The Volatile Amazon

by Sandy James

  If Sarita received the sight, it might encourage the evil side of her new magicks.

  Before Ian could voice an objection, Sarita asked Freyjr, “You can help me see what Helen will do next?” She got up and went to Freyjr’s side.

  Ian reluctantly let her go. This was her job, her life—who she was. No matter how jealous he was of Freyjr or how much he feared for her each time she faced danger, this was her destiny. Sarita was an Amazon, and he had to give her freedom. He’d have to trust that her heart was as pure as he believed and put aside his own misgivings.

  “Yes,” the god replied. “And no. I cannot tell you what the sight will show you. I can only give you the ability to glimpse into what could be.”

  “You mean whatever I see isn’t set in stone? It can be prevented?” Sarita asked.

  All he did was toss Sarita an enigmatic smile.

  “You don’t want to do this, lass,” Artair insisted, his lips drawn thin. “Beware of gods bearing gifts.”

  “If he can help us kill Helen,” Sarita replied, “I’d dare anything.”

  Rebecca went to them. Her blue eyes were filled with concern. “Sarita? Are you sure? Maybe one of us could take it instead.”

  “Only those with Seior may have the sight,” Freyjr replied. Judging from his strained tone, he was losing patience.

  “I want that bitch dead.” Megan pounded her fist against the table. “If giving Sarita a peek into the future helps with that—”

  “And if it doesn’t harm Sarita,” Gina added.

  “—then I say go for it.”

  Freyjr gave Megan a formal bow and a crooked smile. “Thank you for that vote of trust, my loving niece.”

  She scoffed, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms over her chest. “I don’t trust you one damn bit, Freyjr, and you know it. I just want every advantage to get Helen. She’s been a problem for far too long.”

  Sarita’s gaze searched Ian’s, asking without words if he’d allow this.

  He went to her and made her face him. “What do you want to do? The choice is yours alone, because you will have to bear the weight of it.”

  “What I want is to kill Helen. So I’m in.”

  With a concerned frown, he looked to Freyjr. “This willnae harm her?”

  “Nay. The vision might be...intense. But I would never cause her harm.”

  “Do you give your word on that?” Artair’s skeptical tone did little to ease Ian’s worries.

  A storm gathered on Freyjr’s face. “Although I should punish you for your insolence, I give you my word.”

  For some reason—perhaps the sincerity in the god’s eyes as he watched Sarita—Ian believed him. He heaved a relieved sigh. “Then you should do this, loving.”

  With a radiant smile, she rose on tiptoes to kiss him.

  The kiss wasn’t long enough to satisfy Ian, but considering their audience, he fought the urge to haul her back into his arms and kiss her until she sagged against him.

  With great effort, he let her go to Freyjr.

  The god took her hand and led her to a sofa as everyone trailed after them. Ian stood right behind her where he could help if she needed him. The rest of the clan formed a circle around the living room as a clear sign of support.

  Ian nodded to the men to thank them. They returned the gesture.

  “Now, little one,” Freyjr said, taking Sarita’s hand in his. “You must close your eyes and clear your mind.”

  After one last glance at Ian, she obeyed.

  He raised his other hand to press three fingers against her forehead, his thumb and pinkie touching her temples. “Open your thoughts to what will come. Let the images surround you, fill you.”

  She gasped and then began to pant like a hard-run hound.

  “You said you wouldnae harm her!” Ian reached for Sarita.

  Artair pulled his arm back. “Wait.”

  “But—”

  “Be patient,” Artair cautioned. “We’ll watch her closely, but to have the sight isnae easy. Freyjr won’t hurt her. He gave his word.”

  “He might be a son of a bitch,” Johann added, “but he doesn’t lie.”

  Ian clenched his fists at his side and set his jaw. Letting Sarita be an Amazon wasn’t going to be easy.

  “See what might be, what the future might hold in store...” Freyjr pressed on.

