TWENTY-FOUR
It took a little over an hour before the Arrows and Guardians were lifted off the graveyard of the Chicago Temple, which was now in ruins. They were taken to an airport where other Guardians from Denver were waiting in jets to fly them to their Temple. The faces in the jets were all filled with the same two expressions: shock and grief. The only exception was Rogan, who sat staring resolutely forward, his face carefully guarded. Russell sat by Sebastian on the trip, not trusting his brother enough to leave him alone in his anger. While Sebastian sat there, watching the puffy clouds in the skies below him, his mind kept replaying the moment when Aspen had been sucked out of his reach by the tornado. His heart twisted in his chest as he thought of how, just hours before, they had been peacefully curled in each other’s arms. Now he’d let her get taken a second time. Guilt was boiling inside him, mixing with his rage over the attack.
Sebastian glanced up when Cupid entered the cabin, making his way to where Hans sat before the two of them moved towards the cockpit. Jumping up, Sebastian followed with Russell close behind.
In the front of the jet, Psyche, Hans, and Cupid were gathered together, looking over a map of Colorado and talking.
Cupid looked up as they approached. “Oh, good. Russell, where are those rainstorms you were talking about?”
Russell indicated with his hands an area in the south eastern part of the state. “They are normally here. This part of the country gets more thunderstorms than anywhere else in America, and that’s normal out here in the plains. However, the area to the west of this, by the dunes…” he swept his hands to the west, “…has been getting more action than normal. What’s good about this is it would have been easy to ignore frequent thunderstorms in the plains, but when it travels west, it raises eyebrows. It looks very similar to the wind and rain storms we just faced, minus the tornado.”
Hans turned to Cupid. “The tornado had a purpose. Whoever is in charge of this is watching us. They tornado didn’t come until it was obvious we were taking out the demons, that they weren’t going to be returning with any of us. The attacker wanted Arrows.”
Cupid nodded. “The attacker wanted Venus.”
Sebastian glanced over. “Was she taken like Aspen and the others?”
“It seems so. She was there before the funnel cloud developed. Another Arrow said she was standing right next to him, and then the wind picked up and several people were thrust into the sky, Venus included. She called out, but it was too late by then.”
Sebastian frowned. Cupid noticed his expression. “What is it?”
“The problem I have is capturing Venus doesn’t make much sense to me. The attacker has Auster, and that’s how the demons are getting around. Then she took Mars, and has the powers of war on her side. But to take Venus, the goddess of fertility? It doesn’t quite go together.”
Psyche turned. “You forget, Venus is part of our Temple now. She has a hand in the Arrows, and whoever is behind this obviously wants to sink the Arrows.”
Hans looked at Cupid and Psyche. “Which means the two of you are on the hit list as well. You have to stay protected. If they make our Temples fall and capture the two of you, we are all in grave danger. The attacker would then have control over love, hate, and war. There are no three bigger commodities on Earth.”
Several silent seconds passed before Russell cleared his throat. “What is the attack plan?”
Hans pointed to the map. “We are coordinating with the Denver Temple, and Guardians are already making sweeps across the state. Just before you two walked up, I received a call that three of the Guardians that went out an hour ago haven’t checked back in.”
Russell’s head jerked up. “Where were they going?”
Hans smiled. “The dunes.”
Sebastian nodded. “We go there.”
“Agreed,” Hans said. “Now that we are all going to be in one Temple, we will have twice the Guardians. It’s a sizable army. Plus, we called in reinforcements that were out helping to evacuate Mars’s Temples.
“So you’re going to leave them abandoned?” Everyone turned to see Rogan standing at the doorway.
Hans cleared his throat. “There’s no one to abandon now. All the Arrows are in our Temples.”
Rogan sneered. “To what? Await another attack like the one we just left?”
Sebastian’s anger spiked as he spat out at Rogan, “We are going to extinguish the problem. No one asked for your input.”
Psyche made a sound of displeasure at Sebastian’s tone, but it was cut off by Rogan’s next statement. “Going to save your girlfriend, Sebastian?”
The phrase was hardly out of his mouth before Sebastian charged him, grabbing the front of his shirt and slamming him into the thin aircraft wall. Heads turned throughout the cabin as people craned their necks to see what the disturbance was. Russell ran forward to try to pull Sebastian off of Rogan. “You piss ant!” growled Sebastian. “We’ve opened our Temples to you, lost dozens of our Guardians trying to protect you, and it’s still not enough. You thankless bastard! If you dare say one more word, one, about Aspen, I promise you it will be the last word you ever say.”
Sebastian abruptly dropped his hands and turned back to the map, breathing heavily. The room had gone completely silent as everyone glanced between Sebastian and Rogan. Rogan straightened up off of the wall before saying. “I want to go with you.”
