Chapter 14
I stepped into the courtyard with my katana drawn and a cigarette between my lips.
The road stretched downhill in front of me, dirt and gravel cutting through the olive groves.
I walked to the center of it and stopped.
Behind me the others took position: Rhadamanthys hauled himself up onto the low wall by the fountain, Lorenzo scraped across stone to find cover behind the well, Danior and Alonzo checked their rifles with metallic clicks. I smoked.
Somewhere under this house, Diego moved through a tunnel with Eight and forty people who couldn't fight. He'd squeezed my arm before he went. The bruise was already forming.
The headlights appeared first, four sets bouncing down the mountain road, dust blooming behind them in the pre-dawn gray. The engines growled louder as they picked up speed. I took another drag and let the smoke out slow. The wind caught it and pulled it apart.
They came fast. Too fast for the turn at the bottom where the road widened into the village square. The play was obvious: they'd have to brake hard or swing wide to avoid the buildings. Either way, they'd have to deal with me first.
I dropped the cigarette and crushed it under my boot.
The lead vehicle's headlights pinned me. I stood there with my weight even on both feet and the katana loose in my right hand, point down. The engine's roar filled the valley. The driver's face appeared through the windshield, and I clocked the exact moment he decided I wasn't going to move.
He yanked the wheel.
The SUV swerved left, and I stepped right, bringing the katana up in a clean arc that caught the front tire.
Rubber exploded. The vehicle lurched hard, and the passenger window was right there.
A man leaned out with a pistol, arm extended, and I took the arm off at the elbow before he could fire.
The gun clattered to the road. The arm followed it.
The man's scream cut through the engine noise, and then the SUV was past me, careening into the olive grove with sparks shooting off the ruined wheel.
The second vehicle came through, and I moved.
This one didn't swerve. The driver kept his line straight, and I went low, slid across the hood as it passed, blade trailing behind me.
The windshield spider-webbed where the katana kissed it, and then I was on the other side, boots hitting gravel.
A man rolled out of the back door with a rifle coming up, and I took his head before he could shoulder it.
The body dropped. The head rolled into the ditch.
Rhadamanthys opened up from the wall.
The crack of the revolvers ran clean and sharp, each shot a punctuation mark.
The third SUV's driver took one through the temple, and the vehicle veered hard right, clipped the fountain, and flipped.
Bodies spilled out when it landed upside down.
I counted three before Danior rifle dropped two of them and Lorenzo came off the well like a blade with legs, knives already wet.
The fourth vehicle screeched to a stop, and the doors flew open.
Myrmidons poured out in tactical formation, spreading wide, weapons up.
They moved like professionals who'd done this before.
I stopped counting and went through the gap between two of them before they could adjust. The katana opened the first one from hip to shoulder, and he went down screaming.
The second one got his rifle around and I slammed my palm into the barrel, redirecting it into his partner's chest. The rifle fired.
His partner dropped. I drove the katana through his throat and yanked it out in a spray that caught the dawn light.
Someone behind me shouted commands in Greek.
I turned, and a Myrmidon came at me with a combat knife, fast and clean.
He knew what he was doing. He feinted high, came low, and I parried the blade with my forearm, taking the cut across my jacket sleeve.
The fabric split. I kept my skin by maybe an inch.
I almost liked this one. I drove my knee into his gut, and when he doubled over, I brought the katana down through his spine.
He went boneless and hit the cobblestones face-first.
Two more came from my left. I stepped into the space between them, and the katana moved in a figure eight that opened both their throats in the same motion. The spray hit my face, warm and salt-iron. I let it run.
Gunfire hammered from every direction now.
Rhadamanthys reloaded, hands moving with the muscle memory of someone who'd done this ten thousand times.
Danior hunkered behind the low wall by the church, rifle barking in controlled bursts.
Alonzo had shifted position to the alley between buildings, covering Danior's blind side.
Lorenzo worked the gaps between Myrmidons the way he worked a room at a party, appearing exactly where he was least expected and leaving before anyone could adjust. A Myrmidon went down with a knife in his kidney. Another caught one under the jaw. Lorenzo kept moving, kept killing, his face bored.
