Courage (7 page)

“Skitt, get Aerigo out of the room.”

“On it.”

Aerigo felt a hand try to guide him by his upper arm. He stayed put. He couldn’t leave. He had to find a way to stop Rox from dying. Maybe if he took Jenna’s place, removed the face mask, and breathed passionate life in Roxie, she would live. Half of him wanted to, but the other half of him couldn’t forget that this wasn’t some fairytale where love conquered all, even death. A second hand wrapped around his biceps and pulled harder, yet his arm barely moved.

“What the hell? I can’t move him.” Skitt touched a hand to the device in his ear. “Capera, I need orderlies in ER 102.”

Soon, a second pair of hands grabbed his other arm, and together they pulled him off balance. Aerigo caught himself and braced against their efforts.

“Wow, he’s strong,” Skitt said. “Donai, I think he’s got some powers that make him really strong.”

“Hurry up and get him out of this room!” Donai snapped over the flat line tone. He commenced a third round of CPR.

The instant Donai fell silent, the wail of the flat line hit Aerigo’s ears like a thunderclap. He flinched and his eyes stung with tears. The flat line’s wail sounded like Sandra crying out his name, her voice stuck on the “o.” Rox had been clinically dead for almost a minute now. Things couldn’t end this way. He wouldn’t allow it.

He felt the energy that had filled him when he’d struggled to world hop to Kismet. It arose within him again and he braced himself to fend it off. This was like what happened in Drio. He couldn’t let the power out. Not here. There was nothing but doctors and patients to kill, innocent people helpless against his wrath.

Giving up on CPR and getting off the gurney, Donai grabbed a floating medical tray and set the AED on it. He cut up Roxie’s bra and tank top, and peeled them aside to reveal breasts that looked sunburnt and bloated with rigor mortis. Aerigo wanted to cover them back up. They looked horrible. Donai gelled the pads and switched it on. “Clear!” He pressed the electrodes to Roxie’s chest and shocked her. Her entire body jolted, then flopped back into place. One hand slid off the gurney. The EKG beeped out two heartbeats before flat lining again.

Aerigo swallowed. The way her torso jolted into the air, the lifeless flop, and then getting teased with hearing two heartbeats drew his wrath to just below the surface as tears rolled down his cheeks. This felt just like when Rahnjar had told him that the Balvadiers were attacking. He was ready to let himself snap, let out a scream, and then raze everything in sight. But this time he couldn’t forget how mortified he’d felt that night in Drio. Rox was just as dead as Sandra, and that other power was doing its best to push him to snap. He stayed put, eyes aglow and tears flowing.

“Clear!” Donai shocked Rox again.

Jenna returned with two more women wearing scrubs, and together the four of them (including Skitt) tried to push him down into the wheelchair they’d positioned behind him. Aerigo resisted the urge to pick up the wheelchair and throw it at the nearest wall, willing himself to stand still.

The EKG beeped a handful of times before flat lining a third time.

‘Release your Mana, the first half of your power.’

Mana. So the power had a name.

Aerigo closed his eyes and bowed his head, catching the scream in his throat. The power pushed at his mental barriers, and he found himself slipping. He was so tired of fighting it. Part of him wanted to just give in and let the power have its way, but he didn’t want to go through all that again. However, the dead Aigis’s whispering broke his concentration and he found himself reaching for his Mana power.

The explosive release sent all four doctors reeling backwards, and he staggered and tripped over the wheelchair. The air around him began to swirl, just like it always did. He scrambled to pull the power back inside, not wanting to hurt anyone, and especially not wanting to interfere with Donai’s efforts, but all he could do was compact it in a sphere around him.

And then he heard a dead Aigis say, ‘
Please listen!
’

“No,” Aerigo whispered, reflexively tuning the voice out as it continued speaking. He didn’t care what it had to say right now. He’d already released his Mana without wanting to. “I can’t. Not more power.” He felt himself losing. The power pushed outward so hard that it felt like he’d been thrown under a gravitational force almost too strong for him to tolerate.

“Everyone back away from Aerigo,” Jenna said. “Something doesn’t feel right about him.”

More garbled words, followed by, ‘
You need to harness your Frava power
!’

“No. Please. I’ll be a monster again. Please no.” Aerigo’s barrier weakened and the energy snaked its way in and seeped into him, one little bit at a time. It felt as awesomely vast as before, and just as intimidating. “
Stop!”
He yelled, and punched the floor. He tasted bile in his mouth.

The voice let out a resigned sigh. ‘
So be it then.
’

The vast power disappeared, leaving just the Mana power to deal with. He opened his eyes and saw a two-foot-wide crater at his feet.

