“My dad is the best that ever was when it comes to using strain defects of your genes to fight the onslaught of dictators. He was good, but he wasn’t perfect. There were just some things that he couldn’t do. But I can…” Jane trained her focus on Kiara. The woman that had suffered so much at Leona Kelley’s hands would understand. If she broke into tears, she wouldn’t be embarrassed looking up into Kiara’s eyes. She was a woman and would understand Jane’s emotions too like no one else.
“I trust you with this, more than I trust anyone. You’ve never wanted this war, same as me. Tell me, friend. How does this work? If I go through with the She-Hitler’s plan, if I attract all the doppelgangers to some machine beast down below us…Can that really save the people I love?” Jane looked down at her father, clearing her throat.
“I just…I can do this. I know I can. But…I don’t understand. I just want to do what is best.” Jane squared her jaw. Kiara knelt in front of her.
“If you drew all the armies of the deep away from me, I could perform my sacrifice. It would end this place and her along with it. It would unravel all possibility that they could ever rise again. Whether he lives or dies, I think Lucia is handicapped. Which means that you’ll only have the rest of the Parthenon to deal with.” Kiara smiled at her own snarky remark, eyes tender. She knew. She cleared her throat and laid a hand on either of Jane’s cheeks.
“I’ve made peace with my demons, Jane. It’s okay. I want this…” Kiara gritted her teeth. It took a titan effort just to get the girl to look at her. Why would she be so filled with shamefulness, after all that she had done?
“You, however…I think we all agree you’ve paid enough for the sins of your peers.” Kiara pushed Jane’s hair back out of her face. She grimaced, finally daring to look up.
“No one’s asking you to do this…It was a cop out on our part to listen to Caroline’s plan. There can be another way for you if you want. You can escape.” Kiara nodded. She had always tried to show Jane the value of her life. They both knew where that would lead, had led every time. Jane smiled. The fact that she would still ask, would still reach out to her in the spirit of hope after everything was enough to make Jane feel human. Even if that feeling only lasted for a moment.
“I know…But…Like before. I guess your history repeats itself with a bang in the After-Life, huh? It makes sense. I’m okay with it. Just…” Jane was dizzy now in the wake of it all.
“What’s wrong? Besides…” Dexter cringed and collapsed beside her. He snapped his fingers at the stupid question that came out of him right then.
“I just…I remember. I remember the day that she made me this way. The last time I …” Jane clutched her forehead with both shaking palms. A Roman flagrum swung in the air, snapping the bones in her back and chewing through her muscle walls. She was washed in her own blood all over again.
Dying that way, and waking up to what she became…Jane swayed to either side. She was at her breaking point. She’d carried her cross as far as she could on her own. There came a point in every soul’s journey where the road started running thin. Jane was at the end of her road now. She felt like she was standing on a balance beam over sheer nothingness. What would become of her? Could they all succeed? Or had they only staved off the armies of the deep for a single day?
“Jane…” Kingsley took his young friend by the wrists. Arms that had once struck out at her now pulled her close for protection. He held her like a child, giving her a moment to breathe.
“The die is cast against us, Kiara and me... We get the fate that makes the most sense for us. I deserve it, I think. But you…Jane, please. Don’t you think for a second that you don’t have a choice, okay? You deserve one after everything.” Kingsley lifted Jane’s face. Even with them all telling her, Jane’s eyes told them that she didn’t believe this. She took Kingsley’s shoulders.
“No…No breaks, guys. No gimmicks. I won’t be pulling any extreme escapes this time. I’m not asking for any more miracles. Just do what you have to do and I will hold back hell for you until it’s done…” Jane stood up, helping Kingsley stand with her. His eyes went wide. She glared at him, nodding slowly. He was stunned that in the moment he was trying to comfort her, she was strong for him. It had always been that way.
“You forgive yourself now, Lucien Kingsley! Don’t let anybody else make you carry the weight of what you’ve done anymore. You’ve paid enough, in kind. I don’t want to remember despair in your eyes for however long I last through this. I don’t think we will meet again.” Jane grabbed Lucien’s collar and smoothed it out. She nodded, swallowing.
