With an effort of will, I kept my gaze on that bearded face. Some things a girl just did not need to see, and her father in his birthday suit was one of them. Swearing by Zeus’s balls occasionally didn’t mean I wanted to get personally acquainted with them.
“Hello, Dad.”
A soft rain began to fall as he looked around, taking in the scene in the now-reduced light of the lightning bolt in his hand. The blue sparks began to fade, winking out as the wind died.
“Congratulations, Artemis.” His sharp gaze fell on me with more favour than he usually showed. I was more accustomed to seeing a frown from him. “I had my doubts at times, but you finally figured it out.”
“It was a close thing at the end there,” Hades said, cheerfully. “You could have been a little more helpful with your clues, brother. We nearly all got killed.”
Zeus scowled at him. Ah, there was that expression I was used to. “I was having a little difficulty of my own, brother. It’s not easy being scattered to the four corners of the earth. It turns out that possession of a body is something of a prerequisite for structured thinking.”
Structured thinking? That was a laugh. Zeus had never shown much interest in thinking, structured or otherwise. From the smirk on Hades’ face, I assumed his thoughts were running along the same lines. Zeus was a doer, not a thinker. He loved to fight, to drink, to feast, and always—always—to chase women. A good three-quarters of our family’s troubles had been caused by his inability to keep his pants zipped.
“You’re here now,” I said. “That’s the main thing. Although some clothes would be appreciated.”
He looked down at himself in surprise, then a pair of pants and a short-sleeved shirt covered his form. Perhaps he’d spent so long without a body that he’d forgotten they were usually clothed around other people.
“I hope there aren’t any ill effects from your little sojourn in the wires?” Hades asked, earning himself another scowl.
“Of course not.” Zeus flexed his massive arms, showing truly impressive muscles. “I could still wipe the floor with you.”
Hades held up his hands in a placatory gesture. “No need for that. I think we have a far worthier target for any floor-wiping right here.”
He indicated Hestia, still curled on the ground. All the fight had gone out of her once Hades had collared her. Of course, it helped that Cerberus was still standing guard, ready to pounce if she made any move.
“I say we kill her,” I said, flatly. “She deserves to die for everything she’s done.”
Jake sat up, pushing away from me, and Syl helped him to rise. I stood, too, close enough that I could feel the reassuringly alive heat of his body, and he didn’t move away. Probably didn’t have the energy. From the way he sagged, it looked as though just staying upright was taking most of it.
“She nearly managed to kill me,” Zeus said, as if that was the greatest of her crimes.
“How did she?” Hades asked. “Your powers are so much greater than hers that I’ve never understood why you had to flee into the wires to escape her. Why didn’t you just kill her?”
“Because by the time I realised she was a threat, I only had a second or two of consciousness left. I could guess what would happen to me if I lost consciousness around her.”
“She gave you tea, didn’t she?” I asked.
“Bloody tea. I don’t even like the stuff, but I took a sip to be polite. I discovered later it was water from the Lethe mixed with a powerful sedative, but at the time—”
“The Lethe?” Hades repeated. “How did she get her hands on that?”
The Lethe was one of the rivers of the underworld, part of Hades’ domain. Drinking water from that river removed people’s memories. Hades gave it to the newly dead, to ease their passage into the underworld, so they wouldn’t mourn what they’d lost.
Hades guarded access to his domain carefully. There was no way Hestia could have stolen in and helped herself to the waters of the Lethe, and certainly none of us had helped her. Who else had access to the underworld?
“From Persephone,” Zeus said, frowning at the interruption.
Hades looked stricken. He and Persephone weren’t together anymore, but they still cared for each other. “Surely Persephone’s not involved in this?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Zeus said. “Persephone had some in her home, and Hestia stole it from her. Anyway, as I was saying, at the time I didn’t know what she’d put in the damn tea, just that I was going under, and I was already wobbly and far from my best self. I only had a moment to act. I tried to send the lightning bolt out of danger, but she caught hold of it and it broke in the struggle. She was left with the main branch, but I managed to send the two smaller pieces away. Everything was going black, and she thought she had me then, but fortunately, I was near a power point. She didn’t expect that. When I came to, I was in the wiring, and I didn’t have enough power to get out again. So there I stayed, keeping an eye on her and trying to help anyone who opposed her.”