His stomach stabbed him with a sharp pain. Clutching his stomach, he ran out of the hospital at superhuman speed. He tried to pull the Mana power back in but it was like trying to hold water with a sieve. He pushed open the sliding glass doors and darted into the middle of an intersection, then sucked in a breath and directed his Mana skyward with a thrust of both arms. The Mana surged upwards and outwards, shattering nearby windows and sending cars flying. Aerigo staggered and fell as the last drop of power left him, feeling empty and powerless, then pushed himself to his feet once more and trudged back inside. He wanted to run but he was down to just caloric energy fueling his aching limbs. All three doctors glanced at him when he reentered the ER.

“Skitt, her heartbeats keep lasting a little longer after every time I shock her. Clear!” Aerigo heard Roxie’s body lurch. He gritted his teeth as tears fell in time with Roxie’s heartbeat. “I think the antivenin is catching up. We’ll give her more once her heart stays beating.”

Aerigo’s whole body began to shiver with stress overload. Arms around his aching stomach, he took a few wobbly steps to Roxie’s gurney. “I didn’t hurt any of you, did I?” he asked weakly. Roxie’s EKG was still beeping.

“You just startled us more than anything,” Jenna said with a wan smile.

Donai stood with the AED hovering over Roxie’s naked chest as he watched the EKG measure out the young woman’s heartbeats. After about fifteen seconds, she flat lined again. Donai shocked her and Jenna administered CPR. The two doctors repeated the process for what felt like ages to Aerigo, but must have been maybe five minutes. He winced and looked away every time they shocked her.

When a whole minute passed without her heart stopping, Donai dropped the AED on the steel tray and breathed a sigh of relief. “I think we got her heart stabilized. No promises though. I thought we were gonna have a lot longer fight than that.”

“She’s an Aigis. We heal quickly.”

“You got her here just in time too,” Donai said with a smile. “The average person has fifteen to thirty minutes to live when poisoned by dragon venom, depending on where they were bitten.” He picked up the scanner by Roxie’s feet and began scrutinizing her insides. There was black, green, and brown plaguing every cubic inch of her body. She didn’t look any better than before going into cardiac arrest. “Skitt, find us lots of corticosteroid. And Jenna--”

“Another gurney?” she said, glancing meaningfully at Aerigo. The lead doctor nodded. “Be right back again.” The two extra doctors left with her, but not without sizing up Aerigo first. Of course they were curious. Hopefully they’d just leave him alone. He didn’t have the energy for much talk, much less to think about anything but Roxie’s plight. And... what that dead Aigis had said. Emotions were powerful things, but how did they bring out power in an Aigis?

Skitt rummaged through a chest-high cabinet for medicine as Donai delivered another dose of antivenin in each of Roxie’s shoulders. With aid of the scanner, he watched the antivenin flow through her bloodstream. It looked like tendrils of food coloring swirling about in stirred water, but this time the coloring was clear, and the water murky. Gradually, the antivenin erased more and more of the poison. The doctor gave a satisfied nod and collapsed the scanner. “Okay. Aerigo, you still with me?”

Aerigo nodded, the action causing his head to swim. He grabbed ahold of the gurney, wishing he hadn’t crushed his oxygen mask.

“Just to let you know, even if the antidotes
do
save her life--and that’s still a big if at this point--she may not make a full recovery. Dragon venom often causes irreparable nerve damage; there’s a good chance she may lose function in her right arm. There’s so much venom in it. You said you and she are quick to heal, but I’m going to lean towards the conservative side for the time being. What breed of human are you?”

“We’re Aigis, both born from human mothers. We share their physical makeup to an extent, but we’re not pure human.”

“I’ve never heard of Aigis,” Donai admitted. “But I
have
heard of people with glowing eyes.” He looked at Rox. “What’s her name?”

“Rox.”

Donai deposited the spent needles in a red biohazard bucket on the far counter. “Kismet deals with all sorts of aliens on a regular basis. Nostrum Hospital has quite the database. There’s gotta be something on Aigis in there. Were you referred to Nostrum, or have you been here before?”

Aerigo hesitated. The reasons for his last trip to Nostrum Hospital were quite personal, but for all he knew something in there would be crucial to helping save Rox. Without looking at the good doctor, he admitted to his previous visit as a patient.

