The Tower

by L. A. McGinnis

  As if she hadn’t paid her dues.

  As if she hadn’t lost everything.

  Stopping so close she practically tasted Ava’s breath, Gabriella’s smile echoed perfectly the malice-filled smirk on the woman’s face as she purred, “Escucha, perra—do you really want to know who I am, Ava?”

  “Oh, I’m just dying to know, sweetheart.”

  Reluctantly, Gabriella’s gaze wandered over to Balder. If he heard the truth… Well, she’d be out of here so fast her head would spin. Why this mattered, she didn’t know, but it did. So instead of spitting out the truth—that vile past she was so ashamed of—she stuck with the tame version of her past that she fed to friends and neighbors.

  “I had a complicated upbringing. In a traditional South American household, a daughter is expected to obey. Strict obedience meant my parents expected me to follow one path. So, of course, when I was fifteen, I ran away and I chose another.”

  Gabriella recited her carefully rehearsed, carefully constructed story, watching Balder’s face as she did so. The story was a mix of half-truths and lies, as all stories were. Except hers skipped over the truly ugly bits.

  “I became a medic in a field hospital in El Salvador. We saw mostly gunshot wounds, knifings, bombs…torture. From there, I advanced up through operating rooms, and finally into the role as a surgeon. Because I knew my way around…certain things, I came in useful.” She felt sick, remembering, then shrugged, noting the gleam in Ava’s dark eyes. “I suppose if a human can do something to another human, I’ve seen it.

  “If evil exists, I’ve treated it. That’s my skill set.” Gabriella’s smile took on a shadow of the wickedness staining Ava’s. “There, I’ve shown you mine. Now why don’t you show me yours?”

  When Ava remained undecided, Balder prompted, “Gabriella saved my ass tonight. In return, I’m getting her out of the city in the morning.” But his voice sounded indecisive.

  Ava shot him an assessing look. “Duly noted, commander. But what an interesting story… However, I believe she’s got the exact skill set I require for my little problem.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” Balder demanded, while Gabriella tried to catch up on who, exactly, this Ava-person was. “We’ve been searching for you for months. Torn the city apart and never found a trace of you. Gods, we all thought you were dead. And now you pop out of nowhere and warn me to keep my mouth shut—or else?”

  “Because you’re the only one who’ll understand, Balder,” the woman pleaded quietly, and Gabriella heard the first hint of vulnerability creep into her voice. “The rest of them… Damn it, he doesn’t want anyone to see him like this.”

  Looking past them as they went back and forth, Gabriella’s scream got lodged in her throat as a pale hand wrapped itself around the doorframe.

  Ava’s eyes softened just a bit. “Ah, there he is now. The apple of my eye. The corn in my flakes. The source of all my aggravation and worry.

  “Gabriella, meet our fearless leader—Odin, King of Everything.”

  The short, fierce burst of hope Balder felt burn through him when he heard Odin’s name, shattered like glass the second the silver-haired god stepped into the room. Or rather, shuffled. Thinner than even Gabriella, Odin was a walking corpse. And his eyes, oh gods, his eyes….

  “No words of welcome for me, Balder?”

  The greeting tripped out of him automatically, “Of course, Odin, it’s good to have you back.” Thankfully as his heart continued its stumbling, stuttering journey, Balder’s mouth remembered what it was supposed to be doing. He shot a questioning look over to Ava, who merely shrugged, her eyes sorrowful.

  “And who is your friend?” Gone was the arrogance, the entitlement, the absolute assurance. Without it, Odin sounded almost human. Weak.

  “Gabriella Mendoza.” Without hesitation, she moved forward at Odin’s invitation, sizing him up while Balder did the same, his gaze roving over the body of his once-king. Odin was malnourished. Blind. Clearly exhausted. But there was something else…

  “You’re dying, aren’t you?” Gabriella asked, gentle compassion in her voice as she led him over to a chair, turned him, sat him down. It was painful, watching her position him, the way one moves an elderly person. Too gently, as if the slightest mistake might hurt. “I take it this has been going on a while?” She queried gently, automatically taking his pulse. When Odin smiled in answer—a sad, resigned smile—Balder suddenly understood Ava’s brash demeanor, her too-bright eyes and her too-searching questions.

