Luke Irontree & the Last Vampire War (Books 8-10), page 74
Once Luke sat down and dished up some fries, everyone commenced eating. The simple joy of sharing food with loved ones eased a bit of the soul weariness that seemed to be trying to drag him under. The casual conversation and friendly banter felt simple and homey. It felt good.
It might have been the best burger Luke had ever eaten, though he struggled to finish it and left most of his fries uneaten on the plate. Tutyr had no trouble finishing his food, licking his fingers with gusto. When Luke caught him eyeing the uneaten fries, he slid the plate toward the god.
Tutyr reached for the plate but stopped his hand halfway. “Are you sure?”
“I’m willing, but my stomach says stop. You can have them so they don’t go to waste.”
“Many thanks.” He dumped the fries onto his plate and squirted more ketchup on them before digging in. When he cleaned his plate, he pushed back in his chair and patted his stomach. “American burger and fries are very tasty.”
Roxi raised an eyebrow. “Certainly better than dog kibble.”
Luke snorted, covering it with a cough.
“No, no. Kibble good, too. Burger is just better.”
No one seemed to know how to respond to the admission that he liked kibble. He’d certainly eaten enough of it during his time as an overly large dog.
Standing, the god took his plate and rinsed it before placing it in the dishwasher. “I go for a stroll now. Settle belly.” He patted his stomach again.
He didn’t wait for anyone to say otherwise and walked out of the kitchen, the front door clicking shut as he departed.
“I have to say. It’s really weird having your former dog eating at the table with us,” Maggie said.
“I don’t know if I can really call him my former dog. He was a god who hid out as a dog and crashed at my house.” Luke followed Tutyr’s example and did his dishes before sitting down again, his breathing labored.
Roxi groaned. “Ugh. The number of walks I’ve taken him on and cleaned up after him.”
“Oh, God…” Maggie said. “Me too.”
Luke shook his head. “I’m too tired to think about it.” He grabbed Roxi’s hand and squeezed it. “I hope whatever you’re planning doesn’t require much exertion because I don’t have it in me.”
“We’ll help you out. We just need to go a bit beyond the cabins,” Roxi replied.
Nodding, he stood up. “I’m going to go hang out in the sitting room until it’s time. I don’t think I have the energy to make it up the stairs.”
He left the room and sank into a comfortable wingback chair near the fireplace, though there was no fire burning. It was cooler in the Coast Range but not that cold. Soon, he drifted off to the pleasant murmurs of Roxi and Maggie conversing in the other room.
Luke startled awake as someone gently shook him.
“It’s time.”
He opened his eyes to the smiling face of Roxi framed by a dark window with only a bit of moonlight filtering through. Accepting her help up, he used the downstairs restroom then put on a pair of sneakers before meeting Maggie and Roxi on the farmhouse’s porch. They formed up on each side of him and provided helping hands and balance as they descended the few steps to the ground.
They took it slowly as they walked toward the edge of the forest that surrounded the property. Halfway there, Luke needed to take a break, leaning up against one of the small cabins used to house packmembers during events, or in some cases, house the wounded when there wasn’t enough room in Portland. Only a few cabins had lights on at the moment.
“This sucks.” Luke swiped a hand across his sweaty brow.
“Take as much time as you need. Selene is patient,” Roxi said.
Nodding, he pushed off the side of the cabin, wobbling to a standing position. “Might as well get moving. Maybe she’ll be able to help, and I’ll have my energy and strength back.”
After that, he saved his breath for huffing and puffing as he toddled, with Roxi and Maggie’s help, to a small clearing in the woods. It had been a favored meeting spot for Luke to speak with Selene.
He expected to be the first to arrive at the clearing, but Tutyr in his aralez form already waited. The large, winged wolf-dog hybrid lay on the ground in a very dog-like pose, his tongue lolling out.
Roxi pulled out a camping chair she’d had stashed aside and set it up for Luke. Sinking into it, he exhaled in relief.
“Do you want me to call to Selene?” he asked.