“Alright.” Donai bent over and retrieved a garbage bucket lined with a plastic bag. “And before I get distracted and forget about poor Rox, let me get this ready.” He stuck the garbage bucket under the gurney, then checked the EKG and mumbled something about her dangerously low blood pressure. “Skitt, record her vitals every fifteen minutes. If they don’t improve, give her more antivenin. Also, she should wake up in about half an hour.” He looked at Aerigo. “Fifteen minutes, maybe?”

Aerigo shrugged.

“Well, soon then, and--”

Rox sat bolt upright and ripped off her oxygen mask. With aid of superhuman speed, Aerigo seized the garbage bucket and shoved it in Roxie’s lap, then put a hand on her back. She wasted no time in emptying her stomach of its contents.

Donai and Skitt stared, stunned. Donai shook his head and ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “Skitt, either Jenna or I needs to head down the archives after we glean what we can from Aerigo. I don’t like playing guessing games with people’s lives.”

Rox absently handed the bucket to Donai and wiped her mouth on a forearm. She looked at the two doctors with golden-eyed confusion. Aerigo put his other hand on Roxie’s left shoulder and she turned. Her face screwed up into tearful hysteria. “Aerigo, I’m scared,” she said in a thick whisper. She swallowed. “I’m scared. Don’t...” She slumped back and her head lolled back as garbled words escaped her lips. “Help.” She passed out. Aerigo guided her onto her back.

Donai glanced at the EKG, then said to Skitt, “Here, you’ll need this.” He handed the scanner over. “Run the gamut of blood work on her, too.” Donai rounded the gurney and faced Aerigo. “If I could convince you to relax now, that would be wonderful. Rox is in safe hands; you’ve done everything you can for her up to this point. We just need to ask you some questions about Aigis and how to best treat the both of you.”

Aerigo nodded. Jenna entered, preceded by a second hover gurney. She locked it in place parallel to Roxie’s.

Sleep. That’s what he needed so badly. And in a place where no one would come and assassinate either of them. Someplace safe enough to regain his power. He was going to kill Nexus for this, for his war, and for everything he’d put Daio through. He turned to the empty gurney. A proper bed was a rare thing in the past several days. He meant to crawl onto it, but for some reason the whole world tilted to his right. The last thing he saw was the underside of the gurney before all went black.

Chapter 6

Baku was painfully aware of the fact that he had no idea where Roxie and Aerigo were, so painfully aware that he was resorting to his last option. If this didn’t work, then his two Aigis were at the mercy of Fate’s hands.

He transported himself from just outside the president’s office to his realm, and sat in contemplation on the grass, facing a side wall of his temple. He sat for a solid half an hour, trying to gear up the courage to confront Eve, Roxie’s grandmother. He felt terribly guilty for having asked the old woman to take responsibility for raising her, knowing that her grandchild’s future was full of danger. Maybe he’d said too much in that letter from eighteen years ago. Then again, maybe not. The truth was good to know.

Wasn’t it?

The blue marble creatures carved into his temple walls sensed his melancholy and tried to cheer him up with a game of their own, which was much like marbles. Yes, they were carvings with only half a body etched out, but they were not stuck in place, nor unable to take alternate shapes. They moved just like hand drawings in a cartoon. Their game involved two creatures that would curl up and roll as fast as they could into the other player. The object of the game was to see who could bounce the other farther. Since the wall was overflowing with carved creatures, onlookers got a thrill out of seeing how close they could watch without getting hit by the ricochet.

The next two creatures up were a hedgehog and an armadillo. The two curled up at opposite corners of the wall and began rumbling towards each other, picking up amazing speed over the fifty-yard-across wall. They collided with a loud crack and the hedgehog not only flew backwards, but also popped off the wall. It took on its full three-dimensional form, yet still consisted of blue marble, and landed with a weighty thud on its prickly back, next to Baku’s folded legs, flailing its stony limbs. Baku put out a hand for it to cling to, then lifted it free, taking dirt and grass with it. Baku waved a hand, and the dirt and grass removed itself from the needles and put itself back in place, then he set the stone animal on the ground. The hedgehog turned a full three-sixty, taking in its new surroundings, then stared at the wall. The armadillo had hardly moved from their point of impact, and it stared back at the hedgehog with curiosity. The hedgehog bowed its head and turned to its creator for solace.

Baku patted the hedgehog and it put its front paws on his knee and looked pleadingly at him. “How many more times do I have to tell you that you’ll never win against the armadillo? It weighs more than you.” The hedgehog bobbed its head, then ran back to the temple, leaping at the last moment and merging with the wall like lotion rubbed on skin.

Baku finally decided he’d delayed long enough.

He stood, brushed off his cargo shorts, and glanced at his animated temple one last time before heading to Eve’s home.

