Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods

by Michael R. Underwood

  “What are you doing?” I shouted at the rink, my voice cracking. “Run!”

  Esther emerged from behind the greenhouse. I had a shot. But it wasn’t clean. If she was able to deflect the power, redirect it instead of let it spend itself upon her shield, it could disintegrate an innocent. The risk was too high. My sister saw me coming, and raised a hand. But rather than shooting a bolt of energy, I decided to be more conniving, though it’d be far more strenuous.

  My hand went to the borrowed knife, and I stabbed it into the back of my left forearm.

  Marrying the pain to the blood, I directed the energy through the earth, toward Esther. I felt it climb up to the surface, and as it went, I shaped it into a net, thickly knotted and as strong as the foundations of the earth. I wrapped the power around my sister, dropping to one knee with the effort. The Deeps could be forged far more easily than blood power, and while my Deep-forging was impressive, repeating the feat with blood was costly.

  But it worked. The net caught Esther unawares, wrapped around her, darkness layering thick. She tripped and hit the ground, hard.

  “She’s down! On me, now!” I screamed, running toward Esther, praying that someone else was in range to join me. It wouldn’t be long before . . .

  I couldn’t even finish my thought before Esther let out a scream, frustrated and enraged. Her hands pierced through the net of blood, and with a groaning tear, she ripped the mesh open and stood. The energy pooled at her feet, then dissolved, staining the ground.

  “Very smart, brother,” Esther said, locking in on me. No more running, no evasion. I’d gotten enough of a rise out of her to make her face me. Now I just had to withstand her long enough for someone else to intervene.

  I raised both hands to prepare a defense, but Esther didn’t attack directly. She pulled a giant black ball from a pocket. It was the size of a baseball, and dark liquid moved under its surface. She twisted and cracked the ball open, then slammed one hemisphere down on the ground.

  The half-ball expanded, growing to the size of a head, then a beach ball, then a cow. I tried to discern what it was, and as I thought, it swallowed the light and grew to be the size of a small house, encompassing the two of us and plunging me into darkness.

  A darkness working. Simple, but effective. And if Esther had prepared it, she’d be able to give herself the eyes of Deepness to see through the artificial night. I could not match her working without Deepness, so instead I fished through the borrowed satchel for the familiar shape of peridot to use as a focus and counter the darkness entirely.

  As my hand found the gem, something not unlike a baseball bat collided with my cheek and my nose. I spiraled to the ground, my face alight with pain. I curled up, then scrambled back as best I could, my concentration shattered and the working along with it. But if I could make my way out of the hemisphere of darkness, I’d be able to regain my footing.

  “Jake!” came a voice. Antoinette. “What’s happening!”

  “Darkness!” I said, another wave of pain hitting as I tried to speak through a battered jaw.

  I found my feet, head pounding. Just in time to take another blow to my gut.

  I collapsed with a grunt.

  Must. Move. Get out. Too pained to coordinate my arms or legs, I rolled over, then again, and one time more, until I hit a plane that was both hard and wet. She’d made it solid.

  Which meant that unless Antoinette or the Gardener could break it from outside, it was up to me.

  Remembering Father setting his own broken arm after a ritual gone wrong, I grabbed my nose, and, yelling, snapped it back into place. The pain dropped me flat to the ground again, just in time for another blow to catch me across the ribs.

  Reeling in pain, I clung to consciousness with every bit of will I had left. Shock meant unconsciousness, which meant Esther could just kill me, or bind me up and then make her escape with me hauled along by a tree spirit, or any of a hundred other terrible things.

  If I was trapped in here, alone, it was up to me.

  Only me.

  Get up, Jake, I told myself. You’ve dealt with her for eighteen years, taken your lumps, weathered her abuse.

  Get up!

  And I did.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  My head pounded like the jackhammer outside my dorm that seemed to be invariably scheduled to start at six forty-five every Saturday that I tried to sleep in.

