Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest (18 page)

The Chimera zipped down the preserve road, kicking up clouds of dust. They didn't run across any more dragons, but they kept their eyes open. Just in case.

“I can't believe you punched a dragon in the face,” said Troy.

Helen smiled, held up two fingers. “Twice. I punched it twice.” She snorted, kissed her fist. “No big deal.”

“You're lucky it didn't eat you. I think it was more surprised than hurt,” he said. “Who would've guessed a dragon's weakness would be chutzpah? That's twice now you've saved our asses with that super-strength of yours.”

“Maybe you're my sidekick.”

Troy chuckled. “Maybe.”

A monster cried out somewhere in the forest, but neither Helen nor Troy was afraid. They'd faced the beasts and come out the other side alive. The unknown didn't seem so terrifying right now.

“Don't you think you owe Achilles an apology?” she said. “He saved your life.”

“He's a dog. Dogs don't care about apologies.” Troy patted Achilles on the neck. “Although I still think he's not a dog, but something pretending to be a dog.”

Helen looked into Achilles's dark-brown eyes. The dog licked her nose and wagged his tail.

She said, “If he's pretending, he's doing a great job. He has to be the method actor of pretend dogs.”

“No point in arguing about it,” said Troy. “It's not like he's just going to tell us if he's a helpful spirit or guiding gift from the gods above, right?”

They paused, giving Achilles the chance to speak up. He barked once and shoved his muzzle under Helen's hand.

“Have it your way,” said Troy. “But when he does finally reveal himself to be a god in disguise, you're going to feel weird about all that time you spent rubbing his belly.”

They might have imagined it, but Achilles did almost offer a coy smile.

“Any idea if that amulet is important?” asked Troy. “As if I have to ask?”

Helen checked the necklace they'd found wrapped around Achilles's leg. It wasn't much to look at. She might even have mistaken it for costume jewelry with its gaudy string of pearls and the bright red gem that appeared to be made of plastic. As treasures went, it was a bit disappointing.

“I don't know,” she said. “It doesn't look magic. But the pricking in my hand is softer.”

“Mine too.”

Helen glanced at her curse mark. It didn't hurt much, and she was getting used to the slight ache. The mark seemed burned deeper into her flesh. Perhaps only a fraction of a millimeter. Not enough that she could say for certain. Troy's mark was easier to see now, possibly because he didn't have fur to get in the way. Either way, it worried her.

She touched the necklace to the unholy symbol burned on the back of her hand. She touched it to the shield. She waved her magic wand over the amulet. There was no reaction. Not from the necklace. Or the other items. And the closest thing they got to an omen was when a horsefly splatted against the windshield.

“It can't just be an ordinary amulet,” he said. “That's not the way it's supposed to work.”

“Maybe that is how it works, though,” she replied. “Maybe they just edit the pointless stuff out of legends and quests when they retell them. They leave out that part where Beowulf swam into the wrong cave and wasted a weekend wandering in the dark looking for the supernatural evil one cave over.”

Troy frowned. “That won't do. They can't leave out the part where you punched a dragon.” He held up two fingers. “Twice.”

She leaned back in her seat and cracked her knuckles. “That would be a shame.”

They exited the preserve without incident, though they did get a glimpse of a crimson serpent slithering across the road. Helen managed to snap a photo of the creature.

“Find what you were looking for?” asked Ranger Grainger.

“We don't know,” replied Helen. “But we weren't sure what we were looking for in the first place.”

Grainger returned their stuff to them, had them sign some forms.

While they were walking back to their car, the omen they were waiting for arrived. Maybe it was the interference of the preserve's sub-dimension that had prevented the gods from noticing their quest progress sooner. Or perhaps the gods above had been distracted by their own concerns. Whatever caused the delay, when the omen hit, it hit hard.

It started with a sudden heat in Helen's thigh. She yanked the tarnished amulet out of her pocket and threw it to the ground.