* * *

It was a warm, sunny summer day in Buffalo’s outskirts. Cumulus clouds putted around under a blue sky. Baku inhaled the August air and forced his feet to take him across Eve’s back yard. The porch steps creaked under his bare feet, angrily it seemed, for having taken so long to meet the old woman face to face and, on top of that, for having come bearing terrible news. He already knew how she would react; it was the mental anguish the news would put her through, the worrying, fear, and despair. The possibility that she’d raised a strong young lady just to die.

The slate grey paint of the house’s wood paneling was beginning to chip badly. It was ashen white in all the gaps. A good summer storm would probably remove many more flakes. Baku stopped on the bristly straw mat before the back door. The mat read “welcome” in black letter worn fuzzy from years of treading. There was an extra flattened patch of straw in one corner that had received the most trampling. Baku felt as worn down as the mat. He still bore bruises and scabbing cuts from the fight with his son eighteen years ago. According to Earth’s time, Roxie had just a handful of days before she turned eighteen. Baku raised a hand to knock on the screen door’s metal frame, but stopped with his knuckles two inches from it. Would Roxie live long enough to see her eighteenth birthday?

His heart pounded in his chest, just like any nervous mortal’s would. Dropping his hand, he turned his ear to the door and listened. All he heard was the muffled babble of a television. He turned his mind’s eye to the inside of the house. The cat, Tucker, was snoozing away on the couch, and Eve was on her hands and knees, vigorously scrubbing a stubborn spot on the kitchen floor. Baku admired Eve’s ability to adapt inside the two weeks since Roxie had been taken away, and without much comfort to soothe the parting.

Baku lightly knocked on the door frame. He took a step back and scrutinized the faint reflection staring back at him. He considered donning a suit and tie, but a quick wiggle of his toes convinced him otherwise. Sandals and belted cargo shorts were far more comfortable anyway. He considered a shirt as well, but it just wasn’t him. Yes, more of his injuries were visible that way, and it would be inappropriate for other people, but Eve was the type who preferred the honest truth over facades.

The inside door opened, revealing Eve in a maroon t-shirt, beige shorts, and a flowery apron. Her pale eyes scrutinized Baku as she rested a rubber-gloved hand on the door frame. “My goodness! What happened to you?”

“I apologize for interrupting your cleaning. May I have a moment of your time?”

“Sure. Come in. Do you need a cab into the city? You don’t look well. ” She opened the inner door wide and beckoned him inside.

“Ah, no, I’m...”
Gods, this is hard
. “I’m cashing in on your rain check to meet me face to face one day.” Eve’s widened and she opened her mouth a little. “I’m Baku,” he said plainly, forcing himself to meet the old woman’s stare.

She took a step closer, taking a full measure of him, and pushed open the screen door. “Please come in, Baku. I never recognized your name. What religion is it from?”

“None, actually,” he said, following the old woman into the kitchen. “It’s the name my father gave me.”

“Oh.” Eve picked up her plastic bucket with an S.O.S. pad floating in it. “Can I offer you anything to eat or drink?” She paused by the sink and deposited the bucket in it. “Do you eat and drink?”

“Sure.”

Eve gestured to the modest oak table before him. He took a seat in the chair closest to the door. She dropped her rubber gloves in the sink and turned to the fridge. “Are you hungry?”

“I know
you
are,” he said. “Feel free to make two of whatever you’re having.”

Eve took out a jug of lemonade and poured two glasses. “I guess you could just magic anything you want onto a silver platter, couldn’t you?” There was a hint of bitterness in her voice, but Baku knew she didn’t even realize the undertone existed. She and her family had survived their share of hardship when she was little.

“What I want most at the moment can’t be eaten or magically conjured.”

Eve set the glasses on the table, one in front of Baku. “Why not?” She returned to the fridge.

“It’s a situation surrounded by too many ‘what ifs’,” he said unhappily. Even though Aigis had different rules, any action with mortals entwined them with any rules restricting a Creator and his or her mortals. The only huge difference was that gods stripped an Aigis of free will. To a very particular extent. “I actually have laws and limitations to what I can and cannot do. There’s a balance to it all. But this isn’t what I’ve come to talk about, Eve.”

Eve had collected some deli ham, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, black pepper, mayo, and wheat bread next to a wood cutting board, and was putting together two sandwiches. “The letter? Roxie?”

“Yes, but let’s eat first. Such things are best discussed on full stomachs.”

