Jake roared and threw up his arms. The incoming spears rained down in a perfect circle around a stunned sea god.
Unfortunately, that took the last of Jake’s strength. He crumpled into a heap on the sand.
“Shit! Jake!” I sprang forward, but the sand made me feel as if I was running in slow motion. The warriors, with their greater strides, were closing rapidly. With a giant shriek of metal, they drew their swords in unison. You haven’t known fear until you’ve had nearly fifty giant metal warriors descending on you, all focused on smiting you into your component parts. Their silence was unnerving. My heart pounded as I forced my legs to move faster.
Apollo sprinted past me and scooped Jake into his arms, scattering sand everywhere.
“Run, Arti!”
I ran.
10
We fled into the jungle. I had wet sand in my shoes and a stitch in my side, but I’d never moved faster in my life, leaping over roots that would have entangled my feet and ducking and weaving around plants and tree branches at top speed. Apollo, with Jake slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, was just ahead of me, and Manannan was somewhere in front of him, judging by the sounds of something big crashing through the jungle. We were making more noise than a herd of elephants, but none of us cared. Our number one priority was escaping the murderous monstrosities on the beach.
Apollo pulled up so abruptly that I almost ran straight into his back. “Stop,” he gasped. “Listen.”
I stopped, but all I could hear was the thundering of my own heart. “What?”
“They’re not following us.”
I turned to look back, but I couldn’t see the beach anymore, only the trail of snapped branches and crushed ferns we’d left behind us. He was right; once I got my breathing under control and listened, there was no sound behind us. It was as if the life had been sucked straight from the warriors the minute we’d passed under the shadow of the trees.
I shooed away a cloud of buzzing insects. That lasted all of three seconds, of course, so I used my powers to gently suggest to the tiny bloodsuckers that they might prefer the view on the other side of the island.
“I can’t believe it was that easy,” Manannan said, wiping sweat from his face as he rejoined us. He’d probably been too focused on staying alive to worry about regulating his body temperature.
“That wasn’t easy,” I said, a little shortly. My shoes and socks were soaked with seawater, my heart was still pounding, and I was worried about my favourite fireshaper. “Not for Jake, anyway.”
“No, of course not.” He noticed my wet feet and dried them with a wave of his hand. “How is he?”
Apollo bent down and lowered him to the ground.
Blue eyes blinked blearily up at us. “Everyone all right?”
I crouched down beside him. His face had a grey tinge I didn’t like. “More to the point, are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, his eyes searching my face as if he needed to see for himself that I really was unharmed. Stupid, stupid man. “Just a little tired.”
“You did well,” Apollo said.
Jake’s eyelids sagged closed. “Thanks.”
He’d forgotten to add “my lord” on the end of that. He really was exhausted. I glanced up at Apollo. “Can you give him some energy?”
Apollo cocked an eyebrow at me. “How do you mean?”
“When Jake and I were in the underworld and I was injured, Jake sort of breathed energy into me, and I felt better.” I looked to Jake for confirmation, or a more technical description of what he’d actually done, but he appeared to have fallen asleep. It had felt a lot like kissing, but I couldn’t quite find the words to suggest to my brother that he ought to play tonsil hockey with his Ruby Adept.
He gave me a blank look. “Don’t you think that would be better coming from you?”
“But … I’m not a fireshaper.”
“But you’re a goddess.” He shook his head impatiently. “I can’t believe you don’t remember this. This is, like, Godhood 101.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’d love to remember it. Don’t you think I’m trying?”
“I’m not sure, actually. Are you?”
I turned my back on him, furious. What the hell was he suggesting? Of course I was trying. If trying was all that was required, I’d be firing on all cylinders by now. I was sick to death of not knowing things that everyone else took for granted. This no man’s land I was inhabiting was a truly shitty place to live.
Jake’s eyes were still closed. I bent over him—what was I supposed to do now? There was no way I was asking Apollo. He’d just accuse me of not trying again. I’d have to figure it out on my own.
