Tribe, page 18
Henry was lying.
But why?
As her anger with Henry faded, more possibilities began to take root, but none of them could grow while she was being followed.
She glanced back casually when a laughing man and woman passed her. Made like she was watching them. The van was still there. Dark blue. No insignias or logos. The windshield wasn’t tinted, but the driver was impossible to see at night, even with the city glowing around them.
She nearly tripped when she looked ahead and saw an empty sidewalk.
Where did everyone go?
She glanced back again. The van was still there, but the couple was gone.
Get a grip. The people didn’t just disappear.
The pitch of the van’s engine rose slightly. It started gaining.
She picked up her pace, debating fight or flight. Either choice was viable. Her confidence in both options was neck and neck. But running wouldn’t get her any answers. She understood what was happening, to a degree, but did she believe it? Why should she trust Helen, especially when her version of events was insane?
I need a second opinion, she decided, and she stopped in her tracks. Turned around fast, glaring into the driver’s side of the van’s windshield. Whoever was behind the wheel wasn’t mentally prepared for her sudden reversal. Hit the brakes too hard.
A pale forehead smeared against the glass for a moment, and then fell back.
She smiled. Waited.
The van didn’t move.
She waved the van over, casual, like she was motioning to friends. To herself she said, “C’mon assholes. Come say hello.”
The van moved forward again. Then it crossed into the left lane, pulling to a stop beside her, facing the wrong way. She eyed the sliding door, expecting it to open and vomit a killer clown posse or something. But nothing happened. And the driver’s side window was tinted.
She motioned for the driver to roll down the window.
Waited.
The glass lowered slowly, revealing a balding man with spectacles and a gut. Not exactly intimidating. But he was just the driver.
“Hi,” she said, with an honest smile that put the man on edge. He said nothing.
“Any chance you’ll answer some questions for me?”
Silence.
“Cause, I’m all about the questions these days. Nothing’s making a whole lot of sense, you know?”
The driver’s eyes flicked toward the back of the van.
“You’re worried about them?” Sarah slid the shield from her back. Yanked the spear from the clips and tried to hide her surprise when it snapped straight and pulled itself together.
Okay…that was cool.
The man flinched, but was still more worried about who was in the van.
“You’re all in a cult, right?”
“It’s not a cult if it’s true,” the man said, a little defensive. He wasn’t used to having his beliefs criticized or questioned…which was kind of what a cult was all about. The moment you shed light on what was wonky, it stood out.
Sarah squinted at him. “I’m not sure if that’s accurate.”
She cinched the shield tight around her forearm. Ready to rock…if need be. Maybe a good talk would take her off the Culus’s radar? She doubted it. But why not give it a whirl? “So, what’s the deal with you guys?”
The silent treatment resumed.
“Ugh, seriously. Okay, I’ll say it. You can confirm or deny. Helen Atreidai. Super pretty. Crazy rich. Kind of a badass. Lives…” She pointed to the penthouse towering above. She paused on the view. While many of the windows glowed from interior light, the penthouse was brighter—light flowing from the windowless gaps, unhindered. It was noticeable.
Henry had been wrong about that, too. Or was he lying about that, as well?
“…up there.” She turned back to the driver. “You guys think she’s a goddess. Sorry, a demigod. Specifically Helen of Troy.”
“Sparta,” the man corrected, falling for her subtle trap and confirming everything she’d said.
“Daughter of Zeus, captured by Paris, rescued by blah, blah, blah. Achilles. The Trojan Horse. All that shit. You think it really happened. That Helen is the same woman…not reincarnated or reborn—the same immortal woman…BUT, you’re pissed because she’s not playing along. Not following the cult handbook that says what? What do you want her to do?”
Sarah leaned an elbow on the window frame, her proximity making the man nervous. “Sit on a throne? Have wild orgies? I mean, that’s kind of the problem with her, right? Men can’t help themselves. They just want her. Kind of a shitty superpower if you ask me.”
