"Ania is here?" I asked, genuinely surprised.

  "Uh, duh," Jon said, sitting in the backseat. "Wasn't that part of your master plan?"

  "The assumption I have a master plan seems to be the place where you start being wrong," I said, sighing. "I thought Susanos had a master plan."

  I probably should have seen it coming since I'd sent out a message right before I'd left. If I'd been thinking, which I hadn't been, I probably would have realized there was no way that Ania would just let me go off on her own. There was no way that Agata and Bloodstorm would go with a new baby on the way, though. Which was a good thing since I'd already gotten most of my team killed here.

  "Yeah, she did," Rachel said, looking out the window as the car took us out into the night of Washington D.C. "However, her plan was to try to sacrifice all of us to hurt Veles. Victory was incidental to making him pay."

  Washington D.C looked like a ghost town, and I couldn't help but wonder what everyone was feeling. They'd been dealing with this craziness for the better part of ten years, but it had been under the carefully controlled influence of, well, the God of Evil. I'd seen some crooked politicians and celebrities influence people to do things but none of them had a candle to Veles.

  "I guess I was just expecting more than just 'beware the wrath of a woman scorned'," I said, shrugging. "It seems a bit disappointing."

  I admit, I'd been kind of expecting some devious master plan and cold blooded ruthlessness instead of just throwing us as meat to the grinder.

  "Yeah, you forgot one small detail," Rachel said, surprising me by actually getting into her insights. Which I should have been paying attention to from the beginning. After all, she was a goddess of war.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "Susanos was, is probably, evil," Rachel said. "Like, really, really evil."

  "I didn't forget that," I said, confused.

  "Didn't you?" Rachel asked. "Because there's something rather important to remember about dealing with narcissistic sociopaths, especially undead ones. Something that Susanos would definitely qualify as: they don't care about other people."

  "Why must the hot ones always be so evil?" Jon lamented.

  Rachel gave him a dirty look. "Specifically, Aaron, this was always going to be about wounded pride and power lust rather than saving the universe."

  "Even when the universe is where we keep our stuff," Jon said, making a The Tick reference.

  I shrugged, not entirely convinced. "I suppose it still felt a bit beneath them both."

  "Not every villain is Magneto or Saruman, Aaron," Jon said. "There's not some tragic dignity to them. More often, they're just assholes about windmills because some were obstructing their view of their golf course. Which I just realized is an incredibly outdated political reference these days. Probably about as much as 'I am not a crook' these days."

  I ignored Jon. "I dunno, there just felt like there was something so incredibly performative about it. Like the two of them were acting out a scene--"

  "For the Netflix adaptation?" Jon asked. "I admit, the thought did occur to me. Let's be honest, except for Agata and Ania, Larry C.C. Weis straight up can't write women. I mean, we can argue about Maria but then he made her a vampire hooker. Which, fair enough, was a twist."

  I grimaced. "Yeah, that is not a conversation I'm looking forward to."

  "Maria had a year to get back in touch with Ania," Rachel said, simply. "Possibly more. Ania was a public figure at Dragon Keep. Maelor obviously knew where she was the entire time. Instead, Maria spent her entire time working on revenge. First against the late Mad Queen and later against Veles."

  "It's like Lady Stoneheart," Jon said, shrugging. "There's no way that final confrontation will end well for Catelyn and the girls."

  I sighed. "You do realize that this isn't a book anymore, Jon, right? Larry is dead. No one is penning this."

  "Maybe," Rachel said, surprising me by responding. "The power of narrative was something that the Wise Man worked many powerful magics into the world with. It was why he was so dedicated to the idea of making champions."

  I'd heard a lot about this so-called, 'gods are made of stories' thing and the power of storytelling. So far, I hadn't seen any evidence it was real. Funny how you could have visible proof about the existence of magic and gods, there were still things that I found to be utterly ridiculous.

  Part of the reason was because so many other so-called Chosen Ones had fallen before me. People like Francine and Jon had given their lives to stop Veles only to have their place in the so-called story replaced with someone new. Heroes that turned out to be utterly interchangeable as far as the narrative was concerned. It sickened me. There was no plot armor, no contrivance, that made them immune to a meaningless death.

