“Dude, you were about to get your head ripped off until I showed up,” Duma said, laughing at my expense.
“What? Me? If I recall, it took Ab to pull out that boney blade thing that one shoved through your back… after I broke it loose from its arm,” I reminded him. “Besides, there were only twelve of them. I could have taken them.”
And that was when I sensed her presence. The proximity of her power—the source of my strength, stamina, and speed—eased the aches and pains in my extremities and even noticeably reinvigorated me.
“I see you chose to call these… traitors,” Athena said from the kitchen, her voice dripping with disdain.
“You ever heard of a doorbell? Maybe you could knock. You guys”—I gestured at Duma and Ab—“might want to head to the back for a few minutes.” The last thing I needed was any kind of confrontation.
“Not a fucking chance, D,” Duma said, standing up defiantly. Ab stood up with him and flexed his hands in agitation. Both brothers’ expressions were stern, though neither had drawn a weapon yet. “Who is she to judge us? She isn’t even from this world.”
Shit. I could feel Athena’s power start to gather, and I could see her blue eyes spark as her face became darker and her features more raptor-like. “Enough,” I shouted. “From all of you.” I walked purposefully straight up to Athena and met her gaze, nose to nose. “Not. In. My. Home,” I said as forcefully as I could.
I turned enough so that I could also see Ab and Duma. “You are all my guests in my house. You will honor that,” I said, pointing at the brothers. Then I turned back to Athena. “And you will respect those I choose to associate with, or you can leave.” I jabbed my finger toward the door for emphasis.
Athena’s power started to make the air in the house incredibly dry, and the hair on my arms and neck was standing on end. The glasses in the cabinet and the silverware in the drawer were jingling, and a light bulb in the kitchen sparked and then popped. The temperature dropped, too. I didn’t falter. In fact, I narrowed my gaze at her, and suddenly everything returned to normal.
I walked back into the living room with my heart pounding in my chest. Ab and Duma sat back down in their chairs, though they were both still visibly tense. I crossed over to where Duma had placed his glass on the coffee table. I picked it up, downed the remaining contents, returned the glass, and then sat in my armchair with a flop. I was numb, pissed, and slightly afraid to look back at Athena.
“The company a man chooses says a lot about him,” Athena said as she came into the living room, holding the bottle of cognac. “But the lengths he goes to defend them says even more.”
Athena was dressed for business in another gray suit complete with wicked-tall spiked heels and her fiery red hair pulled back tightly into a bun. I could tell she was still upset because her blue eyes continued to glow as if reflecting firelight, and her face was slightly flushed. She placed the cognac on the coffee table next to Duma’s glass. I didn’t need her platitudes. I respected her, but I’d gotten over being intimidated by her countenance long ago.
“Why do you care?” I asked as she loomed over us. “I work with them—you don’t.” My heart was beginning to calm down, but I was still ticked off.
“Yes, but they are your associates, and you work for me. By association—”
“By association I get the job done. Sometimes with their help.” I pointed toward them for emphasis. “Back off. I don’t hang out with Peri. I choose to collaborate with Duma and Abraxos. I trust them more than any other beings alive. You trust my judgment on all other matters. Why can’t you leave this one alone?” I was tired of this argument, and the more we had it, the more I refused to waver.
“We have more important matters to discuss.”
“Yeah, we do,” I said quietly, sitting forward in my chair.
“Such as, who is this?” Athena asked, her voice suddenly soft and lilting, almost motherly.
The little girl was curled into a ball in the corner of the couch, as still as stone with her eyes wide in fear. Holy crap. She had witnessed the entire argument between a godling, a mythic warrior, and two fairytale beings.
The girl’s eyes darted around the room but mostly traveled between me and Athena, and then my benefactor did something I had never seen her do before. She sat on the couch next to the girl, reached her hand out to stroke her arm, and began to sing. I looked peripherally at Ab and Duma and then back to Athena, stunned.
The song was an ancient lullaby that I hadn’t heard in millennia, but I watched as Athena’s power washed down her arm like a rivulet of water rolling down a branch as it flowed into the girl. Within moments, the girl relaxed. Even Duma and Ab relaxed. When Athena finished singing, she folded her hands into her lap and just smiled at the girl. I had never see Athena appear more human. My mouth hung open.
The child’s eyes met mine, and her smile grew, which in turn caused her eyes to light up. The sight instantly reminded me of why I did what I did. The girl hopped off the couch and rushed me again, grabbing me in a hug around my shoulders.
“The girl is a powerful claircognizant,” Athena said, still smiling.
Again, I had to pry the girl loose from her hug. “Who are you?” I asked her in Farsi.
“My name is Fakhri Fawaz, and my brother is the one who blew up the museum in your New York City.” Her face became a mask of sorrow, and tears began rolling down her face again. “He did it for us—my sister and my mother—but only because Medea deceived him.”
Her wet eyes traveled from me to Duma and Abraxos and then around to Athena, as if asking for forgiveness. I could feel the anger rising in the pit of my stomach.
