Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Complete Boxset: Books 1 - 3

by Benjamin Laskin

  Gideon looked down between his legs and saw Cyrus’s head, a blowgun as long as his arm still in Cyrus’s mouth. Ignoring the oddity, Gideon burst out of the room and charged into the hall. He knelt beside the fallen guard, felt for a pulse, and then peeled open the man’s eyes revealing only the whites. The guy was comatose.

  Gideon grabbed the guard by the feet and dragged him into the storage room, quickly gagging and tying him up with the same rope he had used to pull the refrigerator ten minutes earlier.

  Cyrus plundered the man’s pockets. Retrieving the guard’s wallet and ID, Cyrus’s six degrees of separation immediately kicked in and he got a full read on the man. “Spetsnaz,” he pronounced.

  “Russian special forces?” Malkah said. She had already picked up the mess she had made and thrown everything into an empty cardboard box. The silver tray she kept.

  Gideon gave Malkah a quizzical look, wondering why she would know what a Spetsnaz was.

  “What?” Malkah said. “I like spy thrillers as much as the next guy.”

  Cyrus said, “Dmitri Semenov, though that’s not the name on his driver’s license. He was accused of war crimes when Russia invaded Georgia and turned Tbilisi into Dresden near the start of the Great Conflagration. He fled, disappeared, and now we know how, and who gave him a job.”

  “Was he involved with any of the Lamed-Vavnik deaths?” Malkah asked, taking the question from Gideon’s mouth.

  Having a name and a face, Cyrus could speak with authority. “Yes,” he said.

  “How many?”

  Cyrus saw the names and faces flash before his eyes. “Thirteen that I know about.”

  “How do you know?” Gideon demanded.

  “I have my ways,” Cyrus said with finality, pointing at his noggin.

  He reached into Semenov’s jacket and withdrew an Ostblock ballistic knife. The knife had a detachable blade that could be shot as a projectile from the knife’s handle by means of a gas-driven mechanism. Its range was only accurate within a few yards, but it was very deadly.

  Gideon took one look at the weapon and said, “Spetsnaz all right.”

  Cyrus offered it to him, but Gideon waved it away.

  “I’ll take it,” Malkah said greedily, grabbing for the knife.

  “No!” both men replied in unison. To settle the matter, Gideon snatched the knife and shoved it into his belt.

  “I told you to stay out of this,” Gideon scolded. “What were you thinking? This guy is a trained killer!”

  “I was worried about you,” Malkah said, unrepentant. “And I was tired of being groped and cat-called by jerks.”

  “Go back,” Gideon ordered. “Your absence will be conspicuous, and the last thing we need is an entire security detail looking for you.”

  Malkah turned to Cyrus for support but saw none. “Okay, okay,” she griped. “But how will I know that it’s over and you both are safe?”

  “I’ll text you,” Gideon said. “Now, go.”

  She turned again to Cyrus. He nodded in affirmation. Malkah heaved a sigh, raised herself on tiptoes, and kissed Gideon on the cheek.

  “If you widow me before I even have the chance to make your life miserable, I’ll hate you forever.” She looked both ways down the hall, and scampered off.

  “Is that woman extraordinarily brave or crazy?” Gideon said.

  “Love encourages both,” Cyrus answered. “Let’s go.”

  “How long will Spetsnaz here be out?”

  “A couple of hours at least.”

  “He murdered thirteen innocent people,” Gideon said. “He deserves to be out a hell of a lot longer than that.” He pointed his gun at the Russian’s head.

  21

  Bushwhacked and Hectored

  Virgil and I gave a shake of our long sleeves and dropped crystals of Captain Cyrus’s sweat into our hands. We clenched our fists, closed our eyes, and concentrated. The jewels responded, and upon opening my eyes I saw rays of bright orange light emitting from between the cracks of our fingers.

  “You go left, I’ll go right,” I told Virgil. “On three…”

  “Got it.”

  “One, two, three!”

  Virgil and I went into turbo-twirl and shot straight up into the air. I veered right, he veered left, and then we hurled the first of our crystals behind the lines of Anteros soldiers. The crystals exploded with a terrific—boom!—knocking scores of Anteros soldiers to the ground. A thick, orange smokescreen engulfed them, preventing Anteros fighters hiding behind them from seeing what was happening.