Kingsley nodded, laughing. The fact that she would care to remember him at all struck home. He shook his head.
“I hope for your sake and the rest of the world’s sake that we won’t. Because it will mean that the sacrifice filled its purpose. That we succeeded and the world could go back to the way it was before.” Kingsley’s shoulders sagged. Jane laughed through all the pain.
“Lucien…The world will never go back to the way it was before.” Jane studied her friends, taking in every color and angle of their shapes. She smiled and turned away. Her eyes met Dexter’s.
Wordless, she held out a hand. There was no hesitation. No faint trace of regret. Dexter took her hand and clutched it. The two of them stumbled down fire-swept paths until they disappeared over a place at the Court’s opposite facing wall that was rimmed by ten-foot ice.
“Well, there she goes. If I could live my life again, I’d want to be like her.” Kingsley smiled. He turned to face Kiara, who stared at the ground wistfully.
“I hope she’s wrong. If we all must die for love, I hope we can keep the pieces. I hope we can meet again someday. In another life…” Kiara nodded. Kingsley held out a hand to her.
“Maybe?” He swallowed. It was now or never.
*****
Chapter 17
The soldiers fell for miles, picking up speed, bouncing from wall to wall. A cannonade rose to greet them. It wasn’t long before they realized that they would have no choice but to fight each other, savagely. The cannons were loaded with poisoned darts. Here in a Hell that had pirated every one of Harrison Kelley’s wild ideas, there would be no telling what chemicals were shooting into them. Leaf and Derek were on the cusp of metamorphosis all over again.
God, here we go. Leaf felt the blood rushing to his head. His legs and wounds were healing, glowing a dull twilight color. He heard the sound of his Prometheus coming his way again, attracted to the song of healing virtue in his veins.
Derek put out his hands, screaming. His body glowed a light blue, like a rare breed of jellyfish. He tossed his head, roaring bear-like at the tunnel’s top. His teeth shot with electricity and his whole body coursed with it. He thrashed, tossing his head. Tremors returned, knocking loose pillar and arch of the Athena’s Rings. Whether they passed through the gauntlet or not, it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t be able to return with their prize.
Leaf stretched his hands out. His fingers and toes had become welding torches, spinning every direction like the man from Da Vinci’s medical wheel.
Leaf screamed. An animal extinct took him over, seizing his body with explosions in his marrow’s core. His teeth were overcome, becoming welder’s torches of their own. Derek’s eyes went wide, but there was a frenzy in his muscles now too. It was like anti-gravity. They were forced to dive at each other and collide like air-to-ground missiles.
I’m sorry. Leaf screamed in terror as his mind was being overtaken, losing even collective consciousness in this moment. He tore through pillars, twisting them in his torch hands, igniting them like clubs of the Titans.
Me, too…Derek swung his fists together. Electrical ripple clouds sang in the air, sending shattered shards of the Athena’s Rings raining like meteorites in a ruthless torrent. Prisoners of this Hell shrieked as their ground-level stations became Pompeii.
The soldiers crashed onto an octagon dojo platform carved out of solid onyx. By now t
heir humanity was swallowed up in the fury of the Gauntlet. Growling with the anthem of werewolves, they tore into each other.
They stepped like fencers, with the precision of laser weapons. Fingers snapped away pieces of rib, small flecks of bone. Leaf tore a piece of Derek’s collarbone from his neck and flipped it in his hands, slashing him with it. Derek shrieked and smashed both palms into Leaf’s face. His cheek bones shattered, jaw displaced. Fire spilled like blood from his jaws. It spilled across Derek’s skin, roasting his flesh, causing it to bubble up.
They were lost in the cyclone of their brutality. The chaos sent cracks through the floor as if it was a china plate. Through those cracks, they could see the miles of chains and blades and traps that led down to the holding cell where the Golden Fleece was kept.
There was no way that they’d escape. Not on their own. They were already slipping away. Leaf’s torches tore huge rifts into the shattering, melting stone. Derek’s hands and tremors shattered the walls and released Freon and other chemicals from huge galvanized tanks belted along the elevators. Ice rose in huge clouds. It pelted the ground like machine gun fire, sending up rosy plumes of Leaf’s blood.
