The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4

by V. J. Chambers

  Right. If he was going to be angry, the person to be angry with was Owen.

  “We should look again,” said Nora. “But all together. We’ll go over the entire place.”

  They did, but Sawyer thought they all knew they weren’t going to find her. They looked everyplace they could think of. They called her name. She never answered. She never turned up.

  Eventually they found themselves with Coeus in the main tent. Daryl did most of the talking. He explained to Coeus what he explained to Sawyer and Nora. They told him that they looked for her all over.

  “It’s Owen.” Nora looked into Coeus’ eyes. She was certain of it. “He took her.”

  “He can’t get back in,” said Coeus. “Nora, he’s exiled from Helicon.”

  “This is the guy who figured out how to control muses’ minds,” said Nora. “He figured out a way around it. He took her.”

  Coeus was shaken. It was obvious considering how alarmed he looked. “You only looked in the security enclave, right?”

  “We aren’t supposed to leave,” said Sawyer. “Maddie wasn’t supposed to leave either.”

  “Maybe she did,” said Coeus. “Maybe she’s somewhere else. We’ll form a search. I’ll get everyone in the security enclave and engineering enclave to look for her. Try not to worry too much. Maybe she just wandered off.”

  But she wouldn’t have done that. They all knew it. Sawyer was pretty sure that Coeus knew it too. But they waited. Coeus organized search parties. They watched them all set off. And then the three of them sat in the security enclave, waiting.

  The day began to wind down. The sun began to sink lower in the sky. The main fire pit was lit. Dinner started. The council meeting followed. They didn’t move. They weren’t hungry. The drum circle afterwards seemed to mock them with its celebratory beats. The rest of Helicon was going on as if nothing had happened, but to them, it seemed as if the entire world had stopped working properly.

  They didn’t talk much. At one point, Nora started to cry softly. Sawyer put his arm around her, and she laid her head on his chest, hugging him tightly.

  The confusion was back. But this was a terrible time to talk about it. This was a terrible time to think about it. Sawyer would bury it. He wouldn’t think about it. There was nothing to it, anyway. Nora was his friend, just like he’d told Jack. If he felt things about her, it was only because they were such close friends. That was all. At a time like this, there was no point in ruining everything with his confusion.

  So he rubbed Nora’s back and refused to let himself think that it felt nice to hold her.

  The drum circle was still going on when Coeus came back with a verdict, but they all knew what it was. None of the search parties had been able to find her. She was lost. She had completely disappeared.

  Sawyer wanted to cry then. But Nora had stopped. And Daryl had been dry eyed the entire time, though solemn and silent. Sawyer swallowed his tears. “Why would Owen take her?”

  “Because he knew it would hurt me,” said Nora. “He knew it would absolutely devastate me.”

  * * *

  Phoebe showed up soon afterwards. Nora was worried, given the fact that Phoebe didn’t seem to believe anything that she said. Maybe Phoebe would sweep this under the rug. Maybe it would be like every other crisis she’d ever witnessed in Helicon. They’d form a committee to deal with it, but the committee would never get anything done. Or worse, maybe Phoebe would insist that Nora was behind all of it. Maybe she would be convinced that Nora had somehow done something with Maddie.

  But Phoebe didn’t pay a bit of attention to Nora, Sawyer, or Daryl. She rushed into the security enclave and went straight for Coeus. All of them were in the main tent. Coeus was pacing at the far end. The three younger people sat on the ground. If Phoebe noticed they were in earshot, she didn’t seem to care.

  “Why didn’t you come to me?” Phoebe sounded angry but also worried. Her voice had a high-pitched quality to it that Nora had never heard before. “I see search parties all over the place, and I have to ask them what they’re doing? The council was meeting just an hour ago. Now we’ll have to call an emergency meeting. I don’t think this can keep until tomorrow night.”

  Coeus went to Phoebe and pulled her into his arms. “I wanted to make sure before I worried you. If it had been a false alarm, then there wouldn’t have been any need to involve you.”

