“That’s not my purview. No.”
“Is she blind?”
“Is that truly what you want to waste your time here interrogating? The coffee shop girl?” His face twitches. All over. Every muscle spasming like he wants nothing more than to reach across the table with his powers and inflate my lungs till they burst.
He’s more powerful than I am, and that knowledge hurts. That’s why I’m here. I need more. I need everything. And only when I have it will I take out the COE with his help, takehimout if needed, and exist as I was always meant to: as a god of this world, worshipped by all, beholden to none.
That means ensuring that the Elders don’t make it to this planet. Andthatmay mean going toe to toe with the Marduk. Something I’m not prepared to do right now. Not if I don’t want to end up with pieces of my pretty face scattered all over this coffee shop.
“You’re worried about my little photographer, but wouldn’t it make more sense for your little coffee shop girl to be the spy? You do meet all kinds of ... acquaintances here. She could be taking notes.”
“No, there’s only one spy present.” His eyes narrow. He says the word like it’s an insult, but I don’t care.
I smile lazily. “If you’re confident she isn’t going to take our picture and plaster it to her six followers on social media, then I guess I’ll trust you on that.” I watch as she refills the disposable lids and napkins at the little station set up near the exit, dropping half of them in the process.
As if sensing me watching her, she glances up as she reaches the large water cooler and, seeing me staring, gives me a little wave. I raise an eyebrow. It seems to throw her, because she wobbles on her step stool as she pours a pitcher of water into the larger dispenser. Water spills over the rim, and whoops—the pitcher slips from her fingers and comes crashing down.
The Marduk shuts his eyes for longer than a standard blink, his jaw grinding, but he doesn’t turn around to see if she’s all right. Not that I expect him to. He cares even less for humans than I do. The Marduk landed on this planet when I did, twenty-two years ago, but where I landed as a confused creature unsure of myself and this world, the Marduk landed with his memories intact of the world we came from: Tratharine.
The first time I ever agreed to meet with him as a teen, the Marduk had spun me a wild fantasy of a planet distant from this one forged in violence. The Elders, the ruling body of Tratharine, had set their sights on Earth. They want it for a new home, to expand, to extend their vast dominion over many planets across the universe. And we Forty-Eight are the tools they used to do it. We Forty-Eight form their army.
Reversion is meant to happen to each of us Forty-Eight during our tenure here on Earth. Once reverted, those of us with no memory of Tratharine are set to regain them so that we share the same loyalty the Marduk already does to the Elders and the same bloodlust to enslave or end the humans.
But the Marduk hasn’t reverted yet. The only one among the Forty-Eight who has is the Wyvern, and he doesn’t seem particularly interested in aligning himself with any army. In fact, the key to his reversion was awoman—a human woman to whom he has devoted everything, all in the name of a thing I do not understand and I know the Marduk doesn’t understand either: love.
The keys aren’t fully understood. At least, not by me. But the little information I’ve gathered from the COE is that each of us Forty-Eight has an earthbound key that will help us recover our memories, our true forms, and lead us to our weapons.
I know the Marduk fears these keys. If others revert as the Wyvern has and fall inlove—uck—with their keys, the Marduk’s mission is doomed. He’s already doomed, as far as I’m concerned. The Wyvern is more powerful than the Marduk is one-to-one, and there are, as of now, as many Champions as there are villains willing to fight them. But the Marduk must know something I don’t, because he remains steadfast to his original purpose and determined to see the Elders’ plan through.
I feel no such loyalty. I am loyal to only one being in the entire universe: me.
“You all right there, miss?” I call in my most seductive tone, without breaking the Marduk’s gaze. Curious because his face gets redder and redder beneath the patterns of tattoos swirling over his arms, hands, neck, and up his jaw to his beard-covered cheeks.
“Sorry!” she shouts, popping back up, drenched in water. As she looks at me, she trips over her stool again. “Don’t mind me, Mr. Taranis!”
I smirk. “She knows who we are.”
“She’s inconsequential. Now, stop stalling.” The Marduk’s gaze blazes, shining dark light over his cheeks. “I know you have it. The Meinad and Bia’s message wouldn’t have gotten through to you and you wouldn’t be here now if you didn’t. Give me my weapon.”
“A deal is a deal.”
He kicks something beneath the table. It’s a duffel bag—well worn, by the look of the frayed black stitching. “I have yours, but you aren’t leaving without handing over mine first.”
We Forty-Eight fell to Earth with our weapons, but they were taken by the SDD. The Marduk and his minions were able to break into the building some years ago and abscond with several, but the COE still holds several more. Less, now that I’ve stolen one of them.
The Marduk told me that these weapons, when combined, will open a doorway for the Elders and the other Tratharine to pass through so they can claim this world as another of theirs. They will also help us reduce the humans to servants or eradicate them altogether.
The Marduk knew I’d have no trouble stealing his weapon from the COE. I didn’t. And in exchange, among the weapons he stole from the SDD, he claims to have mine. I know the chances he’s lying to me are high, but still, curiosity compelled me to oblige.
I reach into my inner jacket pocket and pull out a flimsy stretch of rope, the one I nearly got my eyes gouged out over by the Meinad. “Your weapon,my liege.” I toss it onto the table between us, and the unremarkable black whip lands with a soft thud, unremarkably.
Yet the Marduk’s eyes go wide. He looks down at it like it’s a golden chalice offering up immortality. “Youdidhave it. Why did you not give it to me when I first asked you for it?”
“I was busy,” I lie. The truth is that I needed time. He is already more powerful. If he knows how to use his weapon, even if he gives me mine, that may make the deficit between our respective powers even more unsettling. I had his weapon, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to give it up. Bia and the Meinad, however, did indeed successfully convince me.
“Bastard,” the Marduk hisses when I don’t elaborate. He shoves back from the table. “We’re done here.”
“Mine better be more interesting than that dirty old shoelace.”
