Sitting on his rock, Ares’ upper lip began to curl into a sneer.
You’re the Goddamn God of War! Get up!
Forcing himself to his feet and rising to his full height as he puffed out his chest and threw his head back to gaze at the night sky, Ares let out a howl so powerful it chilled the blood as it echoed through the chilly night. The wolf in him yearned for his Mate, the one stolen from him, it cried out for her to return to him. More than that, it called out to the one who took her, letting him know that Ares was coming. His Love was taken from him but he would not linger in this disease called despair. He would not allow Alena to suffer in anguish or to fall into this horrible darkness. He was the Goddamn God of War and Cernunnos was going to discover just what that meant before the sun rose.
2
Darkness all around.
So tired.
So numb.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Something cold.
Something wet.
Her tongue flicked out of her mouth without her permission to catch it and discover it was fresh cold water. The dark world around her began to rock ever so gently. “Ares?”
“Hush, he’ll come,” a woman’s voice whispered back.
Alena fought the darkness and the numbness all around her as she struggled to open her stinging tired eyes. The slightest bit of light came through the slits punched shut and swollen with blood. She tried to talk but her throat was dry and her jaw ached, it didn’t want to move properly at her command. Strangely enough, Alena found an old movie line suddenly running through her head: Cut me, Mick, go on, cut me. In those moments, as she lay here between unconscious and conscious, Alena thought she knew just how Rocky Balboa must have felt.
More water now.
The slivers of light coming through her eyes showed her a clean white rag. The woman above her was wringing the water into her mouth. Alena took it down as fast as she could. Then the rag disappeared though she could hear the woman dipping it into the water once more. From above a shadow loomed over her and Alena was afraid. She cringed and pulled back.
“Can you see me? Maggie? Can you see me?”
No, Alena could not see the woman clearly, only her outline but she thought she recognized the voice. Thought it one that she would never hear again. “Mama?”
“Yes, Maggie, it’s mama.” Mae rang more water into her daughter’s mouth before she eased it over Maggie’s battered face. “I never thought I’d see you again.” She wished it were under much happier circumstances, Mae wrapped her arms around Maggie gently and hugged her close. “I love you, Maggie. I’m so sorry he’s done this to you,” Mae sobbed as she looked down at the body of her naked savaged daughter. “So sorry.”
“Mama,” Alena croaked again as she raised her hand to run it along what looked like the woman’s cheek. She started to cry although there was not much spare water left in her. “Love you, mama.” The tears welling up began to sting her eyes as they searched for an exit to her cheeks and found the way nearly blocked. Alena wanted desperately to be able to look up her mother’s face. “I can’t…see. You have to help me,” Alena whispered. “Find something…sha-sharp.”
“Maggie, my darling, we’re in a cell,” Mae whispered as she looked around at the cell that had been her on-again/off-again home over the last two centuries. She had been sitting here alone not that long ago when Cernunnos came into his Dungeon with a woman slung over his shoulder. Mae knew instantly that it was Maggie; she did not have to see her daughter’s face to know it was her. He opened the door and threw Maggie inside like a sack of potatoes, told Mae to take care of her and he would be back. She should enjoy her little reunion while it lasted.
Alena was weak, exhausted, but there was more to come and she could not hope to fight if she could not see her enemy. “Anything…mama.”
Maggie was right, as much as Mae did not want to do it, her eyelids needed to be cut to relieve the pockets of blood pooling there before they could fester. Mae looked around and saw the same old familiar cell. The straw on the floor for urination and defecation. Torches burning outside the cell, giving some light and warmth to this dreary place. The wet rag in her hand, the bucket of water next to her. The straw stuffed cot upon which they were sitting.
The cot was old and made of wood. The legs were nailed to the frame. Peeking under the mattress, Mae saw nail heads slowly making their way out of the wood. One them wiggled out so far, she thought she could pull it the rest of the way. “Lie down.” Mae got up, eased Maggie off her lap, and laid her down on the smelly straw-stuffed cot. Getting down on her knees, Mae took a closer look at the nail before grabbing hold of it with her fingertip and began pulling it out of its place. “I don’t think this nail will work,” she said, disappointed. “It’s rusted.”
