His eyes threatened to roll back into his head, but he jerked his chin defiantly, scowling in stubborn refusal of his body’s demands. “Should have…d-done a real rain dance…” he stammered drunkenly. “He…packs a…m-mean punch,” he murmured.
My skin pebbled at his words. “What happened, Nosh?” I whispered.
But I knew what had happened. Nosh had stepped into a fight that he hadn’t been equipped to handle. Zeus had come to finish me off, but then Nosh had thrown some magic back in his face, figuratively punching Zeus in the jaw. And with me nowhere in sight, Zeus had decided to swing back. At Nosh.
The shaman was silent for a few precious seconds. I stared down at him, watching as a lone tear spilled out from his right eye, rolling down his cheek and splashing onto my hand. “S-sorry…for lying,” he mumbled, his lips quivering as another tear spilled onto my hand. He glanced up at me, his focus clarifying for just a moment. “I was scared to tell you…Dad.”
His head slowly went limp and his eyes finally rolled back into his skull. His chest rose and fell, letting me know he was still alive.
I stared down, utterly still, unable to even breathe.
Dad…
My eyes suddenly burned, and my jaw trembled unsteadily—just like Nosh’s had done. I felt a howling scream rising from the darkest depths of my mind—snarling and biting and clawing as it tore to the forefront of my mind, begging to be let free. Sorry for lying.
Dad…
A tear fell from my cheek. My blood reserves suddenly sloshed and boiled, frothing and foaming within me. I was scared to tell you, Dad.
Dad…
The encounter between Nosh and Zeus had been even more significant than I had first thought. Nosh hadn’t just been stepping in to help me raise my army of vampires. He’d been trying to help his dad heal an army of brothers and sisters.
He’d been trying to help his dad…by picking a fight with his dad’s enemy.
I was entirely sure that my soul was locked away in the Underworld.
But the thought of Nosh picking a fight with a god to stand up for his dad…yeah.
I might not have my soul, but something even more powerful, and infinitely more sadistic rose up inside me, begging to taste some godly blood—my inner demon. Zeus had hurt my son.
I felt Hyde kneel beside me, hulking over me. “He’s alive,” he breathed, sounding relieved. I didn’t move. Hyde reached out to scoop Nosh up—
I hit Hyde directly in the chest with my palm, feeling his bones crunch upon impact. Hyde slammed into the wall, denting the metal with an alarming creaking sound and rattling the maintenance ladder. He clutched at his chest with a gasp of pain, staring at me wide-eyed.
I calmly settled my palm on Nosh’s chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath. “Mine.”
Hyde slowly nodded, lifting his hands in a calming gesture as he extracted himself from the dented wall. “Okay, Sorin. Okay,” he said, not taking a step closer.
I turned to stare at the maintenance ladder, my gaze slowly rising.
Hyde noticed my attention, and slowly pointed at the cable. “It came unhooked topside and fell. I was about to lug it back up and reconnect it when Nosh ran past us, climbing up the ladder and shouting about witches coming for Dr. Stein.”
Poole was studying me warily. “Do you know why he would go up there alone, Sorin?”
I climbed to my feet. Both men jumped back a step, keeping their distance. I met Poole’s eyes, and he winced. “He went up there for the same reason I’m going up there.”
Hyde frowned. “What reason is that?”
“To pick a fight.” The two men shared uneasy looks. I glanced down at Nosh. “Look after him, Poole. And make sure Stein pulls that fucking lever. Hyde and I will be back shortly.” Poole nodded, licking his lips nervously.
“Excuse me?” Hyde demanded. “I don’t need to fight anyone. In fact, I’m more of a lover—”
He wilted under my sudden glare. “Pick up the cable and follow me. Now.”
I walked to the ladder and began to climb, needing the monotonous rhythm to keep from destroying everything in sight. I heard Hyde gathering up the cable, murmuring to Poole as he carefully moved Nosh to the other room with Dr. Stein.
