III
Warning: Violence and disturbing imagery.
If Pax were going to write a fanficiton of the events, 1 they would go something like this:
The dastardly Romans prepare their attack. This is a thrown-together, last-minute operation, and their Centurion decides on a multi-faceted approach. One unit shall rush the front door and bust it down while two others break into window entrances, allowing them to flank the (incredibly sexy and stylish) villains inside.
None expect when a scout taps Centurion Ari's shoulder. "They're opening the door."
Sure enough, the front door opens with a slow, methodical swing. It hangs ajar, seeming to beckon the Romans. There is no one around who could have pushed it. Smoke curls out, expanding and twisting into the tall grass with the steadiness of a field fire. The music cuts.
"A witch's nest," one reminds them, making the others laugh nervously. Trickery. Mistwork. These are the common tools of a witch. Common pitiful plays at deception.
But, there's a foreboding rush that they feel in their bones, one that begins as a slight shudder and culminates into an audible, eerie, choked growl. It echoes out of the doors and pounds louder than the soldier's heartbeats. "We await you, Romans," it hisses, "Welcome to the gates of Tartarus."
One brave Roman stands, maybe to initiate the door rush, maybe to taunt back. Before words can leave his mouth, something thuds into the chinks in his shoulder armor. Instead of tumbling backwards from the force of the hit, he flings forward, screaming into the increasing smoke, until the open jaws of the door engulf him and he is no more.
His screams muffle.
Then, silence.
Their internals vibrate with the hum of a malicious laugh, one too powerful to belong to any mortal or demigod.
That is how Pax hoped it looked, felt, and sounded. He hoped he wasn't thinking, Shit. Shit. Shit, loud enough for the Romans to hear that too. Backing up a few minutes would help to explain the scene: before they started, he frantically slit holes into dracaena skin, making two serpentine masks. Though, more like the world's grossest stocking masks.
"We're wearing masks," Pax said, hoping his voice sounded firmer than it felt.2
"No," Axel growled. He finished putting trip wires around the most strategic windows and doors, and was now unrolling the band's power cords.
"They're gunning for you, but they want to keep me alive. If we all wear masks, they won't be able to readily identify us and have shoot-to-kill orders," Pax said. He'd set to work on this idea after setting up the subwoofers with Alabaster's enhancement charms. "Plus! If we have more than one of the same mask—" He held up the two bits of lizard body. "—then we can switch out which one we're wearing to confuse them as to who is who and how many of us there are. Plus, plus, masks are cool and everyone should be stylish." Even in death.
Those words made Pax shiver.
Alabaster tugged the camue blanket over himself. He hefted up the loaded antique harpoon. "I'm with Pax on this. Axel, you play sacrificial scapegoat on your own time. If you do so now, you'll get all three of us killed."
Pax appreciated that Alabaster knew Axel's weakness: logic. And mythological rights, but mostly logic.
Axel swore and snatched the Numidian lion mask from a crate. He tied it on with some crate hemp.
Pax could see how painful it was for Alabaster to hold back the words, That's an antique, you savage! At least Axel was wearing something other than a sign that read Kill Me First.
They started.
After a second sweep to check their enemy's position, Pax hunkered down by the door, Alabaster took preliminary aim with his harpoon gun, and Axel held the microphone up to his throat.
Fog crept along the borders of the room, making it hard for Pax to see. Alabaster had dumped half his dry ice into shallow bins of water and cast an enhancement charm.
Little enhancements, Alabaster kept saying. It was much easier to trick someone into seeing more of something than to trick them into seeing something that wasn't originally there to begin with. "If we're to be besieged, I want to keep my magical reservoirs high."
Pax pressed a wooden dowel rod against the base of the door. He undid the hinge, crawled to the side of the door, and flattened against the wall. Supposedly, Pax had the steadiest hands for this. However, with Pax's heartbeat quivering more than the first time he saw Alabaster with his shirt off (locker rooms after Alabaster's private shower mysteriously broke) he hoped the door wouldn't look like it was having a seizure as it moved.