Alena could make out the torches burning somewhere near them. “Fire.”
Mae got up and went to the cell door. Many times over the years she had tried to reach the burning torch closest to her if for no other than reason than to set her cell on fire and end this nightmare. It was always a fingertip’s brush away. However, it was close enough so that, if she stretched her body out completely, Mae could get the tip of the nail into the flame to purify it. She held it there until her side ached and grew weak, until the metal turned red and smoldered. Mae turned back to her daughter lying on the small cot. Pressing the hot tip of the nail to Maggie’s skin, she dragged it across the pocket of blood over Maggie’s left eye. The pocket open, blood poured out. Mae swabbed it up with the wet rag and then held it to the wound until the bleeding stopped. “One more,” she whispered. “Keep your eyes closed.” A moment later blood was pouring down her face again and being swabbed away by the loving gentle touch of her mother.
“Can you try to open them now?” Mae asked hopefully.
Alena’s eyes fluttered open fully and then took a moment to focus but when her mother’s face came into full view, she could not help it, Alena smiled wide. “Oh mama! I see you!” Mae was older, weathered and worn down by Cernunnos, but she was here. Alena threw her arms open wide and took her mother into a warm embrace. “You don’t know how many times I dreamed of seeing you again.”
“My girl,” Mae whispered and held her daughter close, “my beautiful daughter. Oh, Gods, I’d do anything if you weren’t here.” As thrilled as Mae was to see her little girl again she wished it was due to anything but this. Surely Cernunnos planned to use Maggie’s love for her mother against her and that was why he brought her here so Mae could take care of her. They could reconnect and remember their bond one last time.
Holding her hands to Mae’s face Alena did her best to pucker up her swollen lips and plant a kiss on her mother’s cheek. “I’ve missed you, mama. I’m going to get you out of here,” Alena vowed. “Ares is coming and we will all leave this place together. When we get out of here, I’ll bring you home to Ares’ island, you’ll live with us. We’re going to have a baby, mama. You’re going to be a grandmother, after all these years. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Miraculous,” Mae agreed, trying to hold back the tears. “How did I ever get graced with such a strong and beautiful daughter?” Mae asked in a cracking voice, still trying to hold back the water threatening to spill from her eyes and soak her cheeks. She tucked a strand of bloody silver hair behind Alena’s ear. She looked so old and so tired; Mae could hardly believe her eyes. Where did the girl go? Who was this old woman before her? Maggie had been destined to live a very long life but Cernunnos stole it from her.
The Dungeon was dank and dark, lit only by the half dozen or so torches kept constantly burning, but the heavy oak door at the top of the winding staircase which led down here creaked loudly on its hinges whenever it opened. Upon hearing the sound, Mae held Maggie a little closer. “Be quite now, Maggie,” she advised as her old eyes turned toward the bottom of the stairs and she watched the shadows on the wall as the figures descended. Cernunnos’ shadow was unmistakable with those great horns on his head, he was accompan
ied by three more people, one of them a woman squawking endlessly about how she was a Goddess and Cernunnos could not treat her this way.
Stupid woman.
At the sound of Aphrodite’s voice, Alena pushed herself up on the cot to get a look at the Goddess of Love in chains, one Druid on each side of her keeping a harsh grasp on her upper arms as they led her down to the Dungeon. Even though it hurt like hell, Alena couldn’t stop the laugh rising at the back of her throat as she watched the Druids fasten Aphrodite into place. The Goddess of Love was not given the luxury of a cell, even though two were empty. Instead she was chained to the wall near a second set of chains that hung from the ceiling. Like the chains hanging from above, those on Aphrodite’s wrists were very large, so large, in fact, that someone put heavy rope around her wrists and forearms to keep them in place, prevent them from sliding off her. Rising unsteadily to her feet, she held onto the bars as she made her way to the corner nearest where Aphrodite was imprisoned and Alena recognized those chains. The last time she saw them they had been sitting on Ares’ table. “Now who’s the dumb bitch?” Alena chimed with satisfaction clear in her raspy voice. “Look what you’ve done…to yourself, to Ares, to your whole Family.”