  Phoebe pushed Coeus away. “I didn’t feel a thing. I should have felt something if he penetrated Helicon. And I didn’t feel anything. How could he do that?”

  “He’s powerful. Maybe he’s more powerful than we know. Maybe we have absolutely no idea what he’s capable of.”

  “Or maybe it’s not him. Maybe Nora—”

  “Phoebe, don’t.”

  She was quiet for a few minutes. Then she took a deep breath, pulling herself together. “We need to call an emergency council meeting.”

  Coeus shook his head. “What is that going to accomplish?”

  Nora felt a little tendril of hope. Maybe Coeus was going to make sure something actually got done. Maybe this wasn’t going to be like everything else that ever happened. Maybe there wouldn’t be committees and arguments and finger-pointing.

  “We have to call a council meeting,” said Phoebe. “It’s the way we decide things here. We can’t just act.”

  “I think we have to. She’s been gone for too long as it is. We know that Owen is capable of murder. We don’t know, however, what he’s doing to her. What he’s already done to her.”

  “The council will agree,” said Phoebe. “They’ll vote to take action. But we can’t act without a vote.”

  “Why not? We’re sure they’ll agree. Why waste the time?”

  Phoebe sputtered. “Because Helicon is a collective. We make decisions together. We always have. If you and I start making decisions on our own, we run the risk of becoming everything we detest. I can’t behave like a dictator here. There are already rumblings that I overstep my bounds, that I wield too much power as head of the council. I can’t make a decision like this.”

  “This is no time to worry about philosophy,” said Coeus. “A girl’s life is at stake.”

  “But it isn’t the way we do things.” Phoebe sounded agonized. “Please, Coeus. This could be disastrous. The council will be in an uproar. They could ask me to step down.”

  Coeus looked at her for a moment. Nora could see how much he cared about Phoebe in his expression. “Let me take the fall. Leave now. Call your council meeting. You were never here. And any actions that I take, I took without your knowledge.”

  Phoebe bit her lip. “No, Coeus. They might strip you of your seat on the council.”

  “This is life and death. I’ll take the chance. Now go.” He took her by the shoulders and propelled her out of the tent. He disappeared after her.

  They sat there silently for several minutes. Then Daryl stood up. “Where do you think he went?”

  “To take action?” Sawyer said.

  They went after him. They found him by the fire pit in the security enclave. Alexander was standing next to him. Muse police were gathering around. Daryl went forward to join them. Nora and Sawyer hung back.

  Coeus waited until the entire enclave was assembled. Then he addressed them all. “Generally speaking, before something of the magnitude I’m about to present to you would be ordered, there would be a council meeting. The orders would come down to Alexander, and he would give them to you. But because we’re dealing with something that we’ve never dealt with before, I’m dispensing with all that.

  “I think Owen Asher is somewhere in the mundane world. I think he has Maddie Salt with him. And I have no idea what he’s doing to her, but I don’t imagine that it’s good. Now the mundane world is a very big place, and we can’t be sure where Owen is. We might get lucky. Maddie may do something creative and that will send ripples into Helicon. Then we would know their location. But I don’t know if that will happen. And I don’t think we can wait for luck t
o help us out.

  “So, we are going to have to hope that Owen is using some kind of magic, because the weapons that you use can sense that and trace it. Otherwise, the search could last a very long time. And I want you all ready to move out immediately.”

  Daryl spoke up. “I know where he is.”

  Coeus raised his eyebrows. “How could you know that?”

  “Last year,” said Daryl. “He used to talk a lot about a place in the mundane world. Hell, he took some of us there, didn’t he?” Daryl looked at several of his friends, the guys who’d given Sawyer a hard time. “You guys remember, don’t you? The place by the beach.”

  One of Daryl’s friends nodded. “I remember it. But he knows we know about it. Why would he go there?”

  “He’d go there,” said Daryl. “I know he would. That’s where you need to look.”

  Alexander cleared his throat. Up until that point, he had been silent. But now he squared his shoulders, and for the first time this year, he seemed to look like the head of an enclave again. “You can take us to this place, Daryl?”

