by fox, angie
Yes! There was the Ricky Schroder look-alike, along with a photo of a raven-haired goddess.
"He escaped," I said, trying to put it together myself as I spoke. "I thought he was going back to the front."
"Instead, he was off banging his girlfriend." Rodger grinned. "The virgin."
"Not anymore." I couldn't believe it. Sheer amazement and euphoria collided until my head swam with it. Who would have thought fear would get together with hope and bring peace?
"The gods are going to be pissed," Rodger said. Nobody screwed with the order of things.
"Let 'em," I said, grinning for the first time in I didn't know how long. We did it. We actually did it.
We had a cease-fire.
Stone's voice spoke over the video. "All forces are being pulled back, including members of the Green Hawk, Gold Scepter, and Red Dragon Special Forces teams called to the scene."
"That's Galen," I said, grabbing Rodger's arm way too tight.
"It looks that way," he said, letting me shake him up and down a little. I couldn't help it. It was just too much.
"You can see them coming down the mountain," the anchorman said, as an aerial shot showed a line of troops weaving down the volcano, staying clear of the impact zones.
Galen was alive. He had to be. Oh my god. I couldn't believe we'd done it. He'd made it. I wanted to cry with the sheer relief of it.
PNN showed the armies as they began to back down. The helicopter flew over the volcano once more and I found myself leaning forward, trying to peer inside. As if that would work.
I couldn't wait to see Galen again. To hug him and tell him how much I loved him. We did it. He'd survived. And even if I couldn't see him right away, even if he had to rejoin his unit, just to know he'd lived through this—it was more than I could have ever imagined.
The corners of my eyes crowded with tears. I was just wiping them away when the mountain exploded, sending a massive shock wave of purple fire searing down into the hell vent.
A reporter screamed. The armies braced against the impact. I sat in shock.
The Mountain of Flames broke apart. Fiery rock tumbled down into the hell vent, splashing down into the lava. Onlookers cried out in horror as the entire mountain crumbled and was consumed into the depths of Hades.
At that moment, I knew Galen was dead.
"I don't believe it," Stone announced. "One of the most feared hell vents is...gone."
Gone.
I sat as the crowd cheered around me.
I didn't have the emotion to move or to cry or to beat my fists and scream at the injustice of it all. Demand that they mourn for the soldier who gave his immortal life and soul so that they could carry on, alive and whole.
It was done. I'd chosen this.
It was the sacrifice I'd made, the deal Galen had accepted.
I just couldn't believe it was over.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rodger stood next to me. "You don't know he's dead."
"Don't fuck with me," I said, sliding off the table. I'd seen his unit trailing down the mountain. I'd watched it crumble into hell. "I've got to get out of here," I said, fighting my way through the jubilant crowd.
"You don't know anything for sure," Rodger called, following me.
"How can you say that?" I demanded. It was cruel. "We just watched it happen."
I banged out of the mess tent. The suns were high, and the desert heat beat down. Nothing changed in the MASH 3063rd.
Fucking army.
"Look at what just happened," Rodger said as we left the crowds behind. "There's peace. There's hope again. It must have taken a miracle to make that happen." He jogged next to me.
"A miracle?" I choked out a laugh.
"Have some faith. He could have made it out."
"This had nothing to do with a miracle. And it wasn't about faith, either. It was about minute decisions. It was about the small things."
Rodger squinched his face in confusion. "Okay. Sure. Whatever you say."
We walked for a moment. I toyed with the idea of stopping in Galen's tent, but it was empty. Galen was gone.
"I can explain," I told him. I had to tell somebody. I desperately needed to understand it myself. "But you're sworn to secrecy on this."
Rodger shrugged. "Who would believe me?"
Good point.
"It was about the prophecies," I said. "The first one came true when I saved Galen's life and got that bronze dagger."
A healer whose hands can touch the dead will receive a bronze dagger.
Rodger's brows knit. "You can't see the dead."
