by Alyssa Day
“Do you still have to wear those gloves to avoid touching anything? Have you seen Dr. Koontz? He says if you’d try the hypnosis again—”
“No, I’m never going to see Dr. Koontz again, Mom. He thinks I’m crazy. He refused to believe me, even when I gave him proof by reading that pencil holder his son made for him.”
“That wasn’t very nice, Keely. Making up stories about his poor little boy locking his sister in the closet,” her mother said, voice chiding.
“It wasn’t a story, and if you’d watched him closely when I told him my vision, you’d know that he’d suspected his son of bullying for some time. Anyway, I couldn’t go back even if I wanted to. Dr. Koontz fired me as a patient.”
She hadn’t known shrinks could do that—fire people—but evidently they could. Like most people who’d seen her “talent” up close and personal, he’d never wanted anything to do with her again. Maybe some irony there. Even the shrinks thought she was a freak. Maybe she didn’t need to go there, even in the privacy of her own insecurities.
She hoped he’d at least gotten his son under control.
“Can I talk to Dad?”
“Well, he’s, um . . .” Her mother’s voice faltered. “He’s having a little nap.”
Right. The lump in Keely’s throat was suddenly back, and bigger.
“Dad’s never taken a nap in his life, Mom. Couldn’t you at least try to come up with something believable?”
“Keely, you know that he loves you. He just doesn’t know how to deal with your . . . your problem.”
“Right, Mom.” She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice but could tell she was failing badly. “My problem. Well, hey, I need to go. Hundreds of voice-mail messages to return, letters to answer. You know, from the people who do want to talk to me.”
“Keely! That’s not fair. You know I’m always so happy to hear from you.”
Keely softened. “I know, Mom. I was thinking I might come by for a visit this week. We could drive up to—”
“Oh, honey, this isn’t a good week. We, ah, we’re just so busy. I’ll call you this weekend and we’ll have another chat, okay?”
“Right, Mom. Okay. This weekend. I—” Keely’s voice faltered, but she took a deep breath and forced the words to come. Forced herself to say the words to the mother who didn’t even want to see her. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, baby. We’ll talk soon.”
After she hung up the phone, Keely put her head down on her arms, there on her dusty desk, in the middle of her silent office, and finally gave in to the tears.
Chapter 3
Present day, the Void created by Anubisa,
goddess of Chaos and Night
Justice floated in a dark dimension composed entirely of pain, his mind cannibalizing his memories for some sense of himself. Viscous as a thick, murky potion conjured by a dark sorceress, the pain surrounded him, taunted him, buffeted him, and cradled him until he no longer existed other than as a supplicant, a slave, an unwilling participant in a twisted and torturous game.
His consciousness had dwindled down to the barest pin-prick of flickering light. He knew his name, knew he was Justice in a vastness of injustice, knew that his sacrifice had saved others whose names had long been torn from his mind. But nobility was as nothing against the pain; the pain ate nobility, consumed strength, devoured pride. Ate the Body until what was left of the Body burned in acid rebellion against the Mind. The Mind screamed and howled, silent shrieks of protest against an unyielding evil that licked his blood, feasted on his terror, and laughed a dark, breathless humor of longing.
But the memories flashed, taunting him with their evanescence. First, a glimpse of the beginning. There was the cavern, and then there was after. After had been when the pain began. Of that, at least, he was sure.
Rousing slowly to consciousness, Justice had woken to a nightmare that must surely exist in the lowest of the nine hells.
As designed by Vegas.
He stared up at the canopy of the biggest bed ever made, which was draped in—no kidding—black and red satin. No overkill there. The bedpost carvings of satyrs and mutant-looking nymphets, performing perverse sexual acts that must have broken at least a few laws of physics, didn’t even surprise him after the satin.
“Who are you kidding with this? Did you hire some B-movie porn set designer? If the bowm-chicka-bowm-bowm music starts up, I’m out of here,” he said.
