The Fire of Hestia

by Shannon Reber

  Daw looked around the small living room in a pointed fashion. “But Spencer’s not here,” he said in his usual, snarky tone.

  “That’s true but Madison is my best hope of finding him. The PSA is hidden even from me.”

  Daw crossed his arms. “Okay, so you’re a bodyguard.” He glanced at Gabe. “So who are you?”

  “Spencer’s cousin,” Gabe snapped, looking at me. “They’ve started emergency protocols everywhere. The places with the highest concentration of supes are being shut down first. So Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Vegas, and Seattle are going to go under martial law. Every non-human is seriously screwed right now.”

  I glanced at Dawson, worry turning to terror in those few seconds. If I did manage to free everyone the PSA was holding, what kind of world would I free them to? Ian and Spencer both had power. Would they be locked away because people are afraid of things that are different?

  Daw himself wasn’t exactly normal either. He’d been raised in a fae realm. If people found out, would they . . . no.

  I had to stop. I couldn’t let myself go through all the worst-case-scenarios. I needed to focus on stopping whatever Bhesaj planned to do with those demons.

  Spencer was the key, though. His ability to exile was the the best way to get the demons out of our world. With him on our side, there was no way the monster-apocalypse could take place.

  Daw walked over and sat next to me on the couch. “Okay, so do we know why the shaman didn’t just summon the demons himself?” he asked, his elbows rested on his knees as he looked at my tablet.

  Aetos took a small step closer to us. “Hell is a vast place. The lowest regions are where the worst, most powerful of the devil’s followers are housed. They cannot be summoned, even by someone with a power like Spencer’s.”

  Daw raised his hands, his elbows still on his knees. “Hold on. See, I was under the impression that Hades was just a different religion’s version of the devil. Are you saying they’re different?”

  Aetos nodded. “They are very different. God created this world and many others, leaving what we know as gods in charge of the creatures who live there. When Lucifer was thrown down from heaven, he and Hades . . . bonded, I believe is the best way to describe it. Hades sends his least favorite creatures to Lucifer’s hell and Lucifer uses Hades’ creatures to torment those he wishes to punish.”

  Dawson shoved his hands deep into his pockets and nodded. “It makes sense. It still doesn’t explain why the shaman used Madison to allow those demons in.”

  I swallowed hard. “The woman who works for him said it’s a purge. She called it population control. He apparently thinks supes shouldn’t have to hide, so he’s bombarding the world with them to open people’s eyes.”

  “So you’re saying he’s insane,” Daw said in a weary tone.

  My body froze as thoughts started playing through my mind. “What if this isn’t all Bhesaj? What if Hades really did banish someone he loved to hell and whoever that is, is the one who wants to end the world? What if he’s as much a pawn as I was?”

  Without waiting for them to respond, I set my tablet down and pulled my laptop from the bag. The moment I opened it, I saw how bad things had gotten. It had only been about an hour since the portal had been opened. They had been busy.

  I had set up a system to alert me every time something with the look of a ‘paranormal incident’ happened in the city. In the last hour, hundreds of things had happened. Attacks. People seeing things they couldn’t explain. Churches being burned.

  A video had been posted on a news site of a woman levitating six feet off the ground, her body bloody and broken. It was clear she was dead by the way her neck was turned though other horrible things had been done to her. It looked like there were bite marks all over her and both of her legs appeared to be broken.

  A tear slid down my cheek, then another and another. It was a horror show . . . and it was my fault. I let those demons in. I was responsible for their torment.

  And as the thought came into my mind a wall of ice wrapped itself around me. I had to fix this. No one could be allowed to suffer because of my blind faith in Bhesaj.

  FOURTEEN

  Because I needed something to focus on, I signed in at the office and checked to make sure no one had tried to access the system. If the Arcane and Realm Enforcement were both looking for me, they would have gotten the Cyber Crimes Division to hack in and see what they could find. They had looked into my activities before. They’d never been able to get through my security.

  That had not made me popular with most law enforcement agencies. With the fact I was the one who’d opened the door to the demons, they’d probably have a handy pyre ready to burn the teenage-hacker they’d been trying to stop for years. It could have been laughable if I was in the mood to laugh.

  As I looked at the coding, it was easy to see nothing had been touched. No one had tried to get in. Okay, maybe they were waiting for me to turn myself in . . . or maybe their hands were full with other matters.

  I really did need something, anything to concentrate on, so I turned my attention to the PSA. Since they had found a way to lock me out of their system, I had been working on getting back in for almost three weeks. It was something I woke up thinking about, fell asleep pondering, and was generally consumed by . . . obsessively.

  “We need to get Spencer out of the PSA. He’s the only one who can deal with these demons.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

  “Easy? We’ve been working on this for weeks.”

  “What I mean is JUST setting Spencer loose on the demons might not be--”

  My head snapped up as the guys talked. I hadn’t really been listening to them. Their words had still seeped in. And the lightbulb in my brain had just lit up.