My heart skipped. "Not literally," I lied. "But we've all seen war dead."
He nodded.
"You saw the dagger," I said, trudging a foot in front of him, purposely moving on from the topic.
He let it go. "Okay, what about the second one? With the dagger, she will save lives and arrest the forces of the damned?"
I dug my hands into my pockets, almost missing the feel of the god damned knife. "I saved Galen's life, so he was there to help stop the Shrouds and save Dagr's life."
Rodger caught up to me, eyes wide. "It's what made the second prophecy come true."
"And set up the third." It all fit. I could see it now.
Rodger glanced at the recovery tent as we passed. "So, the third one said, the lifesaver will join bodies in love." He rolled his eyes. "You've certainly done that enough."
His face fell as he recalled the second half: After, she will find new peace as he finds death. "Oh shit. I'm sorry, Petra."
Me, too.
"Galen found me before he left. Kosta raised the alert and Dagr escaped in the confusion."
"You're the reason the god got out?"
"If I hadn't delayed Galen long enough to—never mind." Rodger knew already. But if I hadn't made love to Galen, Dagr might not have escaped.
"And him shagging the virgin put a stop to all this."
"It did." Holy hell, if I hadn't fulfilled the second prophecy, Dagr would be dead. It wasn't about magic or mysticism. Well, maybe with the knife. But not with the rest.
It was about decisions, the details I took for granted that could change fate—that could change the world.
Rodger seemed to be thinking the same thing. He stopped in front of the OR. "Little pebbles start avalanches."
I didn't even know I was doing it. I couldn't have chosen how events unfolded. I really had gone on faith. It was both humbling and terrifying. What would have happened if I'd lost Galen, like I'd lost Spiros? What if the Shrouds had taken us that night? They'd come so close. What if I'd refused to follow Galen through the dark and insisted we return to camp right away?
"Hey," Rodger said, mistaking my quiet for grief. "I still say he could have made it."
"They took away his divinity. He went up the mountain as a mortal. No one can survive that."
"Heroes do it all the time. Maybe he's coming back."
"The prophecy said he'd die."
"But it never said when. He's mortal now. He could die at the ripe old age of eight hundred. Who knows? There's still hope, Petra. Have faith."
I felt the pain of it deep inside. I wanted to believe, but it was so hard. I had no proof.
Still, a glimmer of hope took hold. "If anyone could have made it off that mountain, it would be Galen," I said, feeling some of the weight of it ease.
Perhaps hope was more of a conscious choice than a feeling.
"He's a hell of a soldier. He can make it." Rodger clapped me on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's go home."
I dragged my feet. "It's full of swamp creatures."
"I thought you were trying to look at the bright side from now on," Rodger said, nudging me along.
"Okay. Fine. Maybe they taste like chicken."
Helicopter blades pounded overhead. I hoped it was VIPs instead of wounded.
As we walked, I tried to imagine what the recent battle had meant. It had destroyed one of the last major hell vents, an
d prevented the damnation of countless mortal souls. We had peace for the first time in centuries. I had hope.
And for a brief time, I'd had Galen.
If he'd made it, if he did survive, he'd be sent back to his unit. I'd never see him again.
Yet even if I was alone for the rest of my life, I knew I'd stood up for him. I'd let him know I loved him.
"Um, Petra, about going home...," Rodger began.
I about fell over when I saw where he was pointing.
"Rodger!" I gasped as I stared at our hutch, not quite believing my eyes.
A chorus of sea creatures chirped inside. They covered the floor, the cots, the stove. They pushed at the sides of the tent, straining the canvas walls and window netting.
"Look at this," I demanded as a fat one by the window popped out one, two, three, squirming, slimy little dinosaurs.
Rodger cooed. "It's the miracle of birth!"
"On my cot." Another one slithered out as we spoke.
"It's not on your cot," Rodger said, a bit too academically for my taste. "They're on top of the other swamp creatures."
"What are we going to do?" I wasn't about to go in there.
