David Leadbeater - Weapons of the Gods

“Go, go, go,” she said, following them out into the dark alleyway where Drake and Luther had worked earlier.

“Which way?” Alicia asked.

“Into the dark,” Mai said. “You should know that by now.”

As dawn rose, the team regrouped atop a small hill overlooking a vehicle scrapyard. The van stood hidden beneath overhanging trees, its front end concealed beneath brush and branches that Drake and Luther collected. Through phone calls they had directed the women to them and waited until the team was reunited before allowing themselves a single moment of respite.

Drake nodded as Alicia walked up to him. “Looking good.”

“Bollocks.” Alicia punched his arm and wiped her face. “I look like I barely survived a terrorist attack, which is what we did.”

“Yeah,” Mai said, a step behind. “But it is better than your normal look.”

“Where’s the safe?” Kenzie asked, sporting a new bandage across her scalp. “And for that matter — where’s the van?”

“Close,” Luther grumbled, watching Mai. “Is everyone okay?”

“I am.” Mai smiled. “But it was close. We were running on good luck there for a while.”

Kenzie glared around. “Oh, I’m fine thanks.”

“Good.” Drake led the way back to the van, confident they were alone as a golden glow of sunlight spread across the eastern horizon. They could easily see the single road twisting away for miles in both directions and had a good view across the fields. The scrapyard below wasn’t open for business yet. Thessaloniki itself lay three miles away and out of sight.

Drake ducked under the tree cover and slid back the van door with a loud crunch. “Let’s see what we’ve got. Do you have Mattheus’s prints?”

Alicia handed over the broken glass. “Mai broke it, not me.”

Luther intervened. “I have a few shaped charges left if the glass won’t work.”

“This requires finesse, Luther, not brute force.”

The bald man looked disgruntled.

Drake, with Luther’s and Mai’s help, finally managed to get the safe open by using a large piece of broken glass with Mattheus’s unblemished fingerprint. The iron door swung wide to reveal its dark innards.

Drake peered inside, holding a flashlight due to the darkness of the van’s interior under the overhanging trees. Three shelves held various useful items including weapons and ammo, an assortment of expensive chocolates, jewelry and two laptops. The shelves were high up and bunched together because the entire lower area was taken up by the Waters of Neptune.

It was a beautiful artifact, about three feet high and, as they had come to expect by now, entirely black. Neptune sat at the crest of a wave, holding her trident in her left hand, with sculpted waves lapping over her feet. The base was a flat piece with an undulating surface, fashioned to look like a rolling sea.

“A weapon?” Luther asked. “I don’t see how.”

“It’d hurt if it bonked you over the head,” Alicia pointed out. “Maybe this one’s just an artifact.”

“Or,” Drake said, seeing something for the first time, “could it be the substance these relics are made out of? Or the rare element inside?”

Luther nodded, handling the Neptune object with care. The three-foot-high piece looked quite small in his hands.

“Let’s pack it away.” Drake pulled away. “Along with whatever else we can use at Mattheus’s expense. We won this round but Tempest are getting pretty damn close.”

He walked back to the knoll of the hill and sat down among the overgrown stems of grass. Alicia came to sit by him and Mai stayed with Luther. Kenzie went to find some water to cleanse her wound. The land all around was silent and still, except for the pleasant breeze in the air. Drake took a moment to be with Alicia with no outside interference to pressurize them.

“Hanging in there, love?”

“Considering the circumstances, I’m hanging in there quite well.”

Drake remembered vividly the moment she’d decided to stop running. “Understood. We’re running again, I know, but not for long.”

“Can you really believe that?”

He had to. “It keeps me alive, sane and hopeful. Memories can’t be changed, but the future is ours to shape.”

“I think we need a rest.”

Drake studied her, wondering if she meant right now or in their near future. He thought about all they had accomplished and couldn’t see any obstacles to a vacation.

Apart from Tempest.

“Once this mission is done,” he said. “And successful. Once we’re legit again, not being hunted, there are no unresolved issues. No unsettled debts. We can kick back, if you like.”

“Didn’t we try that once before? I forget.”

“You know what I mean. Beat Tempest and then we’re clear. What else could possibly happen?”

“Don’t say that!”

“I know, I know, but it’s not like the worst, most vengeful enemy of our careers is just around the corner, is it?”

“Kovalenko is dead.”

“The Blood King? Yeah, I know, I was there. What I mean is — there are other teams capable of doing what we do. We have no personal investment and I’m pretty sure nobody can say we didn’t do our bit.”

“I don’t want anyone else to die,” Alicia said quietly.

Drake saw the hard veneer temporarily lifted and placed an arm around her shoulders. “Me too.”

“Even Mai,” Alicia added gruffly.

“Oh, I know. And Kenzie?”

“Maybe a little wounding. Nothing too bad.”

“Time to heal, then?” Drake picked up her earlier thread of taking a break.

“Time to live,” Alicia shrugged, “a different life.”

“You know?” Drake scrunched his eyes up as the sun rose higher. “To do that — we’d have to leave the… team.”

He had almost said the word “family,” but changed his mind at the last moment.

“Shit.” Alicia playfully slapped the hard ground. “They’d all bloody die without us.”

“When this is done,” Drake said. “Nothing else will be coming for us.”

Alicia looked at him for a long time, and he thought he saw a question in her eyes. They both felt it — the hollow ring to his words — but only in their bones.

“You think something’s coming?” Drake asked. “Something from the past, don’t you?”

Alicia looked away. “I have a feeling, but it’s probably nothing, just my anxiety talking. Being on the run and then tracked by a Special Forces team doesn’t help.”

Drake nodded, joining her in silence, unable to shake the exact same feeling. Even if they did manage to destroy Tempest, was the worst still to come?

Mai sat apart, studying the fields and ensuring she was weapons-ready. She’d heard Luther make the call to Cambridge and knew they were waiting to learn the location for the artifact’s hand-off point. She sat for a while, eyes closed after she’d finished her work, letting the sun warm the left side of her face. It was easy out here, simple. Part of her wanted that minimalism and a way out of the world she had inhabited for as long as she could remember. The real enemies were all gone. Her parents safe and living a clean life. Her sister with Dai over in Tokyo, the two of them as safe as anyone could be, moving toward a promising future. The dead still haunted her though as, she assumed, they did everyone that had lost a parent, to someone that had killed a mortal enemy.

Beyond Drake though, she’d never come close to finding a real, solid partner. The knowledge weighed heavily on her. Their split didn’t worry her — she had only been doing what she needed to do at the time. So, the whole Drake and Alicia thing was immaterial. It had happened — move on.