The words were no sooner out of his mouth before he remembered. The cave. His sacrifice. He was supposed to have been willing.
Anubisa hadn’t forgotten, though, and regardless of her taste in boudoir décor, she was no idiot. Evil, murderous, twisted, and obsessive, but not stupid.
Goddesses rarely were.
Even those who reigned over their own fiefdom in the nine hells.
She sat on the edge of the bed, which sank perceptibly, as though the sheer force of the fury and death that rode her soul added weight to her slender frame. Almost against his will, he touched a lock of her mass of hair that hung down to her hips. Or maybe it was against his will. Maybe she was manipulating him so expertly that he didn’t even realize it.
But if he really believed that, he’d give in to his fate. Try to kill her and go out in a blaze of suicidal stupidity.
He wasn’t a god, but he wasn’t stupid, either. He’d bide his time.
“If you do not care for the furnishings, I will change them,” she said carelessly, with the air of a benevolent parent bestowing a gift on a child. Then her voice turned almost coy. “Is there anything here that you like?”
Justice hadn’t lived for centuries without learning a few things about women. It amused and somehow calmed him to find that this goddess, the scourge of Atlantis for millennia, had at least a superficial resemblance to mortal woman.
He wondered if she’d ever been one.
Wondered if he’d ever dare to ask.
“You know that there is,” he growled as, rolling the dice that she wouldn’t kill him for his temerity, he grasped her arm and yanked her down next to him. “Your beauty is flawless, and well you know it.”
A scarlet light flashed deep in the centers of her pupils as she slowly smiled. “There is much about me that is flawless, warrior. Shall you discover more?”
Her smile widened, and her fangs descended as she lifted her head to strike.
Knowledge shot Justice into consciousness even as pain ate the memory. So he’d cooperated? Had pretended to desire her? His skin tried to crawl off of his body at the thought.
At what point did evil permeate one’s soul? Lie down with dogs . . . So what if you lay down with dog goddesses? Visions of mutant fleas the size of mountain lions eating his liver did nothing to reassure him of his sanity, but the brief flare of black humor reminded him of someone.
Of something.
Perhaps of himself?
But sanity dwindled, and his brief return to lucidity faded under the pain. He was Justice, and he had been buried in the pain for years or centuries or millennia—or merely minutes?—but the pain existed outside the reality of time until only the insanity of stretched and tortured perception remained.
But the flickering point of light that was all that remained of his Being waited and watched and plotted. Because he was Justice and—no matter the eons of time that passed before his time finally came—Justice would be served.
As if to reward the courage flying in the face of utter futility, hope crouching in the shadow of utter hopelessness, a window opened into the darkness and he saw through the shadows to a face. The face was Other, not his face, not his mind, not Justice. The face was Female, but not evil. Not female death or destruction or despair. As he watched the face, watched her, entranced by the vividly green eyes that shone so brightly they cast a shimmer of light into his eternal darkness, his vision expanded to include her upper body and her hands, which touched something at her throat.
A wooden carving?
Sh
e held it up and pressed it against her lips, even as tears shimmered in the emeralds of her eyes and slowly traced a path down her cheeks.
Suddenly the flash of recognition struck him, nearly enough to yank him back to sanity. The carving was a small wooden fish, an oddly shaped species somewhat like a clownfish, but one he’d only seen in the very depths of the ocean. They clustered near the base of the dome covering Atlantis and seemed to entertain the children who loved to watch them.
As he had, in long ago, far more innocent days.
No landwalker would have seen that fish. So none could have carved it. Whoever she was, she held his carving. As he watched her cry, alone and silent, a single, crystalline tear dropped onto the carving she still held to her lips. Somehow, even though it was impossible, he felt the pain of it dig into his chest.
Impossible or not, the carving connected them. He shouted out some wordless noise of longing or loss or loneliness, and through whatever magic or hallucination that swirled between them, she heard him.
Just for an instant, she gasped and blinked those beautiful eyes and seemed to stare straight at him.
