Sweet Legacy (Sweet Venom)

by Tera Lynn Childs

  But I refuse to be afraid of my powers. The visions are a part of me, and I’m going to embrace them, whether my sisters like it or not.

  “This might be our only chance at finding the oracle or the door.” I give my sisters a determined look. “I don’t need your permission. But I would like your help.”

  It’s time I learned how to use my power without losing myself in my visions. I don’t have control over them, and when I’ve tried to control them, there have been painful consequences. Maybe that was just because of the connection to Apollo, but what if it wasn’t? What if it’s just part of the bargain, a pesky side effect of second sight?

  The truth is, I’m scared.

  I push up from the table and start walking. I don’t want to look like I’m pacing, so I walk to the window and look out through the curtain. When I turn back to face the table, four sets of eager eyes are watching me, expectant. I’m afraid I can’t do it.

  But I have to try.

  Cassandra gets up from the table and crosses to me.

  “I can tell you are frightened,” she says quietly. She stands before me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “I cannot imagine what the process is like. But I admire your willingness to embrace the gift. The world has been waiting countless generations for you to be born.” Her hands cup my jaw. “And you, my darling daughter, bear the greatest responsibility of all.”

  “I—”

  “You have the honor of carrying forward Medusa’s legacy,” she continues. “You alone hold her power of second sight, and you alone can seek the answers that will return the world to what it should be.”

  I can do it. I have to. This is my chance to prove myself worthy of Medusa’s gift.

  My mother’s eyes hold my gaze, strong and certain. Her confidence feeds mine, soothes over my fears and the bad memories of the recent past. She calls on my sense of duty, and that is something I can’t ignore. Duty is what convinced me to join this fight in the first place. Duty will get me through my fears.

  I straighten my spine, lift my chin, and say, “Thank you.”

  Cassandra looks just like Grace when she grins. “This time,” she says, “we shall do it right.”

  “What does that mean?” Grace asks.

  “Fetch me a bowl of water,” Cassandra instructs, “and a length of cloth or a scarf.”

  “There’s a bowl under the bathroom sink,” Gretchen says, “and Ursula has a ton of scarves in the dresser.”

  “I’ll get the bowl.” Grace hurries out of the room.

  Gretchen heads to the bedroom to find a scarf. Sillus follows her.

  Cassandra pushes to her feet. “Hopefully there is some chilled Delphic oil in the refrigerator.”

  “What is that?” I ask as she crosses to the kitchen.

  Cassandra smiles. “It is a prophetic aid,” she says, pulling open the door and searching the shelves, “from the waters around the famous Oracle of Delphi.”

  Glass vials clink against each other as she lifts each for inspection. “Ah, here it is,” she says, holding up a small purple vial with an eye painted on the side.

  Gretchen returns with the scarf, a long, narrow, navy blue number with flecks of silver thread sparkling like stars in the silk. Sillus has another scarf—with bright red and orange stripes—wrapped around his neck. Grace sets a bowl full of water on the table.

  Cassandra asks Gretchen to turn out all the lights but the one above the kitchen sink.

  “Please,” Cassandra says to me once the lights are off, “take a seat at the table.”

  I sit in one of the chairs at the dirty dining table, and Cassandra takes the one next to me. My sisters stand a few feet away, as if they’re afraid to be in the way. Sillus hops up onto the counter for a better view.

  “This ritual has been passed forward through the generations,” Cassandra says as she twists the cap off the purple vial. She shakes several drops of clear liquid into the bowl of water. “It is said that the immortal gorgons used to help Medusa achieve her visions in this way.”

  Medusa—my ancient ancestor, the origin of my powers. To think she once sought visions in the same way I’m doing now. What kinds of things did she see? Was it easy for her, or did she have to practice?

  Thinking about her naturally makes me wonder about her death. She was the only mortal gorgon, but also the one with the gift of second sight. Did she see it? Did she have a vision of her own demise?