When I’d been lying on the couch in Hephaistos’s little cottage in the underworld, wounded and cold, Jake had pressed his lips to mine and flooded me with warmth. So … lips to lips. That was a good place to start. I leaned closer, until I was breathing in the air he breathed out, and I could smell his familiar smoky aroma. He smelled like a bonfire at night in the forest, or a favourite camping trip. He smelled like warmth and comfort and everything good I wanted in my life.
I hovered closer, our lips almost touching, and drank in that smell of his. We were so close that his features blurred, and I closed my eyes, gently lowering my lips to his. The moment of contact was achingly sweet. I had missed him so much.
He didn’t respond—he really was asleep. His lips were parted ever so slightly. Softly, I breathed into his mouth, imagining a ball of light in my core. I pushed some of that light toward him, willing it into him. For a moment, nothing happened, and then his lips moved beneath mine. My very own Sleeping Beauty was awake.
His lips parted further, and his tongue came alive, deepening the kiss. I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and threw myself into kissing him back enthusiastically. His arms snaked around me, crushing me closer to his broad chest, and I twined my free hand into his dark hair, trying to drag him even closer.
“I think he will live,” Manannan said drily.
Suddenly, Jake was shoving me away. Fire flickered in his eyes, but an expression of horror warred with the lust, and it looked like the horror was winning. I sat back on my heels as he scrambled into a sitting position. “Lady Artemis! What are you doing?”
“Giving you back some energy.” I tried not to feel hurt by that horror, but it wasn’t easy. I knew he still wanted me—he couldn’t hide his body’s reaction. Only his stubborn will was keeping us apart. “Do you feel better?”
A look of surprise chased away the horror. “Yes. Yes, I do.” Belatedly, he added, “Thank you.”
I sighed. “You know, you keep saving me, and I keep saving you. I think the universe is trying to tell us something.”
Apollo and Manannan had moved a little further away, and were discussing something in low voices. It wasn’t exactly private, but it was the best we were going to get.
“What?” he asked.
“That we’re meant to be together. We’re better together, Jake.” Damn. I’d told myself I wouldn’t beg, but having him so close and yet still unobtainable was doing my head in. “You’re torturing us both, for what? Some outdated notion of propriety?”
“It’s not an outdated notion. It’s who I am. I can’t change my religious beliefs without changing everything about myself.” He looked up at me, his blue eyes full of pain and longing. “I’d do anything for you, Lexi. I’d give up my life for you and die happy. But I can’t give you this.”
What did I say to that? It sounded so … so final. “But I love you.”
My voice sounded small and weak, like a child’s.
“Please try to accept it,” he said. “It will be easier for us both that way.”
I got to my feet, shaken. Accepting things I wanted to change wasn’t my forte. I blinked a couple of times to clear the moisture from my eyes—I was not the kind of girl who cried over men. Now I was annoyed at myself as well as him. Oh, and at Apollo. And a little
at Manannan for interrupting that kiss. Basically, I was pissed at everyone and everything.
“Let’s get back to business, shall we?” My voice was cool.
I stalked off into the jungle without looking to see if they were following me. I borrowed the eyes of a brightly coloured flock of birds to show me the easiest way through the thick undergrowth. I wasn’t spending a minute more on this trip than I had to. It had suddenly become almost unbearable. Thankfully, it wasn’t as far as it had appeared from the beach—it was hard to judge distance when you had an almost impenetrable jungle in front of you. Poseidon had been right: the house was nestled in its lake at the foot of the mountain, looking like something off a tourist postcard, or maybe an advertisement for a day spa. Even from a bird’s eye view, it looked amazing.
No one spoke as we tramped through the jungle. I kept the clouds of midges and other biting insects away, but I couldn’t do anything about the thorns and scratches we were all collecting from pushing our way through the jungle. But the birds guided me well, and in less than an hour, we stumbled upon an actual path that had been cleared through the thick vegetation. After that, the going was much easier.
