Insanity and Mexico

I think my wife is nuts. I mean it. There's something wrong with her. She made a deal with Dionysus. I mean, okay, she could have made a worse deal, but that guy bothers me. I don't like anyone who can get me drunk.

Anyways, I won't blame her. I mean, she was just trying to feed a few hundred people--and unlike Jesus she can't break a loaf of bread into 200 people's worth of food.

Besides, she's hardly the craziest bitch I know. There's Erzulie for that. After months of harassment by the furies on her behalf and the lingering steal-your-baby threat, the minute we get back from Guinee with Marie's ghost, this woman shows up in our house acting like we're best of friends. Bitch even polished off the green tea.

On the bright side, since she's playing nice, Laurel's apparently gotten her little "murderer" label removed--of which I'm appreciative--but has also learned that apparently the last little fury, the one that hasn't visited her yet, holds a grudge. But, you know what? I'd bet Laurel can take her. And if she tries coming after our friends, they'll smack her down. And if she tries coming after our kids, Jack will show her what's what.

Yeah, I tracked Jack down (by which I mean I called him and dropped by his place to chat) and got him to agree to take care of our kids. It was vaguely guilt-trip-ish. I mentioned how the only other person we could really ask was my mother who would be woefully unprepared for the danger associated with raising another scion, much less a pair of them. He gave me some crap about how they'd have to work the ranch and shit, and frankly I didn't much care, I know he won't be abusive to them, I know he'll be able to keep them in line, and I know he'll be able to keep them alive.

I'm glad Laurel suggested talking to him.

But what got me is that he has a fucking griffon. I could tell he was trying to keep the thing out of sight (it was several miles away) but that didn't stop me from noticing. I didn't say anything since I'm not a fan of provoking people's paranoia, but when we come back with the kids, I'm totally demanding a ride.

Anyways, his ranch is out in middle-of-no-where Mexico, so it will at least be pretty secluded for the kids to grow up and discover their amazing super powers.

... Damn, I'm out of ways to stall. I finished learning German already and I still have twenty minutes before we touch down in Deutschland. I'm on my way in because apparently Laurel needs another set of eyes. Pardon, apparently Laurel needs my set of eyes. Also, I hear I have a cousin of sorts in the area. A scion of Loki. I've promised to not necessarily kill him. I was a little offended when Laurel asked me to promise that--I haven't once attacked Sly with the intention to kill him. I've rather nearly attacked him with the intention to seriously injure on several occasions though.

...I need to make sure he hasn't moved out of that address he gave me in Chicago. I'll have to keep a mental note to pay him a visit next time I'm in town.

Guinee Part 2

So we're in the boat, descending into the deep. And a bunch of fish come and start eating up the memories of the dead people who still have them. They also start kind of crowding around Laurel and I, which creeped me out a bit. That is until Jaws rammed a hole in the boat and a fucking siren (I believe Laurel prefers the term 'sea hooker') started luring us all out the hole. Well, she lured us out until Laurel chopped her in half.

I love my wife.

But yeah, so then there were these weird five-handed sea monkeys that went after the memory fish. But we were a little preoccupied with the delusion that we could hurt this shark. After a little while we realized how futile that was and went back inside to find almost all the memory fish gone and their sea-monkey attackers already in retreat. I went up on deck and found a whole bunch of Nommo doing combat with the ship's crew. Augwe seemed like he'd really rather be fighting than steering the damn ship, so I relieved him of his duties and steered the enormous under-water sail boat (with a bit of help from Laurel) . 

It didn't take long for the fight to end, really. And once it was over we pretty much just kept on going down. The ghosts, no longer with any memories, went back to partying, and eventually a giant crab indicated that it was time to get off by means of giant fucking pincer clamp. Before we got off, though, Augwe mentioned that, oh by the way, he's Erzulie's husband and he's rather acutely aware of why we're down here. Oh really!? Why didn't you tell us sooner Augwe? Like when we saw you on the surface and you could have not put us in the awkward position of wondering whether we were about to be stranded at the bottom of the ocean in hostile territory!

The prick.

Anyways, he let us leave, and we swam down a tunnel. And then kept swimming down the tunnel. And there was some more swimming down the tunnel after that. Then we finally got to Guinee--a big ol' city full of dead people, and almost every one of them partying down. I'm actually getting pretty lazy here, so I'm going to skip the boring parts.