  It was awful enough seeing Grace’s death in my vision. How could I live with the knowledge of my own death? Seeing it happen without necessarily knowing when it would happen, not being able to prevent it—that would be torture.

  I would rather be immortal.

  “According to tradition, the key to a successful summoning,” Cassandra says, staring into the water as she swirls her fingers through the surface, “is controlling the atmosphere, controlling the five physical senses, so the sixth sense can rise to the forefront.”

  She dips the scarf in the water and then wrings it out over the bowl.

  “Close your eyes,” she instructs, and I do.

  I feel a cool sensation on my face as she presses the scarf over my eyes, tying it loosely behind my head. When I inhale, I smell something rich and earthy.

  “Juniper berry,” she says. “It is an excellent cleansing scent.”

  I smile and inhale again.

  “Now,” Cassandra says, her voice dropping to a near whisper, “I want you to clear your mind of all concerns, and focus only on the sound of my voice.”

  Cassandra’s soothing words guide me out of the safe house, out of my body, and into another place. Honestly, it reminds me of Hades—dark and misty, like the fogged-in shore at night.

  This isn’t like my previous visions. I have no dizziness, and I’m not immediately in the middle of the event. This feels more like a waiting room.

  “Now,” Cassandra soothes, “direct your thoughts. Seek that which you most need to know.”

  Direct my thoughts? That’s easier said than done.

  There are many things on my mind right now. It’s tempting to let my mind drift.

  But rather than complain, I focus. I have a mission. I start with the oracle. I’ve never seen her, but Gretchen described her. Plus I’ve seen the oracle’s storefront. That gives me a place to start.

  I narrow my thoughts onto that spot, onto the oracle I’ve never met, onto . . .

  The door. That’s what we really need to know. Everything else just leads to that. The oracle is a means to an end. My sisters and I need to find the door and open it so all this danger goes away—although how you open a door that isn’t a door and isn’t even really a place is beyond me.

  Not that I think opening the door is going to magically make everything all better right away. I’m sure there will be plenty of people—and gods and monsters—who will want to keep stirring up trouble. But we’ll be able to handle it with the gorgons, our mother, and our friends at our sides—with Nick and Milo and Thane.

  Thane.

  Yes, Thane, the woman’s voice says.

  Where is he? Why did he leave? After finally revealing the truth about himself, he must have been worried about what we would think of him.

  He should never have left. He should have known we wouldn’t hold his past against him—that I wouldn’t judge him for something that was beyond his control. Rather, I judge him for taking control of the situation, for standing up to his keepers to protect Grace. To protect me. I judge him as one of the bravest, most honorable people I’ve ever known. That he didn’t want us to know his secret only means he cares about our opinions.

  I need to find Thane, so I can tell him everything is all right.

  Then I see him.

  He sits on a bench in front of a pond. There are trees all around, and flowers. In the pond, a family of ducks swims to an island of reeds in the middle.

  The mist parts, and suddenly I can see Thane’s face. He looks pained. Not in pain—not physical pain, anyway—but achin
g, angry at himself and afraid of what he might have lost.

  I reach out, but my hand goes right through him.

  I look around, trying to see where he is. Through the mist and trees I see planes of brick and glass. This could be anywhere in the city.

  “Thane,” I call out. “Where are you?”

  He looks around, like he can hear me.

  I reach for him again, and this time when I do, I’m transported.

  I’m back in the dungeon of Olympus, surrounded by that damp dark stone and the persistent drip-drip-drip of moisture from the ceiling. There is nothing around me, nothing but the black stone and the dim glow of torchlight.

  I can practically feel the smoke in my lungs.

  I start walking, surprised to find I can move around in this vision. Another first.

  “I won’t,” I hear Thane say.

  Then the snap of leather on flesh.

  “Thane!”

  I rush toward the source of the sound, around a corner and into a small space with three solid walls and a drain in the center of the floor. Chained at his wrists and ankles, Thane stands in the center of the room, shirtless, with his arms and legs spread wide toward the side walls.

