by ST Branton
But he now had a hard time adjusting to his latest modifications. The legs he had taken from the last god in the pillars slowed him immensely. He relied on far-reaching, area-of-effect attacks to keep me at bay, but I darted in and out of his personal space more quickly than he could strike.
We pushed and shoved our way out onto the front terrace of the plateau again, where the war still burned hot. Delano had his back to the fierce clash. He seemed to lose energy and patience. His body required massive amounts of fuel to function, and he realized that he’d eaten every god already—or, at least, the ones he could catch. His power seemed to be a finite resource, like a bright but short-lived star. The look in his eyes gradually shifted from supreme arrogance to something closer to anxiety.
“You will lose!” he screamed at me. “Why do you even fight? Not even Kronin could defeat me now.”
I stared at the abomination in front of me, my spear leveled at his head. “You’re right,” I said. “Kronin couldn’t win. But he fought his war with only half an army.”
Delano’s face contorted. “What is the meaning of that?” he demanded.
I pointed over his shoulder and waited patiently while he heaved himself around. The legs made small snapping sounds as if they had begun to break beneath his weight. Delano stared in silence. In the short period we had been outside, the fighting had petered out to a small skirmish here or there. The gods he had recruited were dead, gone, or captured. Every other eye atop that mountain now focused on him.
My crew stood stone-faced in the front and glared at him.
“It means I have all of Earth on my side,” I said.
“No!” Delano whirled and lashed out with the sword. I swung my spear at the exact moment. The Gladius Solis shattered in his hand, an ignominious end to a noble weapon that had brought me so far. Before the pieces struck the ground, I leveled the spear at his chest. It burned brilliantly with Solis energy that thrummed to be released. The blast struck Delano right over the place where his heart had once been.
As heavy as he had become, Delano remained no real match for a Solis weapon. I watched him catapult back and be subsumed by the horde as if in slow motion. The last glimpse I ever had of him was his horrible, monstrous face and his mouth twisted open in a scream.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“It isn’t like this the first time,” I said and paused on the side of the mountain to admire the crystalline blue sky. “It figures that the weather would behave better for an actual demon, I guess.”
Brax laughed. “My reputation precedes me,” he replied. He wore no special equipment for the climb, only his clothes and boots—and, of course, his glasses—and carried his hammer on his back. On mine, I carried the Solis spear. On my belt were the broken pieces of the Gladius Solis. The two of us had embarked on a special mission at my request. Months after Delano’s fall at the temple in Indiana, we now headed to Carcerum one last time.
I didn’t expect that there would be much to see there. Most of the deities who came to Earth had been at the temple that day, and the vast majority had fallen in the fight. The handful of survivors had fled or surrendered, which meant that the great halls of Carcerum still stood empty in their grandeur. We had considered the possibility of returning the few gods who were left to the home where Kronin kept them, but as acting head of the brand-new Human-Forgotten Alliance, Jules objected.
I remembered that day as though it had happened minutes before, so vivid was the arguing, the passion, and the bickering. The other members of the Alliance, better known as the rest of my crazy friends, couldn’t agree on where to send the last living gods. Dan and Veronica thought that since Carcerum had been set aside for them, that was where they should return but under different supervision. Frank and Steph yelled at each other about whether or not gods deserved to be treated humanely. Luis sat back, shook his head, and grinned silently.
Jules and Maya, however, had a new solution.
“Let’s send them to Asphodel,” the Were had said. Faced with a host of puzzled stares, she elaborated. “Look, what they’ve done is completely reprehensible. No one can dispute that. But if we simply stick them back in their happy golden fantasyland where they have everything they could possibly want, they won’t learn squat. And maybe they’ll multiply somehow, and maybe in another few millennia, they’ll be pissed about something and this will happen all over again.” She paused to let her words sink in. “If we put them in Asphodel, they will suffer. It might teach them some empathy, and if they have empathy, they might not act like such crazy jerks all the time.”
“I agree, I think,” Jules chimed in after a moment’s thought. “I mean, I believe they deserve death, but we as humans are capable of mercy. Asphodel will be a place of repentance for them.” She glanced at Brax. “Would you be willing to keep an eye on them while they serve their sentences?” Each god faced several centuries of time for literal crimes against humanity.
The demon had looked at her for a minute, classically impassive, and finally dropped his shoulders and started to giggle. The sound made us all a little uncomfortable, and it continued for a long time. But when the fit finally abated, he had agreed to be the jailer of Asphodel. He had also agreed, with some reluctance, to allow Jules to visit him on the weekends. When he told her it was too dangerous, she’d simply smiled and said, “Even jailers need conjugal visits.”
I had never seen the demon shut his mouth so fast.
After that last meeting, we all went our separate ways for a while. Frank and Steph embarked on the most tempestuous, dramatic relationship we’d ever seen. The last I heard from them, they were on breakup number eleven, Frank planned to start a numbers racket with a gang of satyrs he’d met in the temple dungeon, and Steph vowed to shut them down before they even started.
