Goddess Complete

by Michael Anderle

  Heather’s eyes met his. For a moment it looked as though she was about to tell him, but the next thing he knew, she had closed up. “Life. Life happened.”

  Gideon didn’t know what to say to that. He still considered himself far too young to have anything close to what anyone would call “life experience.” He had no idea how old Heather was in real life, but he could tell her roots were deep.

  They stood for a moment in awkward silence before Gideon nodded toward her satchel. “So, do you have anything that slows the heart rate?”

  Heather chewed her lip. “I think so. I have some things we can try, at least.”

  She pulled out a jar half full of a thick, brown substance that flowed like molasses.

  “Eurgh,” Gideon said, sniffing the contents. “What is that?”

  “Probably best not to ask,” Heather replied, giggling as she got out a bowl and started making her concoction.

  Gideon watched her in fascination, all the while keeping an eye on the man on the table and praying to the heavens that the straps would be enough to hold him.

  In the room beside theirs, he heard the pained cry of a toffet.

  Chapter Twenty

  By the time Chloe reached Burdock’s house, she couldn’t see the infected anymore.

  But she could hear them.

  She had withdrawn her flame from the armor, using only the light from her sword to lead her onward. Above, the sky was clouded, not even a sparkle of a star in sight.

  Banging on wood. The sound of beams splintering.

  Chloe raced around to the back of the house, seeing the legs of the infected trailing inside as they climbed through the broken doorway, their instincts somehow drawing them toward the residents of the property.

  “Not on my watch,” Chloe muttered, picking up a rock and hurling it through the upstairs window.

  There was no response.

  She picked up another and threw it.

  No response again.

  This time she rolled her eyes. She channeled her mana and pointed her fingertips, sending two bolts of her Volt Shock through the window, the static lighting up the room and eliciting several distressed cries.

  “What in the name of…” came Burdock’s voice in a higher register than usual.

  A moment later, his head meekly poked out of the window as he looked around for the source of the invasion.

  “Chloe? Is that you?” he called down, a hand on his chest as he breathed a sigh of relief. “What are you doing at this time of night?”

  Crockery clattered downstairs and furniture was knocked over.

  “Who’s that?”

  Chloe shouted up to him, explaining the situation as quickly as possible. “Block your doors. I don’t know how strong they are.”

  “Block my… Dear, don’t you know that I’m the man of this house? I can defend my keep from intruders, no sweat. Just let me find my axe…”

  He disappeared from view. A moment later, he could be heard rooting around his room, his wife shouting angrily at him as he hunted for his weapon.

  Chloe, deciding she couldn’t really afford to wait much longer, took the stairs into the house and went after the infected.

  It wasn’t hard to find them. They were hardly expert burglars. She found them in Burdock’s living room, crashing and bumping into objects as if drunk.

  Chloe, terrified of setting the whole house alight, extinguished the flames from her sword and began her attack.

  The infected closest to her launched itself at her. Chloe twisted out of the way just in time, and it smashed through a table and landed face-first on the floor.

  “Ouch!” KieraFreya said.

  Before Chloe could respond, two more came for her. She navigated behind a large chair, putting it between her and them. Then, with one well-timed kick, she sent the chair into one of the infected and knocked it backward, taking advantage of the space she’d given herself as she stepped forward and drove the blade into the next infected’s shoulder.

  She drew her sword back and shouted as she drove the blade into the infected’s skull, relieved when it folded to its knees and went down.

  But the first infected was now back up, splinters of wood stapled to its chest, making it look like a human pincushion.

  Turning to Chloe with malice in its eyes, it reached out for her. Its nails were blackened and sharp.

  Chloe swiped away the infected’s arms with her free hand and head-butted it, causing it to stumble backward. She kicked in the center of its chest and it crashed into the wall behind it. Once it was down, she took her blade in both hands and spiked it through its chest.

  There was movement on the stairs, and heavy footsteps. Chloe counted the infected, only finding three in the living room. She was sure there had been more…

  A shadowy figure appeared from the doorway to the hall, arms flailing. It came at her fast, and Chloe was caught off-guard at its sudden appearance. She moved to raise her sword and attack, but the creature suddenly stopped mid-movement.

  “Has the reckless buff been added again?” Chloe asked.

  KieraFreya replied. “I doubt it. That buff slows things down, it doesn’t freeze them.”

  The infected’s mouth hung open in horror. Only its eyes twitched.

  Chloe prodded the creature with her finger as a strange sound came from behind.

  The infected flopped to the floor, eyes blank. Standing behind it was Burdock, his axe now stained with blackened blood.

  “I told you I can protect my abode.” He smirked.

  Chloe nodded, a smile on her own face. “I never doubted you for a second.”

  “Hey! Hey!” Reyner called from upstairs. “There are more of them. They’re running!”

  Chloe and Burdock lunged to the window, seeing the silhouetted shapes sprinting across the fields outside.

  “Crap,” Chloe said, turning on her heel, about to run.

  She paused, looked back at Burdock. “You coming?”

