“That’s awful,” Hannah said. “Who are they?”
I growled in annoyance. “How do we fix this?” I hated what had happened to them.
“First find out exactly what Ms. Keeper is,” Theo said.
“Apparently, she’s a dragon,” Hannah replied with shining eyes.
“Or she has a dragon,” Theo countered.
Hannah shook her head. “Even if this dragon is akin to a Komodo and trainable, there should have been other evidence of its presence.”
“You know this from your extensive experience with real dragons?” Kai snapped.
“I’m extrapolating,” she replied testily. “If the scale was here, the logical explanation is that the dragon was as well. No way Ms. Keeper could have managed it to the extent that there were no claw gauges on the floor or scorch marks. Ergo, Ms. Keeper must have been the dragon herself.”
“My brainiac,” I beamed.
“Why not? The simplest explanation is usually the most logical,” Theo agreed, “but we still need to narrow down what type of dragon.”
“So Sophie knows how kill it,” added Kai.
“Me? Why me?” I asked.
“You seem to care.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “That was a tasteless joke, right?”
“No,” Theo said. “He means it.”
“How can anyone be so unfeeling?” Hannah demanded.
Kai looked to Theo for help. “What part of this don’t they get?”
“The part where you let innocent people be hurt without trying to save them,” I retorted. “What part of that don’t you get?”
Theo sighed. “Much as I hate to defend Kai, he’s not actually acting like a psychopath. There’s a fundamental difference between how humans and gods think.”
“Yeah,” Kai interjected. “Humans get all upset about the littlest things.”
“Littlest things?” Hannah sputtered. “We’re talking lives.”
“Little picture, sweetheart.”
Hannah made an “ugh” of disgust. “Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me.”
Theo tried to placate them both. “It’s like this. Humans see the trees, gods see the forest. We’re more infinite so our perspective is larger.”
Kai brightened. “Exactly.” He paused. “I do care about humans. They make great playthings.”
I frowned. He didn’t have to rub in his hots for Bethany now of all times.
Kai continued. “I don’t particularly want to see them destroyed in all this. But you can’t be concerned with the survival as a whole and be caught up in each individual sob story. You’d never get anywhere.”
“Run along then and go worry about your world dominance,” I scoffed. “I’ll deal without you.” I made a shooing motion.
Kai hesitated.
“Ohmigod.” A slow smirk spread across my face. “You can’t, can you? That’s why you’re here. Whatever you were up to involves me. I’m essential to your evil plans, aren’t I?”
“You didn’t think they were so evil when you were your proper self.”
“I am my proper self. With an attitude adjustment.” Cassie’s gibberish popped into my mind. “I’m the key, aren’t I?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Kai said. “It’s not all about you.”
“Then it’s about the two of us,” I continued. “Me from above, you from below, together we make a key.”
Kai stared at me warily. “How do you know this?”
“Cassie told us,” Theo replied. “We figure she’s a descendent of the Oracle.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Kai demanded.
Was he kidding me? “I did! Back in the bathroom. You wouldn’t listen. Too busy with the twisting of words and the kissing and being cryptic.”
“She’s the one you thought I wanted to harm? She might have had some useful information. Why would I hurt her?”
“Maybe you’d already gotten the information you needed from her, rendering her expendable,” Hannah pointed out.
“And maybe you’re deluded,” Kai retorted.
I had a sick feeling. “It was world domination, wasn’t it? I wasn’t going to simply stop the war. I was going to take over.” I looked at Kai for confirmation. “No,” I continued sadly at his look, “we were going to take over. That’s why you came back? Not because of me or us. Because you needed me to achieve your goals.”
“My goals were our goals. Stop being so human about this.” Kai sounded genuinely annoyed.
“I hate to say ‘I told you so,’” Theo began until Hannah smacked him.
Guess it had been too much to hope that I was merely an unwitting pawn in this battle for world domination. Nope. Little old me was a major player engaged in a coup d’état to usurp the two most powerful gods imaginable. Except, while they still wanted me dead, in true fashion of power mad dictators and gods everywhere, I was no longer major. Bet I hadn’t seen that little change in status coming. Big dummy.
I was, however, still key. Both to the battle and to Cassie’s plight. This dragon would never have taken Cassie if I hadn’t somehow set off her powers. She was the vision-seeing aftershock of my goddess earthquake. Whether intended or not, this was my fault. The enormity of my responsibility hit me full on.
“I’m taking the scale to examine it further,” Hannah announced, breaking into my pity party.
“I’ll come too,” Theo said. “I have an idea about how to break through the ward and the scale is key. Soph, what are you going to do?”
A glimpse of red hair outside the window caught my eye. “Bethany?”
Everyone rushed to look outside.
“Who’s she with?” Hannah asked, squinting for a better look.
“She’s strolling around pretty casually for someone supposedly abducted by a dragon,” Theo commented.
“I’ll go talk to her,” I said, and raced out the door. I’d been feeling itchy inside and the chance to get outdoors was compelling.
