Chapter 20 #2
"The Pantheon has grown diseased," he said quietly.
"Infected with sentiment and weakness. Directors who refuse to eliminate threats.
Assassins who question orders." He took another sip. "Zeus understands what many have forgotten. That Ferrymen exist to serve. A knife doesn’t question the hand that wields it. And people like you, Lorenzo… You’re a knife.
The role of people like me is to serve as the body that directs you. When that connection is severed…"
I flinched when he snapped his fingers.
Constantine smiled. “Then the disease must be cut away, useless limbs amputated, broken tools discarded in favor of newer methods. So it is this mission that has brought us together on this fine morning in…” He looked to one of his henchmen.
“New York,” the armed soldier replied.
“…New York,” Constantine finished and walked back to his chair and set down his cup.
Two soldiers approached, carrying large, covered cages that they set down on the table in front of us.
My stomach dropped.
Constantine gestured, and the men removed the cloth to reveal two massive birds with eyes like amber chips and talons that caught the dawn light like knives.
Constantine stood and moved toward the cages. His entire demeanor shifted as something in his face softened in a way that was more disturbing than his cold efficiency.
"Ah, but where are my manners? I haven't introduced you to my companions." He approached the birds, and his voice changed. Not warmer exactly, but intimate. Genuine. "Caesar. Augustus. Steady now. We have guests."
One of the eagles shifted, mantling its wings, and Constantine made a soft clicking sound with his tongue. The bird settled immediately, leaning toward him.
"Magnificent creatures, aren't they?" He glanced back at us, and for the first time, his smile reached his eyes. "I found them as chicks. Golden eagles, Aquila chrysaetos. Illegal to own in most countries, but then, legality has always been more of a... suggestion for people like us."
He reached toward one of the cages, and the bird inside pressed against the bars to meet his hand. The gesture was almost tender.
"Nature creates hierarchy," Constantine said, stroking the eagle’s feathers. "These creatures understand what humanity has forgotten. They know their place. They know their purpose. And they excel at it without question or doubt. Don't you, Augustus? Yes. Such a good boy."
The bird made a soft sound, almost a chirp, completely at odds with its predatory bearing.
He stroked the eagle's head one more time, then slowly pulled his hand back.
"You'll appreciate the poetry of this, I think.
" Constantine turned to face us fully, and the softness was gone.
"I’m going to give you a sporting chance.
Across this field, approximately eight hundred meters, you'll find a farmhouse.
Abandoned, but serviceable. Make it inside and bolt the doors, and I'll call off the hunt.
" He pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time.
"A clean death. Painless. You have my word. "
His word. Like that meant anything.
"Fail to reach it..." He paused, smiled slightly. "Well. Caesar and Augustus do love to hunt. And they haven't been fed this morning. I do hope you'll give them a good chase. They perform so much better with motivated prey."
Constantine finished the last of his tea and set down the cup with a satisfied sigh. He dabbed his mouth with the napkin one final time, refolded it precisely, and placed it beside his plate.
"Well then." He stood, smoothing his jacket. "I believe we've observed the proper courtesies." He pulled out his pocket watch and opened it with a soft click. "You have sixty seconds to run. I do suggest you use them wisely."
The men holding us released their grip. My legs almost buckled, but I caught myself and grabbed Rafael's arm before he could fall.
Constantine checked his watch, then looked up at us with something that might have been genuine humor. "Oh, and gentlemen? Do try to make it interesting. I'd hate for this to be over too quickly." He smiled. "Starting now."
The sound of the watch ticking was obscenely loud in the sudden silence.
Diego moved first. His eyes met mine for a split second. Run, they said. Just fucking run.
Rafael's hand locked around my good arm and pulled. My legs moved, and then we were running, grass whipping at my ankles, dawn breaking in shades of pink and gold.
No cover. No trees. That farmhouse was so far away it hurt to look at.
My shoulder burned with every step as bone scraped bone and nerves screamed. But I kept my legs pumping because the alternative was dying, and I wasn't ready for that yet.
Rafael's fingers dug into my arm hard enough to leave bruises. "Stay with me, Lorenzo, stay with me."
Behind us, Constantine shouted, "Release them."
Wing beats rushed through the air above us, huge and heavy and close. Too close. My lizard brain screamed PREDATOR while my legs pumped faster, burning, muscles screaming. The sound came from everywhere in the open field, impossible to track, impossible to escape.
"Keep going," Rafael gasped beside me, his breath harsh in his throat. "Don't stop, don't look back."
The sky was empty one second, dawn-bright and deceptively peaceful, but the next second a massive shape dove from above directly at Rafael's face. I had half a second to think: not him.
I threw myself between Rafael and the eagle without thinking. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs. Talons meant for Rafael's eyes slammed into my already-fucked shoulder instead, and pain exploded, tearing through me like lightning. My vision went white.
Rafael yanked me down as the eagle's wings beat above us, the displaced air hot against my face. The bird pulled up for another pass.
"What the fuck was that?" Rafael growled. "Are you trying to die?"
"Trying not to let you die."
"Lorenzo—"
"We have to move."
Diego was still running ahead of us, Jasper's weight on his shoulders, already a hundred yards away. We ran after him. Every shadow was death. My lungs burned and my legs shook, but I kept moving because stopping meant dying.
The eagle banked for another pass, coming at me now, aiming for my throat.
