The Iron Queen

by Kaitlin Bevis

  “As good a guess as any,” said a voice as smooth as silk from the doorway.

  I blanched. Zeus.

  At the sound of Zeus’ voice, Ares swore and turned, pushing Melissa and Adonis behind him.

  “Charm them and tell them to hold still,” Zeus told me with a grin.

  My body moved of its own accord, turning and meeting each of their eyes. They all froze, even Adonis and Melissa. I did a double take. Adonis’ eyes locked to mine, pupils still normal sized, unlike everyone else. Just go with it, his look seemed to say.

  I swallowed hard and tore my gaze from him to Melissa. She stared back at me, eyes wide with fear. Please don’t move. Zeus didn’t know I’d sworn not to charm Melissa. Maybe she could teleport and get away.

  “Now ask them to swear fealty to me,” Zeus instructed.

  No. I wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t make me. I clamped my mouth shut.

  Gods. Words rose in me, filled my mouth, and pushed against my lips. Swallowing, I forced them down, but they tore at my throat. A strangled, keening wail filled the room, sounding so alien, so desperate and helpless, that at first I didn’t place it as mine. I wouldn’t do this to them. Zeus would kill them in an instant. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—Stop!

  My lips parted of their own volition, and I clapped my hand over my mouth. Zeus crossed his arms, looking bored. I couldn’t resist forever, and he knew it. Every fiber in my being pulled at me to obey his command.

  I looked away from Zeus, but found I couldn’t face the blind devotion in Ares’ and Hephaestus’ eyes. They had nothing left of themselves in their expressions. All they wanted to do was please me. This was wrong. My vision blurred, and I blinked away the tears, looking to Adonis instead. His bravery and strength was telegraphed in his stiff posture and the trust in the eyes he kept glued to my face.

  He trusted me! No one trusted me. A small smile formed on his face, cool and confident. Just wait, it seemed to say. We’ll get out of this.

  No, I wouldn’t do this. Not to him. Not to Melissa or any of the others. They trusted me, maybe even thought of me as a friend, and friendships were precious because they hadn’t come easily. I would die before I let Zeus take them from me. Despite my conviction, my jaw stretched, struggling to free itself from behind my tightly clamped hand. But my teeth came together with a click, filling my mouth with the copper taste of blood.

  I wouldn’t do it. I’d die first. In fact...

  Hades, I thought desperately. Something moved, but I couldn’t make it out from behind the sheen of tears filling my eyes. I swear—

  In a whoosh I was on the ground, and Adonis was on top of me. “Melissa, now!” Adonis gave me an apologetic look and slammed my head into the floor. My vision flickered. A bright light flashed. Then the acrid scent of burnt flesh filled my nostrils.

  I tried to sit up, tried to scream, but instead I fell, slipped, slid into a tunnel of empty darkness.

  Chapter XXXVII

  Persephone

  “I NEED A BREAK,” Triton gasped, leaning against the bubble, legs twitching with fatigue. “There’s a cave over there.” He motioned vaguely, and our weird air bubble floated toward it.

  Again? Keeping the frustration off my face was as useless as trying to keep Glinda the Good Fairy out of my head as we traveled along the ocean floor by bubble. I wasn’t frustrated with Triton. I was frustrated for him. He couldn’t take much more of this. We needed to find land from my realm, real land, soon.

  Triton didn’t seem to notice. We surfaced in a cave, and he managed a few steps before curling up on the ground and falling asleep. Chewing on my lower lip, I took in Triton’s ashen pallor in concern. This wasn’t good. Triton hadn’t come into his powers yet, and unlike me, he didn’t have an excess to burn off. We were making very slow time in our quest for land, but more important than that, Triton looked positively sick. I didn’t think he could handle this much longer.

  If only there were some way to channel power to him safely.

  I waited, hoping for a suggestion from Hades, but he seemed really distracted. More than that, he’d thrown a wall up between our minds. Why would he do that? It wasn’t like Hades to keep things from me.

