Oathbound

by S W Clarke

  “I’m OK.”

  Agape floated close to my face. “Your eyes are crossing.”

  “How are you even upright?” Justin asked. “After the surgery.”

  I blinked slowly. Justin was right: I shouldn’t even be able to walk around right now. Evidently the oracle’s power, as great as it was, didn’t make me completely impervious to mortal cares.

  “I know just the thing.” Hercules picked his rucksack up from the shelf and began rummaging. He pulled out an apple core and extended it to me. “Suck on this.”

  I made a face. “Do I have to?”

  Justin did the same. “Why did you save an old apple core?”

  “This is no ‘old apple core.’ It’s from Hera’s garden.” Hercules dangled it. “And its power still runs through the remaining meat.”

  “Oooh.” Philia clapped his hands. “What a treasure!”

  Justin’s eyes flicked to Hercules’s belly, like he could see right through the skin into his stomach. “Did you … eat all three apples?”

  Hercules shrugged. “A man must eat when he hungers.”

  Justin groaned. “All that work to retrieve those apples and they became a kindergartener’s snacks.”

  Hercules looked confused. “What does ‘kindergartener’ mean?”

  My Cupid pointed at Justin. “He’s insulting you, buddy.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I shot Justin a keep the peace look. “Right now, I’ll take what I can get.”

  I accepted the core. It smelled just as fragrant and appealing as the untouched apple I had tasted beneath the tree in Hera’s garden. I slowly lifted it to my lips and gnawed on what remained. As soon as it entered my mouth, it felt like pure life filtering down my throat. My entire body felt rejuvenated within a minute, and my eyes came into focus.

  Hercules beamed. “You see?”

  Justin set a hand on my shoulder. “Better?”

  I met his eyes. “I feel like I want to get the hell out of here.”

  Hercules nodded his head down the way he’d run. “I saw one of those up-and-down contraptions that way.”

  My Cupid cleared his throat. “He means an elevator.”

  Hercules just shrugged.

  “I saw it, too.” I grabbed my spare boots out of my backpack. “It’s our best bet.”

  “I’m your best bet.” Hercules’s dimples appeared. “Oh.” He reached around, retrieved what looked like a semiautomatic rifle from behind his back and extended it to Justin. “These seem to be helpful. Though I still prefer the simplicity of a cudgel.”

  As Justin accepted the rifle, Hercules grabbed his club off the shelf.

  I glanced at Justin. “Do you know how to use that?”

  In one smooth motion, he slid out the clip, inspected it and shoved it back in. “Well enough.”

  Well, that was good enough for me.

  A minute later, I was wearing my own pants, shirt, jacket and boots. It felt good to grip El Lobizon’s claw in my hand again. I swung my backpack on and we followed Hercules into the hallway, where the klaxons still blared. He jogged ahead of us, the chains jangling over the ground behind him.

  I was starting to think he was enjoying those GoneGodDamn chains.

  As we came into the next section of hallway, even the flashing lights weren’t enough to hide the carnage. It was like someone had splashed red paint over the floors, walls and ceiling. My hand went to my mouth as we weaved amongst bodies and body parts.

  “Damn Herc.” My Cupid lifted a soldier’s arm—no longer attached to a body—and let it drop. “You went full ancient Greek on them.”

  Hercules beamed.

  Justin reached down, grabbed up a soldier’s handgun as we ran. He extended it to me.

  I shook my head. “No.” I had never shot a gun, and after five hundred years of watching people die to them, I didn’t want to.

  “Take it.”

  “I don’t know how to use it.”

  “Better to have it and not know than not have it and wish you did.”

  I sighed, accepted the gun and pushed the claw into the lip of my boot. The cold metal felt ominous in my hand.

  Justin instructed me on how to use it as we approached the elevator. “That’s the safety. It’s on right now.” He moved my finger over it, helped me switch it off. “Now you’re ready to shoot.”

  We came to the elevator, where Hercules stood with one finger hovering over the buttons. The Cupids began bickering over which floor we needed to go to.

