The other witches were already finishing up. At some unseen signal, one of them turned out the lights. The basement was lit only by the sacred candles the witches had prepared. They formed a ring around the cauldron in the centre. The air was thick with plumes of incense; thousands of exotic smells invaded my head and made the room waver.
I shuddered--with anticipation and with worry.
Someone threw a handful of powder into the cauldron. A pillar of violet flame exploded upward before dropping to a low flame that radiated cold instead of heat and made my skin crawl.
“Hera,” Sarah said, “sit in the centre with Beth.”
I did as she asked. Beth trailed after me nervously. I took her hand. Her grip was painful.
Once we were inside the circle, the witches linked hands. I almost dropped to my knees at the invisible explosion of power that shot out from the cauldron and into the circle. The power rebounded back to the cauldron, and I stumbled again. It felt like I was being tossed back and forth by ocean swells. Over and over and over again.
“Don’t fight it,” Sarah said, as Beth and I sat down. “Let it flow through you.”
It was difficult at first. It went against my nature to surrender. But, somehow--probably a mix of desperation and stubbornness--I did it. I let go.
As soon as I did, the power rushed into me, instead of breaking against me. The sensation was incredible. I felt reborn. No more exhaustion. No more pain. No more weakness. Nothing but power. It was exhilarating. And achingly familiar. I felt like I could do anything. I felt like a god again.
“Good,” Sarah murmured. “You’re both ready.”
Then I realized that Sarah hadn’t even spoken out loud. I could hear her thoughts. I could hear all the witches’ thoughts. Each one was thinking something different, often in different languages. But, somehow, that cacophony was also a chorus, a counterpoint so complex that I could only comprehend the vaguest outline of what they were creating. It was inconceivably vast.
“Beth, you know what to do,” Sarah told her.
Beth hesitated.
“Beth, you know,” Sarah repeated. “Do it.”
I instinctively took Beth’s hands. Together we made our own circle. Beth took a deep breath. I took one too. Unconsciously, we were breathing as one.
Beth started to whisper, then to chant. The words were foreign to me. She said them faster and faster. They flowed out of her and somehow entered me.
Suddenly, I felt myself rushing through time and space. I exploded up the stairs, out the door, along the streets. The world was a blur. Streams of colour flew by me. And then, all of a sudden, it stopped. I was standing still. Looking around, I recognized the pipe network where Ekhidna had built her nest.
Just the thought of her brought her face immediately to my mind. I could see every detail. It was as vivid as if I were staring right at her. And then I was.
“How isss thisss . . .” Ekhidna began, shocked.
Before she finished speaking, Beth flickered into existence beside me. She was still chanting.
Ekhidna laughed. “Thisss is your plan? A mortal? Ssshe’sss not even a real witch!”
Beth hesitated. Her chanting became less fluid, less sure. I saw the doubt in her eyes.
“Don’t listen to her!” I shouted. “It’s working.”
I summoned my power to my eyes. I caught Ekhidna’s gaze. I drew her into me.
It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. In this strange, in-between space I now occupied, somewhere between magick and divinity, my powers bypassed her immunity. But not completely. Ekhidna was fighting back. She was trying to look away. Her head was already turning.
“I can’t hold her, Beth!” I warned. “She’s breaking free . . .”
Beth was shaking. I could feel how desperately she was chanting. She was draining fast. She was powerful, but she had no training. She had no focus. The power she summoned was smashing around inside her instead of streaming out. It was tearing her apart. She was failing. And she knew it. And that was making her fail faster.
I forced as much power as I could into my eyes. Ekhidna’s head froze. But I couldn’t keep her like that for long. And I still wasn’t inside her mind.
“Beth . . .” I began.
But it was too late. The power was too much. With a scream, the spectre of Beth exploded into fragments.
I braced myself for Ekhidna’s victorious sneer and then her wrath. But instead she looked horrified. I risked a sidelong glance. The fragments of Beth hadn’t vanished. They were growing. Into women. Thirteen women. Witches.
