by Angie Fox
I looked through the eyepieces and adjusted the microscope until I could see fat, round cells. The medusa water had neutralized our sphinx venom.
We did it.
Numb, I pushed away from the sample. “Well, that’s it, then.”
“It is,” Marc said. “Good news. You don’t have to deal with me anymore.” He moved past me toward the door, careful not to touch. “I’m going to take a walk. Why don’t you announce it to the general?”
I should have stopped him, but I didn’t as he banged out the door and out of my life.
Chapter Twenty-Four
We set up the official test in a private room near the recovery ward. Marius waited in the OR, scrubbed up and ready for surgery, in case anything went wrong.
And it very well could. Drugs like this usually went through a litany of tests before they were allowed to be used on real people, or immortals in this case. But the order had come straight from General Argus: Test now.
I just hoped that if there were complications, they’d pull it and let us refine the active dose. You never knew with the gods. I finished taking our patient’s vitals as Marc wiped his arm with an antiseptic swab, preparing for the injection.
“How are you doing?” I asked the burly special ops soldier.
He nodded in recognition. “I’m doing.” It was the immense Japanese demigod I’d had on my table. I’d cut off his arm, and still, he’d volunteered to help test this drug.
He was brave, giving; he was one of the good ones. I just hoped we wouldn’t let him down.
“We’re going to put you out for only about fifteen minutes.” I wanted to give a small dose the first time.
He nodded, a thin sheen of sweat betraying his fear. Immortals as a rule didn’t like giving up control. This one hadn’t even wanted to be tied when I severed his arm.
I squeezed his hand. “No worries.”
Kosta gave us space. Argus did not. I flexed my shoulders, angling for a little breathing room as I inserted the needle into our patient’s arm.
We’d know in ten seconds if this worked or not. I squeezed the plunger and began the countdown.
“Ten, nine, eight…”
The soldier’s eyes fluttered closed.
“Pulse is steady,” Marc announced.
I nodded. “Seven, six, five…”
“Breathing is normal.”
“Four, three, two. One.” I pulled the needle out and glanced up at the monitors.
Our patient was out.
“Can he feel anything?” the general asked over my shoulder.
Marc checked his pupils, then the monitor. “He’s functioning, but under.”
The general beamed under his mask.
We did it. We found a way to help. I touched my patient’s scarred shoulder, feeling a hundred things at once. Relief, pride, joy, sadness that it had taken this long.
Argus edged me out of the way. I did a double take as he unsheathed a wide-blade hunting knife. “What are you—?”
I watched, shocked, as the general buried the knife in my patient’s chest.
The monitors screamed. Kosta seized Argus’s arm as the general twisted the knife and yanked it out.
He was sweating, triumphant as he held the bloody blade. “You’re right! He didn’t feel it.” Kosta shoved him. Argus stumbled back, a bloodthirsty leer in his eyes. “We did it!”
Marius rushed in.
“Help me get him out of here,” Kosta thundered, his scar white, expression murderous as he and Marius half shoved, half dragged the general away. But the damage was done.
“I need suction!” Marc said as blood poured from the wound. “Crushed rib, collapsed lung,” he continued, examining our patient. “I don’t know if it got the heart.”
I hurried for our instruments. Sweat gathered at my surgical cap as I suctioned the blood. The blade had torn a hole through his left lung, above the heart.
Damned gods.
I’d looked this man in the eye. I’d told him he’d be okay.
He did this for me.
Marc’s brow knit as he worked.
“We only have fifteen minutes,” I reminded him.
Less, actually.
“Give him more,” he barked.
“We don’t have any more,” I ground out.
Marc’s fingers slipped in the blood, and he cursed under his breath.
The anesthetic would keep our soldier out for a quarter of an hour if it worked right. Please let it work right.
We had to have him stitched up and healed in less time than that or he’d wake up in the middle of surgery.
Sweat slicked his brow as Marc reinflated the lung. “I don’t think it went any deeper,” he murmured, focused.
I suctioned the blood. “Five minutes.”
His forehead crinkled. “I can’t make him heal any faster, Petra.”
“Try.”
I suctioned as Marc stitched. We guided the muscle as it grew back together. We guided the ribs, leading the broken bones as they re-formed.
“How are we doing?” he asked as we both pulled back, bloodstained gloves poised over our patient as his skin knit together.
“Less than a minute.”
Marc closed his eyes and exhaled.
I wiped a damp, sterile cloth over his chest, cleaning away the blood. His vitals looked good. Chances were, we’d done it. I wanted X-rays just in case.
Our patient stirred. He was early. His skin was still red and raw.
“Holly,” I called, “can you get in here?”
The soldier blinked, staring at the ceiling. I slipped off my bloody gloves and reached for a new pair. “How are you feeling?”
Confusion trickled across his features. “I don’t know.” His eyes flickered over me. No doubt I was pale. I hid behind the clinical calm I’d perfected from years on the job.
His gaze darted to Marc, then back to me. “What happened?” he asked.
“You were out for almost fifteen minutes,” I answered. “You didn’t feel anything, did you?”
He shook his head.