  Burdock’s face went from confusion to excitement. “Hell, yeah, I’m coming. This is more excitement than I’ve seen in years!”

  Once Heather’s concoction was complete, Gideon couldn’t keep himself from poking his head outside to get some fresh air.

  The damn stuff stunk. Not only did it look like recycled feces and smell worse than anything he could imagine, but after watching Heather tease the mixture into her brother’s mouth, he found himself feeling very unsteady on his feet.

  “Lightweight.” She laughed, watching Gideon stumble away.

  He gripped the doorjamb, staring out into the street. The battle was winding down, with quite a few players already calling it quits and heading back to wherever they had come from.

  He was surprised to see a number of people making their way through the gates, considering how desperate they had been to close them not that long ago.

  Amazing how quickly problems can be solved when everyone comes together, Gideon mused, smiling as a fond memory took him.

  He had been a few years younger, making his first foray into the world of online gaming. Until then, he had only ever enjoyed single-player games with immersive campaigns, but he figured that since his friends were into it, he might as well give it a go.

  The Relic Hunter series had been all the rage back then. Gideon dived straight in, choosing the heroic warrior—Gambon the Great—and went in search of missions and quests.

  One thing he learned very quickly was that in MMORPGs, it was very easy to get caught up in missions far beyond your levels. Take one wrong turn, and your Level 2 warrior would be facing a Level 24 Hydra.

  This was something he had never experienced before. Until that point, all missions undertaken were a result of the missions completed. They were sequential. Guided. Only by completing Mission 1 could you move on to Mission 2, and so on. Progression was gradual. Inevitable.

  In the world of Relic Hunter, Gideon found himself quickly swept away on a mission with fellow warriors, the online chats alive w
ith conversation and feverish excitement as they encouraged and cheered Gideon on, driving the young warrior and his Level 2 companions ever deeper into the dragon’s dungeon to fight the great Attarik.

  It was only after fire had consumed his screen that he realized the obvious. The higher levels had used the lower ones as dragon fodder. Gideon was nothing more than a number. Dispensable. Disposable.

  He learned quickly from then on that friendships were important in games. Creating parties was a quick way to level up and attack the stronger dungeons. People you trusted. People you admired and looked up to. It had been a few hours later, as he had been perusing the taverns for possible party talent, that he had found Tag.

  Another couple of days and, in a chance encounter in the forest, he had found Ben.

  The three of them had been inseparable ever since, creating parties, making friends, and losing some along the way. The lesson had stuck, though: safety in numbers.

  Which was why he wasn’t surprised that the battle was over. The blessed players had come out in droves, a stark contrast to a few weeks ago when they had been hard-pressed to meet any blessed. Now, he could see the evidence of the growing popularity of the game. They were everywhere now. Obsidian was alive.

  From where Gideon stood at the house’s window, he could just make out the faces of the people by the gates. He wondered where the KieraSlayers were. He could hear Blueballs somewhere nearby, still moaning in pain. Maybe they were with him?

  Yeah, that’ll be it. They’re nearby, I’m sure.

  He shrugged, remembering something Tag had once told him after chasing several goblins into the woods mid-combat.

  You should never get mad at what happens in the heat of battle. Survival is the priority. Sometimes people split, but as long as you can keep in touch with messages, you’ll find everyone again.

  Gideon took one last breath of fresh air and turned back toward Heather.

  He was glad to find that the smell of the putrid mix had faded somewhat. Heather waited patiently as he made his way across the room. She held a potted plant in her hands.

  “What’s that?”

  “Lavender,” she said. “I figured you needed a break from the aroma of my potions.”

  “Thank you.” He grinned and took his seat once more. “Is it working?”

  “Hard to tell,” she mused. She reached over and picked up his eyelids one by one. “His breathing has slowed, but it’s hard to say. This might require more work than just my combined concoctions.”

  “What work do you mean?”

  Heather tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Gideon couldn’t help but stare at the smooth skin of her neck.

  She reached down to her neckline and pulled out an ornament on a silver chain, a small vial that looked as though someone had melted starlight and placed several drops inside.

  “The aid of the cleric class,” Heather said. She unscrewed the vial and tipped a drop onto the end of her finger. “Here.” She offered her finger to Gideon.

  Gideon raised an eyebrow, uncertain of what to do for a moment. She nodded encouragement, her finger inches from Gideon’s face. He nodded back, placed her finger between his lips, and licked the droplet off.

  Heather retreated sharply. “What are you doing?”

  “What?” Gideon exclaimed, alarmed. “Was that not what you’re meant to do?”

  “Taste the tears of Holistis, the holy God of Healing?”

  “Those were God’s tears?”

  “A god. Not the God,” Heather snapped back. “And yes!”

  “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” Gideon said, hands flapping. His head whirled, looking for somewhere to spit.

  “No! Don’t spit it out!” Heather said. “You can’t waste them. Do you know the lengths I had to go through to acquire those? Just swallow.”

  “What?”

  “Swallow!”

  “What will happen? What’s going to happen to me?”

