Sweet Shadows

by Tera Lynn Childs

  I suppress my gag reflex and hold the pipe out over the sink. Banging it against the porcelain, I try to dislodge some of the crud. The sludge is lodged in place, and as I bang the pipe as hard as I can, the sound of metal on porcelain echoes out into the hall.

  “What are you doing in here?” Nick asks, appearing in the doorway.

  “I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “There’s something funny about this—”

  As I answer, a metallic sound clinks in the sink. Our wide eyes meet before I jump to my feet.

  There, in the sink basin, solid against the sea of black muck I managed to knock out of the pipe, is a gunk-covered object—a big lump with what looks like a chain attached.

  Quickly replacing the pipe, and hand tightening the connectors back in place, I grab the object by the chain and turn on the water. I hold it under the icy stream, watching as the blackness slowly swirls down the drain. When it’s clean enough to see clearly, I hold it up.

  “It’s a necklace,” I say, disappointed.

  I’m not sure what I expected. A sign, maybe, or a clue. Or a key. Not … jewelry.

  “That’s not a necklace,” Nick says, stepping into the tiny space and lifting my arm so he can study the object at eye level. “It’s a pendant of Apollo.”

  “What’s that?”

  To me, it looks like a boring old necklace. A little tacky, with bright gold links, some leafy gold filigrees, and a giant golden gem in the center. Amber, maybe, or topaz. It’s not very well cut, either. It looks more like a shiny blob than a rare gemstone.

  “Apollo, the god of prophecy,” Nick explains, “gives one to each of his oracles. It creates a mystical connection with the god himself, allowing them to receive information from him and allowing him to keep track of his priestesses.” Nick’s sad, dark eyes look into mine. “It is also the source of their power.”

  “That means—” No, I can’t say it.

  And I don’t have to. Nick finishes for me.

  “The oracle is without prophecy.”

  My fist tightens around the gold chain. This can’t be good. If things were so dire that the oracle had to discard her pendant, discard her powers, then she must have been truly frightened.

  “You know,” Nick says, interrupting my thoughts, “there is another possibility.”

  “What?”

  “She might have shed her powers intentionally.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  He shrugs. “Maybe to prevent herself from helping you further.”

  “No,” I answer without hesitation. The woman who first told me about my destiny, who helped me find Sthenno and who promised that I could save Ursula … that woman is not my enemy. “I don’t believe that.”

  “Then maybe she ditched the pendant so she couldn’t be tracked,” he suggests. “It’s as accurate as a GPS signal for anyone with access to Apollo’s powers.”

  That sounds more believable.

  “I think she threw this in here so I would find it,” I say. “She fled before the attack, but she left this for me to protect. I need to return it to her.”

  I expect Nick to argue. Heck, he’s argued about practically everything since we met.

  But he nods and says, “Okay. Then let’s find her.”

  I stuff the necklace—the pendant of Apollo—into one of my cargo pockets and make sure the flap is secured.

  “First,” I say, pushing Nick out of the bathroom and shutting off the light behind me, “we need to go talk to my sisters.”

  He glances back over his shoulder, not hiding his shock. I don’t answer. It’s not like I’m going to say, Yeah, totally, it’s time for you to meet the other triplets since I, like, trust you now. Instead, I just shove him forward.

  It can’t be a coincidence that he was with me when I found the pendant, that he could explain to me what it is and what it means. The oracle must have known he would be there. It must have been fated to happen.

  Which means, like it or not—and I’m not about to admit which side of that fence I’m on—Nick’s fate and mine are intertwined. Looks like I don’t have much choice but to bring him into the fold. Besides, keeping him close means keeping a close eye on him. Just because I’m letting him in doesn’t mean I trust him completely.

  When Nick and I walk into the gym at Greer’s school, my sisters freeze. Well, almost. Greer is in the middle of executing a complicated flip-kick, and she has to finish the rotation before she lands on the ground and stares.

  When did she learn how to do that?

