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

CHAPTER FIVE - PELL

“I don’t think I like her.” I pace back and forth across the room, trying to force this night to make sense. I am not prepared for this change. Fifty years is a long time for Grant to be stuck here with me, but if he’d just held on for another ten, he wouldn’t have been able to walk out. There would be no escape because there would be no life waiting for him beyond the walls of Saint Mark’s.

“That feeling seems to be mutual.” Tomas says this absently. He’s stretched out on the lounger flipping through one of Grant’s notebooks. “I like Pie though. And I’m pretty sure she likes me too.”

“Pie?”

“That’s her name.”

“Meat pie? Shepherd’s pie? Fruit pie? What kind of pie is she? And why is she named after pie when she refuses to cook?”

Tomas ignores all of my questions. “How far do you think Grant got?”

“What?”

“I bet we could find him.”

I’m failing to see the logic here. “Why would we want to find Grant? He left. He’s not coming back. Why the hell would he?”

Tomas thinks about this for a moment. “I think he will want to talk to me. He didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“Hold on a moment.” I put up one clawed hand to halt this train of thought. Because Tomas needs to be set straight. His kind are dangerous when you let them run with a delusion too long. “Where were you when he left?”

“What do you mean?”

“Were you missing? Were you lost in the forest? Were you locked in a tower?”

“What the hell are you going on about? I was here. Working out on the second-story balcony.” He flexes his biceps at me. “I got a little lost in the hallways coming downstairs so he left before he could say goodbye.”

“Where did the girl come from? The back gate?”

“No. She came in the front gate. Grant met her out in the hall.”

“So he was here, she was here, you were here. But he didn’t say goodbye to you?”

“I just told you. I got lost. I was late.”

“Did he leave you a note?”

“No.” Tomas hesitates. His delusion falters for a moment. I can see it on his face. But he rallies—he always rallies—and then he smiles. And poof. That delusion is firmly back in place.

Grant hated Tomas. He hated me more, so there’s that. But Grant gives no fucks about Tomas.

I consider how far I want to push this line of questioning. It’s been a while since Tomas and I talked this much. We don’t usually cross paths here on the grounds of Saint Mark’s. He stays here in the main cathedral and I prefer my own space out in the cemetery. And I would not call my feelings towards Tomas caring or anything close to that. But I don’t want him focused on some goodbye he never got from Grant.

Tomas has gone quiet though, so there is no need to prolong this conversation.

I turn my back to him and walk out.

I leave the cathedral and begin walking in the direction of Tarq’s tomb with the idea that I might continue our one-way conversation. But when I get to the top of the hill, I catch a glimpse of the little cottage house down below, near the back wall. Gas lamps glowing on both floors.

Grant didn’t like that place. So it has not been occupied for all these decades. But she is down there now. Her scent trail leads right to the door.

I sit down on a nearby tomb base, wondering just how much life will change now that there is a girl here.

It has been a long time since I had the opportunity to be around a woman. And while she is not my type—I have my own preferences and she is not it—she is… here.

I won’t be able to compel her to like me, but I can compel her to do lots of other things.

I shake my head, pushing thoughts of that out of my mind so I can concentrate on what’s really important.

The curse.

I struggle with it now. Have been struggling with it for about a hundred and fifty years, actually. That’s when things really started to change in the outside world. I haven’t left the sanctuary for nearly three years, but Grant would bring things back. Phones, for one. The kind that fit in your pocket. They didn’t work here, of course. Not for calling people. But about a decade ago, these phones were no longer just phones. And Grant did a lot of other things with them.

The slave before Grant was into science and he actually hooked up a bunch of wires about eighty years ago. He strung them everywhere and then he hooked up a phone. The old-fashioned kind. He even got a connection once. Just once though. It was like the curse didn’t understand what he was doing and it took a moment to figure out this phone line—like electricity—was unacceptable. He did manage to get the gas lights working though. So there’s that.

But the outside world is not something I understand.

Everything about it feels like magic and magic is always a trap.

Then, now, and always.

I go back to Tarq’s tomb and stop at the front. There is a door, but there is no door. Not for me. I have been banished from the tombs since the beginning. Every single tomb door has been glamoured with ancient spells. I know they’re there and I have the key to open them, which is me. But I can’t see them. And the caretaker slave can see them, but not open them.