Roxi squeezed his shoulder. “No. I’ll do it.”
She stepped into the middle of the clearing, standing between Luke and Tutyr, and lifted her face to the sky. A calm, beatific expression spread across her closed-eyed face. A moment later, a silver blur shimmered next to Roxi, resolving into the moon goddess. She immediately strode across the clearing to stand in front of Luke. Her normal placid face showed lines of worry.
Kneeling before him, she took both of his hands in hers and stared at him blankly. Maggie and Roxi waited while Tutyr lumbered over to lay next to Luke, his head resting on his paws. Though he didn’t feel better, the goddess’s presence still brought a calm over him and his breathing eased.
Selene, her eyes focusing, nodded to herself, then stood up. “He’s burning up inside. His body can’t handle that much vampire energy. A life force is a powerful thing, even one that’s been tainted by vampires and Saubarag’s corruption. He’s dying.”
Maggie gasped, putting her hand over her mouth. Roxi seemed to lose a bit of the steel in her spine as her shoulders slumped and her head dipped.
Hearing the words, Luke slumped in his chair, his momentary calm melting into wretchedness. He’d just started living and wanted time to really do it, but now it appeared his time was up, and he’d leave his mission unfulfilled. He snorted, shaking his head. His mission. It was Mithras’s mission. Luke just wanted it done so he could live a life free of its brutal taint—a life of his own.
A handful of years ago and he wouldn’t have cared if his time had finally come to an end. He probably would have looked forward to a final note. Now the end of his seeming immortality sank into him like hot lead. Nearly two-thousand years stalking the earth and suddenly he didn’t have enough time to live.
“Is there anything you can do, My Mistress?” Roxi asked, desperation in her voice and eyes. “Is there anything Mithras can do?” Her eyes flicked to the aralez on the ground next to Luke. “Is there anything Tutyr can do? He’s healed Luke twice now.”
“But it’s cost him each time,” Selene replied. “Maybe at one time, but he doesn’t have his old power and is greatly diminished.” The goddess pursed her lips, an odd expression for the normally serene deity, and looked on at Tutyr. “There is something I would like to try that could help both Lucius and Tutyr regain their vigor. But I’ll need both their permissions.”
“Could?” Maggie asked. “What does that mean? What are the odds? The dangers? The consequences?”
Selene turned to Maggie and caressed her cheek. “This is uncharted territory, Magdalena. A first and an experiment. Dangers? No more than Lucius has faced too many times, though that is hardly a balm. It could do nothing or heal him. It could harm them both, hastening the inevitable. I just don’t know, but I can think of no other solutions and if this works, I can return both of them to health.”
Maggie stared into Selene’s eyes, hope, fear, and hopelessness shifting across her face in equal measures. Finally, she reached up and squeezed the goddess’s hand and nodded.
Luke, a sad, soft smile on his face, thanked Maggie with a nod.
Tutyr raised his head and nodded hard once before setting his head back on his paws.
Luke snorted and let out a sardonic chuckle. “What’s the worst that could happen? I die? I give my consent, My Mistress.”
Folding her hands in front of her, she nodded. “Very well. I’ll need your rudis.”
“I don’t know if I have it here.”
“It’s in the closet of your room,” Roxi supplied. “I’ll go fetch it. Is there anything else we’ll need while I’m there?”
“No, my child. The rudis is all we’ll need.”
Roxi nodded and jogged out of the clearing.
Running her hand along Maggie’s cheek, the goddess gave her a reassuring smile. “Fear not, Magdalena. I believe this will work, and your love will have his health restored.”
Maggie, tears brimming in her eyes, nodded and smiled sadly. “Thank you.”
They heard Roxi before they saw her as she broke branches and rustled leaves running through the woods. Slowing at the edge of the clearing, she strolled to the goddess, then dropped to one knee, holding the rudis up to the goddess with the blade laying flat across both palms.
Selene grasped the blade by the handle. “Thank you, my child. Now please take Magdalena into the woods.”
“We can’t be here for Luke?” Roxi asked.
