by April Zyon
“She’s very close,” Krista admitted. “Her power is nearly gone. She’s holding on only for you. No other reason than that. She’s always been your greatest friend and confidant. She’s always enjoyed your friendship,” she told him. “That is why she’s being reborn just for you. She’s loved you but has never been able to show it or give it to you freely. She’s truly remarkable and you are a very lucky man.”
Mercury leaned forward in his seat to stare at Krista. “You say she’s here, and you can hear her words, I’m guessing. Can she hear me?” he asked. His gaze was intense, and there was something more in his eyes and in his voice.
“She’s always been able to hear you. She listens even when she can’t speak back to you. She has tried to give you visions, tried to give you reasons and ways to lead you where you needed to be. You’ve listened to her. Time and again, you’ve listened to her.”
“Always,” he whispered. “She saw something in me even I couldn’t see. Something that I didn’t see for centuries. I’ve always known she was guiding my hand, and even when I didn’t understand the reasoning behind what she was doing I knew to trust in her.” Swallowing hard, he closed his eyes. Then he spoke softly in a language that was lyrical and made her want to hear even more.
At his side, the goddess tipped her head, reaching a hand out toward his arm, then slowly faded from sight.
“Whatever it is that you said made her very happy,” Krista whispered with a tear sliding down her cheek. “The last essence that was her flowed the path to the human. I only know because the goddess passed it on before she died fully. She wanted me to know so I could tell you. She’s now in human form but doesn’t realize it.” Which was dangerous for the woman in question. “I hope you find her soon, Mercury. She has power inside of her that she doesn’t know of, that she doesn’t know how to control. She needs you and doesn’t realize it yet.”
“Holly is working on it,” Mercury said. Pushing to his feet, he looked her way. “Thank you for that. I never knew she was so close. If I had, I would have told her sooner. Now, was there a reason you are here?”
“Just to introduce you two,” Eric said. “And to tell you that you owe fifty bucks to Holly.”
“Fucking hell,” he grumbled.
“What is the fifty bucks for?” she asked with a frown. “I’m really curious.” She could see the pain on Mercury’s face and hated that she’d had a help in putting it there. A part of her wished that she could learn better to keep her mouth shut.
“Nothing you need to know about,” Mercury said.
“And that would be our cue to get the hell out of here. Let’s get going, sweetheart. There’s a lot of base to show you, and I’m sure there’s a steak in the dining hall that will be calling your name in a couple of hours.”
“Oh yes,” she said with a nod and looked to Mercury again. “You will find her, soon. I’m sure of it,” she confessed with a small smile. “When you do, I hope you love her for the woman she is today and not the friend you knew so long ago.”
“To me, the goddess has been gone for longer than Eric’s been alive. I know what occurs during the reincarnations, Krista. Better than any of you ever will. Go, see your new home. I have things I need to tend to.”
Eric tugged on her fingers lightly but stayed quiet while she and Mercury stared at one another.
Krista bowed her head to Mercury and whispered a soft blessing to him and him alone. “May you find her very soon, Mercury. I think that she needs you as much as you need her.”
As they left his office, she heard him whisper, “Doubtful she’ll ever need me as much.”
Eric shut the door behind them, then pulled her into his arms. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly. He was rubbing his hand up and down her back and rocking her gently in his arms.
Chapter Six
Billy paced back and forth, his anger rolling off of him in waves. “That bastard has my kin,” he fumed. “I want her back, you sods.” He growled at his minions. “I don’t give a shit what you have to do. I need her,” he shouted. “She’s as important to my plans as the other one.” He was ranting and raving, his boot heels angrily clapping on the wood floors under him.
“Whatever it takes, get her out of that goddamn mountain.” He scowled at his first in command. “Lie, cheat, steal, beg, or pillage. Just get it fucking done. Do you understand me?”
The men all looked at one another in concern and with more than a little confusion. “Uh, sir,” his first said, “they aren’t going to let her just walk out of there. We need to come up with something she would willingly sneak away to protect.”
“The innocents. She’s like the other fucking women and will never allow an innocent to be harmed. Take an orphanage. Send word to that mightier-than-thou son of a bitch Mercury and let him know that if she doesn’t come we will kill them all, starting with the babes.”
“Which will only get us all the guardians,” someone in the group muttered.
Before Billy could freak out more, his first nodded. “He has a point, sir. Mercury would never willingly allow any of the women to place themselves in harm. And neither would any of the guardians. We need something, or someone, personally connected to her. Someone that she would do anything, including sacrifice herself, for. We need to hit her on a level she won’t be thinking, and she’ll only act. The orphanage is a good idea, sir, but I think it’s too broad of an idea.”
“She has no family, not now. Her mother died, and her father, I dispatched that son of a bitch myself when I found out that he knocked up my granddaughter and left her to those bloodletting redskins.” He growled. “She was alone and I liked it that way. I would have been able to control her that way.”
