Portals of Infinity: Book Five: Demigods and Deities Page 27

  "Sloppy," Nikki said, "No scouts and they're all bunched up. Okay, I'll hit the tank first and work my way back from that. You hit the first truck and the second, then hit the ones in front of the tank. Work fast, we want to catch as many on the trucks as we can."

  "Got it." I checked my sight, the target light was green. "On your command, Sis!"

  "Fire!"

  I pulled the trigger and everything slowed down as the rocket launched forth and I grabbed the second one and slammed it home into the launch tube and sighted my next target. I got the green targeting light, and I pulled the trigger and grabbed for the third one and was slamming it home just as the first one hit. I launched the third one then, and I had the forth one in the air before they even started to react to the attack.

  I noticed the ones in the back that Nikki had hit were going up in rather large fireballs, I guess she had hit a fuel truck or something. She hit the tank a second time as I hit the truck right in front of it, and I saw the top hatch on the tank open and men starting to jump out of it, as it started to burn.

  "I got one left, Sis!" I called.

  "Hit the truck two from the end, I think it's an ammo truck."

  I sighted it, then fired. It made a nice explosion.

  "Now, let's see if I can remember what I learned about mortars," Nikki said with a grin, we had a small one along with twenty-five shells to drop in on the enemy. They'd scattered at this point, and it only took us two shots to sight in on several of those groups.

  "Welp," Nikki said grinning after we'd finished off the last of the mortar shells. "Off to our sniping positions. See ya' later, Bro!"

  We jumped down from the roof and ran off to where we'd stuck the two large caliber rifles that we had. We had five hundred rounds each, and we figured about fifteen minutes to use them, before they'd be close enough to return fire.

  It actually took them ten minutes just to get organized, and I managed to pick off about ten of them in that time. They were so far out though I was missing half my shots, so I stopped until they got closer, as I was just wasting ammunition.

  But it did slow them down.

  Those that weren't already walking dismounted from the surviving vehicles and left them there, and after forming up, they all started marching forward. I started looking for priests and holding my fire. The first few I had identified dropped in quick succession as Nikki opened fire, and I had to look for new targets.

  They spread out more after that, and tried to double time it, while moving back and forth across the field, there really wasn't much in the way of cover and they knew they had to take the objective. I could see the officers yelling and screaming at them, urging them on.

  It took a couple shots, as they were standing pretty far back, but I got two of the officers before they decided they were safer in among the troops than standing behind them.

  When I'd shot out my ammo, I set the booby trap on my position and retreated out of there. I hauled the rifle back to a hiding place closer to the town, then turned back to run to the first machine gun nest. There were six of them, and we'd shoot each one as long as we could, then break the gun and move back to the next one.

  The next hour was brutal. We continued to cut them down, and they continued to advance. Twice I had to pick one of the machine guns up and re-aim it, as they tried to flank me. Only my champion strength let me do that, those things were pretty damned heavy.

  I was down to my last position, near the portal when I felt it, something was starting to happen.

  "Jeb!" I heard Nikki yell, "Turn them all to det! Turn them all to det!"

  I turned and ran for the portal as the ground started to shake as all the mines started to detonate, one group after another in quick succession. The effect on the enemy was tremendous, as their leading elements were suddenly destroyed.

  But I my attention wasn't on that, it was on the area around the portal, there was a sudden blast of light and a shockwave rolled out behind me. Cenewyg was standing there looking at me rather surprised, with a sword in one hand, and a gun in the other.

  "What the hell are you doing here!" he screamed at me.

  "Killing you," I growled and attacked, drawing my own sword, I was afraid to unsling the submachine gun on my back, as I might accidentally shoot Cameron in any kind of a firefight.

  He got off a shot as I closed, but I healed the damage immediately as I tried to cut his head off and he had to block. He shot me twice more, but I managed to grapple with him as he did, rushing as I blocked his sword high, forcing him to drop the pistol. I healed myself again, and then bit him on the side of the top of the head, causing him to scream and push back away from me.

