The question caught me off guard. Forculus had never been one to express concern for my well-being. “We just escaped a bombing,” I said, as Forculus pushed his way into the house.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Forculus snapped. “Something just ripped a huge hole in reality, big enough to drive a truck through.”
“Yeah, that was me,” I said. “I had to get us away before the building exploded around us.”
“You did that?” Forculus was stunned. “Hera’s frosty crotch, boy, you?”
“Um, yeah.”
Forculus dropped into a sitting position, a chair materializing beneath him as he did so. “Minerva, Mercury, Pluto, and I working together wouldn’t have been able to move something that big across that much space.” He looked up at me. “I don’t even have words for this.”
That I’d rendered Forculus speechless made me feel like a little “Achievement Unlocked” badge should’ve just appeared for me. To my surprise, one materialized just above his head, then vanished when he glanced up at it.
“What was that?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I was picturing something in my mind, and it popped into being.”
Forculus gave me a half-smile. “You haven’t spent much time here, have you, Corinthos? This house is keyed to you; it can become what you want. Do you think gods have to hire decorators? No, you just imagine what you want the place to look like and poof, that’s what it looks like.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this when you gave me the keys?”
His smile broadened. “It’s more fun watching godlings have their houses change unexpectedly on them. Hercules’s place went from homey to a discus stadium one night when he got drunk. And Pan’s place… Well, let me tell you, that guy has an imagination.”
“Forculus,” I said. “Thank you. This is going to be super-helpful.”
“Just don’t go ripping any more huge holes between Olympus and Earth, all right?”
“Not a problem,” I said. “Look, I need to help my friends.”
“Of course,” he said, his chair vanishing as he stood. “I’ll show myself out.”
I started back to the pinball room. If I could alter the house around me to match whatever I wanted, then it was time to do some serious remodeling. I needed a place that had spectacular medical facilities, a place for us to plan our counterstrike against the upyr, and a place that would have a workshop containing state-of-the-art equipment that would exceed even Gears’s expectations. Our old headquarters was great, but we were at war now, and I was going to pull out all the stops.
I concentrated, picturing exactly what I wanted in my mind, recalling every detail with vivid clarity without even needing my Glimpse. I felt the house starting to reform around me when I heard the shouting.
I lost my concentration, the initial transformation reversing itself as I rushed into the pinball room. Megan was frantically searching around on the floor for something. “I can’t find it! It’s gone!”
Galahad held Megan upright. “Megan, focus on me,” he said. The edge in his voice forced her to look at him. “What’s gone? What’s wrong?”
“The Rosario,” she said. “It’s not here. It was on the table beside Herb and then everything fell onto the ground, and now it’s gone.”
I looked around, a knot forming in my stomach. The table had shifted when the pocket had gotten unstable. Jake, Cynthia, and the table had all tumbled over at the same time.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered, and ran for the bedrooms.
Chapter 12
Cynthia is a construct made of celestial metal. And earlier this week, when I’d fought Sakave, I’d given a tiny bit of it to her, which she’d absorbed into her skin and used to repair injuries that she’d sustained. The Rosario, the broken weapon to which Herb Wallenby’s soul was tethered, was also made of celestial metal. I had a very nasty feeling I knew what had happened to the Rosario.
I got to the bedroom in time to see a silvery blur striking at Mrs. Rita. Mrs. Rita, who had taken shotgun blasts to the torso without flinching, now sported several deep cuts across her forearms and was swaying on her feet. I managed to get a portal in front of her and dropped her assailant on the other side of the room.
The silver blur was up and shooting toward Mrs. Rita again, and I portaled it a second time. Thinking about what Forculus had said about the house obeying me, I imagined a pair of strong manacles that would bind hostile presences. There was no Green Lantern-ish moment when the manacles formed; they simply sprang into being, attached to the arms and legs of Mrs. Rita’s attacker.