I sat her down on the edge of my coffee table and then got her some water from the kitchen. Her weepy eyes followed me the entire way. I handed her the glass, and she drank it down without stopping. At least I knew how she found me, since claircognizants seemed to know anything they wanted to know. But I couldn’t imagine how she got here and how hard that must have been—particularly if she was being pursued by Phonoi and Androktasiai. “How did she deceive your brother?” I asked her.
Her gaze vacillated between Athena and me. “Medea promised my brother, Mazeen, power and strength in return for doing this for her. She is a powerful witch. She said she needed him to do this so that she could make a statement to the corrupt nations of the world. That is what she told us all, but it was a lie. I knew she did it so she could have someone steal a cup—a magic cup that could tell her where something was. Mazeen wouldn’t listen to me though.” She started crying again.
Again, the four of us just traded looks, though Duma appeared entirely uninterested. He never cared about the details, only the point.
“How does Medea know I’m involved?” I asked.
“You took the Cup away from the one who took it for her. She cursed your name over and over that day. I escaped, and then I came to find you. You can stop her. You can make her pay for what she did to my brother. I know that is what my mother thought.” Tears continued to roll down her face.
“Fuckin’ A,” Duma said in English. “Bitch must pay.” His tone was flat and matter of fact and not driven by emotion—Duma’s goal was now clear.
I gave him a look that suggested he needed to shut up. Now. He just sat back in his chair.
“You can do that?” the girl asked, addressing me as if she’d just asked me to buy her a balloon. “Stop her before she hurts my mother and my sister, too. And my friends. She is evil, and she lies. She needs to be stopped. My mother said so. She said Diomedes can stop her.” Her eyes drifted from Athena back to me.
“I will,” I replied, the anger inside me building. I agreed with Duma.
She smiled, dug into a pocket on her smock, and held her hand out to me. In her palm were a featureless flat silver metal disk about the size of a quarter and a smooth ri
ver stone. “I stole these from her before I escaped.”
I took the items from her, holding the disk between my thumb and forefinger, examining it. Other than being incredibly lightweight, it had the appearance of a slug used to fool coin-operated machines. The rock I recognized instantly as a Way Stone.
“Do you know what she wanted the Cup for?” Athena asked, now standing, her voice still soft and very feminine. She kept her hands folded in front of her and resembled a schoolteacher.
The girl thought about it for a moment, her eyes drifting up and then to Athena. “She wants to find a chain that once bound a giant from your world. He didn’t do anything wrong, though. He was just trying to help people.”
Her power was incredible. If she thought about it, she knew it, though from what I knew about claircognizants, the information had to be from the past or present—she couldn’t see the future. And I couldn’t see any sign of it the way I could with magic. Her ability had no obvious hallmarks at all. Her story sounded as if she were describing the tale of Prometheus, who was bound by a chain that couldn’t be broken for bringing fire to humans. I got that the Cup could help Medea find the chain, if it still existed, but why would Medea need an unbreakable chain at all?
“I’ll tell you what, Fakhri, why don’t I take you some place where you can clean up and get something to eat and we can talk some more?” Athena said as sweetly as I’d ever heard her. “That way, Diomedes can get to work on stopping Medea and helping your mother, sister, and friends.”
Fakhri eyed me tentatively, and I nodded. Then she glanced back to Athena and grinned.
“Actually, that’s a great idea,” I said, leaning forward in my chair. “She’ll take very good care of you while I’m working.”
I stood and offered the metal disk to Athena, who took it without saying a word or changing her pleasant expression. She put her hand out to Fakhri, and the girl took it without hesitation.
“You have an owl,” Fakhri said to Athena.
“I do indeed,” she replied. “Would you like to meet him?”
Fakhri nodded excitedly as they walked to the front door hand in hand. I hopped up as quickly as I could, given the stiffness in my legs, and opened the door for them. To my surprise, she had a black Mercedes limo waiting at the curb. That was new.
“Um, what about those barrels in my garage?” I asked quietly, rubbing my ear as she passed me. I didn’t want those things hanging around my house any longer than necessary.
“I will send someone to deal with them immediately,” she said in the same sweet tone of voice. “And I will pass this along for research.” She held up the silver slug and then slipped it into a pocket in her suit jacket. Then her features hardened, instantly conveying she was serious and all business once again.
“You’ll need help with this, and you must consider yourself under constant surveillance and a continuous threat of attack. I will gather as much information as I can about Medea’s goals and whereabouts, but you will have to go after her to stop whatever she is planning. Stop her for good.”
“That’s my job,” I replied with a sigh. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you… with bated breath…”
I didn’t need her to tell me that was my mission. I knew that the minute Fakhri started telling me about her brother. At this point, I just needed to know where to find Medea. I didn’t even care what kind of army she had around her. It wouldn’t be enough.
CHAPTER 24
Ab and Duma played video hockey in my living room while I tried to wrap my head around the situation as I sat at my fly-tying desk, staring at different-colored feathers and fur. Since I had no clue about the battlefield yet, my primary issue was manpower. In a skirmish of Duma, Ab, and me against any mortal battalion, there’d be no contest. But over the last few days, I’d already encountered wizards, several flavors of Jinn, and most recently, the demented death spirits. Throw in the likelihood of encountering some human henchmen to round out the mix, and there was no telling just how sizable her army was.
