Zealot (Hidden: Soulhunter Book 3)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “Asclepius was here?” Artemis asked, a note in her voice that I could not quite identify.

  “He was. Last night,” Brennan said.

  Artemis nodded. “How was he?” she asked, again with that strange tone to her voice. For the moment, Lethe seemed to have been forgotten.

  “Uh. Fine? I mean, he didn’t say much, just took care of Lethe and then said to call him if she needed any more care. Why? Haven’t you seen him lately?” Brennan asked.

  “Lethe, what are you doing in London?” Artemis asked, and Brennan and I exchanged a glance. Even I was aware enough to recognize avoidance when I saw it.

  “The winds carry all things,” Lethe said in her airy voice. “Carry all things.”

  “Yes,” Artemis said, holding Lethe’s hand. “They do indeed.”

  “I hear all. All is carried on the winds,” Lethe said.

  “Yes,” Artemis said, a little shorter than the first time.

  “Had to speak to the Guardian. Had to tell her.”

  “Lethe, you did not have to come all this way. I know you have a telephone. Mollis sent one to you,” I said.

  “Phones,” Lethe said with a look of distaste. “The winds carry all.”

  Artemis blew out a breath and stepped over to Sean. “Are you ready, kiddo?” she asked him, and he nodded, then hugged his father, then me, and then took his grandmother’s hand and skipped out of the loft. He would probably be spending the day with some of the other shifter children here in the city, under Artemis’s watchful eye, of course. She and Brennan had not let the boy out of their sight since he had been taken. Even now, three of Mollis’s imps watched, perched on the roof and on the fire escape outside of our loft. Hephaestus had the same at his home, in addition to Mother Gaia watching over all.

  No one would be getting to the children again.

  I walked over to the table and sat in the chair beside Lethe’s. “Lethe. What did you need to tell me?” I asked her.

  “I hear many things. This heat is a burden,” she said, her voice like a dried autumn leaf.

  “It is,” I agreed. The goddesses of winter and autumn had been murdered. Their essences, souls, whatever it is that immortals have that allows us to resurrect, were now trapped in the old Aether, the place in which they were created. That world was lost to us now, until our mortal forms ceased to exist in this realm, at least. It was a place ruled by monsters and demons now, and Nyx had destroyed the physical gateway between that realm and this one, in an effort to save this world.

  How ironic that this world was dying anyway.

  At any rate, without the goddesses of autumn and winter, the weather worldwide had changed dramatically. We’d had a brief cooling period that had abruptly ended. The remaining essence of Winter’s power faded, and the world was left in what seemed now to be an eternal summer. Heat and drought were becoming problems, and it would only get worse. People were dying, not only from the undead, but from the harsh conditions the Earth had found itself in.

  I took Lethe’s hands in mine, trying to get her to focus. “Lethe. You said that you were coming here, to London, to tell me something. What was it, my friend?”

  “I was coming to tell you… something?” she asked, confusion in her eyes.

  “That was what you said to Artemis,” I said gently. “You told her you’d traveled here because there was something you had to tell me.”

  “The wind carries all,” she said. “It carried the sea god’s son to your doorstep.” I exchanged a glance with Brennan.

  “Triton?” I asked her. Even the name was enough to make my fists clench. It seemed to have the same effect on my husband. I was fairly certain I heard a low growl coming from his side of the room.

  “Sea god’s son. He was there, right before the attack,” she said dreamily.

  “The attack on you?”

  She gave a small nod, then shivered. “The wind carries all. I hear many things. This heat is a burden,” she said. I had dealt with Lethe enough by now to recognize when she was entering one of her mental loops. She would not be of much use now for a while as her mind wandered. I exchanged another look with Brennan, who still looked less than pleased with the fact that Triton, my former friend who had nearly been my death, was in the area.

  “Mollis’s imps are keeping an eye on the house. They would not let him near enough to do any harm,” I said, trying to soothe him.

