by S T Branton
Climbing over the top of the tunnel proved a challenge in its weakened state. It slipped and was pummeled by Brax. This time, the gigantic tail caught him square in the side and carried him another fifty feet to the other side of the road. The Titan’s desperate, angry struggles sent Maya sprawling from a claw strike to the brow, and I narrowly avoided another flooding. After that, realizing I was the only one still in range, I ducked underneath the Titan’s belly and attacked its underside directly.
Searching claws missed me by inches as I buried the burning blade of my sword up to the hilt in the Titan’s abdomen. But I had misjudged the length and flexibility of its neck; I caught a flash of its damaged face opening impossibly wide, and the next thing I felt was a bracket of teeth enveloping my whole body Before I could do anything other than rip my sword free of the reptilian flesh, the Titan tossed its head back, pushing me toward the back of its mouth. It stank like filthy, stagnant water in there. Even by the light of the blade, I could hardly see a thing.
The act of being swallowed was more like being thrown down an elevator shaft, into a squishy pile of…something. Liquid washed over my hands, burning the skin. “Oh, fuck!” I said out loud. “This is acid!” Stomach acid, to be precise. I was about to be digested.
Pushing up off the slippery tissue of the Titan’s stomach lining, I lurched across the uneven surface in search of a wall. Acid sloshed around my feet, licking up my shins. The legs of my jeans had already started to dissolve. My only sense of time was the clock of intuition ticking down and down in my head. At the moment I finally stumbled into the slick, undulating barrier, I pulled my sword back, stabbing it in and ripping downward.
At first, the wound tried to suck itself back together, but I wouldn’t let it happen. The entire length of the Gladius Solis disappeared, glowing through the flesh. I slashed the same place three times, as hard as I could. On the fourth, a gust of fresh, cold air surged through.
“Yes!” I shouted, levering the sword against the Titan’s body, expanding the hole. The beast shrieked horribly. It was stumbling around, tearing at itself, trying to eradicate the source of its sudden suffering. Then everything trembled as its massive body hit the ground. I pushed my way out as the creature writhed, soaked in all kinds of biohazards. The erratic movements of the limbs began to slow. With the last of its strength, Tahn’s doomed Titan dragged itself back toward the river. It was too heavy to stop, even with the combination of nectar and adrenaline pumping through my veins. I watched it inch across the remains of the tunnel roof and hoped the structure wouldn’t give.
Hanging off into the river, the Titan gave one last screech and died, sending up a giant wave as it slapped against the surface in its final death throes. Within a minute, the body started to slip below.
Then the river coughed up bubbles. They were small at first, but they soon became bigger, until the whole channel looked like it was at a rolling boil. I realized the wild waters were rising.
“Shit! Oh, shit. Oh fuck!” I scrambled back down to the freeway, recovering human Maya on the way. “The river’s going to overflow. We need to get everyone through the tunnel, like, right now!” Maya dashed off toward the tunnel openings, and I went to collect Brax.
“I’m fine, so go on ahead,” he said, though he was limping and cradling his ribcage. “Might’ve busted a couple ribs, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. Give it a few minutes. It’ll heal. It’s what we do.” He paused. “And, hey. Nice job with that thing.”
“Thanks. All in a day’s work, right?” I picked up my pace, heading toward the tunnel, my stomach clenched in anticipation of what I might find.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I stepped into the tunnel with my heart in my throat, expecting to come upon Maya incapacitated by Jonestown-level horror. For once, a pleasant surprise awaited me. Those who had fallen victim to Tahn were stirring on the road, slowly regaining consciousness. The Marked, newly unbranded, seemed to have been made temporarily docile from the shock. They sort of just stood around, examining the dead brands on their bodies. I weaved through the crowd until I found Maya kneeling by Jules and Deacon. Steph was already on her feet and already taking charge of the evacuation. I heard her barking orders as I took a moment just to sit and rest.
“Why are you soaked?” Deacon asked. He removed his jacket. “Take this. What the hell happened after she knocked us out?”
I shrugged. “She summoned that mystical beast she’d been talking about. It came out of the water. That’s why I’m soaked.”
“Out of the Hudson? Is that why the river’s about to bust?”
“Something like that. There was a reaction after the Titan died and fell back in. I have no friggin’ clue what’s going to happen, but we couldn’t stay here now even if we wanted to.”
“Which you still do,” he said.
“Well, this is my city. I’d do anything for her.” I craned my neck to see past him, squinting into the distance. “Speaking of, I need to see if I can find Tahn before we evacuate. We’ve got a score to settle. And by that, I mean I want to end her, once and for all.”
“She’s still alive?” Deacon asked.
“Yeah. We were too preoccupied with the Titan to deal with her.” I touched his shoulder. “You gonna be okay? I really do need to go snake hunting.”
Deacon shook his head, smiling. “That’s incredible, Vic. You’re something else. All this shit we’ve been through in the last forty-eight hours, and you’re still determined to chase down every loose end right now.”
“It’s a pretty big loose end,” I said. I walked over to Jules and squeezed her hand. “Be right back, okay?”
She frowned. “Where are you going? Steph said we’re starting evac soon.”
