"Yeah, another three to hit. The second Pentekostys is coordinating half of Africa, we should weed out these freaking misfits with time for a bbq and brewskies, eh!?" Enomotarch Leander Areides, known affectionately by his sibling Icarus and companions as Lou, kicked one combat boot on the other as he leaned against a wall in Tel Aviv's Jaffa Flea Market. Machine gun strap slung around his shoulder, Lou enjoyed the bustle and the shade of the procured awning. Few sellers considered shoving a six-and-a-half-foot tall bruiser in Kopis Industries colours away from their stalls.
"Hey, Fowler! Areides called for a BBQ back at base, you in!?"
"Dude, am I!? I'll bring the whiskey since you lightweights spend too much time sucking down beers and not enough doing cardio!"
"Cardio!?" Lou cackled, shooting a pair of finger guns in Fowler's direction by a fruit stand. "Why run on a treadmill when there are... finer ways of helping the ole heart muscle."
"Ooohhh Violet." Minitron clasped his hands together. "Bought this for ya, Violet... since... ya know you're new in Midgard and all."
"Mwah mwah mwah," Fowler made kissing sounds in the air, as an elderly woman with her hair under a colourful headscarf passed by, paused, smiled with missing teeth and giggled away. "... Ma'am."
"Heeyy, who do you take me for? A monogama... a monomoose... a softie?" Lou rolled his shoulder when Minitron punched it, grinning away the flush to his cheeks. "There'll be plenty of tail, Great-Gran's got her whole entourage staying at the Aphneion... not only Violet..."
"Ah, Lou. As well-intentioned your man whore-ness is, we hope you do make an honest woman out'a Violet one of these days." Minitron nudged Lou's arm, then snorted and waggled his helmet-clad head. "Give the rest of us a chance with the other lovelies looking for some fun, am I right!?"
"Ey! I'm Ares' Great-Grandson, I've got a rep to uphold! No softies allowed... except Uncle Eros. He's got the best aim of anybody in the Cosmos... archery and stuff..."
"Oh... oh wow, did... Barda did you know... we're in the presence of Ares' great-grandson!?"
"What?! I've never!" Barda piped up from her spot on a low awning, pulling her binocs down long enough to whistle.
"As I live and breathe!" Fowler made a pretence of shock, chortling and doing another cursory scan of the marketplace. "How have we never heard this valuable piece of intel, Sarge!?"
"Eeeh, shaddap..." Lou shrugged, the swell of the crowd distanced itself from each of his squadmates. "... okay so Vi is coming for the 'q. She bobbed up and down when I told her it was the perfect time for the potato salad recipe she saw in those magazines I got her and she sourced bacon from that deli we like and she got all excited I couldn't tell her the BBQ was a maybe, could I? It's her first Midgard shindig, since moving Realms from Hellas and all you jokers need to be there. And hey! See whatcha say when you're all sitting there eating her food, eh!?"
The squaddies cooed and cackled as was their want. A few blew kisses or pretended their hearts were grenades with the pins pulled, with tiny mouthed 'kaboom's, and fake rings on fingers. Each soldier continued to scan for trouble, a flick of wings, a miniature menace. Any tells the Grout Market relocated to Jaffa as Icarus' Minotaur.AI indicated.
Humanity bustled about in terse negotiations and private whispers. Couples shared a basket or argued over the minutae of their lives. Sellers cawed into the crowd to hawk their wares, and a stall a couple spaces down played faint acoustic Arabic jazz.
"Now this, Minitron, is what I'm talking 'bout." Lou set one hand behind his neck, the other on the butt of his firearm. "People selling shit, get hungry? We'll do hummus over there. Gotta eat fast, or the dudes in the restaurant will speed ya up. Want soup? Ey, Lamb place is a couple narrow streets away, don't forget ta clean up your plate. Need pottery, spices, heck, a t-shirt or bobblehead, over there, over there, up there. Everyone's busy living their lives."
