Forgotten Gods Boxed Set 2

by S T Branton

  “Hey,” I said, drawing Steve’s attention. He snapped out of his fugue when he looked at me. “I just wanted to thank you again for what you did. I know all of this is hard to understand, but trust me, your actions have been important. For me and for the hundreds of lives you likely helped to save.”

  “Hundreds? You think so?” He brightened at that. “Man, I hope.” He whistled softly, scanning the parking lot once more. “This is just nuts. I never would’ve believed it in a million years.”

  “Me neither.” I cleared my throat. “Listen, the best thing for you to do now is move west. Staying here is suicide.”

  “What?” Steve stared at me, aghast. “You’ve got to be kidding. I mean, I heard something about setting up secure passage through the Lincoln Tunnel, but that was before everything went to shit. And even if we could still get through, I can’t go. I’ve got a job to do.”

  I believe I have heard these words somewhere before, Marcus quipped.

  I rubbed my face. The irony was not lost on me. I figured we might as well bring it full circle—student becoming the teacher and all that. “Okay, I understand where you’re coming from—really, I do. Better than you think. And I know how hard it is to leave, especially when you feel like there’s work being left unfinished. But that’s exactly it, Steve: you have work to do that can’t be done if you’re dead or trapped under siege. I can’t guarantee that the gods won’t come back for New York after we drive them out, and what you’re doing is so valuable that you have to be a little selfish here. Think of all the things you can bring to a post-media world, man. Think of all the people you have yet to reach.”

  “It’s not just New York, is it?” he asked in a tone that said he already knew the answer.

  I shook my head. “It’s not just New York.”

  Steve Stephenson closed his eyes, sighed, and then opened them and looked toward his van. His crew had the doors open and were salvaging as much as possible from the wreck. “I guess we’re walking.”

  “Honestly, it’s easier that way at the moment. Traffic’s been replaced with accidents and clogged up roads. You’ll get there faster on your own two feet.”

  He nodded. “The van was kind of a pain in the ass, but I needed it to carry the equipment. Which is mostly destroyed, so…”

  “Hey, Steve!” A crewman held up a camera case. “Some of this is still usable. What are we doing with it?”

  “Put it on your backs, men,” Steve answered. “We’re moving out.” He turned back to me and held out his hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you. You said your name was Vic?”

  “Uh, yeah.” The sudden professional tone caught me off guard.

  “Good luck, Vic. I hope we meet again. Something tells me you’d make for one hell of a story.” We shook hands. He went back to his team, and I watched him lead them toward the street. Two of his security men had been caught up in Beleza’s onslaught. Only one remained, clutching his rifle tightly to his chest. I kind of felt bad for him.

  You did well with that man, Marcus said. You are advancing in proficiency.

  “Thanks. I just did my best impression of you.”

  He chuckled. I will consider that a compliment.

  Brax had fallen to inspecting some of the dead troops. He stood over the one who’d attacked me with such gusto, examining the wound left by the Gladius Solis. “Hell of a hit,” he remarked. “Not bad. And you got this close to killing a god.”

  I shrugged. “Been there, done that. Where do you think Lorcan went?”

  “Ha!” Brax grinned. “That’s good. Keep that up, and I might even be glad to know you someday.” He got to his feet. “All right. What’s next? I vote we follow those chumps the hell out of here.”

  “Not yet. I sent friends of mine to check things out at Madison Square Garden, and I’m not going anywhere without them.” Signifying that discussion wasn’t an option in this case, I promptly turned south.

  Brax heaved an exasperated sigh. “You humans and your damned loyalty.” Even as he spoke, he jogged to catch up. “I don’t understand how you form all these attachments to other things. It just weighs you down in the end.”

  “Not really,” I said. “Mine have held me up so far.”

  Victoria! Marcus burst out so abruptly that I nearly faceplanted, thinking something was wrong. Speaking of attachments, the connection that Maya and I have forged through her training is activating. I can sense her movement.

  “She’s moving? Please tell me she’s going in the direction of the river.”