“We are. I just need to see if it’s possible to take care of something first.” Without giving her a chance to ask more questions, I started my search for Tahn, keeping my ears open for that distinctive rattle.
I climbed back up to where I could see the river. The boiling had spread, and it was still racing across the water, creating alarmingly swollen tides. In some places, water already lapped at the banks. I scoured the area for signs of Tahn and found none.
Mildly irked, I returned to the tunnel, intending to check every nook and cranny. That was easier said than done as it turned out because everyone who’d been knocked unconscious was groggy and sluggish, moving at a snail’s pace. I found Steph speaking to some guys from the military. “How’s the evac going?” I asked.
“As well as it’s going to go, I think. We don’t have a lot of time, so we’ve got to get moving. Can you help?”
“Sure.” For the next half hour, I ushered lines of sleepy refugees deeper into the tunnel, tried to get kids to stop crying, and urged the slowest ones to pick up the pace. Every so often, I’d glance at the tunnel ceiling in search of a sign that the water had started to spill over and was going to start dripping down the roof. It was a small blessing that it didn’t happen.
But Tahn had disappeared, which I felt slightly cheated over. The Titan was dead, but something told me the Titan hadn’t ever been the real threat.
There was someone else missing, too. The Smoking Man was nowhere to be found. When I brought it up to Deacon, he just shrugged and said, “Yeah, he does that.”
As the last of the evacuated refugees proceeded deeper into the tunnel, I stood watch at the back for a few minutes. I was still waiting for signs of Tahn, signs of the tunnel flooding, and signs of general impending doom. None of those things happened, and I told myself to be grateful for the fact that we’d all made it, despite the odds.
You have done a fine job this night, Victoria. Truly, I could not have done better.
“You probably would have killed Tahn,” I said, only half joking.
Fret not, my dear. I am sure that you will receive another chance.
“If I do, I’m going to make it count.”
“Vic!” Maya’s voice echoed off the walls as she walked back to me. She l
ooked so small compared to her Were-form, and boy, did she look tired. We all did.
“What’s up, Maya? You holding up okay?”
“Surprisingly well. I’m waiting for the grand inevitable crash.” She laughed a little.
“Someday, we’ll be able to sleep again.” I slung my arm over her shoulders. “Hey, I’m really glad I had you with me tonight. You kicked some serious ass. I don’t know how we would’ve done that last fight without you.”
“Thanks.” She smiled modestly. “It finally feels like I’m sort of figuring things out. But then at the end of the day, there’s always the same question.”
“Which is what?”
She stared out at the empty freeway littered with cars and glistening with water and Titan blood. “What do we do now?”
“At the end of the day, Maya, there’s always the same answer,” I replied. “We keep fighting for humanity.”
The distant voice of the rising river tide followed us down into the Lincoln Tunnel.
Epilogue
Tahn’s feet whispered through the long, cool grass somewhere north of Philadelphia. Morning was just starting to break around her, and the first birds called to each other up in the forest canopy. She kept walking, looking for the landmark—the old and gnarled tree with the pointed bough—that he had said would be there. She was a little nervous to see him. The Titan was dead, inexplicably. And he was getting stronger.
The woods stretched on for what might as well have been forever, and just as Tahn was beginning to think she might have gotten lost, she saw it: a looming, gnarled tree with one protruding bough like a witch’s finger, pointing to a subtle path stamped into the ground. She followed it, and at the end, the cabin revealed itself. It was more like a vacation home than anything. A casual resort. Everything he touched ended up like this.
The front door was unlocked. She went in.
“There you are, Tahn, my dear.” That silky voice made her blood run cold. He sounded more and more like Lorcan every day; looked like him, too. He sat in the front room on an overstuffed chair, hands folded, long legs crossed.
He watched her with those pale eyes. The eyes that could see everything—or at least, that was what it felt like.
“Sit.” Delano gestured to an identical chair positioned across from him. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” A fire roared in the rustic fireplace, its mantle tastefully decorated with little knick knacks. Fine art adorned the paneled walls. Under different circumstances, Tahn might have loved the little cabin in the Pennsylvania woods. As it was, she felt her insides knotting over. This was not going to be a pleasant meeting.
“I have to say, I’m disappointed, darling. You were so confident when we spoke before, and things were going so well for a while. What happened?”
Tahn was silent for a minute. “She is stronger than I could have believed, Delano. Things got out of control.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how.”
“You don’t?” He picked up a glass from the arm of his chair and took a sip. “Interesting. I do. Shall we talk about it?”
Tahn resisted the urge to squirm in her chair. She knew he liked that. He looked for it as a sign of weakness.
Delano continued. “You refused to heed the warning signs because you considered Rocca and Beleza to be beneath you. Perhaps it is true, but that’s not the point. You looked Rocca’s corpse in its ruined eye. You even spoke to it. And yet you did not consider that the girl had been the one to kill Rocca. Which meant that she could kill you. And if she could kill you, she could kill the Titan. That, ultimately, is what she did.”
“I thought the Titan would be stronger,” Tahn said. “Unkillable. She was not supposed to survive.”
