Yes, he left me to pick up the pieces.
Yes, I’ve been through it before.
I made my way to the officers’ quarters and banged into the hutch I shared with a moody vampire and an overemotional werewolf. Luckily for me, the werewolf was home on leave. The vampire was another story.
Marius stood preening in front of a mirror we’d tacked up to one of the main hutch poles. He’d lit every lantern in the place.
He wore a black leather jacket, black leather pants, and knee-high swashbuckler boots. His blond hair draped roguishly over one eye, and he gave himself a smoldering look before frowning at me. “I’m sorry to hear about Galen.”
“Does the whole camp know?” I asked, thumping down on my bed.
“Yes.”
“He also broke up with me,” I said, pulling a blanket up to my chin. It was rough and scratchy. I hated it. Maybe I could sleep for a year.
The vampire tucked a six-pack of Oreos next to me.
“Where’d you get these?” I grudgingly inspected the pack. They certainly weren’t from his private stash. Marius didn’t eat. And the PX never had chocolate anything.
He showed his fangs. “I threatened to devour Phineus, the deliveryman.”
“You don’t even like werewolves,” I said, sitting up.
“Phineus doesn’t know that.”
I sampled a cookie while Marius opened a bottle of red wine and poured us both a glass. “Drink,” he said, handing it to me. “Doctor’s orders.”
I tried to give him a grin and failed.
Marius took a seat on his footlocker, and we drank in silence. The wine was good, smooth. Very Marius.
He didn’t ask questions or try to talk to me, which was a relief. We just sat and listened to the tar swamp bubble out back. If he’d been on his way out the door before, he didn’t let on.
I swirled the liquid in my glass. “Men suck.”
Marius held up his glass in a mock toast. “Yes, they do.”
Shirley rapped on my door early the next morning. “Did you hear?”
I rolled over in bed. “I don’t want to know.”
She let herself in. Shirley wore her red hair in pigtails today. It was very…Heidi. “The armies are gearing up again,” she said. “It’s all over the news. They say there’s going to be a new prophecy.”
“Lordy.” My head felt like it was filled with cotton, but I sat up anyway.
I ground my fingers over my eyes.
“Come on,” Shirley said, inspecting one of the wineglasses from last night. “The prophecies are exciting.”
I stood slowly. “Not the word I’d use.”
It was quite a trick—trying to save the world while being sneaky about it.
But eventually, it was said that the prophecies would bring lasting peace. I had to cling to that.
In the meantime…
“I need a shower,” I told her, using my foot to dig the caddy out from under my cot.
My towel hung on the clothesline strung across our hutch. I was tired of blood and guts and war. Now Galen had skipped out, the armies were gearing up, and I’d bet my last Oreo that the oracles were going to give us a prediction that would cost a lot of soldiers their lives.
I managed to make it in and out of the shower tent without anyone giving me any sympathetic clucking about Galen. Probably because everyone was in the mess tent, watching the Paranormal News Network. PNN was our answer to CNN. It was Immortality’s never-ending news source. Or so they said. I supposed we mortals would simply have to take their word for it.
We owned one television for the entire camp, an ugly, 1970s cabinet model with the carved wood and the curved gray screen.
We loved it.
A few of the mechanics had it bolted to a makeshift stand on the far right wall of the mess tent. Today the place was packed. It seemed like everyone who wasn’t on shift was sitting on one of the long cafeteria tables or in one of the chairs clustered up front. An undercurrent of fear whispered through the room.
Shirley and I wound through the crowd as we worked toward one of the back tables.
“Petra.” Holly waved from the front. “Come on up.”
People scooted aside as Shirley and I slid in next to her. I was surprised at the way people let us through. PNN watching was usually a full-contact sport.
“We heard about Galen,” Holly said, commiserating.
Ah, so this was a pity seat.
I could feel people watching me. I lowered my head and scooted in. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“We all liked him,” said someone behind me.
Yeah, me too.
“Here. You need this more than I do,” said a round-faced nurse in front of me as she turned and handed me a Bloody Mary with a limp celery stick.
“Thanks,” I said, trying not to knock the bendy straw. I wasn’t about to turn down liquid fortification.
Her lips pursed. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“This is plenty,” I said, pulling out the celery stick. Any more of this sympathy and I was going to jam it in my eye.
PNN came off commercial break, and everybody cheered. It was like feeding time at the zoo. The picture started skipping, and an orderly sitting on a stool next to the television stood up and pounded on the side of the set a few times.
A skinny young reporter huddled under an umbrella next to a sheer cliff face. I could tell he was new, and slightly terrified. Volcanic ash and bits of glowing embers rained down, but he pasted on a newsy smile in spite of it. Scalding winds whipped at his bright yellow lava-coat, and he gave a slight cringe as the ground under him vibrated.
“I’m Fletcher Turley reporting live from the Oracle of the Gods, where the sky is purple and the lava is flowing,” he said breathlessly. “My sources tell me we haven’t had a magma shower like this since they buried Pompeii.” He braced himself as the wind nearly blew him sideways. “PNN was the first on the scene then, just as we are now as the oracles get ready to reveal the next chapter in the war of the gods.”
The news anchor’s voice boomed from the studio. “Can we get a close-up on that lava shower, Fletcher?”
“Sure, Stone,” he said, microphone shaking. The camera panned down to the glowing embers bouncing off his polished brown dress shoes.
I knew what fiery stone looked like. I was more interested in how young Fletcher was going to make it out of that lava field.
The wind buffeted his umbrella and blew his hair sideways as he held out against the storm. “The crowds are growing out on the water, even though Lemuria is a lost continent,” he hollered, voice rising above the fracas as the camera panned out. Everything from barges to sailboats to kayaks bobbed out on the water. “Officials are warning that observers not use wooden boats, as they are flammable.”
The camera cut back to the PNN studio, where a slickly coiffed, overly tanned werewolf sat behind a news desk. “Thanks, Fletcher. You’re doing a fine job out there,” he said in perfect news monotone. “As you can see, we have some severe eruptions in the south. Let’s check in with PNN Weather for the update.”
The camera cut to a skinny redhead in front of a radar screen. “Thanks, Stone. We have a severe eruption warning from Lemuria all the way to the Atlantean islands.” She flipped back her hair as she posed in front of a map of the lost islands dotting the Indian Ocean. “We’re getting reports of falling lava rocks the size of golf balls. PNN Lava Radar shows continuing storms for the next two days, suggesting that the oracles will indeed be shaking things up for a while longer.”