The Gods' Day to Die

by David Welch

  “You might not have a choice. Those liars are capable of anything,” she said darkly. “And I can’t allow it to happen. The Earth is already dying because of normal humanity. Freaks like you could lead to people living forever! The population explodes exponentially, and consumes more and more of the Earth until there’s nothing left!”

  “I’ve heard this line before,” Ares said. “Many times. Always turns out to be crap.”

  “Look at the damage already done!” Chloe raged. “How many species have we wiped out? How many rivers and oceans have we polluted? How much warmer have we made the Earth?!”

  “Wow,” Ares said, shaking his head. “Lady, I’ve lived through warm periods that make this look frigid, and cold ones that would freeze your teeth together.”

  “And there are more trees in this country now than there were a hundred years ago,” Desmond put in.

  “Unbelievable,” Chloe said, dripping with contempt. “You of all people, who’ve seen how it was before—”

  “How it was ‘before’?” Artemis declared. “Listen, idiot, let me tell you how it was ‘before.’ Before all this steel and concrete that you hate so much, I had the pleasure of watching husbands and children die before they reached thirty-five. You think everybody was some noble savage back then? Bullshit. I watched the forests of Europe get chopped down for fuel. I saw cities full of horseshit and Indians in longhouses sitting around open fires, dying of lung ailments. Don’t you dare go on about how awful the world is!”

  The two women stared into each other’s eyes, neither willing to break. Chloe, unfazed, narrowed her gaze.

  “I’m no idiot,” Chloe said slowly. “No level of human civilization is compatible with the Earth. We’re unnatural. That’s why I do what I do, so that life has a chance!”

  “We are life,” Desmond said. “And we’re entirely natural.”

  Chloe’s gaze shot to Desmond, who raised an eyebrow.

  “What? Who the hell are you?”

  “The God of Logic Chains,” Desmond replied sarcastically. “You claim we’re not natural. We’re apes. We evolved naturally. Somewhere along the line, a mutation gave us larger brains, which proved an evolutionary advantage. Our intelligence is the result of the natural evolutionary process, so anything our intelligence leads to is simply us naturally acting in our interest with the tools evolution gave us. Would you begrudge the chimps that use sticks to catch termites? Is that ‘unnatural’?”

  She struggled with this for a moment, then settled on contempt as a response.

  “How convenient. An ideology that puts you on a pedestal and excuses mankind’s destructive ways!” she snapped.

  “I have no desire to destroy nature,” Desmond said. “But seeing as humanity is part of nature, and you actively wish our extinction, I can’t stand by and do nothing. It wouldn’t be very environmentally responsible of me.”

  Chloe scoffed and looked back to Ares.

  “Do whatever you want, freak of nature,” she spat. “I’m not going to stop until you’re all dead.”

  “Such hatred,” Ares said with a mock philosophical air.

  She made no response, only crossed her arms over her chest and stared defiantly at her enemy.

  “Can’t reason a person out of something they were never reasoned into,” Artemis said to her brother.

  “Yeah,” Ares replied. “Okay. I’m going to ask you one last time. Will you stop sending money and resources to known criminal and psychopath Lenka Sidorov and his people?”

  “I’ll give him every last penny I have if that’s what it takes!” Chloe spat.

  Ares dug into his pocket. Chloe stiffened, no doubt thinking he was going for a gun. Instead he removed a cell phone, and tapped a few buttons. Their conversation began playing back. Chloe’s face went white.

  “A little creative editing, then slap it on the net,” said Ares. “It’ll be all over. Every right-of-center blog in the country will be crowing about this.”

  Her jaw dropped, the defiance draining from her face. Tears formed in her eyes.

  “You’ll no doubt say it’s doctored, it’s fake, all sorts of shit. But there will be enough fuss raised to get the police or reporters to look into it, and it’ll all come out. Brave environmental crusader, in bed with a former KGB assassin,” Ares explained with a wicked smile.

  For a long minute no one said anything. Tears streamed down Chloe’s face, the reality of the words sinking in. She balled up her fists.

