My inner alarm jingled until I yelled, “Enough!” out loud, drawing Thanatos’s extremely pissed off gaze right to me.
I kicked out for his knee a fraction of a second before I noted the fall of his sickle and that I’d have been better to roll out of the way, but he had gravity going for him, and the sickle beat my foot to impact. My shoulder exploded in pain. Someone leapt for Thanatos’s back, or so I assumed based on his sudden oomph and lurch forward, and the sickle jerked with him, slicing straight down through my collarbone.
The pain overwhelmed my alarms, which fell silent as the world went black. Everything receded—the flames, the fear, the pain…all a distant star, meaningless to me in the void of space.
I silently cried out as the star raced toward me, denying it and what it represented. If life was pain and death was the absence of it, then maybe I was ready for the end. But as the light hurtled toward me and resolved into three separate stars, I had a funny feeling…
“Again?” Lachesis said dramatically. “But it’s so unsatisfying. Where’s the climax? The character arc? The denouement?”
“This is life,” Clotho said.
“No, it’s death,” Atropos argued, “and I agree, wholly unsatisfying.” She raised the scissors to a multicolored string. It wasn’t smooth like silk. No, my strand had burls and kinks, crazy combinations of color along its length, coming to a very dark end.
“Wait!” Lachesis cried, putting a long-fingered hand to Atropos’s wrist to stop her as the shears started to close around my cord. “Look.”
As the three sisters peered at my strand, the end seemed to lengthen and the color to return—the red of blood or roses or hellfire, and I felt the sisters’ light pulling away again.
“Damn,” said Atropos.
“So unsatisfying,” grumped Lachesis.
They swirled away from me and winked out just like that. Suddenly, pain convulsed me, arcing me up off the floor, stealing my breath and nearly my sanity. Apollo loomed over me, hand pulled back as if he were about to slap sense back into me. Again? I wondered, but the pain of my cheek was such a small ache in the grand scheme of things that I couldn’t be really certain I’d felt it at all.
Thanatos was turned away from us, having moved on to another target, but I must have gasped at my sudden return to consciousness, and he whirled back around on me, sickle dripping with my blood…or maybe others’ at this point. I didn’t know how long I’d been gone, and I couldn’t see around him to check on anyone. His sickle was already crashing down, and I used the renewed fire of my weave to buck hard, rolling Apollo off of me, out of the path of the blow meant for me. I caught the blade between my forearms like some kind of gorgon ninja. The tip pierced my chest, but not far. Blade trapped, I rolled with it, twisting it out of Thanatos’s grip. He came down with it, landing hard on top of me, purposely or not leading with an elbow as hard and bony as a hilt. I felt something crack and realized for a wonder it wasn’t my rib but the haft of the sickle, unequal to handling our combined weight working against it. I quickly adjusted my grip on it to thrust a broken end back at him like a stake, but it vanished right out of my hands like it had never been. Nice trick, that, only I was now defenseless, prey to a god with a grudge whose hands were tangled in my hair, ready to bash my head into what was left of the floor.
Thanatos rocked with a blow as someone—Apollo?—attacked him from the side and it knocked us closer to the fissure in the floor.
“Stop right there!” a voice rained down on us with sudden authority…and nearly its own reverb. Certainly, the walls rattled, just a bit.
Thanatos rolled off of me to stare up in shock at Persephone, who stood above him holding the now-mended sickle, pointed straight for him. I looked quickly around to see the few battles still feebly being waged cease at the power of her voice.
“I am your mistress,” she thundered. “I am your queen—by the marriage Hades refuses to dissolve. You will heed me.”
Apparently, there was something to that, because Thanatos stared as if he had no other choice…until he bowed his head and lowered his gaze in silent acceptance.
“You tell Hades that as long as we are bound, his power is mine. I am claiming my share. I am through with the fear, with the obedience and with him.”
