Chapter 14 #2
He laughed through the blood pouring down his face.
"There's the Russian! You know what the best part is?
After everything you did, killing my sister, abandoning your daughter, Zeus still loves you more than me.
His biological son. Twenty-eight years I've spent trying to earn what he gave you for free. "
We circled each other, both breathing hard, both bleeding.
"Walk away," I said. "This is your last chance."
He wiped blood off his face with the back of his hand. "You don't give last chances, brother. That's what makes you perfect. Zeus trained all that weakness out of you. Made you into something pure."
The katana dragged heavy in my grip. Fire ran through my ribs with every breath.
"I'm giving you one anyway."
"Because of Diego?" He grinned again, sharper this time. "You think loving him makes you human again? You think it fixes what you are?"
I adjusted my stance and waited for him to move.
"Last chance, Hephaestus. Come home. We'll forget this ever happened."
I spat blood at his feet. "Go fuck yourself."
He grinned wider. "That's what I thought."
He raised his sword for the killing blow.
A rifle cracked from somewhere behind me.
Achilles's shoulder exploded in a spray of red. The sword wavered but stayed up. He staggered, grabbed his shoulder, and looked past me at whoever had just shot him. "That was a mistake," he said.
He moved past me faster than a man with a destroyed shoulder should be able to move. Danior fired again, but Achilles closed inside his range and brought his sword up.
The blade went through Danior's chest and out his back in one clean thrust.
Danior's eyes went wide. The rifle clattered onto the stones. Achilles yanked the blade free, and Danior dropped, hit the ground hard, blood spreading fast across his shirt.
"Fall back!" Achilles shouted to his men, still holding his ruined shoulder with one hand, sword dripping in the other. "We got what we needed. Move!"
The Myrmidons pulled back immediately. They dragged their wounded to the vehicles, covering each other in practiced formation. Achilles backed toward the lead SUV, never breaking eye contact with me.
"You know what I just learned, brother?" He grinned again through the blood, through the ruined shoulder, through all of it.
"Your people will die for you. That man just traded his life for yours without thinking twice.
" He jerked his chin toward Danior's body.
"Which means I don't have to kill you. I just have to kill everyone you love. "
He got into the vehicle, and the convoy peeled out, engines roaring, dust billowing. In thirty seconds they were gone, back up the mountain road. Behind them: bodies, blood, the smoking wreckage of two SUVs.
Danior bled out on the stones.
I ran to him.
He was on his back with both hands pressed to the hole in his chest. Blood pumped between his fingers with every heartbeat. He had gone gray. I dropped beside him, and pain tore through my ribs, but I ignored it.
"Danior!" I grabbed his shoulder. "Stay with me."
He found my eyes. He tried to say something, but blood came up instead. He coughed, and it sprayed across his chin.
"Don't talk," I said. "Just..."
"Diego." He forced it out through the blood. He tightened his grip on my jacket, pulling me closer. "Tell him..." He coughed again, harder. "Tell him I held..."
He said something in Romani. Three words I didn't understand, but knew anyway. The language lived in the blood, in the bones. Danior used his last breath to speak it.
I knew what it meant. Tell Diego I held the line.
I took his hand and squeezed it. “I’ll tell him.”
He loosened his grip and fell back, empty eyes staring up at the sky. I closed them with my palm.
Lorenzo appeared at my shoulder, knives still in both hands, blood on his shirt that wasn't his. He looked down at Danior and locked his jaw.
"Fuck," he said quietly.
Rhadamanthys limped over from the wall, revolvers holstered, face grim. He pulled off his hat and held it against his chest. Alonzo came from the alley, rifle hanging loose, and stood in silence.
The four of us had held this square. Now we were three.
The sun came up over the ridge, orange light spilling across the valley, turning the blood on the cobblestones black. Bodies littered the ground everywhere I looked. Shell casings rolled in the morning breeze.
I pushed myself to my feet, and my ribs punished me for every inch. Every breath was a knife. I kept breathing anyway.
"We need to move," I said. "They'll regroup and come back."
"The tunnels," Lorenzo said. "Diego took everyone through."
Diego and Eight would be on the other side by now. Waiting. Or not. The bad feeling in my gut since the Myrmidons pulled back twisted tighter.
"Then we go now." I looked at Danior's body one more time. "We'll come back for him."
Alonzo bent and closed Danior's jacket over the wound, straightening his collar. Then he picked up his rifle and turned toward the house in silence.
We left Danior in the square with the sun on his face and the mountains at his back. I told myself we'd be back for him. I told myself a lot of things as we headed for the tunnels.
Most of them were lies.