by S T Branton
Chapter Ten
Deacon offered to drive for the second leg of the journey, but I declined. Being behind the wheel was comforting in a control-freak kind of way. As long as I steered the truck, I didn’t feel that I barreled headlong into some bleak destiny or insurmountable obstacle. If I could steer, I could put us on a winning path.
Or so I hoped.
“Hey.” Deacon’s low voice intruded warmly on my thoughts. He touched his fingers to the outside of my wrist. “How are you feeling? Are you sure you don’t want me to take over?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “With driving, I mean.”
He looked at me, both patient and expectant.
I sighed. “This is the biggest thing I’ve ever faced in my life,” I said. “I don’t know how I feel, except maybe that I’m standing on the edge of a cliff at the end of the world, and below me is…what? Darkness? A void? A safe place to land? There’s no way to know for sure until I jump, and that’s as scary as shit.” I glanced at him, and he nodded. “But at the same time, I know I can’t back down. I’ve been called to this. It’s taken a while, but I finally learned that to ignore your calling is the worst thing you can do. Especially if it involves saving all of humanity.”
Deacon leaned back in his seat. “If that’s the case, then I think my true calling was to be a horse trainer.”
I smirked. “It sounds like you might need to find a different girl, cowboy.”
He spent a good ten minutes insisting that there was a marked difference between trainers and cowboys. I remained unconvinced.
After that, we lapsed into companionable silence. I had never been the sappy, hold-hands-in-the-car sort of girl, but I did think about it once or twice. For a while, he seemed to doze.
Then he said, “Man, I hope we’re ready for this.”
I shot him a look. “You’re the one who was all, ‘no one’s got this more than you,’ before we left.”
He scratched his chin. “Yeah, but I was talking about you. It’s the rest of us I’m not so sure about.” An undercurrent of genuine fear belied his half-joking tone.
“Relax,” I said. “It’ll be a piece of cake.”
He pulled a face. “I don’t know about that. The meeting in D.C. made it sound pretty damn hard.”
I caught his eye and bit my lip. “I guarantee I’ve done harder. Maybe not bigger, but definitely harder.”
He tried to keep his cool, but his poker face failed him. We both cracked up.
“I have to say, Vic, I’m as glad as hell to be doing this with you.” He took my hand off the wheel, kissed my knuckles, and replaced it. I didn’t tell him I thought he was right to wonder about our level of preparedness or even right to worry, period.
I had stared at the blank, flat line of the horizon for hours and monitored it for changes that never came. It was almost refreshing when we traversed a rare bend and saw something blocking the view. The first thing I thought was that someone had decided to build a brick wall smack in the middle of the highway. But when we moved closer, I realized there was something familiar about the texture of the material.
Crushed cars had been stacked one on top of the other, impossibly high. I could barely see the top of the metal monolith. I eased down on the brakes and marveled at the sheer scale of the thing. The truck coasted closer.
Deacon shouted, “Watch out!”
I snapped my head to the side in time to see a huge foot slam down alongside our vehicle. My foot jammed hard on the brake pedal. We screeched to a stop and stared at a giant. He was naked except for a dingy loincloth and was covered in hair from head to toe. His mile-thick skull held only one eye. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to care about the truck.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath. I shifted the vehicle into park and unbuckled my seatbelt. “Stay put for a second. I’ll handle this. I don’t think it’ll take very long.”
“Go get ʼem,” he said.
I scrambled down from the cab and made my way cautiously toward the mammoth humanoid. He seemed to walk with purpose, and as I rounded the truck, I noticed his friend standing on the opposite side of the road.
The second giant gestured rudely. “What you doing, moron?” he demanded and the words rolled out slowly. “I leave you to guard wall. You wander off. Next time I find you’ve walked away, I’ll bash your ugly head in!”
