“Stop,” said Nim, holding her hands up. “If people are willing to blow a hole in the side of the Met to get to you, then they know who we are, and as soon as we pop back up on the grid they’ll be coming after us, trying to find out where you went.”
“She makes a good point,” said Diana. “We can’t afford to underestimate these people again.”
“All right,” Jason said, considering. “We’ll find a safe house. Someplace secure—”
“You’re going to find some olive grove to stash us in?” said Theo indignantly.
“I was thinking a hotel,” said Jason.
“Forget it. If our roles were reversed, would you just sit around sipping ouzo while I was in danger?”
“No,” conceded Jason.
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“Me too,” said Nim.
Alia shook her head. “No way. You saw what we’re up against. You could get hurt. Maybe killed. I couldn’t bear that.”
“I know,” said Nim. “It would be a terrible loss for you and the world. But you’re my best friend. And honestly, I’d rather be shot at than spend a week in a hotel room with Theo.”
Alia knew she should argue harder. Tell them to hide out, do what Jason had suggested, make a real effort to ensure their safety. But despite the danger and their constant sniping, she wanted them with her. She and Jason had lost so much, and Theo and Nim had become their family—loving, supportive, and, occasionally, completely insufferable.
Alia met Diana’s eyes. “Can we keep them safe?”
“I don’t know,” Diana said honestly, and Alia felt grateful for that truth. “But I’m not sure leaving them behind somewhere would be much better. If they were caught…”
Diana didn’t have to finish the thought. If Theo and Nim were caught, maybe it would be by one of the good good guys. Or maybe it would be by one of the groups who wouldn’t think twice about torture.
Alia didn’t like it, but they were out of real choices. “All right. You can come. But let’s try not to do anything too stupid.”
Nim reached out and gave Alia’s hand a sharp squeeze. “Don’t ask Theo to make promises he can’t keep.”
Maybe Alia’s warning had gotten to him, or maybe Theo was just in a good mood, because all he did was grin and lift his ginger ale.
“A toast,” he said. “To the villains.”
Diana longed to wash the battle from her skin. The smell of smoke was in her hair, caught in the remnants of her gown. With every breath she was pulled back to the chaos of the attack, the terrifying sight of bodies on the ground, the echoes of the war cry that continued to reverberate in her blood.
Even though she still wasn’t used to the feeling of being airborne, she forced herself to leave the reassuring solidity of the cushioned banquette and make her way back to the showers. She washed and changed into the leathers she’d stowed in her pack, looping the lasso at her hip. Diana would be conspicuous on the ground in Greece, but they’d be traveling quickly, and she felt more herself in Amazon clothing. If they faced another attack, she wanted any advantage she could get.
For a while she read through the files Jason had brought, keeping her back to the jet’s window. She didn’t like looking out into the dark and seeing her own face reflected back at her. She didn’t want to think about the fact that she was hurtling through the air in a machine that mortals had constructed from metal and plastic and what seemed to be an unwarranted optimism in their own innovation. If she’d been the one at the controls it might have been different, but she did not like being in someone else’s hands, no matter how reassuring Ben’s manner and military experience might be.
Eventually her eyes grew heavy. Tucked into the plush seat, lulled by the sound of the engines, she managed to sleep. She dreamed that she was back on the battlefield that she’d seen in the Oracle’s waters. She heard what she now knew was gunfire, saw the blackened ruins of an unknown city around her, the piles of bodies. But this time it was Tek who looked on as the jackal-headed beast tore out Diana’s throat.
Diana woke gasping, hand clutched to her neck, still feeling the monster’s long teeth lodged in her flesh.
The jet’s cabin was silent. How much time had passed while she slept? Light gleamed from beneath the drawn window shades, and Diana realized they’d caught up to the sun.