  “You came looking for a miracle, didn’t you?”

  The second he said it, Ava jolted, reaching out for Odin. Her fingers dug into his hollowed-out flesh and gripped tightly, as if she didn’t know how to let him go.

  “I’m sorry,” Gabriella offered softly. “How can I help?”

  “Figuring out how to fix him would be great,” Ava pointed out.

  Desperation, Balder reminded himself silently, makes fools of us all, at one time or another. “Ava, you’re asking the impossible.” Not caring what Gabriella thought, he urged, “What about Mir? You know his healing magic…”

  “This cannot be fixed with magic,” Odin murmured. “Magic is what caused it.”

  Gabbie gave them both an assessing look, even as her face grew gravely appraising. “All right, I’ll take a closer look at him. Come with me.” They all ended up in Mir’s infirmary, the door closed tight, the lights from the glass-front refrigerators the only illumination.

  An hour later after she finished her exam, Gabbie frowned as Odin asked, “So, Doctor Mendoza. What do you think?”

  Hands on her hips, she did just that, ignoring the fact they were hanging on her every word. “I think you and I need to talk.” She looked at Ava and Balder apologetically. “Alone, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m pretty sure HIPPA went out the window when the world burned down,” Ava snapped, some of her darkness leaching out of her eyes. Balder shifted slightly into her path, hopefully before Gabriella noticed the lapse in control.

  “That doesn’t change anything. I’d still like a word alone with Odin.”

  From the resigned look on Odin’s face, he’d expected it.

  Once they were barricaded outside, Gabriella didn’t waste time or breath. The guy looked to be in his early thirties, but had wasted away, except she couldn’t tell from what. He wasn’t visibly ill, nor did he have any long-term signs of cancer or disease. “How long do you think you have left?” Gabriella knew what her estimate was, but there was something about this guy… It made her ask the question.

  “Weeks. A month at most.”

  Without running tests, there was no way to know how much organ damage he’d incurred, but from her visual, they’d be extensive. She pursed her lips. “If there isn’t an underlying illness, a balanced diet to regain some weight would benefit you. Plenty of sleep. A regime of vitamins and minerals. You do all of that, and I might be able to buy you an extra month.”

  “Why bother?”

  Anyone who asked why didn’t deserve an answer. Or her time. But she’d seen that glimmer of hope in Balder’s eyes—which meant she’d make the effort to save this guy, whether he wanted it or not. “Because Ava and Balder both care about you, which means I’ll try to keep your scrawny carcass alive for as long as I can.”

  “And you think that’s going to keep me here? Determination?” There was a shadow of defiance to the question, and she saw, for a second, a glimmer of the man he’d once been. Just a glimmer, but it was enough.

  “It should.” She went on, not caring who he was or who he used to be. “It’s clear you mean a lot to them. Besides, pretty soon there won’t be many of us left. There might not be a world left. But until then…”

  Her spine straightened. “Look, you want to give up completely? Fine. But it’s clear Ava and Balder are counting on you to try to live. If you die, you’ll be letting them down.”

  “Nice speech. I used to believe shit like that.” His words
held a wry sense of humor, but his smile was empty.

  “And there was a time I didn’t,” she snapped. “Now I do. People can change.”

  “Not that much, they don’t.”

  “You really want to go out now, like this? Sick, diseased, dying like an old man? Or do you want to make it count?”

  There it was again. That thousand-yard stare. Blind as a bat, and yet…

  “How much can you actually see?”

  “Everything and nothing.”

  “Cryptic. I like it. Keep ’em guessing. Lie back for me.” She palpitated his stomach, feeling the cavernous emptiness, the jutting ribs. “So tell me, how did a blind man who can barely stand up survive in this city all these months? And don’t tell me it was because of your good looks.”