  “Gretchen,” Grace greets me, with awkward warning in her voice. “Hi. Um, I thought we were, you know—”

  “Who’s the guy?” Greer doesn’t mince words.

  “This is Nick,” I explain. “He’s here to help us.”

  Grace’s eyes get wider. “Is he, um …”

  “I’m a descendant of Themis,” he offers, stepping forward and holding out his hand. As Grace carefully takes it and shakes it, he says, “The goddess of law and justice. I was sent to protect Gretchen. To protect all of you.”

  I don’t bother adding my opinion on him protecting me.

  Greer looks skeptical, arms crossed over her chest and mouth pursed tight. I don’t blame her—if one of them brought a random dude to a sisterly gathering, I’d be pretty ticked off—but we don’t have time for that now.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “If he betrays us, I’ll skin him alive.”

  Grace drops his hand and Greer looks slightly less irritated.

  “Nick has an idea of where the Gorgons are likely being held prisoner,” I say. “Either in the abyss itself or in the dungeons of Mount Olympus.”

  “Mount Olympus?” Grace repeats. “That’s … real?”

  I’m about to throw her a look that says Hello—where do you think your powers come from? but Greer beats me to it.

  Not missing a beat, Grace asks, “Which one do we check first?”

  Nick and I answer simultaneously. “The abyss.”

  “Mount Olympus is a dangerous and volatile place,” he explains. “If any of us were caught trespassing there …”

  He leaves the consequences hanging, but I think we all know what he means. Cross one of the gods on their own turf and my threats toward Nick will seem like playground teasing in comparison.

  “Plus, we saw Sthenno get taken into the abyss,” Grace says. “There’s a good chance that’s where she’s being kept.”

  “That,” I say, “and we don’t know how to get to Olympus.”

  “We don’t know how to get to the abyss either,” Greer says, cutting to the chase as usual.

  “Yes, that’s the tricky part,” Nick says. “As far as I know, on this side the portals between the realms are random, showing up at irregular times and in unpredictable places.”

  “The one Sthenno was pulled into just appeared,” Grace offers.

  “So—what?” Greer shifts her weight onto one hip. “We walk around, waiting for a portal to open? That could take forever.”

  “There is one person who might help us,” I say.

  “The oracle?” Grace suggests. “The one who helped us figure out that Ms. West is Sthenno?”

  I nod. “We just came from her place. Everything’s been tossed around and she’s nowhere to be found.”

  “Oh no,” Grace gasps.

  “Has she been taken too?” Greer asks.

  “I’m not sure,” I say honestly. “She might have fled under her own power. She had time to leave a note and to ditch this in the bathroom sink.”

  I pull the pendant out of my pocket. The light streaming in the high windows along one wall of the gym catches the gold stone and beams of amber light spread out in every direction.

  “Wow!” Grace steps closer, studying the dangling pendant. “It’s beautiful.”

  Greer gets a very strange, distant look on her face—kind of like the look humans get when I use my hypno powers on them. She walks toward me, her eyes glazed, her steps awkward.

&
nbsp; “Can I see it?” she asks.

  As she’s reaching out, I’m about to hand it to her when Nick knocks her arm out of the way.

  “No,” he says quietly. “Put it away, Gretchen.”

  “What—?”

  Greer lunges for me. Nick blocks her, holding her back as he yells at me to hide the pendant. I stuff it back into my pocket. As soon as it’s out of sight, Greer relaxes like she’s come back to her senses.

  She shakes her head. “What just happened?”

  “You’re the sister with Medusa’s power, aren’t you?” Nick asks. “You have the second sight?”

  Frowning in confusion, she nods. “Yes, but what does that—”

  “The pendant of Apollo,” he explains, “is a very powerful conduit of prophecy. If you came into contact with it, it would magnify your abilities exponentially.”

  We all give him matching looks that say, So?

  “Combined with her natural ability, it would make her a beacon of Apollo’s power here on Earth. If she is not mentally prepared, trained to control her powers and more, then it could overload her brain. She could fall into a coma.”