  "Two bad you're such a runt," I growled, "I could have ripped out your throat instead!"

  "I'm going to kill you, you furry bastard, then I'm going to sacrifice your child, and after that, we're going to destroy that two-timing bitch!" He said healing himself and coming back at me with his sword.

  I had the reach on him, but he was still a better swordsman than I was, so it evened us out. We fenced back and forth for several minutes, cutting and slashing at each other, until eventually neither one of use had any healing left.

  All the time we fought, I was dimly aware that I couldn't hear the army, that they weren't taking shots at us. I couldn't hear Nikki either. I had to keep my attention focused mainly on Cenewyg, but all I saw from my peripheral vision was a bluish glow, and it was getting brighter.

  "Oh, I burned down your house in South Africa, runt," I grunted as we continued to fight. Most of Cenewyg's comments at this point were curses and simple insults.

  That seemed to outrage him even more and he slipped past my guard and stabbed me in the side.

  "Die bastard!" He said, as he ran me through.

  I cried out in pain, it hurt a lot, more than I had expected, I'd been stabbed before, but for some reason, this time was different. I grabbed the blade with my left hand and spun away from him, ripping the blade out of his grip as my side burned.

  I felt my tail hit his legs then, as I continued around, and following through I saw him stumble from the unexpected hit. Winding up I circled my sword up and then came down with the last of my strength and cleaved his head in two, and everything around us exploded in a blinding flash of light and booming sound.

  When my eyes cleared, I was on my knees, with blood pouring out of my side, and a young man was standing before me.

  He looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place it, and he glowed.

  "Father?" He said and looked down at me, then smiled, "Father!"

  I stood up, and suddenly I could hear the war going on behind us, and we were standing out in the open, the wrecks Nikki and I had dragged over for cover were nowhere to be seen, and I could see everyone was turning to shoot at us.

  "Cameron?" I gasped, I could taste the blood in my mouth, Cenewyg's corpse laid to either side of us, split in two.

  "Yes, it's Cameron, Dad."

  I heard the guns open fire and I grabbed him, "Down!" I yelled as I felt my back light up with fire as hundreds of bullets tore into me.

  Twenty-Six

  Stephanie's House

  I groaned and sat up. "What, what happened?"

  "You died."

  I turned and looked; Stephanie was standing there looking down at me.

  "Steph!" I said and jumping up I hugged her, "Steph! It's good to see you." I stopped and grabbing her shoulders pushed myself back from her, as my memory caught up with me. "Cameron! Is he okay? What happened to him? Did he escape?"

  Stephanie laughed and patted me on the arm. "Cameron is slaughtering Fuerston's army as we speak."

  "What? How? What happened? Why isn't he a baby?"

  "Sit," Stephanie said and patted the arm of one of the chairs in the room, as she sat down in the one next to it. I sat.

  "Cameron is the son of a Champion and a Goddess, Will. He's a demigod now."

  I blinked, "But you weren't a goddess when I got pregnant!"
r />   "No, but I was one, when he was born."

  "What?" I said and I'm sure I looked as stunned as I felt.

  Stephanie shrugged, "Rules, as you like to call it."

  "Why didn't I notice this before?"

  "You know that energy that everyone felt?"

  I nodded.

  "That was his potential, not unlike the potential energy of a wheel at the top of a hill, our son had the potential to be a demigod, but in order to be one, he had to come to the place where his mother is a goddess, while his father was there, for the potential to be realized."

  "And why is he full grown?" I said as I tried to wrap my head around that.

  "Because a baby demigod isn't in the rules, that force field that was around you and Cenewyg as you fought was Cameron trying to manifest into the world. He couldn't do it with the both of you there, and if Cenewyg had killed you, he would have come in as just a normal baby.

  "But once you killed Cenewyg, there were just the two of you in the portal mouth, and as the conditions now all fit, our son manifested, and fulfilled his destiny."

