Chapter Nine
Nothing made sense.
Aphrodite was entrapped in mortal form, too. So, that would mean that the rest of the gods probably were also. For what reason? The gravity of everything slammed into me and I had to force myself to concentrate. My goddess of a mother was sitting in a run-down, dingy diner in a ripped vinyl booth patiently waiting for me to explain to her who she was and why she was so special. A sudden feeling of déjà vu washed over me. In Alexandria, it was left to me to tell her that she was Cleopatra and that she was going to lose Egypt and die by her own hand. That was not a pleasant conversation.
And now here I was again. Same situation, different day. I was going to have to tell her that she was an Olympic goddess entrapped in mortal form. How did one go about that conversation? I took a shaky breath. Carefully. The answer was carefully.
I tucked the Map of Souls back into my bag and trudged back toward the diner, each step bringing me one closer to the reckoning. My birthmark did not hurt. And suddenly, I was furious about the fact that it ever did. The Moirae had entrapped me, used me as a tool and had placed some sort of spell on me so that I experienced intense pain every time I did something they didn’t like? That was not right and I briefly wondered how to go about getting it removed.
But I would have to ponder that later. As I reached for the door, I glanced once again toward Pasadena. The heavy black clouds were still rolling over the city. And I knew, without any doubt, that I needed to get to Gavin. My Cadmus. After I explained to Jade, he would be in danger. Which meant ... maybe I should wait until I returned to tell her. I needed to somehow make sure that I kept Gavin safe. I suddenly felt so lost. Without Ahmose, I had no one to advise me. I was all alone and it was a horrible feeling.
I rushed back into the diner and slumped into the seat across from Jade. She watched me in anticipation, certain that I was going to change her life somehow. And I would. Just not right this second.
"Jade, can you trust me? I have something very important to tell you, but it is of utmost importance that I get back to Pasadena first. Can you trust me?" I asked her again.
She stared at me wide-eyed and nodded slowly. I noticed that her knuckles were white as she gripped her phone. Jade was my mother. It was a breathtaking revelation. I had been guiding her into making horrible decisions for herself for two millennia. That knowledge was killing me as I stared at her. The Moirae were truly sick. And I suddenly knew, with every ounce of my being that they were the enemy here. I needed to somehow contact the Keres.
The old saying the enemy to your enemy is your friend suddenly made a lot of sense.
"Let’s take my car. I don’t think we should separate."
She nodded again, throwing some cash on the table and silently unfolding herself from the booth before she followed me to my car.
As we hurtled down the road toward the blackness ahead of us, Jade turned to me apprehensively.
"Is this about my DNA?" she whispered.
"What do you mean?" I asked hesitantly. How much did she know?
"My DNA," she sighed. "I’m a freak of nature and it’s caused me nothing but problems since I was born."
She looked at me waiting for me to confirm it, but I just stared at her in puzzlement, before returning my eyes to the road.
"Um, I don’t know what you’re talking about."
She looked at me doubtfully.
"My DNA is weird. Because of my dad. He’s a molecular physicist and after my sister died of a weird disease when she was a baby, he and my mother conceived me ... in a petri dish.
He managed to manipulate my molecular structure to ensure that I wasn’t born with the same hereditary illness. But in the process, he somehow altered my DNA so that I’m very ... strange.
You know that day at your pool?"
I nodded, knowing where this was going.
"You were right. My arms were scraped. But in the few seconds that it took you to reach me from the pool house, they healed themselves. I’m a freak. My dad has been working on trying to replicate the process for years. And that is why I live with my grandmother. He’s afraid that if the scientific world hears of it, I’ll be in danger. There are crazy people out there who would want to use me as a guinea pig. If they got a hold of me and recreated whatever anomaly that caused my DNA mutations, they could make impenetrable armed forces and crazy things like that. So, he hid me at my grandmother’s."
I remembered the vision of Jade lying in a sterile hospital room, restrained to the bed and I stiffened. The Moirae wanted that outcome. But why? That had the potential to create world wars.
I shook my head. This was so much bigger than me or Jade. And I had a feeling that Annen could help us figure it out.
"Wow. The sky is so dark," Jade commented, staring ahead of us. "I’ve never seen it look like that before."
Because you’ve never seen pissed off gods before, I thought.
"It does look like all hell is going to break loose," I agreed aloud. "Could you do me a huge favor? Could you call Gavin for me? He tried to call me earlier and I couldn’t pick up my phone."
She nodded and pulled out her phone. I watched her dial and then wait. She shook her head. "Voicemail."
"Okay. Will you just leave a message and ask him to call me?"
As she did, I suddenly remembered that there were two voicemails on my phone from him.
I flipped my phone open and held it to my ear.
"Hi, beautiful. Hey, you’re not going to believe this but Tara Wilson is here looking for you. She wants to apologize or something. So call me. I love you."
My heart froze. Tara was with Gavin? There was no way that she wanted to apologize.
Something wasn’t right here. With numb fingers, I pushed the button to listen to the second message.
