At the end of the room, a woman sat on the floor, her hands bound behind her to a stone pillar and her head hanging down, her gray hair matted with blood. “Alena?” Ares whispered, hoping she would raise her head but she did not. It was a trap, it had to be, and yet he could not resist going to her aid. “Alena?” he whispered again, still with no response. “Maggie?” Ares inched closer to her, his heart racing with all the force of a hurricane as he listened for the slightest sound of anyone trying to come up from behind him. He heard nothing but the sound of his own thundering heart. That was a very bad sign. With dread wandering through him, Ares legs went faster and faster until he was sprinting towards her, heedless of any hidden dangers. “Alena?” If Cernunnos killed her, if she was dead and tied to that post, nothing in the heavens would save Cernunnos from Ares’ wrath.
Dear Gods in Heaven, don’t let me be too late, Ares prayed as he dropped to his knees before the wounded bloody woman with her head turned to the side. “Alena? My Love, look at me. Please look at me.” Ares reached under her chin to tilt her face toward him. There was no face staring back at him, only the open skull of a woman. Ares let out a scream. “Alena!” Just as Ares’ arms reached out to enfold her, Cernunnos appeared behind them.
“Sucker,” he snarled.
Then the stone floor gave way and Ares was falling again. It was a very short fall with a very abrupt and painful end as he landed upon several sharp spikes. They pierced his thighs, his forearms and his chest as they impaled him. Then a blessed blackness descended upon the God of War.
9
“Wake up!”
The cold sting of icy water hit Ares full in the face. An entire bucketful of it, it drenched him from face to knees.
Ares was injured and helpless in those chains. When Cernunnos hauled him in here, unconscious, about fifteen minutes ago, Alena felt her heart hit her feet and then seep into the stone floor. The guards stripped him of his weapons and his armor as they strung him up, his muscular arms stretched wide like Jesus on the Cross. Ares was bleeding from several places but none of them frightened Alena more than the hole near his heart, the puncture looked deep and nasty. He had similar punctures in each thigh and one through his right forearm, as though sharp spikes punctured him just before they brought him in. The longer Ares stayed in those chains the longer it would take for him to heal, if he ever did. Cernunnos could just leave him there like that, hanging up like a side of beef, and nearly bleeding to death. She couldn’t stand the sight of the mighty God of War so helpless and powerless in those chains, knowing if he hadn’t come after her, he wouldn’t be there. “Ares! Ares!”
Another familiar woman’s voice. This one even more welcome than the last. “Alena?” Ares grunted as he struggled to open his eyes and found that his arms hurt. They were stretched to capacity and his toes hardly touched the ground. “Alena?” Opening his eyes, he saw her across from him. She was in a cell and stretching her arms outward to him but she could not reach no matter how hard she tried. If it wasn’t her tied to the post, who was that woman? As his eyes adjusted and focused to the dim light in the Dungeon, Ares took in the wounds on Alena’s face; the cuts above her new black eyes, the jaw that wasn’t hanging quite correctly, deep scratches on her alabaster cheeks. If it weren’t for the gray hair, he might not have recognized her at all.
SWACK!
Alena cried out.
The noise was so loud and so sharp it brought Ares’ eyes to its direction and he saw Cernunnos standing there with a whip in his hand and a cold smile on his face. “You’ve touched him for the last time, Maggie. Live with it,” he sneered as the woman in the cell rang her hands trying to bring comfort to the newly opened skin on the knuckles.
Ares struggled against the chains on his wrists only to discover his Powers were temporarily unavailable to him. The only thing he had left to himself was his physical strength. Yet as much as he pulled on the chains, they resisted and held their grasp on him.
“Keep going Ares, you’ll exhaust yourself sooner or later,” Aphrodite huffed.
Ares looked to his right to see the Goddess of Love in chains. She was a mess. If Aphrodite could see herself, she would have a royal fit and that almost made Ares smile. Yet the grin that was-to-be quickly faded when Ares looked up at the chains and realized they had been forged by Hephaestus. Ares forced himself to stop struggling.
