
I gritted my teeth. “Marius is not my boyfriend. Shirley is not my girlfriend, and I didn’t steal anything.”
Her nervous laugh made my stomach pinch.
I braced myself and ducked into shower stall number two. I had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Except for shooting Marc.
See? No matter how bad things were, I could always make them worse.
I stood under the lukewarm spray for a long time before soaping up my hair.
“I believe you,” said a Southern voice on the other side.
“Who’s that?” I asked as the stinging soap ran down in my eyes. I hadn’t even known someone was there.
“Fogarty. Cafeteria service.”
I blasted my face and head with water. “You’re from Georgia, right?” She liked to talk about Cajun cooking. I just wished they’d let her make some real food.
“Um-hum. The trouble started when the four-star general and his mama rolled into camp two days ago.”
“Really?” I asked, soaping up. A four-star mama’s boy.
“He’s just a demigod general, but she’s a goddess, so Kosta’s doing it all up. They’re in for a general inspection.” Fogarty’s water shut off. “He’s okay. But I’ve heard she has sticky fingers.”
I placed a hand on the damp wall between us. “Have you told anybody?”
Her towel slipped off the hook. “Now, I think you know that’s treason.”
Right. To accuse a goddess. Damn.
“You’re just going to have to suck it up. But like I said, I know you didn’t do half the stuff I hear.”
“Thanks,” I said, wondering just which half she did believe. “How did you find out about this goddess?”
“Her name is Eris.”
I tapped a finger against the wood shower wall. “I should know who that is.” I needed to borrow one of Rodger’s books again.
“Greek goddess of chaos.”
That sounded about right. “I’ll bet the next prophecy says something about her,” I muttered, grabbing the soap once again.
“No. The second prophecy already came in.”
My soap clattered to the floor.
“We were all watching this morning. I’d still be there if I didn’t have a shift at eleven.”
I braced a hand on the stall door, willing myself to breathe. I said a quick prayer that the next prophecy would give me a glimmer of good news. Some indication that we’d be able to stall the weapon or free Dr. Keller or that—please God—Marc would be okay. I needed it so bad right now. I needed to at least hope. I let out a shaky breath. “What did it say?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” she said, gathering up her shower caddy. “Death comes with a gift.”
Chapter Fifteen
My heart beat wildly. “Death comes with a gift? What does that mean?”
But she’d left the shower hut.
Marius’s gun wasn’t a gift. He’d take it back as soon as the sun set.
I had to see this.
Hands shaking, I rinsed most of the soap off—hopefully—and grabbed my robe. No doubt the television in the mess tent would be tuned to the Paranormal News Network. PNN was the only channel it got.
With my shower caddy in one hand and the other clutching my robe closed, I made it all the way to the south side of camp in three minutes flat.
“Is it still on?” I asked one of the motor-pool guys as he held the door open for me. I didn’t think he’d planned on it. It was more like I barged past him.
“Nice outfit,” he said, giving me the once-over. “I like the new you.”
“Can it, Lazio.”
“You’d better watch out,” he called after me. “Kosta is wanting us to be a little more buttoned down. Inspection and all.”
Yeah, sure. I had more important things on my mind than polished boots. The mess tent was only half full, which was still pretty good for midmorning. Coffee stirrers, confetti, and half-eaten bowls of popcorn cluttered the long tables. No doubt there had been a fierce Oracle Watch party going on earlier.
Gods, I was so out of touch. I hadn’t even been gone that long. Worse, I was disconnected from the MASH-19X as well, unable to contact anyone and even ask if Marc was alive. Not that I wanted to cavort with enemy u
nits, but come on, I needed to know.
One way or the other.
The TV blared an ad for the Dyson Werewolf Heavy Duty. With twelve times more suction to capture the thicker, denser hair most vacuums missed.
I never understood why those women in the commercials looked so happy to be vacuuming. As far as I was concerned, a lack of housework was one of the main advantages of living in a hutch in the middle of the desert.
Craning my neck past a giggling bunch of corporals, I spotted Shirley sitting on a table near the front, her red hair stuffed into a loose knot.
“Hey, lover,” I said, depositing my shower kit onto the table.
“Smirk all you want,” she said airily. “It got Kosta’s attention.”
“Is that all you think about?” I asked as she cleared off a space for the rest of me.
“Yes.”
Far be it from me to judge. I scooted up next to her. “I hear death comes with a gift.”
“They’ve been analyzing it all morning.”
“And?”
“See for yourself.”
My nerves tangled as I sat and waited through the endless commercials. “You’re not at work?” I asked her.
“I’m getting Kosta a cup of coffee.”
“And doing a mighty fine job of it.”
She snorted. “He’s yelling at a bunch of supply clerks for playing washers with tank parts. General Argus caught them. It’ll be a while.” She reached behind me for the popcorn bowl. “So I’m actually doing a good job. The colonel’s coffee will be hot when I get back in twenty minutes.”
“Way to work it.”
“I’m learning.”
The news came back to the overly tan, large-toothed grin of Stone McKay, lead anchor and the only werewolf to make Non-People magazine’s Sexiest Supe Alive list five years running.
He folded his hands on the desk in front of him. “We’re now going to Mount Lemuria, where the Oracle of the Gods has delivered the second prophecy in what many are hoping is a three-part drive to curb the violence in this centuries-old immortal war. Prama Nandi is there.”
The camera cut to an attractive young Indian reporter with camera-perfect skin, glossy lips, and hair so shiny that it sent up glints of light. She wore a curve-hugging purple trench coat.