Pax pushed the door open, also hoping no Romans had crept alongside the exterior and were waiting to play tag with a spear. He scrambled to prepare for Part II, detaching a line of power cord from his belt.
There were exposed water pipes on the wall beside him (originally for a garden hose, Pax assumed) and ones on the back wall, by Alabaster and Axel (for witchy things, like drowning test subjects). Axel had thread Alabaster's makeshift-harpoon-attached-power-cord through the pipe in the back and Pax had thread it through the pipe at the front. Though not as good as a crank, this gave them the world most hackjob pulley.
Alabaster uttered a word.
Something popped gently. Pax knew it was a rune on Alabaster's shirt, releasing a pocket of compressed air in a gentle breeze. The fog expanded and rolled outward. This temporarily cleared Alabaster's line of sight.
Alabaster had asked Axel to buy him time to aim, maybe ten seconds of intimidating chatter to distract the Romans-something easy for Pax but difficult for his concise brother. Pax had given Axel encouragement, Talk all funny-like. You know—like Prometheus when he gets drunk. Pax thought this had been far more helpful than Alabaster's remind that humans were unsettled by frequencies too low to hear.
Pax couldn't hear his brother at first, but he felt it—the deep throttle from the subwoofers. With the auditorium enhancements set to full blast, the rumble made the building shake.
Axel's growl slipped to an audible octave. At home, Lapis had been disappointed Axel couldn't roar with the power of a lion. Jaguars, and jaguar warriors, had clipped, throaty roars. With the ambiance, the choked noise was creepiness perfected.
Pax held his breath. Maybe, just maybe, his brother and Alabaster were far more terrifying than fifteen Roman assassins.
"We await you, Romans. Welcome to the gates of Tartarus."
Alabaster fired.
As soon as Pax felt the quiver in the power cord, he sprinted. This was an imperfect pulley system, but this was the closest they could come to dragging a Roman into the building smoothly. (If they just tugged at the harpoon's rope directly, the Roman would come in jerky, awkward hops. Cool in a zombie movie. Not cool when Romans might notice and cut the cord.) Pax got two steps before the cord went taut.
Someone screamed.
Pax tried not to think about the other end of this rope protruding someone's skin. He tried to think of warmer things, like chasing Lou Ellen's cat Sphi—oh right. Instead, he did think about the other end in a Roman—the one who shot Sphinx.
Axel raced with the other side of the pulley. As the Pax brothers ran with the pulley cord, Pax towards the back wall, Axel towards the front, a Roman skidded, screaming, into the building.3
Once the squeal of armor on concrete and shrieking were in the fog, Axel pounced.
The Roman didn't stand a chance. By the time Pax was close enough to make out their forms, Axel's bicep and forearm were pinching the Roman's neck. His legs hooked the Roman's arms in a wrestler move. The Roman could only thrash.
"I'm sorry." Alabaster's voice was wispy with panic. "I couldn't get a clear line on Ari—"
They wanted Ari. The operation might fall apart without a leader. This was just a soldier, one none of them recognized as his struggles faded and his eyes rolled up into his head. From the glare of orange over his armor, this must have been one of the teenagers that cut the power and phones. Not the guy who shot Sphinx and talked about mounting Axel's head on a wall.
"Ajax, look away," Axel growled.
Pax wouldn't, tilting his head. They needed to move onto the next phase of the plan—
Alabaster's hands settled over Pax's face, covering his eyes and making him flinch. If he didn't recognize the musky spices, Pax might have thought everything was over.
Something cracked.
Neither Alabaster nor Axel appreciated that the sound of someone's neck breaking was enough for a trauma recipe. No vision necessary.
When Alabaster removed his hands, Axel was already disposing the body into one of the crates.
Pax decided he would confront that sight and sound later, like in his nightmares. For now, he had to focus.
This was the largest part of the gamble. Some Romans may have broken rank to save their comrade. While this would have split the main attack force, the three of them couldn't handle a charge. With any luck, the Romans may have scattered in fear, buying more time. Reorganization could take awhile. That's what they wanted: the Romans to pause. They only needed, at this point, twenty to thirty minutes for Jack and Flynn to show up. Hopefully, that would be enough.
