Change, page 16
Guilt had her taking a moment to rip off one of Low Shooter’s sleeves and tying it in a makeshift bandage on the worst of his arm injuries.
“Do we go forward or back?” Koschei asked as he pulled boots off Low Shooter, cramming them onto his own feet. He admired them.
“Forward to the next cave. We don’t have long—” Zita cut herself off. Her back prickled with instinct, and she heard a whisper of sound from behind the corner. She shoved the old man behind her, and turned to face whoever was coming, spreading her wings to obscure him as much as possible. Another patrol? And I didn’t notice them coming?
He let off a creative and far too loud string of Russian obscenities that her childhood Olympics coach would’ve envied.
Freelance stepped out.
“Oye! There you are. You ready to blow this popsicle stand?” Zita tried not to smile at Freelance like a dork as she whispered her question, but she suspected her face wore a very weird grimace instead. Not better. Pretty certain that came off as more stupid than suave.
His shoulders tightened, but he nodded. While he’d retrieved his goggles, his hood was missing, and his body armor, while mostly intact, appeared to be duct-taped in spots over one of the dark fatigue shirts the guards wore. He reeked of sulfur. Still, he didn’t seem as battered as he had in the cell, nor was he covered in blood and dirt anymore. In addition to the shotgun modified with a sight in his hands, he had acquired a water bottle identical to the ones she’d hidden away, a coil of rope, a knife in a leg holster, and a pair of handguns. His voice changer was apparently also missing, as his question lacked his usual computerized sound. “Okay? Long time.”
She rubbed her hand over her stone hair, smile fading. “Surviving. Stopped to rescue people and ran into some roadblocks.”
His attention diverted from her to the old man. “Why?”
Zita followed his gaze. Koschei’s coat was hanging open as he searched the guards, humming and stuffing things in his pockets. She sighed. “Meet one of the roadblocks. He refused to go to safety with the others. Your injuries seemed pretty bad back there. How are you?”
Freelance was apparently willing to leave it at that, his focus returning to her. “Feigned worse. Am fine. Situation?”
“Glad it looked worse than it was. Right, you got stuck here before they made their demands. Evil ghosts are threatening to devastate cities if the various governments don’t accept them as rulers. Metas, like my friends, are also supposed to surrender themselves. They gave everyone five days to decide, but they’re going to attack some religious peace conference after breakfast with their mercenary army to murder and kidnap important people to prove they’re serious. It might be today. I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”
Skepticism transmitted well through even a whisper. “Ghosts?”
She walked toward him. “Magic stuff is always weird. I’ll fill you in later, okay?”
He nodded.
Koschei glanced between them as he hurried to catch up with her. “You know each other?”
“We’ve met,” Zita replied. Her tone was curt, for all she kept her voice low.
Freelance tilted his head.
Recognizing the question, she answered it. “Koschei here wanted to know if we knew each other.”
The old man narrowed his eyes and eyed Freelance. “Your gear is trash, but you seem surprisingly competent. Are you Russian?”
When Freelance didn’t answer, Koschei turned to her. “Who is this?”
She glanced at Koschei. “He’s the escaped bounty hunter, and I don’t know where he’s from. I know he speaks English.”
Koschei assessed the younger man, circling the mercenary. “How much to shoot someone? Is he expensive? Ask him.”
Although he’d shown no sign of comprehension before, Freelance’s attention on the old man sharpened.
“We don’t have time for this. Fine.” Zita rolled her eyes and turned to Freelance, switching to English. Her tone was flat. “He wants to know how much to kill someone and if you’re expensive.”
His gaze steady on hers, Freelance said, “Not available. Yes.”
She turned back to Koschei. “He’s busy and too expensive for either of us. Plus, I think he’s already on a mission to return Jen Stone to her dad, so I don’t think he’d accept a contract to kill her.”
Freelance held up a finger. Not hearing his voice changer was odd. Still, the husky rasp of his soft voice was ... something she wouldn’t focus on now. “Jennifer Stone?”
The old man waved a hand. “Oh, is that who the witch is possessing? When you translate my words, tell him she is as good as dead. He should take a different mission. Zeus, so long as he gets his way, he does not care who is there. But Hera? No. Hera does not share, ever. It doesn’t help her host’s chaotic brain hides the spirit of its owner and torments her so she cannot function well. She has complained of it many times. I enjoy hearing her driven mad. Were it not for the accommodations and the torture, I would make popcorn and follow her around to relish the show.”
Zita gaped at him as they walked. “That’s horrible! I’m... kind of glad Jen’s mental problems are protecting her.”
Koschei sniffed. “I’m glad she suffers. She runs through power more quickly than he does, because she battles her own body. I look forward to tearing her to bits.”
The trio checked around the corner and scurried that direction.
“No murder, Koschei.” Zita told him before turning to give Freelance a quick explanation of the whispered conversation. “More stuff to explain later. He wants to kill people.”
“Zeus and Hera are already dead. It barely counts,” the old man grumbled. He panted beside her.
“No murder. I’m not risking anyone’s safety either for revenge.” She answered the old man and then switched to English as she turned her attention back to Freelance. “Is the path out clear?”
