Rock Hard (36 page)

Dagon lunged with his dagger toward his captive. Enlil advanced unchecked, fast approaching the tableau. Marduk missed his grab for the knife, and Lenore, acting on her own, incredulous at Dagon’s actions, threw herself in front of the defenseless girl. Dagon’s blade, meant for Tess, deflected and ripped a long gash down Lenore’s arm, and suddenly the entire tableau froze.

Dagon stared at Lenore, as did everyone else in the clearing. Then all eyes shifted to Marduk whose shoulder was glowing bright red. Marduk stared down. Gods damn it! Without risking anything, Dagon had his answer. Marduk was furious with himself. Now their enemy knew that the gods would become flesh when they had found their Chosen! Bringing veracity to Marduk’s fear, Dagon gave a maniacal laugh and, rising into the air, he misted from the scene, leaving an eerie echo behind along with the river of blood he’d spilled.

Tess looked up from under Lenore, who still crouched over her, shielding her with her body. Despite the deep wound in her arm, her protectress was snarling at everyone to stay back. She even seemed unwilling to back down from the bull…guy…thing that was Enlil.

“Woman,” Marduk’s deep voice called out, wrapping around Tess. He too, was unable to approach without the possibility of feeling the sting of Lenore’s blade. “What are you doing?”

“I’m keeping her safe,” Lenore hissed. “Don’t any of you come near her!”

Tess spoke from her position on the ground. “Umm…you don’t have to protect me from them.” She moved a scant inch while she attempted to mollify her shield. “These are my friends.” Tess knew that all Lenore saw was an over-sized glowing being—a golden horned bovine wonder—and some random blond guy approaching fast.

“And that’s my brother, Huxley,” Tess assured the confused woman, as Lenore cautiously allowed her to rise. “Dagon, the bad guy? He’s gone.”

Tess hadn’t been paying any attention to Matthew, and obviously no one else had either. Going unnoticed, he had crouched down behind the women. Before she made it all the way to her feet, he knocked into Tess with an odd jolt, gave a quick grunt and keeping low, slunk away. No one followed as he lost himself in the trees.

Tess, shaking off an odd trepidation, watched Lenore falter and shift when she, too, stumbled and inexplicably lost her footing. Lenore, dripping blood profusely, succumbed to her injury and without warning, dropped on her like a rock.

“Looks like Dani-Lee has a new client.”

Marduk moved Lenore’s still form off Tess, and handed the blond off to Hux. He reached for and lifted Tess, which Tess knew should have felt good, but she seemed oddly weightless. What was going on? Why did she feel so strangely weak? Something was wrong.

“Marduk,” her voice shook with the effort required to speak.

“What is it, my love?” He responded to the quiet horror in her voice. “It’s over now. Everything is okay.” He hugged her closer, and Tess watched his face go blank. He slowly brought one hand up from her back. It was covered in blood. His face went slack with horror.

“You’re hurt,” he whispered in anguish.

Tess nodded, finally figuring out what was wrong. She spoke hoarsely “I…I…can’t feel my legs.”

“Oh my gods! That bastard! That…Matthew!” Marduk’s roar echoed through the woods. Tess watched him turn to her brother and the gods, his face inscrutable. “He stabbed her in the back.” Marduk’s lips were stiff as the words slipped through.

Her god held her tighter and his feelings of utter hopelessness moved into Tess. She knew it was bad. Marduk sprinted toward the nearest road, and she realized he was looking for a car, hoping that one of the downed men had left keys. She trusted him to work things out. She had no energy left to think. If anyone could get her back to Dani-Lee, it was Marduk. That was the last thing she thought before succumbing to the darkness.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“They’ve both lost a lot of blood.” Doctor Dani-Lee was trying, yet again, to convince Marduk that they needed to move Tess and Lenore to the hospital. “Tess needs surgery right away if we have any chance at all of repairing the damage.”

After examining the knife wound, Dani-Lee had told Marduk that Tess’s spinal cord had been severed at T9, which would mean she would come out of surgery a paraplegic. Marduk was inconsolable. The doctor was trying ineffectually to keep him calm.

“If I can open her up and see the extent of the wound, I’ll know better what kind of a recovery she’ll have.” Dani-Lee had started an IV and was keeping Tess sedated and hydrated, along with pumping her full of antibiotics. It was the best she could do under the circumstances and with limited supplies.