Pax knew his surrogate parents. It would be enough. It had to be.
The waiting was eerie.
"Fourteen left," Axel hissed, "Move." He shoved Alabaster and Pax into action.
Alabaster disappeared into the fog. Pax knew what he was supposed to be doing—making more fog and securing the northern windows. Keep it creepy with enough dry ice and Mist to distort vision but not enough that they'd run out of supplies.
Pax's job was to secure the windows in the other, southern room. This should have been done first, but they wanted to make sure the Romans didn't charge. It wouldn't matter if they secured some windows if the Romans busted in part-way through their efforts. In a fun and fancy free world where the Romans were dumb enough to all come through one entrance, Alabaster could kill them with explosives, but the Romans would likely come from multiple angles.
Pax worked quickly. He scattered some of his anti-hex jacks under one window. He crouched along the wall until he found the next one. There, he carefully dispersed some marbles, making sure none rolled out to trip the wrong people. The next two were much less playful: broken glass from the trash can and a few crate boards with nails poking upward.
Before leaving this room and blocking the door to the center, Pax crouched under a window and tilted his mirror out.
A Roman crouched on the other side of the wall, her sword drawn.
Pax withdrew his mirror before she could catch any reflected light from the surface.
He swallowed, his heartbeat pounding in his head. He leaned against a crate near the window. Were there soldiers outside every window? If there were, what were they waiting for?
A voice made Pax jump. If he had to guess, there was someone with a loudspeaker outside the front door. Pax crept back to the central room to hear the girl.
"We have you surrounded. We know there are only three of you in there." It was the same commanding voice Pax heard earlier: Centurion Ari. Pax feared his guilt-stupid brother would offer himself as an apology for killing her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend? Is someone automatically an ex in death or are you doomed to be cheating on them in any sequential relationships after? Pax swallowed the thought away, hoping he never found out.
The subwoofers kicked on with a vibrating hum. By the time Pax found his brother in the fog, there was a pile of makeshift weapons at Axel's feet. Axel lifted the lion mask enough to speak into the mic. "Do you?" He lowered his voice an octave to that stage-gargle. "Why not only one?"
Pax exhaled in relief. Taunting the Romans might not have been wise, but it was better than, I'll be your shooting practice this week.
He waited to see the red light turn off on the mic. "They're under the windows and in position to storm." Pax reported, "What are they waiting for?" With the lack of music and no response from the Romans, his whisper felt deafening.
"If I were them, reinforcements. A breaching charge. A barricade breaker. They probably already positioned those troops before they realized we knew about them and before they realized we had a ranged weapon." He nudged the harpoon gun at his feet. Axel must have dug the harpoon out of the dead soldier's chest to reload it. Through the wisps of fog, Pax thought there might be dark smears on the floor. Pax wanted to be horrified. He just felt numb. His brain hadn't gotten past the sound of that guy's neck snapping.
Axel continued with the smoothness of a recording, "They either want to hold position or withdraw to a safe distance. Alabaster heard them tampering with the door in the back, so they know it's barricaded. They know there are three of us: one to cover either of the side rooms and one to cover the front entrance. No reason for Ari to be reckless or rush when they think they can get reinforcements faster than we can. All they need is one more entrance—blowing out the back door or knocking down a wall—and they can flank us."
"And they won't try to smoke us out for now because it would be too easy to catch the fields on fire, and good Romans listen to Smoky the Bear," Pax grumbled. They should remember that: the Romans were from California after all.
"The Northern windows are all covered." Alabaster sounded calmer and more calculated than he had earlier. His figure loomed in the fog with massive horns. Alabaster had donned pieces of one of his lab specimen, that way he could put decoy pieces on boards. "If we—"
Axel's hand shot up in curt gesture of silence.
Alabaster quieted.
Pax strained to listen.