Alia was curled next to Nim on the banquette, Theo across from them. Jason was in the back of the plane. When the girls had fallen asleep, Diana had seen Theo pour himself a drink that wasn’t ginger ale. She said nothing, but she wondered if his behavior was out of habit or fatigue or something darker. Did he suspect his father’s involvement in the attack? Could he be responsible himself? She didn’t want to believe the worst of someone Jason and Alia cared about, and Theo’s surprise and confusion about Alia’s identity as the Warbringer had seemed genuine. But Diana didn’t trust her instincts when it came to mortals and their deceptions. She felt like she was wandering in the dark through this world, catching only flashes of understanding, grasping one thing, then stumbling on to the next.
Alia’s eyes moved beneath her lids, and Diana wondered if she should wake her. The dream she was having did not look pleasant. Her brow was furrowed, and she clutched one of the file folders in her arms.
Project Second Born. That had been the name Alia’s parents had given to their research using Alia’s blood. The majority of their information came from documents and artifacts passed down through the Keralis line, family legends, and the work of private investigators they’d hired to pursue leads on Helen’s other descendants. There were photographs of archaeological sites, of private digs they’d funded at the locations of ancient battlegrounds, diving expeditions that ranged off the coast of Egypt to the depths of the Black Sea. They’d set up what seemed to be a secret division of Keralis Labs devoted to archaeogenetics, and though they’d begun their research looking for an answer to the problem of the Warbringer line, it was clear their minds had been engaged by the possibilities of what might be gleaned not only from Alia’s biology but from the DNA—or aDNA—of the heroes and monsters they had come to accept might be more than legend.
Diana had flipped through page after page on the laptop’s screen. It had taken some getting used to, and her fingers still hungered for the feel of paper, but her mind was greedy for the information that flowed before her. One after another, the images slid by, covered in annotations—Achilles with his famous shield in hand, Hector gifting his sword to Ajax. Aeneas. Odysseus. Helen’s brothers, the legendary Dioskouroi. But there were other images, illustrations and models that had sent a chill skittering up her spine: the Minotaur with his great bull’s horns in the labyrinth at Knossos; the sea monster Lamia, queen and child-eater; six-headed Scylla, with her triple rows of shark’s teeth; the cannibal giants of Lamos; the fire-breathing chimera. What had the Keralises been tampering with? The files were troubling enough, but the gaps and missing pages worried her, too.
Now she looked at the screen filled with an image of Echidna, mother of all monsters, part woman, part snake. There were extensive notes on possible uses for gene therapy and the extraction of DNA, as well as a list of possible sites for Echidna’s cave, where she was thought to have died. Diana shuddered. No wonder I had nightmares.
Jason emerged from the back of the plane. Somehow he managed to look as formal in jeans and a T-shirt as he had in a suit. He retrieved two bottles of water from the bar and offered her one, then took the seat across the aisle from her and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
He didn’t look at her when he said, “I owe you an apology.” He turned the bottle of water in his hands. “You put your life at risk to save Alia. All of us. We never would have made it out of the museum without you there.” He paused, took a breath. “And I guess I should say that I’m sorry she was at the party in the first place. I’m trying to protect Alia. I’m trying to protect the Keralis name. I don’t seem to be doing a good job of either.”
&n
bsp; “You’re doing your best.”
To her surprise a slight smile tugged at his lips. “High praise.”
Diana couldn’t help but smile herself. “I’m sorry. I forget the way people coddle one another here.”
Jason barked a laugh, then stifled it as Alia stirred in her sleep. “I’d hardly call it coddling.”
“You made a mistake. You acknowledged it. I respect that. Mitigating the repercussions of those choices or their outcome would be a lie that served no one.”
He leaned back in his seat and cast her a sidelong glance. “You’re right. I’m just not used to…people being that straightforward.”
Diana remembered Nim’s description of Jason. “Because you’re rich and handsome?”
Now he grinned that startling, deep-dimpled smile. “Exactly.” He gestured to the open laptop on the seat beside Diana. “My parents raised me on those stories. I thought that’s all they were. Tales of gods and monsters and heroes.”
“Heroes?”
“Theseus—”
“A kidnapper.”