"Roll down the light-blocking shades," Rodger said, reaching for the drawstrings on the outside of the hutch.
"Oh yes. Hide them. That's a great strategy."
"Just until we know where to put them."
"How about back in the swamp?" Where they should have stayed.
"You know that won't work," Rodger admonished.
I was going to kill him. This time, I was really going to kill him.
"Okay, what now, Sherlock?" I asked, once we'd pulled all the shades. And locked them down. Marius needed the locks, and, well, we did too.
It sure didn't cover the squawking.
Which was getting louder with every birth. They were multiplying like maniacal rabbits.
"What are we going to do?" Rodger ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up on the ends. "I was just trying to give them a good home," he added, walking in a circle, "better than the swamp."
"Okay, Rodger." The one closest to our hutch was huge— the size of an Olympic swimming pool. "Maybe we could put your creatures in there and build a fence." It sounded ridiculous even to me. Besides, I knew it was too late for that. The buggers could climb. I'd seen them scaling our walls as I brought down the shades. Rodger had taken them out of their habitat and messed with their mating drive.
Rodger dug his hands in his pockets and cast a guilty look at our place. "I wonder how long until they break out of the tent."
"Petra?" Galen called.
My heart leapt. Was that really his voice? My breath hitched as time itself seemed to slow down. I held on to the moment as hope swelled inside. I wanted to believe. I needed it with every cell in my body.
I turned and caught sight of him.
"Galen!" I couldn't believe it. Could scarcely comprehend it. We met halfway around my tent. He was whole and uninjured and, "You're alive." I wanted to laugh and cry and scream and ended up doing all three as I hit him with the bear hug of the century.
"Hello to you, too," he said, hugging me fiercely.
"You're back!" He'd survived. I wanted to shout it to the heavens.
"The front was brutal, but as soon as the cease-fire orders came down, it forced Pluto to shut down the immortal gate."
"I can't believe you're here," I said, inspecting him. His face was painted with camouflage and he wore a dagger, a rope, and a fully loaded weapons belt.
He shook his head, the corner of his mouth tipped up.
"No one was allowed to die in the battle for fear that casualty numbers would influence the discussion of what to do with the star-crossed lovebirds up there." He captured me and pulled me close. "The lords of the underworld were forced to heal everyone. Pele was a little pissed, but my men are safe. We're all safe."
Tears clouded my eyes. "Thank God."
"Thank Dagr," he said, bending to kiss me on my cheek, my jaw. He brushed a heart-stopping kiss over my lips. "With the cease-fire, they've released us all back to our previous assignments."
"You mean?" I could hardly believe it.
"See what happens when you have a little faith?"
"You just love being right," I said, laughter bubbling from me. But I knew. I understood, even if I couldn't quite put it into words.
We were rewarded. We were whole. I couldn't believe I actually had him back.
Except... I wiped at my eyes. "I'm so sorry about what happened to you," I said, running my hands down his arms, his chest, so amazed to have him back, unharmed that I had to keep checking.
He was mortal now, in a god's army.
"I'm not sorry," Galen said. "It was worth it. We did it."
Damn the man. The way he looked at me made me want to celebrate. Large.
I gave into it and nudged him with my hip. "Want to go mark the occasion?"
His eyes darkened with desire. "Hoo-rah."
"Don't mind me," Rodger said, strolling up to us. He clapped Galen on the arm. "Welcome back, Commander."
Galen's hands slid down to my butt. "Thanks for watching out for this one, Rodger."
Rodger snorted. "You and I both know it's the other way around."
I was still thinking up a witty reply—and in my defense it was hard to think with Galen's hands on my ass—when a jeep rolled up in front of our hutch. I leaned sideways to get a better look. Nobody ever drove around camp, at least not down to the living quarters.
In fact, a small crowd had gathered for that reason. Even more people were poking their heads out of hutches.
