by S T Branton
At the one-mile mark, the scene changed. Frosted dead leaves and a thin, crusty snowpack gave way abruptly to scorched earth littered with cinders. Not a single blade of grass grew as far as the eye could see, right up to the start of the mountain climb. The fire that had scoured the landscape had burned fast and hot before it died. Its mark was everywhere.
Brax grunted. “It looks like Asphodel, although the cold’s an improvement.”
“Speak for yourself,” Frank said. He’d swapped his old hat for a grey woolen winter cap that he pulled down over his ears. “I’ve never known any other kind of winter, and it still makes me want to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.”
A sardonic smile crept onto the demon’s face. “That’s what happens when you lose all your insulation.”
The vampire barked out a laugh. “Asshole.”
“Cool it, you pricks,” Steph hissed. “Let’s try to get inside before we fuck it up.”
Frank dropped back to walk beside her and made a big show of checking behind her back.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Looking to see if you grew wings when I wasn’t looking,” he said. “Those harpies could use a new recruit after what Vic did to ʼem.” He smiled widely and kissed her on the cheek.
“Ugh, you are such a goon.” She tried not to smile but it didn’t quite work. “Seriously, shut your pie hole. The closer we can get without them noticing, the better off we’ll be.”
Frank saluted. “Yes, ma’am.” He actually did shut his mouth and remained close by her side. I caught Steph’s eye and gave her a nod of silent approval. She winked.
The road snaked to the foot of the crag. A weird shape protruded from the sooty ashes in the shallow ditch alongside the shoulder.
Frank mentioned it first. “What the hell is that thing?” He had already veered off to take a look and we all gravitated toward his trajectory. It proved to be larger than I’d expected, and soon, I was close enough to identify the protruding piece as a limb, now stiff with rigor mortis. The muscles had shriveled inside a strangely olive-toned skin.
The vampire reached the edge of the depression and looked down. He whistled. A moment later, I stepped beside him. There was no mistaking the corpse sprawled on the blackened dirt. Beleza’s eyes were open and so was his mouth. His features clung to the gaunt frame of his skull, and his once voluminous hair was lank and dull. He had been drained and his withered husk left to rot in the open.
A very bad omen, Marcus intoned. Although I am not sure Beleza could have mustered much of a fight. He was never very warlike.
I thought about the way Beleza had clashed with me and I had to agree. Even if he had fought back, at this point, a punch was likely the same as a tickle to Delano.
“Keep going,” I whispered to my team. “But be careful.”
The mountain grew larger as we approached until it was all we could see. Its surface was rough and crumbly, made of stones and boulders packed in dirt. It was like Delano had simply ordered his thralls to mound up the earth as high as they could make it. I realized that it might be more treacherous to climb it than I’d expected.
The mountain itself, however, quickly became a secondary concern. Voices floated toward us through the shadows from the right. I signaled for everyone to hit the dirt. We sprawled on our stomachs and held a collective breath. The chill seeped in through the front of my coat but I waited despite the discomfort.
The voices came from a patrol unit made up of a cadre of satyrs. We heard their peals of braying laughter long before they entered striking range. Like always, they held a variety of spray-and-pray guns to their skinny chests. Most of them no longer hid their hooves. The stench of booze drifted to my nostrils—so strong that one of them must have had an open container. I shrugged, unfazed by that. A drunk enemy was a dead one.
I raised a closed fist to my crew. We held our position until the unit crossed almost directly in front of us and we ambushed them from the darkness. All but one dropped instantly. A few shots rattled off in the eerie silence, but the skirmish was over within a minute. They hadn’t stood a fraction of a chance.
I knelt on the chest of the sole survivor and my blade shriveled the coarse hair that covered his throat. He was crying and snot ran down his boorish face, his fear naked in his eyes.
“I guess a good security detail wasn’t in the budget,” I remarked. “Tell me the best way to get inside and I might not kill you.”
