Rock Hard (26 page)

“So the key has to be unearthed.” She understood the situation much better.

Marduk nodded. “And it has to be your brother or Enlil because they’re the only corporeal ones who can touch it once it is unearthed.”

“You gods are a complicated bunch.” Tess let the corners of her mouth twitch up when he looked at her. He wasn’t going to like her one bit for what she was going to do next. She reached her hands to the tail of his shirt.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Marduk flinched.

“I’m taking your shirt off so I can bind your wound.”

He exhaled as if in exasperation. “Not healing really sucks.” He raised his hands over his head, and Tess lifted as gently as possible, noting the twitching muscles that revealed his pain. Still, what a fine torso it was.
Not the time, Tess
.

She balled up and threw the destroyed shirt into the corner, rising from her seat and looking in the bucket that Dagon had used for water. Sure enough, there was an inch or so left in the bottom. Better than nothing. She brought it back to where Marduk now knelt on the floor, having positioned himself to be wrapped, and soaked a strip of the sheet.

“I’m going to clean it out,” Tess warned. “It’s got some dirt in it where that PP goon dragged you before getting you off the ground.”

Marduk chuckled at the PP reference while Tess attempted to be as gentle as possible.

“What I wouldn’t do for Dr. Dani-Lee now and some of her magic stitches,” Tess lamented as the puncture produced more and more blood. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“I can’t die from it, if that’s what you’re asking.” Marduk encouraged the conversation as she indicated he should lift his arms so she could begin binding the wound.

She bit her bottom lip. “Don’t mind me if I’m a little freaked out. Most people would be in the hospital right now with tetanus shots and IVs.” She began to wind the sheets around his torso. Oddly, it seemed to be doing some good.

When Tess was finished, she tied the ends of the strips together, then had Marduk lie down. She reached out to bring the comforters over him. God help her if he started running a fever. Was that even possible? Tess thought she’d find out one way or another pretty soon.

Once the covers were in place, Marduk lifted them with one hand.

“Join me,” he urged. “If I’m not mistaken, Dagon related some tidbits about my past, and I’d like a chance to tell my side of the story.” Tess wiggled in consternation, but in the end she couldn’t resist the warm cocoon that he offered. She took off her sneakers and slid in beside him. When neither of them spoke, Marduk took the initiative.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you my story, start to finish, if you’ll fill me in on yours afterward.” He paused for her response but she still didn’t speak. She wanted to hear all about him, let him refute what Dagon had fed her, but she wasn’t keen on airing her past. “I know that guy, Gage, must have done a hell of a number on you, and I need to know just what that was so I can make it better.”

Tess looked up at him. He was serious! Marduk, the destroyer of Babylon, was going to make damaged Tess’s life “all betters,” protecting her from evil-deed-doers. It seemed a little ironic.

“You go first.” Tess looked down where her hand rested on his chest, feeling his heart beat strongly. Could he have a plausible explanation for the behavior Dagon had described? Tess sighed. It was time to find out.

She wondered if she was going to get pictures again and was surprised when Marduk started speaking in a low, well-modulated tone.

“In the days before Hammurabi, in ancient Mesopotamia…” Tess couldn’t help herself. She giggled. Nervously. He sounded like David Attenborough about to expound on the mating habits of penguins. When Marduk stopped and quirked an eyebrow in her direction, she admitted her distraction. He sheepishly responded.

“Distancing myself is the only way I can explain the god I used to be.” Marduk looked troubled and Tess felt badly that she had interrupted.

“Go ahead,” she encouraged. “I understand.”

Marduk Attenborough began again.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“When I was young, no more than 200 or 300 years old, I was arrogant and filled with my own importance. The people of Babylon loved me and I let it go to my head.”

Now Tess got a picture of Marduk in her brain, white material draped carelessly, low slung on his hips, neck and arms draped with gold and women hanging on his every word as he roamed the dusty streets of a busy marketplace. Tess knew he was not bragging, and these were images of things that truly happened.

“Women fawned over me. Men sought me out to battle at their sides. I was invincible in everything I undertook. When, eventually, the people of the city wanted me as their supreme god and sought to elevate me above my friend, Enlil, I never hesitated.” Tess could feel his self-loathing.