  * * *

  Sarita opened her eyes, but couldn’t focus on anything or anyone. Her thoughts filled with images that flashed too quickly for her to grasp one and hold tight. “I can’t isolate anything. Everything’s moving so fast.”

  “Focus, little one,” Freyjr coaxed. “Find an object—a face or an item—and grasp it.”

  “A palm tree,” she whispered. “On Ian’s island.”

  One of her favorite places in the world—until Helen had changed it into a nightmare.

  Helen’s face—her new Dorian Gray face—loomed in Sarita’s mind. She was laughing as everything around her shimmied and swayed. An earthquake. Not surprising from a former Earth Amazon. The palm trees began to fall, one by one, and Ian’s hut was reduced to rubble.

  Sarita was there, as were her sisters. Helpless to stay on her feet as the ground rocked, she fell to her knees. Helen strode to Rebecca and thrust her sword through her middle. As Sarita screamed and crawled to Rebecca, Helen tossed a fireball at Megan, who became engulfed in flames. Finally, Helen went to Gina, who was also on her knees. After dropping her sword, Helen pulled a dirk, tugged on Gina’s hair to jerk her head back then slit Gina’s throat.

  Sarita screamed, scrambling to help her sisters, but the visions suddenly changed.

  Now, she was in Helen’s glass temple, filled with her followers, all dressed in red. So many—too many to count. Music burst from their lips. Sumerian. They were chanting in Sumerian.

  Moving slowly, reverently, they approached the front of the temple. One woman was dressed in white. She was at the front of the pack, but her steps were unsteady. Every so often, she’d sway. Someone in a red robe would steady her and then nudge her forward.

  The people surrounded the altar. One tall man lifted the woman in white and laid her on the marble altar. She cried out, but many hands held her down against the stone. Her struggles were worthless.

  One of Helen’s priestesses—dressed in black and bedecked in diamonds—pulled a jeweled athame from under her robe. Joining in the chants, she raised the weapon high. The moment the chanting ceased, the priestess plunged the athame into the woman’s heart.

  Sarita felt the pain as if the knife had pierced her own body, and she’d barely caught her breath when she saw another temple in another place with the same kind of scene unfolding. And then another. And another. Again and again, the agony poured through her as the people were sacrificed to give Helen more power.

  But power for what?

  The image changed, soaring out over the blue waters of the Caribbean, pulling back as though a movie were panning to a long-distance shot. Farther still until she could see every island in the sea.

  As Sarita watched in horror, Helen floated in the air, high above the Caribbean and laughed maniacally as each of the islands splintered and sank, taking with it every person who called those islands home. Their cries echoed in Sarita’s ears.

  Helen was now above a volcano, urging molten lava to surge forth and spill over the top. The river of smoldering magma ending more lives than Sarita could count.

  Next, coastal waters rose to a wall of water, smashing into land at Helen’s command. Sarita screamed in rage and despair as tsunamis claimed more lives and caused more suffering than her heart could bear.

  In her mind’s eye, she watched the world die—until all that remained were Helen and her followers.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight />
  “Sarita?”

  A cool cloth smoothed over her cheeks, soothing the heat on her skin.

  “Are you awake?”

  “Ian?”

  “Aye, lass. Come back to me now.” His lips brushed her forehead. “Are you well?”

  Sarita opened her eyes. She was on Rebecca’s couch with Ian at her side.

  “You’re probably getting damned sick and tired of me passing out.” Although she was trying to be nonchalant, the images of her premonition haunted her, making her gut twist and churn.

  “You’ve gone pale. Don’t faint on me again,” Ian scolded. He folded the wet cloth and laid it over her forehead.

  “I’m—I’m fine.”

  But she wasn’t. If the vision she’d just suffered through was any indication, the world was going to end. Soon. Then Helen would be free to re-create it as she saw fit with her followers’ worship feeding her power.

  A chilling notion.