She remembered Helen’s explanation. “But that’s not the plan, is it? You want her to get pissed. Want her to reveal herself, not just to you, but to the world. That’s why you’ve been making a spectacle of everything. Making a mess in public. You want twenty people with cellphones to YouTube this crap.
“What would that accomplish?” she asked. “It would put her into conflict with the cops. The real cops. They’d come for her. She’d fight back, because it’s impossible for her to bow down to a man, never mind the man. Cause, you know, of course you know, she’s a Spartan. She’d do what? Take the city? The country? The world?”
His eyes flicked toward her.
“Really? The world? How could Helen do that—”
The van’s far side door slid open. The vehicle shifted as someone stepped out. She turned to the sound of footsteps approaching from the van’s rear. The man who stepped into view was well dressed, handsome, and somehow both young and old simultaneously, like Jude Law, but with skin as dark as hers. He smiled, confident in a way that made her sneer.
She hated him. No idea why.
“Not alone,” the man said.
“What?”
“The world,” he said. “She couldn’t take it alone.”
Sarah reassessed the stranger. Like Helen, he was a man of wealth and unbridled confidence, but his eyes weren’t kind like hers. There was no affinity. No mercy.
“Did she tell you,” he asked, “who you are?”
Sarah refused to answer, but the way she tensed was enough.
The man smiled. “Interesting. Most of her children don’t know who they really are when they die.”
Sarah tightened her grip on the spear. She read the threat between the lines. “You killed them?”
“Not all of them,” he said.
“And you’re what? Immortal, too?”
“Some would say—”
The whoosh of her shield flowing through the air was enough warning for the man to raise his arms, but it was followed by the clang of metal on meat and bone. Sarah put everything she had into the strike, and caught the man off guard. She expected to sprawl him onto the sidewalk, then she would point the spear at his throat, and ask a few more questions.
But the man went flying.
He pinwheeled thirty feet. Crashed into and through the windshield of a car.
“Oh!” Sarah said, cringe-smiling. She turned to the driver. “Dude, I think your boss is dead.”
The driver looked in the side mirror, frowning. Then he said, “You seem like a nice kid. My daughter’s age. The best thing you can do is run. Get the hell out of here and don’t look back. I know who you are, but it’s not enough. You can’t beat him.”
“Don’t you mean ‘them’? Cause, you know, the whole cult thing?”
“I mean him,” he stared at the ruined car in the side mirror.
Sarah turned to face the vehicle. She felt bad for the owner. Not only was the exterior messed up, but the inside would be all bloody and full of dead man stink, something she hoped to never experience again.
The car door exploded away, kicked off from the inside. It smashed through a storefront window, setting off a whooping alarm.
“Damn,” Sarah said, missing the days of Dunkin’ Donuts drudgery. “What I wouldn’t give for just one normal thing.”
“I’m an electrician from Chelmsford,” the driver said.
Sarah leveled an unamused gaze at the man. “Yeah, well, that is pretty normal. What’s your name?”
“Chuck,” he said.
“Well, Chuck…” She watched the well-dressed newcomer climb out of the damaged car. He brushed himself off, looked at the tear in his suit coat, and then frowned at her. “I’m going to need the van.”
“Wait,” Chuck said, reaching for the gear shift. “No—”
Sarah yanked open the door, took hold of Chuck’s arm and pulled him from the van, careful not to fling him. He seemed like the kind of guy who got in deep without realizing it, and now he just wanted a way out. She couldn’t help him with his cult membership status, but she could end his role as a driver.
With a quick squeeze and a twist, she broke his arm. She cringed at the sound of it, and his scream. Then she leaned in close and quoted him, “The best thing you can do is run. Go home to your daughter.”
She dropped him to the ground, threw her weaponry in the van, slipped behind the steering wheel, and glanced in the mirror.
The fancy man was running.
She crushed the gas pedal to the floor. Tires squealed and smoked before biting pavement and propelling the vehicle forward. Out in the street, speeding away, she looked in the mirror again.