  As soon as Lieutenant Ophion saw Virgil and I spin, he signaled to cadets Typhon, Aries, and Troy to bolt for the van that Cyrus left in the parking lot fifty yards away.

  The squad was halfway there before the Anteros soldiers knew what was happening. Dozens of them gave chase, while the rest dashed for their cached weapons, but Virgil and I bought Ophion’s team time by hurling more crystal bombs at the pursuers, sending them sprawling.

  Captain Abishai and his SWAT guys immediately surrounded the judges and herded them towards the gazebo. Corporal Nisus kicked in its wooden trellis base revealing a crawl space underneath. Abishai ordered the judges to get in.

  When Minos protested, Abishai told him to shut up and do as told. He put his hand on Minos’s head, scrunched him like an accordion, and then booted him in the ass, shouting at him to hurry. The other judges, too frightened to argue, dropped to their knees and crawled in on their own just as a hail of Anteros splicer fire ripped at the gazebo.

  Sett and Volk used the distractions and mayhem to spin out and go in search of the deadly spleen guns, knowing well that if those weapons came into play it was game over.

  The moments of stunned surprise having passed, the Anteros soldiers opened up with a storm of splicer bullets, photons, and plasma bursts. As expected, Anteros had their own plan. They had carved out hollows into some of the large surrounding pine trees and stored caches of weapons in them. They also stationed snipers in the trees’ tallest branches.

  Worse still, under their very feet they had dug pits and covered them with boards and turf. The soldiers clawed at the ground, located the brass rings, yanked off the covers, and freed a dozen snarling yetzers.

  Grudge, Victim, and the flying Vengeance Yetzers squatted, awaiting their riders. Anteros soldiers ran up from behind the hedges they were hiding behind and leaped onto their mounts. The Vengeance Yetzers flapped their huge, bat-like wings and lifted into the air. Their riders held the reigns with one hand, while tucked under their free arms they pointed automatic splicer rifles.

  Virgil and I continued to hurl our crystal bombs at the enemy, giving cover to our angels as they scrambled to meet their objectives. The crystals made a lot of noise and smoke, and could cause a concussion if one exploded close enough, but they were otherwise nonlethal. The thick smoke veiled the angels’ actions, but with all the firing going on, some Anteros soldier was bound to hit someone. So far, however, it was their own men they were dropping.

  “Captain Volk, do you read me?”

  “I read you, Kohai.”

  “The treetops. Snipers with spleen rifles.”

  “Roger that,” Volk answered. “You boys head to Heaven now. Anteros’s men are probably already descending on the Academy.”

  Hera ran through the woods, sticking to a worn path that was used by Academy cadets as a jogging trail. She didn’t like being exposed in this way, but it allowed her to make the best time. She had gotten halfway to the Academy when she heard voices ahead. She skidded to a halt, and then ducked into the woods, stomping as lightly as she could, hoping to give a wide berth to what she figured was a team of cupid rebels keeping lookout.

  What she didn’t expect was that they’d have a sniffer dog with them. The big Doberman caught her scent and began barking, pulling its handler in her direction. Hera ran deeper into the woods, but the thick shrubbery made progress almost impossible.

  “Halt!” shouted a voice. “Halt or we shoot!”
<
br />   Scared and with nowhere to go, Hera stopped. The Doberman pounced to within a foot of her and barked madly, backing her against a tree in a small clearing.

  Four cupid rebels pushed through the brush and approached her, rifles pointed. They were a squad of cadets, trainees under Captain Perseus. Clearly the captain had turned them.

  The squad’s leader was Cadet Hector, the same cadet that had threatened to stick the arrow award Virgil had received from Commander Sett up Virgil’s ass. Hector never made good on the threat, but that didn’t stop him from making more of them.

  Hector was short for a cupid, but he was as strong and unmovable as an oak stump. He had bushy black hair and tar-black eyes. What he lacked in size he made up for in ruthless tenacity. Hector saw Virgil as his top rival, the one cadet who would always laugh off his bluster with a smile and good-natured wave of his hand. Hector was never sure if Virgil was unafraid, someone who could not be intimidated, or a simpleton.