"No…" Axel mumbled. Although Pax could only see the dead stare of the lion mask, he could hear the horror of a plan gone wrong. It was a very specific mood for his brother.
Very subtly, under the hiss of the expanding dry ice and the rustling of grass outside the front door, there was a beautiful hum. The tune followed something from Pax's childhood, something about going to the circus, something that should have been calming.
Nausea rocked Pax's stomach. The words were out of his mouth before Axel could verbalize their mistake. "Jack doesn't know that we're surrounded!"
Axel's knuckles went white from clutching the microphone too tight. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This could have been a trap for him all along. If they knew we'd be out here, there's no reason they wouldn't know—we need to distract them. Ajax, you said there are Roman soldiers outside the windows." Axel's tone altered from panic to determination. "Drag one inside, disable them, retreat to this room, and barricade the Southern door. Alabaster—"
"No," Alabaster snarled. "Are you trying to make them attack us? Axel—"
"We'll have reinforcements soon—"
"We'll only have Jack for sure. Jack is not a reinforce—"
Axel dropped a hand towards Pax, signaling him to head out despite Alabaster's protests. Jack's hum was growing louder and there was no way the Romans could miss it.
"Ajax, don't try to be a hero. One Roman. Then come back her to hide." Axel said, "If you can't do it safely, throw something at them. Your safety—"
Comes first. But Pax wasn't about to let a second surrogate parent die protecting him.
"Cowards for life." Pax knew Axel couldn't hear him. The red light came on for the microphone.
Axel dropped his voice to that gargly growl, "Romans, you test my patience—"
"Idiot!" Alabaster hissed. Pax could only hope his insult didn't pick up on the mic. Something snagged Pax's collar. He really didn't want to pressure-point Alabaster's wrist, but was about to.
"—We know where you are—"
Alabaster shoved a vial into Pax's hand. "Use this to dart them. Not a single nick on yourself, understand?"
"—We smell you, little Romans. Shall we begin to devour you?"
Alabaster didn't wait for an affirmation. He vanished into the fog, hopefully to attack Romans from the Northern windows.
Pax understood the importance of timing for this.
Jack must have been close. Maybe close enough that they were too late. Axel wanted to inspire fear, but hopefully evoke enough rage to lure the Romans in. Pax and Alabaster should attack as soon as Axel was done baiting them. Hopefully, Jack had heard and would realize what they were doing.
Pax swallowed at the thought of Romans beating Jack to death, only captured and killed because he wanted to take "his boys" to the circus.
Why is it always the circus? Pax knew he was going to develop an unhealthy phobia of the circus and it would have nothing to do with clowns. He rather liked clowns and their adventurous fashion statements.
In the side room, the afternoon light and fog made the windows into glowing blobs. Pax clutched the PVC pipe from the other room. It should work as a dart gun. He wished he had more time to practice. Knowing how this day was going, he would inhale too deep and suck the dart back into his mouth.
He scurried to the window with a box beside it, careful to avoid the marbles he'd set. If I were Roman, what would scare me? Invading barbarians? Slave rebellions? Bad infrastructure? Spartans having a cooler logo? Pax remembered something his dad had once done to an "unreliable" worker. A lump formed in his throat. Could he do that to someone?
What would they do to Jack if he couldn't? What would they do to his crush and brother if he couldn't get their attention?
There was more exposed piping overhead. Thank the gods for lazy contractors. Pax removed a length of power cable from his belt, yanked off his shoe, and tied it to the end. One shot. If he missed and made a clang, this could alert the Romans to his presence.
Pax threw.
The shoe sailed up and over the pipe before swinging back down. The cable caught on the pipe. The shoe dangled and Pax snatched it out of the air.
He swallowed, untying the shoe and jamming it back on his foot. He tied a loop at one end.
He was ready, right? This is what had to happen. Pax crept onto the box, the loop and loose cord in one hand and the dartgun in the other. Sure enough, the Roman was still under the window, at her post. From a side glance, there were, indeed, Romans under each window.
Still, she must have been terrified.