“That’s better,” Cernunnos announced and then turned to the tearful woman in the cell. “Now, about that favor I wanted you to do for me,” he led in a warning voice. “What do you have to say now, Maggie? Or should I just kill him in front of you as I did your mother?”
Ares was not sure what Cernunnos was talking about but he knew, no matter what, one thing was true. “Whatever he wants, don’t give it to him.”
That would not do at all. Hooves loudly clopping on the floor, Cernunnos trotted up to Ares with Ares’ own sword in his hand and held it to the throat of the God of War. “Your time will come, Ares, let’s not rush it.” Cernunnos would not have his authority challenged and he backhanded Ares across the face as hard as he could, sending the God of War reeling in his chains. Maggie let out a cry as fresh Ichor poured from the corner of Ares’ mouth. “As you can see, Maggie, I can kill him anytime I like.” He walked up to the bars. “I’ll make you this promise; if you don’t do as I ask I’ll make him suffer deeply for eons and he will scream for eternity. Before that, oh before that….” Cernunnos let his eyes wander off to a corner of the Dungeon where a wood board with leather straps for tying hands and feet rested. The Pear of Anguish waited. “Want to try your luck? Let him watch?”
It seemed there were no choices left to her. She couldn’t just say ‘no’ to him, not after what Cernunnos did to her mother. Alena just could not take the same chance with Ares’ life and she wished she had never taken it with Mae’s but it was too late now. “All right,” she whispered in defeat, hoping she was doing the right thing. Alena wasn’t even sure just what Cernunnos expected her to do but she’d do anything to free Ares. Even the promise of freedom was nothing more than a whispered lie from the Great Horned God’s lips. “I’ll do what you want. Let him go.”
“After,” Cernunnos agreed.
“Don’t,” Ares warned. “He’s lying.”
Of course he was. Almost certainly he was. “And the baby? My son?”
“Raised as my own, with the world at his feet.” Cernunnos let the black lie slip from his lips as he opened the door to the cell.
Alena could not help it. She rushed through the door, knocking Cernunnos aside on his hooves and ran up to Ares. She wrapped her arms around his bare bleeding torso and began to cry, terrified that she would never feel the warmth and comfort of his skin on hers again. “I’m s-s-s-sorry, I’m so sorry.” She wept. “I couldn’t…I tried…I couldn’t…I couldn’t…st-stop…him. Ares…please…f-f-forgive me.” Alena clutched at Ares, her nails digging into his flesh as Cernunnos grabbed her by the hair and dragged her away from the would-be protection of the God of War while Ares’ heart heaved with anger and pain as his strong body struggled in the chains.
She shook and wept against him for a moment, long enough for Ares to understand the true meaning and impact of her words. She wasn’t sorry she was about to do whatever it was Cernunnos wanted. She was sorry she couldn’t stop him from assaulting her. From raping her. From the looks of her, yes, Alena put up one glorious fight. “You PIG!” Ares shouted. “SWINE!”
“If it’s any consolation at all Ares, she’s quite right…she put up a hell of fight,” he chimed with a grin. “It was most…gratifying. You would have been proud of her.”
“You sack of shit! Don’t you dare put your hands on my woman!” Ares threatened.
“Your woman? Oh, and here I was under the impression that she’s my WIFE and it’s YOU who is the intruder,” Cernunnos said with a lilt in his voice as he peeled Alena off Ares—it wasn’t easy. She dug in tight, with her fingers laced together behind Ares’ back. A swift punch
to the kidney did the trick. He struck, her hands loosened, and he pulled her away from Ares by the hair. He felt her nails dig into the God of War and saw the long deep red marks they left; claw marks on his olive skin. Cernunnos dragged Alena away as she continued to reach out for Ares. He took her up the stairs and out of Ares’ sight.
Chapter Twenty-Six
End Game
1
Terrified she would never see Ares again, Alena stumbled up the stairs behind Cernunnos and made the journey up the twisting back staircase to the Great Hall. “I still don’t know what you want me to do,” she said hurriedly as he dragged her along. “Or even why you think I can do it.”
“Shut up, I’ve heard enough of your mouth,” Cernunnos snarled just before he pushed open the heavy oak door that exited the staircase in the corridor of the Great Hall.