The man was gone.
Chuck was alone. But he wasn’t watching the van speed away, he was looking up, his gaze shifting slowly toward her, following the arc of—
The van shook from an impact. She spun around.
There was a man-sized dent in the ceiling.
32
Henry spasmed and flailed, his body no longer under his control. The hammock spun and coughed him out. Head and ribs took the brunt of his impact with the marble floor.
He groaned and tried to push himself up. The quivering in his muscles faded quickly, aside from the arm that was struck. It was still numb and immobile. “Damnit, Fern.”
He got to his knees, and looked over the hammock at the maid. She was still old. Still frail looking. But now she was grinning like a Cheshire Cat and holding a black baton that crackled with energy. “Why’d you have to do that? I thought you were kind of cool. But now…”
Henry looked for the kopis. It wasn’t on the floor. He hadn’t heard it fall. And Fern didn’t have enough time to take it. He found the shape of it pressed into the hammock’s red fabric.
But did he really need it? Fern was an old lady.
So were the others.
How much trouble could they be? He was a demigod after all. And they were what, a geriatric hit squad?
They’re an insult, that’s what they are.
Henry pushed himself up, one fist clenched. “Hey Alexa, play I Want Action by Poison.”
Alexa replied, “Here’s I Want Action, remastered 2006, by Poison. Starting now, on Amazon Mu—”
“Oye, Alexa. Para.”
“Not cool, Fern,” Henry said, eyeing the other maids as they fanned out around him, each of them armed with a baton.
Fern glared right back at him, smile never faltering. “Oye, Alexa, reproducir El Mariachi Loco.”
“Aquí está El Mariachi Loco,” Alexa replied. “A partir de ahora, en Amazon Music.”
“Really not cool,” Henry said. Then the music started playing. A heavy beat. Lots of bass. Sharp horns. It was catchy and started with a rousing, “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!”
Feeling returned to Henry’s numb arm. He squeezed his fingers and then shrugged. “I can work with this.” Then he dove over the hammock, performing his own version of the late, great ‘Superfly’ Jimmy Snuka’s Superfly Splash. His body collided with Fern’s, the old woman shouting in surprise.
She was more solid than she looked. The impact knocked her over, but took the wind out of Henry, too. They hit the hard floor together. Fern took the brunt of that impact, breaking Henry’s fall, which was kind of the point.
He rolled back toward the hammock, as two of the old maids swung their batons. One struck the floor, breaking the weapon. The second hit Henry’s leg just as he grasped the hammock’s underside. Muscles contracted. His arms involuntarily yanked, propelling him across the floor and into the wall.
The impact was jarring, but much less so than the kick from those batons.
Climbing back to his feet, fighting the numbness in one foot, he took stock of the situation.
He’d jump right into the fight again. He knew that. But would that be the smart move? He wanted to win this fight, and not just because losing to a bunch of old ladies would damage his pride, and his body, but because Fern had changed his music. It was just rude. Also, they were Culus, and now that he knew about his heritage, he knew the cult was his sworn enemy. Something like that, anyway. And he’d take them down. Take them all down.
It’s what Helen would want him to do. It’s how he’d be worthy.
As Fern climbed back to her feet, Henry grasped the hammock’s fabric, searching, until he found the kopis’s handle.
Fern touched a hand to the back of her head. It came away red with blood.
She spat at him, looking suddenly savage. “Yo pelaré—”
“Vete al demonio, puta madre!” Henry leaned back, holding onto the hammock and he lifted his feet. Instead of sailing over the fabric bed, he swung underneath it, once again catching the old woman off guard.
His legs struck her shins, pitching her forward with a shout of surprise.
But this time, she didn’t land on the floor. She landed face down on Henry’s crotch.
“Ohh!” Henry shouted in pain, but then he started laughing. “I knew you had feelings for me, Fern, but this is a little—fahahah!” An electric jolt radiated from his side, convulsing his body.