  I found my feet but had no idea where Esther was. I drew upon my flowing blood and, reeling, tried to shape the power into a working to enhance my senses, give me a chance to hear Esther as she struck.

  The working gave me just enough notice to flinch as Esther’s fist connected with my jaw. Again. My concentration shattered like crystal, the working that enhanced my hearing gone along with it.

  I gave up on fighting properly. Instead, I dropped to the ground, but instead of reeling in pain (which is all I wanted to do, perhaps with some whimpering), I rolled in toward where I knew Esther had to be, until I hit her legs. Then I wrapped myself around her shins and thighs and pulled, bringing her crashing down with me.

  And now we were children again, wrestling on the floor. If she really wanted me back for the prophecy, she wouldn’t just knife me and be done with it.

  Plus, she’d never lost when we wrestled as kids, so there was little reason she should worry now, save for the thirty pounds and three inches I had on her as an adult.

  We rolled in the dirt and mud, punching, squirming, and biting (that was Esther). My senses condensed to a confusing mash of shocks, blows, and textures, and I couldn’t say how long we continued like that, each trying to get a real advantage. I had size and weight, but Esther was more vicious by far.

  Esther tore a chunk out of my forearm, just above my self-inflicted wound, but I landed two good shots to the back of her head. Then she played the trump I’d been fearing but not expecting. I felt a wide sharp pain in my back, near my kidneys. She twisted the knife as she pulled it out, and all the strength went out of me like garbage tipped out of a Dumpster into a compactor.

  I lay flat on the muddied, spoiled ground, staring up into the gray sky. I felt my heartbeat, all other sounds receding.

  “Don’t die here, Jake. It’s not time.” The voice I heard was not my own, but Thomas’s. The logical part of my mind knew that I was hallucinating, that the voice came only from my own mind, neurons firing wildly as my body went into crisis mode from the probably fatal stab wound. If she’d punctured my kidney, the internal bleeding would be incredibly hard to stop, even with immediate assistance.

  Thomas stood above me, bent at the waist and looking down at me, wearing his tuxedo.

  “This isn’t over,” he said.

  And then, nothing.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  I woke up to the sensation of sucking mud, my body splayed out as if in a wallow. I’d not had to sleep with the hogs often, but even once was enough to remember the feeling.

  “Shit,” someone said, and the pounding of feet created sympathetic pounding in my head. I leaned forward, sitting up, holding my head with my hands. As I did, a sharp stabbing pain at my back reasserted itself, along with the memory of wrestling with Esther, the subtle sting of the blade and the tearing pain that followed.

  Carter appeared beside me, taking a knee. His hands were on my back, finding the wound. I winced again. “Yes, that.”

  “Your family needs to figure out more constructive ways to fight, okay?” Carter said, ripping off my shirt.

  The stab wound continued to bleed. “We should probably seek medical assistance,” I said, my voice slurred.

  Carter murmured something under his breath, then clapped. I felt a hot hand on the wound. Pain spiked again, and I slumped forward.

  Carter kept me braced, and chanted something in Gujarati. Power flowed into my side.
r />   The healing hands of the Nephilim. Descendants of the gods, the Nephilim could use their sliver of divinity to heal, but only so much. The gravest of wounds were outside their power, but it seemed that my wound was not so dire that the power was helpless to make a difference.

  “Come on, man, don’t die. I was just getting used to you.”

  Another presence settled next to me. I looked up from my semifetal position to see Dorothea standing by, favoring her right leg, baton at the ready.

  “Is she gone?” I asked. Just because I couldn’t see Esther didn’t mean she wasn’t nearby.

  “Shallow breaths, man,” Carter said. “She nearly took you out.”

  “She still thinks I’ll join her. Prophecy. Is everyone all right?”

  The pain at my side receded, and when Carter removed his hand, my back felt whole. “Thank you.”

  “Yep. And now it’s time for us to GTFO,” Carter said, pulling me up to a seated position.