  Daryl took a shuddering breath. “The other guys can take you. I don’t think I should go. If I see him, and he’s hurt her...” His voice broke. When he spoke again, it was hard and ugly. “I don’t know what I’d do to him.”

  Alexander nodded. “All right then, Daryl stays behind. Everyone else, we check this out.”

  The security enclave was a flurry of movement and preparation for the next ten or fifteen minutes. Muse police gathered weapons and lined up back by the fire pit. When they were all assembled, Alexander yelled, “Phase!”

  The muse police all winked out, disappearing just like that. It was a little shocking. Nora had thought that it would be more difficult for the muse police to get into the mundane world.

  Then it was just Coeus, Nora, Sawyer, and Daryl again. Only Daryl muttered something about not being able to handle this and needing to take a walk. He stalked off into the darkness.

  There was nothing left to do but wait. Again. Nora felt helpless. She had no idea what Owen was doing to Maddie. She supposed that she was blind in some ways. Until Coeus had mentioned the fact that Owen was a murderer, she hadn’t even really considered violence. It wasn’t that she didn’t know that Owen was capable of it. Well, maybe it was.

  She’d had to accept a lot about Owen over the last year. She’d discovered all kinds of absolutely horrible things about him. But there was some part of her that must not have quite understood it all. Because she hadn’t thought that Owen was really hurting Maddie. Maybe she hadn’t let herself think it. Sometimes, none of it made sense. She remembered Owen as a child, the way he easily manipulated everyone to his point of view. The way he was careless with other people, like they didn’t really matter. But she also remembered that Owen had always taken care of her. When she was a little girl, she thought the sun rose and set in him. He had been everything to her. And she was still everything to him. But he had gotten it all twisted up somehow. If he couldn’t be with her, he would hurt her.

  They didn’t have to wait for very long. The security enclave was back within a half an hour. And they had Owen with them. He was tied up, his hands and arms bound behind his back. But Maddie wasn’t there.

  She heard Alexander explaining to Coeus. “We found the place easily enough. The first time we searched, he wasn’t there. But then he showed up. Walked right up to us. He didn’t even offer any resistance.”

  “But the girl?” Coeus asked.

  “No sign of her,” said Alexander.

  Owen was grinning, his blue eyes bright. He looked straight at Nora. “I missed you, baby. Did you like the flowers?”

  Nora felt sick. She backed away.

  “Soon, Nora,” he called after her. “We’ll be together soon.”

  Nora took off at a run. With Owen here, there wasn’t any reason to stay in the security enclave. So she just kept running.

  * * *

  Sawyer was the one who found her. She’d run down to the southern edge of Helicon, where the waterfall cascaded down into the depths of nothingness. She was standing there, staring down.

  Sawyer hugged her fiercely. “You shouldn’t have run off like that. I didn’t know where you were. With Maddie gone too...”

  “I’m sorry,” said Nora. “I didn’t think.”

  “I’m glad I found you,” said Sawyer.

  They hugged for several more minutes.

  Then Sawyer pulled away. “You need to come back. I hate to say this, but when they found Owen without Maddie, Phoebe kind of freaked out. You ran away, and she thinks the whole thing is suspicious. She wants you to sit in when the council interrogates Owen.”

  “You mean she wants to interrogate me as well,” said Nora.

  Sawyer shook his head. “That isn’t what she said.”

  She sighed. “But it’s what she meant. You and I both know it. I guess we better get back.”

  Nora was a little surprised that the interrogation of Owen wasn’t happening in front of the entire population of Helicon. She had half expected it to be taking place at the main fire pit. But apparently, the council appreciated that this didn’t require everyone’s attention. So they were all gathered inside the main tent of the security enclave.

  The members of the council sat in a semicircle, with Phoebe in the center.

  Sawyer hadn’t been allowed inside the interrogation area with her, so Nora stood inside the opening alone. When Phoebe saw her, she directed her to a chair at the end of the semicircle. Her mouth felt dry, but she sat down.

