by S. L. Stacy
Tanya crouches next to me. “What the hell? Who are all of these people?”
I know it’s a rhetorical question, but I answer her anyway. “Eric’s army.”
“But I thought it was just a handful of people!”
I nod. “So did I. Apparently it grew.” I was expecting to see the Sigma Iotas, Rae and a few others—virtually the same group that attacked us at Playland. But this…there are at least one hundred people down there. While they might still not be big enough to be a true army, we’re definitely outnumbered.
“Well, shit.” Tanya looks at me, the color drained from her face. “What are we gonna do?”
“What we came here to do.” The words feel strange coming from my lips. I have that detached feeling again, like I’m not even the one who’s saying them. I can’t do this—I can’t be the one to lead the Gammas into a battle we’re probably going to lose. And yet I don’t think we have any other choice.
Tanya and I inch back from the edge, only straightening up once we’re out of sight again.
“Let’s try to get closer. We’re going to have to split up—attack from two sides. See those large outcroppings of rock?” I point to the one on the right, then to another on the opposite side, almost directly across from it. “I need half of you on each side. As quickly and quietly as possible. Tanya and I will take one group. Dionysus and Sib will take the other. Watch for my signal,” I tell Dionysus as we split off. He nods.
“Forgot to mention,” I say to Tanya as her wings unfold from her back, “I’m kind of wingless, at the moment. Can you carry me?”
She looks at me, confused, mouth open to ask me a million questions. Seeming to realize we don’t have time for them, she closes it and offers me her back. “Hop on.” I crawl on awkwardly, slinging my arms around her neck, and, holding onto my legs, she launches us into the air. The rest of the sorority follows suit, darting through the air like silent, winged phantoms toward the two overhangs. Dionysus and Sib step out onto the cliff-face, scaling the rock with expert precision. If someone looked up, they’d be able to see us, but all eyes are on the three young men facing the rest of the army, each cradling one of our stones in their outstretched hands. One of them is Brian, who must have recovered from Jasper’s contaminated arrow.
“Brothers and sisters!” Brian’s voice echoes, loud and triumphant, around the canyon. “We are gathered here today to claim Olympus for our master—to take back what is rightfully his—what is rightfully ours!”
His announcement is met with cheers and whistles. He motions for silence, then continues his pre-battle pep talk. I’m only half-listening as Tanya and I touch down on the platform. I slide clumsily from her back and, righting myself, start surveying the area to figure out our next move. Which, considering there aren’t any more places where we can lie in wait, is going to have to be a full-on assault.
On a smaller outcropping of rock not far below us, I glimpse a long, thin figure lying on the ground, a fall of auburn hair. The figure stirs, weakly moving against the rope wrapped around the entire length of her body.
“Victoria,” I realize, heart sinking.
“Victoria?” Tanya exclaims, looking around in panic. “Where?”
I point. “She’s in trouble.”
Tanya peers over the side of the overhang, lips parted in worry. Looking back at me, she gives a reassuring nod. “Go. We’ve got this.”
Across the canyon, Dionysus’s eyes are locked on me, waiting for my signal. I raise my arm, flicking my hand forward twice. He shouts something to the others and, in a cloud of wings and fury, my sisters take off into the air, hurtling toward the valley floor.
Below, several heads finally look up, staring open-mouthed at the oncoming attack. Linking arms, Dionysus and Sib jump over the side of the cliff, dropping the rest of the way down. It’s a long way down, but they land seconds later with barely a stumble. I can’t say the same for myself when I jump the much shorter distance down to Victoria’s overhang.
“Victoria!” I cry out, staggering over to her and gently smearing her hair, wet with perspiration, away from her forehead. She’s lying on her side, arms bound behind her back. Eyes closed, she mumbles an incoherent response, struggling against the thick, rough rope binding her. I inspect every inch of it, looking for a knot, but it doesn’t seem to be tied anywhere—just wrapped continuously around her body in one long, tight, endless coil. Taking out my dagger, I slide a few fingers under the rope to lift it away from her body, then set the blade to it. Victoria’s eyes flutter open, and she mutters something else.