The first giant reciprocated with an obscene gesture. His middle finger alone was almost as tall as I was and his club was actually a raw tree slung across his back. “Like to see you try,” he retorted. “Road empty. No one disturb huge wall. I bored.” To emphasize his point, he stamped his foot. A miniature dust storm flurried around me. “You bash my head, I kick your dick. We see who laughs then.”
I coughed and brushed sediment out of my hair and off my clothes. “Hey!” I shouted. “What are you two lunkheads doing here blocking the road?”
The giant nearest to me whirled and I had to dodge the edge of his club. I leapt back as a barrage of splinters flew in my direction.
“Human!” he proclaimed and looked surprised.
The other one shambled forward. “Go back to where you came from, puny human. This area not safe for tiny things.”
“We’ll see about that.” I whipped my sword out and lit it up. “Beat it, Andre and friend.”
The giants froze. They blinked their mono-eyes at me, equal parts afraid and confused. But they didn’t budge an inch. “Sorry, tiny human woman,” said the first. “No can do.”
“Captain’s orders,” added the other.
I gritted my teeth. “Fine. I warned you.” With the sword held high, I moved into their range. The two gigantic creatures hesitated but raised their clubs in response.
“Hold it, you knuckle-fucks,” a voice instructed from the opposite side of the car heap. “Leave this one alone. She’s with me.”
We all paused and looked toward the sound. I wracked my brain in an effort to think of whom it could be. The last I’d checked, I didn’t know anyone in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
Then I saw the edge of a long black coat. Brax stepped out from the cover of the barricade with his sunglasses on and arms folded. We stared at each other, and I burst into laughter. “Oh, shit!”
“Brax!” A blonde blur tumbled out of the other truck and streaked past on my left to fly into the demon’s arms. He embraced Jules with as much passion as I’d ever seen from him, and they shared a deep, intense kiss. I looked away for privacy’s sake.
“Falling for him, my ass,” I muttered. “You guys are balls deep.”
I let them kiss it out for a minute or two before I moved in on the happy reunion. “Excuse me for breaking in on your warm and fuzzies,” I said. “But what in the hell is going on?”
Brax shrugged, although he didn’t release Jules. “When we got back to the fort, I received word that giants roamed around the Midwest. Two of them. Real geniuses, clearly.” He glanced at the creatures who watched the whole display with mild confusion. “I knew two of these guys in Asphodel and I’d heard they got out, so I went to see if the stars had aligned. As it turns out, they had, but they were in trouble when I found them. I guess Delano’s not a fan of anything bigger than he is.”
“Brax helped,” said a giant. “He captain now.”
“I repaid a favor,” the demon explained. “I killed the horde that was hunting them, and they told me Delano had a temple fortress not too far from here.” He nodded toward the car monument. “I had them make that to keep anyone from getting through. They weren’t kidding about it being too dangerous for humans past this point.”
“Most humans,” I corrected him. “That happens to be exactly where I need to go.”
A grin broke out on his face. He looked at me, down at Jules, and finally at the two giants. “It looks like you’re on your own for now, boys. Do the old captain a favor and carry on, all right? No one else comes through here. Humans need to be protected.”
“What about that one?” the first giant
asked. “And that one.” He pointed at me and Jules.
Brax planted another kiss on Jules. “I’ve got this one,” he said. He jerked his thumb at me. “That one can take care of herself. She would’ve thrashed the shit out of you if I let her.”
They frowned and trudged away to take up posts on either side of the wall. Brax and Jules retreated to their truck, smiling like goons into each other’s eyes. As I slipped behind the wheel, I heard a loud, metallic, grating sound as the giants peeled the cars apart to allow us through.
“Was that Brax?” Deacon asked. “And Jules?”
“Yep.” I started the engine. “Long, weird story.”
“Damn,” he said. “Demons get around.”
Chapter Eleven
Almost nine hours after we left Pennsylvania, our battle caravan drove into a shadow that spread like a thick dark blanket across the Midwestern cornfields. The menacing, craggy shape of a mountain jutted from the flatlands, surrounded by absolutely nothing. None of us needed to be told that it hadn’t been created by any natural force. There were no damn mountains of any kind in Indiana.