Sebastian turned slightly. “No.”
Psyche started to speak, but Cupid stopped her, placing a hand on her arm. Rogan growled. “Why?’
“Because you’d just find something else at fault. If we win, it was to save our asses, and if we lose, it was because we could get rid of you.” Sebastian turned to stare Rogan down, anger simmering in his eyes. “Your prejudice against the Golden Arrows has clouded your judgment. You’re not trustworthy enough to fight with.”
“I’m not…?” Rogan began.
“No!” yelled Sebastian. “The way you are now? No! You’d just as soon turn the gun on me as a demon, and you and I both know it.”
Several seconds passed before any sound was made. Then, Rogan spoke quietly. “My problem isn’t with Golden Arrows.”
Sebastian exhaled before he spoke. “No?”
Rogan shook his head. For the first time in Sebastian’s memory, he looked uncomfortable. “My problem is with you.”
Sebastian flinched, startled and confused. Then he looked in Rogan’s face and he knew. Awareness dawned on him as he rocked back on his heels. He nodded. “Does she know?”
Rogan shook his head. “But you can see why I have to go. I can’t sit here and know I could be doing something to save her.”
Sebastian turned and pressed his fingers to his eyes. He exhaled, slowly, shakily. “I love her,” he whispered.
“I know,” Rogan said.
No one dared move while Sebastian leaned his hands on the table with the map, thinking.
Rogan crossed his arms, waiting.
A short while later, the jet prepared to land, and the shift brought them all back to the task at hand. Sebastian looked at Hans. “How soon can we get assembled?”
“They’re ready for us when we get to the airport.”
Sebastian nodded and looked over his shoulder at Rogan. He saw Victoria had also slipped into the cabin during the exchange. He softened immediately at the heartbreak on her face when he realized she had heard everything Rogan had said. Rogan followed Sebastian’s gaze, his face turning a shocking gray color before he looked at the floor, horrified by the situation and the audience that was there to witness it.
Victoria swallowed and composed herself quickly, turning toward Sebastian, once again the warrior he had come to know and love. She spoke clearly and harshly as she said, “They’re all depending on us.”
There was so much Sebastian wanted to say, but he didn’t know where to begin. He gazed at Victoria, who held her head high. Sebastian gave her one nod before looking at the others. “Well, let’s go get them back.”
Psyche smiled at Sebastian when he turned around to face her. She nodded quietly. Cupid cleared his throat. “We’re the last jet in. The rest of the able-bodied Arrows and Guardians are already assembled, just awaiting instruction.”
Sebastian nodded. “We’ll be ready.”
The group dispersed back to their seats to prepare for landing. Sebastian laid a hand on Victoria’s arm as he passed. She turned curtly before Rogan could speak to her and went back to her seat. Rogan looked completely appalled at the turn of events.
Now that there was a plan, it seemed to Sebastian it took forever for the plane to land. He tapped the armrest of the seat until Russell looked at him in a way that made him stop. As soon as the wheels of the landing gear hit the tarmac, Sebastian was out of his seat and down the aisle, waiting in front of the hatch with Russell right by his side. Rogan and Victoria soon joined them. Victoria tapped Russell’s shoulder. “Where is Alex? Her brother?”
Russell glanced over his shoulder. “We put Alex on the first plane out. We wanted to make sure she got as much rest as possible after she collapsed.”
“Is she okay?”
Russell remembered the horrible moment when she had passed out. Repressing a shudder, he nodded. “Garrett said she was fine. She’d just tapped all of her power for the time being, and her body shut down completely. She fought as hard as she knows how.”
The conversation stopped abruptly as the hatch lowered and everyone began to disembark, Cupid and Psyche leading them all. As they exited the plane, they saw a group of Arrows and Guardians preparing for combat, and most of the people disembarking from the plane were heading straight there. Hans marched directly to the group and began speaking earnestly with a tall, gray-haired man who looked like he’d seen the bad side of many battles. His face was scarred, like etchings in stone, and his eyes were dark as night on his face.
“Who is that?” asked Sebastian.
Cupid grinned. “That’s Ethan. He’s the head Guardian.”
Sebastian whistled between his teeth as everyone else raised their eyebrows. “That’s Ethan?” Ethan’s name was spoken with reverence throughout all Arrow Temples. “I’ve never had a chance to meet him before.”
“I’ve only seen him fight once,” said Russell.
“He’s never been made head of a mission before, but Venus and at least two other gods are at stake. We are putting the best of everything into this attack,” said Cupid.
A few moments later, Ethan turned to look at the newcomers. “Welcome. For all of you fighting with us on this mission, we’ll be dividing you into operatives of twenty or so per unit. We are going to be moving in compact groups to divert attention away from our approach. The storms have been occurring daily in the dunes region, and we hope to be able to slip in, undetected, and evaluate the situation before uncloaking the brunt of our forces. Hans knows you all best, so he’ll be arranging groups.”