  Brennan gave a terse nod. I was fairly sure he would be spending this day hunting for the sea god anyway. After a moment, he shook his head. “I called Heph. He said if you want, you can bring Lethe to their place. Gaia will be happy to see Lethe, anyway. And she still needs to rest,” Brennan said.

  I nodded. I squeezed Lethe’s hands, then released them and walked over to where Brennan stood, across the kitchen.

  “It must have been important, for her to leave her cliff,” I said quietly.

  “I know. Heph said maybe we can see if Molly or one of the Furies can take a look into her mind if she can’t remember. If she came all this way, chances are pretty good that whatever she wanted to tell you was worth the trip.”

  “I wonder why she did not just rematerialize,” I murmured, glancing back at Lethe, who sat staring into space, as if she was listening to something we could not hear. Probably, to the winds.

  “She looks weak. Maybe she couldn’t,” he said. “Last night, I thought maybe it was the journey that made her look so exhausted, but I don’t know. Maybe something happened before she left.”

  “Perhaps. Either way, I am glad she is here. We cannot afford to have any of us out where they cannot be protected.”

  He didn’t answer, and I glanced up to see him watching me again. “It’s going to be a while until I see you again, isn’t it?” he asked. It was one of the many things I loved about him, that he was so much a part of this insane world, that he had spent most of his life fighting to keep the world safe, that I had no need to explain things to him. He knew how bad things were. He knew what it was to feel called to battle, no matter how poor the odds were. He wanted to be with me as badly as I wanted to be with him. It was enough. At least, I hoped it would continue to be. We fought, hoping that someday, our life would be peaceful. We were not there yet, by a long shot.

  I reached out and fiddled with one of the buttons on the front of his shirt. “Most likely,” I said after a few moments, hating the words. His phone rang, and he hit the button to ignore the call, then shoved the phone back into his pocket. “I will be checking in with Mollis, and now with Hephaestus, at least until we find out what Lethe needed to tell me. But—”

  “But you have shit to do and so do I. Story of our life, Eunomia,” he said, smiling down at me as he pulled me into his arms.

  “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” I asked him. “You are never far from my thoughts, husband of mine.”

  He lowered his lips to mine, the briefest of kisses. He rested his forehead against mine, holding me close. “I love you. You are my light, and you’re my hope. You’re every dream I’ve ever had. Stay safe and come back to me, okay?”

  “Always,” I told him. “You do the same.”

  “I promised you were never getting rid of me,” he said quietly.

  I kissed him again, then let him go even though all I wanted to do was continue to hold him close to me. I could not explain it, this sense that things, bad as they were, were becoming worse and that I had every reason to worry. Lethe’s appearance had unnerved me, certainly.

  It is also possible that I have never had anything I have wanted to hold onto before. Not like this.

  “Maybe I can still try to hunt with you sometimes,” Brennan said.

  “I would rather you didn’t,” I told him, and he looked away, but not before I recognized the flash of hurt in his eyes. “You know I focus better when you are not with me.”

  He gave a short nod. “You do know that I don’t need to be protected, right?” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

 
; “I know. But I would rather do this on my own. At least for now,” I added, and he gave a terse nod. He bent and kissed me once more, murmuring that he loved me, and then he left. He would not push me. He would not argue. Sometimes, I found myself wishing he would, which is ridiculous. I also recognized that if he argued with me, it resulted in my staying, rather than leaving.

  I could admit it: I wanted to be doing just about anything other than hunting souls and undead. I was growing tired of it, sick of the constant battle, sick of the pull of the dead. It was all I knew how to do, and yet, I was growing to despise it. The fact that I was and always had been the best at what I do did not matter. It was no longer enough.

  I gently took Lethe’s hand in mine and focused on rematerializing with her. Before I felt us being pulled away, it occurred to me that I have been compromised. My devotion was no longer to fulfilling my duty, and I had no idea how to live that way.

