"Want another, buddy?"
The bartender"s voice roused Forrester from his reverie. He had absent-mindedly finished brandy-and-soda number eight.
"Okay," Forrester said. "Sure." He handed the bartender a ten-dollar bill and got a kind of wry pleasure out of seeing the picture of Dionysus on its face. "Let"s have another, but more brandy and less soda this time."
The drink was brought and he sipped at it, looking like any ordinary citizen taking on a small load, but tuned to every fluctuation in the energy levels around him, waiting.
Only a G.o.d, he knew, could hurt another G.o.d, and even then it took plenty of power to do it. Actually to kill a G.o.d required the combined efforts of more than one, under normal circ.u.mstances--though one, properly equipped and with some luck, could manage it. As far as his own situation was concerned, Forrester was prepared for a deadly a.s.sault from Mars. Maybe Mars didn"t intend to kill him, but being maimed for centuries, like Vulcan, was nothing to look forward to, and it was just as well to be on the safe side. Just in case the G.o.d of War had managed to get one or two other G.o.ds on his side, Forrester had talked to Diana and Venus, and had their agreement to step in on his side if things got rough, or if Mars tried to pull anything underhanded.
And any minute now....
Suddenly Forrester felt a disturbance in the energy flow around him.
Somewhere behind him, invisible to the mortals who occupied the bar, a Veil of Heaven was beginning to form.
With a fraction of a second, Forrester was forming his own. But this time he took a little longer than he had before.
It wasn"t the first time he"d had to run. For over a month now, he had been jumping from place to place, all over the world. He had gone to Hong Kong first. When Mars had traced him there and made a grab for him, Forrester had made a quick jump, via Veil, to Durban, South Africa. It had taken Mars all of forty-eight hours to find Forrester hiding in the native quarter, wearing the _persona_ of a Negro laborer. But again Forrester had disappeared, this time reappearing in Lima, Peru.
And so it had gone for five full weeks, with Forrester keeping barely one jump ahead of the G.o.d of War.
And, in that month, he had achieved two important things.
First, he had begun to make Mars a little overconfident. By now Mars was fully convinced that Forrester was nothing but a coward, and he was absolutely certain that he could beat the newcomer easily, if he could only come to grips with him.
Second, Forrester had discovered that Mars" basic reflexes were a trifle slower than his own.
If Mars had been able to form his own Veil and step through it in time to sense the last fading glimmers of Forrester"s Veil, he would have been able to follow immediately. Instead, he had to go to all the trouble of finding Forrester over and over again. That meant slower reflexes--and that, Forrester thought, might just give him the edge he needed.
But this time, Forrester was going to let Mars follow him--slow reflexes and all. This time, he waited that extra fraction of a second--and then stepped through the Veil.
He was in the middle of a great rain forest. Around him towered trees whose great trunks reached up to a leafy sky. The place was dark; little sunlight came through the roof of leaves and curling vines. A bird screamed somewhere in the distance, sounding like a lost soul in agony; the sound was repeated, and then there was silence.
Forrester was exactly where he had intended to be: in the middle of the Amazon jungle.
He had time for one look around. Then Mars stepped out of a shimmering Veil only yards away from where Forrester was standing. Immediately, Forrester felt Mars throw out a suppressor field that would keep him from forming another Veil. He did the same thing. Now, as long as both held their respective fields, neither could leave.
"Greetings," Forrester said.
The bird screamed again. Mars ignored it.
"You"re just a little too slow," he said, grinning. "And now, buster, you"re going to get it--and get it good."
"Who?" Forrester said. "Me?"
Mars hissed his breath in and fired a blast of blue-white energy that would have drilled through a foot of armor plate. But Forrester blocked it; the splatter of free energy struck at the nearby trees, sending them crashing to the ground. A small blaze started.
Forrester followed the blow with one of his own, but Mars parried quickly. A few more little fires began in the vicinity. Then Mars bellowed and charged.