By the time I reached where I’d seen her, Bethany already hopped the fence and was headed into the woods.
Of course.
It was incredibly stupid to follow her outside the protective bubble but I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I had to find out if Bethany had escaped Ms. Keeper. If so, how? Did she know where Cassie was? And yes, was Bethany all right? Her obsessed fangirl Veronica had forgotten her completely, which meant that something wonky was at play.
Plus, time was still ticking for Cassie. I was worried for her life, not to mention the fact that she might be able to clear Theo and I of any wrongdoing where poisoning Hades was involved. And if Cassie knew who had poisoned the Underlord, I might know who tried to kill me.
All things considered, it was a calculated risk I had to take. I climbed cautiously over the fence, touching my pendant for luck and courage.
No Infernorators or Gold Crushers showed up. Hopefully, Hades’ change in status was keeping the Underworld busy. And if Zeus thought I was behind it, could be he’d leave me alone.
I continued through the forest, keeping a sharp eye on my former foe up in the distance. I tried calling her name but she didn’t appear to hear me.
Even though I was anxious about being ambushed by a variety of deadly supernatural beings, every step deeper into the tangle of trees and further away from people recharged me. While I wasn’t at the “dance naked amidst the flowers” stage yet, my almost drool-inducing need to let it all hang out in the outdoors was bordering on severe embarrassment territory. I had my shoes off again and had started to pull up my shirt before I realized what I was doing and restored my clothing. I consoled myself with the feel of autumn sun on my face.
I found Bethany deep in the woods, at the edge of a steep ravine. Or should I say,
I found a twelve-year-old wearing my Bethany wig and sneaking a smoke with her friend.
I snatched the lousy wig off her head.
“What’s your deal?” she sneered. God, I hated lippy tweens.
“The deal is, that’s my wig, which you probably stole from Principal Doucette. Not to mention, smoking kills.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll be dead before us,” her annoying friend piped up. They snickered.
Seriously? I’d risked life and limb to be insulted by a pair of prepubescent brats?
“Not really,” I assured them, “I’ve got this special longevity thing working for me. Do you know what ‘longevity’ means?”
They exchanged an annoyed glance.
“It means that when your cold bodies are rotting in the grave, I’ll be radiantly youthful. And you are going to be rotting sooner rather than later if I ever catch either of you smoking again. Got it?”
Fun fact number one. Goddess pissyness totally terrifies kids. Or they thought I was insane. Either way, they tossed their cigarettes into the ravine and bolted.
“Burn down the whole forest, why dontcha?” I yelled after them. Grumbling, I scrambled and slid my way down the fifty feet to the bottom of the ravine. This Goddess of Spring gig meant a whole new attachment to the earth for me and I couldn’t risk their stupid cigarettes accidentally burning down the forest. Bad enough I had the ancient Greek pyromania squad mucking around.
I scuffed my feet through the leaf-strewn ground at the bottom until I found their butts. Sure enough, they were still smoldering. Carefully, I put them out and tried to re-dirtify the area.
Storm clouds darkened the day. I glanced up, hoping the rain would stay off long enough for me to get inside, and realized there were no clouds.
Photokia and Pyrosim filled every inch of sky.
Me against all of them. I gave a grim smile and lashed out.
An eerie calm filled my entire body and I felt as if time slowed down. Infernorators and Gold Crushers descended upon me, fireballs and thunderbolts raining down upon my lone human form.
Yet I had plenty of time to avoid them. I brushed their destruction away like I was swatting flies. My stranglers spun about me in a blur. I laughed in sheer delight as I realized that I’d only been using a fraction of my power.
I. Was. Spring.
The time when life begins anew. I had all the elemental power that came with the season. Even now, in Fall, I was able to call upon it. I felt it surge up from deep within its sleeping place in the earth and blast from my eyes in a deadly green light.
I may have been the embodiment of the season when life began to grow anew, but I had the ability to push that power to the extreme. Pervert and twist it so that my attackers grew so fast, they hit the other side of existence.
This is what they’d meant when they said humans see the trees and gods see the forest. Big picture. Attacking my enemies one by one would only get me so far. It was a fraction of what I was capable of.
Power consumed me and shot from my eyes and palms in waves of moss green light, taking out row upon row of the deadly minions. I watched them age into nothingness, then disappear from existence.
I was unstoppable. Every inch of me was pure might.
I remembered this rush. More so, in fact.
I was on an island. No, not even that. More of a rocky outcropping in the middle of a turquoise blue sea that stretched as far as the eye could see. I lay on my back, the rock smooth and cool against my skin.
Kai propped himself on his elbows, his body stretched above me. He touched his forehead to mine and I was consumed with energy. All became light. I could see the world broken down into its tiniest fragments. Together we were the creator and the destroyer. Together, all was ours.
I rushed back to the present with a snap. While my mind had drifted back into the past, my body had stayed present and focused, continuing its battle.
This. Was. Amazing.
Then I learned a valuable lesson. Like all power sources, I needed to be recharged. I had thought that because I was outside, the superpowers would be indefinite.
