by ST Branton
I laughed. “He said no.”
He kissed me on the forehead. “When this is all over, I’ll find Tommy Reynolds and tell him he’s a damn fool.”
Chapter Nine
The driver’s seat of the sturdy old truck had begun to feel like a second home. I stared out at yet another empty stretch of highway as we headed west on Interstate 76. Instead of Frank, I’d opted for Deacon as my copilot, and so far, we had focused mostly on what flashed by outside the windows.
Aside from our brief touchdown mid-flight to Washington, this was our first real foray into the interior of the country. My hands on the wheel were a little tense, and I swiveled my head constantly in response to the tension I felt.
So far, the signs hadn’t been very promising. The ongoing war had left its mark everywhere, even on the road. We skirted huge craters, downed trees, and piles of burned-out cars that stretched for miles. Once the forests gave way to farm country, blood was visible, splashed all across the barren, snowy fields. There were occasional bodies, too, most of them frozen like grotesque mannequins.
Deacon scrubbed a hand down his face. “It’s been months, but sometimes, it still hits me real hard that this is the world now.” We passed a spray of abandoned belongings scattered in a ditch off the shoulder. The blank eyes of a dirty stuffed animal watched us pass. “Shit like that makes me wonder if we’ll ever see normal again.”
“I think we’ll get there,” I said. “It won’t be easy. And it probably won’t look the way it did before, but that’s fine. Marcus has seen a hundred different versions of normal over the course of his existence. If things go our way, he’ll see hundreds more.”
“That’s a decent outlook,” he conceded. “It doesn’t really do much for us in the here and now, though.” He gazed out the window at the devastated landscape. The exposed joists of a huge, ruined barn protruded into the sky. “I like to think there’ll be a place and time for us to settle down.”
I nodded. “There will be. I can’t tell you that we’ll have the neat little suburban house with the picket fence and the tree in the backyard, but we’ll have something. And that it will be enough.”
He squeezed my hand. “The thought of you in the suburbs is terrifying. Curlers in your hair, driving a minivan…no thanks.”
I grinned at him. “I figured that’s what you would envision, Mr. Hopeless Romantic.”
“I’m romantic,” Deacon said. “I’m not delusional.”
“Good to know.” I took my left hand off the wheel and waggled my fingers at him. “You’ll still get me some ice, though, right? I mean, someone ought to try to make an honest woman out of me.”
He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Did you just say ‘ice?’ Maybe you’re more suburban than I thought.”
I laughed. “Would you prefer I say ‘bling?’”
He made a face. “Ugh, no. Christ, did you get your slang from Marcus?”
“No,” I said. “Why?”
Deacon smiled and shook his head. “Because it’s as ancient as fuck.”
Three hours into the drive, my eye caught sight of a distinctive black column of smoke that rose ahead of us and off to the right. Large, birdlike shapes circled high above it and dove in and out of the plume.
“I don’t like that,” I muttered.
“We should check it out.”
I radioed our intentions to the vehicle behind us and took the next exit off the interstate, which appeared to lead directly toward the base of the swirling smoke. As we cruised down the ramp, the flying shapes came into better focus and I realized they weren’t birds at all. They were harpies.
“Shit, we have a situation here,” I said. Immediately beyond the ramp, the streets were clogged with cars. Many of them were scorched and charred as usual, but a fair number were also crushed—from the top, not the front or back. Most of their windows had been blown out, and safety glass glittered over the streets.
I swerved and weaved through the mechanical carnage as we followed the signs to the outskirts of a small town—population just over a thousand. On the main street, the vehicles had been shoved unceremoniously to the side and formed a barrier of tires and smashed metal. The source of the black smoke we’d seen from the highway turned out to be buildings, including the town hall and the post office. Harpy screeches rattled the truck’s windows.
“Holy shit.” Deacon sat up abruptly and focused on something that lumbered from the wreckage of a residential building straight ahead. “Look at that big motherfucker.”