"You must miss it." Minitron swaggered past a seller touting the third-best perfume in Jaffa, swept a hand over the soft blue stubble on his chin and drifted back to the wall shoulder to shoulder with his battle brother. "Mycenae."
"Gee, blast from the past. Thirty-five hundred years of existence, ya know what I found?" Gaze flicking between the members of his thirty-six soldier strong Enomotia, Lou grinned. Wondered if any of the perfumes smelled enough like Mycenae, or Hellas for Violet to give them a try. Not that he dared purchase perfume for a woman without Icarus and maybe Seraya there to guide him. Still, the one bottle with the cut glass stuck out, delicate as Violet's iridescent wings. "People is people. Humanity doesn't change much. Kinda comforting, ya know?"
A ragged commotion tore through the market as a man shoved his way through the crowd. Round, wide eyes hung in ashen skin, the fabric of his clothing an earthen mixture of leaves and bark. Lou nodded, and one of the squad broke off to intercept.
"We got possible Three-Strikes at 4 o'clock." Barda's voice sizzled in their helmets comm feed, she craned her neck to watch the wake of the man's terrified run. Two more people popped up from nowhere. "Confirmed. I see the Grout Market. Marking it on our HUD's... now."
"People don't change. Wait long enough in a busy spot, find what you're looking for. Eyes up! Fall out." Lou swaggered through the empty spaces. Two more Folk, one with the visible flutter of wings, another carrying a bag made of banana leaves, raced to vanish in the swell. Chasing down the dot on his Head's Up Display, Lou trotted through a parting wave. All it took was a grunt and order yelled in Arabic and Hebrew for the citizens to make way.
"Arright. Yeet these bitches where they belong." Lou tapped at a piece of pottery sat conspicuous on its side and the world descended into the microscopic scale of the relocated Grout Market. He clenched his jaw tight to avoid the spurt of nausea, which lasted a few seconds after going miniature, found his feet and steadied Hu, with a nod.
The Market was awash with a piano wire garotte of tension, an uneasy disquiet choked the usual noise.
Bustling vendors halted their pitch of contraband wares in the micro place, and buyers turned from tables or hid with sellers. Arms snuck around torsos, rebels to be reckoned with towed frailer, smaller Folk behind their bulk. All as silent as the echo of Lou's boots on the pottery.
"Ule." The Apex Predator who transfixed the Grout Market surged another step, then another with each ragged breath torn and cauterized from his open mouth.
"Caleb. Thank the gods." Lou whispered into his comm. "Primary objective. We are taking Mauthisen home."
The casual grin Lou wore receded for the twitch of worry which coated him at the grotesque sight. The quiver of Caleb's shoulders, round and gawking fear in the huddled Folk's eyes sobered any joviality out of him. At the grunted order, the Enomotia fanned out, their unmasked mouths taut, visors down, posture hard as the order would be to follow.
Down to a soldier, the onslaught's aftermath in Vancouver imprinted in their minds. At the best of times, Caleb Mauthisen was an ally and fair Judge, the outsider who knew to trust their aim. One of the satellites to Lou's planetary motion. Lou breathed deep and slow, prayed this wasn't the day they experienced Caleb's worst.
“Where is Ule?” The rumble groaned into the skins of vendors and purchasers alike. The reprobates and rebellious, quaking and the brave. Lou's Enomotia moved through the bundles of Folk, weapons down. The roar of Ule’s name undulated through the microcosm; where was the one who proved the impossible? Where was the man who broke from the Truce? Lou wove his way through the shivering throng, Minitron at his right. Both men kept their hands open as Lou fought with the instinct to rush the Nordic demi-god.
If he was this trashed, Caleb would likely act on instinct and flinch.
A flinch powerful enough to annihilate the entire marketplace and everyone in it.
"Caleb. Cale!" Lou tried to reach Caleb's peripheral vision, not surprise the demi-god who wafted with strong whiskey and uncontainable power.
