by Steve McHugh
“You’re all too groggy. Just stay here.” I jumped out of the window, my air magic letting me glide the thirty feet to the ground.
A lot of the humans were back to their normal selves but appeared confused and shaken as an apparently uninjured Pandora got back to her feet.
“You knew,” Pandora accused.
“I guessed,” I said. “Enthralling all of these people must have taken a lot of concentration on your part. Falling thirty feet onto hard ground probably knocked your power out for a second or two, just long enough for everyone to recover.”
“I can just as easily take them again.”
“Not without going through them all one at a time. How did you manage to enthrall Hera and the others upstairs, anyway?”
“Selene was in the corridor and Ares, standing guard outside. After that it was just a case of overwhelming force. Hera almost got me, but she wasn’t quick enough to realize what I was doing.”
“You’re coming with me now,” I said.
“No, I don’t think so.” She turned and sprinted off into the crowd, and I followed without getting too close. She touched a few people as she went by, but when we reached the center of the convention room, Tommy appeared out of nowhere, subduing the newly enthralled humans. She could enthrall Tommy, but by the time she could have gotten past the throng of people and done it, I’d have caught up to her. She changed course.
Another aisle had Sky at the end and a third held Hades. Pandora took a fourth, and I slowed to a walk after she discovered Persephone waiting for her. I let her take a fifth, but she came back to the center after spotting Olivia. There was nowhere to go, no path she could take that would lead to her escape before I caught up to her.
“We’re done here,” I said.
“No!” she screamed. But most of the humans had been evacuated from the building, and none of those that were left were close to enough for her to grab and enthrall.
I glanced over at my friends and nodded. Each of them turned and walked away. Once everyone had gone—leaving just Pandora and me staring at one another—I offered her my hand. “Give it up,” I said.
“No,” she repeated and swatted my hand aside. “If I go, I’m going to grab someone and use them. There’s no one you can trust near me. And this time, I’m not letting you bring me in.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Spare me your pity. If you want to take me out of here, you’re going to have to kill me to do it.” She snapped her fist toward my face, which I pushed aside before giving her a shove and allowing her momentum to carry her beyond me.
She snapped one leg up toward me, catching me on the chest, which made me stagger, and she followed up by planting that foot, spinning around and hitting me in the face with her opposite foot.
The blow split my lip, but I recovered enough to avoid the rest of her kicks and punches. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to strike back because she was a woman; I’m of the opinion that if someone is trying to kick your ass, you defend yourself no matter the sex of the attacker. I just didn’t want to hurt someone I liked. I’d hoped once the initial flurry of rage she had inside her had been burned out, she’d surrender, but it soon became apparent that wasn’t going to be the case.
She weaved toward me and caused me to block or dodge more blows. The more they continued, the more force I had to use to slow her down. I pushed her away, tripped her, and tried to lock her arm in place in an effort to subdue her with minimal damage, but she was always moving and never stayed down for long.
It made fighting her incredibly difficult, but I refused to be drawn into a full fight with her. Pandora was thousands of years old, but she wasn’t a hand-to-hand fighter. And any training she’d had wasn’t something she’d been able to continue practicing on any sort of regular basis while in a jail cell.
Pandora launched herself up to catch me in the side of my head with a vicious kick, and I decided I’d had enough. I grabbed her thigh and twisted my body, dragging her up and over me before dumping her on the floor with a crack. She kicked out at me with her free leg, but I connected with a blow of my own on her knee, which caused her to roll aside in pain.
I released her leg and stepped back, hoping she’d had enough, but she had other ideas and swept out at my legs. I jumped back, giving her enough time to get to her feet.
“Enough,” I said. “Seriously, you can’t beat me in a fight. Just surrender and we can leave. No one needs to be hurt here today.”
“Never! Now fight me.”
She put up her hands in a fighter’s stance and walked toward me before throwing a punch that I caught in one hand, at the same time driving my other fist into her solar plexus with immense force.
“Breathe,” I said as she collapsed to her knees. “Breathe steadily. You’re okay.”
Tears fell down Pandora’s cheeks, and I wasn’t convinced they were from the pain of the blow. “They deserve to be punished,” she gasped weakly. “Why won’t you let me punish them? Look what they did to me.”
Realization of a previous thought’s accuracy dawned on me. “It’s not Pandora who took charge of the body is it? How long have you been in charge?” I asked. “Hope, how long have you been in charge?” I repeated when she didn’t answer.
Hope glanced up at me through misted eyes. “Since Berlin. Pandora is gone. There’s only Hope now. Once she’d left, all of the knowledge she’d been learning about controlling a person’s soul, not their mind, became mine to use as I wished. It was as if our merging unlocked all of these possibilities. When did you realize?”
“Just now. I thought Pandora was in control, but only you ever described yourself as an individual. Pandora never could. So, I should have known it was your personality taking over, not hers, when I heard you say ‘I.’ ”
“I was trying so hard not to screw it up ever since I saw you again.”
“Also, Pandora would have actually had people plant bombs in London. She didn’t care about the people if it meant getting her way.”
“I wondered if that was going to reveal the truth,” she said sorrowfully.