Kosta jumped out, with a rolled parchment in hand. He didn't see us by the swamp. Instead he headed straight for the hutch and banged on our door. "Galen of Delphi in there?"
Pistaches. He was going to—"Wait!" I hollered as Kosta opened our hutch.
A flood of sea serpents swept out, lifting Kosta right off his feet. He went down under hundreds of little squeaking dinosaurs. They rolled end over end, quickly righting themselves.
Dinosaurs toddled all over the area in front of our hutch and Kosta sat among them, momentarily speechless.
A great cheer went up from the crowd.
Horace swooped in next to me. "You did it," he said, banging me in the arm with his fist. "You got Kosta!"
I looked at Rodger, who was just as surprised as me.
Rodger let out a whoop. "We did it! We got Kosta!"
I couldn't believe it. For all the planning and work and pranks we'd tried, it came down to a bunch of horny swamp monsters.
We could split three weeks off. We'd be free! I could go back to New Orleans. Rodger could see his wife again, his pups. He'd be the one to fix his own pilot light, to mow his own lawn, to be a part of his family.
He'd be home.
I looked up at Galen and it hit me. I was already home.
"You know what?" I nudged Rodger on the arm. "It's you. You got Kosta. You take the entire pot."
He'd earned it. He deserved it.
Galen and I had everything we needed right here.
Tears filled Rodger's eyes. "Thanks, buddy."
I grinned at him. "Just don't go making any more pups."
"Are you kidding? I'm going to do my best and then some."
The colonel stood, shaking off creatures and trying his damndest to appear annoyed. "I trust that you'll get these creatures back to the swamp."
"Yes," I lied. I wasn't going to push it when Kosta had dinosaur afterbirth on his forehead.
We'd figure out something.
The colonel strolled up to us, parchment in hand. "This is for you," he said, handing it to Galen.
Galen stood at attention as he accepted it. Then, with a glance at me, he cracked open the seal and the letter unfolded.
"What is it?" I strained to see. Maybe the gods changed their minds about his demi-god status.
"It's a commendation," he said, reading, "for saving Dagr."
&n
bsp; "But you're still mortal," I said, taking in the flowery praise of the gods, trying not to let the disappointment seep into my voice.
"Thank you, Colonel Kosta," he said, re-rolling the letter.
The colonel stood his ground in front of us. "You never know what can happen, Commander. Bravery is rewarded in this army."
I'd had enough heroics to last me for the rest of the war. "Let's hope we don't have to find out." We'd succeeded in stopping the war for at least a while. We'd saved lives. We'd made a difference.
Maybe now I could get to work on that anesthetic for immortals. I could probably talk Jeffe out of taking a break from his Trivial Pursuit contest to give me some samples from his claws.
"Okay then." Kosta gave one last withering look to our hutch, which had taken on a definite lean to the left. "I want you to clean this up before you submit your leave paperwork," he said to Rodger.
"Yes, sir," my roommate said with glee.
I couldn't help but smile.
"And you." He pointed to Galen. "HQ paperwork is a mess. You're still here indefinitely."
I loved the army.
"Too bad Rodger won't be around to see the car," Galen said, watching Kosta strut away.
"What car?" Kosta would never let us touch his car. We'd tried.
"Didn't you hear?" Galen asked. "Nurse Hume won a silver Camaro."
My mouth dropped open. "Not the Dr Pepper sweepstakes."
"What?" Galen asked, too amused for his own good. "You doubted?"
I shook my head. "Never again."
"Come on," Galen said, reaching down for a dinosaur. "I'll help you get this sorted out."
"And after that," I said, walking my fingers up his arm.
He flashed a wolfish smile. "Well, I do expect to be rewarded."
I nudged my hip against his leg. "Pushy, aren't you?"
"Always." He wrapped his free arm around me and nipped my ear.
Oh, this was going to be fun. "Lucky for you I find that endearing."
"I promise it will be worth your while," he whispered against my ear.
"All right, soldier. You're on."
-THE END-
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