“Normally, it would be fine, but I’m unsure of what might happen and want to ensure your safety in case something goes awry.”
“Of course.” Roxi held out her hand to Maggie and together they walked into the woods.
Bending over, the goddess scratched the aralez behind the ears and around the neck. “I’ll need you to resume your human form, my friend.”
Tutyr blurred into the shaggy-haired man in a bathrobe Luke had joined for dinner earlier. Like Luke, he wobbled a bit on his feet but steadied himself.
“We three must all stand near one another.” Selene offered her hand to help Luke rise from the chair. Holding the wooden sword by the handle and point down, she moved it so it was in between the three of them. “Lucius, grab the blade at the hilt guard. I suggest your off-hand. Tutyr, grasp the blade at a lower point. Leave some separation between your hands. Both of you be careful not to cut your hands, not yet anyway.”
They obeyed. Luke hoped it wouldn’t take long. His arm trembled. He didn’t even have the strength to hold it out away from his body for long.
“Concentrate your wills on the rudis.” She placed her other palm on the pommel of the sword, wrapping her long, elegant fingers around it, and closed her eyes.
The goddess, who always had a bit of a glow, burst out with a silver aura that forced Luke to squint. The glow joined with the rudis and slid over it until it touched Luke’s hand. He could no longer move it as if it no longer belonged to him. His fist was locked around the blade.
At first, he felt a gently tugging in his core, then a much more insistent one until something broke loose inside him. Whatever it was wound its way down his arm in shuddering halting waves until it hit his hand and joined with the silver energy of Selene with a golden glow of its own.
Silver and gold wound down the blade like a twisted cable until it met Tutyr’s hand.
“Grip tightly and move your hand toward Tutyr’s,” Selene said, speaking directly into Luke’s mind.
The blade bit into the flesh of his hand with a sharp slice of pain as he ran his fist down the rudis. The red of his blood joined with the silver and gold threads and wound together into a cord twisting the three together. The heel of his palm met the top of Tutyr’s hand at the midpoint of the blade, joining a fourth line to the rope of energy, this one green.
As their blood mingled, the cord wound itself around their hands, binding the three of them together and burst into white light.
Perspiration broke out on Luke’s forehead and ran down his back as his weak muscles trembled. He squinted against the brightness of the white light as it expanded and encompassed them. Clenching his teeth, he hoped to keep his insides where they belonged as their combined power surged in and out of him like storm-driven waves. The vibrations of it hummed in his ears and blurred and shook his vision. If his hand wasn’t clamped to the blade and his body forced into rigidity by the combined essence of the cord, he’d have fallen into a boneless heap on the forest floor.
He thought he saw Selene’s lips move, but he couldn’t hear anything or make out the words falling from her lips. Across from them, Tutyr stood with his eyes clamped shut and his mouth open as he panted heavily.
The surges running through him grew harder and more aggressive, pushing forcefully outward. He felt like if they hit him much more violently, he would explode. When he thought he could take no more, the electricity running wild through him found a stasis and settled. The white light lessened until it faded altogether. The four colored threads pulled back and disappeared, leaving four hands on a bloody wooden blade.
Luke’s legs wobbled and his head grew faint. The world spinning around him, he slumped to the ground and faded into unconsciousness.
Chapter
Thirteen
It had been three days since Luke had gone through the ritual with Selene and Tutyr, and he felt better than he had in a while. Some of Selene’s serenity must have lingered after everything was done. Maggie insisted he stay at the farm for another few days so she could monitor his stabilizing vitals and to ensure he actually recovered. According to her checks, his stats had returned to near baseline numbers.
Though he thought it had just as much to do with preventing him from running out and doing something stupid while under the influence of whatever had happened to him. And as much as he wanted to get back into the fight, he still tired too easily. If he was being honest with himself, his body still didn’t feel right. His vitals might be returning to near normal levels, but his body would take more than a day or two to be trustworthy again.