We’d tell our patient later what had happened. As for now…
Marc had pulled on a new pair of gloves as well. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to order a few tests, just for documentation.”
He nodded.
It had worked.
We did it. We’d developed the first humane solution I’d seen come out of this vicious combat.
And tested it brutally.
I gave my patient a reassuring squeeze. Just when I’d thought there could be hope in this war, I was reminded that it could never be that simple.
Holly joined us, scrubbed in and ready to take over. “Kosta wants to see you at the officers’ club.”
“Lovely,” I said, giving my patient one last look. “I’ll come see you tomorrow.”
Marc and I headed back toward the surgical locker room.
He pulled off his cap and I did, too. I yanked out my ponytail. “Why can’t we just go to Kosta’s office?” The commander knew I wasn’t a big drinker. Besides, after the stunt Argus pulled, we had a lot to discuss.
“Come on,” Marc said, his hand sliding across my shoulder. “Commander’s orders.”
Yeah, well, I wasn’t a big drinker. Even less when I was rattled. What I needed right now was control.
We entered a square room just behind the surgical prep area. Lockers lined up on opposite walls with a few benches in the middle.
“He stabbed him,” I said low, wadding my gown and shoving it in biowaste. “He yanked out a knife and buried it to the hilt.”
“How much do you know about Argus?” Marc asked, tossing his gown on top of mine.
“Not enough,” I admitted as we headed out of the physicians’ locker room and into the night. I’d been so eager to pursue the anesthetic, so focused on getting it right, on helping patients like my amputation case. I didn’t stop to think whom I might be trusting.
“Maybe your commander knows something,
” Marc said as we made tracks for the officers’ club.
I didn’t doubt it. Kosta was a barracuda. And if he didn’t want to use his office, I had to wonder if the conversation we were about to have was going to be off the books, so to speak.
The run-down shack that served as the officers’ club stood on the edge of camp, close to Kosta’s quarters and the VIP tent.
The tin roof was loud as heck during the monthly rainstorm, but it gave the bar its bite. Large gutters funneled down into tanks that captured Hell’s Rain. Rodger had measured it at 180 proof.
Marc and I attracted more than a few stares as we wandered past the wooden bar toward a table in the back.
“It’s the dry doc!” a mechanic at one of the front tables yelled out.
“Hold on to your glasses. She’s got sticky fingers!”
“Rodger finally drive you to drink, Robichaud?” another yelled before they saw me walk up to Kosta. Just that quick, the peanut gallery quickly turned back to their drinks.
Marc and I pulled up a chair at a wooden table in the back. Kosta sat, red-faced, in front of a drink he hadn’t touched.
“Argus is giving his report to HQ,” Kosta said, the scar on his lip white.
Marc sank into a chair. “What do you want to bet he leaves out the part about stabbing our patient?”
“How is he?” Kosta asked, eyes on the door.
“He’ll live,” I said. It wasn’t the point.
The bartender brought us each a clear glass of Hell’s Rain. It smelled like lighter fluid and lemon Pledge.
My fingers curled around the glass. I wanted to rant. I wanted to yell. I wanted to list everything I hated about this war and this place and the injustice of fighting for an army that didn’t care whether we lived or died, whether we suffered, if we had lives, or if we loved.
But Kosta was my commanding officer.
Besides, he knew.
“Congratulations,” he said, raising his glass to us before downing it.
Some party.
I dipped my pinkie into my glass and tasted it. It scalded my tongue and made my eyes run. This was worse than the time I tried tequila.
Lazio leaned back from the table next to us. “You have to drink it fast.” He held his up and downed it like a shot.
Ew. What was the point?
Marc sat scowling. His hair was tousled, his mouth wide and firm. His complexion was ruddy, as if he’d just gotten back from a bike ride instead of a mad rush to put a man back together.
My silent appraisal seemed to annoy him. He threw back his drink and punched it down so hard the table rattled.
“I’ll be sure to write up something for your file,” Kosta said to Marc. “Can’t guarantee it’ll do any good, coming from our side.”
That’s right. Marc was leaving.
I’d known all along it would come to that. I’d accepted it. And still I felt like a part of me would never heal.
Maybe I did need that drink.
I raised my glass before I could think about it too much.
“That’s it,” Lazio called from the next table, reaching for another one. “Let’s toast. To tonight’s prophecy!” He held up his drink as everyone at his table clanked their glasses, Hell’s Rain sloshing out onto the table.
I grabbed Lazio’s arm as he moved to drink, spilling half his glass.
“Oh, hey, awwww…” He shook his wet arm.
“What prophecy?” I demanded.
He looked at me like I’d gone off the deep end. “They will fire the weapon and bring an end to suffering.”
“Fire the weapon?” I asked, fighting for my voice. “They actually said ‘Fire the weapon.’” I hoped he was drunk.
He chuckled. “PNN’s been repeating it all day. They’re going crazy trying to figure out how the last one came true.”
Death came with a gift. Like the dagger in my pocket.
I rushed to the bar. “Turn on PNN.” The bartender shrugged, reaching under the counter for an old transistor radio. It whined as he turned the dials, trying to find the station.