  “I wasn’t in the city.” He turned his head away, and she swore his face changed. “Ava. I survived because of Ava.”

  “And will Ava survive without you?”

  Cue the long pause. At least he had the decency not to bullshit her when they both knew what the deal was. “I’ll make it real easy for you, since I know you don’t have the energy to fight with me anymore. Before I leave tomorrow, I’ll work up a diet plan for you, plus anything else I can think of.” She offered him a hand and pulled him up to a sitting position.

  “These are my instructions. You will eat. You will rest. After I’m gone, you’ll follow Ava’s directions because I’m turning your care over to her. Maybe she can keep you on this earth as long as humanly possible.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m younger than you, so you will stop with the ma’am bullshit right now.”

  “Oh, you have no idea how young you are, Gabriella.” And the faint smile curling his lips was beyond mocking.

  10

  It was an hour before dawn, and Gabriella managed to mitigate the worst of Ava’s temper by going over Odin’s care, step by step. Diet. Eating small meals, five to six times a day. Constant hydration. She’d searched the infirmary but hadn’t found a single bottle of vitamins. Now they were pillaging the kitchen, and she watched while Balder packed food into her well-worn backpack.

  “I don’t like this.”

  As Balder said it for like the tenth time, Gabriella sighed.

  “We’ve been over this. I’m not staying in the city. I’m heading west, and I’ll be fine.” Whether from cowardice or politeness, he hadn’t asked a single question regarding her past, and she thanked God for it. Anyway, soon she’d put this city to her back. She’d outrun disaster before. She’d outrun it again.

  “If you say so.” But his condescending tone raised her hackles. “I think you’d be better off staying here. There’s safety in numbers.”

  “And I was brought up to keep moving if you want to live.” She didn’t miss the assessing look he shot her way, nor the way his hands paused in their work. Wincing internally, she cursed herself. When would she learn to keep her mouth shut?

  “About that. How much of that field hospital bullshit was true?” Balder asked, lifting his brown eyes to hers. “Because we have a saying around here—everyone ends up here for a reason—and for better or worse, I’ve come to believe in it.” Setting the food and the backpack aside, he met her eyes, and she noticed how steady his gaze was. “I know there’s more to the story. Were your parents really so strict you ran away?”

  “They were…”

  The man who burst into the kitchen was enormous. Wild black hair and electric blue eyes, he was similar, but different from the other man she’d met earlier, the one who’d helped Balder up here.

  “The Orobus is coming.”

  Four words. Four words that meant absolutely nothing to her and yet… She froze in fear. Both from the near-panic in the stranger’s voice, and Balder’s carefully controlled reaction.

  “How long do we have? How close is he and how many are with him?”

  “Thor estimates arrival in thirty minutes, max. As far as how many…” Those bright eyes dipped to her, and the stranger hesitated, his mouth snapping shut.

  “It’s okay, Fen, just spit it out, it doesn’t matter anymore what she knows. She’ll find everything out soon enough.” Balder was unflappable, calmly filling her backpack with the rest of the food before handing it over to her.

  “They’ve almost reached the river, heading south. And he’s got…nearly a thousand of them with him. Just breached Ontario, and they’ll cross the river in ten minutes. Tyr’s given the order to evac. But Mir’s got his hands full helping Sydney—we’ll need medical supplies—aw fuck, for Celine. But since we’ve only got half an hour, and Freyr and Vali are tracking Domenic and his army, I’ll need your help with weapons and ammo.”

  Gabriella knew panic when she saw it and stepped in. “I’ll gather med supplies. Why don’t you help him?” she suggested, hoisting the backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll head to the infirmary and grab whatever I can.”

  Hoofing it down the hall, she flipped on the lights in the infirmary and started packing supplies into boxes. Antibiotics, gauze, sutures, alcohol, Betadine, and surgical equipment.

  “You need to rethink your strategy here, Doctor Mendoza.” Ava’s dry voice matched her relaxed pose in the doorway. “You’re pulling the wrong supplies.”