  That is west, correct? Indeed, that matches her trajectory.

  A relieved smile broke over my face. “Good. I don’t know how and I don’t care, but she got the memo. Now we just have to meet her there.” I thought of Frank and hoped he’d made it through.

  “You can run, can’t you?” Brax asked.

  I gave him a look. “Of course, I can. Who do you think I am?”

  His mouth tilted into a smirk. “Let’s go, then.”

  The mile or so trek to the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel rolled by like a continuous film roll of disaster. The freeway leading up to the tunnel was devoid of moving cars—it had obviously been shut down some time ago. Brax paused atop the side wall to assess the situation. A massive throng of people hustled toward us from the Manhattan side, and as they drew closer, I picked out the face I was searching for, right in the front.

  “Maya!” I jumped down from the wall and met her on the asphalt ahead of her crowd. She gave me a fierce hug.

  “Gosh, I’m so glad to see you, Vic. And I’m glad to be on the move again.” She was frazzled but smiling. Her clothes were different and hanging on her slender frame, a telltale sign that she’d gone were . “Have you been inside the tunnel yet?”

  “Nope. We just got here.” Craning my neck to see past her, I looked among the first approaching faces for a certain vamp mobster. He wasn’t there. “Where’s Frank?”

  Maya looked down. “I don’t know. We got separated right after arriving, and I never found him again. I’d like to assume he’s somewhere among everyone. He told me not to worry, but I bet he always says that.”

  “Yeah.” I shook off the creeping, uneasy feeling in my stomach. “He’s street smart. He can take care of himself. Let’s focus on the evacuation.”

  “Yes. Good idea.” She squared her shoulders and gazed into the tunnel’s black maw. “What do you think? Right down the middle?”

  “Sounds good to me. But you, Brax, and I should go first by ourselves. I have no idea what’s waiting in there.”

  She wrinkled her forehead. “Brax?”

  “Oh, right. You don’t know him. He looks weird, but he’s on our side.”

  “Fair enough,” Maya said. She turned to face the crowd that had drawn up behind us on the freeway, and she unhooked a megaphone from her belt. “Can I have everyone’s attention, please? The Lincoln Tunnel is up ahead, but it may be dangerous. Please remain where you are while we scout ahead to ensure safety. We will alert you when it is clear to proceed.”

  Murmurs swept through the ranks. Maya rehooked her megaphone. I signaled for Brax to join us. As he leapt down, we stepped forward under a strip of gradually lightening sky toward the central mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The first thing I saw emerging from the depths of the tunnel was a hasty perimeter made of yellow tape. It marked the edge of a crowd larger than ours and much more organized. The moment I saw unmistakable Marked faces mixed in with humans, I knew exactly what we were dealing with. This was where Rocca had run off to after her fight with Beleza. Her army filled the tunnel passage from side to side. If we wanted to pass, we’d have to cut through all of them.

  “Uh oh,” Maya whispered. It might have been the understatement of the century.

  Brax appeared on my other side. “Where’s Rocca?” he demanded. “I know she’s here. I can feel it.”

  I was wondering the same thing, but instead of finding Rocca amid her
minions, my eye lit on someone else entirely—someone I hadn’t expected to see. “Is that Deacon?” I was so stunned that the words came out on their own. I was glad to see him, too, but also nervous because his presence probably meant Jules was here as well. Sure enough, I saw her standing uncertainly on the near side of the tape, apparently transfixed by the scope of Rocca’s army.

  “Deacon!” Both his and Jules’s heads whipped around, and they immediately came toward us. I got my second power hug of the day from Jules.

  “We couldn’t get out,” Deacon said. “We got here and started to secure the entrance to the tunnel so the refugees could get through. It was empty at first, but then we started hearing noise from the sides.”

  “That’s when this happened.” Jules gestured toward the stone-faced army. “They came pouring in here, and we just barely managed to extricate ourselves. The refugees…” She bit her lip and glanced at Maya. “I don’t know what happened to them. We couldn’t do anything to help.”