The creature straightened and shook debris from its shoulders. Rough, leathery skin stretched over heavy muscles. The long blade of a mean-looking machete glinted in its left hand and a misshapen club dangled from its right.
“Marcus and I saw a guy like that, way back when,” I said. “But he was simply fat. This one looks like he’s lived off protein shakes and steroids.” The ogre hefted its club across its massive shoulders and provided me a daunting display of biceps that were bigger than my head. “This will be a fun little side trip.” I pressed the button on my radio. “Hey, guys. When we stop, get out and fight. We can’t leave this place without clearing it.”
“Roger,” Maya answered. “Man, these things are ugly.”
We noticed more of them as we drove a little farther. They appeared to hunt through the structures that were left and literally broke through walls with their weapons and fists. One of them yanked a struggling human from a second-story window.
“Hell no!” I declared and accelerated sharply. “Who the fuck is running this shit show? He’s about to have some special guests.”
The main street led to a square near the center of the town. Obviously, it had been well maintained at one time, but it was in complete shambles now. The cobblestones were crushed and trodden in, which rendered the area little more than a broken, unstable pit. In the middle of this mess stood a super-ogre, two or three times the size of the others, naked to the waist, and enormously muscular. He wore a giant smile on his ugly face as he surveyed his new, wrecked dominion.
I parked the truck at the edge of the crumbling road. Into the radio, I said, “Time to crash this wild party.” After a deep breath, I opened my door and jumped out.
The sound of the truck doors slamming shut drew the large ogre’s attention. His toothy smile only intensified at our approach. He released a great, belched laugh. “Who is this?” he bellowed and squinted his bloodshot eyes. “Humans too stupid to run? Surely you don’t think you can stop me.” We moved steadily forward and picked our way cautiously over the ground. The giant threw his head back and laughed again. “Your idiotic courage is entertaining. Never mind that I could crush each of you like gnats beneath my thumb.”
I broke from the group and strode forward to crane my neck so I could look all the way up into his face. “Consider this an eviction notice,” I told him. “One way or another, you’ll leave today.”
“Stronger warriors than you have tried to move me without success.” His foul breath washed over me with every word but I stood my ground and held his gaze. “They learned quickly that I am indomitable!” He swept his hands out to encompass the square. “This is only the beginning for me. For you, it is the end.”
I swung the Gladius Solis into view. “I beg to differ.”
As soon as he felt the wash of heat from the sword’s burning blade, the mega-ogre stepped back. His eyes bulged in their sockets, fixed intently on the weapon in my hands. “It’s you,” he said, his tone no longer grandiose. He’d rapidly become fearful and I swore I saw his hands shake. His club clattered to the ground. “The god-killer. I thought he was lying. I thought the others were cowards to run.”
He took another step back.
“Sorry, pal,” I said and adjusted my grip on the hilt. “I’m as real as it gets.”
He threw a panicked glance over each shoulder. “Kill her!” he bellowed but his voice cracked. “Destroy the sword bearer. Now!”
Every one of his henchmen turned toward
me and my comparatively tiny crew. Harpies screamed from above with claws outstretched. Maya turned faster than I’d ever seen her do it and snatched one of them out of the air to rip its wing off. The disembodied appendage was comprised of skin instead of feathers, stretched over the wing like a bat’s. The Were tossed the dead harpy aside, and I noticed its body was male. Things had changed, indeed.
I turned back to the ogre god and raised my sword, only to find that he’d already bolted across the square. His heavy footfalls kicked up thick clouds of dust to mingle with the smoke. I pulled my jacket over my face and gave chase as best I could, but the small fries bogged me down. They formed a close circle around me and their eyes gleamed with malice.
“Don’t worry, boys,” I told them. “I’ll save a dance for every one of you.” The sword sizzled every time it burned through their hide. The dark, sludgy blood that spilled from the wounds smelled like a sewer. Ogre limbs rained down around me. These guys were easy, and they were simply a waste of time. I wanted their leader.