  “You wouldn’t,” she said pathetically.

  Ares leaned close, his face inches from hers.

  “It’s either this, or I go back on my word and kill you,” Ares said simply.

  Another tense minute passed; then she nodded softly.

  “O-okay,” she said, barely a whisper. Ares grinned and moved to leave, then stopped.

  “Sorry, almost forgot about the phone number. Or whatever it is you use to contact the bastard,” said Ares.

  “I don’t have it,” Chloe replied.

  “Oh, come on now, Chloe, do we have to go through all this again?” Ares asked.

  “No, I mean he changed it after our last contact. We used burner phones, and he hasn’t seen fit to keep me in the loop,” explained Chloe.

  Ares stared at her for a long moment. The shattered woman didn’t meet his eyes, but stared at the floor, her face now a mess of tears.

  “Damn,” Ares grumbled, and moved for the door.

  “She could be lying,” said Des.

  “No, she isn’t,” Ares grumbled. “She’s not smart enough to hide a lie. Trust me.”

  “Guess it can’t ever be easy,” Artemis said, clearly in agreement. She moved to follow Ares. At the doorway Ares paused, turning back to the weeping woman.

  “By the way, you should probably hire some more guards. Sidorov will no doubt want to ‘talk’ with you about this, and his people play rough.”

  He headed for the stairs. Desmond and Artemis followed, leaving the destroyed Chloe sobbing on her bed.

  21

  San Francisco, California

  The RV pulled up in front of the town house. It was late, past two a.m. The other cars in the caravan parked along the street, dispersing to keep from attracting too much attention.

  Lenka Sidorov stepped from the RV, pulling his coat tight. He waited a moment for his people to assemble, moving in from their parking spots. His men clustered around him, then advanced on the house. They kept their guns tucked away until they reached the front stoop. One jimmied the lock with a set of wire-like picks. For the second time in as many days, the door to Chloe Ezra’s home sprung open. This time the security system was already disabled, taken down by yesterday’s visitors. No signal was sent to the authorities as a half-dozen men stormed into the town house, none speaking a word. There was only the soft, muffled noise of boots on carpet.

  Lenka stepped inside and pulled out his Glock. Duscha walked alongside him, looking bored by it all. She had a gun on one hip, and a cat-of-nine-tails whip on the other. A devilish smile crossed her lips.

  A single, muffled gunshot filled the room. It wasn’t the soft, swishing sound of a silenced weapon in the movies. It was loud, but not loud enough to be heard outside or next door. Following the gunshot, a body thumped down the stairs, caroming off the railings until it came to a stop at the base. Lenka loomed over the dead man: a muscular fellow with no neck and a half-dozen tattoos. Prodding him with his foot, Lenka found a forty-five tucked into the dead man’s belt.

  “Nice shooting, Ruslan,” Sidorov said, nodding toward the man. Ruslan tucked his gun away.

  “Go find her,” Sidorov said, to anybody within earshot. Ruslan and Yevgenny darted upstairs. Lenka sighed, pulled out a cigarette, and moved to a nearby easy chair. He lit the cig, took a deep drag, and coughed violently. He covered his mouth reflexively. A spot of blood appeared
on his hand. He frowned, and shook it away.

  Shrieks and screams greeted his ears as his men dragged a struggling woman down the stairs. Chloe Ezra bucked and fought, but was no match for the strength of the mercenaries. They dragged her off the stairs and threw her to the floor at Lenka’s feet.

  He inhaled on his cigarette and looked down at the bedraggled woman. She struggled to her feet, but quickly found gun barrels pressed to her back. She froze, holding her hands up in surrender.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “I want to speak with you, Miss Ezra,” said Lenka. “You know who I am?”

  “You’re Sidorov?” she asked nervously.

  “I am,” he replied. “And I was very upset by the message you left on my phone. Cutting off our funding? What would possess you to do that?”

  “They were here,” Chloe said. “They . . . they have evidence that could destroy me . . . my whole organization.”

