The Gods Defense (Laws of Magic Book 1)

by Amie Gibbons

  “My son.” She frowned, brown eyes clear and guileless as a child’s showing disappointment. “You are not as clever as they said.”

  This was getting real freaking old, fast. “As who said?”

  “My son, among others.”

  I nearly growled in frustration. Even a lawyer had her limits on word games. “And who is your son?”

  “You should be faster than this, dear.”

  Her son? Who would drop me here and just expect me to be fine with it and work?

  Zeus!

  “Is Zeus your son? Who would that make you?”

  She grinned, wide and beautiful. So I was right?

  “Losing patience, already? You’re going to need a thicker skin to stay here.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I don’t want to stay here.”

  “You don’t have a choice.” She shrugged like that was just the way it was. “My son chained you to make you realize that. Heavy handed, if you ask me.”

  “What do you mean? I can’t leave? Ever?”

  “Oh, no, don’t be silly. Just until they’re done with you. Men.” She winked again.

  “We’re not friends here,” I snapped. “We’re not girls in this together against the patriarch. I don’t know who the hell you are. For all I know, you’re actually a man. Or some being that’s above gender classifications. Start answering my questions.”

  She regarded me, the same amused expression on her face. “Or else what?”

  I threw my hands up and jabbed a finger at her. “Why are you here then! Why aren’t I just sitting on that couch chained up?” I switched my finger to the couch. “Waiting for whatever? Why are you here?”

  She disappeared.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Are you fucking kidding me!” I shouted to the sky.

  Nothing.

  “Shit.” I walked to the pool. Apparently the gods wanted me here, or at least one of them did. Apollo did need my powers for his pond, maybe this really was his doing.

  He wouldn’t.

  But yeah, he would. Wouldn’t he? He did kidnap me, trick me into working for him, lie to me, bind me to him. Was this really so beyond the pale for him?

  Yes. I couldn’t say why, but yes it was. He wouldn’t pull this. Not now. Not after everything we’d been through.

  I walked to the pond and kneeled next to it. Nothing shifted in the air or shuffled to make even background noise. It was silence rarely achieved outside a sensory deprivation chamber. It seemed so peaceful, especially without the freaking Sphinx of the Watering Hole here.

  But looks could be deceiving. If I was talking to a mother of gods, she was old and damn powerful, she could just be hanging around invisible and I wouldn’t know it.

  Well, maybe I wouldn’t.

  I stared into the pool.

  If this is Apollo’s psychic pool, then shouldn’t I be able to use it to expand my psychic powers?

  Worth a try.

  I squinted, focusing on my reflection, sending my thoughts like ripples through the water. My mind tipped forward, leaving my body behind… hopefully. The world went wonky and I fought the urge to fight, let myself go and tipped in.

  Wet didn’t hit my face and I opened my eyes. Wisps of shadows fluttered past me, almost taking form. I swear I’d seen something like this before. What was it?

  The world was a gentle blue hue. My brain’s interpretation of visions supposedly encased in water, maybe? I turned. At least, I think I turned, taking in the swirls around me.

  They were all the same. Incoherent flashes gone fast and silent. The silence made my skin crawl. I looked down to see if goose bumps were forming.

  I only saw the same blue swirl. Like I wasn’t real. I didn’t even have a projected image of my body. I was a brain floating around.

  Okay, that mental picture’s going to haunt me.

  I shook it off. Not important. I was a psychic in a psychic’s seeing pool. This should’ve been a snap. But it was like getting handed the keys to a Maserati when all you’d ever driven were go-karts. This was so beyond my skill level, or at least my knowledge level.

  But still. I was psychic and this could work for me. I took a deep breath before remembering I wasn’t really in my body and if I was, I’d probably drown in about a minute. I sent up a quick prayer, to get my message across, to save me.

  I was praying to God to deliver my message to a god? I shrugged. Couldn’t hurt at this point. It wasn’t like God would hold me asking for help against me, even if the being I was asking for help from had a superiority complex.