This time Tara’s voice filtered through the phone, but I knew in that instant who Tara really was. Was nothing what it seemed to be? I swallowed.
Tara was Eris, the goddess of strife and discord. My polar opposite. As Harmonia, I was the goddess of peace and contentment. Eris had been a thorn in my side for as long as I could remember. She could appear in any form that the wished and her normal purpose in life was to undermine me in any way that she could. And now she had Gavin. I listened to her icy voice with dread.
"Harmonia, I have Cadmus. The poor dear thinks he’s in love with me. Can you believe that? Find me and don’t dally. Bring your bloodstone and the Map of Souls."
The phone went dead and it was all I could do to not scream. My fingers turned white as I gripped the steering wheel and Jade stared at me in alarm.
"What is it? Macy, you’re scaring me. What is going on?"
I took a deep breath and pulled off to the side of the road. Turning to face her, I started to speak and then closed my mouth. Where should I begin?
"Just say it," she said nervously, her hands twisting in her lap. She was wearing her amethyst ring and it glinted in the light. I sucked up my courage and just started talking.
"Jade, I have to tell you something and it is going to sound crazy, but I swear to you on everything holy that I am telling you the truth."
She nodded, her face very, very pale. She could feel the tension in the car, I could tell.
How could she not? I could practically touch it with my hands.
"You are not what you think. And I’m not what you think. And that’s what this is all about."
She raised an eyebrow.
"And? Are you going to tell me that you’re a vampire or I’m a superhero or what?"
She laughed nervously, waiting to hear what craziness would come from my mouth. I didn’t laugh with her. Instead, I pulled my bloodstone from around my neck and folded her fingers around it. Her head immediately was thrown back against the seat and I literally watched sparks fly from her hands as she gripped the stone. Her eyes were tightly shut, but I could see her eyes moving rapidly behind her eyelids as she followed the rapidly moving visions.
I knew wh
at she was feeling. I had been there myself. And it wasn’t fun. I felt guilty for thrusting it on her as I did, but there was no way I would have been able to explain so that she would believe me. She needed to simply see it for herself. I sat silently in my seat, waiting as patiently as I could. After three minutes or so, her eyes fluttered open and when she turned to look at me, her eyes were no longer the same.
They had turned the silvery gray color of an Olympic goddess.
I jumped from surprise, but tried hard to retain my composure. As it was, I still subconsciously scooted away from her towards my car door.
"What is it, Harmonia?" she asked curiously. I couldn’t seem to make my tongue work, so I simply turned my rearview mirror in her direction. She peered into it and then sat back in her seat. "Oh, my. That won’t do, will it?" she asked, looking at me again with her gleaming goddess eyes. I found myself thankful that minor goddesses didn’t inherit those things. I would be unnerved every time I looked in a mirror.
"No," I agreed. "We can’t let anyone see you until we get you some contacts or something."
She shook her head. "It won’t matter. I can feel it. Something’s coming. Nothing will be the same." She turned to me.
"Thank you," she whispered. "For awakening me. You did the right thing."
"You think?" I asked doubtfully. "I don’t know what we are going to do. Did it restore all of your memories or ...." I let my voice trail off as I stared at her pensively.
She shook her head. "No. But enough of them. I know who I am, who you are and where we came from. What I don’t understand is why we are here ...." She held up her arm and examined it as though she was looking at herself through new eyes. And I guess, in a sense, she was. It was always so strange to see things with fresh eyes once old memories had returned. I ought to know.
"We have to get to Gavin," I said. "This isn’t his fault. None of it is. I cannot allow any harm to come to him and I don’t know why they have him." I shuddered. "You don’t know what they did to Ahmose."
Brief flashes of that torturous scene flew into my mind and I tried to shake them from my memory. This wasn’t going to help. I tried to dampen the panicky feelings that were fluttering in my chest. I couldn’t help him if I melted down.
"We need to find Annen. He works with the Keres and he’ll know what to do. I can feel it."
"Annen works with the Keres?" she asked in surprise. "That is interesting news."
"Well, I doubt the Keres are the same as you are thinking ..."
And as we continued the drive into the city, I continued to explain everything that I knew so far, including how Hephaestus was chained to the door in Zeus’ palace. We were pulling into the city limits by the time I wrapped it up and the look on Jade’s face was tantamount to hysteria.
"Calm yourself," I cautioned. "We can’t accomplish anything if we are hysterical."
She nodded and I watched her chest heaving as she attempted to regain her control.
"This is surreal," she mumbled. "How can this be happening?"
"I don’t know," I answered honestly. "But I feel the same way."
When we pulled into my driveway, my mother’s car was parked there, gleaming mutely in the cloudy light. I turned off the ignition and glanced at Jade.
"Remember. You are Jade and I am Macy and that is that. Act normal. And put on your sunglasses." She quickly shoved her sunglasses onto her nose and we hurried into the house.
This time, when we entered, Hamlet went running away from us, diving under a kitchen chair.
He laid there trembling, keeping a constant eye on Jade.