“Are you done weeping?” Hera asked from behind me. “Because I’d like to kill the fucking bitch.”
I stood and turned to Hera and her group. “You’re not having her,” I declared.
Hera glanced around. “Everyone appears to have left you. There’s no Hades here to stop me from just taking her and killing you if you get in the way.”
Ares cracked his massive knuckles, and I wondered if he’d discovered what I’d done to his boy.
“You’re not having her,” I said again.
Selene appeared and walked past Hera to stand beside me. “How much noise do you think it would take before Hades came in?” she asked.
Rage erupted onto Hera’s face. “How dare you! Clearly you’ve forgotten why you owe me your allegiance. Maybe I should remind you.”
I was about to say something when Hope launched herself past me, toward Hera, her hands outstretched to grab her creator. I reacted instinctively, creating a blade of lightning and driving it through Hope’s back, stopping her in her tracks. Hera’s mouth dropped open in shock or horror at either the lightning blade or the expression of agony on Pandora’s face, I didn’t know. I removed the blade and caught Hope before she collapsed toward the floor.
“I’ll remember this,” she said weakly as I laid her down. Suddenly, the sounds of doors opening and people running toward us echoed around the room.
“I’m sorry. I had to,” I explained.
“You’ll wish you’d finished the job,” she said before I was ushered away by LOA agents.
CHAPTER 41
The few hours after I’d put Hope down were hectic to say the least. Hera and her people scarpered once it became apparent that both Hades and Avalon had Brutus’s okay in terms of working within London, something Hera wouldn’t have gotten even if she’d paid for it.
The last I saw of them was Ares helping a dejected Deim
os out of Earls Court. Selene stayed behind, talking to various Avalon members about what had happened and what she’d seen. Occasionally, I found myself staring at her, but I looked away when she glanced toward me. It was childish and silly, but I felt angry with myself for what had happened between us, and angry with her for never revealing the truth.
“So, Pandora is no more?” Tommy asked as he sat beside me, carrying a sandwich.
“Where’d you get food?”
“Went to the shop,” he said and took a bite. “So, you going to answer my question?”
“Hope’s in charge now. I assume she’s much less happy with me than she was.”
“Last I saw, she was cursing your name while being loaded into an Avalon transport. I get the feeling things won’t be done between the two of you.”
“I couldn’t let her get to Hera. We’d be at war if she died.”
“Tough choice to make. Save Hera or allow a war to happen. Neither of those outcomes is all that great.” He finished his sandwich. “So, you and Selene. You spoken to her yet?”
I shook my head. “What do I say? For a century I was led to believe she’d discarded me through some act of callous self-advancement. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t seem to really sum it up.”
“You’ll figure it out. Oh, Brutus says thanks by the way. I think he was pretty happy how this ended without a bloodbath in his city.”
“Probably for the best. I forgot to ask: Where’s Kasey?”
“Olivia had her agents take her to Winchester. She had a little temper tantrum, but I’m led to believe none of the agents were going to allow a fourteen-year-old girl to tell them what to do. I suggested they tranquilize her. They told me that it was always an option. I think they were joking.”
Selene was suddenly walking our way, and Tommy made his excuses and left, patting me on the back for good luck as he went.
“We need to talk,” Selene said to me after nodding a thanks in Tommy’s direction.
“Probably.”
“My sister told you why I had to leave.”
“Yes. She explained about the threats and blackmail. About how you did it to keep me safe. You should have told me.”
“I couldn’t. I had to keep it to myself. No one could mention it.”
“So, why did Eos? And what about Petra? Did she know more?”
“Petra figured out that something wasn’t right just after we separated. She didn’t know it all, but she knew enough. Eos told you because she’s got a big mouth and no longer cares what Hera thinks. She figured if you knew, you could do something to stop Hera from telling everyone. Can you?”
“Are you leaving Deimos?”
“I think that’s pretty obvious. I was never really with him except in title. I don’t know what he thought was going to happen, but having a wife who didn’t care about him probably wasn’t on his bucket list.” She reached out and took my hand in hers. “Can we work again?”
I shrugged. “A century of feelings won’t just vanish. I think we both need to find out what we feel.”
“I need to find out who I am,” she admitted. “A century in that regime has changed me. Maybe we could be friends.”
“I’d like that. If it happens, it happens, but maybe you need to take some time for yourself. I don’t want to rush back into something and then fuck it up because I’m still angry and hurt by everything that happened.”
“Deal,” she said with a smile. “I don’t expect you to wait for me, Nate, if you find someone . . .”
I stood and kissed her on the cheek. “Go see your family. Don’t worry about me.”
“Can you stop Hera from releasing all of that information about you?”
I shrugged. “We’ll see. I have an idea or two.”
“I never loved you any less,” she whispered. “When I found out. If anything, I loved you more for beating the darkness inside you. I’m not sure I could have done it. I want you to know that.”
I took her hands and pulled her toward me slightly, kissing her on the lips as I moved one hand up to the side of her head. I pulled away and she licked her lips.
“I missed that,” she said.
“I missed you,” I whispered.
