Pawn, page 25
Still he needed to see her, to feel her in his arms again, and he didn’t waste another second as he smashed the door hinges apart with his sword, and then when the solid timber door fell out of its frame to hang precariously on an angle, picked it up and tossed the remains away. It crashed into the stone wall behind him with a thunderous racket, but he didn’t bother looking around to see if it had brought another of the beasts his way. He would deal with them when they came. There were times this new strength of his could be very useful, and a sword that could slice through stone and steel and lop off hellhound heads cleanly wasn’t exactly unwelcome either.
“Thank God!” After that he was with her, holding her tight, wrapping her up in her arms and feeling every inch of her against him, and very nearly in tears. Manly or not he simply didn’t care. But then that he was certain, was her fault. It was her divine power at work and he was just a humble mortal. So if a few tears squeezed their way out of the corners of his eyes, he couldn’t be held responsible. Besides she was holding him just as tightly.
“I was so worried.” Terrified would have been closer to the truth. Especially when he’d started wandering through the sewers and fighting the beasts as he realised just how high the stakes were. Plutos might have killed her. And he still might try again.
“No need. He could hold me, with Hades’ help. But no more. I’m a lot stronger than I seem.” And she was. He could feel that in her. He could feel her power resonating through him as he held her. How had he never noticed that before?
“Speaking of which, Rufus, how did you do that? And what are you wearing?” She sounded surprised, something that seemed wrong to him. She was a goddess, his goddess. Surely she knew everything he did? But maybe not. Not while they’d been apart. Not when she’d been locked away in this hellhole.
“What I need to to get you out of this place.” It wasn’t much of an answer, but there wasn’t time to find a better one. She had to be free. And for some reason, even in her cell she was chained, great black chains that wrapped around her waist and wrists and ankles, and held her tight. Plutos was taking no chances with her. Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe he was learning fear. Maybe he knew enough to fear her.
He went to smash the chains and then stopped. There was something wrong with them. He could feel them almost like the sword, but not in a good way. These things were evil. There was something twisted and dark about them that made no sense to him. But what did make sense was that they had to be destroyed. Not with the sword though. Even as he raised it to strike the blow he could feel the sword refusing. It was a blow it simply couldn’t do. But all was not lost as the hammer was suddenly singing at his hip, and without quite knowing how he knew, he knew that it would destroy them. Blunt weapons, there not to slice through chains that couldn’t be cut, but to crush them, deform them, change their shape. That was the key. The strength of the dark chains was in their twisted shape, and anything that altered that would destroy them.
“Close your eyes.” He didn’t want to let her go, but he had to, and when he drew his hammer and raised it high above his head, she did as he asked. Then he brought the hammer smashing down on the black chain looping around her waist, just where it connected to the dungeon wall. But the result wasn’t quite what he expected.
The chain screamed. A terrible heart rending, ear piercing sound that surely echoed through the entire castle. How could a chain scream? Rufus didn’t understand that, but as he saw the chain still intact, though badly damaged, he didn’t care. He raised the hammer again, and brought it crashing down on the same spot again with all his might.
This time, when the chain screamed, it broke. He watched the link shatter and heard the scream cut off in mid cry. Then it vanished. The chain around her waist at least, and he guessed it had died, fairly much as all the hellhounds had fallen to his blade. They didn’t die quietly, and when they finally did perish, their bodies slowly dissolved. It had taken him a while to discover that. In the end he’d only found out when in one of his confused and misguided wanderings through the endless maze of cells and tunnels that was the castle’s underground, he’d come across a couple of half dissolved corpses.
“How did you do that?” Di seemed surprised, so maybe she hadn’t been checking up on him while they’d been apart. But there was no time.
“Polemos has been teaching me to be a better consort. He says you need a warrior at your side. Now hush.” He took aim at the next chain and brought his hammer down on it with all his strength. This time it snapped through cleanly, the scream was short lived and the chain vanished in the blink of an eye. The rest followed even faster. Just a few more lusty blows and they were all gone, and then Di was free. She was also in his arms.
“Thank you.” She kissed him again and again, tears flowing freely down her cheeks, her body melting into his and for a brief moment everything in the universe was right. There was no dungeon, no foul smelling water covering him from head to toe, no hellhounds howling in the distance. There was only her. But Polemos had drilled him again and again in distractions. Never let anything take him away from the moment. And he quickly recalled his duty.
“Alright, I’m sorry but we’ve got to get you out of here. Stay behind me and let me handle the beasts.” It was exactly what needed to be done, but Di didn’t think so.
“You’re giving me orders now? And you’ve named yourself my consort? Isn’t that just a little presumptuous?” But she didn’t mean it he knew. He could hear the laughter in her voice, and she was still hugging him very tight from behind. It was the wrong place and the wrong time, but he had to respond.
