Chapter 30
My face hurt like hell, and someone was screaming. It took me a second to figure out that someone was me.
I rolled onto my side with a groan. Smoke choked the courtyard, so thick it burned my throat, and my ribs lit up white-hot when I tried to push off the ground. Mother of God, it looked like a bomb had gone off.
I pushed up so fast I lost my balance the first time and went back down. I had to find Mila. What if she was scared? What if she was hurt? What if she was already gone?
No, Diego. Don't. Don't think that. They're alive, both of them, and you're going to find them.
I stumbled forward through the smoke. I could barely stay upright, and my ribs pulsed with every step, but I kept moving.
Through a gap in the smoke, I caught movement at the far archway. Zeus. He stood with one hand pressed to his ribs where Jasper had cut him, already heading for the exit. He glanced back once, and even through the haze I could read his face. He'd done the math. Achilles would finish this for him.
Then the smoke closed and he was gone.
"Mila!"
"Here!" she called from my right.
I turned, and she crouched next to Jasper behind what remained of a column. She had him propped up against the stone, one hand on his chest. He stared past me, unfocused. A gash above his temple had bled all the way down to his jaw.
I dropped down next to them. "What happened? What the fuck was that?"
Jasper blinked at me like he'd forgotten how words worked.
"I don't know." Mila's voice shook. "Something hit. An explosion. I pulled him over here."
"Jasper." I grabbed his shoulder. "You with me?"
He focused on my face. "Diego."
"Yeah. You hurt?"
"Head." He touched his temple and pulled his fingers away red. "Can't... everything's spinning."
His eyes kept drifting. We needed to move. We needed to get out of here before the next one hit.
The sickle came screaming through the smoke.
It slammed into the column right above our heads, and stone exploded. The chain wrapped around what remained of the pillar, pulled taut, links rattling against rock. I knew that sickle. Patroklos had swung it at me in the tunnels under Casablanca while I emptied a magazine into his chest.
Then Achilles walked out of the fire, a sword in one hand and the chain to the sickle in the other. Whatever had been behind his eyes before was gone.
"You," he snarled.
I shoved myself in front of Jasper and Mila. My shotgun was somewhere in the rubble, but I couldn't find it. I had nothing but my body between the two people I'd promised to bring home and a man carrying a chain and a sword.
"You killed him." Achilles yanked the chain, and the sickle ripped free from the column, spinning back into his grip. He started walking toward us. "Patroklos."
My pulse slammed against my ribs. Yeah. I had. On his knees in the dirt with a gun to his chest. The weight of that trigger still lived in my index finger.
"I'm going to take my time with you." Achilles kept coming. "I'm going to make it hurt."
He closed the distance, and the chain ticked against itself at his side.
I glanced around in search of a weapon. Something, anything. Come on, come on…. There. I grabbed a piece of rebar from the rubble and stood up. I wanted to buckle, but I locked my knees and stayed upright.
"Diego." Jasper slurred my name like he was drunk. "Don't."
It was already too late for that.
Achilles swung the sickle, and the chain sang before the blade arrived.
I barely got the rebar up in time. Metal hit metal, and the impact jarred through my wrist, up my arm, all the way into my teeth.
He whipped the chain back and came again.
This time the sickle wrapped around the rebar.
He yanked, and the metal tore out of my grip, taking skin with it.
I stood empty-handed, and he was right there with the sword already rising.
I dove to the side. The blade hit stone where I'd been standing, and sparks sprayed across my back.
I scrambled toward Jasper and Mila, searching the rubble for anything I could use.
Achilles looped the chain around his forearm. Blood dripped from his knuckles onto the links.
"Diego!" Mila's voice. "Here!"
I turned, and she held my shotgun. She'd dug it out of the rubble while I'd fought Achilles. I grabbed the gun and spun back around.
Achilles was already moving. The chain whipped out, and the sickle came at my face. I dropped, and the blade passed close enough that I tasted the displaced air, metallic on my tongue.
I brought the shotgun up and fired.
The blast caught him in the shoulder and spun him sideways. He staggered, one knee almost touching the ground, but he stayed up.
I fired again and missed.
The chamber clicked empty. Mierda.
Achilles straightened up. The chain wrapped around his fist had gone dark and wet. He looked at me and smiled.
He rolled his neck, and blood dripped from his chin. "My father said I wasn't worth the name he gave me." He laughed, short and raw. "Patroklos was the only person who ever looked at me and didn't see a fucking disappointment, and you put three rounds in him."