Alena went to speak again but was suddenly struck by the silence around her. Shouldn’t there be men cheering their victory? Yet there were only two guards standing by open door to the Great Hall and she hadn’t seen a single one on their journey up here. Was it possible that Ares had gotten nearly all of them? In one shot? If so, how had he done it? Alena didn’t know much about the battle that took place while she cried in the Dungeon, only that the entire building kept ringing and ringing so loudly she had to cover her ears. She cringed in the corner of her cell while debris fell from the ceiling and the Dungeon rocked on the very foundation around it.
There was an acrid scent in the air up here and Alena held her free hand to her nose in an attempt to block it.
Smoke.
The fire outside still raged and she saw for herself that was true as they crossed the corridor and she caught sight of the window and the blaze beyond it. To her it seemed the flames were coming closer to the fortress. She wondered if Cernunnos was going to try to put it out or if he just intended to let it burn. “Your animals are dying,” she muttered.
Her words didn’t amuse Cernunnos who leered down at her with angry eyes. “I know and it’s Ares’ fault, so perhaps you don’t want to test my patience with him.”
“Maybe you want to put the fire out before it consumes your fortress,” she countered.
With no hesitation, Cernunnos backhanded her across her already swollen and sore face. “You look Death in the eye and spit upon it? You are insane, Maggie,” he growled, having more important things to worry about than the fire raging outside consuming his forest.
“Haven’t got much left to lose,” she said in a less smart tone. If Cernunnos killed Ares, she wouldn’t last much longer and when she died, she’d take the baby with her and the three of them would reunite in the Underworld. Alena never visited there but whatever it was like, it had to be better than here.
“Only two lives, huh? Just two more deaths on your hands? What’s that? At this point, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Cernunnos chimed as they walked past the armed guards and the heavy doors shut behind them. That shut her defiant mouth as it cooled her hot tongue. By the time all was said and done, and all went according to plan, Maggie would be responsible for many more than just two deaths. It would be in the tens of thousands. Cernunnos didn’t expect Planet Earth to surrender quietly to his new authority. However, he did expect that the remaining Olympians would give up very easily once their best asset was toast.
In the Great Hall, Alena had a better view of the red night sky and the flames licking up the high treetops. She imagined the fire raging outside was much like the one Cernunnos had set that burned her happy little village to the ground. She wondered if anything would grow here or if it would be as barren as her homeland was said to be. Smoke was invading the walls out there; it came up and over them to descend like gray mist and then rise again as it floated around, seeping through cracks, crevices and corners. It would be a while before it was able to make its way into the tower but, if left unchecked, it would.
Cernunnos hauled her over to the altar, standing Alena behind it facing the whole of the room. She felt her stomach turn and then give a sore heave as the sight of the puddle of Mae’s blood caught her eye. Firelight from the torches reflected in the pool dancing upon the macabre mirror. “Sorry, mama,” she whispered and tried not to cry.
“Oh, how touching,” Cernunnos crooned. “You know, if you’d been a better daughter she might still be alive.”
That same small sorrowful whisper came from Alena’s throat. “You’re a beast.”
Cernunnos looked down at himself and then up at her with a grin. “So it would seem,” he agreed, still grinning. The grin began to fade when Cernunnos started to realize that in order for this plan to work he had to hand her two things—a sword and Adrian’s Staff. “Now be a good girl and do exactly what I tell you to,” he warned and stood on the opposite side of the altar. “Open the book to the marked page.”
Looking down with tired aching eyes she took in the sight of a large leather bound book. Picking it up she realized it wasn’t leather but human flesh. Putting it down, she wiggled her bleeding fingers between the mark and the page to open the ancient mystical Book of Shadows. A book that contained all of Cernunnos’ magickal knowledge. Every spell, every ritual he’d ever conducted or taken in part in over his long life was written here. So were the spells and incantations of those who had served as his Exalted Druid over the long years of Cernunnos’ life. She looked at the old withered page and then at Cernunnos in disbelief. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I read Gaelic?” Looking at the scribbling on the page, they seemed to float around as she struggled to decipher them. Little by little, it came back to her. The words settled on the page and she began to read. “I’ve never done anything like this. This is far beyond my ability,” Alena said softly, still hoping to steer him away from this plan but that same expression on his face moved to his eyes and made them cold. Cernunnos was set on this path, nothing would stop him, and nothing would get in his way. “Why do you think I can do this?” Letting out a little sigh, she asked a very poignant question. “What am I, Grandfather?”