Long story short, we swim around looking for the Baron, we run into Bridgitte (who is still cool), we meet some lady with a name I never quite got the spelling of, and then the entire city is royally boned by a massive sea-snake (eel, whatever) and his side-kick the pirate squid. I'm serious, this shit sounds like a bad plot to a kid's movie. Like a bad plot to a bad kid's movie at that--the good guys lost. And I'm not joking here. They plowed huge troughs through the city, raked up ghosts onto that ship, and kicked the shit out of Baron Samedi. Oh yeah, and me? I was pretty much useless. The only thing I found that I could actually effect in any meaningful way was the boat... and it healed! Who makes boats that heal their wounds at noticeable rates!? (Then again, who makes sail-boats that work under water?)

Once again. Whatever.

The important part of all this was that we lost them. Victor and Sarah. We lost them. I'll be honest, I'm not exactly a man pure of heart. By the age of twenty five I'd killed seven people (well, mortally wounded. I hardly bothered to make sure they were dead.) And to this day I really don't feel bad about Victor. I seem to remember promising to break his arms and shoot him in the head. So I really didn't care less that he was gone--except that he was supposed to be part of the bargaining chip (which still seems kind of wrong) for getting Marie. But that aside Sarah was gone. Fuck me, I just can't really protect people. I mean it just seems weird. In my mundane life I was almost the ultimate protector of people. I would go to incredible lengths and brave incredible dangers just to save people's lives. And I always succeeded. But it's starting to get to the point that things are just spiraling completely out of my league. I mean I've failed this woman twice now, and I've spent a total of about 90 hours in her presence--living and otherwise.

I mean, I can see the danger coming from miles away, but I can't seem to do anything about it. Maybe I should go do some push-ups. At least it'll get my mind off this shit.

Note

By the way, to anyone who may be reading my journal, just imagine my life like a cross between Edith Hamilton's mythology (look that shit up) and Enter Sandman by Metallica.

Also, fuck you! Put my journal down!

Guinee Part 1

So I just got back from a magical underwater land where dead people spend eternity getting wasted and partying down. I gave my mom a call to tell her I was back and doing well, but the conversation went sort of like this.

Me: "Hey mom. I'm back fro--"

Mom: "I don't really want to know."

Me: "Is something wrong?"

Mom: "No, actually things have been very nice since I saw your father again and since the wedding... but I just don't want to have to worry about you anymore. My doctor told me I shouldn't get my blood pressure up too much."

Me: "Sure thing mom."

So, yeah, I guess out of respect for not giving my mother heart attacks, I'm stuck with this journal thing.

Whatever.

So Laurel and I decided to finally head down to Guinee--the Loa underworld-- and get back the ghost of Marie Glapion, this woman that Laurel shot in the face in an attempt--successful attempt I should add--to save Nate's life.

Short version of the following story: I was useless, Laurel did everything.

Long version of the story: I was useless, but I got to steer a fucking tri-mast frigate under water! while Laurel did everything.

So we got ourselves ready to go. Apparently Apollo had given Laurel a ring ahead of time so she'd be able to survive deep underwater. I, however, had no such ring and had to bring a nommo eye--and hold it in my mouth for almost four days. In the mean time Laurel got to wear a wet suit--which I should add are rather form fitting and attractive--while I got to look like aqua-man's half-shark cousin.

We went to Bridgitte's grave in New Orleans, Laurel did a little marking on the tombstone, and we were in the water. Then Augwe came by in Imamu--the aforementioned tri-mast frigate--and plucked us out of the water for the trip down to Guinee. Below decks there was a party. A serious party. The kind of party where if you're not having a good time, there must be something seriously wrong with you (or I guess you could just not like parties--but I think that means that there's something wrong with you.) But as the ship started to dive--yeah, like a fucking submarine--I started to be able to see all the ghosts and stuff.