  “Rocca was here,” Deacon added. “I don’t see her now, but I’m sure she’s just biding her time.”

  “She must be waiting for something,” Brax muttered. “She has instructed her army not to attack. This never happens unless she’s also received specific instructions herself.”

  Before he had a chance to elaborate, Deacon cut him off, eyes wide. “Holy shit.” He was looking past us out the tunnel entrance into the freeway.

  “No!” Maya cried. I glanced over my shoulder to see her second rescue group, the one from Madison Square Garden, advancing. “What are they doing?! I told them to wait!” Jules moved to comfort her. Brax, Deacon, and I exchanged a look.

  Then the yellow tape snapped. Sections of Rocca’s army pushed out from their positions in the tunnel, threatening to pinch our little group. We ran for the wall. “I think it’s do or die time, you guys,” I said. “We have to do something now.”

  Victoria, these circumstances are very dire. There is a high chance that fatalities will occur if you choose to engage.

  “I’m gonna level with all of you,” I said. “We could all die if we do this. We probably will all die if we do this. It’s not good.”

  “Shit.” Deacon shrugged. “If it means we save everyone here, I’m down with it. My life’s been all right. I can end it like this.”

  “Me too,” Maya agreed immediately. She couldn’t take her eyes off what was happening in the tunnel as the Madison Square Garden group started to be corralled. “I can’t stand this. I don’t care what it takes.”

  I turned to Jules. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get wrapped up in this.”

  “Oh, whatever, Vic. I can’t leave you now.” Her eyes were bright, but she stood resolute as she pulled a handgun I recognized as formerly belonging to Trent out of her bag. “We’ll see this through together. No matter what that means.”

  “I’m in.” Brax had a hand on his hammer. “Rocca’s going to oblivion. Who cares about what happens to me as long as she ends up there?”

  “Then we’ve gotta carve a path through the tunnel,” I said. “Buy them enough time to get through. If we last long enough and they’re really lucky, they might make it somewhere safe.” It was all a terrifying grey area, but it was the best we had. “Can I borrow that megaphone? As soon as I drop it, all hell is going to break loose.”

  Maya handed it over. I held it in my hand, studying the switch. Maybe these would be some of the last words I’d ever say or some of the last they’d ever hear. The army Rocca had amassed dwarfed our little fighting party to the extent that our odds were laughable at best. In my heart, I knew this was our last stand—and that it might not be enough. Still, we had to try. These people would either die or be turned.

  Death was the better end.

  Victoria, a moment, if you would.

  I pressed my lips together. “Marcus, I know you’re going to tell me this is wrong and stupid, that it’s a meaningless sacrifice, that I should be smart and retreat. You might be right. I’m still doing it, and nothing you say will stop me.”

  I know.

  “Oh, you do?” I had to smile.

  I should say that I have learned. More recently, I have learned also that this is why the sword chose you. The Gladius has an intuition all its own, and it does not always fall in line with the wisdom of men, for there are greater things.

  “You going to tell me another inspirational anecdote about Rome?” Truth be told, in moments like this which felt like the end of a lot of things, I would’ve welcomed one last story. Something to carry me into the dark.

  For this, there is nothing that compares. This is not my illustrious home; it is yours. I am not the one bearing arms against the rise of a great and terrible evil. That is you, Victoria. It has always been you. The Gladius Solis, Kronin’s torch, has been passed into your hands. And now you must take up your inheritance one more time.

  A beat passed. I looked at the megaphone again. My friends gathered around me, watching for a cue. “Promise me you’ll all remember that we are the ones who will be immortalized. Us, not them. Our names will be etched as the light that guided the world out of the darkest moment in its history. Kids will tell stupid stories about us in homeroom someday, and they’ll get all the details wrong. Maybe someday we’ll make the switch from historical figure to myth, to legend. Whatever the case, we won’t be forgotten.” I smiled. “It has been a pleasure to fight with you. It will be a pleasure to die together, running toward the enemy, not away.” I lit my sword. Deacon reloaded. Jules awkwardly cocked her pistol. “Let’s fucking go.”