  Triton shifted, returning my attention to the problem at hand. Could I do the bubble thing? I threw up a shield and took a few tentative steps toward the water before hitting the edge of it. No good. Shields were stationary, so it didn’t move when I did.

  Fiddling with my necklace, I tried to recast the shield as I walked. Still no good. The shield enclosed everything within it, including the water. There had to be a way to replicate Triton’s bubble. When I’d asked him before, he hadn’t been able to explain what he was doing. His bubble seemed as innate as my charm.

  Which means I probably can’t make one anymore than he could charm someone, I realized.

  Okay, so plan “B.” How could I safely give him some of my power? Hades could filter mine, but that was because we were married. And marrying Triton was out. Even if marrying Triton wasn’t out, it was out.

  I could ask him to swear fealty to me. The thought turned my stomach. If Poseidon discovered I allowed his kid to swear fealty to me, he’d make good on his threat to find a way to kill me. Even if I did plan on breaking the bond as soon as we hit land.

  Where was Poseidon anyway? I left a chunk of my air plant necklace behind every time we stopped like a trail of glowing breadcrumbs. My plant didn’t exactly glow, but the necklace was kind of a conduit to my realm. It would attract Poseidon’s attention just by the wrongness of it being here. I’d feel sorry for the poor plant if I couldn’t replenish its missing leaves. But if there was one thing I could do, it was grow flowers.

  I sat down and leaned against the cold, wet wall of the cave. Would it work the other way around? Could I swear fealty to Triton without my power killing him? I didn’t like the idea, if only because I already felt like I was leading the poor kid on. No telling what sort of mixed signals swearing fealty would send. But if we kept moving at this pace, I wouldn’t get home this century.

  I considered for a moment, then shook my head. I’d have to ask Hades. I didn’t know enough about it. In the meantime, I’d wait on Poseidon.

  Surely it wouldn’t take him too much more time to find us.

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Hades

  FIRE. IT WAS ALL around me. Smoke filled my lungs and the horrible scent of burnt hair assaulted my nose. The sounds of people screaming and crying surrounded me between blasts of piercing sirens. I whirled around, squinting my eyes to see through the burning smoke. Had I teleported to the wrong place? No. There was no mistaking that trashy church sign.

  “Sir!” A firefighter grabbed me and steered me toward the large red truck. “You must move behind the line. Were you in the church, sir?”

  He sounded doubtful. I didn’t look much like Apollo’s followers. When I shook my head, he directed me out of his way. Powerful blasts of water spewed from large yellow hoses, and the flames gradually died down to smoldering embers. Working my way through the crowd, I searched for Demeter, Apollo, and Artemis. What had happened here?

  Apollo’s followers wandered around the smoldering remains of the church, seemingly oblivious to the sirens wailing and the EMTs rushing about, trying to herd them to safety. The rest of the cult lay scattered through the remains of the church, burnt to a crisp.

  “What happened here?” I grabbed a bikini-clad girl by the shoulders. “Where’s Ap—Mr. Sunshine?”

  Her eyes were red rimmed from crying. Or maybe it was something else. “The bad man made him say the magic words that turned him to dust.” She took a deep shuddering breath and then burst into tears.

  Shock. Wonderful. I led her to one of the EMTs and continued my search. Behind me the girl who had been screaming nonstop changed gears and started singing an altered version of
“You Are My Sunshine.”

  I swore. If, and it was a very big if, what this girl had described was even half accurate, Zeus had forced Apollo to swear fealty. But how had he known where to find him?

  I glanced at the church sign. Well, it wasn’t like Apollo had been subtle. We shouldn’t have let him come back here. But where were Demeter and Athena?

  I grabbed the next teenager I passed. “There were two women who came back with Mr. Sunshine. One of them was blond, nearly my height—”

  The boy nodded, looking shaken. “And the hot Indian chick, right?”

  I’d never heard Artemis described that way, but sure. “Where are they?”

  “They vanished, man.”

  My blood froze. “What do you mean vanished?” The boy didn’t answer and my voice rose. “Vanished like Apollo—er, Mr. Sunshine? Or just disappeared?” Why was I wasting my time with this kid? There were only two options.

