Chapter Seventeen
Marek plunges into the wing storm, the moths pelting him, and he wraps his arms around me, shielding me with his back. His flinching body and grunting tell me they’re hurting him.
“Stop!” rips from my throat.
Just as quickly as they rushed in, they fly off.
Marek’s cheek rests against mine. “Are you okay?” he says breathlessly. “You’re so cold.”
I nod because I can’t find the words to speak. He unwraps his arms and releases me.
A few of the moths lie dead on the floor, the skull pattern on their backs staring up at me. My breaths ease, and I straighten. My hands feel frostbitten, the muscles and joints stiff.
Shona takes a few steps closer to us. “What are they doing here?”
I pick up Shona’s sweater and press it against the back of the doorman’s head. “You’re going to be okay,” I say to him, but he just stares at me, and his eyes are cold and biting as dry ice.
“We’re here for him.” Inanna heads for Cain. Before reaching him, she removes a syringe with a light-blue liquid inside.
Bjorn grabs Shona from behind. “Tell him to stay still, or you won’t like what I do next.”
Marek makes a move for him.
“Don’t try it,” Bjorn warns. “I don’t like hurting girls.”
Shona’s tearful eyes slide over to Cain. “You will stay still,” she says, and he obeys her.
Cain doesn’t flinch when Inanna inserts the needle into his neck and pushes the plunger down, the contents emptying into him.
“Stop!” Shona struggles in Bjorn’s grasp. “What did you give him?”
Horus strides over and grasps the doorman’s shoulder.
I look up at him. “Leave him alone.”
Horus ignores me.
Inanna turns a sympathetic look to Shona. “I’m sorry. You needn’t fear us. We won’t hurt you. As long as you behave.”
Cain’s knees buckle, and he falls forward, crashing face-down onto the floor.
“No!” Shona starts for him, but Bjorn tightens his grip on her arms. She wriggles in his grasp. “Let me go! What did you do to him?”
“I’ve righted a wrong,” Inanna says. “He was a Risen.”
“A Risen?” The confusion on Marek’s face matches mine.
“He was meant to die in that accident,” Inanna says, walking toward me. “But Shona touched him, and he awoke from death’s sleep.”
“You’re not making sense,” I say. “Death’s sleep? Shona touched him… Are you saying she brought him back to life?”
She stops in front of the doorman and me. “Just as you did to this man.” She gives Horus a nod. “Don’t let her touch him.”
Horus releases the man, grabs me, and drags me away. I thrash in his arms and kick his shin, but it doesn’t even faze him. He holds me tight. “Let me go,” I snap.
Inanna pulls another syringe full of that blue liquid out of her pocket. She squats in front of the doorman and inserts the needle into his neck, dispensing whatever it is into him. The man falls back, thumping against the floor again.
Marek hits Horus with one of those stands used to hold velvet ropes for a barrier, which had been blocking the entrance to the closed restaurant. Horus crashes to the floor and slides across the tiles. My mouth drops open. It had to take a lot of strength to hit Horus that hard. Marek snatches up my hand and drags me to the doors.
“Damn.” He shoots a look back at me. “How are your hands that cold?”
I ignore his questions and pull back on his lead. “What about Shona? We can’t leave her.”
“We either leave her, or they’ll take all three of us.”
I give Shona another look and can barely see her face with the tears building in my eyes. Bjorn’s arms are tight around her. She looks from Cain’s body on the floor to me. Even with the fear written all over her face, she nods and mouths “go” before Marek tugs on my arm again.
I leave her, and my guilt is like a boulder crushing down on me. If only I were as brave as her. We take off up the street. My tears escape, and I let them race down my cheeks.
Marek keeps shooting glances over his shoulder.
We’re a ways up the road when the Italian police, lights flashing, pass and screech to a stop in front of our hotel.
Cars are backed up on the street in both directions.
“It’s Horus,” Marek says, pulling me down with him behind one of the waiting cars. “He’s looking for us. I don’t see the others.”
Sid’s pink Fiat squeals to a stop just up the street from us. He’s blocked by the building traffic. “Come on!” he yells, waving us over from the driver’s side door.
Marek and I dash around people and vehicles.
I look back. Horus is faster than us and is catching up.
“We’re not going to make it,” I call after him.
He glances back at me. “Don’t slow down.”
My Vans slap the cobblestone road. Marek makes it first and hops in the back seat.
I climb into the front passenger seat, and Sid takes off before I get the door closed. I slam it shut. Wiping the tears from my face, I watch Horus through the window until I can’t see him any longer.
“We left her with them,” I say. “They killed Cain and that man, and we left her there.”
