by Sumida, Amy
“It'll be okay,” Torrent said as if he knew my fears. “Just concentrate on finding Demeter's trail.”
“Right, okay,” I looked around. “I don't see it here.”
“I didn't expect you to,” he smiled. “She traced in way back in Yosemite. You'll have to find her again in the Aether. Do you think you can?”
“If it's as obvious as it was over where we started, I should be able to,” I frowned and looked back over my shoulder, the way we'd come. “I know the direction to look in.”
“Okay,” he took my hand. “Let's do this.”
We stepped into the tunnel and made our way forward into the Aether. I could feel the change as soon as we passed through the hazy wall but I took a moment to steel myself before I looked up. The Aether was intense, it held pieces of everyone who'd ever traveled through it and energy from every spell ever crafted with it. Looking into it was like looking at a carnival side show view of millions of lives all at once.
I finally looked up and tried to ignore the bombardment of memory upon memory, searching instead for the telltale sign of Demeter's passing. It was nowhere to be found, since I was pretty sure we were in the line that connected Odin's Santa TV to the Human Realm, I was a little relieved to know that Demeter hadn't jumped out in Asgard. On the other hand...
“Can we move horizontally through here?” I asked Torrent.
“Sure,” he moved toward the spot I indicated and just kept walking. The Inter Realm moved with him, “it's pretty flexible if you exert your will on it.”
“Oh, sweet,” I started forward but the tunnel wouldn't budge for me. “You mean if you exert your will on it,” I gestured to the immovable wall and began walking behind Torrent.
“Huh,” Torrent blinked and then shrugged. “Okay, I guess it doesn't do that for everyone. I'll keep going straight and when you spot her trail, just give me a holler.”
“Okay,” I took little glances as he walked, not able to withstand the onslaught of the Aether for long.
We'd gone quite a ways when I finally spotted it, a red line running across our path and going straight toward the boundary of the Aether. I was about to point it out to Torrent when a memory floating through the Aether, caught my attention.
It was of a little girl with rich brown hair and huge green eyes. She was smiling, reaching up for someone. The memory was from that person's perspective, so I couldn't see the face, but the arms that reached for the child were pale gold and a gold braid swung forward into view. The child laughed as she was swung above the person, smiling down with adoration.
“Sephy?” I whispered.
“What's that?” Torrent turned around.
“I think that's Persephone when she was a child,” I pointed at the memory as it continued to play out, undulating through the Aether, though it stayed fairly close to the red streak. “Demeter's left a memory behind.”
“We all do,” he shrugged. “It's like paying a toll but it's only a copy, the Aether doesn't steal the memory. So can you see the path now?”
“Huh?” I blinked and looked away from what had to be one of Demeter's happiest memories of her daughter. “Oh, yeah, it ends right there, at the point next to that blue sports car.”
“I see the block,” he declared as he moved our little vein of Inter Realm closer to the spot Demeter's path disappeared. “This is no problem at all, only take me a few minutes.”
“Great,” I chewed at my lip.
The glimpse into Demeter's past was making my belly clench. It was hard to equate the loving mother in that memory to the monster Demeter had become. The most troubling thing about it though, was that it wasn't only Demeter's memory. It belonged to Sephy too. This was the mother she remembered and this was what she'd be losing when we killed Demeter.
“It's done,” Torrent turned to me triumphantly but lost his grin when he saw my face. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” I took a deep breath. “Thank you, that's amazing that you did it so fast.”
“Vervain?”
“The memory,” I shrugged.
“It's hard to see someone as a person, with thoughts and emotions, when you need to kill them,” he said gently. “But it's good that you feel that way. Iktomi did once, before he turned...”
“Evil?”
“Yeah, evil,” he huffed a sort of laugh. “Just as Demeter has changed. She's not that woman anymore and she's hurt a lot of people.”
“You're right,” I shook myself out of it. “Of course, you're right.”
“Yes, of course,” he grinned teasingly. “Now do we go in after her or go back and get the others? We can see exactly where she exited now.”
“We just go in for a peak, so I know where to trace back to,” I smiled. “Unless you have some other trick for tracing too.”
“Oh, no,” he laughed, “as far as tracing goes, I'm as limited as you are.”
“Okay then, let's go in but be prepared for anything. Knowing Demeter, she's probably got as many booby traps as a Tomb Raider movie.”
Chapter Five
“Is that what I think that is?” I stared across the rolling green hills at the monolith shining at the zenith like a sculpture on a pedestal.
“It looks like the Parthenon,” Torrent stared along with me, in rapt fascination. “She really takes her heritage seriously, huh?”
“She takes everything seriously,” I grimaced.
“Should we take a closer look? Do some reconnaissance?”
“I don't know, there's not a lot of cover here,” I looked around us. “Booby traps could be anywhere.”
“Don't there have to be buildings for booby traps?” Torrent frowned at the scenery. “Preferably ancient buildings with sandy floors and torches on the walls?”
“Not when you're a goddess.” I peered at the manicured lawn skeptically and then at the floor beneath our feet.