She turned to me in amazement and I just shrugged. Pets had crazily accurate senses. He knew something wasn’t right. He was probably afraid of me, too, but since I still smelled the same, he overlooked it.
We continued on, bumping into my mother as we headed down the hall toward my bedroom. She was carrying an overnight bag.
She sighed in obvious relief. "Sweetie, I’m so glad you came home. Since it looks like a nasty storm is building, I’m going to head on out for my conference. I still haven’t gotten a hold of your father, so I’ve decided that you can either come with me or you can stay here. Or you can probably go over to the twins’ house. I’m sure their mother won’t care. It’s up to you."
"Um, I was actually just going to ask if Jade could stay here with me and keep me company. Her grandmother will be home if we need anything and we have a huge history final to study for." Lie.
But my mom didn’t even notice in her rush. "I guess that’s fine, honey. I trust you. Just remember the rules. Gavin can’t stay past 10:00. Be the good girl that I know you are." She raised her eyebrows at me in warning and I smiled what I hoped was a reassuring smile.
"Mom, I promise. We’re not going to do anything but study." And try to find our way to Mount Olympus.
She nodded. "Alright then. The hotel number is on the fridge, I have my cell phone and I left money on the counter for pizza or whatnot. I think you’re all set."
She swooped in and gave me a hug and I clung to her for a minute. I didn’t know what would happen and I felt suddenly sentimental. She pulled away and looked at me worriedly.
"Are you sure you’re fine with staying alone?"
I nodded. "Completely. Have fun at your conference!"
She gave me another kiss on the cheek and then she was gone.
Jade and I rushed to my room where we dug out the Map of Souls and my bloodstone and sat on my bed. Jade fingered through the book while I clutched the pendant, silently willing Annen to us. He didn’t appear. I murmured aloud and he still didn’t appear. I sighed.
"I don’t know what to do to get him to come," I admitted.
"He’ll come," Jade assured me. "I can just feel it. And there’s something else that I feel. I feel like we should leave. Do you feel that? It’s like .... something is urging me to start moving."
And in that moment, I felt it too. I needed to move to my car. Something was pulling me.
"Well, there’s only one thing to do," I murmured as I looped my bloodstone back around my neck. "We need to go."
We grabbed our purses and the book and practically ran to my car. Overhead, the sky looked angrier than ever and was rapidly turning as black as night. The wind had picked up, the trees whipping every which way. Anyone else would think just what my mother did, that it was a storm. But I knew otherwise.
I backed quickly out of the driveway and started driving in the direction that I felt the pull.
"Do you know where we’re going?" Jade asked.
"No. You?"
She shook her head. "This is all so strange to me. Familiar and strange at once. I feel as though I should be able to do something, but I can’t remember how."
I knew the feeling.
I blindly drove to the outskirts of town to a wooded hiking area. I looked around and stared nervously at Jade.
"This can’t be good. We’re isolated out here."
"That’s probably the point," she pointed out.
"So not comforting," I grumbled as we got out.
There was no one here, but I suddenly felt the need to walk into the forest and as I did, my stomach tightened in anticipation. Whatever was waiting for us, I had a strong feeling that it would be game changing.
As we entered the labyrinth of trees, the branches almost completely blocked out the light and so it seemed that we were in a mossy, damp world. As we walked further in, I realized that my goddess senses had emerged even more. Here, in the quite solitude of this small forest, I could smell the rotting sticks, the wet earth and even the freshly cracked branches. The woodsy aromas flooded my nose in a way that they wouldn’t have before. I could hear forest life scurrying, even tiny bugs. I could hear their tiny legs scraping as they walked along the underbrush. It was incredible.
We walked to a small clearing which was encircled by trees. Wildflowers bloomed around me and tall grass waved. And suddenly, here in the stillness, we were surrounded.
>
All around us, magnificent women were seated on massive horses. They were fierce and beautiful and intimidating. As one of the horses moved, I saw a folded wing at its side. These weren’t normal horses. Each woman was riding a Pegasus. They were wearing scant clothing made from leather and a bow and arrow was strapped to each of their backs. Their hair was long and wild and they had bulging muscles in their arms. I suddenly simply knew who they were.
"The Amazon," I breathed.
Jade nodded as she stood back to back with me as we pivoted in a slow circle. There must be at least twelve of them which meant that we were greatly outnumbered. The Amazon were not known for their kindness. The fact that they were here at all was alarming. They didn’t typically venture outside of their home. I looked at the warrior in front questioningly and I felt recognition stirring. I knew her.
"You require our assistance, sister," she said stiffly. Her name was Ortrera, an Amazon queen. And when she called me sister, it was the truth. Her father was Ares, also. She was my half-sister.
"We’ve been called here," she announced. "I believe it has to do with our father’s imprisonment. You will need our assistance to release him."
"Why do you care?" I asked curiously. The Amazon did not concern themselves with matters of men. They were a very female oriented society. In fact, they scorned males. To them, men were inferior. At my question,
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