Caged Lightning

by Marina Finlayson

  “I hope her people aren’t as hostile as last time we came.” Her guards had all been fireshapers, and aggressive enough that they’d been on the point of taking on Apollo himself—surely a career-limiting move if ever there was one—when Hestia had intervened. “You’ll make such a good target in the dark it’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  “What is your problem? Last-minute jitters? This will be a piece of cake. Just relax.”

  As it turned out, I needn’t have been concerned. There was no sign of Hestia’s men as we turned into the long driveway to her house, though I used the local creatures to keep an eye out for them. Nor were there any lurking closer to the house. I would have worried that something had happened to Hestia except that lights burned in the windows of the house, and smoke curled up from one of the chimneys. There was definitely someone home, and everything seemed peaceful enough.

  Apollo would have opened the front door and walked straight in, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm. My time as a human had taught me some manners that weren’t in the average god’s tool box.

  “Let’s knock. We don’t want to start a diplomatic incident.”

  He gave me an impatient look, perhaps recalling the lecture I’d given him once on the subject of knocking, but he waited while I rapped sharply on the door.

  When it opened, not one, but two surly fireshapers stood there, looking particularly unwelcoming. Golden light spilled invitingly out into the dark, but they did their best to block it with their broad shoulders and muscled bodies.

  “Yes?” said one.

  “Artemis and Apollo are here to see Hestia,” Apollo said.

  “My lady has retired for the night. Come back tomorrow.”

  The cheeky bastard—come back tomorrow, as if we were door-to-door salesmen instead of gods. I had even assumed my true Artemis form for the occasion. I thrust the lightning bolt I was carrying into the man’s face. “I think she’ll agree this is worth getting out of bed for.”

  His eyes widened in recognition and he stepped back, holding the door open for us with obvious reluctance. “You’d better come in, then.”

  He led us through to the lovely, airy room at the back where we’d sat with Hestia on our last visit, admiring the vegetable garden outside, while his companion followed behind, as if he wasn’t quite sure whether we could be trusted not to steal the goddess’s knickknacks if he didn’t watch us every moment. It was dark outside now, of course, but I could make out the bulk of the barn off to the side, and the little shed where the third and final piece of Zeus’s lightning bolt was housed.

  Our gracious host gestured at the armchairs grouped in front of the windows. “Have a seat while I tell Lady Hestia you are here.”

  Somewhat to my surprise, they both disappeared, leaving us alone. I’d thought for sure one of them would have stood guard over us.

  “How does someone as nice as Hestia have such a grouchy bunch of servants?” I asked when the door had closed behind them. I had centuries of memories of the goddess of the hearth to draw on now, and in all of them, she was unfailingly warm and welcoming.

  “They’re probably just over-protective, because they know she’s underpowered compared to the rest of us.”

  Good point. Apollo could take her in a fight with one hand tied behind his back. So could most of the Olympians. Me, not so much, but it was kind of him to include me in the “overpowered” camp. My power over animals gave me all sorts of versatility, but it was still no match for the powers of a fireshaper. Just because he was the strongest one around, he tended to view Hestia’s powers as inferior, whereas she’d probably wipe the floor with me unless I got in a shot with my bow first.

  He took one of the armchairs, and I sat in the one beside him, which was angled to give me a view of the dark yard outside as well as most of the room. I’d picked up some paranoid habits along with the manners in my time as a human. At least soon I would be able to shake them. Not much longer now before the threat of the shadow shapers would be removed, and the gods could sleep easy at night. Zeus would waste no time seeking revenge on whoever had forced him to abandon this reality for the safety of the wires. I had high hopes that he would remember who it was, since he hadn’t actually been taken captive by the shadow shapers. At last, the rat in our ranks would be revealed, and I doubted that any of the gods would be in a merciful mood.

  Five minutes ticked past, then ten. Apollo shifted restlessly in his chair. “What’s keeping her? They said she was asleep, not dead.”