“No!” Ekhidna screamed.
The witches smiled. They flew at Ekhidna, becoming streams of light. They wound around her. Her body jerked as she was wrapped in chains of power. More and more witches. More and more chains. Ekhidna screamed again. And then the last witch wound her light around Ekhidna’s mouth. Ekhidna toppled like a great tree.
“Hurry,” I heard Sarah’s voice whisper. “They won’t hold her for long.”
I caught Ekhidna’s gaze; weakened and trapped by the witches, she couldn’t resist. Before I knew what was happening, I became a stream of light and plunged into her mind.
My surroundings became darkness. Gradually, I started to spot flickers. Fireworks. But different. Bursts of darkness, not light. Fluid, somehow. Slippery and heavy. If these were Ekhidna’s thoughts, I’d never find what we were looking for. There wasn’t time. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of alien, liquid thoughts.
A scream--a witch’s scream. Somewhere in the distance. Ekhidna was breaking free. And I still didn’t know what to do.
“Memories.” Sarah’s voice was like a sighing wind, so faint, I could barely make it out.
Another scream.
I needed more time! I tried to calm myself. I needed to concentrate--and listen to Sarah.
I tried to look past the inky slime exploding around me. If these were thoughts, and not memories, then the memories were somewhere else.
I searched around desperately. The memories had to be somewhere!
Another scream. Ekhidna was too strong. What would happen once the last bond broke? Would I be violently returned to my body? Or would I be locked inside Ekhidna’s mind, her prisoner for eternity?
Another scream. That made four. Four bonds broken. Nine witches left.
And then I spotted it. Infinitely far below, barely even visible. A pile of sludge.
I plunged downward. Another scream. The sludge was closer. Another scream. And I was there.
But my heart sank. It wasn’t a pile of sludge. It was a sea! How would I ever find the memory of the spell in this?
I had to try. Another scream. Then another. They were coming faster now. Ekhidna was building momentum, smashing through the witches’ minds.
Five minds left. Five screams to go.
I reached desperately into the sludge. It clung and sucked, trying to pull me in. My fingers brushed hard fragments along the bottom, where the sludge had congealed and petrified. Memories.
As I touched them, the images they contained flashed through my mind. But there were thousands of memories -- thousands upon thousands.
I swept my hands along the memories as fast as I could. Death. Torture. Suffering. Chaos. So many dark memories. But none were the one I was searching for. I was no closer to finding the spell.
Screamscreamscream. Three in such rapid succession, it was one long sound made of many voices.
Two witches left. There was no way I could do this. It was too much.
“Enough!” I shouted with all the fury and desperation I had in me.
Without realizing it, I summoned my power into my eyes. They blazed as energy rushed up from the depths of my soul. There was a surreal moment of calm, and then a deafening explosion as my power detonated around me.
The sea of sludge flew back, struck by a cyclone of psychic fire. It sizzled and fried, steaming away as the inferno of my power roiled across it.
Then I spotted it
. A single memory that glittered among the dull fragments, lit from within by my own desire.
Scream.
No! I was so close!
One scream left. One witch to go.
I lifted my hand, and the memory lifted into the air, buoyed by my will. It heard my silent call. It sailed toward me with the speed of thought. My fingers closed around it. The spell flooded into my mind. I knew every detail, every word, every ingredient. It was my memory now.
Scream.
The last mind had snapped. The last chain binding Ekhidna was gone.
Her laughter boomed all around me like thunder. And then she wavered into existence in front of me. She towered above me, the size of an apartment building.
Suddenly, the sea around me flooded back. Before it could crush me, snakes of slime shot out, wrapped around my arms and legs and lifted me up to Ekhidna’s triumphant face.
Then the slime flowed around me and solidified into bars, caging me.
“At lassst, Hera,” Ekhidna said. “You’re all mine.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“Let me go, Ekhidna!” I shouted. “If you don’t, the traitor will remake the world. We’ll all die. Even you!”
