Vampires Don't Sparkle: Deathless Book 3 (26 page)

Hades licked his lips, eyes flicking to the figures with her. He’d expected Anubis, but there was no sign of the jackal-headed god. That surprised him. Ra usually brought her enforcer everywhere. In the jackal’s place stood a pair of deathless, one with red hair and freckles. The other Hades dimly remembered. Ra had a son, if he recalled. What was his name? Irakesh, yes that was it.

Behind Irakesh stood a Ka-Dun, one also ensnared by a collar of shi-dun. He waited in clear deference to Irakesh, a proper servant in every way. Interesting.

“Apologies, mighty Ra. Follow me and you’ll have your answers,” Hades said, threading back through the Forge. Ra and her entourage followed. Irakesh appeared bored, but both the shifty-eyed Ka-Dun and the fiery-haired deathless surveyed the room with curiosity. Intelligence lurked in both gazes, though only the deathless had the bearing of a true warrior.

Hades stopped at the platform where Vulcan waited, turning to face Ra. He clasped his hands, bowing low. “Vulcan has given Wepwawet a potent new tool. He wears armor crafted from the finest technology this age has to offer. It will greatly increase his strength.”

“Wepwawet,” Ra barked, stalking up the dais and stopping before the wolf-headed god. His body was completely enshrouded by the armor and he didn’t answer.

“It will be a few moments before the armor wakes him,” Vulcan said, stepping up to join Ra.

 
If he feared her, he didn’t have the good sense to show it. That was alarming. Always Ra and her kind had stood above them, and they had never let Hades forget that his pantheon had once been lowly mortals. They lacked the raw power of Ra and her ilk, and relied on their weaker shaping.

“What is wrong with him?” Ra snarled, turning to Vulcan. She appeared a hair’s breadth from violence.

“He was attacked by Isis, mighty Ra,” Hades said, drawing Ra’s eye. “I do not know what prompted the fight, but the Ka-Dun Jordan was clear on this point. The fight rendered him unconscious, but the armor will help him recover from his injuries.”

“What of Jordan?” Ra snapped, eyes flaring green. “I’ll crack his spine myself if he’s betrayed me.”

“I released him, mighty Ra,” Hades said, raising a palm in supplication. “Please, hear me out. I did so for a grave purpose. I have dispatched the Ka-Dun to find Isis, for she must know the same news I am about to share with you.”

“Speak, worm,” Ra growled, eyes narrowing. Hades knew he was one word from death.

“Your anger is righteous, but when you understand my reasoning you will forgive me, I think,” Hades said, dropping to his knees. Ra wasn’t stupid, but she was also vulnerable to flattery. “Osiris has done much while you slept. The world is in danger, and our only hope lies in an alliance between you and Isis.”

Ra relaxed half a hair, cocking her head to the side. “Explain. Quickly.”

“After the Arks entered hibernation, Osiris awoke. He used the power of the Well to craft a potent army, one very similar to those once used by his brother Set. Demons of the most hideous variety,” Hades explained. Now that the hook was set he’d use a piece of the truth, one she could verify. “His army stormed across the underworld, cutting off all conduits to the Well. All save his own. We were left powerless, growing old while he grew strong. Many gods perished, while Osiris did the unthinkable: he emerged to enslave and shape the nascent cultures of man. You can see his touch everywhere.”

“This could explain much,” Ra said, pursing her lips. “I have seen his fingerprints across the globe. The culture known as Egypt clearly aped our own, as did several others on other continents. Tell me, if your tale is true, how did you survive? Without a link to the conduit, you’d never have had the energy to cross the gulf of time to this new age.”

“It is a shameful tale,” Hades replied, hanging his head. His long grey hair screened his smile, or so he hoped. He adopted an agonized tone, one that part of him really felt. “Vulcan and I had no choice but to reverse the flow of energy from the conduit we forged with Olympus.”

“That’s monstrous,” Ra snapped, eyes going wide. She rounded, stalking back and forth like a caged cat as if weighing his fate. Even her followers looked concerned, particularly the fiery-haired deathless. “You siphoned their energy to keep yourselves alive. You understand this means all your brethren are likely dead?”