Then I felt Hyde’s massive bulk climbing up behind me. “What if the lightning comes back?”
I paused, glancing down at him. “I’m counting on it, Hyde. I have a family to raise, after all.”
I continued to climb, going over my memory of Selene’s warning, wondering how I wanted to approach this. The Olympians had cursed me long ago, but those curses seemed to be fading somewhat. I had touched silver without being burned. I could withstand sunlight for longer periods than ever before.
What had changed? And what did it mean? Was that why they were hunting me? Because they feared the answers? Was that why Zeus had finally stepped in, taking advantage of my plan tonight to end me once and for all?
The obvious change was that I had woken up after a centuries-long slumber. That had to have sent the Olympians into a blind panic—to suddenly learn that they had failed yet again. I still had no answer as to why my name or existence inspired such lethal levels of jealousy.
But Selene’s warning had been accurate on too many accounts for me to doubt the rest of her message. So, I continued running it through my mind as I climbed, searching for answers.
Regardless of any big picture reasons, I had one of my own that would keep me focused.
This god had almost killed Nosh…my son. And I had a very strong opinion about that.
42
I stood on the circular platform of the torch, gripping the railing as I stared out at the roiling black clouds, ignoring the torrential rain soaking me to the bone. The golden flame loomed behind me, rising up from the center of the platform, but I’d only taken a cursory glance at it and the detailed design of the short wall enclosing the platform.
The current storm raging around me was not conducive to adoring artisanship, and my current murderous mood was not conducive to feckless reverie.
It had taken Hyde less than thirty seconds—and just as many cursing complaints—to hook the cable back up to a simple metal box with a tall metal lightning rod that stretched as high as the flame. He’d wasted no time in ducking back into the shelter of the statue’s arm, closing the hatch as best he could with the cable in the way, and promising to support the cable’s weight from within so that it didn’t fall again.
Although I didn’t believe it had fallen. I believed Zeus had made it fall in an attempt to lure me up here. Except Nosh had responded in my stead, rushing up here to fight above his weight class.
But now his father was here to set the record straight.
“Fight me, coward,” I snarled, not bothering to shout. He could hear me. I could feel him watching me even now. Because I’d repeated the same thing over and over for the past few minutes.
All while I drew deep on the power of every curse inflicted upon me. Then I drew deep on every morsel of resulting power I’d accumulated since my curses: Castle Ambrogio, my Nephilim, my vampires, and most importantly…
My devils, Natalie and Victoria. Their blood sang within me, screaming for release.
I could occasionally hear the sounds of battle far below, but there was nothing I could do about it from here, and the wind and sheets of rain made it almost impossible to clearly see details anyway.
“Fight me, coward!” I said, louder this time, clenching the metal railing tighter.
Selene had tried to warn me that the Olympians were coming. That they’d failed to kill me too many times in my life, and that they wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
I held out my arms, baring my breast. And then I called upon my cloak of shadow and blood. It whipped and cracked in the wind, and the distant clouds immediately flared with the first signs of lightning returning. I grinned, flashing my teeth. I knew he had been watching.
“Zeus! I hear you have a message for me. A messa
ge that your worthless brethren could not deliver themselves. The overcompensating Apollo couldn’t do it. The sun god who is terrified of his own shadow and any man who dares to take a toy that doesn’t belong to him. Artemis also failed to deliver the message, resorting to poisoning my heart and taking the woman I loved when her arrows missed their mark. Hades tried trickery and deceit, capitalizing on my desperation to hold the woman I loved in my arms, and bargaining my soul for a shadow of a dream.”
The wind screamed, pulling at my cloak, and the crackle of lightning grew brighter.
“What is so dangerous about a humble adventurer looking for love? I’m genuinely curious.”
A deep, noncorporeal voice replied, seeming to come from everywhere. “I know nothing about you, vampire. Just that you have mocked my Olympians for the last time. That you took gifts from the gods and perverted them for your own selfish gains. They thought the stain of your monstrous existence ended long ago, yet here you stand again. I have come to finish what they couldn’t.”
