Blood of Gods

by Lola StVil

“A statement piece for an occasion.”

  Those are just the ones I pick out. I have no idea what a statement piece is, but that idea came from Ya-Ya, so I’m figuring it’s a fashion thing. All of the ideas sound plausible, but Sailor isn’t accepting any of them. She’s shaking her head violently.

  “No. She was talking about getting the Soul Gem. I know she was.”

  I want to get involved in the conversation, but I don’t know what to say. Part of me wants to defend Sailor; while she does have every reason to hate Raven, that doesn’t mean she’s not right. I have seen a few things myself that have given me a reason to pause, but there’s nothing definitive. Sailor is already so paranoid about Raven that I’m afraid if I speak up on her side, she’ll no longer have her defenses up around anyone else. But if she’s right, then it could be dangerous for us all to try to talk her out of this.

  “Rye. What do you think?” Sailor demands.

  I swear that girl can read my mind sometimes. It’s like she knows I’m wrestling with this and this is some sort of test to see if I’ll back her up or not.

  “I think it could be anyone, and we need to keep our eyes and ears open and our defenses up,” I say carefully.

  “Way to straddle the fence, Rye. Careful, you might get splinters in your ass,” Jinx says.

  I glare at him, but Sailor nods her head.

  “He’s right, Rye. Do you believe me or not?” she demands.

  “I believe you think it’s Raven,” I say. “But I’m not sure I agree with you.”

  Her face drops and I hurry on.

  “I’m not ruling her out, I’m saying we need evidence one way or the other before we start making accusations, and more importantly, before we start dropping our defenses around other people.”

  “Fine,” Sailor says. “I’ll get you the evidence. I’ll talk to her.”

  “No, it’s too dangerous to try anything,” Sunday says.

  Sailor turns her attention back to him, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I am momentarily out of her line of fire.

  “How is it dangerous, Sunday? If you honestly think Raven is nothing more than a schoolteacher, then what could be dangerous about talking to her?”

  “Boundless have ears everywhere,” Sunday says.

  It sounds lame even to my mind, and it makes me think that deep down, the team does believe Sailor could be onto something.

  “I’m not stupid enough to come right out and ask her anything that anyone could use against me,” Sailor says.

  “How would you be able to question her without an audience though? Either your dad would be there, or it would have to be at school,” Mel says. “You couldn’t talk freely at school, and if your dad’s there, Raven isn’t going to drop her guard.”

  “There’ll just be me and her,” Sailor says. “I’m going to take her up on her offer of a girls’ day out, and I’m going to find out what I need to know.”

  I start to shake my head and Sailor turns back to me.

  “What? You’re saying I can’t go shopping with my dad’s girlfriend? You don’t get to decide that, Rye, I do. And I’m doing this. And if you’re all right, then I’ll eat humble pie and let it go. And if I’m right, then we deal with her. Agreed?”

  No one responds, and I realize they’re all waiting for me to respond for the team.

  “Well?” Sailor demands. “You’re all so sure I’m wrong, why are you worried about me spending time with her?”

  “It’s not that I’m worried about,” Aziza says. “It’s the thought of you alone with none of us around. The Boundless could take a chance on snatching you. Not to mention we don’t know when or where the next Horseman might pop up.”

  “I’ll be in a shopping mall, Az. It’s not like we’re going to go for a walk somewhere deserted,” Sailor says.

  Everyone is looking at me again.

  “Fine. Do it. But you won’t be going alone. We’ll be tailing you,” I say.

  Sailor opens her mouth to argue and I give her a look that tells her my decision is final.

  “Fine,” she agrees. She gives me a smile. “If spending all day trailing around a mall is your idea of fun, then who am I to stop you?”

  I roll my eyes, but I’m pleased she agreed to meet me halfway. It’s not at all like her, and that more than anything convinces me that maybe she is right about Raven. Sailor is pretty fearless, and the fact she’s happy for us to tail her on this means she genuinely thinks Raven poses a danger to her.