The back door of the house crashed open, and Apollo staggered out, followed by Winston, hovering anxiously behind him. Apollo looked at us all and blinked. “What did I miss? Why are you all standing out here in the rain? And why is the barn on fire?”
I rolled my eyes. “What did you miss? Let’s see: werewolves and shadow shapers duking it out in the barn, desperate danger, death and resurrection, plus the last-minute arrival of the cavalry.” I patted Cerberus’s closest head and he slurped happily at my hand with a giant, pink tongue. “Zeus’s triumphant return.” I glanced at Hades. “Did I miss anything?”
He shook his head solemnly. “That just about covers it.”
“I must have been out a while.”
“Not that long. We’ve been kind of busy out here while you were napping.”
Apollo’s eyes narrowed. “It was not my intention to take a nap. Or my decision.” He glared at Hestia, collared on the ground. “I can’t believe I was so taken in by her.”
I didn’t say, I can’t believe it either. That would have been rubbing his nose in it. Though he was all fury now, I knew the pain of betrayal would sting later, when the crisis was past. He’d had a real soft spot for Hestia.
“We’re just discussing what to do with her now. I want to kill her, but Hades says we need the names and locations of all the shadow spawn she created first.”
“Especially that Mrs Emery bitch,” Apollo said fervently.
“You’re looking at her,” Zeus said, nodding pointedly at Hestia.
What? That couldn’t be right. Mrs Emery had lost her arm at the elbow. Of course I knew gods could change their appearance—hadn’t I done it myself? And also that gods could survive all manner of things, even to the extent of regrowing limbs. I’d done that, too, a couple of times over the centuries; it was slow and painful, but it could be done.
But not if another god had caused the injury. We were as vulnerable to our own kind as humans were. If I put an arrow through her heart right now—and that option was well and truly still on the table, as far as I was concerned—she would die. And Cerberus was Hades’ avatar, a part of his divine power. When Cerberus had bitten Mrs Emery’s arm off, that arm was gone for good, even if Mrs Emery was in fact Hestia wearing a human disguise. “But her arm …”
“You mean this?” Zeus bent and tore Hestia’s arm off.
She struggled and screamed, but it wasn’t a sound of pain. Zeus punched her in the head almost casually, and she slumped into unconsciousness.
He held out a prosthetic arm for inspection. It must have been a very expensive one, as it looked almost like the real thing, but not so much that I wouldn’t have noticed it was fake. “She had a glamour on it, so that no one would see it wasn’t real.”
Holy shit. The dropped tea cup. She’d pulled it from the cupboard with that hand. Obviously, the prosthetic had good functionality, but not as good as a hand of flesh and blood. And after that, she hadn’t trusted herself to carry off the deception
. She’d made Damian carry the heavy tray to the table, afraid she’d drop it if she tried.
“But …” Apollo looked stunned. “I would have known if Mrs Emery was Hestia. I would have felt her power. She was a human, I swear.”
“The cuff,” Hades said. “We wondered what it was for, but none of us cared to try it on.”
“I thought it gave her some special control over the collars,” I said.
“No,” said Zeus. “I’ve been watching her for months, listening in on her conversations. The cuff was to hide her divine power, to make her disguise as the human Mrs Emery complete. Only her inner circle knew who she really was.”
No wonder she’d said, You again! when she’d seen Jake. That had struck me as odd since, as far as I knew, Hestia had never met Jake, but in the heat of battle there’d been no time to ponder it. But Mrs Emery had measured her fireshaping powers against Jake’s before. Jake was lucky she’d been wearing the cuff to hide her divinity that first time; it must have damped her power, too, otherwise she would have killed him then.
