I was taken with dizziness, but knew to stop would likely mean to die.
“Hit the emergency stop,” I ordered. I noticed my pants were around my ankles, so hitched them up and began writing on the bottom of my boot: a levitation spell. I dreaded it after Cernay, but didn’t see an immediate alternative. Nevertheless, I only wrote one, then turned to write on the bottom of Joy’s shoe. “Take it off. Use it like a balloon.”
“Will one shoe carry me?” Joy asked, as I was already ascending and knocking the ceiling panel loose.
“It’ll go up. C’mon!” I demanded. “We need to go back up.”
“Are we going to jump off the roof?” she asked, and I entertained the idea for the briefest second.
“We have to get back to the room—when you threw my bag at Von Ranke, you threw him the pictures from the book!” I was exasperated. She was improvising and I didn’t blame her. The problem was what the book contained. “The symbol to open the Well is in the book. He might be able to open it without me.”
“Shit!” Joy floated below me in the narrow shaft.
“Yeah, shit,” I reiterated.
“Grey—we can’t go back. We have to get out.” Joy tried to reason with me. I felt my blood pressure rising, helping to stifle her words in my already-ringing ears.
The grip on the bootlace was cutting off the circulation in my hand. She was right. I let go of the boot in the same moment I grabbed a hold of a rung on the wall. Joy floated just above me and did the same. I wrote on the door with my Sharpie so it would open into the third floor. I poked my head through quickly on one side, then back, then the other side, then back. The floor was clear. They were either on the top or the bottom. Our only way out was through. I wrote another spell on the room in front of me, saw that it was little more than a cupboard with a bed, then ran as swiftly as I could to the room next to it. The window was small, but we could fit. There was a tree a few feet out into the courtyard. We would not be able to make the jump, but with could float out, up, and try to grab a branch.
We did exactly that. We were barefoot, but we jogged back to the car where Victoria and the driver waited for us. I got in, and nearly backed right out when I saw that the raven was not only now out of the cage, but in the back seat of our vehicle. It looked at me, but I collapsed in the seat and let unconsciousness finally overtake me.
When I awoke, I was being carried in someone’s arms. The pace was quick and my head lolled on my neck raggedly enough that I was jarred into full awareness. Diomedes was carrying me into a house.
“Put me down, please.” I have always loathed the distressed damsel trope. In my own life, it was something I had, until very recently, mercifully avoided. Now it vexed me more than any physical wounds possibly could. Flesh wounds I could work on, wounded pride was something else entirely.
“Hush. I will put you down once inside,” he banged my head on the door jamb. “You may have healed, but you must still be very weak. You need food and water, and then more rest.”
Diomedes put me on a couch covered with a sheet. It was not very comfortable. “Dalton has the pages—we have to go back. Now,” I ordered. It sounded much more half-hearted than I had intended. Diomedes was right, I had precious little strength left.
Diomedes sighed. The sigh sounded much heavier than I would have anticipated. Before all of this, it was so very difficult for me to ascertain the meaning and range of human emotion. Diomedes was a god, sure, but he was a man once. He likely would have dwindled into the ether, or, at the very least, grown old, feeble, and feeble-minded, if the power of Athena had not sustained him.
Joy and Victoria came into the house with bags of take-out Chinese food. “Something else has happened, hasn’t it?”
The room was then populated with other gods with whom we had dined the past couple nights: Jove, Shiva, Kali, and Cupid. Cupid caught my eye. Even before, he seemed oddly familiar, though he certainly proved himself affable. In the meals before, every time he caught me looking his way, he smiled and winked at me; almost flirtatiously.
“REvolve ambushed us at the hotel. He stabbed Mercury as he slept,” this was Athena speaking, who just entered the room. I was especially glad to see that she was alive. “Thor was the first. From what we could gather, his driver betrayed him. Ganesh was summoned to the hotel lobby under false pretenses, but if not for him, the rest of us likely would have been ambushed as well.”
This was the message Von Rankehad meant that he sent me. But I had to ask, “Were they drained or taken to drain?”
“No. Which confirms they have enough of our blood,” Athena replied.
“Goddess, Von Ranke has the symbol to open the Well now. We have to hurry.”
“We are near. You will need to eat and recover some of your strength.” She looked for the first time like a much older woman than she had when she first appeared to me.
“Wait—where is Shred?” it finally occurred to me to ask. “And the ala?”
“He chanced remaining at the hotel to gather his wares,” Diomedes stated. “He and I were working together at the time of the ambush.” I could not be certain what that meant, but figured it had to do with his composition. Diomedes resumed, “He will meet us very shortly, I hope.”
“Here you go,” Joy put the box of rice and a tray full of chicken and vegetables on my lap, then handed me a set of chopsticks.
“The ala remains upstairs. It will not leave. It has not spoken a word since we left the hotel,” Victoria declared.
This gave me food for thought in addition to the food I had just begun ingesting. I turned my attention to Diomedes. “Dio, I know you were playing coy when I asked you about the old stories written about you. Some of them have to be true, right?”