  Hector booted the Doberman out of the way and approached Hera, the dog retreating with a yelp.

  “What are you doing out here?” Hector interrogated. He and his team were not oblivious to Hera’s beauty, or the fact that they were alone.

  “I was with the Anteros welcoming party,” she desperately explained, “but fighting broke out and I got scared and ran away.”

  “Fighting?” Hector said. “There was no fighting.”

  “There was! There is!” she said. “Many of our cupids have been murdered!”

  “That’s impossible,” Hector said. “How about this, you’re a cupid rebel seeking to sabotage the Solow Accords!”

  “What? No! Go see for yourself!”

  “I know her,” said Cadet Eos. “She works for the Chief Celestial, that Grace lady.”

  If Hector was the brawn in his little clique, Eos was the brains. While I was studying at the Academy, he was always placing second to me on tests.

  “Grace, huh?” Hector said, as if that was all he needed to know.

  “Her personal secretary,” Eos added.

  “Maybe the slut taught her a few tricks of her trade,” a third cupid said, his comment eliciting lewd snorts of approval.

  Hera saw their lecherous grins and grew more frightened. “Please, let me go,” she pleaded.

  Before the gang had surrounded her, Hera had tapped the earpiece under her hair, trying to contact Grace. Grace responded, but Hera, not wanting to give herself away, said nothing. Grace was able to pick up the conversation and Hera’s panicky breathing, and so knew that she was in trouble.

  “Be brave, honey,” Grace said into Hera’s ear. “I’ll send someone to get you. I have a reading on where you are. You’re not far.”

  Both of them knew, however, that there was no one to send. Who could Grace trust with such a mission? Everyone on their side was down on Earth.

  Hector stepped up to Hera, grabbed a handful of her long blond hair and stuffed it under his nose. He drew a deep breath, filling his nostrils with its fragrance.

  “Mmm…” he cooed. “She smells as pretty as she looks, boys.”

  The cadets trotted impatiently in place, eager to get the show on the road.

  Hera whimpered, and again pleaded for them to let her go. “Please,” she cried, “do not do this terrible thing! Do not disgrace yourselves before the eyes of the Lord.”

  “Huh?” said the fourth cadet. “What the fuck is she babbling about?”

  Hector pushed his hand into Hera’s hair and pulled her in, planting a big, slobbering kiss on her clamped mouth. Hera struggled, trying to turn her head, but Hector was far too powerful for her. He pulled his hand back, surprise registering in his narrowing eyes. He opened his hand and revealed the earpiece Hera had been wearing.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Looks like we have a spy among us.” Hector put the transceiver to his mouth and sang, “Hello, hello wherever you are…”

  Grace did not answer. Her heart sank, thinking what horrible fate awaited Hera, a girl she had come to love like a daughter.

  “Oh, Gracey, Gracey, Gracey,” Hector continued to sing. “Celestial, is that you?”

  Grace stayed silent, tears of anguish flowing down her cheeks. She closed her eyes and prayed murmuring pleas for help.

  “I got an idea,” Hector said, putting the piece around his own ear. “I’m going to let you listen to your little celestial’s shrieks of pleasure.”

  “No, please!” Hera cried.

  “Hear that?” he said. “She says no now, but soon she’ll be crying, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’”

  The others chortled with lascivious laughter, and affecting a woman’s voice, repeated, “Yes, yes, yes…”

  Captain Perseus led his battalion of soldiers and cupid rebels to two easy victories on his way to the Academy. He and his men met minor opposition, all of which was quickly vanquished. The cupid soldiers loyal to the Academy were caught completely by surprise. By the time some of them figured out what was happening, it was too late to mount any serious defense.

  As Hera predicted after running the war-gaming program, Anteros forces indeed struck first at the Academy’s off-campus recreational facility. At the disgronifying station, Perseus could only issue a portion of his men some small arms. From the hidden cache at the recreational facility, however, he was not only able to equip the majority of his soldiers, but add much more firepower; arming his company with shoulder launching atomizers, plasma and fire-dust grenades, and a photon-spewing Gatling gun.

