by S T Branton
I suppressed a smile and patted Deacon’s hand. “Marcus is totally a stand-up guy. Some would say he’s got a boner for honor.”
Who says that? Identify the slanderer and allow me to redeem my—Marcus stopped.
I grinned. “You were gonna say ‘honor,’ weren’t you?”
He answered with silence.
“Marcus is fine,” I said to my companion. “Besides, if I ever really wanted to make sure he was out of the loop, I could simply take the medallion off.”
Visible relief passed over Deacon’s features. “Oh, you can do that? I’m not gonna lie, that makes me feel a lot better.”
I smirked. “How come? We’ve hardly done anything that would require that level of discretion. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were angling for—”
The plane bumped in the air and my words cut off as I lurched forward. Deacon caught my legs in time to avoid being kneed in the face. We braced against the seats in front of us and looked at each other.
The cabin’s intercom clicked on. “Sorry about that, folks,” Ginger announced. “We’re experiencing some routine turbulence. Well, it’s not that routine, actually. We’re heading for a fairly big storm, and I don’t think it’ll move out of the way anytime soon. Things are about to get fun.”
He clicked off. The aircraft shuddered again. It took an abrupt dip, and I felt my stomach lift into freefall for a second.
“Hey, whoa, I’m not into this,” Luis said. His face had gone as pale as a sheet. The soldier beside him nudged him in the ribs.
“First time flying?” he asked.
“And probably the last if it’s always like this.” Luis closed his eyes as the plane bucked once more.
“Don’t sweat it,” the soldier said. “Let me show you how to assume the crash position.”
“Dios mio,” Luis muttered. He clutched his grandmother’s rosary. I felt a little sorry for him.
Five minutes later, the plane rattled like it was about to burst into pieces. The tossing sensation was so intense, we might as well have been on the ocean. Our loose bags tumbled through the cabin. I caught mine on its way down the aisle and buckled it into an empty seat.
The door to the cockpit opened. “I have some bad news.” Ginger was obviously stressed and had worked his red hair into a crazy poof with nervous fingers. “I’m afraid we’ll have to land. The storm’s not going away, and we can’t keep going through this.” His laugh sounded strained. “Even I’m not nuts enough for that. Not with you all in the plane, anyway.”
Luis spoke through clenched teeth and still clutched the rosary. “Look, man, I don’t care what you have to do as long as you get the hell back to the freaking controls. I know there’s no copilot in there.”
“The plane has an automatic pilot,” Ginger said. He tapped a finger to his lips. “Although I don’t think I turned it on.”
“Please, just fly the goddamn plane!” Luis said.
Ginger jumped. “Right. Right! Sorry.” He disappeared into the cockpit and emerged a second later. “I probably should have simply used the intercom.”
“Fly the fucking plane!” Luis yelled.
Ginger nodded and squirreled himself away into the front of the aircraft.
“Shit, I should have asked him where we are,” I said. It was hard to have a sense of time up there, but I thought we’d flown for a few hours at least. “We’d better be ready for anything.”
“Aren’t we always?” Deacon asked.
The landing was fast and rough. We definitely weren’t at an airport. A couple of times during the hurried descent, I had to stop my doubts as to whether Ginger could pull this off. We shoved through the bottom layer of clouds, and the world came into view much closer than I had expected. Fortunately, everything below us appeared to be unrelentingly flat, checkered farmland.
Deacon stared out the window. “Based on that panorama, I’d say we’re somewhere in the Midwest.”
He turned out to be right. The plane cut through an abandoned cornfield, where we waited for the storm to pass. About an hour in, we were accosted by a herd of warty toad-people who’d lost their ability to speak in anything other than croaks, grunts, and gurgles. Although I stayed vigilant, there was no sign of a toad god, and for that, I was eternally grateful. Even Marcus had been mystified by them. He wasn’t able to identify a deity with matching or similar characteristics.
Perhaps, he had mused, the gods are changing. Or perhaps they are more numerous and varied than I have known.