Deacon and I went on cleanup duty and rounded up the last of the gods from the far corners of the earth. We found out from Namiko and others that a good number of them hadn’t shown up to the final conflict. These beings proved to be mostly resigned to the whole situation, so we were able to take our time and have a vacation while we worked. We never really had the chance to relax together before that trip—not fully, anyway. A significant amount of time was spent in hotel rooms and he may have been tied up once or twice—by request.
Maya, in stark contrast to our debauchery-filled working vacation, continued to act as our moral backbone and dedicated her time to working with the newly freed Forgotten. She spent hours and hours at therapy centers and reached out to all kinds, but especially Weres. These learned how to deal nonviolently with their powers, how to control them, and how to channel them in a positive way. She was freaking amazing at it, to no one’s surprise, and was uniquely qualified for the position.
Smitty and Amber traveled back to the Pacific Northwest after things stabilized in Indiana. Their camp inside a church exploded into a thriving community. Amber sent me pictures of a city in the early stages, minus skyways and buildings above the clouds. She said it was weird and wonderful to watch the place they’d built in the wilderness take on a life of its own. She still kept in touch with Namiko, who now ran all over the place and compiled every scrap of god-related information she could find. “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it,” she said. “We’ll never forget about this again.”
Victoria.
“Huh?” I snapped out of reverie and back into the clear, cold, sunny day. We were close to the summit, now, and perhaps an hour out from the peak. “What’s up, Marcus?”
I still do not understand the reasoning behind this return to Carcerum. It is a relic of history now. It serves no practical purpose.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said as I’d done since the idea for the trip came into being. “It’s no big deal. There’s merely something I have to make right.”
I stood by the forge in Carcerum and stared at the surface of the smithy. The broken pieces of the Gladius Solis lay arranged in front of me. They no longer swirled with Delano’s black
energy. His death had caused that influence to ebb over time. The telltale veins of orange had begun to return to the surface of the stone. With some skill and a lot of patience, I was certain the sword could be good as new.
But I wasn’t there to repair it. I gathered the pieces and gave them to Brax, who melted them down in the forge’s furnace. He removed the molten stone and poured it into the mold I had found. The shape of it was strange, ethereal, and foreign. If it didn’t work, I told myself, it didn’t work.
I had a feeling it would, though.
While the metal cooled, I removed Marcus’s medallion and set it in there. The Solis Stone coalesced over top of the medallion and consumed it entirely. I drew a deep breath and looked to my left.
Marcus stood beside me in the flesh. He looked around, flexed his fingers, and patted himself down. “You could have restored anyone,” he said to me. “Anyone you wanted. Yet you chose me?”
I shrugged. “Don’t get all touchy-feely about it, okay? It has nothing to do with me or you, or whether I think you’re super cool. Carcerum needs someone to stand watch, even if no one is here.” I reached over my shoulder for the spear and withdrew the shard of the mirror from my pocket. I handed both to the old centurion.
“I’m sorry it broke,” I said. “I hope you can fix it. And that you’ll keep an eye on Earth.”
Marcus bowed his head. “It would be my honor, Victoria.” He paused. “What will you do now?”
I took a deep breath and glanced at the demon. In true Brax fashion, he offered nothing more than an unhelpful shrug.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m through being the captain of the ship. It’s time for someone else to step up to the helm.”
“That is fair,” said Marcus. “You have done so very much for this world and its people.”
“I have one last request,” I told him. “And you can’t laugh.”
“I will not,” he swore solemnly.
I smirked. “Could I get a lift back to Earth? The door in the palace is like, so far away.”
The Roman smiled in response. “This is a trick you never did learn.” He raised the spear and used its tip to cut a perfect shining circle in space and time. I reached out, grabbed his free hand, and squeezed it tight.
Then, Brax and I walked on through.
Epilogue
Even the air smelled differently on the way down the old familiar street in Brooklyn Heights. The route wasn’t nearly as busy as it had been only a year or so ago before I knew the word “Forgotten” had another meaning. But the big empty spaces and the slowed pace weren’t unique to my old neighborhood. The whole city was like that now as it struggled back onto its feet from one hell of a dirty fight. JFK was the only major international airport up and running again, and even then, only a restricted number of planes could be cleared for takeoff and landing. Real conversations in the streets were rare but grateful smiles were common.
As New Yorkers, we all took a little of the responsibility to nurture our beloved city back to health. She would never look the same again—that much was undeniable—but she could stand tall and be strong. Her pulse could once again beat through the veins of her streets.
I loved the walk around my old stomping grounds, despite the rubble that edged the streets and the fine white dust left by buildings that had collapsed months before. Enormous sections of the city remained uninhabitable, and popup shelters had sprung up everywhere to accommodate those on the streets. It warmed the cockles of my heart to see New Yorkers step out to help their neighbors during a time when nobody had much of anything.
