The god’s grin widened and he let Ben’s hand drop. “Ah, so you were told I was here.”
“Just had a quick chat with Asclepius,” Ben said with a shrug. He was on full alert, but something about Hades put him at ease, which in turn made him somewhat afraid. Ben was not the kind of man to feel comfortable when something so dangerous stood before him in the open. “Why didn’t Andrew hear you come in?”
“Ah, we all have our little tricks of the trade,” Hades said, spreading his hands out, palms up. “I don’t think it would be wise of me to tell you all of my secrets all at once.”
“Ah ha.” Ben shoved his hands into his pocket, very aware of his gun and his willingness to use it.
Hades’s eyes traveled to Ben’s side and he chuckled. “I would be gone before you had the chance to draw it, but I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You want Stella,” Ben said, and then flushed. “Persephone, I mean.”
“So you did hear,” Hades said with a wink. “I was hoping Asclepius would run his mouth a bit. Last I heard she’d successfully kept her identity a secret, letting you think that the psychopath hidden in the deep recesses of her mind was the goddess, not the damaged mortal.”
Ben cleared his throat and took a step back. “I can’t hand her over right now.”
“I expect not,” Hades said with a laugh. “Not yet, anyway, but I do have a favor, and I was hoping you might have time for a chat.”
“Well I’m a bit busy, war going on with Nike and all that,” Ben said, sounding far braver than he felt. He could feel a power humming from Hades that Ben hadn’t experienced before, not even with Alex. It was different, deeper, and gave Ben the feeling that Hades could destroy the world had he wanted to.
“Ah yes, Nike.” He gave a little hum and shook his head. “She’s going about things all wrong, but I won’t lie and say I’ve chosen to side against her. Yet. I’m still deciding.”
“What do you want with me, then?”
“Just a chat,” he said, and faster than Ben’s eye could register, Hades was at his side, his long arm draped around Ben’s shoulders. “Fancy going for a drive?”
Chapter Ten
Mark was half asleep on the sofa when the front door to the new apartment slammed shut. Jolting awake, he sat up with wide eyes as Alex and Andrew walked through the door. Andrew, as usual, looked blank, almost serene, but Alex’s normal, jovial expression was replaced with one of absolute rage.
Red in the cheeks, Alex rounded on Andrew and snapped, “Go get the laptop.”
Mark was on his feet immediately and glanced over as Jude appeared in the hall, clearly disturbed by the sudden tension in the house. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Mark turned his attention back to Alex. “Where’s Ben?”
“I don’t know,” he said through clenched teeth. “Apparently he thought it would be a good idea to take a jolly stroll with Hades, and Andrew let him.”
“Hades is no threat to Ben,” Andrew defended in a quiet voice. He’d returned from the back room and was setting up the thin laptop on the table. Alex was still huffing in the background as Andrew reached into a small, black satchel sitting on the floor.
“This had better give us some decent information,” Alex growled as Andrew pushed a CD into the drive. It shut with a mechanical click and a small window opened up on the screen.
The three men, unmindful of their close proximity, peered at the small video which appeared a few moments later. It was grainy and a sort of greenish-grey color, but it was enough for them to make out the image of Greg at his desk working on his computer.
Mark closed his eyes for a moment, picturing Greg’s office when he and Abby had sneaked inside. The layout was still etched in his mind, and he remembered the security cameras the paranoid doctor had set up all over the room. The one they were looking at had to come from the bookshelf covering the portal door. “Is this the night he was killed?” Mark asked.
His question was answered as Greg looked up sharply and spoke, though there was no sound on the recording. The doctor rose and a figure came on screen. The image was blurry though, like something distorting the man. He was tall and bulky and the area around him was filled with wavy lines.
Alex gave a hum and he shared a look with Andrew that Mark didn’t quite grasp. “One of them,” Alex muttered.