  “Probably making herself beautiful for her favourite nephew.” I was a little surprised myself. Gods happily kept mortals waiting, but we were usually prompt with our own kind.

  But the door opened, and Hestia swept in, wrapped in a silk gown and trailing a cloud of perfume. “So sorry to keep you waiting. I was in the bath. Needed a good soak to get all the dirt off—I spent hours in the garden today. I think I’ll have to burn my clothes. You’ve never seen so much dirt!” She laughed and gave us both a hug. Her greying hair was up in a loose bun, damp tendrils clinging to her neck.

  “We have good news,” Apollo said.

  “So Damian said. I can’t believe it! You actually found the missing one. But Artemis! I haven’t seen you in so long. Where have you been?”

  I grinned. I was wearing Artemis’s form, not Lexi’s, so she didn’t realise just how recently she’d seen me. But I was too impatient to get this done to launch into the familiar story now, so all I said was, “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it over a cup of tea some day—”

  “Tea!” she cut in. “Why has no one offered you a drink? Where are my manners?”

  She bustled over to the sink and filled the kettle, setting it to boil. Typical Hestia. I exchanged a glance with Apollo, half-amused and half-exasperated. Neither of us were the slightest bit interested in tea, or cake, or any of the other things she would no doubt try to feed us while we were here. We would far rather get on with the job of restoring Zeus.

  “Maybe we could leave the tea until after we’ve re-joined the lightning bolts,” I suggested.

  “Or even wait for the celebratory champagne,” Apollo said. “When Zeus is with us again.”

  “Nonsense,” Hestia said, as I’d known she would. “There’s always time for a cup of tea. You’ve just walked all that way in the dark. You need something to refresh you.”

  I rolled my eyes but gave up. Hestia was convinced that the rest of us would fade away unless she plied us with food and drink at every opportunity. It would be quicker just to drink the damn tea than to continue the argument. “Do you need a hand?”

  “Not at all. You sit down and relax.”

  I shrugged and sat back down. A furtive movement outside caught my eye: a black cat scampering around the side of the barn. It was probably hunting mice, earning its keep around the property.

  A crash in the kitchen diverted my attention. Hestia had just knocked a tea cup onto the floor and smashed it.

  “No, no, don’t get up,” she said, as the door flew open and Damian rushed in. Did he think we were beating up his mistress? She smiled at him. “Damian will clean up for me, won’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  I watched Hestia as she got out another cup and continued with her preparations. She fumbled the second cup, too, making me wonder if she’d been drinking before our arrival, though I hadn’t smelled any alcohol on her breath. She was usually so deft. Perhaps she was tired from all that work in the garden, and it was making her clumsy.

  When everything was ready, she had Damian carry the tray over and place it on a small coffee table in the centre of the nest of armchairs where we sat. Then the surly fireshaper bowed himself out of the room and Hestia poured for all of us.

  “You didn’t bring your bow, Arti?” She handed me a delicate cup covered in roses, the dark brown tea within steaming. “Don’t you feel naked without it?” She shuddered. “I can’t stand to be too far from my distaff, especially these days, wi
th shadow shapers lurking around every corner.”

  “It’s perfectly safe,” I said, putting the cup down. I didn’t take milk, and it was still a little too hot to drink. My bow was in its charm form, tucked safely between my breasts, out of sight. No need to tell her that, though. Apollo was the only god who knew I liked to carry it that way, and I saw no reason to change that. I was a little surprised that she had so freely revealed that her own avatar was her distaff. “Not that it will matter so much, once we get these babies back together.”

  I gestured at the two lightning bolts lying on the coffee table between us.

  “They seem very quiet,” Hestia said, offering a plate of biscuits around. “Not like that brute I’ve got in my shed.”

  “Perhaps that’s because they’re smaller,” Apollo said, biting into a biscuit and chewing with obvious enjoyment. Hestia was an excellent cook. “The one you have, being larger, probably has a lot more power than these two.”

  “True.” She took a biscuit herself, and for a moment, satisfied munching was the only sound in the room.