I found myself staring at an adult Cynthia, two or three inches taller than me, with long, flowing silver hair. Her body was lithe, like a gymnast’s. Blades nearly two feet long extended from her forearms, orange fluid dripping from their tips and splattering into tiny puddles on the floor.
Oh, no.
The Rosario had been able to create poisons that targeted a specific paranormal individual’s powers and shut them down. It looked like when Cynthia had absorbed the Rosario, she had gained that trait, too. The blades protruding from her forearms looked just like the one that had impaled Herb. Cynthia hissed at me, her eyes glowing red.
I did a quick Glimpse back. I watched as the Rosario and Cynthia tumbled onto the floor, and Cynthia absorbed the broken weapon. Cynthia’s growth hadn’t happened right away; Mrs. Rita laid Cynthia on one of the beds, and as she’d turned to tend to Jake, light began rippling along Cynthia’s body. Mrs. Rita, unsure of what was going on, only watched as Cynthia grew to adult size. As Mrs. Rita moved over to examine the changes to Cynthia, the Electric Woman sprang up and attacked her. I ended the Glimpse.
“Cynthia,” I called. “It’s Vincent Corinthos. We’re friends, remember? We talked about Matilda?” The Electric… well, Woman, now, snarled at me, and the poison dripping from her blades turned from orange to purple, meaning it was now keyed to my physiology. “Cynthia, get a grip on yourself. We’re the Caulborn, remember?”
Cynthia’s expression gave no hint of recognition. Her face was twisted in a feral expression of hate and rage. Her lips were peeled back, and I watched her teeth sharpen before my eyes, until her mouth looked like that of a shark. She lunged forward, the chains straining, and snapped her jaw at me.
Keep talking, Corinthos, try to get through to her. “Do you remember your time in Minus Three? Do you remember Jake? Look at Jake, Cynthia. He’s hurt. He needs you to make the Breath of Life. You’re the only one who can help him.”
At the mention of the security guard’s name, Cynthia’s eyes cleared a bit. “Jake,” she said. Her voice was more mature, almost melodic. She twisted in the chains to where she could see the big security guard’s inert form on the bed. “Jake is hurt. I need to help him. I… I need to… Kill all of you!” she snarled, her eyes flaring red once more. She lunged for me again, and I saw the links in the chains begin to stretch. I willed their composition to change, turning them into infragillium, the indestructible metal that Commander Courageous’s medallion was made from. Sure it was fictional, but if the house obeyed my every whim…
The chains’ color changed from silver to gold with white flecks running through the links. Cynthia thrashed, the tips of her blades flicking droplets of poison all around the room. Without intending to, without really knowing how I did it, I snapped out two portals and affixed them to the tips of her blades, so their poison-dripping tips disappeared. I put the exits in the trashcan downstairs, so the poison would be collected safely. I considered what I’d just done. How had I gotten the portals to stick like that? I didn’t dare examine it too closely just now, for fear that I’d lose my hold on them.
By this point, Doc Ryan and Galahad had caught up with me. Doc knelt down to Mrs. Rita. There were multiple stab wounds in her midsection and a series of deep gashes on
her forearms, like she’d been trying to block Cynthia’s strikes. Rivers of green blood ran from her injuries and pooled on the floor. “She’s been hit with paranormal poison from the Rosario, Doc,” I said. “I can make the house into a medical facility, just tell me what you need.”
Doc’s face went ashen. “We never found antidotes to the Rosario’s poisons, Corinthos,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t even know what to ask for.”
Think, dammit, Corinthos, think.
“I know what to do,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I portaled to Uncle Heph’s workshop.
Hephaestus’s unibrow went up in surprise as I materialized just a few feet from him. Heph stood at his forge, hammer raised halfway over his shoulder as he worked a piece of metal. He was bare-chested beneath a massive leather apron, his arms easily as thick as my legs. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail by a leather cord, and his black jeans were covered in soot. His craggy face broke into a grin. “Vinnie, my boy,” he said.