Now, before we'd left Berkeley, we'd gotten a bit of a present from Camilla. The present was a pair of scion souls from her dad that we could exchange for Marie when we got to Guinee--how sweet. I couldn't see them then, but Laurel said it was some guy and some gal, and the guy was Victor Fingers. So I didn't feel too perturbed. But when I started being able to see the ghosts on the ship I saw her... and it was someone I recognized. It was, in fact, the first innocent person (maybe innocent doesn't apply, but the term 'good guy' certainly would have) I ever saw die right in front of me. I'd seen plenty of people die before that--but they were always gangsters, drug cartel gunmen, professional hit men, or the like. But on my way to Vegas, on my way to meet my dad for the first time, I met this woman Sarah who seemed really sweet and intelligent--even if she was dressed a bit like Xena, Warrior Princess at the time.

She and I fought a big, Japanese demon together that tried to kill us and blew up a gas station. We drove together for about three days in search of her owl and then on the way to Vegas. We even stopped together at a hospital for some much needed demon-related treatment. I mean, we were hardly best friends, but I was getting to think she was someone I could consider friendly--and trust me that list was pretty short at the time. But just a little ways outside of Vegas we come upon this huge car accident... and while we're getting out to see what's going on these fucking shadow-ninja-things (shinobi) come out of basically everywhere and start attacking us. They killed her. And in cold blood. I fought as hard as I could, but I wasn't prepared for this nonsense, and I couldn't save her. What almost hurt more was the look on her mother's face. She was a daughter of Athena (adoptive, obviously) and her mother arrived in person to collect the body. And she was obviously heart-broken. I swear, you can tell people who say Steel Magnolias is sad to sit on it and spin. You don't know real sadness till you see it face to face in the eyes of a mother who has just discovered her child's corpse.

Anyways, I guess I'd never really realized until I saw Sarah's ghost there in that boat, chained to our little scroll case, waiting to be traded for Marie, just how much it had hurt me and just how much it had pissed me off. And what was worse was that she didn't remember. She didn't remember anything. Nothing I could do or say to her seemed to call back to her mind anything I could relate to, any way I could tell her I was sorry for letting that happen--for not seeing that trap coming and throwing that car into reverse so hard the world spun the other way around. I couldn't do shit.

I decided two things right then and there. The first one was that when Laurel and I make our own pantheon--no one forgets. She had the same thought. That's always a good sign.

The other thing I decided though is something a little more serious. I mean, it was something I had known I was going to do anyways, but now it's on the list. It is a 100% clarified goal in my life to hunt down Kane Taoka and exact upon him the most horrible of pains before he dies--and just as he does die to tie his eternal soul to a fucking television set and turn that tv onto a fucking Barnie the Dinosaur marathon, then lock that television in the most remote room of the most remote building in the most remote area of the hardest-to-find extra-dimensional space in the entire universe--lock the fucking door and melt the key down into a necklace. For, if there is a worse fate than an eternity of the most superficial, pseudo-optimistic tripe to have ever been produced by man kind, I'm yet to hear of it.

Fuck.

Ixion, Dragon, Wedding

So, I'm writing this almost a month after the fact, so if I just plain don't bother with a couple of details my non-existent shrink can sue me.

Turns out the kids in Berkley were fine. By that I mean that they were under attack, and Brendan Gair nearly died, but Hercules and Apollo showed up to save the day. Gair lived. They were attacked by Ixion, it seems, along with a pack of mechanized wolves with chain-saw mouths. It sounds pretty ridiculous, I suppose, but that's what they were. Hercules showed up because his son Alex was there--having arrived after surviving a similar attack that took the lives of his brother and mother. Pretty harsh.

In any case, the kids are starting their own scion-y work now. Apollo's asked a favor of them, so they're running around doing stuff. We got a post-card from Susan from China the other day. Hercules is with them too. He's apparently ditched Olympus because he's sick of their nonsense, and he's spending all his time with his remaining son. My kind of guy. I had a chat with him, and I think I can count on him to make the right choices when the time comes. Or, at least try to. He's only so bright.

Hercules and Apollo weren't the only guest appearances though. Some scion of the Morrigan named Ciara showed up too. She's... interesting. She's been sent to make sure we take care of the eye post-haste, and seems pretty intent on following out her orders. At the same time she's sort of invading our personal space here. I mean, she was sleeping in her car, parked in our drive-way, when we got back to Berkeley. On the other hand, she helped save the kids before the big-guns showed up, so we have to give her some credit. There's more to that story, but it comes later.