  Justin’s hand went over mine, and he eased my finger into the right spot. “Finger inside the trigger guard, aim, then pull.”

  “Got it.” Though I wasn’t really sure how much I did have it.

  He switched the safety back on. “So you don’t shoot yourself in the foot.”

  “Thanks.” I slid the gun into the inner pocket of my jacket.

  “This one says L, which could mean lower level.” Philia pointed at the elevator. “That could take us up.”

  My Cupid groaned. “Why would L take us up?”

  Agape folded his arms. “Some buildings use L as their ground level.”

  “Why must there always be so many buttons adjoined to this wizardry?” Hercules growled. Of course, Hercules didn’t read English—he read ancient Greek.

  I stepped forward and hit the button marked G, which I assumed meant ground floor. “This one seems promising.”

  We waited. Nothing happened.

  Then it hit me.

  As if he’d read my mind, Justin cursed. “The elevators are on lockdown.”

  Of course they were. Everyone knew we had escaped—hence the klaxons.

  Boots squeaked over the tile at the end of the hall. Behind us, another contingent of soldiers was filtering through the doorway.

  Hercules turned left, where an air vent blew over us. He sent his fist through the grating, yanked it completely out of the wall. “Inside there. All of you.” He took my hand, urged me toward the vent.

  I hesitated. “You won’t fit in there.”

  Hercules didn’t respond. He just helped me up and into the rectangular vent.

  Inside, I turned around just as Justin climbed in after me. The Cupids hovered just outside.

  “Wait,” I said.

  Hercules leaned in, both chains falling around his face as he gazed at us. “Remember what I told you back in the Big Apple?”

  I remembered. “You won’t fail me.”

  “I won’t fail any of you.”

  “They have guns,” Justin said. “Big ones.”

  “Guns?” Hercules mimed wiping dust off his shoulder. “Guns are nothing when you know how to handle their bullets.”

  We all stared at him. Was he that capable, or just that crazy? Maybe he was both.

  My Cupid set a hand on Hercules’s shoulder. “I’ll see you up there, buddy.”

  Hercules set his enormous hand on the demigod’s tiny shoulder, which nearly dropped him to the floor. His tiny wings worked hard to keep him up. “I’ll meet you on the surface.” Hercules glanced at me. “Then I’ll tell you about the real challenge of my life: fighting the Learnaean hydra. Do you know it had three immortal heads?”

  “I didn’t.” My voice had gone thick.

  Hercules turned away, gathered his chains into his hands. “Well,” he said over his shoulder, “it did. And in this world of mortals, I’m just having a grand time.” He gripped his chains in both fists, began swinging them alongside his body. They cracked on the tile floor like a serpent’s strike as Justin pushed me down the tunnel. The three Cupids piled in after.

  As I set weight on my left hand, I cried out. Shooting pain ran from my fingers, along with the worst case of pins and needles I’d ever experienced. It felt like they’d been frozen and then exposed to heat all at once.

  “We have to move,” Justin whispered from behind me.

  I had no choice. I curled my left hand to my chest and shuffled forward on my knees and my good hand.

  “Me
first!” my Cupid yelled.

  “Agape’s the oldest,” Philia shot back.

  Agape sighed. “Just let Eros lead.”

  Hercules’s war cry followed us as we all crawled through the vent, echoing behind and flooding ahead of us.

  Then the shooting began.

  “Hercules,” I whispered.

  “I’m OK,” Justin said. “Which means he’s OK. Remember: his fate is entwined with mine.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know.”

  But that didn’t mean they would continue to be OK.

  I blinked the tears away as we crawled the length of a continent (but was probably only a dozen yards). We came to a join in the vents, where two lanes forked off and one rose straight up.

  There at the join, I spotted shifting sunlight. I came into the square of it, squinting up. There, high, high up, a fan’s blades cast shadows, sunlight appearing and breaking with its revolutions. “I think this leads to the surface.”

  “Bingo,” Justin said behind me. “Now we climb.”

  I stared up the long, smooth expanse of metal. Not a handhold in sight.

  “Now we climb,” I whispered as my left hand throbbed.