“Hercules—”
“A thief.”
Jason’s brows rose. “Well, you know what I mean. In the books they’re heroes.”
“I think we were raised on different tales.”
“Maybe,” he said. “When I got older, I forgot those stories, and it was all about the comic books. Put on a cape, rescue the girl.”
“Which girl?”
“The girl. There’s always a girl.”
Diana snorted. “We definitely grew up on different stories.”
That grin again. “Did you have a favorite?” he asked.
“Probably the story of Azimech, the double star.”
“I don’t know that one.”
“It’s not very exciting.” That wasn’t true, but it also wasn’t something she wanted to share. “There’s another story I liked, one about an island,” she said cautiously. “A gift from the gods, given to their favored warriors, a place that could never be touched by bloodshed. I liked that story.”
“Now that’s definitely fiction.”
And there was that smug tone again. It made her bristle. “Why?”
“Because no one can stop war entirely. It’s inevitable.”
“In your world, maybe.”
“In any world. The problem isn’t war; it’s what humanity has made of it.”
Diana folded her arms. “I imagine all wars look the same to those who die in them.”
“But it’s so much easier now, isn’t it?” Again, he gestured toward the laptop. “In the old stories, war was a hero striding onto the battlefield with a sword in his hand. It was a monster to be vanquished. But now? It isn’t even a general commanding armies. It’s drones, nuclear stockpiles, air strikes. Some guy can push a button and wipe an entire village off a map.”
Diana knew those words and the horrors associated with them. She’d been schooled in all the ways mortals had found to destroy each other.
“You sound a little like my mother,” Diana conceded. “She says people find ways to make life cheap.”
“And death.”
“Are you afraid to die?” Diana asked curiously.
“No,” said Jason. “Not if I die well. Not if it’s for something I believe in. My parents…” He hesitated. “Keralis Labs isn’t just their legacy. As long as it thrives, their names live on and they do, too.”
Jason really had taken the old stories and legends to heart. It was the way the ancient Greeks had viewed the afterlife. “Being remembered is a kind of immortality.”
Jason looked at her sharply, surprised. “Exactly,” he said. “That’s what I want for them.”
“And maybe for yourself?”
“Is that stupid?” he asked. It was the first time she’d seen him look anything less than sure of himself. “To want a chance at greatness?”
Diana didn’t think it was stupid at all.
But before she could say so, Ben’s voice came over the speaker. “We’ve entered Greek airspace and are beginning our descent. We should be on the ground in Araxos in about twenty minutes. I’m expecting a bumpy landing, so please do buckle up and keep your prayer beads handy.”
Whatever spell had been woven in the sleepy cocoon of the jet had been broken.
Jason shifted, his expression shuttering. “Not long now.”
Alia and the others stretched and yawned. Nim hardly looked like herself in her Keralis Labs sweatsuit, her face scrubbed free of makeup. Theo smacked his lips and ran a hand over his crest of dark hair. He still wore his shiny suit trousers, but he’d abandoned the jacket and tie for a Keralis T-shirt.
“Are we there?” Alia asked, voice muzzy with sleep.
“Almost,” said Jason.
“What happens when we land?” asked Theo, abandoning the banquette to plunk himself down in a seat and strap a seat belt across his lap.
“Ben will put us down near Araxos. We’ll have to find someone to drive us south, but from there it’s only about four hours by car to Therapne. It would have been faster to set down in Kalamata, but I was worried about landing at such a busy airport.”
“Still,” said Alia, “we’ll be at the spring in a matter of hours.” Her gaze met Diana’s, and Diana felt a spark of excitement pass between them.
She stretched and wiggled her jaw, trying to ease the uncomfortable pressure in her ears.
“Never been on a plane before?” asked Jason.
“No. I—”
Suddenly, an alarm blared through the cabin.
Nim clutched Alia’s arm. “What is that?”
“Get in your seats, both of you. Now,” Jason ordered.
“What’s happening?” said Nim as they threw themselves into the row behind Theo.
