Haunted By The Gods

by S T Branton

  Up close, the hangar was ramshackle and so was the plane it housed within its single bay. I appraised the craft for a few moments and did my absolute best to hide the creeping doubt in the pit of my stomach. Luis, on the other hand, didn’t even make the effort.

  “We’re flying in that piece of shit?” he burst out. Some of the soldiers snorted. Luis was unfazed. “It doesn’t look like you could even drive that thing.”

  Ginger appeared behind him like a wild-eyed ghost. “Oh, you can. I mean, you can’t. But I can.” He trotted ahead of the group toward the plane. The doors were still heavily padlocked.

  “Who the hell hired this guy?” Brax grumbled.

  I glanced at him. While I itched to ask where he’d run off to, I knew better than to expect an answer. The demon had been more or less MIA since I had seen him with Jules in the classroom, and I wasn’t even sure if he’d show up again at the right time.

  But he had and now, he pulled his great hammer off his back. “Whatever,” he said brusquely and strode behind the pilot. “I’ll take care of this shit. Stand back. Way back.”

  Ginger was too confused to act fast, and he hesitated too long. In the next second, he had to fend off a shower of sparks. Brax’s hammer turned the first lock into a twisted, glowing mass. He reared back to strike again, and Ginger skedaddled to a safe distance with wide eyes.

  We were certainly some kind of motley crew.

  Brax kicked both broken locks off, extinguished his hammer, and put it away in one smooth motion. “There,” he said and brushed his hands off. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

  Truly, he is a paragon of virtue. Marcus’s voice dripped with sarcasm. I wondered if he’d be that sassy for the rest of the mission. Sassy Marcus was always a lot of fun.

  “Thank you, Brax,” I said and maneuvered around him to reach the plane. Without a grimy pane of glass between us, the aircraft seemed even more impossibly rickety and in bad condition. Paint peeled off its hull. I thought I saw a crack in the windshield. “Hey, Ginger. Are you sure this thing is, uh, air-safe?”

  “Nope,” Ginger responded cheerfully. “But I can fly it.” He tugged at the door, which came loose with a puff of dust. Cobwebs hung from the handle.

  I looked at Deacon. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea after all. I mean, I want to get to Washington like crazy, but I’d like to get there alive.”

  “That’s funny,” the FBI agent said. “I thought the same thing.” Ahead of us, Ginger climbed into the plane and disappeared inside the cockpit.

  My mind raced to come up with a solution. “Dan’s got access to satellite maps, doesn’t he? Maybe we could find an airport. There must be one reasonably close to here, right?” It was a shot in the dark, but it was the best shot we had. No way would we get to Washington without a plane.

  Brax emitted a tortured groan. “You humans are assholes,” he said. “I’ll go tell what’s-his-nuts we need the map.” With that, he turned and stomped toward the fort.

  “Did he volunteer to do something?” Deacon asked, genuinely curious.

  I nodded. “Yeah. It was weird.” I kept my eyes trained on the demon’s receding figure as he approached the front of the fort. It was so unlike him to go out of his way to do anything. I had a sneaking suspicion what he was up to.

  Sure enough, a blonde shape I could’ve identified in whiteout conditions met him on the lawn. They interacted for only a second, but it was long enough for me to see her hand him something. He slipped it into his long black coat. Jules turned and walked inside with him.

  “What the fuck?” I whispered.

  Deacon glanced at me, his brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  “You missed that whole thing?” I asked.

  “What thing?”

  I sighed heavily. “Never mind.” It was probably me being paranoid and making things up where they didn’t exist. Jules had no reason to befriend a demon, let alone anything more than that. Besides, I knew Brax totally wasn’t her type.

  Still, what did she give him? I really wanted to know. The thought gnawed at my brain until he got back with the satellite mapping device in hand. I had to force myself not to look directly at his coat pocket.

  “Here.” He thrust the device into my hand. “You’re welcome.”

  Deacon came to look over my shoulder and we studied the screen together. I zoomed it out so we could see miles in every direction. “What’s that?” He pointed to a large open area with a few strips of tarmac running through it. I focused in on it.