I stared out at the skies, considering his words. It was as I’d thought. He wasn’t part of the conspiracy Selene had mentioned. He hadn’t even known who I was. He was simply here as the final representative of Mount Olympus—to do whatever it took to maintain honor for his fellow gods.
But Selene had warned me of something else.
Remember your name and who hurt you, because they know your plans this night and will do anything to stop you, even turning him against you.
And it looked like she had been right. The him was Zeus, and he had indeed been turned against me. But…rather than attempting to clear up his view of the situation, I could use it to my advantage.
“Well, here I am!” I roared, stretching my arms wide. “Give me your best shot!” And I immediately tapped into the gifts Artemis had given me, slowing time to a crawl, knowing that even I wasn’t faster than lightning.
Zeus obliged, and I watched it all in slow motion.
A bolt of lightning blossomed to life in the blackest of clouds before me, crackling almost horizontally through the air—an entirely unnatural trajectory—towards my heart.
Even with time slowed, the jagged bolt moved alarmingly fast. But it gave me the opportunity to see it slowly enough to momentarily witness a bizarre phenomenon.
The lightning bolt was not a continuous, hundred-yard, arc of electric force.
It was actually a rather small glass dagger shaped like a jagged S. It was simply moving so fast that it rapidly displaced the energy around it, creating an electric reaction from the empty void of space between his hand and his target, birthing a long tendril of…lightning.
Zeus, the God of Lightning, was throwing a glass stick at me.
I shifted to crimson mist, even as I processed the sight before me. Zeus’ glass blade—and the trailing bolt of lightning—ripped through me without harm to crack into Dr. Stein’s metal pole behind me. Because I had very purposely chosen my placement before challenging the Father of Olympus.
I watched the lightning grasp the metal pole, flickering up and down its length almost too quickly for me to observe, even with time slowed. I felt a deep humming in the air and then utter silence as the skies grew dark again. Zeus’ task was completed, and he was leaving.
A moment later, I felt a pinprick of fire and ice poke the center of my mist. Then another.
Then more. By the dozens.
My vampire army came to life and I gasped, my form quivering as Dr. Stein’s experiment flourished, creating life from nothing—and all thanks to Zeus’ ignorance. And since Nero and Dr. Stein were exceedingly thoughtful, they’d made sure to include a dose of my blood within each blood bag that had been sustaining them over the last few weeks.
Permitting me the chance to command them now, even though we hadn’t fully bonded yet.
Kill the black witches. Kill any vampires not bonded to me. Everyone else on the island is a friend. Father will embrace you soon.
The hunting screams of dozens and dozens of vampires sang their first song on Liberty Island, a celebration of their liberation. I liked to think of it as robbing Hades of a prize long thought safe. Seventy-seven souls had just been stolen from the God of the Underworld.
But I still had work to do. I coalesced, standing atop the platform again. “I was not finished speaking to you, Zeus!” I shouted.
I felt a stunned stir to the air. Then, rather than the clouds speaking to me, a man suddenly appeared on the platform, clutching a trio of glass daggers in his fist. He stared at me incredulously. The wind whipped his long white hair, shoving at his snowy white beard, but he stared at me unblinking, his eyes crackling with golden light. He wore only sandals and a war skirt of white leather strips that hung to just above his knees, each strip tipped in gold at the end.
“No one could have survived that. Not even a Titan,” Zeus breathed.
“I am not a Titan,” I muttered. “I am a highly-motivated, pissed-off orphan.”
The god stared at me in silence, obviously at a loss for words. “What is your name?”
I remembered that he hadn’t known my name. His fellow Olympians hadn’t told him before setting him on the warpath to kill me. “Sorin Ambrogio.”
I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but I hadn’t expected him to stumble back a step, his free hand slapping his chest as he gasped. “Impossible,” he breathed. “Hera killed you.”
