Fallen Gods Read online

  “You have got some serious explaining to do,” he said, looking back to where Thanatos had been. But the mysterious character and his sword were gone.

  “Christ!”

  They could hear more sirens in the distance. Further units were coming in support.

  “What do we do?” Luca asked.

  “You want to try and explain any of this? We’re the last ones standing, how would you go about that?”

  “You’re talking about fleeing the scene of a crime?”

  “Yeah, have you got a better idea, Luca? Nobody knows we’re here. We didn’t report it in. The cameras here are all shot. We came on foot. If you think you can explain what happened here, then you’re welcome to try, but you’ll be off the force and locked up before the week is out. Who would believe what we’ve seen?”

  Luca shrugged. It seemed like an impossible situation.

  “Look, I really don’t know what the hell just went on here, but I know we can’t be here when the uniforms get arrive. Come on,” he insisted.

  He stuffed the two rifles they’d used into his backpack. They were short carbines but the muzzles still protruded from the top. He pulled out a piece of clothing and wrapped them over before picking up the blade of his fallen enemy.

  “What do you need that for? It doesn’t have your prints on it.”

  “No, but the next time we see whoever or whatever that is, I want to know we can hurt it,” he replied, stuffing the short sword under his jacket. He pulled the hood of his hoodie over his head. Luca followed suit. They heard the squeal of tires as several vehicles slid to a halt outside.

  “Come on, the whole place will be surrounded before long.”

  They rushed on through the museum to find another entrance, but Aaron quickly lost track of where they were. He wasn’t very familiar with the layout. More bodies and debris lay scattered about. It had been a hell of a fight.

  “Follow me,” Luca said confidently.

  “You know your way around this place?”

  “Sure, I do, I know the street.”

  “This ain’t the street.”

  “It’s my street, my town.”

  He led them on and quickly reached a door that led them through to a service entrance below ground level. They raced out into an alleyway and up a flight of stairs onto the street. They froze for a moment as if expecting to be accosted. Lights flashed as another police cruiser stormed down the road. Aaron bowed his head a little to make sure he wasn’t recognized as he watched the cruiser pass. He recognized the driver, but fortunately, his focus was elsewhere.

  “Come on, Luca, let’s go.” He took one last look behind them. Emergency service vehicles were pouring toward the scene, and a SWAT van turned into the street. They’d got out in the nick of time.

  “Damn that was close,” said Luca as they turned onto another street and picked up the pace.

  “In more ways than one, I think.”

  “Seriously, what the fuck just happened there?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Those things, and Thanatos, they can’t be human, right?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll believe what I can see and prove. Maybe they had some tech we haven’t seen. I don’t know.”

  “Come on. Bullets barely touched them, and those blades, what the hell are we dealing with here?”

  Aaron had no answers. He looked over to his younger partner who was badly shaken by it all, and he wasn’t much better. Luca’s face was busted up with blood pouring from his nose, and he was doing his best to wipe it away with his sleeve.

  “I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink right about now,” said Aaron with a smile. The same cheerful smile he seemed to carry at even the most unlikely of moments.

  “I thought you’d never ask. Come on.”

  Chapter 4

  Theodosia opened her eyes slowly. She was incredibly fatigued and weak. She could smell burning wood and hear the crackling of fire, but she was indoors, looking up at a rustic wooden roof in a small room. A blanket was covering her, and her armor had been removed. She sat up and backed against the wall, trying to remember what had happened and how she had gotten there. It was a small log cabin. Through a window she could see the light was fading. She looked about for some sign of where she was or any other sign of life. Her armor lay propped on a chair nearby, and her sword, too. She tried to stand but winced in pain. Her body would not do what her mind wanted to. She pulled the blanket away to see wraps around her wounds. It was an instant reminder of how she’d gotten to this point. She remembered a great fight in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, but that only confused her further, as she had no memory of coming out somewhere so remote.

  The door swung open, and it made her instinctively reach over for her sword, even through the crippling pain. She recognized Thanatos immediately, and it made her pulse race, but it also brought memories back of the battle in the Met and how he’d found her.

  “You’re awake, good. For a while there, things weren’t looking good for you,” he said in a friendly tone.

  She remembered trying to fight him, and him not fighting back. She remembered now how he had saved her, but she still didn’t understand why. He was shaking his head and looking at the sword she was holding upright as if intending to use it.

  “If I meant you harm, I could have done it anytime in the last few days.”

  “Days?”

  “Your wounds were severe. Struck by an Olympian blade, five times. It’s a miracle you’re even still here.”

  “Light wounds,” she protested.

  “I’ve never seen someone struck by a blade like that, lose that much blood, and survive.”

  She didn’t look happy about it, but she didn’t argue further.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Three days.”

  “What?” She leapt from the bed and reached for her armor.

  “You were practically dead. There was nothing else you could have done. You had to heal. Don’t you get it? You weren’t just hurt, you were hurt with an Olympian blade,” replied Thanatos.