Especially not mountains with temples on top.
It was large enough that we could see part of it from where we stood—a soaring, many-columned thing perched precariously on the plateau at the mountain’s zenith. In a twisted way, it reminded me of the Lincoln Memorial, as if someone had built a tainted caricature. The glittering silver threads of a waterfall poured off the sheer northern side and vaporized into mist that cloaked the base of the landmass.
We looked at each other. “This is our stop,” I said.
“Don’t kill me for this,” Frank said, “but it’s pretty fucking cool.”
Steph shot him the dirtiest look I’d ever seen, even from her. “You’re a pig,” she told him. “Don’t compliment the enemy.”
The vampire threw his hands up. “I was speaking from a friggin’ architectural standpoint. Sue me for thinking the scumbag’s mountaintop lair is a slick piece of work.”
“That’s an idea,” Steph said. She turned to Jules. “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”
Frank groaned. “Give me a break, woman. I swear I can’t go ten minutes without you busting my balls.”
Jules stifled a laugh. “I’m not that kind of lawyer,” she said apologetically. “I can definitely refer you, though.”
“Excellent.” The FBI agent threw a pointed glance in Frank’s direction. “I’ll keep that in mind. For the future.”
“All right.” I clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention. “Let me interrupt you for a minute so we can discuss the game plan.” I gestured toward the temple on the peak. “We currently stand on the long approach to Delano’s temple. This is where we’ve arranged to meet with the team from D.C. When they get here, we’ll go in and assassinate that slimy fucker. Then we call in his men after word gets out that Delano is dead because the shit will hit the fan in a major way. Are we all clear?” A murmur of general assent rippled around the circle. I smiled. “Good. Now, I guess we wait.”
Idle conversation resumed. I looked at my watch. We had actually turned up a little later than we’d arranged but there was no sign of the smoking man or any of his cohorts. I hoped they hadn’t run into anything meaner than ogres or bigger than giants on their way.
Fret not, Victoria. This smoking man strikes me as one who lives by his own parameters. I have no doubt he will get by just fine.
I frowned. “Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel any better.” Everyone else seemed to enjoy the downtime, so I tried to force a veneer of calm over my expression. Deacon sauntered over and slipped an arm around my waist.
“Hurry up and wait,” he said. “It’s always the way.”
I folded my arms but a corner of my cool façade had already slipped. He had a way of bringing all my feelings to the forefront, whether I liked it or not. “He should be here by now,” I said. “It’s not like we were early.”
Deacon looked at the road and down the way we had come. “Yeah, well, he’s on bureaucracy time. You know as well as I do that they do whatever they want, however they want. Everyone else’s schedules can pack it off to hell.”
I made a noise of disgust and irritation. Hours of uninterrupted introspection in the truck had already frayed my nerves and now, I felt like I was tightrope walking along power lines.
“We’re not meeting up for a fucking lunch date,” I said.
He rubbed my shoulder. “I know that, and trust me, I know how big a deal this is. But we need his help, Vic. There’s no way we can go in alone and expect to come out of there alive. Nobody’s said as much, but everyone knows it. We have to wait.” He turned to face me directly. “Take a deep breath, babe. It’s gonna be okay. They were probably held up dealing with the same kind of dumb bullshit we ran into.”
I gazed into Deacon’s dark eyes and felt the monumental pressure of the world fall away for a few seconds. All the storm clouds that had gradually accumulated in my head blew away. I leaned in and put my arms around him.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me babe,” I mumbled into his chest.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, it is.” He hesitated. “Too weird?”
I tilted my head to the side, my cheek against his amazingly solid pecs, and grinned at him. “I’ll be honest. If you were any other guy, I’d have knocked your block off the moment it came out of your mouth. But I can let it slide this time.”
“Thanks.” He touched my cheek. “I’m pretty attached to this old block.”