If you’re going to be cursed it’s actually quite nice to have a partner. That’s what my slave caretaker is supposed to be. They get the sight, I get the key. It should be a simple thing. But when we’re together, the slave caretaker cannot see the tomb doors.

When the great alchemist Ostanes made this place to keep her secrets safe, the gods panicked. The entire curse was created through a flurry of magical moves and countermoves by Saturn and Juno. But in a way that made everything more complicated, not less. So not much about Saint Mark’s makes sense. Especially the magic that governs it.

And this is how it goes.

One step forward, two steps back.

There is another way to open the doors. But I have never told anyone about that. If I were the one who could enter the tombs I’d be partying with Tarq right now. But it’s not me who can get in, it’s the caretaker.

I have never told the caretakers about that other way because I don’t trust them

The slave caretaker and I are bound to each other. We’re supposed to be powerful. But it has never worked. We were made enemies, but forced to be together. And the caretaker has certain duties. They are supposed to make me happy.

They just never do. Even when they perform the tasks I assign them.

It’s like a cruel joke.

The ring does work for leaving the grounds. As long as the slave caretaker has the ring on, he can walk through the gates. And as long as I’m with the slave caretaker, I can walk through those gates too.

I can’t stay away long. Grant and I did many experiments on this back when he was new and eager. Four hours is about the limit. And fifty miles. Anything further away or longer in duration and I just disappear and end back in my tomb like I never left.

The nearest town is Granite Springs, and that’s as far as I’ve gone in almost thirty years. There is no point in venturing further. And I’m not really interested in the wider world. I want the curse lifted, but I am a creature of another time. What happens to me if I do escape?

I didn’t think about this much until Grant came along. The world is always changing, but the events and discoveries of the past fifty years have been something like a fiction.

And every time I think about what’s happening out there, the word ‘magic’ comes to mind.

Two thousand years I’ve been in this world and only the last fifty or so have been able to stun me silent.

I place my hand on Tarq’s tomb where the door should be. “Open,” I command it.

But, of course, it does not respond.

I sigh and look around at the other tombs nearby. I don’t know any of the monsters in this cemetery. And new tombs pop up all the time. Who is putting them here, I have no idea.

Are they dead? Do they see me out here? Can they hear me?

I would like to think they can. I would like to think that Tarq waits for me to come and tell him the news.

But it’s unlikely.

Even if I do get the tombs open, there’s probably nothing in there but bones. Or worse, they are empty.

I look down the hill at the flickering lights of the cottage. I like it, I decide. The look of it being used. It’s depressing to look around and see nothing but darkness down there. Sometimes, when the moon is full, I can make out the shimmer of light on the surface of the lake that lies just beyond the walls.

But tonight, there is no moon so if that girl was not in the cottage, it would be dark and depressing.

I sigh again, then pat Tarq’s arm. “I have a lot to tell you, friend. But not tonight.”

Then I turn away from him and start walking towards my own tomb, ready to go inside and go back to sleep. But I catch sight of the cathedral out of the corner of my eye and turn that direction instead.

When I get inside, I go up the stairs and right back into the apothecary room. Tomas is asleep on the lounger, an open book lying over his chest like he was reading it.

It’s Grant’s last notebook.

I pick up the book and leave the apothecary. But I don’t know where to go. There are no lights in my tomb, so that’s out of the question. Across the great hall is the greenhouse. Not a place one reads, so I strike that off the list.

There are some benches around the perimeter, but they are made of stone. And why should I stay in this room? This cathedral is as big as a palace. Hundreds of rooms tucked away down long hallways or up hidden staircases.

They are all magical, of course. All cursed, right along with me. You never know what you’re going to find when you explore the hidden interior of Saint Mark’s Sanctuary.

But at least you know none of it can kill you since the curse won’t let you die. So I walk down the stairs one more time, but instead of going outside, I turn and look behind me. There are three staircases. The center staircase leads up to the great hall. But it’s the other two I’m interested in.

I’ve been up both before but it’s been long enough that I don’t have much recollection of either.

I choose the one on the right.