  I glanced outside again, wishing we could move on to the part where we went out to that shed and brought Zeus back. The little black cat was still out there, no longer hunting, but sitting against the barn wall, almost invisible in the darkness. It was washing its face, one paw stroking delicately at its whiskers, and something about the movement roused my suspicions. I sent my awareness out to the little spark of light that was the cat’s mind, but just before I made contact, she spoke to me.

  *Hey,* Syl’s voice said in my head, *I think we have a problem.*

  *I thought that was you! What are you doing here?* I should have been suspicious when she didn’t argue about being left behind. Winston must have brought her through to the temple after we’d gone through. But why? *And what sort of problem?*

  *There have been a whole lot of people running backwards and forwards from the house to the barn, round the side you can’t see, while you’ve been sitting there with your cup of tea. It’s like someone stuck a stick in an ant’s nest. There must be fifty of them in the barn now.*

  *Doing what?* There were no rules about gathering in barns, but my paranoia began to twitch all the same.

  *Nothing yet. They’re just standing there in the dark, as if they’re waiting for something.*

  Well, that set all my alarm bells ringing, but it didn’t make a lot of sense. If Hestia had been in the bath when we’d arrived, where had all these people been? Surely not just hanging around the house without her? It was a big house, and she had a few staff, but nowhere near fifty. But if she had fifty guests, why had she gone to have a bath? And why were those guests now hiding in the barn?

  Syl got up and sauntered around the side of the barn, out of my sight.

  *Where are you going?*

  *I can hear movement. Just checking—yep, a few more have arrived. Where are all these people coming from?*

  My question exactly. *If she has a temple somewhere in the house …*

  *They could be teleporting in, like Winston does, if she’s given someone that power. I don’t like the look of this. I’m going for reinforcements.*

  *You didn’t come alone? No, of course you didn’t.* That was a stupid question. Apollo said something to Hestia, but I didn’t take it in, too intent on my conversation with Syl. I picked up my tea cup and blew on the tea, trying to look as though I were doing something so the other two wouldn’t suspect my mind wasn’t on their conversation.

  *You’re kidding, right? As if the werewolves would have let me come without them. As if Jake would. That guy’s got it bad. He was beside himself when Apollo told him to go back to town.*

  My heart leapt. Jake was here? *This is a real conspiracy you guys have got going here. What happened to letting us handle things?*

  *If we had, you wouldn’t know there was half a bloody army hiding out in the barn, would you?*

  I had to admit that was a pretty compelling argument. *Where are the others?*

  *Back a ways in the woods. Not far. I’m nearly there.*

  *Tell them not to do anything until I give the signal. Let me suss out what’s really going on first.*

  What was going on? I put my cup back on the saucer without drinking. When I looked up, I found Hestia’s eyes on me, watching me almost avidly.

  “Still too hot?” she asked sympathetically. “Want me to add some cold water?”

  “No, I’ll leave it until later. It will be cooler then.”

  “No, you must have some—I insist. We can’t have you going out in the cool night air without something to warm your insides.” She smiled expectantly until I picked up the cup again.

  Why did she care so much whether I drank the stupid tea or not? Was it poisoned? That didn’t make any sense—why on earth would Hestia, of all people, want to poison me? Besides, Apollo had drunk half of his tea, and he wasn’t writhing around clutching his throat or anything. I was being ridiculous.

  Yet her intent gaze made me determined that not a drop of tea would pass my lips. Something was very wrong here—but could I figure it out fast enough? To give myself time to think I picked up the cup and saucer and carried them to the window. With my back to her, I mimed drinking from the cup, then stood, as if pondering the darkness outside, but really watching her in the reflection. Her lips curved in a small, satisfied smile now that I’d apparently drunk some of the bloody tea. I mimed another sip, and her gaze returned to Apollo as she asked him about our trip to see Poseidon.