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So we started trying to fix the house up--important stuff like doors and a roof first--but didn't get very far. Laurel and I were intent on getting hitched now while we had what looked like a bit of down time. Of course, neither of us had really informed our fathers on this subject much yet, so we got to have some various forms of "the talk." Apparently Apollo thinks I'm alright, at least now that I've stared him in the eye like a man ready to die and basically told him I didn't care much what he thought so long as Laurel was happy. Alright, I didn't say it quite like that, but he's a smart guy--he can read between the lines.

In any case, Laurel and I were running around getting stuff ready. Jack and I took a job to pay a couple of bills with. And then, less than a week before he wedding I walk into my mom's house in Chicago to find Dwarves running about doing chores and my parents sitting at the kitchen table having an endearing chat. You know, like 'normal' families. I swear, if I were still a teen-ager, I would consider myself officially scarred.

So Dad tells me there's something I've gotta do before the wedding, so I think this thing is all important and stuff. Then he tells me he wants me to test out this dungeon thing he's building. To see if it's idiot-proof, I guess. I mean, if you're building a giant, underground, invisible prison to hold--I'm just guessing here--titans, and your kid whose still got more blood than ichor can break into it, you're pretty pathetic. My dad, however, is not pathetic. I couldn't really get in. Even with Jack and Nate helping me out I had trouble just getting to a decoy room. I never did fight the dragon. And francois is a punk.

So the guys and I head off to the bachelor party. A baseball game and a supernatural strip joint. I was more excited about the game. Jack, on the other hand, might have nearly been eaten alive. All I know is I saw him take what was obviously not your average stripper off to a back room, then about a minute later she came running out scared out of her mind. I took pictures and sent them to Laurel. Apparently she was busy being called a slut by Aphrodite. Apparently Aphrodite's a bitch.

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Day of the wedding finally came, and we were running around getting stuff ready when the wedding planner called to say she had to cancel due to a death in the family--totally understandable. Sucks to be her. So we had to go get the cake, the food, and the flowers. Nate and Ciara offered to go get the cake and the flowers while I was off to get the food. There was apparently some bad traffic. I didn't notice. However I heard on the radio that there was some kind of cattle drive down-town. Cattle drive? In Chicago? On a city street? The day of my wedding? My dad is ridiculously out of touch.

Sure enough, when I get back to the church with the food three score head of golden Yaks are on the lawn and I hear my dad saying something to Apollo like "I hear that someone stole your cattle." I swear I wanted to yell at my dad 'THAT WAS TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO!' But I had other shit to worry about. Like the news vans. That's right, news vans. And some dude apparently named Thad who jumped out of one of them, pointed straight at us--or possibly just Jack--and yelled "there they are!" Nate and I were about to pummel this Thad guy--who was apparently crashing MY wedding to get at NATE (really, incredibly bad idea)--when Ciara was nice enough to take care of the news people by pretending to be a jumper. That sealed it, she was on the 'kinda cool' list. Yeah, I keep lists. No, I don't wanna write about it.

Anyways, we finally manage to get things more or less in order when I get a picture message from Laurel of her forehead with the word "MURDERER" carved in it and just the caption "Scary Mary says hi. Didn't want to surprise you at the altar." Awesome. Simply deciding not to deal with that, I get inside and try to make sure that things are getting settled down. That is, until Artemis shows up with The Situation on her arm. Yes The Situation. And guess who he is? Dio-fucking-nysus. I mean, weddings are family affairs right? It makes sense that he came. It's just really not a good sign. Then Zeus and Hera show up--forgot to mention, Hera's doing the ceremony by her own decree--and a bunch of toga-clad people start redecorating the place. Yeah. I'm gunna love the in-laws.

Then there's a crack of lightning and Odin and Frigg just sort of appear in their seats. And, finally, we are ready to get under way. The ceremony actually went alright. Susan was the flower girl, Nevermore the ring bearer, and the ceremonial dagger with which we spilt our blood/ichor together in a ritual binding by Hera to ensure our fidelity throughout the ages was only about half as cheesy and unexpected as one would think something like that would be. I mean, at least I kind of saw it coming.