We stood in a smaller version of the building up on the hill. White pillars defined the open space, set firmly between a white marble floor and an angled roof made of the same marble. The front of the roof had a triangular panel set into it, carved with scenes of people harvesting corn. I frowned when I saw that, those carvings were the only crops to be seen. You'd think the Harvest Goddess would have something to harvest in her territory.
“It's definitely easy to defend,” Torrent brought me out of my musings. “Are those cliffs?”
“Yeah, I can hear the ocean,” I squinted toward the edge. “There must be a drop down to the water over there.”
It was good to know, maybe we could use that. We did have a god of the sea on our side after all. So I took the time to take a good look around. Near the Parthenon reproduction was a smaller building with a few trees around it, but there weren't any more buildings(besides the one we were in) to be seen. There were very few trees as well, just a few scattered randomly about the open grassy hills. The only other decorations were carved stone statues that dotted the landscape like sentinels.
Behind the tracing building we were in was more of the same, just open land as far as I could see. There must be some kind of border to her territory, so I was thinking it was probably the ocean. She lived on an island, like Greece itself. Made sense but I was expecting a little more from Demeter. Open space was great and all but what do you do with it? Something didn't feel right to me. There was something I was missing.
I stepped warily from the building, watching the temple on the hill for any signs of movement, and then made a split decision to chance a closer look. I started taking off my clothes.
“What are you doing?” Torrent looked panicked, his perfect skin stretching tight, as his eyebrows lifted closer to his pale hairline.
“I'm going to shift into my lioness form and have a quick look,” I laughed. “Just turn around a sec, please.”
“Oh, okay,” he gave a relieved sigh. “Warn me first next time.”
“Haven't you seen a naked woman before?” I teased. When he didn't answer, I looked up to see the blush st
eal over the side of his face. “Holy shit,” I stood, my pants in my hands. “I'm so sorry, I didn't think about how you've been living. Don't be embarrassed.”
“There was never a chance for me to meet anyone,” he stared resolutely away from me, the perfect gentleman.
“Of course not,” I felt like such an asshole. “I wasn't thinking. Hey,” I divested myself of the rest of my garments quickly, putting them in a pile by my feet. “Life is going to be different now and let me tell you, you're living with the right bunch of guys to help you out with women. My lions are lady magnets. They'll show you the ropes,”
“Please don't tell them,” he looked over at me with a horrified expression that became even more so when he realized I was nude. He quickly looked away again.
“I won't,” I said gently. “I promise. We'll just ask them to take you out sometime. Then you can watch them and take mental notes. Okay, enough of this, we'll talk about it later if you want. Or not,” I saw him blush again. “We can pretend we never talked about it at all, if you'd prefer.”
“That would be great,” he let out a relieved laugh. “I feel like I'm finally learning how to live, Vervain. It's exciting but kind of scary and now, a little embarrassing.”
“Like I said, nothing to be embarrassed about,” I changed into a lioness before I got distracted again, and walked up next to him.
He smiled down at me, probably relieved that I was finally covered, and gave me a quick stroke over my head. I knew it was hard to resist petting me when I was in lioness form. Something about having a wild animal standing beside you who you knew wasn't really wild, made you want to reach out and touch them. But I didn't have time to be pet, I had work to do.
I ran off toward the temple on quiet kitty paws at a breakneck speed. Nothing appeared out of thin air to stop me, no one screamed, no bells clanged in warning. Nothing. It was kind of eerie. Even my lion senses couldn't pick anything up beyond the obvious; the scent of the sea, the earth, and the bruised grass beneath my paws. I heard a distant crashing of waves but beyond that, nothing.
As I crested the last hill, the Parthenon, or rather Demeter's temple, came into view. From up close I could see that although the pillars defined an open space, there was an enclosed area inside. Marble walls stretched to the ceiling, creating a square room at the very center of the temple. Scenes of harvest, like the ones carved into the tracing building, were carved all over it in great detail. It was stunning.
Set into one of the walls and outlined with carved sheaths of wheat, was a golden door, very tall and pretty wide. The inner enclosure itself wasn't very big, especially considering the size of the building around it, making the door look out of proportion. That inner room had to be only about fifteen feet square. There was no way Demeter lived in that small space.
I changed back to my human form and tried to open the door but it didn't budge and I didn't want to force it open just in case, by some miracle, she didn't know I was there. So I just placed my ear against the crack and listened. Nothing again, no sound at all. She wasn't in there. No way.
So where was she? I looked around, able to see the whole expanse of her territory from up there on the apex. It was definitely an island. I could see the edge of the land where it dropped away down to the ocean, and beyond it was only open water as far as the eye could see. The building to the side of the main temple was a pool, the pillars around it more for definition of the space than cover. Besides that, all I could see were those randomly placed statues. Why would anyone just put statues out in the middle of open grassland like that? It was weird. I frowned and tapped my foot. Where does she live? That goddess was not a minimalist, she had to have an extravagant lair somewhere.
And then I looked down at my tapping foot, slowly stopping the movement as a thought occurred to me. It had to be. I bet the room had a set of stairs or something that took you down beneath all this open land. Demeter was a goddess of the land after all, she'd enjoy being surrounded by it. Though after Persephone buried her alive, it might not be so comfortable any more.