  An exquisitely beautiful woman with flaming red hair—literally flaming, as in on fire—stands before him.

  “You have a mission, stratiotis,” she says, leaning close to speak next to his ear. “Your goddess will not be pleased if you fail her.”

  Thane stands silent.

  “You must kill the girls,” she says. “All three of them. You are so commanded.”

  “No.”

  “You would refuse a direct order?”

  The flame-haired woman looks almost gleeful when he says, “I will.”

  She holds up her hand, revealing long claws at the ends of her fingers. Then, her dark eyes sparkling, she drags her claws across Thane’s chest. She leaves a ragged trail of three parallel marks on his muscular flesh.

  Those marks—I’ve seen them before, in the vision I had in our storage closet of Thane standing before a mirror, applying green liquid to cuts on his chest. This is how he got those wounds.

  Has this already happened? Or is it happening now?

  “The poison will take time,” the woman tells him. “If you carry out your mission, I might give you the antidote.”

  Thane growls in pain.

  Then I’m gone, back in the safe house with the scarf over my eyes.

  I reach up and yank the scarf off, struggling to keep my panic from rising as my breath huffs out in ragged puffs. Those images, those events . . . I’m terrified for Thane.

  But as I stare around the room at my sisters, at my mother, at sweet little Sillus, I can’t tell them. They expected me to seek out a vision of the oracle. They would have been happier with a vision of the door.

  I can’t tell them I had a vision of Thane being whipped and poisoned. I don’t know when it happened—or will happen—and I don’t know if we can do anything about it. That helplessness will break Grace’s heart.

  “So?” Gretchen prods when my gaze lands on her. “What did you see?”

  I shake my head, forcing my breathing back under control. “Nothing.”

  Not nothing, the woman says.

  Gretchen frowns.

  “Nothing?” Grace repeats, looking skeptical.

  “No,” I say, wishing I were the sort of girl who believed that crossed fingers counteracted a lie. “Nothing at all.”

  I draw in a deep breath and, turning to Cassandra, say, “Let’s try again.”

  CHAPTER 24

  GRACE

  Greer isn’t telling us everything about her lack of vision, I’d bet my laptop on it. But what I can’t figure out is why. What could she have seen that she wouldn’t want us to know?

  Then again, she’s been through a lot today—I mean, she died. Maybe she just didn’t have a vision. Maybe I’m wrong. It’s possible.

  Gretchen isn’t so accepting.

  “How could you not see anything?” she demands. “You were out for ten minutes.”

  “I don’t know.” Greer’s eyes slide away. “Maybe my energy is drained.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Do you want a soda?” I ask her.

  “I’ll get one,” Cassandra offers.

  “What I really want,” Greer says, “is to try again.”

  Gretchen jams her hands on her hips, staring Greer down across the table.

  “You’re lying,” she accuses.

  For several long, tense moments, they have their battle of wills. I’m glad I’m not caught between the two of them. My sisters are powerful—and stubborn—girls. Finally, Greer gives up. She rolls her eyes and relaxes back into the chair.

  “All right,” Greer says with a sigh. “I saw something. But it’s not relevant. It wasn’t about the door or the oracle. It was personal.”

  Cassandra sets a glass of fizzing orange soda on the table.

  “Fine,” Gretchen says, gesturing at the bowl of water. “Try again. Maybe focus harder this time.”

  “I was focused,” Greer bites out. “In case you don’t remember, I died this afternoon. My apologies if it takes me a minute to recover from that.”

  Gretchen pounds her fist on the table, sloshing some soda onto the already dirty surface.

  “Maybe you should take that nap.” I nod toward the bedroom. “Your focus will be better when you’re rested.”

  “I was focused,” Greer shouts. The outburst is so unlike her that we all jerk back. Even Sillus scampers away, wedging himself into the corner by the front door.

  “I’m fine,” Greer insists, calming herself with a deep breath. “I’ll just go splash some cold water on my—”

  A knock at the door interrupts our conversation.