Marek sits at the edge of his seat and massages my shoulder. “We had no choice. Besides, the police are there. She’ll be okay. If we stayed, they’d detain us for questioning. We don’t have time for that.”
“How can Inanna be so cruel? She just killed them like that. No emotion.”
I’m pretty sure Sid flinches when I mention Inanna. He takes a sharp turn, the Fiat shimmying a little before righting.
My hands shake, and I fist them. “Now what? All our things are in that hotel. We don’t have the money. Or your grandfather’s bag.”
“I have the money and everything from his satchel. Also, got your passport. See?”
I glance back, and Marek lifts his shirt, revealing one of those concealing travel bags. “It was my gramps’s”
“You took my passport?”
He nods. “You left it in your suitcase. If someone broke into our room and stole it, you’d be screwed.”
A thought crosses my mind, and I twist to face Sid. “You’re awfully quiet. How did you know to come for us?”
“Had a missed call from Shona.” Instead of paying attention to the road, he studies me with his heavily made-up eyes. “By the look on your face, you don’t buy that.”
“No, I don’t. You know who they are, don’t you? Inanna, Bjorn, and Horus—” A gasp cuts off my words. Strolling in the middle of the road. Hands stretched out at his sides, palms up, is the man who passed us on Antonia’s street yesterday. The man with the silver-streaked hair.
A strong wind blows trash barrels down the sidewalk, pushes over chairs and tables at an outdoor café, and causes water to spray up from a nasone fountain. Over his head, there’s a gray cloud following him. It’s not until the cloud dives, raining down on people who swat at it, that I realize what it is.
“Are those bugs?”
“Locusts, to be exact.” Sid whips the Fiat around and tears off back in the direction we’d just come.
Tiny insect bodies ping the car.
Sid slams his foot against the gas pedal, and the Fiat skids as it turns a corner, and another corner, and another, ditching the locusts and the man.
“Who was that?” I ask.
Marek asks at the same time, “Was he making that wind?”
“He was.” Sid takes a hard right. “It’s Pazuzu. Wouldn’t invite him to a party, that one. He’s no fun.” He laughs. “Or a funeral, come to think of it. Of all the gods to get power back, he had to.”
“The Babylonian demon god? Shut up.” I grab the side of my head. “Just shut up. This isn’t real.”
“Watch out,” Marek snaps.
Sid swerves, barely avoiding three guys messing around as they cross the street.
“Okay, girl. I’ll shut up.” He acts unaffected by his narrowly missing them. “But then you won’t get any information about what’s happening.”
Marek slaps the back of Sid’s seat. “Just spill it. What the hell is going on? First, they kill Cain and that doorman and now… I don’t even know what that was.”
Sid pulls the Fiat over and parks it next to a row of tall apartment buildings.
I drop my hands. “Why are we stopping? We have to get away from that man.”
“We’re far enough away from him.” Sid turns to look at me. “I’m surprised you hadn’t caught on, Analiese. What do the names Inanna and Horus have in common?”
My blank stare says I’m not in the mood for guessing games. “I don’t know. What?”
“Oh, come on.” He gives me an exaggerated pout. “You aren’t even trying. You and your father have a common interest. Something your brother and Jane aren’t interested in.”
I sit up straighter. “How do you know my family?”
“I’ll tell you after you answer my question.” He leans back in his seat.
“Stop playing games,” Marek warns.
A common interest? Dad and me.
I vaguely hear Marek and Sid arguing over messing with me or something.
Mythology.
“Inanna,” I mumble. “She’s the ancient Sumerian goddess of love and fertility and sometimes war.”
“What is she saying?” Marek sounds frustrated.
“Leave her alone,” Sid says. “She’s processing.”
Marek responds, but I’m not listening so I don’t hear him.
Sid laughs. “I’m not torturing her. Girl. Sometimes it’s best to let the mind figure things out on its own. It’s less of a shock that way.”
“Horus.” It rolls over my tongue so quietly, I’m surprised Marek hears me. “The Egyptian god of the sky.”
Marek gives me an incredulous look. “How do you know this stuff?”
“My dad,” I say. “He was obsessed. I thought it was cool to have a common interest with him. Guess he was into mythology because he knew gods existed for real.”
“So you know what they are?” Sid claps his hands once.
“Inanna is a goddess, and Horus, a god,” I say.
“Bravo.” Sid hits soprano on that last syllable. He glances in the rearview mirror “Your girl is smart. And Bjorn?”
I don’t even have to think about Bjorn. He’s easy. Even Dalton could get this one. Ancient literature has referred to the god by many names. It makes sense he’d use the most common one for our times. Even made a joke about who he is on a license plate.