“We have a problem,” Ben said over the speaker, an edge to his measured voice.
“The jet is equipped with an early-warning system,” said Jason.
“Someone’s firing on us?” Theo said incredulously.
“I don’t suppose we can fire back?” asked Alia.
Jason gripped the armrests. “We don’t have that particular upgrade.”
“Deploying flares,” Ben said.
Diana shoved up the window shade. She heard a thunk, and in the glare of the afternoon sky she saw two bright bursts of light followed by trails of white smoke. She glimpsed something shooting toward the flare on the left, and then boom.
The little jet shook and tilted wildly.
Theo swore. Alia shouted. The jet righted itself. The flare had drawn off the missile, but the alarm was still sounding.
Jason tore his seat belt from his lap and lunged toward the back of the plane, emerging seconds later with what Diana realized were parachute packs. She’d seen them on the bodies of downed pilots.
“You can’t be serious,” said Alia, eyes bright with panic.
“Put it on,” commanded Jason, shoving a pack at her. “You’ve jumped out of a plane before.”
“For your stupid eighteenth birthday!” Alia said, but she was already reaching for the straps.
“Listen to me,” he said as he hurled packs at Nim and Theo and shoved another at Diana. “Get your goggles on. We’re at about ten thousand feet. As soon as we get below seven thousand, we’re going to jump. We go five seconds apart. Count it out so you don’t crash into each other.”
“Ai meu Deus,” said Theo.
“What about you?” said Alia.
“Ben has a pack in the cockpit. We’ll go in tandem. As soon as you jump, I want you to get stable and belly down, then deploy the main canopy. Try to face upwind and be prepared to duck and roll when you hit the ground.”
“This isn’t happening,” said Nim, wriggling into the parachute harness.
“It is,” Alia said, and Diana was struck by the steadiness in her voice. “But we’re going to be okay.”
“Liar,” moaned Nim.
“Optimist,” countered Alia. There was fear in her eyes, but somehow she
forced a smile.
“Stay where you are once we’re on the ground,” said Jason. “The packs have trackers in them.” He touched Diana’s shoulder briefly. “I’ll find you.”
A loud clang sounded, and the jet shuddered slightly.
“What the hell was that?” said Theo, pulling his legs through the straps of the harness.
Diana looked up at the roof. “There’s something on the jet.”
They heard a metallic clatter above them.
“Are those foot—” Alia said, and then her words were lost as the jet’s door was torn open. A thunderous roar filled the cabin. The rest of them were strapped into their seats. All but Jason.
In the space of a breath, Diana felt the pack torn from her hands. She saw Jason’s eyes widen.
“No!” she cried. She reached for him, but it was too late. The force of the vacuum lifted him like a doll and sucked him into the waiting sky.
Alia was screaming. Theo and Nim were shouting. Diana looked at where Jason had stood a bare moment before. There and then gone.
Two men in black battle armor swung through the hole they’d torn in the plane’s side, cables attached to their backs, and stalked toward them.
Diana wrenched free of her seat belt and hurled herself at the armored men. They tumbled backward, perilously close to the open door. She felt a pistol pressed tight to her side and one of the soldiers unloaded his clip.
She screamed as her organs ruptured, the bullets tearing through her, and for a moment the world went black. The soldier on top of her pushed the barrel of his gun against her skull. Diana wasn’t sure what she could survive, and she didn’t intend to find out.
She unleashed a howl of rage and broke his hold, shoving at him with all her strength. He shot upward and struck the roof of the jet, then crumpled in a heap.
Diana pulled herself to her feet, clutching her side, and her blood turned to ice. The other soldier had Alia in his arms. He leapt from the plane as the wind caught Alia’s cry.
“Oh no you don’t,” snarled Diana.
She grabbed the lasso from her hip, wedged herself against the ragged metal side of the door, and cast the rope after the soldier with all the force she could muster. It shot downward in a gleaming arc, a lash of golden fire against the blue sky.
Wonder Woman: Warbringer Page 22