  “It looks like a private airstrip,” I said. “It’ll do.” I waved to our assembled group. “Get to the trucks, you guys. We’ll take a little road trip.”

  I turned to Brax. “Could you take this b—”

  “He said to keep it,” Brax interrupted in a tone that suggested I might be the dumbest jackass on the planet. “I guess he has another one.” He walked away before he finished his last sentence and left me with Deacon behind our mobilizing troops.

  “Is it just me, or is he stiffer than usual?” Deacon remarked.

  “It’s not you,” I muttered. “Let’s go.” I was so focused on Brax that I almost didn’t notice Ginger still in the hangar. He clambered around under the control panels in the cockpit.

  “Henry!” I yelled.

  His head popped up. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” I motioned toward the rest of the squad. “We’re leaving. Come on.”

  “I thought we were leaving in this.” He looked at me as though all his dreams had been crushed. “I told you I can fly it.”

  “And I believe you.” I stopped and looked from him to my retreating battalion. “But you’ve messed around in there for a while now, and it looks like it’ll fall apart before we reach cruising altitude. We’ll go to a real airstrip instead.”

  He brightened immediately. “Why didn’t you say so?” Like a creepy leprechaun, he hopped out of the plane and scurried past us, whistling atonally as he went. “I’ll have my pick of whatever I want. Rich people’s planes, I hope. Oh, I hope!”

  “Every time I think this situation can’t get weirder.” Deacon touched my back. The heat of his hand seemed to penetrate all my layers of clothing. “Let’s catch up before that crazy loon gets behind the wheel.”

  “What do you think the odds of him actually being able to fly a plane are?” I wondered out loud. We broke into a jog after everyone else.

  “How honest do you want me to be?” he asked.

  I smirked. “Totally.”

  He cast a worried glance at the back of Ginger’s head. “Ten to one,” he said. “Against us.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Deacon and I split up to drive the trucks out of the fort complex. I took Luis in my passenger seat, and as we moved down the long path to the road, I glanced in the rearview mirror. Ginger had declined a seat in Deacon’s vehicle. I could see him lean out from the truck bed and grin in the open air. The sight didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

  The ride to the airstrip proved to be uneventful, which was a small consolation. The gate into the main area was already busted open when we got there. It hung on its hinges and the chain dangled freely. “Keep your eyes open,” I told Luis.

  “No worries,” he answered. “I stopped closing them a long time ago.”

  The airstrip was mostly comprised of a cluster of low buildings overshadowed by a lone control tower. All the windows were dark and empty. The field itself looked barren, and a couple of small planes stood in the open. I heard an enthusiastic whoop from behind us, and a redheaded streak raced past the window. I rubbed my face. “So much for a stealthy approach.”

  Ginger tore across the grass with surprising vigor. At the edge of the first runway, he stopped dead and scanned the place like a human antenna. I turned our truck off and got out. The others did the same. We stood a few dozen yards behind the pilot and watched him take stock.

  “What the hell is he doing?�
� Deacon asked. “I thought he was gonna break his neck when he jumped off the truck. That guy’s a real piece of work.”

  “He’s all we’ve got,” I said. “I think he’s choosing our ride.”

  Deacon’s eyes suddenly snapped to stare far down the airfield toward the edge of the property. “He better get a move on. Look.” He pointed, and I caught sight of a familiar group of ragged monsters racing directly toward us.

  “Uh oh. Hey, Ginge! Pick up the pace, would you? We’ve got company.” I motioned for the whole squad to prepare. The gap between this band of Forgotten and us was closing faster than I would have liked. I could see them clearly now—a mismatched crew of mostly vamps, centaurs, and satyrs. As rowdy as ever, the satyrs shouted, discharged guns in the air, and made obscene gestures with their free hands.

  Luis groaned. “I have had it with these fucking jokers,” he declared and leveled his rifle. The first volley of fire rang through the air.

  “Seriously, Ginger!” I yelled over the noise. “Any time you’re ready.”