I shifted my weight, letting the rhythm take over. The ginga was older than language, written in my bones. I swayed left, let my body fold sideways, hips leading, and the eagle's talons swept past where my head had been. Close enough to count my heartbeats in the seconds between life and death.
My blade came up on instinct, pure capoeira, pure street fighting, pure everything Dionysus had beaten into me. The edge caught the eagle as it passed, and hot blood sprayed across my hand.
The eagle pulled up hard, shrieking, climbing back into the golden dawn sky. Blood matted its feathers.
"Caesar, to me! NOW!" Constantine shouted. "Back, Caesar. Back!"
The wounded eagle banked away from us, heading back toward its handler.
We kept running. Augustus kept attacking. Every few seconds, another dive, another near-miss, another moment where death brushed past close enough to feel the wind of its passing.
My blade became an extension of my arm, moving on instinct. Duck, spin, slash. The ginga kept me alive, kept me moving, kept me one step ahead of talons that wanted to tear out my throat.
Rafael stayed close, his breathing uneven beside me. When the eagle dove at me, he yanked me down hard enough that we both hit the grass, rolled, and came up running.
My legs were burning, threatening to give out. Blood ran down my back from the talon wounds. Rafael's shoulder was bleeding through his torn shirt. The farmhouse was still too far away, and Augustus wasn't stopping.
This was a losing game. We both knew it.
Then an engine roared across the field.
A truck burst from the direction of the farmhouse with Diego behind the wheel. Jasper was in the passenger seat with blood still matting his hair but conscious now, pale and grimacing but alive.
Augustus pulled up immediately, circling higher, away from the vehicle.
Diego skidded to a stop beside us, grass and dirt spraying up, pinging against my legs. The engine sputtered and died. Diego cursed viciously and cranked the ignition. "Come on, come on, you piece of shit—"
The engine caught with a roar.
"GET IN!"
I didn't need to be told twice.
Rafael and I threw ourselves into the truck bed, and our bodies hit metal hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Diego was already accelerating before we even landed, and I grabbed for the side rail to keep from being thrown out.
Above us, Augustus circled as he followed us, staying high enough to avoid the vehicle but close enough to keep us in sight.
A sharp whistle carried across the field.
Augustus responded immediately, angling his flight path and heading back toward the convoy.
Then, bullets started punching through metal.
Glass exploded somewhere, and the truck lurched hard to the left. I slammed into the side, vision whiting out.
"DOWN!" Diego shouted.
We flattened ourselves in the truck bed, pressed against metal that was suddenly full of holes, daylight showing through in places it shouldn't.
Glass rained down on us in glittering pieces, cutting tiny lines across my hands, my face.
The truck swerved hard as Diego took a turn onto a dirt road, and I slammed into the side of the truck bed, my bad shoulder screaming.
A bullet passed so close that the heat scorched my temple and burned a line across my skin. Another inch and I'd be dead, and Rafael would be alone.
"They're following!" Rafael shouted, looking back over the edge of the truck bed.
"I noticed!" Diego took another hard turn, and I slammed into Rafael as our bodies tangled together with blood and sweat and fear mixing until we were one mass of survival instinct.
But we were pulling away as the narrow road forced Constantine's convoy into single file behind us. Diego drove like he had the devil on his tail.
We made it to the main road. The engine groaned loudly in protest, but Diego pushed it harder.
"They're coming!" Rafael shouted, still looking back, keeping watch while I bled all over the truck bed. "The eagles are still following!"
"Fuck the birds, worry about the bullets! Hold on."
He took a hard right onto a side road I hadn't even seen, barely more than a dirt track through trees, and killed the engine. We coasted behind a line of trees at a sharp bend, momentum carrying us into shadows. Everything went silent except for our breathing.
"Don't move," Diego whispered. "Don't even breathe loudly."
I held my breath and counted seconds by the throbbing in my shoulder.
Above us, through gaps in the tree cover, the eagles still circled high up.
Headlights swept across the main road, showing three vehicles, then four. Constantine's convoy flew past at full speed.
The eagles circled once more, then broke away, following Constantine's convoy.
We waited. Thirty seconds stretched like thirty years. A minute lasted a lifetime. The sound of engines faded into nothing, swallowed by distance and trees and the blessing of dumb luck.
"Clear," Diego said quietly.
He started the engine again gently this time, and we pulled back onto the road while heading in the opposite direction.
We actually fucking escaped.
Diego pulled the truck over onto the shoulder. "You two okay back there?"
Blood covered Rafael's face like war paint, but he was alive and here and breathing.
He kissed me, different from before. His hands came up to frame my face, careful of my injuries, gentle even in his desperation.
I kissed him back and tasted blood and smoke and something like a promise neither of us was ready to make out loud. My good hand fisted in his shirt and held on.
"Don't do that again," he whispered as his fingers tightened in my jacket and in my shirt. "Don't throw yourself in front of eagles for me."
"Can't promise that." The words scraped out rough, honest, more vulnerable than I'd meant them to be.
"Lorenzo—"
"You'd do the same. You know you would."
He didn't deny it because he couldn't.
"Everyone I've ever cared about has died." The confession ripped out of me before I could stop it. "My mother. Dionysus. Everyone. You can't do this. You have to stay alive. You have to."
"So do you." His voice broke on the words. "You can't keep throwing yourself between me and death. I can't lose you. I don't know what that makes me, but I can't."
I didn't have words for what that made us. Didn't have words for whatever this was between us, huge and terrifying and absolutely undeniable. So I just held him, let him hold me, and tried to remember what it was like to be something other than alone.