He shrugged.
“You didn’t get there yet? Are sure you’re okay?” she asked. Her fingers curled at her sides as she fought the urge to touch him. He must’ve been very careful or he needed to stop and treat his injuries. Between escaping, freeing the others, and our super-slow progress, he should’ve had a six- or seven-hour head start on us. Maybe he slept?
Freelance nodded.
In quiet Russian and English so the guards they’d abandoned farther down the corridor wouldn’t hear, she said, “Let’s go. We can make a run for the plains. Others must have heard the gunshots and are probably on their way. I know a safe place, but we have to find someone who can tell us the way first. It’ll be a long walk, but you’ll be able to get home from there.”
Freelance nodded.
The old man frowned, looked at his boots, and stopped walking. “No.”
“What now? We need to keep moving!” Zita whispered.
He tugged on his long white beard and leaned against a wall, closing his eyes for a moment. Weariness carved the lines of his gaunt face even deeper, and he seemed ancient. “You may hide me somewhere safe now, preferably with food and light. You can come get me after you rescue the healer and find the way out. Or just find a way out. I’m too old to run around hiking for miles and fighting armies, even if Hera hadn’t drained my powers.”
Zita froze. “Healer?”
“Yes, the guards, they talk. The ghosts have been wanting a meta to keep in the palace and to fix Hera’s body’s mental problems. A team captured him, and the guards hoped that their injured would be healed as well. They should have him here soon if they do not already. I assumed someone of your reputation would be all about rescuing the poor thing, given how you insisted on freeing everyone at the prison, even though it slowed down my vengeance.”
The last thing we need is the ghosts at full strength, especially if I’m right about why they want my friends. While I was out, they must’ve gotten that healer that Hera was dangling in front of Freelance. Zita ran a hand over her hair, forward and back. “Right. I have a hiding place you could rest, but you’ll have to climb a short distance. There isn’t room for me to fly you up there...”
The old man shook his head. His last words were a plaintive whine. “Does the mighty Koschei look like a goat? No, I am a great wizard and lover. I will wait in the cave by the pretty woman with the soup and recover my strength there. Perhaps you will reconsider recovering my things when you get back, but I am too tired to go much farther.”
Zita swore. Remembering how Wyn had said the Olympians were eagerly anticipating caring for her aunt, she had to admit that if he was as exhausted as she felt and couldn’t or wouldn’t climb, hiding near a doting nymph was the safest place for the elderly man. In English, she whispered, “Change of plans. We’re turning around.”
Chapter Twelve
At least the kitchen nymph was happy to see them. She all but clapped her hands and cheered when they reached her.
“Enter and be welcome! Though I know it matters little to ones of your stature, your presence eases the solitude of my duties here. Ah, you have brought another godling, as well! It is a joyous hour. Here, let me get you more kykeon!” She began pouring it into bowls and held out two toward the trio.
“Still not gods, but glad to make you happy,” Zita said automatically to her.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Koschei said without waiting for an interpretation of the offer, taking both and chugging them, one after the other.
The nymph giggled and served up two more bowls.
“Seriously, dude?” Zita shook her head at the old man. Catching the tilt of Freelance’s head, she switched from Russian to English. “She wants to feed us. What’s she’s offering us is called kykeon. It’s mushed-up barley, honey, and herbs in water that’s been boiled, so it’s safe to drink. Kind of like drinking barley oatmeal. The water is plain water with a mineral taste to it, no magic. We each had a bowl, or two in his case, when we passed by earlier and haven’t gotten ill. By the way, don’t drink from the rivers here. They have nasty magical side effects.”
He nodded.
Meanwhile, the old man shrugged at Zita. “The only way to recover from your power being stolen is with food, rest, and glorious vengeance. Since you claim I may not have the last, the other two will do. If you want to get your powers back and stop feeling like you are dying, you must eat and rest. Both ghosts fed on you, and the witch drank deeper of you than any other I have witnessed who has lived.”
“Who has lived?” Zita said.
He nodded, but didn’t seem bothered. “Yes, they’ve killed several by feeding too deeply. Every time they open a portal, it usually costs a disposable metahuman or two because they take so much their victim cannot live. I cannot see a person’s power, but I suspect if they make another meal of you too soon, it will kill you. If they grant you time to regain some power, there is a trick to not having it hurt as much or letting them take as much.”
She tilted her head, accepting a bowl and passing the other to Freelance. “Not that I’m planning to let them get their hands on me again, but what is it?”
“Separate out a chunk of your power and throw it at them when they try to rip it from you. They assume they’ve broken you, take it, and leave,” Koschei cackled. He eyed the cauldron as if contemplating diving in, but held out his bowls to the nymph for refills instead.
Zita sipped at her bowl once and then set it down on the table. She wasn’t certain she could eat in her gargoyle form, since she never got hungry and might not have any way to process it. Vomiting sounded problematic. “How would I do that?”
“This once, I will give you something for nothing. Feel your power in your core. Breathe, then pull off a good-sized piece of it, enough so they think they’re getting more than they are. Feed that to them as if releasing it in a spell. If it’s less than they got the first time, they assume you’re slow to recover.” The old man winked at the nymph as he took more helpings.