I sliced one monster cleanly in half, broke out of the circle, and raced in the direction in which I’d last seen the ogre god. A shadow fell over me and the scream of an incoming harpy tortured my ears. I readied the sword in my right hand, ready to slash backward. The sharp retort of a pistol cut the scream off and the harpy dropped to the ground at my heels.
Steph yelled, “Now you’re simply showing off, St. Clare!”
I couldn’t help but smile, even though I’d lost track of my quarry. The smog was too thick to see very far, and all the shrieks had made me practically deaf. I slowed, turned, and headed back toward the others. The ogre meant nothing, but I still felt the sting of disappointment in my chest. It would have been so satisfying to see that hideous head roll off into the fields.
Steph met me in the square with one foot planted atop a recently fallen foe. She took aim at a harpy and picked it out of the sky as I approached. We both tracked its descent onto the curb twenty feet away.
“Nice shot,” I said.
“Tell that to Deacon,” she responded with a grin. “It’ll hurt more if it comes from you.” She rested a hand on my shoulder. “Listen, don’t stress about losing that pile of walking bullshit, all right? I’ve fought evil in one form or another all my life. You can’t win ʼem all exactly the way you want to. And sometimes, it turns out to be better that way.”
“Yeah.” We headed back to the vehicles together and left a trail of Forgotten corpses behind us. Maya and Frank were already there and Deacon followed close behind. I paused at the truck door and looked over the roof toward the west. “It’s a good thing there’s only one fight I need to win now.”
Chapter Ten
Deacon offered to drive for the second leg of the journey, but I declined. Being behind the wheel was comforting in a control-freak kind of way. As long as I steered the truck, I didn’t feel that I barreled headlong into some bleak destiny or insurmountable obstacle. If I could steer, I could put us on a winning path.
Or so I hoped.
“Hey.” Deacon’s low voice intruded warmly on my thoughts. He touched his fingers to the outside of my wrist. “How are you feeling? Are you sure you don’t want me to take over?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “With driving, I mean.”
He looked at me, both patient and expectant.
I sighed. “This is the biggest thing I’ve ever faced in my life,” I said. “I don’t know how I feel, except maybe that I’m standing on the edge of a cliff at the end of the world, and below me is…what? Darkness? A void? A safe place to land? There’s no way to know for sure until I jump, and that’s as scary as shit.” I glanced at him, and he nodded. “But at the same time, I know I can’t back down. I’ve been called to this. It’s taken a while, but I finally learned that to ignore your calling is the worst thing you can do. Especially if it involves saving all of humanity.”
Deacon leaned back in his seat. “If that’s the case, then I think my true calling was to be a horse trainer.”
I smirked. “It sounds like you might need to find a different girl, cowboy.”
He spent a good ten minutes insisting that there was a marked difference between trainers and cowboys. I remained unconvinced.
After that, we lapsed into companionable silence. I had never been the sappy, hold-hands-in-the-car sort of girl, but I did think about it once or twice. For a while, he seemed to doze.
Then he said, “Man, I hope we’re ready for this.”
I shot him a look. “You’re the one who was all, ‘no one’s got this more than you,’ before we left.”
He scratched his chin. “Yeah, but I was talking about you. It’s the rest of us I’m not so sure about.” An undercurrent of genuine fear belied his half-joking tone.
“Relax,” I said. “It’ll be a piece of cake.”
He pulled a face. “I don’t know about that. The meeting in D.C. made it sound pretty damn hard.”
I caught his eye and bit my lip. “I guarantee I’ve done harder. Maybe not bigger, but definitely harder.”
He tried to keep his cool, but his poker face failed him. We both cracked up.
“I have to say, Vic, I’m as glad as hell to be doing this with you.” He took my hand off the wheel, kissed my knuckles, and replaced it. I didn’t tell him I thought he was right to wonder about our level of preparedness or even right to worry, period.
I had stared at the blank, flat line of the horizon for hours and monitored it for changes that never came. It was almost refreshing when we traversed a rare bend and saw something blocking the view. The first thing I thought was that someone had decided to build a brick wall smack in the middle of the highway. But when we moved closer, I realized there was something familiar about the texture of the material.