“She was playing the same trick you were, Arti,” Hades said.
“Yeah, only her way was much easier.” Hestia hadn’t had to give up her memories for her disguise.
“How did she persuade Hephaistos to make such a thing?” Apollo asked.
“The collars were worse, and he made those, too,” I pointed out.
“It all started when she killed Boreas and stole his power,” Zeus said. “As the god of the North Wind, he was no match for a former Olympian, even a weak one like Hestia. Then she used his death to start a rumour that someone was killing gods and stealing their power. After that, it was easy to persuade Hephaistos that she was terrified and needed the cuff so she could hide better. He’s always been sweet on her. She could wrap him around her little finger.”
“But the collars?” Hades asked. “They were a direct threat to him and all of us. Why would he create such dangerous things?”
“She suggested them as a way to capture whoever was killing the gods. Apparently, the plan was for him to make one for all the gods to carry with them, so they had some protection if they were accosted by the killer. At least, he thought that was the plan. But as soon as he had completed the first half dozen, she used one on him and killed him.”
Bitch. We all glared at her, though she was still unconscious, lying limp on the scorched ground, her face spattered with rain and ash from the burning barn. It was the only way someone like her could have overpowered the stronger gods. Poor, trusting Hephaistos. He hadn’t had many friends, and he would have done anything for the few he had.
“Death is too good for her,” Apollo said.
“I don’t know,” Hades said, “I’m sure I could rustle up something suitably horrific for her. A nice cell in Tartarus, perhaps?”
Zeus bared his teeth in a fierce grin. “I like this plan. Take her away, and make sure you get all the names out of her.”
“It will be my pleasure,” Hades said. “Cerberus, bring her.”
All three heads bent and took the unconscious goddess up in their mouths. She’d have a few wounds to add to the egg on the side of her head that Zeus had given her, but none of us would shed any tears for her. And there were plenty worse things in store for her than a few bite marks.
Hades leapt into the gaping hole he’d come from, and Cerberus followed him, with Hestia dangling limply from his jaws. Soundlessly, the ground closed behind him.
I became aware that the wolves had returned, and were standing in a loose circle around us, keeping guard, though I assumed that their presence meant they’d killed all the shadow shapers they could find. Their wet fur clung to their powerful bodies, just as my hair was sticking to my head.
“Why are we standing out here in the rain?” I asked, but Zeus ignored me. Would it have killed him to make it stop? Typical Zeus—it didn’t bother him, and that was all that mattered, as far as he was concerned. My father was hardly the best role model for how to win friends and influence people.
“Well,” he said, rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm, “it seems we have an opening for a new goddess of the hearth.”
“Among other things,” Apollo said, his face gloomy with thoughts of all the people we’d lost. “We’re missing a few gods now.”
I just about swallowed my tongue as an idea occurred to me. I grabbed Jake’s hand and drew him forward. “With Hephaistos dead, metalshaping’s getting harder and harder. Without a new metalshaping god, it could die out altogether. Jake would be perfect.”
Jake threw me a startled glance, but I wouldn’t let go of his hand, and after a moment, he stopped trying to pull it away.
Zeus considered him thoughtfully. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I, following Artemis around?”
Jake looked as though he’d like to argue with that description, but he was too overawed by Zeus’s presence to protest. He stood stiffly in the rain, eyes fixed on a point somewhere around the middle of Zeus’s chest.
“He helped me save Apollo,” I said, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. There would be no better way of curing Jake of his extreme reverence for the gods than to join their number and discover what they were really like.
“And get the collars off,” Syl added. “He went through hell and back—literally—to get that star-metal so we could make a key to unlock them.”
At least Syl didn’t seem in awe of my father. He looked at her in a very different way than how he’d looked at Jake, like a man who liked what he saw. Lucas stepped forward to Syl’s side and growled. Hurriedly, I diverted Zeus’s attention before he got twitchy with that lightning bolt. Fried werewolf was not on the menu tonight.