  Chapter Three

  After Lethe was settled, I found my New Guardians. They had been hunting near Tokyo, where we had seen yet another upsurge in the number of undead and the deaths they caused. After listening to their update about the status of the hunt, I filled them in on what had happened the night before. They all listened, with varied expressions that ranged from dismay to outright hatred when I revealed what Lethe had said about Triton being near my home.

  “If that redheaded fuck is skulkin’ around, it can’t be a good sign,” Quinn said. He gratefully accepted the box of donuts Erin passed his way and selected a powdered sugar one. He took a bite that eradicated over half of the donut and watched me. “I bet Brennan’s hunting him right now,” he added.

  “I am sure he is. If there is a chance he can be found, Brennan will find him. But I would not be surprised at all if Triton has already turned tail and run.” I paused. “Which is why I think it is past time I paid a visit to the realm of the sea gods. Even if they cannot or will not turn Triton over, it is possible that they know things that will help us.”

  Quinn nodded and wiped his mouth with one of the napkins Erin had started passing around. “Well,” he began, “you don’t expect me to let you go alone, do you?”

  I smiled. “I never even would have considered it. Are you ready?”

  When we arrived on the beach that was considered part of Poseidon’s official residence, I stood there for several long moments, letting myself feel the hot sun, the brisk breeze whipping my hair in my face. Quinn gave my hand a squeeze. He knew, because I’d ended up spilling to him in the aftermath of Triton’s betrayal, what Triton had meant to me.

  “We don’t have to do this today, boss. It’s not like they’re going anywhere,” he said.

  I squeezed his hand back and then let go. “No. But I’d like some answers. I am tired of guessing. Such an imperfect, inefficient way to go about things.”

  Quinn gave a short laugh and looked out at the water, squinting against the brilliance of the sun glittering on the waves. “I feel bad for Brennan sometimes.”

  I gave him a sharp look. “Why is that?”

  “You must be a pain in the ass to argue with. It’s hard to fight with someone whose biggest weapon is logic.”

  I smiled a little. “Well, he would likely tell you that I am not always logical. Least of all when it comes to him, probably.”

  Quinn nodded. “That makes sense.” He took a breath. “You led a pretty sheltered life before all this, huh?”

  I thought about that for a moment. I had witnessed life for millennia, but never actually participated in it. I never would have considered my life sheltered, but my role had always kept me apart from most beings. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “I’ve just been thinking all this shit might be easier if I hadn’t been a human first,” he said quietly. “I fight. I’m good at it. But seeing all the death…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Sometimes, I’m so pissed off I can barely move.”

  “I do not know that anything would make the things we see easier,” I told him. “True, I was created for this from the beginning. But our world changed, and I began to walk among humans, live among them.”

  “Because of Molly?” he asked, and I nodded.

  “I became part of the realm of the living because of Mollis, but I stayed because I began to love it. I was cut off from my role after the gateway fell, and I took that time to learn about this world. I experienced things I had never even thought of before. I know what it is, not to be part of this world, and the thought of going back to that is not one I welcome. I may love this realm more for having lived so long separate from it.”

  He looked out over the sparkling water. “So we just wait here for someone to come for us?” he asked.

  “A sea nymph will come for us eventually. The sea gods are very much the epitome of the human version of beach bums. They take their time, they are not at all formal, and they figure everything will work out in time,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Quinn gave a little “humph,” and we stood in silence for a few moments. “Can’t we just rematerialize there?”

  “The sea gods consider it rude to just pop into their realm that way. And, besides, Poseidon keeps changing the location of the palace, mostly to prevent exactly that. He likes his kingdom to be at peace, and the easiest way to accomplish that is to restrict the other immortals from spending too much time there. Drama seems to follow us.”

  Quinn nodded. He kicked at the sand a little, digging a hole with the toe of his shoe.

  “What else did you do during that time? The things you never had a chance to do before?” he asked, picking up our conversation.