  I sighed, "That's almost tougher to follow."

  "Oh don't worry, there's actually a lot more to it than that, but you're not capable of understanding it."

  I nodded, oddly enough, that made me feel better.

  "So what was Cenewyg trying to do?"

  "He believed that if he sacrificed a child of mine, here, on the altar of the god he's champion for, that he would gain power from it."

  "Would he?"

  "Not in the ways he might have expected. Maybe not at all. The rules for these things are hard to know, because they're not common. So the smallest nuance in the execution can have a very large effect.

  "Take our son; because he was born in a war, he's now a demigod of war. Because his father died in a hail of gunfire, he's now immune to gunfire."

  "Well, that's got to be handy," I laughed.

  "Oh yes, it will be," Stephanie smiled.

  I nodded and a question occurred to me. "Just how did Cenewyg get out of that limbo early? And just how did he end up here of all places?" I asked.

  Stephanie stood up and held out her hand, I stood up and followed her out of her house, into the town we'd been fighting outside of; it was still a ruin, interestingly enough.

  "Well, you see," Stephanie said to me as we walked among the ruins, "Cenewyg was trying to do on Earth, what I had been doing here, before I ascended: start a religion, with himself as the god. Aryanna has known where that god-stone was for centuries, so about eighty years ago we started setting up a religion here, with me as a goddess.

  "I'd show up at first once or twice a year, to start rumors and lay the ground work. The last forty or so years I was showing up constantly and performing miracles, gathering the faithful together, and establishing a creed." Stephanie smiled at me and continued, "So when you gave me the god-stone, there was an opening here for me to come to, they were already starting to venerate me, it was really just all a matter of timing."

  "So if Cen had gotten the stone, he would have been a god on Earth?"

  Stephanie nodded, "Yup, but I don't know how successful he would have been, Earth is not the kind of place you want to do that, I would think his god Custios would have discouraged him from doing that."

  "So his god knew?" I asked surprised.

  "Oh, of course he knew!" Stephanie laughed, "I suspect Ary's not happy about it, but each god plays his own game, and she knows it."

  "So how does that effect what happened here?"

  "Well, all of the gods here were watching when I grabbed the god-stone, they knew I was going to come here, and one of them, figured that Cen, being my biggest enemy, would make a good champion, and grabbed him. However Cen was too slow in accepting, so he got partially caught in the collapse of the sphere, which should have held him in limbo for about twenty-three years."

  "But he wasn't," I said.

  Stephanie shook her head, "No, he wasn't. You see, when the police raided his temple in South Africa, the locals there took your sudden disappearance as a sign. So they attacked the police officers, killing several, and sacrificed one of them on that altar to Cenewyg, who they believed, was now their god."

  "They did what?" I said shocked.

  "Sacrificed him, I think the one you called 'Botha' cut out his heart. Oh, the South African government showed up in force not much later and machined gunned everyone and burned the place to the ground, but it didn't matter, they tried to venerate Cenewyg.

  "If he'd had more of a following, a bigger base, it might have succeeded, but again, because he was still partially in the void, in a sort of limbo, it had enough power to knock him out of it."

  "So he became a champion."

  Stephanie shook her head again, "No, he became a demigod, but an incredibly weak demigod, and a champion. But because his champion powers are still in that limbo, he has no access to any of them. Just the weak powers of being a demigod."

  "So that is why he couldn't gate back here!"

  "Exactly," Stephanie said. "And if you had killed him outside of this sphere, he would have bounced back to limbo, or possibly even died. No one is quite sure, because he's in seriously 'bent rule' territory. So he had to avoid confrontation with any other champions, because while he's more powerful than any mortals, you'd easily defeat him. This is also why he was in his original natural form every place he went. As a demigod he's locked into one form and one form only. He doesn't even get a local form."

  "So, does that mean he's dead now?" I asked hopefully.

