Courageous Read online

  “That’s the real enchilada,” Gears said, nodding at the amulet. “That is so cool, Vinnie!”

  “I know,” I said, turning it over. “I’m going to have to do some tests and figure out how it works.”

  “You seemed to make it work easy enough,” Albert said.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “But that’s why I’m confused. See, Commander Courageous could fly because he was afraid of heights. I’m not. Are any of you?” Everyone around the table shook their heads. “So how did that work?”

  No one had an answer for that. Not even Gearstripper, who had the entirety of the Caulborn archives in his head.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Vincent,” Herb said, “but we have work to do. Megan needs us. And there are still some things we need to pick up from the Undercity.”

  “If it’s stock stuff, Alexis may be able to replicate it for you. Alexis.” The chirp told me the AI was listening. “Give Herb and Albert access to whatever they need. And be ready to fabricate any ingredient Professor Brymstone might have used. Actually, pipe a list of available materials down to the lab.” I turned back to Herb. “Have a look through what Alexis can create, and if you still need stuff, we can go out. But let’s push the easy button if we can.”

  Herb gave me a grin. “On it.”

  And with that, we split up to work. Herb and his dad went back to the lab, and Gears scurried over to Alexis. As I moved to the Defenders’ table, Petra took me by the arm.

  “No matter what happens, I’m staying right by your side.”

  I looked at Petra. “Love, I appreciate that, but—”

  “No buts. And Vincent Corinthos, do not give me any chivalrous foolishness right now.”

  I looked at my Reeboks. “Petra, when you got shattered on the Bright Side last summer, I lost it. I thought I’d lost you for good. I don’t ever want to go through that again. And then Anatiel managed to crack you…”

  “And how did you think I felt when you got pulled into Hell?” she countered. “Did you think it made me want to protect you any less?” She stood and put her hands on my shoulders, leaning down so we were eye-to-eye. Her features softened. “Vincent, the only way we’re going to keep each other safe is if we watch out for each other. It’s what we do. Hell or high water, I’ve got your back.”

  “And we’ve been through both lately,” I said with a grin.

  “Literally,” she replied. “But let’s not fight any undead beavers again, okay?”

  “No promises,” I said, “but I’ve got my fingers crossed.”

  I hugged her, and when we broke apart, I felt that something had changed. Petra had always been there for me; had, no pun intended, always been the rock I could hold on to when things got rough. Now, though, she was more like a partner. And that felt right.

  “Okay,” I said. “Want to help me study the amulet?”

  She smiled, but before she could respond, the doorbell rang. The last time someone dropped by unannounced, it was Forculus, after I’d torn a hole between dimensions big enough to drive a truck through. I hadn’t done anything like that today, so I wasn’t sure who or what to expect when I opened the door.

  And sure enough, it was Forculus. The other god of doors had a flaming sword in one hand, a look of murder in his eyes. He blinked when he saw me, and the sword vanished. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Umm… yeah. Who else would I be?”

  “Sorry, Vincent, I felt a portal break through here into Olympus, in your house. Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah, I just brought some friends through.” I’d done this a bunch of times before. I gestured for Forculus to come in, and shut the door behind him.

  “You did? Make a portal.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Just do it, Corinthos.”

  I snapped Open a portal to my apartment in Boston, and Forculus squinted at it. His gaze was intent on the ring of sizzling green energy, though several times, he stole glances at me.

  “Well, I guess it finally happened.”

  “What?”

  “Your extradimensional energy has purified. Your adviser told me this would happen.”

  “What do you mean purified?” Forculus looked as if he wasn’t sure how to answer, so I continued. “Forculus, I’m having a hell of a week, so if you could just cut to the chase here, I’d appreciate it.”

  Forculus shrugged. “Your adviser talked to me about this quite a bit. He told me about how when people walked through your portals, it scrambled their short-term memories.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The farther the portal reaches, the more time they lose.”

  “Did that happen today?”

  “It— Huh. Now that you mention it, no.” I’d brought Cynthia, Jake, and Gears to Courage Point, I’d portaled Eva and her red shirts into the sewers, and then brought Albert, Herb, and Petra through portals, and no one had experienced a memory lapse. I’d had other things on my mind at the time and hadn’t noticed it until Forculus pointed it out.

  “Your adviser had some theories about this. It was his suspicion that your followers’ faith interfered a bit with your innate powers. I thought it a bit silly, to tell the truth, but then he explained how the Urisk affected your mental facilities, such as they are, and impeded your judgment. He seemed to feel the impact to your portals was very small, but there, nonetheless.”

  “And let me guess. He felt that, if I were to lose all my followers, that my extradimensional energy signature would change a bit, and my portals wouldn’t cause memory issues anymore?”

  “He seemed more than confident that he was right. Wouldn’t even let me debate him, as a matter of fact.”

  “Yeah,” I said, with a wry smile. “He was like that.”

  Forculus looked around. “Well, I just wanted to make sure no one had broken in to your house,” he said. “Janus would never let me hear the end of it if that happened.”

  “Thanks, Forculus.” The other god looked as if he wanted to say something more, but instead, he just gave me a nod, made a portal of his own, and was gone.