  “Apollo? I’m at your pool. I’m here and trapped. I don’t think you trapped me but someone, some old lady said her son did. I think she was Gaia and she was saying Zeus trapped me. Just a guess but… can you hear me?”

  The water changed patterns, shifted in front of me, like it heard my plea.

  “Yes! Yes! Hi water stuff. Show me Apollo.”

  The… waves? The sort of waves churned, folding into each other and squeezing out droplets of color. I focused on those, willing the color to live, to coalesce.

  I gathered power around me, its warmth rolling around me like furs. And dropped them in a heap on the specks of color.

  The colors blew up like they were inflatables at the state fair and I stumbled back. The colors fell.

  No!

  I pictured moving forward, pushing myself on the colors, making a picture come into being.

  It bloomed, rising so fast I had to fight the urge to step back again as it formed a picture. Apollo sat in the same scooped out hollow we were in last time, hands on his knees, eyes closed. I half expected to hear the Oooooooooom, ooooooooom of chanting monks in the background.

  Apollo’s eyes popped open and he looked over his shoulder like he sensed me there.

  “Yes, hi Apollo!”

  He frowned and his mouth moved, eyes focusing past my right shoulder. I looked over and only saw the blue swishes. I focused on his mouth, urging the volume to turn up.

  “…t I can assure you she is fine,” Apollo was saying. “My father just put her in front of the pool to use her powers. She’s probably pissed, but fine.”

  “All right,” Millie said somewhere behind me. “We just got a little worried.”

  “I know. I was too until my father said where she was.”

  “I’m here!” I said. “And yeah, pissed. Apollo, can you hear me?”

  He said something, the words coming out at a tenth of the volume.

  “Cassandra?” a voice echoed, overlaying Apollo’s soft whisper for a moment. It sounded a lot like Apollo, actually. Was I hearing his voice from a different time, an echo from his past?

  “Wh…” came through static, fuzzing out under the real Apollo’s voice. I focused on the echo. “…ou.”

  The fuzz stopped. The real Apollo had stopped talking, too. Maybe it only worked when he was speaking, like his voice conjured up the past?

  “Apollo!” I screamed in my head, trying to grab onto the fuzzing words.

  “Cassandra?” came in clearer. “Do you know where you are? Can you help us find you?”

  If I was in my body I would've wrinkled my forehead. Was I reaching through time or something? The real Apollo was looking up, talking to someone, his voice now unclear, but his lips very obviously not matching the voice I was hearing.

  I shrugged, who knew, maybe he was multitasking. “Ha, ask your dad. Apparently he thinks I'm more useful here. I'm at your seeing pond.”

  “You think you're at my seeing pond?”

  “I am.”

  “No, I'm at my seeing pond. And the other one is under watch.”

  “Then where the hell am I?”

  Wait, why was I talking to the echo, illusion, whatever he was?

  “That's what I'm trying to find out!” He said something hard and dirty sounding in his original language. “Cassandra, you're missing. Let me in your head, let me see where you are.”

  “I'm sorry, no.” I laughed. “
I'm looking at Apollo, and he isn't saying any of this. Nice try.”

  A wave bowled me over, dragging me down, away from the picture I had conjured.

  “Let me in,” a voice whispered from below, sucking me down.

  “No!”

  I pushed against it, kicking and pumping my nonexistent legs and arms. It was like a computer virus crouching in an innocent looking download, the second you opened it up and let it in, it took over your entire computer.

  Everything in me screamed against this voice. It was someone trying to hack my brain, someone pulling a Trojan Horse. I knew that. I hung onto that knowledge. I wouldn't lose, I wouldn't let him in.

  “Cassandra.” It sucked me down again.

  My lungs burned. Why did they burn if I didn't need air? I ignored them.

  “I swear, it's me. I'm real,” Apollo said. “You're in an illusion, you have to believe me. Let me in, let me see.”

  “No. I won't fall for your tricks!” But the water sucked me down deeper.

  “It's me!”

  I could practically see his eyes boring into mine, pleading for me to believe him, to trust him. My heart ached with the urge to stop fighting against someone I cared for. And for a second, just for a second, I believed the voice.