He closed the distance before I could move. The sickle wrapped around my ankle, and he yanked me off my feet. I went down hard. The back of my skull cracked against the ground, and the world broke into white static.
When the courtyard swam back, Achilles stood over me with the sword raised.
Then Mila screamed.
I turned my head, and she charged at Achilles with a piece of rebar. She swung it at his legs, and the metal rang off his shin.
"No!" I tried to get up, but I collapsed under my own weight.
Achilles caught her by the throat with one hand and lifted her off the ground. Dios mío. She clawed at his wrist, and her face went red.
"Mila!" I dragged myself toward them. My ribs had gone from burning to a sick grinding, the kind that meant something had broken inside the cage. My vision kept sliding sideways, but I kept crawling. I would not let him take her.
Achilles looked down at me. Then he started to squeeze.
Mila kicked his chest. She opened her mouth, and nothing came out.
"Let her go!" I was still crawling. The stones tore at my knees, and I couldn't close the distance fast enough.
Then Jasper was there.
He came out of the smoke, moving fast despite the gash still open above his eye. He gripped the katana with both hands and drove it through Achilles's back.
The blade burst through his chest. Blood sprayed across Mila's shirt.
Achilles's mouth opened in something that wasn't quite human. He dropped the sword, but he kept his grip on Mila. Even with a blade through his chest, he tightened his hold on her throat.
"Let. Her. Go." Jasper twisted the katana.
Achilles laughed. Blood bubbled from his mouth. He squeezed harder, and Mila stopped kicking.
Shotgun shells lay in the rubble where they'd scattered when I fell. I grabbed them. Blood slicked my fingers, and I almost dropped them. Blood slicked my fingers, and I almost dropped them.
Come on, Diego. Load the fucking gun.
I shoved the shells in. I shook so badly the first shell went in crooked and I had to pull it out and try again.
Mila's face turned purple.
I got both shells loaded and snapped the gun closed. I raised it, and the barrel wobbled.
Achilles turned to look at me. He had a katana through his chest, red spilling from his mouth, and he was still holding my girl by the throat. He was still smiling.
I aimed for his head and pulled the trigger.
The blast caught him in the face. His head came apart. Blood and bone sprayed across the stones.
His body dropped.
Mila fell, and Jasper caught her before she hit the ground. They went down together, Jasper's arms around her, his back against the rubble. Even concussed, even bleeding, he caught her.
Then he rolled back and collapsed.
I tried to get to them, but I couldn't stay upright. I hit the stones and couldn't get back up.
The courtyard went quiet. Just the crackle of the flames and the ringing in my ears.
A shape moved through the smoke at the far end of the courtyard. Rhadamanthys. He climbed over a collapsed wall with blood on his hands and dust in his hair. He reached the center of the courtyard and turned in a slow circle. Then he went still.
I crawled. My ribs ground with every reach forward, and my leg left a wet trail on the stone behind me, but I kept going. I had to get to them.
Mila sat up when I got there. She had Jasper's head in her lap, and silent tears ran down her face.
Her throat had already started to bruise, the marks turning dark against her skin.
She had a man's blood on her shirt, handprints on her neck, and she held her father's head in her lap like she'd been doing this her whole life.
"Is he..." I couldn't finish the question.
"Breathing," she said. "He's breathing."
I collapsed next to Jasper. His face had gone pale, and he'd closed his eyes, but his chest rose and fell.
I pressed my forehead against his shoulder.
Gunpowder, copper, sweat. Under the blood and smoke, he smelled like himself.
He smelled like the porch at the farmhouse, like mornings I wanted to keep.
Mila reached for me with one hand, and I took it.
"You're okay," I said. My voice cracked on it. "You're both okay."
She choked on something that broke halfway out.
Then she let go of my hand, wrapped both arms around me and Jasper, and pulled us close.
Her pulse raced where her wrist pressed against my neck.
Jasper's chest moved under my cheek. The rubble dug into my knees, and the heat from the fire pressed against my back.
Rhadamanthys rushed over and knelt in front of us. "Where's Zeus?"
"Gone," I said. "He left before the fight. I caught him heading for the archway."
“Any sign of Hades?”
I shook my head.
"We need to..."
"No." I shook my head, cutting off Rhadamanthys. “We’re done.”
“But Zeus—”
"He's someone else's problem now." I shoved my shotgun at the Judge. “Me and Jasper and Mila are going home.”
Rhadamanthys looked at me, then at Jasper and Mila. Then he closed his eyes and sighed. “As you wish.”