  She looked up at her sisters. They all stood around her, staring down with concern in their eyes. Their deaths haunted her—the deaths she’d seen as though they were actual events, not shadows of what could be.

  “Ian...” Rebecca stepped around to put a hand on Ian’s shoulder. “Why don’t you let us talk to Sarita for bit?” She nodded at the Sentinels and Zach. “How about some Amazon bonding time, gentlemen?”

  “Sarita?” Ian’s eyes searched her.

  “It’s fine,” she replied. “Let me talk to my sisters.”

  He set his lips in a thin line before giving her a nod.

  Rebecca took his place as Ian followed the rest of the men out of the living room.

  “What did you see?” she asked.

  Taking a ragged breath, Sarita told her sisters of all that Helen had planned, including their deaths. Funny, but the thought of Armageddon didn’t hurt as much as the notion of losing her sisters.

  “Is it set in stone?” Gina asked. “I mean...if we can get to Helen and kick her ass, can we stop all...that?”

  Sarita sat up so fast she got dizzy. “You’re not gonna stop anything. I’m going after Helen myself.”

  “Not happening,” Megan said.

  “Not in a million years,” Rebecca added.

  If they wanted to be stubborn, fine. Sarita could outlast every one of them. “If any of you think I’m letting you leave Avalon after what I saw Helen do to you—”

  “She hasn’t done it yet.” Gina put her hands on the back of the sofa and leaned in closer. “Even Freyjr said what you saw was only what could be. Now that we know what she’s up to, we can change the premonition.”

  Since she’d withheld enough information to keep the rest of the Amazons from knowing exactly where Helen murdered them, Sarita held the upper hand. She intended to use it.

  First, she had to—as Artair always joked before battle—gird her loins.

  “Sis...” Gina watched her warily. “I don’t like that look on your face. What are you planning?”

  For the first time since their telepathic link was severed, Sarita was grateful for the loss. “I won’t let Helen get to you. No matter what.”

  Rebecca studied her as intently as Gina. “Sarita, don’t do something stupid.”

  Saving my sisters isn’t stupid.

  Megan took her turn scolding. “We need to make some careful plans before we do anything.”

  Sarita wouldn’t be deterred. She had the power to stop this and she knew exactly what to do.

  And that she had to do it without their help.

  “Forgive me.” She blinked herself into the armory.

  She wasn’t alone. “Dammit.”

  Artair whirled to face her, Rebecca’s bow in his hand. “Sarita? I didnae hear you enter. Johann taught you how to walk verra quietly.”

  The door opened and Johann walked in. “Did I hear my name?”

  “Aye. I told Sarita you taught her well. She slipped in without my noticing, but you were as loud as a stampeding bull.”

  While she wanted to let Artair believe she was a fantastic Amazon, she’d never been able to lie with straight face. “I teleported in.”

  “I thought you were talking to the girls.” Johann frowned and set his hands against his hips. “You ducked out on them, didn’t you?”

  Artair stood next to Johann, his glare no less harsh. “Why did you leave your sisters? I thought you were planning our attack on Helen.”

  “I’m not letting them anywhere near Helen.” Not after what I saw...

  Sarita grabbed a weapon from the dirks lined up in a neat row. She shoved one into her belt and grabbed a smaller dagger in a leather sheath and strapped it to her leg. If she was facing Helen, she was going loaded for bear.

  Her sword—the beautiful one Ganga had given her with the sapphires—was at her new house. She wanted to bring it along, to have the strength she felt from her goddess. About to send herself there, she stopped when Johann took a hold of her arm.

  “Wait,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what’s going through that head of yours, but one thing’s clear. You think you’re going after Helen without help.”

  She dropped her gaze to stare at the hand gripping her upper arm. Whispers in her head told her she could blink herself out of his grasp. She didn’t need his approval any longer, nor did she need his help—just like she didn’t need her sisters’ help. Not if it put them at risk.

  Helen would kill them all if Sarita didn’t stop them.

  So why couldn’t she make herself leave?