Then as the vision or mirage of her vanished and he was plunged back into the darkness but not into the despair, he realized one undeniable truth.
She was his.
Or she was a figment of his imagination. Suspended alone in the unending dark, Justice began to laugh.
Chapter 4
Rowes Wharf, Boston
Alexios stared up at the enormous brick-and-granite-clad building that gleamed like new money and old arrogance in the moonlight. He whistled, a low, piercing sound of disbelief, and turned to Brennan. “Are you kidding me? This is the HQ? Whatever happened to the good old days when the Apostates of Algolagnia skulked around in abandoned warehouses and damp, leaky basements?”
Alexios almost laughed at himself, although nothing about the situation was funny. They were just having a normal conversation between a couple of guys.
If the guys happened to be centuries-old Atlantean warriors who’d called to their power over water to ride air currents rich with the sharp tang of seawater and diesel fuel that mixed over Boston Harbor.
Christophe shot up through the air to join them, his Firefly T-shirt and faded jeans contrasting vividly with the dark clothing Alexios, Brennan, and the rest of the Seven routinely wore on missions outside of Atlantis. High Prince Conlan’s elite guard and fighting force wasn’t really supposed to look like Goth college kids playing rebel, after all.
As if he’d heard the thought, Christophe turned the full force of his gaze on Alexios, who suddenly realized that the clothes meant nothing. The weight of power, barely leashed, that glowed in Christophe’s eyes made the question of his attire irrelevant—the warrior was a killer as icy as the ocean’s most isolated depths.
It wasn’t really the time to ponder Christophe’s morality, conscience, or lack of either, though. They needed to find Justice, before all hope that he was still alive vanished under the harsh reality of passing time.
“Let’s check it out,” Alexios called out quietly. Shimmering to mist, the three rose farther into the air until they hovered thirty or so feet over the icy winter waters of Boston Harbor.
Poseidon’s warriors, preparing to play Peeping Tom.
The thought sickened Alexios, especially given what they might see from the members of a cult that experienced pleasure through pain. No matter, though. He’d give his life to find Lord Justice. They all would. Tracking down a few sick perverts for information seemed a small price to pay.
“Even if the venue seems so unlikely,” he added out loud.
“Catch up, already,” Christophe said, sneering. “Anubisa’s twisted cult owns the lives and rotted souls of members with big bucks and bigger connections. The humans call this complex of buildings the ‘Gateway to Boston.’ What better way for Anubisa’s acolytes to stake their claim to the rest of the new world?”
“Stake their claim. I get it. Vamp-worshipping cult. Stake. Funny man,” Alexios said, not in the least bit amused. “Where are they?”
Brennan cleared his throat, as if stretching rusted vocal cords. Lately the warrior had been prone to longer and longer periods of silence. Alexios wondered, not for the first time, if the centuries of having no emotion were finally wearing Brennan down. “When Quinn sent word to Atlantis, she indicated that the cult held its rites in a penthouse suite of the Boston Harbor Hotel, which is contained within this building.” He pointed to a section of the multistoried arch that spanned a large area.
Alexios narrowed his eyes. “Freaking luxury hotel to play their sick games in. What’s next? The White House? Maybe the Lincoln bedroom?”
“Abraham Lincoln would have been sickened by the weakling who holds his office today,” Brennan said, his utterly calm voice giving no hint of whether or not he shared the sentiment. “There is no evidence that President Warren has joined the Apostates, however.”
Christophe threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah, who needs to join a cult devoted to finding sexual pleasure through intense pain when you’re already married to a ballbuster like this country’s First Lady?”
“Perhaps we should leave the political speculation for the time being,” Brennan said, a hint of command in his quiet voice. “We are the Warriors of Poseidon, and it is not our purview to speculate on the humans and their leadership choices, much as we may dislike those choices. It is our honor and duty only to protect them from those predators who formerly kept to the shadows of the night.”