  “I’m being cautious.” Gabriella double-checked her counts. Antibiotics, anti-venom, bandages, glucose… Reaching for another gallon of antiseptic, she asked, “Let me ask you something, Ava, have you ever run a combat triage?”

  “Mortal?” Ava shook her head. “Nope. Immortal? Yeah, more than I can count, lately.”

  Her hand hovering over the stacks of vials, Gabriella shook her head and continued, “You can stop messing with me, Ava. I already know the names are some kind of code. Balder said this is a military operation, and I know we don’t have time right now to argue. We’ve got less than thirty minutes to be out of here.”

  “Balder said?” Her mouth curved upwards in an evil smile. “Does this look like any military operation you’ve ever seen? Does any of this look normal to you? When I dove through a magic portal to save Odin, I never thought I’d come back to this mess. Do you even know what you’re getting yourself into, Gabriella?” There was dark glee under every single word.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Gabriella whispered, but her hands tightened on the edge of the box. In truth, Balder hadn’t told her anything yet.

  “It should matter. It really should.”

  “Shut up, Ava.” Balder elbowed his way into the room. “Like Gabbie said, we don’t have time for this. We’re down to fifteen minutes, now.”

  “What’s she talking about, Balder?”

  “Let’s me get you out of here, Gabriella. Then we’ll have time to talk, and you can ask me anything you want. I’ll answer your questions, tell you everything.”

  “Tell me now.” She countered.

  Balder’s eyes darkened, but he didn’t look away. “I can’t. We have to evacuate.”

  “Why?” she countered, “Who is coming? Who’s the Orobus and why are you so scared of him?”

  He reached out and braced himself on the other side of the table, never breaking eye contact. “He’s a primordial god coming to raze this building to the ground, with us inside it. If we aren’t out of here by the time he arrives, we’re all dead. If we had the time, I’d tell you everything, I swear it. But we don’t.”

  His face was taut with frustration. “Everyone’s downstairs waiting, Fen’s on his way up. You have time to pack two more boxes. Fit anything you can in them, because that’s all we can manage to take with us.”

  It didn’t matter, Gabriella told herself as her mind whirled. Reconnoiter. Adjust. Focus. That’s what you do in war when you get thrown a curveball. Everything else gets you killed. She relaxed her grip on the box, watching her hands as if they were attached to someone else. “How many am I packing for, again?”

  Ava looked almost disappointed.

  “Five people, six, including you, if you decide to stay
with us. Eight…others, but don’t worry about packing med supplies for them.”

  “You can’t count, Balder.” The smile Ava shot their way was not encouraging. “There are seven humans.”

  He bristled. “I count just fine. Six. Six…people.”

  “Seven mortals. And you are, in fact, an idiot.” Ava sounded so damn smug.

  “Okay, so six or seven?” Gabbie looked between them. “I need to make sure I have enough supplies.” When all Ava did was cross her arms and smirk, Gabriella snapped. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ava. Spit it out. We don’t have time for this shit.”

  Ava smiled wide, as if she’d just won the lottery. “And there she is. The tiger beneath the house cat.” But she held up a hand to stop Gabriella’s outburst. “Celine is pregnant, right? Due anytime, right? I might have been marooned on some godforsaken planet, cut off from all humanity and out of the loop, but I never forget my friends. So, I hope, Doctor Mendoza, somewhere in your repertoire of medical tricks, you’ve added childbirth to the list.”

  “And Balder, you still can’t fucking count.”

  Good God, a baby on top of everything else. Gabriella heaped a handful of sheets on the pile and then added more. Better safe than sorry. Searching the cabinets for birthing supplies, which were admittedly scarce in a combat hospital, she picked out what she could.

  “Give me that.” Balder took the box from her unresisting hands. “Come on, you’ll have to run. There are thirty flights of stairs, and we only have a few minutes.”

  11

  The proposition of riding shotgun had never been so terrifying. Gabriella figured it was her consolation prize for being blindsided. Ava buckled Odin into the back, as carefully as a frail old man could be, amongst boxes of explosives, guns, and bullets. He didn’t resist.