  Gretchen is instantly on alert, her body tense and her ear cocked to the door. Sillus’s eyes are so wide, they take up half his furry face.

  “Maybe it’s the gorgons,” I whisper. “Maybe they found the oracle.”

  Gretchen scowls at me. “Ursula has a key.”

  She scans her gaze around the room, a finger pressed to her mouth.

  I bite my lips to ensure my silence.

  She walks stealthily to the front door, her boots barely making a sound on the old shag carpet. Sillus moves behind her. After lifting up the peephole’s cover to peer through, she says, “Who is it?”

  “Landlord,” a bored male voice replies. “Doing my annual inspection.”

  She hesitates. “Everything’s fine in here.”

  “Don’t matter,” the landlord says. “Gotta check it out firsthand. I got forms to fill out.”

  Gretchen looks to us like she’s seeking an opinion. I keep my lips between my teeth while Greer lists to one side in exhaustion. Our mother moves to her side and places supportive hands on her shoulders.

  “There’s no alarm system?” Greer whispers, shaking off her fatigue. “Security cameras?”

  “This is a safe house,” Gretchen hisses, “not a vault. Ursula’s magical protections are supposed to keep others from finding it. Secrecy is its security.”

  Gretchen bends down and pulls a dagger out of her boot. Sillus reaches into her other boot and palms the dagger hidden there. With one hand on the knife, Gretchen twists the deadbolt with the other. She throws us a be-prepared look. Then she reaches for the handle, twisting slowly before pulling the door open an inch.

  The door bursts open inward, knocking Gretchen back into Sillus.

  “Run!” she shouts as she shoves her shoulder into the door, holding back the intruders.

  The landlord pushes in first, and I can see at least a dozen more bodies behind him. I don’t look long enough to tell if they’re man or monster. It doesn’t matter.

  “Not landlord,” Sillus says, jumping up and down.

  I grab Greer by the hand and yank her off the chair.

  “We have to go!” I shout at her.

  “Come,” Cassandra says, hurr
ying across the room to the small window on the exterior wall. She yanks the curtain back, flips a couple of latches, and then pulls the window open wide, revealing a fire escape just outside. “Hurry.”

  She waves me and Greer toward the window, but I hesitate. I glance back at Gretchen, who is struggling—with Sillus’s minimal help—to hold the door against the army outside. They’re barely maintaining their ground.

  “Here,” I say, pushing Greer at Cassandra. “Take her and get out of here. I’m going to help.”

  Cassandra looks like she wants to argue.

  I cut her off. “Go!”

  She nods.

  As soon as she is guiding Greer out over the windowsill, I rush to the front door.

  “What are you doing?” Gretchen demands.

  I shove my shoulder next to hers up against the door. “Helping you, stupid.”

  She actually laughs.

  “You’re getting a bit of an—oof—defiant attitude, Grace Whitfield,” she says.

  I smile back, pushing all of my weight into the door. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Good,” she says, “because it was.”

  “Huntress talk later,” Sillus says. “Push now.”

  Together, we all shove, and the door moves. Almost closed. Sillus jumps up on Gretchen’s shoulder and leans down to the narrow opening where human and inhuman fingers are struggling to get a grip on the door. Opening his jaws wide, he chomps down on the fingers.

  When the hand jerks away, we give the door one more solid shove, and it connects with the jamb. Gretchen quickly flips the deadbolt.

  “Go,” she says. “Now!”

  She shoves me away from the door, toward the fire escape. Sillus scampers out ahead of me. I don’t bother looking back. I know she will be right behind me. Placing a palm on either side of the window, I climb out onto the metal platform.

  Far below, I can see Greer and Cassandra climbing down the ladder to ground level. I release a tentative sigh of relief as I start down after them.

  I drop to the ground, wishing for once I’d worn shoes with more cushion than my standard uniform Chucks. They’re awesome for pretty much everything but shock absorption.