He shook his head.“I was never much on mythology, Bubba.”
“Hope,” Ash said, walking up beside Jarvis.“The last thing remaining in the bottom of Pandora’s box, after all the evils of the world escaped, was hope.It shows that no matter how dark it gets, there’s always some light somewhere.We just have to remember it, and keep it with us, and use it to hold back the dark.”
“Yep,” I said.“And if you pee about every half hour, when something jumps out of the woods at you and wants to eat your face, you can fight without worrying about pissing your pants.”
“Nowthat’sthe kind of expert advice I was expecting,” Jarvis said with a grin.“Come on, let’s go kick some ass and get my sister back!”
He and Ash turned and headed for the cart, and Geri walked up next to me.“Nice speech.I thought you didn’t like him?”
“He’s growing on me,” I replied.“A little.”
“Like moss?”
“More like athlete’s foot,” I said, walking to my horse.“Let’s ride.We got pests to exterminate.”
12
What’s the plan?”Geri asked as we crouched in the bushes off to one side of the trail.We could see the outline of the Rolling Clover Event Venue and Soiree, where I was supposed to be getting married two days ago.It was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, so climbing it was out.Not that I was much of one for climbing fences anyway.Not exactly my primo skill set.
“I don’t see very many guards,” Ash murmured from their spot next to us.
“According to the info I found back at their camp, there shouldn’t be more than four or five here.I think they were counting on the fence keeping most people contained, and keeping fae creatures out,” Geri said.
“Four isn’t that many, right?”Jarvis asked.“Couldn’t Geri just shoot them until the survivors surrender?”
“We aren’t shooting anybody if we can help it,” I said, casting a dark look at Geri.It bothered me how casually she’d taken down the two Pest Control operatives in the woods, and how she hadn’t even hesitated at chopping of the toes of the guy she interrogated.We were going to have to have a conversation about acceptable use of force if we ever made it home.
“So how do we get inside?”Geri asked with an “okay, dipshit, what’syouridea” tone.
“Get help,” I said to Geri’s groan and Ash’s look of shock.
“Huh?”Jarvis asked.“Where are we supposed to get help?We’re the only humans we know of in this whole dimension.”
“We’re not going to get help, we’re going to do ‘get help,’” I said.“Haven’t you seenThor: Ragnarok?”
“Thor what?”he replied.
“The third Thor movie.It’s really good.Anyway…” As I started explaining the plan in hushed tones, the look on Jarvis’s face went from confused to amused, to horrified when he realized exactly what his role in my plan was going to be.
* * *
An hour later, Jarvis and I were kitted out with body armor stolen from the mercenaries we left tied up at their camp (easier for him than me, since getting normal person-sized body armor on me required a fair bit of adjusting of straps, buckles, and the application of no small amount of profanity) and were limping down the middle of the road, me carrying Jarvis over my shoulders like an overgrown fireman and yelling for all I was worth.
“Help!”I shouted as I came around a bend in the road and saw the fence blocking the road.“Help us!The demons got him!”I’d smeared mud and dirt all over both of us so it looked like we’d been in a hell of a fight, and I hoped we could at least get the gate open before they realized that nobody had ever seen a Pest Control mercenary my size.
Jarvis moaned a little across my shoulders, and even though I couldn’t tell if he was acting or gonna puke because my shoulder was poking him in the nuts, I didn’t care if it got us inside.I mean, Ihopedhe wouldn’t barf down my back, but it’s not like it’d be the first time I’d carried a buddy home over my shoulder and had him paint my ass with his dinner.I went to an SEC school, remember?We know how toparty.
Ash’s admonishment that this would never work and we’d get shot full of holes before we made it within ten feet of the place rang in my ears, but the freckled kid at the gate didn’t even look at us twice, just saw a big human (mostly) lumbering toward him with an injured soldier on his back and opened the gate.
The first gate.
My plan hit its first roadblock when I realized that there was a sally port to get into the compound.We made it through one gate with no problem, but that didn’t get us inside the camp.No, there was another rectangle of chain link with a second gate that I needed to bluff our way through before we were inside, and that still didn’t leave the door open behind me to let the others through.
“Name and unit number,” the freckled guard said from his spot inside the second fence.
“Let me in, man!”I shouted.“He’s bleeding all down my back!My CO is down, all our other guys are down, and we’re the only ones left!Let us in!”
“Name and unit number,” he repeated, his voice quivering a little this time.