Marduk glanced at the clock that had been shoved back on the bedside table to make room for gauze, sutures, and IV equipment. Four hours had passed since returning to the compound. Four long hours as they waited for Anshar to return from what had become a life or death quest.

Marduk had called to Anshar as soon as he’d entered the compound, hoping he was back and his mission accomplished. No such luck. Marduk immediately sent Lahar and Ninurta, armed with his and Enlil’s cell phones, to find Anshar. Shamash heard from them at the top of every hour, and still the sky god had not been found.

“Another hour.” Marduk’s command to Dani-Lee for more time had the good doctor right up in his face.

“I’m calling an ambulance this very minute if you don’t tell me what the hell you’re waiting for!” She pulled the stubborn god from the room where Tess lay, determined to make the call. Marduk knew she meant business. Where to begin? He exhaled deeply.

“We god’s have one woman in all of eternity who is known as our Chosen.”

Dani looked impatient, waiting for him to continue.

“We each have an amulet deeply embedded in our bodies above our hearts. When it is activated by the presence of the female meant for us, which mine has for Tess, it takes on a luminescence so we know the female is truly the one.” Marduk saw that Dani was following along.

“Tess has agreed to become my other half and not, like humans say it, metaphorically. During a special ceremony, my amulet will be uncovered and cut in two. One half will be placed into Tess. With it, she becomes immortal. Her injuries will heal, just as you’ve seen Enlil’s wound close up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Dani-Lee groused, finally getting the bigger picture of why she had been brought to the Blue Hills. “So you want me to do these amulet operations…and then what?”

“It’s not that simple.” Marduk was worried and distracted. Part of him was still waiting to sense Anshar’s return. “First of all, only a knife made from a special element is strong enough to cut the amulet in two. Second, we’re awaiting the arrival of just such a blade.”

“You don’t have one here?” Dani got red in the face. “That’s just piss poor planning!”

She seethed visibly at what she must consider their stupidity. “You’ve had how many frigging centuries all by yourselves to go get some of this metal and it just, what, slipped your mind that it might come in handy?”

Marduk grimaced as her words hit the mark. “You have to understand. In all of our thousands of years of life, never has one of us found our Chosen.” Dani started to interrupt but Marduk continued.

“Yes, I know.” He held up his hands in surrender. “We’ve had friends in the past who have undergone the ceremony, so we knew it was possible. It’s just that…none of us ever thought it would happen.”

“Okay. Fine. I’m sorry I went off on you.” Dani-Lee didn’t look very sorry. She was obviously trying to calm down. “Tell me how I’m supposed to know the right way to take this thing out of you, and how I’ll put it into Tess.”

“You will not be operating on me,” Marduk informed her. “Enlil will act as my best man, which is, believe it or not, what we call it.” Marduk caught her raised brow. “You will watch the ceremony preformed so you will see just how the amulet is oriented within me, and you will place it in Tess in just the same way.”

The doctor looked intrigued. Marduk knew it wasn’t every day that a human got to oversee an immortal procedure.

Marduk continued, “As soon as the amulet is placed successfully in Tess, there’s a short time where we wait and see if it takes. If it does, she will begin to heal instantly from her wounds.” Marduk was not stupid. He reminded the doctor of Tess’s chances to regain use of her legs with conventional surgery. “She will heal completely, unlike what you will be able to do for her at a hospital.”

Dani-Lee glanced down at her watch. “Well, we’re running out of time. I’ll keep track of her vitals and, if it looks like things are deteriorating, I’m calling it, amulet or not, and she goes to the hospital. Agreed?” Marduk let out a breath.

“Agreed.” Marduk turned and left, reluctantly. He’d heard raised voices in the room next door.

He looked in and saw Enlil and Huxley, arguing with the captive female. Lenore had long since regained consciousness and, although she had a line of stitches ten inches long on her left arm, she was intent on leaving.

“Who’s in charge here?” Her green eyes flashed. “You can’t make me stay. I need to go!” The fury came off of her in waves. She was trying, albeit angrily, to assure the pair that she was furious at Dagon for lying to her. She insisted she hadn’t known that he’d meant to harm Tess. She sat on the edge of a bed and looked steady for the first time since they’d brought her in.

Marduk, before gluing himself to Tess’s bedside, had decreed that Lenore would stay their prisoner. It seemed Huxley was all about letting her go.