“Not here, Judge.” A crocodile-headed Kehmeti man squared his shoulders, stepped into the rapidly cleared path on Caleb’s vector. Lou swore under his breath and paced faster through the crowd, shoulder in to break up the ones who didn't disperse at his footsteps. "Not that we would tell you if he were."
”Someone knows.” Caleb staggered into the corner of Auntie Maia’s stall, bloodshot eyes flickered to the form of the Pleiades sister stock still, clutching the bag of crushed leaves to her sari-clad chest. “Where is Ule!?”
”What do you want with a dead man?” The crocodile gnashed his teeth, postured and jerked his arm to call the predator in the Judge to him, call the threat forward. Away. Frigging idiot, Lou almost yelled at the man to stand down. He shoved past a stall kept by a trio of Changelings, who sunk under their tables, jostled their merchandise. Sick fucks.
”I let you exist. Left your sellers in peace, took the neutrality of the Grout Market as my gospel and you can’t even look at me.” Caleb staggered away from the width of Maia’s eyes, from the skitter of feet behind solid objects. “I smell you. Sense your breath on the planet’s winds and breezes. Every blip, every flicker of magic in Midgard lights up the back of my skull, tempers the currents and tugs at ley lines, I feel every incursion, every spell, every enchantment, and to most, I show mercy.”
Caleb reached toward a pixie hidden poorly behind a slip of newsprint. The crouching violet shrieked and launched behind a domovoi and his dvorovoi brother, who let his flask of vodka rise to his lips.
“I show so much mercy." The Judge rasped from a haggard throat, fatigue and desperation clung to his vocal cords. "Where’s mine?”
The dvorovoi looked Caleb in the eye, a feat possible only by the equalization of scale in the macrocosmic space, grunted, and offered him the flask.
“Lad, nyet.” His brother whispered harsh to the stillness, the baited breaths of Folk hostage to their fears.
Same as a struggling soldier, all Lou needed was to connect and talk Caleb down, take the coiled-up energy somewhere it could be released in private. In safety and the company of friends. Lou could take the tremulous squall of Caleb's emotions if only he got to the divinity without spooking him.
“The man lost his wife. He needs it more than me.” Lad shrugged as he backed away until his brother's hand connected with his spine.
”Spaciba.” Caleb wove his fingers around the flask and poured a long drag down his throat, before offering it back to the unhoused yard spirit.
Lad shook his head. "Keep it. Lada's vodka is good shit."
The crowd of witnesses suspended in agonic fear. Their frightened eyes gnawed at the grief tainting their Judge and executioner, the peacemaker who cared so little for cantrips and minor magics he left the majority of them be.
“Wife?” The crocodile clacked his long jaws.
“Tuija Draganova is dead. I knew her, she was always good for a story around the fire." Lad's gaze flickered from Caleb to Lou in his Kopis Industries armour. The dvorovoi stiffened with a held breath and nudged his brother behind him.
"Give me Ule.” Caleb stepped with footfalls which shook the world hours prior. A slim few days before, when Zeus was captured and the enemy who torched the Sacred Groves was cast into the roots of Yggdrasil. The tide of whispers crashed in Lou's ears then faded to the same dumb-faced silence of the ignorant and profane. Those who knew Tuija balked in the paces of a heart-wrenched shock, others took their chances to follow the brave who ran despite the firearm clenched in the Judge's hand. Despite the Kopis Enomotia yanking confirmed Three Strikes into shackles.
“Why?” The Seer stood with the soft jingling of beads and coins, which hid her reptilian visage. Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”
”Out.” Caleb surged forward another few devastating steps to the centre of the Market. “I want out.”
"We'll find a way out when you come home, Caleb." Lou stepped forward, both palms open and up, then outward as if ready to catch him from his emotional freefall. "See me? Hey, it's ya Lou. You with us, mate? Eyes here, not at any of them, look at me."
"... you're a few days late." Caleb's five syllables struck like staccato bullets and twisted Lou's gut with the vision of Icarus and Seraya's bloodshot and tear-stained eyes. Tuija was not the first soldier lost in battle, but her absence tore at those Lou loved. The way they clung together after Icarus, for once, didn't have an answer. Didn't know what to do...