“What?” I ask her, gritting my teeth. No matter how hard I saw the dagger back and forth, I can’t cut through it. At one point, I manage to make a small notch in the rope, but as soon as I lift the dagger, giving my arm a brief rest, the gap seals over, mending itself.
“That…won’t…work,” she pants, using every ounce of strength to make herself heard.
“I can see that,” I sigh, tucking the dagger away.
“It was Rae,” Victoria continues, squirming. Every time she moves, the rope tightens further, giving off smoke as it digs into her. It leaves a red imprint wherever it touches her bare skin, burning her like acid. “She gave me something…knocked me out. Woke up—didn’t know where I was. I would wake up for a while, then they’d knock me out…again…”
“It’s okay.” I place a cool hand on her forehead. “You can tell me about it later. Save your strength. And don’t struggle. You’re making it worse.”
I see her moving her wrists, but then my words sink in, and she goes still. There’s something wrong with her hands, I realize. They’re smooth, red and raw—they almost look skinless.
Feeling nauseous, I have to look away, glancing behind me at the battle raging below. It’s mostly a blur of black uniforms and white wings, but Brian and one of the other guys holding the stones have managed to stay out of the chaos. From up here, I can see them ducked behind a large boulder, lips moving. That’s when I notice they’re holding something else—something in between their hands and the stones.
I double over, losing the protein bar I ate back at the house all over the sepia colored rocks.
“Sorry,” I tell Victoria when I’m done, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. She looks at me with understanding, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes. She knows I just saw that they were each holding a hand within their own—one of her hands, which in turn held the Guardian Stones. They can only be activated by Nike or her descendants.
So they cut off her hands.
Her hands are growing back, which explains their sickening appearance. And I know more about the Olympians’ regenerative abilities than I ever wanted to.
Stomach settling, I focus on the rope again. “So, if it can’t be untied, and it can’t be cut, how do you get this off?”
My roommate blinks a few times, looking dazed. “Burn.”
“Burn?” I ask in confusion at first. “Oh. You burn it off. Fire. I need fire.”
I never thought I’d wish I were a smoker. At least then I would have a lighter on me. I gaze up at the miles and miles of rock rising all around us. In survival movies, someone always conveniently has a piece of flint to use to start a fire. I don’t know what kind of rock this is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t flint. Or will using any stone work? I don’t think so, but I don’t really know anything about rocks. “Stupid rocks,” I mutter to myself. This is why I stick with numbers.
“Carly.”
I jump at the sound of my name, looking up. “Hephaestus?”
Farrah’s husband kneels down on the other side of Victoria. I smile with relief, at the same time trying not to cringe. Part of his face is badly scarred, the skin there mottled, the eye sealed shut. It’s hard to make direct eye contact with him, and I’m always afraid he’ll think I’m staring at his scars.
“Join your sisters,” Hephaestus tells me, leaning over Victoria. “They need you down there. Help is on the way. I can take this from he
re.” His right hand starts to glow a bright red-orange, and he brings flaming fingers down on a section of rope, instantly disintegrating it. He moves his hands above her body, keeping the fire contained as it eats away at the rope, leaving a trail of ash in its wake. Victoria winces, biting back a scream.
Once I’ve convinced myself that she’s going to be okay, I crawl over the side of the overhang and, securing hand and footholds in the cliff face, start climbing downwards, carefully but as quickly as possible.
Almost as soon as I jump the last few feet to the ground, someone grabs me from behind.
“Miss me?” It’s Rae’s voice in my ear. Before she can bring her dagger to my throat, I tear out of her grip, leveling Godslayer at her.
“No, but I’m sure Brian does.” I wink. Rae cringes.
“He’s over it,” she insists. “I had to knock him out for a few hours so he could sleep it off, but the effects of the starflower nectar have worn off.” She raises her dagger, hazel eyes flicking between the sword and me. “Is that what I think it is?”
“If you think this is Godslayer—the only weapon capable of killing an Olympian—then you’d be correct.”