  “Okay, now we’ve got the paranoia out of the way, can we get on with your surprise?” Mel grins at Sailor.

  Sailor is quiet for a moment and I hold my breath waiting for her to curse Mel out for saying she’s paranoid. Instead, she surprises me once more and grins.

  She laughs. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “Come on,” Mel says, getting to her feet.

  I’m as curious as Sailor as to what her surprise might be, and I find myself laughing along with the team at Sailor’s excitement as Mel leads us all out to the warehouse.

  “If my surprise is you guys ambushing me for a training session, I am going to be seriously pissed off.” Sailor laughs.

  “There’s definitely no ambush involved.” Aziza smiles. “But after you see it, you might just rethink wanting a training session.”

  Sailor looks at her with curiosity sparkling in her eyes.

  “Now I’m intrigued,” she says.

  We reach the warehouse and go inside. Mel and Aziza duck down behind a shelf. I can hear them whispering together, but I can’t hear what they’re saying.

  “Do you know what it is?” Sailor asks me.

  I shake my head.

  “No. I didn’t even know the surprise was real, remember?” I say.

  “The suspense is killing me,” she says.

  I cringe inside a little at her choice of words, but I don’t let it show.

  “Come on, guys, she’s getting mad,” Jinx shouts with a laugh.

  Mel and Aziza reappear. They are empty-handed, and Sailor frowns.

  “So, we all know you have a thing for your dagger and the boots Aziza gave you,” Mel says. “But sometimes, grabbing for a weapon at your feet is impossible. And sometimes, you need more than a dagger.”

  She nods to Aziza, who turns back to the shelving unit and pushes something to one side. She turns back and in her hands is a brown leather belt with a scabbard attached. Poking out of the scabbard is the silver handle of a sword with an emerald embedded in it. Aziza pulls the sword out, showing the silver blade. Sailor gasps when she sees it.

  “It… it’s beautiful,” she says. “Thank you so much.”

  “The emerald was my idea,” Ya-Ya says proudly.

  Sailor flashes her a smile.

  “You look a bit disappointed,” Mel says.

  She flashes a grin as she says it, which she quickly works to hide, and I know there’s more to this.

  “I’m not disappointed,” Sailor quickly reassures her, missing her grin. “It’s just a shame I can only ever use it here. I think it might look a little bit strange if I’m walking around with a sword on my hip.”

  “Are you sure people would notice it?” Mel says.

  “Well, yeah,” Sailor says with a frown of confusion.

  “Maybe you should try it on and see,” Aziza says, pushing the sword back into the scabbard.

  Sailor looks even more confused now, but she steps forward and takes the belt from Aziza. She puts it on and fastens the belt and the whole thing vanishes. Sailor and I both gasp. Sailor looks down at her leg where the sword should be and runs her hand over the now empty space.

  “Nexus enchanted it for you,” Mel says. “It will remain invisible while you’re wearing it. Draw the sword.”

  Sailor reaches for a handle I can’t see and she pulls out the sword. As it leaves the scabbard, it becomes visible, and the second she puts it back in, it vanishes again. Sailor shrieks
with delight and hugs Mel and then begins making her way around the team hugging them all.

  “Thank you. All of you,” she says.

  “Just when your dad asks what your surprise was, tell him we made you a cake or something,” Jinx says as she hugs him.

  “I will,” she says. “I don’t think he’s quite ready for invisible swords just yet.”

  She gets to me and throws her arms around me. I hold her tightly.

  “I didn’t know anything about it,” I remind her.

  “I know. But I wanted to hug you.” She smiles.

  She pulls away and turns back to Aziza.

  “I get why you thought I’d want to train now. Who’s up for it?”

  ***

  The training session went well. Sailor knows how to handle a sword, and while she’s better with her dagger, I can see that changing now that she has her own sword to practice with. After a long, brutal training session that Sailor refused to step away from, I finally managed to coax her back into the cabin and we spent an hour or so just chilling in the games room. Adam came to pick Sailor up, and the cabin feels quieter without her in it somehow, even though it’s still full of noise.