Marduk’s pensive mood shifted.

“The next few hundred years were full of joy.” He had a far-off smile on his face. “I learned to curb my rampant ego and ruled the people as they deserved. If I had been arrogant before, now I was the picture of benevolence. I righted wrongs and brought prosperity to the land with my control over the elements. I was known as the god of order and destiny.” His voice dropped to a mere whisper.

“Then I met a woman.”

Tess shuddered. The way he said it, she knew this had been no ordinary female.

“Zarpanitu was everything I had ever wanted in a woman. She was lovely beyond words and highly intelligent. She worshiped me, yet let me know when I was out of line.”

Reluctantly, Marduk projected a picture of this paragon into Tess’s head, and Tess could only gasp. The woman radiated goodness, and there was no way, even in her jealousy—was that what she was feeling?—Tess could feel anything but understanding that Marduk would have loved such a creature.

“The problem was the attitude of the patricians who subsidized my existence. Zarpa was from a different level on the social strata and, despite her beauty, my ‘keepers’ would not allow me to marry her, although I could dally to my heart’s content.”

Marduk’s agitation built.

“One day, early in the spring season, as buds were bursting on the trees, we walked in my courtyard gardens amongst the shoots of new life, and she gave me the news that she was pregnant. As far as I was concerned, that was it. Now I would marry her. Despite what my court members had to say, they would accept her!”

He bowed his head. “How young I was to believe that. As soon as I announced the happy news, plots swirled madly behind my back. One night, as Zarpa walked down the hallway to my room, she was grabbed from behind and brutally stabbed.

“She barely made it to my bedside, where I held her and watched her bleed to death in my arms. The stories say I went mad and killed scores of people that night and over the ensuing months. That’s not the truth. In reality, I simply left. I abandoned them all, good and bad in the city, and never looked back. I brought Zarpa’s body to a cave outside of the city, buried her there, and stayed watching over her for a period where time had no meaning. It could have been days, months, even years. All I know is that when I finally emerged, I was swept to the Underworld and faced judgment for abandoning Babylon to famine and pestilence,” he explained.

“While I had been mourning, a drought, brought on by my absence, took the city in a choke-hold. A famine then consumed the population, which, in turn, caused greed, hatred, and chaos. Total decimation of the population followed.”

Tess was struck dumb. What could she say? That she understood? Marduk was not the killer that Dagon painted him to be. He had been an immortal in love who had unknowingly forsaken his people during a period of immense grief.

Tess pulled herself close to his great body and stroked his head as he shook off the memories of his painful past.

“You couldn’t have saved her,” Tess murmured. “And the anarchy in Babylon was not your fault.” Of that she was sure, and wondered why he was punished in the Underworld.

She drew in a sharp breath as remnants of Marduk’s horrible visions, once he’d been sent to hell, suddenly assailed her, visions that she knew well!

“What is it?” Tess’s distress brought Marduk swiftly back to the present.

“Tess.” Marduk shook her slightly as if to clear her head. “What’s happening?”

Tears streamed down her face, and she clutched at him, making sure he was real. “My dreams and Holly’s,” she anguished. “They were because of you!”

Dread filled the core of Marduk’s stomach. “What are you talking about, Tess. What did I do?” He was afraid to hear the answer. He felt the tremors in Tess’s body.

“When Holly and I were young, we were haunted by nightmares of the evilest kind. When we realized that we shared the same dreams…well, that’s when we started self-medicating.” Marduk knew she meant alcohol.

“Our dreams were always horrifying. Sometimes there would be giant, green scaly demons, dripping slime from huge fangs, chasing us. Other times there would be fire all around that would consume our flesh and burn us until we screamed. Holly and I thought we were the ones suffering the torment.” Tess turned tear-filled eyes to Marduk.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Tess didn’t wait for him to answer. She must have seen the horror-stricken look in his eyes. “Because of some connection that we have, I…we witnessed hell…through your eyes!” A different kind of dread suffused her as she continued.

“You were torn apart by beasts, again and again! You were burned in a conflagration…how many times…and still you’re here. I don’t understand. How could you have survived that?”