  Hell, the entirety of this journey had begun with the fact Garland had unexpectedly died at the hands of his fellows with no one able to resurrect him. With him not wanting to be resurrected. Meeting the man had also exposed me to the fact that he was just another person stuck with an impossible task. I wish I'd gotten a chance to know him better but, well, that wasn't going to happen.

  "Right," I muttered.

  "I see you're skeptical," Rachel said.

  "No shit," I replied.

  "Prophecies are less like absolutes and more like instructions," Rachel said, looking at me. "Even when you can see the future. The Wise Man saw a probable way to Veles defeat and did his best to try to navigate matters to that conclusion. The problem is that Veles also saw that very possibility and has been throwing obstacles the entire way. But here you are, Aaron. You're alive and working against Veles while he's had his avatar severely damaged."

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "Honestly, I'm going to rule our first boss fight against Calamity Veles as mid," Jon said, making a Legend of Zelda reference. "In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say all of the previous Elemental Demon bosses were much better. What? Veles just shows up at a power plant and kills some of our crew then almost dies in an explosion? Mediocre."

  I took a deep breath. "Really not in the mood for joking about that, Jon."

  "Alek died nobly," Rachel said. "I believe he atoned for his past sins."

  "Nobily or not, he's still dead and I doubt there's anything left of him to resurrect," I said, wishing I'd never allied with Susanos and hoping that she was gone for good. "Why did you decide to ally with Susanos, anyway? You had to have seen this coming."

  Rachel paused as if considering how to explain. "That's a complicated question."

  "Is it?" I asked. "Because I know you're 90% Zorya Dawnbringer and 10% whatever fake memories that the Wise Man gave you when you were reborn."

  "Not fake memories," Rachel said. "Rachel Morning was woven into the timeline by the Fates. I had adoptive parents, friends, and a life before my truth was revealed to me."

  "She grew up in the Sky Academy, which is a place for gifted youngsters learning to use their powers for the greater good," Jon said. "Perfect for a YA series."

  "Except with more fucking," Rachel said, cheerfully.

  "No, that's still accurate," Jon said. "Have you read some of those books lately?"

  "You're dodging the question," I said, noting we were leaving the nicer parts of Washington D.C, such as they were, and heading into a part that looked significantly worse. It seemed President Veles' reign hadn't been overly concerned about making the lives of the average citizen better.

  Rachel took a deep breath. "This incarnation of me is softer and kinder than the previous Zorya. That has its downsides. For one, I came to cherish the people around me in a way that the warrior part of me never could."

  "Okay," I said, wondering where she was going with this.

  "You ask me why I chose to go with Susanos to fight Veles rather than my true companions," Rachel said, pausing. "Well, I think it is the same reason that you did: I did not want to lose the people I love."

  That was when our self-driving vehicle arrived at an incredibly seedy-looking hotel called THE SCARLET LADY. It was not just that it looked like it charged by the hour but that you should probably be paid to stay there It had a red neon sign with a couple of letters missing and a couple of guys with shotguns standing out front.

  "I think I visited this place in Cyber Dragons 2080," I muttered, looking around. "Is there any chance that our car will still be here when we get back?"

  "You have a very poor opinion of your fellow man," Rachel said, chidingly. "Also, I remind you this car is stolen in the first place."

  I blinked. "Oh, right. Nevermind."

  "Yeah, we can always steal another one," Jon said, cheerfully. "It's the circle of life, really."

  I shook my head. "Jon, how did you become who you are?"

  "It's amazing what dying and becoming a bird will do to your sense of propriety," Jon said, pausing. "No, wait, no, I was an asshole well before I died."

  Much to my surprise, the car actually found its own parking spot and shut down on its own. "I feel like we should name her Christine."

  "Don't name cars, Aaron," Jon said. "It gives them ideas."

  The three of us got out of the car and I struggled to figure out what I was going to day to Ania. There wasn't really a good excuse for what I'd done, and I was prepared to face the music for it. Well, probably. I had no idea how pissed off she was going to be and there really wasn't a measure that could be applied from my past. "It's not you, it's my enemies" was an excuse that only existed in superhero comics.

  The interior of the Scarlet Lady hotel wasn't any better than the exterior and I had to wonder just how bad things had gotten in America. I'd been so used to thinking of Mokosh as a fantasy land under the rule of a dark god that I hadn't ever given any thought to the idea that Earth might become Mordor.