“Yeah.” I stood on my toes and kissed him gently. “Me too.”
The minutes transformed slowly into hours as we waited under the vast Indiana sky. The sun, which had hung low over the horizon on arrival, disappeared completely behind the opaque mass of Delano’s mountain and a wave of fresh cold swept in. Frank, Maya, and Steph, who had waged snowball wars in the dregs of the afternoon light, had to stop for lack of visibility.
I took another peek at my watch. “Where the hell is this guy?” I asked out loud to no one in particular. “He turns up everywhere else uninvited. He should be here by now.”
While I understand your impatience, I maintain that it would be unwise to attempt the operation without the agreed-upon reinforcements present, said Marcus.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong about that but look at how much time we’ve lost.” I jabbed my hand at the rapidly darkening sky. “Delano could be doing anything in there while we dick around in some shitty cornfield and wait for our buddies. By the time we get in there, it could be too late.”
I am confident that we would know the moment our window of opportunity closed. Delano has lost much of his subtlety in recent weeks.
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean we can stand here with our thumbs up our asses.” I kicked at a clump of snow.
“Maybe he decided it would be better to go in at night,” Maya suggested and hugged herself against the cold.
“Then he shouldn’t have told us to meet him in the fucking afternoon.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and willed my temper not to flare. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I can’t help feeling that we’ve been stood up.”
“I get it.” The Were adjusted her coat. “We have waited here a long time.”
Brax shoved open the door of the truck where he and Jules had been holed up together. “Are we doing this or not?” he asked as he strode across the frozen ground. Jules was right behind him.
I looked toward the foreboding outline of the mountain which somehow seemed darker than the surrounding night. Delano’s temple blazed with lights like an arrogant, defiant beacon. “You know what?” I cracked my knuckles and then my neck. “Screw it. We’re going in.”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” The demon grinned, obviously ready for action. I made a brief survey of my small, dedicated team. Maya gave me a thumbs-up. Steph checked her gun. Frank shrugged and nodded.
Deacon said, “That might not be the best idea.”
All e
yes went instantly to him, including mine. I refused to admit that his sudden lack of faith made me both hurt and angry—he didn’t have to say that in front of the whole crew, at least. “I got this, remember?” I asked pointedly.
“For the second time, it’s not because of you,” he replied. “Do you really want to make this guy into a wildcard out here? Let’s say we leave, he shows up, and we’re gone. He could make all kinds of crazy assumptions about why he thinks we didn’t show. If he tells his network we double-crossed him, we’ll be in serious trouble.”
Deacon’s concerns have merit, said Marcus. This enigmatic man could quickly turn into an uncontrollable variable.
“We’ll leave him a note,” I said tersely. “Piss it into the damn snow for all I care. It’s a risk I’m willing to take. We need to do this, and we need to do it now.”
“Hear, hear,” Brax said gruffly. “Are you in or out, Feddie?”
Deacon held his hands up in surrender. “Okay. You’re the boss. I’m all the way in.”
“So am I,” said Jules.
Brax and I glanced at her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said stubbornly. “You’ll need someone to get out and get help should things go south.” The fiery determination in her eyes was one I’d seen a billion times over the course of our friendship. She had her mind made up.
Still, the idea of throwing her into the deep end made my stomach churn. I turned toward Brax. He wasn’t happy, but he held her hand tightly. “I’ll protect her,” he said. “With my life.”
I nodded solemnly. “I’ll hold you to that.” I glanced at the rest of the group. “It’s time to go.”
We set off across the field and directly toward the foot of the god-made mountain.
Chapter Twelve
The temple approach was a couple of miles long by the GPS’s estimate, and the plan was to sneak through as much of it as possible. We remained low and quiet for the first mile, our eyes and ears alert for the slightest hint of hostile life. The area appeared to be completely devoid of anything except us. Which was great, because no matter how carefully we moved, the crunch of our boots in the snow might as well have been gunshots to my hypersensitive ears.