Marduk ran a soothing hand up and down Tess’s back. Every piece of his heart ached that she had experienced any part of his torment, she and her innocent sister. He was incredulous, but he knew what it meant. Only his Chosen would have been privy to his torture in hell. It would be asking too much to hope she could understand her fate now. What she needed to hear, at this moment was that she and Holly had not been crazy.

“It was my punishment.” Marduk grimly faced his past again. “My punishment for turning my back on the precious lives that had been placed in my hands. It was no less than I deserved, and every time I was eviscerated or burned to near extinction, it felt like atonement.” He squeezed Tess tighter, his remorse overwhelming. “I’m just so, so sorry that you had to see it.”

“Why aren’t you dead?” Tess asked in a small voice.

“There are only a couple of ways to kill a god, and the punishments you saw being delivered would not deal a death blow. Needless to say, it was painful, but it wasn’t constant. In between trials of blood and fire, I formed a lasting bond with my brothers, who had to undergo the same tortures. We had free time. We were sometimes given weapons and were allowed to battle the creatures below that our jailers—Ereshkigal and Nergal—thought were getting out of hand. We got to know our captors and, well, sort of respected them.” Nergal would never be his favorite, but Ereshkigal…well, that was another story. When Tess still didn’t look reassured, he added, “I learned to play a mean game of poker.”

A dimple showed in Tess’s cheek. “Poker wasn’t played until the 1800s.” She poked his chest.

“Not by humans, it wasn’t,” Marduk replied smugly.

That produced the spontaneous smile he was looking for. But he wanted another. “So now that I’ve spilled my guts…”

“Marduk!” Tess could hardly believe he was joking about his demon overhauls.

He looked at her with a grin, then gave her a nod of encouragement.

It was time.

“Fine, but my story has no death…and only incidental incineration…” She took her time, wondering how to start. She bit the inside of her cheek and began with her siblings.

“You see, of course, how strong Huxley is.”

Marduk nodded.

“Well, late in his adolescence, he watched his two sisters really screw things up over what everyone assumed were bad dreams brought on by the death of our mother. Hux knew what we were doing to forget, drinking ourselves blind.” Tess squirmed, remembering how mean they’d been to Hux. “Apparently, he got the ‘gods win in battle’ visions, and we got the ‘gonna be eaten and barbecued’ versions.

“Unfortunately…or fortunately, Huxley got older, stronger, and had finally seen enough. He told us to clean up or get out.” Tess absently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Holly chose to run, and Hux thought I might go too, so he let me slide for a time.”

Considering it had happened so long ago, Tess couldn’t believe how difficult it was to reveal her weakness. “I had lost my drinking buddy, so I started hitting the local bar. That’s where I got caught up with a wild group.” Tess forced herself to go on. “I have no excuse. Gage was their leader, and he decided to take me under his wing.” Tess shivered at the strength of the memories.

“One morning after a particularly rowdy party, I woke up in his bed.” She swallowed convulsively. “I vaguely remembered what had happened, and…the way my body hurt…”

Marduk interrupted gruffly, before she could continue. “You were a virgin?”

“Yes. Before that, but not any longer.” Tess face burned with shame, but continued. “After that night, nobody in the group would interfere with Gage’s possession. I don’t know how it happened or why I didn’t run, but I became his plaything.” Tess wished she had it to do all over again, the pain and humiliation had been so much to bear, and she had been so weak. “I did what he wanted, when he wanted, and suffered badly if I didn’t.” Tess refused to meet Marduk’s eyes.

“The scars?” Marduk skimmed his hand toward the side of her breast.

This was the hard part. “If I complained or made a sound when things…hurt, the cuts were my punishment.” Tess felt so embarrassed, could not believe she had allowed someone to treat her like trash. But it was important for both of them that she finish this. “So I learned to keep quiet, no matter where his depravity went. But that pissed him off even more.” Slow tears leaked from her eyes and Marduk brushed them tenderly away.

“I hid all this from my family. If Hux had known, he would have killed Gage, and I didn’t want that on my conscience.” She took a deep breath and shuddered to continue. “One night, things spun completely out of control. Gage flew into a rage and did things…bad things that hurt…” God, it was tough reliving this!