  He glanced over his shoulder as if he’d only now noticed the enemy, and his eyes went wide. “Okay. Okay.” He spun and sprinted for a mid-sized craft. His voice trailed behind him. “Cover me while I steal this thing.”

  It wasn’t like we had much of a choice. I plunged into the fray and sliced through a vamp and two satyrs in quick succession. The combination of the centaurs’ pounding hooves and the dust from the dead vamps churned the air into a haze. Some of the newly trained soldiers coughed.

  “Try not to breathe that,” I advised them and dropped another enemy at my feet. “It’s basically corpse dust. I have no idea what it’ll do to your lungs.” They gave me horrified glances, and one of them gagged. “Hey, I’m trying to help you out.”

  As far as I know, expired vampires are not a significant source of toxicity. I am not, however, an expert on the intricacies of Forgotten biology.

  “We’ll notify the FDA,” I said. “Maybe they’ll label these assholes a health risk.” I shot a look over my shoulder to monitor Ginger’s progress. The door to the plane was open, and I thought I saw one of his feet hanging out. To Deacon, I shouted, “Start moving toward the plane, and get ready to run for it the second he gives the signal.”

  He nodded, and we shepherded the fight carefully toward our escape aircraft but made sure to maintain a barrier between the pilot and us. The Forgotten didn’t seem to care too much about whether we tried to get away. They merely wanted to kill us.

  Some of them looked like they wanted to eat us.

  The beasts clearly weren’t immune to the effects of having to scavenge for food. The group was scrawny and pale, and some of the satyrs were missing patches of hair on their hoofed legs. A centaur lay near me, bleeding from the flank, and his ribcage was little more than hide stretched over bones.

  They had battle scars too—whether from infighting or run-ins with other survivors, I couldn’t be sure. Lucky for us, they were easily dispatched in their weakened state. I fell back toward Ginger as Luis and the others picked off the last of the stragglers.

  “Let’s go, you guys!” I made sure the pilot could hear me, too. “Grab whatever you left in the trucks and get your asses over here.” The last sentence was punctuated by a grumbling roar as the plane’s engine came to life. “That’s our cue. Time to hit the road. Or hit the sky, I guess.”

  “As long as we don’t hit the ground,” Deacon said beside me where he watched my flank.

  “Amen to that,” I said.

  My men ran across the tarmac with their stuff slung over their shoulders. From the cockpit, Ginger yelled triumphantly. “We’re in business, ladies and gents.”

  I stood back so everyone else could pile in first, which was how I saw the second group of Forgotten come around the corner of the control tower. The centaurs at the front broke into a frenzied gallop and leveled their gleaming weapons in our direction.

  “Go!” I pushed the last few passengers up the stairs and through the doorway before I followed them inside. The door clanged shut behind me. I called into the cockpit, “Go now! We’re out of time.”

  “Roger that!” Ginger hollered back. “Please fasten your seatbelts. This is a nonsmoking flight.” He shrugged. “I mean that hopefully, nothing starts smoking.”

  The plane rolled forward along the runway and gradually picked up speed. I made my way to the rearmost window and gazed at the pack of monsters that hounded us. The satyrs had more or less fallen away, but the vamps and centaurs had gained. Their eyes stared at us with a feral, hungry glint.

  Those guys definitely wanted to eat us.

  “Step on it, Ginger!” I yelled.

  “That’s not really how this works,” he yelled back, but the rumble of the engine intensified. The scenery through the window began to blur. As I felt us lift off the ground, the lead vamp lunged forward and became airborne himself.

  I lost sight of him. “Oh, shit.”

  A loud, scraping thump drowned out the curse.

  “We’re off balance,” Ginger said. “What’s going on out there?”

  I moved to check another window and came face to face with the damn vamp who now clung to the wing. The airflow swept his hair and skin taut against his skull, and his tattered clothes threatened to abandon him entirely.

  Brax loomed over my shoulder. “I got this one,” he said flatly. Before I could react, he strode to the exit, pushed it open, and disappeared into the howling wind.