The chemicals that shot from geyser sprayers along every wall hit their skin. It reconstructed their flesh and tissue, caustically cauterizing them. A pseudo-healing occurred and they were revived, tearing at each other with incessantly accelerated frenzy.
Thus their story would have ended in tragedy. Except they forgot about Ethan Boothe and his master plan.
The sound of a Fatboy Harley Davidson came tearing through the walls. Lights flickered behind Ethan. He twisted and turned in figure eight patterns, balancing the head from a train-car portable missile on his shoulder.
“Bring it in tight, baby! These guys are off their meds. Watch it, they bite!” Ethan shouted to someone behind him.
A black ’71 Plymouth Fury drove through a melting brick wall. It flanked Ethan’s bike in tight spins coming up hard behind him. A woman with a dyed black bob was driving it. A cigarette dangled from her teeth. She was standing at the wheel, driving with her knees. She had a grenade launcher mounted on her shoulder, stuffed with a bright red-tailed poison dart.
“Boom, boom, baby. Everybody’s a little bit crazy around here. Which one am I sticking with this?” The woman tossed her hair out of her face, mounting a night-vision scope on the back of the launcher.
“No worries, chica. Just follow the birdie.” Ethan punched the gas. He sailed through the air, in a large arc, leaving a rainbow trail of exhaust and chemicals behind him. The Fury was at his heels, its sleek black form encapsulated in ice, chemical bubbles, and flames. The girl reached up with her toes and twisted the radio knob. She tossed her head with wild laughter as Heat of the Moment by Asia blared from the speakers.
“Time it with me, lady. Watch the tree!” Ethan held up his free hand, motioning it like the host of a street race. His plan was for them to fire one after the other but almost simultaneously once he’d reached the countdown.
Leaf felt the dart banana peel and tear through his and Derek’s shoulders at the same time. His eyes went wide as he realized how badly he’d hurt his best friend. Derek’s head bobbed listlessly, ready to lay down this fight.
Derek’s eyes were full of instant forgiveness. There was nothing Leaf could have done to have stopped this chemical onslaught. He dove forward, taking Leaf in his arms and covering his head. Ethan shot the missile. It hit the back end of their onyx arena, tearing through the most pronounced crack. The fire erupted in the gear work of the impossible, twisting clock board gauntlet that led the way to the Golden Fleece.
Chains fell out of the Fury’s cab.
“Get in, gentlemen. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re totally out of this woods.” The girl tossed her head, pulling a BAR from the backseat and loading it. Ethan dropped the bike, pulling his body into a tight cannonball as he snatched the chains. He tossed a dangling end to Derek and Leaf. Derek tucked Leaf under and arm and tied the chains around them both, climbing hand over hand. All three men tumbled into the backseat face first.
“Hiya, I’m Kayla. Friends call me KC. Guys want some gum? Nabbed straight from the Court and genuine. My racers pay their cash pool admissions with all kinds of junk.” KC handed a huge package of chewing gum over her shoulder to Ethan. He sat up with a huff.
“Thanks, missy.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, turning to face his friends.
“Check y’all out. You smoked Dante’s pride, boys! That was totally boss.” He thrust a couple of wads of gum into each of their hands.
Derek blinked, eyes trained on the gorgeous young woman driving. She popped relentless gum and switched cassette tapes, putting in a single of Styx’s “Renegade” and seat-dancing to it.
“You’re Kayla…Ethan’s love…” Derek sat up, giving Leaf a strange look. Leaf swallowed his bile, transfixed by the lady that Ethan’s dramatic last stand had been for.
“Look who wins these sweepstakes! Yep, that’s me. I’ve got a track I’ve gotta smoke , boys. Let Ethan clue you in.” KC twisted the wheel, driving the car midair. A long ski ramp of solid ice was below them. This drive would be murder.
“Dude. You saved us from totally frying each other?” Derek looked at Ethan, amazed.
“Did you forget what the plan was, gents? You were just the diversion. I wasn’t going to leave you in that crap hole!” Ethan crossed his legs. He studied Leaf’s smoking fingers with some pity. Reaching into the door jam, Ethan produced a small box of baking soda and doused him with it.