Crushed cars had been stacked one on top of the other, impossibly high. I could barely see the top of the metal monolith. I eased down on the brakes and marveled at the sheer scale of the thing. The truck coasted closer.
Deacon shouted, “Watch out!”
I snapped my head to the side in time to see a huge foot slam down alongside our vehicle. My foot jammed hard on the brake pedal. We screeched to a stop and stared at a giant. He was naked except for a dingy loincloth and was covered in hair from head to toe. His mile-thick skull held only one eye. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to care about the truck.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath. I shifted the vehicle into park and unbuckled my seatbelt. “Stay put for a second. I’ll handle this. I don’t think it’ll take very long.”
“Go get ʼem,” he said.
I scrambled down from the cab and made my way cautiously toward the mammoth humanoid. He seemed to walk with purpose, and as I rounded the truck, I noticed his friend standing on the opposite side of the road.
The second giant gestured rudely. “What you doing, moron?” he demanded and the words rolled out slowly. “I leave you to guard wall. You wander off. Next time I find you’ve walked away, I’ll bash your ugly head in!”
The first giant reciprocated with an obscene gesture. His middle finger alone was almost as tall as I was and his club was actually a raw tree slung across his back. “Like to see you try,” he retorted. “Road empty. No one disturb huge wall. I bored.” To emphasize his point, he stamped his foot. A miniature dust storm flurried around me. “You bash my head, I kick your dick. We see who laughs then.”
I coughed and brushed sediment out of my hair and off my clothes. “Hey!” I shouted. “What are you two lunkheads doing here blocking the road?”
The giant nearest to me whirled and I had to dodge the edge of his club. I leapt back as a barrage of splinters flew in my direction.
“Human!” he proclaimed and looked surprised.
The other one shambled forward. “Go back to where you came from, puny human. This area not safe for tiny things.”
“We’ll see about that.” I whipped my sword out and lit it up. “Beat it, Andre and friend.”
T
he giants froze. They blinked their mono-eyes at me, equal parts afraid and confused. But they didn’t budge an inch. “Sorry, tiny human woman,” said the first. “No can do.”
“Captain’s orders,” added the other.
I gritted my teeth. “Fine. I warned you.” With the sword held high, I moved into their range. The two gigantic creatures hesitated but raised their clubs in response.
“Hold it, you knuckle-fucks,” a voice instructed from the opposite side of the car heap. “Leave this one alone. She’s with me.”
We all paused and looked toward the sound. I wracked my brain in an effort to think of whom it could be. The last I’d checked, I didn’t know anyone in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
Then I saw the edge of a long black coat. Brax stepped out from the cover of the barricade with his sunglasses on and arms folded. We stared at each other, and I burst into laughter. “Oh, shit!”
“Brax!” A blonde blur tumbled out of the other truck and streaked past on my left to fly into the demon’s arms. He embraced Jules with as much passion as I’d ever seen from him, and they shared a deep, intense kiss. I looked away for privacy’s sake.
“Falling for him, my ass,” I muttered. “You guys are balls deep.”
I let them kiss it out for a minute or two before I moved in on the happy reunion. “Excuse me for breaking in on your warm and fuzzies,” I said. “But what in the hell is going on?”
Brax shrugged, although he didn’t release Jules. “When we got back to the fort, I received word that giants roamed around the Midwest. Two of them. Real geniuses, clearly.” He glanced at the creatures who watched the whole display with mild confusion. “I knew two of these guys in Asphodel and I’d heard they got out, so I went to see if the stars had aligned. As it turns out, they had, but they were in trouble when I found them. I guess Delano’s not a fan of anything bigger than he is.”
“Brax helped,” said a giant. “He captain now.”
“I repaid a favor,” the demon explained. “I killed the horde that was hunting them, and they told me Delano had a temple fortress not too far from here.” He nodded toward the car monument. “I had them make that to keep anyone from getting through. They weren’t kidding about it being too dangerous for humans past this point.”