“Thor.” I stare at my trembling hands. The door attendant’s blood has dried on them. I need to wash them.
Wash them now.
“Is there a gas station with a restroom?” I can’t sit still. “Do they have those in Rome?”
My gaze flashes over the nearby buildings.
Sid swings a concerned look in my direction. “What’s wrong, honey? Too much to process at once?”
“Leave her alone,” Marek orders.
“I wasn’t—”
“I said stop.”
With a heavy sigh, Sid inspects his nails. “Whatever.”
I flip my hands over and back. My breath is raspy. “It’s all over the place.”
Marek practically flies out the back door and yanks open the front passenger one. He drops into a squat beside me and grasps my hands.
His are bloody, too.
Dried blood.
“Hey,” he says, and when I don’t look at him he goes louder, “Hey, look at me.”
“M-my hands,” I stammer. “I-I need to wash them.”
He squeezes my hands lightly. “I’ll be right back.”
The car bounces as Sid adjusts in his seat to face me. He rests an arm on the steering wheel. “Honey, you need a thicker skin. Because, girl, this shit is real.”
A thicker skin. As if that’s going to help me.
He makes as though he’s going to say something, and I hold my hand up, stopping him.
“No. I need a minute.”
He goes back to inspecting his nails. “Mortals. So dramatic.”
We sit in silence for what seems like an eternity, but the clock says it’s seven minutes.
Marek comes back to my side with a bottle of water and a fist full of paper napkins. “Here, give me your hands,” he says.
I lean out the door and hold them out over the gutter. As the cold water runs over my skin, Marek gently rubs the blood away.
“How are you not freaking out?” I ask.
“I am,” he says. “It just doesn’t show.”
After he dries my hands, he removes the blood from his and gets into the backseat. He scoots forward and rests his arms on the front seats. “Now tell us what’s going on. No games. Just straight up, man.”
“God and goddesses exist.” I sound oddly catatonic.
“This may shock you,” Sid says. “Who am I kidding? You’re already there. I’m a god.”
“You’re from the Philippines,” I say. “You had someone to meet because it was a full moon. The boy moon. Your lover. Are you Sidapa?”
“I am.” He lowers his head, and it’s the first time he looks vulnerable. “I only see my love then. And don’t believe the stories. He’s not a small boy. When he walks the earth, he’s our age. I tricked the Sisters of Fates into aging me down, so we’d be the same.”
I try to wrap my mind around everything he’s saying, but it all seems so unreal.
“How can this be real?” Marek has the same questions as me, but he can voice his. He pulls his fingers through his hair. “Are there more of you?”
“All the gods from mythologies around the world. So, yes, there are more of us. A few millennia ago, we lost our powers. Well, not completely. Some of us still have a few tricks in our bags. We’re immortals, living amongst the mortals here in your world.”
I twist in my seat to see both Sid and Marek. “What do they want from us?”
He inspects his side mirror. “How should I know what Inanna and the others want with you? I’m an undeclared god. They don’t associate with me. Some immortals can be real bitches. All I know is that more of them are arriving in Rome every day.”
“What’s an undeclared god?” Marek checks behind him to see what Sid is looking at.
Sid’s eyes slide to me before he glances back at Marek. “We’re in the midst of a war between immortals. Two groups fighting for power. Both sides have compelling reasons that I should join them. I just can’t decide. My situation remains the same no matter who wins. Bulan will always only come to me on the full moon. His powers never changed. Not even when we lost ours.”
His eyes flick to the mirror again. “We can’t stay here much longer.”
A bus rocks over the brick road, heading in our direction.
“That’s your ride,” Sid says. “You’ve been seen with me, and this sweet ride stands out like a pink dress at a funeral. I’ll ditch it. See what happened to Shona. Find you later.”
“Okay. Thanks, man.” Marek steps out.
Before I open the Fiat’s door, I ask, “How do you find us?”
He drops down the visor and checks his makeup in the mirror. “It’s faint, but there’s this energy coming off one of you. Immortals are hungry for it. Like a feline to catnip. It means power to them. Don’t stay in one place too long. Capisce?”
“Come on, Ana,” Marek pleads. “The bus.”
“Energy? I don’t understand.”
“Girl. You don’t have time to understand.” He rubs the corner of his lips. “See that woman down the street? Tall. Expensive clothes. That’s Nyx. She senses it and is searching for the source.” He slams the visor shut. “Bye now.”
I give the woman a quick look. Definitely fits the goddess mold. Her gaze lands on me, and from this distance, almost a half a block apart, I can tell she suspects the energy is coming from us.
“It’s going to leave.” Marek doesn’t wait for me. He takes off for the bus.
The Fiat speeds off.
I sprint after Marek.