  “Patrick told us the angel of death was missing,” I cut in, my eyes wide as I looked around at them. “We know the PSA has the ability to hold someone like Spencer. What if that’s what Patrick was telling us. What if they’re holding the angel of death? Maybe it’s how they’re bringing people back. Patrick was listed as dead and from the pictures I saw, there’s no way any normal medicine could have brought him back.”

  Aetos tipped his head to the side. “I have seen many things in my time in the human world but the idea of those scientists imprisoning one of the heavenly host for their own gain . . . it tops them all. If it is the truth, when the contracts are burned, the angel will kill every living being in the place.”

  A shiver worked its way over me. Aetos was right. I didn’t understand how any of it was possible. We had to be careful, though.

  The idea of leaving anyone bound to the contract made me very uncomfortable. Maybe it was the only way. I had already made a horrible mistake that day. I did not want to be responsible for more lives.

  Gabe blew out a long breath. “Look, you guys might not get this but the contract has to be destroyed and not just for people you see as worthy. It’s taking away their freedom. You don’t know what it’s like. When you’re under someone else’s control, it’s demeaning . . . dehumanizing,” he finished, his shoulders tight with the power of his emotions.

  He was right. I had been there, seen the mark of Gabe’s owner on the back of his neck, seen how he struggled to deal with it when he was freed from his enslavement. He’d been a complete jerk.

  I did understand why he’d acted the way he had. After eighteen years of being a slave, his power had been placed under his control for the first time. It would have been a struggle for anyone.

  I also recalled the fact that while he’d been learning how to control his power, he had nixed his father’s power, making the man human. Gabe had been a danger. It didn’t mean he needed to be a slave.

  I opened my mouth to speak but was cut off when Aetos stepped closer to Gabe. “You are not the only man who has lived his life under the control of another. I was given to Hades as an infant to train as one of his guards. I have never been given a
choice. Now, because of my failure to protect Spencer, I will die. My executioner was sent with me.” He motioned to the Rottweiler who sat, watching all of us like he understood everything we said. “What we have endured should not make us blind to the danger we would place others in by freeing the angel of death on this plane.” He stepped even closer, lowering his voice like his next words were a secret. “I was there the day you told Spencer of how you nixed your father’s power. Sheenan has begun working for the PSA and is acting as a blackmailer for them.”

  Gabe’s jaw tightened, his fingers flexing as he contemplated the floor. “I knew he was working for them. I just . . . I hoped . . . I don’t know,” he finished, slumping back against the wall like he was too tired to support himself any longer.

  Dawson motioned around at our group. “All of us have had pretty crappy things happen to and around us. Something my parents taught me, Daw, and Quinn is that guilt solves nothing. The past is there to learn from. Nobody’s perfect,” he said, turning to look at me. “Being conned by someone you were told was trustworthy doesn’t make you responsible for what they did.”

  My stomach lurched. He was right. I knew it was true. It didn’t mean I didn’t have a responsibility to fix the mistake, though.

  Gabe, Daw, Dawson, and Aetos all looked at me without blame. They stood with me. The rest of my group would as well, if I asked.

  And like their gaze was pure caffeine to my frazzled system, I knew how to get into the PSA. “Gabe, we think the PSA is in another realm, one whose portal is somehow hidden in a restaurant. I think that’s why I haven’t been able to get in. I was able to access it before because Quinn gave me her password. If they made her change it, it means her password allowed her through the portal to get into their network.”

  His eyes narrowed. “So you want me to take you to the place through the Axis Mundi?” he asked, sounding skeptical.

  I shook my head. “No. It’s warded. I don’t think you’d be able to open a door into the restaurant, which probably means you won’t be able to access the portal.”

  “Come on, Anonymous. Spill it.”

  I rolled my eyes at his nickname before going on. “The password is a portal, don’t you see? The computer system is in another realm. The password allows a computer in our realm to access information in their realm.”

  “We don’t have a password, though.”

  “Yes, we do,” I corrected, pointing to him. “You will be our password.”

  FIFTEEN

  I did my best to suppress my laughter as I hooked the last electrode to Gabe’s head. He looked like he belonged in a sci-fi movie and his frown made the laughter very difficult to hold back. Because there was no time to waste, I ignored his constipated expression and got busy.

  It was no easy feat to hack into someone’s power and use the power to hack into a network. Turning the information the electrodes gathered into a code that would still remain untrackable was beyond anything I had ever done. It was more complicated than the time I hacked into the Ministry of Defence.

  I had no idea how long I’d been there but after some amount of time, it all started clicking into place. I was complicating things too much. All I needed to do was let Gabe do the work.

  I brought up the sign in page on the PSA’s site and handed the laptop to Gabe. “However you open a door to the Axis Mundi, try doing the same thing with the password,” I said, hoping it would be as easy as it sounded.

  Gabe set the laptop on his knees and closed his eyes, laying his hands flat over the keyboard. The constipated look on his face intensified as he did whatever he was doing.

  I looked around, startled to find that the sky outside was dark and the others were sprawled out on the floor. I picked up my phone to check the time and my mouth fell open. An alert had been sent out listing an imminent threat for all the major cities in America.

  The text said, ‘Terrorist threat imminent. Remain indoors. Click here for further details.’ The link listed to click on said the same thing with no details at all.