  It was enough.

  “Yes. There you go.” He crawled in, like water pouring into my ears, leaving salt on my tongue and sinuses. “I've got you. I see you. I'm coming to get you. Stop using your magic, you're in a trap. It sucks out any magic you use.”

  The voice burned through me, clearing out the confusion, like using a salt water rinse in your nose to kill bacteria.

  Holy shit! And I'd been so sure that voice was a lie mere moments ago.

  “Who?”

  “Has to be Ravena, he's the only psychic with a tie to you powerful enough to pull this off.”

  “But he's imprisoned.”

  “He broke out. Didn't you get my message?”

  “What! No!”

  “Stop using your magic. Just cut it off. It will cut you off from me, but I'll be there soon.”

  “You're asking me to take a lot on faith here.”

  “I know. Trust me.”

  “Okay. How long until you get here?”

  “Minutes… I hope.”

  I opened my eyes, in my body so fast I expected whiplash, and stared down at the pool.

  If it wasn't real, what was it?

  The sun shined, the grass smelled like it was cut mere hours ago, the breeze kicked up. It smelled like sweet flowers and maybe a hint of lemons.

  Everything felt so real. With my eyes open, outside the pool and obviously here, the Apollo whisper seemed less real.

  How did I know he was the real Apollo? Or even if he was, that he was on my side?

  He could be the real Apollo and trying to keep me from breaking out. It was a perfect solution. I wouldn’t use my powers anymore because I would be afraid of them being sucked dry, and therefore I wouldn’t figure out this was real and his father did put me here.

  But then again, if they put me here, it would’ve been to get me to use my powers for their ends. They’d want me to use the pool, wouldn’t they? Otherwise, why put me here?

  I focused on the world around me. The day was still sunny, but it was almost too bright. Everything was just a little too. The grass too soft, the fence too white, the sun too bright, the breeze too sweet and warm.

  Everything just a hair too sparkling clean and shiny.

  If this was a lie, then I should wait for Apollo and conserve my energy. If it wasn't, and that voice was a lie, then it was stopping me because it knew I was reaching out.

  I took a deep breath, digging my fingernails into the ground. I pulled back and dirt clung inside my nails, feeling grimy, like dirt.

  But that voice had been real. It had been Apollo all the way. Panic about me, concern somehow holding a touch of arrogance. I could keep trying to use magic to see or get out, but if it was some cage that sucked magic, I was just making it worse.

  So, psychic pool or psychic trap?

  I honestly didn’t know.

  I grabbed another fistful of the grass and yanked. The bunch lifted out of the earth with a soft ripping sound. I held it up to my nose and took a deep breath. The rich, almost tangy scent of fresh cut grass bloomed strong, but there was something… something missing.

  The dirt!

  The dirt clinging to the grass didn’t smell like dirt!

  I took another whiff. Oh wait, there it was. The mineral scent of dirt was light, overpowered by the grass, but it was there.

  Crap. There went the hope I’d have a clear answer this was fake. What about a clear answer it wasn’t? How could I test that?

  You can’t prove a negative, Millie’s voice echoed in my head. You could prove something was real, but you could never really prove it wasn’t. So how did I test if the voice whispering to me was real?

  Give it the few minutes it asked for and see if Apollo showed. It wasn’t like I couldn’t start searching again if he didn’t.

  Was it?

  I was going to drive myself crazy with this. A few minutes. If Apollo was real in the vision and really trying to find me, then I’d give him the few minutes he asked for. After that… I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

  I stared up at the sky. If this was fake, then where was I? Knocked out in that living room? Somewhere in the India section of the gods’ dimension?

  I lay down in the grass, stroking the softness like it was one of my dogs. I hope they’re okay.

  My eyelids fluttered and I took a deep whiff of the greenery. It even smelled green in here. I was so tired.

  “Cassandra!”

  Something thin and rough hit my face, flicking my cheek like a flash of lightning and gone just as fast. My eyes popped open. How long had I been lying here?