By the time he reached the spot where Forrester had been, Forrester was fifty feet in the air, standing with his arms folded and looking down in an interested manner.
"You ought to watch out," he said. "You might stumble into a Venus Flycatcher down there. I mean besides the one you"ve got already."
Mars" mouth dropped open. He gave vent to an inarticulate roar of rage and leaped into the air. As he rose toward Forrester, the defender closed his eyes and changed shape. He became a rock and dropped. He bounced off Mars" rising forehead with a great noise.
Mars roared and dived for the stone--and found himself holding a large, angry tiger.
But an old trick like that didn"t fool Mars. Tiger-Forrester, suddenly finding himself fighting with another tiger as ferocious as himself, began clawing and biting his way free in a frenzy of panic. He managed to make it just long enough to become a stone again, dropping toward the Earth.
For a moment, the other tiger seemed uncertain. Then, catching sight of the falling stone, he became an eagle, and went after it with a scream, claws outstretched and a glitter of hatred in the slitted eyes.
Forrester reached the ground first. The eagle braked madly, trying to escape a giant Kodiak bear. Forrester stood on his hind legs and battered the air with great, murderous paws. Mars scooted upward, already changing into something capable of coping with the bear. A huge, bat-winged dragon, breathing barrels of smoke, flapped in the air, looking all around for its opponent. It did not notice Forrester scurrying away in the shape of an ant through the leaves and thick humus of the jungle floor.
By now, the air was becoming smoky and the flames were licking up the sides of trees all through the vicinity, and racing along the giant vines that curled around them. The dragon belched more smoke, adding to the general confusion, and roared in a voice like thunder:
"Coward! Dionysus! Come out and fight!"
There was an instant of crackling silence.
Then Forrester stepped out from behind a blazing tree. He, too, was a dragon.
Mars snarled, breathed smoke and made a power dive. Forrester dodged and the fangs of the monster missed him by inches. Mars sank claw-deep into the ground, and Forrester slammed the War G.o.d on the side of his head with one mighty forepaw. Mars blew out a cloud of evil-smelling smoke and managed to jerk himself free. He leaped to all four feet, glaring at Forrester with great, bulging, hate-filled eyes.
"Man to man, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he said in a flame-filled roar.
Forrester leaped back to avoid being scorched. He poured out some smoke of his own. Mars coughed.
"d.a.m.n it, no more shape-changing!" the War G.o.d thundered.
"Fair enough!" Forrester shouted. He changed back to his Dionysian form, circling warily until Mars had followed suit. Then the two began to close in slowly.
Around them the forest burned, vegetation even on the swampy ground catching fire as the entire vicinity crackled and hissed with heat.
Neither of them seemed to take any notice of the fact.
Mars was a trained boxer and wrestler, Forrester knew. But it was probably a good many centuries since he"d had any real workouts, and Forrester was counting heavily on slowed-down reflexes. Those would give him a slight edge.
At any rate, he hoped so.
The circling ceased as Mars leaped forward suddenly and lashed out with a right to the jaw that could end the fight. But Forrester moved his head aside just in time and the fist glanced off his cheek. He staggered back just as Mars followed with a left jab to the belly.
Forrester clamped down on the War G.o.d"s wrist and twisted violently, pulling Mars on past him. The War G.o.d, caught off balance, lunged forward, tripping over his own feet, and almost fell as he went by.
Forrester, grinning savagely, brought his right hand down on the back of Mars" neck with a blow whose force would have killed an elephant outright.
Mars, however, was no mere elephant. He grunted and went down on his hands and knees, shaking his head groggily. But he wasn"t out. Not quite.
Forrester doubled up his fist as Mars tried to rise, and came down again with all the force he could muster, squarely on his opponent"s neck.
There was a satisfyingly loud crack, audible, even in the roar of the burning forest. Mars collapsed to the ground, smothering small fires beneath his bulk. Forrester leaped on top of him and grabbed his head, beard with one hand and hair with the other. He twisted and the War G.o.d screamed in agony. Forrester relaxed the pressure.