He sniffed and with a surprising show of boldness, sneered through his tears. “Usually, I’d make you buy me dinner first.”
I drew back my hand and whipped him across the face with the butt of the Gladius Solis, so fast he didn’t have time to flinch. “Cut the crap, Casanova,” I ordered. “Murder’s still on the table.”
He issued a pitiful yelp as his head rolled back to center. A deep red mark bloomed on his cheekbone. The next time he spoke, blood colored his teeth, and the words were slightly garbled. “South side,” he mumbled. His terrified gaze was fixed on my sword hand. “It’s the weakest. They only put one patrol out there because that’s where they process all the slaves.”
I smiled sweetly. “See? That’s all you had to say.”
I knocked him out cold.
I straightened and turned to the group. “Hear that? You guys head south. Try to keep a low profile but be ready to free any slaves you see. The supply chain that feeds this place needs to be severed as quickly as possible.”
“You’re not coming with us?” Maya asked. She scowled her disapproved.
I shook my head. “I’ll take the north side express to the temple. Delano’s about to get a nasty little surprise.”
“Are you crazy?” Frank erupted. “That’s a one-way ticket. We’re supposed to be in the shit together, Vic.” The others echoed this sentiment and the volume swelled.
“There’s no way we can let you go off alone,” Maya insisted. “Not this time. Delano’s a different breed.”
“I know,” I said. Strangely, all my prior anxieties had been replaced by a sense of energized serenity. It was the way I always felt when I knew I was about to get shit done. “But you’ll have to trust me on this. I’ll be fine, and you will be too. We’ll meet up on the flip side, okay? This is a fight I need to take on my own.”
“Bullshit,” Brax said. “I won’t fight you on this but I want you to know you’re full of it.” He stared hard at me and his gaze somehow seemed to pierce through the sunglasses he still wore on his face. I wondered if he knew I had thought about what both Marcus and the smoking man had said about trusting my friends too deeply. When this was all over, maybe I’d have to ask him to forgive me.
But it wasn’t over yet, and we were running out of time.
“Vic, why?” Jules gave me a searching, confused look. I wanted to answer her, but the arrival of a second patrol prevented it. My team assumed battle stations in record time and channeled their emotions into a furious, whirlwind attack. Blood and scraggly patches of satyr fur were soon scattered over the vicinity.
“You’re really doing this,” Steph said. She examined me closely, her face as impassive as ever.
“Yeah,” I said.
She sighed. “You’re one crazy bitch, but I’m rooting for you.”
I smirked. “Thanks. Like I said, trust me. This is the way it has to be.”
Maya came forward and hugged me with all her considerable strength. “I hate this,” she said. “And I want you to know that. But I have faith that you know what you’re doing.”
Jules came next. She didn’t say anything and her gaze, brighter than usual, remained on my face. Frank cleared his throat. “Good luck, kid,” he said quietly. “I better be seeing you.”
Steph laid her hand on my shoulder. “Fucking kill that son of a bitch,” she said. “For all of us.”
Deacon waited until the others had spoken before he pulled me aside. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupider than usual. I
need you to come through this.”
I smiled. “Otherwise, you’ll have to try online dating. You know, when the Internet’s fixed.”
He chuckled in spite of himself. “I’m gonna miss you.”
“Hey.” I feigned injury. “Give me a little more credit than that. I’m not dead yet.”
The sadness in his eyes didn’t shift, and that made me sorrier than anything else had done in a long time. I wished I could soothe his worries and tell him he was overreacting. But the truth was, I couldn’t. The odds, as Marcus had said, were slim.
If I didn’t win, I would die.
Deacon leaned down to place his lips against mine. I stopped him gently. “Save it for when that bastard’s dead.”
“I’ll take that as a promise,” he replied. He released me, turned back to the others, and walked away to rejoin them.
That may have been callous of you, Victoria, Marcus said reproachfully.