To make matters worse, Medea herself presented serious problems. She’d been a stark-raving living nightmare the last time I crossed her path while she was taking on Merlin, and that was a long time ago. Who knew how strong or loony she was now? And other than using it to find the chain Fakhri had spoken of, I had no idea what else she could do with a cup that supposedly could show you the future. At that point, it became less about retrieving the Cup than stopping her from achieving her end goal, whatever it was. All I knew for sure was that sneaking up on someone who had a cup that showed her everything, and who knew how to use it, was damn hard.
“My biggest concern is support,” I finally threw out to the Peris sprawled across my meager living-room furniture as they screamed at the game and each other like ten-year-olds.
“I got your back, D,” Duma said. “You’re a handsome, upstanding guy, capable of any task you put your mind to.” He smirked at me.
“Not that kind of support, tool. I want to keep the assault team small, but we need tactical and technical support. You guys have any objection to working with more humans?”
“As long as they can handle themselves in a fight, and I don’t have to bail them out, no. But there aren’t going to be many of you that can go one-on-one with what we’re likely to face,” said Duma, shaking his head. “Unless they’re like you.”
“The guys I’m thinking of won’t have to go one-on-one with anything,” I responded. “Not closer than a thousand yards anyway. You remember Frigate, the sniper I served in the SEALs with? And Geek, the combat-electronics genius from Africa? They’re both good in close quarters—for humans, at least.”
“I think so,” Duma replied, “but how much do they actually know about, um, you know, Parans, the Old Ones, and witches, and such? Just curious.”
“They know there’re more than humans in this world, but they haven’t been exposed to much of it, other than a few nasties.” I shrugged. “One has a family history with a loup-garou and the other met a wicked little redcap when he was a kid, but they should be mentally stable, combat-hardened enough to handle more than that.”
I got hung up on the idea that they’d either be okay with finding out, or I’d be responsible for causing their mental breakdowns. But I kept telling myself that operators in Special Forces around the world were heavily psychologically vetted for stability, and I knew they’d be worth it if they could handle it.
“Whatever. They’ll be dead before I learn their names anyway. You pinkies have such short lives.” Duma shrugged. “Though, if the one guy really is as good with a rifle as you used to say, that’d be damn handy.”
“Hey, maybe the other one can fix my laptop,” added Ab. He looked ridiculous with the tiny game controller in his giant hands.
I glared at him, and he shrugged deeply and returned to his game. One guy lived in Mississippi and the other in England, and I figured it was going to be best to talk with them in person. I also thought it’d be best to take Ab with me. He could help validate my explanations about other beings as well as act as a second pair of eyes. Duma could stick around my home and keep his eyes open while we were gone.
I hadn’t seen Geek or Frigate in a few years. That made the plan a little risky. My showing up out of the blue would likely raise suspicions among guys like these. At least Frigate and I shared a common bond as part of the SEAL Team DEVGRU, and we’d been close once—as close as I ever get to mundanes anyway. I hoped that Geek’s service in the British SBS would carry the same weight, and he’d be receptive to me as one special operator to another.
Ab and I left early the next morning. Every time I traveled the Ways with Ab and Duma, I was constantly amazed. Humans were woefully limited to five measly senses while, as best I could tell, fae had dozens of sensory capabilities. Ab and his brother could feel and see the energy traveling along the Ways, where
I was limited to barely seeing major intersections—and then only because of Athena’s gifts to me. And I needed an enchanted key—a Way Stone—to open them.
Like all fae, Ab knew how to open a door onto the Ways even where one didn’t exist. Every time I asked him how they did it, he couldn’t explain. Ab once said it was no different than telling if something was rough or smooth and that opening a door onto the Ways was just like opening a normal door except that if you didn’t open it, you could walk through it as if it wasn’t there.
Fae also knew the simplest routes between any two points on Earth, sensing their path in a manner similar to migratory birds or sea turtles. The difference between the fae and me traveling along the Ways was the difference between knowing how to drive a car and being able to build one from raw materials and then race it at Le Mans.
Ab walked straight to the corner of my backyard, waved his hand as if telling someone to sit down, and the area in front of us lit up like someone had unzipped a cover over a spotlight. I followed him into the light. We walked less than fifty steps from my back door before we found ourselves on a sandbar in the middle of the Tchoutacabouffa River outside Biloxi, Mississippi, almost under Interstate 10. I pulled out my cell phone, switched it back on, and checked the built-in GPS. “Not bad, Ab. Frigate’s house is on Brickyard Bayou, just a few miles from here. If we had a boat, we could pull up to his dock.” I peered around to get my bearings. I hadn’t been to Frigate’s home since well before Hurricane Katrina, not since we spent time together at the Navy’s Riverine Warfare Center on the Pearl River, just a few miles west of here.
“Want me to find one?” he asked.
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