Still, the sun was high overhead by the time our path landed us on the edge of the still, green lake. It was roughly crescent-shaped, and we had emerged at the southern end, where the tip of the crescent narrowed into a stream that meandered through the jungle, towards the sea behind us. The house was at the northern end of the lake, though right out in the centre, away from the shore. It perched on stilts like a waterbird, and had jetties poking out from three sides. The stilts were tall enough that there was room beneath the house for someone standing in a boat. Stairs climbed up from each jetty to the house level.
Many large windows looked out on the lake and the green jungle surrounding it. They probably let a cool breeze circulate through the interior, too. There was no obvious front door, unless it was around the other side. Presumably, you just boated out to whichever jetty suited your purposes and climbed up to the house. There were a couple of chimneys, including one above the biggest jetty, which I guessed might be part of the kitchen. The size of that jetty would make it easy to unload foodstuffs for the inhabitants. The house was large enough for there to be many of those—it was easily big enough to accommodate several families. But no smoke rose from any of the chimneys today.
It was probably too bloody hot for cooking.
“No welcoming party,” Manannan said, eyeing the house with a frown. Indeed, there was no one in sight, though I might have expected at least some signs of life in a house that big. Someone should be outside fishing, or washing clothes, or something.
Apollo also looked troubled. “Can’t you feel it?” he asked me.
“Feel what? I can’t feel anything.”
“Exactly,” he said. “We’re close enough now that we ought to be able to feel Athena’s divinity.”
“And she, ours,” Manannan added. “What should we do?”
Apollo, seeing my look of confusion, said, “Normally, in approaching another god’s territory, we would get close enough for our presence to be noted, then wait to be invited closer.”
I frowned. “You didn’t do that when we visited Hestia.”
“Hestia’s different. She welcomes everyone. Athena is … a little pricklier.”
And we didn’t want to piss her off—though Apollo and I might have already done so by coming so close. Our initial plan to stay on the beach and let Manannan, a third party, make the approach on our behalf had fallen by the wayside when Jake had collapsed. It was probably too late to be concerned about offending her.
“Maybe she’s not home,” I said. That would explain why we couldn’t feel her divinity. Now that Apollo had mentioned it, I realised I could feel something from him and Manannan. It was hard to describe the sensation, exactly—it was like another sense, as if I could feel a vibration in the air, or a taste. Whatever it was, it clung around each of them, and presumably around me, too, though I couldn’t feel my own. And I wasn’t getting any such feeling from the house across the water.
Apollo sighed. “That would be a massive pain in the arse after we’ve come all this way.”
“Well, let’s keep going. At least we can ask her servants where she is.”
“Maybe she’s only gone out for a walk,” Manannan said hopefully.
“Maybe.” Though why anyone would want to go walking in such a place, I didn’t know. I loved the outdoors, but this was too much outdoors even for me. Forcing my way through that jungle had not been my idea of a good time.
So, we left the shade of the trees and walked down toward the pretty green lake. The water was clear enough to make out individual pebbles in the shallows, but further out, it was hard to see any water at all for the profusion of water lilies that spread across the surface. Pink and purple flowers waved on their stems above the water, and fat green leaves the size of dinner plates carpeted the lake beneath them. Dragonflies danced lazily above the wide, green carpet, and the only sound was the occasional plop of water as a fish broke the surface, rustling the blanket of leaves.
We were halfway around the crescent. I wasn’t even looking at the house, too busy admiring the pretty picture made by the blanket of waterlilies, when Jake threw himself at me.
As we went rolling down the slope toward the water, a shot rang out, and then someone opened fire with an automatic weapon.
“Jake!” I shouted, trying to wriggle out from under him, but he wouldn’t budge, determined to shelter me with his body. “Get off me!”