  I brandished the megaphone in my offhand. Just as I raised it to my lips and pressed the switch, a weird noise cut through the echoing din inside the tunnel. Through the thinning masses, I caught a glimpse of a sleek black SUV gliding to a stop on the freeway. The front doors opened, ejecting a tall, stern blonde and a man with a cigarette between his fingers. He exhaled a white plume as he ambled his way toward the tunnel.

  “No way.” Deacon went up to meet them, motioning for us to follow.

  “Looks like you might need some help here, partner.” Steph didn’t quite smile, but a spark danced in her blue eyes. She gave me a slight nod, which I returned.

  The smoking man took a long drag. Wisps of it leaked from beneath his mustache as he dropped the cigarette and ground it into the pavement with the heel of his boot. “It’s a good thing we still have a few good men.” He glanced over his shoulder at the empty road behind him.

  It wasn’t empty anymore.

  “No way!” Deacon repeated. It looked like the whole U.S. military was showing up to the Lincoln Tunnel on foot, in Humvees, in open-backed trucks, swallowing the asphalt in a flood of camouflage. In that moment, I felt like I could breathe again, like the clouds hovering over us had finally opened. The sky to the east bore the first faint traces of a golden-red sunrise.

  “There!” Brax barked. He had his gaze fixed deep inside the tunnel on a sweeping pair of horns emerging from the heart of her army. He growled low in his throat.

  The smoking man held up his hand to the assembly of troops behind him. He locked eyes with Rocca, who loosed her chain. The links sparked along the concrete.

  The smoking man made a fist. He thrust it forward as Rocca raised her chain. Her roar mingled with Maya’s turning howl.

  Brax pulled the hammer off his back. “Get to Rocca!” he shouted to me. “And make sure she fucking dies!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The unbridled chaos inside the tunnel gave me flashbacks to the place where it all began, my first big fight in the pit at Lorcan’s slaughterhouse. Marcus had been with me then, in a different way than he was now. A lot of other things had changed now, too, but I was still Vic Stratton, charging headlong toward someone who wanted to kill me, with the sword of a dead god-king in my hands.

  Maybe things weren’t that different after all.

  The air was thick with screams and the smell of blood rising from the pavement. It was
a good thing Rocca’s horns were so fucking huge. Otherwise, I might have lost sight of her with the constant rise and fall of the living horizon. Bodies buffeted me on every side, and I shoved doggedly through.

  “Don’t lose her!” Brax bellowed from off to my left. He used the massive head of his hammer like a battering ram to barrel down on the god who had controlled his fate for so long. She stood in a protective circle of her strongest lackeys. The grin on her face stretched from ear to ear. The scene of utter death and destruction was what she’d been waiting for, what she lived for. The promise of it had been the thing that lured her to Earth.

  Now at long last, she’d get a well-deserved piece of the action.

  I cut my way through her inner circle, stepping over the fallen. She turned toward me, her horns nearly decapitating whoever had the misfortune of standing in their way.

  “Ah, swordbearer,” she said. “God-slayer. The king’s heir. I’ve been anticipating this encounter for a long time now.”

  “So have I. But not as much as Brax.”

  Rocca laughed. “That’s too bad because I have no interest in him. Abraxzael is a fool who thinks he’s mighty, and yet I see him dragged back to Asphodel time after time. You’d think he’d have learned by now.” She snapped the heavy chain along the ground. “It doesn’t matter. You’re the one that I want.” Her hand made a dismissive gesture toward the minions around her. “I’m sure they would love to take care of him.”

  “You bitch!” Brax lunged for her, bringing his hammer down in an overhead smash. Rocca deflected the blow without batting an eye. Brax was flung backward into the seething crowd.

  “Enough of this.” Rocca wrapped a length of the chain around the knuckles of each hand. “We’re not here to talk.” She punctuated that sentence with a flurry of punches that cracked through the air toward me. I did my best to parry with the sword, but she was too fast and attentive to slip up and hit it. The edge of the chain grazed under my chin, clicking my jaws together.