“Hurry up, hurry up,” I said, turning the thing around, doing it myself.
“He will fire the weapon and bring an end to suffering,” said a woman on the radio. “But what weapon?”
One that could destroy us all.
“Well, it’s obvious the gods have something planned, and they will tell us in their own good time.”
“Yes, but which side?”
I felt Marc behind me. We had a pretty good idea which side.
“What is it?” Kosta sat down next to me. It was more of a demand than a question.
I had to trust him. It could be all over soon. “We think the Old God Army is developing some kind of weapon,” I said, keeping my voice low, watching Marc. “They have a virus, deadly to humans, but no pathway.”
Kosta sized up Marc. “Do you have information on this?”
He was silent for a moment, his shoulders drawn tight. “I could be tried for treason if I told you.”
The colonel thought for a moment, nodding slowly as he came to his decision. “I can make arrangements.”
Marc studied him as the radio pundits went on about this new superweapon and what it could mean. “My side has a superbug. As of now, they don’t have an efficient way to get it into the population.”
To Kosta’s credit, he didn’t grill us on how we knew. That would come later.
If we survived.
He watched Marc carefully. “How long have they been working on it?”
Marc looked peeved. “Don’t know.”
“They’ve had all the time in the world,” I stated.
Kosta held up a finger. “Not necessarily.” His eyes narrowed. “If you want to get anything done in this army or the other one, you’ve got to do it fast. You can never count on the moods of the gods. At least not for long.”
“What if it’s a pet project of a god?” Marc asked. “One with a particular hatred for humans?”
“It kills anyone who’s not immortal,” I added.
“I’ll be damned,” Kosta said under his breath.
I glanced around the bar. We were huddled near one end, ignored by the booze swillers all around. It was amazing to think that this could be the last night for many of them. For Marc. For me.
“Think about it,” Kosta said slowly. “They’d need something that can take over a system, kill humans while at the same time, knock out any immortals that would try to help. It couldn’t be liquid. There would be no way to inject everyone. It would have to be airborne. Like a powder.”
I gasped. “Our anesthetic could easily be converted into powder.”
The sphinx venom could act as the ideal pathway for the virus.
Kosta stared at me dead-on. “All they’d need is some type of delivery mechanism.”
Some way to disperse it.
Marc drew up, rigid. “The crystal powder. They have titurate.”
My body went numb as it sank in. We’d made their weapon work. We’d given the gods the ultimate killing machine.
Kosta slammed his hands onto the bar. “I’ll go get Argus.”
“We’ll get our samples from the lab,” I said, pulse pounding in my ears.
Bar patrons scattered as Marc and I ran for the lab. I was almost afraid to know what we’d do when we got there.
We could destroy it. Torch it. Burn our research. I’d even go AWOL for real this time, run away with Marc so they could never find us. Our research would be lost. The gods would never know how we’d discovered the pathway or what they could do to fire their weapon.
We reached the lab and threw open the door.
It was trashed. Tables overturned, glass shattered across the floor, papers strewn everywhere. My boots crunched over broken vials as I grabbed for my notes. They were old. “These are no good.” I dropped them, plowed through the papers, trying to find anything that mattered.
Marc dug through the mess on the tables. “Our samples are gone
.” He shoved past the boxes of unused equipment, digging for something, anything, but we knew.
I heaved a stack of papers at the wall, kicked the overturned desk. It was over. They’d stolen it.
We were finished.
Out of breath, I stood helpless in the ruins of our research.
We’d lost.
We thought we were instruments of good in a horrible war. In truth, we were putting together the final piece in a giant killing machine.
“Come here.” Marc found me, pulled me into the warmth of his chest.
I clung to him. I’d been naive, cocky. I thought I could trust the powers that be to keep us alive, or at least not try to kill us.
I was wrong.
And now every human was going to pay the price.
Marc was stiff, unyielding. “Think,” he said, his chest rumbling under my cheek. “We can do this. What do we have to neutralize the anesthetic?”
“Nothing.” We hadn’t made it there yet. And even if we had, I didn’t see how we’d deliver it to every man, woman, and child in the known world.
There was nothing that would combat the pathway, only time. And that was something humans didn’t have.
They will fire the weapon to bring an end to suffering.
I’d thought I could stand up, change things. Bring it on, I’d said. Well, we had. We’d brought about Armageddon.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Hey,” Marc said, holding me by the shoulders, “we’re going to figure this out.”
I didn’t see how.
He released me. “We’ve got to go see Argus.”
Yeah, I’d like to have a few words with the brutal SOB.
Our quick walking turned into running, and soon we were sprinting through the minefield. I’d have to keep my temper with the general. This was about damage control, finding a way to retrieve our notes and our pathway before it was too late.
We dashed past the burned-out ambulance, leapt over the trip wires.
The Old God Army had to have someone in camp, an agent close enough to know when we’d broken through, one who could act before we even knew we were a target.
Argus might be sick in the head, but he was one of our generals. He had a very real stake in this. He’d been the one to encourage us to research together. He’d set us up with equipment and funding from the Old God Army. He’d given us space to work, time. A deadline.