Hans began walking throughout the crowd and assigning each person their group, but Russell looked over and saw Alex sitting by herself a few feet away on an overturned crate. Russell excused himself quickly and ran over to where she sat. “Alex!”
She jolted at the sound of her name, and blushed a little at the sight of Russell. He knelt in front of her. “Hey! How are you feeling?”
Alex shrugged. “I’m okay.”
Something in her voice alerted Russell she wasn’t being at all truthful with him. There were shadows under her eyes, and her red hair was stringy and sagging from a ponytail pulled low at the back of her head. “I don’t buy it. Where’s Glen?”
Alex pointed a distance away to where Glen stood with a group, collecting ammunition and weapons.
“Ah,” Russell said. “He’s doing pretty good, isn’t he?”
Alex nodded. “This is the most dedicated I’ve ever seen him about anything. He’s been a drifter his whole life. I think being here gives him a purpose, something he’s willing to fight for.”
“Well, that’s not surprising. That’s why we’re all here.”
Alex blinked. “But don’t you get assigned to your job?”
“Well, sure! But no one makes us do what we do. We could stop at any time.”
The expression on Alex’s face would have been comical had she not looked so exhausted. “You can? Why don’t you?”
“The same reason Glen is here now. For us it’s more. I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re alive for a hundred years or a thousand years if your life has no purpose. Being an Arrow has purpose and meaning. That’s what most mortals spend their whole lives trying to find.”
Alex sniffed. Russell had been so wrapped up in his own consideration of his work he didn’t notice the tears swimming in Alex’s eyes until he stopped speaking. “Oh, hey! I’m sorry! What did I do? I take it all back.”
Alex shook her head. “It’s not you. It’s nothing you said or did.” Her lips trembled as she bit down to keep the dam from breaking behind her eyes.
Russell shuffled. “Whatever it is, I assure you it’s fixable.”
Alex shook her head, a few tears squeezing over the rims of her eyelids. “No. No, it’s not. If I hadn’t passed out, if I had held on a little longer…”
Russell exhaled, seeing the trouble. “Listen, you fought amazingly, understand? We’d have lost a lot more people had you not been there to help us. Hell, we might have all been demon bait without that force field trick in the beginning. I had no idea you could do that!”
Alex wiped her eyes, saying nothing.
Russell took her hands, forcing her to look up. “Alex, you’ve not even been a demigod for a week, and you’ve already had your first major battle. I wasn’t involved in any kind of scuffle until I had been an Arrow for over fifty years, and that was minor.” He pulled down his sleeves, which he curled against his palms and used to wipe the tears from Alex’s face. “This is the biggest battle we’ve seen since the Fall, when the world was falling apart around us. You were…” for a second, words escaped him as he recalled the way she had looked, hands raised to the sky, eyes flashing, mind focused on willing objects around her to move. He blinked and looked into her face now. “You were the most brilliant thing I have ever seen.”
Russell’s hand stopped wiping Alex’s face as his palm circled and cupped her cheek. He couldn’t stop himself from noticing her hazel eyes and her peach-hued skin. Alex’s eyes slid out of focus as she realized Russell was caressing her cheek. He was near enough for her to smell the heady, masculine scent of him. His long, brown hair hung to his shoulders, billowing in the wind from the jet engines. She found herself wondering if his chest would feel as hard as it looked, if his face, shadowed with a day’s growth of beard, would feel rough against her cheek. He’d managed to properly distract her from her crying. She shuddered with awareness, and her movement snapped Russell from like-minded thoughts. He jerked his hand back and stood, chastising himself for allowing his mind to wander places it had no right wandering. Again.
“Are you…” he had to stop to clear his throat and reform his words. “Are you in a group already?”
Alex shook her head. “Garrett wants me to stay here. He’s worried I’ve seen enough action, but…”
Russell shook his head. “Garrett’s right.”
“I need to help!”
“No. You didn’t see yourself at the end. I was there. You were…” Russell remembered Alex going gray, passing out in his arms. She’d looked worse than dead, barely breathing. “You just can’t let yourself get to that state again. You’re still mortal.”
“What’s the point of having super powers if you’re just going to lose them all the time?” Alex felt like her internal battery life was limited, like those stupid RC cars in the mall.
“You just haven’t time to build them up is all. This all happened so fast.” A shout rose up from behind Russell, and he turned to see Sebastian waving him over. “I have to go. I’ll see you when we get back. Rest up!”
Alex watched as Russell ran to join the others that were going to fight, including her mortal brother. Alex tried not to feel dejected as she watched the others run to help save the world. Russell glanced back over his shoulder to wave as they left, running headlong into war.