  “They?” Lenka said. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a glossy piece of paper. Photos of the immortals covered it, most taken from long distance with telephoto lenses over the past few decades. Surveillance shots from rare moments when one of his people had caught up to an immortal. He held the paper before her.

  “Which of ‘them’ came to see you?” he asked. His voice wasn’t particularly authoritative, but from the scared look on Chloe’s face it was clear she understood the command.

  “These two,” she said, pointing.

  “So,” said Lenka. “You’ve met Ares and Artemis.”

  Duscha’s head perked up at the mention of Ares. She pulled the cat-of-nine-tails from her belt, her fingers tightening around the grip with anticipation. The motion didn’t escape Chloe, whose face went white.

  “I’m surprised you’re still alive,” Lenka went on.

  “Th-there was a third!” Chloe said. “He’s not on the sheet!”

  “Oh? Did he give you a name?” Lenka asked.

  “N-no. He just said he was the God of Logic Chains, then spewed some corporatist crap,” explained Chloe.

  Lenka nodded, as if contemplating.

  “Most likely a mortal,” he said with a wave. “There are always people willing to be their cronies. To ‘hang out with the cool kids,’ I believe is how you Americans put it. He is unimportant. What is important is that you get the money flowing again.”

  Chloe swallowed nervously, fears battling on her face. She looked uneasily at Duscha, who swiveled her wrist, the flail in her hand lolling harmlessly over and over, as if building up speed.

  “I—I can’t,” Chloe finally said. “If they release what they have, I’ll be ruined! All of E.H.E. will be ruined!”

  “Is that so?” Lenka asked, completely calm.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I . . . Take anything I have! You can get a few thousand dollars from—”

  “Stop,” Lenka said, holding up a palm. “No need to embarrass yourself.”

  He lifted his gun, aiming at her head. The two mercs behind her stepped aside, out of the line of fire.

  “But—no—plea—”

  He squeezed the trigger. A muffled bang filled the room. Chloe jerked backward, and her body slumped onto the floor, a neat, nickel-sized hole in her forehead.

  Duscha frowned.

  “Papa, I could have changed her mind,” she said, stretching the strands of her weapon tight.

  “And her screams would’ve awakened half the neighborhood,” Lenka grumbled. “We do not have much time. There was a disabled security system on the way in. Find the console and take it with us.”

  “You think pictures of them will tell us where they came from?” asked Grigori.

  Lenka shrugged. “I do not know. But perhaps something will come up, some clue. Take it, and get everybody back into their vehicles.”

  A cracking sound filled the air, followed by a pulpy smack. Lenka frowned. Duscha had struck the dead body with her toy, tearing the fabric of the dead woman’s shirt and the flesh of the breasts beneath.

  “Go to the RV, daughter,” he said. “There will be time to play later.”

  She frowned. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Go,” Lenka repeated coolly. “All of you. Now.”

  Lenka watched the car drive away. Nicholai was at the wheel, off to find and take care of the private investigator Chloe had hired. Lenka supposed he should feel a bit of regret about that. The man had led them to Zeus and Hera. But he was a loose end, potentially aware of who they were and what they did. So he had to be eliminated.

  As Ruslan spurred the RV to life, Lenka brooded in the passenger seat, staring into the dark streets of San Francisco. He felt a twinge of regret over Chloe. She hadn’t been important enough to blackmail, so there was no use letting her live. She’d been a liability. She’d talked to the first people who’d threatened her.

  But his regret was not over having killed her. It was regret at the loss of an easy source of money. Yevgenny and Grigori had voiced their concerns about this when walking out of Chloe’s town house. Lenka had told them not to worry. Chloe was an easy source of money, but not their only one. Large numbers of government officials in Russia had once been KGB, and he had dirt on most of them. In return for his silence, they were willing to “misappropriate” a bit of money from their budgets in his direction.

  One of them had tried to take him out once. He now lay at the bottom of the Volga, along with all of his nuclear family, food for whatever crawly aquatic scavengers lived there.