Still, I gave the ostentatious door one more look before changing back to a lioness. I knew Demeter was living beneath the ground. It made total sense. I bet she thought it was brilliant. She could defend her territory easily, without worrying about any damage to her actual living space, and if she had to, she could retreat below ground.
Demeter didn't think like a human though. I chuckled a little to myself as I sped back toward Torrent. I remember watching a special about underground cities once, the archaeologist narrating had one thing to say about the defense of such a thing. An underground city is nothing but a tomb. All an enemy really had to do to kill you was find your air source and cover it. Then it would only be a matter of time. The only thing you could protect yourself against below ground, was the weather.
Demeter's power was manipulating the seasons, the weather. She'd built her defenses out of ego, thinking only of how she would attack an enemy. She hadn't considered other means of combat. Dirty means. Several methods immediately came to mind. Even though smothering wouldn't work permanently on her, it would knock her out long enough for us to kill her. How convenient for her to hole up in an actual hole.
I shifted course and ran over to inspect one of the statues, some instinct telling me it wasn't what it appeared to be. Sure enough, when I got close enough to look it over, I heard the wheeze of air drifting through an opening. I shifted to human once more and examined the statue from head to foot. Finally I found them, small holes cut out of the eyes, ears, and nose of the figure. I gave a laugh and rapped on it lightly. A hollow thud echoed back to me.
“Well, I'll be,” I shook my head. “I was right.”
I changed back to lioness and ran to the tracing building, glancing over at the scattered statuary as I went. They were probably all hollow. Air shafts, cleverly disguised as decorations. The underground area must be massive, as huge as the island itself, if the statues were any indication.
Despite myself, I was impressed, but she should have hid them better. If she'd created gardens around the statues, they wouldn't have looked so out of place. A nice home instead of the Parthenon replica would have been a clever disguise as well. I would have searched it, found nothing, and simply thought she'd left. I never would have thought to look for more below ground. Instead, she'd let ego take over and had given herself away.
“Did you find anything?” Torrent asked after I'd finally returned and re-clothed myself.
“In a way. I found nothing, which told me everything,” I laughed at his confused expression.
Chapter Six
“You did it?” Trevor looked stunned. “Really? We can finally go kill the monster?”
“Yep,” I winked at Torrent. “All thanks to Torrent here.”
“Thank you,” Trevor shook his hand.
“Yes, the Froekn are in your debt,” Fenrir agreed, “but we can talk about it later. I don't want to miss the opportunity to catch Demeter.”
“Right,” I nodded, looking down at my glove-less hands. I didn't really have a use for my old weapon anymore, now that I could create my own claws... two types actually, but I was still getting used to being without them. “Torrent, you've done more than enough, you don't have to come with us.”
“You're joking, right?” He looked around at the serious faces, a lot more than had been there when we'd left to track Demeter. Fenrir had called in back-up and it looked like Fallon, who'd come with Samantha, had fetched some of the Intare as well. “I'm not missing this.”
“You're a good man,” Fenrir clapped a hand on Torrent's shoulder and gestured to me. “Okay, you and Torrent can each take two of us over and then once we know the location, we'll send a couple back to bring more.”
“Alright,” I nodded, thinking about how telling it was that Fenrir had called Torrent a boy when we first tracked Demeter but now that he was going with us to actually kill her, he was a man. “Let's go.”
I grabbed Fenrir and Trevo
r, leaving Torrent to take his pick from the remaining Froekn, and traced us over to Demeter's territory. We arrived in the tracing building and Fenrir immediately went back, leaving Trevor with me. Torrent traced in and both of his passengers traced back as well, so that it was just the three of us staring out across Demeter's immaculate lawn.
“You'd think she'd have some crops,” Trevor mused as we waited.
“I know, right?” I shook my head. “What a waste of space. In Hawaii the only land this wide open are graveyards and golf courses.”
“Graveyards and golf courses,” Trevor laughed. “It sounds like a joke. What do graveyards and golf courses have in common?”
“They're both focused on putting something in the ground?” Torrent offered.
“Hole in one,” Trevor laughed some more.
“Well,” I felt my face settle into grim lines, “let's hope this turns out to be a graveyard with only one corpse: Demeter.”
It didn't take long for the rest of the Froekn and my lions to arrive, as each batch was able to bring back twice its number. I explained to them what I believed was waiting for us below ground and gave them two options. We could cover the air shafts and hope we get them all, then wait for her to surface or pass out. Or we could just go in swinging. Guess which option my fighting men choose.
So I found myself running across Demeter's land once more, my eyes shifting left and right, just to be sure I hadn't missed anything. We got to the temple quickly and Fenrir took only moments to get past the golden door, partially kicking it in and then tearing it off its hinges. We piled into the small space after him.
“Shit,” I stared at the delicate gold cage that hung above a hole in the floor. It was good to be right about the underground bit but that tiny elevator would hold two of us at the most... or one Fenrir.
“Very clever,” Fallon opened the door and eyed the interior of the elevator before inspecting the mechanism attached to the top of it. “We'll have to fight her one by one while we wait for everyone to descend.”