The reception was cool. I don't really remember all of it. I got drunk. Was kind of a new feeling. Apparently being drunk is really, incredibly inconvenient. You can't quite think properly, you laugh a little too loudly even after you realize you're doing it, and every time you stand up the room moves rather violently. I had never been drunk in my entire life, no matter how much I drank. I blame Dionysus. Prick.

The wedding presents were the best part, though. Among them, Artemis gave us an Astrolabe with some rather amazing powers (it's an Astrolabe of the universe--screw solar systems), Frigg gave Laurel a glimpse of the future as it revolves around our relationship (apparently I might be eaten by the world serpent, who knew), and Ciara gave us a Blentech blender with a card that said "For the disposal of your foes and the perfection of your patience." That blender is the shit. Did you know it can blend a garden rake? Seriously--the shit.

Anyways, Laurel and I went on our honeymoon and have since gotten back. There's been some negotiation regarding storing the eye in dad's big prison thing. But we are waiting on them to finish it. Ciara and Brendan just flew off to Germany on some errand, Jack said he was getting out of the business and walked off into the sunset like fucking John Wayne, and Camilla has been off doing gods-know-what. You'd be surprised how good you can get at Parcheesi in a month.

Laurel and I are planning to head to Guinee to take care of the Glapion situation as soon as the eye is locked away safely. It'll be nice to get them both out from over our heads.

Oh yeah, and Laurel's having twins. She told me the next morning after our wedding night. I still want to know how the hell she can know that. Also, what luck. Second fucking time. Whatever, I like kids. We just need to find someone to take care of them who doesn't have a full-time job saving the world... do I even know anyone like that?

Chicago

So, as a catch-up note, I guess I should mention that the Morrigan also put us in charge of sealing up Balor's Eye. By "put us in charge" I mean that she bound us to the task through magic. It's not like we wouldn't have done it anyways. Still, I nearly had to beat up a customs agent to get the damn three hundred pound rock from Ireland to the states.

In any case though, three of us, Jack, Laurel, and I, were high-tailing it back to my home-town of Chicago to rescue my mom from Victor. The other three, Nate, Brendan, and Camilla, were heading to Berkeley to find out what was wrong with the kids that have been crashing at Laurel's house--which includes her half-sister and her adopted son among others.

I havn't heard from those that headed to California yet, but I'm hoping they found things in good order. We certainly didn't here in Chicago.

When I landed I tried to give Victor a call to make sure he didn't start doing anything particularly stupid, but he didn't pick up. So I left him a voicemail. When I got on to my mom's street I tried calling him again. Nothing. When I opened up the front door of her house I found out one reason he might not be picking up the phone. My mom was right inside, bound and gagged on a chair, each leg of which was sitting on the activation pin for a different military-grade land mine. My mom, of course, starts trying to yell something through her gag. "It's a trap" I imagine her saying, so I don't bother ungagging her immediately. We knew it was a trap. First Jack checked the house, but no one else was there. So I ungagged her.

"I'm not your mother!" I hear a slimy bastard in the form of my mother say. That slimy bastard is Sylvester, or Sly. He's Loki's kid. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. ...Okay that's a poor expression to use because he's pretty light and I've got a good arm, but the idea's there.

"Where's my mother?"
"I don't know. Victor kidnapped her, then he beat me up, tied me to this chair, made me look like your mom, then set me up on some landmines."
Laurel used some powers she has to ensure that if the mines went off Sly and I would be a bit less likely to be blown completely to kingdom-come.
"Alright, Sly, I'm going to try to defuse the mines." Jack and Laurel waited outside--Laurel very reluctantly. Jack actually let me wear the Armor of Achilles while I was at it, too. Every once in a while he does things that actually make him seem less like an asshole.

I nearly botched the first mine, but turns out it really is the red wire. I did the other three the same way, and we were free to breath again. So then we started looking around the house for clues about where my mom had been taken. The place was a mess--signs of struggle everywhere like a path of destruction from the kitchen to the front door. I couldn't get where they'd gone once they were out of the house though. Luckily Nevermore could. He tracked them straight across the street to a neighbor's house.

Like I said, Victor's pretty fucking dumb.

So I decide to knock on the neighbor's door. I can hear voices inside, but can't tell what they're saying. I knock some more, and still hear talking. I knock more, still no one opens the door. So I open the door. And what I found really pissed me off.