Not so, kids.
Apparently there was a limit on how much I could extend myself in any one session.
You know that moment in movies when the heroes are deep in it, guns firing away, and there’s that click? That super loud click, when all other sound seems to have stopped, that shows the hero has run out?
That’s what happened to me. One moment I was single-handedly decimating an otherworldly army, the next I was a puny human with a legion of foes bent on killing me. From one second to the next, my powers stopped and I stood there in defenseless disbelief.
I wasn’t the only one. There was a moment—it felt like minutes but must have been milliseconds—where I stared at my enemies and they all stared back. We had mutually frozen in stunned shock.
Looking back, I’m amazed I wasn’t killed. I was hideously outnumbered and for every being I’d taken out, ten more had shown up to take its place.
I closed my eyes as fire and lightning engulfed me. I could feel my skin sizzle as I spasmed violently from the electricity arcing over my body.
Something seized my shirt front. Dazed, my eyes struggled open to find a scarred Gold Crusher holding me in his grasp. He smiled, revealing his snaggle teeth. All I could think was “I guess Zeus doesn’t provide dental care.”
Both the Crusher’s eyes and his thunderbolt tattoo glowed with an otherworldly eeriness. He flew up in the air, my body clutched firmly to him like a child with his favorite teddy. No one was getting me away from him.
Whoops. Spoke too soon. A lone Infernorator swooped down upon us and used his flaming tentacle to knock the Crusher sideways so hard, my teeth rattled.
The two foes attacked each other. Fire met lightning and the sky exploded in red and gold, as they made their hatred plain.
I wasn’t sure who I wanted to win. I guess the Photokia. Better the devil already holding you and all that.
I got my wish soon enough. My captor hurtled his fiery foe into a Sitka spruce with enough force to cause an impressive Underworldy fireball.
My hero.
Problem was, then his attention turned back to the prize in his hand. Me.
“Pretty,” he leered, reaching for my pendant.
Over my dead body was he getting it. I reached far inside myself, beyond the pain, beyond the exhaustion. I was ending this now.
Something in the recesses of my brain that pre-dated my human consciousness stirred. A primeval force that had been sleeping, waiting for the command to “awake.”
I hesitated. I knew instinctively that tapping into that force meant there was no going back. I could never hide behind human ignorance again. To drink from this source was to fully commit; to my goddess nature, to the war, and to my birthright.
I chose.
Finally.
The dental nightmare squeezing me placed one hand on my pendant. “Wonder what Zeus will give me for this?” he laughed, oozing foul breath.
Bzzz. So sorry. The correct answer was “What righteous babe is about to blow you to smithereens?”
Fully, irreversibly, finally, totally me. I closed my eyes, then girlfriend gave ‘er. Light blasted out from my entire body. The world around me trembled with the muted boom of my all-encompassing shockwave.
My eyes cracked open. Dazzling blue. The sky was clear. My enemies gone.
Any leaves that had been clinging to their branches were now on the ground, dead.
I knew that they wouldn’t be enough to cushion me.
Because I was falling. And so tired. My human tupperware exterior could still get cracked. Needed to remember that for next time.
I hurtled downward. My hands burned like a mother, and after that
hailstorm of electric shocks, my head felt like it was only semi-attached. A rib or two might have been broken as well. On a scale of one to ten, I’d cranked the pain to eleven.
The ground rushed toward me and I remembered enough about physics to know that when I landed, it was going to hurt. A lot. Theo’s comment about how sometimes death was a blessing popped into my head. Now might be one of those times.
This was it. Five, four, three, two … I heard the ground beneath me rumble as if something had landed on it, hard. Was it me?
“Like I said,” Kai’s voice rumbled against my chest as he caught me safe in his arms, “a walking suicide mission.”
My brain, barely working at all by this point, couldn’t even form the words to ask where he’d come from. The only way down to this spot was from the top of the ravine. I looked up at it, confused.
Kai must have read my thoughts because he grinned and said “I like to jump.” Then he proved that point with a running leap, soaring up the fifty feet to the top of the ravine.
That got my attention. I processed it.
Then I blacked out.
When I came to, I was back in my bed. Hannah was bundled in her bathrobe, hovering over me, terrified. I tried to smile reassuringly. Instead I blacked out again.
The second time I came to, Kai was sitting on the edge of my bed, frowning. “Some death wish you’ve got.”
I rolled over, too tired to engage. “Some bedside manner. Go away. I want Hannah.”
“She had to go to class.”
“Don’t you?” I asked, not really caring.
“Why? Because if I flunk out I can’t get into university and make something of myself?”
Good point. “How long was I out?”
“A day.”
Tentatively, I took stock of my condition. Toes wiggling. Check. Neck moving. Check. Arms?
I lifted my hands. They peeked out from under my too-long pajama sleeves, bandaged in heavy gauze. I panicked as I realized that part of my head was bandaged as well. I had to get to a mirror and see if I was hideously deformed by burns.
My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy) Page 14