  Common sense continues to be one of Abraxzael’s weaker attributes, Marcus remarked.

  “Whatever he’s doing, I hope he does it quick,” Deacon said while he struggled to secure the door. “If we’re too high when he opens that door again, the whole cabin will depressurize.”

  “Don’t say that shit out loud,” Luis hissed. He gripped the arms of his seat with both hands, his knuckles white. “It’s bad luck.”

  “Facts don’t have anything to do with luck,” the agent retorted, but he kept quiet after that.

  Brax entered the window’s field of vision, half bent against the wind as he made his way toward the vamp. His coat whipped ferociously around his solid frame like a dark aura. They painted a surreal picture as they faced each other on the wing, poised to do battle.

  “Yo, he looks pretty dope,” said one of the soldiers. “I hope he smokes this dude.”

  I could go either way, Marcus said.

  “Be nice,” I said softly.

  Fine. I hope the demon is merely wounded.

  “See? Was that so hard?”

  Extremely.

  I shook my head and turned my attention to the fight.

  The vamp lashed out first, but it immediately scrabbled for a handhold so it wouldn’t fly off onto the tarmac. Brax, perpetually unimpressed, loosed his hammer from its holster on his back. He couldn’t light it out there, but it still packed a mean punch. Steadying himself as best he could, he swung.

  The vamp flattened on the wing and hissed, its fangs bared. It tried to grab the demon’s leg, but he kicked and landed his boot square in the middle of the vampire’s face. It barely managed to evade his next hammer strike, at which point Brax, clearly frustrated, put the hammer on his back and leaned forward to grab his foe. He lifted the skinny creature by the front of its shirt. Although it struggled desperately and clawed at his arms, he carried it to the edge of the wing and dropped it into oblivion.

  Such crude tactics, Marcus said. No finesse. No sophistication.

  “He could’ve danced a ballet out there and you’d still say that,” I muttered.

  And I would be correct. We are lucky he did not pummel the wing right off the plane.

  The exit door opened again and blasted us with freezing air. Brax stepped inside, slammed it shut, and proceeded to stare down everyone who looked at him.

  “What do you want?” he demanded. “Problem solved.” The discussion over, he walked down the aisle to a seat by a window, sat, and whipped out his sunglasses.

 
; Chapter Thirteen

  I sat in the back row of the plane with Deacon, spread out over two seats with the armrests up. He rested one arm casually over my knee and had been quiet since the incident on the wing. The view outside wasn’t much more than a wet-looking mat of gray, and he sat facing the front. His dark eyes were thoughtful.

  “Can I ask you something?” he asked suddenly. “About earlier?”

  I glanced at him and thought about that moment in the hall and how close we’d come to acting on long-held mutual desires. “Here?” I asked. “This is kind of a weird place to finish what we started, don’t you think? I mean, we’re surrounded by soldiers.” I paused. “Unless you’re into that.”

  “What?” He held his palms up to stop me. “No. It’s actually kind of the opposite.” He paused. “I wondered about where Marcus fits into things like this. Since, you know, he’s always around.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Spit it out, St. Clare. What are you trying to say?”

  Deacon sighed. Somewhat sheepishly, he said, “Does he hear everything?”

  I glanced at the medallion and snorted. “That’s what you’re worried about? Of course, he doesn’t. We have an agreement.”

  He didn’t seem convinced. “Which is what?” he pressed.

  “Think of it as a mute button,” I said. “Whatever I don’t want him to hear, he doesn’t hear. He can also close himself off from having to listen to what’s going on over here, and I’m sure he does that at least occasionally.”

  “And you trust him about this?” Deacon still looked a little worried. “I don’t mean to disrespect the guy. But I can’t see him, and you always talk to him, so…” He shrugged. “I wanted to know how it works, so I can hopefully not embarrass myself too badly. If I haven’t already.”

  Tell him to fear not. My integrity is beyond repute. I have afforded you every privacy in the past, and you may rest assured I will continue to do so. Also, tell him he has indeed already embarrassed himself.