  I smiled. “Little things, mostly. I went on an airplane, on the subway, just to see what it was like. I stayed in different cities, trying to find one in which I felt at home. Tried different foods, read books and listened to music I never would have considered trying before. Attended religious services among the mortals. That was one of my favorite things, actually.”

  “Well, that’s just fuckin’ weird,” Quinn said, and I laughed, smacking him in the arm. “Why that?” he said, laughing along with me.

  I shrugged. “When it comes down to it, human religion is mostly about death and what happens after, yes?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “It was interesting hearing the different ideas of what happens next, about how they will be judged, about the things they could do on Earth to earn salvation or whatever it was their particular faith promised after their mortal life was over.”

  “How accurate were they? I mean, I was raised Catholic. And now that I’m here… other than the names, it’s not too far from what I figured would happen. I mean, the idea of Heaven that I grew up with, you were judged, and, if you led a good life, you were admitted to heaven and reunited with your loved ones. That’s basically what the Elysian fields are, really. If you were bad, you went to hell, which is pretty much Tartarus.”

  I nodded. “I think all of the major religions generally had it right. A reward in the afterlife for those who were decent during their lives, eternal punishment for those who weren’t. The details change, but in the end, that is it. It was not just an ego thing, or an academic pursuit, when I attended, though,” I said.

  “Then what was it?”

  I shrugged. “It was comforting. The hushed moments during prayer, the scents, the music… the idea that groups of people could join together, experience their faith as one, even as different as each individual, as each religion is.”

  “What about atheists?” he asked.

  “There is beauty there, too, in the belief that one should just do what is right for no other reason than that it is right and makes this world a better place.”

  “But you know they’re wrong,” Quinn pointed out.

  “But as far as how they live during their mortal lives, it does not matter whether I am right or they are. All that matters is that, in the end, they have their own code of belief, even one that is based on not believing, per se.”

  Quinn was abou
t to say something when the waves broke in front of us and a nymph appeared. She bobbed in the waves, her seaweed green hair shining in the bright sunlight.

  “You come to see the Sea King, Guardian?” she asked me politely. Quinn was staring at her voluptuous bare breasts, and I elbowed him sharply.

  “Yes, Alithera, if you could take us to him, please?”

  “Of course. Take my hands,” she said, holding her tiny, delicate hands out to us. I stepped into the surf and took one, and Quinn took the other, trying not to stare at her.

  “Ooh, you’re a delectable mountain of male, aren’t you?” Alithera said to him, and his jaw dropped. “Please tell me you live near water.”

  “I can if you want me to, lass,” Quinn said, regaining his composure and evoking his joking, flirting manner.

  The sea nymph giggled and I rolled my eyes.

  “Oh, I like him. Here we go,” Alithera said, and she led us into the waves.

  “Do not panic,” I said to Quinn. “Just keep breathing like normal. With her, the water will feel like air to us. Once we are inside Poseidon’s palace, it will feel like any other place to us.”

  “I’ll try to remember that,” Quinn said, releasing the breath he’d started holding. It was another reminder that my New Guardians, who had been nothing more than souls when I had found them, had regained corporeal forms, forms that bled, forms that needed to breathe. It made me happy, remembering the moments they’d experienced as they’d become alive again. I knew it was the sort of thing many mortals wished for, a second chance at life, dying to find that you could really live forever and go wherever you wanted. The irony was that my New Guardians would have been fine to have all life end at their death. They had lived through the kind of brutality that makes a being just want to shrivel up and disappear, and they’d come back from it, stronger, immortal.

  I can admit that I love them. The concept was an alien one when I worked with my own sisters, those created by Nyx to escort the dead. I did not feel this deep adoration for them, the way I felt it for my New Guardians. This, and what I had with Mollis, with Brennan, with Hephaestus… this was what I think family is supposed to feel like. I rather enjoy it.