The ground trembled as an inky darkness spilled from the necklace. It spread like a living oil slick until it surrounded Helen, Troy, Grainger, Achilles, and the Chimera. Shapes shimmered on its surface until it became clear that they weren't points of light, but thousands of eyes looking up from the depths.

A blast of searing wind knocked them down as a giant of flame with magma for eyes and a mouth filled with teeth of pointed black stones burst from the chasm before them. The monstrous thing raised its fists and brought them crashing down on the Chimera. But the thing was only smoke, and its blow passed through the car. The mortals coughed and choked. Helen nearly stepped off the edge, but Troy caught her. She wondered what might have happened if he hadn't. Would she have gotten her hoof dirty? Would she have sunk into the muck, disappearing forever? Or would she have just plummeted into the abyss? She didn't know, and she was glad she hadn't found out.

The omen howled, an angry storm of divine fury and thunder. Its deafening rage ended with a whimper as it sputtered to a gasp, belched up a puffy gray cloud, and sank back into the void with a rumbling grumble.

The chasm dissolved, evaporating like an oily patch of mud. The ash and soot covering the Chimera drifted away into nothingness. The only signs any of it had happened were the ever-so-slight scent of burned minotaur fur and a scorch mark in Helen's jeans.

“Crap,” she said. “I just bought these.”

Troy bent down and touched the amulet. It was cool. “There's your sign, Hel,” he said as he picked it up.

“That was a good one,” said Grainger.

“Stuff like that happen often?” asked Troy.

“It's not unusual. Though that was one of the better omens. You two must be doing something big.”

Helen said, “We don't really know. We're just playing it by ear.”

“You wouldn't happen to know where we should go next?” asked Troy.

“If you want to know the dietary preferences of the South American cockatrice, I'm your gal. Interpreting the will of the gods, you should ask someone else. But I wouldn't worry if I were you. An omen like that probably means you're on the right track. The gods don't waste that level of pyrotechnics otherwise.”

They thanked Grainger for her help. She wished them luck. And then they were off, following the road wherever it might take them.

Helen drove. She absently rubbed her leg where she'd been burned. She checked it at the first rest stop. The damage wasn't serious. Just some blackened fur and a patch of reddened skin. Her constant rubbing was more irritating than the injury.

“I've been thinking,” she said. “Are we sure we should be doing this?”

Troy studied the necklace dangling from the rearview mirror. “We don't have a choice, Hel. Cursed by the gods.” He held up the back of his marked hand.

“I know, but I can't help thinking that we're doing something wrong.”

“I think we're making good progress.”

“No, I don't mean we're not doing the questing correctly. I mean, maybe what we're doing is the wrong thing to do.”

He tapped the amulet's jewel, swinging it back and forth. “You too, huh?”

“So we're both on the same page here,” she said. “This banished hamburger god cursed us into doing his bidding. That can't be good, right?”

“Probably not.”

“And gathering all these magic relics together, it's got to be for some purpose, right?”

“Maybe he's just working on his artifact collection,” said Troy.

“Maybe, but it's no secret that the gods above aren't all that nice to begin with. They're capricious, unreliable, and they don't think twice about using mortals as playthings for their own unknowable purposes.”

She wrung the steering wheel in tight fists and stared at the desert stretching into the horizon.

“Makes you wonder what terrible offense a god would have to commit for the others to banish him. This god, the god the other gods decided was too much of a jerk to hang around with them, is the god we're helping.”

“That sums it up,” he said.

They drove a little farther without saying much.

“And that doesn't make you nervous?” she asked.

“I don't know. I try not to think about it.”

“But we have to think about it,” she said. “We could be doing something terrible. We could be destroying the world.”

Troy laughed. “That's a touch melodramatic.”

“Is it? Did you see the smoke monster back there? Or the way that hamburger god slurped down Mr. Whiteleaf? And that was an accident. It could have just as easily been you or me.”

“It's a big jump from human sacrifice to the end of the world.”

