by Megan Derr
Hades chuckled, the sound rippling through the post office like rattling bones. "At last the prodigal son returns. Are you here to avenge daddy's death, sweetheart?"
Dixie's lip curled as he replied by way of six bullets. Hades laughed as each one was absorbed by his shimmering silver shields—until the last one shattered it and knocked him back with a nasty blow to the shoulder.
Dixie didn't linger, just turned and ran like hell was on his heels. Which it was, in fact.
He didn't get very far before he was grabbed up, swung around, and slammed into a wall so hard his nose broke. Hades spun him around and slapped Dixie's wrists to the wall, where manacles appeared to hold him there. "Did you think you would actually be able to accomplish anything here?"
"Guess we'll see," Dixie said, the words coming out garbled, but Hades seemed to get the gist.
Dixie just had to stay alive a little longer. Hopefully Hades would prove true to form and prefer to play with him.
The backhand that cost Dixie a tooth seemed to prove his hope was not in vain.
"You're not doing a very good job at avenging angel," Hades said and backhanded him again.
Dixie spit out another tooth. "Revenge is for fools. Ain't no way to build a life, always aiming to kill one person. You ain't got that much power over me. Ain't nobody got that much power over me."
Hades laughed again, that wind through rattling bones sound that made Dixie shiver. He drew a stiletto from within his jacket, lazily pulled it from its ornate silver sheath, which he dropped to the floor. He trailed the tip of the blade down Dixie's cheek. "You're going to give me supreme access, or you're going to wish you were dead for a very long time."
"I ain't giving you shit."
He didn't scream when Hades stabbed the blade through his right arm, right below the manacles, but he whimpered when Hades twisted the blade.
"Give me supreme access; you have no business possessing it."
"It's my goddamned system. Go to hell and meet a real devil." Dixie spat blood in his face.
Hades stabbed him again, this time in the stomach. Combined with the knife wound already in his arm, Dixie wasn't going to last nearly as long as he'd been hoping. He could switch off the pain transmission, but that was a good way to die faster. "You're pathetic. All the power of a god is yours here in the Mason, and you're just a bug pinned to a wall."
"Yeah, funny, isn't it?" Dixie replied.
Narrowing his eyes, Hades yanked the stiletto out and sliced open Dixie's left cheek.
He'd started to do the same to the right when all the lights exploded, Dixie's manacles vanished, and the building trembled like there was a severe earthquake.
"What the fuck—" Hades broke off as Dixie, lying on the floor from where he'd slid down the wall, kicked his legs out from under him. His skull slammed against the marble floor, hard enough Dixie heard the bone shatter. He didn't wait around to see how pissed that was gonna make Hades, just scrambled to his feet and took off at a run. His arm and stomach burned, and blood was pouring from his damaged cheek, more from his arm, but he didn't give a fuck. He only needed to live a few minutes more.
He'd made it to the far end of the building by the time Hades caught up to him a second time. Those long, bony fingers grabbed him, squeezed tightly enough Dixie couldn't breathe. "What the fuck did you do?" Hades demanded as the building continued to shake and break and catch on fire around them.
"Conquest," Dixie whispered, staring at the purple eyes flickering from within the depths of the black hood, none of the skull having survived the fall. Hades should have been in too much pain to function, but like most stupid Dogs, he'd disabled the pain transmission and the failsafe that would have yanked him out the moment his health was in danger.
Hades hissed, squeezed tighter. "What does that—?"
Everything stopped, and the hand abruptly let Dixie go. The fresh guards that had appeared abruptly stopped, shimmered, then their eyes and uniforms turned bright red. Hades screamed in frustration, like a howling wind, when they wouldn't react to him.
"War," Dixie said and gave Hades a shove toward the guards, gasping for breath as his vision started going fuzzy at the edges, but mustering a laugh as the guards seized Hades and held him tightly.
"What did you do—!" Hades screamed again. "You fucking cunt, I'll slit you in two—" He screamed yet again, but this time it was in unbelievable agony. Something must have reset the disabled pain receptors. Good. Around them the guards started to dissolve, like melting wax or metal corroded by acid. The dripping bits fell on Hades, dissolving whatever they touched, destroying both his arms and one of his legs. He collapsed to the ground like a sad prop skeleton with most of its pieces lost. He had to be in at least as much pain as Dixie, but the bastard kept coming. "What have you done, you goddamn bastard?"
"That's Famine," Dixie said with a sickly smile as he collapsed to the ground, rapidly dissolving beneath their feet.
Hades flickered in and out, in and out, came back as looking like his real self, dark eyes narrowed and full of hate. "You're destroying the system."
"Yep," Dixie said, falling forward, bracing himself on his good arm. He mustered the energy to cast Hades a triumphant smile. "I lied a touch about revenge. The last horseman won't work unless you're here. Death is accompanied by Hades—you were the last permission key to run the program. Without you here in the system, it wouldn't have worked. So thanks."
He blacked out to the sound of Hades screaming in fury.
*~*~*
The sound of machinery beeping crazily, people shouting, filtered into his consciousness.
"Do something! Do something, goddammit!"
"I am—Leland, get him out, I can't work—"
Dixie passed out again.
*~*~*
When he woke again, it was to the soft beeping of medical equipment, the smell of Byron's hospital area, antiseptic and old wood. He drew a breath, winced faintly as that woke all sorts of aches and pains, though thankfully, they seemed mostly muffled by a wall of medicine.
He stared up at the ceiling, spotless and more like it belonged in a pub than a medical ward.
So he'd lived. Barely, probably.
He looked around as best he could from his prone position, saw the monitors that displayed his readouts, the way one had spiked when he woke up. So somebody was probably on their way up.
Fumbling gingerly around the blankets, he finally found the little remote that let him raise the top part of the bed so he was somewhat sitting up.