I blinked, ignoring the icy shiver that crawled up the back of my neck. Selena had mentioned the Olympians trying to kill me as a young orphan. “Your wife?” I asked, very carefully. “Why would she do such a thing? How do you know me?” I demanded, suddenly panicking. What the hell was this?
He stared at me with a haunted expression, seeming to take me in from head-to-toe. Then his eyes grew distant, lost in a memory. “I saw it with my own eyes!” he whispered, as if arguing with himself. “I checked the house and found her and the baby, both dead in the chair that I made for them,” he whispered. “Hera claimed credit, warning me of the cost of my infidelities.”
Another icy shiver rolled up my arm as I stared at Zeus, knowing full-well his legendary penchant for sowing his seed. “No,” I said, shaking my head in denial.
Olympians were schemers and tricksters. This was just another cruel ploy—
“I called her my ambrosia, my nectar of the gods. She must have named you after that silly pillow name. I think I actually loved her. Your mother,” he said with a saddened smile. “She fled before I was able to see you, fearful of Hera’s wrath. But she didn’t run far enough. I came too late to save her.”
I was shaking my head. “No. You saw your son dead. A name is just a name—”
“I can show you her face,” he said, almost eagerly. “Would you remember that?”
I froze, staring at him, suddenly feeling panicked. “I…no. I wouldn’t. I don’t remember what she looked like,” I whispered.
Zeus suddenly scowled, glancing over his shoulder. “I must leave. No one can see us together. No one must know of this, my son. All of Olympus would come down upon you—my son. Hera would destroy the world if she knew. We will talk soon—”
And he was suddenly gone in a peal of thunder that scorched the metal.
I stared at the empty space where he had been standing, unable to move.
My father was Zeus. And Nosh was my son.
Which meant Zeus had almost killed his grandson tonight.
I heard the hatch open behind me and I spun, extending my claws. Hyde was staring at me with wide eyes, his mouth hanging open. “I knew we were going to be good friends, but that was before I learned you were a fucking demigod! Now, we are best friends.”
I couldn’t make my mouth work, so I just stared at him. I took a step and immediately crumpled, my legs simply giving out. I rolled over onto my back, taking a deep breath as the rain splashed over my face. Then I closed my eyes. “No one can know about this, Hyde.”
“Of course.”
“Make sure everyone is
okay for me. I’m just going to lay here for a few minutes. I’ll be down later.”
“Okay, Sorin.” I heard the hatch open and close, but I didn’t open my eyes. I just needed some time to myself to try and wrap my head around the night’s events.
43
I walked the exhibits of the Museum of Natural History, holding hands with Victoria and Natalie, smiling absently. It had been two days since my night atop the Statue of Liberty, and they had been busy but cathartic. No one had come into the museum for work since the night the castle appeared, given our proximity to Central Park. I doubted they would be returning any time soon. We had the entire museum to ourselves.
Natalie pointed excitedly at various exhibits, chattering endlessly, as we walked, occasionally pulling me along with her—and by extension, pulling Victoria along as well. We had found our way to the Ancient Greece exhibit, so I had grown quiet. Until I had confirmation, I wasn’t about to tell anyone of my supposed Olympian blood. Not even Natalie and Victoria. Not even Nosh.
But right now, I was simply staring at the couple walking ahead of us. Nosh and Isabella walked as if they were the last two people in the world, smiling and whispering like thieves.
Several times Nosh had glanced back at me with a hesitant smile. I’d returned it with a warm one, still trying to process his delirious statement, and wondering if it was possible that he was really my son. Deep in my heart, I felt it was the truth. But I had no way of verifying it. Not with his skinwalker blood. The only true way to verify it was to sit down and talk.
And…neither of us were ready for that yet.
So, we walked through the museum. Two passing ships in the night, occasionally flashing our lanterns at the other in greeting as we weathered the storms around us—sometimes drifting apart, sometimes coming alarmingly close to wrecking each other.
Renfield and Gabriel had managed to round up all the new vampires on Liberty Island with minimal effort. They had annihilated the surviving witches without mercy, but had found no invading vampires, thankfully.
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