  Either way, the place had ratty shag carpet that had all manner of stains on the floor and a kiosk that was protected by bullet proof glass. There was an old cement staircase leading up to the second floor and an elevator marked OUT OF ORDER. The smell of the place was, uh, incredible in the Death Star trash compactor sense.

  There were also people, lots and lots of people, of every variety of race with an oddball sense of mismatched fashion that reminded me a bit of Fallout. Almost everyone was armed, and I could feel the fear in their eyes. What they were discussing wasn't reassuring either and reminded me just what sort of consequences there were to my actions.

  "I heard it was terrorists," a woman in a black leather miniskirt and tank top said. "They destroyed the UMCs."

  "What terrorists would want to unleash a bunch of zombies on everyone else?" a blind man in a fedora said. Apparently, the UMCs were something that was supposed to keep them safe from the undead. How little they knew.

  "Who knows what terrorists want?" the woman in the miniskirt said. "I heard everyone in the Epic DungeoneeringTM building died instantly."

  I noticed she left off the trademark. Weird how I noticed that. The corporate culture had really done a number on me.

  "I heard it was every employee of Epic Dungeoneering everywhere," A third man, black and wearing a leather jacket with sunglasses, said. "Like somehow they were all killed instantly and turned into monsters. A bunch of government institutions like the FBI and CIA too. It can't be terrorists. Must be China."

  "You know this is a designated shelter during outbreaks of necrophagia?" Rachel asked. "I find that fascinating."

  "Huh," I said, surprised. "I wonder why they don't use churches."

  "Probably because Veles is taxing all the churches in America that haven't switched to worshiping him," Jon said. "Not literally but I doubt you'd find much difference in the doctrines of Supply Side Jesus and the God of Evil. The only people that should be bigger than Jesus are the Beatles, dammit."

  There was a surprising amount of bitterness in Jon's voice. I hadn't thought him religious in the slightest but there was a genuine offense at what Veles was apparently doing to America's religious community.

  "Aaron? Is that you?" an unexpected voice spoke through the crowd that reluctantly parted to reveal the white-haired figure of Pope Joan.

  Joan wasn't dressed like the Pope. Mythras or otherwise, though. Instead, she looked like a somewhat ganglier white-haired teenage girl with a prominent tooth. She'd hit a growth spurt since our association and was now dressed in the same sort of Neo-Eighties attire that seemed everywhere. In her case, she had ripped jeans, a t-shirt with a dead unicorn on it, and a jean jacket. She also had a bandana of all things. Seriously, it was like the guy directing The Warriors had started dressing everyone.

  She wasn't alone, though. Standing beside her was Sparky, also looking slightly older but that was difficult to judge when dealing with shapeshifters. In his case, he looked now like Joan and about sixteen years of age. He was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie with the words Michigan Ravens on it. A sports team that I'd never heard of.

  "You both came!" I said, hugging them both. "It's been so long."

  "Like a day," Joan said, confused by my public display of affection. "From your perspective at least."

  "But like six months for us," Joan said.

  "What?" I asked, confused. "How is that possible if you came here after me?"

  Joan shrugged. "Magic?"

  Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

  "Did you, uh, do the thing?" Sparky asked, making an explosion gesture. "Boom!"

  "Let's, uh, talk about that...upstairs?" I asked, not sure if they had a room here or what the situation was.

  "Backroom," Joan said, gesturing to the EMPLOYEES ONLY sign over a nearby door.

  "This is Ania's place," Sparky said.

  I blinked. "I think she could have probably invested better."

  "Why? It's got running water, toilets, and electricity," Joan said. "This place is a place. The servants don't even have to live here."

  "Huh," I said, acknowledging that one man's trash was another man's treasure. Then again, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed Mokosh nearly as much if not for CLEAN SELF cantrips.

  I followed them into the back room, which was a storage room, and I saw people I wasn't expecting waiting for me: Bloodstorm, Agata, Ania, and someone new. She was a blue haired, brown-skinned woman who was 5'10 and dressed in a blue robe with a witch's hat.

  Nightbringer.

  The new model.

  Damn.