“No,” I answered. “It’s a little extra motivation. For both of us.”
Chapter Thirteen
The north side of the mountain was easy to locate on account of the dense mist that cloaked the face. Visibility in the cloud was sharply reduced, but I could hear the waterfall over my head and I used that to guide me. There were plenty of handholds in the face of the cliff. I didn’t let the fact that they were slick with condensation deter me from my goal. As soon as I found a starting point, I pulled myself up, and the ground began to fall away as I moved steadily upward.
Gradually, the fog dissipated as well. The smell of wet earth filled my nose and frigid drops of water dripped constantly into my eyes. I trained all my focus on the climb for the first fifty feet or so until my hand gripped the top of a broad ledge. Half a second later, shards of pain knifed down my arm as someone out of my line of sight stepped hard on my fingers.
I clenched my teeth and powered through the pain to lever myself onto the ledge. A boot-clad foot lurched toward me but I caught it in one hand and rolled to the very edge of the precipice. My free arm swung into open air and I fought the powerful instinct to look down.
“Well, well.” The voice that hovered above me was low and grating, the verbal equivalent of rock on rock. It belonged to a stocky, broad-faced man with stubby horns on his head. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
He squared his stance and his bumpy skin reminded me of a toad.
“I dragged myself up here, thank you very much,” I said. “And thanks for stepping on my fingers. You’re lucky I have five others.” I examined my injured hand quickly. My thumb, index, and middle fingers were swollen although they didn’t hurt that much. I flexed them gingerly.
“Who are you, anyway?” I asked. My hope was that some inane small talk might allow me an opportunity to take him by surprise. The last thing I wanted was for him to raise the alarm while I was still this low on the mountain.
“Don’t matter who I am,” he replied as he brandished a long, thin staff. “This is as far as you’ll go.”
I drew the Gladius Solis in response. “Spoken like a true dickhead who’s never met me before.”
The blade illuminated his lumpy face but he didn’t bat an eyelash. His staff swung at me with a speed that would have been dizzying for anyone else. I blocked his strikes with equal agility and new notches smoked on the sides of his staff.
“Nice try,” I said.
The guard gritted his teeth and hunched into a brawler’s posture. He attacked once more, but his weakened weapon snapped into pieces instead of making the impact he’d intended. I rammed the tip of my sword into the ground and used it to vault over him. He skidded toward the cliff edge. One foot went over and he seemed to hover a moment before the rest of his body pitched after, a prisoner to momentum. He twisted at the last minute and grabbed the ledge.
“Well, well,” I said and stood over him. “Look what the cat’s about to toss out.” Rather than step on his fingers, I chose to cut them off. His shriek of pain transformed instantly into one of terror as he plunged to his death.
The ledge on which I found myself ran the entire way around the mountain. As far as I could tell, it served as a catwalk for the security that still seemed oddly lax. The mountain was wide enough that I knew there had to be other guards who patrolled at this level, but I didn’t want to waste more time by dealing with them. I extinguished the sword and headed for the vertical path hewn out of the rock. When I craned my head back, I could pick out an obvious route, probably the most popular among Delano’s personnel—and most likely also the most efficient.
Without the choking cloak of mist, the climb was actually fairly pleasant. The presence of the patrol ledges mitigated the threat of height to some extent, and I settled into a good rhythm. It hadn’t taken long for my body to adjust to vertical movement. This part was easy.
“Do you have any idea what that guy was?” I asked Marcus as I pulled my way upward. “I don’t remember a toad god.”
By my estimate, he was a hybrid. Perhaps a demon such as Abraxzael mixed with some other infernal creature. I expect we will see many more of these unorthodox creations as we proceed. There have been misfits throughout the annals of the gods’ history, often easily manipulated for a cause.
“But now Delano’s making it trendy,” I muttered. “Figures.”
Delano’s method manages to transfer the god’s power without diluting it. I assume this is because he bypasses blood and genetics entirely.