  “What?”

  “It means we run,” Carter said. We got to our feet as one. “That, or we spend the rest of the day talking with cops. I imagine you get how terrible of an idea that is.”

  I stumbled along, leaning against Carter. Dorothea lagged behind and updated us as we fled the scene.

  “Three on foot, one headed left, two directly behind me. Anyone got a distraction, or are you going to leave the homeless black woman to take the heat?”

  Antoinette spotted us, joining the group. “I thought you said you were great with cops, Dorothea.”

  We made our way to the west end of the park, then continued limping to Times Square, where the panic from the park had diffused into the general spectacle of New York.

  “So, where next?” Carter asked as we stood in the pedestrian lane on 7th Avenue. A group of Asian tourists vacated a table, so we swooped in to claim it. Or, more accurately, Carter swooped and I hobbled over and nearly collapsed onto the plastic chairs.

  Antoinette held up one of the stone communicators we had received. “Gardener says they’ve gone to ground; Bearer too. Sister Dearest will have as hard a time getting to her as anything. Which means we can regroup or figure out where to try to head her off next.”

  “Queens. She’ll go to Queens,” I said. “She mentioned it when we talked in the subway.”

  “You what?” Antoinette said.

  Carter said, “That’s where we met up. Jake went ahead, ran into Esther, and then he and I both got to meet Dorothea here, who you apparently already know.”

  Antoinette nodded.

  “She didn’t seem worried about how to find the Bearer in Queens,” I said. “But it’s just as likely that she said that to get us to go to them, so that she could follow us and not have to find them herself.”

  “Fuck,” Antoinette said.

  Dorothea said, “I can get word there without us having to be around. Even get us in the neighborhood on the down low. But if that woman’s following her brother here, he’s deadweight.”

  “Deadweight? I kept her locked down and called someone to come in and finish the job, just like I’d said. The fact that no one was able to do so is hardly my fault.”

  “Jake’s right,” Carter said, then laughed. “He’s right. She was too well prepared, kept us boxed out so she could handle Jake one-on-one, which he already told us wouldn’t work. We need a better plan on how to break through and tag-team her if we’re going to force another confrontation.”

  “But this time, we’re playing defense, not offense,” Antoinette said. “She’s already got maybe three of the Hearts.” She turned to Jake. “You sure she needs all five to finish the ritual?”

  “Mostly certain. The Hearts will let her access the ley lines of the city. Once she has three, the second circle will let her track down the remaining two. But without all five, she would not be able to open the way to the Deeps.”

  “That’s something.” Carter rubbed his temples. “In reality, we know where she’s probably going, but we don’t have the firepower to really do anything about it. Anyone want to head to LaGuardia? I bet we can get a few hours in Saint Lucia before the world ends.”

  Dorothea smacked Carter in the back of the head. “Shut that defeatist crap up. We’re going to stop her, even if I have to drag all your asses along to do it.”

  “Okay, okay. But it’s a terrible situation, you gotta admit.”

  “Terrible or not, it is what we have. I’ve calculated a short list of possible sites . . .” I said, reaching into the bag.

  “Save that for later,” Dorothea said. “I have something that needs addressing right now. Three more people have disappeared this morning, on top of the woman who I’m all but sure your dear sister carved up last night. If Esther’s getting her extra power from these sacrifices, we have to get them back from wherever she’s got them stored up.”

  “But that means we’d need to locate her safe house, which is likely to be just as difficult as finding her.”

  Dorothea shook her head. “Nope. I can find my people, but I want backup, in case Esther’s there herself. Used to be I thought I could handle most anything on my own, but I got smart in my middle age.”

  “Wise,” I said.

  “If you can find them now, then you’ll get us to Queens on the quiet?” Antoinette asked.

  “That’s the deal.”

  “Done.”

  “Fine,” Carter said.

  “Let’s go,” I added.