Zita couldn’t disguise the skepticism as she touched her stomach. “My core? Power lives in my abdominals and obliques?”
Koschei laughed so hard that his food came close to spilling. “Not your muscles. Your core of power. Maybe it is a magical animal that lives inside you. I don’t know you, so maybe it is your stomach. Whatever. Even I did not know exactly where my massive, manly power was until they stole most of it. Then I found it by the great emptiness echoing where it should have been. If nothing else, my method has the added benefit of keeping their greedy ghost fingers out of your mind so they don’t learn secrets, like how you plan to bring them to their messy and inevitable ends.”
All too aware of the void in herself, Zita murmured a quick summary in English to Freelance, but added on at the end. “If Hera was telling the truth, you don’t need to worry about them preying on you.”
The nymph grasped her arm, her face terrified as she scanned the kitchen cave. “Do not mention the name of the gods unless you seek their attentions. Even if the fallen king and queen are lessened until they permanently claim godly bodies again, they are still powerful.”
“Sorry,” Zita said.
The nymph freed her arm and returned to tending the cauldron.
Freelance’s hand hovered over his handgun, but he eased away from it. “Ghosts?”
Zita ran a hand over her stone hair, back and forth. “I know I promised you an explanation, and I’ll give you a longer one later. The, uh, criminal who throws electricity and Jen Stone are possessed, given the glowy eyes and her sudden change to a scheming bitch. I was thinking demons, but Koschei says it’s ghosts. He claims to be an expert in the subject.”
Freelance glanced at the skinny old man.
Koschei released an enormous belch and rubbed his distended stomach.
Zita held up her hands. “Muse respects his magical skills. Since I know nada about that kind of thing and the nymph agrees with what he said, I got to assume he’s right. It’s not like we can hit the library—or get my friends to do so—and double-check what he says. Oye, the nymph also says we shouldn’t say the ghosts’ names in case it draws their attention somehow.”
“Kill ghosts?” His lips in a thin line, Freelance sipped his food.
“Koschei, how do you kill a ghost?” Zita appended the nymph’s warning about names at the end.
He brightened and stopped shoveling food for a moment. “Maybe the bounty hunter is Russian, after all. His questions are so much better than yours. Other than the fact that they’re incorporeal humans, they’re like parasites that eat power, so they must have a host or a magical item. To kill them, you must starve them. First, you kill the body they’re in to drive them out, which weakens them. They have to either claim a new host or flee to their vessel. If you destroy their item while they rest within, they die forever.”
“Vessel? Like, a jug or something?” Zita asked.
The old man nodded, gripping his ratty white beard like a security blanket. “A magical anchor, usually symbolic or something of meaning to them, that stabilizes them and delays their fading by providing a way to hibernate and survive on the item’s power in between victims. We should steal the vessels first, then destroy them immediately after the ghosts are forced to return to them when their bodies die. We will have to stay far enough away and keep everyone else away so that the ghosts can’t take new hosts. The problem is destroying the talismans from a distance once the hosts are dead. Explosives! We can attach those to the anchors.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Thanks for the lesson, but we’re still not murdering people. Also, we don’t have no bombs.”
“Bah, I’ve known many idiots who made and used bombs, and some even survived. It is a risk you will have to take. We probably do not even have to make them. There is an entire army out there. Someone will have something we can use. If the bounty hunter is Russian, he has some,” Koschei said.
Zita sighed.
The old man pointed to her bowl. “For now, I need you two to do all the scut work that is best handled by the young and foolish. Eat. You need food and rest to recover.”
Delicately clearing her throat, the nymph leaned in. “May I ask a question?”
“Of course,” Zita replied.
Her voice low, the nymph nodded toward Koschei. “The old one seems cold. Might I bring him a chiton or something?”
Zita did not check to see if she was right and instead nodded eagerly. “Pants. He’d refuse to wear a chiton, but a pair of pants and a shirt might help?”
“Why, that is the simplest of tasks! My sisters and I do all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I will be right back.” The nymph disappeared in a shower of flower petals.
After she summarized the conversations, Freelance glanced at her bowl and paused with his own halfway to his lips. “You. Injured?”
She flexed her shoulders, her wings flaring with the movement. Even though she hated appearing weak in front of him, she admitted the truth. “A bit battered, but I don’t even feel most of it in this form. The real problem is that the ghosts fed off me, apparently a lot. Although Koschei says I’m lucky to be alive, and I’ve managed a couple shifts, I... I can’t use my pinche abilities reliably. Maybe at all for a bit.”
Freelance sipped. “Who drains?”
Once he knew what the question was, Koschei harrumphed. “Bah. Only the ghosts. Their advisor, General Achilles, asked if he could learn to take power, and they told him only they could do so. They have made great promises to grant their people blessings of abilities once they inhabit bodies with stronger powers than the ones they have now.”
Zita’s fists clenched. Not going to happen.
Koschei was still talking, though he’d switched over to the topic of revenge again. “Just wait until the ghost witch learns why my name is feared around the world.”
“Achilles?” Freelance apparently had plucked that one word out of all of the Russian.