  ↔

  Before all this, I was never precisely athletic. I had a lithe form (even when I didn’t look like a human) and I always felt … if not powerful, then at least capable.

  I had a mind. A good one.

  As the centuries passed and technology advanced, that mind mattered more and more. By the time I arrived at McGill, I was a nose-in-books gal for eighteen hours a day.

  And I was so good at my disappearing act, I didn’t expect to need strength. Never the physical kind, at least.

  Sandwiched into the vertical vent, my right hand and feet my only leverage, I knew I was wrong.

  Mortally wrong.

  Beneath me, the klaxons echoed like a far-off siren’s call. A promise of what lay beneath—and what I could not return to.

  “Keep going,” Justin called from above. He had sidled around me when we’d reached the vertical tunnel so he could break us out of here. Now he was very nearly at the surface, hand-footing his way up like he had suction cups on his palms.

  “I can’t,” I said. I couldn’t use all my limbs; the fourth was gauzed and would only slip off the metal. Despite that, I’d managed to hoof it halfway up … which meant, if I fell, I’d probably die.

  Tiny hands pressed into my legs. “We’ve got you,” my Cupid said. “Come on, boys. We’re going up.”

  And before I could say anything, I was being pushed upward by three groaning Cupids. To them I might as well have weighed four times as much as I did. But progress was quick—a lot quicker than under my own power.

  Justin reached the top, positioned himself opposite the fan. He started kicking, and dust swirled down around me. Justin gave another kick, and something detached with a screech. “Got it.”

  I gazed up at him. He was safe, easing his way out of the tunnel. For a second, he disappeared.

  Then I sneezed. It sounded like an explosion in the tunnel, and one of the Cupids shrieked.

  “It’s OK, Philia,” my Cupid said. “Keep going.”

  “Isa?” Justin’s face gazed back down at me. “It’s safe up here. Just ten more feet, Cupids. Come on—I’ll pull you up the last few.”

  The Cupids kept lifting, and I kept rising.

  “Almost,” Justin said. He leaned in, both hands waiting for me. I took his hand, and both of his gripped my arm. When he pulled me forward, I let a cry as my feet came loose and clapped against the far wall of the vent.

  “Heave, boys!” Eros yelled, pushing hard.

  “I’ve got you,” Justin said. And I knew he did.

  He pulled me right up and out, and I came into a house of rock with a great gaping hole at the center where the sun shone through. No—not a house, but some kind of rock cairn the facility had hidden their exterior vent inside.

  Whatever it was, I dropped to the ground beneath it and lay on my back and took the most glorious minute of my life to just breathe on the sand.

  Justin sat next to me. I knew he wanted to move, but he didn’t say so.

  “Are you all right?” My eyes drifted to Justin, inspecting him for wounds. And I spotted one—a cut on his cheek. “You’re hurt.”

  Which meant both he and Hercules were hurt.

  Justin shook his head. “It’s nothing. Superficial.”

  All at once, the three Cupids popped out of the vent and shot straight into the air. We both gazed up as three small faces blocked out the sun in the gap above us.

  “It’s the sun!” Philia pointed into the sky. “I think I was getting vit D deficient down there.”

  “Sure you were.” My Cupid glanced back down at us. “Are you two going to lay there all morning?”

  In my state that sounded like a fine thing, but then Serena’s warning sprang to mind.

  Daiski was coming.

  “Yeah.” I forced myself up to a seat. “We’re coming.”

  Chapter 21

  Five minutes later, the Cupids were leading us across the desert. And when I say the desert, I mean cacti. I mean an arid plain. I mean the sun was like a ball of angry heat in the sky.

  At least they could fly. Justin and I had to use our two feet.

  “Why can’t you call the clouds?” Justin asked.

  Agape set two fingers in his mouth and whistled. When nothing happened, he shrugged and pointed. “They’re finicky.”

  “This way,” Philia said, pointing off into the shimmering expanse. “I see something out there, off in the distance.”

  We all squinted in that direction.

  Agape shaded his eyes. “I don’t see anything.”