  Heather shrugged, sudden curiosity in her expression. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  Gideon stared at Heather, his mouth fixed in an upside-down smile. He sighed, then closed his eyes and swallowed, feeling the warmth from the droplet as it traveled down his throat.

  Heather waited patiently.

  “Anything?”

  Gideon shook his head. Heather sighed.

  “Ah, well.” She took another droplet. “Okay, let’s try this again.”

  This time, she guided Gideon through the process. He tentatively leaned forward, and she smeared the droplet in an arc across his forehead. She then took a droplet for herself, replicating the smear on her own head.

  When that was done, she dished a final drop—Gideon surprised to see that the vial was already two-thirds empty—and smeared it across her brother’s forehead.

  “What now?” Gideon whispered. He felt a warmth growing inside his stomach, a slightly unsettled feeling he normally associated with indigestion.

  “We wait,” Heather replied, shaking her head and laughing. “I can’t believe you drank it.”

  “Well, how was I to know?”

  Between giggles, she said, “You’re an idiot.”

  The laughter left Gideon’s face.

  “What is it? What did I say?”

  His eyes met hers. “That’s twice you’ve said something like that now. I’m stupid. I’m an idiot.”

  Her face straightened, a slight flush to her cheeks. “I don’t mean it in a negative way. It’s just…I don’t know. I think you’re pretty cool.”

  Gideon raised an eyebrow. “Well, why don’t you say that, then?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Because you’re an idiot.”

  They both laughed, the sound filling the room.

  The time ticked by, as time does. The pair of them talked in the quiet privacy of the room, next door having fallen quiet, their thoughts far from their troubles as they lost themselves in tales, each taking an incredibly keen interest in the other’s stories. Gideon felt light, immaterial, nothing troubling him. He could see the same state of bliss reflected on Heather’s face.

  She reached over her brother and took Gideon’s hands. The room fell away, the walls turning white as they floated through an endless sky together. Her eyes were the color of the brightest sapphires he had ever seen.

  Her laugh echoed as if caught in a chamber and an ecstasy he had never felt before drowned him. Only once did she check that her brother was okay, and then the worry was gone, replaced instead by boundless, endless laughter and joy.

  When he looked at their hands, he discovered that they were no longer there. His arms had fused with Heather’s. They were one in an endless cycle of life. No “him” or “her.” Just “what is,” and nothing more.

  Only the lightness of being. He became mildly aware of someone above them. A pair of giant eyes that sparkled like diamonds. An enormous smile that spanned the cosmos and filled him with the nostalgic warmth of home.

  The mouth opened.

  Words in a language that he shouldn’t have understood came out.

  The language of emotion.

  “Expunge the poison. The gods know so…”

  Gideon chuckled goofily, his whole face creasing. Heather laughed as well, her hair falling over her face as their heads came closer together. The figure on the bench between them rested, his breathing steady, unaware of the mystical dance happening around him.

  Heather’s face hovered a few inches before Gideon’s. He could taste her aura, sense it in the air. He hesitated, remembering the last time she had teased him with a substance and how he had ingested it incorrectly.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered.

  He needed no more encouragement. He felt her tongue on his, felt the warmth of her lips. Their eyes closed, and they lost themselves in it, an eternity of holy darkness claiming them. Their bodies subjected to the tears of the gods.

  It wasn’t until they heard a cockerel crowing that they realized morning had come.

  And her brother
was awake.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chloe and Burdock stopped a small distance away from Doris’ house. The sounds of the battle at the gates had died out, and all was deathly still.

  “Are you sure they went this way?” Burdock whispered.

  “Of course, I’m sure,” Chloe replied, relying heavily on her Dark Vision to see ahead to where the house stood. “Trust me. I followed the others to you, didn’t I? You don’t think I can track these?”

  Burdock stood on tiptoes, craning his neck to see better. “It doesn’t look like they’re here.”

  Chloe resisted the urge to glare. She snuck forward until they were touching the outer walls of the house.

  “The lights are off,” Burdock said.

  Chloe rolled her eyes. “I can see that. Now, will you shut up? They’ll hear us.”

  “They’re not here.”

  “You don’t know that!” Chloe hissed.

  Burdock folded his arms, his foot tapping impatiently. When he couldn’t remain quiet any longer, he said, “I’m just saying, they could have gone past this house and stopped somewhere beyond. We might already have lost them.”

  Chloe took a steadying breath, eyes closed as she strained her ears for any indication of the infected.

  She heard the tell-tale thump of footsteps on wood.

  “Aha!” Chloe hushed. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  She was already gone.

  Chloe skirted the building at speed, once more imagining the haunting scenario of someone she knew getting mauled by infected. Doris was clearly still asleep, the lights off and the upstairs soundless.

  Strange, she thought. The infected hadn’t bothered being quiet at Burdock’s house.

  She reached the corner of the house and listened carefully. Several sets of footsteps now, accompanied by hissing voices.

  “She did come this way, I swear.”

  “Why would she come all the way out here?”

  “To protect the others.”

  “Was she really aflame?”

  Chloe let out a breath, her body relaxing at the sound of their voices.