None of it boded well for our troop of explorers, and we got the hell out of Dodge the instant the thunder and lightning cleared up. Ginger managed to coax us back into the air despite the lack of a proper runway or any sort of guiding lights. Somewhat apprehensively, I settled in to try to relax for the rest of the flight, hoping the drama was behind us.
It wasn’t.
Some two hours later, a great impact rocked the side of the plane and jerked me violently out of a fitful nap. I gasped and bolted upright. “What the fuck was that?”
“More bad news,” Ginger said over the intercom. There was little levity left in his voice. He cleared his throat. “The display up here tells me one of the engines blew. And that means we are in for the crash landing of a lifetime.”
The soldier next to Luis laughed nervously. “Hey, remember how I was going to show you how to do the crash position?”
“I thought you were joking,” Luis exclaimed.
“Well, I was at the time,” he said. “Now, I’m not.”
The plane rolled forward and tipped sharply downward. The sensation was a little like a roller coaster, only infinitely more terrifying because I had a fairly good idea of how high up we were. Once more, my stomach floated up, and this time, it stayed there for what seemed like forever. The uneven thrum of the engine sounded worse and worse in my ears. Beneath it all, I heard Luis reciting something in Spanish.
Probably a prayer.
I put my head down between my arms and stared at the floor in front of my seat. Aside from the chugging engine and Luis’s panicked appeal, the cabin was as silent as it could get. We hardly breathed. Outside, the land drew closer and closer.
The plane leveled out. My stomach settled back into place. I didn’t dare release my grip until it was down, but it took only a few more seconds for the wheels to hit solid ground.
Luis yelped. The brake flaps on the wings popped open. We still hurtled forward at breakneck speed, but we gradually slowed. The last sound to die was the broken engine. After that, nothing moved—including us.
“Is it over?” Luis asked. “Am I fucking dead, or what?”
The soldier beside him was the first to laugh, and it spread from person to person like a joyful epidemic. Even Brax chuckled. Ginger emerged from the cockpit to a miniature celebration and a round of applause.
“Sorry I yelled at you before, hermano,” Luis apologized. “You really pulled it through for us.”
The pilot grinned, and his freckled cheeks flushed. “To be fair, I really should have used the intercom.”
We all exited the plane. The air on the other side of the door was fresh, rain-scented, and twenty degrees warmer than it had been when we left. Droplets of condensation clung to my skin and hair as I stood and examined the satellite device. We’d touched down not far from the edge of a thick, imposing forest, which I hoped might be the one we were looking for.
A ping from the GPS confirmed it. We stood outside Olympic National Forest, only a few miles from our target destination.
“That was some good flying,” I said to Ginger. “And some good navigating, to boot.”
“Thank you.” He beamed for a moment until the grin fell from his face. “Please don’t make me go out there. I told you I can fly, and I proved it. But I can’t do anything else. And I need to fix this baby, so we’ll be able to leave when the time comes.” He shifted anxiously from foot to foot.
“No problem,” I said quickly. “We’ll leave you with a guard
so you can do your job. And a gun, in case you need to defend yourself.” I retrieved a handgun from one of the bags and gave it to him. He held it awkwardly as if it might explode.
“A gun,” he said warily. “Okay. Yes. Thank you. I won’t use it.”
“With any luck, you won’t have to make that choice,” I said. I moved to gather up the rest of my squadron. By some miracle of faith and Ginger’s piloting, everyone had walked away from that landing unscathed, if a little spooked. They all seemed grateful to do something as mundane as form up, and the pair I tasked with watching Ginger’s back stationed themselves outside the downed craft without complaint.
The rest of us marched out and advanced into the cover of towering trees.
Chapter Fourteen
Beyond the first few hundred feet, the woods weren’t as thick as they looked from the outside. The evidence of raging forest fires soon appeared, stark and unmistakably harrowing. Ashy husks of tree trunks, some still adorned with skeletal branches, flanked each side of the narrow path we followed. The sound of raindrops dripping from dead trees surrounded our party.