“Well then, have a look at this while I prepare lunch.” Eve headed over to the couch and changed the channel with a remote, then returned to the kitchen. CNN was on, and it was covering a story of some tall man holding a coach bus on his shoulders, and there in the foreground was Roxie, watching Aerigo dislodge a mangled vehicle from the bus’s rear wheels. The screen cut to an anchor, her face all serious with her rosy lips and straight hair, and she asked viewers to keep sending the station any tips as to where this “Superman” went. So far, he’d been sighted in various parts of New York, carrying a young woman, and another time on a cruise ship.

Baku opened his mouth, which was caught between a smile and a grimace. “Oh, boy. And things are already chaotic enough.”

“The thing’s been on television and the internet for about two weeks now. If Aerigo never shows up, his... heroic efforts will probably become nothing more than an exciting story.”

Baku turned around and sat back in his chair. “We’ll see what happens.”

Eve made the sandwiches, cut them in half, and placed them on square, green plates with curved corners, then added some baked potato chips next to them. She set one plate before Baku and he thanked her. She took a seat across from him and began pecking at her chips.

Baku started on his chips as well, without taking any time to enjoy any of it. He listened to the birds chat away, and the wind make the wind chimes hanging on the back porch sing. The television continued to babble away, but he blocked out the words and sounds.

“For a god, you seem rather human.”

Baku gave her a soft smile. “Would you prefer a burning bush?”

Eve laughed and shook her head. “Where did you get all your injuries? Is there anything I can do to help with them?”

Baku swallowed his first bite of his sandwich, which he couldn’t help but notice was quite tasty. “There isn’t much you can do to help get rid of them. I’ve borne these injuries for about as long as Roxie’s been alive. I... got them... from my son.” He fell silent, waiting to see if Eve had anything to say to that. When she said nothing, he said, “They are more mental than physical injuries. Symbolic, perhaps, of where I need to invest more energies.”

“They’re everywhere.”

“That speaks volumes, now, doesn’t it?” Baku took another bite of his sandwich. “Let me explain some things before we finish eating and I get to the letter and your granddaughter.”

“I’m listening.”

“I’m very human because you mortals, you creations are a mirror to who I am. ‘In my own image’ can be taken literally. It’s not about understanding the will of a god, his or her plans, etcetera; I know things that would take a lifetime and more for you to understand, and I have powers you mortals don’t. It’s simple as that.” Baku finished half of his delicious sandwich before saying another thing. Eve pecked at her food in silence, mulling over what he’d said. He continued in a subdued voice. “Earth’s people have a history fraught with violence. Even now there are civil wars, rebellions, and mounting tension between nations that have never trusted one another.” He looked at his sandwich but couldn’t bring himself to take another bite. “All that is a mirror to... to the warring and tension between my son and I. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“What I do and how I feel is re-expressed through my mortals. I’ve been at odds with my son for a long time. In return, humans have a long, bloody history.”

Eve gave a slight nod and both of them fell silent. She took a sip of her lemonade and gazed out the window that overlooked the table. She eventually began working at her sandwich. Baku did too, deciding there was no good reason to let a perfectly good sandwich go uneaten.

“Tell me something,” Eve said casually, but Baku sensed the anger and resentment behind it. “Why do you go through so much trouble to hide the fact that you exist?”

“Fair enough.” He took another bite of his sandwich and swallowed. “My mother asked me the same thing once. She spent all the time she could among her creations. She loved it. They loved it. It was nice enough, but I decided I didn’t want my creations spending all their lives showing their devotion to and reverence for me.”

“Do these people have free will as well?”

“Yes. It’s a law that every mortal a Creator brings into existence has the power of free will. The only exceptions to that are Aigis.” As soon as he said that, he regretted it. He’d been deeply into explainer mode today. He stared wide-eyed at Eve, who stared back with anger brewing under her shocked faced.

“You better explain this too. First.” She sat up straight in her chair, folding her hands in her lap, and ignored her food.

Baku took a deep breath and let it out, then let a silence draw out between them. The wind chimes dinged away, almost like warning bells. Now that the mistake was made, there was no taking it back. Eve had chosen listen, then chosen to demand an explanation. Sure, he could get up and leave, but what kind of god would that make him if he ran away from his own blunders? “No one but the god who created them has dominion over an Aigis. Neither you, nor my son can command Aerigo and Roxie to do anything. Just me. However, I cannot tell them what to feel, or what to think. I can mold them, brainwash them, feed them lies, but I cannot control their thoughts or emotions. Their natural personalities reflect my own, but they can be nurtured to behave otherwise. I cannot tell them to die or kill themselves. Their lifespan is limited, so that part of their design negates such a morbid command.”