“Eric’s been looking all over the place for that stupid thing.” Momentarily distracted from the battle, Rae tilts her head to one side, considering me. “How the hell did you find it?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” I take a step toward her. Rae takes a rather shaky step back, but when I lunge forward, aiming for the heart, she manages to block the blow with her dagger. We go on like this for several minutes, with me on the offensive, swinging Godslayer to the left, to the right and left again. I fall immediately into an effortless rhythm, better even than I was at Playland, my footing steady, my strikes fast and on point. Or, they would be on point, except that Rae is just as fast and more practiced, so she blocks every hit. The only advantage I really have is that the sword is making her nervous, and she’s channeling all of her energy and attention into fending me off. So she doesn’t realize that I’m backing her up against a large column of rock until she runs into it, jumping in surprise.
This time, when I smack her dagger with the sword, it goes flying to the ground. I press the tip of the blade into one of the black eyes of Rae’s skull tattoo, then draw it across her neck without breaking skin. She winces, tears cascading down her dirt streaked cheeks.
“Just make it quick.” Shaking, she sinks further against the wall of rock, as though trying to disappear through it. “Get it over with.”
I grit my teeth, squeezing the sword handle. Rage courses through me as I think about what she did to Victoria. I could do it, I realize. I’m angry enough to kill her.
What I do next surprises us both.
Instead of piercing her throat, I lift the blade up a centimeter and slice it cleanly through the delicate gold chain of her shield necklace. It drops to the ground, clinking metallically against the rocks. I withdraw the sword, holding it ready at my side just in case I’m wrong about this. There’s a faint, pink line on Rae’s skin where the blade nicked her, but nothing more.
Rae massages her neck, breathing hard, as though I’ve just freed her of a heavy, iron chain.
“What…where am I?” she wonders, looking around in confusion.
I can see it on her face as everything comes rushing back to her. Her eyes widen. Lower lip trembles. More tears pepper her cheeks, which are losing their color by the second. I imagine she’s remembering what she did to Victoria, the skirmish at Playland, the battle currently raging around us. Every horrible thing she’s done or witnessed over the last several days.
“Oh, my God,” she sobs, falling to her knees. “What have I done? What have I—”
“It’s okay,” I try to soothe her. Lowering Godslayer, I walk over to her, placing a hand on her trembling shoulder. Although I still hate her for what she did to Victoria, I can’t help feeling a little bit of pity for Rae. I didn’t know her before she joined Eric’s army, but she probably wasn’t the type to kidnap people and cut off their hands. “Whatever you remember doing…that wasn’t really you.”
“He told us we would be free.” Rae looks straight into my eyes, pleading with me to understand. I assume she’s talking about Eric. “That if we joined him, we would be free, and beautiful, and powerful. Unstoppable. But we were just slaves. I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so, so sorry.”
“I know. Look, stay here,” I caution her, “out of sight. I’ll make sure this whole thing is over soon, but you have to stay quiet and stay hidden until it’s all over.” Rae nods her understanding, pulling her knees into her chest. The tears are still coming, but they fall silently now, dampening the neckline of her shirt. After giving her an encouraging smile, I leave, joining the rest of the battle.
Hephaestus was right: The others need me. The battle has turned into a bloodbath. Although we’re putting up an admirable fight, there’s just too many of them. I watch as Sib plants an elbow into the back of a man’s neck—hitting him in just the right spot to send him crumpling, unconscious, to the ground—then as ten more soldiers sweep in to replace their fallen brother. Tanya and a girl with blue streaked hair I recognize from Playland are locked in a stalemate, their daggers forming a metallic cross between them, both standing their ground. Dionysus has resorted to hand-to-hand combat, his hand swinging out to punch the guy to his right, spinning around to wring the neck of the guy to his left. Several unconscious bodies sprawled nearby are littered with bullet holes, weeping blood.
There are other bodies—the ground is covered with them. Some dressed all in black, others with limp, scarlet-stained white wings. The orange-brown dirt runs red with blood. I’ve never seen so much blood, so many bodies. The bodies of classmates—of friends.