“This place is as spooky as shit,” a soldier remarked and turned almost three hundred and sixty degrees to avoid leaving himself with any blind spots. “You said there are gods in here?”
“There’s one,” I said. “And our job is to find him.”
We walked in single file, but the guys clumped together and held their weapons tightly, their heads virtually on swivels. Brax, Deacon, and I kept our cool. Every now and then, I glanced at the satellite map to make sure we were still on track. The remains of campsites lay among the trees with scattered belongings mostly ruined by prolonged exposure to the elements. A few of the tents had long tears raked into the sides.
“I’d hate to find out what did that,” Deacon murmured.
Brax grunted. “I have a feeling we will, whether we like it or not.” He had moved up to lead with us at the front. “I don’t see any bodies, though, so people either got out themselves or were taken away.”
“I hope it’s the former,” I said.
He didn’t look at me when he said, “Yeah. Me too.”
The demon is ill, Marcus interjected. Something in his brain has misfired and created a kernel of compassion.
“Tell your invisible buddy to shut his trap,” said Brax. “I can’t hear him, but I know he’s talking, and I know it’s about me. Maybe he ought to worry about himself for a change.”
I have nothing to worry about. My every action is blessed with honor.
I pursed my lips. “I’ll pass it on.”
“Good.” The demon moved slightly ahead of us and his dark-clad shape almost blended into the gloom. I used the dull gleam of the hammer to keep track of him as the shadows deepened. A thick, impenetrable blanket of quiet dropped over us. With a jolt, I realized I could no longer see the sun.
“Hold up,” I called softly. Brax stopped and half-turned toward me. “Something’s screwy here. Why’s it so dark?” I retrieved the GPS unit and focused on the screen, but it took an awfully long time to locate a signal.
“Where are we?” Luis looked at the canopy of branches and hushed pine. “Don’t tell me we’re lost, Vic. This is like nature’s version of a graveyard.”
“We can’t be lost,” I said. “I’ve followed the route on the map exactly. If we’re wrong, then everything’s wrong.”
“That’s not helpful,” he replied. He was still recovering from the plane adventure earlier, and his normally level head was a little off-kilter. “This freaks me out, man. If we go any farther in, we won’t come out.”
“That’s not true.” I went to him and put my hands on his shoulders. “Look at me, Luis. In the eye. I know this trip has been tough for you so far, but I need you to pull yourself together. I brought you along because you’re strong and smart and you know what you’re doing. Take a deep breath. Shut your brain off for a minute if you have to. I’m depending on you to be here in the moment.”
The kid stared at me and for a second, I didn’t think my words had taken hold. Then he sucked in a deep breath, held it, and blew it out. Some of the scared emptiness left his big brown eyes. He had never looked younger.
“Okay,” he said. He shook his head. “Okay. I got you. I’m good.”
“You sure?” I gave his shoulders a gentle shake. “Because I’m about to give you marching orders, and I have to know you can carry them out.”
“No…yeah.” Now, Luis nodded and tried his best to grin. It wasn’t as solid as usual, but better than before. “I just—I think the plane thing kinda messed with me, is all. I’m fine. What do you want me to do?”
I squeezed his shoulder. “Glad to have you back. Deacon, Brax, and I will do a little recon. I want you to stay here with the troops until we get back. Don’t let anyone move. Don’t let anyone leave. If something happens, give us a shout.” I pointed to the radio on his chest. “We’ll be back soon.”
“Good luck,” he said and saluted.
“You guys hear that?” I asked the others. “Luis is in charge right now. Don’t make his life difficult.” They were too unsettled to joke about it. I grabbed Deacon and headed to meet Brax. The three of us peered deeper into the dark, impossibly dense forest. “Could it be a trick?” I asked them both.
Illusions are certainly a possibility, Marcus said. Many gods possess the ability to alter the surface of perception effectively. My advice is to proceed with caution in case all is not as it seems.