“Maybe not for a renegade god,” said Helen.

“Why would a god want to end the world anyway?” asked Troy. “What would be in it for him?”

“Why would he need a reason? Gods just do stuff. They don't worry about the consequences.”

“I'll give you that,” said Troy. “But if it was easy to destroy the world on a whim then wouldn't the gods have already done it?”

“So maybe it's not the end of the world.”

He smirked.

“OK, it's highly unlikely it's the end of the world,” she said, “but we agree that it's probably something bad. Something we shouldn't be doing.”

Troy said, “You're overthinking it.”

“No, I'm thinking about it just enough.”

“Look at it this way. If we were doing something really dangerous, do you think the NQB would've issued us questing licenses? Agent Waechter seemed to know what he was doing, had a lot more experience at this sort of thing than we do. And he didn't seem worried.”

“What if he's a bad guy? He could be a secret cultist, a worshipper of chaos. Or something.”

“Now you are overthinking.”

“Now…” She bit her lip and tapped her finger against her thigh. “Yes, I am. Probably.”

She waited for him to say something, but he only unwrapped the amulet from the rearview and pondered it in the palm of his hand.

“This is the part where you say something reassuring,” she said.

“I didn't think I was allowed to do that anymore. I thought I was supposed to let you wrestle with your inner demons alone.”

She shook her head.

He said, “We can sit here all day, wondering what we're doing and if we should be doing it, and it'll get us nowhere. Because we don't know how or why we're doing any of this. Except that we have to do it. That's all that matters. We have to keep going forward, do our best, and hope it all works out the way it should. What other choice do we have? Lie down and die?”

Helen huffed. “That wasn't very inspiring.”

“They can't all be winners,” he replied. “Did it make you feel better at least?”

“A little bit,” she admitted.

Troy's cell rang. The caller ID labeled the call as coming from the NQB. The smooth, untroubled voice on the other end belonged to Agent Waechter.

“Hello, Mr. Kawakami. I trust everything is going well.”

“Better than could be expected,” said Troy.

“In eight miles you'll see an unmarked road on your left. You'll want to take that.”

Troy didn't ask any questions. He'd gone past worrying about stuff like this. Their quest had been full of mysterious guides and so far following them had kept him and Helen on the right path. The pattern was obvious. Face some sort of challenge, collect an artifact, be pointed in the direction of the next challenge, repeat.

They would've missed the road if not for Waechter's warning. It was hidden behind a grove of trees. Helen pulled onto it. It led to a small house.

Waechter sat on a rocking chair on the front porch, sipping a cup of tea. He wore black slacks, a white shirt, a lime-green tie. His soul patch was now accompanied by the stubble of a few days without shaving. Agent Campbell, dressed in her black suit and tie, stood behind him. She seemed incapable of sitting. Perhaps her legs didn't bend that way.

Helen and Troy joined him, taking a seat.

Waechter said, “Might I comment on the bang-up job you two fine young citizens have been doing?”

“You've been watching us,” said Helen.

“We keep tabs,” replied Waechter. “Do what we can when we can.”

“You've been helping us?” she asked.

He smiled enigmatically. “Care for some tea?”

Troy took a cup. Helen didn't like tea.

“We've got some questions,” said Troy.

“I'm sure you do. But I can't answer them. There are rules in place. Cosmic laws, set down by forces even more potent than the gods. A quest without mystery is like a wolverine wearing a carnation.”

He took a sip of tea. They waited for him to finish the metaphor, but he simply smiled.

“OK, I give up,” said Helen. “How is a quest without mystery like a wolverine wearing a carnation?”

Waechter shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.”

She stifled her irritation.

“That's the way of it, isn't it?” he said. “Always to be confounded by questions we can never answer. Such is our lot in this life. However, at this point, I am allowed to answer three questions.”

“Just three?” asked Helen.

“Just three,” he replied. “Well, two now.”

“You didn't say we'd started,” she said.