  Stephanie shook her head, "Sorry, because he died on this plane, he goes back to his god here. But," She smiled, "it'll take a year for him to regenerate, and then his champion powers will still be limited outside of this sphere."

  "So how do I 'un-venerate' him?"

  She smiled, "Easy, destroy all of his churches or temples back on Earth, get rid of his followers. At least the ones acting as priests."

  "And that'll kick him back into limbo?"

  "Oh no," Stephanie said and gave me the most wicked grin, "That will kill him. But you have to do it while he's regenerating, and before his champion powers come out of limbo. If he loses that small base on your home sphere, Earth, and doesn't have a physical form, or loses it, he dies. Permanently."

  I smiled and hugged her, and actually kissed her!

  Which felt like kissing a live wire, my entire being lit up. I made a note not to do that again!

  Stephanie laughed while I recovered from that experience.

  "Um, one more question," I said as I got my wits back.

  "Yes, Will?"

  "Why couldn't Fel or Aryanna tell me any of this? Didn't they know?"

  "Some of it they knew, some of it they didn't know, none of it they're capable of talking to a champion about. This level of rule bending and abuse is something that champions, as a class, are not allowed to know."

  That stopped me, "Then why are you telling me?" I asked, rather confused.

  "Because in this sphere, you're not a champion Will, or rather you're not just a champion. You're a mythic."

  "A what?" I said trying to wrap my head around that.

  "You had sex with a goddess; you are the father of a demigod. Your name, your image, you, all have entered the mythos surrounding me and our son. What happens becomes myth, the myth gets spread, and you my dear William are now a part of it."

  "And because of that, I get to know things?"

  Stephanie nodded, "Yes, because of that, your status in the infinite has increased, as well as a little of your power. Eventually, when you are here, say in a couple hundred years, you gain powers, but only here, in this sphere."

  "Huh, I guess this means I should visit, huh?" I said and smiled at her.

  "Yes, don't be a stranger." She came over and took my hands in hers, "I can feel the pull starting, your time here is almost done."

  "That soon?" I said surprised.

  "I'm still a very weak goddess, Will
."

  "Oh,"

  "Before you go, I wanted to tell you that yes, as a mortal, I loved you, Will, I loved you very much, but I loved the idea of being a goddess more."

  I laughed, "Stephanie, that is something that you, as a mortal, a champion, or even a goddess do not need to apologize for. I knew when I handed you that stone, that I couldn't stand in your way. It was what I wanted you to have."

  "Thank you, Will. I also want to thank you for Cameron. You didn't have to do that."

  "Yes, Stephanie, I did." I said to her, "Take care of Cameron for me, okay? He's still just a kid."

  Stephanie smiled and gave me a hug, "Say hi to everyone for me. Now, go play."

  Twenty-Seven

  New York

  "Agent Addison I presume?" I said quietly and gave his shoulder a shake.

  The man in question sat up rather quickly, turning to the side and reaching for the light with one hand, and I'm guessing his gun with the other.

  "Let's not wake your wife, or your children, okay?"

  He froze, his hand inches from the light.

  "Put some clothes on, I'll be down in the kitchen; you can bring your gun if it will make you feel safer." I said and I walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind me.

  I was sitting in the kitchen, with the lights on, drinking a glass of water when he came in. He had his gun, but it was in the holster under his arm.

  "How did you get in here?" He asked looking at me.

  "Magic. Have a seat, we need to talk."

  "I'm going to place you under arrest for breaking and entering," he said still staring at me.

  I sighed, "SIT!" And I pointed to the chair on the other side of the kitchen table, putting some of my champion's power into my voice.

  He was halfway down onto the chair before he paused and looked at me, "How did you do that?"

  "Don't worry about it, just sit down. If I was here to cause you trouble, we both know I would have done so already."

  "So why are you here?"

  "This," I said and dropped a necklace with Cenewyg's symbol on it. "Seen any of these before?"