“I’ll take my chansssesss,” Ekhidna replied, smiling.
“You’re making a huge mistake,” I warned her.
“Jussst like you did when you invaded my mind,” Ekhidna snapped. “Let’sss sssee who regretsss theirsss firssst.”
And with that, Ekhidna began to vanish.
“Ekhidna!” I shouted. “Ekhidna!”
But it was too late. She was gone.
I slid down, sitting on the bottom of the cage. So close. I’d been so close. There had to be a way to get out of this. The others had to know I was in trouble. They’d know Ekhidna had shattered her bonds, and when I didn’t return, they’d know I was trapped. They’d come looking.
But there was no telling how much damage Ekhidna had done to the witches’ minds when she broke free. Even if they’d survived, they wouldn’t have the power to break back into her mind again. And there wasn’t enough time to call in more witches. There just wasn’t time! For any of this!
And then it occurred to me. It was dangerous, but so was wasting time as Ekhidna’s prisoner. I was out of options.
“Justin!” I called. “Justin!”
But he didn’t appear.
I’d been able to call him before, even in the midst of his madness. But things had changed between us. I’d fought him, pushed him away, told him on no uncertain terms that we would never be together. I’d done the best I could to get him to bury his feelings, to forget them, to forget us. Maybe I’d succeeded. Maybe I’d finally broken our special bond that seemed to defy time and space and the very boundaries between worlds.
Ironic. Poetic, even. I’d been true to my cheating husband and his empty vows to the bitter end, and in doing so, I’d doomed not only myself, but all of existence. My stubborn dedication to my duty as a wife had made me betray the greatest duty of all: my duty as queen.
“Oh, Justin,” I whispered miserably. “I failed.”
“Only if you didn’t get the spell,” he replied.
I turned, and there he was, floating next to the cage.
“Justin! Thank . . . I got it. I got the memory,” I said. “But how--”
“I can hear you,” he smiled. He tapped his chest. His heart. “No matter where you are.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I went with the obvious. “Don’t just stand there. Get me out of here.”
“I’m floating actually,” Justin replied archly.
He closed his eyes. And then opened them. “That’s weird. I can’t get us to the Dreamlands. It’s like something’s blocking me.”
“Ekhidna!” I gasped. “Justin, look out!”
Ekhidna rippled into existence behind him. She raked at him with her claws. But with preternatural speed, he dodged out of the way. A sword and shield appeared in his hands. When she struck again, he blocked with his shield, and swiped back with his sword.
But Ekhidna was fast, too. She easily snaked out of the way.
“A telepath?” she snarled.
“A Dreamer,” I shot back.
They traded blows, back and forth, but they were too evenly matched. Then Ekhidna changed tactics. Justin should’ve seen it coming. I should have, too.
Ekhidna drove Justin back with a series of vicious blows. He parried and blocked every one. But then Ekhidna launched herself backward and lifted her arms. All around Justin, the sludge rose in massive waves, preparing to crush him.
I couldn’t let it happen. I had to end this.
With a deep breath and every ounce of strength I had left, I reached inside and called up my power. Rather than channeling it at the waves, I directed it at the ground underneath Justin. I couldn’t fight Ekhidna directly, not inside her own mind. She was too strong, and I needed to conserve energy for the rest of my plan.
As the waves began to crash down on him, Justin shot into the air, thrust upward by a geyser of slime I summoned underneath him. Surprised at first, he recovered quickly and sprang at Ekhidna, slicing upward with his sword. She twisted, but Justin’s blade sliced into her flesh, and the black ichor of her blood sprayed into the air. Ekhidna shrieked.
She was distracted. I seized my chance. With my remaining strength, I summoned chains of sludge and wrapped them swiftly around Ekhidna, dragging her down to the sea. She was fighting me so furiously that she almost broke my control when Justin calmly laid his blade along her throat.
“You’re fast,” he admitted, “but not that fast. Now release Hera and let us leave, or I’ll slit your throat. I bet all sorts of nasty things happen to the rest of you when your mind dies.”