First thing I notice is the dozen corpses. At first they looked like homeless people, but then I realized that was just the clothes. These were werewolves. In their midst was Victor. His arms were missing. So were his possessions. And in his chest there was a big I carved. Yeah. Carved.

Sitting in the middle of this room on four chairs were my mom and three Dwarves. I'm not talking mini-me type of dwarves, I'm talking about the kind of Dwarves that can drink you under the table, beat up your dad, and then personally forge an axe to finish you off with if they really want to. They're on our side though. Always good to know.

The four of them were hostages, so we went to untie them. My mother, of course, exploded in tears and Spanish. She had no idea what was going on, she was scared, she had been trapped in this room with a trio of very intimidating fellow hostages surrounded by corpses for three days... she was beyond my ability to help. I was going to appeal to Laurel when Jack stepped in and went super-powered school counselor on us. He took her to the kitchen and within the minute I could hear her talking to him calmly. Freaking amazing. Anyways, I asked the Dwarves what really happened. They told me that a guy wearing a coat made of human flesh and followed by a group of mechanical wolves busted in here not long after Victor set up his little trap, and they killed him and his werewolf lackeys. Then the guy looted him, carved the I in his chest, and just ripped his arms off with a comment like "I can't wait do add these."

Wonderful. We're pretty sure this is probably the same person who has been responsible for the MENSA murders, and for the hacking of Watson, the computer A.I. in California. We don't know what's going on with this guy, but we know it's gotta be bad. Laurel has a theory involving golems. I don't really like the sound of that, myself.

All of this crap frustrated me enough that I went on and shot Victor in the head after all. Such massive incompetence should really be punishable by death. ...Come to think of it, I guess it is.

Mag Mel

So I jumped off the cliff.

Seemed like a good idea at the time. At least, it seemed like a perfectly unreasonable, but very satisfying, idea at the time--and that was good enough for me. I could hear Laurel yelling at me as I started falling, but after a moment that stopped. I wasn't in Ireland anymore. I had fallen into some field with lush greenery and five menacing, spear-wielding horsemen. Before I could really explain anything a woman showed up on a unicorn too. Yeah. That's right. A unicorn. And unicorn-lady, Cordelia, demanded to know what I was doing here. So I told her.

"I'm Gunnar, son of Heimdall, and I have come here to warn Manannan Mac'Lir that there will be another assault by the Fomorians within the week."

Then I mentioned something about Balor's Eye and everyone freaked out. Well, they backed up a fair bit. I was wondering what was taking the others so long right about the time that they finally fell out of mid-air next to me. Apparently an old acquaintance had shown up to tell Nate that he had told her to tell him to "Protect the Last Strand." Nate didn't remember this. We presume he will learn to time-travel eventually. That or the poor girl's insane. Either way, it's what had taken them so long.

So Cordelia decided to take the strange group of scions to her father, Manannan Mac'Lir, to deal with all these claims we were making. The whole of Mag Mel was gorgeous too. Beautiful plants, beautiful city, beautiful castle-thing. Well, okay, there was the southern 4/5ths of the place which we later discovered looked a bit like an over-grown cesspool, but the bit we were seeing then was nice and pretty. When we got to the castle though, Cordelia told us only one of us could talk to her dad. So we sent Nate. He's kind of a diplomat in that he's more talkative than Brendan and Camilla, more stately than Jack and Laurel, and a fair bit less of a confrontational bastard than I am sometimes.

Okay, most of the time.

Nate comes back out a few minutes later without the dreaded eye. Apparently Mac'Lir wasn't too happy to find out that it was out in the open and activated. In any case, most of us figured he was a better protector of it than we were. Apparently his recent battles had injured his eyes a bit, but I'm sure he would still be pretty effective at guarding it. Besides which, we were left to help the citizens of Mag Mel prepare for the coming battle ourselves. So we met with their leaders.

After a lot of discussion we decided to fight on two fronts. It was a mistake for Napoleon, it was a mistake for the Prussians, and it was a mistake for Hitler. But it was fucking brilliant for us.