The door to our overcrowded room blew open, and Hades stood in its place, face a mask of anger and pain. It was hard to look at and harder to know which emotion was coming out on top.
“Tell him yourself,” he said.
We all watched Persephone to see if she would waver, but she only shifted the aim on the sickle and looked him right in the eyes.
“It’s over,” she said. Firm. No explanation. No apologies. No room for argument.
“But I still love you,” Hades said, voice ragged with torment. But I remembered the sound of his slap in the tunnels and the sight of her reddened face, and I was unmoved. I hoped she’d stay the same.
“You’ve never understood the word,” she spat back. “Love takes into account what the other wants. I don’t know what you ever felt for me, but it was never love. And now, it’s over.”
No one moved. I wasn’t sure anyone even breathed.
Until Hades, like Thanatos before him, finally hung his head. “As you wish,” he answered.
Chapter Sixteen
“It’s not about the climax, it’s about the clean-up afterward.”
—Yiayia, in an OMG, she did not just say that moment
I called Agent Rosen, though I hardly needed to do it. Little things like localized earthquakes, tornados and battles to the death and back again tended to attract attention. The local police announced themselves with a no-nonsense knock on the door that Hades had slammed back into place when he left and the order that we open up. The agents were barely a step behind them.
“Quick,” I hissed to anyone who would listen. “Demeter and Persephone—” I paused, because I had no idea what names they were going by among us mortals.
“Demi and Sinestra,” Demeter supplied.
“Sinestra? Still? Okay, whatever. You two were trying to escape the cult. The others—“
But the door burst open before I could get any further.
Thanatos had disappeared from whence he’d come. There one second and gone the next. Hermes had done the same, which surprised me. If he liked trouble, he could have gotten a firsthand look at another round, but apparently he’d had his fun. Sticking around to answer questions probably didn’t seem a fitting encore. At least he’d gotten Jesus and Christie out of the way. They’d ridden things out locked in the small hotel bathroom. At least I could be thankful to him for that much.
They arrested us all until they could sort things out. This time, Rosen and Holloway didn’t rescue me from custody, but stood, I suspected, behind mirrored glass watching the interrogations. We were all, of course, separated. I had no idea what tales the others were spinning or how I was going to explain any of it to my assistant and BFF, who were certainly going to want explanations for what they’d seen.
It was long and grueling. I was left alone for vast periods of time with nothing but the burnt brown sludge they called coffee. I even fell asleep for a time, too exhausted to remember whether that was supposed to be a sign of guilt or innocence. I was very much afraid it was the former, but the needs of the body totally outweighed any concern.
Finally, finally, Agent Rosen entered. He didn’t look like he’d slept at all, probably not since before the raid on the Back to Earth compound. He gave me a tired smile as he sat down across from me.
“After the murders at the hotel earlier in the week, the inn decided to reactivate the parking lot cameras they’d shut down to cut costs. You’ll never believe what they showed. Oh wait, you were there. I don’t suppose any of those—things? people?—who attacked you will be available to answer for their crimes?”
I shook my head, completely at a loss. It had been caught on camera? What about Demeter’s tornado? How on earth did the authorities
explain all this to themselves? How were they planning to keep it quiet? And why was I just hearing about it now? Had the Feds gotten to the footage before the regular police?
“Or course, Dionysus Bach and his followers are claiming they were invited to your room, where you jumped them.”
“Is anybody buying that?”
“Not with two former cultists willing to provide evidence against them, including regarding your claim of drugs. Although, it might be a little difficult given that one doesn’t seem to have much of a history before, say, right this minute. Still, we’ve offered them Witness Protection.”
“They’re taking you up on it?” I asked.
“Looks like. Marshals should be here within the hour.”
It was the best thing for Demeter and Persephone, in case Hades changed his mind about letting Persephone go or Dionysus got out and went looking for revenge. Unfortunately, the rest of us would be a lot easier to find.
Speaking of… “What does this mean for the rest of us?”