“Shut up!” Aphrodite shrieked at Alena, her face red with anger and insult as a chair was roughly shoved under her divine butt and the chains at her wrists hauled back over the top of her head and then fastened to a second set of chains fastened to the solid stone wall.
Alena cast her eyes at the half-man half-stag staring back at her. “You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?”
“Not just yet,” Cernunnos intoned as he swaggered over to the cell where Alena and her mother were captive. “What a lovely little reunion. Didn’t I promise it to you…my Daughter?” He reached between the bars with his fingertips and grabbed Alena by her aching jaw. “I didn’t lie, did I?”
“Daughter?” Alena muttered and tried to pull away from his hold but as she did, she felt her wounded delicate jaw begin to give the rest of the way and turned her face back to look at the Great Horned God.
“Why haven’t you told her, Mae? Still don’t feel as though you’re good enough to claim your place in my lines?” Cernunnos asked the older woman coming forward in defense of her daughter.
“No,” Mae countered although she knew she should not. “I didn’t want to tell her how you raped her grandmother and made her in live in shame the remaining years of her short life.”
“Yes, it’s true, Morrowind didn’t live long after Maven’s birth, only…what was it, Mae? Four or five years?” he taunted, knowing what Mae did, that he killed Morrowind when she began to demand that Cernunnos do the right thing and take care of his daughter. Leaving Mae to be raised by the Feys in her little village and to be dependent upon them for everything. “I’m her Father and that makes me your Grandfather, little Maggie,” he whispered with eyes alight. “My Wife.” He saw as well as felt her cringe at his words, one hand dropped to her stomach to hold back the heave threatening to usher forth.
“Get away from her, you wretched excuse for a Father,” Mae screeched as she grabbed hold of his wrist and pried it away from Maggie’s face. “Haven’t you done enough?”
“Hardly,” he said in a threatening tone and then turned back to the Druids who had finished harnessing Aphrodite in place. “Open it up, get them out of there. Bring them up to the Great Hall,” he commanded.
Mother and daughter were led past the Goddess of Love in chains and she was shrieking and wailing for herself; she was tired, hungry, and thirsty, her arms hurt. Both Mae and Alena looked back at Aphrodite with disgust.
“What shall we do with that one, my Lord?” one of the Druids asked impatiently.
Cernunnos seemed to consider the answer for a moment but it was only for show. “Whatever you want, she’s all yours.”
3
Grandfather? Oh, this was disgusting!
It just got worse and worse. Alena wondered why her mother never told her about this. For a moment, as the Druids led them in chains into the Great Hall, Alena was very angry with Mae. Then her injured gray eyes took in a graver sight. Cernunnos set up an altar in here and on it were all of the colorful crystal bottles she’d caught sight of so long ago. In fact, it seemed that there were even more of them all spread out on a marble altar in four very straight neat rows. Silently sitting there, the light from the torches burning around the room bounced off the crystal and threw prisms into the air; they landed on the walls and the ceiling to give the room a magickal air.
“What do you want?” Alena, still naked and weeping blood from several wounds, asked as she tried to stay strong.
“You are going to endow me with the Power of all the Gods trapped in these bottles. You will do it now or I will kill your mother before your eyes.” There was no emotion in his voice; it was cold and flat as a frozen lake.
Alena glanced over her shoulder at her mother standing next to her. Cernunnos wanted her to choose between her mother and her Lover. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Let me make myself clearer,” Cernunnos said in that same monotone as he cleared his throat. “I will start with your mother and then I will show you just how the Pear of Anguish works and you will know how it got its name.”
“At this point, I should think death would be a release for my mother no matter how it finds her. Wouldn’t you agree?” Behind Alena, Mae let out a gasp that Alena did not allow to visibly faze her. “What are you going to do for me?” she whispered as she held his gaze; she did not flinch, cringe, or otherwise show any sign of reaction.