“No time to talk, Uncle Heph,” I said urgently. “I need to find Panacea. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Heph didn’t hesitate. He held out his hand. “I’ll take you.” His hand swallowed mine as he took it, and we vanished in a pulse of green light. When it cleared, we were standing in a grove of trees. Birds were chirping all around us, and the air had that post-rainstorm smell. A young woman with her long brown hair in a braid was nestled in the roots of one of the trees, reading a book.
She gave Heph a smile in greeting, then blinked at me. “Son of Janus,” she said. “It has been a long time.”
“I know,” I said. “Panacea, I need a favor. It’s urgent. Please.”
She held out her hand, and I grabbed it, then told Hephaestus to teleport the three of us back to my house. Panacea didn’t blink at the scene, a bunch of mortals and a chained silver woman. Instead, she knelt down next to Mrs. Rita.
“Messesrhitha,” she breathed, giving her name a slightly different sound, and Uncle Heph gave a sharp intake of breath. “What have they done to you?” Panacea pulled on her necklace and drew a small vial up from beneath her robes. She uncapped it and poured its contents down Mrs. Rita’s throat. A moment later, Mrs. Rita’s wounds closed and her eyes flicked open.
“Panacea?” she said. “Why am I on the floor?”
“I believe your friends can answer that, Messesrhitha,” Panacea said with a smile. “For now, I must speak with Vincent Corinthos in private.”
I led Panacea to the room that I think was called a parlor. Tough to say on that one; I’ve never actually been in a parlor before. I closed the door behind us, and she turned to me. “Thank you,” I said. “Mrs. Rita is a good friend.”
“She is so much more than you know,” Panacea said.
“Yeah, I’m starting to see that,” I said.
Panacea shook her head. “When you came to me, I almost said no. So many appeal to me wanting my miracle cure. Day in and day out. There are no prayers to me anymore, not like there used to be. My powers are weakened because I’m not as well known as Aphrodite and Zeus. My cure can only be used a few times a year now, and I have to be very selective when I use it.”
“So why’d you come with me then?”
“Pestilence was planning to unleash a plague on the world of men, and you prevented it. I felt I owed you for that.”
So much had happened since that day that I’d nearly forgotten about it. Pestilence had gotten a hold of a zombie plague that Treggen and company had developed, and had infected a bunch of rats with it, intending for them to spread it throughout the city. I’d telepathically gathered the rats into a nearby sewer and then immolated them, ruining Pestilence’s plans. He’d been pretty pissed at me, and if it hadn’t been for Galahad’s intervention, the Horseman would’ve skewered me.
“I appreciate the help,” I said.
“We are now even, Vincent. I cannot do any more healing for a few months. Please make sure Messesrhitha does not overexert herself; it will likely take her a few days to recover fully.”
“Hold on,” I said, gently placing a hand on Panacea’s shoulder. “How do you know Mrs. Rita? She’s not an Olympian.”
Panacea shook her head. “No, she is not. She is a friend, though, and someone I would gladly give my last dose of medicine to.”
“Yes, but how do you know her?”
Panacea tipped her head to the side as she regarded me. “If you do not know Messesrhitha’s story, Vincent Corinthos, then it is not my place to tell you.” And with that, Panacea vanished in a pulse of purple light.
I returned to the bedroom and found that Doc and Galahad had helped Mrs. Rita into one of the beds. Megan was in the room, too, staring at Cynthia, whose red eyes glowered back at her. Hephaestus stood in the doorway, his gaze moving from Mrs. Rita to Cynthia and back. I stepped past him and moved up next to Megan.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Cynthia absorbed the Rosario,” I said. “It… did something to her.”
“Likely she absorbed its traits,” Hephaestus said. The big blacksmith hobbled into the room and leaned on his canes.
“And that prompted her to attack us,” I said, thinking it through.
“That’s right, Vinnie.” Seeing the confused looks on my companion’s faces, Heph continued, “The Rosario was forged with only one goal in mind: to kill paranormals. That has been in the weapon’s nature since time out of mind. If your little friend here absorbed the Rosario, then that need to kill paranormals will be in her, as well.”