Diomedes did not eat. His visage had metamorphosed into a much younger version of himself. He expression was not that of youthful man—though his countenance implied otherwise—still, my spellcraft seemed to hold somewhere in his late 30’s or early 40’s. “Grey,” he paused, “stories are just the memories of humanity collected. Once the present becomes the past, it matters not if the stories are true or if they happened one way or some other way. It’s the way we choose to remember the memories that shapes us; there is little room for the truth there.”
Diomedes had always been known for giving his friends great counsel; a few millennia with Athena probably did well for him, too. I said nothing more while I ate. Some of the other gods ate as well, but others ate nothing. I’m sure all of them lacked an appetite after the night’s events. I was weary, but there would be no time for sleep. I began making my own patterns on my flesh: for strength, for acuity, and, even though I had never tried it before, for luck.
I made the same markings on each one gathered. Midway through, Shred pulled into the driveway of the Chateau in which we were squatting and came inside. After assuring us via tablet he had not been followed, he, too, allowed me to make the markings upon him. Each of the gods were given more complex configurations and multiple patterns to ensure their effectiveness. I also hoped Jove really could hurl lightning. As for myself, I scoured my mind for what I could use, if I could not use darts.
Only then did I go upstairs to speak with Zala. Joy accompanied me. The creature slept soundly in its cage, half-squawking, half-snoring. I took a nearby vase and raked it against the iron slats. Startled, it flapped its wings hard against the cage.
“Why have you not gone, Zala?” I shouted, fuming with resurgent anger.
Zala bristled. “Your father implanted me with a spell that traps me in this form.”
I inched forward to examine her. Her odor was overpowering, but I refused to shrink away. “Where? And how?”
“His magic. He put something into my neck,” she responded, pecking herself. “I feel it there.”
“And if I remove it, you will help us save The God Well?” I asked, voiced measured with equal parts skepticism and derision.
“I can help.” It was not the answer to the call-to-arms I
had wanted to hear. Time, however, was short, and our list of allies even shorter.
“I will remove it, but only after we face Von Ranke; only after you’ve helped us all be rid of him.” I inspected the patch in her neck. “There is no time to do it now, even if it would free you to shapeshift.”
“Will you swear it with your writing?” the ala asked.
I already had. I showed her the pattern Sharpied onto my skin. The truth pattern remained on my wrist. The idea that I might not survive the encounter to remove the spell occurred to me, yet Zala did not press the issue.
“We need to leave. Immediately,” the raven decreed.
Chapter 26
Zala left immediately to provide reconnaissance. Meanwhile, in looking at satellite photos of the coordinates, we knew Von Ranke had to account for logistical issues getting his vats of ichor wherever he was going. There were no roads, no paths, and from the look of the photos, possibly some rock-climbing, as well. Accounting for the time it would have taken Von Ranke to assemble the maps and figure out the pictogram, carrying the ichor into the wilderness, and opening the Well, we had a few hours at best. If Von Ranke airlifted himself and the ichor to the Well, we’d have even less. Hopefully, Von Ranke’s reach did not extend to commandeering helicopters to drop it. Nevertheless, time was short and I already dreaded for Gavin’s fate.
As soon as I had written strengthening spells upon the gods and fashioned some scavenged scraps of steel into cloaked shields, Shred left with Shiva and Cupid to scout locations to set up his equipment and generators. I marked my patterns on the others in various places of the gods’ bodies hoping if any of them took any bullets, some of the spellcraft would remain. Victoria, Joy, and I found a building a few miles away with offices enough to scavenge some pens, Sharpies and even plenty of Post-Its. I threw everything into two drawstring backpacks imprinted with the company’s logo, giving one of them to Joy to wear.
Approaching the Well was the greatest challenge to us. Von Ranke’s men were sure to number into the hundreds; more if he employed any kind of mercenary paramilitary outfit—rEvolve advocating enlightenment…or else. In any case, many of the rEvolvers were likely armed. While some of them would not likely be trained to use weapons, we stood no chance if they saw us coming. Stealth was paramount.
We came to the end of a dirt road close near the coordinates. Cupid and Shiva met us there via text messages, since we would not likely see each other until on top of each other.
“The others are making their descent into the gorge,” Cupid told us.
Victoria then asked, “Have you met any resistance or heard any gun shots?”
“No shots. No sound. No anything. Nature even seems to be waiting with breath abated,” Shiva was fastening on a set of armor upon himself that looked as if it should be displayed in a museum case.
I took the spare moments to try some spells on myself. It had been a few years, but I knew it would have the desired effect. I took Von Ranke’s vehicle registration out of the back pocket of my jeans. I wrote the pattern around Helmut Arthur Von Ranke. Now, I looked like Von Ranke.
Satisfied, I turned and walked back to look at Cupid, Shiva, Victoria, and Joy.
“Gods be damned,” Cupid cursed. “You look just like him!” Cupid was dressed more practically. He had sworn vengeance for the murder of his brethren. It was not a vow he took lightly. I was told he met with an arms dealer in Belgium shortly before making his way here. His age was not as advanced as most of his kin. I imagined the years of celebrating a holiday so friendly to his image and his legend sustained him very well. Like Athena, he looked like a youthful 50-year-old, perhaps even less. He wore camouflage fatigues, a Kevlar vest, a handgun strapped to his side, and held an M4 carbine popular with the American military-types. He was also affixing a bayonet to the muzzle of the rifle. Every lover is a fighter and Cupid has his camps. It was a line from one of Ovid’s poems. Could he have known? Likely.