The door slammed open a couple of minutes later and Greg filled the space. Well, what was left of Greg. The boy looked smaller and thinner than usual. He looked damn near hollowed out, and there were bruises under his red-rimmed eyes. "What in the world—"
"You're finally awake!" Greg said, cutting him off as he rushed over to the bed, tears streaming. His hands fluttered about like birds, from Dixie's chest to the blankets to the stuff stuck in him and then back to the blankets.
Dixie finally captured one of them, though his arm was a bit stiff. "Calm down, kitten."
"Don't tell me to calm down!" Greg said, tears running anew. "You've been asleep for almost two months! And you're still hurt, but Byron says he can't fix you until you heal a certain amount on your own, but you're still hurt and it's stupid and doesn't make sense and you almost—" He glared murder over the fingers covering his mouth.
Dixie smiled faintly, sliding his fingers away to thread through Greg's hair and draw him down to drop a soft kiss on his mouth. "I'm fine. The damage that won't heal is because I'm a living computer, honey. We gotta replace all the nanowork, which yeah, I have to be healthy to undergo. It ain't quite as easy as defragging me every few months. And the damage is slow to heal because of the whole living computer thing, too. Suffice to say, Byron is frustrating, but not an asshole. You look worse than me. Ain't you been sleeping and eating?"
"Only when Byron makes me," Greg replied, hand curling around the one still in his hai
r. "Are you sure you're okay? Because you were going to die, and then suddenly it seemed like you'd live, and then everything went nuts and Byron almost lost you anyway…"
Dixie gave him another soft kiss, tempted to take a deeper one but not succumbing when he knew he must smell something awful and who knew the state of his mouth. "I'm fine, and if I'm awake, then I'm near mended. So you'd better get some damned rest and put more meat on those bones. Hear?"
"Hear," Greg echoed and hugged him as tightly as he could manage with wounds and medical equipment in the way.
"So tell me what I've missed," Dixie said, but before Greg could reply, the sound of someone coming made them both turn. Byron and Leland filled the doorway, Byron smiling more brightly than Dixie had ever seen.
"It's about time you woke up, you lazy, outdated computer," Byron said as he stood next to Greg, Leland going to the other side of the bed. His eyes skimmed over the equipment, though there must have been feeds downstairs. "How are you feeling?"
"Been better, but been worse, too," Dixie said. "Tell me it wasn't for nothing."
Byron and Greg both broke into nigh-maniacal grins. "It wasn't for nothing," Byron said. "Turncoat hasn't been out of the news once since he brought down the Mason System and severely crippled the G.O.D., endangering the lives of everyone in the world while the G.O.D. struggles to recover and their ability to protect the world in the meantime is severely reduced. You are wanted just dead now, and they've tripled the bounty."
"Damn."
"What in the hell did you do?" Greg asked. "Byron says from what he's gathered, the system is fucking gone."
Dixie nodded. "Yep. Daddy and I designed a virus years ago that would destroy the whole system, in basically four stages. The only problem is that it requires three people with master access to carry out. That was something we had to put in place, didn't have much choice about. But there were loopholes to exploit. Daddy was the first requirement, and the first key was turned upon his death. The second key was me letting the virus out. The third key I changed from the original to be Hades, and I made damned sure he never knew it."
"He's dead," Greg said quietly, fingers playing restlessly with the blanket, picking, twisting, smoothing, right back to picking. "The news hasn't said much, but from we've gleaned, they found him lying dead in his office, blood coming out everywhere."
"He'd have felt every moment of the system dying, would have died with it." Dixie gestured to himself. "The same alterations that give us such fluid access to the system also means we feel the system, and suffer in real life when we suffer in there. So he died pretty horribly and I ain't a mite sorry."
"Nor should you be," Byron said.
Dixie nodded. "What about Ariadne? Did the information reach you?"
"Yep, and we're working on that plan now, so stop asking questions and focus on healing." He squeezed Dixie's hand, playfully patted his cheek. "I'll go fix you some food, and no fucking complaining while you eat."
"Make it taste good and I won't complain."
Byron rolled his eyes and left. Leland smiled tentatively. "I'm glad you're okay. I've not been here long, but it's not the same without you. God knows these two are bigger babies with you missing. Welcome back."
"Thanks," Dixie said, and with a parting smile, Leland followed Byron from the room, closing the door behind him.
Greg took his hand, held it tightly. "No more doing stupid shit."
"Says the world's worst thief," Dixie retorted.
"At least I'm not a shitty computer that needs a two month nap after getting my ass kicked."
Dixie laughed and didn't give a damn at all when it pulled painfully at the wound in his stomach. "A lousy thief and a shitty computer, sounds like an invincible pair."
"About time you figured that," Greg said haughtily.
"Butterflies gotta sober up eventually."
Greg snickered. "I wouldn't go that far." He yelped when Dixie pinched him but didn't resist when he was reeled in for another kiss.
Fin
Anti-Heroes will continue in Close Enough to Touch
Leland has always lived a life apart, never willing to get too close to anyone for fear of what might happen should the wrong people learn just how powerful he really is. Then his own reputation led to a friend paying the price, and he'll do anything to get her back.
Even if it means breaking all his rules to align himself with exactly the kind of troublemakers he'd always avoided as strenuously as he's avoided the G.O.D. Even if it means sharing space with Byron Valentine, the beautiful, mysterious leader of the group fighting to destroy the G.O.D., a man who makes Leland wish he could have the normal life his own abilities have always denied him.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Megan is a long time resident of LGBTQ romance, and keeps herself busy reading, writing, and publishing it. She is often accused of fluff and nonsense. When she's not involved in writing, she likes to cook, harass her cats, or watch movies. She loves to hear from readers, and can be found all over the internet.
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