  Other than the obvious fact that Sailor ended up in the hospital, it’s been a good weekend. We’ve got the second Soul Gem and Sailor and I got to spend a lot of time together. And Adam seems to approve of our relationship. He even let me sleep over. That’s got to be a bonus.

  The only slight damper on everything is Sailor’s insistence of Raven’s guilt. I wish I could make my mind up one way or the other whether or not I think she’s right about it. Raven seemed suspicious at first, but surely she’d have made some sort of a move by now. Still though, there is something off about her. I can feel that, and it’s not me letting Sailor’s opinions cloud my judgement.

  I don’t want to share my feelings about it with Sailor in case I’m wrong and I just make her more paranoid. If it turns out that Raven isn’t a member of Boundless and she and Adam go the distance, I want Sailor to be able to find a way to get along with her. They’ll be family. At the same time though, I can’t let the dream of Sailor gaining a family member cloud my judgement either.

  I have to know one way or the other whether Raven is clean. I make my decision and head down the hallway to find Mel. I tap on her bedroom door and she calls for me to come in. She’s sitting up in bed playing on her cell phone. She puts it down when I come in.

  “Is everything okay?” she asks me.

  I nod my head.

  “Yes. I’m just… do you think there’s any possibility Sailor is right about Raven being the leader of the Boundless?”

  “The leader, no,” Mel says. “She wouldn’t be so bold if she was the leader. It’s all about self-preservation for those types. And for all I do think Sailor is paranoid, we have to at least consider the idea she could be a member and could be feeding information back to the higher-ups.”

  “I agree,” I say. “Mel, I have a job for you, but you can’t talk to anyone about this. Especially not Sailor, okay?”

  Mel nods, her face serious.

  “What do you need?” she asks.

  “I need everything you can find on Raven’s background. It seems like she just dropped into town out of thin air one day, and I need to know where she was and who she was before that.”

  “She was a model, so she shouldn’t be that hard to trace. How deep do you want me to go?” Mel asks.

  “As deep as you can go. If she got a splinter in her finger in third grade, I want to know about it,” I say.

  “You think Sailor’s right, don’t you?” Mel says.

  “I don’t know, Mel. I really don’t. But I think we owe it to Sailor to at least take this seriously. She is the Paradox after all, and if her senses are telling her something, we need to listen.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: BELLS & WHISTLES

  The bell rings, signaling the end of the last class of the day. I have to say I’m relieved. Thursday’s are always a major drag, close enough to the weekend that it’s in sight, but far enough away that it still feels like forever until it’s here. It really doesn’t help matters that I don’t need to know any of this stuff they’re teaching us. I mean, I know all students think that, but it’s really true for me.

  Either we will fail on our mission to defeat the Horsemen and we’ll all be dead by the end of the year anyway, or we’ll succeed and I can go back to Avalon, where calculus and the Civil War and Shakespeare’s sonnets mean even less than they do here.

  I jump to my feet with the rest of the class. Miss Graham moves to stand in front of the classroom door, blocking the exit.

  “I’m sorry, did I say you were dismissed?” she asks quietly but sternly.

  “The bell went, Miss,” someone says.

  “The bell is for me, not for you,” she says calmly. “Now, I expect your essays on my desk on Monday. No excuses.”

  She consults a piece of paper in her hand.

  “Rye, Sailor, Jinx, Aziza, Ya-Ya, Sunday, and Mel. Please stay back—we need a serious conversation about your group project. The rest of you are free to go.”

  Her announcement brings about a series of ooohs from our classmates. Clearly, they think we’re in trouble. If only they knew how right they were.

  “Group projects suck, don’t they?” one of my friends says as he passes me.

  “Oh they’re deadly,” I reply to snickers from the team.

  The class troops out, and Miss Graham closes the door.

  “How did I do? Was I teachery enough?” she asks.