We needed to get to cover. We were sitting ducks out here, and I wasn’t going to let him die being my human shield. I turned my head, which was the only part of my body I could still move, searching for Apollo and Manannan. Who the hell was firing at us?
An astonishing sight met my eyes. A wall of ice stood between us and the house. Jake saw it, too, and he moved enough for me to shove him away and get up into a crouch. Manannan stood calmly behind the wall, as if this was something that happened every day. Where had all that ice come from? I couldn’t even see the house through it—it must be ridiculously thick. The sounds of automatic fire were still coming from behind it, and I could see chunks of ice flying up into the air as the bullets hit, but they weren’t getting through.
The blanket of waterlilies was sagging now, and the slimy stems underneath the beauty were showing, sticking up at odd angles like creepy fingers. The water level in the lake had dropped considerably. I stood slowly, still awestruck by the wall of ice. It extended all the way from the lake’s edge into the jungle. Now that I had a moment to look closer, I could even see pieces of water lily stuck inside it, caught up as Manannan—because it must have been the sea god who had done this—drained the lake to form his protective wall.
Jake got up, too, brushing sand from his pants and not meeting my eyes. I found it telling that his first instinct had been to protect me and not the god he worshipped. And speaking of whom—
“Where’s Apollo?” I asked. But even as I spoke, a great sheet of flame blasted into the sky on the far side of the ice wall, and the guns fell silent. “Never mind. I figured it out.”
So much for not damaging any of Athena’s property—or her people. Not that I could really find it in me to care. If they were going to open fire on us without warning, I had no sympathy for them.
“Sorry,” Manannan said. “I meant the wall to protect him, too, but he moved too fast for me.”
“It doesn’t sound as though he needs any protection,” I said drily. Everything on the other side of the wall was suspiciously quiet. Had he killed the whole household? My brother had a bit of a problem holding onto his temper. Probably because he was the god of fire—he couldn’t help being a hothead. “I just hope he’s left someone alive so we can find out where Athena is.”
Jake turned a look of surprise on me. “Do you really think those are Athena’s people firing on us?”
Oh. Well, now I felt stupid.
It did seem an extreme reaction, even for the household of someone so notoriously antisocial as the goddess of wisdom. “Shit. Not the bloody shadow shapers again?”
“We need to get through,” Jake said to Manannan, and the sea god nodded. In a rush, the ice wall dissolved, and the water went foaming back into the lake. Jake steadied me as the edges of the torrent surged around our knees.
“I didn’t know you could work with fresh water, too,” I said to Manannan. The water lilies were now looking very much the worse for wear. Half of the leaves had been ripped off, many of them scattered in sodden piles around our feet, and there was barely a single flower left whole.
“You learn something new every day,” Manannan said cheerfully, though his worried face rather belied his tone. “It’s all water. A little bit of salt doesn’t change the fundamentals.”
I followed the direction of his gaze and found Athena’s house still perched on its stilts above the lake. Thank heavens for that. It did show a few new scorch marks, however, particularly around a couple of windows that faced our way. The shooters must have been positioned there. There was no sign of them now, but I suspected we would find their blackened corpses once we went inside. Apollo was waiting for us at the water’s edge and keeping a watchful eye on the house’s empty windows.
“Still no sign of Athena?” I asked as we joined him. I certainly couldn’t feel her, but I held onto the possibility that the others might have, being in full control of their divine powers.
“No.” His mouth was a grim line. “I don’t hold out much hope for her.”
I swallowed hard. I was slow today—it took me a moment to understand his meaning. When I did, I looked at Jake in horror. Wordlessly, he reached out and took my hand, his expression as grim as my brother’s. There could only be two explanations for the shadow shapers being here. Either Athena was the traitor among the gods and they were her servants, or … or …
I didn’t want to think about the other possibility. I clutched Jake’s hand tighter, unable even to feel pleasure in this small triumph over his religious scruples. The other possibility was making me feel sick to my stomach.
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