  “All right, then,” Greer says. “Maybe you should keep that away from me for now.”

  “You think?” I ask, reaching down to secure the flap on the pocket where the pendant will stay from now on.

  “What about the note?” Grace asks. “What did it say?”

  “We have no idea. It’s in ancient Greek.” I glance at my sisters. “Either of you happen to be fluent?”

  They both shake their heads.

  “Ms. West—Sthenno,” Grace says, “suggested I take another language as an elective, but I thought Spanish was enough. I could have chosen Modern Greek maybe. Or I could have started the Rosetta Stone course as soon as I learned about my legacy.”

  She looks upset, like she might cry. As much as I have no patience for tears, I can’t fight the urge to comfort her. She’s my sister, and it stabs at my heart to see her hurting.

  “You couldn’t have known,” I say, giving her a reassuring pat on the back. “And you wouldn’t be fluent yet anyway.”

  “I know.” She sniffs. “It’s just that everything is going so wrong so quickly, I wish I could—I don’t know, I feel so helpless.”

  “You weren’t feeling helpless when you took on that harpy,” Greer says.

  “What?” I can’t have heard her right. “A harpy?”

  “Yeah.” Grace wipes at her tears. “On my way over here I ran into one.”

  “You fought her?” I ask, shocked.

  She nods.

  “And won?”

  “She even used her autoporting power,” Greer adds, a clear look of pride on her face. Maybe the Ice Queen has a heart after all. “Almost at will.”

  “Wow, Grace,” I say, “that’s great.”

  “Yeah, well, that doesn’t help us now,” she says. “We still need to find out how to get our ancestors back. Do you think the oracle left town?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe she—”

  “No,” Greer interrupts. “She is still in the city. Still in San Francisco.”

  “How can you know that?” Grace asks.

  Greer shakes her head. “I just know.”

  “That’s likely true,” Nick says. “An oracle wouldn’t stray far from her home, from the vortex of her power.”

  “Okay then,” I say, “if she’s still in the city, we need to find her.”

  “It’s a big city,” Grace says.

  “And if the oracle doesn’t want to be found,” Nick adds, “she won’t be.”

  “If she didn’t want to be found,” I reply, confident that the oracle wouldn’t just abandon me—us, “she wouldn’t have left the pendant and the note.”

  “Where do we start?” Grace asks.

  There are two logical places to begin. Either she’s sticking close to home, to a territory she knows well, like the neighborhood around her storefront. Or she’s getting as far from her usual haunts as possible, trying to avoid whoever—or whatever—is looking for her.

  “I think we need to split up,” I suggest. “Go out in pairs. We’ll cover more of the city faster.”

  “Good idea,” Nick says.

  “Grace, you can go with Greer,” I say. “She probably knows the city better than any of us.”

  Besides, I want to keep Nick close to me. Not because I want him close—fine, that might be a tiny bit of my motivation—but because I don’t trust him enough yet to send one of my sisters out with him to scour the city for a missing oracle and whatever mythological players are hunting her.

  “We’ll divide the city into sectors,” I continue. “It will probably take a few days to search everywhere, but hopefully we’ll find her before then.”

  “Where should we search first?” Grace grabs her backpack off the floor and slips her arms through the straps.

  I admire how she is always ready to go, always ready to leap into any situation, no matter the danger or uncertainty. She fully embraces our destiny and whatever challenges come with the package. Greer, on the other hand, is a little more reticent.

  “Do you really think this is worth the time?” She doesn’t make a move for her purse. “Won’t the oracle show up if she wants us to find her? Won’t she know we’re looking for her?”

  I ignore her questions. I’m not going to sit around waiting when I can be out looking. Passive isn’t in my personality.

  “You two can use Greer’s car and start by driving the perimeter.” That will place them far from the oracle’s neighborhood, and hopefully far from whatever might be hunting her. Besides—I glance down at the impossibly high heels Greer is stepping back into—she won’t be much good on foot anyway. Nick is in sneakers and I’m in Doc Martens. We’ll make better time on foot than she ever would.