“We do, mighty Ra,” Hades said, real tears falling. He regretted what he’d been forced to do, though he’d do it again in an instant if needed. “My brother Zeus likely died cursing my name, yet what choice did we have? We are lowly sorcerers, unable to oppose someone with the strength of the deathless. We fought, but Osiris brushed us aside like gnats. Had we not reversed the conduit, my brethren would have died anyway. Vulcan and I would be dead as well, and you and Isis would have no knowledge of the treachery of Osiris.”

Ra folded her arms, staring hard at Hades. A sudden clicking and whirring drew her attention, and Hades followed her gaze. Wepwawet’s now armored form staggered from the stall. Vulcan caught him before he could fall, using those powerful arms to hold up the god’s enormous weight.

“Wh-what happened?” Wepwawet asked, his voice strangely mechanized by the armor’s voice synthesizer. His faceplate angled down as he raised an armored arm for inspection. “What have you done to me? And where am I?”

“Peace, Wepwawet,” Ra commanded, turning back to Hades. “You have done what you must. I still think you are a treacherous snake, but I will take this gift in the spirit it is offered. I will even overlook you aiding my enemy. Sending a messenger to Isis may be to my benefit.”

“Peace?” Wepwawet roared. “I will show you peace.”

His armored fist smashed Ra in the chest, launching her backwards into the stall where he’d donned the armor. She rolled to her feet with cat-like quickness, but Wepwawet was already making for Hades.

“You!” he screamed, a trio of black blades erupting from the fist of his gauntlet. He rammed them at Hades, his arm blurring too quickly for Hades to have any prayer of evading.

Yet somehow Ra was there, interposed between Wepwawet and Hades. Her sunsteel spear had blocked the blow, and she whirled it low, knocking Wepwawet onto his back with a terrible clatter.

“Contain yourself, Wepwawet, or I will take your life here and now,” she yelled, sliding into a defensive stance. Her companions looked ready to join the fray, but as of yet had done nothing.

“The armor is terrible,” Wepwawet snapped, climbing slowly to his feet. “I can feel it pressing at the edges of my mind.”

It sounded like an apology, and it seemed to have the desired effect. Ra relaxed a hair. “If you raise arms against me again, your life is forfeit. Head back to the surface. Now.”

Wepwawet stalked off, smashing an automaton with a balled fist as he passed by. Ra watched his passing until he was out of sight.

“Thank you, mighty Ra,” Hades said, bowing low. He held his deferential pose for long moments.

“Now, what other weapons have you created for our use?” Ra said. “It seems we are to go to war with Osiris, and I’d not fight it unprepared,”

The seed was planted. Set would be pleased.

Chapter 46- Run

Jordan ducked as a boulder the size of a bus crashed down behind him with a deafening boom he could feel even in his armor. The wind screamed, whipping trees, rocks, and the occasional body around with equal ferocity. He’d never seen anything like it; the entire horizon was painted in violent orange, blotting out most of his immediate surroundings. Visibility was a paltry hundred feet, and even the armor’s vast array of sensors picked up little.

Despite the life-threatening peril he felt like a god-damned god. Jordan gathered his legs underneath him, the mechanical whirring of the armor audible even over the wind. Then he leapt skyward, over the crest of the hill and onto a boulder on the far side. What had that been? A hundred and seventy five feet in one bound? His already incredible strength was vastly augmented by the armor, but it was more than that. He had limitless energy, as well. Jordan laughed exultantly.
 

I do not trust this strange mechanical device, Ka-Dun.
The beast rumbled.
We’d be better served with our own abilities.

“Maybe I’d ditch it, if I was able to get the collar off,” Jordan replied, leaping again. Four more leaps and he reached the valley floor, skidding a long furrow in the dry dirt. It was odd that it was dry during a storm of this magnitude, but hardly surprising when you thought about what the storm was made of. “As it is, we don’t have any choice. Even if we did, this dramatically improves my combat abilities. They even included missiles. All I need is a rifle of some kind.”

He broke into a full sprint, glancing at the chronometer that overlaid his vision. Fifty-four fucking miles an hour. Holy. Shit. Jordan broke right, grabbing the side of an outcrop and flinging himself to the top of the next hill. Again and again he repeated the process, quickly eating up the ground as he moved away from the storm. Or tried to anyway.