  “Listen to me, Sarita,” Johann said. “I’ve known you since the day I took Gina to get you at Sea World. I trained you. I know what you’re thinking.”

  “No you don’t! If you did, you’d understand why I have to—” She swallowed the rest of the words.

  None of them could understand. None of them had seen the horrors she’d seen.

  “We’re stronger together,” Artair said. “I know you’ve been given magicks that make you powerful, especially the sight...”

  “But that doesn’t mean you’re in this alone,” Johann added. “None of us fly solo. Ever. The goddesses created four warriors—four, not one. You complement each other. You enhance each other. You need your sisters as much as they need you right now.”

  Emotions roiled through her, overwhelming their words of wisdom and counsel. “You don’t know! If you saw what’s going to happen, you’d let me go! You’d let me stop this!”

  “What did you see, lass?” Artair asked. “Tell us. Then we can help.”

  The door to the armory flew open, and the Amazons spilled inside.

  “I knew you’d be here.” Gina strode over to Sarita. “You pop out on me again, and I’ll smack you.”

  An idle threat. It always was. With the exception of blows inflicted in the name of training, none of the sisters ever raised a hand to the others.

  “If you’re arming up, so are we,” Megan announced. “Thanks for stopping her, Joeman.”

  He scoffed. “I can’t stop her if she really wants to go. None of us can.”

  “Which means,” Artair said, “that she’s rethinking her rash plan. Otherwise she’d be gone already.”

  “It’s not rash.” Sarita’s words sounded weak, even to her own ears. “I’m just trying to do what’s best.”

  Rebecca’s frown was sternest. “You don’t get to decide for all of us.”

  Sarita gave as good as she got. “Strange advice coming from you. You’re a hypocrite.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you. I seem to remember the first time we were up against Helen, you went Earth Amazon on us when we wanted to follow.”

  Rebecca’s cheeks reddened.

  “So you do remember. I got swallowed by kudzu. You had an elm grab Gi
na. Remember that, Rebecca?”

  The flush spread down Rebecca’s neck. “That was different.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Sarita insisted. “You were afraid for us then, and you wanted to kick Helen’s ass on your own. I’m not just afraid for you, I’m terrified. For goddess’s sake, I saw her kill you all with my own eyes!”

  A warm hand grasped hers. “We’re not dead.” Gina’s reassuring tone did little to help calm Sarita. “We’re right here.”

  Ian joined them, walking into the armory and staring at them. “Why wasnae I invited to the party? I could’ve brought some ale.”

  Sarita snorted a laugh at his cheekiness.

  “The lass was leaving on her own, aye?” he asked.

  “She was,” Megan announced. “We’re not letting her.”

  Ian brushed Johann’s hand away as Gina set Sarita loose as well. Ian frowned down at her. “What did you see, loving?”

  She took a couple of ragged breaths before she answered him. “I saw my sisters die at Helen’s hand.” Tears glistened in her eyes.

  “Then Helen destroyed the world,” Gina added. Her hair highlights had shifted, easing from red to a blue.

  His gaze searched hers. “And you think you can stop those events?”

  “I can try. I can’t let them die, don’t you see?”

  Ian brushed the back of his knuckles over her cheek. “No, I don’t see. If you go alone, it’s suicide. Why wouldn’t you want to take your sisters?”

  “Because I can’t watch another person I love die!”

  Jerking away from him, Sarita stormed out of the armory, not looking back to see if anyone followed, yet knowing they would. Long strides with her short legs wouldn’t get her away from them for too long.

  They hadn’t seen what she’d seen. One by one, her sisters had died too, taken by a woman who should never have been given the powers of an Ancient. No, those powers had come from yet another death—the murder of Sparks, an Amazon full of heart and spirit and life.

  There will be no more deaths! Not if Sarita could do anything to prevent them.

  How ironic. Sparks had perished because she’d embraced Seior and it had changed her, infected her. Yet now Sarita could use Seior to save those she loved.