  She must sense my displeasure, because she starts tapping her foot on the parquet floor. “I’ll have you know I could run a marathon in stilettos.”

  “Nick and I will start in the oracle’s neighborhood,” I say, ignoring her again. “We’ll radiate out from there. You two can radiate in.”

  Greer shifts. “I have hours of homework to do. I can’t be out all night.”

  My jaw clenches and I have to force my hands not to fist. So much for thinking she cares about anything but herself.

  “You signed up for this,” I snap. “You knew what you were getting into when you agreed to join us.

  “Yes,” she snaps back, “with the caveat that it wouldn’t interfere with my normal life.”

  “Well, I’m sorry if all Hades is breaking loose and disrupting your plans.” I step toward her and shrug off Nick’s hand when he tries to hold me back. “You might not have lost anyone you care about yet. Grace and I have. Grace and I know that the sacrifice is worth it.”

  For an instant I think I see a crack in her facade, a tremor at the tips of her perfectly manicured hands. I blink and it’s gone. I must have imagined it.

  Her gaze is steady and almost a little vacant, like she’s retreated.

  I frown.

  “Actually, I need to be home before dark too,” Grace says. “My parents are pretty mad about my disappearing for hours the other night. They’ve given me a curfew.”

  I sigh. “Fine, search until dusk.” I’m irritated, but I guess I also understand. Being a huntress is my entire life. Family is nonexistent and school is more of a necessary evil than a priority. For my sisters, things are different. If I want them to keep as much normalcy in their lives as they can, then I can’t exactly begrudge them trying to do that.

  “We can meet to compare notes and restrategize tomorrow after school,” I say. “Here again?”

  Both girls nod, and I’m shocked that Greer doesn’t insist that we have to meet later, that she has some club meeting or tea party or study date that we have to work around. Every little step of progress counts.

  “And in the meantime,” I say, “text if you find anything.”
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br />   “How will we know if we’ve found her?” Grace asks. “I mean, neither of us has ever seen her.”

  Darn it. I hadn’t thought of that. I look at Nick, but he just shrugs. “I’ve never seen her in person either.”

  I give my sisters a brief description of the oracle, of her dark robes, wrinkled face, and hunkered body. Hopefully enough to make her stand out against a crowd. And they agree to text a photo if they think they’ve found her.

  Minutes later, we emerge from the gym. Grace and Greer head for Greer’s Porsche to make a circuit of the city along its outer edges. Nick and I take Moira back to the storefront. By the time night falls, we’ve found nothing. Exhausted, I drive Nick back to his apartment and then head for the safe house. I hope my sisters have had better luck.

  CHAPTER 13

  GRACE

  You’re driving too fast!” I squeal as Greer speeds through the same intersection for the third time. “We’re not going to find the oracle if you get arrested for reckless driving.”

  Greer throws me a warning look. “It’s called offensive driving.”

  “It’s something offensive,” I mutter under my breath, and when she asks what I said, I reply, “Nothing. Haven’t we been down this street before?”

  “Yes,” she growls. “But I had to cut back through here to get across Mission.”

  This is our third straight afternoon of searching, and as the sun dips down into the west, it looks like Friday is going to be just as fruitless as Wednesday and Thursday were. It’s no surprise that Greer is getting testy. Driving back and forth along the streets of San Francisco isn’t exactly all fun and games. It’s also panhandlers and homeless people and kids playing soccer in the street. I’ve stopped counting how many times her car has been hit by something. Soccer ball, dragon kite, and an overeager taxi.

  Right now Greer’s hands are gripping the steering wheel so hard, her knuckles are snow white.

  “Maybe we should take a break,” I suggest. “Stop for a coffee or something.”

  Instead of answering, Greer jags the car hard to the left, U-turns in the middle of the street, and speeds back the way we came. Before I can ask her what she’s doing, the Porsche is pulling into a tiny parking spot and Greer is climbing out of the car.