  “We need to head north,” my Cupid said.

  “Why north?” I asked.

  He spun around, flying backward. “It’s colder north.”

  “Do you even know where we are?” Justin asked. “Which desert we’re in?”

  My Cupid shrugged. “I’m a city boy.”

  Philia was wringing his hands. “I wasn’t meant to die like this.”

  “We’re not going to die,” Justin said. “Philia, what does it look like?”

  Philia flew a litte higher. “A gas station sign?”

  “He does have the best eyesight of the three of us,” Agape said.

  “Then we trust you,” Justin said. “Let’s go.”

  We veered southwest. And though I kept moving, I felt the inevitability of what was coming as surely as quicksand would suck me in. There, in the mirage at the horizon, I saw the promise of him.

  Daiski.

  This wasn’t intuition; I felt the oracle’s power in me.

  “Save your energy,” I said to Justin, who had fallen into a jog. “You’re about to need it.”

  He eyed me, but he did drop to a walk. “What do you mean, Isa?”

  Without even thinking about it, I turned, lifted my hand. The first finger extended, the others folding. Off in the distance, a rumbling had started like a thunderstorm.

  But it wasn’t a storm. At least, not the kind nature made.

  We all stopped.

  “I see something,” Agape said. “It’s … It’s a …”

  Justin stepped up to my side. “Isa, do you still have that gun?”

  I opened my jacket, lifted the handgun from the inner pocket. The metal was refreshingly cool under my hand, which brought a strange and uncomfortable pleasure to holding it.

  Justin knelt in the desert, pulled his own gun from the waistband of his pants. “Cupids, get your bows ready.”

  Behind me, the Cupids’ bowstrings creaked as they nocked their arrows.

  The ground rumbled beneath me, a drumbeat of footsteps. Enormous footsteps.

  I lifted the gun, thumbed off the safety as Justin had taught me. I fought through my exhaustion to aim it at the form emerging from the swimming heat.

  Twenty feet tall. Each limb as wide around as an ancient tree’s
trunk, fists curled around a club three times the size of Hercules’s. A mane of black hair pooling around his enormous form.

  “It’s a giant,” Agape whispered. “It’s … Alcyoneus. How can that be?”

  Who is Alcyoneus? But my thoughts were drowned beneath a great bellow.

  “ALCYONEUS!” he cried into the desert from some fifty feet off.

  “He’s an immortal,” Philia cried from behind us.

  “Was an immortal,” my Cupid shot back. “Now he’s perfectly killable.”

  “He isn’t supposed to be alive,” Agape whispered. “Not after what Hercules did to him two thousand years ago.”

  “So how is he alive?” Philia asked.

  Alcyoneus stamped a foot into the sand, and the whole desert seemed to shake. A giant who shouldn’t be alive was alive, according to Agape. How could that be? And why would he be in cahoots with the World Army?

  Then it hit me: science. More specifically, cloning. All Serena would need was a DNA sample. If she could grow me a new forearm and hand with a swab of my skin, then why not an entire giant?

  I had read about these creatures. The giants of Greek mythology were different than giants of modern imagination. They were bigger, stronger, smarter and faster. They ruled entire swaths of ancient Greece and were not to be underestimated.

  That was why only great heroes could defeat them.

  And that was why the World Army had one in their arsenal … because a great hero had shown up—Hercules. Who was, to my knowledge, still fighting underground. But evidently this giant didn’t know that.

  “I think he’s some sort of clone,” I said.

  With a second stomp, the giant’s head lowered, his dark eyes on us. He let out another roar before he fell into a charge, both hands taking up their spots at the base of his club.

  “Whatever he is, we’re about to get a close-up look at him,” Justin said. “Wait until you’ve got your shot.”

  I swallowed. The closer the giant got, the more impossibly large he seemed. At first I’d thought twenty feet tall, but now …

  Now he seemed to block the sun.

  “Shoot!” Justin yelled.

  His gun was the first to go off, a crack through the desert. Mine followed, jerking in my hand. Then the Cupids’ arrows followed, zipping past our heads.