The square was carnage now. Bodies lay everywhere, blood pooling between the cobbles, gunpowder thick enough to taste. I burned from shoulders to lungs. I kept moving because stopping meant dying, and I wasn't done yet.
Then the Myrmidons pulled back.
They retreated all at once, falling back to the vehicles, dragging their wounded, covering each other in formation like someone had called them off. I stood in the center of the square with the katana dripping and my chest heaving, trying to understand what had just changed.
A car door opened.
Achilles stepped out into the pre-dawn light wearing the same tracksuit and aviators, gold chain catching the sun that hadn't quite cleared the ridge yet. He came alone. Patroklos was nowhere in sight. I filed that away in the part of my brain that handled wrong details and kept the katana up.
He pulled a sword from the back seat. The blade was European, double-edged, old enough that someone had reground the edge at least twice. He gave it a practice swing and grinned at me across the corpses.
"Hephaestus!" He spread his arms wide like we were old friends. "Look at this mess you've made. My father's going to be so proud."
I rolled my shoulders and adjusted my grip.
He walked toward me, stepping over bodies, sword loose in his right hand. "You know what's funny? My father used to make me watch your mission reports. 'See how Hephaestus thinks, Achilles. Learn from him.' Even after you left Nadia bleeding out in that field."
He came at me fast.
The blades met with a crack that shot up through my wrists. He was strong, stronger than I'd expected, and he drove forward with his whole body behind the strike. I gave ground, redirected, came around for his ribs. He blocked, and the grin never wavered.
"My sister." He pressed the attack, blade singing through the air. "You remember her, right? Nadia? The woman you fucked while you played favorite son? The one you abandoned when the mission went sideways?"
I parried, ducked under his follow-up, and drove my blade toward his throat. He caught it on his cross-guard and twisted, trying to lock my blade. I yanked free and opened distance between us.
"You made the smart call, right? That's what Zeus taught you. Save the mission, leave the liability." His voice went cold. "Except the liability was my sister. And she carried your daughter when you left her to die."
His blade came at my head. I ducked, and the steel whistled past my ear close enough to move the air.
I came up swinging at his ribs. He brought his sword down to block, and the impact jarred my teeth.
I stepped right. He followed. I reversed, caught him off balance, and opened a line across his thigh.
He came at me harder, blade work clean and textbook. High-low-high, forcing me to block in patterns. I broke the pattern, dropped under his guard, and drove the katana toward his gut. He twisted away, and my blade caught only air.
"You know what really kills me?" He feinted left, came right, and I barely got the block up in time.
"Zeus kept her alive. Machines and tubes and prayers.
" He swung high, forcing me back. "Kept her breathing just long enough for that baby to grow.
" Another swing. "Just long enough to cut Eight out of her dying body. "
I gritted my teeth. My next parry came late.
His blade got through my guard and sliced across my forearm, shallow but hot.
I gave up two steps I shouldn't have given.
He pressed into the gap, and I had to throw myself sideways to avoid the follow-up, boots skidding on bloody cobblestones.
For a full second I was off-balance, open, and he could have ended it.
He let the moment pass.
"He raised your daughter." He circled right, sword lazy, taking his time now that he'd drawn blood. "Turned her into a weapon." The grin sharpened. "All while you had no fucking idea she existed."
He attacked with a flurry that drove me back across the square. I stepped on something soft, a body, and stumbled. He took advantage and drove his blade toward my chest. I twisted, took the hit on my ribs instead of my heart, and the pain exploded white behind my eyes.
The blade had caught my jacket, but not the skin. The edge had come close enough to freeze my ribs through the fabric.
I grabbed his wrist with my free hand and drove my forehead into his nose.
Cartilage crunched. Blood exploded across his face. He staggered back, and I pressed, katana coming up in a slash that would have taken his head if he hadn't gotten his blade up in time. Steel screamed against steel.
"Suka," I said.