  It wasn’t like they could say uber dangerous demons had been released into the world. By me. An employee of the FBI. Wait a second.

  Keats Driscoll might be useful after all. People who believed were already reading his stuff. Those people might be able to warn others about ways to protect themselves from demons. Things like salt, silver, and iron were things most people already had. Telling them what to do with it might save lives. No matter how angry I was with the stupid guy, he might be useful.

  I sent him a text, basically giving him permission to write the story. I had a feeling I was going to regret it. I couldn’t regret it more than I already regretted being conned by Bhesaj, though. Keats was just an irritation, not a threat.

  “I’m in,” Gabe said, handing me the laptop.

  I took it, my eyes wide in wonderment. I hadn’t been sure it would work. It was amazing to see how the system worked.

  The password really was a portal. And Gabe had been able to get in. Holy blue screen of death.

  I smiled at him and started searching the network. The first thing I looked for was Quinn.

  I was even more worried about her than I had been about Ian. If the PSA really had found out she’d been giving me information, it was a very bad thing. Those people were without morals. I was very much afraid of what they might do to her.

  I got into the employee files and scanned through the list. There were many names but Quinn Turner was not there at all. I checked every category. She had been taken from the list.

  I glanced at Daw and Dawson, my heart lodged in my throat. “Guys . . . Quinn . . . she’s not listed as an employee,” I whispered, black spots floating in front of my eyes as panic set in.

  Daw stepped over and crouched down in front of me. “Don’t do that.” he said, shaking his head vehemently. “Quinn is one of the two most intelligent people I have ever met. She is fine. You know that.” He gave me a look that made me feel like he was my brother too. “We’re going to get her out.”

  I swallowed back the lump in my throat and nodded. “We’re going to get her out,” I agreed, unsure if I believed it was true or not.

  I needed to do something, so decided to look for Patrick. I would find out as much about him as the PSA had listed. I would find him and I would find the guys too. There was nothing else.

  I gave myself a mental pep-talk as I searched for his name. It didn’t take me long to find it. Patrick Beech was listed as the Security Operations Manager. Okay, that wasn’t what I had expected.

  Curiosity slammed into me, so I clicked into Patrick’s file. As I had found myself, Patrick had been ‘tagged’ as they called it, eight years before. His contract was signed then and he started working for them right away.

  Digging a little further in, I found there was more. When he’d been captured in Nigeria, it was by a creature the PSA had been studying. The warlord Patrick had been assigned to get information on was a doppelganger, basically a man who could duplicate himself.

  As far as I could tell from the notes in his file, the PSA had been in Nigeria looking for a runaway and had accidentally found both Patrick and the warlord. I didn’t believe in coincidences, though. I didn’t know why they had really been there. It had either been specifically for Patrick or for the warlord.

  A red mark sat next to one name in Patrick’s file, so I clicked on it. And my world turned upside down. Everything I thought I knew before, changed.

  The name I clicked on was Luken, no surname. The picture in the file was of a guy around Ian’s age with curly, light brown hair, and a long, straight nose. I stared at the picture for a few seconds before scanning down through his information.

  Luken was classified as a nephilim. His mother was the angel of death. His father . . . was Patrick. Dear God in heaven.

  Patrick had told me all I needed to know to figure out the mystery. What he had done was switch details around. He told me his father was the angel of death all simply to draw my attentio
n.

  Everything I had read about destroying angels said they were male. I had never heard of one being female. And the idea Patrick Erkens had doinked her, fathered a child, and then . . . holy 404.

  The runaway listed in Patrick’s file was Luken. He had gone to Nigeria to save his father from the supe who had captured him. It was how Patrick had survived. Luken must have the ability to heal injuries or maybe stop death. And he was Erkens’ grandson.

  My brain might explode. It was a shocking thing to find out. More shocking was that the PSA had the ability to trap a creature so powerful. How had they done it? And how were we going to keep those creatures from being locked up again when we freed them?

  I clicked back into Patrick’s file, my brows arched as I saw something new had been added in the last couple of minutes. It looked like an incident report. To give myself time to think, I opened it.

  The exiler created a portal and escaped. He is missing and assumed in the underworld.

  Became cold during transport to storage unit. Attempted to bring himself to father, Hades.

  I stared at the screen for several seconds before I could speak. “Gabe! Spencer’s free!” I shouted, making all of them jerk in surprise.

  Gabe’s eyes went out of focus, a look of concentration coming to his face. He didn’t speak. He just sat there, staring into space.

  I looked at the report again, something about it niggling at the back of my mind. It was concise yet the fact he specifically said it got cold didn’t make sense. If Spencer had exiled himself, it wouldn’t have gotten cold at all. He would have vanished, taking himself to purgatory.

  My eyes bugged as I stared at the screen. It was a skip-code. I looked at the words, understanding slamming into me.

  Every fourth word. If it was indeed the code, the message was . . . ‘the portal is in cold storage bring Hades.’

  Cold storage? What did . . . but it made sense as well. The restaurant was the location of the portal. It must be inside the refrigeration unit.