  I teleported back to Demeter’s and was nearly run over by Adonis carrying Aphrodite. Her hair draped over Adonis’ arm, almost touching the floor. The red was shocking against her sheet-white skin.

  “What happened?” I demanded. “What the hell is going on?”

  “You have to go back!” Melissa shouted from somewhere behind Adonis.

  Adonis moved past me toward the living room, and I saw Melissa in tears. She launched herself at a bewildered looking Demeter.

  Demeter, thank the gods. The tension in my chest eased, and I scanned the room for Artemis. She was curled up on the love seat with Ryan, face streaked with tears.

  Demeter shushed Melissa and wrapped her arms around her. “What happened?”

  Adonis and Melissa started talking at the same time. “Zeus was waiting for us—”

  “He made Aphrodite charm everyone—”

  “Didn’t work on Adonis—”

  “I had to knock her out. She was going to make them swear fealty.”

  “They told us to go—”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” Adonis looked pale and shaken.

  Melissa was sobbing so much it was getting hard to understand her. “I grabbed the two of them and teleported, but Ares and Hephaestus are still there! You have to go back! Please, Demeter!”

  Aphrodite stirred, and Adonis sprang into action, grabbing a lamp off the end table. He raised it above Aphrodite, and I darted between the two of them.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’ll get them,” Demeter said. She vanished before I could object.

  “If she wakes up, she’ll try to charm them into swearing fealty again,” Adonis explained. “He never told her to stop. She has to listen to him, doesn’t she?”

  “Yeah, but gods! Don’t hit her!” I didn’t like Aphrodite much, but I wasn’t about to watch her get beaten to a bloody pulp every time she moved. She stirred again, and I turned, hand brushing back the hair on her forehead. A surge of power flowed from me to her, and she stopped moving.

  I made a mental note to thank Hypnos for teaching me that trick. With any luck, she’d be out for a while.

  Demeter popped back into the room along with Ares and Hephaestus. They seemed remarkably unscathed. As if reading my thoughts, Ares shrugged and pulled on the sleeves of his jacket.

  “Zeus ported out as soon as Hephaestus and I charged him. I think he’d prefer to pick us off one by one.”

  “I think it may have had something to do with Ares lighting him on fire,” Hephaestus added dryly. “Shame it didn’t last.” His lips twisted in what might have been a smile. It was hard to tell on his face.

  Ares shrugged again. “Is Aphrodite okay?”

  “What. Happened?” I demanded, catching Demeter’s eyes.

  “Zeus was at the church, waiting for us. We got out. Apollo didn’t.”

  I opened my mouth to demand to know why Demeter, one of the strongest deities left, had run when she had Zeus outnumbered three to one, but she shook her head, then inclined it toward the couch where Artemis was sobbing into Ryan’s shoulder.

  I let out my breath. Ryan could be charmed and used against Artemis. There had been an entire congregation of hostages who could be used against Apollo. All it took were two words and one second of weakness to swear fealty to Zeus. It was lucky Demeter got Artemis out of there before Zeus became even more powerful than he already was.

  He must have gone straight from the church to the prophet’s, which at least answered that question. There was no way he could have known our group would be in both places without prophecy.

  Unless we had a mole.

  The door opened, slamming into the wall so hard the doorknob punctured the sheetrock, leaving a gaping, dusty hole. I blinked, my mind not accepting the image of Poseidon, the shirtless surfer in bright blue board shorts, existing in Demeter’s living room.

  He closed the door with just as much force, oblivious to the damage he’d caused. His frantic gaze scanned the room, then landed on me. “Hades! We need to talk.”

  “Little busy,” I snapped.

  Then I saw his face.

  Poseidon looked like he’d aged a century since the last time I’d seen him. His skin had turned a sickly shade of gray. Tufts of his blond hair spiked out in a thousand different directions, and despair glittered his eyes. A sense of dread filled my gut.

  I pulled him into the kitchen and closed the door behind us. For what felt like the thousandth time today I found myself asking, “What happened?”