“And yet, she endures.” Delano leaned forward a bit, resting his elbow on his knee, chin in hand. “You surprise me, Tahn. You, of all people, should know that excuses are unacceptable.” He stood up and covered the distance between their chairs in two quick strides. She wasn’t looking at him, so he forced her to, with a hand sternly guiding her face. Delano leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss turned long and deep, until she could feel her heart beating in her chest. She did not know that he always did this when it was time, that it was much easier to pull them out this way.
Tahn made almost no sound when the Apprenti’s hand plunged into her body. Her heart sat perfectly in his palm, caressed by his fingers, still beating. She looked at him with fading eyes as he let her stolen heart meld into his body.
Then he blinked, and when Delano opened his pale eyes again, the last thing Tahn saw was the faintest tinge of gold.
Author Notes
Written October 3, 2018
Well, well, well, here we are again on the author notes! What a glorious thing. Lee’s on vacation, taking in a hurricane on the coast or something, so it’s just me this time around.
Gods of New York is a book we’ve been waiting to write for a long, long time. In a lot of ways, all of Vic’s stories have been heading in this direction. Skirmishes. Outbreaks. Local fights. Major and minor deities. Apprenti. But we knew that with the heavens opening, and the gods descending, some serious shit was about to go down between them. I mean, just spend a little bit of time reading the tales of old. Those supernatural powerhouses never could get along, could they? And Vic, of course, was bound to be in the middle of the whole thing.
Since book one, we imagined a civil war between the deities over New York City was inevitable.
We also knew that Vic would be ready.
In the back alleys of the author world, there’s a little debate that wages constantly. What’s better? Overpowered main characters out of the gate or fledgling souls filled with potential that need to rise up through adversity.
Well, I’m an old D&D guy (and I’ve read LOTR more times than I know). It was never a question for me. I’ll take the fledgling soul. Every time.
I remember holding a blank D&D character sheet in my trembling hands waiting for the adventure to begin for Sturm the Brave, my 1st level Paladin. (Sturm. I know. I was a huge Dragonlance fan, and I didn’t think anyone would notice my plagiarism.) It was pure joy imaging how young Sturm would develop into some holy badass with high proficiency in strength, wisdom, and charisma--not to mention enough hit points to take on a red-scaled dragon.
Vic’s not so different than ol’ Sturm the Brave.
And she’s come a long way baby!
But the gods are still real. And Delano is sucking up more power than the Las Vegas strip at 3 AM.
What’s going to happen? How will it all end?
You’re just going to have to read on to find out!
Cheers,
Chris (Lee and ST)
PS: Looking for a fast, free read? We have a free novella for folks.
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God Country
The Forgotten Gods Series Book 6
Prologue
A shadow stalked through the trees at the close of twilight, peering through the trunks in search of unsuspecting prey. Despite the autumn leaves that drifted along the Delaware Water Gap, its careful steps were almost silent in the encroaching darkness. The gurgling voice of the river filtered through the chill breeze, masking the sounds of its passage.
The last three nights had been noticeably colder. The creature had spent them like this, biding its time as the sun moved down below the western horizon and waiting for the perfect moment. Previously, it had been content to wait, but now, its patience gave way to the raw throb of hunger. The time between kills grew ever shorter. Someday soon, it would be impossible to hide.
For now, the hunter stayed well back from the edge of the tree line, cloaked in deepening shadows. A hundred yards off, the sprawling settlement shifted into low gear for the night. The circles of firelight shrank and dimmed as embers retr
eated beneath blankets of ash. The creature’s eyes panned over tents, makeshift lean-tos, and clusters of bedrolls under the open sky. The latter were always tempting, but the risk was too great. If the entire camp were alerted, defenders would be roused and the easy pickings would cease. Better to play it safe—for now.
Barely a few hundred feet onward, the hunter’s eye paused on an open tent flap facing the trees. The bright, artificial light of a battery-powered lantern spilled out over the leaf-strewn ground. The cheap nylon fabric rattled in the wind and made the lantern beam flicker unevenly.
The shadow hunkered down to wait, a slow smile curling its lips. This was what it had sought.
“Aw, man.” The vague shape of someone half reclining shadowed the wall of the tent. “I knew it.”
“What?” asked a second voice. “Don’t tell me you’re complaining, Everett. You know how lucky we are to have a whole damn tent?”
“Nah, it’s not that.” Everett pushed himself upright and reached across the tent for his shoes, pausing to peer out into the dark blue night. “I was gettin’ all comfy, but now, I gotta take a piss.”
“Ha!” The second voice barked laughter that pierced the quiet campground. “You know what they say about dudes with tiny bladders. Better make it quick, or else the devil’s gonna get ya.”
Everett tightened up his laces. “Aw, stuff it. What the hell are you talking about?”
“We’re in Jersey now, right? The Jersey Devil. It’ll hang ya from the shower, remember?”
“We’re in Pennsylvania, you dumbass. Be right back.” Taking one last glance out of the tent, he ducked out and straightened in the crisp air. He rubbed his hands together as he made his way into the woods, unaware that an invisible stalker monitored his every move. The creature waited until the young man had left the tent’s line of sight before stealing after him.
