Damaged Gods by K.C. Cross, J.A. Huss

CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO - PIE

I am running. Breathless running. Exuberant running. The kind of running that only happens in a wood. That can only happen to creatures with hooves and hind legs.

Pell is next to me and he, like me, is overflowing with joy, his breaths coming hard and fast in perfect rhythm with my own.

We leap over fallen trees. Jump from rock to rock on a steep cliff edge. We make the orange leaves on the white-bark trees shudder as we pass.

It is the best moment of my life.

And this thought is still lingering in my mind—still echoing off the sweet happiness filling me up—when it all changes. When it all goes from bright to dusk.

I am alone. Not running. Standing.

Breathing hard, though. Like I was running. Like that was real. Pell, and me, and the woods. It was real.

It just isn’t anymore.

The air is crisp and cool enough that tendrils of steam billow out from my mouth with each exhale. “Hello?”

And now panic begins to build. Because I am me. This is not a dream. This is real. I am real.

And I am not supposed to be here. This is not a place for creatures like me.

This is a place for the old gods.

The damaged gods.

The vengeful gods.

This is where they live, not us.

This is their wood, not ours.

And I am trespassing.

“Are you dead or alive, girl?”

The voice comes from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It’s thick, and deep, but feminine too.

“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully.

“Which one do you want to be?” the voice asks. And then there is a woman attached to it, standing in front of me with her hands clasped in front of her. She is tall with brown skin and wise eyes. Her robes are bright gold and orange, like the leaves in the woods around me. She reminds me of one those brightly colored Hindu women who wear those sarong things. And she jingles when she moves. Little strings of tiny bells hang around her wrists, and ankles, and neck. A bejeweled headpiece drapes pearls and crystals across her forehead. Her eyes are dark and wide and so is her smile. “This question shouldn’t be so hard, Pie Vita. Which do you want to be?”

I have to take a deep breath, because I know her. “Ostanes.”

“Quick! There is no time left for reunions, child. You need to decide. Do you want to be alive or dead? Do you want to be a monster or a human? Do you want to be cursed or not?”

“I get a choice?”

“No,” she says. “Not really.” I screw up my face in confusion. “You’re dying, girl. The sheriff’s weapon hit you in the chest. You are, in this very moment, still alive only because Pell froze you before most of the damage could be done. But he can’t stop it, Pie. He can only put it off. You will die today, one way or another, because you are not eros. You are not the caretaker of Saint Mark’s Sanctuary.”

“What?” I look down at my hand and the ring is still there.

“That’s not the same ring. You know this. You saw Grant’s ring. What did it look like?”

The urgency in her voice is gone now, so I take a moment to think back. “It had… a face.” I nod, looking up at her.

“Whose face?”

I’m about to say I don’t know, but I do. It was the same face above the doors in the sanctuary. Which isn’t some generic mythological Green Man. It is someone very specific. “Saturn’s face.”

Ostanes rewards me with a gentle smile. She has a very calming nature to her. I like it. “He is old now, Pie. He has almost no power left. Gods can only rule with permission. They need humans to give them power and this world’s humans left Saturn behind centuries ago. This sanctuary is mine. He has no power here. But…” She pauses to make sure I’m listening. This must be the important part. “Neither do I. He made sure of that in the last battle. That’s why there is a curse. He wants my power. Everyone”—she whispers this part, leaning forward a little—“wants my power.”

“The book,” I say.

She nods and straightens up. “That book does not belong to Tarq and eventually you will have to get it back.”

“What?” I huff, annoyed. “Why do I have to do it?”

“You can choose to stop, if you’re done.”

“Done? I don’t even understand what you’re talking about now.”

“Do you want to be a monster, Pie? Do you want to live in the curse with Pell? Do you want to continue? Do you want to try and make a difference and fix things? Or do you want to quit?”

I look down at my monster body. I like it. I do. But… “This is not me,” I say.