"Yeah, I was. Wanna talk about it? Come on. You're scaring people, that's not what you want, is it?" Lou stared into Caleb's wounded eyes, rimmed with red until inflamed skin shone a ruddy hew. "Let's go home."
"They've always been afraid of me." Caleb twitched, a slow shake of his head.
"It's not fair, I know. Come with me, and we'll take you somewhere we can talk, alright? Get you a cup of coffee, eh? Caleb. Your answer is yes." Close enough now, Lou offered his hand to the swaying demi-god, eyes locked on Caleb's shoulders. Anything that could give Lou an indication of Caleb's next motion. "Hand me your pistol. We're gonna jet."
Caleb stared at Lou's palm as if it were an alien invention, the hand of a deity he never knew, or the byproduct of too many stars. The weight of the 357 magnum lowered Lou's hand. He checked the safety by feel, eyes never leaving Caleb's swaggering body. The slackness of Caleb's jaw. Handing the loaded gun behind him to Minitron, Lou kept his arms open, stance secure. The waft of vodka clung to the Judge's clothing, the same battle wear Ares gave him to retrieve Zeus and Tuija. Stained, battered, the damn man never even changed. "Alright. Thank you, now. Let's go."
"I need to find Ule."
"You need to go somewhere we can find Ule together, right?"
'Tell him I got a lead. Leander, tell him.' Icarus' voice in Lou's ear comm was as tense as the arid heat inside the Grout Market's transient location. Lou reached for Caleb's arm, and when he found no resistance, held onto Caleb's wrist to keep the demi-god steady. He maneuvered Caleb shoulder to shoulder, put his arm around the man and turned to walk bold and straight to the edge of the market. Before he could take Caleb another step, a tiny voice cleared its throat.
”I don't know where Ule is, but I know how he got there.” The spirit who came forward was neither mighty nor given to be bold. A sprite innocent of nothing, instead clever and sour.
“No! Don’t.” The Seer reached, as the sprite passed by the brawn of the crocodilic kehmeti to stand in front of Lou and the Judge. Lou tensed his arm on Caleb's shoulder, as his squad raised their weapons.
She bit her lip and skittered forward a step with both palms raised, "It's in my coat pocket. He gave it to me for safekeeping. You can have it."
"If he leaves, who protects us?" Once more the Seer, her scaled hand reached and missed the trot of the deposed goddess's feet. "Ninimma!"
"Stop." Lou barked, curling Caleb behind him. Six of the Enomotia rounded on Ninimma, guns raised. "Fowler, Barda. Which coat pocket? Trick us and you're invited to a lead confetti convention."
Ninimma nodded to the left, and Barda pulled loose a leather-bound journal. "That's it, what Ule found. The rest is up to you."
"Stop, you can't give..."
"Do not damage this calm, Seer. You are allowed to function for now, but mistake none of what I say, you push too hard or go too far and the Grout Market will be disbanded into broken tables and Three Strikes punished according to their crimes. The Judge is coming with us. Anyone care to get in the way of the First Enomotia of Kopis' Primo Morae!?" Lou boomed across the crowd, locked eyes with the Kehmeti crocodilian, the Seer, anyone standing or defiant. "I didn't think so. Out of our way. Now!"
The path parted, Caleb stepped on autopilot with Lou's arm around his shoulders, the other hand firm on Caleb's bicep. The idea he should cuff the demi-god for containment's sake eeked into Lou's mind and was dashed. Optics of cuffing the Judge settled ill with the potential for the act to rile Caleb up. Make him feel cornered. No, every instinct in Lou's gut reinforced his hold on the other man. They got to the jagged edge of the broken pottery vessel the Grout Market nestled within, and Lou breathed deep.
"S'go, ya pain in my ass."
Another pepper of voices, the rocking wave of stillness broke and Folk vaulted back into the macrocosmic world of an alleyway in a part of Tel Aviv as ancient as their fears.