The boiling clouds shifted suddenly, moving in his direction. High above, lightning split the sky, and the orange clouds were thick with fire. He could smell burnt ozone, even through the suit’s air filters. A bolt traced the horizon in front of him, stabbing into the earth with incredible brilliance. It sent up a massive geyser of earth and stone. Could lightning even do that? Another strike, then another. They rained down all around him, though the few surviving trees were thankfully acting as lightning rods.

The temperature gauge on his HUD read 118 degrees. Jesus, that explained why he was sweating so profusely. He blinked rapidly to clear his eyes, wishing he could touch his face. The armor prevented that, of course.

Could the vegetation here even survive the kind of heat and fury he was witnessing? It wasn’t a god damned desert, or at least it hadn’t been. After the storm, maybe that would be different.

A little red blip lit the upper corner of the mini-map in the corner of his display. It showed the surrounding topography, and the dot was ahead and to the right. He sprinted forward, leaping up a hillside and dodging another lightning strike as he crested the top. The storm was growing more furious, and the wind was strong enough to toss him off-balance each time he leapt. If not for the armor’s internal stabilizers, he’d have been crushed against a rock. Or worse. Jordan kept moving, this time down to a wide plain.
 

In the sky above him, he saw the silver ship disappearing on a northern course.

Chapter 47- Breathing Room

Blair heaved a sigh of relief, shaking from the aftereffects of adrenaline.

“Blair, look at this.” Liz’s voice came from miles away. It took everything he had to raise his head and stare through the clear portion of the deck. He badly needed sleep.

Blair gasped as he took in the view. Orange and red clouds blanketed the entire southern horizon, their roiling mass flashing with occasional bursts of lightning. No one from this age had ever before witnessed such immense, beautiful power.

“It’s amazing,” Blair said, releasing the control pillar and moving to join her. “But honestly? I hope I never have to face one of those storms again.”

“This one was mild,” came a soft voice. Blair started, seeing Isis to his left, sitting atop a chest carved from dark red wood. She’d returned to human form, her silver hair loose as she stared at the storm. She was so tiny, so forlorn. “A strong sunstorm will boil away all life where it passes, scouring the earth of everything. Fortunately such storms are rare, and the first will not come for decades. Centuries if we are lucky.”

“Well, let’s just hope we don’t have to fly through one any time soon,” Liz said, her tone light and optimistic. She beamed a perfect smile his way, eyes twinkling in the strange glow of the storm.

Blair wished they were alone, though he was grateful Isis had saved them. He blinked away those thoughts as Liz continued. “So now what? I know the whole plan was to find out what had happened to the Nexus. We know Osiris has something to do with it. Blair, do you want to fill her in?”

“Not really, but I guess I have to,” Blair said, steeling himself. It wasn’t every day you told a goddess her estranged husband had become an evil overlord, apparently bent on world domination. “Hades said he was willing to give us the slipsail, because we had to be able to carry news to you.”

“News of Osiris,” Isis said, brow furrowing. “Tell me.”

“Hades claims that as soon as the hibernation began, Osiris launched a war,” Blair explained, trying to make sure he got it all right. “He created an army of what Hades called demons. I’m guessing you know more about those than I do.”

“I’m familiar with their ilk,” Isis said, anger darkening her features. “The term was coined by Set to describe his minions. One of the chief uses Ark Lords put their Arks to is the creation of new life. They craft minions the way a potter makes vessels. Demons are black things, incapable of any emotion save hate. They are violence incarnate, the perfect servants with which to flood a battle field.”

“Well, Osiris used these troops to conquer the underworld,” Blair continued. He turned to face the rail, gazing off at the storm. “They pushed Hades back, and eventually severed the conduit connecting Olympus to the Well. Hades also believed Osiris was severing all connections to the Nexus.”

Blair trailed off as he looked to Isis. She was silent for a long moment, then finally turned to face them. Her green eyes sparkled in the storm’s fading light, and a single tear slid down one cheek.

“If Hades is not deceiving us, then it seems my husband has done dark and terrible things during my long hibernation,” she began, slowly, as if the words were forced from her. “I do not want to believe it. Osiris was the best of us, a leader for uncounted centuries. The idea that he would sever the connection to the Nexus is unthinkable. That would mean the destruction of the Ark network. What motivation could he possibly have?”

Blair looked at Liz, but she offered him no help. He turned back to Isis. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if Hades was telling the truth, but he certainly seemed scared. It also seemed like Olympus was stuck between dimensions somehow, for whatever that’s worth.”