“Stop.” My voice is barely above a whisper. I sheath the sword, unable to bring myself to join in the slaughter. “Stop!” I shout the command this time, straining to be heard above the fray.
Of course, no one is paying attention to me, but the outburst seems to trigger something deep in my core, the on-switch for a power source that had laid dormant until now. I can feel it swirling and expanding inside of me, a surge of pure energy that’s bringing warmth and strength to my body, making my nerve endings tingle. Glancing at my hands, I realize they’re giving off a soft, golden glow. Like a liquid shield, it flows from my fingers until it’s completely enveloped me, a thin, protective layer of shimmering energy.
An angry shout jolts me back to the present. I look up to find one of Eric’s soldiers lunging toward me, combat knife raised. I whip out Godslayer, but it’s too late. With a flick of his wrist, he sends the knife whizzing the last few feet through the air, straight for my chest cavity. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for impact.
Nothing happens.
When I open them again, the knife is hovering in midair, lodged in my new golden force field. A moment later it drops to the ground, landing at my feet. The owner of the knife stares at it with wide, disbelieving eyes, eyes which slowly, reluctantly slide up to meet my own.
“Holy shit,” he gasps. Turning on his heel, he runs back toward the battle, kicking up plumes of reddish dust.
I pick up the combat knife, adding it to my weapons belt. I’m not going to use it—I won’t have to—but I don’t want anyone else to claim it, either. Hephaestus had said that help was on the way. All I need to do is stall the battle, protect my friends until “help” gets here. Feeling the pulse of energy inside of me, as steady and vibrant as a second heartbeat, I know exactly what to do.
Holding my hands out, palms up, I let the force field extend outward onto the battlefield. Even as it leaves my fingertips, I can still sense it, focus it, so I send a blast toward each of my sorority sisters, Dionysus and Sib, watching as each of them becomes wrapped in a faint halo of energy. There are cries of confusion from both sides as fists and blades rebound, unable to puncture the barriers. Eventually, our opponents give up, yelling and arguing with each other instead, trying to figure out what’s go
ing on.
I send out a final pulse of energy, coiling it carefully around the three stones Brian and his companion are holding. They shudder, dropping the stones and severed hands as though they’ve been burned.
“What’s happening?” Tanya asks no one in particular, sounding relieved but frightened. Seeing me with my outstretched palms, her eyebrows go up in question. “Carly, are you doing this?” Before I can answer her, another voice cuts the stunned silence.
“It would seem so.” Farrah glides out onto the battlefield, pink and golden in a silky, rose colored dress, feathered wings the color of spun gold protruding from her back. Ash blonde hair falls around high cheekbones in warm tendrils, while icy green eyes look out over the battlefield, assessing the damage. “Tell your soldiers to stand down.” This command is directed at Brian, who has risen to his feet and crept forward, confusion and anger at war on his features. “Lay down your weapons and surrender.”
“Make us, Barbie,” someone snarls. There’s the ping of a blade being thrown, followed by the flash of metal as a dagger somersaults through the air. There’s no time for me to create a force field for Farrah, but she doesn’t need it. She throws up a hand, the tip of the blade stopping a millimeter from her palm. When she lowers her arm, the dagger falls, too.
“Weapons down, or I’ll relieve you of them myself!”
“Face it. It’s over.” Athena comes to stand next to Farrah, dressed in head-to-toe armor, black hair slicked back into a tight ponytail. “You’re outnumbered—and outclassed.”
Looking behind them, I let out a small gasp. “Help” has arrived. The air is filled with at least one hundred Gamma Lambda Phis of all ages, wings spread to their fullest extent, daggers lifted toward the sky.
“It’s alright, guys.” Brian raises his hands in a calming gesture as he addresses the army. “Do what she says.” Slowly, he withdraws his own dagger from his belt, eyes trained in Farrah’s direction as he gingerly sets it on the rocky ground. After a reluctant pause, the other halfling soldiers follow his lead.