“Could be.” The demon shrugged his broad shoulders. “Let’s go at it swinging. Whoever’s on the other side will learn to regret it quick.” To emphasize his point, he brandished his hammer. “I’ll be the battering ram if you want.”
I hesitated. “Brax, I appreciate your no-nonsense approach, but I think we should handle this a little more delicately than that. You’d chuck a bomb like a softball if you thought that would disarm it.”
He frowned. “And if I was right, nobody would complain.”
“It’s the possibility of you being wrong that I’m worried about,” I said.
He mumbled to himself and turned away. We moved forward as a group, and the shadows coalesced in front of us to fill the narrow spaces between the trees. This core of the forest stood like a fence in our way and completely blocked our progress.
“To the side,” Deacon said and motioned to the left with his hand.
We attempted to work our way around, assuming the strange forest was finite, but it extended in all directions as far as my eyes could see. The other side granted us the same view.
“I’m telling you we should just go,” Brax urged. “There’s no point in standing around doing recon if there’s nothing to see. It’s obviously some fucked-up, mythical god shit, right? What else do we need to know?”
“Wait.” I held up a hand to stop him. The faintest trace of a voice had caught my ear. “I hear something.”
“If you say it’s me bitching—” Brax began.
“No.” I waved at him to stop talking. “It’s people, I think.” Following the voice, I moved down the path, which arced around to the right and crossed a more substantial, street-like road. From there, the voices were multiple and more distinct. I peeked from the cover of the trees. “There!”
The road we stood on led into the deepest, thickest section of this new forest, but the entrance was blocked by a patrolling contingent of guards. They didn’t look particularly dangerous—at least, not more so than any standard human. But I knew from Frank and Maya that looks could be deceiving.
Brax eyed me. “Let me guess. You’re not gonna let me kill them?”
“It’s not because I think it’s necessarily a bad idea, okay?” I said. “But we don’t know what this place is, why they’re here, or how many more of them there are. I don’t want to run in there with our dicks out and give away our position until I have some idea of what’s happening here.”
“Fair enough.” The demon smirked. “You don’t have a dick,
though.”
I gave him a look. “If I did, it’d be real fucking big, and both of you know it.” I pressed the button on my radio. “Luis, you there?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I just did a head count. We’re all good.”
“Here’s what’ll happen.” I paused and looked at Brax and Deacon for signs of last-minute objections. Receiving none, I pressed on. “We found a way into this creepy forest thing. We’ll get in there, see what’s up, and I’ll get in touch and let you know what the next step is. Cool?”
“You’re going in?” Luis sounded skeptical. “Are you sure that’s, like, the best idea? This place feels…off.”
“Do you want to trade places?” I asked.
“No, ma’am,” he said quickly. “You go ahead. I’ll wait for your signal all damn day.”
“I thought so.” I smiled. “In the meantime, see if you can find us more vehicles. We might need you to move fast.”
“Roger that,” he said. “Find vehicles, I can do. No problem.”
“Thanks, Luis.” I smiled. “Catch you on the flip side.”
By the time I ended my exchange with the teenager, Brax had moved ahead toward the patrol post. He glanced back and beckoned me forward. He held a clump of half-dry groundcover in his hand, which he promptly lit with a swift flick of his hammer. His movement steady, he drew his hand back and launched the flaming ball off to the side of the patrolmen. In a matter of seconds, a small fire sprang up. It was quickly snuffed by ambient moisture, but the smoke it produced was thick and pungent.
The guards caught a whiff of it. They turned toward the source of the fire and moved that way as they followed their noses and muttered to one another.
“Now!” Brax hissed. We broke into the quietest run we could manage and aimed directly for the middle of the black hole between the trees.
Chapter Fifteen
The voices of the guards faded behind us as we passed through to the interior of the strange woods. I’d expected almost total darkness, but beyond the initial border, the trees were pierced with shafts of light. We didn’t have the luxury to stop until our eyes adjusted, so we pressed on through the gloom, packed tightly together and our other senses on high alert. Brax was the first to make a comment, which surprised me until I remembered he was also the one with the best low-light vision.