“Right. The pride of Atlantis protecting the damn sheep who invited the wolves in to dinner,” Christophe sneered. “In the decade since the shifters and vamps declared themselves to humanity, they’ve taken over. Vampires in Congress and now in the British parliament. Shape-shifters controlling the media. Every one of them walking around as though they owned the place. Oh, wait—they do.”
Christophe snarled a phrase in ancient Atlantean and sliced a hand downward. A funnel of churning water spiraled up through the air at his command, climbing high enough to spray water at their boots before Christophe released it.
Alexios gritted his teeth against the urge to reprimand the younger warrior. After all, Christophe was only acting out the maddening frustration they all felt. “No time for any of that now. This sect may have some knowledge that can help us find Justice. That’s all we care about tonight. The mission is to get it out of them, any way we can.”
As the three warriors shimmered into mist and silently soared up toward the rooftop, Alexios forced the toxic memories of his own time as Anubisa’s captive from his thoughts. Memory was such a pale and impotent word, anyway; it was more like a full-on, lights-and-sound flashback to the torture that had seared through his body and mind. Almost as though he yet again endured the lash of her metal-tipped whips or the agony of her mind rape.
Two years of imprisonment to the vampire goddess, in payment for some wrong she believed Poseidon had done to her so long ago that any memory of it was lost in the waters of time. At least to anyone mortal.
Goddesses had very, very long memories.
Two years of being brought to the point of death and beyond, over and over and over again. That he’d survived was no testament to his own strength or courage, but rather to how low he’d been on her list of priorities. She hadn’t been around to play her twisted games with him very often, or he would have been dead.
Or worse than dead. A pathetic toy to do her bidding. A man couldn’t outplay a goddess, after all. Not even a man who was also an Atlantean warrior.
As the memories shuddered through his soul, he forced himself to focus. On the mission. On Justice—his colleague and friend. And tried not to wonder if, after four long months of Anubisa’s very personal attentions, there would be anything left of Justice to find.
It took them only minutes to find the right window on the hotel’s top floor. Shamelessness, or the exhibitionist tendencies of its inhabitants, meant that the curtains were
thrown wide. He felt his lips curl back from his teeth as he stared through the phantom reflection of his own scarred face on the glass at a scene straight out of something Dante might have written.
The hotel furniture, probably high quality and all kinds of expensive, was shoved against the walls to make a roughly square open space in the center of the suite. Dozens of naked, sweat-slicked bodies twisted and contorted into impossible positions. The gyrating forms of several red-robed Apostates whirled from victim to victim. Each of the red robes carried whips and other, darker-purposed steel implements with which they slashed out in precise movements.
The worst part of it was that there was a deliberate rhythm to it: choreographed pain in a perverted dance.
The blood dripping from every player and soaking into the pale cream color of the carpet was shockingly vivid and almost too bright to be real. But even as Alexios watched, the robed figures sliced new gashes into flesh, causing the nude humans to cry out and writhe on the floor.
Alexios snarled an ancient curse in his native tongue and shimmered back into his corporeal form, still wrapped in shadows so the ones inside didn’t see him as he unsheathed his daggers.
Brennan’s thoughts swirled through the air toward Alexios, stopping him mid-motion. Hold, Alexios. We wait for the leader. These humans do not react as you might think and will not welcome our interference, in any event, so we do no good by rushing in at this time.
“What in the hells are you talking about? They’re having their skin shredded by those whips. I’d say that it’s a pretty good time to welcome some interference,” Alexios returned, keeping his voice low.
Christophe shimmered into shape next to him, his eyes already glowing hot with power. “Look at the sick bastards, Alexios. They’re enjoying it.”
Alexios swung his head back to stare in at the humans writhing in pain on the floor. “They’re not—”
But then he stopped, the words frozen in his mouth. He’d seen it often enough from the Apostates during his captivity. They’d made a cult out of sexual pleasure through pain—that of others and their own.