Andrew nodded, and Mark wanted to ask what ‘one of them’ meant, but in that moment, Nike appeared. It was a shock to see her, and Mark felt a little jumpy still from his last encounter with the goddess. She looked the same, lanky and smirking as she waved her hand while giving the doctor some likely absurd lecture on her ways of things.
Greg, for his part, looked absolutely petrified. He glanced up at the camera a few times, but neither the strange man nor Nike seemed to notice the gesture. They watched his hand creep across the desk, reaching for a small bottle near the computer screen. In a flash, faster than Mark could follow, Nike was around the desk with her hand around Greg’s throat. She was clearly screaming, her neck strained as she shoved him back up against the wall.
There was a shift in the room, the video distorted again, and then shifted. “That must be when the portal door opened,” Mark said. “This is the camera attached to the bookcase.”
Alex gave a hum of acknowledgement and they continued to watch. The man with Nike moved off screen and Nike continued to speak with Greg. She seemed calmer now, though she had one hand pointed to the door of the portal. She was grinning and it was obvious from Greg’s face that he was crying and begging.
Mark had a feeling he knew what was going to happen next. He was wrong, however, when Nike released her grip on Greg and suddenly a third god came into the room, dragging behind him the young woman Mark recognized as Olivia. He hadn’t met her, as she had been unconscious when they had dropped her off, but he hadn’t forgotten her face.
Mark glanced over at Alex, who was watching the video, the only give-away that he was upset was the tightness of his jaw. With a sigh, Mark turned back to watch the events unfold.
Nike had something now, something she’d pulled from the strap in her bra, and she had Greg by the back of his head. His eyes were screwed shut but she was shaking him over and over, and finally he relented. Whatever it was, he read it and then there was another visual disturbance on the camera.
Nike was grinning, triumphant as she shoved the paper back under her shoulder strap and she gave Greg a shove. For what seemed like an eternity, no one was on camera. The seconds ticked by, the little number dial in the corner of the screen indicated that a minute passed. Then two.
Just as the clock started to roll to three, the camera shook violently and on the grainy film, Mark and the two gods saw Greg’s body come flying out of nowhere. It landed in the chair, slightly crooked, knocking over one of his potted plants and sending a second chair flying against the wall. He was quite obviously torn up, bleeding and battered, but he shuddered, showing slight signs of life. The rumbling continued, like an earthquake, and in the desperate silence of the video, Nike approached Greg with a long blade and stabbed him. She shoved it up through his chin, smiling the entire time.
She looked angry, frustrated, and she was shouting. Eventually the shaking camera stopped and the group of angry gods, led by a blood-soaked Nike, were gone. Mark had no idea if Olivia had survived whatever that was, but that likely didn’t matter. It was a blood bath, a psychotic murder and for what?
With a sigh, Alex closed the laptop and the three of them stood, stretching their backs, and no one felt brave enough to say a word for a while. Eventually Alex popped open the bottle of whiskey and poured himself one. Mark shook his head at an offered drink and walked into the living room, collapsing in one of the living room chairs.
“Jesus,” he said, swearing with a word he almost never used.
“Ben should have seen that,” Alex said and shot Andrew a dark look.
“He’ll have time,” Andrew replied.
“What I want to know is, how did they
know how to get into the portal room? How did they even know there was one in there?” Alex asked, rubbing his face with a tired hand. “Obviously we know what they were after, but I’m completely lost. Asclepius has been in hiding for a long time, and even before this whole mess, he had guarded his portal jealously.”
“Well, Hades knew about it,” Andrew said. “From that we can assume, Stella passed along the information to him. It’s the only logical path, if you think about it.”
Alex’s face went slightly white and he clenched his glass tightly. “Go and get her.”
Andrew immediately moved to obey and Mark sat back with a heavy sigh. “So now what? What exactly does Hades want with Ben?”
“That’s what I mean to find out,” Alex said. “He’s been stalking our dear Persephone for some time now, and I’m starting to wonder if she’s not the one feeding information into Nike’s little camp there. It also doesn’t help that Hades is cloaked from us.”
“What do you mean ‘cloaked’?” Mark asked.