"I can't wait to mount a lion's head on my wall." Pax focused on that and the way Sphinx's body crumbled. The sound of his heartbeat was deafening as he stood on the box, keeping his body flat to the wall.
Pax withdrew the vial Alabaster gave him from his pocket. He carefully balanced the cables, the PVC pipe, and vial in one hand to drip one of his darts. Mysterious substances from a witch? Hadn't led him astray so far. Maybe it would turn the enemy into weasels. But, if Alabaster had some weasel-bombs, he likely would have changed all of them so they could escape.
In the distance, someone shouted. Pax couldn't tell if Alabaster had attacked from his windows or if the Romans had found and skewered Jack.
The soldiers near him had looked away from Pax's position, allowing him to lean forward.
Pax aimed his dartgun at the soldier one window down. The line of white piping trembled as he released a puff of air.
The dart feathers seemed to sprout from the Roman's neck.
Thirteen Romans.
Pax didn't wait to see if the Roman collapsed or swatted it away like a Jurassic mosquito. While the girl under his window was distracted, he tossed the loop over her head—
—grabbed as high on the other end of the cord—
—and jumped off his crate.
The line of cable went taut. He heard a choked noise and the scrape of metal against concrete: her armor sliding up the side of the building.
No snaps, not like the boy whose neck broke.
Pax's feet didn't reach the floor like he'd thought. Instead, he felt the cord wind back towards the Roman. Relief almost made him cry—Pax, with his glorious ninety pounds, was too light to drag this armored girl fully off the ground. He let go. His feet hit the floor at same time her armor clanged down. There was a fit of choking and gasps. Pax laughed hysterically. Her neck must not have broken either. She could breath and might be okay.
He could cross "executioner" off in his Prospective Jobs list. Solid future battle plan: never try to hang someone again. Definitely not something he was a fan of.
The furthest window shattered, crushing his reprieve. Pax must have left that one closed. It was the one with the—
Someone screamed when they stepped onto a nail and—from the followup noise—tripped on a marble while trying to recover. It would have been funny if Pax didn't realize they now inside with him.
Eleven and a half Romans if we count the dude who can no longer walk.
The Romans were on the offensive.
Pax scrambled for the central room. The fog was thick; they shouldn't be able to see him.
Another footfall by the windows—this one calculated and calm. There was no accompanied scream. Another Roman must be inside, this one uninjured. So, at least two of them, less than ten feet from Pax. As Pax crept, the blood pounded in his veins. Each ragged breath felt too loud. His makeshift reptilian mask reeked of preservatives and made it hard to gulp down the air.
He was halfway to the door when one of their footfalls quickened to a sprint. "Heat signature. On your right, 25 degrees. Only one."
They know. They know it's just me.
Of course they would have their own child of Vulcan with heat sensors. Mercedes would have thought of that. Pax hadn't.
Pax ran for the door, not caring that his footsteps echoed in line with his pursuers. All he had to do was reach the central room, slam the door, and bar it, assuming Alabaster had done the same on the other side of the building, and that the back door hadn't been breached, and that the front door—
Pax almost ran into the doorframe; the fog blinded him until the last second. He turned and fumbled for the door, gripping the knob to slam it shu—
The door never latched. Someone ploughed into it, forcing the wood to reverse right into Pax. His feet lost traction. Pax tumbled backwards, slapping his hand behind him to break his fall.
His entrance was breached. He messed up big time. I always told Axel I'd be the death of him. An imperial gold sword glowed in the fog above his head. "But, the information broker!" Pax wanted to say; the words choked in his mouth. There wasn't enough time to block. All he could do was cower as the blade came down.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! And thank you for your patience with how long this took to come out. It didn't get a proper editing, so I hope there aren't too many mistakes! Stay tuned next week!
Footnotes:
1 And not make Jack write them.
2 The first rendition of this story was written WAY before COVID started. Now, each time I read this, "And so are we."
3 Did anyone come out of this pulley situation not confused? Pax and Axel were confused. The Roman is confused. The author is staring at his diagram of the building going, "Omgs, how am I suppose to convey this with words?!"