Ekhidna kept struggling.
“She’s breaking free!” I warned.
Justin pushed in the blade, and black liquid began to trickle down Ekhidna’s neck. He’d cut her. Not enough to kill her. But enough.
“Now,” Justin repeated.
Ekhidna howled in fury, but she closed her eyes.
And that was the last thing I saw.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Chaos. The furious sounds of battle. But as I adjusted to being back in the real world, I realized that the sounds were coming from upstairs. We were safe. For now.
The bodies of half a dozen witches were strewn across the room. When Ekhidna had broken free, she’d affected their bodies as well as their minds; they’d been flung backward and now lay slumped against the walls. The ones who’d recovered fastest were trying to help the others. Some were slowly coming around. Others lay still, and would never wake again. The witches were laying those bodies in the corner.
The corner where Beth had already been laid. Poor Beth. So brave. So young.
I threw up.
So much death. So much loss. So much grief. Yet another life I should’ve been able to protect.
Justin was retching beside me. But he was shaking too hard. He was too pale. I went cold.
“Ekhidna got you,” I realized.
I spotted four deep scratches in his right arm. They were already beginning to foam. When Ekhidna had released us from her mind, her venom had stayed in Justin. But his body was reacting like it was a physical poison, not a psychic one. It made no sense.
“We need Apollo!” I shouted. “Now!”
Justin sank down. I tried to help him sit, but he was too heavy. His skin was burning to the touch. Ekhidna’s venom worked fast.
“Apollo is upstairs fighting,” one of the witches told me. “The harpies and pythons attacked as soon as you left.”
“How are we doing?” I asked tightly.
The witch said nothing, which said everything.
“Can’t anybody replace Apollo?” I asked.
Justin wasn’t going to last long like this.
“I’m sorry, my queen,” the witch said. “We have to stay here to keep the protection spells in place. Otherwise, we’ll be overrun.”
“That many?” I said.
The witch nodded. A tear fell from her eyes, which she wiped away in frustration. “More than I can count.”
Ekhidna had raised an army, and she’d finally unleashed it on us. For whatever reason, maybe just to spite me, she was throwing her lot in with the traitor. Fool.
“I’ll replace him myself then,” I decided.
I got up to head to the stairs, but before I took a single step, I stumbled and fell. My right leg was completely numb. Through the holes in my skirt, I saw the old arrow wound beginning to split back open. Apollo had warned me that his healing would wear off, and he’d been right. I had to hurry.
Two of the witches rushed to help me, but I waved them off.
“Do what you can for Justin,” I said.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, and relying solely on my left leg, I hauled myself off the ground. It was an act of raw will more than anything else.
But I always had will to spare.
I made it up the stairs. I immediately spotted Artemis and Hermes behind a makeshift barricade by the front door. The door had already been battered. It barely hung on its hinges. Huge holes had been torn through it.
Occasionally, Artemis took aim and loosed an arrow through the gaps in the door.
Hermes waved me over. He was monitoring the situation outside through one of the holes. He moved aside for me to look.
It was bad. But it could’ve been worse. Much worse. There were scores of pythons, and circling in the air were dozens of harpies. But this had to be a fraction of her army. I’d seen far more eggs than this.
“The protection spells are keeping them out,” Hermes explained, “but the magick’s starting to fail.”
“And they’ve figured out that if they concentrate their attacks, they can break through,” Artemis added.
“Which is why they’re massing up front,” I realized. “Why haven’t they charged?”
“They did,” Hermes told me. “Sarah took care of them.”
“She sliced them in half,” Artemis said smugly. “They weren’t expecting that.”
I spotted a line of bodies, some pythons, some harpies, in a ring around the house. Sarah must’ve summoned her barrier so it shot up right in the middle of the monsters’ bodies. The result had been devastating. Their charge had been decimated. Body parts littered the lawn. That explained what happened to the rest of Ekhidna’s army.
Hera, Queen of Gods (Goddess Unbound) Page 28