  “Don’t you think I don’t know that? If I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  She pulled on her armor and sheathed her sword, even though she continued to wince from the pain of her wounds.

  “Where are you going?”

  But she just pressed forward toward the door. He got in her way, and when she pressed, he pushed back. He was a lot stronger than she was, but she couldn’t tell if that was just because of her wounds or not.

  “Look, there’s a war on, a war that could define the fate of us all. Not just us, but all living things. That is a war that you started.”

  “I had no choice. Something had to be done.”

  “Did it? Are you sure about that? Was it worth this? Worth us fighting across Earth as Hades tries to take everything from us?”

  “I couldn’t know it was going to be this way.”

  “You sided with Hades against the Allfather, how did you think it was going to end?”

  “Honestly? I didn’t think we could win. I thought we might do enough that Zeus would listen to us for once.”

  “You thought he would compromise, in the face of that threat? When have you ever known the Allfather to compromise?”

  He shrugged as he was starting to feel increasingly sheepish.

  “Look, I’m grateful for what you did for me. I still don’t really understand why, but a war is being fought out there. A war we can’t afford to lose. Losing to Hades could be the end of us all. You chose a side once, will you do it again?”

  He looked completely dumbfounded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe I made a mistake, one massive mistake. Overthrowing Zeus. But if I was wrong about that, how can I know which side to choose now?”

  “I’d say it’s pretty damn obvious. There are only two.”

  “That’s what Hades said. Maybe if I hadn’t listened to him, we would not be in this mess.”

  She sighed as she shook her head.

  “I don’t have time for you to figure all this out. You aren’t the Thanatos I used to know. When he comes back, you come find me, okay? I pray that does not come too late. We need heroes in this war. We desperately need them.”

  She grabbed an old coat from the back of the door and pulled it on to cover up her armor. She sheathed her sword and stepped out the door, but as she did so, her legs gave way, and she collapsed once again.

  * * *

  Sparks flew as two steel blades clashed into a strong bind, the burred edges of the blunt training weapons scraping against one another. But neither fighter stayed there for long. Aaron stepped in to grapple, but Luca backed away, traversed to the side, and sent a cut in return to his head. Aaron parried it with the blade high and tip of the sword forward, driving a powerful thrust toward his face. Luca backed away, narrowly avoiding it. They were not using longswords anymore, but a short one-handed sword with a simple cross guard and narrow fluted nail protruding out over the outside of the hand. One that roughly resembled the Olympian swords, in size if not look or effect, and that was no accident.

  Luca looked daunted by the barrage and intensity of blows, but Aaron continued on. He cut and thrust, and the only one Luca returned he stepped out of the attack. He locked Luca’s arm and drove him up against the back wall with his blade against his chest. Luca went limp as he accepted defeat. They pulled off their masks and hugged.

  “Hitting it pretty hard today?”

  Aaron had nothing to say.

  “Seems like this isn’t training for fun anymore. You’re training for real, aren’t you?”

  “Aren’t you?” Aaron asked.

  “Hell, no. I don’t ever want to get into whatever that was again.”

  “We don’t want to see a lot of things, but still they happen. Next time we face something like that, I’m going to be as ready for it as I can be, and you should be, too.”

  “Who says we’ll see anything like that again?”

  Aaron ignored the question as he looked up to a TV screen in the corner of the room where a receptionist was handling paperwork and sales. Days on, the big story was still the battle that had taken place at the Met.

  “You think that was an isolated incident?” Aaron asked.

  “I don’t know what it was, and I don’t want to know.”

  “You think because you don’t want to face something that it’ll just go away?”

  “Whatever went on there, it wasn’t about us. That is some underground deep shit. The kind of shit we shouldn’t meddle with.”

  “Really? You said you know the street. You got us out of the Met like you knew it as well as your own home. You know this city, so tell me. What is it we were dealing with there?”

  Luca shrugged.

  “This is something new. Whoever, and whatever they are, they may lurk in the shadows and try and stay out of the public eye, but something big is going down.”

  “So, what if it is? What can we do about it?”

  “Hey, guys, training pretty hard today!” Ava said in her typically upbeat tone as she came toward them.

  “Always, no reason to slack.” Aaron walked off toward the water cooler.

  “Is he okay?” Ava asked, knowing how enthusiastic and happy Aaron always was.

  “Just some tough days at work.”

  “For both of you by the looks,” she said, looking at his still bruised face.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  He didn’t want to talk about it any further. He’d told work his injuries were sustained here at the club. It was as good a cover as any, but he couldn’t risk saying anything else.

  “He looks like he’s training for something big. Is there a tournament coming up I don’t know about?”

  “He just wants to be ready for the street, you know.”

  “The street? How many swords do you face out there?”

  He shrugged again.

  “You might be surprised at what we’ve had to deal with lately. He’s been doing this job a couple of decades; just think of all the crazy things he’s been through.”