“I mean that I tried to find Ben the moment Andrew told me he’d gone, and I couldn’t. I was able to find him before, but it’s become clear to me that the bastard has a power that I can’t sense if he doesn’t want me to. Either way, chances are Ben isn’t safe with Hades, as dear Andrew wants to believe,” Alex said and nodded to Andrew, who had just entered the room.
Stella, who had followed behind the god, gave a little gasp. “What do you mean, Hades?”
Alex crossed the distance between him and Stella swiftly, and grabbed her arm. “I mean that your contact has taken Ben and we cannot locate him. It might have been nice for you to mention that he has cloaking abilities.”
Stella’s cheeks pinked and she looked down. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“Yes, you are,” Alex hissed, startling Mark. He had never heard the god so angry, and he could feel the power reverberating around the room. “You are very, very sorry. You are lucky that we need you, otherwise we’d be taking you apart bit by bit.”
Stella’s eyes closed suddenly, and as Mark felt a strange shift in the air, Alex shook Stella’s body violently and let out a peal of laughter. Stella gasped and then looked up sharply at Alex, her face a mask of terror.
“I don’t think so,” Alex said with angry mirth. “You have no idea the power I possess, Persephone, and believe me when I say you’re not going anywhere. I warned you not to deceive me. I warned you that it would not be in your benefit to have me as your enemy. You chose to ignore that, and now you’ll suffer the consequences.”
“Forcing me to stay in this body will kill her,” Stella warned, her voice shaking with fear.
Alex laughed maliciously again and gave a little shrug. “Not while I’m here. What happens to that pathetic mortal trapped in her own trauma after we’re done with you is none of my concern. It would be a blessing to let her die, in truth, so you might want to remember that when we finish this.”
Stella swallowed thickly and slowly pulled her arm out of Alex’s grasp. She took a step back, only to find Andrew standing directly behind her. She glanced up at him, but didn’t say a word as he placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Will someone please explain?” Mark asked. While Alex’s anger was, in fact, quite terrifying, the fear only extended so far with Mark. In truth, not even Alex’s immense power could rob him of life, so Mark didn’t feel the need to avoid his wrath.
Taking a deep breath, Alex waved his hand at Andrew who, in turn, propelled Stella to the back room, presumably to interrogate her. Still saying nothing, Alex stormed to the kitchen and when he returned, he was holding three snifters of a dark, amber liquid. He handed one to Jude and one to Mark before collapsing on the plush arm chair near the window.
Mark watched as the god swirled the liquor around the glass, and then took a long sip, humming in satisfaction. “Well, that bitch really screwed the pooch this time.”
Mark frowned, unfamiliar with the phrase, but he didn’t comment on it. He instead glanced over at Jude, who was slowly sipping on the liquor, watching with an expression of mild curiosity.
“What happened, exactly, and how much danger is Ben really in?”
Alex sighed, giving a shrug and a frustrated laugh. “I don’t know. Hades is a special Greek, he evolved a lot faster than the others, and he’s a lot more powerful. He’s old, too, though I’m not sure how much earlier than the others he came about. I didn’t know he had the ability to cloak his location, however. I wrongly assumed that trait was unique to my kind.”
“So what, he kidnapped Ben?”
“The story I got was that Ben went willingly, and I don’t doubt that,” Alex said. He paused to finish off the drink, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Apparently our good friend Asclepius spilled the beans about our little Persephone here, and that set Ben off. Hades was waiting for Ben in the lobby and that idiot Andrew just let Ben waltz off with him.”
“What on earth does Hades want with Ben?” Mark wondered. He looked down into his glass but didn’t drink any of it. “If he wants Persephone, why isn’t he after her?”
“Because he knows we need her and won’t give her up so willingly. I thought maybe it was a hostage trade, but Andrew seems pretty certain Hades has another agenda. Either way, we’re stuck.”
“Why?” Jude asked, breaking his silence for the first time in hours.
Alex frowned. “Sorry?”