“Can you get it out of her?” Megan asked. “Please, we need to fix the Rosario, it’s the only way to get Herb’s soul back in his—”
“Megan?” The voice had come from Cynthia, but it wasn’t the little girl’s voice I knew, or the new adult voice we’d just heard. It was Herb’s. Cynthia pulled herself up into a sitting position, still chained and looked at us with Herb’s visage.
“Herb?” Megan fell to her knees in front of Cynthia.
Herb’s voice was weak; it sounded very far away. “Megan? Everything’s foggy. I can barely see you. What’s going on? I can’t feel my legs. Why—”
Cynthia/Herb collapsed on the floor, inert. Megan’s face ran through a gamut of emotions: rage, sorrow, helplessness. She choked back a single sob, then wiped at her eyes and assumed her diplomat’s mask.
Hephaestus shook his head. “Oh dear.”
“What is it?” Megan asked, getting to her feet. “Can you fix it?”
“Ah…” Heph looked at me, seeking guidance.
“Meg, let me talk with Heph in private.”
“No!” Megan’s mask shattered as she shot forward and stabbed her index finger into my chest. “I will not be kept in the dark about this! I need to know—”
Galahad put his hand on her shoulder. “Megan, please. This is not how to help Herb.” The boss looked at Heph. “Hephaestus, I presume?” The god of the forge nodded at him. “Give Vincent and Hephaestus a moment to speak. Then we can figure out the right course of action.” Megan turned away from Heph and me, and focused her gaze on Cynthia, staring at the inert form, tears streaming down her face.
Heph and I went to the room I thought was a parlor. You know what? Screw it, it’s my damn house, it’s a parlor. “All right, Heph,” I said. “Out with it.”
“Thing is, Vinnie, souls being bound to inanimate objects is no big deal; we’ve been dealing with that for ages. That was why I wasn’t worried about helping you with this. We just needed the celestial metal, and then everything would be right as rain. But when you bind two souls together to an inanimate object, the souls… well”—he fumbled for the word—“they sort of blend together. Imagine pouring two glasses of water into a pitcher—you can’t just pour the water from the first glass out.”
“So what are yo
u saying, Uncle Heph? Are you telling me that we can’t put Herb’s soul back in his body?”
“I’m telling you, lad, that this is beyond me. If you can find a way to separate the souls, and to be honest, I’ve never heard of such a thing being done, then I can still re-forge the Rosario and put your friend’s soul back in his body. But if we tried it now, we’d just be moving the blended souls from one vessel to another.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Unless Cynthia could be separated from Herb and the Rosario, Cynthia wouldn’t be able to make Breath for Jake, and Herb wouldn’t be able to get back in his body.
Man, this day sucked.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll have to do some digging to see what I can come up with for this,” I said.
“If there’s anything I can do to help you, Vinnie,” he said, “you just name it.” Heph put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic look. Then he vanished in a pulse of green light. I went back to the bedroom and told everyone what Heph had just told me. Megan had her diplomat’s mask back on, but wouldn’t look at me.
“It’s been a long day, everyone,” Galahad said. “We’re safe here, so let’s get some rest while we can. Tomorrow, we’ll come at this situation fresh.” I showed them to the other bedrooms, then conked out myself.
The next morning, we had breakfast in the kitchen. The fridge was stocked with whatever I wanted, foodstuffs simply appearing in the cabinets as I thought of them. After we ate, I addressed the group.
“All right,” I said. “Doc, Megan, Gearstripper, Galahad, please join me in the pinball room. Cynthia’s still restrained.” For good measure, I’d conjured a cage around her. I felt bad about this, but I wasn’t taking any chances. “Leslie, would you please keep an eye on Mrs. Rita and Jake? Let us know if anything changes in their conditions.” Leslie nodded, and I led the others from the kitchen. As we walked back down the hall, I concentrated on the changes to the house I’d been imagining earlier. The medical facilities, the workshop, the planning area, all the things we’d need for our counter offensive.
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