  The Anteros army killed some fifty cupid soldiers there, most of whom were wiped out as part of a well-meaning greeting party. They left the facility a smoking ruin and took no captives. To be sure, there were some heroics as a dozen courageous cupid loyalists tried to defend their ground, but they were no match for Perseus’s elite commandos.

  The army next marched to Groggy Bottom, the popular cupid watering hole where the third cache of weapons was waiting for them. By now Perseus’s forces no longer pretended to come in peace. The bar was busy, but the customers there celebrating the signing of the Solow Accords were already so drunk that before they could put two and two together, they were spliced and diced into pieces. The bar was summarily set ablaze, and now fully armed, the Anteros storm troopers marched on towards their next objective.

  At this juncture, the gaming strategy failed to predict the army’s next move. It was expected that from Groggy Bottom the invaders would beeline it to either the court buildings and the neighborhood where the judges live, or straight into the heart of the Academy to occupy the administration buildings.

  They did neither. Instead, Commando Ajax and Lieutenant Jason each led their own Shermanesque march through the business and residential districts, torching and destroying everything and anyone in their way.

  Through her tears, Grace observed the smoking trail of destruction from the clock tower in the center of the Academy campus. Her eyes told her one story, Hera’s screams in her ears another. Grace felt she was living through a nightmare. The stories of the horrible Civil War that she had learned about in books suddenly took on a frightening new meaning.

  A story, a history, was a distant thing, even less impressive than an old memory. Told well, it could be interesting, gripping even, but there was always a comfortable distance between that reality and the present’s. Today was no story. The fires, sounds of battle, and Hera’s shrieks were more reality than she had ever expected, or dared to imagine.

  Grace grasped the handles of Hermes’s big spleen gun. Peering through the weapon’s scope, she made a slow, searching pass with the gun’s muzzle, left to right and back again, waiting for the inevitable.

  22

  Battleground

  Gideon pointed his Walther P99 at the forehead of the unconscious Spetsnaz soldier. Cyrus’s expression telegraphed neither surprise nor judgment.

  “Hell,” Gideon said, “if I shoot him now it’ll be like he died in his sleep.” He stuffed the gun into the waist of his pants. “The guy doesn’t deserve
such a blissful ending. Maybe he’ll be awake by the time we finish. I’ll deal with him then.”

  Cyrus said nothing. He bent down and took the Russian’s walkie-talkie and dropped it into the pocket of his trench coat. He made sure that the coast was clear, and then he and Gideon scampered down the hall to where the Russian had stood guard.

  Cyrus tested the doorknob. It was unlocked. He quietly opened the door and slipped inside, Gideon right behind him, his gun searching for a target.

  Rosso’s elegant office boasted similar antique furniture and priceless art as seen throughout the rest of his mansion. French doors gave way to a manicured terrace decorated with a medley of spring flowers. Alexander Rosso was standing at his coatrack near the French doors, his back to them, one arm through his coat sleeve. Gideon trained his gun’s red laser dot on Rosso’s back.

  “You won’t be needing a jacket,” Gideon said.

  Startled, Rosso turned. He traced the line of the laser to the red dot on his heart. “Who are—!”

  Cyrus covered the ground between them in a flash and had Rosso in a chokehold, muffling the old man’s cry.

  Gideon closed and locked the door. He walked over to Rosso, slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth, and searched him. He took Rosso’s wallet and cellphone, and dropped them into a pocket of Cyrus’s duster. Moving to Rosso’s desk, Gideon grabbed the office chair, and thrust it rolling towards Cyrus. Cyrus shoved the billionaire into the chair and quickly bound him to it with more duct tape.

  Rosso glowered through his thick glasses at the two invaders, his powder blue eyes filled with disdain, the folds in the droopy bags under his eyes twitching with indignation. He mumbled his outrage and contempt for the intruders, but they ignored him.

  Gideon pushed a button on Rosso’s computer and woke it from sleep mode. A plain strip of white space appeared requiring a password.

  “What’s the password?” Gideon demanded.