“That’s right. He’s a fine metalshaper. And Hephaistos likes him. There’s no one better suited for the job.”
“Perhaps an actual metalshaper might be a more suitable candidate than a fireshaper with a metalshaping secondary,” Zeus said mildly. “I’ll bear him in mind, but I’ll have to look—”
“There’s no time for that,” I cut in, remembering the spoon Jake had taken from Athena’s island. “Metalshaping is all but dead already. While you dick around searching for a ‘more suitable’ candidate, metalshaping will be lost to the world.”
“Father, you may find a better practitioner, but you won’t find a braver man, or one more deserving of this honour,” Apollo said. “He has proven himself worthy of godhood a dozen times over. His loyalty to us, to our family, is beyond question.”
“Is that so?”
Jake wilted under that frowning gaze. “My lord, Lord Apollo does me great honour, but I’m not sure I’m the right person—”
“Shut up, Jake,” I hissed, but Zeus was smiling. Belatedly, it occurred to me that his protest had probably made him look more appealing, not less, in Zeus’s eyes. Zeus didn’t like competition, and Jake had just demonstrated an extreme lack of ambition.
“Well,” Zeus said, “since the need is urgent, and my children have earned a favour for all they’ve done, perhaps we can dispense with a search.”
He smiled at Jake, who looked stunned by his sudden promotion. “But …”
“Don’t argue, Jake.” I threw my arms around his neck. “There’s no law against being happy. Stop fighting it.”
“Being happy?” He blinked down at me, confused.
“Yes. You know, when two people love each other, and there is no longer anything keeping them apart? They get to be together. Generally, it makes them happy.”
A slow smile spread across his face as his brain finally caught up with what his change in circumstances meant for our relationship. His arms tightened around me. “I love you.” He dropped a feather-soft kiss on my lips. “I can’t believe I finally get to say that.”
“About bloody time.” Happiness welled in my heart as I pulled him down for another, deeper kiss. “I love you, too.”
Zeus raised an eyebrow at Apollo. “Isn’t he one of yours? Does this leave a gap in your organisation?
”
“Yes. I’ll need a new Ruby Adept.” Apollo looked pointedly at Winston, who jumped like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, shocked to find himself the centre of attention.
“Who, me?” He looked around at us, horror on his face. “Oh, no, my lord. I couldn’t do it, I’m not strong enough.”
Apollo grinned. “Are you arguing with your god, Winston?”
21
The Great Temple of Apollo in Crosston was bursting at the seams, standing room only. Outside, the crowds who lined the streets roared as if they were at a football match.
“Winston must be nearly here,” I said to Jake, just as the temple doors were thrown open, letting in a blast of noise and golden sunshine.
Everyone who was anyone was here, gathered to watch the newest Ruby Adept take office and to gawp at the gods. Four of us were here—Zeus, Hades, Apollo and me—and soon to be five. My wolf friends, including Ophelia, formed an honour guard behind my seat, taking their devotion to the moon goddess very seriously. It was strange to remember, now, how afraid I’d been of fully becoming the goddess again, worried I would lose myself or my friends. None of my fears had come to pass.
Syl stood in their line-up, too, practically part of the pack by now. Our friendship had only grown through the trials we’d faced together—and now those trials were finally over. This was a very different ceremony than the last one: no sneaking around with only a few fireshapers in attendance. No constantly looking over our shoulders, wondering when the shadow shapers might strike again.
The shadow shapers were all dead, hunted down with great gusto by Hades and Cerberus over the past week while the preparations for today’s ceremony were made. Their leader was chained in a pit in Tartarus, with only monsters for company. Zeus had snapped her distaff over his knee, destroying a good three-quarters of her power. She might never die, but she would never truly live again, either.
Today felt like a giant party—the crowds waving flags, the bunting stretched across the streets. It was only midday, but more than half the good people of Crosston appeared to be smashed already.
Caged Lightning Page 21