The first front was a bridge between the part of the island that the Fomorians had taken over, and the "Last Strand" which is apparently the only thing keeping Mag Mel from floating off into darkness, forever lost to the void. Cheerful, huh?
The second front was a mountainous pass between the enemy and the city.
Then we came up with a pair of great plans. First of all, we started making preparations to light the bridge on fire during the battle. It would force the Fomorians to march through the fire, and with some careful tactics, to fight in it for some time. I wasn't on that battlefield during the battle, but I hear it helped a fair bit. Still, the plan for the pass did a lot more damage to our enemies. Laurel and I actually spent days setting it up, and then just before the battle Jack, Nevermore--Laurel's British raven (don't ask)--and I had to set the thing off and high-tail it back to our positions.

It was a landslide. Two actually. One on each side of the pass. I took out at least half of the enemy forces going into the pass. I mean, it's a terrible thing to see people's houses broken apart or torn away by avalanches, but seeing a thousand or so hulking, murderous, boil-skinned monsters torn asunder is wonderful.

The battle went the way battles go. Armies advance, archers fire, armies clash, archers fire, armies are routed, archers fire, armies rally, archers fire, and somewhere amidst all of this a small group of cavalry, led by a woman on a unicorn, is completely ineffectual. I can't actually say much better for myself. I may have killed four or five Fomorians in the course of the battle. The bows they provided were not very powerful, and this magical realm made guns inoperable. Luckily, Jack took care of the actual winning part. I'm fairly sure that I saw him personally kill over two dozen Fomorians in a single minute at one point. He is a sight to behold sometimes.

I hear that the bridge fight was hardly so glamorous. They suffered some pretty heavy casualties, and weren't making much head-way. That is, apparently, until Manannan Mac'Lir turned into a giant octopus of water and simply hurled the bridge-full of Fomorians off into the void. Fuckers got what they deserved.

However, just before he did this the Fomorians had hurled out their insurance plan, it seems. An enormous carcass full of mind-controlling maggots. Laurel tells me that she barely shook off the spell they put her under, and she had to do everything in her power to help the others out.
I showed up--jumping over as fast as I could--just about the time that they were getting their heads back on straight. Also, just in time to see the weary and fatigued Manannan Mac'Lir pull himself up onto land only to be pierced through the chest by an arrow of Camilla's.

That's right. She just up and killed him. Right there in front of everyone. I'm not saying that I would have approved if she did it in secret, but I would have expected that she would do that sort of thing quietly, not in plain view of all of her supposed allies.

And I do mean supposed. I'm not sure I can trust someone who knocks people off just because someone told them to. Yeah, she was hired, basically. By her dad. Hades. But that bit comes later. At first it was just a matter of knocking unconscious all the poor mind-controlled soldiers.

Now, Nate had been consulting with Hachiman regarding trying to restore Mag Mel after the battle, and Hachiman and Mac'Lir had some meetings. But we really weren't sure what was going to be going on now. And we were especially confused since, just before the battle began, we spotted the Morrigan standing inside the city too. All I have to say about the Morrigan is that I don't trust people who are notoriously insane. So when we were getting back in the city, and saw Hachiman shaking hands with the Morrigan, I was not happy. Turns out they split the place in half.

Wonderful. I mean, I didn't like it, but what claim could I make to them doing otherwise? I'm just some kid. Hell, Hachiman told Hades, when he showed up to defend his daughter, that they would discuss further when they weren't in front of "the children." I understand that I'm no deity who has seen the passage of ages from Ulysses of Ithaca to Ulysses S. Grant, but I know an opportunist when I see one. I'm pretty well convinced that the Morrigan, and much more especially Hades, aren't in on this because they've got a soft spot in their hearts for helping the oppressed.

Anyway, there wasn't much we could do about it. Besides, we had a bit more on our minds. A couple of guys in the group had wards on Laurel's house in Berkeley that had started sounding alarms in their heads, and just before I'd come back in here for the last time Jack's half-brother Victor, a son of Ares, called me to tell me that he'd kidnapped my mother in order to get his armor back from Jack. Because that's the smart kind of guy Victor is. Jack had previously let Victor live after a confrontation in which Victor tried to kill all of us, including Jack. However, rather than just trying to appeal to his half-brother in some more intelligent way, Victor kidnapped MY mother as leverage.

I was going to put an end to him with a fifty-caliber slug in Victor's head if he hurt my mother. I was going to break his arm as a simple lesson if he hadn't. When I found him he was dead, and had no arms.

Sometimes life's a bitch.