“She protected Tess from Dagon,” Hux reminded Marduk when he appeared in the doorway.

“And need I remind you that she works for Dagon?” Marduk was cutting the woman no slack. She might be a good bargaining chip. Perhaps a trade for that asshole, Matthew, would be appropriate.

“Fuck you, buddy!” Lenore rose from the bed and trounced forward on three inch heels. Who wore heals for rendezvous in the woods? She actually poked him in the chest. “There’s no way you’re keeping me here, so go screw yourself!” She examined him like a giant bug under a microscope.

Marduk was not used to being confronted by someone as insignificant as this rabid, pint-size woman, and caught Enlil’s amusement at her temerity. He growled at her.

She remained unintimidated. Fine, he’d mess with her brain another way.

“So you think your boss is the one to trust? Do you remember Enlil turning into his bull form?” He got a crisp nod from her before he continued. “If you think that was pretty, sweetheart, wait until you see Dagon go off. His alternate self is a sight to warm anyone’s heart.” He smirked at her suddenly hesitant expression.

“He can do that, too?” Lenore’s voice sounded unsure.

“I can tell there’s a lot of things old Dagon hasn’t shared with you. Like, how about we’re the good guys?” Enlil spoke and caused a flush to spread across her cheeks.

“That remains to be seen.” She recovered nicely. “I have questions for him when I return, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to keep me.”

Let her go
, said an excited voice from the doorway.

The four looked up. Shamash wasn’t messing around.

Lahar just texted. Anshar is just having the…uh…instrument finished.
He wasn’t going to say “knife” in front of Lenore.
They’ll be here in half an hour, and the ceremony will be immediate. Quickly! We have things to do.

Marduk knew Shamash was right. Now was not the time to be thinking of prisoners. He was still reluctant to let Lenore go, but he didn’t want her anywhere on site when the amulet ceremony was taking place. Better to have her far away. Now that they knew who she was, they could deal with her another time. She was just a pesky human female.

Huxley had been filled in on all the details, and wasn’t going to be allowed to attend the gods half of the ceremony. Immortals only, was Marduk’s thought, making an exception for the doctor.

“Take the woman to a taxi so she can get home. Then come back and sit with Tess while we take care of business.” His mouth turned grim. This was one gathering Huxley should be happy he was going to miss.

Lenore swept by the men and out of the room with all the dignity she could muster, given the situation. The gods took one last look at her plump little ass as she turned the corner. Marduk shook his head. It was too bad for Enlil that she was so ill tempered. Women who knew about the gods were not exactly falling out of the trees.

“Enlil.” Marduk stopped him, giving Huxley time to leave the room. “I haven’t asked you yet, I haven’t had time.” He hesitated, unsure of himself. “I, uh, was wondering if you would stand up with me?”

“Crap! Me?” Enlil seemed dumbfounded. “You want me to be the one to…” He hesitated. Marduk knew how he felt. The thunder god’s hand actually shook where it rested on Enlil’s arm. It was a sucky position to put anyone in, but Marduk put all his emotions up front for Enlil to see. For the first time in hundreds of years, he was letting the wind god know how much he trusted him. “Please.”

Enlil gulped convulsively. “Yeah. Sure I will.” Marduk knew he was scared shitless. The feeling was mutual.

Each god went to his own room to prepare. Ceremonial clothing was removed from chests where it had been hidden for centuries. Each god had, over the years, acquired their own finery from where it had lain in museums, tombs, and private collections. These garments belonged to them alone, and no laws governed the immortals’ consciences as they’d procured it. Now it would finally be put to use.

Solid gold torques and armbands, loincloths woven with priceless jewels, these were the trappings of gods, and all were donned with great reverence. Marduk alone would be dressed plainly with a simple linen cloth draped around his hips. He would go barefoot. His lack of attire symbolized that the value of the amulet surpassed all he owned, and his willingness to share it was the ultimate sacrifice.

The twelve gods gathered in the meeting room after Anshar and the others returned successfully. The hardened osmium blade was entrusted to Enlil, who tucked it carefully into a highly decorated scabbard.

Marduk knew that when Hux poked his head into the room to let them know that Lenore was gone, the freaky guys he had come to know had been replaced by foreign, god-like creatures. This transformation would be even more astounding to the human than when Marduk had become large or when Enlil sprouted horns. Marduk watched Hux shake his head, incredulously, and leave to replace the doctor at Tess’s bedside.