  I groped around me, too tired to sit up. My fingers brushed against something rough next to my head and I grabbed it, pulled it up to see.

  Yep, a rope. It was a plain, inch thick rope, the type they’d tie off a boat with in movies or something. Who uses rope these days?

  “Grab on,” Apollo’s voice drifted around me.

  “Huh?” My eyes closed again.

  “Grab on!” Apollo roared, voice searing my synapses with acid.

  “Jerk.” I grabbed the rough… thing, whatever it was called, with both hands. Maybe now he’d let me sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Cassandra?”

  Something shook me. I batted at it.

  “Is she going to be alright?” a high, female voice asked. Sounded like a kid. “Is it permanent?”

  After a beat she said, “Apollo! Is the magic she lost going to be replenished or not? Was it permanent like what’s happening to you guys in controlling the alignment, or is it just a temporary drain of energy, like what you were doing to her? This is not a fucking difficult question!” Her voice went up and she screamed the end, piercing my fog.

  Oh, that was Millie. She sounded pissed.

  “I don’t know!” Apollo yelled right back. “Stop asking!”

  “I’m sorry,” Millie said a moment later, voice soft and sweet again. “I know you love her and you’re just as scared as us.”

  “How did I let this happen?” His voice sounded muffled.

  “Let what happen?” I asked, forcing my eyes open.

  I lay on a bed in what looked like a hospital room. It had a window in one wall and I was propped up in an adjustable bed across from a TV. There was a smattering of medical looking equipment around me but I couldn’t get a good visual on them before Apollo was in my face.

  Apollo grabbed me, pulling me up into a hug and squeezing me tight around my shoulders. He pulled back, searching my eyes like he was hoping to find some answers there.

  I opened my mouth but before I could say anything he pulled me in, kissing me with the same urgency he’d had looking at me.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and close
d my eyes, kissing him back. His weight settled on the bed near my legs and he moved his hands down my arms, pushing me back into the pillows on the propped up bed, half lying on top of me.

  “Whoa, guys!” Millie’s voice broke through and Apollo pulled back.

  I opened my eyes and Apollo sat up. He must’ve been in an awkward position trying to lay on me with the bed propped up like that anyway.

  “I’d say get a room,” Millie said, “but I get we’re in one. So, get a private room when the world isn’t ending, alright?”

  “What?” I looked at her past Apollo.

  “You were gone for nearly two days,” Millie said.

  I grabbed the bar on the side of the bed and tried to breathe. Two days! How had I’d been gone for two whole days? Two hours I’d believe, but…

  “What happened?” I asked Apollo.

  This was no time to panic. That would come later, when we had time for it.

  “Millie said you were planning to come here to check on us because we weren’t answering our phones. When she and Tyler got here, you weren’t anywhere to be seen. We were all at the crystal hollow, pouring in our magic, and our phones were working fine. We figured you saw us, saw we were fine, and left before anyone could see you and…”

  He looked down. “We assumed you weren’t happy with us and wouldn’t want to be around us until you had to be. I assumed. I didn’t even know you were missing until hours later when your friends came back and said they couldn’t find you. And by then…”

  Apollo shook his head. “There was no sign of you. I couldn’t even sense you psychically. There is no excuse! Cassandra, I’m so sorry.”

  “Hey,” I stroked his curls like he was one of my dogs when they were upset. “I’m okay. Even if my powers are gone or depleted or whatever, I’m here and I’m okay. Where did they have me?”

  “Well…” Apollo looked to Millie.

  “Pocket reality,” Millie said with a shrug. “Best explanation I can think of that would make sense to people without a background in magical theory.”

  “Huh?” I blinked, looking between the two of them.

  “Kind of like what we hibernated in,” Apollo said. “It’s a little universe, completely self-contained. In this case, it ran off of your power once you were inside it. It was… programmed, I guess is the closest term for it, to drain your magic, to convince you to pour magic into it to make that easier. Since it was self-contained, once you were gone, it would collapse and the power you poured into it would pour back into this one.”