  The members of the council were all talking amongst themselves. Nora could only make out snatches here and there. “... should’ve consulted us before taking action...” and “... never would have authorized him to be back here...” and “... gives me the creeps.”

  Everyone got quiet when Owen was brought into the room. His hands and arms were still bound. He was walked in by several members of the security enclave, who forced him to sit down in a chair facing the council members. They tied his legs to the chair as well. Despite all this, Owen didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable. He was grinning.

  All Nora could think about was the way he’d been the last time she’d seen him. He had seemed... upset about the fact that he’d done what he did to Dirk. He had seemed sorry. She remembered the way he stared at her, tears in his eyes. Do you still love me, Nora? It had all been an act. That was all. There wasn’t some deep well of goodness buried somewhere inside him. He had only done that to try to get her to do what he wanted. This Owen, this grinning, demon-faced guy, this was the real Owen. This was all there was when you peeled away all the layers he used to camouflage himself from real people. At least she hoped that was true.

  Techne Lift was on her feet. “You wipe that grin off your face, devil’s spawn. Where are you hiding that girl?”

  “Techne,” said Phoebe. “Sit down.”

  Techne did nothing of the sort. She turned on Phoebe. “This is all your fault, you know. When he showed up in Helicon, I distinctly remember voicing my concerns to the council. The son of Nimue should never have been allowed to live amongst us.”

  “That is not why we’re here,” said Phoebe in a barely controlled voice. “This interrogation can do nothing about the past.”

  “What can this interrogation do at all?” Techne put her hands on her hips. “You steamrolled us into interrogating Owen Asher and bringing him back into Helicon without our consent, just the way you steamrolled us into accepting him last year.”

  “Techne is right,” said Jack Leaf, the head of the math and numbers enclave. “The council should have made the decision about bringing this known murderer back here. And we all know that you can claim Coeus did this without your knowledge until you’re blue in the face, but that won’t make it true.”

  Phoebe pressed her lips together as if she were trying to keep herself from saying something. When she finally did speak, her voice was flat. “I would ask you all to focus on t
he subject at hand, which is interrogating Owen.”

  Owen burst out laughing.

  “You think this is funny?” asked Techne angrily.

  “You muses are always the same,” said Owen. “You squabble amongst yourselves about things that aren’t important. Your council may work well for settling disputes between the philosophy and engineering enclave, but against a threat, it’s a hindrance.”

  “What do you know? You’re a—”

  “Don’t engage him, Techne,” said Phoebe. She stood up. She addressed Owen. “Have you returned to Helicon this year?”

  Owen smirked. “You exiled me. Or did you forget?”

  “That is not an answer.” Phoebe’s face showed no emotion. “Have you or have you not returned?”

  “Shouldn’t you know? You’re the head of the council. If you could tell that I was using power I pulled from Dionysius, which he was pulling from Helicon, then surely you should be able to tell if an exile reaches the borders of Helicon. So why don’t you tell me, Phoebe? Have I been back?”

  “Has he?” said Melody Wind, head of the architecture enclave. “Phoebe if he had managed to get around our barriers, you would have told us, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t think she would have,” said Jack. “She keeps a lot of things close to her chest.”

  Phoebe ignored them, focusing on Owen. “It’s a simple question. The proper answer will clear you of the charges we suspect you of.”

  Owen raised his eyebrows. “Charges? Does this have something to do with that girl people keep mentioning? Who’s the girl? You think I kidnapped her don’t you?”

  Phoebe grimaced. “So much for your being ignorant of the charges. Seeing as so many people have flapped their mouths in front of you, I don’t suppose we can even take your knowledge of the kidnapping as meaning much of anything.” Fed up, she returned to her chair and sat down.

  Owen smiled. “I haven’t been back. I’m exiled, remember? I didn’t do it. I’m innocent.”

  Techne stood up. “This is what I mean. The interrogation is pointless. How can we know whether or not he’s lying? I don’t see the point.”