She’d said fainting was never a good thing. Waking up a touch on the giddy side was also apparently bad. Roxi, betraying him for his own good, had joined forces with Maggie to keep him out of the action and resting until he received a medical clearance.
They’d explained he could hold out for a few more days since the team had suspended operations because of the deaths and the dangerous shift in the situation. Planning didn’t require a lot of energy. Though they didn’t accept that reply, insisting they were immovable on the subject. Giving in, he’d settled into three days of relaxing in one of his favorite places with his favorite people and Tutyr.
Luke did feel quite a bit better and used the opportunity to take walks in the woods with either Roxi or Maggie. He even got to know Tutyr a bit, teaching him how to play cribbage.
The god seemed much revived, as far as Luke could tell. He’d only known him as the dog Brutus. His brief relationship with Tutyr had been forged in fire and pain when the god had helped rescue him from the netherworld trap Saubarag had sucked him into.
Again, Luke owed his life to Selene, though he knew she didn’t keep a tally. The goddess was gracious in all things when it came to him and her children, the werewolves, as they came back to her.
He’d come close to death too many times in the last few years, only to get a last-minute reprieve. His luck and allies could only hold out for so long, and if he didn’t end this soon, it might run out. That wasn’t something he really wanted to face at the moment, though brushes with dead were practically an old friend after two-thousand years. At least he felt secure in the knowledge that if he did succumb to death, the fight would go on, and the people he cared about would be taken care of, inheriting all he had.
After a quiet day, Luke broke out whiskey as he, Roxy, Maggie, and Tutyr played cards in the quiet sitting room. Tomorrow, they’d pack up and head back to Portland.
“Luke?” Roxi grabbed the bottle and added another splash of the brown liquor to her glass. “What exactly happened after we left?”
Maggie nodded. “All we saw was a bright white light, then we found you and Tutyr laying on the ground.”
Maggie still had trouble with acknowledging Tutyr since she’d learned he was a god, even if he wasn’t the most powerful or well known. Selene’s occasional presence and kind nature no longer seemed to bother the doctor anymore as she’d gotten to know the goddess and grown to understand her connection to Luke. She wasn’t there yet with Tutyr. It also didn’t help that she’d first known him as a mangy but magical dog Luke had adopted and nursed back to health.
“I’m not entirely sure myself. She somehow took the excess power from draining all those vampires and redistributed it, giving it to Tutyr so he could heal.”
Tutyr, who was quiet and uncomfortable in people’s presences, nodded. “That is what she did, pretty much. I do not understand her powers, though she has grown more powerful than when I emerged from that shit hole the vampires kept me in and first met her.”
“Do you not know her from… You know…” Maggie asked, making a hand gesture to try to encompass what she was struggling to say.
“No. I’ve wandered the earth for centuries, keeping to myself. Once my people dwindled and disappeared, swallowed up by others who replaced me with their one god, I saw no point to staying there or associating with beings of power.” He shrugged then laughed bitterly. “I guess I wasn’t forgotten entirely.”
“Saubarag?” Roxi asked.
“Yes, him. He was petty little godling, always cradling slights to his chest. I guess he never forgave me ruining his attempt to use werewolves as dark army. Now he’s trying to make us all pay for emotional wounds he took millennia ago.” He sighed heavily. “I should have never taken him seriously when he said he wanted to make bridge between wolves and humans. He killed my dearest aralez to advance his sick scheme. At least in that, I denied him. And for that, he has never forgiven me.”
Luke took Maggie’s hand in his. “I, for one, am grateful that the aralez you sent were your best. Otherwise, history could have been a lot different.”
“Who knows?” He sighed again. “This is melancholy discussion. I’m going to take a walk.” He set his cards neatly on the table and walked out the front door.
“He’s an odd one,” Roxi said after a while.
Luke set his whiskey glass down. “I don’t know. He’s spent centuries by himself, possibly as a dog. Even for a god, that kind of loneliness has to be taxing. Then he was captured by his arch enemy and tortured, possibly without knowing who was doing it only to find out who it was as it tried to destroy us. I think he’s doing alright, all things considered.”