  “Vincent?” Petra asked, coming down the hall. “Who was at the door?”

  I didn’t get a chance to reply, because the doorbell rang again. I opened it and found Psyke, dressed in a white toga and a pair of leather sandals with straps that wove all the way up to her knees. The goddess of the soul smiled at me, and while it was good to see Psyke, it was her companion that made me smile back.

  “Hello, Psyke, and Mrs. Rita, am I glad to see you.”

  The grandmotherly woman raised an eyebrow at me. “Why is that, Vincent? What sort of trouble have you gotten into this time?”

  “Long story. Come on in, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “I do not wish to intrude,” Psyke said. “I merely wished to check on Cynthia.”

  “How’d you know she was here?” I asked.

  “I have mended her soul, Vincent Corinthos. I can find my patients wherever they are.”

  “I’ll take her to the workshop,” Petra said. To Psyke, she asked, “Did Mother react as you’d hoped?”

  Petra’s mother, Aphrodite, is also Pskye’s mother-in-law. To say that Aph lived up to the horrible mother-in-law reputation was a bit of an understatement, and Psyke often went out of her way to do things that would piss Aphrodite off. Given that I’m not Aphrodite’s favorite person, any help Psyke gave me or my friends qualified.

  Psyke’s brilliant grin said that it most certainly had the desired effect on the goddess of love. “You should’ve seen her face,” she said with a snicker, and the two of them walked down the hall.

  “Well?” Mrs. Rita asked. I blinked. For a second, I’d forgotten Mrs. Rita was still standing there.

  “Sorry,” I said and gestured to the Defenders�
�� Society table, where we sat down. I quickly filled Mrs. Rita in on what had happened. “How did you manage to escape from the rogue Caulborn agents?” I asked.

  Mrs. Rita blinked at me. “Escape? No, Vincent. Psyke required a great deal of assistance to heal Cynthia. When we were done, she invited me back here to Olympus to catch up. I did not encounter these rogue agents you speak of.”

  I had to ask, “So how do you know Psyke? And Panacea?” I’d been caught off guard that multiple Olympians not only knew, but also respected Mrs. Rita.

  She shook her head. “There are more important things to worry about right now. It sounds to me like you will be trying to kidnap Megan away from Treggen very soon so that you may attempt your ritual.”

  “As soon as Herb and his dad give the green light, yeah.”

  “Then I believe I should begin crafting counter wards to the extradimensional barriers surrounding the Caulborn office.”

  I blinked. “You can do that?”

  Mrs. Rita looked offended. “Please, Vincent. I have been crafting wards far longer than Carmilla, longer than Leslie, longer than… well, never mind. The point is that I can bypass the precautions the Caulborn’s workers left behind. Give me some time, and you will be able to portal straight into headquarters.”

  “Mrs. Rita, I could kiss you.”

  “I think Petra would be jealous of that.”

  “Nah,” Petra said from behind me. “You’re cool, Mrs. Rita.”

  Mrs. Rita chuckled. “I will get the things I need for your runes and be back in a moment, Vincent. I presume the crystals I left here last time will still be in the medical bay?”

  “It’s just as you left it, Mrs. Rita.”

  She nodded to us and headed down the hallway. I stood from my chair to face Petra and Psyke. “Is Cynthia okay?” I asked.

  “She is recovering nicely. I was concerned there may be some psychic scarring from the procedure I performed, but so far, so good.”

  “Why is she smaller than I remember?” I asked.

  “I had to remove a small piece of Cynthia’s body to store the other presence that was inside of her,” Psyke replied. “To let it go free would’ve risked it turning into a highly powered and dangerous poltergeist, and I didn’t want that. So, I trapped it in this.”

  Psyke produced a small lump of silvery metal from her belt pouch and handed it to me. As I took it, the metal writhed and quivered in my hand, twisting itself into a switchblade. I nearly dropped it in surprise.

  “Holy shit,” I said. “It’s still active?”

  “The presence was designed to destroy, to kill, and that cannot be suppressed. I do not know if it can be destroyed itself. I do know that it has gradually been getting stronger. When I first placed it in that bit of metal, it could not change forms. Over the last few hours, it has become a knife, a sword, and a warhammer, depending on who held it.”

  “So, it can still change shape and create poison?”

  “Those were part of its nature, so yes.”

  “Is it safe to handle? Like, is it going to animate and kill me?”

  Psyke shook her head. “Vincent, it is just a weapon. True, it is a versatile one, with a sort of primal personality, but it is not sentient. It will not twist around and bite you. So long as you don’t stab yourself with it, it’s as safe as any other knife. The lives this weapon claimed were because of the weapon’s wielder, not because the Rosario drove that wielder to kill.”

  “It seemed like it tried to do that with Cynthia.”