“I see you’ve learned a lot out there in the Mortal World.” He tried to gauge her by gazing deeply into those bloody, battered gray eyes but saw nothing but steel reflected back at him. “I wonder if you really are so ready to sacrifice this way.”
It was Alena’s turn to lean forward and gauge him. “You have no idea what I have learned and what I have sacrificed, Grandpa. If I have to give her life to win this war then that’s the way it has to be.” The lie was a bold one and she could only pray that she was covering it well
Not liking the feeling that she was herding him into a corner, Cernunnos’ sharp eyes narrowed on her. “You shouldn’t toy with me, Maggie. You know what I can do.”
“Give it your best shot. I can’t conduct a ritual for you if I’m dead.”
“What’s wrong with you? Are you insane?” As Ares had done when she first landed on his island, Cernunnos took a great sniff of the air surrounding her, trying to decide if he detected any sign of defect or disease. There was none. “Your time out there,” he hitched his head and his great horns toward the window, “it’s fried your mind? Is that it?” Long before this point, most of his captives were on their knees, begging, crying, sobbing, pleading for their lives, and telling them that they would do anything he wanted. What made her so damn brave?
This stopped here. This stopped now. Two hundred years of being on the run, Alena was sick of it. This seemed the perfect All or Nothing Moment. She wanted a life to call her own, a life free of Cernunnos and if she could not have it then she would rather be dead. “My sheer, utter, unabashed hatred for you,” Alena said, leaning a little closer to him. “You’ve taken everything that was not yours to take; my father, my mother, all of my people, you even took my freedom and my youth, but I won’t let you take my soul. There is nothing left for you, you have taken all you can and squandered it. You hold no cards. No power, no matter what you believe, you have never had less power in your whole rotten life.”
Standing in the background, quiet, listening, watching, even Mae had to wonder if her daughter was insane. Surely, no one else in Maggie’s situation would ever see things from such a unique perspective. She wished the perspective didn’t put her own life in mortal jeopardy but Maggie was right. They had both been prisoners of Cernunnos for far too long and one way or another it was time to bring this to an end for all of them.
Cernunnos had enou
gh; he’d reached the end of his tolerance and his patience for this little game of Maggie’s. “Grab her!” he shouted to the Druids and pointed at Mae, who was promptly seized by both arms and held firmly in place. “Strip her bare!” The Great Horned God leaned forward once more to meet his little Maggie eye-to-eye. “Let’s see if you can back up your words, Maggie. Let’s see how strong you are when she’s screaming.” In his hand appeared a heavy bullwhip complete with sharp metal tip.
“Put it away,” Alena ordered while her mother was stripped of the new clean clothing she had just been given and then made to stand up against the wall with her back to the room.
Done indulging Maggie, Cernunnos ignored her words as he came out from the other side of the table to stand her and began flicking the whip to snap it in the air. “Consent now and she doesn’t have to feel its sting.”
“I said, put it away,” Alena hissed. “I’m done with you.”
“You? You are done with me? Who do you think you are, Maggie?” With his gaze still affixed to hers, Cernunnos let the whip fly and slap against Mae’s bare back, a back which bore the scars of events past similar to this one. When Mae screamed out in pain, he watched in amazement as Maggie’s upper lip curl into a sneer. Thinking he would teach her a harsh lesson, he pulled his arm and the whip back once again to let it fly. This time he took his eyes off Maggie so he could keep them on his target and make the lash really count. Just as he began snapping his wrist forward, he heard a most unsettling sound.
Breaking glass.
Alena skirted to the other side of the table while his eyes were turned and the two Druids were busy making sure Mae stayed in place. Making good on her threat, she grabbed up one of the heavy candelabras on the altar and brought it down, flaming candles and all, on top of the crystal jars lined up neatly and waiting to have their contents integrated into the Great Horned God. Four of the decorative jars smashed to bits and small balls of light rose into the air, one from each jar, they hovered over the altar for a moment as if they were staring at Alena before they dashed to the open window and freedom. The dome was no barrier for them; they simply floated right through it.
The Heart of War Page 51