  Only this time I was afraid of the answer.

  Chapter XXXIX

  Aphrodite

  I DIDN’T KNOW how long I’d been unconscious when Persephone found me, but I could tell she was worried.

  “I need your help. Hades isn’t answering me, and I’m in trouble.” Persephone explained the situation with Triton, and I frowned. The kid shouldn’t be able to overextend himself. Persephone was weird, because she had worshipers, but in most cases, power is a matter of having it or not. You can’t work yourself into a deficit, no matter how motivated you are.

  Unless he had worshipers.

  No, Poseidon had been too careful. No one but Persephone had even known he had a son until she spilled the beans.

  She looked around my dreamscape, her bedroom, and raised an eyebrow at me.

  I opened my mouth to explain how much my life had changed in the last few weeks. Yes, it was weird. And part of me felt guilty for using her room as my dreamscape. But it was the closest thing to a home I’d ever known, and I had memories here with people who hadn’t been charmed into hanging out with me.

  “This is so nice of you,” she said before I had a chance to explain. The worry on her face eased as she ran her fingers over her smooth wooden dresser. “For a while there I was worried I’d never see any of this again.”

  She dropped into the papasan chair and tucked her feet under her, looking so at home, and so much like she belonged here that the dreamscape wavered as I felt my place in it fading.

  I shook my head, stabilizing the dreamscape, and summoned a chair for myself. “No problem. So about this kid—”

  “I have a plan.”

  Alarm bells went off in my head when she told me what she was planning to do.

  “Okay, wait, you—” A tugging sensation cut me off. “Persephone, I think I have to go.”

  She looked up, alarmed. “Wait! Will my idea help him? Will it work?”

  “Yes, but he shouldn’t—” I blinked, and the dreamscape changed around me. Now I stood in what looked like a board room. Over a dozen gods sat around a long conference table in black leather chairs.

  “—need it,” I finished. “What is this?” I crossed my legs and leaned back in my chair. I started to make a sarcastic comment about being knocked out, but then I saw everyone’s faces.

 
There was no laughter or arrogance in Ares’ face. He looked grim. Hephaestus stared down at his hands with a startling intensity, and Poseidon. Gods, Poseidon. What had I missed?

  “I didn’t get anyone to swear over, did I?” My eyes darted around to all the gods. “Where’s Apollo? Did I—”

  Hades shook his head. “Adonis knocked you out before you could do any damage. Zeus did get Apollo, but you had nothing to do with it.”

  I swallowed hard, fighting the compulsion to charm Ares and Hephaestus now that they were in front of me. It wasn’t even possible to do unconscious. Charm was never real in dreamscapes, but that didn’t seem to affect my body’s desire to fulfill Zeus’ orders. “If I didn’t have anything to do with it, why did you bring me here?”

  Demeter’s and Hades’ eyes flickered, like they wanted to look at each other but didn’t dare, in case anyone noticed.

  “We have to go ahead with our plan,” Hades explained. “Now. Are you still willing to swear fealty?”

  “Yeah,” I said, shaken. “Just tell me who.”

  Chapter XL

  Persephone

  “TRITON?” I SHOOK his shoulder, worry turning my voice sharp.

  He was bathed in sweat. Eyes fluttering open, he groaned. “S... top,” he protested, pushing my hands away. “Hurts.”

  I stopped shaking him and stared at him wide-eyed in alarm. He didn’t look so good. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He didn’t reply, just groaned again and tried to roll over. I grabbed his shoulders to stop him. “Triton! Wake up.”

  “Where’s my dad?” He tried to sit up and his face went ashen. Propping himself up on his arms, he sucked in deep breaths.

  My pulse pounded in my throat. This was my fault. Triton hadn’t come into his powers yet, and I’d been running him ragged. He’d overextended himself. I needed to help him.

  “I don’t know.” I glanced at the water, which seemed higher than it had before, and the full helplessness of the situation hit me. I couldn’t get him out of here. I couldn’t go for help. I couldn’t do anything. We were stuck here. “He’ll find us.”