Jude cleared his throat and then repeated the question. “Why? Why are we stuck here?”
“We need Ben,” Alex said, fire behind his words.
“What for?” Jude continued. “We have the person who can sense the portal, we have Mark and myself, whom Nike still wants, and we have a way to lure Nike to us. Hell, we even have a god that we can force to take Nike back through the portal if it comes down to it,” he said, indicating Persephone.
Alex blinked a few times in surprise. “Well, I...”
“You’re being told you need Ben,” Jude said with realization coloring his tone. “Why? Why do you need him? What’s so special about him? I can’t sense a damn thing from him, and try as I might, I can’t understand why you all revere him so much.”
Alex’s expression fell and he let the snifter drop to the ground. “I don’t know,” he finally confessed. “I suppose now it’s obvious that I am getting orders from somewhere, and the truth is, while I believe that Ben is special, it’s not being revealed to me what or why he’s unique.”
“Orders from whom?” Mark asked, feeling his own frustration set in. They’d been together for a while now. Not an eternity, but long enough to build some trust. However, it seemed like every one of the gods were harboring some secret and it was starting to wear on Mark. How was he supposed to protect himself and Jude from those seeking to harm him if no one was being honest? If he didn’t know their secrets, how could he trust that their motives were in their best interest?
“Bakers,” Alex said almost absently as he stared at the floor.
Mark gave a heavy sigh and shook his head at the cryptic answer. “I’m not Ben.”
That seemed to startle Alex into the present, and his head snapped up. With narrow eyes, he regarded both Jude and Mark for several, tense moments. “Bakers is my father,” he said. “Not my father in the way humans are parents to children. I was not born of his being, but he provided me with form and power as my consciousness came into this plane of existence.”
“Odin?” Judas asked, surprising Mark that he was aware of the Norse pantheon, even if it was one of the more well-known gods.
“In a sense, yes, although he almost never used that name. He’s never been fond of humans, and the truth is, he’s trapped here,” Alex said with a shrug. He scratched at his chin, his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to decide how to explain it. “Just after we lost our corporeal form, he decided to leave. When he tried, however, he found he could not pass back through. He was barred from any of the portals, although he was able to pass through into the limbo realm between
worlds. He lives there now, and goes from portal to portal, keeping an eye on the world, providing us with the information we need to move forward. He’s the one who brought all of this Nike mess to my attention.”
Mark nodded, accepting the answer, though the entire situation perplexed him. It didn’t make sense that any of the gods couldn’t pass back through, as it seemed as though that’s all the portals were capable of. “So he’s your contact?”
“He’s being fed information from another source, a source even he doesn’t quite understand. A sentient being not quite like anything else in this realm. It’s something that hasn’t seen corporeal form in so long, that if it ever had one, the image of it is long dead.” Alex stopped and looked almost frightened as he spoke. “Whatever this being is, it’s concerned about you two, and deeply concerned about Ben. It insists that when Nike is stopped, Ben is there. For reasons I don’t understand, Ben is necessary.”
“And your father trusts this being?” Mark questioned. It seemed odd that a being like Odin, or whoever he really was, would trust something like that. Mark most certainly wouldn’t have taken orders from something he didn’t understand and couldn’t fathom.
“Trust, no,” Alex said with a hollow laugh. “He doesn’t trust this being, he’s terrified of it.”
Chapter Eleven
Nike stepped away from the mirror and when she turned, she nearly face-planted into Apollo’s wide chest. With a growl, she shoved him aside and forced her way out of the bathroom. She could hear the little mortal whimpering away, and what she wanted more than anything in the world was to choke the girl until the life drained out of her eyes.
Instead she stormed into the kitchen where a bottle of rich, red Cabernet had been breathing uncorked for at the last twenty minutes. She watched the liquid fill the glass and she took a long, slow drink. Humming with satisfaction, she leaned against the counter and looked over at Apollo, who stood there staring at her like a lost puppy.
Cry, Nike! (The Judas Curse) Page 9