  “Lenka,” said Yevgenny from behind him. “I think we may have something.”

  Lenka perked up. Yevgenny sat tapping away at a laptop, working on the drives they’d taken from Chloe’s security system. Lenka shuffled over to stare at the screen. Duscha loitered over Yevgenny’s other shoulder.

  “What is it?” Lenka asked.

  “It seems she had a pinhole camera as part of her security system. Impossible to see unless you know where to look. Somewhere on the front of her house,” Yevgenny said, pointing. “Look for yourself.”

  On the screen a black-and-white image of the front door appeared. Three figures walked up to the door, two instantly familiar: Ares and Artemis. The third Lenka had never seen before, but if he was there with Artemis, Lenka figured it was the man she’d been with when she knocked out Ruslan. Probably her latest lover or some desperate immortality groupie.

  “We already knew they were here,” Lenka said.

  Yevgenny skipped forward to the part where they emerged from the door once more. They walked across the street to a car, jumped in, and started to drive away. For a split-second their license plate was visible. Yevgenny paused the footage and zoomed in.

  “Do we have anybody who can track license plates?” Duscha asked.

  “No,” Lenka said, a smile forming on his face. “But we don’t need one. Look.”

  He pointed to the plastic frame surrounding the license plate. Slightly blurred letters spelled out “Edwards’ Coastal Auto Emporium.” His smile spread to Duscha and Yevgenny.

  “We just narrowed down our search,” Lenka said. “Find out where Edwards’ Coastal Auto Emporium is located. We head for there.”

  “You think they bought the car locally?” asked Yevgenny.

  “Most people do,” Lenka said. “It’s a lead. The best we have.”

  Yevgenny nodded and got to work. Lenka strolled back to the passenger seat, his brooding mood broken. He looked to the darkness of the city streets with a smile.

  “Found it,” Yevgenny said a moment later. “It’s outside Monterey, near the coast.”

  “Ruslan, head south,” Lenka ordered. “Always wanted to visit Big Sur. I hear they have good hunting this time of year.”

  22

  Big Sur, California

  They set up behind the house, putting a target on a scraggly tree, then
retreating across the hill seventy yards or so. Artemis held a recurved bow in her hands, an ancient-looking thing that had been lovingly maintained. Desmond figured it had to be one of Ares’ weapons, since hers were most likely still in Colorado.

  “Okay,” she said with supreme confidence. “First shot, dead center bull’s-eye.”

  “That almost sounded arrogant,” Desmond said. “Surely you people know the pitfalls of hubris.”

  She half smiled. “It’s not hubris when you can back it up.”

  She nocked an arrow, pulled the string back to her ear, and let fly. The whole process took maybe a second. The arrow shot forward, drilling into the tree. She put the bow down.

  “Go look,” she said.

  He shrugged, and walked toward the target. He didn’t have to go all the way there. At about twenty yards he could see the arrow, dead center in the middle of the red bull’s-eye.

  He turned, and flinched. Artemis was right there, having snuck up behind him without a sound.

  He sighed. On the drive back to Big Sur he’d mentioned that he wasn’t sure an unaided human eye could even see a quarter-sized target at seventy yards. Artemis had taken this as a challenge.

  “Still have any doubts?” she asked.

  “Well not about anything the size of quarter. But a penny . . .”

  She punched his arm playfully.

  “That was just a warm-up. Come on.”

  They went back, and Artemis began firing off shot after shot, never missing. She shot a clockwise circle of arrows around her initial bull’s-eye, all of them within the red center circle, until there was no red center anymore—just a quarter-sized hole. Desmond watched, not really seeing.

  “Your mind is wandering,” she said.

  “You can tell that?” he asked. “Already?”

  “Don’t have to be in love with a man to know when he is daydreaming,” she replied. “What is it?”

  “Just thinking about the whole thing with Chloe,” he replied. “You tell me most immortals die from suicide, that they get tired of it all and decide to end it. Yet neither of you showed any trace of feeling that way.”