“Isn’t it?” Ostanes chuckles a little. “Are you sure?”

“It’s not me. I’m Pie. I’m—”

“You are this, girl. You are chimera. You are nymph. You are gorgon. You are minotaur.”

“What?” I almost choke out the word.

“You are monster.”

Now, I am annoyed. “Well, last week I wasn’t a monster. Last week I was just a girl. I had a past. It wasn’t a good one, but it was mine. I’m real. And I’m not this…” I look down at myself. Did she use the word gorgon? Wasn’t Medusa a gorgon? I am suddenly very confused, and tired, and I have an overwhelming feeling of defeat. “I don’t think I can deal with this right now.”

She tsks her tongue at me. “That’s too bad.” Then she sighs. “You did all this work. All this magic to get me here. To save the sanctuary from falling into the hands of these damaged and broken gods. One is as bad as the other. They were banished for a reason. And now you pretend that you’re just… what? Just this girl called Pie who stumbled into the cursed monsters of Saint Mark’s?”

“I did though. I literally did! I answered an ad—”

“Whose ad?”

“What?”

“Whose ad was it?”

“It was… Grant’s ad. He called me here. And when I got here, he left. And I don’t know his whole fucking story, so I guess there’s more to it than that”—she actually guffaws at this—“but my point is, I was someone else before I got here.”

“Grant? You think that ad belonged to Grant?”

I pause. “Didn’t it? He told me it did.”

“Don’t believe everything you’re told.”

I’m about to scream at her for all this cryptic nonsense when I remember that weird conversation with Tarq and Luciano. You answered the ad, Tarq said. He was amazed at my confusion.

I narrow my eyes, thinking. “It was Tarq’s ad.” I feel confident about this conclusion.

But Ostanes sighs. “You’re going to make this hard, aren’t you?”

“I’m not making anything hard! All I want is…”

She raises an eyebrow when I don’t finish my sentence. “Well?” she finally asks. “What do you want, Pie Vita?”

“I want these people to stay the fuck out of my sanctuary. I want to break Pell’s curse. And save Tomas. I want him to be saved, and I want—”

“Stop.” She puts up a hand. And this hand has power. Just like Pell’s hand has power. “Stop it right now. That’s not what you want. That’s what you want to do. What do you want, Pie?”

What do I want?

“It should roll off the tongue, child. That’s how long you’ve been wishing for it. Say it. You know what you want.”

“I want to be normal.”

“You want to walk away from Pia?”

“Where is she?” I whirl around, searching for my friend. And there, there on a low branch, full and heavy with bright yellow leaves, Pia sits with her crown of bright red feathers in stark contrast against the foliage.

She morphs before my eyes. Her body disintegrates, but instead of collapsing into billions of dust particles, every single feather becomes a moth. They swarm, circle each other like a cyclone. And then… they hover there. Waiting.

I turn back to Ostanes.

I know her.

“You know me.” Her words echo my thoughts. “And you know yourself too. Who are you, Pie?”

I want to say, I am that girl from Philly. Then I want to say, I don’t know.

But it’s just all lies, and there’s no way to hide from it anymore.

So I give in. I say, “I am yours.”

And this earns me a wide smile. “Yes, child. You are mine. I called you to Saint Mark’s. Pell is mine. Tarq is mine and Tomas is mine. And I put you all here for this one moment when you could confront that bastard Saturn and take back what belongs to us.”

“Is he gone, then?” I ask. “Is Saturn dead?”

“He is gone for now.” She huffs. “But he’ll be back. We’re not to concern ourselves with him just yet. Let him lick his wounds. We have bigger, better things to do with the monsters of Saint Mark’s. Like set them free. But first, you have to choose, Pie. Because Pell’s magic is only temporary. He has already been holding you in this freeze for longer than he should. Just a little bit longer and you will fall out of it on your own. And if you do not make a choice, you will die. You will not come back from this. You are not the caretaker of Saint Mark’s Sanctuary. Grant was able to leave because you brought your magic with you. And Saturn was able to take over his aging body and make him young again—use him to do his bidding—because his curse was still in place. But you were not the replacement and if you die, you will be dead. You will not come back. Not tomorrow, not next year, not next century. And Pell will live on. Forever, and ever, and ever inside his curse. Knowing that his one chance to be with you the way you were meant to be together is over.”