  What the hell was going on? Her own cup of tea sat untouched on the table in front of her. I wouldn’t even have noticed if Syl hadn’t alerted me to what was happening out in the barn. Was she trying to take Zeus’s lightning bolts for herself? That was crazy. Particularly when it had been Zeus himself who’d sent the message “Hestia lightning” that had brought Apollo and me to her door in the first place.

  Except … I blinked in pure astonishment as another thought occurred to me. We’d come here knowing nothing, our only clue that enigmatic “Hestia lightning”. Zeus’s communications were necessarily brief and often difficult to figure out. It was Hestia herself who’d told us that it meant we were to find the other two parts of the lightning bolt and bring them here so Zeus could be freed.

  What if Zeus had actually meant us to take the lightning bolt from Hestia? What if Hestia having possession of one was a danger to Zeus?

  And now we’d brought her all three.

  If only I could communicate mind-to-mind with Apollo. I needed advice here, and quickly. I couldn’t stand here much longer, pretending to drink tea which may or may not be poisoned. But I was having so much trouble getting my head around this. Was it all in my head? How could Hestia be the enemy here? She was the most self-effacing goddess around. Half the time even we forgot she was a member of our pantheon; she was always kind, always welcoming. Never a threat. If she’d wanted to attack us, she could have done it last time we were here.

  Except all those people in the barn weren’t gathered for a barn dance. Just standing around, waiting for something to happen, according to Syl. That wasn’t fishy at all. I clung to that knowledge. I wasn’t being paranoid, and I wasn’t imagining things. Something was going on.

  “Everything all right, Arti?” Hestia asked. “You seem a little pensive.”

  I turned and flashed a bright smile. “I’m fine, thanks. Just a little tired.”

  Apollo covered a yawn with his hand. “Me, too.”

  Why had Hestia’s smile widened at that? Her bright, expectant gaze darted between us, and a chill ran down my spine. What was she waiting for? Did she want us to … fall asleep?

  What the hell was in this tea? My mind replayed everything that had happened since our arrival: she’d been so slow to come out to meet us. Was that because she was organising whatever was going on out in the barn? Who were all these people that had arrived so quickly and in such secrecy? Then she’d started making tea. She’d broken the cup, and fumbled another—
she’d made Damian carry the heavy tray to the table.

  No, I couldn’t link that to anything—but wait. I’d almost forgotten: she’d asked me where my avatar was—and how had she known that my bow was my avatar, anyway? It was practically the first thing out of her mouth. Why should she care? Unless …

  Unless her barn was full of shadow shapers.

  I closed my eyes to prevent her from seeing the shock in them. Hestia was our traitor? I couldn’t believe it, yet that was where all the evidence was pointing. It would also perhaps explain why the two lightning bolts we’d brought were lying docile on the table, whereas the one she had outside spat and hissed at anyone who came near. It reflected its owner’s anger at Hestia, was perhaps even trying to defend itself from her.

  She took my closed eyes as a sign of something else. I opened them to find her rising from her chair with a hungry look on her face. Apollo’s head was nodding as if he were too tired to hold it up anymore.

  “Are you feeling quite well, Arti dear?” she cooed.

  “Just … a little sleepy.” Out the corner of my eye, I saw Apollo slump in his seat, eyes rolling back in his head. Holy shit. What did I do now? She was a fireshaper and my bow was still around my neck in miniature form. By the time I could put an arrow through her heart, she’d have roasted me.

  And she expected me to collapse any minute. At least doing so would hide the fact that I was still holding a full cup of tea. It would also buy me a little time to figure out my next move.

  I let the tea cup slip from my fingers to shatter on the floor, then followed it down in a graceful swoon.

  18

  Quick footsteps crossed the floor to where I lay, then Hestia knelt and laid cool fingers on my neck, checking my pulse. The door into the main part of the house opened as she stood again.

  “Damian, get these two collared,” she said, “then bring them out to the barn. Oh, and take Apollo’s ring.”

  “Do we have her bow?” he asked, undisguised eagerness in his voice. He moved across the room as he spoke, presumably to retrieve Apollo’s ring.