“You’re free to go. Police will be by themselves in a minute to tell you so. You’ll have to keep yourselves available to testify.”
I stared at him, and he stared back. I was better at it, but then, I’d slept. “So that’s it?”
“That’s it. Except maybe for you. I have no idea what kind of charges there’ll be to your credit card over the state of that room.”
I laughed, surprising us both.
“That is the least of my worries.”
Rosen eyed me steadily. “Well, if the rest of those worries ever catch up to you, give me a call. But no more of that whammying crap or whatever you did to me. Next time I’ll have you arrested for assaulting a federal officer.”
“I’m not sure I can make any promises.”
“You could have lied.”
“As you just pointed out, you’re a federal officer. I think there are laws against that.”
“And you being so law abiding…”
“Exactly.”
“Just call us next time you get in over your head, okay? You’re not alone.”
No, I wasn’t. In addition to big brother, always watching, I had Nick and Apollo, Christie and Jesus. My merry misfit crew. I owed them…well, everything…but a huge meal at the very least. Breakfast or lunch or whatever the hell it was time for at this point. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten, and if I didn’t find something to soak up the battery acid the station called coffee soon, it might just eat its way through my stomach.
One by one, we were all released and gathered in the lobby. Jesus was the last, because apparently he’d mouthed off to one of the detectives about his shabby treatment and the complete heinousness of the man’s tie and was subsequently held a bit longer in the fervent hope they could find something to charge him with.
My heart hurt at the sight of him with butterfly bandages marching from his right eye up to his hairline and the claw marks at his neck from one of Dionysus’s crew.
“Don’t worry,” he said at my horror. “It makes me look dangerous, no? There will be many waiting to comfort me. And the tale—by the time I tell it, it will be beyond recognition.”
“Of that I have no doubt.”
I looked around at my people—Christie with no worse than a fat lip, Apollo and Nick, who’d thrown themselves into the fray, a little worse for wear, but nonetheless too sexy for the room.
My heart was full and my stomach empty.
“Come on, all. Breakfast or…whatever. I’m buying.”
As long as the hotel charges hadn’t yet hit my credit cards and I could still afford it.
But first, we had to swing by the hospital. I had to see Uncle Christos and let him know it was all over. I hoped he’d be in a condition to appreciate it.
The others waited for me in the lounge as I ventured to his room alone. If he was…not himself…he probably wouldn’t appreciate the audience when he got back to rights. And he would. The Karacis family was tough. Nuts were like that…hard to crack. Eccentrics, I heard in Yiayia’s voice. Whatever.
But when I got there, he wasn’t alone. Someone had beaten me to him. I pushed his door open quietly, in case he was sleeping, and found a woman at his bedside, her back to the door. She didn’t turn at my entrance. I didn’t think she was even aware of it.
Detective Beverly Simon had eyes only for Uncle Christos. And he had eyes only for her. They held hands like teenagers, and as I watched she bent to kiss him.
That was enough for me. I ducked out quickly and quietly. Christos was in good hands. He and I could catch up later. For now, it was clear enough that all was well.
Breakfast beckoned.
About the Author
Lucienne Diver is, in no particular order, a wife, mother, book addict, agent, sun-worshipper, mythology enthusiast, beader, travel-junkie, clothes horse and crazy person. She writes the Vamped series of young adult novels for Flux Books. Her short stories have been included in the Strip-Mauled and Fangs for the Mammaries anthologies edited by Esther Friesner (Baen Books), and her essay “Abuse” is included in the 2011 anthology Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperTeen). Look for her first Latter-Day Olympians novel, Bad Blood, also from Samhain. Long and Short Reviews calls it, “a delightful urban fantasy, a clever mix of Janet Evanovich and Rick Riordan, and a true Lucienne Diver original." Come visit her website at www.luciennediver.com.