  So we did.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  Dorothea lead us downtown, through midtown to the Javits Center portion of Hell’s Kitchen. Curiously named, the neighborhood was largely bereft of kitchens, as despite hosting an international convention center, it seemed as if there was a statute forbidding any restaurants to exist within three blocks of said convention center.

  And as for Hell, the area had a rougher history, which had mostly evaporated in recent years, though it remained not the nicest of neighborhoods, largely due to the fact that a huge section near the convention center had been under construction for the last three years, with no signs of completion.

  Dorothea stopped at a street corner, and Carter asked, “How does this navigation work, then? Not that I don’t appreciate putting distance between us and the police. I am quite fond of that part.”

  Dorothea looked both ways, watching the lights and the traffic. “It’s part of the territory. The city and I, we have a connection. I read the patterns. Traffic is like the circulation of her blood—accidents send pain signals, bringing the antibodies of the emergency responders. The city tells me when she’s hurting, when her children have been attacked, and where. Give me a minute, and I’ll tell you where we go next.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “You and the other knights have bonded with the city, been taken in to serve like white blood cells, attacking infections, protecting the city from within. I’d heard of similar champions in the Old World, and of champions among the Sioux and other tribes, but our records had precious little about nonindigenous cases in North America.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Now try to keep up,” Dorothea said, trundling across the street.

  I tried to watch the streets as she did, attempting to reduce the seemingly random sights and sounds into variables. But without context, how was I to know what the smell of spoiled food in trash cans mixed with the meaty steam from a gyro cart, the angry honking of a cab nearly running over a man crossing against a red light, and the cluster of three jogging men in gray sweats could possibly mean to Dorothea?

  I gave up on finding the deeper meaning—it was not for me to know. Instead, I tested the souvenir knife wound that Esther had left me. It was still tender but was no longer the would-have-been-fatal wound it was when Esther so graciously shoved the family’s ritual dagger around in my insides and ripped it out with a twist.

 
“Hello?” Antoinette said. I turned and saw her speaking on the phone. “Yeah, we’re closed for the time being.” Then she waited, and I heard the muffled sound of a voice on the other side. “No, I can’t handle any special orders right now, I’m sorry.” Another pause. “No, I don’t know when the store will be open again, I’m sorry. But if you’re totally out, I can find a time to meet up and get you enough to tide you over a couple of days, Mrs. Pelevin.”

  Antoinette hung up, and I raised an eyebrow, trying to be companionable but not overly inquisitive.

  “Customer. She uses one of Mom’s tea recipes for her arthritis.”

  I nodded. That thought made me wonder how many people depended on Antoinette, in small ways or in big ways. The ripple that each person left in the world, for good and ill. What ripple was I leaving in the city? And could mine even hope to cancel out Esther’s, or would the combined wave merely drown even more people clinging to the rocks?

  “Got it. Let’s go,” Dorothea said, breaking me from my reverie. She set off across the street, bearing south.

  Dorothea’s seemingly-purposeful pathway (which looked a great deal to me like wandering, but was clearly not) led us through Chelsea to the Meatpacking District, which proved livelier than the area near the convention center, though precious little meatpacking still happened in the neighborhood, according to Dorothea’s tour-guide-esque commentary about the neighborhood as she led us down the streets and into an alley. She stopped five paces in to brief us.

  “The city’s telling me the missing people are here, but it didn’t give me anything on Esther. I think we have to assume she’ll be here, and if we’re lucky, it’ll just be the missing people.”

  Nods all around.

  “If she is here, we all go for her straightaway.”

  Dorothea looked to Antoinette. “You get your boys to occupy whatever she throws at us.”

  To me. “You throw as much of your dark stuff at her as you can, hold her attention.”

  Then, finally, to Carter. “And we rush her. Follow my lead. We go high-low, split to flank her so Jake can keep up the firepower. Go for the kill, no holding back. Make her burn whatever reserves she has.”