“Hang tough, boys. Got a boss story for, y’all. You’ve got to hear it if you’re gonna understand the plan.”
*****
Chapter 18
“Put some drive in your step, ladies. Hustle. Don’t you want to live to see the Zombie King premier?” Reilly snickered at her subtle Walt Disney reference. Ivy puffed as she gained ground beside her, coming down from a strategic hiding place in a ticket booth that had never been used.
“Reilly! You just had to do the thing! The bubbly ‘I’m cute but annoying too’ thing! On the psycho hell-raisers too. Really?!” Ivy was frantic. Machine guns were rolled out on old truck chasses. The mountains sang with led drilling into their every crevice, reshaping them in full.
“It worked, didn’t it?!” Reilly waved the keys midair.
“Wow…Okay. Yeah, so maybe we played this one a little too close to the danger zone, ladies!” Lindsey’s clothes were on fire. She’d picked up a pair of six guns and exchanged fire with several bony guards. They slipped through the cracks of the balconies iron-wrought walls, cackling, gnashing their teeth as every bullet Lindsey fired bounced off their off exteriors.
“Woohoo…I knew I’d turn you guys over to my side. Welcome. It’s a lot more colorful on this end of the pond. Plus, when you run like this, dollies, you can eat whatever the heck you want to for days.” Reilly's legs were turning to sponges from the strain she put on them. She groaned.
Dante tore through solid stone, bare-handed, shrieking.
“Yo, South Paw! Stripped half the gold off your bare buttocks with that stunt. No hard feelings, man, but your glutes could use some toning.” Reilly grabbed her friends by their wrists and pulled them forward. She would have to find a safe place to stow them if she was going to go toe to toe with the devil. God help her.
“You little piece of a satanic whore’s flesh! Those are far above your wildest understanding of science. I’ll cut you some slack because they say you can be useful.” Dante skidded to a stop, chomping his teeth together.
“Mm, nah, thanks, I’ll pass. One man’s trash is another one’s easy flea-market pawn, amigo. If they were so important, why did you leave them in that ratty crow’s nest, eh?” Reilly took two decided strides away from Lindsey and Ivy. She dug in her heels.
Dante barked like a seal, shooting blood and poisonous vapor from his eyes. Reilly hung suspended in reaction. Should she smear herself with dirt to slow the
process of the chemicals? Try to fight him? Just run?
An Indian Scout’s vintage engine tore through the static. Reilly hit her knees, knowing what came next.
“Hey, what? Is this guy bothering you?” Taylor punched the gas. Dante had a fraction of a second to look back before the bike rammed into his back. He got knocked sky high, did a backflip and came down heavy on his hands and knees.
“Check it. It’s Buster. Never thought I’d see you again after we planted you in the sand. Still monitoring halls, boy scout?” Dante spat at the ground. He rubbed his hands together, purring with a strange birdlike coo, a cross between the sound a jaguar and a macaw would make.
Taylor parked the bike and kicked the stand. He stepped off, popping his knuckles.
“So, here is the fool that brought down my whole family legacy for his theater group, eh? You know how long I’ve been waiting to tango with you?” He smiled.
Dante shrieked and dove on Taylor. They rolled in the dirt like coyotes fighting over bones. There was a commotion as bikers poured out on the balcony.
“Hi. We’ve not had a lot of time to talk. I’m your brother, Jessop.” Jessop thrashed his way through the lineup, swinging a sword he’d stolen from one of the guards.
“Howdy, Jessop. It’s Reilly, but you can call me the Queen of Swing after today. What do these do?” She held up the tuning fork keys from Dante’s nest.
“Those will work nicely for me!” Leona dove from a dark corner on the wall. She was so close to her vengeance she could almost taste it. How had he always conveniently gotten what she wanted in life? Who had always needed to be exploited for that to work?
Leona grabbed Reilly by her hair and tore her from her perch on a smooth cornerstone. Reilly kicked and thrashed. She stuck the keys in her mouth to keep them out of Leona’s reach.
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