  “Right, but we don’t do this to fight for real, he gets that, doesn’t he?”

  “It’s a martial art, isn’t it? Maybe very few people here will ever face a blade for real. I hope they don’t have to. But we have to deal with crazy things all the time.”

  That clearly shook Ava. She was a great fighter, but she’d never thought of their club as anything more than a fun way to exercise and blow off steam.

  “Just try not to get hurt out there, you hear? Just because you both have what it takes, doesn’t mean you need to go looking for trouble.”

  “Yeah? That’s what I told him,” he smiled.

  “He’s stubborn, but don’t pretend you are any different.”

  Luca smiled again, knowing it was true, and the reason he and Aaron had been partnered up. She drew out two sabers from a nearby rack and handed one to him.

  “What?”

  “He beats you because he can close too easily against you, and he’s stronger and with better grappling skills than you.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “That’s okay. We can all improve, but you have to play to your strengths. Aaron likes closing. He’ll press you and close you down all the time. But your blade work is just as good.”

  “Okay?”

  “Play to your strengths. Make your blade work better so he can’t close on you. That clumsy thrust that he came right past without even blade contact, that was poor. If this were for real, a mistake like that could get you killed,” she said, pulling on her fencing mask.

  Luca looked at the weapon in hand. It was a well-curved saber with a simple loop protection around the knuckles. It wasn’t too far removed from the langes messer he had used against Aaron. The German name of the falchion like weapon they used regularly. But this saber was longer and a little bit more agile.

  “This isn’t my thing, Ava, you know that.”

  “The style isn’t, but if you can’t defend yourself with any sword, what kind of fighter are you?”

  A couple of fighters who had stopped to spectate laughed at her burn of him, and it brought a smile to his face, too. Aaron looked serious as he sipped from his drink, but nodded in agreement at her sentiment. He looked to his partner as if to ask permission.

  “She’s ready to fight, so what are you waiting for?”

  Luca sighed as he slipped on his mask and saluted. She instantly settled into a comfortable guard position, with her hilt well extended toward him and point threatening his face. He tried to mimic her, but it looked awkward and uncomfortable. Her hand being so extended with a hilt, and with really no more protection than he was used to seeing was too good an opportunity for him to resist. He slashed toward the hand, but his blade missed its mark as she drew it back remarkably quickly. It was a light blade, but not light enough for him to recover as a snappy cut returned to his head. He could see it coming as if in slow motion, with not a chance in hell of avoiding it. There was a dull thud on the padded mask overlay that softened the blow. He slumped his body in defeat. They saluted each other and continued.

  This time he feinted and brought his blade around to cut on the other side of hers, but she timed him perfectly, just as a boxer would. As he was moving from feint to cut, her thrust landed between his shoulder and chest.

  “You see, you have good blade work, but you just give away too many openings. You’ve got to refine down your movement, not give your opponent so many chances to hit you.”

  A laugh rang out from the sidelines, but she didn’t approve. She pulled her mask up so they could get a good look at her face and how serious she was.

  “That goes for all of you. Luca is one of the fastest developing students we’ve had in years. Get in here with him, and you’ll see that. But we all have room to improve, all of us. Even the things we do well can be done better. Never stop learning, never stop trying to improve.” She pulled her mask down and turned back to Luca.

  “Don’t create big openings. Don’t let me do what I want. You have the speed. You just have to tighten down your movement. Refine it. Cover the lines, but don’t exaggerate,” she said as she saluted once more.

  They went back to guard. Luca took a deep breath and tried to maintain his composure. Aaron was a very skilled fighter, but there was a level of precision in Ava that he found hard to deal with. She came at him first with a quick cut to the left side of his face. He lifted his hilt and parried, but she quickly moved into a second cut, ascending toward his arm on the other side. He snapped the hilt around too much to the same place it was before and narrowly parried. He threw a thrust forward in riposte with more speed than she was expecting. The tip missed her mask by a hair’s breadth as she quickly got back to a parry. He saw his chance to close, but he knew that wasn’t what she was trying to teach him here. Cuts and thrusts went back and forth between them. A dozen or more clean exchanges, and a smile once again returned to Aaron’s face. He forgot all his worries and marveled at the skill being displayed before him. Ava finally went for a quick but strong cut to the outside of Luca’s leg.

  He moved back and sent a cut back at her head. She again returned the same move. He spotted it instantly, and didn’t move or defend, but went straight toward her head to land a timed shot. He realized too late that she’d not extended fully and had set him up for that response. She parried quickly while low in her lunge position and returned the cut to his leg. He was too close, and there was too little time to parry this time. Her blade struck the hard-shell armor on his knee, and the sound echoed about the room. He slumped down and sighed, but soon recovered to salute.

  Luca was smiling as he took his helmet off. He’d lost the fight, but he’d done a lot better than anyone had expected. He reached forward to shake her hand, but she ignored him and hugged him just as Aaron would.