Lost in my thoughts, I turned from the main thoroughfare onto my street. Green buds had begun to explode on the trees that had managed to survive. Patches of vibrant blue sky showed through the wiry branches. The sun shone brightly although still without too much warmth. All in all, it was a nice day in New York again.
Freaking finally.
I approached Mac’s newspaper stand and hoped against hope that the old guy would be there. He wasn’t and the stack of gradually yellowing papers on his counter was months old, but I still took one off the top and fished a wrinkled dollar from my pocket to leave as compensation. Out of habit, I glanced up and down the street to see if I’d missed him chugging along on his way to open after a suspiciously long smoke break. Mac was nowhere to be found. I hoped he was okay.
The paper was tucked under my arm as I resumed my leisurely stroll toward the shitty apartment building I’d lived in for so long. No Sam lounged under his hat in front of the door, either. A bittersweet pang of nostalgia kicked me in the chest. I wanted to think that Sam and Mac might have moved on and found something else to do or somewhere else to be. I could imagine them trekking through the Forgotten-ravished landscapes I had seen, smiling and drinking in each other’s serene guidance. It was a nice daydream, anyway, but there was no way to disguise the reality that things were tough and they would be for a long time. We were tougher, though. We humans would persevere because after all, some things never changed.
I stepped through the same front door with the rickety overhead light and checked the plastic dome for the same large moth that had laid dead in the bottom for centuries. It was there, and so were the rusty mailboxes that never locked, all predictably hanging wide open. I took the steps to my old apartment on the top floor, which was also unlocked.
It smelled musty and close in there. The first thing I did was go to the windows and yank them open. The place was an absolute wreck. Inches of dust blanketed items that had lain unattended for months. Pieces of my walls and broken furniture littered the floor—leftovers from any number of confrontations, I was sure. Clutter heaped high on the only table. The hot plate was in need of a good scrubbing. A weird smell wafted from the depths of the mini-fridge. The bathroom corner didn’t even have a damn door.
Ignoring all that, I cleared the sofa off with a wide sweep of my arm, sat, and sighed as I collapsed into the cushion. It was like a welcome-home hug, and it felt amazing. Then something strange and furry touched my elbow, and I almost screamed bloody murder.
The cat poked her nose out from behind the couch and jumped up next to me. She was a little scrawny, but she seemed otherwise healthy.
“How’d you get back here?” I asked. I hadn’t seen her since before we’d first arrived at Fort Victory. She meowed at me and purred like a motorcycle engine as she leaned into my hand for scratches and ear rubs. I let her tuck under my chin as I opened the paper. It was all as weird as hell and way too ordinary.
I kind of loved it—at least, for now.
The knob on the janky apartment door turned and Deacon stepped through. He was a vision in a suit, a look that was only enhanced by his other, more unique attributes, as far as I was concerned. After Delano had fallen, many of his more overt demonic features had faded somewhat. I had to say that decent clothes and regular showers really helped. It was hard to believe, but he looked much like he had when he was fully human. He’d reclaimed most of his sleek, sharp style. And of course, he was still the same Deacon I tried so hard not to fall for once upon a time.
“Hey, gorgeous.” He sat himself down on the sofa beside me and worked his arm gently around my waist. I shifted my weight against his chest and settled into the warm contours of his body. “What are you reading?”
“The wanted ads from, like, six months ago,” I said. “I figure it’s about time I got a real job, you know? Maybe start thinking about building a real life.”
Deacon laughed. “You have a funny sense of timing, sweetheart. Money doesn’t seem all that important at the moment. Who knows when we’ll have a working economy again?”
I flipped the page and snuggled deeper into his arms. “It’s not really about the money. I want to set a good example.”
He turned his head down to look at me, confused. I took his hand, the skin still vaguely blue-gray toned and the talons on his fingers neatly trimmed, and I placed it over the middle of my stomach. There were no kicks to fee
l yet, but there would be soon enough.
I smiled at him. “For the next generation.”
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Author Notes
Written January 28, 2019
Dearest readers,
I’ve been putting off this set of author notes for a couple of days now. Not because I don’t love our little chats, but because we’ve reached book eight.
Vic and friends have won the battle, and it seems that her crew is assembled to watch over a new Pax Terra—Peace on Earth.
Ending a series is tough for Lee and me. In fact, out of three full series we’ve written, this is the first one that we’ve decided needs to have a decisive close. Even as I write this, I keep wanting to hedge my bets, leave an open door for future books in the world of Forgotten Gods. But, lo and behold, I won’t.
Am I going to promise that we will never, ever come back and write more stories about Vic, Deacon, Maya, and the rest of the crew? Hell no!
One never can tell where the winds will blow our creative juices, but let’s all enjoy the victory, exhale, and continue on to the next series to fall in love with—and we have some for you!!