“I will come find you. When I know who I am and what place I have in this world. I promise, I’ll come find you. I love you.”
Hades called me over. I turned and waved that I’d be a moment before turning back to Selene who was walking out of the rear double doors at the back of Earls Court.
“I know,” I whispered with a smile.
CHAPTER 42
Pretty much everything was dealt with so that what had happened in Earls Court was put down to some drunken idiots’ gate crashing. Most of the people there would have put the whole incident out of their mind as a weird moment they’d rather forget, and to the best of anyone’s knowledge, no one was going to write a book about what had happened. Or if someone did, it would be fiction, and no one was going to believe it.
Hades called me at home after a few days and told me he needed me at the complex above Tartarus in Mittenwald. I made my way there and was surprised to find both Lucie and Sky at the entrance when the car that had picked me up from the airport stopped.
“Hi,” I said to them both. “What’s going on?”
“Hades has arranged a meeting between yourself and Hera,” Lucie said. “She’s in one of the meeting rooms in the complex. She’s not very happy at being called here. She arrived with her entire entourage in tow.”
“Well, he left that little bit of info out when he invited me here,” I said. It would have been nice to at least be asked if I wanted to see Hera, but I was here now and quickly resigned myself to the idea of the whole process. Hera still had a lot on me, and I doubted very much she was going to give it up without getting something in return. I hadn’t managed to figure out what I was going to do to stop her from going public with the information she had on Hellequin. Hopefully, Hades knew.
“How’s Pandora?” I asked Sky and then paused. “Sorry, how’s Hope?”
“Pissed off,” she said as we walked through the compound. “Mostly at you. She was secured in Nevada this morning. Unless she can enthrall rock and metal to do what she wants, she’s not getting out of there in a hurry.”
“She’ll escape one day,” Lucie said. “She always does.”
“Probably,” Sky conceded, “but not for a while.”
Cerberus met us at the entrance to the underground lift. He was walking without a stick for assistance.
“I assume your leg is okay?” I asked.
“It’s getting there. Thanks for your help here. You saved lives.”
“What happened to that piece of shit, Wayne, who’s now missing his hands?”
“We have him,” Lucie said. “He’s undergoing questioning. He’ll crack. Sooner or later.”
We took the lift down to the floor where Hades had given his talk to the class of children, and we walked to a meeting room in which Hera, Ares, and Demeter were all sitting in chairs around a small table. None of them appeared all that pleased to see me.
The sadness I felt that they had decided not to like me was, obviously, overwhelming, and for a second I did consider throwing myself upon their mercy, but then I remembered they were all nasty little fuckers and decided I couldn’t be bothered.
I sat opposite them, with Sky and Lucie on either side of me.
“So, Mr. Garrett,” Hera began with an air of smug satisfaction, “please tell me why I shouldn’t reveal your horrific deeds to the world. You have, after all, ensured that the marriage between Selene and my grandson is no longer viable. She knew what would happen if she were to betray me. Apparently, her love for you is less than you imagined.”
“Hera,” I started, “I think I can speak for everyone when I say—”
Before I could finish my incredibly witty reply, Sky interrupted. “Although it was Pandora’s plan, you didn’t know that. You followed it through and had people arrange for Cronus to
escape.”
“I believe I explained to Avalon that Hyperion and Sarah Hamilton were the ones responsible for that. Sarah was suckered into Pandora’s plan, and Hyperion fell for her lies in an attempt to remove me from power. In fact, I believe your father is arranging for his transfer back to Tartarus.”
“Yes, that was well timed,” Sky said. “Selene leaves your employ, and Hyperion is found to be the one responsible.”
“You think you know someone,” Hera said with a sly chuckle.
“Except we know it was you who hired Sarah, after Deimos brought her to your attention. It was her information—fed to her by Pandora—that you used to break Cronus free.”
“Where is the evidence?” Demeter demanded. “You can’t accuse people without evidence. And Ares’s son, Deimos, is a deeply disturbed individual. We had no idea he was working with Pandora to try to kill his own grandmother.” She turned to Ares and patted him sympathetically on the arm. “We’re heartbroken by the betrayal.”
That part at least was true. Not the heartbroken bit—that was bollocks. She probably hadn’t known her grandson Deimos was working against her. I’d have liked to think she wouldn’t have let it go as far as it had.
“Well, this has been fun,” Hera said, standing. “But it’ll be even more fun when this information is made public.”
“Oh, you’re leaving so soon?” Hades asked as he entered the room. He pushed a file across the table. “These are the e-mails between Demeter, yourself, and Sarah, planning Cronus’s little excursion.”
Hera’s face contorted with anger.
“I’m not an idiot, Hera,” Hyperion said as he walked through the open door. “I kept files of everything you were doing. If we go to Avalon with this information, what would happen?” he turned to Lucie. “For those who don’t know, Lucie here is the assistant director of the SOA.”
Hera sat down.
“Well, you’d be expelled from Avalon,” Lucie explained. “Merlin and your enemies would certainly want you to be branded traitors, and any control you have in Avalon projects would be removed. Your assets would probably be frozen too. You’d likely get them all back, but it would take years to sort out.”