“Di, I love you completely.” He turned back to her, somehow twisting around in her grip. “But keeping you safe comes first. You can do as I say or I will pick you up, sling you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and carry you out of this hellhole, back side first!” It wasn’t a completely idle threat, and the truly strange thing was how easily it came to him. Once, could it only be two short weeks before, he would never have dreamed of speaking to her like that. He would never have spoken to anyone that way. Yet it felt right when he said it, and despite everything, he didn’t regret a single syllable.
“You’d like that!” She stamped her foot a little in mock annoyance, but when she was still holding him close and kissing him non-stop he knew she wasn’t that upset. She was just having a little fun in a dark place. He could do the same.
“Oh you have no idea how much I’d like that. And how much more I’ll like it when I get you back to my place and put you to bed!” That drew a laugh, a lovely musical sound that somehow seemed to cut right through the dark and gloom of the dungeons. This unexpected boldness was working out well for him, even if he didn’t really know where it was coming from.
“Cheeky!” But he gathered she wasn’t that upset by the thought when her summer frock suddenly vanished to be replaced by a shimmering gold sequin number that hugged her body like a glove. Rufus’ mouth went dry and his heart started beating a little faster. A lot faster. It was the wrong time and the worst possible place, but he wanted nothing more than to make love to her there and then.
“Oh God!”
“Now that’s much better!” She laughed at him, obviously happy that her charms were still working, and he tried not to groan too loudly.
It took all of his strength to turn away from her, to set his thoughts on the mission as he had been taught, and to start leading her out of her cell, but even that wasn’t enough as he could feel her hands on his waist and hear her gently laughing at him. One thing was sure he realised as they waded out through the dirty water in the dark passageway, or actually two things. First she owned him, body and soul, and second, she knew it.
And he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
********************
Chapter Twenty Nine.
“Alright, what do we do now agent? Dikē?”
Barns was in a very strange state of mind as he like the rest of them stood in the courtyard surrounded by the bodies of fallen monsters, and asked his question of a woman in a white robe holding a silver spear. But then he’d been in that state for a while.
“Dikē, Goddess of justice, inspector. And what we do is simple. We wait until our friends open that rather intimidating oak door keeping us out of the castle itself. Then we find Venner and Plutos and teach them a lesson they’ll not soon forget.” Barns liked that, they all did, and a half-hearted cheer went up from all of them, even if they didn’t know who their friends were, or for that matter who Plutos was. Wasn’t he a corporation?
But still most of them were simply trying to deal with the events of the past few minutes. Of huge black hounds with two fire breathing heads a piece, and of surviving. Their worlds were collapsing all around them. The simple, logical world of the humble copper, where things made sense, was being replaced by a fantasy tale of some sort. And it wasn’t helped by the fact that some of those black corpses were starting to smoke a little. Corpses didn’t do that. Still the inspector managed at least a semblance of self-control.
“Goddess?” His question brought a smile to her lips and then a small chuckle.
“I like you inspector. And your service these past decades has been exemplary. So please don’t spoil my good impression of you by asking foolish questions.” All of which left Barns wondering what exactly the smart ones were. No one else he noticed was in a hurry to jump in. Not even Hopkins who was normally full of questions. And as for his service? She didn’t pay him his wages. But that was irrelevant like everything else. So he ignored all the madness of what had happened, of what he was staring at, and tried to regain his wits as he thought of smarter questions to ask.
“So Venner, he’s a god too?”
“Hell no!” She seemed shocked by the thought, maybe even outraged. “He’s just a mortal. Horrible, loathsome and disgustingly greedy, but human. But he’s in the service of a god, Plutos, god of greed. Think of Venner as his high priest, working hard to glorify his name.”
A high priest? Barns wouldn’t have thought Venner capable of worshipping anyone above himself. But if that worship gave him power? Wealth? Maybe. He might even have asked him, but Venner had vanished from the battlements so high above them when the hounds had proven less effective at killing them than he’d hoped for. Everyone had. All his buyers, his fellow crime lords, his friends if he had any had gone with him, maybe disappointed that their games hadn’t worked out quite as they’d hoped. But when he looked up to double check, it was to see that someone new had arrived in their stead.
“That’s the god of prosperity Dikē. Learn it. Or when I take my place, I will teach it to you so sternly that you will never forget.” He didn’t look like much Barns thought. Short and overweight, overdressed to the extreme and who wore a fedora anyway? People didn’t even wear hats any longer. But suddenly he knew where Venner got his dress sense from. It wasn’t about style after all. It was about wealth. It was about showing everyone how much you had by wearing the most outrageously expensive stuff you could buy.
“Ahh the toad finally shows his ugly face.” Dikē didn’t seem particularly impressed by his dress sense either. “Come to watch the demise of your plans in person?”