There is a part of me that wants to ask a lot of questions about setting the monsters free. Like… are we sure the world is ready for that? And other such important things.

But Ostanes keeps spilling out information that seems critical, and I just can’t keep up. “Wait,” I say, putting up a hand. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh, you do.” Ostanes holds out her hand, palm up, and the moths that I thought were mine swarm to her. Cover her from head to toe, so that she is nothing but fluttering wings. She speaks and even her words come out with wings. “I made you four to keep my magic safe. Tarq to hold the book. Pell to hold the tombs. Tomas to hold the sanctuary.”

I blink at her. Because that actually kinda does make sense. “But what about me?”

“You hold them all, dear Pie. You hold them all. But they hold you as well. The curse has not been lifted, but it has shifted. Pell knows what to do, but he needs a sign from you that this is what you want. And then the two of you can find the new boundaries together. Tell him, Pie. Tell him what you want.”

What I want is to make her explain this shit in tiny little baby words. But it’s just a distraction. I understand what she’s saying. “He needs to know that I want to be a monster.”

Ostanes’ smile is sad. “You have always been monster. But I put you here to hide you from them. Don’t listen to Saturn when he says you belong to him. You do not. I made you. You are mine.”

“So… he’s right then. I’m not real.”

“Do you feel not real?”

“No, but—”

“You are as real as you want to be.” She smiles at me. “Listen carefully now. We are getting dangerously close to the end and there are things you must understand. Your human soul is gone. The moment that bullet hit your chest, it died. It cannot be recovered.”

“Then what the fuck? Why are we even having this conversation?”

“Because your soul has two halves, Pie. All of my monsters have one soul with two halves.” Suddenly, the moths around her body converge once more and turn back into Pia. She chirps. Flies over to me. Snuggles into the front pocket of my flannel. And everything in this moment feels… inevitable.

“She is your other half. Your monster half.”

“You want me to say this is me. This girl with hind legs and hooves. This girl with horns and hide. This is me.”

“Yes. This is who you are. So you will say it again,” Ostanes whispers. “Say it again, Pie. And this time… you will mean it. And then, dear girl, you will take all the power you were always meant to have.”

I still want to deny it.

I want to hold on to my humanity for dear life.

But I’m having trouble remembering what it was like to be Pie. My past is fading as I stand here. Everything that came before Pell and Tomas seems… irrelevant.

There is still a small part of me though. A tiny part that want to deny this new me. Guilt, maybe? Fear? That lingering question in the back of my head about Pell.

Is he evil? Is that what horns mean? And if so, am I evil?

I am not evil. I do not require a single moment to debate that.

It’s settled.

I straighten up. Feel the muscles in my legs. My fingertips absently brush along the side of my thigh. Against fur, not skin. The horns are heavy on my head.

And somehow, it all fits. It all feels right.

So when I say, “This is me,” I really do mean it.

The woods disappear.

Ostanes is gone.

And then… I am alone.

And this is not what I was expecting.

I was expecting to return to the sanctuary. To wake up in Pell’s arms. Or find Tomas’s handsome face hovering over me with a look of concern.

But I am in the nowhere. The in-between. Not in the gray, something worse than the gray.

There is no air here, so I cannot breathe.

There is no light here, so I cannot see.

This is darkness.

This is emptiness.

And then I get it.

I am done and this is the end.

I have one last breath inside me.

The breath that Pell gave me that night of my date.

I use it now to call his name.

“Pell,” I whisper.

But the darkness swallows it up.