  “I will grant you that,” Psyke agreed reluctantly. “And, if the presence inside that knife were inside your head, I suppose that would be possible. However, that sort of possession is extraordinarily rare, and the Rosario itself did not have it. It was only because Cynthia absorbed its metal that the presence in the Rosario was able to influence her.” Psyke tapped her lips. “What bothers me, though, is how quickly the presence was able to infiltrate her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Rosario was an enchanted artifact, made by men. Though the enchantments were powerful, Cynthia’s body accepted them too readily. The presence within the Rosario may have been able to affect Cynthia’s mind, but it should have taken days, perhaps weeks, for the enchantments to spread through Cynthia’s form. She should not have been able to create poisons or blades, not for some time.”

  “Maybe it has to do with some special property of celestial metal? Both Cynthia and the Rosario were made of that.”

  “Perhaps. Do you know if Cynthia was forged with similar enchantments?”

  “I don’t think so, but there’s someone I can ask. Just the same, Cynthia was created to be a mechanical messiah; I don’t imagine her creator would’ve wanted her weaponized.”

  Psyke shrugged. “At any rate, the malicious presence is trapped in that”—she nodded at the knife in my hand—“and is as safe as any other weapon.”

  I carefully folded the knife and put it in my pocket. “Thanks, Psyke. I’ll put this someplace safe, away from other people.”

  “Good luck, Vincent Corinthos. And do keep in touch. Should Cynthia need my assistance again, you know where to find me. She’s a charming little doll.” She gave Petra a hug goodbye and left.

  “So, what happens now?” Petra asked me.

  I let out a breath, took a seat at the Defenders’ table, removed the amulet, and began turning it over in my hands. “I need to figure this out,” I said. “This is the real thing, Petra, the honest-to-God Anisa Amulet. I watched myself use this once. Well, that alternate-future version of me, anyway. I watched him gain strength and speed from other people’s fears. But what about all that other stuff that the comics said Commander Courageous could do? If someone was afraid of dogs, he could control dogs, or gain canine senses. If someone was afraid of loud noises, he could silence the area, or make deafening thunderclaps. And there was that one really weird issue where someone was afraid of numbers, and Courageous got really good at math.”

  “So, what’s the problem?” Petra asked. “You put the amulet on and you could fly, just like Commander Courageous did.”

  “That’s the thing, hon. Like I said earlier, Courageous could fly because he, well his alter ego, Rex Arkwright, was scared of heights. The amulet let him master that fear by bestowing him with the power of flight. I’m not scared of heights, and never have been. So why could I fly?”

  “Maybe you could ask Alexis?”

  “That’s a good idea. But I’m going to try something first.”

  “Something clever or—”

  But I’d already activated my Glimpse.

  Chapter 7

  I focused on the amulet, going back through its past at high speed. I wanted to know who’d made this thing, and why. The Glimpse took me to a mountain range that looked down on a lush rainforest. I saw a young girl, maybe fourteen, carefully etching the metal of the amulet with what looked like a long needle. Her skin was coppery, and her black hair hung over her shoulder in a braid. Her steely gray eyes were nearly the same color as the metal she worked, and practically glowed with intense concentration. I took a step closer toward her, looking over her shoulder.

  The carving of the lone warrior battling nightmares was just starting to take shape.

  Another girl came into the clearing where the carver was working. She had the same coppery skin, but her eyes were so brown they were nearly black. She looked a bit younger than the carver, and her face and hands were covered in dirt. She clutched a small earthen pot to her chest and glanced around nervously.

  “Please put it with the others, Parkli,” the carver said.

  “Ela,” Parkli said as she set the pot down among a group of five others, “this is dangerous. If Cartoosh finds out what you’re doing—”

  “What the priestess doesn’t know w
on’t hurt her. Until it’s too late.” She added that last bit under her breath.

  Parkli sat down beside her friend, worry evident on her face. “This sort of magic, have you done it before?”

  “Of course,” Ela said, giving a nod. But the way her mouth tightened as she said it made me think otherwise. Parkli must’ve picked up on it, too, because Ela paused, put down her carving tools, and looked at her friend. “Cartoosh has been cowing us for too long. Her amulet taps into the fears of the people around her, and then makes those fears come to life. With this”—she hefted the amulet she’d been carving—“I will be on equal footing. I can free our people from her. I can show them again what it is to be courageous.”

  Ela gestured at the pots nearby. “I know you think it is sacrilege to disturb the remains of our bravest warriors, but I believe they would agree to this. Only courage can overcome fear, and Cartoosh has been using our own fears against us for far too long. I have studied her amulet, and I’ve seen how it works.”

  “How?” Parkli asked. “She never removes the amulet, not even when she bathes.”

  “Allini taught me how to look at things with magic,” Ela said, her eyes going distant. “It was the last thing she taught me before Cartoosh unleashed that pack of demon wolves upon her.”

  Parkli shuddered and glanced at the woods, as if looking for some lupine threat. “Those wolves were terrible.”

  Ela resumed her carving. “Allini told me that when she was a girl tending the sheep, a pack of wolves came out of the forest and attacked her. That’s how she got those scars on her face. Her father and mother beat the wolves back, but from that day on, Allini was terrified of them. If I had to guess, the demon wolves Cartoosh summoned were how Allini saw that pack of normal wolves so long ago. And Cartoosh took advantage of that fear.”

  “Many more of us are afraid of wolves now, too,” Parkli said, “now that we’ve seen that.”