“Mine? Think again bitch. I am about to claim the heavens, and you are about to die a truly horrible death. For there shall be no justice in the new world save mine. Money.” And when he said it, Barns and the others felt as though a doom had come upon them. A chill running through their blood. But at least Dikē hadn’t been affected. In fact she seemed completely untroubled by his threats.
“Really toad? All on your little fat lonesome?”
“I’m not alone. I have Hades on my side.” Now that was finally a name that Barns recognised. They all did. But he didn’t want to. God of the underworld? Hell? That did not sound good. Not good at all.
“Oh really? Then where is he? Nowhere nearby I assume.” Dikē actually managed to laugh at him, something that did not go down well with the short fat god. In fact it made him scowl.
“He’ll be here.”
“Dreams are free toad. Hades serves no one but himself, and now that your plans are in ruins, he will find that distance will be his dearest friend. So who have you really got with you. Erebos? The frightened little shadow? He’ll be looking to hide too.”
“Then why don’t you come and find out?” It was a dare, but Barns knew it was more than that. There was something sneaky in the words. A trap maybe.
“Because I know you have mined that door, desperate to kill us all. So I think I’ll wait patiently until my friends let me in instead.” She laughed at him some more. “Or did you think that your pathetic plans and traps would actually work? That I wouldn’t see through your lies? That Moirae wouldn’t know every single detail of your plan years in advance?”
For an answer Plutos snarled, a sound that wasn’t at all godlike as far as Barns could be sure. But he wasn’t finished.
“Your friends down in the dungeons? They aren’t coming. They’re dead. I made sure of that. Moirae isn’t the only one who can spin a thread.”
“Actually they’re all alive and well. Nothing more than a few scratches among the lot of them. Your beasts are dead. I do hope you didn’t promise to return them to Hades.” They all turned as another woman’s voice came from behind them. “He likes his pets. And he’s going to be very upset with you if they aren’t returned whole and happy.”
The woman didn’t seem very godlike to Barns. She wasn’t as young and powerful as the others, and her face showed the deep lines of worry. Years and years of worry. But still she held herself tall, and Dikē nodded respectfully to her. She had to be someone.
“Moirae. Still spinning fairy stories for children? You forget, I still have Aphrodite.” Plutos yelled it down from the battlements like a threat. But then it was exactly that. “I will destroy her utterly.”
And there it was, the name that somehow tied everything together. Aphrodite. Goddess of love and beauty, and more importantly the woman, goddess who Rembrandt had painted. Barns clutched at that little jewel of information even as he knew he would never be able to use it in a court of law. But he was already certain that none of this was ever going to court.
“Oh toad! You do make some terrible mistakes don’t you? Aphrodite is free already, protected body and soul by her consort. You never had a chance against her. The chains are broken, Hades is going to be very upset about that as well, and Rufus is leading her straight through the tunnels to exact a very fitting punishment on your backside.”
Rufus? The most unfortunate man in the world still lived? Now there was something to celebrate, and Barns almost risked a smile. Just a small one. Especially when he was suddenly realising how a man could be so unlucky and yet lucky at the same time. He was being played with. The news of his survival didn’t seem to have the same effect on Plutos though.
“That puny mortal. I will eat him alive!”
“I don’t think so dear. You see he’s been well trained and well armed. He knows how to use a weapon. And you keep forgetting, you were never a god of war.” She smiled at him, almost like a sweet old aunt at her wayward child and he knew she was doing it just to anger the little man.
“But speaking of the war gods, you should probably step aside as they’ve reached the door. Chances are that it’s going to be violent, and I doubt that balcony of yours will survive.” Plutos snarled, but still he backed away, his ugly face disappearing from the battlements high above. He was only just in time.
There was a cry of fury, a woman’s voice piercing the air, and then an explosion as the entire front section of the castle suddenly decided it didn’t like standing upright any longer. Instinctively Barns and the others hit the ground, covering their heads with their hands, and all of them knowing that this close to such a massive blast it didn’t matter. But nothing came their way.
Instead the stones and rubble and dust all somehow sailed safely high over their heads, the shockwave when it touched them was barely a breeze, and even the dust decided to go somewhere else instead of settling on them. It was impossible of course, but so was everything else. And when Barns risked looking up, it was to see the two goddesses still standing there in front of the castle, completely unconcerned by what had happened. They hadn’t even ducked.
Feeling a little foolish, Barns picked himself up and started dusting off the dirt on his clothes. So did everyone else. Just in time to see a whole host of new people, more gods he guessed, emerge from what had been the front of the castle. One by one they exited out into the daylight to greet the two goddesses, and each of them she named. Polemos, Alala, Mars and so many more. All coming to greet them. And all he noticed, covered in muck and filth. It seemed the tunnels and dungeons underneath the castle, weren’t the cleanest of places, and even gods could get dirt on them. But the heavily lined woman seemed to have an answer for that as well.