“There has to be someone she’d go above and beyond for. Someone she’d willingly sacrifice for,” his first said. “Maybe…” Clearing his throat, the man shifted around. “Sir, I know this is unorthodox, and you tend to prefer to kill them outright, but what if we got him out of there, captured him, and held him until she gave herself up? Then you kill him and we take her back with us. It would be two birds with one stone. One less guardian, and you’d have her.”
“How the hell are you going to get a guardian to come out of there?” someone else asked.
“We do have one of the VV’s in hand,” his first said slowly before trailing off to leave Billy thinking about it and all the possibilities.
“No.” Billy stood. “We cannot allow her to fall into their hands. If she does, then we will lose the ability to control storms. No. Not her. Besides, I refuse to allow those fucking guardians to get another of the VV’s in their hands, because I will not let them grow stronger. With each and every fucking VV they take in they become stronger. They just don’t realize it yet. Idiots.”
“Yes, sir, and I fully understand your stance on that. But we don’t actually have to have her there. We do a video communication with her, give a location, and then have one of our followers act in her stead. We’ll have her pretend to be drugged up, so that even if the guardians manage to grab her, they’ll get one hell of a surprise instead of the VV they were expecting. Even if we need to sacrifice her, our goal is only to get the guardian so we can lure out your kin.”
“Very good. Do it,” Billy commanded. “Bring me this bastard so that I can personally gut him. The big red fucker. More like the children’s tale of Santa Claus than he is a guardian. Gives us all a bad name.”
“Right you are, sir,” his first said. The man waved the others away, and when they were grouped around him the man passed out the orders. This allowed Billy to truly begin to plan his revenge on Eric the Red and all he’d do to him once he had Krista safely away from the freaks and back within his personal overwatch.
****
Holly looked at the video feeds in horror. She put her hand over her mouth and gasped. Holy shitballs, this was bad. So very, very bad. She hit the comms device on her phone, which connected her to Mercury. “I need everyone. This is bad, Merc. Seriously fuck
ing bad. Billy is about to hurt a VV.”
“On my way,” he growled into the phone. The call ended, and a couple seconds later a piercing bell ripped through the building. “All guardians to the computer room, now!” The bell sounded again before silence descended.
The door burst open a couple minutes later to show Demaratus racing in. He came straight to her and yanked her out of her chair to spin her around, pat her down, then wrap his arms around her tightly. “What the fucking hell is going on?” he demanded. “I felt your panic like nothing from you before, and then Mercury sends out that message. I fucking lost another century off my damn life, woman.”
“I didn’t mean to do that to you.” Holly was shaking as she hugged Demaratus. “Billy has lost his fucking mind. He’s torturing a VV and is streaming it live on the Web. I’m trying to get it shut down right now. I have it blocked from the world, but he’s giving out all the secrets. D. He’s got her in a cage and said he’s going to burn her alive. He wants a full surrender, or he’s going to do it.”
“Not going to happen,” Mercury said, coming into her office. “I want a location on that psychopath yesterday. Demaratus, once we have a location, I want all of you out there to kill him and his little troupe. No one walks out of there alive. No prisoners. I want all their fucking heads.”
Holly rubbed her hands up and down her arms and looked from man to man, then the women that filed in with their men, too. Sophia was holding her child close, and James looked ready to kill anyone that looked at her wrong. “It feels wrong.”
“Feels like a trap,” Krista agreed. “If he had a VV, he wouldn’t kill them, right?” Although, it looked as if Billy had lost his tentative hold on his sanity.
“He could very well kill a VV. It’s all part of the master plan in the end anyway,” Alexander said. He was closest to the screens, leaning in to see what Billy was doing. “It is likely a trap, though, but if we go in knowing that, then we’re one up on him.”
“We need to kill him,” Gaius muttered. “We should have killed him long ago.”
“If he’s truly losing his grip on reality, and not just playing it up for the cameras, then we need to be ready for more than just a trap,” James said. “He’ll have his whole army with him and likely plenty of booby traps set to slow us down. We also can’t forget one very important detail—he knows where all our medallions rest.”
“Which is why you’ll all be wearing the new Kevlar body armor. Bullets will still hurt like a bitch, and blades may do some damage with enough strikes, but he’s not fucking taking any of you out on my watch.” Mercury looked around the room. “Holly, get us a location. Guardians, go and gear up. I want you ready to move at a moment’s notice. Holly, alert the Marines to get the choppers fired up. They’ll be dropping the men in close so there’s less time wasted.”
Sophia glanced up at James and shook her head. “You can’t go.”
Holly nodded in agreement. “We can’t figure out how to get the Kevlar into a helmet that won’t blind you, so she’s right. You have to stay behind, James. Besides, you need to look after your little one there.” Holly then looked to Krista and saw the pain there in her eyes. “Krista and I will go to the cafeteria and get us some food and diapers for the baby. We will hunker down here. Merc?” She asked the bossman if that was okay or not.
He gave a jerky nod. “Everyone but James into the gear. Take whatever weapons you want, need, or think you can use to rip his head off his scrawny little neck. Move!” he ordered.