“My Wife,” he retorted promptly, seeing that her defiance was waning. It was no more than the shadow of a front. She was ready to surrender. Adrian had studied this Ritual and practiced it a hundred times or more, it always left him drained. Sometimes for days. He had never gotten anywhere near to the end. Conducting the Ritual might well kill her; it might take every last ounce of energy she had left in her, leaving her nothing more than a heap upon the cold stone floor. If that was the case then Cernunnos was willing to pay that price, his only regret was that he would have to wait so long to integrate Zeus and the others into himself. In the meantime, they would stay nice and safe in colorful little quartz bottles.
“Am I Immortal?” She thought of all the trouble Cernunnos had gone to get her, to keep her, to track her down, get her back, and ultimately to punish her. Why? If she was nothing but an insignificant powerless Fey, what was the point? Today Ares said he believed she was more than that. Alena believed she had the right to know the truth.
Cernunnos cleared his throat and reached up to scratch the space below his left ear as he mulled over his answer. “At one time you were.” He looked her up and down. Someone like himself or Ares aged at a rate of one year per every three hundred once they reached adulthood. A Fey like Maggie, were she completely Fey, had a lifespan of five hundred or maybe even a thousand years if they were very lucky. Maggie was different. One-quarter Fey, one-quarter Celtic God and the other half human, Cernunnos had no way of judging what her lifespan would have been. “Not anymore.” Cernunnos was not completely sure about that statement. With the belt gone and Maggie’s Abilities returning to her bit by bit, her Immortality—if she ever truly had it—could return as well but her Youth never would and her Life would always be fragile at best. “You shouldn’t have run, Maggie. You should have stayed here under my protection and guidance, and then you would be so much more than the old pitiful waif I see before me. You’d be a Queen, young and beautiful forever.”
“My child?”
Unhappily reminded of the parasite growing inside her Cernunnos’ eyes turned cold once more as they narrowed on her. “You want to know the truth, Maggie? I’ll give it to you; I will tell you what Ares has not. That thing in you is an abomination. A diseased creature that will bring glory to Ares but to you it will bring nothing but pain and heartache even before it draws its first breath.” Shaking his head Cernunnos found his patience at its end. “Enough questions. Begin.”
Feeling completely lost and helpless, Alena gazed down at the Book of Shadows once more and skimmed over the Ritual she was to perform. She understood it. It made sense to her and she was familiar with many aspect of Druidic Ritual even though they were reserved only for men to conduct and participate in. None of that meant she could conjure up the energy it would require to integrate the captive souls into Cernunnos’ body, thereby giving him the Powers and Talents of each God trapped within the bottles. “All right,” she agreed, “but if I end up turning you into a frog or something don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
2
“What are you doing?”
“Attempting to escape. What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to escape so you can free me.”
Ares glanced down at the disheveled Goddess of Love from the corner of his eye and chuckled at her predicament. “Bad plan. Find another.” That was his best advice.
“But if you’re going to….”
“Shhhush!” Ares hissed. “Escaping takes concentration.”
If Cernunnos thought Ares was just going to hang here while that horny bastard took off with Alena, he had another thing coming. Working his fingers upward on the chain, he gathered it into his palms and used it, and the strength in those powerful pythons he called arms, to raise himself up and ease the dead weight off his wrists. Looking behind him, he thought the stone wall to which he was harnessed was too close for his purposes but then he reconsidered his approach to the problem. Getting a good grasp on the linked chain, he took in a deep breath and slowly began to raise his wounded legs straight out in front of him using the muscles in his lower back, stomach, and his arms. He did his best not to favor the injured right forearm, his strong arm, his fighting arm.
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