Through the pain, he focused on his fist, clenching it. Then with everything he had—which wasn’t much—he punched Fern in the face.
She took it like a champ, flinching in pain for a moment. Then she sneered and shoved the baton harder into his side.
“L-like th-that will m-make it any w-wo-worse,” Henry said, defiant until the pain multiplied by three.
The old ladies were ganging up on him.
Unconsciousness beckoned him to oblivion, but outrage at having been beaten by aging maids resisted.
I’m a demigod, he told himself. I’m more than human. I can take this—and more!
“Arrghh!” His body convulsed, as two more maids added their batons to the assault.
With the pain came clarity.
He wasn’t just a demigod. Some of them weren’t even worth talking about. But his ancestors—Helen included—were the offspring of Zeus, the most powerful of the gods. Ruler of the skies, hurler of lighting.
Electricity was his friend.
But it hurt like a bitch.
I just need to believe it, he decided. He felt like frikken’ Wendy, believing she could fly to Neverland with Peter Pan. It was that level of stupid. But this was different. Because this was real.
I’m a demigod, he told himself. A son of Zeus!
A scream popped from his mouth. He reached out a shaking hand. Took hold of the kopis handle through the hammock fabric. With a quick twist, the sharp blade cut through and fell to the floor with a clatter.
The last maid added her baton to his torture, but the pain was so intense already, he didn’t really notice the difference. “A-a-at l-least you-you-you aren’t sh-shocking m-my b-b-balls.” He reached out for the kopis, fingers wrapping around the metal handle. Electric rigor clenched his fist shut as the flow moved from limb to weapon.
He felt it grow hot in his hand.
Fern lifted her baton away, a savage gleam in her eyes. She aimed her baton for his crotch.
“I-I d-do-don’t th-think so!” Henry put everything he had into a swing. The blade met resistance and then passed through.
The electricity pulsing through his body disappeared as the six old ladies reeled back, one a little too late.
The effects faded faster than before.
Above him, Fern held up her arm. The hand was missing. Lying on the floor, still holding the baton. She leveled an aghast look at Henry. A solid, ‘How dare you?’
Henry scoffed. “I told you it didn’t matter that you were old ladies!” He rolled over backward, beneath the hammock, standing behind it on shaky legs. But now he was armed. Anyone who came at him now was going to get poked, sliced, or chopped for it.
He glanced at the kopis in his hands. Arcs of blue energy flickered across the blade. His eyes widened.
Holy shit, I’m doing—
Without the batons’ energy to power it, the effect disappeared along with Henry’s smile.
Damn.
Whatever.
He gripped the hammock in his left hand and hacked away the two ends, leaving him with a rectangle of thick red fabric.
“Let’s do this,” he said, waving the fabric like a matador. “Toro!”
The maids just stood there looking outraged. Henry wasn’t sure if they were upset that he’d recovered so quickly, or that he’d cut off Fern’s hand, or that he was treating them like animals. Could be all of them. What he did know was that they still weren’t afraid of him. He saw a kind of wildness in their eyes.
“Aye, dominato ryhne seeboo!” Fern shouted in a language that Henry didn’t understand. In fact, he didn’t think it was a language at all—or something so old no one really spoke it anymore.
The other women replied with a battle cry.
Then Fern released her grip on the injured arm, allowing blood to spurt. She aimed the stub at her maid compatriots and doused them in red. They licked their lips, snarling and writhing. For a moment, he thought it was some kind of weird orgy ritual—Maybe they are after my crotch!—but then he realized the look in their eyes was born of violence.
This was bloodlust, pure and simple, fueled by Fern’s plasma, and yet they were hungry for more.
For his.
The gaggle of grandmas transformed from surprisingly violent and yet somehow still adorable, to looking like wild beasts. This wasn’t their first bloodletting. How many people have they torn apart before me? he wondered, and then asked himself a more important question.