“What will you do about the voice?” Joy asked, still uneasy with this aspect of the plan. Both her backpack and mine were on her back, acknowledging she would be my pack mule. It would also, hopefully keep her from being fired upon if she doesn’t lag too far behind me.
“I try like hell not to say anything until I’m closer. Then, we take whatever rEvolver we see out,” I rejoined. “Is Shred starting soon?”
“Yes,” Victoria, for the first time since I had met her, was not wearing a pantsuit. She, too, was wearing a set of fatigues Cupid had procured for her and the others. “Cupid and I need to leave.” Cupid handed her her own vest and rifle. Though she looked briefly taken aback by the fact she was forgetting to arm, she shuffled the vest onto her frame and examined the rifle with a keen eye. They were already leaving the field of my camouflaging spell, so disappeared from sight in an instant.
Shiva remained close enough to observe. He strapped his trident-like spear on his back, but Cupid handed him his own M4. “You don’t bring a trishulu to a gun fight.” Cupid, on the other hand was perfectly content with the rifle, which made me believe he had traded in his bow for a rifle centuries before. “My eyesight isn’t as good as it once was,” Cupid commented. “I will, however, keep track of your initial descent into the gorge and take out any obstructions you encounter. The foliage will make it difficult, I’m afraid, but I will do my best to keep you safe.”
“I’ll make sure I stay about 10 paces behind Grey at all times. As long as the terrain doesn’t dictate otherwise, I will remain straight behind her,” Joy told Cupid.
“I will destroy whatever of them is left behind.” Unlike the others of his ilk I had met, Shiva was the most vivacious of all them. I did not ask him why others of his pantheon—other than Ganesh--did not join us, but knew better than to ask as I would not likely receive the kind of answer I sought. However, it did occur to me that Shiva—like the rest of us—was only part of the first line of defense, not the last. The other gods were falling in quick succession—his colleagues likely viewed themselves as the last, best hope for the rest of them.
Sadly, if Shred or I fell today I wondered if our kind would beat the gods to extinction? Something in the back of my mind started to percolate. There was something going on here that we had not considered; something even more sinister. A slight nagging at my intuition was now something more like a slow boil.
Victoria jumped into the air. Though I did not see her wings, I knew they were there, hidden from mortal eyes like they have been for…centuries, I would guess. I took one look at the GPS on my phone and followed Victoria at a full-sprint into the woods and down to the river winding through the bottom of the gorge.
No sooner had I begun my run, the opening notes of Shred’s salvo echoed all around me. If I died today, I’d at least have a kick-ass soundtrack.
Wherever Shred had set up, he had paid particular attention, of course, to the acoustics. He had experience playing outdoors, but I would have never thought he had experience playing in a gorge. I thought wrong. There must have been a concert in the Grand Canyon or something because he played with the acoustics of the rocks themselves and translated whatever he learned to this battle now. It was louder than I would have ever thought possible. He was, no doubt, enhancing it with his musimancy, but it was invigorating to begin with. This had to be his intent. I only hoped rEvolve was excluded from feeling these effects.
Crossing over our first ridge and down, we encountered our first set of gunmen. The three of them looked at me, puzzled. I imagined they thought Von Ranke was below and were confused to see him there. I did not slow, I only pointed back and to my left, and did my best to feign horror.
One shot. Two shots. Two of the men were felled. I kept running, knowing that Cupid would soon have the third man on our flank. Two more shots. I did not know why there would be two, as turning around would slow me down and likely send me tumbling down into a wiry thicket. Over my shoulder, I heard Shiva shout, “RUN HARD!”
This struck me with fear, despite the cords ec
hoing in the gorge. With camouflage, I would have no way of seeing him anyway. There must have been much more than the three I had initially seen.
“JOY!” I barked, hoping she was following just as she promised.
“HERE!” she shouted back.
Shred’s overture transitioned into a new movement—one that held a chorus of several of our voices—even mine was sampled into a percussion-like rhythm. I was overcome with hope and solidarity. Joy had my back, Shred was playing the greatest concert of his existence—and we had hope we would vanquish the enemy.
I skidded on a batch of loose rock and into some grass. I heard Joy skid to a stop, but thankfully she did not run into me.
“HO THERE!” A French-accented voice rang out from the nearest patch of trees. He recognized me as Von Ranke or else he would have opened fire.
I waved him over, hoping Victoria and Cupid were keeping pace. It was a ridiculous thought—they were taking the aerial route and had cover of Von Ranke’s visage. Four more shots…
In case anyone else was watching, I hit the ground and started crawling behind a tree.
Shred was launching into a live guitar that carried on a conversation with string-segments. The effect was both beautiful and triumphant and it provided me with hope I didn’t know I actually felt. But it was there—and it was real. We could do this. Evil, bigotry, violence, fear was put aside.
Mightiest of Swords (The Inkwell Trilogy Book 1) Page 26