The men all turned to their respective VV’s, if they had one, and gave them soft words and kisses before leaving the room.
****
Eric tugged on Krista’s hand, pulling her out into the corridor. “It’ll be fine,” he said softly. Backing her to the wall, he rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “I know this is scary, but you need to believe in us, all right?”
“I do believe in you, but…”
“It will be all right,” he whispered. Lowering his head, Eric gave her a gentle kiss, his arms sliding around her body to pull her in close. “I love you, Krista Reins. I plan on being around for a very long time because I have plans for the two of us. Lots and lots of plans. Some of them even involve actually having clothing on, too.”
“Good.” Krista hugged him back. “Go and kill that son of a bitch so that when we have kids we won’t have to be looking over our shoulders? I do want them. Maybe not right away but I really do want kids one day.”
“Me too, sweetheart.” After giving her another kiss, he drew away. With a light brush of his fingers to her cheek, and a patented Eric smile, he jogged off down the corridor.
“He’ll be fine.” Looking over, she saw James standing in the doorway. “Billy is crazy. He’s got zero moral code anymore, and he’s flying higher than a kite on his own self-importance, but they know that and won’t let him blindside them.”
“Yeah,” Krista agreed, struggling to relax.
James nodded slowly while watching her. She felt he had something more on his mind, but he didn’t speak of whatever it might be. Instead he stepped back slightly and waved her into the room. “Best to get a spot picked out and figure out how to keep yourself from going nuts.”
“Can I hold your baby? That would seriously keep me occupied.” Everyone knew to ask James before they even looked at the baby. He was seriously overly protective to the nth degree, and she couldn’t say that she blamed him.
He nodded and moved over to his mate. Whispering something softly in Sophia’s ear, he scooped their child out of her arms. He walked back over to Krista. With a kiss to the baby’s pudgy cheek, he handed the child over. “He’s a little gassy today, so keep his head up above his belly.”
Krista smiled and took the child from James. She stroked a finger over the satiny cheek and sighed. “You are utterly perfect.” She looked at James and whispered, “Your mother is so proud. She said she can rest now that you have found peace and happiness.” She saw the light as it encased the woman and watched her walk away. At least they had all gotten used to Krista speaking to ghosts and didn’t look at her as if she had lost her mind.
His brows went up at that, and he blinked. “I’m glad,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “We have some bottles already made up and waiting, should they be needed. They are in the diaper bag with all the other stuff these little tykes apparently need.”
“I have a feeling that Sophia is going easy on you and isn’t pushing as much stuff on you and the kid as most first-time moms do. I’ve seen a few in my day and they typically travel with a freaking store of supplies,” she teased. “I’m going to walk with this little guy and watch Holly work.”
He tipped his head to her before moving over to where Sophia was. James wrapped his arms around her from behind.
Mercury looked over at her from where he was standing behind Holly. Then his attention was jolted back to Holly. “The guys are heading top side,” Holly said. “I’ve sent the Marines what I have so far. It’s only the general area, but I’m getting it narrowed down and will update them as we go.”
“Good,” Mercury grunted.
There was a flash of light before Krista, which made her stop dead in her tracks. It was a visage of a woman in a very old nursing uniform from perhaps the early 1900s. Please, you have to listen to me… Her hands were clasped together, and her eyes were huge in her pale face. Make them stop. They have to come back…
“Oh shit,” Krista whispered, then looked to Mercury. “Please tell me that they haven’t left the Mountain yet. They are waiting.” Krista recoiled as the nurse faded away and a new woman appeared. “Something about Gaius? What happened to his VV?” She couldn’t understand because the woman who was speaking was trying to do so with her lips literally sewn shut and was using rudimentary sign language. One by one, she saw more ghosts appear, all of them with the same looks, all with their mouths sewn shut.
“No, they haven’t left yet. The men haven’t gotten to the helipad,” Mercury s
aid. He moved right up next to her. “What are you seeing, Krista? Holly, you tell those guardians to halt. They are not to get on those choppers.”
She passed the baby off to Mercury because she felt her hands and whole body shaking. “There are a shitload of dead people here, and they all have their mouths sewn shut. I’ve never seen that. Ever.” The people were of various ethnicities, genders, and ages, so there was no putting together exactly what the common thread was besides their mouths being sewn shut. She swallowed hard and continued. “Something about Gaius and his woman. An SUV turned over and, bomb? Is that right? Crap, I don’t know what that means.” She gave the sign to Mercury in hopes he would know.
“Explosion,” he said. “Gaius and Emily were struck by something on their way here. She was pinned in the vehicle while some of us raced out there to lend a hand in beating back the evil attempting to take her.” Mercury adjusted the baby slightly so he could have a hand free. “What’s going on, Krista?”
“Oh shit.” Her eyes went wide and she gulped. “Please tell me that there aren’t secret passages that could possibly be made open by a rocket launcher?” she whispered in horror only a moment before the whole place seemed to tremble.