  “Yeah, but if you keep trying that bell thing, you’re going to be hated, Nexus.” Sailor laughs.

  She grins. “Substitute teachers are meant to be hated though, right?”

  “I guess,” I say. “Now what’s going on?”

  She sits down on her desk and faces the rest of us where we all still remain seated.

  “I know what the next weapon is,” she says.

  My heart skips a beat. Now we’re getting somewhere, but I wasn’t wrong when I said our group project could be deadly.

  “What?” Sunday asks.

  “The Spear of Alveron,” she says.

  This means nothing to me, and judging by the blank looks she’s getting from everyone else, it means nothing to any of them either.

  “It’s good to know I’m not the only one who has no idea what that is,” Sailor comments, looking around at the others.

  “None of you have heard of the Spear of Alveron?” Nexus asks.

  “I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know what it is,” Jinx says.

  Everyone else just shakes their heads.

  “I can’t believe none of you know the Avo history properly,” Nexus says. “Particularly you, Sunday. How on earth can you expect Sailor to learn this stuff when you all don’t know it?”

  “Maybe if we didn’t have to waste our time coming to school, we’d have more time to learn the important stuff,” Jinx says.

  “You mean you’d have more time to waste playing video games,” Nexus says. “Nice try, Jinx. Now, the spear. The spear itself isn’t all that spectacular. It’s just a normal spear. But the tip is made from a special crystal, a crystal forged from dark magic and infused with the tears of a dragon.”

  “Now you’re shitting us,” Sailor says.

  Nexus laughs.

  “Not exactly. The crystal really is filled with dark magic. As for the dragon tears? That may be just a legend. But it’s the magic that concerns us. The magic inside of the crystal allows the bearer of the spear to extract the life force from a being and trap it inside the crystal.”

  “So once we find the Horseman, we don’t have to kill him as such? We just need to extract his essence? Well that sounds easy,” Jinx says sarcastically.

  “What part of destroying the four Horsemen did you think would be easy before learning of the crystal’s power?” Nexus fires back.

 
Jinx shrugs, clearly lost for an answer.

  “It’s actually not even that simple,” Nexus says. “To extract the soul or essence, the body has to be on the verge of death. It must be sucked from a fatal wound. If you attempt to remove the soul too early, the body will heal itself and you’ll be back to square one. If you attempt it too late and the body dies before the extraction is complete, then the soul will leave the crystal and possess the nearest living thing.”

  “Me, in other words,” Sailor says.

  Nexus nods gravely.

  “Yes. You. So the timing must be exact, as I’m sure you can imagine a world where one of the Horsemen manages to possess the Paradox is a world none of us want to live in.”

  “Okay,” I say, shouting over the team as they all start talking at once. “As bad as that sounds, the first problem is how we will even get it. Let’s start with that one. Nexus, do you know where it is?”

  “The medallion isn’t lighting up,” Sailor says, pulling it out of her pocket.

  “It won’t. You’re too far away from it,” Nexus says. “My sources tell me the spear is somewhere in the Mojave Desert. Someone will need to get out there and scope out the area. If we know this, then we can be sure the demons are starting to feel the pull of the weapon. I appreciate the Mojave is a big place, but you need to find the area where the demonic activity is centered. From there, you can use the medallion to pinpoint the weapon’s exact location.”

  Jinx nods his head and stands up.

  “What are you doing?” I demand.

  He looks at me like I’m crazy.

  “Going to the desert to scope the area out,” he says. “Are you listening at all?”

  “I’m going with you,” Aziza says, also getting to her feet.

  I should be the one making the decision on who goes, but to be honest, I would have chosen Aziza anyway, and Jinx is good in a fight. They’re probably the best two candidates to go.

  “Be careful,” I say. “And report back to me the second you have the area narrowed down.”

  Jinx makes a portal.

  “Got it,” he says, and steps through.

  “Is there anything else we need to know, Nexus?” Aziza asks.

  Sand blows in through the portal as she waits for an answer.