Look for these titles by Lucienne Diver
Now Available:
Latter-Day Olympians
Bad Blood
Some will rise, others will fall…
Heroes Lost and Found
© 2012 Sheryl Nantus
Blaze of Glory, Book 3
Jo Tanis is still recovering from her near-death experience in Las Vegas when she receives a mysterious postcard from Harris Limox, who claims to have a promising lead on the whereabouts of the Controller. Over her boyfriend/guardian Hunter’s objections, she sets off to a sleepy Oregon town to ferret out the truth.
The Controller is more than just a disgruntled super. He’s a rogue Guardian who was presumed dead and is now armed with a slew of high-tech hardware that not only makes him physically superior to the supers—and therefore almost impossible to destroy—he’s got the ability to detonate the implants in the back of all supers’ necks.
In Oregon, Jo meets a surviving Alpha super, Kit Masters, whose wild plan to capture the Controller could put an entire town of innocents at risk. But instead of successfully talking her former idol out of his disastrous bid to regain former glory, Jo finds herself betrayed and trapped in her worst nightmare.
Fight her former teammates, or die.
Warning: Super brawling, super loving and a super-hot ending!
Enjoy the following excerpt for Heroes Lost and Found:
Peter tapped Rachael on the shoulder. “Want to hit the club again? One last spin on the dance floor?”
She stared at him, her face rotating between confusion, want and fear.
“We’re all here.” Steve cracked his knuckles. “No one’s gonna hurt you with us around. Go have a good time with Peter. Just…” He waved a thick finger in the air. “No men back to the room. Either of ya. I ain’t gonna clean up your sloppy seconds.”
Peter laughed and pulled Rachael to her feet as she blushed. The two of them walked off to their individual suites, leaving Steve, Hunter and myself in the main room.
The muscleman turned to me, suddenly serious. “Do you want me to go with you? I know Harris. We weren’t too tight, but we were buddies. Alone doesn’t mean you have to go alone.”
“Let me think it over,” I replied. “I’m not going to say I wouldn’t appreciate the company, but I don’t want to split the team up too much.”
“Versus you going off on your own. Again,” Hunter grumbled.
I ignored him and kept my attention on Steve and Jessie, who was still linked in from Toronto. “I need you with the rest of the team. If something goes down, they’ll n
eed your muscle.” I addressed the screen, “I’m going off for the night, Jessie. Give David hugs and kisses, but don’t expect me for lunch tomorrow.”
“He’s gonna be pissed.”
“He’ll get over it. That or he’ll short-sheet my bed.” I faced Hunter. “Dinner first, fight later?”
He got to his feet, shaking his head. “Women.”
“Tell me about it.” Steve stretched out his arms and tucked them behind his head with a world-weary sigh. “That’s why I’m a player. Love ’em and leave ’em, just make sure you keep the keys to the car and extra clothing in the trunk.”
I rolled my eyes as I headed out of the suite, hearing the two men laughing behind me.
The walk down to the suite I shared with Hunter seemed longer than usual. I reached the door and unlocked it with the cardkey, leaving it ajar for Hunter.
What I needed was a master plan on how to deal with Dykovski and his stolen tech.
What I was about to get was a rip-roaring fight with my new boyfriend.
Whoever said the life of a superhero was all bells and whistles was full of crap.
There was a small first-aid kit in the bathroom left over from my recent adventures in spelunking. I grabbed some antiseptic cream, gauze pads and bandages and headed for the living room to wait.
I settled down on our own black leather couch, stretching out on the cushions. The television remote control lay on the coffee table, just within reach. I didn’t bother trying to get it.
The door slammed shut.
Hunter sat down beside me and offered his left hand in silence.
The cut wasn’t deep, nothing more than a nasty set of scratches from the splintered wood. I cleaned it out thoroughly and dabbed an obscene amount of cream on it before applying the bandage.
“You’re not seriously considering this.”
I looked up. “At least you didn’t call me Shirley.”
The joke fell flatter than a bad pancake.
Crazy in the Blood (Latter-Day Olympians) Page 23