“Heh.” I wiped my hair out of my eyes. “When in doubt, consume.”
That seems to be his rationale, yes.
I paused briefly to get my bearings and tried to gauge how far I had yet to go. It was difficult to tell. “Even his stupid lair has to be a pain in the ass,” I said.
I am proud of you for choosing to face it alone, said Marcus. I am sure it was a painful conclusion to reach, but it is the wisest course of action.
“I hope so.” There was a knot in my stomach that simply wouldn’t go away. “I know you’re positive, and I’m glad about that, at least. But no matter which way I look at it, I feel like I might’ve made a horrible mistake. It’s like the classic, ‘what if he wants to split us up’ kind of worry. Like, maybe I played right into his hands.”
As you said before, this is a risk that must be taken. I cannot overemphasize Delano’s greatness, as much as I despise doing so. His current form is superior to anything I have ever witnessed, either on this earth or in the realm of the gods. The spirits of your friends, strong as they may be, would be crushed by his mere presence.
I frowned. “Dude, what the fuck? You don’t have to write me a poem about the guy. He’s the one we hate.”
I believe he has met his match in you. You, too, are like nothing I have beheld in my ages of life among humanity. If Delano is the darkness, you are the light. And you will snuff him out.
“That’s more like it,” I said.
He went on. Even if you should fail, the bards will sing your praises for eternity—a hero the likes of which the world has never known and will never know again.
I laughed and shook my head slightly. “And we’re back to no good. I need you to be my hype man right now, Marcus. Talk about my honor and all that other shit you love to go on about. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather stay off the bards’ medieval pop charts.”
I thought you would enjoy being the subject of a drinking song.
“Not as much as I’d enjoy living to a ripe old age. What kind of woman do you take me for, anyway?”
The kind who is capable of bringing down the god to end all gods.
I fumbled upward and grasped the next ledge. “Good answer.”
Steeling my nerves for whatever I might see, I hauled myself up and over.
At first, I encountered nothing but a weird, musty smell. I stood still, my sword at the ready, and peered into the inky well of shadows in front of me. The wall went back much farther, almost like a cave. The sounds of shuffling and creepy, non-verbal moans met my ears. Shapes like
bodies materialized from the void. I felt the hair stand up on my arms and the back of my neck.
“Oh, hell no,” I whispered.
Shambling toward me was a small herd of Beleza’s former henchmen, but they were shells of their former selves. Gone were the rich tans and toned muscles, now replaced by greyish, sagging skin stretched over skeletons. Like their late god, they had shriveled significantly. The tatters of their skimpy underwear clung to their hips. They moved en masse, their eyes milky and blank and their jaws slack. And in the middle, guiding them along, was their shepherd. I recognized the tall, gruesomely thin figure from a parking lot in a small town outside the Delaware Water Gap. The last I’d seen of him, he was running away as a horde of zombies came between us.
“You,” said the god. His mouth twitched into the semblance of a smile. “How serendipitous it is to see you again.” The words blew over me in a rotten wind. “Tell me. Are you still in the business of killing gods?”
“Yes.” I withdrew the Gladius Solis as proof. “And business is booming.”
He chuckled. A weird note of some emotion floated underneath. Sadness maybe, or wistfulness. “Once, I would have mocked you for daring to think you could kill me.” He fixed his vacant eyes on my face, and white sparks seemed to dance in colorless pools. “Now, I can only hope you will succeed.”
He raised his hands and thrust them forward. The members of his horde rushed at me.
This is most unusual, Marcus remarked in a tone of voice that made me think he really meant to say, “fucked up.” I swept my sword in a quick, brutal circle and cleaved the first wave of Beleza’s fallen followers in half. They clattered to the ground and froze weakly into pitiful approximations of statues. But those final forms were brittle and unsustainable, even in death. They crumbled beneath the feet of their brethren, who were cut down just as quickly.
